What It Means to Take Up Our Cross

In the gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary today, Jesus tells us that if anyone seeks to follow him, they must take up their own cross and follow.

In the ancient and medieval church, this was taken literally.  What was considered an ideal Christian lifestyle was to become an ascetic and intentionally inflict torture and suffering upon oneself, intentionally mirroring the suffering that Christ endured.  The modern Church just ignores the text and pretends that it does not exist because it stands contrary to the prevailing understanding that God seeks to take us away from suffering and trials.

The ancient and medieval church got it wrong; Christ did not undergo suffering, torture, and death as an end in itself.  The modern church obviously gets it wrong by not engaging the text; whatever the text means, it means something.

The key to understanding the text lies in why Christ traveled to Jerusalem where he faced the cross, suffering and death; he did it to fulfill God's will of effecting the salvation and redemption of the world.  We are similarly called to follow God's call, wherever it leads.  Most of the time, it will lead us to places where we would choose not to go, requiring us to overcome our fear.  If we live under the Lordship of Christ, we will go where God commands us to go, even to Jerusalem, because there are tasks that God must fulfill in our time, so that God's vision might be realized and the Kingdom of God might be revealed on earth as it is in heaven.

A Tale of Two Banquets

In Matthew's gospel, the story of Herod's banquet which results in the execution of John the Baptist immediately proceeds the story of the feeding of the 5,000.  Comparing and contrasting these two "banquets" evidences the distinction between human culture and the culture of God.

The engine that drives Herod's banquet is fear.  The guest list is limited to those whom Herod needs to keep his power, status, and wealth; Herod is driven by fear.  And the guests show up out of fear, because they need to stay in Herod's good graces.  Herodias is driven by fear in inciting Herod to execute John the Baptist, the innocent victim.  Although he is the one person in Israel who would seem to have autonomy, Herod concedes to the request despite the fact that he did not want to execute John the Baptist out of fear.
Human culture is driven by fear, resulting in a perception of scarcity, absence of choice, and the death of the innocent.

The engine that drives the Kingdom of God is self-giving love.  The banquet is in the desert, where there appears to be only scarcity, yet there is nothing but abundance.  There is no exclusivity; everyone is invited.  Christ only gives, and everyone is filled.  And in the end of the gospel story, rather than facilitating the execution of the innocent victim, Christ becomes the innocent victim out of sacrifice and self-giving love.

The Church, which seeks to evidence the Kingdom of God, is called to facilitate a community, and ultimately, a world that casts out fear, where there is only self-giving love

What To Invest Our Lives In

Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to treasure hidden in a field.  Someone, knowing that the treasure was hidden in the field, sold all they had and bought the field.

Roman law at the time of Jesus provided that if you discovered treasure on land owned by someone else, you had to give the owner half of the treasure.  Similarly, Jewish law placed limitations on the ownership rights of the discoverer of treasure on land that someone else owned.  Consequently, the reason why the discoverer purchases the land is to acquire ownership of the entire treasure.  The discoverer purchased what appeared to others to be a parcel of little value, because they knew that the field was of infinite value, due to the hidden treasure

Followers of Jesus in ancient times were often called "People of the Way." Life is about a series of choices and decisions.  We all have one life to invest, and we make choices of what we will invest our life in.  Those who live under the Lordship of Christ in the Kingdom of God follow the "Way" of Christ exemplified in the cross; centered in service to others.  This appears to human culture as of little value; like an empty field.  People of the way know that it is worth investing all of our life; because we know the story of the cross and the nature of God revealed therein

God's Nature

God's fundamental nature: what ultimately drives God to do what God does, is creativity.  God creates things.  And this creative power is an end in itself.  God created the universe billions of years before sentient beings appeared who could perceive it and, ultimately, recognize God as the One who created all things.

God's redemptive activity in Christ was an anomaly necessitated by humanity's sin.  It is an interruption in creativity.  God's desire that we repent and turn to God and become sanctified is not an end in itself; it is a means to the removal of the anomaly so that the infinite creativity in the world can resume.

By analogy, when we choose to build a house, we don't build the house so that one day the roof will leak and require time and energy expended in repairing it.  The leaky roof is an anomaly that prevents the home from being what it is.  We fix the leaky roof, irritated by the interruption in the natural order of things, so we can get back to the business of the home being what it is.

The Illusion of Freedom

Paul's worldview is grounded in the notion of a great cosmic struggle between two principalities and powers: God and evil.  And all of our acts and omissions serve one of these two principalities and powers.  We don't choose between freedom and servitude.  We choose between two masters.  When our actions manifest righteousness, we are serving God.  When our actions manifest sin, we are acting in the service of evil.

Living under the Lordship of Christ means being aware of the two collars that we are able to wear: that of sin and that of righteousness, and choosing to wear the collar of righteousness.  When we first make the decision to live under the Lordship of Christ, we do not discard the sin collar and permanently put on the righteousness collar.  Instead, we begin the process of maximizing the time that we are wearing the righteousness collar and minimizing the time that we wear the sin collar.  Our goal, sanctification, means that we cast off the sin collar for good.  This requires a lifetime of spiritual discipline and practicing the means of grace

Humanity's Treatment of God

Today is Trinity Sunday in the liturgical year, when the work of the trinity is emphasized.  We acknowledge through the trinity that God was revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--three persons of one substance.

As we acknowledge that God and Christ are one substance, what was done to Jesus when he walked this earth was also done to God.  This represents a profound indictment of our political, social, and religious systems, and reveals the depth of our individual and collective sin.  Rome's judicial process, which it took so much pride in, resulted in the conviction and execution of the God that Rome endorsed when it endorsed the Nicene Creed, from which our orthodox understanding of the trinity ultimately derives.  The Jewish religious establishment concluded that God was a blasphemer, was irreligious, and would not have permitted God from entering locations in the temple in Jerusalem reserved for the priestly class.

God, in Christ, would have received the same reception in every culture and in every age, including ours.  And here we arrive at the foundation of discipleship; a recognition of our depravity and need for redemption.  In order to live under the Lordship of Christ, we must first acknowledge the depth of our need for God's Kingdom and that we enter into God's Kingdom solely through God's grace

What the Church Knows and What the Church Doesn't Know

Pentecost Sunday celebrates the birth of the Church.  On Pentecost, the disciples started speaking in other languages.  The was bewildering to the crowd.

What neither the disciples nor the crowd knew was why God's Spirit was manifest by the disciples speaking other languages.  The Church identifies it as a manifestation of God's Spirit, but the Church does not know any more than the world why God would choose to be manifest in this manner rather than another

What the Church does know, and what Peter proclaimed to the crowd, is the identity of the God that was manifest.  And the fact that this God was the same God who created all things, redeemed us in Christ, and who sustains us with his Spirit.

The world is bewildering, mysterious, and full of wonder.  It is also a place where both the believer and non-believer experience beauty and joy.  What the Church is called to proclaim is the God who underlies it.  The buildings where the Church gathers are not themselves holy.  They are built to remind the gathered faithful of the holiness of God and to reveal to the non-believer the holy God who is the source of all the beauty and joy they experience in the world.

Jesus' Parting Words to the Disciples in John's Gospel

Towards the conclusion of John's gospel, Jesus spends a great deal of time explaining to the disciples what they are called to do after his resurrection.  Jesus' message to the disciples is all about empowerment.  Jesus tells them that as he is one with God, they are one with Him.  Jesus unleashes the disciples into the world to transform the world, knowing that as the disciples are one with Him, there is no limit to what they can do in His name.

God enters into our lives to unleash us into the world to live as God's holy people, for the transformation of the world.  God knows the unlimited potential that lies within us, because we are God's children and bear the image of God within us.  All that is required from us is to do what it is natural for us to do: to reflect the nature of the God who is our Father and sacrifice ourselves for others as God in Jesus sacrificed Himself for the world.

What We Need Salvation From

Contemporary culture seems to be grounded today in an atmosphere of fear and anxiety.  We are a lot like the disciples who were hiding in a room after the crucifixion.  They were afraid that they would be charged with sedition and crucified like Jesus.

When they experience the risen Christ, they are not delivered or protected from the source of their fear.  In fact, they are commissioned to go into the Roman world to proclaim the gospel.  The disciples thought they needed to be saved from the world.  What Christ revealed is that the source of their fear was illusory.

One of the greatest errors that can be made by the Church today is to accept as true what human culture tells us truly matters, and to then be afraid that these things will be taken away.  Being God's people does not mean that we will be protected and delivered from the world.  It means that like the disciples in that room, we will realize that what the world tells us we should fear doesn't matter.  And only by seeing ourselves and the world for what it is can we truly go into the world to bring Christ's news of salvation.

The Tone of Easter Morning

The tone of each of the four canonized gospels changes dramatically when we move from the crucifixion to the resurrection narratives.  From Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to Jesus' death on the cross, everything is public, noisy, and bombastic.  Things move frenetically, with lots of characters that enter the scene and exit quickly.  We see evidence of the chaos of human political, religious, and social systems as Jesus is arrested, tried, convicted, and all the political posturing of the Roman and Jewish power structures.

The resurrection narratives have an entirely different tone and ambience.  Things are quiet, private, and move slowly.  The characters in these narratives are few.  The tone is entirely unlike Handel's Messiah.  The resurrection narratives in all four gospels have the feel of an epilogue.

