True Prophets and the Mystery of God's Will

The prophet Jeremiah complained that there was literally no one in Israel who told the truth. He said the false prophets prophesy: "Peace, Peace!" when there is no peace. It was Jeremiah's task to prophesy about God's judgment on Israel (Judah) in his time. In other words, right at the point of the nation's history when they were anxious about survival due to the impending threat from the Babylonians, Jeremiah gave them a word of doom, not of victory or security. He did prophesy that after judgment and destruction there would be grace and renewal, but the hard word he preached about judgment and destruction in Israel shook his fellow country folk up! And, they got so sick of hearing him, they tried to do away with him at times. There are very few true prophets. Maybe many are called, but few are chosen by God, since there are few that can bear the anger and rejection of their contemporaries that comes of speaking hard truths from God. Jeremiah's prophesying was remarkable for he didn't just speak words of judgment on Israel; he also expressed his grief and personal suffering over the destruction of Israel and the pain that its people would suffer. Jeremiah's words come to Israel as God's Word, with a mixture of judgment and grief over the consequences of judgment. When reading all of this, one might wonder: "If God was so hurt by Israel's suffering from judgment which came through the destructive attack on Israel by the Babylonias, then why didn't God do something to ward off the Persians? or Why didn't God judge them without allowing them to be destroyed?" I think the answer pushes us into a mystery about how God's will is tied up with the exercise of forces put in play by human will, and how God's freedom is a freedom exercised in relationship with a free creation, not the freedom of a puppeteer. By saying that, I haven't clarified how it is that God actually exercises dominion in history because truth is I just don't know. If God can in some way "will" both the destruction of Israel and deeply suffer it at the same time as the prophetic word of Jeremiah indicates, then God's will is something way more complex than we have generally acknowledged. There is another element to this reflection on God's Will. Unlike so many human authorities, God seems to dislike force. John Calvin used to speak of the affirmative will of God and the permissive will of God. If God was a God of force, God's affirmative will would be pushed through over and over. But, if God is not a God of force, then God's affirmative will (what God really desires to happen) is at best approximated in the events of history, and at worst, defied by human actors. And, God's permissive will becomes the real crucial thing because that is where God's will gets mixed in with human will and the forces of creation to bring about . . . well, God's will, whether it was really what God wanted in the first place or not.

Listening

Almost everything I do, whether in court, at church, at home goes so much better if I listen to others. When I have the attention to really listen to another person, it means I am at peace and focused. Paying attention to what is going on around you, even right in front of you is a way of listening. And, there is also an inner listening: listening to the movements of your own heart and mind. Buddhists speak of "mindfulness." I like that word. But, so many days are spent in anxious movements, both physical and mental. And, so many conversations are nothing but alternating making noises come out of our respective mouths. When speech arises out of real listening, then it is part of an engaged conversation. That's when good things come to us, through us, and among us. When we don't pay attention to what is really going on around us, in front of us . . . when we aren't listening to others . . . when we are unable to listen to the movements within ourselves; that is being in a state of "mindlessness." Mindlessness leads to meaninglessness which lands us in despair. Listening, really listening, is like sending roots down into the source of life. In listening we are renewed. Maybe we have to be renewed in our souls to be able to listen, but maybe in the simple act of listening, the renewal begins.

My First Lenten Vow

As we begin this season of Lent, I wanted to share with you a few thoughts about what it means to observe Lent in the Christian tradition. First, I was raised in a Southern Presbyterian Church (PCUS), and we did not observe the Church Calendar, and so did not celebrate Lent. I thought that was something only Catholics or Episcopalians did.

Even though I have given some attention to the Church Calendar as an ordained minister in the PCUSA over the past 22 plus years, I had never been part of an Ash Wednesday Service until we celebrated with Central United Methodist in 2010. I had always heard about people giving up chocolate or soft drinks or beer or tv or something like that for Lent. I had started thinking about Lent seriously a few years ago at First United when we discussed Lent and talked about what it might mean for each of us personally to observe Lent.

I have always been repelled by the idea of “giving up” this or that. Maybe that’s because I just don’t have much will power to not do something I enjoy doing. But, something about giving up things never caught on with me. For me, it is almost as if deciding to give something up causes me to want it even more. So, no I have never given anything up for Lent. Well, until this year, and you are not going to be too impressed about what I am giving up.

It was the day before Ash Wednesday this year, and I had gone back and forth with the Blount County Sheriff’s Department about why my client was still being held in jail even though the Judge had ordered her release. And, about 4 p.m. that afternoon, it came to me out of the blue: “I am going to give up ‘being nice’ for Lent.” I said it out loud, one of our legal secretaries laughed, and then I said it again with some real conviction and smiled.

Now, I know it might sound bad for a minister like me to say that, but the more I thought about it, the more firm I was in taking my first Lenten vow of my life. Maybe what I really liked about this vow was that if I failed in it, it wouldn’t be so bad. Being nice, after all, isn’t a sin, is it? But, there was something deeper in this thought and in this resolution. It was about committing myself to truth and doing what was right more than worrying over whether others liked me or were happy with me.

As a lawyer who represents poor people charged with crimes, I am forever “being nice” with D.A.s and Judges and my clients to get the best deal I can for my clients. Every once in a while, the process becomes openly adversarial, but most of the time, it is a matter of using your wits to get a deal. So, I have had it “up to here” by the time I get home each day with ‘being nice’ to people who I am really not very happy with. Lately, some of my own clients have been the worst to deal with. I am ‘being nice’ because it is part of thinking about my client’s interests, not letting my own client's attitude get in the way of their legal interests, etc.

But, there is a time and place for all that being nice stuff. But, there is also a way to be decent without worrying too much about keeping everyone happy. There is even a place for that in law practice. If you don’t pay enough attention to your need to tell the truth or at least your need to stop covering up the truth, then a couple of bad things can happen to you personally: you can explode on someone, often the person least deserving of it; you can become a dishonest person and lose a real taste for what is honest and true.

So, yes, with all that said, I have given up being nice in the sense that I have decided to choose value honesty and truth above keeping others happy with me. I’ll see how it goes. So far, it is going pretty well both in court and out. If I speak the truth too plainly in court one day and get thrown in jail, would you be willing to chip in on my bond?

A Lenten Meditation on Friedrich Nietzsche

“It is not a matter of going ahead (-for then one is at best a herdsman, i.e., the herd’s chief requirement) but of being able to go it alone, of being able to be different.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1887

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who wrote most of his major works in the 1870’s and 1880’s. He died in 1900.
Nietzsche was the son of a Lutheran pastor, the only son with several sisters. As Nietzsche grew into his own as a thinker and writer, he struck out in an independent direction as a philosopher. He revolted against both the prevailing philosophy and theology of his day.

At the very center of Nietzsche’s philosophy of life was the rejection of Christian morality. He regarded Christian morality as slave morality, not a morality fit for free, self-determining human beings.

Nietzsche once said: “There was only one true Christian and he died on a cross.”
He called Christianity an unnatural morality born of the resentment of those who were weak in mind and body . . . those who despised life and despised the strong who were able to embrace and celebrate life. Nietzsche thought that at the very bottom Christianity taught a person to think: “I am not worth much,” and then translate that value judgment into a religious/moral judgment: “I am guilty; I am a sinner.” Nietzsche says that human beings then decide they would rather consider themselves guilty than feel bad for no reason at all.

So, for Nietzsche, Christianity creates the miserable condition of the individual and then purports to offer salvation from the darkness through the offer of forgiveness and faith. Christianity is a religion that promotes, even creates guilt in the individual conscience, and then promises relief with the “Gospel.” Nietzsche apparently found that the cure was just as bad as the disease.

A Christian might wonder: “How does this atheistic philosopher know anything about faith?”

