Musings on the Brink of Advent

This is a follow up to an earlier facebook status update.  Thanks to Rev. Jim Groome for prompting further reflection.  This may or may not be coherent:

The season of Advent is upon us.  American consumer culture refers to Advent as "the holidays", or in some cases, "the Christmas season".  One of the challenges of being a disciple in our culture is to differentiate the cultural kudzu that has grown up around the Advent and Christmas seasons.  I am learning that it need not be an either/or necessarily, but that there are aspects of the cultural celebration of the 'holidays' that are worth retaining: time with family, decorating the house/yard, watching classic movies, etc.  I am not going to argue against these things, because I plan on doing all that as well.  We're going to watch It's a Wonderful Life, starting on the Friday after Thanksgiving we'll be listening to Christmas music, we're to decorate our house, etc.  I enjoy all of these things and above all I enjoy the time spent with family.

The truth of the matter is that the things that I've listed have nothing to do with Advent or Jesus.  That does not make them bad, but it can distract us from the attention and patience asked of us during the season of Advent.  The first Sunday in Advent, at least the lectionary texts for this coming Sunday, might serve to jar us out of our consumeristic stupor just in time to save us from making the month of December exclusively about presents, over-crowded schedules, and piles of junk food.  I've often complained about how 'Christmas' starts earlier and earlier every year and I think that's because of three reasons: (1) It's supposed to be fun; (2) There's a lot to do in a relatively short time (church stuff, school stuff, work stuff, time with friends, time with family, and on and on); and (3) we are a very impatient people.  If it's fun, we want it now and in abundance.  So, the holidays start the day after Halloween, if you go by the seasonal changes in our stores and the cues from commercials (both of which are hugely important in our culture).  I'm going to stop complaining about this, though.  It's a bit like standing in the river and demanding that it stop. 

Here's why I love Advent - it grinds all this "Christmas starts after Halloween" stuff to a halt.  And I'm not a Scrooge or a killjoy - I simply believe that (as far as the church is concerned) we need much less instant gratification and much more intentional cultivation.  Advent is about patience, waiting, holding one's breath in anticipation.  It's about looking for the signs, it's about anticipating the unexpected, it's about marking the time and letting the Spirit of God do a slow work in the midst of a busy time.  In an important sense, Advent is concerned with the work of discipleship. 

Perhaps that's why the readings for this Sunday are unsettling to me.  The readings for this week (at least the two I'm using) are Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark 13:24-37 - these are explicitly apocalyptic, eschatological Scriptures.  And they do not fit in our cultural views of what Christmas is about, at least in my experience.  If 'Christmas' is about family, It's a Wonderful Life, and parties (all of which are in my immediate future), then there's probably not a lot of attention paid to Scriptures that talk about the heavens being torn open or the sun being darkened or the return of Jesus. 

There's a part of me that wants to retreat into the familiar.  The reds and greens, the lights and decorations, hot chocolate and Christmas candies.  Some part of me wants to pretend that that's the meaning of Christmas -that it's not about the God Who intrudes unannounced into our world and my life.  The wild God Who bursts on the scene when we're not paying attention.  Perhaps we're busy wrapping presents (horridly so, in my case) or shuttling kids to and fro or rushing to some store somewhere with some coupon.  Jesus tells us in Mark to keep awake.  Wonderful advice this time of year, as the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole lull us into peaceful sleep. 

There's another word for us at this time of year:

Keep awake!  Stay alert!  The King is on His way!

Philippians Bible Study, part 1

Yesterday, I taught a Bible study for the first time in three months (which is a long time for me).  I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to getting back in the swing of teaching on a weekly basis.  I'm also going to make an attempt to post weekly updates to my blog that are focused on what I'm teaching.  I'm thinking that these entries will be reflections, random thoughts, and information that may or may not make it into the actual study I'm leading.  In terms of the study, I decided to start with something that I would be pretty comfortable with, so naturally, I picked Paul.  We are studying Paul's letter to the Philippians and we covered most of chapter 1 yesterday.

