My dad always liked the story of Jacob and Esau. Maybe it reminded him of his brothers, who could be as wily and mischievous as Jacob. They resembled one another in appearance, and once my grandfather on my mother’s side mistook one Horn brother for another, who played the part so well that my grandfather never caught on.
Dad’s favorite statement of Jacob’s was “my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man” (Genesis 27:11). It always made him laugh. I don’t know why. He was indeed a smooth man; his thin hairless legs gave him the nickname “Birdlegs” when he ran track in college.
Maybe the attraction of Jacob and Esau was how true to life the stories are. Even in the womb they struggled so much that their mother, Rebekah, said out loud, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” Surely my dad saw the exasperation on his own mother’s face as she struggled to raise eight children. And that wonderful image of Jacob coming out of the womb with his hand firmly gripping his brother’s heel. This was not going to be a peaceful household!
It didn’t help that Rebekah loved Jacob and Isaac loved Esau. Later she would help Jacob cheat his brother out of their father’s blessing. Last Sunday’s passage is a preview of this, and shows Esau as a man with more belly than brains. It isn’t as easy to find game as it is to cook up some lentils, so when Esau drags in at the end of a fruitless hunt, he readily does whatever Jacob asks just to get some dinner. Unfortunately for the slow-witted Esau, what he trades are his rights as first-born – which, admittedly, aren’t very filling when you’re hungry.
These stories aren’t intended to be historical biography, of course. They explain why the children of Jacob (Israel) didn’t get along with their distant kin, the children of Esau (Edom). Some also see them as part of the age-old conflict between nomadic hunters and settled farmers. For me, though, and probably for my dad, they show how well the biblical writers understood human nature, and how little that nature has changed over thousands of years.
That’s really what makes the Bible come alive for me. These aren’t ancient myths told by pre-scientific primitives. They are keen insights into how the world works, especially how people work. Genesis, in particular, is breathtaking in its description of how God enters into history, using someone as scheming as Jacob to create a promise that will one day be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. If these stories weren’t true to life, they wouldn’t have much meaning for me.
As far as I know, the Horn brothers never took advantage of one another except perhaps in jest, as with my maternal grandfather. In that sense, the resemblance to Jacob and Esau isn’t that strong. Yet families still have conflict, people still wheel and deal, and some make poor choices. In spite of all our human failings, God works with us and makes out of us something more than we can ask or imagine. Through God we become a blessing to others. And that’s true whether we are hairy or smooth.
[Pentecost 4: Genesis 25:19-24. I'm now back from vacation, so this is posted a bit late.]
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Trinity
I like it when Trinity Sunday and Father’s Day coincide. It reminds me of what Gregory of Nazianzus said in his writings about the Trinity: the existence of God the Father is dependent on the existence of God the Son, because a Begetter could not exist without one who is Begotten. In the same way, a man is not a father without a child. Nice parallelism.
This Sunday we hear the Great Commission, the passage at the end of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus tells the disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” – or as the stained glass window at our church puts it, “Go to therefore…” Matthew also has the only Trinitarian formula in the Gospels, “…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Many scholars insist that this is the early church inserting words into Matthew’s text, but John Nolland doesn’t. Instead, he says, Matthew is neatly summarizing all that he has written. “Matthew’s story has been about the action of the Father through the Son and by means of the Holy Spirit. And that is what the baptized are joined to.”
In a sense, that’s what the whole Bible is about. We will also hear the [first] story of creation in Genesis, in which God as Creator moves as Spirit over the waters and speaks the Word/Son who causes all to come into being. For Christians, the Trinity is present right from the beginning of creation.
Father’s Day in Burlington is when the annual Snake Alley Art Fair is held. Because the church is so close to Snake Alley, parking is practically nonexistent after 8 a.m. So we will have an early service and then serve breakfast to whomever wanders in from the art fair. After taking in the artwork myself, I’ll return to the church to provide a spoken Eucharist for the kitchen help. It will be a low Sunday, as Trinity Sunday typically is. That’s unfortunate. A Trinity sermon on Father’s Day might be just the thing to help people comprehend what is one of Christianity’s most distinctive and least understood doctrines.
[Pentecost 1, Trinity Sunday: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Matthew 28:16-20. The quote from Nolland’s book is on page 1269.]
