One Shepherd, One Flock: Jesus on the Foolishness of Prejudice

Text: John 10:11-18

One of the earliest things we learn is how to tell things apart. This begins long before we ever step into a classroom, before Kindergarten or any kind standardized testing. We learn easy things first: this is mom and this is dad; this is red, this is blue; this is cold, this is hot. We need to know these things to stay safe, and just to get by in the world. You need to understand how thing A is different from thing B in order to understand anything particular about things A or B. Then, as we get older the distinctions grow wider and wider. By the time we are adults there seem to be infinite variations on a theme. Creativity is born out of seeing these distinct possibilities. In one famous—perhaps apocryphal—story, Abraham Lincoln once tried to close the US patent office because he believed everything that could be invented had been invented. The following 150 years have told a very different story.

            Making distinctions is crucial to invention, safety and critical thinking, so we tend to think categories are universally good. However, there are limits to their helpfulness. On moral issues, making distinctions can be downright tricky: what is right or wrong, “good” or “bad?” In making distinctions of judgment we need to be careful that we don’t confuse our view of a thing with ultimate truth. It’s one thing to argue over the greatness of sports team but quite another to caricature based on race, gender, or religious beliefs. For instance, we may call a warm day “good” or a blizzard “bad,” but that is a very different judgment than to have positive thoughts about a woman because of her race, or negative thoughts about a man because of his beliefs.

            Jesus gives us a cautionary example in talking about the Good Shepherd. Who is the Good Shepherd? The one who guards the sheep, but also the one who does not make distinctions within the flock. Jesus is the shepherd who protects and saves every sheep. And more to the point, Jesus values his own life only to the extent that he is willing to give it up for the sake of the flock. The sheep are all the same. One shepherd, one flock; and the flock is broader than you might think. Jesus says that he has other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These are not “white” sheep or “black” sheep; they are just sheep. No divisions, nothing to make them distinct. Sheep alone.

            In fact, in the entirety of this John 10 account, sheep are never mentioned in the singular. Never once does Jesus separate us into individuals who receive according to our own goodness or badness. We are anonymous but communal.

            It is we who have made all sorts of suggestions about who is worthy to be a member of the flock. It is we who have taken all manner of stances about a person’s “goodness” or “badness.” These may very well be necessary judgments to keep us safe, but Jesus isn’t talking about life as it is down here. He is talking about life as it one day will be; he is talking about not just an ideal but a reality beyond the veil of our lives.

            Jesus names a reality—he is the Good Shepherd, we are sheep—and he doesn’t care if we are big sheep or little sheep, ugly sheep or pretty sheep, sheep that are black or white, male or female, rich or poor.

            The kingdom of God rejects distinctions, because our primary identity is the body of Christ; not our names, not our memories, not our relationships or our identities.

            So if we believe this is true—that the kingdom of God rejects distinctions, things that separate us from one another, traits that we consciously or unconsciously consider “good” or “bad”—if the kingdom of God is a place where we are united as one flock—one body—then we do a poor job whenever we take sides down here. Our prejudice may take many forms. It may be biases along racial, gender, or class lines, but it is not only these. Anytime we believe ourselves to be of innately greater worth to God than another person we puff ourselves up as if trying to show the Good Shepherd that we’re the bigger sheep.

Notice, please, that Jesus doesn’t care.

This past week the Washington Capitols eliminated the Boston Bruins in game 7 of their opening round series in the Stanley Cup playoffs on a goal by Joel Ward, a forward who happens to be a black man playing a predominantly white man’s game. Within minutes, Twitter had erupted with racially charged epithets aimed at Ward.

It’s easy to condemn the people behind the tweets, and rightfully so. They displayed their ignorance, and worse still some of them remain defensive of their posts, trying to justify that “everyone was saying the same thing.” But behind the vulgarity, there is something in this circumstance that tells us about how we see the world. All of us distinguish between “us” and “them.” Why is it that the first gut reaction we have to Ward is that he is a black man? Because he is a minority in that sport? Perhaps. Nobody, as far as I know, mocked Ward for being from Ontario, or for his stocky build, or for wearing the number “42”. Instead, they saw two things—he plays for the opposing team and he’s black—and from those two details they were armed with enough previously learned prejudice to say some awful things. We all have our own categories for “us” and “them”. It is our associations with a thing—in this case, race and sports team affiliation—that cause us to fall off the boat.

This is important for us because we tend to ascribe to Jesus the same kinds of biases we feel ourselves. Isn’t it funny how the Jesus we believe in dislikes the same people we dislike? The reality, however, is that Jesus defies making even the simplest distinctions. Jew or Greek? Slave or free? Male or female? Neither, says Jesus. Why? Because those things we have created to separate one person from another are not applicable to the kingdom of God. Jesus doesn’t care if you are black or white, athletic or uncoordinated. That much should be obvious.

But what should also be obvious is that we do the kingdom of God a serious disservice when we continue to form judgments based on these arbitrary characteristics. If you think less of a person because they are short or tall, skinny or fat, old or young, black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, or because they are a man or a woman, then how can you have any hope of experiencing hints of God’s kingdom on earth?

Jesus came to break down those walls that separate us one from another, and Jesus died for you and for me and for all of us that can’t help but continue to make distinctions between those things that are good and those things that are bad. Jesus, thankfully, doesn’t care. We are his flock—one flock, one shepherd.

Cycling in the city versus cycling in the country: Pros and Cons

So after watching the video going around today of the two guys who get run over by a car while cycling in Berkeley, I found myself thinking first of all that I really need to get a camera mounted to my bike and secondly, that I am rather glad to be able to cycle in the country. Then I got to thinking about the pros and cons, having come from city cycling and now moving out to where the roads are long and the stoplights few. The result is this blog post.

