Stop. Listen for God.

           Earlier this month we took our Junior High Confirmation students to the Minnesota Institute of Contemplatiion and Healing (MICAH) retreat center near Crookston for an overnight to center ourselves for a year of faith development, learning, and service. One of the primary foci of contemplative prayer, as described by MICAH’s director, Trey Everett, is to move us out of our heads and into our hearts. That sounds kind of vague and new-age-y so allow me to explain. In our heads we are concerned with products and efficiency, with “doing it right”, and with doing “enough” versus doing “not enough.” Our hearts, on the other hand, focus us not on the product but the process, not on efficiency but love, not on doing it the “right way” but exploring how we might do something differently, and, lastly, our hearts allow us freedom from the anxiety of worrying about doing enough and, most importantly, about being enough.

            God tends to speak to us on the heart-level, because it is there that we free ourselves from all the things that cause us anxiety and fear; it is there that we are free to be led beyond our expectations and imaginations.

            We live in an anxious world. In fact, the more efficient we get the more anxious we become. There’s this worry in the back of our minds that we can always be working more efficiently; that we can always be doing more; and the frightening reality is that it’s true. We can always be doing more. The New York Times just published an eye-opening exposé of the working environment at Amazon where workers are encouraged to spy on one another, report one another’s inefficiencies, and managers are expected to cull their workers ranks on a regular basis in the name of being as efficient and productive as possible. This might be an exceptional example, but it’s also kind of the norm for how the marketplace works in the year 2015. Farmers feel it. So do business owners and restauranteurs and teachers (maybe especially teachers). Even pastors feel it. How often are our churches judged by money in the bank and people in the seats on Sunday morning?

An argument for reading the parts of the Bible you don't like

“That’s not the God I believe in.” I’ve heard this phrase countless times in many different contexts. Sometimes it’s helpful. I remember our former presiding bishop Mark Hanson talking about meeting with people who don’t believe in God, listening to their stories of why they don’t believe, and then relating that the god they are describing is not the God he believes in either. Our conflicts over religion have a great deal to do with misunderstanding the kind of God that one another believe in. In that way this phrase is useful.

But in other ways I find it a cop out. For example: when it’s used by educated Christians who read the Bible until they find an attribute of God they don’t like, and then they explain that they don’t agree with that scripture because that’s not the God I believe in. This has always seemed backwards to me—I mean, how can you say that’s not the God you believe in when the God you believe in is revealed primarily through scripture? Aren’t you admitting that the God you believe in is only a reflection of the traits you define as “good”? Then, isn't God really only a reflection of you? It’s a pretty short jaunt from ignoring scripture we don’t like to making God in our image.

It bothers me even more when this comes from pastors, because most of them, like me, had to take vows in their ordination that contain a line that reads something like this: “The church in which you are to be ordained confesses that the holy scriptures are the word of God and are the norm of its faith and life…. Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the holy scriptures…?” Can we really take that vow seriously if we discount certain bits of scripture out of hand because of our preconceived notions of who or what God is?

I believe strongly in an open-minded approach to scripture, because I believe that all scripture exists to reveal God to us, and if that’s the case then what have we to fear from reading something that rubs us the wrong way? That doesn’t always mean that the Bible is clear or that we will like it; in fact, it pretty much guarantees the opposite; but it promises us that the Bible as we have it is sufficient for faith in the true God. Scripture might contain allegories and parables, events that are described as if historical even if they may not have ever happened, and even words of human people that conceal as much as they reveal, but God is found everywhere in the midst of it all.

In fact, I tend to believe that God is found particularly in the places we are challenged.

Inspired? Yes. Absolute and final... maybe not.

There's a billboard along I-29 that you can see driving north from Grand Forks toward the Canadian border. I see it about once a week or so when we make the trip down to the "big city," and it reads like this: "The Holy Bible: Inspired. Absolute. Final."

There's one thing I like about this sign--well, maybe two things. I like that somebody cares enough to put the Bible on a billboard; it sure beats other things that people are selling. And I like that they use the word: "Inspired" rather than "inerrant," though I'm a little worried that, to the people who put this up, they mean the same thing. But if I'm being honest I also must admit that putting this on a billboard opens us up to other billboards, like these (put up by atheist groups):

I mean... if the Bible is absolute and final those second category of billboards seem to have a point. The language we use to talk about God's word is so important, because if we use phrases like absolute and final we think we are suggesting that the Bible is above criticism, being God-inspired as it is, but it also means that we are bringing some massive assumptions to the reading of holy scripture, namely that one verse is as true as all others and interpreting one verse--or one story, or one idea--in the context of others is pointless. After all, that's what "final" means, isn't it? So we're left shouting one Bible verse, while others shout others. If we've already decided that the Bible is absolute and final, then why even think, why even read? Nobody is listening--why would they?--because they have the absolute and final authority.