This Sunday we hear the Great Commission, the passage at the end of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus tells the disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” – or as the stained glass window at our church puts it, “Go to therefore…” Matthew also has the only Trinitarian formula in the Gospels, “…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Many scholars insist that this is the early church inserting words into Matthew’s text, but John Nolland doesn’t. Instead, he says, Matthew is neatly summarizing all that he has written. “Matthew’s story has been about the action of the Father through the Son and by means of the Holy Spirit. And that is what the baptized are joined to.”
In a sense, that’s what the whole Bible is about. We will also hear the [first] story of creation in Genesis, in which God as Creator moves as Spirit over the waters and speaks the Word/Son who causes all to come into being. For Christians, the Trinity is present right from the beginning of creation.
Father’s Day in Burlington is when the annual Snake Alley Art Fair is held. Because the church is so close to Snake Alley, parking is practically nonexistent after 8 a.m. So we will have an early service and then serve breakfast to whomever wanders in from the art fair. After taking in the artwork myself, I’ll return to the church to provide a spoken Eucharist for the kitchen help. It will be a low Sunday, as Trinity Sunday typically is. That’s unfortunate. A Trinity sermon on Father’s Day might be just the thing to help people comprehend what is one of Christianity’s most distinctive and least understood doctrines.
[Pentecost 1, Trinity Sunday: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Matthew 28:16-20. The quote from Nolland’s book is on page 1269.]
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Breath
In the middle of one night when N was about four years old, I awoke to find him standing next to our bed. I had been sound asleep, yet in that deep sleep I heard him breathing. He was quiet, barely audible even when I was fully awake, but it was his breath, and as a parent I knew that he was there and needed something. So I woke myself up.
Throughout N’s youth he had a “reactive airway” – not really asthma, but enough to give him an inhaler. And a cough. In a roomful of noisy children, R could pick out his cough and know he was there.
We don’t usually think of breath as being distinctive. Breathing is just something we do. But anyone with asthma or COPD knows how important breath is. Anyone who takes a CPR class learns how to breathe for someone else. Anyone who has been present at a death, whether of human or pet, knows the finality of that last breath – “a breath that goes forth and does not return,” as the psalmist says.
Several languages, including Greek and Hebrew, use the same word for breath and spirit, recognizing that the spirit departs when the breath ends. This multivalent meaning for one word creates some interesting ambiguities. In Genesis, God’s Spirit moves over the face of the waters. Or is it his breath? Does God give breath to Adam, or spirit? God speaks the Word in creation, but to speak God must use Breath/Spirit. And so the Trinity is present right from the beginning of creation.
This Sunday is Pentecost, the festival that celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus (and thus to the Church). The familiar version of that story, in which the disciples speak in different languages, is told in the Acts of the Apostles. Sunday’s Gospel reading from John has a very different tradition. John says that on the very day of the resurrection, Easter itself, Jesus came to the disciples through closed doors, stood and their midst, and said “Peace to you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He breathed on them. In Greek it’s the same word used for God’s breathing life into Adam, and for the breath that Ezekiel prophesied into the dry bones in the valley. It’s the breath of life. But this breath comes from the resurrected Jesus. It is a new creation, new life, a new spirit that Jesus breathes.
It’s a Spirit that does not go forth, never to return. In baptism we are marked as Christ’s own forever. The Holy Spirit remains with us throughout our lives and beyond. Yet I often wonder how well we listen to that Spirit. Are we like a watchful parent, waking up when it is there next to us? Can we pick out the true Spirit in a noisy culture calling to us with many spirits that are not from God?
N has long since grown up and moved away. Given how loudly I snore now, I don’t know if I’d hear him anyway. Yet I still work to hear that voice of God, to breathe that breath of Jesus, to have the words “Peace to you” in my ears. Baptized in the name of the Trinity, sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked as Christ’s own forever, we are all part of the new creation. And that’s true no matter what language we speak.
[Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23.]
Throughout N’s youth he had a “reactive airway” – not really asthma, but enough to give him an inhaler. And a cough. In a roomful of noisy children, R could pick out his cough and know he was there.