But, it is worth remembering that Nietzsche grew up in a Lutheran household (Lutherans are a lot like us Presbyterians except they have Octoberfest – too bad for us!). Nietzsche grew up as a preacher’s kid, and had come to the conclusion from his experience that all Christianity offered him was guilt and the feeling that any effort to embrace and celebrate his strengths was a sin. He felt that to live fully and to be who he felt destined to be he had to renounce the Christian faith.
There is something that I have always liked about Nietzsche since I first read him in college . . . unlike other philosophers who dismiss God and faith or criticize Christianity and then move on to other topics, Nietzsche couldn’t move on. He was, in a sense, obsessed with arguing against Christianity. He has been described by one scholar as an “anti-Christian.” Nietzsche’s work cannot be understood without understanding its relation to Christianity.

Surely, Nietzsche had experienced the teaching and authority of the church. He was a preacher’s son, and at one time, he had probably taken this religious faith very seriously. And, in time, he had found that faith as he experienced it made him feel like he was nothing. And, Nietzsche knew deep down that he was really something, and he was.

So, he looked for something else to base his life on . . and that something else for him was his will to live, his will to think, to claim space for himself in the world. Nietzsche said once: “The real thing is not so much that you move forward, but that you learn to go it alone, that you have the strength to be different.”
I think that Nietzsche could never forget Christianity, because it raised his hopes so much and then disappointed those hopes so badly. Nietzsche is the one who said: “There was only one Christian and he died on the cross.” He seemed to have a deep respect for Jesus, and no respect for his followers. You might say, ‘the man Jesus, his teachings, the reports about him in Scripture raised Nietzsche’s hope, and the faith of the Church disappointed and crushed his hope.’ At least that’s what I think.

As we look back through history, if we are honest, we see that the Church has broken the faith and hearts of some very special individuals. Galileo was considered a heretic because he spoke the truth that the earth orbited around the sun, not otherwise. Origen, the great theologian of the 2nd century was branded a heretic, because his hope was too great, his mind too high. Charles Darwin was a son of the Church whose desire for truth and his desire to reconcile his scientific studies with his faith was disregarded by the Church of his day. And, Friedrich Nietzsche, who I believed yearned for something much more pure and life-affirming than the gospel being preached in his day, was given nothing but falsehood from a religious culture that was as afraid of Jesus truth as they were of Nietzsche’s criticism.
There are many people in our time who yearn for truth, the truth of God, but have found falsehood in the Church. They have found a church unwilling to deal with scientific truth, a church that can’t deal with evidence from neuroscientific studies about sexual orientation. They have found a church that dismisses those who have a real desire for intellectual honesty.

The doctrine of Biblical Innerancy stands as a cloud over our efforts to deal honestly with each other in faith. The teaching of a type of Creationism in churches that dismisses the great service offered the world by Charles Darwin is also a sad sign for the wider church.

We do not need to continue a tradition of intellectual dishonesty, but let me change that language a little bit. Intellectual dishonesty sounds a little too removed and fancy. What I am talking about is having lazy minds, dishonoring the God who gave us our minds, and lying about the way things are. That’s what I mean about the tradition of intellectual dishonesty in the Church. And, it is continued by people like Rick Santorum who doesn’t like the fact that a good number of us in the Church don’t think we have to check our minds at the door before we come to worship or Bible Study.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a liberal Christian. He studied religion as a man of faith, and he studied it from within the academic tradition as well. He appreciated what he learned about how the Bible was formed. He wasn’t afraid of the truth of science, but found it liberating.

Of course, human science is limited as is inquiry in other areas, and when we think science is going to resolve all our problems, we show that we don’t understand the limits of science. And, human science itself can get arrogant and think that truth is limited to what science can demonstrate empirically. But, in our day, science is much more humble than it was when I was growing up. And, a real dialogue is possible in our time between scientists and theologians.

When we are ready to be honest and ready to really think and discuss openly in our churches – then, maybe people who value real questions, real discussions . . . then maybe people who value real learning and honesty of both the heart and the mind will find their way back into our fellowship in the Church.

We ought to repent during Lent as Christians because of all the good, even brilliant people we have destroyed over time with our dogma, with our lack of imagination and our lack of appreciation of the gifts God has bestowed on many human beings and with our refusal to really investigate and seek the truth no matter what it costs.

Ordination Standards in the PCUSA and Thinking Back on the 2004 G.A.

“Thinking Back on PCUSA General Assembly in 2004”*

Five years ago at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA, I was on the Church Orders and Ministry Committee, which is the committee which deals with the issue of ordination standards, and the issue at the center of the storm of our committee was whether a gay man or woman could be ordained as pastor, elder or deacon. Our Book of Order has a requirement that those who are to be ordained must practice “fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness.”

I remember listening to witnesses who spoke from their experience from either side of the issue. I think we listened to about five hours of this testimony. It was emotionally very tiring. Our denomination was clearly and sincerely split over this issue. Hardly anybody tried to speak from a theological perspective or to suggest a model of interpreting the Bible regarding this matter. But, we heard impassioned speeches against ordaining gay persons made by delegates from overseas. I remember one particularly strong statement made by an Egyptian man who pleaded with the committee to uphold the ban on ordination of gay persons. We were aware that the head of the East African Presbytery had taken the same position. The Korean churches seemed to also oppose ordination of gay men and women. I have never had the chance to hear Christians from Seattle and New York and New Mexico and Kenya and Egypt at the same time. But, I did at that Assembly. I heard parents of gay men speak of the painful experience their sons had had being marginalized by their churches. I heard gay men and women speak of their desire to serve in the ministry, and their deep sense of calling, and how they had waited. I heard some young adults who said they had experimented with homosexuality, but had experienced it as sinful and not their natural desire. They said that if the church does not take a clear position on this it leaves young people to fall into confusion over their sexual identity, as they had done.

The procedural issues about how the proponents of gay ordination had chosen to raise the issue – well, that was a very complex strategy. And, there was a more radical and a more moderate approach. I was invited to an insiders meeting on these issues, and was very impressed with the depth of preparation and conviction, especially of the more radical group: The More Light Presbyterians. Although the moderate position was strategically clever, the radical More Light leader said very plainly: “we want to win the hearts of the people.” He said they didn’t want simply a power shift that gave them some access, but reconciliation and true understanding in the denomination as a whole.

This all sent me into a process of thinking and praying, and looking for a way to communicate about this. I kept thinking of Bible passages, of friends who were Christian and gay, of ministers in my Presbytery who felt one way or another over the issue, about my own family, and about my own church at home.

But, one thing that kept occurring to me: these More Light Presbyterians: why do they continue to stay in our denomination when they could easily go to a theologically similar denomination, the United Church of Christ, and be accepted without all this struggle? I guess the real answer to that was what that “More Light” leader said at that insiders meeting I went to: “we want reconciliation and true understanding.” Having experienced the good news of God’s grace for themselves, they had the sense that those that refused to accept them really hadn’t experienced the good news of God fully – and, they wanted that. Thinking back on that, I can’t help but think of Philippians 2:4-5: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus . . . “ It also occurs to me as I think on this that we often find it so hard to stretch our minds and hearts to accept those who are really “our betters.”

This reflection was written in 2009.

*In 2010, the “fidelity and chastity in singleness” clause was removed from the Book of Order opening the way for local Presbyters to determine the fitness of candidates for ministry without this specific limiting rule.

Passing New Laws as a Form of Government Control

In our times, state and federal legislatures continue to pass more and more criminal laws. Each year our governments define more and more areas of human conduct as "criminal." The reach of the government's arm is longer and longer, more and more invasive. I guess government means to make us all into good people, to decide how we need to act, and force us to act that way or charge us and put us in jail.

In our day, it is seldom admitted by politicians that government's reach has gone too far in the area of the criminal law. For example, we are insistent that we will solve the drinking problem, so we charge 18-20 year olds with a crime for drinking a beer. And, we think we can solve the drug problem, so we turn every traffic stop into a drug investigation, running drug dogs around cars of people stopped for minor traffic violations. If a guy is a little drunk out in the public square, we charge him with a crime, put him in jail, just in case he might have been a problem.

