Spiritual Hiccups - Invaded by Heaven

If you go to a Christian funeral, there is a very good chance you will hear the following verse from John's gospel. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."  A few years ago, these verses were a part of the New Testament passage used for one of our denomination's "ordination exams." These are taken by those seeking to be ordained as pastors, mostly seminary students.  I served as one those grading the exams, and a question in the exam on the John passage asked whether or not this passage was actually appropriate for funerals. 

In the exams that I graded, most all the test takers struggled with this question, and I heard a similar report from other exam graders.  In nearly all cases, the problem arose from understanding resurrection and eternal life to mean nothing more than going to heaven when you die.  But biblically speaking, resurrection has nothing to do with souls winging their way to heaven.  Resurrection was something that was supposed to happen "on the last day," as Martha says quite clearly in today's gospel.  And so when Jesus says, "I AM the resurrection and the life," (The peculiar Greek grammar of Jesus' "I AM" is supposed to remind us of God's personal name.) he seems to be saying that the promise and hope and power of that last day has come into the present.  Those who are "in Christ" can began to experience a new quality of life, a new life born of the Spirit, here and now.

One of the exciting things going on in Christian faith right now is a recovery of a gospel of the Kingdom, of God's coming reign, a gospel that had been supplanted by what Brian McLaren has called a "gospel of evacuation."  This gospel says that if you have faith in Jesus, you will get evacuated from this earth (which is apparently beyond hope), and relocated to the paradise of heaven.  But of course Jesus never says any such thing.  He says the God's reign has "drawn near."  And the Apostle Paul speaks of creation itself longing and groaning in labor pains for the new thing that is coming. 

It seems rather odd to me that so many Christians, who know very well the creation story where on the sixth day God looks out and judges the whole shebang "very good," somehow conclude that this same creation has gotten so badly off track that it is beyond God's power to rescue and restore.

"I AM the resurrection and the life."  God's power to restore, redeem, and make new has burst into the present.  Heaven is not some distant evacuation zone for those who qualify.  Rather heaven has invaded creation, intent on conquering it through love.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Where's Your Pride?

The local high school football team had a good season this past Fall, and so it was more common than in years past to see "Bobcat Pride" emblazoned on cars.  High School football is long over, but I saw one of those cars the other day, and it made me wonder a bit about the things that we are proud of, especially when I consider this morning's psalm.  Here's a verse from it.

  Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,
     but our pride is in the name of the LORD our God.

 This verse struck me as a bit odd at first.  Why would one be proud of God, or of God's personal name?  (The "LORD" in the verse is a reverent, deferential rendering of the divine name, YHWH.)  The psalm obviously draws a contrast with those things that normally produce pride: successful football teams, children who get scholarships, or, in the case of the psalm, powerful military technology.  Pride is normally associated with our accomplishments or the accomplishments of those we love.  In the cases of football teams and military might, we often view those as extensions of ourselves.

So how does one experience pride in God?  Is it like pride in our team, being impressed because God did a great job?  Perhaps I'm obsessing over a single word in a psalm, but this is in part prompted by a line from St. John of the Cross I saw quoted in one of Richard Rohr's Daily devotions.  It says, "God refuses to be known; God can only be loved."

Pride most often seems to go with things we love, self, team, country, children, etc.  But the psalmist's pride is not in any of these things.  It is "in the name of the LORD our God."  Perhaps that is because the LORD is the one the psalmist loves more than all others.  So where's your greatest pride?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Something New

This is my first blog post of a new year, and so it seems appropriate to think about newness.  Today's reading from Ephesians speaks of newness.  It says "to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."  But is this newness something done to us or something we become by doing the right things.  The Ephesians passage is a bit vague on that.

I've never done them much myself, but the new year is a time when many make resolutions, promising to change in some way and therefore become something new.  The idea that we can start fresh is a compelling one and an idea at home in the Christian faith.  After all, God continually reaches out to us, beckoning us to new life and relationship.  But is this newness our doing or God's?  New Year's resolutions are clearly about our trying harder and becoming a new and better version of ourselves, a self who is lighter and leaner, healthier, nicer to one's spouse, no longer smokes, etc.  This is a newness that we do if we have the tenacity to stick to our resolutions.