We don’t usually think of breath as being distinctive. Breathing is just something we do. But anyone with asthma or COPD knows how important breath is. Anyone who takes a CPR class learns how to breathe for someone else. Anyone who has been present at a death, whether of human or pet, knows the finality of that last breath – “a breath that goes forth and does not return,” as the psalmist says.
Several languages, including Greek and Hebrew, use the same word for breath and spirit, recognizing that the spirit departs when the breath ends. This multivalent meaning for one word creates some interesting ambiguities. In Genesis, God’s Spirit moves over the face of the waters. Or is it his breath? Does God give breath to Adam, or spirit? God speaks the Word in creation, but to speak God must use Breath/Spirit. And so the Trinity is present right from the beginning of creation.
This Sunday is Pentecost, the festival that celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus (and thus to the Church). The familiar version of that story, in which the disciples speak in different languages, is told in the Acts of the Apostles. Sunday’s Gospel reading from John has a very different tradition. John says that on the very day of the resurrection, Easter itself, Jesus came to the disciples through closed doors, stood and their midst, and said “Peace to you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He breathed on them. In Greek it’s the same word used for God’s breathing life into Adam, and for the breath that Ezekiel prophesied into the dry bones in the valley. It’s the breath of life. But this breath comes from the resurrected Jesus. It is a new creation, new life, a new spirit that Jesus breathes.
It’s a Spirit that does not go forth, never to return. In baptism we are marked as Christ’s own forever. The Holy Spirit remains with us throughout our lives and beyond. Yet I often wonder how well we listen to that Spirit. Are we like a watchful parent, waking up when it is there next to us? Can we pick out the true Spirit in a noisy culture calling to us with many spirits that are not from God?
N has long since grown up and moved away. Given how loudly I snore now, I don’t know if I’d hear him anyway. Yet I still work to hear that voice of God, to breathe that breath of Jesus, to have the words “Peace to you” in my ears. Baptized in the name of the Trinity, sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked as Christ’s own forever, we are all part of the new creation. And that’s true no matter what language we speak.
[Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23.]
Friday, June 3, 2011
That They May Be One
There are times when I wish the life of faith were a whole lot simpler. There’s a certain satisfaction in viewing the Bible as an answer book, a set of propositions that will fit any situation. All it takes is an index that will connect each problem to the appropriate verse, and voilá! the problem is solved. The fact that such Bibles exist makes me realize what I’m up against in insisting on more depth and complexity in Scripture.
In spite of my wish for something simpler, I can’t go there. Maybe that’s because I like the Gospel of John so much. It’s hard to extract simple propositions from John unless they’re so basic as to be almost useless (“God is love,” for instance.) No wonder most people prefer Matthew, Mark, and Luke! John is much less direct and more open to interpretation. For instance, the Roman Catholic Church emphasizes the last verse of Sunday’s passage (“that they may be one, as we are one”) to promote the unity of all Christians – a worthwhile goal, until you realize that they mean everyone needs to return to the Roman Catholic Church.
That desire for unity seems to reside close to the desire for uniformity, which itself emphasizes authority, of pope or pastor. That’s one reason I shy away from magisterial interpretations of the Bible, where Father knows best and the laity are supposed to believe whatever they’re told. The self-help Bibles may seem to be at the other extreme, but they’re not; someone created that index which purports to answer every need. Either way, we’re told to obey the authority of someone else.
So where does John’s Gospel fit in? I am often mystified myself about what he’s saying, and reading him in Greek doesn’t help much. But there are a few things that do seem clear. For one, he continually emphasizes the eternal relation of the Son to the Father. Jesus came from God and would return to him in glory: “So now, Father, glorify me…with the glory I had in your presence before the world existed.”
It is into this eternal relationship that we are invited to enter by being disciples of Jesus Christ. (And yes, it is an eternal relationship of Love.) That is what true unity is about, the unity of God. Just as one God exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so also we are created as persons in order to exist in relationship with one God and one another.
A simple enough idea, perhaps. It’s the living of it that is so difficult. I’m blessed to be in a church community whose members get along pretty well, but I don’t have illusions that we are all unified. (All I have to do is propose changing the carpet!) The local Lutherans and Episcopalians celebrate their common mission through joint Ascension and Epiphany services, but the area council of churches has such a conservative focus that I’m uncomfortable at their meetings. The divisions of Christianity are a great scandal and an impediment to mission.
