When I was in junior high school, I had Mr. Baines for two years of Spanish. Mr. Baines was legendary. My older brothers told me that he ran a hobby shop on the side, and periodically would offer to buy or sell Lionel model trains. What they didn’t tell me about were his teaching methods. After every test he would line us up along the wall and then call out names in test score order. Those who scored lowest he put in front, where he thought they would learn better. He didn’t seem to notice the shame on their faces, or consider that this was not the best form of encouragement.
Mr. Baines was fond of saying “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” It was some years before I knew what that meant. Eventually I realized that he was simply quoting the King James Bible’s version of “Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Perhaps I wouldn’t have paid much attention anyway at that age, even if it weren’t in Jacobean English. But I have come to appreciate those words, and the ones Jesus spoke before them: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.”
When I became a teacher myself – having learned what not to do from people like Mr. Baines – I had to put his saying into practice. I would stress over the weather forecast for a scheduled field trip, and then the rain would come later. Eventually I learned to make contingency plans and then set aside my worries. It’s a mantra I still tell myself (and others): deal with what is, rather than worry about what might be.
Jesus applied these words to more fundamental needs than field trips, however. “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” He spoke this to people who lived a hand-to-mouth existence. Jesus insisted that God knew what they needed and would provide it. His words take on even more meaning in an economy like ours, driven by consumption, where advertising stokes the desire for ever more possessions. This is a distorted desire, one that drives us apart and leads us away from God. No wonder that Jesus says, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” – or, as the version beloved of Mr. Baines puts it, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Desire for God must be primary. All other desires must flow from that.
Focusing on the needs of today does not exclude planning for tomorrow. It’s only prudent to plan for “what if,” to have a contingency in mind. What Jesus excludes is being so caught up in what might happen in the future that the reality of the present is ignored. After all, the present is where we experience God, here and now. The present is where we have the everyday choice of whether to listen to God or not. The present reveals our true desires.
Like my brothers, I got through Mr. Baines’ classes. I was one of the fortunate ones assigned to the back row. I even remember some Spanish. But perhaps the most lasting memory was that admonition not to worry about tomorrow, because there’s plenty to deal with today. Let God worry about the rest.
[Epiphany 8: Matthew 6:24-34.]
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Turn The Other Cheek
I have an old bookmark containing the Ten Commandments. I don’t know who gave it to me, but I do remember being so young that I didn’t understand all of them. I thought the commandment not to commit adult-ery (it’s a narrow bookmark, hence the hyphenation) meant something about not acting like an adult, and considering how some adults acted, that made sense to me. At that point in my life I thought the church, like home, was full of rules.
Some people never get beyond thinking that the life of faith is one of rules. Certain parts of the Bible reinforce that. The book of Leviticus is full of rules, although I notice that people like to pick and choose which rules they think are important. Anything that has to do with sex is “gospel truth,” but rules about what to eat or wear or not shaving your head are ignored. Perhaps what we emphasize reveals more about us than it does about the Bible.
Jesus spent most of his ministry turning rules on their head. It wasn’t that he was fond of anarchy or that anything goes; rather, he recognized that devotion to rules had preempted worship of the God who lay behind them. The whole point of the levitical rules was to create a holy people, a people dedicated to God, a people worthy of God. As pointed out by the Apostle Paul, a recovering rule-worshipper himself, there is nothing that we can do to be worthy of God. God loves us freely. We can’t merit that love. Through Jesus Christ, we don’t have to. We are to simply respond to God’s love by loving God back and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
And so Jesus says that it isn’t good enough to limit retaliation to injury. Don’t retaliate at all. Turn the other cheek so that it can be struck, too. Make peace with your accuser. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Pray and do not bomb them. (Oops, he didn’t say that!) Why is it that the very people who are so eager to apply the rules for sex are so reluctant to take the words of Jesus about peacemaking at face value? Is forgiveness really more complex than sexuality?
