Learning to Lose Well

Earlier this fall, I found myself coaching my son's YMCA soccer team.  This was unexpected (I signed up to be an assistant coach and got 'promoted') - I played soccer when I was five and a couple of intramural games in college.  Needless to say, I know next to nothing about soccer.  But seeing that this is a team of 5-6 year olds, that has proven to not be that big of a deal.  I quickly began catching up on the basics (thanks YouTube!) and took comfort in the fact that teaching the basics and things like teamwork and sportsmanship were what was expected of me.  I will say that I have a great time coaching the kids.  It has been a joy to learn their personalities, their strong points and growing edges, and I love it when I can encourage them and give them praise, even for something minor.  To see their faces light up when I tell them "good job!" is a delight.  Also, it's kind of cool to have kids and parents call me "coach"...I didn't see that one coming…

After our first practice, one of the older boys on the team ran up to me and said, "This is my third season and I've never lost a game!"  My inside-the-head voice said "Your streak is OVER!"  I actually said, "Well, I can't make you any promises.  We'll just play hard and have fun!"  Ahh, coachspeak.  Orwell would be proud.  The team has played well and, while we don't technically keep score at this level, these kids can count.  Our current record stands at 1-3-1.  And I couldn't be prouder of Team Vortex!  They play, laugh, fall, run, cry, play their hearts out times, and other times stare at the clouds.  In other words, they're being kids.  Anyway, I was thinking about this particular little boy and how I could help him.  He is the most talented player on the team and could easily play in the next age bracket.  I decided that I could help him be a leader and help him learn how to lose.  If you're going to play sports, that's a very important lesson.  You have to learn how to lose well, because it's going to happen.

As a pastor and, more importantly, as a disciple, this resonates with me deeply.  If you take Jesus at his word in Mark 8:34 ("If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.") and if you hear what Paul says in I Corinthians 1:27-28 ("But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world…") you understand that Christians need to know how to lose well.  After all, Jesus says later in Mark 8 that if you want to save your life, you'll lose it for the sake of the Gospel. 

One of the greatest insults that one could hurl when I was a teenager was "loser".  "Poser" came close,  but "loser" was the one I really didn't want to hear.  That's a harsh word and designed to make a person feel worthless and small.  And we live in a win-at-all-costs kind of world.  Power and victory are chief among the "virtues" in our culture.  These don't sit well with the Christian faith, at least as it relates to the vision of discipleship we get from Jesus and Paul in the Scriptures I quoted.  You see, God doesn't measure success and victory the same way the world does.  In God's eyes, victory looks like a slaughtered Lamb.  In God's eyes, victory looks like a desperate person longing for salvation and grace.  In God's eyes, victory takes the shape of a cross.  These the world calls weakness, fairy tales, childish.  This is what I call God's triumph.

The flip side of that coin is that what the world considers winning looks an awful lot like losing, if you're looking at with the eyes of a Christ-like faith.  What does it mean to "win" in our culture?  How does that square with what Jesus teaches us?  What do we lose when we make winning the most important thing?  The Christian church in America has long enjoyed a place of prominence and power.  We've played a large role in shaping the culture, shaping politics, shaping the American identity.  While Christians still enjoy a great deal of public influence, that influence has been greatly diminished.  I think that's a really, really good thing.  It's a good thing for us to reclaim a counter-cultural position that speaks a prophetic word about an unjust, greedy, shallow, mean-spirited, unhealthily-competitive, pornographic-posing-as-empowering, petty, destructive culture.  When we speak up and work for justice and mercy and generosity and love and grace in the face of prevailing culture, then we are undertaking what the world considers a losing proposition. 

How can we Christians learn to "lose well"?  