So a simple life of faith is illusory. Life itself is not that simple; why should faith be? Yet I can still long for unity in Christ, to be one, as God is one. That unity will not come until God’s will is done on earth as in heaven. In the meantime we can work toward unity, the coming of God’s kingdom upon earth.
[Easter 7, the Sunday after the Ascension. John 17:1-11.]
In spite of my wish for something simpler, I can’t go there. Maybe that’s because I like the Gospel of John so much. It’s hard to extract simple propositions from John unless they’re so basic as to be almost useless (“God is love,” for instance.) No wonder most people prefer Matthew, Mark, and Luke! John is much less direct and more open to interpretation. For instance, the Roman Catholic Church emphasizes the last verse of Sunday’s passage (“that they may be one, as we are one”) to promote the unity of all Christians – a worthwhile goal, until you realize that they mean everyone needs to return to the Roman Catholic Church.
That desire for unity seems to reside close to the desire for uniformity, which itself emphasizes authority, of pope or pastor. That’s one reason I shy away from magisterial interpretations of the Bible, where Father knows best and the laity are supposed to believe whatever they’re told. The self-help Bibles may seem to be at the other extreme, but they’re not; someone created that index which purports to answer every need. Either way, we’re told to obey the authority of someone else.
So where does John’s Gospel fit in? I am often mystified myself about what he’s saying, and reading him in Greek doesn’t help much. But there are a few things that do seem clear. For one, he continually emphasizes the eternal relation of the Son to the Father. Jesus came from God and would return to him in glory: “So now, Father, glorify me…with the glory I had in your presence before the world existed.”
It is into this eternal relationship that we are invited to enter by being disciples of Jesus Christ. (And yes, it is an eternal relationship of Love.) That is what true unity is about, the unity of God. Just as one God exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so also we are created as persons in order to exist in relationship with one God and one another.
A simple enough idea, perhaps. It’s the living of it that is so difficult. I’m blessed to be in a church community whose members get along pretty well, but I don’t have illusions that we are all unified. (All I have to do is propose changing the carpet!) The local Lutherans and Episcopalians celebrate their common mission through joint Ascension and Epiphany services, but the area council of churches has such a conservative focus that I’m uncomfortable at their meetings. The divisions of Christianity are a great scandal and an impediment to mission.
So a simple life of faith is illusory. Life itself is not that simple; why should faith be? Yet I can still long for unity in Christ, to be one, as God is one. That unity will not come until God’s will is done on earth as in heaven. In the meantime we can work toward unity, the coming of God’s kingdom upon earth.
[Easter 7, the Sunday after the Ascension. John 17:1-11.]
Baptism
Central to our faith is the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. That’s what makes us Christians, after all. And what makes Christians unique is belief in the resurrection of the dead – passing through death into life. Entry into this community we call Christianity is a process that prefigures that passage, a process we call baptism. In the early church, and in some churches today, the person is literally dunked underwater and then brought up again, stark symbolism of dying and rising. In my church (and many others) that has been reduced to three splashes with water from a shell over a font that’s too small to dunk a newborn. Some parents are very happy that we don’t use total immersion with their child.
The church has always understood Israel’s passage through the Red Sea as a kind of prefiguring of baptism. The Israelites were fleeing from bondage in Egypt and God miraculously provided a route for them through the waters that blocked their way. The Red Sea crossing and forty years in the wilderness became the defining events in their development as a distinct people. In the baptismal rite, the Thanksgiving over the Water recalls those events, as well as the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters at creation, and the baptism of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.
Only in the first letter of Peter is Noah’s ark described as a prefiguring of baptism. [It was especially appropriate on this Sunday, when we welcomed a Noah into the household of God!] Peter’s symbolism is clear: the waters of chaos threatened to wipe out all humanity, but God saved Noah and his family by telling him to build an ark. I don’t want to press this story too far. For one thing, I’m not a biblical literalist, and for another, there’s the matter of all the people who died in the flood. It’s not helpful when so many have suffered recently in severe weather.