Cycling in the city vs the country

#1) Distance/Proximity
Advantage: City 
While riding in the city it feels like you're actually getting somewhere. With everything so close together in Minneapolis and St. Paul you can bike distances in practically the same amount of time you can drive them in rush hour traffic, which means it feels like you're achieving a monumental feat. Meanwhile, out here in the country, I can bike for miles and miles and not much looks different, just more farmland. The nearest fun place to bike, Lake Bronson, is a 35 mile round trip.

#2) Speed
Advantage: Country
Stop signs are just horrible monstrosities for cyclists. OK, I understand the whining from some motorists who see cyclists as the constant bane of their existence--even if the whining often far exceeds the crime. I believe strongly in the Idaho stop (slowing down to a safe speed and stopping if necessary but otherwise treating the "Stop" like a yield), even if it's only legal in, well, Idaho. But thankfully, out in the country I don't even need to think about running a Stop sign--not when I can go on a 30+ mile ride with exactly one stop in town.

--As an aside, I once had a car purposely run me off the road when I was probably 16 or 17 years old and yell at me for running a Stop sign. Not quite believing that that just happened, I didn't even think to get his license number. Now, if a guy did that today I would happily call the police, admit to running a Stop sign and pay the fine in turn to press charges against the driver. Fair warning.--

#3) Terrain
Advantage: Push
It depends really on the day. Most days I like the rolling hills of the Twin Cities over the complete and utter flat-ness of what was once Lake Agassiz in northern Minnesota, but it's really hard to complain about the speeds I can reach also because of the plain. I like to climb, but going fast is kind of the name of the game, as well.

#5) Wind
Advantage: City
It's not even close. The big problem with cycling out here is the fact that you really need to check the wind before ever heading out. There are days where you could make a serious mistake biking 8 miles out of town and then turning around only to find a 25-30 mph wind in your face. Now that would be an awful ride home. It's not that the wind doesn't blow so much less in the Cities, but you sure don't feel it as much! All you need to do is ride by a grove of trees up here to realize how much cover matters!

#6) Motivation
Advantage: City
There isn't a day during the sumer in the Twin Cities where you can't find a group ride leaving from an Erik's Bike Shop or run into a few motivated peddlers around Lake Minnetonka, and there is simply nothing like having a group for motivation. There's also nothing like a few people in front of you to break the wind :-) The best ride I ever experienced was with a group from the Minnetonka Erik's. We covered 35 miles of rolling hills with one significant climb at a 22 mph pace, easily the fastest I've ever ridden a bike under any circumstances.

#7) Safety
Advantage: Country
This is something of a double-edged sword, but the Berkeley video basically hits all the main points. Some city drivers simply have it out for cyclists--others are just distracted. Either way, I've had many close calls while riding in the city. I've had a couple occasions that were in fact my fault, because there are just so many moments of having to keep the guard up. Every little path coming out may contain a pedestrian and every car could veer in your direction. Cyclists are kind of small compared to a car if you haven't noticed.

This is not to say that country cycling is without its own risks. There often is no shoulder (or an 18-inch shoulder), so I am completely reliant on cars seeing me. Moreover, vehicles are moving faster--often much faster--and a run-in with one of them would be truly disastrous. But with that said, I've found that 99% of cars actually move over into the passing lanes, and I've never had a close call yet on these wide-open roads where motorists can literally see me from a mile away.

#8) General Enjoyment
Advantage: Push
Honestly, it really doesn't much matter. I will ride either way. There are fewer days when I can ride in northern Minnesota due to the weather and the wind, which stinks, but I'm riding longer and faster--can't complain about that. When I was back in the Cities I rode and it was fun in a different way. Either way, it's all good.

The church and marriage--A strange cohabitation

In the 1600s a man named Roger Williams changed the way that we think about government today. A Puritan minister, Williams learned at the hand of Edward Coke, the prominent English lawyer who famously penned The Institutes of the Lawes of England, and also said (perhaps more famously to those outside of the legal world), "An Englishman's home is his castle." Coke would go on to redefine law as we know it today, creating in part how we understand habeas corpus, while Williams would walk a challenging path that would take him to the new world and back.

I just finished reading John M. Barry's Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul, so these thoughts are fresh in my head. I can't imagine a more critical figure to engage on the issues that we face today than Williams, who was faced with an understanding of church and government that was inextricably linked and who managed to courageously shine light on the fatal flaws in that system. He was a man fully of his time with ideas that nonetheless project far into the future. (A quick word on Barry's book: It is a stunning read, very engaging and perhaps the best history book I've ever stumbled upon. So go read it and judge the conclusions for yourself.)

Now, let's get back to the question at hand. No issue more entangles the church and the civil government in our day than the question of marriage. Historically speaking, the church catholic has judged that a man and woman should be joined together in marriage to their mutual benefit, joy and love, reflecting the tradition of couple-hood that emerged from the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve. One man, one woman. Nevertheless, the biblical witness at times allowed--and even blessed--levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10), polygamy (numerous, i.e. Genesis 30:4-9), marriage with prisoners of war (Numbers 31), and slave marriage (Exodus 21:1-6) to name a few.

The church, however, has focused mainly on the one man-one woman marriage dynamic, even playing a direct and influential role in the religious and civil ceremonies that bring these two together. In doing so, the church has made an ethical and theological statement about who should be participating in the marriage covenant. This much is obvious. But in deciding who can and cannot be married, the church has also made a statement on civil law. Marriage ceremonies put on by the church without a license from the state are null and void. In spite of the ethical and/or theological stance of the pastor, congregation or church body performing a wedding ceremony, the marriage itself requires the state.