The Impossible Call, Part 2 - Genesis 22:1-19 - A Brief Note on Being a Christian Reading the Old Testament

For the Christian reader of Genesis, it is almost impossible to read the story of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac without thinking of Jesus' crucifixion.  I was taught in seminary that an appropriate reading of the Old Testament was not shaped by the New Testament or my commitments as a follower of Jesus.  I was trained to not see Jesus in the Old Testament (well, the attempt was at least made to train me in this way).  To be clear, this was not every professor I had, but this was part of my education in seminary.  The foundation for this approach was the historical-critical method of Biblical studies.  There is much to be learned in using this approach to studying Scripture.  Here are some good things about that approach:

1. You're able to see perspectives other than your own.  Studying Scripture in this way allowed me to see the limited nature of my own interpretative lens and had the important consequences of making me a (hopefully) humble, responsible, and respectful interpreter of Scripture. 

2. It is a rigorous academic discipline.  I treasure the skills that I gained in my graduate work and I use them on a regular basis, admittedly with varying degrees of success.  The historical-critical method does not pay that much attention to devotional aspects or emotional responses.  Actually it doesn't pay any attention to that.  The one thing that I was taught that I still hold to tenaciously is the admonition to the let the text speak for itself.  It takes effort to resist imposing meaning onto Scripture, but it's definitely worth the effort.

3. It allows (forces?) the interpreter to struggle with issues of history, culture, the limits of interpretation, Biblical authority, the nature of prophecy, on and on.  For me, the method of Biblical studies that I was taught in seminary was akin to a wrestling match with God that occasionally put me out of joint.  There were classes in seminary that I left with a mental and spiritual limp.  Sometimes it is still noticeable in my walk. 

Those are some good things.  Here are some things I struggle with:

1. I can't help but read the Old Testament as a Christian.  I am a Christian.  Unapologetically a Christian.  I believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah sent by God to save the world.  I believe that some of those promises are found in the Old Testament.  In his chapter in the book The Art of Reading Scripture, Robert Jenson has a quote that has stuck with me for a while:  "Be entirely blatant and unabashed in reading Scripture for the church's purposes and within the context of Christian faith and practice.  Indeed, guide  your reading by church doctrine."

2. While I gained some important academic skills by learning to interpret Scripture historically-critically, I can't and won't surrender a devotional reading of Scripture.  I was taught that Scripture is the Living Word of God.  I still believe that.  I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, instructs us, convicts us, and confronts us through Scripture.  So, I can't read Scripture with complete academic detachment. 

3. If I truly believe that the Old Testament ultimately points us to God's redemptive work in Christ, I cannot ignore what I believe to be Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.  Now, I will readily admit that it is definitely possible to read the Old Testament without reference to Jesus of Nazareth.  It's just not ultimately possible for me to do so.  Historically speaking, I understand that when Isaiah or Jeremiah or Micah or whoever wrote Genesis wrote the words of Scripture, they were not thinking of Jesus of Nazareth.  But the thing is, when I read Isaiah 53:4-6, I cannot help but believe that's about Jesus.  I can study the historical context and understand perfectly well that Isaiah would not have been thinking about Jesus Christ.  I'm thinking about Jesus and an academic interpretation is not the only way I interact with that text, or any text for that matter.  

So, as I'm reading/wrestling with the story of Abraham and Isaac, I do so humbly as a follower of Jesus Christ.  I do so as one who believe that Jesus was crucified for the sake of my sinfulness.  When I read the story of Isaac, I indeed see Jesus.  More on that next time...

Some Thoughts on Politics

     I was standing in line with my parents and my grandmother at K&W one day, I think it was a year or so after graduating from seminary.  We started talking politics – the Iraq War was the news of the day and I was in the process of becoming more politically aware.  At the time, I was in a particularly cynical place about politicians and I was telling my Republican father and my Democratic grandmother that both parties were to blame for what was happening.  This position, I’ll admit, has really not softened or changed in the intervening years. 