To me, it sure sounds like Jesus is advocating a pacifist position. That’s not a new idea. The path of nonviolent resistance is a time-honored one, and we recently saw yet another example of it in Egypt. Curiously, the most successful examples are from non-Christian cultures (Egypt, Gandhi in India). Nonviolent Christians have been less successful – the Anabaptists in Europe were nearly destroyed by Lutherans, Calvinists, and Roman Catholics before escaping to become Mennonites and Amish.
I know the arguments against pacifism. Great, systemic evil must be resisted. Someone recently remarked that we don’t speak German or Japanese now because of the outcome of World War II. It’s clear to me that Hitler had to be opposed. And yet – if we believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, we have to listen to him. We can’t say he was just a very good man and sometimes he didn’t it get it quite right.
I don’t have an answer. But I do want to raise the questions. Followers of Jesus Christ are obligated to be different and think differently than the prevailing culture. That’s part of what being a Christian is all about. And it’s perhaps the hardest part. After all, the person who did it best was crucified.
[7 Epiphany: Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23; Matthew 5:38-48.]
Some people never get beyond thinking that the life of faith is one of rules. Certain parts of the Bible reinforce that. The book of Leviticus is full of rules, although I notice that people like to pick and choose which rules they think are important. Anything that has to do with sex is “gospel truth,” but rules about what to eat or wear or not shaving your head are ignored. Perhaps what we emphasize reveals more about us than it does about the Bible.
Jesus spent most of his ministry turning rules on their head. It wasn’t that he was fond of anarchy or that anything goes; rather, he recognized that devotion to rules had preempted worship of the God who lay behind them. The whole point of the levitical rules was to create a holy people, a people dedicated to God, a people worthy of God. As pointed out by the Apostle Paul, a recovering rule-worshipper himself, there is nothing that we can do to be worthy of God. God loves us freely. We can’t merit that love. Through Jesus Christ, we don’t have to. We are to simply respond to God’s love by loving God back and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
And so Jesus says that it isn’t good enough to limit retaliation to injury. Don’t retaliate at all. Turn the other cheek so that it can be struck, too. Make peace with your accuser. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Pray and do not bomb them. (Oops, he didn’t say that!) Why is it that the very people who are so eager to apply the rules for sex are so reluctant to take the words of Jesus about peacemaking at face value? Is forgiveness really more complex than sexuality?
To me, it sure sounds like Jesus is advocating a pacifist position. That’s not a new idea. The path of nonviolent resistance is a time-honored one, and we recently saw yet another example of it in Egypt. Curiously, the most successful examples are from non-Christian cultures (Egypt, Gandhi in India). Nonviolent Christians have been less successful – the Anabaptists in Europe were nearly destroyed by Lutherans, Calvinists, and Roman Catholics before escaping to become Mennonites and Amish.
I know the arguments against pacifism. Great, systemic evil must be resisted. Someone recently remarked that we don’t speak German or Japanese now because of the outcome of World War II. It’s clear to me that Hitler had to be opposed. And yet – if we believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, we have to listen to him. We can’t say he was just a very good man and sometimes he didn’t it get it quite right.
I don’t have an answer. But I do want to raise the questions. Followers of Jesus Christ are obligated to be different and think differently than the prevailing culture. That’s part of what being a Christian is all about. And it’s perhaps the hardest part. After all, the person who did it best was crucified.
[7 Epiphany: Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23; Matthew 5:38-48.]
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Hard Choices
The Anglican writer C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect that we rarely make a big decision to follow God or turn away from God. Instead, we make many little decisions every day, each of which turns us a bit toward or slightly away from God. It’s the accumulation of those little decisions over time that determine where we end up – whether we find ourselves in the presence of God or totally alienated from God and other people.
It’s a concept I can relate to. When someone cuts in front of me on the road, I can choose to curse or bless them. If I’m given too much change in the store, I can pocket it or give it back. I can act as though the world exists for me, or I can look out for others. Each day brings many small opportunities to choose good or evil.
