"For I know the plans I have for you"--Revelation, Jeremiah, and the telos of all things

Scripture: Revelation 22:8-21

            “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says God, “The first and the last, the arkhay and the telos.” Since I know all of you are experts in Ancient Greek I won’t spend too much time on this but, for my sake, let’s review exactly what that means. God is the Alpha and the Omega—already we’re using Greek terms here. The Greek alphabet runs from Alpha to Omega, like our A to Z. God is also the first and the last, and finally the beginning and the end—the arkhay and the telos. At first blush it seems like those words are just repetitive. If God is the first and the last then clearly God is also the beginning and the end. Silly Greek-speakers, English must just be a more efficient language.

            But actually the two words here—arkhay and telos—are far more interesting than that. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, into what is called the Septuagint, the first words in Genesis 1 were “En arkhay ayn ho logos.”[1] In the beginning was the word. About two thousand pages later, give or take whatever kind of Bible you’re reading, God is professed to be both in the beginning—the arkhay—and in the end—the telos. The word telos conveys both a final destination and a purpose. So, the telos of creation is not just the end of the world but its ultimate purpose as well. We have no word in English that can give us the same depth of meaning of telos, which is a shame because it means that our language does not allow us the same ability to see an end as definitively purposeful. It means it is hard for us to understand that God is not only the creator of the world, and God is not only the one who will bring about its end, but God is also the telos—the purpose and end for all life.

Being present in the present: The real challenge of "Always being made new"

Scripture: Revelation 21:1-7

           This year the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America celebrates 25 years of ministry, and as part of this year-long celebration the church has picked the theme of “Always being made new” with the theme verse which we just happened to read today from Revelation 21:5, “See, I am making all things new.” I’m not going to pretend like this isn’t an intentional message for a church that has sometimes struggled to be proactive in anticipating the future. We are being made new every day, but as a church both nationally and locally some of that newness has been challenging. Locally, our churches have had our share of new and difficult challenges in the last twenty-five years. In fact, the one thing I have heard perhaps more than anything else since taking over this call a year and a half ago is that we have been in need of a new start. A year and a half later, some of my newness has worn off, which means with every passing day it’s a little harder to focus on always being made new, to be the church which Martin Luther called “semper reformanda”—always reforming.

            Of course, there is an underbelly to this idea of always being made new; I know some people have a bone to pick with this theme. Always being made new does not mean we do not honor the past; it does not mean newness for newness’ sake; and it does not mean that new is equated with “better” and old with “useless.” We are made new not because new things are inherently better but because, left to our own devices, we make poor choices and are in need of a word of forgiveness every single day—newness every day.

Lutherans are weird

Scripture: Revelation 20:11-15

Being a Lutheran is a strange thing. If you are one you probably know this. We have potlucks and sing German and northern-Europeans hymns; we meet in church buildings with hard-backed pews; we revel in the good ol’ days when confirmation was tougher than school and nobody—and I mean, nobody—dared approach the pastor to ask how he was doing (and it was always a “he”). This is our heritage. It’s very strange, but so are we. Ours is a story of hard work and piety, which is also strange come to think of it, since Lutherans then turn around and preach that nothing we do makes any difference for our salvation.

Weird.

Lutherans live life straddling a barbed-wire fence between grace and good works. Life is much easier if you camp on one side of the fence or the other. One side of the fence is for those who like to demonstrate their faithfulness through action. For these folks, what they do and say defines who they are, demonstrating that they are good people—good Christians. The other side of the fence is for those who believe that God loves them just the way they are, who believe absolutely nothing is required of them, especially when it comes to God’s love and salvation. 99% of the world lives on either side of that fence of good works and grace, but Lutherans are just a little slow. We go out of our way, mind you, to sit on top of the barbed wire, straddling both sides. Culturally we are a people of hard work; theologically we are a people all about grace.

We are so weird.

How I "won" a triathlon... and then didn't

Now, firstly I have big news: Kate is pregnant. I feel like I’m obligated to say that before writing anything else because it is, well, big news. But since I’ve also known about it for awhile it’s breaking news to you and not so much to me, so you’ll have to excuse me for writing about something other than my unbridled joy at becoming a father. Don’t get me wrong, we’re excited. I just have other things happening, too!