The resurrection stories also have the feel of a new beginning rather than an ending.  Sort of like the cliffhanger ending to one season of a series that leaves the viewer's attention not on what has passed, but what is to come.  The reader's attention is turned not to the empty tomb, but towards what comes next: the proclamation of a new age centered in the risen Christ. 

The message is clear: the fun is just getting started.  The new covenant community, the Ekklesia, has been born, with a mission to transform the world and usher in a new age.

The Dominant Characteristic of Human Culture

Paul describes the fundamental characteristic of human culture through the Greek word "orge," which combines the elements of wrath, conflict, and violence.  Orge pervades our social, economic, and political systems, locally and globally.

Orge is manifest in the story of Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well.  The woman is at the well at a time when the woman knew that no one else would be present.  She is hiding from the exclusion and marginalization of her surrounding culture.

But orge is also manifest in Jesus' earlier encounter with Nicodemus.  He is hiding too; as a member of the religious establishment, he is concerned about becoming marginalized and excluded.  The irrationality of human systems of exclusion and violence is demonstrated by the fact that they harm everyone.

Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well evidences how the Church should respond to the wrath, conflict, and violence of human culture; he bypasses it.  He simply engages the woman at the well in conversation, which violated social norms, to bring her salvation.  God's Kingdom is characterized by the absolute absence of wrath, conflict, and violence.    When this dominant element of human culture is removed, there is only God's grace and mercy.

The Purpose of Lent

Today is the first Sunday in the Season of Lent.  The purpose of Lent, on the deepest level, is self-awareness.  It is about us being aware of ourselves.  Lent precedes Easter because Easter, on the deepest level, is an awareness of who God is and what God has accomplished in Jesus.  In order for the Church to grasp the wonder of God's salvation, it must be aware of the nature of the human race that God seeks to save.

Human culture is grounded in violence, exclusion, and casting-out.  Human culture even cast out God when God was revealed on earth in Christ.  God was cast out of the inn for lack of room.  God was cast out of Israel fleeing Herod's persecution.  God was cast out from his hometown.  God was ultimately cast out of human life and crucified.

Images of God often reflect nothing more than a projection of the human propensity to cast out.  God is perceived as arbitrary and capricious, reducing religion to the process of running around trying to figure out how to appease God.  God not only does not cast out; God seeks the redemption of those who cast God out, and continues to seek re-entry into our lives when we cast out God.

What the Church Sees that the World Doesn't

Tomorrow is Transfiguration Sunday in the liturgical year.  The gospel lesson consists of Matthew's account of the transfiguration.  In the story, Christ is revealed to be God's Son.  It represents a climactic moment in Matthew's gospel

The significance of the transfiguration lies in its juxtaposition with the stories that precede it concerning who witnesses the event.  The transfiguration is not only not witnessed by all 12 of the closest followers of Jesus; it is only witnessed by the inner circle of the closest followers.  This exclusion was intentional on Jesus' part.

Transfiguration Sunday ends the season of Epiphany; the season of the year when we acknowledge that God's light is present in the world.  The story of the transfiguration reveals that God's true light is not visible to the causal observer, even the casual follower of Jesus.  God's true light only becomes visible when we truly commit ourselves to following the way of the cross, traveling up the mountain where few would choose to go.

God's light is present to the invisible community of the true faithful in moments where others would only see the mundane realities of the God.  God's presence is hidden from the casual observer, who would only see an empty field where treasure is hidden.  God's presence is hidden like a gold coin is hidden and only found through passionate and perpetual search.

The transfiguration story is an important metaphor for the Church.  The Church, if it is faithful, will see God's light through cultivating holiness and seeking to live according to the example of Christ.  The Church will even see God's presence in the crucifixion, where the world saw only an absence of power and glory

Rethinking the Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount contains admonitions that appear to be impossible to comply with.  Jesus tells his listeners that unlike the Mosaic covenant, where Israel was commanded not to kill, Jesus commanded that we not be angry with another or chastise others who we perceive to be foolish.  Jesus indicates that if we fail to fulfill these commandments, we will be punished.

God, ultimately, just wants us to live lives of peace, fulfillment, and happiness.  God doesn't want us to be angry or disparaging to our neighbor because it prevents us from living in these states of mind.  Being angry and critical prevents us from being peaceful, fulfilled, and happy.  When we live in these states of mind, we punish ourselves.  Jesus alluded to the valley in Jerusalem that was used as a garbage dump where fires constantly burned.  It was a place of ugliness.  The last place in Jerusalem that you wanted to be.  Jesus says that if we live our lives in anger and are obsessively critical of others, this is where we will live.  God doesn't need to punish us.  We have already punished ourselves.  And God wants nothing more for us to walk out of the garbage dump.  Through God's grace, we can walk out at any time and live in places of beauty, peace, and serenity.  This is all God wants

The Ecclesial Fallacy of Schism

Since the Protestant Reformation, schism has been rampant

Schism reflects a flawed understanding of the nature of the Church.  The Church is the invisible community of all those who seek to live under the Lordship of Christ.  It is thereby not only invisible, but indivisible.  Our Pauline heritage also describes the Church as holy and apostolic.

The underlying assumption of schism is that by distinguishing between right and wrong belief and practice and excluding those who demonstrate incorrect belief and practice, we can maintain or restore the Church as pristine and pure.  This is fallacious for several reasons.  Most importantly, it makes the arrogant assumption that we have the wisdom and discernment to create a community of individuals who are completely pure and pristine and an underlying theology, liturgy, and polity that is without blemish.  It also ignores one of the most fundamental purposes of the Church; to be a place where those who are truly trying to live according to the example of Christ but are in error can find redemption.  Ultimately, the Church is a hospital for sinners and not a club for saints.

The Church can be divided bureaucratically, administratively, and legally.  But it remains indivisible, holy, apostolic, and invisible.  What we attempt to accomplish by schism is thereby illusory.

Why Re-Baptism Isn't Necessary

I get requests from parishioners who have already been baptized to be baptized again.  For a long time my response was to go into a tedious recitation of the reasons why being baptized again makes absolutely no theological sense in the Wesleyan tradition.  And it doesn't.  Baptism in Methodism is sacramental.  It is a visible sign of an inward spiritual grace, representing and acknowledging that God was active in us before we were capable of speaking God's name.  It is in our profession of faith that we choose to accept Christ as Lord.

Now I realize that when a parishioner asks to be baptized again, the impetus actually has nothing to do with wanting to be baptized.  It is about wanting to start over again and be symbolically ridden of whatever guilt, shame, and remorse they are holding onto.  So now I bypass the theology of baptism and tell them that they don't need to be baptized again to start over.  All they have to do is be truly penitent, ask God for forgiveness, and in God's eyes, they have been given a new start.  What they yearn for doesn't require ceremony or ritual.  It just requires a penitent heart and a yearning to be holy.

The Universality of God's Salvation

The author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts wrote to a Church that was composed of subjects of the Roman Empire.  The Church hated Rome and believed that Rome was beyond redemption, and saw itself as a tiny remnant of purity set against Rome.

One of the overriding themes of Luke's Gospel and Acts is to challenge this manner of the Church's self-perception and perception of Rome.  God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but to bring salvation to the world.  Rather than being called to condemn Rome, the Church was thereby called to bring peace and redemption to the world, and to Rome.

In his story of the birth of Christ, Luke proclaims that through the redemptive work of Christ, God seeks to bring peace to the entire world.  "Peace on earth" was a slogan of the Roman Empire; Rome also sought peace.  God thereby called the Church into being to bring Rome what it already wanted but did not yet know how to find.

The Church is not called to condemn the world, to be nothing more than a vehicle of hate and fear mongering.  The Church is called to proclaim peace both to itself and to the world.  The Church is not called to barricade itself within an oasis of purity, but enter into the world's suffering to bring God's salvation.

Lessons from Paul in Engaging the Cultural Wars

The recently concluded election cycle revealed deep seated animosity and hatred along lines of race, social location, and religion.  Paul's words to the Roman church in this week's epistle lesson provides good advice for how the Church should interface with these conflicts

The infant Church in Paul's generation faced similar conflicts along lines of race, social location, and religion.  There was hatred and tension between Jews and Gentiles, exacerbated by underlying cultural differences between the Jewish and Hellenistic worlds.  Paul addresses these conflicts by going back to the underlying purpose of the new covenant community that arose out of the teachings of Christ: that all those who accept Christ as Lord are called to welcome one another and show grace to one another as Christ has shown grace to them in welcoming them into the new covenant community.  As all those who live under the Lordship of Christ live under that Lordship only through grace and mercy, those who do so are called to mirror Christ's mercy in their relationship to those outside the community.

The tensions in our culture are as complicated and deep seated as those in Paul's day.  They are not easily resolved and the answers are elusive.  But we do know where to begin: we begin by mirroring the grace and mercy that Christ has demonstrated to us in our perception and interface with those who we perceive as strangers to us.

Where Discipleship Begins

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul uses the dual images of light/darkness and sleep/awakening to describe the task of discipleship.  Paul's Greek readers would have been very familiar with these images, which were used to demonstrate the duality of wisdom/ignorance.

Wisdom to Paul's readers was considered a gradual process where we discover that what we have been told is true is actually false, and that the prevailing culture around us lives in a state of perpetual ignorance.  Wisdom lies in the process of being freed from the ignorance of our prevailing cultural mindsets.