And, I'm sure there will be a number of new criminal laws once state and federal congresses convene again. The theory is that we will fix society's problems by passing laws that define conduct we don't like as criminal. We have convinced ourselves that passing a law that purports to solve a social problem actually does solve the social problem. I think this is a totalitarian, repressive way of dealing with social problems, and it is costly and works very rarely.

For example, since the implementation of the harsh federal sentencing laws on drug offenses, has the drug problem subsided? No, it has grown. Some federal judges have remarked that society might be better off in legalizing certain illegal drugs, because the drug war being waged by the government is being lost badly because of the financial incentive to traffic illegal drugs.

But, as I type, I am sure another congressmen has come up with another law that he or she feels will make us all safer and better. And, it won't.

Post from 4th United Bible Blog about Celebrating Advent

As we begin celebrating Advent this year, I want to wish everyone the peace and purpose of God’s Coming in Jesus, the Christ. The people of Israel labored long and hard in the hope for the coming of the Christ of God, who would save his people from their sins and from their worldly oppressors. On the eighth day of his life, the Christ child was brought to the old Jewish prophet, Simeon, and the old prophet who held the child in his arms rejoiced: “Lord, lettest now thy servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light of salvation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel!” Luke 2:29-32. It is in this spirit of celebration of the gift of God for all people that I enter into this Advent season.

As we celebrate Advent, I ask that we understand ourselves in a holy relationship to both the universal Church and to all humanity, those who affirm Christian faith and those who do not. Our identity as Christians and as humans arises from the same source: Jesus, the revealer of God’s self: the source of our faith and the source of our true humanity. It is good to remind ourselves at this time of year that Jesus came in the will of God to restore all of us to our true humanity, our God-intended humanity. The Church is a means to that end, just as Israel was meant to be a means to the end of blessing all the earth with God’s glory and redemption. Being a Christian is not the goal, it is the means towards the greater goal of being a true human and thus honoring the One who created us to this high purpose and for unity with God and each other.

Jesus’ way is truly God’s way. Jesus’ truth is God’s truth. Jesus came in the will and the love of God to save, not to condemn the earth and all its creatures. The Church was given birth by the outpouring of God’s Spirit in this way that Jesus had pioneered on earth: a way of obedience to God, a way of love of God and neighbor that was stronger than all powers of evil that twist and destroy human beings and the created order. But, the path of life, the holy way of God is always Jesus’ way, under Jesus’ lordship, and so long as the Church follows in this way of Jesus, the way of the Church is holy, and good and life-giving. But, when the Church, or wings of the Church begin to honor creeds and traditions and human-centered salvation formulas and secular authority and ecclesiastical hierarchies above God’s way in Jesus, then the Church does not become the means to salvation, but can even become a hindrance to receiving the truth of the Gospel.

As a church, we must resist the temptation to substitute our ways for God’s ways. We must resist the temptation to become another self-serving religious institution. We want to break through sin to become witnesses to the Living God of Jesus, the Christ of all the world. We want to break through sin to become brothers and sisters with all human beings, not just friendly with those we are comfortable with. Yes, we are in a deep and holy relationship with all the churches of the world who raise the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost in praise, but we are also in a deep and holy relationship with all human beings whom God has claimed as his own through the death of Jesus, the Christ. We join ourselves with the churches of this world seeking to be a means for the salvation of all people. The goal is that the true humanity revealed in Jesus become the inheritance of all people. As we see human beings reflecting that true humanity that we have come to know in Jesus, we rejoice and thank God. Sometimes, we see that true humanity reflected in the lives of people who have never become part of the Church, but seem to us to be walking in the way of the Lord of the Church, Jesus. And, we remember that our primary allegiance is to God and his way in Jesus, not to the Church. We remember that the Church stands under God’s judgment, seeking to resist those sins of arrogance and selfishness and cowardice that have so crippled the ministries of the Church through the centuries. We remember that the repentant Church has always received forgiveness and healing and courage and joy to love the world as God loves the world, to help the world with a courage and an integrity and a persistence that is beyond our imagination.

It is in this hope that I celebrate the Coming of our Lord, and anticipate the fulfillment of the great hope of all the ages: the Coming of God’s Kingdom, that day when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Hope Deferred, Desire Fulfilled

In Proverbs, it says:

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life."

Just because a desire is good doesn't mean it will be fulfilled. Just because a desire is bad doesn't mean it won't be fulfilled. We would like for our good desires to find fulfillment, and our bad desires to be frustrated and fade away.

About the most important thing for a human being is to have good desires. And, then to be able to endure the disappointment of not having some of these fulfilled and not get so obsessed with those things that don't come to us that we miss pursuing those good desires that do have a good chance of being realized.

I also think it is very important not to underrate daily life, and the small joys of daily life. The cup of coffee, the good music, the sunrise, the good food, a walk, some time to sit and read and talk with another. Finding fulfillment in the small joys and rhythms of daily life forms a foundation and the necessary life-energy for pursuing deeper desires.

Happy Thanksgiving.

From Christoph Blumhardt's Letters to His Son-In-Law, Missionary in China

The following is taken from "The Hidden Christ," a collection of letters sent in the early 20th century from Christoph Blumhardt, a German pastor, to his son-in-law, who was a missionary in China. These letters are a remarkable witness to the true gospel of God, which is free from the dictates of Church and State.

"God's love tears down old divisions. No longer religion against religion, Christians against non-Christians, but justice against sin, life against death. His love embraces everyone. Therefore, every person you encounter should be your concern. Do not settle for less. The whole world must see the glory of God. I long to see you free to share in the gifts God gives the Chinese. This is our hope, but its fulfillment will have to be fought for.

"God protects the oppressed. He will see to it that they receive his blessing. Today his spirit moves the upright hearts everywhere, without asking what kind of religion they cling to. Our task is to spread the gospel of Christ, not the gospel of Christians. Christ does not want separation. This is difficult for us to keep in mind. It is not easy to interact with sinners without yielding to the pressure of either compromising or distancing oneself. I hope, however, that we - you in China and I in Europe - will experience the all-embracing, creative power of Christ.

"This is why I choose to stand on the side of the humble, the working class. Tragically, the church has abandoned them to darkness. Yet this same church lives with this darkness, and in so doing absorbs the very same sinful principles that rule the world. Christians should serve, not rule. Their acts of violence make them worse than the so-called heathen.

"The chief thing is to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, not an apostle of the European Christian world. Have patience, and whatever you do, stay clear of forming a party. Your work must embrace the whole, then your integrity will win you everyone's trust.


-reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by the Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission

Commit Your Life

Commit your life to God. Do not commit your life to the church or your country. Commit your life to the Lord of all creation. You cannot commit your life to the church (or synagogue or mosque) and to God. You certainly cannot commit your life to your country or your country's ideology (or your church/synagogue/mosque's ideology) and God. As hard as it is to say, you cannot even commit your life to your family and to God. "You shall have no other gods before me" is the first commandment. Commit your life to God, God alone, and God will order the commitments in God's mercy and justice and love. After committing above all and unreservedly to God, I see my commitments falling in the following order: family, church, and my country's issues of justice. But, all commitments that are holy run together. When we commit unreservedly to God, it does not limit, but frees us. When we give our hearts to God in faith, our hearts become open to all God's causes in the world, often causes that are carried on by human beings who have nothing to do with religion.

"I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief:" Another Thought

I believe with my heart; I undermine my belief with my mind. I can live a divided life, jumping back and forth between deep intuition or logical process of thought. Or, I can allow my logical, rational process of thought to grind all deep intuition up into a residue of doubt.

Or, I can allow my deep intuition to steer the ship, and command the logical, rational thought to lower or raise the mast, bail water - to be a hand on deck and help the ship makes its way pasts rocks and storms. But, deep intuition, belief, is the only one fit to captain the ship.