As I mentioned on my last post, Philippians is a joyful letter - it is Paul's most upbeat letter and you can easily see the affection he has for this church.  It should also be noted (and this is made plain in the letter) that Paul is writing from prison.  I'm inclined to think that he's writing this from a Roman prison, near the end of his career.  A couple of other reasons I think the letter is a later one are the mention of bishops and deacons in 1:1, the presence of what appears to be hymn in 2:6-11 (one of my favorite passages of Scripture, btw), and a mature theology that is at once reflective in regards to the past and confident in regards to the future.  I tend to think that Paul knew that chances were pretty high that he would be executed at some point and this reality plays a prominent role in chapter 1 (verses 19-24).

Yesterday, as I was teaching, I was most struck by verse 6 and how well it lines up with the importance Methodist theology gives to sanctification.  Verse 6 reads: "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ."  In the context of the letter, this refers to what God is doing through the community and is not referring to God's acting in the lives of individual believers.  But I think that we can extrapolate from Paul's statement about God's faithfulness to the church to His faithfulness to us.  The "work" that God does in our lives is the work of sanctification - which is the on-going grace that God gives to us in our daily lives as we grow in faith.  Sanctification is the work of the Spirit making us holy ("sanctus" means holy).  One of my 'mantras' that I repeat to myself (and have said on a number of occasions in sermons and studies) is that Jesus didn't come that we might be happy, but that we might be holy.  While holiness and happiness aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, they don't necessarily coincide in this life.  Often times, what makes us happy (or what the "world" claims will make us happy) has a negative impact on our growth in holiness.

If you pay attention to "popular culture" in this country, you could reasonably make the claim that happiness is the highest good that people might strive for.  From what I can gather, the basic question posed by American culture for whether or not someone should do something is: "does it make you happy?"  I realize that I'm making a REALLY broad generalization here, but I think it holds up if you look at the messages we receive from popular culture.  We obviously know the reality - much of what we do in this life doesn't make us happy.  And I'm pretty sure that being happy shouldn't be the highest good.  As a Christian, happiness is not what I seek so much (though I'll definitely take moments of happiness when they come).  As Christians, we seek joy and contentment.  Happiness, in our world, seems entirely contingent upon our circumstances or, even worse, those material things we possess.  Joy and contentment are often present in spite of circumstance.  Here's what Paul says in chapter 4 of Philippians: "...I have learned to be content with whatever I have.  I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty.  In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me."  If you're a Christian, that's what you aspire to...what a great word from Paul.

Grace and Peace to you!

Some Thoughts on Settling and Resuming, along with some introductory thoughts about Philippians

If you are reading this blog, chances are you know me and you know that my wife and I moved to a new church last month (Harrisburg UMC).  The move went extremely well and we are getting settled in.  We were pretty much settled into the house a couple of weeks ago - it's taken a little longer at the church.  I haven't posted an entry in months due to the appointment change.  Saying goodbye and saying hello are time-consuming processes.  Now that things are beginning to calm down just a touch, I figure it's as good a time as any to resume blogging.  Hopefully, I can post more regularly than I have in the past - writing helps keep my thinking fresh.  Also, this is my first post after a long layoff...I'm a little rusty...

Starting on August 17th, I'll be teaching a weekly daytime Bible study here at the church and this blog will be a good opportunity to engage the text or topic beyond the class.  For the first four lessons, we'll be covering Paul's letter to the Philippians.  I read chapter one yesterday and was struck, once again, by how I respond differently to Scripture under different circumstances.  Christians call Scripture the "Living Word" and I think this is true in two senses:

1. Christians proclaim that the Biblical text was written by people who were inspired by the Holy Spirit in the act of writing.  Additionally, the Holy Spirit inspires us as we read or hear the text. 
2. We, as Christians and as readers/hearers, are constantly changing.  The context in which we encounter Scripture is always changing.  I am not the same person I was when I last read Philippians, which wasn't all that long ago.  But I've met new people, had new experiences, learned new things.  Therefore, I'll encounter Scripture differently this time around.  The same will be true in 6 weeks, 6 months, or 6 years. 

These two points heavily influence my theological difficulty with any claims towards a "literalist" interpretation of Scripture.  Perhaps I can dive in to those waters at a later date.  On to Philippians…

Philippians is perhaps Paul's most joyful letter.  Paul is not angry with this church (like he is with the Galatians - "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ…" or the Corinthians - "Am I to come to you with a stick?").  A recurring theme in Philippians is rejoicing and thanksgiving.  This gives the letter a refreshing tone and is all the more striking when we remember that Paul wrote this while imprisoned and told the Philippians that they would most surely suffer for the sake of the Gospel.

