Yet we eat our morsel alone...

I use the devotional guide For All the Saints, and have been using it for years... probably almost ten, ever since my grandparents gave me the four-volume set for Christmas my first or second year in seminary. Despite having gone through the volumes several times now (it is a two-year lectionary), I still come across things in it that I either skipped over or just don't remember.

Today there was a passage from Job, where Job says,

If I have withheld anything that the poor desired,
or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
¹⁷ or have eaten my morsel alone,
and the orphan has not eaten from it—
¹⁸ for from my youth I reared the orphan^* like a father,
and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow^*—
¹⁹ if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing,
or a poor person without covering,
²⁰ whose loins have not blessed me,
and who was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
²¹ if I have raised my hand against the orphan,
because I saw I had supporters at the gate;
²² then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder,
and let my arm be broken from its socket.
²³ For I was in terror of calamity from God,
and I could not have faced his majesty. (Job 31:16-23, my emphasis)

In conjunction with this passage, the devotional used a poem by William Alexander, Archbishop of the Church of Ireland in the late 19th century. The poem as presented in For All The Saints used an ellipsis so I knew the poem was not complete. I managed to find only one complete version through Google. It was in a volume of The Lutheran Witness, volume 34, published by Concordia Publishing House in 1915, which appears to be a compendium of Lutheran news and devotional and catechetical material. In a section entitled simply "Job" the work republished Archbishop Alexander's entire poem.

"If I have eaten my morsel alone"--
The patriarch spoke in scorn;
What would he think of the Church,
Were he shown Heathendom, huge, forlorn,
Godless, Christless, with soul unfed,
While the Church's ailment is fullness of bread,
Eating her morsel alone?

"I am debtor alike to the Jew and the Greek,"
The mighty Apostle cried,
Traversing continents, souls to seek
For the love of the Crucified;
Centuries, centuries, since have sped;
Millions are famishing; we have bread;
But we eat our morsel alone.

Ever of them who largest dower
Shall Heaven require the more;
Ours is affluence, knowledge, power,
Ocean from shore to shore;
And East and West in our ears have said,
"Give us, give us your Living Bread";
Yet we eat our morsel alone.

"Freely, as ye have received, so give,"
He bade, who hath given us all;
how shall the soul in us longer live,
Deaf to their starving call,
For whom the Blood of the Lord was shed,
And his Body broken to give them Bread,
If we eat our morsel alone?

Some might hear this poem as meant to induce guilt. If it does it is likely only because folks recognize the reality. But at the heart of this poem, Alexander hits upon the great abundance that God has given us in the person of his Son. "Ours is affluence, knowledge, power..." not necessarily as the world measures it, but in the body and blood of Jesus, in his atoning death, we find meaning and purpose and connection with the divine life.

Lazarus, the Rich Man, and Life... but Which Life?

I find myself in an interesting position. I am not preaching this upcoming Sunday, and yet today, I led my Tuesday morning bible study on our normal weekly romp through the upcoming Sunday's gospel lesson. This gathering is really helpful for me. I have an early crack at the upcoming text every week. It is not uncommon for our encounter with the text to significantly shape how I will be preaching. But this Sunday I don't have to do it. I can drop it this week. Focus on something else. But this text, Lazarus and the Rich Man, has grabbed a hold of me. Perhaps it is just the way I have been formed these nearly seven years in the parish. Or maybe it is THIS passage. I feel guilt whenever I think about this passage since in 2001, while I was on internship, I feel like I crashed and burned on my preaching of this text. Maybe I am not sure I will ever do this text justice because of that, but I feel like I must keep on trying.

Whatever the reason though, this passage Luke 16:19-31, has stuck this week. And while it is not nearly as confusing and problematic as last week's reading, it certainly gives us some possible avenues for interpretation. Without a doubt, one avenue to explore is the whole afterlife image. Over at Working Preacher, Greg Carey opens his reflection about this passage with this line. He writes:

For example, the parable might reflect Luke's view of what happens after we die. At the moment of death, it seems Lazarus journeys to Abraham's bosom while the Rich Man descends into torment. Does death deliver us immediately to our eternal fate? Such a view would seem to contradict that expressed by Paul in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians. In those early letters, Paul regards death as, well, death. The hope for life resides only in the resurrection. (Paul may voice a different view in Philippians 1: "to live is Christ, but to die is gain.") Luke's story of the thief on the cross also suggests an immediate transition into the afterlife: "Truly I tell you: Today you will be with me in Paradise" (23:43). Moreover, does this parable teach that the wicked suffer torment in the afterlife? Few mainline preachers devote significant pulpit time to that distressing prospect.

Today I was using THE Lutheran Study Bible from CPH (I reviewed it here) and right there in midst of this passage was a special page dedicated to the question of what happens when we die. This parable (and yes, I do think it is a parable) leads a number of folks to think this way and I understand that. However given the placement of this text in the flow of Luke, it seems to make much more sense to be dealing with Jesus' continued discussion of wealth.

Clearly the parable shows that how we use (or misuse in this case) wealth matters. And in this vein, this story clearly has much to do with THIS life, not our afterlife. At the same time however, the Rich Man is clearly so malformed by his misuse of wealth that his afterlife is affected as well. How we live in this world does in fact have some bearing on our afterlife. The other example that we see in this story is the great chasm. The great chasm fixed between the two parties, the wicked and the saved, is there first Abraham says so that those on his side (the saved) cannot pass over to the other. The only way I can read that the saved might want to cross over from their bliss to the agony of the wicked is because they would wish to alleviate the suffering of those others. Those resting in the bosom of Abraham have been so formed by their life of suffering (if Lazarus is typical, and given Luke's stressing of the great reversal, such as in the Magnificat) that they would seek to alleviate any suffering of others. Only the great chasm that stands fixed between them stops the saved from carrying out their aid.

Engaging in this life, so that we are formed with the virtues of the Kingdom ahead of time, is vital for this passage. The law and prophets agree, says Jesus. And the resurrection of one in particular will also point to the Kingdom's reality and fruit bearing of followers in this world. Not that everyone will listen... but maybe we will.

Possession of the Holy Cross

Yesterday, September 14, was the Feast of the Holy Cross. This day might seem an odd day to commemorate the Cross. Why not Good Friday? Isn't that when we do the Adoration of the Cross? But the 14th of September is connected with the activity of Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. Early in the reign of Constantine, Helena went to Jerusalem to find the holy places of Christ's life. She destroyed the temple of Aphrodite, which had been built, so tradition said, over the tomb of Jesus. Constantine then had built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher on that spot. Legend tells that three wooden crosses were found on that spot during the excavation. They were immediately venerated and the cross became a more prominent symbol of Christianity. The cross was still fresh in people's minds as the symbol of death for those opposed Rome, even Christians if they refused to worship Roman gods.

The cross indeed has central place. It is the symbol of our salvation. The message of the cross foolishness to those who are perishing, wrote St. Paul, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God (1Cor 1:18). I used this passage the other night at our youth group while making ice cream. Making ice cream is actually somewhat counter intuitive. Most of the kids present kept thinking that the ice surrounding the ice cream dasher was cooling and ultimately freezing the creamy mixture within. Not so. The cold of the ice does not flow in. If that were so, we would not need the salt. So as we made the ice cream, I explained how it all worked, and that the key was to know that ice and salt need energy to enter in so that they can react. The energy in this case comes from the heat stored in the creamy liquid. The whole idea of making ice cream is to pump heat out. Cold doesn't exist, technically speaking. Energy in the form of heat flows out. Ice cream, made this way, does not go the way we think it might. God's work of redemption, rescuing his chosen people, does not go the way we think. God does not send the Son to come and conquer. Rather God sends the Son to come and die, defeating the enemies of sin, death and the devil.

The cross marks and shapes our lives. We mark it on the newly baptized as the reminder that we are bound to the one who died on the cross so that we might live by it. The Feast of the Holy Cross is a good day to remember that our lives are to be cruciform. Luther picks this up in his treatise On the Councils and the Church, where he lists the "Possession of the Holy Cross" as the seventh mark of the church. Just as with the first "Possession of the Word of God," the mark does not mean the simple possession of the physical thing. The possession of the Word of God means the Word proclaimed. The possession of the Holy Cross means people whose lives show the reality of the cross. Luther writes,

Seventh, the holy Christian people are externally recognized by the holy possession of the sacred cross. They must endure every misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the flesh (as the Lord’s Prayer indicates) by inward sadness, timidity, fear, outward poverty, contempt, illness, and weakness, in order to become like their head, Christ. And the only reason they must suffer is that they steadfastly adhere to Christ and God’s word, enduring this for the sake of Christ, Matthew 5 [:11], “Blessed are you when men persecute you on my account.” They must be pious, quiet, obedient, and prepared to serve the government and everybody with life and goods, doing no one any harm. ...
But when you are condemned, cursed, reviled, slandered, and plagued because of Christ, you are sanctified. It mortifies the old Adam and teaches him patience, humility, gentleness, praise and thanks, and good cheer in suffering. That is what it means to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit and to be renewed to a new life in Christ; in that way we learn to believe in God, to trust him, to love him, and to place our hope in him, as Romans 5 [:1–5] says, “Suffering produces hope,” etc.