I Believe, Help Thou My Unbelief

There was a man who had a son who was suffering terrible seizures or something like that. The boy was believed to be possessed by an evil spirit that was tormenting him. And, his father was desperate for help. The father brought the boy to Jesus' disciples and asked them to pray and help him. They could do nothing. Jesus looked on.

The man said: "do something for him, if it is possible!" Jesus said: "If it is possible!" Jesus says: "Bring the boy here. All things are possible if you believe." And, the father says: "I believe; help thou my unbelief!" Immediately, Jesus casts out the evil spirit, and the boy is calm and in his right mind, and free from the torment.

In our trouble, our hearts get burdened and sometimes broken. And, our hope and our faith seem almost gone. If we have any belief left, it is the kind that man had out there on that day desperately seeking help for his little boy. It is the kind of belief that is just plain love and nothing else. It is despair that won't give into despair, because of love. It is not confident trust or unshakeable faith - it is just raw love that won't give up. I think God will answer that. He did that day through Jesus.

God's Love Trumps All

Another minister wrote to me: "I cannot imagine . . . that God’s love trumps the requirement of the gospel for sinners to repent in order to become God’s children."

This is my response:

God’s love does trump the requirement for sinners to repent in order to become God’s children. That is the heart of the Gospel. That is it. That is the core. We do not become God’s children by our choice, but by God’s choice, and he chooses us all, and claims us all through the saving death of Christ. If we do not agree on that, then I am not sure we are talking about the same Spirit, the same Gospel, the same God. Jesus said: “You tithe mint, dill and cumin, but neglect the weighter matters of the law: justice, mercy and love.” Paul says: “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet the enemies of God, he sent his Son to die for us.” Jesus says: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” And, Jesus tells the story of the gracious father of the prodigal son; and, the point of that story is not the repentance of the prodigal, but the love of the father that trumps all. Before the beaten and battered sinful son can even get down and repent before his father, his father embraces him and weeps tears of joy and celebrates. Before Jacob can tell Esau he is sorry, Esau embraces him and weeps. Jacob says: “To see your face is like seeing the face of God!” This is the Gospel. Before Joseph can stand to put his brothers to the test down in Egypt, he breaks down and cries and discloses who he is. He won’t even hear their cries of repentance. We love because God first loved us. God doesn’t wait for us to repent. God takes the first step, he reaches out and claims us all in Christ. That is grace. That is the Gospel. And, hell yes, God’s love trumps every other requirement in all creation, especially the church’s requirement that sinners repent first before being offered the free grace of God. Until we are loved of God, we don’t know how to repent. So long as you preach a gospel that sets up a gate and has requirements on the front end, you’ve not preached the gospel, but a human distortion of it. And, the sinful woman who wept at Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her tears. He says: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, because she loved much.” Jesus didn’t say: “because she repented, but because she loved.” Jesus didn’t want people’s sacrificial repentance, but their love. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Jesus forgave the paralyzed man’s sins, and healed him – not because he saw the man’s repentance, but because he saw the man’s friends “faith,” which was also their love for him. In fact, the scripture doesn’t tell us one thing the paralyzed man did, but be claimed by the love of God in Jesus and saved, body and soul by it.

I think we need to get first things first.

I also think you have a view of a God who serves the Bible, not a Bible that serves God. Your one-to-one correspondence between the written canon and the Word of God cannot be sustained by any reasonable reading of the Bible itself or church history. Jesus takes the very words of scripture, such as: “you have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” but I say to you . . . Jesus overrules the previous written code by separating the wheat from the chaff, and by flatly claiming an authority above that of the written scripture. And, regarding the Reformers view of scripture. Luther’s view cannot possibly be the view you espouse in equating the written scriptures with the Word of God. If so, why did Luther and Calvin actually take books out of the canon (books that Paul had in his scriptures! And that the church had had for 1500 years!). Further, Luther flatly criticized Revelation and James, and at times, wanted them taken out of the canon as well. Everyone knows in how high a regard Luther held the witness of scriptures, calling it the ruler over the church and “the Word of God,” but, even Luther didn’t have the mechanistic view of equating written canon with Word of God as a simple one-to-one correspondence. If he did, he would never have removed some books from the O.T., and so harshly questioned James and Revelation. And, he would not have made his famous statement: “The Bible is the cradle that holds the Christ-child.”