What caught my attention yesterday in reading this were verses 9 and 10 of chapter 1: "And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless."  There are a few important things going on here.

1. The root of the Gospel, of ministry, of the Christian life is love.  Paul prays that the church would experience an overflowing of love.  I think that one forgotten element of Paul's theology is how highly he values genuine love and affection within the church.  How often churches and Christians forget Paul's (and more importantly Jesus') insistence that the highest value, the highest ideal, for Christians is love.  If the church in North America remembered that with more consistency, perhaps we wouldn't spend so much time talking about and fretting over decline.
2. Stanley Hauerwas (one of my professors at Duke and an excellent theologian/ethicist) has stated that "the greatest enemy of Christianity in America is sentimentality."  I tend to agree.  Paul is not talking about a mushy, warm feeling.  What Paul is talking about is a love modeled on the love of Jesus, the love that God has for us.  That Paul couples love in this passage with knowledge and full insight teaches us that Paul is not talking about love as an emotion or as simply a pleasant sentiment.  Paul is talking about sacrificial, willing-to-suffer kind of love that might define the church.  A love that loves those the world calls "unlovable".  A love that loves that many in the church call unlovable. 
3. Love here is coupled with knowledge and full insight because there is a need for us to be discerning about how we handle relationships and acceptance within the church.  I have encountered individuals who have demanded that the church give them money or endorse destructive behavior because, after all, shouldn't the church love people?  Shouldn't we accept people as they are in the name of love?  Yes - we should accept people as they are.  But in the name of Jesus Christ, we don't let them remain as they are - if they are broken, hurting, and lost.  Paul believed in a God of transformation, a God that works in the lives of believers making them "pure and blameless".  A God that does not simply allow us to remain the same, but offers a life transformed by the indwelling of the Spirit, sanctifying us. 

So, in the church, love is tethered to discernment (which is knowledge and full insight applied) so that we might accept folks and not position ourselves as their judge (remember, Paul is pointing towards the "day of Christ" - we are not the judge).  However, this does not give everyone within the church carte blanche to do whatever they wish to do, or exploit the Body of Christ, or abuse the members thereof; or use the church to enable destructive habits, or believe any old thing they want to without consequence or rebuke.  There's a line to be drawn between acceptance and accountability.  This is where "knowledge and full insight" are helpful.  I'm rambling now, so I'll stop...

Peace and grace be with you in the Name of Jesus!

Some Thoughts on God's Sovereignty

I recently received a message from somebody I went to high school with who is also a pastor.  He was wrestling with God's sovereignty and how to respond to people who were posing questions about God's involvement in their lives and in the world.  I basically addressed the primary questions in his message and this is what I wrote.  I welcome further conversation/questions/critiques from anyone reading.  I wrote this in an afternoon, so it's not exhaustively researched or anything, just something of a theological "freestyle"...

First of all, I need to explain where I'm coming from theologically.  As a United Methodist, I am an Arminian.  This means that I don't believe in personal predestination (which is the Calvinist/Reformed position, though there's a wide range of how they view predestination).  I believe that God created humanity with the freedom to choose whether or not to love God and be in relationship with God as their Creator.  As a Christian, I believe that this relationship is made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and is actually 'enacted' through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts/minds/souls, in our lives/relationships, and in the communion of the Church (though the Spirit is not limited to any particular human sphere).  So I don't believe that God micro-manages every detail of our lives or everything thing that happens in the world. 

What do we mean when we say that God is sovereign?