The Feast of the Holy Cross is the day to ponder the sacrifice of Christ, how it is so counter intuitive, and yet how its good news shapes and forms our lives.

Response by Religious Leaders Aided by Former Synodical Bishop, Rev. Don McCoid

ELCA News Service reported that the Rev. Don McCoid, Executive for the ELCA's Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations was part of the committee that drafted the statement that denounced the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric. Rev. McCoid is quoted as saying, "This was an exceptional gathering of Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders. In the midst of so much frenzy against Muslims, these diverse religious leaders stood together in solidarity to address the prejudices and bigotry that have surfaced in the media and in politics. The right to free exercise of religion in this country is very basic."

Rev. McCoid is my former synodical bishop and someone incredibly important in my discernment and becoming a pastor. It is not a reach at all to say that if not for him I might not be a pastor today. I am pleased that he continues to play such a role in interfaith affairs. Our common humanity must be respected. Living in a pluralistic society as we do, our efforts to work for the common good will be hampered by such actions. In addition witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot include hate such as the burning of another tradition's sacred text. Such an action in no way shows love for our enemy. Rather it incites them and strengthens their opposition and determination to hearing of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The full text of the religious leaders' comments can be read here. One paragraph that I particularly like is

We are committed to building a future in which religious differences no longer lead to hostility or division between communities. Rather, we believe that such diversity can serve to enrich our public discourse about the great moral challenges that face our nation and our planet. On the basis of our shared reflection, we insist that no religion should be judged on the words or actions of those who seek to pervert it through acts of violence; that politicians and members of the media are never justified in exploiting religious differences as a wedge to advance political agendas or ideologies; that bearing false witness against the neighbor—something condemned by all three of our religious traditions—is inflicting particular harm on the followers of Islam, a world religion that has lately been mischaracterized by some as a “cult.”

The list of leaders who signed is impressive. I would local leaders will be just as vocal in their communities.

Hawking and God - A Necessary Challenge

It should be no surprise that as a former physicist, I am always interested in the ways that science and religion intersect and interact. So it was with great interest that Hawking's newest book The Grand Design, written with fellow physicist Leonard Mlodinow. From my preliminary understanding, the argument from M-Theory (a kin of string theory) allows that gravity and energy can spontaneously pop out of nothing, thereby taking God (according to Hawking) out of the equation.

A nice review can be read at the New York Times, "Many Kinds of Universes, and None Require God" by Dwight Garner. Garner writes:

At its core “The Grand Design” is an examination of a relatively new candidate for the “ultimate theory of everything,” something called M-theory, itself an extension of string theory, which tries to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. “M-theory is not a theory in the usual sense,” the authors write. “It is a whole family of different theories.” According to M-theory, “ours is not the only universe,” the authors say. “Instead M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing.” The image that comes to mind here, others have written about M-theory, is of a God blowing soap bubbles.

But Mr. Hawking and Mr. Mlodinow assert that “their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science.” Many of these universes would be quite different from ours, they add, and “quite unsuitable for the existence of any form of life,” or at least any form of life remotely like ours.

So this comment and argument is certainly provocative. If energy and gravity can in fact cancel each other out, this will be a powerful argument for those who don't require God in the first place. But this would be how God puts it together. After all if God can be detected and thus proven, then faith is unnecessary. If faith is unnecessary then creation ceases to be "promise-driven, future-oriented" as R.R. Reno wrote in the introduction of commentary on Genesis, which I talked about here.

I look forward to reading this book. If for no other reason than challenges to the faith, help us sharpen our witness and proclamation.

Philemon

The lectionary once again gives us the letter to Philemon this upcoming Sunday. I don't know how to avoid preaching on this. There will be plenty of "carry the cross"-discipleship passages, but this gem of a letter only shows up once every three years. In preparation for this Sunday then I have been reading Risto Saarinen's commentary on Philemon in the the Brazos Theological Commentary series. And to be fair Saarinen's commentary also includes the Pastoral Epistles, and Jude; the Philemon commentary is too short for its own commentary.

Saarinen gives two paragraphs that I thought were helpful in his introduction to the letter. He writes:

The purpose of Philemon is obvious: it is a letter of recommendation that should accompany Onesimus and create good will in Philemon so that he would not punish the returning slave. On the way home, such a letter may also to some extent protect the fugitive slave from imprisonment by legal authorities. Other similar letters are known; the most famous is the letter of Pliny the Younger to Sabinianus from around AD 110. In this letter, quoted in many commentaries on Philemon... Pliny appeals for a freedman who has run away and thus violated his duty of servanthood. Like Paul (Phlm. 16), Pliny pleads for a relationship of brotherly love between the servant and his master and recommends the returning servant as worthy of such love.

Although Philemon was originally composed for this practical purpose, the epistle also creates a "symbolic universe"... in which a prisoner, Paul, pleads for the release or at least for the kind treatment of another nonfree person, Onesimus. Neither Paul nor Onesimus is free, but their being Christian transcends external boundaries. In a paradoxical manner, the epistle stresses joy, love and confidence between people in chains. Christians have become prisoners "of" and "in" Jesus Christ (Phlm 9, 23). Although Philemon is a practical and occasional piece of writing, it also contains a deeper message. In the exposition, this deeper message relates to freedom, love, and gratitude as the motivational grounds Christian behavior. It is further noteworthy that Philemon is addressed not only to Philemon but to the church (vv. 2, 25)

Pakistan, Flooding and Our Response

I knew Pakistan had terrible flooding. I just didn't know how terrible. At the Lutheran World Relief website they gave me a glimpse at how bad. They wrote, "The floods are the worst natural disaster to hit Pakistan in the last 80 years and have killed at least 1,600 people, left a million people homeless, and have affected at least 14 million." Adding that on top of the other natural disasters over the past few years, the effects are magnified even more.

The congregation I serve has had a quilting ministry for several years. A load of quilts was taken over to the warehouse in New Windsor, MD but their stores are becoming depleted. One of the quilt transporters stood up in worship the other day and made folks known of the need. And in that LWR article, we see why. LWR is looking to send "3,300 quilts, more than 13,000 health kits and 1,500 layettes in response to the flooding," while working with a local organization in Pakistan.

But LWR could use more help. How? Here are their words:

You can help get relief on the ground quickly with a cash gift to Lutheran World Relief.

“In times of emergency, cash gifts are the quickest, and most effective, way to get relief to the people who need it most,” says Trevor Knoblich, LWR’s Emergency Response Coordinator.

With those gifts, our partners on the ground can purchase food and supplies locally, when possible, reducing delivery cost, and time, and infusing vital income into local economies that desperately need it.

“The monsoon season is not yet over,” remarks Joanne Fairley, LWR’s Regional Director for Asia and the Middle East. “For Mehr Nisar, and her son, who have been through so much already, your gifts — and the food, shelter and water they bring — really does represent hope in their darkest hour. Please give what you can.”

LWR is accepting donations to the “Pakistan Floods” fund online at lwr.org/giving, by phone at 800.597.5972 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 800.597.5972 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or by mail at PO Box 17061, Baltimore, MD 21298-9832. You can also help by donating quilts, kits and layettes to LWR to send around the world in times of emergency. To find out how to donate, visit lwr.org/beinvolved.

Pedalling Pell-mell Through the Rain

Yesterday I was helping hand out lemonade on the campus of West
Virginia University at the Lutheran Campus Ministry. Mid-afternoon it
started to threaten rain. We called it a day, and after a brief
meeting, I headed home.

Which was fine, except that in the morning, knowing that traffic
downtown would be horrendous, I rode my bike circumventing most roads
by using the newly repaved rail trail.. A bright, sunny morning became
a dark, downpour in the afternoon.

But I knew that there were worse things than riding through the rain.
So off I headed, out the door. I hadn't ridden more than fifty feet
though when my sunglasses not only became spotted with drops but
fogged up as well. So there I was riding through not insignificant
traffic to get to the trail, getting absolutely soaked and barely able
to see.

Once on the trail though, it wasn't any better, at least as far as
vision was concerned. Traffic was much better. But I still had to
make allowance for runners, walkers and other bikers as we travelled
on the rain-soaked trail together. After a while I realized that it
was futile trying to pedal as fast as possible to stay as dry as
possible. I was already soaked clean through. So I slowed a little
and tried to alternate between wearing glasses and not. That was a
losing effort as well. With the glasses the copious rain drops
blocked my vision. Without my glasses I couldn't see because they were
my glasses, not just my sunglasses.