sermon notes from the sermon I did preach today, Sept. 18

“And, there was a loud voice from the throne saying: THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD IS WITH HUMAN BEINGS. HE WILL BE THEIR GOD,AND THEY WILL BE HIS PEOPLE, AND HE WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM THEIR EYES, FOR THERE WILL BE NO MORE CRYING, OR SICKneSS, OR PAIN OR DEATH, BECAUSE THE OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY.
I remember reading this passage for the first time when I was a senior in high school. I don’t think I had ever heard it read before or heard it preached on. THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD IS WITH PEOPLE. HE WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY WILL BE HIS PEOPLE. AND, HE WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM THEIR EYES.
These words struck me so deeply, it was like they went to fill this big empty place in my heart that had been aching to be filled. I was a high school senior and was really going through a spiritual re-awakening that fall of my senior year. I was spending a good bit of my free time reading the Bible, not running around on the edge of trouble like I had the previous year. And, the words of the Bible were beginning to catch fire in my heart and mind. I have never looked at life the same since these words from Revelation became part of my soul and my view of life.
As I remember that fall back in 1977, I remember it had begun to sink into my awareness that life was a pretty serious matter. I was beginning to realize the tragedy of life too. I was beginning to really feel that some real heartbrokenness was just a part of life, that unfairness was a part of life, that there was some real evil and cruelty and suffering that were going to be around so long as I lived. And, that losing those we love so deeply is also a part of living in this world.
I guess we all come at different points in our lives to these times of growing up in our outlook on life. Some of us have to face adult responsibilities and tragic losses earlier than others, but for all of us, there is a time when some of the trouble of life begins to trouble our mind and our faith.
I began to realize that life could change with a phone call that someone you love had been in a wreck, or that the lab report from the doctor revealed that there was a cancerous lump or that your mother you love so much was in ICU after a heart attack as a phone call did one night when I was 18.
As we grow up, the gravity of life, the weight of its sorrow, starts to hit home in a new way. The losses and pain of childhood are terribly real, but it is in a sense closed up inside so that the child can live on. In adolescence and adulthood, it seems we start opening up to the experiences we have had and to the trouble in the world around us. And, we face ourselves and our world in a new way. Frederick Beuchner writes that as an adolescent and as an adult, we begin to realize that pain, some real pain and loss, is here to stay, and we begin to try to make some sense of it or at least reach a truce with it; we realize it is a part of life that we will have to figure out how to live with.
As a child, bad things come, but somehow the child lives on. As we get older, we not only live on but we have to choose to live on. . . we realize that bad things are not simply disruptions in a life otherwise immune from pain, but that pain and trouble are right there in the center of life, even mixed real closely with joy and hope. As we grow up, we have to will to live in a world where there is going to disruption and struggle with sorrow as a part of life.
And, as I look back to that time when I was just turning 17 years old that fall, I think that my re-awakening to God brought along with it an awakening to the real brokenness and pain of life in this world – my own and others. It dawned on me that my family had really absorbed some losses along the way. Every family has many things to bear over the course of a life.
As I looked out at the world around me, whether it had to do with my family or with others, I saw and felt so much fragility, so much that was precious, but so much that could be lost in a moment. Although I experienced love and security with my family in my house, I saw that so many others were living in horrible insecurity and in the midst of hate and exploitation and violence. I only had to look to my extended family members another city over, another county over, and insecurity and trouble were regular there. Or, I only had to walk into my friends house to see trouble. And, then around the world, children dying of starvation and disease before they have even spoken their first word or taken their first step. And, well, you know, there is a lot of trouble if you open your eyes and hearts to see it.
Good things were going on in my life and in the world around me, but somehow I couldn’t ignore the suffering and the pain in the world anymore.
And, it was when all of this started to come to me, as I was starting to grow into adulthood, that I heard these words. AND, HE WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM THEIR EYES. THERE WILL BE NO MORE SORROW, OR SICKNESS OR PAIN OR DEATH . . . Because my heart was starting to protest all of this pain and suffering and death in the world. My heart and mind were beginning to look out at life, and to look towards God, and my response was not: “Well, God all is as you will it. Everything is o.k. because you are in control.” No, that is not what I felt at all. My awakening in faith brought with it a deep protest against all the pain and suffering and unfairness and cruelty in life, Because as I came to know God more deeply, I came to protest and be upset by a world that was clearly not going in accordance with what God’s ultimate will is for human life.
And, all the religious answers and sermons I heard didn’t give me any assurance or answers that seemed true or that helped at all. But, these words from Revelation, they came to me as a word straight from God, like a grace I am still thankful for receiving.
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: AND I TRULY HEARD THOSE WORDS AS SPOKEN LOUDLY FROM THE THRONE OF GOD. I did not feel I was reading. I felt I was listening and an angel of God was speaking:
BEHOLD THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD IS WITH PEOPLE. HE WILL BE THEIR GOD, THEY WILL BE HIS PEOPLE. AND, GOD WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM THEIR EYES (from the eyes of mothers who have just buried their children, from the eyes of children who have been left alone; from the eyes of children who have been beaten or sexually abused days without number, from the eyes of husbands who have lost their wives, and wives who have lost their husbands, from the eyes of mothers whose children have died from drug overdoses, from the fathers of children who have wasted their lives away in prison, from the eyes of inmates who just wish they could go back and start life over again, from the eyes of this and that person who has born the pains of this life. From the eyes of parents who have prayed and prayed and worried and prayed, worked and tried to keep hope alive even as they see their children devoured by mental illness or by cancer or other some disease. YES, GOD, GOD HIMSELF, WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM THEIR EYES, FROM OUR EYES. From my eyes and your eyes.
THESE WORDS WERE MY ANSWER. GOD’S PRESENCE. THE COMING OF GOD IN ALL OF HIS FULLNESS. GOD WILL ANSWER. GOD WILL WIPE AWAY THIS PAIN FROM OUR HEARTS.
AND THE VOICE OF THE ANGEL SAYS LOUDLY: AND THERE WILL BE NO MORE SICKNESS, NO MORE CRYING, NO MORE PAIN, NO MORE DEATH, BECAUSE THE FORMER THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY.
I had begun to be seriously troubled that fall of 1977 by the way things are in this world – troubled in a way that I just couldn’t look away from and forget in my soul. The Word of the Lord came to me and let me know: “you ought to be troubled by the way things are. God is troubled. God cares about the pain of human beings. God gathers it up in his heart. And, God will come to wipe the pain away. One day, God will come and wipe it away.” But, know this: “The Lord is taking all this trouble into his heart, and he gathers up all of the pain and suffering of human beings into his heart, and he will come in his fullness. He helps us bear it now in his love, and he is beginning to reveal his redeeming power among us day by day.” The assurance that all this horror and sorrow is not God’s desire for humanity and that God’s Spirit is completely committed to healing and help and relief and justice, that was enough for me. Because God’s will will be done – on that day completely, but even now day by day, that will of God presses into our broken reality. God’s will has its effect even now. As John Donne once said: “The assurance of future mercy is present mercy.”
There will come a day, when the heavens will open, and God’s glory will fill the earth, and all that has been wrong will be made right, all that has been wounded will be healed, all that has been taken will be restored, when what we have lost will be restored to us again. And, that day is a reality in our hearts that cannot be taken from us. It is sealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But, we carry this treasure in earthen vessels. At times, that day seems so remote, so far away; but, then in faith, we begin to see that that Great Day is at hand, that Great Day is a reality we can grasp in hope even now.
But, the reality of God is not just to be experienced in that future day. Looking to that future day, we are reminded of just what God’s will is, and that gives us hope for today. And, it gives us the courage to say that all is not well in this world, to be honest and protest against all that is broken and opposed to God’s justice and God’s peace and God’s love in this world. It gives us the strength to endure all that is broken in us and in those we love and in those we are learning to love. Because that good will of God to meet our sorrow with his love, to replace our despair with his life-giving presence, that good will of God is being enacted now. God works in hiddenness, but it will be made plain in the end. Paul expresses our present experience of faith very well in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11:
For we bear this treasure (this hope) in earthen vessels . . .
We seein a mirror dimly, but then face to face; but then FACE TO FACE.
We receive the goodness of each day as the gift of God. We keep our eyes open in faith, and our hearts open to what is joyful in life, and we keep our eyes open and our hearts open to what is sorrowful in life, bearing all things in faith. So long as the trouble of life doesn’t break our spirit, we remain open to the goodness and joy of life,and there is plenty of that. There is really plenty of that, if we can open our minds and hearts to see it.
But,we bear this treasure, this hope for the redemption of all of life, we bear this hope in earthen vessels, and earthen vessels get cracked and leak at times, sometimes our hope leaks out through the cracks, and we need a little repair work on these old earthen vessels. Maybe one of the best things we can do to refill our vessels with hope and repair the cracks is to focus our hearts upon the Great Day of the Lord, that hope of all hopes. To remind ourselves and each other of this promise and this hope of our scripture today. This is a treasure. I HEARD A LOUD VOICE FROM THE THRONE SAYING: THE DWELLIN PLACE OF GOD IS WITH HUMAN BEINGS. HE WILL BE THEIR GOD AND THEY WILL BE HIS PEOPLE. AND, GOD, GOD HIMSELF, WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM THEIR EYES. THERE WILL BE NO MORE GRIEVING, OR SICKNESS OR PAIN OR DEATH, FOR THE OLD AGE HAS PASSED AWAY.
This treasure is the hope we bear for all humanity, a hope that glows in our hearts, a hope in God for that time when there will be no more pain, nor sorrow, nor sickness, nor death, because the old things have passed away. Carry this hope in your hearts today, as God works in the present to bring the reality of his salvation nearer to us and to our world each day.
I close with the words from the Hymn: O Day of Peace:
O day of peace that dimly shines
through all our hopes and prayers and dreams,
guide us to justice, truth, and love,
delivered from our selfish schemes.
May the swords of hate fall from our hands,
our hearts from envy find release,
till by God's grace our warring world
shall see Christ's promised reign of peace.

Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb,
nor shall the fierce devour the small;
as beasts and cattle calmly graze,
a little child shall lead them all.
Then enemies shall learn to love,
all creatures find their true accord;
the hope of peace shall be fulfilled,
for all the earth shall know the Lord.
COME LORD, BRING YOUR DAY OF PEACE. COME AMONG US AND BE OUR GOD AND WE WILL BE YOUR PEOPLE. IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