That first billboard I see on a regular basis has Psalm 119:89 quoted in the lower right-hand corner, which I find mildly troubling.

Psalm 119:89 reads,
"The Lord exists for ever;
   your word is firmly fixed in heaven" (NRSV)

OK, that's fine. I get it. You're pointing out that scripture seems to say that the word is eternal, but let's stop for a second and consider why you are putting this verse on your billboard. It seems to me that you are more concerned with showing that your Bible is perfect and absolute than you are with telling people about God... or Jesus... or anything else. I'm sure that you feel like this will lead people to eventually discover that the Bible is a book about Jesus, but why not just come out and say that? Why do we feel the need to first establish the perfection of the biblical witness before actually confessing what the Bible leads us to believe? This feels like worshiping the Bible, which is just another form of idolatry.

An Ironic Sermon/Blog Post about the Cheapness of Words

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-11

            There are many things in life we never fail to undervalue. Among them are natural things—plants and animals; rain and snow—that we take for granted, and then there are personality traits—faithfulness and humility—things that we enjoy in other people but rarely repay in kind—and finally there is something closer to our essence as human beings that we also tend to minimize: our words. One of the great casualties of this busy world with all our talking heads, tomes of print literature, and innumerable websites is the thoughtful word. There are fewer and fewer poets, even as there are more and more bloggers. There are fewer great wordsmiths, even as there are more text messages composed each day than all messages in any format in any year prior to the 20^th century. Anaphorisms like “Talk is cheap” and “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” are common and accepted.

            In the 21^st century you can say anything and find an audience. The more controversial, the better. The less time you spend considering other opinions, the more response you will get. When it comes to words we have made thoughtfulness and clarity expendable and too often consider the measure of an author her volume and provocativeness. Thoughtfulness doesn’t sell very well anymore, and so all words are cheapened; a casualty of our race to the lowest common denominator.

Bible Story--Our Story: A Homiletic Intro to the Narrative Lectionary

This Sunday we begin a narrative lectionary that takes us from Genesis through the Gospels and the early church in Acts over the course of the church year. This is achieved by following the whole arc of the biblical narrative rather than piecemeal thematic lessons, as the standard Revised Common Lectionary does. For this reason, this is a bit of an unusual sermon, because the point is neither didactic nor philosophical--at least in its ultimate purpose. Rather, it is an open door into the story; it is an attempt to nudge the congregation into buying into the biblical story as their own. I hope it keeps that door open.

Text: Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17; 3:1-8

Seven days after starting this whole business of creating the universe and understandably tired, God makes an amateur parenting error, which may be excused in part because this is after all the first time God has been a parent. God tells Adam and Eve that they are free to do anything and everything they want... with one exception. As every parent—or in my case, ex-camp counselor—knows, the one way to be absolutely certain of a given outcome is to tell your kids: You can do anything you want except… one thing. God fell right into the trap. 

In the Garden of Eden the guidelines were pretty lax. Adam and Eve could do whatever they pleased with the exception of one very big rule: Don’t eat the fruit of that tree. It’s a strange rule, really. I mean: why have a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the first place? Why allow for temptation? The simple solution would be to set the tree outside of the garden, make it impossible to reach. The possibility of eating the fruit seems a cruel oversight on God’s part. 

But this does tell us something about God. From the very beginning of the human story we learn that God wants us to experience this life for ourselves. It’s not that God wants us to know good and evil, but God is willing to allow us that choice. He didn’t want us to take the fruit from that tree, but he did not deny us the possibility of going for it. God didn’t stand in our way and stop us from experiencing the thrills and spills of life out here in the “real world.” 

And what’s more, from the very beginning of the human story we learn something fundamental about us: we will reject God’s promises. Given the choice between passivity in the garden and curiosity for the fruit we will take the fruit every time. It is what makes us wonderful and horrible creatures. We are explorers by our very nature; curious and infinitely inventive. There is something profoundly fascinating in human beings. We are hopeful and courageous even when faced with a world lacking hope. All of this is to be commended. It’s not often enough that we take a good long look at the human condition and remark on the miraculousness of it all. We are a piece of work. 