R’s favorite part of baptisms is the point at which she makes the sign on the cross on the newly baptized and says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” I can see why she likes it. That’s the whole theology in a nutshell. Through the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit enters in and makes a home in that person. He or she is marked as Christ’s own forever. That’s why we baptize only once.
John’s Gospel tells us that once the Holy Spirit abides in us, the Spirit of truth will reveal the love of Jesus, and through Jesus the love of God. “You will know that I am in my Father,” Jesus says, “and you in me, and I in you.” God’s very essence is the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a relationship built on love.
Created in the image of God, we are fundamentally relational as well. That is why baptisms in the Episcopal Church take place at the principal service on Sunday morning. Baptism is the first step in joining the Christian community, so the community must be present to welcome the newly baptized. We also reaffirm our own baptismal vows, including the promise to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers” – in other words, to be faithful members of a Christian community – “with God’s help.” So whether we have a complete dunking or splashes with a shell, we symbolize our passage through death to new life in Christ. No wonder that in his darkest days, Martin Luther could console himself by shouting, "I am baptized!" For him and for us, it makes all the difference between life and death.
[Easter 6: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21.]
The church has always understood Israel’s passage through the Red Sea as a kind of prefiguring of baptism. The Israelites were fleeing from bondage in Egypt and God miraculously provided a route for them through the waters that blocked their way. The Red Sea crossing and forty years in the wilderness became the defining events in their development as a distinct people. In the baptismal rite, the Thanksgiving over the Water recalls those events, as well as the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters at creation, and the baptism of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.
Only in the first letter of Peter is Noah’s ark described as a prefiguring of baptism. [It was especially appropriate on this Sunday, when we welcomed a Noah into the household of God!] Peter’s symbolism is clear: the waters of chaos threatened to wipe out all humanity, but God saved Noah and his family by telling him to build an ark. I don’t want to press this story too far. For one thing, I’m not a biblical literalist, and for another, there’s the matter of all the people who died in the flood. It’s not helpful when so many have suffered recently in severe weather.
R’s favorite part of baptisms is the point at which she makes the sign on the cross on the newly baptized and says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” I can see why she likes it. That’s the whole theology in a nutshell. Through the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit enters in and makes a home in that person. He or she is marked as Christ’s own forever. That’s why we baptize only once.
John’s Gospel tells us that once the Holy Spirit abides in us, the Spirit of truth will reveal the love of Jesus, and through Jesus the love of God. “You will know that I am in my Father,” Jesus says, “and you in me, and I in you.” God’s very essence is the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a relationship built on love.
Created in the image of God, we are fundamentally relational as well. That is why baptisms in the Episcopal Church take place at the principal service on Sunday morning. Baptism is the first step in joining the Christian community, so the community must be present to welcome the newly baptized. We also reaffirm our own baptismal vows, including the promise to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers” – in other words, to be faithful members of a Christian community – “with God’s help.” So whether we have a complete dunking or splashes with a shell, we symbolize our passage through death to new life in Christ. No wonder that in his darkest days, Martin Luther could console himself by shouting, "I am baptized!" For him and for us, it makes all the difference between life and death.
[Easter 6: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21.]
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Irresistible Grace
One of the advantages (I suppose) of starting out at a Presbyterian seminary is that I got a good grounding in Reformed theology. Given that the English Reformation was influenced more by Calvin than Luther, that was a good thing. Calvin turned out to have some redeemable qualities. As a former lawyer he was a more systematic thinker than Luther. Like Luther, it was Calvin’s followers who hardened into stone some of the less desirable features of the founder.
The most striking example of that hardening was the Dutch Synod of Dort in the seventeenth century. Out of this came classic Reformed doctrine, summarized by the mnemonic TULIP:
• Total depravity of humankind
• Unconditional election (to salvation or damnation, from before all time)
• Limited atonement (Christ died only for the elect, not all humankind)
• Irresistible grace
• Perseverance of the saints (those who have been elected will be saved no matter what)
It’s a peculiar collection to my mind and I don’t subscribe to any of it except for one item: irresistible grace. At our clergy lectionary study this week, one Lutheran pastor brought up irresistible grace as his way of interpreting the saying of Jesus, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If it is evil that draws us away from God, he said, and in the end evil will either be destroyed or converted, then all people will eventually be drawn to God because of God’s irresistible grace. He did, however, make the concession that our free will makes it possible to refuse to turn toward God. Someone may look at what God offers and then choose otherwise (which, I suppose, means that grace isn’t really irresistible after all!).