Roger Williams would be especially unnerved right about now.

You see, Williams was as devout a Puritan as you would find. In fact, he believed so strongly in keeping the purity of the church that he considered it abhorrent to conflate the religious institutions with the civil government. He believed very strongly that God's will was not justification for a particular form of governmental rule and that history has shown that God does not bless certain theocracies over others--not, in the very least, through political power and earthly blessing. Williams believed all this not in spite of his faith but because of it. He believed that to bring together the church and the state would inevitably corrupt the fabric of the body of Christ of which the church serves as the visible extension on earth.

The modern litmus test for this church-state confrontation stands before us in Minnesota in the form of a marriage amendment. Church bodies and lobbying groups sound identical in their myriad statements. I have received nearly a dozen pamphlets, statements of concern and invitations to conferences in the mail from various organizations representing both the church and civil institutions in an attempt to sway my flock and myself on this issue. And today I confess myself chilled by what my church is doing. You see, I am not just a pastor in the ELCA, concerned by the statements I hear within our ranks, but I am also a member of the church catholic that seems to be talking more and more about the sanctity of marriage and the necessity of the church's role in the political sphere. I am uneasy because I see the church attempting to exert itself in the civil realm to the detriment of everything I believe the church to be.

We can only corrupt the religious realm when we enter into the area of civil law. I believe this as strongly as Roger Williams did in his day. When the church enters the political realm it tends to act offensively rather than gracefully, it tends to profess rather than confess, it tends to preach conformity to God's will rather than God's mercy, it tends to concern itself with keeping the world tidy instead of trusting that God works through the mysterious complexity of creation. When the church and the state mix, the civil governments tends to absorb the church and not the other way around. This is the danger before us today.

Now, don't get me wrong. The church is called to preach against injustice, to call upon others to act in the face hatred, and to call a thing what it is--sin is sin, grace is grace, love is love. But this is to be done outside of the political sphere, certainly not through it.

So go out and vote on a marriage amendment as an individual concerned with the civil law, and by all means let your religious convictions inform that decision, but please--for the love of God--keep my church out of it. We will make no stand, no statement, take no position on the civil matter of the law and instead we will preach Christ crucified and risen, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

Casper the friendly Jesus?

The following are six steps to make a successful cable television show.

            Step 1: Find some people with eccentric personalities.

            Step 2: Make sure they have no qualms with making themselves look like fools on national television.

            Step 3: Give them state-of-the-art lasers, microphones, television cameras, gizmos with acronyms, and computers.

            Then to really put it over the top…

            Step 4: Have them search for ghosts, spirits, Bigfoot, monsters, demons, or aliens.

            Step 5: Use the words “paranormal,” “ghost” or “spirit” at a minimum of every 17 seconds.

            Step 6: Call your show “Ghost Hunters,” “Ghost Lab,” “A Haunting,” “Psychic and Paranormal,” “Monster Quest” or a dozen other titles that give clear indication of your angle.

Proceed to rake in the viewers.

If you’ve ever watched Discovery Channel, History Channel, A&E, or even Animal Planet, not to mention the SciFy Channel—especially on Monday mornings when you have a Sabbath and would really like to enjoy something with a little bit of substance—you will inevitably find some show about spirits, mediums, ghosts, or some other form of the boogeyman. What gives?

We are fascinated by ghosts. Whether it’s Casper, that green blob from Ghostbusters or Nearly-Headless Nick, every generation has their pop culture phantoms and ghouls. So, we can hardly be surprised that when Jesus is raised from the dead the first thing everybody thinks is: “He’s a ghost!” This is why Luke has to go to such extreme lengths to demonstrate that—no—this is Jesus in the flesh. Look, he’s eating a fish. No, seriously, a fish that was just swimming in the sea and now Jesus is putting it in his mouth and chewing. Spirits don't do that; ipso facto, flesh not spirit.

People actually have little problem accepting a ghost. In spite of the sometimes ridiculous shows on television, we live in a world that very much accepts the reality of spirits, angels and—indeed—ghosts. It’s more than just Bill Murray in a ridiculous half-astronaut-looking suit, theme music blaring. We’re OK with ghosts. A recent CBS poll showed that over half of Americans believe in ghosts.

But here’s the thing: Jesus wasn’t OK with us believing him to be a ghost. For too long we’ve fed into this idea that what awaits us after our lives is some kind of spiritual resurrection. Whether ghosts or guardian angels, we have suggested to our children and to ourselves that after death we spend time hanging around this world or floating in heaven. We have suggested that we have an immortal soul that will separate from this junk of a body in death and proceed to everlasting life. Jesus should put us in our place.

This is a difficult subject to broach because the belief in the immortality of the soul is so widespread that I can hardly talk about it without rattling some people’s cages. But—here’s the important part as far as I’m concerned—the idea of ghosts and guardian angels is not in itself incorrect; it is simply looking at Christ’s resurrection from the wrong viewpoint. When we think of ghosts and guardian angels we assume that they have left behind this physical reality and entered into a spiritual realm, when in fact the promise we have is that when the last trumpet sounds and we put on our resurrection body we will enter a new creation that is physical in a way that our lives now can never be. Instead of becoming more spiritual, in death we become more physical. We enter a realm of the physical of which we experience only a shadow here.

This is the spirit world. This is the world that lives by false pretenses; a world limited by our inability to see things as they truly are. So, when Jesus appears in front of us we instinctively think, “Ghost! He’s a ghost!" And like the disciples on the boat when the storm was raging we become more fearful, but Jesus, being much more than a ghost, walks up to us, and you know what he does? He grabs a fish and starts munching on it, and in-so-doing he obliterates our misconceptions. Jesus is fully human—a fully physical being—and in his resurrection we are shown our own path.