I heard a Christian being interviewed on the news the other day with regards to her support of a certain presidential candidate. In explaining her position she said, "As a Christian, I believe that people can change."  Certainly Christian faith speaks a lot about people changing, but where does that come from?

If you've spent much time in a church congregation beyond coming on Sunday, you likely know how good churches and church members are at figuring out what they cannot do.  Be it the mission project we can't afford, the class a person knows she could never teach, or the new worship service we don't have the resources and talent to pull off, we are good at saying "No" to newness.  And it seems to me that very often an implied theological statement lies hidden in our "No."  It says, "Newness is dependent on us."  Of course quite often we seem to prefer the old, and even when we don't, we aren't sure we have what it takes to change things.

In Isaiah 43, God speaks through the prophet to exiles in Babylon saying, "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"  What an interesting question for the prophet to ask?  What newness of God is springing forth around us?  Do we not perceive it?  And if not, why?

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Christmas Meditation video: Another King?

Christmas Meditation: Another King?

Angels are part of our Christmas celebration, but like bows on packages, are mostly decorative. In his sermon, "Gosh, Some Angels," Walter Brueggemann says we need to take another look at angels. Perhaps this may help us rethink our understanding of Christmas. (from Luke 2:1-20)

Christmas meditation - 12-25-12.mp3

Spiritual Hiccups - My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad

As we draw close to Christmas, this morning's psalms seem jarring next to images of a babe in a manger, of shepherds, angels, and nativity scenes. Psalm 18 speaks of being in danger from enemies and crying out to God.  And God responded to that cry.



Then the earth reeled and rocked;
   the foundations also of the mountains trembled 
   and quaked, because he was angry. 
Smoke went up from his nostrils, 
   and devouring fire from his mouth; 
   glowing coals flamed forth from him.

It is easy for some to dismiss such images of God as something archaic, a violent God of the Old Testament unlike the God of love we meet in Jesus.  But I've noticed that most children who come from homes with loving parents where they feel safe and secure assume that their mother or father would whip all comers in order to protect them.  And I wonder if that isn't what we see in this psalm.  The childish boast that "My Dad can beat up your Dad" grows out of the sense of security children experience, and the psalmist seems to know something similar.

If one has experienced a security in the love of God, in God's parental care, it is pretty easy to think along such lines.  In an ancient world inhabited by many gods, it is hardly surprising that some Old Testament passages sound a bit like, "My Dad can beat up your Dad."

Jesus does nothing to undermine the idea of God's parental-like love.  Jesus repeatedly calls his followers to trust themselves to God's care.  But Jesus does redefine what God's power looks like.  The Apostle Paul calls this "power made perfect in weakness."  And Jesus made clear what Israel (and the Church in our day) often forgot.  God's parental love was not restricted to them.  Indeed the call of Abraham was so that "all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

I felt very safe and secure as a child, and I probably thought my Dad could beat up some others.  But to my knowledge, he never did.  The safety and security of parental love is generally not experienced in such things.

As we celebrate the birth of one born to "save," we would do well not to reject an image of God as one who can and does protect and provide.  The child born in a manger is not just a nice philosopher who teaches a good way to live.  He is God's power unleashed for us.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Seeing the Future

There's a car commercial running on television where the wife excitedly tells the husband that they are having a baby.  As they celebrate this announcement, a strange look comes over the husband.  He has just thought of something, and it quickly becomes apparent just what.  He has a sleek, two-door sports car, and they are about to have a baby.  (If you've not seen the ad, its for a "four-door sports car.")

There is a sense in which the father in this commercial sees the future.  Nothing particularly dramatic about it, but he knows that a baby means a different life than the one he now has.  And he must begin planning for that new day.

I think that biblical prophets are more like this father than they are psychics who promise to tell you your future.  True, they've been given a bit deeper sense of what is coming than this dad, but they are not really predicting the future in the sense most people mean by that phrase.  Rather they know God intimately enough that they know where things will end up when God acts.  They know the character of God and so they know what will happen when God shakes things up.

That's what is going on in Mary's song in today's gospel.  Mary's going to have a baby, and she knows that this baby will have a much bigger impact than the typical one.  This baby is part of God's plans, and so she can sing her prophetic song just as surely as that father can see the need for a four-door car. 
  "(God) has brought down 
         the powerful from their thrones,

     and Lifted up the lowly;  

  he has filled the hungry with good things,

     and sent the rich away empty.