Add to that the awesome day of youth activities we had in church today, culminating with three baptisms, and things are just awesome (that's double the awesome, y'all!). Today's service is the happy reason I am not posting a sermon this week (because our youth talked, which is frankly better for all of us anyway). So that, too, was exceptional and at some point I’ll probably write more.

But if you clicked on this post because it said “triathlon” all of that is neither here nor there. So, onward!

My "old man" face. Patented.

Babylon and the importance of community in the digital age

Scripture: Revelation 18:1-3, 21-24

    One of the most frequently used metaphors in the Bible for the kingdom of God is the “city on a hill.” The city on a hill metaphor resonated with people in the Middle East because it recalled the city of Jerusalem, which was built upon a hill, and the “New Jerusalem” which the book of Revelation tells us will be the centerpiece of the reign of God on earth. But to understand why Jerusalem matters so much requires going beyond the important events that happened there. Of course Jerusalem is an incredibly important historical city because of the temple and Jesus’ triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, the crucifixion and the resurrection, but this vision of the city on a hill looks well beyond the past into a future that is bigger than geography and history. The New Jerusalem is a place where God promises to build a community open on all sides where all peoples will worship as one. It is a city on a hill in the sense that it is both a vision of a future and a reality just out of our reach.

    But if we’re honest with ourselves this is a really tough metaphor for us to get, and it’s not only because Hallock, Minnesota looks nothing like Jerusalem. Part of the trouble stems from the strange idea of what a “city of God” will look like. Not everybody likes the idea of a “city” to begin with because of the crushing congestion, the politics and the sheer overwhelming speed of life, so the idea of the zenith of creation culminating with God creating one big city may not exactly be our preferred vision of the afterlife. And that’s OK, because the New Jerusalem—and everything it represents—could just as easily be called a community.

The Bible: Absolute or Conceptual... or can both be faithful?

First off, I should probably begin by saying this will be nowhere near comprehensive. For a comprehensive reading on the topic of the Bible start with reading the actual thing (crazy, I know) and then move on to everything that has been written about it in the last 2000 years. That should tide you through lunchtime.

The astounding thing I suppose is that Christians still haven't got this whole Bible thing figured out, or at the very least we absolutely do not agree on it. Take this tweet:

Now, let me begin by saying I love that Rachel Held Evans retweeted this without comment. She just put it out there for us to decide. Evans has been in the news lately because of a piece she did for CNN on "Why millenials are leaving the church." Check out the article. It was good, if not exactly earth-shattering. What has been more interesting has been the response: Mainline Protestants hypocritically tooting their horns at the evangelical exodus from the church, others who have engaged Evans' speculation thoughtfully and on point, and then things like the above from within evangelical circles calling out Evans for being unbiblical--or something to that effect.

The end of the world and fleeing from death: The one with Will Smith fighting aliens, Voldemort and angels pouring out bowls of wrath

Scripture: Revelation 15:1-8

In this summer of reading through Revelation, I would be remiss if I didn’t take one Sunday to talk about the end of the world. And not just new creation, which we’ll get to by the end of the book, but the actual end of the world—you know, the Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman fighting off aliens kind of end of the world, or the Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck on an asteroid kind of end of the world. Hollywood gets these visions of the end of the world, but probably already many of you have no idea what I’m talking about, so… back to Revelation!

The book of Revelation gives us several visions of the end of the world—in fact, it probably offers too many visions to give us an accurate, unified impression of it—but there are some general themes. Firstly, there are going to be some disastrous events. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, because whether it’s global warming, nuclear winter, meteors, aliens or angels pouring out bowls of wrath, most ways that we imagine Armageddon are not very pleasant. Secondly, these disastrous events are going to unfold in quick succession. Again, this is something Hollywood has figured out for us. Every movie about the end of the world seems to take place within a matter of days from start to finish.

And lastly, this whole end of the world business? We aren’t going to like it.