In the Old Testament, God is clearly presented as the sovereign Creator.  From the beginning, God's sovereignty is established because of the simple fact the He created everything that exists.  We see God's power over nature most clearly in parts of Isaiah and Job, along with passages from the Psalms.  While these are prominent, God as Sovereign Creator is all over the place in the Old Testament.  However, the primary narrative for the Hebrews was the exodus from Egypt.  This is an even greater emphasis in the Old Testament than the creation narrative.  This shows up all over the Old Testament: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" is the common refrain.  The point here is that not only is God in control over the world that He created, but He is also in control of human history.  Here's the rub - what do we mean by "in control"?  Here are our options:

• God is in complete control and dictates everything that happens in His world.  There are some Christians that believe this, but I find this to be pretty off base, once you draw out the conclusions theologically.  First of all, this doesn't square with the image of God we get in the person of Jesus (remember Colossians 1:19 - "…in him (Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…")  As you say, this position means that God is responsible for everything, good and bad, including the horrific.  This does not square with Scripture.  What this also means (and here's the logical theological conclusion) is that God is therefore responsible for our sins and for the brokenness of our world.  If our decisions and actions are dictated by God, then we bear no responsibility for the sins we commit, we are merely puppets with this "super-sovereign God" pulling the strings. 

• The other option is that God is not in control at all, either through God's abdication and absence (the deist position) or through His inability (which makes God not God at all, but an idol).  As a Christian, I believe that the Incarnation is the answer to deism - God is not distant nor did God create the world and then turn His back on creation.  God has come near to us in the person of Jesus Christ and is with us always through the Holy Spirit.  In terms of inability, I simply stand upon the promise of Scripture that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26).

What I believe is between these two extremes.  Regarding the "super-sovereign position", Scripture is pretty clear: Joshua 24:15 "…choose this day whom you will serve" and Deuteronomy 30:19-20 "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants my live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him…"  That command for people to choose whom they will serve and to choose between life and death means that God has given some measure of control to people in regards to how they will order their lives.  Here we have a limit to God's sovereignty.  I believe that this limit is self-imposed by God so that people can have the freedom to truly choose and thereby have the freedom to truly love Him and be in relationship with Him.  There are so many imperatives in the New Testament ("Repent and be baptized!" being the main one) that I'm not going to list them.  Imploring someone to repent and be baptized indicates that the person to whom you are preaching has some ability to respond out of their own free will, again indicating some limits to God's sovereignty. 

So when we say that God is sovereign over His creation and over our lives, what we can say (I believe) is this:  God is in control of the ultimate fate of His creation.  The fate of creation is not death and decay, but life and restoration, because that is God's will.  God's sovereignty does not mean complete control because as I've said, God has created us not as puppets or robots, but as persons invited to be in loving relationship with Him, therefore inviting the possibility of disobedience.  Echoing Paul, the sinfulness of disobedience has had cosmic consequences, impacting all of creation, not simply humans.  So, we get the "laws" of nature that result in death and destruction.  Here we might ask in the wake of unspeakable tragedy: "Why didn't God prevent this?"  I believe that is the case because then God would have to stop all floods, all earthquakes, all disease (by virtue of God being just and consistent).  The world in which we live is broken.  God has inaugurated the reconciliation and restoration of His creation through Jesus Christ.  We are part of that work, but we still live in a broken world. 

What is the extent of God's sovereignty into the lives of individuals and the events of the world?

If you want to hear some bad theology, listen to what some people say to grieving families.  If you listen in funeral homes, you are almost guaranteed to here something along the lines of: "This was just God's will."  I disagree with that sentiment, even if it comes from a genuine place.  Most people say that because they don't know what else to say.  It's also unfair to demand a pristine level of theological sophistication from people who are simply trying to express their sorrow and sympathy.  Anyways, my firm belief is this: just because something happens, does not mean that it is God's will.  If that were true, there would actually be nothing that we could consider to be a "sin" and we could actually do nothing outside the will of God.  This would mean that whatever I do, it's the will of God.  Why work?  Why preach?  Why do anything difficult or painful or risky?  Why be a disciple? 

God's sovereignty extends in our own lives as far as we allow God to be at work in our lives.  If we resist God, God will not force us to be obedient (again, this would not be love).  God's sovereignty over nature is more complicated - here's where eschatology comes into play.  The way I understand it is that God knows where this whole thing will end up (He is not bound by time or space, being sovereign over or "outside of" both) - it is a matter of God working in this world and in our lives to bring about what He desires, namely the restoration and reconciliation of His world.  There are things/people/ideas/events that work against this and those things/people/ideas/events that work for God's reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:18-20).  When we talk about being "in the will of God", what we should mean is that we are working for this reconciliation.  When something happens like the death of a child, I believe this is contrary to the will of God.  Of course, all things are possible with God, and to echo Joseph in Genesis 50:20, what is often intended for evil, God intends for good.  So there are good things that may even come out of horrible situations or events.  This does not, in this life at least, completely mitigate those terrible things - for example, if a family was brought closer together and their faith deepened because of the events of 9/11, this does not somehow redeem that terrible event.  In fact, I'm not sure we'll ever arrive at understanding the purpose for most tragedies that befall us.  We don't have the vision of God nor do we possess the scope of His knowledge (kind of like Job).   As Paul says in I Corinthians 13:12, we see "through a glass darkly". 