We have fallen in love with ghosts for all the wrong reasons. We have fallen in love with the idea of beings that are not physical but ethereal; we have looked for spirits with Ouija boards, psychics and mediums. We have subverted the idea of a physical resurrection to an afterthought, concerned only with a spiritual regeneration and renewal that comes about after death.

We can see the reality of death; we can feel it, taste it, touch it. We can experience the hurt of being left behind in its wake. Each and every one of us knows what it’s like to lose something. We all search for the assurance that they are still with us, and in our haste we turn to the spiritual realm. It’s the most natural thing in the world. But Jesus has a promise for you that puts the ghosts in their place. He doesn’t tell us that ghosts and angels are not real. He doesn’t tell us that they can’t be with us as we go about our lives. Instead, Jesus comes to the disciples, grabs a fish and starts eating. That is what resurrection looks like—not a ghost, not a spirit, but flesh and blood.

So what are ghosts? What are guardian angels?

If I had to guess, nothing more or less than the resurrected versions of ourselves; physical creatures that we in this spiritual world experience as without form. If a shadow had a mind it would look at the person who made it and think that person was a strange being, so in this way we are shadows of the resurrection, people separated from our true selves awaiting us on the far side of death.

In this way, our fascination with ghosts has nothing to do spirits; in fact, it is quite the opposite. A resurrection worldview turns everything upside down. Christ didn’t become fully human in birth; he became fully human in death. And when on the third day he rose from the dead he demonstrated to us that nothing will separate us from the love of God. No spirit can stand in our way, because the spiritual and physical have become one in Christ.

 The promise we have—the only promise we can count on—is that at the end of this life we will walk the path that Christ walked. We will die and then, against everything we experience in this life, we will rise. Only then will we realize that our life down here is much more ghostly than anything after death. The real creation awaits us on the far side.

A Theology of First Third of Life Ministry Statement

The following statement was adopted as a guiding principle by the councils of Grace and Red River Lutheran Church at their respective April council meetings.

A Theology of First Third of Life Ministry

Why do we need a statement specific to the first third of life?

From birth into our mid-thirties we undergo a series of changes. During these stages of life we discover more about the world around us and our perspective changes, as we discover other people our relationships change, as we grow our bodies, minds and spirits change. Children born into the church move with rapid succession from Baptism, to Sunday School, to Confirmation, Junior High and Senior High youth group, often off to college or the working world, and into new families with kids of their own all within the first third of their life. This, and every church body, has a significant challenge in ministering to all those along that spectrum, treating everybody as members in equal standing of the body of Christ, and honoring the unique perspective that young people bring.

Why we value our children’s ministry...

We value Holy Baptism and teaching the faith—both in Sunday School and in the home. We remember that Jesus said that children will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:1-5) and Jeremiah was only a child when he was called by God (Jeremiah 1). We believe that the Holy Spirit comes to us in Baptism, regardless of our age or wisdom, and is fully capable of working through all in mysterious ways. We know that children often do not hear the Gospel in their daily lives. Instead, they are given a message of self-importance rather than self-sacrifice and taught to hoard rather than to share. So, we understand the critical nature of this ministry. We recognize that children are not just the future but the present of our church and so we desire to renew our focus on children’s ministry.

Why we value youth ministry…

We value teaching the faith through Confirmation, service through mission, and opportunities for the participation of youth in worship and service within the life of church. We look to provide a unique space of safety and comfort to young people in the midst of a world that often feels anything but. Remembering that the church has been led faithfully by those who are young (1 Timothy 4:12) we expect and encourage youth participation and leadership in myriad aspects of church life. Since young people are affected more by their peers than at any other time in their lives, we recognize that youth ministry is more than events run by adults for young people. It is relationship-building. It is a culture that offers something unique to the youth of our congregation and our community; it is a culture that allows for questioning, for safety, and for the inclusion of all. We recognize that youth are not just the future but the present of our church and so we desire to renew our focus on youth ministry.

Why we value young adult and young family ministries…

We value growing in faith through the life changes of young adulthood. Though it feels like young adults are largely absent in our community, we recognize that this is not universally true and it is no excuse to fail in offering ministry opportunities to those who are here. We believe that our young families are the heart of our congregation and without them there is no potential for future stability or growth. Moreover, we recognize that young adults and families are not just the future but the present of our church and so we desire to renew our focus on young adult and family ministries.

A Resolution on Leadership in First Third of Life Ministry

Given the above, we—the Youth and Christian Education Committees at Grace-Red River Lutheran Parish, the current youth leadership, and Pastor Frank Johnson—believe that leadership in first third of life ministries needs to be taken seriously. Therefore, we bring to the councils of Grace and Red River Lutheran Churches the following resolution:

Be it resolved that we, the councils of Grace-Red River Parish, as representatives of our congregations and the entire Christian church, wish to support our young people in words as well as action. We pledge to pray for them, to offer them a space to grow in their faith as members in equal standing in the body of Christ, and to provide and equip the leadership necessary to make that happen. Be it further resolved that we accept this document, “A Theology of First Third of Life Ministry” as a guiding principle to draw upon, to pray over, and to aid in our decision-making for the good of the young people in our midst and the wholeness of our church to the glory of God through Jesus Christ.