With the water pouring of me in rivers, I of course reflect on
baptismal imagery. I can't help it. It's conditioned response I
suppose. Water? Baptism! But so be it.

I strive to walk wet, soaked in the waters of baptism daily. Yet here
I was completely soaked and unable to see as clearly as when I was
dry. I wonder if our baptismal life isn't similar.

Knowing that we are children of God, trusting the promise made in
baptism, doesn't guarantee any clearer vision at least as far as the
path of our life is concerned. Certainty is not the issue, trust is.
We trust that the one we follow leads us through all uncertainty. And
there is plenty I cannot see or know in this life of faith. I think
sometimes it is clearer when NOT engaged in the life of faith, I
follow my own path, chasing my own desires, very little guesswork.
Too likely though, this leads to the ultimate death of my self.

This baptismal life is not entirely clear as we discern where our Lord
calls us. What is right here and now might not be right later. There
are certainly norms. I am not saying that we are called to just any
life. After all, yesterday, despite being hard to see at places, I
did know that there was a path. If I had veered off the trail, I
would have known quickly to turn around and get back on. But we don't
always know what's coming. Pedalling pell-mell through the rain
reminds me of the trust that we're called to daily as we walk wet.

--
Sent from my mobile device

From the midst of vacation...

I have been at home on vacation since Sunday... the ever popular stay-cation. I have been trying to get some home improvement projects finished. To some extent I have been succesful. In other ways, I have not.

I have also been unplugged and therefore not posting, but that is fodder for another post sometime.

I know that there are some who would look at this time and speak of sabbath. But I don't know if I would go there. Not every vacation is sabbath... in fact I might go and say no vacations are sabbaths. I always find it interesting that Luther in his Large Catechism makes the bold claim that the commandment, "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy" is technically not a commandment that Christians are required to keep. (Read Luther's third commandment explanation here) But it is good to have a day to gather and attend to God's Word in the midst of worship. Luther points out that the resting does not make the day holy, rather the opposite, the hallowing makes it restful (and no jokes about the pastor putting everyone to sleep during the sermon!).

I wonder how do you "keep sabbath?"

"Have no fear, little flock..."

In preparing for this upcoming Sunday's reading where Jesus calms his hearers with those beautiful words, "Have no fear little flock," I was pondering both David Lose's exegesis over at Working Preacher where he talks about promise. Lose writes:

But Jesus does not simply hold out faith as a model and goal, much less as a standard by which to judge us. Rather, Jesus creates faith by announcing a promise: Like a parent loves her children deeply and desperately and wants all good things for them, so also is it God's good pleasure to give God's children the kingdom. Promises create a shared expectation about the future and bind together the giver and receiver of the promise in that shared anticipation. Promises create relationship. Promises create hope. Promises create faith. All of our instruction about the Christian life - whether about prayer, money, watchfulness, care of neighbor, and more - are therefore anchored in the gospel promise that it is, indeed, God's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Remembering - indeed, exalting in - this promise enables us not only to have faith, but to answer Peter's question: is Jesus saying this to us or to everyone? Yes!

My mind turned to a short book by Robert Jenson that I found at some used book sale (almost surely at a seminary book sale, if so then almost certainly at LTSS, but maybe not... I seriously cannot remember where I find all of my used books). In this book, Jenson works to talk about the story of God and help make the promise that God is making in the midst of that story. Primarily then it is a promise rooted in who this Jesus is and what the Kingdom has to do with it all. Since Jesus' words this week specifically point to the promise that it is the Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, I have found Jenson's ideas to be particularly helpful, especially in conjunction with Lose's reflection. Promise does indeed change things. More importantly, Jesus' promise changes things, transforms lives by God's action. Particularly when Jesus' promise of God's pleasure in giving us the Kingdom is followed up with some rather difficult imperatives "Sell your possessions. Give alms. Be ready." The promise, as always is key.

We regulate our relations with our fellows by what they have been; if a teenager is hooked on dope, we do not encourage our children to make him a friend. Jesus did the opposite: he brought his fellows into his life not in terms of what they had been, but of what they would be. And not in terms of what it could be predicted they would be, on the basis of a "little bit of good in everyone" or of what he planned to reform them to, but in terms of what they could be only by God's miracle. He enacted God's future as his brothers' own present.
Jesus' own miracles hit here.... Jesus performed miracles as signs, as non-verbal parables. They were signs of the overcoming of all alienation of human life from itself, including those alienations we clumsily call "physical." As acted-out signs, the miracles were also instances of the immediacy of the Kingdom. Jesus did not, for example, merely promise to the leper, a permanent outsider because of repulsive and contagious skin disease... that in God's Kingdom he would be accepted; he then and there made the leper so.
In that he interpreted his fellow's lives by God's future rather than by their own pasts, Jesus interpreted his own life by that same future. The outcome of his own life would be the fulfillment 0r failure of the promise he brought. And in that he promised the Kingdom to all comers, he bet his life on the final overcoming of all religious and social distinctions. In that he called publicans and sinners to be his brothers at table, his table became a table of publicans and sinners (and he seems to have acquired a reputation for as a glutton and a drinker)....
Moreover, his interpretation of his own life in terms of the promise he had for his fellows was total. He retained no escape lines back into respectability, or even into an inner secure position with God; "My God,"he would finally say, "why have you forsaken me?" The community in and by which he interpreted his life for himself and before his Father, was the brotherhood of the unconditionally promised fulfillment, the brotherhood of the oppressed, the declasse, and the wicked. He so appropriated the persons and circumstances of his life that if the promise of the Kingdom failed, his life would have no value; and that if the promise did not bring hope for the publicans, neither could there be hope for him.
...And therefore Jesus interpreted his own words and miracle as the present anticipation of the future Kingdom. "If I am casting out devils by God's power, then his Kingdom has reached you." This did not mean that the Kingdom had "started," or that a little of it was there from which more would "grow." The kingdom was present with Jesus as promise, as word and meaningful action; and as the unconditional promise which abolished all space of controllable between itself and its fulfillment.

(Robert Jenson, Story and Promise, pp. 39-41)

When Jesus stands before his hearers and utters those words "Have no fear, it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom," Jesus is the reality of that promise. As such he relates to us in the fulfillment of that promise, in the reality of the Kingdom.

It does then create some immediacy for our hearers on Sunday to think about the fact that the Father's good pleasure is not just rooted in the life everlasting, but in the here and now for Jesus still comes to us and for us. Jesus, as Shepherd King, is not at all divisible from the Kingdom which is at hand. We can see the promise and the fulfillment together. And as Lose points out, the promise creates faith and hope, which transform us and our world.

Chaplain's blog over at the Lutheran

I have been keeping an eye on the blog by Col. Michael Lembke over at the Lutheran. Col. Lembke is the father of one of the students whom I know through the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU. The blog is updated roughly on a weekly basis, so it isn't hard to follow. I thoroughly enjoyed his comments from early July (which I just read now) about Jacob and Esau, and his reflection on the applicability of that story for his situation.

In our work, we often use the word and concept of reconciliation. True reconciliation is pretty scary though. It suggests risk, vulnerability and a search for truth; a willingness to know and be known. No matter how many times I read the story of Jacob and Esau's reunion, I am overjoyed by their emotional meeting. It encourages me to think that such a reunion may occur in Iraq, both small- and large-scale. "No way," you say. "Lembke, you pipe dreamer ... you myopic, naïve, optimist."

Well, I took my Jacob-and-Esau motivated naiveté into the studio this past week to record some encouragement under the title New Dawn Songs, with fellow musicians and technicians. Most of the songs aren't new (I've written them over the last 10 years), but the tempos, style and intent are fresh. Our title song, "New Dawn," will become a music video, with footage of good things going on in Iraq: schools, soccer fields, business ventures and other things that express hope for Iraq through music.

Song titles include "Roots," "Listen to the Lord," "Remember," "Stay in the Ring" and a new offering, "Grace-full Person." I'll be working with a new acquaintance, Canon Andrew White of St. Georges' in Baghdad, the church's youth group, and the conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra to have "New Dawn" translated into Arabic and recorded for Iraq radio.

In the story of the reunion between Jacob and Esau, there is a wrestling match Jacob goes through the night before, the uncertainty of the meeting and then, finally, the joyful reunion. It's a precarious story, clouded in wonderment and fear, right up until the moment when the brothers embrace. I suppose it's like that here in Iraq. There is great uncertainty. The specter of the unknown looms large and expectations aren't high for positive outcomes.

I am reminded in his reflection of the risk of reconciliation and the wonderful joy that is accomplished through it.