The readings for this Sunday, on the other hand, are about big choices. Moses just lays it on the line: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.” It’s decision time, folks; which way you step determines the rest of your life, and beyond. It’s the kind of passage biblical literalists love. Moses promises a long life and land if you choose right. Your wealth will show everyone that God loves you. The implication, of course, is that if you die young or are poor then you have made the wrong choice and are cursed by God. Never mind that your poverty may come from being cheated by the rich, or that an early death is the result of a lack of access to medical care.
Jesus raises the stakes even further. He quotes the Jewish law (the Ten Commandments, actually) and then takes it further. Think you’re okay if you don’t murder? But if you even get angry, Jesus says, you’ll be judged. Think that ‘look but don’t touch’ is all right for married people eyeing the opposite sex? “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And then Jesus gives the hardest saying of all: that any man who divorces his wife “causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Is it any wonder that a preacher facing a roomful of people in their second and third marriages looks for some other Bible passage?
So what do we make of all this? Do we get to pick and choose between C. S. Lewis, Moses, and Jesus? Do we say that Moses and the judgmental Old Testament God are replaced by the loving God of the New Testament, and that Jesus was just using hyperbole, exaggerating for effect? That certainly is one way to go, and many have. I can’t. It’s just too easy to explain everything away.
Lewis knew that those daily choices may be small, but he also knew that they are not easy. They, too, are hard choices. Not only does it take some effort to make right choices a habit, but we have to work against our innate propensity to look out only for ourselves – what the church calls original sin. Jesus is talking about the same thing. Left unchecked, anger can explode into murder. Adultery is the natural product of looking at someone lustfully. The seeds of evil are present. Don’t fool yourself that they’re not.
As for divorce – it’s clear that Jesus thinks of marriage as a covenantal relationship, one in which two people make promises to one another in the presence of God. It is not something to be taken lightly, or as a matter of convenience. When clergy meet with engaged couples for pre-marital conferences, they spend little time on the wedding, the actual ceremony. Iinstead, they focus on the marriage, the life the two people will have together in the coming years. It’s a telling sign that our culture lays so much emphasis on the wedding itself and provides little guidance on how to hang in there for the long haul.
Falling in love is easy. Committing your life to another person is hard. Making peace with someone who angers you is hard. Deciding which hand gesture to use when someone cuts in front of you is hard. These are all hard choices. But in the end, Moses is right. One choice leads to life; one to death. One leads to reconciliation with God and fellow humans; the other choice leaves you by yourself. I don’t know about you, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have more company around than just myself.
[Epiphany 6: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37.]
It’s a concept I can relate to. When someone cuts in front of me on the road, I can choose to curse or bless them. If I’m given too much change in the store, I can pocket it or give it back. I can act as though the world exists for me, or I can look out for others. Each day brings many small opportunities to choose good or evil.
The readings for this Sunday, on the other hand, are about big choices. Moses just lays it on the line: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.” It’s decision time, folks; which way you step determines the rest of your life, and beyond. It’s the kind of passage biblical literalists love. Moses promises a long life and land if you choose right. Your wealth will show everyone that God loves you. The implication, of course, is that if you die young or are poor then you have made the wrong choice and are cursed by God. Never mind that your poverty may come from being cheated by the rich, or that an early death is the result of a lack of access to medical care.
Jesus raises the stakes even further. He quotes the Jewish law (the Ten Commandments, actually) and then takes it further. Think you’re okay if you don’t murder? But if you even get angry, Jesus says, you’ll be judged. Think that ‘look but don’t touch’ is all right for married people eyeing the opposite sex? “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And then Jesus gives the hardest saying of all: that any man who divorces his wife “causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Is it any wonder that a preacher facing a roomful of people in their second and third marriages looks for some other Bible passage?