     In the midst of the conversation, an elderly woman approached me aggressively and almost yelled: “Democrats have always been for poor people!  Study your history!”  You know, it was the tone that surprised me.  I’ve been yelled at by Republicans, as well.  I was even told once that "you can't be a Christian and a Democrat."  Politics tends to have that effect on us from time to time.  You stake a position and you’re bound to meet somebody who has planted their flag on the other side of the hill.  Tempers flare.  Your blood pressure rises.  You feel that sharp edge of anger and righteous indignation.  Some people might express it in a smug condescension.  Some people might lash out when confronted with a different philosophy.  You might make it your mission to change this person’s mind, to convince them of the common sense of your position.  Or you might yell at perfect strangers in line at the K&W. 

     Politics is a risky proposition.  Though, it’s not all bad.  In the best of circumstances, it gets things done, brings people together, and brings order to a society.  It comes from the Greek word pertaining to citizens and ordering the affairs of the state.  But, as we know full well, it can get people in trouble.  It breaks up friendships and splits churches and divides communities and sets brother against brother.  It leads to violence and even murder, starting arguments and fights and wars. 

     I’d love to stay away.  To leave it at the door of the church and to ask churchgoers to do the same.   I firmly believe in the separation of church and state.  It’s not my job to tell the congregation who to vote for and it’s none of their business who I vote for.  It’s my job to tell people to follow Jesus.  That’s where you find salvation and hope and life and justice – it ain’t in Washington or Raleigh. 

     But (and isn’t there always a “but”?), Jesus was political.  Oh, not in the partisan way we’ve grown familiar with.  There’s enough there in his teachings to make Republicans and Democrats mad in equal measure.  Independents, too, so don’t think you’re off the hook.  If you’re so inclined, you can find verses to support your own political position.  But you can count on finding other verses that you’ll probably want to ignore.  Jesus wasn't interested in giving Rome or Jerusalem advice about how to run their respective governments.  Jesus didn't seem too terribly interested in reforming the current order, but rather, in announcing an entirely new order - the Kingdom of God. 

     The reality of the Kingdom of God takes precedence over any other kingdom or entity or power that we might pledge our allegiance to.  The Kingdom of God supplants, overthrows, renders obsolete all other kingdoms.   And we don’t have the luxury of deciding which elements of the Kingdom we can dispense with.  We can't decide that we like the personal holiness and salvation parts and get rid of the parts which challenge our greed and disregard for the poor.  Jesus really means what he says in those verses that we want to ignore or explain away.  Following Jesus, living in the reality of God's Kingdom present hear and now means that the political positions and ideologies that are thrust upon us are not the ultimate grounds for our identities.  And if you turn on Fox News or MSNBC or CNN and you see your enemy, remember what Jesus taught you.  If you follow Jesus, call yourself "Christian", remember that you are held to a higher standard - the standard of grace, peace, and love.  

The Impossible Call, Part 1 - Genesis 22:1-19

 I have been thinking (off and on) about this story for the past two weeks.  I've not been thinking deeply necessarily, but instead thinking about how I don't really want to engage with story at all.  This is one of the most difficult and shocking stories in all of Scripture.  I had this passage in mind while writing my last post about Abram's call and part of me didn't want to engage with this story at all.  I'm pretty sure that when I come across a Scripture that I actively want to ignore, that's an invitation for deeper engagement.  Other than my intention to look at the concept of call throughout Scripture (which means going through Abraham and his call), I have been prompted to look at this story by my own recent interaction with it.  Every night, Toni Ruth and I read to our children from The Jesus Storybook Bible (which is a great children's Bible, in my opinion) and the other night I was reading this story to my daughter.  The author tried to present this story in such a way as to not be too terribly frightening, but the horror of the story is not able to finally be suppressed.  So here are some thoughts about the Abraham and Isaac story with an eye towards God's call of Abraham.