Discipleship, similarly, begins with the moment when we choose to allow Christ to work within us to free us from the darkness of sin and ignorance.  That moment does not end the process of discipleship, in the same way that the First Sunday of Advent begins, rather than ends, the liturgical year.  The moment of justification, when we accept Christ as Lord, begins the process by which we seek to walk into the light.  Discipleship begins with this yearning for the light of Christ. 

Participating in God's Eternity

In the Christian tradition, we believe that God is eternal and that we are eternal.  We do not believe that death is the end of existence, but merely a transition to another form of existence.  The very notion of "death" is a misnomer in the new covenant community, the Church.  When we hear someone talk of death as the end, we should have no idea what they are talking about.  We affirm that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; we do not affirm that God was so only in the past.

The way that we live and perceive death should reflect our understanding of God's eternity and our participation in God's eternity.  Death is not something that we should fear, because to any extent that we perceive death as the end of our existence and our separation with those we love is an illusion.  Those who have gone before us are still with us and we will remain so. 

Our Perception of God and Ourselves

Jesus tells a parable in Luke's gospel about an unjust judge and a widow.  The widow demands justice, which is denied by the judge out of apathy.  The unjust judge finally relents to the demands of the widow out of exasperation and irritation.

Jesus' parable is a reflection of the way that Israel perceived God and itself.  Israel's notion of salvation history was grounded in the belief that if Israel were faithful to its covenant, God would make Israel a great nation.  Israel's perceived this in political terms, which were never fulfilled.  So Israel spent its time perpetually examining its conformity with the terms of the covenant and its hundreds of rituals and restrictions, believing that the reason why the covenant had not been fulfilled was that it was doing something incorrectly.

Israel's underlying understanding of God was that of an unjust judge who denied Israel's salvation because of some minute lack of conformity with the covenant.  And Israel perceived itself as a powerless widow whose only option was perpetual supplication.

Israel's error lay in its flawed understanding of salvation history.  God wanted Israel to be holy, to be a light to the nations.  God was not an unjust judge; Israel simply misunderstood God's notion of justice.

We do the same thing in the Christian tradition.  We have a perception that God will bring us salvation here and now in the way that we think is best.  God seeks to make us holy; to be a light to the nations.  God is not an unjust judge; we have just misunderstood God's justice.  And we are not powerless; we have just misunderstood our place in God's plan of salvation.

An Admonition About Wealth

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is an admonition about the dangers of wealth.  Wealth is not a function of virtue.  There are virtuous poor and morally vicious poor.  There are virtuous rich and morally vicious rich.  But the accumulation of wealth creates dangers and potential pitfalls in our discipleship.

Studies consistently demonstrate that the more wealth we accumulate, the greater the propensity for narcissism, self-righteousness, and greed.  This is not to say that there are not many persons with great wealth who do not demonstrate these propensities, in the same way that there are those without wealth that demonstrate them.  By analogy, when we choose to climb a mountain, we encounter dangers that we do not encounter when we are on level ground.  Whether or not we choose to climb the mountain is up to us; but if we are going to climb it, we better be aware of the dangers and bring the right tools.

The Hidden Actor in Human Culture

The parable of the fraudulent manager in Luke's gospel is indicative of the right and wrong way to read the parables.  If we read the parable in a straightforward, moralistic way, it makes no sense.  The manager misappropriates the owner's property and assets, and then seeks to save himself by engaging in further fraud by unilaterally entering into settlement and compromise on legitimately owed debts held by the owner for his own personal capital among the locals.  The manager is corrupt.

The meaning of the parable lies in what happens by accident.  For a fleeting moment, despite the manager's self-interest and illegal conduct, there is reconciliation between the manager and owner, the owner and the peasantry, and the owner and peasantry.  In the economic and social relationships at issue in the parable, the owner was indifferent from the peasantry.  The peasantry hated the owner because of his excessive taxes.  The peasantry hated the manager because the manager acted as the agent of the foreign owner.

Now imagine the scene that follows.  The owner travels to confront the manager, and is greeted by cheering crowds, who think that the owner is the one who has compromised their debts.  The peasants cheer the manager who has acted as agent for the transactions that were actually fraudulent.  The owner is forced to accept the settlement of the debts.  All this happens despite any altruistic intent or action by anyone in the story.  Somehow reconciliation happens.

The parable is a reality check for us as we seek to be disciples.  We are and remain self-interested.  But somehow sometimes there are fleeting moments when good happens through us in the world, not because of us, but in spite of us.  This is due solely to the hidden actor both in the parable and in our own stories: the God who has created, redeemed, and sustained all things.  God is behind us, in us, and around us, going about the business of reconciliation.  Any good that happens in this world is a result of the infinite grace of the God who chose to give His life for us.  So we pray, we yearn for God's grace, we seek to do good.  But any good that arises in this world is the product of God's grace and God's grace alone.

How Value is Measured in God's Kingdom

Both ancient Middle Eastern and modern Western cultures are based upon hierarchies of value, status, and prestige.  The means by which we measure those values are different, but the fact that we employ methods of valuation remains the same.

Ancient Middle Eastern cultures, like virtually all ancient societies, were honor and shame culture.  One of the characteristics of an honor and shame society was that your place in the hierarchical matrices was fixed from your birth and remained constant.  If you were born into high standing, you remained there.  If you were born into the peasantry, you remained there as well.  Honor consisted not in trying to move your way up the hierarchical systems, but recognizing your place in them and being faithful to your place.

In Jesus' day, like in most Middle Eastern societies, one of the ways that this hierarchy of value was given expression was at a banquet.  People ate sitting down, and in a square formation.  At one corner was the place of highest honor, and at the opposite corner was the place of lowest honor.  The trick was predicting who was going to show up and not sitting in a place where you would be forced to move down, in humiliation, someone else showed up with greater status, forcing you to take a lower seat.

Jesus says that in God's Kingdom, there are also hierarchical matrices, but the methodology of valuation is different.  Our value is measured not by our wealth, our social status, our beauty, or our profession, but the degree to which we serve our neighbor.  The one who will be at the place of highest honor will be the one who has demonstrated the greatest propensity for serving others.

Imagine a banquet in God's Kingdom.  If the methodology of service and sacrifice is truly lived out, no one will take the highest place, because they will want their neighbor to take it.  The highest place will actually sit empty, as the only preoccupation of those at the banquet table will be to serve their neighbor.  That is an image of the infinite lavish grace that is the cornerstone of God's Kingdom. 

The Greatest Impediment to Scriptural Holiness

In Luke's gospel, the Jewish religious authorities rebuke Jesus because he healed a woman on the Sabbath, in violation of Sabbath observance.  Jesus in turn rebukes the religious authorities for ironically missing the big picture

The whole point of the synagogue, the Jewish religious establishment, and the traditions of Sabbath observance was to remind Israel of the only thing that really mattered; their covenant relationship with God that effected their liberation from oppression and the need to maintain holiness of heart and life to maintain their side of the covenant agreement.  The woman was liberated from her own oppression through healing.  The only thing that stood in the way were the religious customs that were intended to evoke and facilitate Israel's holiness that would bring about their own liberation.

The same irony is found in the Church today.  The greatest impediment to the whole point of being the Church; to make disciples of Christ and to live holy lives according to the example of Christ, is our own religious practices and institutions, both on the local and judicatory level.  In order for the Church to carry out its mission it must avoid the trap of missing the forest for the trees.  The Church must be wiling to abandon any practice or custom that does not facilitate holiness of heart and life.

The Engine that Drives Discipleship

Jesus tells a parable about a rich man who pathologically accumulates grain and dies before he has the opportunity to benefit from his work.

The rich man's fault is not immorality.  We are not told if the rich man is morally virtuous or vicious.  The rich man's fault is a lack of wisdom.  The rich man is in denial of life's transience.  He will never be able to benefit from all of the grain that he has accumulated.  He has wasted his life because he has allowed the wrong engine (i.e. accumulation of wealth) to drive him.

The rich man is drive to accumulate out of fear.  And there are plenty of things for the rich man to be afraid of, as there are plenty of things for us to be afraid of.  And there is nothing to keep any of those things from happening.  Even discipleship; being Christian is not a shield from tragedy.  Jesus said that rain falls on both the righteous and unrighteous

Discipleship is a calling to set aside our fear so that we are driven by another engine; being holy.  God needs holiness to be the engine that drives us because there are tasks that God needs us to complete in our time and place.  Our lives can only be driven by one engine.  If our lives are driven by fear we cannot be God's instruments.  We seek the intercession of God's grace not to shield us from the things that we fear, but that we might face our fears, be holy, and be God's instruments so that the Kingdom of God would be revealed on earth as it is in heaven.

Paul's Conversion and the Collapse of the Sacred

Paul's conversion did more than change Paul's religion from Judaism to Christianity.  It changed Paul's underlying theological orientation of who God was and how God acts.  Prior to his conversion, Paul believed that God's purposes were achieved through persecution and domination of those who proclaimed false beliefs.  In persecuting Christians, Paul believed that he was mirroring God's intention to bring about holiness in the world through the extermination of the unholy.

In his conversion experience, God in Christ tells Paul that in persecuting Christians, Paul was persecuting God.  This is typically interpreted to mean that Paul was impeding the spread of the Christian message.  Paul's theology in his epistles suggests a much broader reading.  In the act of persecution itself, Paul's methodology itself was contrary to God's purposes.  Who Paul was persecuting was incidental; the very act of persecution prevented Paul from carrying out God's intention for the world.