So what do we make of all this? Do we get to pick and choose between C. S. Lewis, Moses, and Jesus? Do we say that Moses and the judgmental Old Testament God are replaced by the loving God of the New Testament, and that Jesus was just using hyperbole, exaggerating for effect? That certainly is one way to go, and many have. I can’t. It’s just too easy to explain everything away.
Lewis knew that those daily choices may be small, but he also knew that they are not easy. They, too, are hard choices. Not only does it take some effort to make right choices a habit, but we have to work against our innate propensity to look out only for ourselves – what the church calls original sin. Jesus is talking about the same thing. Left unchecked, anger can explode into murder. Adultery is the natural product of looking at someone lustfully. The seeds of evil are present. Don’t fool yourself that they’re not.
As for divorce – it’s clear that Jesus thinks of marriage as a covenantal relationship, one in which two people make promises to one another in the presence of God. It is not something to be taken lightly, or as a matter of convenience. When clergy meet with engaged couples for pre-marital conferences, they spend little time on the wedding, the actual ceremony. Iinstead, they focus on the marriage, the life the two people will have together in the coming years. It’s a telling sign that our culture lays so much emphasis on the wedding itself and provides little guidance on how to hang in there for the long haul.
Falling in love is easy. Committing your life to another person is hard. Making peace with someone who angers you is hard. Deciding which hand gesture to use when someone cuts in front of you is hard. These are all hard choices. But in the end, Moses is right. One choice leads to life; one to death. One leads to reconciliation with God and fellow humans; the other choice leaves you by yourself. I don’t know about you, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have more company around than just myself.
[Epiphany 6: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37.]
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Blizzard
Many of you who read this blog experienced a major winter storm this week. It kept us home for two days, but at least we were safe and warm and had enough to eat. We are now dug out, thanks to a couple of neighbors with snow blowers who took pity on a middle-aged priest shoveling two-foot drifts in his driveway. R and I consider ourselves fortunate. We still are amazed at the hundreds of people stranded for hours on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
Tuesday morning before the storm hit, we went to our favorite coffee spot in town, knowing that soon we would be holed up at home. R remarked on the ironic title of the book I was carrying: In the Eye of the Storm by Kenneth Leech. It isn’t actually a weather book at all, but rather a passionate argument that spirituality and care for the poor are closely linked, that we don’t have an “inner life” separate from what we do in our “outer life.” The irony is not that the title fit the weather, but that the content fits the readings for this coming Sunday.
Take Isaiah, for instance. “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers,” he tells the Israelites. “Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.” Instead, Isaiah presents a very different kind of fast, one the Lord chooses: “to loose the bonds of injustice….to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them.” True inward worship will reveal itself in outer acts of justice.
Jesus knows that. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Paul speaks of the inner light as spirit. Only the human spirit knows what is truly human, he says. In a like manner, “no one truly comprehends what is God’s except the Spirit of God” – a Spirit given to us so that “we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” Those gifts emerge as fruits of the Spirit – but only in people who are spiritual. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit.
Being “spiritual” sounds very modern. It is exactly where Leech believes we have gone wrong, especially when it is mixed up with American individualism. Paul did not understand Spirit apart from God, nor the fruits of the Spirit apart from community. Jesus saw good works as a response to the light within, and thus a way to glorify God. Isaiah clearly believed that the right treatment of others revealed the presence of God’s Spirit within. There is no dichotomy here between an inner “spiritual” life and outer “worldly” life. The life of the Spirit cannot be confined to an hour on Sunday mornings. More importantly, we are not true followers of Jesus Christ if we do not strive to embody Christ’s Spirit in all that we do. As one commentator puts it, “the challenge is to live out in the public arena what one is intrinsically.”