sermon notes from sermon I didn't preach this week

I Samuel Chapter 8
The prophet Samuel was the greatest prophet in Israel since Moses. Between Moses and Samuel, there were prophets but none of them had that sense of being the one through whom God guided his people of Israel.
We hear that Samuel was born after the prayer of his mother, Hannah, was answered. Hannah, who was one of two wives of Samuel’s father, had never been able to have children. But, she prayed and prayed, even weeping as she was praying at the temple one day. And, the head priest Eli saw her and thought she was drunk. He said: “Woman,put away your wine.” Then, she said: “I am not drunk. I am praying with all my heart because my heart is deeply wounded.” Then, Eli felt pretty awful I think about what he had said to her because he was deep down a good priest. And, he said, “Woman, whatever your prayer is, may it be granted by God.” And, the answer to that prayer was a little boy born to Hannah. Hannah promised God that she would dedicate him to serve as a priest of the Lord with Eli. And, after the boy was weaned – probably not til 4 or 5 years old, she may have delayed the weaning a bit too. But, eventually she took the little fellow to Eli, with a little priest’s robe she had made and left him there. And, so Eli trained him up to be a priest.
Eli had two grown sons, but they were rotten, taking bribes, sleeping with prostitutes at the temple, etc. I always feel like Eli saw in Samuel a chance to amend his mistakes in raising his own sons. And, apparently, Eli did a great job with Samuel, because he grew up to be a great judge and priest over Israel.
But, now we pick up in our history towards the end of Samuel’s life. It says:
The elders called a meeting, because Samuel was old, he had appointed his sons to serve as prients, and his sons did not walk in his ways. They said: “appoint us a king, so we can be like the other nations.” This struck a nerve deep in Samuel, who had been raised on the prophecies of Moses. Moses had warned against having a king, because a king would oppress his own people.
And, according to our scripture, this desire to have a king among the people of Israel, struck a nerve deep in the heart of God. But, God says to Samuel: “They have not rejected you, but have rejected me from being their king.” But, go, do what they want you to do, but first warn them about what having a king will be like.”
The first time I really read this passage, I did a double-take. What? God doesn’t want them to have a king, but God is going to give them a king? And, Samuel seems to have felt that way too.
I think we see here some of the mystery of God’s relationship to human beings. God’s will was that Israel be led by a prophet, one who listened for and spoke the Word of God. Before Samuel the Word of the Lord was said to be rare in Israel, but with Samuel, the Word of God came to Israel again. The real crisis involved in Samuel being near death was that the Word of the Lord would have no one to receive it and pass it on. Israel would be without a prophet, without one to receive the Word for them and speak it to them. They would be without the Word of the Lord.
If Samuel’s sons were all they had as priests over Israel, the Word of the Lord would depart from the worship and governance of Israel, at least in so far as it was presided over by Joel and Abijah. But, if a king was appointed, it would reveal Israel’s rebellion against the Word of the Lord, because the Word of the Lord comes to prophets, not kings.
I imagine this conversation between God and Samuel:
“Look, Samuel, you have been just as bad a father as Eli was to his sons. But, he was a good father to you. Could you not have learned something from all this?” Now, you put me in a hard place as you have left Israel in a hard place, because your sons are rotten – really rotten to the core. Do you have any replacements to suggest? Is there a true prophet hiding out somewhere that you haven’t told me about?”
Samuel just says: “O Lord, I was going to ask you the same thing.”
God replies: “The answer is ‘no.’ You are the true prophet of Israel, but your days are numbered.”
Go and appoint them a king.
Samuel: “This is not exactly how I envisioned my life coming to an end. Having to appoint a king that will oppress the people, and leaving Israel without a man of God to hear and speak the Word of the Lord.”
God: “Well, Samuel, this is not exactly how I envisioned the history of my people, but I do thank you for your service. You have been a good prophet. So, finish your task. Your task is not to dictate to me, but to obey me, even when it is unpleasant. I have shared with you that this is unpleasant to me as well. That should be enough for you. And, who knows what will happen in Israel before you die. I always think of something good.”
Samuel: “Yes, you do, Lord. You never give up. I don’t know why, but you never give up. Thank you, Lord. I will go and do as you have asked me.”
And, Samuel in obedience to God appointed Saul as king over Israel, and Saul led them in their battles and for most of his reign Israel got the upper hand over their enemies, but Saul had trouble knowing how to obey the Word of the Lord that came through Samuel, the prophet. Saul would seem to do pretty well, but then he just couldn’t get things right with God or with the prophet, Samuel. In time, God rejected Saul as king over Israel. Samuel had a hard time accepting this as well, but he spoke the Word of the Lord. And, after Samuel grieved Saul’s rejection, God called Samuel to get up and anoint a king of God’s own choosing – a king who would follow God with his heart. And, Samuel went and anointed David, a young shepherd, the seventh son of Jesse.
The prophet Samuel was near to the doings of God. He was involved in the working out of God’s plans and responses to human beings in those days of Israel. It was a great and sacred task to partake in holy things like this. But, it was very difficult on Samuel, who had to take actions he didn’t really want to take: anoint Saul as king when the prophet knew God had never wanted a king but was simply allowing this rebellion in Israel. And, it was hard on Samuel to then pronounce and carry out the rejection of Saul as king when it was time for that. God had led him to anoint Saul, but that action was now put into question by God telling Samuel that Saul was rejected as king.
None of us have been where Samuel was. None of us has shared a conversation quite like that with God, or at least not at that level.
But, then again, maybe we have been where Samuel was in some ways. If you have been in thought or prayer before God, you may have wondered as Samuel wondered: “Why does this go on that is against your ways, O God? Why does this horrible situation or condition or injustice or suffering continue when it is not really what you want for human beings? O,God why do you allow a person to just throw their life away when you have created them to live fully and to rejoice in you?”
Samuel wondered why God would let Israel become like other nations and have a king to rule over them. Samuel may have also wondered how God could let Samuel’s sons become so corrupt, even as Samuel begged in many prayers that they would turn around and walk in his ways.
God may have wondered why Samuel didn’t take more time to prepare his sons, and why Samuel was so ineffective in training them to be priests. Of course, God didn’t have to wonder. He knew. Because God knows that we human beings fall short of the glory of God, which is to say most all of us are really underachievers in a profoundly tragic sense.
And, then we turn around and blame our sorry state of affairs on God, not realizing we have put God in an almost impossible position as we are generally proud of what we should be ashamed of and ashamed of what we should be proud of. Yes, God has had a difficult time dealing with a mixed up human race: so much good about us all, and then so much that is twisted and destructive. But, God has never given up. God has continued to come up with a new plan of saving again and again.
But, it is hard to save someone who is bent on their own self-destruction. That was God’s struggle with Israel. The Israelites so often bought into the success strategies of the Canaanite culture. They tried to get along and worship the gods of the Canaanites. They tried to fit in and not stand out, so they could go along and get along with other peoples. But, the Israelites were always putting themselves in the hands of other rulers, other religions, and being abused and oppressed. Only God would protect them – in a sense and most importantly, only God could protect them from themselves.
But, God’s ways are not our ways. He comes over our way a long way to understand and help us understand. If it had been a human ruler in charge, when Israel asked for a king, the human ruler would have just said no and punished those who asked. But, God was in charge who understands things that are very deeply a part of human life and understands things too deep for us to grasp about how the Divine works out his will in history. God basically said: “I don’t want you to have a king, but I’ll let you have a king. I am warning you of the problems of having a king.” And, God did not give up on redeeming his people. God goes farther than we are willing to go with people; God gets dirty in the mess of history and rules from within it. And, God, sometimes sooner, and sometimes later, comes out with the victory – a victory God can share to bless others.
God could have had a victory immediately back then, I suppose, if he were a different kind of God. If God was really like a human king, he could have just made the rules and punished those who disobeyed. But, history shows that though God has brought punishments, that is not God’s chosen way of governing humans in this world. If God was not really after a victory he could share with us, then his course would be an easy one in life. But, God will not be victorious and let the world fall into destruction. God has always wanted a victory for humanity,not one against humanity. And,this takes wisdom, and perserverence, and a love that cannot be defeated by all the forces of resistance and evil among us and among creation itself.
Scripture presents God as a Warrior often in the Old Testament, and at a few points in the New Testament as well. This is a powerful and important image of God. For, God is a warrior for the body and soul of every human being on this earth. And, God goes to battle again and again against the powers of evil that twist and destroy human life; he goes to battle to save the bodies and souls of human beings. And, God gets bloodied in the process. Isn’t that the meaning of the cross? God will go so far to save that he will not spare his own Son, his own Being from being beaten and mocked and executed on a cross of wood?
Remember our God whom we love: he is the God who leaves behind the safety of heaven and comes down to do battle for the lives of human beings right here on earth. And, our Dear and Holy and Good God suffers in the process. We know this from that cross of wood that once stood on Golgatha, with the Son of God hanging on it. We know this from the thanksgiving that wells up in our hearts. And, we know that the suffering of God is a redemptive suffering. When God suffers, redemption and salvation come into the world, into our lives, into those places in which God suffers.
O, God, how can you have allowed yourself to get so drawn into and mixed up in the affairs of humanity? How can you who are holy have taken on the burdens of human beings like us, who are unholy? We have put you in so many difficult situations again and again. You could have given us up. It seems to us you should have given us up. How can we be worth all the struggle it takes to redeem?
Your Love remains the only answer we can find, and Your Love is a mystery far beyond our imagining and greatest hopes. Whatever we seem to ourselves and others, O Lord, we are above all loved by you. Whatever our neighbor seems to us or herself, she is above all loved by you.
Why have you become so involved and burdened with human affairs? Because of your love. Because of your love. Because of your love, we live and move and have our being. Because of your love, we stand up as we hear your pardon. Because of your love, we live on when we feel no reason for living. Because of your love, we love even when hated by others. Because of your love, you chose a king after your own heart, even if having a king wasn’t your idea in the first place. Because of your love, the world exists. Because of your love, Samuel kept on speaking your Word of Truth. Because of your love, we got up this morning. Because of your love. Because of your love. As loveless as we are at times, we love, yes, we love, because of your love. Amen.