1. In the first two verses, two things grab my attention immediately.  First, my Bible (NRSV) says, "God tested Abraham".  I've got to admit that I'm pretty uncomfortable with God testing people in this way.  But there it is.  And, after a few minutes of research, the Hebrew word (nasah) doesn't offer any relief either.  There may even be a lesson in that effort - how often do we Christians try to wriggle ourselves out of what God calls us to do in Scripture through interpretative gymnastics?  The implications, theologically, of God "testing" his chosen vessel for blessing the world by commanding him to sacrifice his son (who was promised and made possible by this same God) are staggering.  What kind of God does this?  There is a sizable difference between the God who asks Abraham to sacrifice His Son and the God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.  I honestly struggle with that tension.  The second thing that grabs my attention is God's reference to Isaac as Abraham's "only son" - what about Ishmael?  Chapters 21 and 22 of Genesis are brutal chapters.  Tough reading. 
2. Perhaps these stories are not so tough when you can engage them in the abstract.  I have children - two little people who I love more with each passing day.  Two children for whom I would gladly and without hesitation offer my own life, if need be.  So, I cannot engage these stories in an entirely abstract way.  I read the name "Isaac" and I picture my own child.  I read about Ishmael being rejected (along with Hagar) and that stings.  I read about Abraham being commanded to sacrifice his son and I can't begin to imagine contemplating putting my own child up on an altar, not even for a second.  I'm quite certain that I would fail that particular test. 
3. It's also very easy to read this story through my 21st century lens.  This story was written, after presumably being handed down as part of a larger oral tradition, in a culture that is radically different from ours.  As the first line of L.P. Hartley's book The Go-Between states, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."  Indeed.  One of the lessons that I learned in seminary is that it's not appropriate to hold ancient peoples to the moral and ethical standards of our time.  We should not expect people who lived some 4000 years before our time to live by the standards of our time.  For me, though, that does nothing to lessen the horror of this story. 

4. Reading the (too) brief description of this story (also known as the Akedah, or "Binding") in my seminary Old Testament textbook, the way they handle this is to say, basically, that the end justifies the means: "This story is at once a story that repudiates the ancient custom of sacrificing the firstborn to the deity and a story of the testing and miracle of faithfulness - both Abraham's and God's…(this story) affirms confidence in God's faithfulness."  That's a positive spin on a story that I think is a bit more difficult than that.  And yes, I do believe that God is faithful, that is a cornerstone, non-negotiable article of faith for me.  If God is not faithful, well then, the whole "being a Christian" thing just kind of collapses, doesn't it?

5. Perhaps this story is more of a reflection on the culture in which Abraham found himself - a culture with several religions/cultures that were perfectly ok with human sacrifice, including Canaanites and Sumerians (people  from Abram's homeland).  This story ends with God providing an animal sacrifice in place of Isaac, allowing the reader to exhale and tying the story up into a nice little bow.  Maybe this tells us more about religious and cultural expectations of that time and place than it tells us about the nature of God revealed to us in Scripture, or as a Christian, in Jesus Christ.  Perhaps this story is a reflection on a God that calls God's people to a different way of life, that removes children from altars instead of killing children on them. 
6. Jewish theologians have grappled with this text for centuries and have approached this story from pretty much all conceivable angles.  Some thinkers involve Satan in the story, others theorize that Isaac was actually sacrificed, some state that it was an angel and not God that called for Abraham to stop, while others see God's testing of Abraham as punishment for his rejection of Ishmael.  There's even one Jewish interpreter who concluded "that Abraham offered up Isaac as a burnt sacrifice, and subsequently God transported Isaac's ashes to the Garden of Eden, where the dew 'reconstituted' Isaac." (A Journey Through the Hebrew Scriptures, pg. 172-173)  When I learned in seminary that there were numerous interpretations of this story, I was encouraged by the freedom to have a conversation with the text.  This is something I am still challenged and inspired by.  I am by no means an advocate of excising difficult and even horrific stories from Scripture - the world is a difficult and often horrific place.  As much as it is the inspired Word of God, Scripture is also a reflection of human life and death, including in this instance the reality of human sacrifice in Abraham's time. 

Next week (or maybe later this week, if time allows), I'll look at how this story intersects with our faith in Jesus and how this relates to a concept of God's "call".

Thanks for reading!

Wes

A Reflection on Genesis 12:9

Genesis 12:9 - "And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb."