Anne Rice, Loosed and Bound

I first read about Anne Rice (author of Interview with a Vampire and sequels, as well as a coupe of historical novels about Jesus, one being Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt) leaving Christianity, but not Christ, behind on my Twitter feed from the USA Today religion blog Faith & Reason (original post here). I was at the end of a week of teaching at church camp so I didn't see other reactions, but they are out there. Pretty Good Lutherans ran a nice column with it that included several bloggers' reactions and a fairly hefty number of comments follow that show Rice's move has hit a nerve. What about community? How does one follow Christ without the community? I am sure that Rice is feeling loosed from the chains that have bound her, as she has no doubt struggled with what seems like the bondage of social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

At Pretty Good Lutherans, Pastor Joelle Coville-Hanson is quoted from her blog's article,

“But Jesus calls us to community,” Coville-Hanson wrote. “Not a perfect community, but a community of sinners. You don’t get to pick what sinners you will be associated with and which ones you won’t.”

But my friend Mike, over at his blog Catholic Anarchy comments in 'Anne Rice "quits Christianity"',

The “you’re in or you’re out” view of ecclesiology will no longer cut it. The boundaries of the church are fluid and we cannot limit it to “Christianity’s” often tired institutional forms, as important as they might be. Sounds to me like she has left “Christianity” but is still very much attached to the Body of Christ. May she find peace wherever she finds “church” to be.

I resonate with both veins of thinking. I do think if she has faith in Christ, salvation will indeed happen. But to willingly cut herself off from the body of Christ I wonder if her faith in Christ is not somehow lacking. After all, there are few of us who would willingly exile ourselves to a desert island, no matter how bad we might think the other nutjobs around us are. If we want to leave Christianity but not Christ behind, what do we do with the Lord's Supper? That is specifically a meal for the community. I cannot help but think of numerous hymns for communion that are simply first person plural, like the old chestnut "Let Us Break Bread Together."

I know that Rice is reacting in many ways against the apparent heavy-handedness of the magisterium. She doesn't want to be anti-gay, anti-science, anti-whatever. But I find that really interesting since the Roman Catholic Church is not some monolithic block of thinking. Despite official church teaching, there is, as one colleague put it at ecumenical conference I attended, "a long history of ignoring directives from HQ" in the Roman Catholic Church.

But if we leave Christianity behind, how do figure out our lives of faith? Am I just left to my own thoughts? Please Lord, save me from that. I have screwed that up in my own life too often. I rationalized too many things as acceptable. I need a call to a new life and how do I know? Jesus promises that where two are three are, there he is in the midst of them. That promise has almost nothing to do with the size of our worship gathering and everything to do with our discerning the character of our discipleship. The theologian John Howard Yoder has written about this idea in many places. In a study entitled "Practicing the Rule of Christ" he writes about the discernment and character of the Church.

The Greek word ekklesia ("church") is found only twice in the Gospels coming from Jesus' lips; the two times are the two "bind and loose" passages. The word ekklesia itself... does not refer to a specifically religious meeting or to a particular organization; rather it means the "assembly," the gathering of people into a meeting for deliberation or for a public announcement. It is no accident that in Matthew 16 the assignment by Jesus of the power to bind and loose follows directly upon Peter's first confession of Christ as Messiah. The confession is the basis of the authority; the authorization given is the seal upon the confession. The church is where, because Jesus is confessed as Christ, men and women are empowered to speak to one another in God's name.

There is the truly sad part. Rice, and anyone else who follows this path of leaving Christianity but not Christ, does indeed miss the radical call to discipleship that Jesus brings to each of our lives. More importantly however, we lose her voice as one empowered to speak to us in God's name. I understand that the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church makes that speaking out difficult, but with the greater understanding of the Body of Christ, it is not. Here I am reminded of Pope John Paul II comment from his statement on ecumenism Ut Unum Sint that the divided Church is like one lung breathing. I would argue the case is the same here. When dissenting voices do not love the offending brother or sister or authority enough to speak out and enter discernment and seek reconciliation and true repentance from everyone, the Church is lacking something. The Church and Rice as well, remain bound, in the brokenness of our existence.

The Eucharist, a Child, and Pastor Dad

Two Sundays ago (I've been away for a week teaching at a summer camp, and learning good youth group stuff), during a normally orderly service, my middle child went absolutely ballistic in the middle of the distribution of the Eucharist. Evidently I gave him too small a piece of bread. The bread must have been an older loaf nearing the end of the batch which one couple bakes regularly. But it was dry and crumbly. I was having a difficult time breaking off pieces that would ever be considered large. It wasn't just him, but everybody. Only he didn't like it. And he let me know about it. Everyone else in the congregation overheard as well. He was L-O-U-D.

Luckily, I thought, he was almost at the end of the rail, so when he pitched this fit, throwing his piece of bread to the floor, I kept moving. I finished communing the four or five people after him, and since he had not finished his screaming, I returned. But when I returned it was not as pastor but dad. I don't know what to think about that transformation. After all, at that moment I was dealing with conflicting emotions. I needed to step in and support my wife's discipline. But I was also dealing with the embarrassment of MY child cranking it up in front of everyone. I really wanted him to stop. But he would simply not let up.

I went up to him and uttered as quietly as I could but so he could hear them the oh-so pastoral words, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." And he did not let up. He was not fooled by this. He wanted more. So I tried giving him another piece. It was not big enough either. I feared the voices in my head who were saying I was giving in, but I just wanted him to quiet down. Stop interrupting everyone else's quiet meditation (although I know that most folks are not really doing that... they are beginning to wonder what to do about lunch or what's going on that afternoon, since once Communion is over, the service is practically done). But that piece didn't satisfy him either. He was still raging for a bigger piece. At that point I had nothing left to do and other people were waiting so I moved on. His mother, as always, had to deal with discipline during the service. If I could change one thing about being a pastor and a dad, it would be this... for almost seven years, my wife has borne the burden of this.

My wife removed him from the sanctuary and down the connected hallway. We could still hear him screaming but it was at least muted. But not for long. Somehow he burst out of her containment and down the hall back to the communion at which he launched himself, nearly knocking over an elderly member with a walker. His hand thrust out at me and he demanded a bigger piece as loudly as he could. And with great sorrow, I passed him by and let my wife drag him away again.

Why was I sorrowful? Because about a month previous, our youngest child became our middle. And he became the middle literally overnight, wetting his bed for the first time in well over a year, the very night his younger sister was born. He has been demanding attention. He isn't staying in bed at night. He wants us to come up to his room with him. And here I think he turns to God (not just me, but I am part of the equation) for attention to... "I want a bigger piece of you!" He knows that this is not just bread. Can he quote the answer to Luther's "Was ist das?" question of the Small Catechism? no, he is four. But he knows that it is Jesus Bread. He has communed since the day of his Baptism. And the special nature of this meal brings him to the point where I think he feels he can turn. But when his world seemingly shrinks, and divided attention becomes even less, and the place where he derives some comfort for at least momentary connection with God in a piece of bread and small cup of wine, not to mention a moment where Dad touches him and we have a one-to-one connection around the words "The body of Christ shed for you" but even this seems divided because the bread is too small... it is too much for him.

He wants more from God. Don't we all. I can at least think abstractly and ponder what a "foretaste of the feast to come" might mean. But a four-year old cannot. He wants God writ large coming and speaking to him in real and concrete terms. And Pastor Dad responds with, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." How callous of me. How horrible to see a pastoral moment and stomp on it. My son's desire for more of God is what we want to cultivate isn't it? Maybe not in its performance, but the desire? Surely. After all, who doesn't want a child, or an adult for that matter, to desire more Jesus? Jesus is there in that bread and wine. We should expect that. Maybe if a few more people threw such fits at the altar it might remind that our own humanness, fallen as it is, does not always perceive the presence of the risen Jesus like it should. These fits remind us that there is a world of people desiring something more than the normal routine with the all too often heard words of "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." Christ gives of himself so unreservedly that those words have no place at the altar. Instead we should hear, as Luther reminds us in the Small Catechism, the "for you" and remember how great such giving is.

This past Sunday, when I approached my son at the altar and placed the bread in his hand, declaring it to be the Body of Christ given for him, he asked in a voice full of wonder, "Is this a big piece?" "Yes," I replied. This piece is bigger than anything either of us will know until the day Christ returns.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice

For months now, I have been pondering a response to Glenn Beck's statements regarding social justice. Part of me wanted to avoid his horrible pronouncements that are meant for the media machine more than they are for thoughtful Christians. Part of me wanted to knock him down a peg or two, but with a back-handed compliment. Part of me wanted to actually claim that he was right. After all, the central mission of the Church is to proclaim the gospel. Caring for the people living in poverty and struggling with hunger is not central to our mission. In the critique Beck is right.