Paul makes this explicit in his letter to the Colossians.  Paul says that God has brought peace through the blood of the cross.  Rome's ideology was that peace was brought through crucifying.  Paul was converted to an understanding that God brought peace by being crucified; through self-giving love in dying for the world.

Paul's conversion experience represented a collapse of everything that he thought was sacred and holy.  It brought Paul to a greater and deeper understanding of who God was.

How to Deal with the Samaritans

In Luke's gospel, there is a story of Jesus and the disciples entering a Samaritan village.  The Samaritans are not receptive to the message and Jesus and the disciples are not welcomed.  The disciples want God to send fire down from the sky to consume the village, but they are rebuked by Jesus.

Israel had been in ethnic and religious tension with Samaria for hundreds of years.  Israel condemned Samaria for intermarriage with those who were not Jewish and for not complying with the Mosaic law.  TO say that Israel and Samaria did not like each other would be a vast understatement.  It is no wonder, then, that the Samaritan village was not immediately receptive to the disciples' message given all the baggage of this ethnic and religious tension.

There is ethnic and religious tension in the world today.  There always has been.  Our instinct is vengeance and annihilation of our enemies.  These instincts are born out of fear, not righteousness or holiness.  God wants salvation for Israel and Samaria and reconciliation in those dividing walls of hostility in this world that tear us apart.

We have no control over what Samaritans choose to do or not do.  We do have control over our own actions.  We can choose not to respond with fear, but with courage and a heart that seeks the salvation and redemption of all people.  In doing so, we are acting as God's agents.

People of the Way

Many ancient Christian communities did not call themselves "Christians" and they did not refer to their faith as "Christianity." They called themselves "People of the Way" and referred to their practice as "The Way."

This is a good springboard for considering the cornerstone of Paul's theology: justification by faith.  "Justification" is from the Greek "Dikaioo" (to be made righteous) and "Faith" from the Greek "Pistis" (conviction and persuasion).  We become righteous through our conviction that God has already redeemed us through the cross of Christ.  And we arrive at this knowledge by following Jesus as the original disciples were called to do.  Through our fellowship with Christ and with those who follow, we come to realize who God is and the wonder that God redeemed us before we could even speak God's name.  This is why the early followers of Jesus referred to themselves as "People of the Way." It is not a coincidence that followers of Jesus stopped referring to themselves with this term when the Church became institutionalized and made compulsory by Rome.  Christianity became just another set of abstract principles and practices that people followed in order to be identified as Christians.

In his epistle to the Galatians, which arose out of the controversy about whether you needed to follow Jewish religious practices to be a follower of Jesus, Paul is not setting Gentile Christianity against Jewish Christianity.  Rather, he is revolutionizing the very notion about what religions is.  Judaism was just used as an example of works-righteousness--the notion that you needed to do something to achieve redemption, which was shared by all religions.  Paul was questioning this underlying assumption of all religions 

We don't run around doing good works to achieve redemption.  We run around doing good works because it is the natural consequence of truly knowing that in Christ God has already redeemed us and redeemed the whole world .

Some Thoughts About Schism

Protestants are prone to schism.  It has always been one of our fundamental characteristics.  Every generation has had disagreements about Christian belief and practice, and enormous time and expense has been devoted to Christian denominations splitting, forming, and reforming.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians provides a good lens through which we should perceive the question of "to schism or not to schism." Paul wrote the letter to address a major problem that had arisen in the infant Christian communities in Galatia.  Paul discovered that a false gospel was being preached there, and wrote to the Galatians to get them back on the right track.

The false gospel was not being proclaimed by someone who was evil and out to destroy the churches.  It was proclaimed by Peter.  Yes, that Peter.  The one who was the leader of the disciples, the one on whom Jesus said that the Church would be built.  The one who preached at Pentecost.  Peter and the original Jerusalem disciples took the position that you needed to practice the regulations and rules of Judaism in order to be a follower of Jesus.  This was contrary to Paul's position.

Peter was operating out of a fundamentally flawed understanding of Christian belief and practice, and was seeking to spread this understanding to Paul's communities.  And yet Peter was also a faithful disciple who remained one until his martyrdom in Rome.  Peter was, and remained an instrument through which the gospel was proclaimed.

God works through those who have a fundamentally flawed understanding of Christian belief and practice.  It doesn't make their position any less flawed.  It just means that the fact that they are in error does not obviate the truth of their calling.  And while we are at it, whenever it comes to an issue where there is disagreement, those who are right are going to be wrong about something else.  Paul was just as flawed as Peter.  Paul himself acknowledges his own flaws again and again in his epistles.

Getting Things Backwards at Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost celebrates the birth of the Church.  The Church was given birth out of the theological grounding of knowing who God is and who we are: God is our parent who has sought us out, redeemed, us, and adopted us.  We are thereby God's children, and using Paul's terminology from Romans, we are heirs of God's infinite creativity and redemptive power.

God's Spirit did not show up for the first time on the Day of Pentecost.  The Day of Pentecost was the day when the community realized who they were and who God was, recognizing that God's Spirit had always been present, was present, and always would be present, and that God's presence was deep inside the souls of every human being.

Paul says in Romans that the Church, as usual, gets things backwards.  God's Spirit does not enter us when we become God's children.  Instead, when we become conscious that we have already been adopted by God and are thereby children of God and heirs of everything that God is, we understand who we are for the first time and discern the Spirit of God that has always been in the world and inside us.

The Church universal is the invisible community of those faithful who know who God is and know who they are.  Any institutional manifestation of the Church universal is incidental and ultimately ineffectual in fully giving articulation to the wonder of what the Church truly is.

The true Church universal will be manifest by endless creativity, joy, and wonder.  As Paul reminds us in Romans, it will not be characterized by a Spirit of fear, but under-girded by the knowledge of who we are.

God's Vision for the World's 206 Sovereign Nations

There are approximately 206 sovereign nations in the world; the number is somewhat difficult to ascertain because certain nations do not recognize some and those nations that are not recognized by others don't recognize some others that are recognized by others.  Curiously, every sovereign nation, including those that others don't consider legitimate, consider themselves legitimate.

The Book of Revelation has typically been read to mean that God's plan is to destroy the "bad" nations (which never include the reader's own nation whatever it is) and to redeem the "good" nations.  This reading is inconsistent with John's vision.  First, we are told that all the nations of the world (yes, all 206 of them) have been deceived by the dragon that is present in the world.  However, we are told that the gates to the New Jerusalem are always open to everyone, and the kings of the world (and therefore their subjects) will enter their gates once they see God's light.  God's vision is for all the nations of the world, and all the citizens of the nations of the world to be redeemed.  It is both a realistic vision (recognizing that the nations of the world have been deceived) and optimistic (all the nations of the world need to be redeemed is to see God's light).

The Church exists in and for the world to bring about the world's salvation.  The Church; the faithful remnant who have been reborn into the vision that God was revealed in the one who gave his life for all humankind; is called to reveal God's light, which will cause the nations to see that they have been deceived and be drawn to the light.  The gates to the New Jerusalem are always open and the center of the city is the lamb, the very symbol of sacrificial love.  God does not seek to draw us out of the insanity of the world, but to empower us through the Spirit that we might shine God's light in the world's darkness for the redemption and salvation of the nations.  Yes, all 206 of them.

The Book of Revelation As God's Vision for the World

The Book of Revelation unveils God's vision for the world since the beginning.  In the first creation story in Genesis, nothing existed but dark primordial waters.  God began by bringing light upon the waters and separating the light from the darkness.

In the ancient Middle East and in many other ancient cultures, waters were a symbol of chaos and destruction.  Flooding was a constant source of extreme anxiety, as it could instantly effect starvation and suffering.  The sea was unknown and dangerous.  It represented and reflected all the anxiety and danger that has existed for humankind from the beginning.

The climactic scene in the Book of Revelation envisions Jerusalem descending from heaven to earth, representing the full realization of God's vision on earth.  We are told in this vision that the sea was no more.  This represents the fulfillment of God's vision from the beginning; the complete absence of chaos and destruction and brings the creation story full circle; where there was once nothing but the sea, now there is the complete absence of it.  Where there was once nothing but chaos and destruction, there will be the complete absence of it.

The Church is called to articulate this vision and to make this vision a reality.  The human race yearns for the end of anxiety and fear borne of all the insanity that is inherent in the natural world and human systems.  God's vision is not to draw us out of the world, but to bring the New Jerusalem down from heaven into the world; God's desire is the transformation of the world to reflect God's vision.

Deciding Who Will Lead Us Around

Jesus tells Peter in one of the post-resurrection narratives in John's gospel that when he was young he went where he wanted, but when he is old someone will grab him by the belt and lead him to where he does not wish to go; referring to Peter's life before and after his conversion

I would add a corollary.  If we are not led by God's Spirit, we think that we are free to go where we want to go.  Actually, we are always drawn by powerful cultural forces that grab us figuratively by the belt and lead us where we want to go.  These cultural forces are wise enough to lead us to believe in our own self-determination.  We are dragged around without being conscious of the fact that we are being dragged around

The purpose of the Church is for us to wake up to the realization that culture drags us where it wants us to go for its own benefit, and then to allow ourselves to recognize Christ, and allow Christ to grab us by the belt and take us where we need to go to fulfill God's purposes.  We will know that we are being dragged by Christ and not culture because we will be drawn to those places where we would choose not to go.  This requires the Church to be a place where we hold ourselves and each other accountable to be led by God's Spirit and not the principalities and powers of this world. 