     The story of Abram seems to begin pretty abruptly.  We see some biographical details at the end of chapter 11.  He is Terah's son, married to Sarai, Lot's uncle, and hails from Ur of the Chaldeans.  Ur was an important Sumerian city-state which was located in what is modern-day Iraq.  We are given very little in the way of biographical information.  Over the next few chapters, we begin to fill in the blanks about who Abram actually is - liar, scoffer, quasi-adulterer, doubter.  He's also faithful to God to an extreme degree, nearly sacrificing his son before God intervenes at the very last moment.  This story, by the way, is LOADED with meaning and depth. 

     There is not much that explains why God would choose this person as opposed to any other person.  And this is encouraging to me as it relates to God's call on my life.  Who am I that God would call me?  The answer: it's not about me.  It's about God.  It wasn't about Abram or David or Noah or Jacob either - it's about God.  And there's something in me that resists this truth.  I want it to be about "great people".  I want heroes and heroines.  I want people occupying the pedestal of "greatness".  But that's not how life works, really.  Jesus wasn't joking when he said that only God is good. 

     As I grow in faith and experience, the more this makes sense to me and the more admirable it becomes when people actually make morally courageous choices that require sacrifice.  And it relieves me of the notion that people that I admire are perfect.  They are not.  As a minister, I find myself being less and less surprised by the messiness of people's lives.  I'm beginning to find it refreshing when people are honest with themselves and with others about their struggles, failures, and disappointments.  Self-righteousness is a complete fabrication and no one is more fooled than the self-righteous themselves. 

     I'd like to think that Abram was not self-righteous.  We're not given much to go on as far as his personality, but he strikes me as a fairly humble guy.  My memory may be failing me on this point, but I can't recall any instance where Abram used his call by God to his own advantage.  Abram strikes me as a complicated individual, conflicted about what God is calling him to do, faithful in fits and starts.  He journeyed on by stages indeed. 

     I've always loved that phrase, for some reason.  "And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb."  There's something poetic about it, it seems cinematic to me.  I imagine a vignette of Abram's travels, his "stages", as he makes his way from Ur (on the Euphrates near what we know as the Persian Gulf - a place that in Abram's day would have produced abundant crops) to the Negeb (or Negev), a desert region south of Jerusalem.  From the riverside to the desert.  From home to a foreign land.  From the known to the unknown.  Yep, this sounds like a call from God. 

     My life, like yours I'd wager, has been a journey by stages also.  Not as dramatic or important as Abram's, obviously, but one defined by God leading me to this place and then to this place and then to this place and then to places that seemed an awful lot like  a desert.  I never had to lie to a Pharaoh nor has God promised me a child in my old age (at least not yet), but I've done my own share of traveling and made my mistakes...and still making my mistakes.  Thankfully, God is forgiving.  As is my wife. 

     My call is nowhere near as daunting or massive as God's covenant call of Abram - and for that I'm also thankful.  But God calls us and we go on our own journeys by stages.  At each stage, God is with us - teaching us, leading us, at times cleaning up after us, chastising us and calling us to repentance.  All the while whispering, shouting, reminding - I have called you by name, you are mine.  So be it with me, God, so be it with me.  

Noah and God's Call

I'm going to use Noah as a jumping off point, because to be honest, Noah's story isn't necessarily focused on call.  We don't see Noah argue or struggle - that comes after the flood.   Like the rest of the book, especially the first 11 chapters, the Noah story is weird.  The story raises all kinds of questions about God, sin, judgment - not to mention questions about the mythic nature of the story and the correlation between the Biblical flood narrative and stories we find in other Near Eastern traditions.  I'm not going to get into that here.  But, I do think that in the Noah we've got a starting point in talking about the concept of "call". 