What is the relationship between God's sovereignty and evil (sin and Satan, specifically)?

First, regarding Satan, I typically give Satan no thought at all.  "He" is a defeated enemy.  In Scripture, Satan is actually presented more as a "force" or attitude that is occasionally personified (see Jesus' temptation in the wilderness for example).  The best Scripture for getting a grip on this is Jesus' shocking statement to Peter in Mark 8:33 when Peter rebukes Jesus about Jesus' foretelling his death and resurrection.  Jesus says "Get behind me, Satan!"  You cannot fully understand what Jesus means unless you understand what "Satan" means.  It comes from the Hebrew "ha-satan", which literally means "the accuser".  Satan's role is therefore to accuse (which "He" does in the temptation stories: "are you really God's Son?")  Here's what the situation in Mark 8:33 tells us: Peter was standing in the way of Jesus' journey to the cross.  In doing so, Peter became "satanic" in the sense that he was acting as an obstacle to God's will.  Scripture does not tell us that Peter was possessed by Satan or that Peter actually became the devil, but rather that Peter (intentionally or not) became "Satan" (the accuser) when he thought that his expectations, his will, trumped what Jesus was telling him.  When we impede or obstruct God's will, we too become "satanic".  In the death and resurrection of Jesus and in the giving of the Holy Spirit, we have no good reason for standing in God's way.  "Satan" is a defeated enemy.  When we repent ("metanoio" - meaning to literally to go beyond [meta] our mind [noio]) we open ourselves up to the moving of the Spirit and our will becomes subjugated to the will of God, through our own choosing.  God transforms us (as Peter was transformed on the day of Pentecost) and our accusation/resistance is blown away by the life-giving holy wind of the Spirit.  Satan is defeated and only has the control that we are willing to give "him".  I am willing to give no control - I resist as James says.  "He" flees accordingly.

Sin is a deeper thing and, at least for Paul, is a more serious and pressing problem.  The true enemy of God in Scripture is not Satan - and "he" is never presented as such.  The true enemies of God in Scripture (especially for Paul - whom I'm most familiar with) are sin and death.  In the Old Testament, this manifested through Israel's repeated insistence on idolatry.  In the New Testament, it's sin and death, mainly manifested in the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and the oppression of the poor/lowly.  What typically has control over most people in our culture is the sin of self-absorption, which is the raising of the self to an idol.  For most people in America, the sovereign power in their lives is self-interest.  The Gospel of Jesus is a radical antidote for this poison.  Mark 8:34-37 gets right to the heart of this.  When we become Spirit-filled Christians, we step down from the throne and give sovereignty in our lives to God and trust in His ongoing work of reconciliation and restoration.  This means that nothing - even tragic death and loss, even our limited vision and understanding, even our questions and doubts, even the evil things that people do to us and we do to them - NOTHING can separate us from the love of Jesus. 

I'll finish with a story about Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  Bishop Tutu was serving in South Africa during the height of apartheid, when the white Afrikaners were brutally oppressing the blacks in that country.  Guards, armed with semi-automatic weapons, were stationed right outside of the church where Tutu was serving.  People were suffering, going hungry, being beaten and imprisoned, dying.  Tutu walked around Johannesburg with a smile on his face, all the time.  (I've met him once - the man radiates pure joy.)  Someone asked him one day, "Bishop, our people are dying, we are being crushed.  There are men with machine guns at the doors of your church.  How can you smile?"  Bishop Tutu responded: "I know the end of the story.  God wins!"  That pretty much sums it up for me.