And I know that many will stand up and shout about all the passages in the Bible (over 2000+ verses, I know) that deal with words about justice and equity and hunger and poverty and so on. And almost everyone will point to Matthew 25 and the words Jesus utters about having done it to him when you do it to the "least of these." And yet whenever I read it those words in the Bible, I don't hear them addressed to the hoi polloi, the great masses for the most part. I hear the prophets calling Israel's leaders to task. I hear Jesus calling out the civil authorities, reminding them that one day he will return as the one and only king, finally bringing about the culmination of the Reign of God, to which they will have to answer. Which has brought me to the realization that if the Church is not supposed to care for people living on the social margins, then it must be the civil authorities. But then, as now, the civil authorities are terrible at it. And now they turn to the Church to do their job, so long as they don't do it too well.

Whenever the Church stands up and begins doing the civil authorities' jobs, sooner or later they begin, whether intentionally or not, to point to that Reign, when all tears will be wiped away, when all hunger is stopped, when there will be no more class distinction. This witness to the activity of God then is a reminder that these authorities are temporal. They will pass away. But what authority truly wants to hear that they are not going to last. None of them. When the activity of the Church starts to look like this ultimate Reign, the authorities try to put the Church back into a constrained little box. "Mixing of church and state!" "Socialism!" "Christianity is about the salvation of souls!!!"

Paul talks about sin as a power that enslaves, and we are enslaved until Christ sets us free. But sin gets us all. Our individual lives, our communal lives, our strutctures and powers, even our not-so-free market. Even the market is bound by sin. Christ stands against all of that, and the Church now has to free people for service in this future Reign breaking in around us even now. And we step in to do the work that isn't really ours, serving our neighbor, precisely because it is hard to hear the gospel over the grumbling of an empty stomach. We continue to point to and raise up people who can point to this work of God in Jesus.

Over at Sojourners, Rachel Johnson invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the theology of the cross in this same vein.

Bonhoeffer took very literally the idea that Christians are called to be the body of Christ in the world and to imitate the life of Christ. And when he looked to the gospels, the example he saw Jesus give was of a servant who challenged the oppressive social forces around him. It was this understanding that lead Bonhoeffer to state, “The church is the church only when it exists for others.” Jesus frees us from sin in order that we may have a transformative impact on our social structures here and now, so that we may aid in ushering in the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. For freedom we are set free. And so, to Bonhoeffer, Christians of good conscience could not remain silent under Hitler’s rule, because the calling of God on their lives was one that compelled them to speak on behalf of the oppressed, to share in the life of Jesus, even to the point of sharing in his suffering and dying. This last point is one with which Glenn Beck seems particularly uncomfortable.

Lord's Prayer and forgiveness... sins AND debts

The question arose yesterday in bible study if Jesus was being sarcastic with the petition "forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." (Luke 11:4 NRSV) After all, we don't forgive everyone who sins against us. And there were good answers in the gathering that Jesus does in fact mean for us to forgive those who sin against us, but that it is an ideal, an ideal that we are to strive for, mind you, not throw our hands in the air because it is unattainable. The Kingdom is breaking in around us after all.

But I was jotting down a few notes this morning for my sermon, and happened to look at my new copy of the New Interpreter's Bible One-Volume Commentary. There in the section for Luke 11, the commentary mentioned that the gracious provision of "Father" forms the basis of the ensuing petitions. The first of those petitions for Luke is the realization of God's Reign, and the third is the petition on forgiveness as I have quoted it above.

And just the simple way this was listed got me thinking. Yesterday we noticed, while comparing both Matthew's and Luke's versions of the prayer that there did seem to be a transactional basis for forgiveness. Our language of forgiveness is couched in financial terms. We are owed an apology. In Matthew our sins are portrayed as debts to God. But I wonder if that is what is going on in Luke. Have we for so long connected debts and sins that Jesus here is saying something else? When Jesus gives us the words "forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us," does he really point to an early practice, rooted in the realization of God's Reign, where Christians literally forgave real financial debts. It would seem to fit within the fabric of Luke's gospel with the great reversal and the care for the poor. It would seem to fit in with the vision of God's Reign as the great Jubilee where debts, real financial debts, are forgiven.

Unfortunately I don't think this takes away any of the questions about whether we need to forgive others before God forgives us. (I don't think we do) But I do wonder if it convicts us in seeking forgiveness from God without our following in those same footsteps forgiving debts to which we will have no ultimate claim when God's Reign comes fully.

SF and theology...

Just the other day, a friend of mine posted on Facebook a list of fifteen books that would not be forgotten by him because of their influence in his life. He tagged some friends (not me, but I saw it anyway) and told them to do the same. The rules were simple recall fifteen books that would not be forgotten by you, but you had to do it in fifteen minutes. Then post it in your notes and tag other friends so that they could do the same. It is a good enterprise, I think to do such tasks every now and again. I cannot say that this list is the same list I would have written a year ago, nor is it likely that a year from now the list will remain the same. So here is my list in no particular order.

1. Dune by Frank Herbert
   
2. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
4. Resident Aliens by Hauerwas and Wilimon
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
6. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Oliver Relin
7. The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther
8. The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov
9. I,Robot by Asimov
10. After Virtue by Alisdair MacIntyre
11. A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.
    
12. The Large Catechism by Martin Luther
13. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
14. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
    
15. Batman Knightfall series (a major story arc across the Batman comics in the mid '90s, most of which have been collected into trade paperbacks)
    

Full disclosure... I specifically left out the Bible and the Lutheran Confessional books, except the Large Catechism on purpose. I think that they are fundamental books (or collection of books as the case truly is) and they inform my reading of just about everything else. I take them as axiomatic. They are part of the fabric upon which these others have been brought into.

With this list though, I am somewhat surprised in some ways, and not at all in others, to see so many SF books here. And for the record I understand SF not as science fiction but more to the point of Speculative Fiction. Speculative fiction asks the questions of human existence often in a different context so that it helps us make sense of our own lives. And I think these books here are so memorable because of their impact in helping me make sense of my own life.

And the best ones do it because they resonate with the story of God's redemption of the world in one through Jesus Christ in one way or another. And good theology goes along the same task, serving the world by explicating and speculating about God's story told primarily through the Bible, so that the gospel might be proclaimed and make sense for the hearers. Theologians are called to an imaginative task. We get to ponder anew what our great God has done, is doing and will yet do.

Next to my bed I have a big stack of SF novels and collections of short stories for my consumption. They used to be the only thing on my reading list. Then it became only theology. I am moving to somewhere in the center, where both are read with great joy.

Bible and Technology...

A few months ago, I picked up my first smart phone, a Blackberry Curve. I had looked and looked at the vast array of phones out there. I wasn't on AT&T so I couldn't get an iPhone. I thought about the Palm Pre, and various Android options. Ultimately I settled on the Blackberry, because it was the cheapest option. I didn't really have to pay out that much, $50 compared to $150 or $200. My inner tightwad felt consoled. And my outer geek was satisfied.

And I can do everything I can imagine with my Blackberry. I am sure with an iPhone or Android phone there would be even more than I could imagine, but right now this suffices. And I really like that I ran across the YouVersion Bible reading app. And it doesn't matter what your mobile device of choice is, they have an app for you as well as several reading plans.

It does not have the NRSV but I have been reading the ESV, a fairly worthy translation I think. While having the bible at my fingertips is handy for my own devotional reading, it has also come in handy for pastoral duties as well. I was asked to officiate at a wedding on Memorial Day weekend at a site about an hour and a half away, and of all things, I forgot my bible. So when it came time for me to read the gospel lesson, I discreetly pulled my phone, which had been set up for the passage needed, out of my pocket and read it from there. Only a few folks noticed what I did, technophiles each of them.

Granted, I could likely listen to my wife about boundaries and techonology, but it can in fact serve the ministry well. Check out YouVersion, if you are looking for a bible reading app for your phone or other mobile device.

Praying for Christopher Hitchens...

So a LCMS pastor friend of mine (yes that CAN happen, although just to be safe, we routinely anathematize each other :) ) posted on his blog today that Christopher Hitchens has announced that he has cancer. Given my posts against his work, I found Charlie's post to be spot on. You can read his whole post here.

To summarize though, Charlie reminds us of our calling to pray for our enemies. I would add also, that this situation is not a time either to use Paul's image of heaping coals upon our enemies by our acts of kindness toward them. I find that Christians tend to use that in a rather back-handed and vindictive way. Something along the lines of "HA! We are so much better than you cause we are being nice to you!" which of course seems to be totally against the spirit of the injunction to pray for our enemies.

Pray for Mr. Hitchens' well-being AND for his conversion.

"For freedom Christ has set us free..."

In preparing for this upcoming Sunday's sermon, where I continue preaching on the letter to the Galatians, I was re-reading Luther's "On Christian Liberty." I am ever thankful that I had been assigned this treatise in seminary. The resonance with Paul's letter is rich.