Our neighbors with their snow blowers embodied the Spirit of Christ. They were only two of the many people who helped others in this latest storm. Disasters do tend to bring out the best in us. It is daily life, life when no one is watching, that truly reveals what is going on within us. May we strive for that life of the Spirit that shows forth in good works, so that we can give glory to our Father in heaven.
[Epiphany 5: Isaiah 58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20. The quote is from John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, p.214.]
Tuesday morning before the storm hit, we went to our favorite coffee spot in town, knowing that soon we would be holed up at home. R remarked on the ironic title of the book I was carrying: In the Eye of the Storm by Kenneth Leech. It isn’t actually a weather book at all, but rather a passionate argument that spirituality and care for the poor are closely linked, that we don’t have an “inner life” separate from what we do in our “outer life.” The irony is not that the title fit the weather, but that the content fits the readings for this coming Sunday.
Take Isaiah, for instance. “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers,” he tells the Israelites. “Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.” Instead, Isaiah presents a very different kind of fast, one the Lord chooses: “to loose the bonds of injustice….to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them.” True inward worship will reveal itself in outer acts of justice.
Jesus knows that. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Paul speaks of the inner light as spirit. Only the human spirit knows what is truly human, he says. In a like manner, “no one truly comprehends what is God’s except the Spirit of God” – a Spirit given to us so that “we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” Those gifts emerge as fruits of the Spirit – but only in people who are spiritual. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit.
Being “spiritual” sounds very modern. It is exactly where Leech believes we have gone wrong, especially when it is mixed up with American individualism. Paul did not understand Spirit apart from God, nor the fruits of the Spirit apart from community. Jesus saw good works as a response to the light within, and thus a way to glorify God. Isaiah clearly believed that the right treatment of others revealed the presence of God’s Spirit within. There is no dichotomy here between an inner “spiritual” life and outer “worldly” life. The life of the Spirit cannot be confined to an hour on Sunday mornings. More importantly, we are not true followers of Jesus Christ if we do not strive to embody Christ’s Spirit in all that we do. As one commentator puts it, “the challenge is to live out in the public arena what one is intrinsically.”
Our neighbors with their snow blowers embodied the Spirit of Christ. They were only two of the many people who helped others in this latest storm. Disasters do tend to bring out the best in us. It is daily life, life when no one is watching, that truly reveals what is going on within us. May we strive for that life of the Spirit that shows forth in good works, so that we can give glory to our Father in heaven.
[Epiphany 5: Isaiah 58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20. The quote is from John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, p.214.]
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
We Preach Christ Crucified
Such is the title of a book by Kenneth Leech, a classic evangelical Anglican priest, theologically conservative and a worker among the poor. It’s a somewhat difficult but excellent book, especially for Lent, as one might expect from its title, borrowed from Paul’s first letter to Corinth. The Corinthians were looking for signs or wisdom, but Paul wasn’t about to give them what they wanted. “We preach Christ crucified,” he wrote – a stumbling block instead of a sign, foolishness instead of wisdom. Indeed, the “scandal of the cross” remains a stumbling block for many, as Leech points out.
Paul is pretty hard on wisdom in this letter, no doubt because the Corinthians thought they were hot stuff. Paul knew he was even better. He wasn’t shy about pointing out how learned he was, advancing “beyond many among my people of the same age” because he was “far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.” Later in life, his defense of himself was so spirited that the Roman governor told him that too much learning was driving him insane. Even the second letter of Peter commented that Paul’s letters have “some things in them hard to understand.” There’s an understatement!
Yet all of his learning Paul counts as nothing before the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. I’m reminded of another great theological mind, Thomas Aquinas. A few years after finishing his massive Summa Theologica, he had a mystical experience that led him to describe all of his works as “so much straw.” Wisdom is important, yes. But it is not the highest good. The most erudite writing about God does not compare with the direct experience of God.