Big Questions: A Sermon on 1 John 1-2:2

I have a friend who was preparing to move back to his hometown of Minneapolis after college and a long trip abroad when he sent me a message asking for some advice. Now, this was not the normal moving questions—where’s a good place to eat, do you people up there really eat lutefisk—none of that. You see, my friend is Mormon, and he was preparing to come back to the Twin Cities with his Mormon family who had never lived anywhere but Utah. He had spent time doing mission work in Russia, finishing up school and, before returning home, he wanted to know some things about Lutherans, because, well, there’s a lot of us in Minnesota. Particularly, he wanted to know about salvation. 

What do Lutherans believe about salvation?

I told him we believe that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works of the law. We believe that Christ gives us the gift of faith in baptism, so we baptize infants, as well as adults, as a sign that it is not our will that matters but God’s will for us.

My friend read what I wrote carefully and responded with the question I have so often heard: “So… what’s the bare minimum that a person must do to achieve salvation?”

Isn’t that the question? In fact, it’s such a great question that I’m going to let it simmer for a minute, and turn to 1 John to find an answer. And 1 John 1-2:2 suggest two things.

1) We tend to do the wrong things

2) It would be nice if we didn’t do the wrong things, but when we do we have a God willing to forgive us.

I quote, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all….[and] if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:5, 7a).

Apparently, what we do matters. We can stumble through the darkness of this life, but it is an existence apart from God, not knowing God; in fact, denying God. Life without God is dark and sinister; we recognize people who live in that place, without hope not just for a future beyond this life but also for anything much to come of their time on earth. Depression and despair separate us from the light of the world. Somehow we have to find what it means to live life through Jesus-colored glasses.

So, I return to my friend’s question, “What’s the minimum a person has to do to know that they are saved?” I responded, in good Lutheran fashion, that we Lutherans dislike the word “do” when it comes to salvation; we don’t believe that we do anything, but it is Christ who does the saving work through us. I say that a lot—and honestly, I believe it very strongly—but I can see the worry my friend has with this approach. Why, then, are we here at all? What is the purpose of life if not to find salvation through Jesus Christ? It seems like a loving God would just skip this whole life on earth and push the divine fast-forward button and shoot us into heaven, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. These are the real questions, aren’t they? But 1 John also offers a peak at the answer.  

Why are we here?

We’re here to discover what it means to walk in the light, to find fellowship with one another, to discover our own unworthiness (what we often call “sin”), and then to discover that we have an Advocate in Christ Jesus who is going to save us nonetheless.

But it’s more than that. When God created the world he created everything

“good”—I hope you remember this from the creation story, after every day God saw that each and every created thing was good. We went and messed all that up, but underneath our patina of unworthiness there is something in our nature that was created good. I believe we’re here on this planet because it is fundamentally “good”—even if our experience of it is often not. All of creation is broken, but it is all subject to Christ. Therefore, all of creation is dying, but when Christ died a funny thing happened. Three days later, he came back.

Resurrection is at the heart of the Christian faith. One of the Confirmation students on their sermon notes from last week asked me the following question:

“If Christ was resurrected does that mean we will be resurrected, too?”  

Yes! That is the big picture. Paul writes in Romans, “If we are united with Christ in a death like his, surely we will also be united with him in a resurrection like his” (6:5). We spend a lot of time trying to escape this world, trying to search out heaven as if it is some distant and foreign place, when heaven lies right before our eyes; always an instant in front of us. When we walk in the light we walk in that reality; in that knowledge. See, walking in the darkness is not only an image for doing bad things; it is also—I think, primarily—an image for a life with no greater purpose.

I was once asked by another friend—an atheist:

"Why do you believe in God?" 

When most people ask this question I tell them something about Jesus, but I knew he had heard that before, and his question was not about faith but about reason. So I answered differently. Hardly even thinking about it, I said, “I believe in God because of my sin; because I believe that things in this world matter and I’m not worthy to fix them.”

Somehow, I had stumbled on exactly 1 John’s point. The only way you can believe in Christ is to believe that you are not worthy. We try to make ourselves into God, but we only end up walking in darkness, trying desperately to believe that we are the perfect people we wish ourselves to be. But as 1 John reminds us, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1:8).

OK, let’s say you believe that much—and I realize that may sometimes be a stretch—but humor me for a minute. Let’s say you honestly believe that you are an imperfect person who cannot justify yourself apart from the grace of God. Let’s say you believe that Christ died on a cross for you and rose again on the third day. Let’s say you believe that God died to save all created things from a life without purpose; he did this not just for you, but your brothers and sisters, your friends and family, the people down the street, men and women and children throughout the country and the world who you will never meet and never know existed. Let’s say all this is true. Then let’s return to the big question of life's purpose--the question my Mormon friend asked, 

“Why do we live here at all? Why doesn’t Jesus just skip straight to the resurrection without the pain and suffering of this life?”

To this question we finally have a great, biblical answer. God’s will is always that we see things how they truly are. That’s what it means to walk in the light. It means to see that underneath all the suffering that we experience in this world there is something that God created and called “good,” and that all things called good are worthy of being resurrected; so worthy that in fact that in the end they will be resurrected with Christ into a life where the patina of sin will be washed away.

Staring out the window: Thoughts on patience, chess, and nature

"You must have a lot of patience."

I hear this a lot, mostly from folks who know I play chess and who find out that a chess game at standard time controls can sometimes take 4-6 hours or more. They assume that I have some supernatural ability to focus. Of course, for people who really know me, they know that this is far from the truth. In fact, I'm constantly moving, rarely able to stay on a single task for very long, and my mind is almost always on something else. In fact, I've found that chess is an activity that defies patience because the situation is always changing, the need to think and rethink constant; it's only those who don't understand the complexity that find themselves becoming impatient.