The "Call" is Ecclesiological

I learned a lot of interesting little Biblical or theological "tidbits" in seminary.  These are fun to drop into Bible studies or sermons on occasion.  I guess you could see these as little sound bites that occasionally help when you reference them in a sermon or lesson.  One of my favorites is the meaning of the word ekklesia, the Greek word we translate as "church".   The word is a combination of two Greek words: "ek" which means "out of" and a form of the verb "kaleo" which means "to call".  "Ekklesia" literally means "the ones called out".  The word originally referred to the assembly of ancient Athens, basically a council of leaders chosen from among the people.  These would be people called out by their fellow citizens in order to lead.  The church are those who are called out of the world.  These are people called out of the world by God in order to serve. 

We can also bring the Hebrew word "kadash" into the conversation.  "Kadash" can be translated as holy, set apart, sanctified.  There's this idea of separateness  or set-apartness that's at work here.  The word at times refers to God, to places of worship, things consecrated as sacred, persons connected to those sacred places, times of worship, etc.  I think that it might be beneficial for Christians if we recognized that one aspect of holiness is being weird.  I love Flannery O'Connor's quote: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd."

God's call is not just for ministers or leaders or missionaries or any particular individuals.  God does indeed call specific people to specific tasks.  But God's call is primarily for the entire Church.  All are called.  Pastors cannot claim any exclusive privilege here.  God calls all of us to serve.  I have seen pastors use their supposed status as "called" as a way to abuse their power and position.  Yeah, if you're doing that, get over yourself and repent.  While God indeed calls and equips some to leadership, God's call is not the exclusive possession of a privileged few.  And for Christians, God calls us to humility and service - not dominance and arrogance.  *Hops off soapbox*

Back to Noah…

It's a common feature of our re-tellings of the Noah story to picture him in the middle of the desert, surrounded by incredulous and mocking neighbors.  My first exposure to this little editorial insertion was Bill Cosby's bit about Noah (btw, I love Noah's response at the 5:30 mark).  It's also a central feature of Bruce Almighty 2 and any number of Children's Bibles that I've read to my kids at bedtime.  While I like this little bit of interpretive license, the Bible doesn't tell us anything about Noah's neighbors, aside from them being wicked.  We see Noah separated, called out from the rest of the population because he was "a righteous man, blameless in his generation."  Noah was given the tremendous responsibility to be the head of the only surviving family on earth.  After the flood recedes, we see what is possibly the fallout of his set-apartness.  Noah is suddenly not so blameless and righteous when his son finds him passed out drunk and naked in his tent. 

Anyway, we might learn a couple of things about the concept of "call" from Noah:

1. God calls people out of the world to serve and to be set apart.  This does not simply apply to individuals, but to the Church.  The Church is God's called community of saints who, through the redemption given through Christ, are made righteous and blameless by God's grace.

2. The "call" costs the called.  Noah had to do something that radically changed his life.  It cost him a great deal, if we judge by his state following the flood.  God doesn't call us to complacency or remaining where we are.  We've got work to do.

3. God calls us to be servants and followers of Christ.  This makes us fundamentally different from those who do not follow after Jesus Christ.  Our task is not to judge or use our separateness as an opportunity for self-righteousness, but to lead others away from the floods of sin, apathy, addictions, anger, despair, etc. 
4. I'm stretching for this one - but it's ok to be weird.  It's ok if what we do doesn't fit into any of the boxes our culture(s) provide for us.  Even if the culture in question is a church culture.  Noah did not come from a long line of ark-builders. 

Ok guys - next week I'm going to look at Abraham, which I think will have a little more to chew on as it relates to call.  I hope that God's grace and peace will be with all of you!

Wes

Reflections on Call - Intro

 One of my favorite parts of my vocation is seeing new faces coming into ministry - hearing new voices and new stories.  The word "call" is used a lot, especially in those committees that are tasked with approving candidates for ministry.  We often ask candidates to articulate their call and this question often gives them pause.  They usually provide fine answers, but you can see the wheels turning as they seek to give voice to exactly why they want to do the work of ministry.   It can be a hard question to answer and even now, 20 years after hearing God calling me into the ministry, I still grapple at times with the exact shape of what God has called me to do.