That’s why there’s hope for us. “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters,” Paul writes, “not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” And yet God chose us just the same. That’s the real foolishness of God. As Paul points out, it removes any reason we have to boast about ourselves. It also removes any reason for us to think that we are beneath God’s notice, that somehow we are not good enough for God. God chooses us anyway, knowing who we are – or rather, knowing who we can become.
This Sunday we’ll have the Annual Meeting at church. Some clergy give a “State of the Church” on that day. (Now where do you suppose they get that idea?) I’m one who thinks that the lessons preempt whatever else is going on, or more accurately, that Scripture interprets life, rather than the other way around. “We preach Christ crucified” is central to our faith. It doesn’t make sense to the ways of the world – but then, neither does going to church on Sunday morning, nor using one’s time and money to help others. Churches are, or should be, fundamentally counter-cultural. Sometimes they get caught up in the worries of the world, like paying for a new roof. But there’s always that call back to the love of God revealed to us through Jesus Christ. That’s the foolishness of God, wiser than any wisdom of this world. I’ll take that any day.
[Epiphany 4: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. This is a Sunday of riches, for we also have Micah 6:1-8 and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), but one can’t preach for that long in an Episcopal church!]
Paul is pretty hard on wisdom in this letter, no doubt because the Corinthians thought they were hot stuff. Paul knew he was even better. He wasn’t shy about pointing out how learned he was, advancing “beyond many among my people of the same age” because he was “far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.” Later in life, his defense of himself was so spirited that the Roman governor told him that too much learning was driving him insane. Even the second letter of Peter commented that Paul’s letters have “some things in them hard to understand.” There’s an understatement!
Yet all of his learning Paul counts as nothing before the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. I’m reminded of another great theological mind, Thomas Aquinas. A few years after finishing his massive Summa Theologica, he had a mystical experience that led him to describe all of his works as “so much straw.” Wisdom is important, yes. But it is not the highest good. The most erudite writing about God does not compare with the direct experience of God.
That’s why there’s hope for us. “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters,” Paul writes, “not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” And yet God chose us just the same. That’s the real foolishness of God. As Paul points out, it removes any reason we have to boast about ourselves. It also removes any reason for us to think that we are beneath God’s notice, that somehow we are not good enough for God. God chooses us anyway, knowing who we are – or rather, knowing who we can become.
This Sunday we’ll have the Annual Meeting at church. Some clergy give a “State of the Church” on that day. (Now where do you suppose they get that idea?) I’m one who thinks that the lessons preempt whatever else is going on, or more accurately, that Scripture interprets life, rather than the other way around. “We preach Christ crucified” is central to our faith. It doesn’t make sense to the ways of the world – but then, neither does going to church on Sunday morning, nor using one’s time and money to help others. Churches are, or should be, fundamentally counter-cultural. Sometimes they get caught up in the worries of the world, like paying for a new roof. But there’s always that call back to the love of God revealed to us through Jesus Christ. That’s the foolishness of God, wiser than any wisdom of this world. I’ll take that any day.
[Epiphany 4: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. This is a Sunday of riches, for we also have Micah 6:1-8 and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), but one can’t preach for that long in an Episcopal church!]
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
If Only
When I was young I would sometimes play the “if only” game with my faith. “If only I were alive at the time of Jesus, my faith would be stronger. If only I could see him, I would truly believe.” Just think of the questions I could ask! “Do you really have brothers and sisters? What was your childhood like? What happened to Joseph? What’s it like being the Son of God?” And the question that Jesus apparently was asked, “What kind of sign can you give me to show that you really are the Son of God?”
That last question revealed my true insecurity. I had to face the fact that even had I been alive in the time of Jesus, my faith might not have been all that different. Jesus didn’t go around performing miracles to prove his divinity. He responded to human need. Then, as now, one had to have the eyes of faith first in order to see that what he did was divine.
And yet, there was that personal invitation: “Follow me.” Something must have been compelling about Jesus to make four fishermen immediately get out of their boats, leave livelihood and family behind, and follow him. Some writers insist that this must not have been their first encounter with Jesus. They would have the fishermen act more like us, deliberately, rationally, weighing the consequences, and then make a decision.