To Be AND Not to Be

Each of us is a potential self. We are always becoming someone, whether we know it or not. Sometimes the self we are becoming is a stranger to the selves we have been, and so we stop and reflect and gather up our memories of who we have been, trying to find that hidden strand of the "who we were meant to be" in all those previous becoming selves; and, then with a power deep within but not of ourselves we will to be someone we have always been but will never quite become - "this side of Jordan."

Maybe Shakespeare's Hamlet just missed when he said: "To be or not to be - that is the question." The reality of human life seems "to be and not to be." That is the existence we must live with, celebrate, and sometimes endure in faith. We are those creatures who are born to live with ambiguity within our own selves. If we can make peace with that, we can live some pretty decent lives and accept the ambiguity in others.

A God Who is Really Involved in Creation

If God has a real relationship in time with this creation, including human beings, then not only does God act to affect events in the world, but God is acted upon and affected by events in the world.

The Old Testament's so-called "anthropocentric" way of presenting God in a simple dramatic relationship with human beings and the created order at times may be the only "realistic" way to express how God is related to the created order.

God is not presented in the Old Testament as if everytime God says: "jump," the created order comes into complete line with God's will. God is presented as ruler over creation, but not a ruler whose actions have a one-to-one correspondence with events in the world. God acts upon the forces of the world and gives shape to them, but there are other agents in the animal world, particular human agents, who act from their side as well giving shape to the created order and perhaps influencing God, working to effectuate God's purposes or working in some real sense to hinder or frustrate God's purposes.

Whether one understands God to be in a real, dramatic relationship with this creation and its creatures, or whether one understands God to simply sit at the switchboard and order all that takes place is very important in theology and faith and life.

If a person thinks deep down that God has simply designed everything beforehand and willed each thing to take place that does take place, then the death of Jesus is not part of God's dramatic and passionate efforts to save a rebellious humanity and a broken creation. Because if God has simply set it all out beforehand, and the death of Jesus is simply the unfolding of the irresistible, set-in-stone will of God, and not part of the dramatic back and forth between God and the created order, then it is as if God willed to have humans rebel and Jesus' death was God's affirmative will as well.

If it is all understood this way with God planning it all out like the script of a play before hand, then God is not really in relationship with humanity and creation; we are just actors inevitably acting out a drama we have not part in shaping; and then Jesus is simply the same kind of actor in the inevitable history dictated by God.

There used to be two concepts that were used in theology to try to hold onto the truth that God is in complete control over creation, while acknowledging that there is much rebellion against God's ways in creation. These concepts were the affirmative will of God and the permissive will of God.

The affirmative will of God is that all human beings obey God's law by loving God and neighbor. The permissive will of God allows (while still not losing control or the ability to mold) humans to both obey and rebel and cause good and evil on earth. In fact, as God remains involved in creation, God works at bringing the "out of control" under control at every moment. This is a way of saying God is in relationship with that which is anti-God, and does not lose control of it ultimately. Jesus seems to have represented this type of view as he prays: "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done - on earth as it is in heaven."

This way of speaking is at least much better than the common way of simply saying that "nothing happens that God doesn't want to happen." As if God affirmatively wills all that happens or else it would not happen. This, to me, seems very wrong unless you believe in God as some operative concept and not as a real Being who can be in relationship to other personal beings and other forces in the world.

All of these thoughts become very, very important as we turn to understand what happened when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. How was God involved in that? It is accepted as "God's will" by almost all Christians, but was Jesus' death God's affirmative will or God's permissive will? I believe that it was part of God's permissive will as the deepest desire of God was not humanity's rejection of God in human flesh, but the deepest desire of God was to save all human flesh. God's affirmative will was to save humanity from the self-destruction that comes of rejecting God's authority and truth and grace. In order to accomplish his affirmative will, God must in a sense get in the mix with other forces in creation - act and be acted upon by them - in order to shape that creation in a real way. I believe that God did exactly that in Jesus in the most dramatic way possible. He actually allowed his very Being to be affected by human response and rejection, and took that rejection into himself and in an act of creation out of nothing just as grand as the original creative act took the hatred and rebellion of humanity and transformed it into a life-giving,saving presence for humanity.

It is in this area of the permissive will of God that the real action of history takes place. The concept of "the affirmative will of God" is how we perceive that God had wanted to be in relation with the world. But, in this thinking about "the permissive will of God" we really come into touch with the real world of God and humanity and all creation, and begin to have some chance to touch on the real, dramatic relationship within which God works out the salvation of the world. But, God is in the midst creating out nothing, actually creating good out of less than nothing.

Jesus is often presented in conservative Protestant theology as simply an answer to the problem of how sinful humans can be forgiven by a God who cannot accept sin. That is, Jesus' death is presented as the solving of a problem that was God's problem,not our problem. I understand Jesus' death as God's response to the ultimate rejection of God by humanity, as a response to the deepest problem of humanity: a will that was opposed to the great Will of God to save and bless humanity - a human will that was bent on self-destruction. The problem was on the side of humanity,not on God's side. Jesus' death didn't convince God to give humanity another chance; Jesus died because God just couldn't help but reach out to save even if it cost him the one human who was closest and dearest to his heart.

So, in simple terms that a child can understand, I ask: "Did God want Jesus to die?" No, that is the last thing God wanted. But, how can something happen that God does not want to happen?

"Did God allow Jesus to die?" Yes, because God is in a real relationship with this world. Did Jesus death affect God? So deeply that it shook all things, even the heart of God. And, what poured forth from the heart of God was not vengeance against humanity for killing Jesus, but love for humanity and the resurrection of Jesus. God could have raised up Jesus to conquer and destroy humanity,but he raised up Jesus as the first-born of a new creation from within humanity to save humanity and all creation.

I guess it begins to become abstract at this point. But, then the dramatic relationship of God with this world and especially with humanity is a story about real events, and about real choices and responses that have shaped reality at its depths.

But, the history of Christianity carries within it two distinct and very different strands of belief: on one side there is the belief in an abstract concept of God from which one can deduce all sorts of theories about life and salvation; and on the other side there is a devotion and commitment to a Real Creator who is dramatically involved with the created order and with human beings and who, though God of all, can be felt to be struggling, working, fashioning a new world, not from some throne up on high, but through a real presence in a real world and real events that sometimes almost break the very heart of God.

The first strand of belief in the abstract concept of God carries with it a rigid view of Jesus' death that actually doesn't have God involved in the death itself. This is the strict substitutionary atonement theory of Jesus' death. It goes like this: God has all humanity under judgment for sin. Jesus serves as a sacrificial lamb to cleanse humans of sin and make them acceptable to God. Those who believe this receive the benefits of Jesus' sacrifice and are acceptable before God. Those who don't believe this remain under God's judgment and rejection for being sinners. In this view of things, God was unable to reach out to humanity because he couldn't accept that which is unholy. But, the sacrifice of Jesus in dying, makes humans acceptable (so long as they come under this acceptance through faith).