It’s an intriguing problem. How should Christians regard those who do not believe in Jesus Christ? There are two easy solutions, neither of which I find to be scriptural. One is to presume to know the mind and will of God, and to judge unbelievers as condemned to hell. The other extreme is complete relativism, to say that there are many ways up the mountain, all of which are valid. This assumes that it is the same mountain all religions climb, which is clearly not so. Is there some third solution, an Anglican via media?
The Scripture readings this week are pretty uncompromising. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. Yet Jesus is also the Word through whom everything is created. So Christ can be revealed through the natural world and through people who are not Christians. For the strict Reformed, total depravity kicks in here – we are so sinful that we cannot see God in creation unless it is through Christ. I don’t share that interpretation, and neither did the early Anglicans who talked about the “two books” of revelation (nature and the Bible). Christ’s universal presence in creation allows Christians to work for the kingdom of God side by side with people of other faiths, including the faith of no-God (atheism).
I believe that Jesus Christ is the fullest self-revelation of God to humankind. That is why I am a Christian. True, God can be known outside of Christianity, but that is not as complete as knowing God through Jesus Christ. (And even that vision, as the Apostle Paul well knew, is like seeing through a mirror darkly.) As for salvation, it is freely offered to all. Jesus died for everyone, not just the elect. But like my Lutheran friend, I believe that grace is only irresistible to a point, because we have to cooperate with grace for it to work. We have the choice of turning away from God. Why anyone would do that, God only knows. For who can resist that Love known to us in Jesus Christ?
[Easter 5: Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14.]
The most striking example of that hardening was the Dutch Synod of Dort in the seventeenth century. Out of this came classic Reformed doctrine, summarized by the mnemonic TULIP:
• Total depravity of humankind
• Unconditional election (to salvation or damnation, from before all time)
• Limited atonement (Christ died only for the elect, not all humankind)
• Irresistible grace
• Perseverance of the saints (those who have been elected will be saved no matter what)
It’s a peculiar collection to my mind and I don’t subscribe to any of it except for one item: irresistible grace. At our clergy lectionary study this week, one Lutheran pastor brought up irresistible grace as his way of interpreting the saying of Jesus, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If it is evil that draws us away from God, he said, and in the end evil will either be destroyed or converted, then all people will eventually be drawn to God because of God’s irresistible grace. He did, however, make the concession that our free will makes it possible to refuse to turn toward God. Someone may look at what God offers and then choose otherwise (which, I suppose, means that grace isn’t really irresistible after all!).
It’s an intriguing problem. How should Christians regard those who do not believe in Jesus Christ? There are two easy solutions, neither of which I find to be scriptural. One is to presume to know the mind and will of God, and to judge unbelievers as condemned to hell. The other extreme is complete relativism, to say that there are many ways up the mountain, all of which are valid. This assumes that it is the same mountain all religions climb, which is clearly not so. Is there some third solution, an Anglican via media?
The Scripture readings this week are pretty uncompromising. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. Yet Jesus is also the Word through whom everything is created. So Christ can be revealed through the natural world and through people who are not Christians. For the strict Reformed, total depravity kicks in here – we are so sinful that we cannot see God in creation unless it is through Christ. I don’t share that interpretation, and neither did the early Anglicans who talked about the “two books” of revelation (nature and the Bible). Christ’s universal presence in creation allows Christians to work for the kingdom of God side by side with people of other faiths, including the faith of no-God (atheism).
I believe that Jesus Christ is the fullest self-revelation of God to humankind. That is why I am a Christian. True, God can be known outside of Christianity, but that is not as complete as knowing God through Jesus Christ. (And even that vision, as the Apostle Paul well knew, is like seeing through a mirror darkly.) As for salvation, it is freely offered to all. Jesus died for everyone, not just the elect. But like my Lutheran friend, I believe that grace is only irresistible to a point, because we have to cooperate with grace for it to work. We have the choice of turning away from God. Why anyone would do that, God only knows. For who can resist that Love known to us in Jesus Christ?
[Easter 5: Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14.]