Yet, in talking up our good points a cloud hovers over us. There is something not quite right. Our mortality outs us. God’s warning will become true when Cain strikes down Abel. From the moment we take that fruit, death creeps into the picture. It is a woeful problem with the human condition: it does not last. Even our precious knowledge, our ability to learn, how we advance technologically and have become great by the standards of every temporal creature in the history of the universe, every thing we learn and know is tamed by our mortality and our inadequacy in managing the resources entrusted to us. For all the knowledge and wisdom we possess we only prolong our physical existence by a meager few years, and we never save ourselves in any meaningful sense. We’re magnificent creatures, knowledgeable enough to come to the realization that we can’t fix everything. In fact, we tend to only make it worse. 

We have only ourselves to blame. We take that fruit off of the tree at every opportunity.

This message is a far cry from your standard high school and college graduation speech fare, which tries to tell you that that you are special and wonderful and you are going to change the world. There is some truth in that, though it is a half-truth. You are special and in many ways you will and do change the world, but ultimately you deserve very little of the credit. I am reminded of Yoda in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back when he explains the force to Luke by saying, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

That is just the problem. We are more than this crude matter, but every time we take the fruit—every time we use our knowledge to justify ourselves—we become trapped in our humanity, because the fruit of knowledge leads us down an infinite road whose only exit is the realization that knowledge alone cannot save us. The only exit from the pursuit of knowledge is the one that leads to Christ. The reason Jesus had to come was not only because some guy named Adam and some woman named Eve ate a fruit off of a tree in the far distant past; the reason Jesus had to come is because we eat the same stinking fruit every day. It is the fruit of self-sufficiency; it is the ego that grows inside of us, and without Jesus it will eat us alive.

The Garden of Eden points out something that should be rather obvious about all of us as human creatures: we are flawed. As far as I know, none of us are going out and shooting 20-under par on the golf course, curing cancer on our lunch break and then writing a symphony before bed. So none of us live up to the expectations set for us when we grasp for that fruit. If the expectations of the tree of knowledge sound patently unfair it is because they are. We were never meant to eat from it; we bring this upon ourselves.

Thankfully, as stories go this is not the end. We have more to the tale than the first four chapters of Genesis. It’s only the beginning. There’s a long road ahead, but the story is worth the price of admission. It’s worth the ups and downs, the meandering in the desert and all the various missteps along the way. The Biblical story is our story, as much as it was ever the story of those who lived long ago. May you begin to see this story as your own. May we remember that a good story requires crisis in the beginning for catharsis in the end.

That’s the biblical story and it's our story.

John 3:16 for the Twitter Generation

John 3:16… Like many things that live strongly in the public conscience, we almost hear this verse too much. It has become one of those things—like a commercial jingle—that gets in our heads. As such, I want to pause and leave room for the weight of the verse. Let’s see if we can get there...

            There are five very big verbs in this verse: God loved, he gave, everyone who believes, may not perish, have eternal life. Love, give, believe, not perish, have eternal life. It’s a well-known adage that bad writers use lots of adjectives while great writers know how to use a verb. This is a passage chock full of verbs. But the fact that there are five also confuses the focus. Consciously or subconsciously we resonate with one action over others. To illustrate this point, I asked the members of the ELCA clergy Facebook group what verb they find most important in John 3:16, and as of this morning, 12 pastors voted for love, 9 for gave, 2 for believe, 1 for not perish, and 1 for have eternal life. I want you to take a minute and realize why this is important. 25 pastors from the same denomination did not come to a consensus on what is the most important thing that God does in John 3:16. It’s one verse, but they all emphasize something different.

            This is important for a couple of reasons. When the guy standing behind the goalposts at a football game holds up a sign that reads John 3:16 he has a clear idea of what that means, and he is expecting you will open your Bible, read it and come to the same conclusion. But each of us brings our own experience, bias and considerable influence, and each of us reads that verse differently. We do this every time we interpret and we interpret every time that we read or listen. This is why dwelling in scripture is challenging; texts don’t have one, universal clear meaning devoid of culture, time and context. Scripture is always deep enough to support a multitude of opinions. Faithful reading, therefore, requires taking the whole mess that we have made of God’s word and pulling at the threads to better see what is underneath.

            This is a tough thing to do, because it is much easier to quote little snippets in favor of our various positions. But even John 3:16 is preceded by John 3:15, recalling a passage from Exodus where Moses lifts up the snake. If you don’t know about that passage then you’re missing the context. In order to ground John 3:16 we need John 3:15, and in order to ground John 3:15 we need Numbers 21. All of scripture is a nexus of connections. One brush stroke may make a greater impact on the final portrait, but every stroke was necessary to get there.

            John 3:16 is nice; it is concise, the kind of thing that fits on a bumper sticker. And we are bumper sticker people, or, better yet, we are Twitter people. The motto of the Twitter generation is to keep everything to 140 characters or less. But the Bible refuses to be tweeted. Anything worth believing is both simple and complex, but most of all it is worthy of slow and careful reflection.