The second strand of commitment and devotion to the dramatically involved Being, God, believes that it is the very nature of God to accept the unacceptable and that God's love is precisely that which "justifies the ungodly." The first strand of belief contends that only that which is holy may approach God. The second strand believes that the holiest of all shows his holiness by approaching that which is unholy and transforming it through his will to save and heal and reconcile. What is so shaking about the death of Jesus is what Luther caught on to: God is in the very center of it - not as the one who sacrifices Jesus, but as the one who is in a real sense subject and harmed by the sacrifice.

Thinking Out Loud for the First Time in a Long Time on this Blog

As I finish another week of work at the Public Defender's Office, and move into the weekend. And, as I begin to prepare for Sunday worship, and consider all that is going on in my family's life and in life around me in this world, I am moved to say:

"The way we boil it all down real nice and simple in our churches is simply false, and is not the true Gospel of God."

My prayers last night as I was awake in the middle of the night had nothing in common with the confident affirmations of faith we make in worship, nor did it have much in common with the great majority of our hymns in the Presbyterian Hymnal.

But, my prayers last night had a real resonance with some of the Psalms and with Ecclesiates. And, I got a certain feeling of resolution in all of this. And, it is the resolution that may not make many religious people happy. What I came to last night was that God is very, very good, completely and utterly on the side of all that supports and helps life, and against all that twists and destroys life. But, at the same time, I got a strong feeling that God cannot affect things so simply as we have often imagined in the church. I got the feeling that maybe God cannot prevent some suffering and pain in this world, but that God suffers some of this with us. I didn't say I believe that God can do nothing about suffering and pain, but that I am coming to believe that the way God is in relation to his creation, there is much in creation that is simply not really under God's control. But, I believe that God's Spirit continues to work to create and bring that which is against life under God's rule. At the present time, it seems to be the case that much in this world, even in our personal lives, is simply not under our good Creator's rule.

The last part of the sermon for Sunday

I have been preparing a sermon based on Romans 11, which is where the Apostle Paul reflects on the troubling question of whether God has rejected the Jews whom God had previously chosen as a special people destined for God's blessings and redemption. Paul's answer is a resounding: "No, God is faithful and true even if no one else is; and God will keep his promise to Israel and save this special people of God." Read Romans 11 and then marvel at how the Church through the centuries has ignored this very plain affirmation of the Jewish people by the leading voice of early Christianity. Somehow as I was reflecting on this, I was realizing how Paul's experience as a Jew, as a persecutor of Christians and then as one who proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah from God and joined Christians as a leader/Apostle - I was realizing how all of this must have opened Paul's heart up in a remarkable way. This letter to the Romans shows just how big Paul's heart got, just how big his Gospel was, just how universal his hope was. This was one of his latest letters, it seems. Well, all of this raised my hopes for us all and below is what I have written as the concluding portion of the sermon for Sunday, August 7:


"Paul understood so well just how easy it was as a human being to be deluded about oneself and life in general. Paul understood very well how terribly easy it was for a human being to fall into a false way of living and lose all touch with the reality of God. And, Paul knows the God of Jesus and has experienced that God’s will to save is so much greater than our will to reject life from God. Paul’s life is a life of hope. His preaching is preaching filled with hope, not just hope in general, but hope in the living God who is at work reconciling the world and every human being in it to himself. Paul sees this and feels this at every turn in life, and as he proclaims it, he awakens this hope in others. And, I proclaim this same truth today to you and among you.

'God was in Christ reconciling the world and all of us in it to himself. God’s Spirit is working right now to bring reconciliation to your life: reconciliation with God, reconciliation with others, reconciliation of your broken and divided self. God’s Spirit is at work right now to bring reconciliation between groups of people who have been hostile towards each other. I tell you this is a reality in our world. And, this reality of God’s reconciling Spirit is the most important reality there is. And, it is a reality that you can experience, and participate in because in truth it is the reality by which you live. In this reality, “we live and move and have our being” whether we are aware of it or not.

"You do not have to live out your life stuck in the ruts of despair and meaninglessness and hopelessness. You are a child of God. That is what Jesus came to reveal by the way he treated people, by the way he cared for the sick, by the way that he upheld the dignity of the poor, by the way he respected authorities enough to tell them the truth even if it hurt their sense of importance and even when it threatened their sense of power and control in life.

"You do not have to live out your life cut off and alienated from the life-giving Spirit of God. As Paul once said: “In God, we live and move and have our being.” The Spirit of God is closer to you than you are to yourself, but somehow you and I are keeping this life-giving and gracious power at arms length. Somehow we are living like strangers when we need to realize we are at home in this world. You are a child of the living God, made to live at peace with God on this earth, made to be at home on this earth, with other human beings, and at home in your own life, at peace in your own body and with who you are in God’s will.

"Although many of us gathered today have experienced the gracious presence of God at many times in our lives, still so often we live as if God’s Spirit is not at work in the world and in our lives. Although many of us gathered today have sung praises that we really mean this morning, when we turn to face the realities of our lives, we will begin to lose touch with the reality of God in our lives and in our world. But, we don’t have to. We don’t have to. A few of you in here today really know this – you know it better than I do. You know that there is a way to live close to God’s Spirit and consistently be at peace with God and others – I didn’t say live perfectly, but consistently at peace with God and others in the Spirit of God. There is a way to walk into the world and not lose touch with the Holy presence of God. At times, I have experienced this, and at times it slips away. But, there is a way to stay nearer this reality that is more basic and essential than all the other realities we deal with. To stay nearer, it takes some real devotion to God, and openness to learning how God is present not just in the time of worship but in the time of leisure and the time of work and the time of anger and in the time of humor. It takes an openness to the Spirit of God in all of life to learn that God is a God of reality; God is present in our world in all aspects of life. God does not abide in houses made of human hands, but in all the living beings he has made.

Jesus revealed the way of living near to God in all of life. He was at home on the sea, fishing with his disciples; he was at home in the desert surrounded by wilderness and wild animals; he was at home with tax collectors and sinners, even at the parties they held; he was at home eating and drinking wine with common people or religious leaders; he was at home in his own body; he was at home reading the scriptures in holy worship; he was at home alone in prayer with his God; he was at home in times of celebration, and he was at home in times of sorrow and grief. Jesus knew what is was to live on this earth as a child of God, near to God, living close to the reality of God and so living fully in the reality of life in this world.

"And, God’s Spirit remains free to move with or without us; God’s Spirit continues to create good out of evil, love out of hate, order out of chaos, chaos and then new order out of unjust and oppressive order. If we have eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to understand and experience – then, we can experience and be near this reality of God throughout our lives. To be near God is everything. It gives life purpose and hope and renews our strength when we feel we have nothing left to life for, nothing left to live on, nothing left at all. To be near God is everything in life. I am convinced we can remain a lot nearer to God a lot more often than we have ever imagined before. I am convinced that it is more natural to do so, than not to do so. It is how we are made in our depths. And, if we will start living from the depths of our lives, and quit living out of the shallows of our lives, we will come to a more natural, less fabricated, way of living, and then one day we may say very simply what a lot of sane, genuine people who love life have said for centuries:

“For me, it is good to be near to God. . . ."

Expectations

I remember the words of John Donne: "There are light hours enough in each day for a man to complete his whole journey intended by Thee."

It makes me think of expectations. The expectations we have of ourselves, the expectations we have of others, the expectations others have of us, and the expectations we think others have of us, and the expectations others think we have of them. And, that makes John Donne's words seem so wonderful, because these words reveal a way of freedom from all these expectations and anticipations of what is expected and suggest that there is an ultimately gracious expectation that overcomes all else - the expectation of God that we live within the gracious provisions and bounds set out for us that happen to be not what we expected or what others expected of us, but just what we need and desire in the depths of our being.