Voices, Narcissism and the Church

     One of my favorite classes in seminary was Black Church Studies.  As a seminary student, I was pretty much unafraid of being stretched and challenged.   I relished the opportunity to dive head first into traditions and points of view that differed from my own.  And I loved that class.  I loved reading about African Religion and Philosophy.  I was challenged by the study of the history of African-Americans in this country, especially in the part of the world where I grew up.  My horizons were being expanded on a daily basis and this, I feel, is one of the most important aspects of a seminary education.

     I must make a point here about my upbringing.  I have never heard my parents utter one word that could be construed as racist or prejudiced.  Granted, each person has their own prejudices so my parents are certainly not exempt.  But they were very intentional about how they treated people and how they spoke around my sister and I.  We were taught from an early age to show respect and that God loved ALL people.  While this might seem too optimistic and something of a "let's all hold hands and defeat racism" mentality, this was a vitally important and Christ-like thing to teach a 5-year-old kid.  My parents teaching me that all people are worthy of respect and bear God's image set a trajectory for me that allowed me to be challenged and inspired by my experience in seminary (and beyond).  What I heard outside of my home was a different story, both at school and, sadly, from some in my home church.  That's perhaps another conversation to be had in the future.

     One struggle that I had in those classes was where my voice fit in.  What could I say?  What could I contribute?  Did I have a voice?  My professor urged me on several occasions to speak up more, but I often felt that I could contribute nothing constructive to the conversation in that class.  I thought long and hard about my voice - what do I have to share?  Of course, as a preacher, my voice is front and center on a regular basis.  We preachers often pray that God would speak in our voices, but many times we speak in our own, personal, limited voice - reflected our limited understanding, our narrow world view, our own particular biases.  We are human, after all, and while we seek to be vessels, conduits for the voice of the Lord, many times it is our own puny voices that we are projecting. 

    There are times when silence is a blessing.  When saying nothing is far more appropriate than saying anything at all.  Our society, of course, does not adhere to this in the least.  We have turned into a society of narcissists, a society where we are taught that we must share our opinions, we must let people know what we are thinking, we have to stake out a position, we have to let people know what we are doing all the time (hence Twitter and Facebook - alas, I am the chief of sinners in this regard).  I understand the irony of my having a blog and writing that we're too enamored of our own voices.  I pray that God would help me to not be a narcissist.  I need help in this endeavor.  Thankfully, God gives help.

    The culture in the US is in dire need of an antidote for our rampant narcissism.  The Church offers a cure.  The Church, as it is intended, might actually be the cure for this.  We do indeed have a voice, something to say.  It is the message that has been handed down to us: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."  (Mark 1:15)  The teachings of Scripture call us beyond ourselves and call us to join our voices to those who are already proclaiming reconciliation and redemption.  I learned in seminary that I do indeed have a voice and I am called to speak - the Church calls that out of me and all others.  What we learn is that our voice, while important, is not the only voice, indeed not the most important voice.  We learn to join our voices together - sometimes in beautiful harmony and other times in chaotic cacophony.  We might learn that there are many of our brothers and sisters who have been silenced and need to have their voices heard.  The Spirit at work in the Church can make room for the silenced voices to be heard.

     Just as important, the Church might teach us about the value of holy silence - which is the greatest antidote to our blathering narcissism that I can think of.  There are times when our voices must be stilled, when we must listen to the Spirit and to one another.  And when we speak, when our voice is called forth, we speak not of ourselves but of what God has done, is doing, and will do for the sake of the redemption and reconciliation of a broken, fallen world.  May God grant us the words to speak when our voice needs to be heard and the wisdom to keep silent when our voices need to be stilled.

Grace and Peace to all of you in the Name of Jesus.

Was Feeling Nostalgic a While Back...

This has little to do with theology, or with anything for that matter, I just feel like writing and sharing it:

I loved the woods in my old neighborhood  - walking, running, climbing gullies, jumping over creeks.  And to this day, in my memory, they feel as much like home as the house I grew up in.  A few months ago, I was down in Enochville without my wife or the kids and I parked beside the woods in my old neighborhood.  I walked down into the woods and looked around for a bit.  It hadn't changed too much.  Things came rushing back and it made it seem in that moment that no time had passed.  The remnants of an old tree house were amazingly still present and I instantly recognized the bends in the little stream as well as some of the gullies.  I thought about walking to see if the old VW Bug that had been left in a gully some years ago was down there, but I thought about how much effort that would take for an out of shape adult (as an 11-year-old, it was quite easy).  