Jesus’ abrupt command to follow challenges that slow approach. This isn’t about deciding who to support in an upcoming election; this is an invitation from God! And only by treating it as such is the depth of faith revealed. St. Paul knew that. He castigated the notoriously factional Corinthians for claiming to be followers of various apostles. Paul rightly redirects the focus on Jesus Christ, the only one who died for them and in whose name they were baptized. (I’d love to hear this preached in a parish where people are nostalgic for BFRs – Beloved Former Rectors!) Paul and all of us are merely instruments of God, who through the grace of God point toward Jesus Christ rather than ourselves.
It’s like an image used by Thomas Merton: we are to be windows through which others see Jesus. Rarely does one focus on the window itself; rather, one looks through to what is revealed beyond. And just as a dirty window can obscure the view, so our sin can obscure the God who dwells within.
As I grew older, I realized that “if only” is not a very profitable game. Seeking proof is not the way to go. If you want to have faith, do what you would do if you did have faith, and then your faith will grow. Over time you will find that you have become a more transparent window through which the love of God shines. Even better, it will become easier to see Jesus in others. And at some point, you will realize that you have responded to that invitation: “Follow me.”
[Epiphany 3: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23.]
That last question revealed my true insecurity. I had to face the fact that even had I been alive in the time of Jesus, my faith might not have been all that different. Jesus didn’t go around performing miracles to prove his divinity. He responded to human need. Then, as now, one had to have the eyes of faith first in order to see that what he did was divine.
And yet, there was that personal invitation: “Follow me.” Something must have been compelling about Jesus to make four fishermen immediately get out of their boats, leave livelihood and family behind, and follow him. Some writers insist that this must not have been their first encounter with Jesus. They would have the fishermen act more like us, deliberately, rationally, weighing the consequences, and then make a decision.
Jesus’ abrupt command to follow challenges that slow approach. This isn’t about deciding who to support in an upcoming election; this is an invitation from God! And only by treating it as such is the depth of faith revealed. St. Paul knew that. He castigated the notoriously factional Corinthians for claiming to be followers of various apostles. Paul rightly redirects the focus on Jesus Christ, the only one who died for them and in whose name they were baptized. (I’d love to hear this preached in a parish where people are nostalgic for BFRs – Beloved Former Rectors!) Paul and all of us are merely instruments of God, who through the grace of God point toward Jesus Christ rather than ourselves.
It’s like an image used by Thomas Merton: we are to be windows through which others see Jesus. Rarely does one focus on the window itself; rather, one looks through to what is revealed beyond. And just as a dirty window can obscure the view, so our sin can obscure the God who dwells within.
As I grew older, I realized that “if only” is not a very profitable game. Seeking proof is not the way to go. If you want to have faith, do what you would do if you did have faith, and then your faith will grow. Over time you will find that you have become a more transparent window through which the love of God shines. Even better, it will become easier to see Jesus in others. And at some point, you will realize that you have responded to that invitation: “Follow me.”
[Epiphany 3: 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23.]
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
God is Faithful
It’s always hard to get back in the groove after the Christmas/New Year’s break. Like Holy Week in the church, there is a flurry of preparation for extra services, attendance by people who only show up on major holidays (who are all those faces, anyway?), and the weariness that comes from staying up too late. For R and me, there’s also trying to keep up with N’s schedule when he’s home. It all shows up in the dog: she’s exhausted. And so Christmas, Epiphany, and the Baptism of Jesus have come and gone before I get around to writing another blog entry. Great subjects to write about – someday. By now we have returned to seven weeks of green “ordinary time.”