What the World and the Church See During Holy Week

The events of Holy Week were evident for all Jerusalem to see; the entry into Jerusalem, the casting out of the money changers, the trial, and the crucifixion.  That is, up until Easter morning.  Everything up to Sunday morning were very public events.  Sunday morning was an event witnessed only by a few; those who were closest to Jesus

There is a metaphor here.  The world and the covenant community, the Church, both see the events of Holy Week leading up to Easter morning.  But because the Church encounters the risen Christ, the meaning of the events of Holy Week are transformed.  The world saw death, defeat, and humiliation.  The Church, knowing the reality of the resurrection sees Holy Week in this new light.  Christ's death is perceived in light of Christ's willingness to sacrifice for the world.  Christ's defeat is transformed into an awareness of our victory over sin.

The Church lives in the same world as Jerusalem.  But it has encountered the risen Christ and sees that same world through new eyes

Asking the Right Question as the Starting Point for Sanctification

In John Wesley's theology, the life of discipleship begins at the moment of justification: when we accept the salvation that was effected by Christ and choose to live according to the example of Christ.  Through this decision, we experience rebirth and spend the rest of our lives trying to imitate Christ.  This is what Wesley called sanctification.  Wesley optimistically believed that through the intercession of God's grace, we could become a perfect mirror of how God was revealed in Christ.

The road to perfectly mirroring Christ begins with asking the right question about the task that lies before us.  The wrong question is, how we avoid punishment here and in the hereafter.  If this is our central motivation in seeking to live according to the example of Christ, then we have not been truly reborn and if the path we follow has our own survival as its endpoint, we are on the wrong path.  Christ's motivation was not to avoid punishment.  In fact, he intentionally journeyed to Jerusalem where he knew that death awaited.  So if we run away from Jerusalem we are traveling in the exact opposite direction that Christ traveled.

The right question is, how can we serve others and live our lives for others? How can we treat others as they want to be treated? How can we manifest love, kindness, equality, compassion, honesty, and grace? If we are asking this question, we are truly reborn and are seeking to live according to the example of Christ because we are mirroring the mentality of the One who intentionally traveled to Jerusalem to redeem the world.

The Observance of Lent

Today is the First Sunday of the Season of Lent, which marks the 40 day period prior to Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday.  Consequently, it is a time to remember what the Season of Lent means in our belief and practice.

Lent has largely been relegated to a renewal of our New Year's resolutions, which typically involve some form of dieting and exercise, practices that studies indicate are typically abandoned by January 3 or so.  Sacrificing something is incidental.  What Lent is really about is centering and focusing upon what the Jesus Story means and what it means for us to imitate Christ.  Christ began his ministry through a forty day period in the desert, which reflects the forty day season of Lent.  Lent reminds us that we are called to imitate Christ; as Christ's ministry was about seeking the salvation of the world, we are called to renew our commitment to living according to his example by seeking to discern how God is calling us to do the same in our own little corners of the world.

Without living according to the example of Christ, we cannot experience resurrection and renewal.  Without Lent, we cannot truly grasp the significance and meaning of the empty tomb.

Paul's Radical Position About Faith and Love

In the Thirteenth Chapter of Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul goes into an extended discussion of the primacy of love.  In the concluding verse of the passage, Paul indicates that love is even greater than faith.

This is a widely misunderstood text because of the way that we define these two terms.  Today, the term "faith" is associated in evangelical Protestant Christianity as a belief without evidence that is obtained through emotional experiences (i.e. we have an emotional experience where we simply "know" that the abstract theological principles that we have been told about Jesus are true).  The term "love" is borrowed by the Church from our society's use of the term, which largely corresponds to the Greek term "eros"; it is associated with sappy, syrupy emotion.  It is no coincidence that much of the genre of contemporary Christian music is largely drawn from contemporary pop music, where the object of one's adoration is changed from an individual to God.

Faith in a biblical context means commitment and adherence to an object (i.e. God) and our willingness for our belief and practice to correspondence to what we associate with that object.  Love, as used in Paul's message to the Corinthians as well as in other locations in the New Testament, is the Greek word "Agape," which was distinguished from both "Eros" and "Philia".  Agape, speaking broadly, is reflective of the love that was demonstrated for us by God in Christ.  It is a devotion to, a willingness to sacrifice for, and an ultimate commitment to, all people, including those who we deem distinctly unlovable.

Going back to Paul's message with our contemporary understandings of faith and love replaced by how the early Church understood these terms results in a rather shocking message that should make us shift in our church pews: our devotion to, willingness to sacrifice for, and show ultimate commitment to all people, including (particularly) those who are distinctly unlovable, is more important than our commitment to those theological abstract principles that we associate with God as God was revealed in Jesus.

If the Church, and the larger world, practiced Paul's message of the primacy of Agape, it is difficult to comprehend how much this would transform our world.  If there is nothing on earth as important as love of those we deem unlovable, the Church and our societal institutions would come to a (fortunate) crashing halt.  What they would be replaced with is too wondrous to even imagine.

The Good Work that God Seeks to Accomplish in Us

In Luke's Gospel, John the Baptist uses the metaphor of a threshing floor to describe what God seeks to accomplish in our souls.

The metaphor of a threshing floor would have been very familiar with John's listeners.  The threshing floor was the place where harvested wheat was placed; the harvested wheat contained grain, which was useful and edible, and chaff, which was useless and inedible.  The purpose of the threshing floor was to provide a place where the grain and the chaff were divided, leaving only that which was edible and useful.  The chaff is then burned and destroyed.

God enters into human life bringing grace, so that what is useless in us can be removed, leaving only that which nourishes ourselves, and others.  God seeks to burn away what is useless in us, so that we are purified and made whole, bringing about our own redemption so that we can then be God's instruments to bring about the redemption of the world.

God's agenda in the world has always been, and will always, be, our salvation and redemption, not our destruction.  The only thing that God seeks to destroy is that which is impure within us, so that we might be a new creation in Christ.

Living As If We Believe In the Incarnation

Paul's epistle to the Church at Colossae contains some important advice about what it means to be the Church.  This is particularly found in Colossians 3.12-17, which is the most well known text within the epistle.

Paul indicates that being the Church is all about cultivating the spiritual disciplines of forgiveness and accountability.  The community is called to hold one another accountable to living their lives according to the example of Christ, but to also forgive one another when they fail to do so, keeping such persons in the community rather than removing them.

Paul's advice makes perfect sense when we consider the high bar that has been set for us through the life and teachings of Jesus.  We are called, as Paul reminds us, to live as Christ lived: to clothe ourselves with love, mercy, and compassion, to have peace within ourselves and to promote peace within the Church and the larger community.

The life that we are called to live, on a broader level, was manifest in God's incarnation in Jesus.  By entering into human life to redeem us, God manifested forgiveness, compassion, love, and mercy.  The very act of incarnation that is celebrated during the Christmas season reveals the nature of the God who was revealed in Jesus, that we are called to emulate.

The Nature of Biblical Prophecy

Biblical prophecy in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is often characterized by vivid images of physical events, often containing violence and destruction.  It is the tendency of the contemporary Church to interpret these images in a literal manner.

In Luke's gospel, the writer interprets the arrival of John the Baptist as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that God would one day fill up valleys, make rough places smooth, and level mountains and hills.  The perception that John the Baptist fulfilled Isaiah's vision reveals a lot about how we should interpret biblical prophecy.  Most importantly, the physical events that Isaiah described were not fulfilled in a literal manner.  God did not literally fill up valleys and level mountains.  Instead, these physical events were metaphors for what God sought to accomplish through John the Baptist; to prepare people's hearts and minds for the arrival of Jesus.  The valleys and mountains were the impediments in people's souls and minds that needed to be removed through repentance so that God's Word might be revealed.

Let's consider this understanding of biblical prophecy when we interpret biblical texts that we believe speak of the future.  God's agenda remains the same.  God's intention is not to bring about violence and destruction, but to bring about salvation and redemption.  There is already enough violence and destruction in the world.  This is not God's plan or a reflection of God's intention for the world.  God's intention for the world was revealed in Jesus, who arrived to effect reconciliation between God and human beings.

The Odd Paradoxical Situation of Kings

I spoke months ago about the image of the circle in describing all ancient and modern systems of political and social organization.  The one with the greatest authority is in the center of the figurative circle, those who the one at the center gives authority to constitute the circle itself, and the overwhelming majority of those in the system are outside the circle; they are the excluded and marginalized.  In ancient Israel, the King was the one at the center, surrounded by the religious and political authorities (on the circle itself); with virtually everyone else on the outside; children, women, the outcasts, the unclean, non-Israelite males.

This system creates and perpetuates anxiety, suffering, and persecution, with those on the circle neurotic about maintaining their place on the circle, and excluding and marginalizing those on the outside.  Those on the outside were punished for being on the outside of the circle.