The thing is, it felt like home, as much as my home church or (I imagine) my room in the house I grew up in.  But I had a disconcerting thought as I was standing in the woods remembering: as a kid, I was simply romping through the woods.  As an adult, I was trespassing.  As a kid, it's expected.  As an adult, it may seem a little creepy to some people.  With that thought going through my head, I trudged back up to the truck.  I felt, at once, happy to be in that place and sad that I could never be in that place again, so to speak. 

The thing about it, the "woods" were nothing more than a few acres of undeveloped land with a little creek running through it.  I am dumbfounded to think now that we routinely drank the water from that little stream.  I am sure that several stomach bugs I had as a kid were a direct result of drinking that water.  We used to go down to the woods, dam up the stream, climb the gullies, play a variation on tag which involved diving over fallen trees or trudging under them in the stream, and just run riot for a few hours.  I remember one time in the middle of winter Scott, Troy, Michael, and myself went down to the woods and the little pools of water had frozen over.  We were walking over them and one of them cracked under Michael.  He fell into water that was probably no more than a foot deep.  He freaked out and so did Troy, who acted like Michael was dying (Troy is Michael's older brother).  I stepped onto the ice, grabbed Michael and pulled him out.  They both thanked me for saving his life.  It was fun to be a kid.

As we got older, we began riding our bikes more and a friendly older couple in the neighborhood let us ride through their yard into the woods.  We made a good number of trails and for a while had a lot of fun.  Then, suddenly it seems in retrospect, we grew up - drivers' licenses, jobs, other stuff.  We stopped hanging out together.  And the woods no longer hold any mystery for me, at least the little bit of wooded land in my old neighborhood doesn't.  Memories yes, but no mystery.  Now I imagine that the deep forests in the mountains or in the Northwest would probably hold some mystery, but the "woods" in Tanglewood I see now with adult eyes.  Littered with trash, empty liquor and beer bottles, and full of briars, spiders, and other stuff that I don't want to mess with.

Maybe part of heaven is being in those places that are home, those places that are so familiar that when we are in them, it feels like time stops.  I have found that those places are rare and precious.  There are new places that evoke that feeling, and thank God for that, because the life of a United Methodist minister is all about new places.  But, I will say that a dirt road on a warm evening, the sound of birds and crickets, and the smell of honeysuckle does it every time, no matter what the geographical location.  Of course, the cliche holds true: there's no place like home.  I just hope that heaven has a nice patch of woods up there.  

Watching the Lightning

(This is also the February newsletter article for my church...two birds, one stone, that kind of thing...)

     Growing up, I loved to look out of the window or sit in the carport during thunderstorms at night, watching the lightning.  I enjoyed watching the lightning light up the sky for that one fraction of a second of brilliance.  It was as if there was a flash of daylight, in an instant.  I still enjoy watching thunderstorms - though with the proliferation of trees around our parsonage, there's a bit more trepidation in my watching nowadays.  But that moment, the all-too-brief flash of daylight, that is fascinating, thrilling to watch.

     As we continue the season of Epiphany, we are reminded that we have those moments spiritually as well.  We have moments when the presence of God and the peace of the Holy Spirit lights up the skies of our lives with complete light and brilliance.  The word "epiphany" basically means a "sudden appearance of knowledge."  It's an "aha!" moment - that moment when the pieces fall into place, when insight from the Spirit lights up our lives.  Those are wonderful moments to be treasured.  God teaches us about His nature and His will in those moments.  God might also teach us about ourselves.  We must be ready and watchful for these epiphanies. 

     During Epiphany, we celebrate that God has fully revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.  If you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus.  If you desire to know who God cares about, look to Jesus.  If you want to know how God moves and works in the world, look to Jesus.  God has been revealed to us in the Epiphany of Jesus Christ.  And so, in Jesus, we can see the brilliance of God, the bright light of His love and grace.  And much like the lightning that I enjoy watching, sometimes God appears most dramatically and most splendidly in our fiercest storms and our darkest nights.  The darkness of our worst storms might serve to reveal the brightness of God's glory and grace.  Are you in the midst of a storm?  Keep your eyes open for those bright flashes of God's presence, love, and grace, which might illumine your struggles. 