I was struck by this today as I visited with a lady at the assisted living. She is 92-years-old and when I walked up she was working on a puzzle, sitting in the place she most often sits and gazing out the window. At 92-years old, this is most of what she does. I think some of us stuck in the busy-ness of life find that image rather unsettling, perhaps even sad. We wish she could be doing something more productive. We wish that she could be of more use to society. But firstly, I have to point out that she's happy. And more important still, she sees things that most of us do not. Today, she remarked on very specific things--the claws of a robin, the blades of grass, the movement of the wind over a pond. She noticed these things because she had what we would call patience.

But what she has is not patience at all. Like me, she is constantly doing new and different things--puzzles and games--even at 92 years of age. It doesn't take patience for her to gaze out the window. Instead, it takes a mind capable and willing to see all the minute details of a scene that most people would consider mundane. I imagine anybody could look out that window and remark on five or six things about the scenery, but this lady could tell you hundreds, perhaps thousands of details; all because creation was to her an enormously complex symphony of beautiful things. It didn't come to her because she was patient; instead, as she noticed more and more, she was becoming a more active participant in all that surrounded her. What we may perceive as inactivity was anything but.

You see, most of us are amateurs--whether chess-players or nature viewers--but this lady is a professional. To describe what she does as being patient only works from our point of view. To her mind, she is being active, and it shows in her descriptions of what she sees. The same can be said for chess or art of any kind. The participant does not wait patiently but processes internally; all the while taking in details that others miss. Maybe patience isn't so much an art as it is by-product of good thinking.

Changing the rules: Easter thoughts on science and resurrection

            Easter has always been my favorite holiday. Always. Even well before I really knew what Easter was about. Yes, Christmas was great, but Easter had candy and trumpets, loud music and the Easter bunny. What a day! Then as I grew older, I realized Easter had something else that makes it so uniquely special: resurrection.

            There are virtually no examples of resurrection in our day-to-day lives. The fact that death contributes to new life does very little to make dead things any less dead. We might use the word “resurrection” to describe a comeback story or a near-death experience, but that’s not exactly the kind of resurrection we celebrate today. Christ didn’t have a near death experience, he didn’t fall off his horse and need to find his way again, he didn’t have a big comeback tour. No, he was resurrected—quite dead (three days’ worth of dead) and then very much alive.

            How can this be? our modern sensibilities ask. Nothing that is dead comes back to life; the definition of dead is that which has no life in it.

            This is the great clash of our age—between what is natural and what is supernatural, what is normal and what is exceptional; between what is explicable and inexplicable. We live in a time in history where more and more myth is being examined by science and found lacking. The case is being made day after day that the miraculous is either that which has yet to be explained by scientific theory, or a lie. More and more of what was mysterious is now becoming theory.

            The world of a few hundred years ago was frightening and random, now our world has become logical and explainable. Nowadays, we tend to believe that everything that happens in the universe can be understood with relatively simple rules. This is the basis for the scientific method. It is also the impetus behind Newton’s third law of motion: For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. And in just about every case this is true. The beauty of science is that it does not tolerate opinions, it seeks to test the way things work, and in doing so it assumes that things work the same every time.

            And that works for us—almost all the time—until we wander over to Jesus’ tomb and find the stone rolled away. Uh-oh. You see, God likes the game to have very standard rules, God likes that the world goes round in very straightforward ways. He has written very simple rules for the game. In fact, God rather likes that the rules of the game are so strict, because if the rules weren’t strict, if dead people occasionally did come back to life, then what happened to Jesus could just be chance—a big comeback, but not resurrection. Instead, in this one instance—this one miraculous moment—God takes those old, staid rules and turns them on their head. Resurrection does not trump science; instead, at this most crucial juncture it turns the rulebook upside down.

            This is part of the reason why I cringe at well-meaning Christians who bash various scientific pursuits, as if the Christian cause is a continual war on science. Nothing could be further from the truth. For resurrection to be something important—something that ultimately saves us—it must be something counter to the way that everything in the world generally works. Science promotes this kind of thinking. There is no scientific theory of resurrection; there never will be. It is a different game entirely.

            Look at the disciple Thomas, who couldn’t believe until he put his fingers in the holes in Jesus’ hands. He was being a good scientist, waiting on observation and experimentation; he was trying to make resurrection fit into the rules of the game. But when he finally met Jesus face-to-face the need for proof became immaterial. He doesn’t even need to put his fingers in the wrists.

Resurrection has that effect on people.

Resurrection is the miracle that goes with us in our daily lives. Any small miracle you experience, any small response to prayer that you receive, will be a resurrection miracle—God changing the rules of the game, in a smaller way, for your good. I believe that these kinds of miracles happen, but I also believe that they pale in comparison to the one that we celebrate today; they are reflections of the resurrection miracle not proofs. We have faith in God not because of any particular moment when God answered our prayers or did miraculous things in our lives. We have faith in God because on the third day Christ rose from the grave. The miracle of all miracles is the resurrection, and from this miracle we receive a promise of what awaits us on the other side of death. Today, we celebrate God changing the rules. Status quo, meet resurrection! Death, meet new life!

            So, today, after your Easter meals, Easter candy and Easter bunnies you are going to eventually return to a normal way of life that has little to do with resurrection; a way of life dominated by the ideology that things always work the same way. 1+1=2, objects in motion stay in motion, the only certainties in life are death and taxes—you know that way of life; this is what you spend most of your life thinking and worrying about it. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We should live as if the big questions of “how?” and “why?” matter. We should marvel at gravity, the age of the universe, the distance of the stars. We should be fascinated with ecosystems and biomes, geology and geo-physics. We should embrace all manner of scientific explanations with enthusiasm, because this is how we experience the wonder of life day by day. Then, having delved deeply into the nature of things, having experienced the stark realities of life and death, the old nature of scientific laws, and the fascinating space and time in which we live, should we come back to the tomb and find it empty, the stone rolled away, and with Mary Magdalene exclaim, “I have seen the Lord.”