You would assume that the one person in the system who was free of anxiety, suffering, and marginalization was the one at the center of the circle; the King.  Today is Christ the King Sunday in the liturgical year, when the image of Christ as King is explored.  This provides an opportunity to reveal the odd paradoxical situation of Kings in the ancient world, as well as their modern equivalents (e.g. CEO's in the corporate world, leaders of sovereign nations, etc...).  The irony is that the one at the center of the circle was actually the one most marginalized, vulnerable, and excluded.  In fact, modern anthropology would suggest that the origin of Kings has its roots not in the process of the most powerful male seizing power, but in the primordial need to sacrifice and scapegoat; that is, that the practice and system of monarchy actually arose out of those who were marginalized to provide a scapegoat--a figure for the community to sacrifice to alleviate tensions that arise within the community.

Jesus said that the one who is greatest in the Kingdom of God would be the one most willing to sacrifice for others.  It is often said that the cross is the last place where you would expect to find a King.  In reality, the ancient world know that this was the first place where you would expect to find a King; being sacrificed for the Kingdom.  The image of Jesus as King refers not to power and glory in the world's eyes, but to a willingness to sacrifice.  When we sing that our cross will be exchanged for a crown, it will not be a gold crown of glory in the world's eyes, but a crown reflecting our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for others as one who has lived under the Lordship of Christ. 

The Widow's Mite and the Need for Self-Awareness

In Mark's gospel, Jesus is very critical of the religious institutions and systems of his day.  He was particularly critical of the scribes.  The "scribes", from the Greek grammateis, were those who were the most knowledgeable of the Hebrew scriptures, and who the Jewish community turned to when they had questions about the meaning and significance of the law.  When there was a complicated question of the interpretation of the law, the scribes were consulted.  The scribes also acted in a quasi adjudicatory capacity to resolve disputes in the Jewish community that arose out of differing interpretation of the law.

Jesus criticized the scribes for their opulent lifestyles, their arrogance, and their self-righteousness.  Specifically, Jesus says that the scribes "devour widow's houses." A few verses later, Jesus and the disciples see a widow placing two copper coins in the temple treasury, which is all the wealth that she had.  Jesus then remarks that, comparatively speaking, the widow has given more than those who given significant sums.

Ironically, the story of the widow's mite is used most commonly on Stewardship Sunday in American churches.  The story is read to mean that we are called to give a huge proportion of our wealth, in the same way as the widow; in other words, the widow is held up as a model of giving that we are called to emulate.

Such a reading of the story ignores two important things: (1) Jesus just spent several verses talking about the corruption of the scribes, and thereby the Jewish religious establishment; (2) Jesus makes no statement suggesting that the widow was wise, righteous, or should be emulated.

The widow is not a paragon of virtue that we are being called to emulate.  She is actually very tragic figure; the tiny amount of money that she had to give is going to be given to the temple, and thereby, to the scribes.  This story is not even about the widow or about giving.  Its about self-awareness, or the scribes' lack of it.  And the terrible horrific tragedy that results by the lack of it.

All of us who seek to live under the Lordship of Christ can do enormous good in this world.  We can also, without awareness of our sin and narcissism, do terrible things, like create and maintains systems that result in widow's giving what little they have to subsidize the scribes' "flowing robes." Jesus' message is awareness, awareness, awareness.

A God of Radical Inclusion

In ancient Israel, if you were physically impaired, it was believed that this was due to either your own sin or the sin of your parents or even ancestors.  The impact of a significant physical impairment in the ancient world was not only the impact on your ability to work and engage in other day to day activities, but exclusion from the community itself.  If it was believed that God was punishing you or your family, through your impairment, then it was considered righteous to participate in God's punishment and exclusion.

By healing the sick and the blind, Jesus, as the one in whom God was revealed, rendered this entire way of perceiving the impaired.  If Jesus revealed God's will, and if God was punishing the impaired, then the impaired would not have been healed because it would have removed a divinely brought punishment.  On a more broader level, Jesus was destroying the very underlying understanding of God's nature.  Rather than being a God of exclusion, God was one of radical inclusion.  God's will was to bring those outside the community into the community.

The God who is reflected in the Church should be a God whose business is always to seek inclusion rather than exclusion.  This is not to suggest that God does not demand holiness and righteousness; only that God's desire is to create a mechanism for the unholy and unrighteous to become holy and righteous through participation in the Body of Christ, the Church.  And that means that we, as part of the Church universal, should be about the business of including, reflecting the nature of the God who seeks nothing but inclusion.

Becoming Like Little Children

Jesus said that unless we become like little children, we will never enter the Kingdom of God

As always, our reading of the text is clouded by our own perception of children, which was very different than the perception of children in the ancient Middle East.  Children were regarded, even until very recent times in Western culture, in a very negative light.  They were, at best, seen as a burden, since they couldn't yet produce anything (i.e. they would work in the fields, but required more food than what their own labor produced).  At worst, they were regarded as sinful and depraved.

Today, when we hear that we must become like "little children," we assume that this means we must become pure, trusting, and joyful, since these are the qualities that we ourselves associate with children.  This association would have been incomprehensible to an ancient audience.

With the ancient perception of children in mind, the meaning of the text is revealed.  In order to be part of God's Kingdom, living under the Lordship of Christ, we must recognize that God chooses to allow us to be part of His Kingdom not through our own merit or through what we ourselves "produce," but solely due to God's infinite grace.  If we think that God is choosing to enter into relationship with us because we meet some standard of righteousness, we miss the very heart of what God's Kingdom is about, and we will never truly see it, and thereby never enter it

Having Salt Within Ourselves

Jesus tells his listeners in Mark's gospel that they must have salt within themselves in order to live in peace with themselves and with each other.

Salt is used today primarily to season food.  In ancient times is was used primarily in religious ritual.  In Jewish tradition, salt was used most prominently in rituals that emphasized Israel's covenant relationship with God; salt was added to the ritual bread on the Sabbath to season it.  Consequently, salt became associated with the need for Israel to celebrate and cultivate a deep relationship with their creator and covenant God in order to live peacefully with themselves and with each other.

There is enormous violence today.  We are abusive to ourselves, failing to forgive ourselves and punishing ourselves for our perceived failings.  We are abusive to each other, which is often nothing more than a projection of our own self hatred.  The nations of the world are abusive to each other.  All this abuse and violence has its heart in the lack of peace within ourselves.  If there is peace within ourselves, then our relationships will be peaceful, and the world is filled with those who are at peace within themselves, there will be peace on earth.

The key to peace is to have salt within ourselves.  In our hearts, to cultivate a deep relationship with God and to enter into covenant with Him as he was revealed in Christ, living under the Lordship of Christ and following his example. 

Why Jesus Went to Jerusalem

Jesus and Peter have an argument in Mark's gospel when Jesus tells Peter that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, and be executed.  Peter tells Jesus not to go.  Jesus rebukes Peter and emphasizes the necessity of his sacrifice in Jerusalem.

Jesus and Peter's dispute, boiled down to its essence, is really a dispute about the relative valuation that they place on life in this world.  Many of those in Jewish culture in Jesus' day did not believe in an afterlife.  If someone held to this belief, this would naturally lead to a relative high valuation of life in this world (i.e. if this life is all that there is, then this life has enormous value and significance).  Similarly, if one believed in the eternity of the soul and that this life was, in contrast, only a fraction of an instant in that eternity, then the way that we perceive the value of this life radically changes.

Today, materialism is fast becoming the prevailing worldview in Western culture; the belief that this physical universe is all that there is, and that we are, literally, our bodies, and that consequently, when our bodies die, that is it.  Materialism, like other ideologies, has a way of finding its way into the belief system of the Church without the Church realizing that it is finding its way in.  For example, we always seem more preoccupied with the state of our physical bodies in Church than our souls; I literally cannot remember the last time that anyone sought prayer for anything besides a physical illness.  In many expressions of Christianity, there is a preoccupation with the accumulation of wealth; even going so far as to suggest that God wants us all to be wealthy.

As always, our example is Jesus.  Seeing through God's eyes, Jesus knew that this life is an instant in our soul's eternity.  Consequently, all that matters in this life is to do what will nurture our souls.  We are eternal spiritual beings having a brief temporary experience in a human vessel.  Our lives should reflect this.

Cultivating the Discipline of Wisdom

Paul, speaking to the Church at Ephesus, told the community that in order to be authentic followers of Christ, they needed to cultivate the discipline of wisdom.  This, Paul explains in his letters, is because the world's wisdom is actually foolishness, but will appear as wisdom.  Similarly, God's wisdom, which is greater than human wisdom, will appear as foolishness to the world.

The cultivation of God's wisdom and the recognition that human wisdom is actually foolishness, is needed because we remain part of the world, and the world's wisdom seems self evident to us.  In ancient Ephesus, this would have been reflected in the Temple of Artemis, considered one of the seven wonders of the world.  The Temple was within sight wherever you stood in Ephesus, just like the wisdom of the Greeks was so imbedded in everyday thought that it was second nature.

To put it very mildly, the importance of cultivating wisdom in the contemporary American Church has been largely forgotten.  The notion that God's wisdom is foolishness to the world is often considered a license in the Christian community to abandon the need to cultivate wisdom.  The opposite is the case: our wisdom must exceed and transcend the wisdom of the world.  This is the whole point of being the Church: gathering for collective worship, prayer, bible study, and good works.  Through being the Church, we see God's wisdom and the foolishness of the world's wisdom.

Israel in the Desert and the Nature of God's Grace

When Israel escaped slavery in Egypt, they traveled through the desert to the land God had promised to Abraham's ancestors.  Along the way, they were concerned about how to sustain themselves during the journey.