     This side of eternity, it's just a glimpse, however.  I believe that when we see God face-to-face, when the eternal life given to us through the grace of Jesus Christ becomes our complete reality, we will be fully alive in that brilliance.  Until then, we wait and watch, even in the midst of our own storms, for those flashes of daylight, for the brilliance and splendor of God's grace.

Grace and Peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Wes

The "No Voice" and "Is Not" of Idolatry

I am currently teaching two Bible Studies at the moment, one on Revelation and the other on the 12 "minor prophets".  Both of these studies have been fruitful in several ways for me.  Each time I teach a book of the Bible, I learn something new or discover something that I had not seen previously, even if I've read or taught that book several times.  The same is true of Revelation this go around and, considering that I've never taught the minor prophets before, I'm learning a lot about them (and the history of Israel).  What I really love, however, are the relatively few moments of synchronicity that occur when studying, teaching, or reading two different books of Scripture.  One of these happened a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to blog about it, but am only now finding the time.  Here are the Scriptures that got the ball rolling:

Zephaniah 3:1-2 - "Ah, soiled, defiled, oppressing city!  It has listened to no voice; it has accepted no correction.  It has not trusted in the Lord; it has not drawn near to its God."

Revelation 17:8 (in reference to the scarlet beast upon which the Whore of Babylon was riding) - "The beast you saw was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction.  And the inhabitants of the earth…will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come."

Both of these Scriptures bring to mind Paul's teaching in I Corinthians 8:4-6 - "Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that 'no idol in the world really exists,' and that 'there is no God but one.'  Indeed, even there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth - as in fact there are many gods and many lords - yet for us there is on God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom  are all things and through whom we exist."

The thread that runs through both of these passages is the idea that idolatry is ultimately a negation of existence.  Throughout the whole of Scripture, the sin that seems to occur with the most regularity is idolatry.  This is also the subject of the first of the Ten Commandments, is the sin most pointed to by the prophets, and figures prominently in the New Testament.  I have found that the Christians that I have known pretty much excuse themselves from Biblical commands against idolatry.  I think that we associate idolatry with ancient idols and, since we don't worship little wooden statues or have any Asherah poles lying around, we pretty much assume that injunctions against idolatry, especially those found in the Old Testament, don't apply to us. 

The passage in Zephaniah puts it well: the idol has "no voice".  The voice of the idol is our own voice which we attempt to amplify through a false god.  When we seek our well-being, our self-worth, our freedom, our peace, and our salvation through anything other than God, we are listening to the "no voice" of the idol.  Basically, we are listening to ourselves talk.  The construction in Revelation is also instructive: "the beast…was and is not and is to come."  The "is not" indicates the negation of being in the present.  The idol does not exist.  Idolatry has existed and will exist - but the idol does not exist.  It is not. 

And as Paul states in the above passage: "no idol in the world exists" - so why should we worry?  Well, it's pretty easy to see that humans can make idols out of just about anything.  The threat of idolatry is that idols promise something that they cannot deliver.  In the Old Testament, the culprits were Baal and Asherah, in Jesus' day it was a mixture of Egyptian deities, Greco-Roman gods, and the Emperor cult.  Today - well, it's less about a personified deity and more about those things/ideas we look to for meaning and fulfillment.  There are, of course, the obvious ones: drugs, sex, money.  Most American Christians can easily attack these things (and with good reason, if we're looking to drugs, sex, or money to fill the hole in our hearts.)  However, some of our other idols are more insidious, more tempting, less recognizable: consumption (establishing your identity in the things you own or purchase), self-worth, relationships, your job.  Even things that are overwhelmingly positive can become idolatrous if they are what we rely on exclusively to give our lives meaning: our marriage, our children, our own good behavior.

Twice in the closing chapters of Revelation (19:10 and 22:9), John bows to worship an angel.  Both times the angel commands John to get up and "Worship God!"  There is only One Who is worthy of worship.  Some things are worthy of attention, all people and some things are worthy of love, only One is worthy of worship.  My questions for myself as we move through the season of Epiphany: what am I making an idol, what am I worshiping besides God?  What do I depend on for my peace, my freedom, my salvation?  Where might I cast down the idols in my life?  Good questions to ponder leading into Lent…

Grace and Peace to all of you!