  He has helped his servant Israel,

     in remembrance of his mercy,

  according to the promise he made 

         to our ancestors,

     to Abraham and to his 

         descendants forever."

God has; not God will, but God has.  This is not so much a prediction of the future as it is a realization of what God's future looks like, a realizations that is so  real for Mary that it seems already accomplished.  As many have noted, prophets' sense of what God is up to is so vivid that they often get their tense wrong.

I think that people of deep faith always have a bit of this vision of the future within them.  It is why they can actually love their enemies and work for a better world even when that work costs them dearly and does not show the sort of results our culture validates.  

We're about the celebrate the birth of Mary's baby, as we most certainly should.  But for that celebration to mean much, we also need to see a bit of the future that Mary sees.  

Can you see the future?  God's future?

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Spiritual Hiccups - A New Song?

The Daily Lectionary sometimes seems to use the same Psalms over and over.  And so I don't always read them as closely as I should.  Being the product of Western culture and education, I tend to read for information, and if I know a psalm fairly well, what new information will I get?

There is certainly nothing wrong with reading the Bible for information, but that is hardly the only way to read it.  In fact, Scripture often speaks powerfully when we listen in a very different mode.  That happened to me today, though I can't say it was because I was being particularly attentive, doing lectio divina, or engaged in any other spiritual practice.  I was rushing through the morning psalms, but nonetheless, a phrase struck me: "a new song."

I've heard and read that phrase countless times, but I'm not sure that it ever impacted me the way it did this morning.  Perhaps the time of year helped, along with reading Hannah's song in the Old Testament reading.  That song seems to be a model for Mary's song which follows on the heels of today's gospel reading.  Those are both new songs, at least in the sense that they describe something new.

A new song.  New songs are not a big part of this time of year.  Even in contemporary worship services where people rarely sing any song more that 20 years old, worshipers want traditional carols at Christmas.  That's fine with me.  I love singing Silent Night, Joy to the World, and O Little Town of Bethlehem.  But I wonder if our celebration of Christmas sometimes fails to leave much room for something new.  It looks back and remembers.  But does it look forward to the new thing that Jesus' birth heralds? 

Amidst all the warmth and nostalgia of Christmas, I wonder if we don't need to add another tradition, a tradition of a new song.  Perhaps we could write some new verses to an old favorite and add call to discipleship in our Christmas services.  Regardless, what if every Christmas Eve Service included something that asked us to turn our gaze forward, to look for God's new heaven and new earth, and to join in the work of that coming reign of God?  What if one of our special Christmas traditions was a renewal of hope, a hope rooted in a vision of God's future? 

Sing to the LORD a new song, one like Hannah and Mary sang. 

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Sermon video - Saying "Yes" to the Impossible

Videos also available on YouTube.

An Advent Monologue by "Mary"

Mary is played by Stefanie Osborne.

Spiritual Hiccups - Remaking a Classic

Every now and then I hear someone complain about Hollywood doing too many remakes and sequels.  Right now the theaters feature Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the Mission Impossible team.  And all of these are sequels of films that were based on previous shows, films, and books.

But I'm not going to complain about this because I've noticed a bit of the same in the Bible.  In today's gospel, Luke tells a story that looks like a lot of stories from the Old Testament.  God is going to do something wonderful, and this will involve a previously "barren" woman giving birth.  Sarah, Hannah, and now Elizabeth.  Over and over God goes back to a tried and true story: life where it seemed there was none, hope where it had not existed, a future where one was not expected.

I take some solace from the fact that God sticks to a plot that we've seen before.  Strangely though, it still seems to surprise us.  We imagine that the story is all played out, that hope is gone, that this time there will be no happy ending.  God has seemed too absent from our lives.  The brokenness and cynicism of our world has the upper hand.  The darkness has overcome the light.

And then an old, old story breaks through once more.  Life in the face of barrenness.  Hope where there had been none.  Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. 

Sometimes, when we have a hard time seeing God, when we've relegated the power of God to some time after we die, it's good to remember that God keeps working from an old script.  And we know how the story ends.

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Sermon audio - Saying "Yes" to the Impossible

Click to download mp3 file