God responds to Israel's request by providing manna (bread) and quail for Israel's sustenance during their desert journey.  The biblical writer indicates that Israel literally found bread and quail on the ground when they awoke in the morning.

We normally assume that what is being described is a supernatural event that violates natural law, thereby revealing that it was God's grace towards Israel that brought manna and quail to Israel in the desert.  However, this reading is not supported by what has been experienced by those who have traveled in the same desert for thousands of years.

In the desert of the Sinai peninsula, there is a plant called the Tamarisk plant that emits a crystalline substance that falls to the ground.  It's texture is bread-like and it is edible.  It has been consumed by desert travelers through Sinai for thousands of years.  It is still a source of food today.  Additionally, those who travel through the Sinai peninsula typically find a large number of quail on the ground, exhausted from trying to fly across the desert.  The quail can be easily gathered up and consumed.

The information above is usually used to support the proposition that what the Israelites experienced was not actually God at work, but simply a "natural event" that has been experienced by travelers for thousands of years.  This reading misinterprets the nature of God's grace and God's activity in the world.  God's free and unmerited gifts in this world are given to everyone, just like all travelers through the desert were given these gifts of food to sustain them.  What made Israel God's covenant community was not that they received different gifts than those who were not part of the covenant community, but because they knew where the manna and quail really originated; through the gracious gifts of the God who is the creator of all people.

As the new Israel, the Church, we are not given special treatment, in the sense of being protected from harm or being given wealth or affluence.  We experience loss, suffering, and death, along with joy and love and beauty.  What makes us God's covenant community is our awareness of the source of all things, and a call to proclaim to the world that which is the source of all good things; the God who is the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all things.

Why God Creates Covenant Communities

In the letter from Paul to the Church at Ephesus, Paul addresses the biggest controversy facing the infant first century Church: whether you had to follow "the Law" in order to be a follower of Jesus.  The controversy was usually framed around the issue of whether male converts to Christianity, if Gentile, had to be circumcised.  However, the real crux of the issue was whether Gentile Christians were bound by all the commandments found in the Pentateuch; the first five books of the Bible that formed the basis of Jewish belief and practice.

Paul's short answer was no, which created conflict with most of the earliest leaders of the Church; particularly Peter, who took the opposing view.  Paul's rationale is instructive not only for the ancient community, but for us as well.  For Paul, in Christ, God has created a New Israel; a new covenant community, and what makes the new community "new" is not only an awareness of what God has accomplished in Jesus, but an entirely new covenant; we are no longer parties to the old covenant and are thereby not bound by its terms, including, but not limited to, circumcision.

Paul's answer is also instructive about what why God creates covenant communities.  Both the old and new covenants were designed to make those bound by it holy.  The entire purpose of the law was not to create arbitrary rules, like circumcision, but to create a system of practices that would make Israel holy.  Particularly, to reinforce God's sovereignty over Israel and Israel's submission before God.  The same is true of the new covenant community; the Church.  The Church gets bogged down in the details, when all that really matters is living under the Lordship of Christ; being a holy people who live under God's sovereignty.

Driving God Out of the Village

There is a story in Mark's gospel where Jesus enters his hometown, Nazareth, and the residents reject him.  The Nazarenes simply couldn't believe that the one in whom God was revealed had been in their presence all along; Jesus had grown up with them, his family was still there, including his mother, brothers, and sisters.  Nazareth was also conscious of its insignificance in Israel, not to mention the larger world; Nazareth was little more than a speck on the map; a village of thatched huts and no more than 100-150 residents.

There is a powerful metaphor here that is enormous good news: God is already here in our midst and always has been.  This is God's default position: we don't have to do things to draw God in: God is already here and always has been.

But the bad news is that we also have the free will that enables us to reject God's call and symbolically remove God from the village.  And like Nazareth, there have been systems that have rejected God's call, whether they are nations, families, churches, or communities.  You can easily recognize them, because they are filled with anger, hatred, discord, and abuse.

But even in those places that have rejected God's call, God is still trying to get back in, through showering grace on those who have rejected Him.  Even as God is being thrown out, God's only desire is to reconcile with those who have rejected Him and to get back in the village so that God can continue the work of redemption.  No matter how far a system has abandoned God and is trapped in a cycle of violence and hatred, it is never too late for that system to repent so that God can transform that system and the system can return to what it was meant to be: God's Kingdom of love and light.

The Day of Salvation is Here Already

Paul's advice to the Corinthians in his letters is very good advice for the contemporary American Church as well.  Paul actual wrote at least three letters to the Church at Corinth.  Two have been included in the New Testament.  A third was not canonized and there were probably more.

Paul's advice to the Corinthians is helpful to us because our cultural context is a lot like Corinth.  Christianity was a new religion so most Corinthians were very unfamiliar with it.  The community grew as Paul went about his work, but Christians were competing for attention with other religions; there were also many people in Corinth that didn't practice any religion and didn't see any reason to.

Many of the religions that Christianity competed with promised their adherents relief in the future and in the present from the sufferings that we often experience in this world.  In fact, their sermons would often recite a long list of things that adherents would be protected from.  In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul satirizes this sermon technique by quoting a long list of sufferings himself.  However, rather than stating that the point of Christianity was to keep Christians from experiencing these sufferings now or in the future, Paul made the bold claim that by participating in the suffering of others, as Christ did, we experience salvation here and now. 

The Day of Salvation, that was preached in Judaism as a future event of liberation from bondage to Rome, and that was preached by the religions that Christianity competed with in Corinth as a present and future event where the god of their religion would protect him, is presented by Paul has occurring in the immediate moment when we accept Christ as Lord.  The sufferings don't go away; instead, we obtain victory over them by realizing that in literally entering the sufferings of others, we find salvation for our souls.  By seeking the needs of others, entering into their sufferings, being present with them, we save them and bring salvation to ourselves.

How Satan Casts Out Satan

Jesus poses a riddle to his listeners in the Gospel of Mark: "How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?" The answer to the riddle is that it happens all the time.  In fact, it is one of the fundamental characteristics of human culture.

Satan is translated as the "Diabolos," or the "deceiver." The deceiver, as the name implies, is all about the business of deception.  The Satan's long con in the Church is to convince us that we are doing God's will when we are actually acting in the exact opposite way that God wants.

When wrongdoing or evil is recognized in a community, whether it is within the nation state, the Church, or the family, our propensity is to cast out the evil persons or element and to exclude it.  By doing so, we are acting contrary to the will of God, who entered into the human community with no thought other than our redemption and reconciliation with us.  When God sees evil or wrongdoing in the human community, God seeks to enter into that which is evil and transform it so that it might become good.  Consequently, by casting out that which is evil, the very act of casting out is contrary to God's will.  It is Satan casting out Satan.

The purpose of the Church is not only to be God's conduit to reveal Christ to the world but to retain the practice of casting out those who are not part of the Body of Christ; that is to simply change the subject matter of what is being cast out.  The purpose of the Church is to recognize that in Christ, God changed the way communities are to respond to wrongdoing in their midst; not seeking its exclusion and banishment, but its redemption.

Changing the Game that Religion Plays

Stories in the gospels were remembered, recorded, and eventually reduced to writing because they represented something important for the community.  Often the stories became representative of something greater than the story itself.

In the Second Chapter of Acts, the disciples begin speaking in many languages, and the visitors to Jerusalem, gathered from throughout the known world, begin hearing the disciples, although Galilean, speaking to them in their own language.  Herein lay a fundamental premise of what the Church understood about itself and its nature, and how it distinguished itself from what came before it.

In the ancient world, religion was literally about the practice of exclusion.  That is, the community created rituals, practices, and beliefs to distinguish itself from what was outside the community.  The rituals and practices themselves allowed the community to define itself.  Whenever there was someone or an element within the community that acted contrary to the rules and practices of the community, the community excluded and cast out the person or element that violated the community's practice.

The Second Chapter of Acts evoked the earlier story of Babel, when the peoples of the earth were symbolically scattered; they began speaking different languages.  In the Second Chapter of Acts, the opposite occurs; the people of the earth are drawn together.  The God who was thought to be the one who scatters is revealed to be instead the God who gathers together.

God's vision, the new salvation history, was not to simply create a new chosen people with a new set of beliefs and practices centered in Christ, but instead to change the very understanding of religiosity as the business of casting out and exclusion.  In Christ, God became the one who was excluded to change our perception of the excluded.  Now, the role of the community is not to cast out those who have violated the terms and practices of the community, but to always seek to gather, as God's will is always the redemption of the fallen and lost.  The Church is called to be the community whose every motivation is to gather together so that the entire world might find redemption.

Singing a New Song to the Lord

The Psalmist encourages us to sing a new song to the Lord.  There is a lot that we can learn about discipleship and about God solely through this single phrase in Psalm 98

The metaphor of the believer as songwriter itself is instructive.  The metaphor could be tax accountant and the believer could be encouraged to create for the Lord a new tax shelter.  Songwriting is fun, joyful, and exciting.  It requires enormous creativity and insight.  God wants our discipleship to be like this.

And God wants us to sing a new song, rather than sing the songs that we have sung before.  God loves new expressions of discipleship; new ways of being God's people.  God wants the Church to be a living, organic thing filled filled with excitement and wonder

To put it mildly, the Church often acts exactly the opposite of the image of discipleship that is suggested by the Psalmist.  We make discipleship about as exciting as the creation of a new tax shelter.  Rather than celebrate new ways of being God's people, we stick to the old.  We are terrified of change and want things to stay the same.