            Today, the rules of the game have changed.

Three Trees

            Three trees stand on the hill where Christ was put to death. Three trees that make all the difference: between life and death, meaning and purposeless, hope and despair.

Just three trees.

            Jesus hangs between two criminals aloft on the crosses of Golgotha. Three crosses—two criminals, one Savior. The dramatic conclusion of the story has been in front of us all along. All of scripture has been pointing us to the trees—unashamed, unwavering. John’s Gospel merely sets it before us one last time—three crosses, three trees. It is the only way for it to end, because all of scripture is positioned in relation to three trees. The tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And, lastly, the cross.

Shoshone Base Camp (Prichard, Idaho)

There were just two in the beginning—two trees standing in the Garden of Eden—perhaps you remember the story? The tree of life was God’s gift; it is the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food that we taste, everything that was created by the word of God; everything that was called good. Then there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, meant not for us to taste. This is the tree through which sin entered the world; the tree that has brought us war, hatred, avarice, and greed; the tree that separates us one from another. It is the tree that allows us to see others as different from ourselves, as dangerous, as something other than God’s good creation.

Two trees stood in the Garden of Eden.

That we tasted from both is why we need the third. A chasm has formed between the trees. No longer do we recognize the tree of life in our unquenchable thirst for the knowledge of good and evil. We all taste from the fruit of the second tree. It has become our life and breath as it was never meant to be. The tree of knowledge colors everything that we see, hear, smell, taste and touch. Every little instant in our lives is a process of differentiating—good from bad, right from wrong, love from hate, and faith from unfaith. And that act of comparison and division turns us back to the tree again and again. Life abundant is insufficient. We are people of distinctions, and the root of sin is comparison.

But Christ died for something more. What we need is not endless knowledge but life in abundance. What we need is not division but multiplication. What we truly need is a bridge from the tree of knowledge to which we so desperately cling to the tree of life that calls us home. A third tree: A tree that the world considers an instrument of death and destruction—that the world considers evil—a tree that was to demonstrate the ultimate power of earthly authority, a tree the authorities meant to justify the knowledge of good and evil. This was a tree purposed to bring death. The cross: all those things to the powers of this world, but finally none of them at all. What was meant to bring death could bring only life; what was meant to cause evil, God ordained for good.

Good Friday.

The tree of knowledge will not stand alone. The cross obliterates the distinctions—no more good and evil, no more right and wrong, no more separation or discrimination. The roots that were planted so deeply in our conscience are ripped free as if they were straws of grass. Where two trees once stood, a third now bridges the gap.

Just three trees, standing by the tomb, where Christ was laid to rest.

Superior Hiking Trail (NE Minnesota)

On the night in which he was betrayed

On the night in which he was betrayed…

You know the words. The beginning of the words of institution that mark the Lord’s Supper are as familiar to us as anything else in the worship liturgy. Every time we have communion there they are, but their gravity often eludes us. We like remembering Christ; we like receiving his body and blood; we like the promise. We don’t so much care for the betrayal. If we think about it, we assume the betrayal is referring to Judas, and so we move on. Nothing to see here. Yes, Judas is that awful disciple; now give me some Jesus!

Of course it’s rarely that simple

When the disciples gathered around the table on that fateful night it was to celebrate the Passover meal, and in doing so, beyond their knowing, Jesus declared himself to be the new sacrificial lamb. We can’t understand the Lord’s Supper if we don’t understand the Passover, and we can’t understand the depth of the betrayal if we don’t understand the need for the sacrifice. So with that in mind, let’s rewind back to Exodus and the last of the plagues—the killing of the firstborn.

For those of you who may be a bit hazy on your Exodus history, God sent ten plagues upon Egypt while the people of Israel were in slavery there, the last of which being the killing of the firstborn. God required that the Israelites kill a lamb and spread its blood on their doorpost so that when God came upon the land during the night he would pass over their houses, refraining from killing their firstborn children. That night all the firstborns in Egypt, human and animal alike were killed, apart from those who had the blood of the lamb on their door post. This became known as the Passover, and was celebrated every year by the Jewish people.

But here’s the thing about the Passover: it only makes sense because the people were in captivity in Egypt. If the people were happily in the land of Israel and God decided to send some plagues, the sacrifice of the lamb would be a means of appeasing divine wrath rather than a step toward freedom. The reason why the Passover was necessary at all was because of the captivity—because the people of Israel were in slavery.

Fast forward a couple thousand years to the Last Supper and the parallels are obvious. The lamb that must be slaughtered is Jesus and he will be killed to save the people. His blood will save us from death, just as the blood on the doorpost saved the firstborn children of Israel from death. OK, we got that—simple enough.

The thing that's easy to miss is that Jesus needed to become the Passover lamb because things weren't going so well. The people were still in captivity; a different kind of captivity, and in many ways, a more challenging captivity. It's an indiscriminate captivity that we, too, experience today. From the wealthiest and happiest of us all to the poorest and lowliest, we are all subject to the human condition that is our bondage. I once stumbled upon a survey of lottery winners and amputees five years after their respective bounties and tragedies, which discovered no measurable difference in the happiness of the two groups. Let me say that plainly: people who were surprised by the good news of winning millions of dollars in the lottery and people who were surprised by the bad news of losing a limb (either by accident, cancer, or diabetes) were equally happy five years later. I can think of no better example of the universal nature of our bondage to sin.