Friday, May 13, 2011
Double Shot, Two Percent, No Flavor, To Go
What would the ideal church be like? A friendly place, but not too friendly, where the bills always got paid without having to harangue people for money, where the music was uplifting and the preacher inspiring and the liturgy perfect and the space transcendent? I’ve always wanted to go to a church with an espresso machine, but maybe that’s a secret desire to sit in a coffee shop sipping a latte and reading a newspaper on Sunday morning.
The author of the Acts of the Apostles (probably Luke) had a clear idea of what church should be like. It should fit his description of the early Christian community: signs and wonders, equal sharing of possessions, a joy-filled community highly regarded by everyone – a kind of Pentecostal Communism. People flocked to be part of this church.
Luke’s rose-colored glasses must have had a strong tint. We know from the Apostle Paul, who wrote earlier than Luke, that early churches had factions and bickering and carousers and liturgical police. In fact, they sound a lot like a modern congregation. Instead of disagreements over whether we should eat meat offered to idols, we now argue over the setting of the thermostat. Well, perhaps that’s overstated; I haven’t yet met anyone whose salvation depended on the temperature setting. (I have seen people who almost met their Maker after the junior warden caught them tampering with a thermostat.)
Curiously, we have taken Luke’s optimistic language into our baptismal covenant. “Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers,” Luke wrote. We still promise to continue to do the same, “with God’s help.”
We know what the ideal should be. It is just as obvious that we fall short of it. We don’t always help those in need. Our possessions often possess us. We forget to praise God. And more and more, being “Christian” is associated with being judgmental rather than accepting, so that Christian communities no longer are highly regarded by everyone. Sometimes churches are just a muddled mess.
Maybe that’s why a latte sounds so appealing some Sunday mornings. No need to deal with the muddle. But it’s also why church is important. Reading the newspaper doesn’t challenge me; people do. I cannot grow without challenge. I cannot know God without seeing God in others, and others seeing God in me. I cannot know Jesus without the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.
So I show up every Sunday morning, hoping that the bills have been paid, and do my part to make the preaching inspiring and the liturgy perfect. Am I always successful? No. But at least I have tried my best, with God’s help. And that, after all, is what God asks us to do.
[Fourth Sunday of Easter: Acts 2:42-47. Yes, I know it is Good Shepherd Sunday, but did you really want to hear about sheep?]
The author of the Acts of the Apostles (probably Luke) had a clear idea of what church should be like. It should fit his description of the early Christian community: signs and wonders, equal sharing of possessions, a joy-filled community highly regarded by everyone – a kind of Pentecostal Communism. People flocked to be part of this church.
Luke’s rose-colored glasses must have had a strong tint. We know from the Apostle Paul, who wrote earlier than Luke, that early churches had factions and bickering and carousers and liturgical police. In fact, they sound a lot like a modern congregation. Instead of disagreements over whether we should eat meat offered to idols, we now argue over the setting of the thermostat. Well, perhaps that’s overstated; I haven’t yet met anyone whose salvation depended on the temperature setting. (I have seen people who almost met their Maker after the junior warden caught them tampering with a thermostat.)
Curiously, we have taken Luke’s optimistic language into our baptismal covenant. “Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers,” Luke wrote. We still promise to continue to do the same, “with God’s help.”
We know what the ideal should be. It is just as obvious that we fall short of it. We don’t always help those in need. Our possessions often possess us. We forget to praise God. And more and more, being “Christian” is associated with being judgmental rather than accepting, so that Christian communities no longer are highly regarded by everyone. Sometimes churches are just a muddled mess.
Maybe that’s why a latte sounds so appealing some Sunday mornings. No need to deal with the muddle. But it’s also why church is important. Reading the newspaper doesn’t challenge me; people do. I cannot grow without challenge. I cannot know God without seeing God in others, and others seeing God in me. I cannot know Jesus without the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.
So I show up every Sunday morning, hoping that the bills have been paid, and do my part to make the preaching inspiring and the liturgy perfect. Am I always successful? No. But at least I have tried my best, with God’s help. And that, after all, is what God asks us to do.
[Fourth Sunday of Easter: Acts 2:42-47. Yes, I know it is Good Shepherd Sunday, but did you really want to hear about sheep?]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