A man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body to work for it alone, but he lives also for all men on earth; rather he lives only for others and not for himself. To this end, he brings his body into subjection that he may the more sincerely and freely serve others, as Paul says in Romans 14[:7-8], "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord." He cannot ever in this life be idle and without works toward his neighbors, for he will necessarily speak, deal with, and exchange views with men, as Christ also, being made in the likeness of men [Phil. 2:7], was found in the form as a man and conversed with man, as Baruch 3[:37] says.

Man, however, needs none of these things for his righteousness and salvation. Therefore he should be guided in all his works by this thought and contemplate this one thing alone, that he may serve and benefit others in all that he does, considering nothing except the need and the advantage of his neighbor. Accordingly the Apostle commands us to work with our hands so that we may give to the needy, although he might have said that we should work to support ourselves. He says however, "that he may be able to give to those in need" [Eph 4:28]. this is what makes caring for the body a Christian work, that through its health and comfort we may be able to work, to acquire, and lay by funds with which to aid those who are in need, that in this way the strong member may serve the weaker, and we may be the sons of God, each caring for and working for the other, bearing one another's burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ [Gal. 6:2]. This is a truly Christian life. Here faith is truly active through love [Gal. 5:6], that is, it finds expression in works of the freest service, cheerfully and lovingly done, with which a man willingly serves another without hope of reward; and for himself he is satisfied with the fullness and wealth of his faith.

The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther

Toys and Nietzsche - Toy Story 3 and Community

Don't read, if you want absolutely NO spoilers for Toy Story 3. Some are found below.



My wife and I took our boys to see Toy Story 3 this weekend. I was looking to be entertained. I didn't expect two things. The first thing was the sheer emotion that welled up and just gushed forth. It did not help that I was sitting next to my oldest who had just finished first grade, that I had just played the day before with my youngest pretending to chase down the Joker with the Batman playset, AND that my wife and I are expecting our third child, our first daughter, literally any moment now. I cried for the first quarter of the movie, and then for the last quarter of the movie, all because the fleeting moments with my children seemed all too fleeting, and I was sure that my oldest was about to head off to college tomorrow. The second surprise, and more important one for this blog post, was the defense of dependent community over and against the cult of the individual who owns his or her own destiny.

Not to give away too much, but due to a misunderstanding, the remaining toys in Andy's room get separated from Woody, and head for the trash heap. Woody goes after them, even though they avoid the trash without his help. Nonetheless they believe that Andy meant to throw them away and they would rather try their luck at the daycare center. They are hurt to be sure, but they simply will not listen to the words of Woody calling them back to their faithfulness to Andy. The recurrent theme throughout the Toy Story films, the indellible mark placed upon the toys by Andy, returns here as well. And it was impossible for me not to see this continued theme in the light of baptism. As each of us are marked with the sign of the cross in the waters of baptism, that indellible promise, we are showered with grace, claimed as God's own, and placed in a relationship where we can live out a response to that love. The toys having been claimed by Andy, Woody asserts, are called to respond by always being there for him. Granted the image of Andy as God breaks down, but here the toys are certainly called to trust that Andy would not abandon them and would take care of them whether he took them to college or put them in the attic.

But the toys don't trust Andy, which is probably a good thing since the story would have been over really quickly and the special 3-D fee would have been really really painful, and they end up at the day care. At the day care, the toys meet a whole new host of characters, all under the seemingly benevolent leadership of Lotso (Lotso Huggin', a pink stuffed bear, who smells like strawberries). He welcomes the new toys, has Ken lead them on a tour of the facility, and tells them they get to be in the catepillar room. Lotso makes sure to portray the place as a utopia. He plays on their distrust of Andy and claims that there at the daycare, they never have to worry about being lost of rejected again. The toys there are not bound by dependency on others. Each toy is his or her own master. Dependency leads to being cast aside, but since the children constantly rotate through the daycare, there is no dependency.

But we find out that Lotso is not the caring bear he seems to be. He is in fact the ruler of the daycare toys, and rules by sheer will. His word is law. By allowing certain toys into his circle of power, these other toys cooperate in the culture of fear. When Andy's toys, minus Woody who leaves the other toys to return to Andy, find out what the Caterpillar room means, preschoolers who do not so much play with the toys as abuse them, they attempt to get transferred to the Butterfly room. Then they find out the real nature of Lotso and his method of governing.

At the heart of the movie is this debate. Which is better, living in a particular, dependent community, or to be master of one's own fate, a truly independent individual? Actually that is the way Lotso wants to pose the question to Andy's toys, and Lotso is pretty adamant about that being independent is the better station in life. Being taken in by this line, the toys from Andy's room that remain, find a dramatic bait-and-switch. They are not independent at all. Lotso enslaves them with the false image of true independence coming through the exertion of their own wills. Lotso models the Nietzschean will to power. Atomistic individuals struggling for power, who refuse to buck the system seeing how it is stacked in favor of the powerful. And they want nothing more than to be included in that inner circle. So they play the game.

Into this atmosphere though come a particular band of people who know what true community, an enfleshed community rooted in love, is and looks like. The toys discover that it is better to be enslaved to a loving benevolent master who seeks their true best than a power-hungry toy who seeks only their domination. Andy comprehends the true dignity of their selves. Lotso believes the toys are nothing but trash to be used and discarded. And near the climax of the movie, in a scene strongly reminiscent of the book of Daniel, there is a moment when we believe that Lotso might have repented and could save them all from sure destruction. But he stops short and lets the toys go on to their destruction, and he calls out, "Where is your boy now?" I could not help but hear the distinct echo of Psalm 42:10, 'My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?"'

But there is deliverance and redemption. The lies of Nietzsche are laid bare and the promise of a community dependent upon the truly benevolent master is shown victorious. Andy, the benevolent master, knows the true identity of each toy. He knows what is best about each of them. In the end the true telos of the individual is to live in community dependent on others, not just for basic needs but for our sense of identity as well.

At its best, the church is such a community. We know that we are dependent upon God for our identity, even if there are times we would rather not be so dependent, when we'd rather be 'spiritual not religious' that is, to live in a pseudo-community that says we can be arbiters of our own destiny. Nonetheless we have an external objective reality who has promised to be there for us throughout it all. Some of us are placed in the attic at rest until we are awakened. And some of us continue on with the work to which we have been called. Sure the reality is messier than that, but the truth remains, we simply cannot live on our own, seeking our own goods, and remain the people God intends for us to be.

Even children's toys know that...

Dystopia and Glee -- Law and Gospel

Linda, a friend of mine from college, who majored in politics, became a lawyer, started writing incredibly insightful AND amusing movie reviews as a hobby (becoming a blogger before there were bloggers), ultimately becomes a full-time blogger, who now writes the NPR blog on popular culture, Monkey See. She still writes great reviews and commentary on movies and television, and takes great joy whenever anyone comments on her blog along the lines of "I can't believe they pay you to write this stuff!!!' But she is good. She is able to cut to the deeper subtext of the viewer. Her cultural criticism is a HUGE part of what the task of preaching should be about.

I read with great interest her blog post More Misery! More Death! More Cruelty!: The Onset Of Dystopia Fatigue" where in the beginning she reports the questions of other critics whom she respects, ask how in the world Glee can be so popular. Her answer:

Just a hint: check the title. It's called Glee, for the love of Busby Berkeley, and we are currently in a period of such critical and popular dystopiphilia (yes, I made that up) that it sometimes feels like once in a blue moon, it would be nice to enjoy something because it is enjoyable, nevermind the fact that it isn't about the dark, cavernous emptiness that is the heart of mankind.

Now, what a great answer. And if you don't love her for the answer, then please love her for the creation of the word dystopiphilia. She is brilliant.

She comments quite accurately on the reality that our movies and television are populated with an overabundance of dark and violent images that fill us with our share of the grisly and empty side of human nature. And she for one stands up and declares that she has dystopia fatigue. It tires her out and wears her down. And so she names at least three alternatives that run an opposite tack. Glee, Modern Family, and Pixar movies, most notably Toy Story 3, opening this weekend.

I cannot help then of being reminded of the scene out of Kevin Costner's film The Postman (from the book by David Brin). A film is being shown for the band of survivors, known as the Holnists, but it is too violent. They begin throwing rocks down upon the projection booth in protest. The projectionist knows what they want and ultimately puts on The Sound of Music. In a reality where they suffer from a dreary existence, centered on the brutality of their tyrannical leader Bethlehem, they don't want to see more of the same. They want something that brings about enjoyment, and perhaps reminds them, in the midst of their apocalyptic aftermath, of their previous lives. Their remembrance brings about a sense of hope, not mere escapism.