One particular focal point of our conference and something that I've heard our Bishop state on several occasions is the "culture of call".  How do we talk to our parishoners (especially our young people) about God's call?  What do we mean when we use that word?  What exactly is a "culture of call"?  I'll admit that while I've given much thought and prayer to God's call in my life, I have not really examined the concept of "call" itself.  I've heard it and used it quite uncritically as long as vocational ministry has been a reality in my life.  I simply haven't given it much thought.  I'm thinking some theological reflection might be beneficial.  Over the next few weeks (maybe months), my hope is to "think out loud" on this blog and spend some time thinking about what it means to be "called"(this rambling post will serve as an "introduction" of sorts).

In thinking about the concept of "call", I do want to make an important distinction.  I believe that people are called to vocations and ways of living and not only to ministry.  However, in these posts I'm going to focus on the call to ministry as I've experienced it and observed it in others.  Our starting point will be Scripture - a good place to start, I think. 

The first "real" entry will look at three call stories from Genesis: Noah, Abraham, and Jacob.  These three stories are good entry points to talk about what "call" might look like in the Old Testament.  Over the next few weeks, I hope to look at Moses, Gideon, Samuel, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.  After these, I plan to move in the New Testament, focusing on Jesus' mission, his teachings that might relate to call, and then finishing with Saul/Paul.  That's what's on the immediate horizon…

I have had a history of starting something on my blog and then not blogging for 2 years.  I hope that this won't be the case this time…

If you're reading this, thanks!  Glad you're here! 

Grace and Peace,

Wes 

What God is Not

     Checking the date on my last blog post, it's been over 18 months since my last post.  I guess I'm not exactly the model of blogging consistency.  I have been pondering over the course of the summer about finding more time to write.  Or making time to write.  At this point in time in my ministry and in my life with my family, writing theological and Scriptural reflections on this forum is a discipline.  This is a good thing and it's a good thing for me to attempt to do.  And here on the cusp of our summer vacation, it's as good a time as any to put something new up.  I can't guarantee that it won't be another 18 months until I write something new, but I'll make the effort to post with more regularity once we return from the beach.

     One of my favorite thinkers from my Church History class in seminary was a fellow by the name of Pseudo-Dionysus (Denys, for short; pronounced "Dennis"), who wrote in the late 5th/early 6th century.  What I remember about Denys was the interesting nature of his theology.  Denys engaged in what is called "apophatic" theology, or theology of negation.  Apophatic theology starts by stating what God is not instead of saying what God is.  Denys argued that since the adjectives and metaphors that we use to describe God are all completely insufficient, we must talk about what God is not.  So it is appropriate to say that God is not good.  This sounds jarring at first until you understand that Denys is not describing God, but rather our understanding of what "good" means.  God is not good in the way that we mean "good" because our view of the good is limited by our own fallibility and finitude.  Eventually, Denys concluded that, when it comes to God, we are ultimately left in silence.  There is nothing that we can say of God that actually accurately describes God.  God is ultimately beyond our intellectual and linguistic grasp.  Kind of reminds me of Elijah in I Kings 19:11-13 - a story worth your time to look up and read.

     As a Christian and as a pastor, Denys is a reminder to be careful about the words I speak.  Especially when I speak about God.  Of course, I cannot completely follow Denys' proscription to remain silent about God.  I must speak, for any number of reasons.  And while the apophatic approach may be well-suited for meditation and theological speculation, it makes for pretty lousy proclamation and evangelism.  So I speak, but (hopefully) with care.  And I take the time to be silent, to reflect, to rest in the mystery of the God I serve and proclaim.  This particular discipline can be a challenge for me.  I'm easily distracted and always looking for pieces and tidbits for lessons and sermons.  It's difficult at times to simply let a reflection or thought remain in my mind or my soul.  The apophatic approach reminds me that I don't necessarily have to speak all I know (or think I know) and not every lesson God teaches me is for public proclamation.

"Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips." --- Psalm 141:3


Just some scattered thoughts on the cusp of the weekend.  Grace and peace to all of you!

Wes