Yet even ordinary time is blessed by God. “The Lord called me before I was born,” Isaiah writes, “while I was still in my mother’s womb he named me.” Well, you may say, that’s true for a great prophet like Isaiah, but it doesn’t include the likes of us. Unfortunately, we don’t get off that easily. St. Paul, also “called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,” extends God’s call to everyone who receives his letter: “to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”
“God is faithful,” Paul writes; “by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Gospel of John gives a very literal example of that. Two disciples of John the Baptist were hanging around him one day, when a man named Jesus walked by. “Behold, the Lamb of God!” John said, and that got their attention. They took off after Jesus, who heard the commotion, turned around, and asked them what they were looking for. Too embarrassed to say “Uh, you?” they simply asked him where he was staying. He replied, “Come and see,” and they followed along. One of the disciples was Andrew, who went to get his brother Simon. Jesus took one look at Simon and gave him a new name. “You are to be called Cephas [=Peter].”
Simon Peter was lucky that his brother was looking out for him. How many people are waiting for an invitation from us to come and see Jesus? “There’s a place I go that changes my whole week, and just might change my whole life. Come and see.” God calls us; God calls everyone. It’s best to be aware of it. Then we aren’t spending our lives seeking God where God is not to be found, living lives that are not fulfilling, not being the person God knows us to be.
We can no longer follow Jesus literally, as Andrew and Peter did. The way is not so obvious. Yet it helps to remember that even those who lived in the presence of Jesus stumbled along. Even Isaiah, so sure of his call, could write: “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” Yet Isaiah knew that God is faithful, for he immediately added: “yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.”
That’s the key, isn’t it? God is faithful. Even when I walk the other way, when I think that I cannot be the person God has known me to be since before I was born, God is still there, patiently waiting for me to return. And so I turn back. May you, too, remember the faithfulness of God and turn back. God will be there.
Epiphany 2: Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42. For those who like words, “rock” is Cephas in Aramaic and Petros (Peter) in Greek. This isn’t the last time Jesus will play on Simon’s new name.
Yet even ordinary time is blessed by God. “The Lord called me before I was born,” Isaiah writes, “while I was still in my mother’s womb he named me.” Well, you may say, that’s true for a great prophet like Isaiah, but it doesn’t include the likes of us. Unfortunately, we don’t get off that easily. St. Paul, also “called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,” extends God’s call to everyone who receives his letter: “to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”
“God is faithful,” Paul writes; “by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Gospel of John gives a very literal example of that. Two disciples of John the Baptist were hanging around him one day, when a man named Jesus walked by. “Behold, the Lamb of God!” John said, and that got their attention. They took off after Jesus, who heard the commotion, turned around, and asked them what they were looking for. Too embarrassed to say “Uh, you?” they simply asked him where he was staying. He replied, “Come and see,” and they followed along. One of the disciples was Andrew, who went to get his brother Simon. Jesus took one look at Simon and gave him a new name. “You are to be called Cephas [=Peter].”
Simon Peter was lucky that his brother was looking out for him. How many people are waiting for an invitation from us to come and see Jesus? “There’s a place I go that changes my whole week, and just might change my whole life. Come and see.” God calls us; God calls everyone. It’s best to be aware of it. Then we aren’t spending our lives seeking God where God is not to be found, living lives that are not fulfilling, not being the person God knows us to be.
We can no longer follow Jesus literally, as Andrew and Peter did. The way is not so obvious. Yet it helps to remember that even those who lived in the presence of Jesus stumbled along. Even Isaiah, so sure of his call, could write: “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” Yet Isaiah knew that God is faithful, for he immediately added: “yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.”
That’s the key, isn’t it? God is faithful. Even when I walk the other way, when I think that I cannot be the person God has known me to be since before I was born, God is still there, patiently waiting for me to return. And so I turn back. May you, too, remember the faithfulness of God and turn back. God will be there.
Epiphany 2: Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42. For those who like words, “rock” is Cephas in Aramaic and Petros (Peter) in Greek. This isn’t the last time Jesus will play on Simon’s new name.
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