And that is after all one possible answer to the popularity of these shows and movies. They are pure escapist stories. They help us forget for a time the reality of the world, and instead allow us to leave it for however briefly.

And in some cases that might be so. But not in all cases. We need not always focus on what life IS like, but sometimes on what it SHOULD be like. And this dichotomy lies at the heart of Law and Gospel preaching. Just as the Law lays bear the reality of the world, providing us the mirror of our existence, the Gospel gives us the proclamation of what life should and will be like in eschaton.

Preaching that focuses solely on the Law is preaching that, as my homiletics professor used to say, crushes toes with the hammer of the Law. It breaks our spirits, crushes us under its weight but gives no release, allowing us to instead strive futilely under our own efforts. We are killed, but have nowhere to go but remain in the grave.

Preaching that never deals with our reality and focuses only on the Gospel, too easily falls into escapism. Too easily makes it seem as if this world doesn't matter. We don't need to concern ourselves with this bodily existence because we have some pie-in-the-sky dream that allows us to escape the dark and dreary world. Very often I believe this is what people want. Critical reflection about the darkness of the world is necessary so that the reality of what God is doing in Jesus Christ can be made manifest most powerfully.

Our culture can reflect these two extremes. For a people who are constantly under the assault of images or war, environmental disasters, local news that is almost always disaster-ridden, it is too easy to think that this is all there is. And we fall in love with the dystopia. Any messages that speak otherwise, of redemption and hope, are met with sneers and jeers.

But the faithful proclamation of the Church continues to speak of both Law and Gospel. We hold both together in tension so that we may know of the brokenness of this world, but of the transformation that is being wrought in Jesus Christ so that our daily death to this brokenness of sin might be overcome in the good news.

We all long for something more than just what reality gives us.

Reno's New Commentary on Genesis (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)

Yesterday, I received the newest volume in the Brazos series of commentaries, R.R. Reno's volume on the book of Genesis. I try to read through at least the Introduction of these volumes when I get them. It doesn't always happen but I try, and I did read through Reno's Introduction this morning. To say I am excitedly intrigued would be an understatement.

Reno used the name of the book as the stepping off point. "Genesis" means birth or origin, he says. And we often think of the origin or birth of the world. Given the creation stories that begin this book, it really should not surprise us. Nonetheless, Reno sees in Genesis the origin, not of the world, but of the reality coming through God's promise and establishment of the covenant. He writes,

As a book of origins, Genesis is far less concerned with the source of what is that what will be. In order to do justice to this overall thrust, I offer an insistent reading of Genesis as a promise-driven, future-oriented. As the covenant with Abraham makes clear, God blesses his creatures with a new future. The promises break the bonds of sin, because God secures their fulfillment. they perfect our created natures, because God fulfills then in our flesh.

As would be expected, I think, Reno continues to maintain focus on the grand narrative which God tells and not get sidetracked in all too common discussions of Genesis and scientific narratives.

That he mentions God fulfilling promises in our flesh is probably not surprising. How else do we think of Jesus after all. However, he closes his Introduction, with an attack on gnosticism, and particularly as to how that relates to the book of Genesis. Immediately before this lengthy quote, he has made clear that he employs historical-critical study of the bible when he finds it helpful in answering the questions he has. It is the case that the historical-critical method does not always answer the questions that arise, and so he is not beholden to that alone. This paragraph is rather short because he see something much more problematic. Reno writes,

I am especially concerned to set aside distracting and epiphenomenal concerns about modern critical scholarship, pro or con, because this commentary has an enemy that I think much more important: the gnostic temptation. Who hasn't felt its appeal? It is a painful fact that the diversity of nations and cultures has not led to a brilliant pageant of difference, but instead to our bloody world of conflict. Moreover, our own cultural inheritance is fraught with painful moral demands and offensive social mores. The labels of accusation are familiar: racism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism, patriarchy, and most of all the general horror over the way in which we allow the past to claim authority over us. What sensitive observer would not conclude that our historical particularity seems a curse, not a blessing? Our bodies seem no less troublesome. We feel ourselves battered by our fickle desires. We age and decay. Visit a graveyard, and ask yourself, Are our bodies anything other than crumbling prisons?
Who, then, would want to find a way to transcend the cruel restrictions of history and throw off the rusting chains of the body? It was the dream of the Greeks, who contemplated unchangeable forms. It is the hope of modern philosophers, who try to replace hard-won virtue with method and to set aside the vagaries of judgment by appeals to logical and experimental certainties. It is the desire of any spiritual seeker who wants to transcend the differences that separate religions and cultures in order to dwell in their deeper, greater truth. It is the project of the modern educator, who wants critical reason to supervene over and sift through the demands of an inherited culture. It motivates plastic surgery to stave off the wrinkling ravages of time, and it endorses euthanasia in the hope that an act of the human will can somehow control and triumph over death itself.
Beginning with Irenaeus, many have observed that the account of creation in Genesis cuts against the gnostic temptation. The world that God has created is good, and therefore it can't be the problem we need to overcome. The observation is certainly true as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough, because the goodness of creation has never been regarded by Jews and Christians as the full and final goodness that God wills for his creatures. God tenses creation with the desire for the seventh day of divine rest, and this greater-than-creation goal seems always to tempt us to turn our spiritual lives into an upward reach that seeks to escape the bonds of finitude. God promises more--and we too easily interpret more as other, as the sweet nectar of the eternal that will palliate our vulnerability to decay and death, as the balm of the indubitable, universal, and necessary truth that will cure our wounded, unpredictable, unreliable wills. My overriding goal in this commentary is to block this slide from more to other.
For Jews, the more is the Torah, and for Christians, the more is Christ crucified and risen. The difference is incalculable, all the more so because it contests over the inheritance of promises that both Jews and Christians trace back to Abraham. Jews and Christians are not ships passing in the night. They collide in daylight. The history that has grown out of this collision is painful to contemplate. Nonetheless, Jews and Christians share a common theological judgment, one vividly present in Genesis. God does not give to Abraham anything remotely resembling what we hope for in our perennial and persistent gnostic dreams. True enough, the blessing that God promises is rest in fellowship with him. But God does not remain on a remote heavenly throne while we mutilate our humanity to get to him in vain efforts of spiritual ascent. God comes to us. He gives us a new future in the flesh, not a new metaphysical location. I hope that I do not tax the patience of readers by repeating this truth again and again. (Reno, Genesis, Brazos Press, 2010, pp. 26-27)

Given today's milieu, I do not think Reno could repeat it enough. The physical world matters. Our physical bodies matter. If they did not matter, I suspect either God would not created a physical world to begin with, or else he would have had us mark ourselves as his people with physical acts, circumcision and baptism.

I am very ready to read this commentary...

Jim Wallis on the Tea Party...

I received a column by Jim Wallis by email today, but it can also be found on the Sojourners website. I think Jim raises some good questions about the Tea Party. His last point about racism is interesting and worth asking but I wonder if it will do more harm to his witness than good. Nonetheless this column is a good starting point for reflection.

Here is an excerpt:

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds individual rights as its supreme value and considers government the major obstacle. It tends to be liberal on cultural and moral issues and conservative on fiscal, economic, and foreign policy. This “just leave me alone and don’t spend my money” option is growing quickly in American life, as we have seen in the Tea Party movement. Libertarianism has been an undercurrent in the Republican Party for some time, and has been in the news lately due to the primary election win of Rand Paul as the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Kentucky. Paul has spoken like a true Libertarian, as evidenced by some of his comments since that election last week.

He cited the Civil Rights Act as an example of government interference with the rights of private business. Paul told an interviewer that he would have tried to change the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that made it illegal for private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race. He answered a specific question about desegregating lunch counters by countering, “Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?”

A few days later, he spoke about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Referring to the Obama administration’s criticisms of BP, Paul said, “I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.”

Is such a philosophy Christian? In several major aspects of biblical ethics, I would suggest that Libertarianism falls short.

Cross: Christian or civic symbol

Thanks to Chris Duckworth for retweeting the following blog's link. But it is a fascinating question for us. Cathy Lynn Grossman writes on Faith & Reason, USA Today's religion blog. She mentions today the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that may allow the use of a cross as a national war memorial in "Is the cross a sign for Christ or just civic sculpture?"

While I am undoubtedly swayed by Justice Stevens' comment in the article, "The cross is not a universal symbol of sacrifice. It is the symbol of one particular sacrifice, and that sacrifice carries deeply significant meaning for those who adhere to the Christian faith." The use of a particular religion's symbol by the state is problematic.

The separation of church and state is important for a number of reasons, but most of all for maintaining clarity of the church's mission. If we promulgate the belief that we live a nation where the cross begins to represent all (even though it does not), then there is certainly room for people to believe that simply living in this nation makes them a Christian. We continue the notion that religion is something merely to be assented to, a system of rules to follow for us all to get along.