Part of the reason it is so important that we realize relative wealth and freedom are not means of getting us out of our captivity is because we have an abundance of both living in America in the 21^st century. There has hardly been any moment the history of the world when have we had as much of wealth, freedom and opportunity as we do today, and yet in many ways we are the same as those Israelites. We are very much human, we are convicted of not being good enough; we have mid-life crises, we experience grief, we betray those we love in small ways or in big ways. In fact, because we live longer and have more things our betrayals only seem to multiply. To err is human, it is said, and that is why the Last Supper fell on the night in which he was betrayed.

We are all Judas. The only difference between us is that we rarely have the necessary gumption to show it openly. Our bondage does not look like a Pharaoh ruling with an iron fist, but instead it is our own selfish intentions that betray us and betray Christ at every opportunity.

The modern-day plague is not death of our firstborn children but pointlessness, a lack of meaning. Our burden is a general malaise; the feeling of heading nowhere. We don’t know why anything matters. We don’t know why we do what we do. Even those things that have great importance to us are hard to put into words. Whenever anybody asks us why our faith matters we are speechless and quickly become defensive. Some days we throw our hands in the air and give up because there doesn’t seem to be much of a promise at all. It is those days most of all that we need to hear, “On the night in which he was betrayed,” and in hearing that we must remember the need for the sacrifice in the first place.

We remain in captivity. That is why Jesus had to come. It is why we gather around the table to partake in communion. We receive the body and blood of Christ some days as a reminder of the sacrifice, but just as often as a reminder of our need for it. It is the night in which he was betrayed—by you, by me, by every one of us. And he gave himself all the same

The entry music that wasn't: Jesus on Palm Sunday

            One of the things I would like most would be my own entrance music—you know that theme song that suddenly announces the entry of professional wrestlers, or batters in a baseball game, or even sometimes politicians. It’s a special person who earns himself his own theme music. Joe Mauer has music written for him specially as his theme when he walks up to the plate to hit. Who wouldn’t get pumped up by that? Every movie has that musical crescendo for the entrance of its main characters. Whether it’s The Hunger Games or Gladiator our experience of heroes is usually some particularly beautiful music overlaid on top of an already moving scene. Television does this, too.

            So, we can imagine Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem along these lines—palm branches, trumpets blaring; the soundtrack of Christ as victor, king over Jerusalem. But something isn’t quite right about that image. Jesus rode in like a king toward the temple. He did everything we would expect the king to do. Then, he looked around and left, leaving the people stunned in the streets. They were there for the party—a coronation—something like Mardi Gras in the Jerusalem streets. Jesus was coming to take his rightful place on the throne... and then he didn’t.

            Part of the thrill of entry music is that it tells us something of what is going to happen. Movie soundtracks build to a crescendo just when the time is right; just when the action is most critical, just as professional wrestling theme music introduces a fight. The intro music is only good when it is prelude to something. If the wrestlers came out to their music, shook hands and exited without a fight the fans would be rightly disappointed. If Joe Mauer walked out to his at-bat music, tipped his helmet and went back in the dugout we would all be pretty confused. The music builds what is coming; it is not itself anything of importance.

            That is the challenge with Palm Sunday. It is, I think, why many churches don’t have much of a Palm Sunday service at all, instead focusing on the entirety of the Passion—well, that and because they don’t expect people to come on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, but that’s another story. We don’t know what to do with Palm Sunday. Jesus rides into Jerusalem, takes a look around, and thirty seconds later off he goes. The people in the streets have to be thinking, “Wait, what?”

           Jesus continually defies expectations. He is given the opportunity for political power, and he just doesn’t care. In the moment where it seems like he has the chance for the greatest influence instead of stepping into the light he backs into the shadows. The Philippians hymn talks about Jesus humbling himself to the point of death on the cross, and the important word here is humble. This is a hugely humbling moment. Where most of us would have sensed the time was right to step up to the throne with the people cheering our name, Jesus defers. This is no million man march; no Occupy movement; no grassroots campaign of any sort. This is Jesus showing the humility to demonstrate the ultimate futility of this kind of power. He could seize the throne, but it would be just a human illusion. He could take that power and start a revolution, but the kind of revolution he was going to start was altogether different.

            The world goes around because of principalities and powers that seek that stage. We celebrate those who do not shy away from the moment but embrace it head on. But Jesus’ example is one that’s hard to ignore. It compels us to ask the question: what does it mean to have a God and Savior of creation who does exactly what we would not?

            We should hardly be surprised that all the reasons why we would want that theme music playing are exactly the reasons why Jesus turns aside from the throne. If we were perfectly submissive, if we had that kind of humility; if each and every one of us practiced that kind of selflessness, then Jesus could have walked straight into that temple and taken his place on the throne. We wouldn’t need a Savior who took the harder path, but here we are. The very fact that Jesus could not take his place in power is evidence of our failure to live up to the expectations of God.

            We talk a lot about sin in church as if it is always some dramatic cancer in our lives that needs to be healed, but for the majority of our lives sin isn’t something we experience as dramatic at all. Instead, it is that little failing; that little worry, anxiety; that little need for self-preservation that is symptomatic of something else. We would take that throne—each and every one of us. If presented with the kind of power Jesus could have had, we would take it without even a second thought. And I know this because we do it all the time.

The power itself is not the problem; it’s the fact that we want it that betrays us.

True power has to be gifted; it only comes to those who understand how completely undeserving they are.

I know, because the only one who was deserving turned it down. So may we celebrate the gift to say ‘no;’ the gift to not have to take that throne; the gift that we have a Savior who took a harder road. The road of what awaits later this week; a cross.