            We quote John 3:16 so much because it is that nice little summation of scripture. We use it to tell people about the gift of salvation through Jesus, which is a pretty good thing to share. Keeping it simple is a good start, as long as the simplicity underlies the gravity of the message. God so loved the world. The Greek word for world is cosmos. God loves the cosmos, the whole big picture. And so he sent Jesus. The movement is from God to the world to Jesus, and only then to us as individuals. We can only see from our point of view as individuals, but as Madeleine l’Engle once wrote, “We have point of view, but God has view.”

            We focus on little things. God sees the whole big picture—the cosmos. We want to talk about salvation, but we don’t know what salvation looks like, so we fall back on an individualized concept where it all works out for us in the end. Salvation is not just about the end, but also about the beginning and primarily, for us, the present.

            God loved the world so much that he gave Jesus so that you who believe in him shall experience what it means to be truly saved. To be truly saved is about being well. Salvation is the completion of the law, which is to love God back and to love your neighbor as yourself. True salvation is big, it’s difficult—nay, impossible—to see from our point of view. John 3:16 does not compel us to understand, but it promises salvation nonetheless. We are part of a creation that quakes, that burns, that groans (as Paul says in Romans); all of which is to say that creation is visibly unhealthy. The whole world is in need of Jesus lifted up on the cross.

            Science talks about the groaning of creation in terms of entropy. The second law of thermodynamics, for those of who may vaguely remember something of chemistry or physics classes, tells us that the entropy, or the total instability in the universe, is always increasing. Things are getting more and more chaotic, they break down much easier than they are built up. Jesus came not because we are the only messed up creatures on this planet but because God loved the world.

We have this brilliant illustration of chaos that we experience everyday called the internet. The internet brings us together across impossibly large distances, but it also magnifies all the little things that separate us. Suddenly, thrust together over the vastness and virtual anonymity that the internet provides, people are willing to say things they would never say face-to-face. Things are messy. And they continue to get messier still. It’s why it is easy to isolate ourselves from the outside world. We face a huge temptation to turn in on ourselves and avoid the banalities of what goes on out there.

This is why we need John 3:16. “God so loved the world.” The world is complicated; it’s big; there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the world. It would be much easier if my only concern was God’s love of myself. We read our life experiences into John 3:16—just look at the response of those ELCA pastors. But nevertheless, the big picture matters. Just as an ecosystem suffers when a single species is diseased, so we suffer when others do not know salvation through Christ. Salvation is wellness for the entire body of Christ, and the body of Christ is much bigger than we most often imagine it.

This is why I’m going to make a radical claim, which is this: there is no such thing as individual salvation. Salvation involves the whole picture, so to think of oneself as saved in spite of creation is a strange thought. We are not singular units worthy or unworthy of Christ’s redemption. Salvation is about making everything new; our bodies, yes, but not just our bodies; our family, yes, but not just our family; our natural world, yes, but not just our natural world. Only when everything is returned to health can there be salvation.

We know this intuitively. It is why the internet divides as much as it connects; it is why all of nature is becoming more and more chaotic; it is why the snake was lifted up by Moses and Jesus was lifted up by us; not on a throne but on a cross. That is what salvation looks like. It is a promise that refuses to be tweeted. It is a promise bigger than anything our little points of view can imagine. It is the big view.

Amen.

A few thoughts on 1 Corinthians 8

1 Corinthians 8

1 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; 3 but anyone who loves God is known by him.

4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "no idol in the world really exists," and that "there is no God but one." 5 Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

7 It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 "Food will not bring us close to God." We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? 11 So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. 12 But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

I realize this might sound strange, but I'm not sure there's a better chapter in the Bible for mainline congregations to dwell in than this one. Yes, Paul is talking about an archaic issue--eating food sacrificed to idols. But the implications are the same for every issue pertinent to life in the church. Paul knew the difference between good theology and good practice, and firstly he knew that the two are not always the same. Being in the right on an issue is not necessarily justification for acting upon it.

The implications here are diverse and I plan to stay in this passage for more than this Sunday. But a few questions come to mind right away: what are the stumbling blocks for the people? What am I willing to give on? Who are the weak ones? How about the strong ones? How am I to know?

There's some good food for thought here--pun probably intended. Right now I'm substituting "food" for bulletins, staff positions, communion practices, synodical support, the lectionary, the list goes on and on. How much of what is deeply embedded is also a stumbling block?

I'm not so ignorant as to believe that these things, even if stumbling blocks, are as easily malleable as Paul makes it. Nonetheless, I think there are fruits here worthy of discussing. Time to think...