But the mission of the Church is about inviting people into a relationship with the crucified and risen Christ. We are not just a social organization that does good works. We are about proclaiming the gospel. If the government is able to utilize any religion's symbol (here the cross) as its own, then when our proclamation of the gospel runs counter to the governing authority's declaration, the question arises "Who is authentic?" It is inevitable that people will exchange the gospel for something else.

The Church should rise up against the use of the cross as a general symbol. Not for pluralism's sake, but for clarity of mission.

Brief Q&A session with Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas has written a memoir. Publisher's Weekly has a very brief Q&A with him. Within the first paragraph there is a link to a brief review of Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir. If he writes this memoir with the same clarity and boldness of his other works, it should be fantastic. I for one am looking forward to it.

Film and Theology: Our story and God's story -- through the lens of Hellboy

I have found film to be a fertile ground for theological reflection, particularly with youth and even in congregational use. I decided then to use films during Lent to talk about our story, that is, the narratives most of our culture/society use to bring meaning to our lives, defined mainly by film, although you could also make the case for television, books and music, and how these stories resonate with God's story (or run counter to God's story as the case sometimes might be).

On our first gathering, in the midst of Vespers, I used the Tim Burton film, Big Fish. There the theme of story that brings about meaning is so prevalent, the film begs to be used. In such a traditional father-son conflict, the son defines himself over and against the tales his father tells, until his father, lying on his death bed, invites the son into the story. This invitation, I said, is much the same invitation we have in Lent, to enter into God's story and see our story in light of what God is doing in the world. The bible is after all, primarily a story that spans time and space, encapsulating the beginning and end of creation, giving us the truth about the One who is present and active throughout it all, bringing it to a glorious perfection.

Last night I wrestled with what to do. How do we engage the story of creation without dealing with the fallen and broken nature of our world and our lives? I decided to use the movie Hellboy. Originally a comic book by Mike Mignola, Hellboy is somewhere at the heart of the question. The opening voiceover asks, "What makes a man a man? Is it his beginning?" Are we fallen creatures bound to remain that way forever? Are we who are born into sin, unable to fear, love and trust God, destined to be so?

Well, no, the film makes the claim. Caught between two conflicting narratives, two conflicting identities, Hellboy hears the power of the one, granting freedom from the old identity. Begging him to open the gate for the demonic power, one villain yells, "You are the Right Hand of Doom!" Literally we come to understand that his massive right hand is itself the key to unlock the gate. In the next moment Hellboy's associate, a young agent, grasps for a set of rosary beads, yells out, "Remember who you are!" and flings the beads toward him. The cross lands in his palm, burning a mark into his palm, so reminiscent of the cross marked on our brows in baptism. There we are marked with identity that comes from outside of us. In the film, it is said that we have the power to choose between good and evil. If we understand this outside of the identity granted to us as children of God, this is patently false. If however, we understand that in the power of the gospel that we, fallen and rebellious creatures, are granted the identity of children of God, and therefore God gives us the power to choose then absolutely yes! The quote from John1:12 rings here, "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God."

Given the strength of that message, I decided ultimately to use the film, although I was aware that some of the scenes were violent in nature. I wrestled with this because I did not know how it would be received. I did let the folks in attendance know that there would be violent scenes, although in my appraisal it was cartoonish, comic-style violence. I told people if they felt they needed to they should avert their eyes. In the end, one person left and she and I talked about it. I apologized that my choice made her feel like she needed to leave. But the others remained and it seemed to be that it was helpful to prime the theological pumps to wrestle with evil in our worlds, in fact in our very selves.

In some ways, comic-book violence, with the battles between good and evil are a safe place to explore the realities of a broken world. Demons and Nazis and warfare might seem like they do not belong in the church, but they are a reality of the world and we should name them for what they are, enemies of God. As I reflected upon the violent aspects of Hellboy, I thought about the role of Grimm's Fairy Tales, not the sanitized Disney versions mind you, but the original tales. They were often gruesome, with children being eaten by wolves, or evil vain queens placing younger, more beautiful people under spells. These grotesque tales allowed parents and others to tell of the dangers of the world without causing children to withdraw entirely. They were not meant as ethical tales, but more often than not to describe a reality. There is evil in the world, and we best be cautious.

In the light of a culture and society, who believe that people are mostly good even with their flaws, we lose the ability to name evil as evil. We fail in our wrestling with our very selves to see the power of sin at work in our members. We become deaf to the power that the gospel unleashes to hear that we are free from the oppression to sin, that we are given the power to choose what God desires, even if we still fall short. We need these stories of evil, mainly to tell lay bare the illusions of the world, that is mostly well; that it just might need a little tweaking.

Then we may realize with Paul in Romans 7, "Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Having named the evil for what it is, even that evil within us, we may then acclaim the following verse, " Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! " (Rom. 7:25)

Discipline

Over the past week, much of our attention has been focused on the Olympic games in Vancouver. Feats of strength, grace, speed, agility and engineering have been placed on a stage for all the world to see. And for the most part, we are awed and amazed at the athletes’ abilities; their precision, their nerves, their endurance. But I would like you to consider for a moment the path by which those amazing athletes arrived there.

With very little exception, these athletes have been training for decades for this moment. They might only get one shot at their event, but they have prepared for that moment. A great athlete is not made in the one performance, but in the countless hours over the many years of practice. How many leaps have skaters practiced? How many hills have skiers zoomed down? How many stones have curlers thrown? And of course, how often have they learned their lessons with their very body? Falls, bruises, concussions, all are part of it. But some of their greatest lessons happen when they fail. The great ones turn those failures into a vehicle for later victory.

I would argue that for Christians, as for world-class athletes, there is not much difference. The early church theologian Tertullian was quoted as saying, “Christians are made, not born.” While we rely on the Father’s activity in Christ through the power of the Spirit to mark and identify us as children of God in the waters of baptism, our lives of faith are not complete then and there. We require training and discipline. Thankfully God has given us many ways to be schooled in Christian virtue that we may be formed into Christ’s image to lead lives of holiness and righteousness. In Mark 13:11, Jesus tells his followers, “When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” While we might be worried that our whole witness to God might come down to one spontaneous moment. We need not fear. The Holy Spirit can be working ahead of time to prepare us for that moment. Our lives can be lives that prepare for those moments when the Holy Spirit calls upon us.

In Lent we are given an opportunity for intense discipline, not primarily meant to punish or deprive, but to prepare. Christ’s time in the wilderness fasting was not a weakening but a means of strength and preparation. We too can enter into the ways that God gives us— repentance, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, works of mercy—that we may be formed into the people that we are called to be. And much of our time in Lent is spent contemplating the deep brokenness we make known in our lives, the ways we do not measure up to the people we are called to be, the ways we have chosen less than what God chose for us, the ways we have turned inward to focus on ourselves for our own benefit. In Lent we may turn toward God, away from our self, and enter into this discipline and preparation. The words of exhortation spoken by Christ we hear anew as words of grace and transformation.

Lent is a gift. A gift to see ourselves as God sees us, fallen creatures who might be redeemed to be a people who bring forth his glory. We can begin to grasp the transformation that is beginning to mold us. It begins with God’s words of grace to us, and continues in the repentance and prayer, in the discipline of this season.

Stark Reminders...

A few years ago, probably during my second Ash Wednesday service, but it might have been my first, as presider, I was a little shocked when a boy in the congregation came forward to receive ashes. He was probably in second grade or thereabouts. As I smeared those black sooty ashes upon his forehead, reciting the ominous reminder, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return," I found grief welling up in my throat. Death, unnatural death, came close. Here I was telling an eight-year old boy, "Remember son, you will die." It was unexpected and full of emotion.

Telling children that they are going to die has become easier. I even managed to tell my own son, six years old, those very words last night. But yesterday I also had adults who are wrestling with death in a very real way. A spouse of a member came forward to receive ashes. He had just recently receied word of a very serious cancer in his body. I wondered at how useful it was for him to hear, "Remember that you are dust and to dust your shall return." Another member told me of having a biopsy scheduled for today. The reality of death draws near. This news of biopsies and PET scans are stark reminders that in our broken world, even our bodies rebel against us. Perhaps they serve as starker reminders than the ashen smudge on our foreheads. Are they even necessary?

But those ashes serve an even starker reminder. They are not applied as mere smudges. They follow the same pattern as an earlier anointing. Those ashes are imposed on our foreheads in cruciform manner. Even in the midst of death, there is no need for despair. Cancer spreads? Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. And Christ is there, promising new life to those he has chosen. All of the ways that we die and are isolated from neighbor and God are made clear on Ash Wednesday, but they are not stronger than God's intentions for us. These ashes are indeed a stark reminder for us. But mainly they should be a stark reminder of God's love for us, a love that is meant to bring about a new life in the Kingdom.