Being Easter People means that we understand the nature of the God in whom we believe and have our Being, and then model ourselves after this God.  God is a God of endless creativity; a God whose nature is unchanging, but God's unchanging nature is to incessantly create something new.

Becoming Unblemished Lambs For God

The covenant between God and Israel that is codified primarily in Leviticus and Deuteronomy consists of both ethical commands and ritual sacrifice.  The most important sacrifice was the sacrifice of a lamb for the purpose of atonement, or restoring relationship between God and Israel.  When the relationship between Israel and God was broken, it was Israel that was the breaching party.  Consequently, restoring relationship was really about God offering Israel redemption. 

God commands Israel in the Hebrew Bible to only sacrifice animals without blemish, and this is true of the lambs that were sacrificed.  In fact, particular lambs were cultivated with particular care in the hope that they would be suitable for sacrifice.  The task of the shepherd was to ensure that lambs were raised so that they could become the instrument of reconciliation between God and Israel.

As the Lamb of God, Jesus acted as the instrument of God's reconciliation of the whole world.  Similarly, we are described as the sheep of Jesus' sheepfold.  Consequently, God pours His grace upon us so that we can become God's instruments of facilitating the reconciliation and redemption of the world.  God's intent for us is not that we would be protected from harm, but that we would be God's agent in the redemption of the world.  Through the Church, we seek God's sanctifying grace so that we might become unblemished lambs suitable to be God's agents in the world.

God Turns the Sacrificial System Upside Down

In the ancient world, religious practice centered on ritual sacrifice.  The central purpose of the sacrificial system was to effect reconciliation between the believer and the god in whom they believed when the believer had engaged in some act or omission that violated the relationship between them.  In this system, the believer is the active participant and the god the passive participant; the believer is presenting their offering to god in the hope that god would accept their offering and thereby reconcile with the believer.

In the resurrection of Christ, God turned the sacrificial system upside down.  The image of Jesus as the Lamb of God was deeply evocative for the disciples and other earliest followers of Jesus: lambs without blemish were sacrificed to bring about reconciliation between God and Israel when Israel had violated their covenant relationship with God.  But now it is God who offers up a sacrifice, Jesus, to the world, to bring about the redemption of the world and the reconciliation of the world with God.  In Jesus, God does what God ultimately did not demand of Abraham in the story of Abraham and his son Isaac.

Before we have the capacity to know God, or even speak God's name, God has already begun a good work in us in the hope that we will turn to God and enter into relationship with Him.  And when we sin, God remains willing to forgive and let the reconciliation effected in Christ be manifest in His relationship with us.

The Behavior of the Crowd During Holy Week

Today begins Holy Week, which culminates in the celebration of the resurrection on Easter Sunday.  Holy Week takes up a significant portion of all four canonized gospels.  This is particularly true of the Gospel of Mark, which has been described as the period of Holy Week with an extended introduction.

There are a number of characters that play a role during Holy Week.  There are the obvious major characters of Jesus, the disciples, Pilate, the Roman military, and the Jewish religious establishment.  But one of the most interesting characters in the story is what can be called the "crowd." The crowd that welcomes Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowd that is given the choice between executing Jesus and Barabbas, and the crowd that witnesses the crucifixion.

It is very likely that the "crowd" in all three of these scenes is composed of many of the same persons.  The population of Jerusalem swelled during Passover, but the city was still small by modern standards, both in terms of physical size of the city itself, and the size of the population.

The "crowd" has a personality, just like the other characters in the story.  Most importantly, the crowd is easily swayed by popular opinion and the powers that be.  The crowd welcomed Jesus into the city, probably because of the rumors that they had heard that Jesus was the Messiah, which led them to perceive him as someone who would initiate a military coup.  That same crowd gathers to watch Jesus overturn the tables of the money changes.  The crowd then follows along as the trial and crucifixion of Jesus are brought about by the Roman government and Jewish religious establishment.

There are two lessons that we learn from this character in the story.  The first is the danger of automatically conforming to the behavior of the majority.  This story reveals that the crowd lacks wisdom, discernment, and courage.  Second, as those who are called to live according to the example of Christ, we must not be swayed by what the "crowd" thinks of us.  If we are faithful to God's call, we may be called to act in a way that is contrary to the crowd.  We must accept the fact that the crowd will not like us very much.  All that matters is following God's will.

The Reward for Belief

The gospel reading in this week's lectionary contains the most well known biblical verse in Protestant Christianity: John 3.16.  This provides an opportunity to carefully examine the way that this text is presently read, and whether this reading is correct.

As interpreted in contemporary Protestant Christianity, the text means that if we think that a set of abstract principles about Jesus are true, we will not be punished in the afterlife, but will instead go to heaven.

This reading of John 3.16 can be challenged by considering the significance of three words in the verse: "believe", "everlasting life," and "world." Let's start with "believe." In its Greek context, the word does not mean that we think that a set of principles is true.  Instead, the word is indicative of following and trusting.  "Believing" in Christ means that we will recognize him as Lord and live our lives according to his example, living a life of sacrifice, mercy, and compassion.

The word "everlasting life" does not refer to something that is found in the future, but something that is already present.  The word has strong correlations to the Jewish notion of time as divided between two ages; the present age of darkness, and the age to come, when the Reign of God would be revealed. 

The word "world," from the Greek kosmos, is best translated as "domination system." It does not refer to the planet, or even the people who inhabit the planet, but the system by which human culture operates, exemplified in Jesus' time by Rome.  Human culture is based upon violence, destruction, and hatred.

When we put these understandings of "believe," "eternal life," and "world" together, we arrive at a very different reading of John 3.16.  God loves the world, despite the world's darkness.  And into the darkness of the world, God sent His Son, who exemplified sacrificial love for the world, despite its darkness.  And if we recognize Jesus as Lord and follow in his steps, living lives of sacrificial love for the world despite its darkness, we will experience God's age right here and now.  We will recognize that God's presence is already here, in us and in the world.  And in each other.  And we will recognize that if we live as God's people, we will remain in God's presence and live in God's reign now and forever.

Carrying God's Light Forward

Today is Transfiguration Sunday in the liturgical year, which ends the season of Epiphany.  Transfiguration Sunday focuses upon the gospel story where the disciples see a vision of Jesus upon a mountain, with Elijah on one side and Moses on the other.

It is normally thought that the vision means that Jesus is being compared to Moses and Elijah.  Seen in the light of the gospels and the New Testament as a whole, Jesus is actually being contrasted with them, or more particularly, what Elijah and Moses had come to represent.  Elijah, for Israel during Jesus' day, was representative of Israelite triumphalism and a desire for vengeance; the notion that being God's chosen people mean that Israel was superior to Rome and that God would bring vengeance upon Israel's enemies.  Moses, for Israel, was the one who brought the law, which, in Jesus' day, had become associated with the rote following of rules and regulations.

By being both compared and contrasted with Elijah and Moses, Jesus reveals the nature of the Church, as the new Israel, and the nature of the light that the Church is called to reflect.  The Church, as the new Israel, is not a community of arrogance which seeks vengeance upon our enemies.  We seek reconciliation with our enemies.  And we are not called to be a community that proof texts; where the law becomes our God.  The law of God is written upon our hearts and minds and we are guided by the directives of God's Spirit.

The season of Epiphany celebrates God's light that has come into the world in Jesus.  The story of the transfiguration reveals the nature of the light that we are called to reflect as the new Israel, the Church

Lessons from Corinth

The Epistle lesson this week is a text from Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth, addressing a controversy facing the infant Christian community.

Ancient Corinth, like other cities in the Roman world, had become very diverse culturally, and all the cultures that arrived at Corinth brought their local religions.  Virtually all ancient religions centered in perpetual ritual sacrifice.  There were sacrifices for everything, to mark occasions, to seek intercession, to ask for forgiveness.  And most of these sacrifices involved food.  Once the sacrifice was over, the food was sold in the market, marked down.

Here was the issue facing the Church in Corinth: was it proper to eat food that had been sacrificed to idols? Did this constitute idolatry? Paul's advised the Corinthian Church that it was not improper, because the gods of other religions were not real, so the sacrifices were actually not being made to anything, and it was thereby not improper.  However, Paul also advised the more mature Corinthian Christians not to eat the food that had been sacrificed to idols, because it might cause the new members of the community to become confused: in virtually all ancient religions, it was believed that you could practice more than one religion.  Therefore, Paul reasoned, if the new members of the community that were still being acclimated to what discipleship was all about saw the mature members of the community eating food sacrificed to idols, this might confuse them and lead them to believe that the mature members of the community practiced other religions.

The lesson for the contemporary Church doesn't lie in Paul's answer to the theological question itself.  The worship of other gods and food sacrifices vanished thousands of years ago.  The lesson lies in the fact that Paul says that there is something more important than disciples having the right answer: the impact on the Church as a community.  What is implicit in Paul's response to Corinth is that the collective holiness and spiritual growth of the community matters more than individual disciples in Corinth knowing the right answer.

The Church today has largely become relegated to a place where individuals go to get right answers to questions and then go back into their individual lives throughout the week to apply the right answer.  Paul says that the Church is a community, rather than a collection of individual believes.  And as a community, what is best for the community trumps the welfare of the individual.  This is necessary for the Church to fulfill the great commission; for those already within the community to become holy, and for those outside the Church to be brought within.