Holding it All Together--May 10, 2024

 

Holding it All Together--May 10, 2024

"[Christ] himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." [Colossians 1:17-20]

Inside of every cell of your body--in fact, inside every nucleus of every atom of every molecule that is inside of every cell of your body--there is a profound mystery that is holding you together. It is holding the world together, too.

Scientists call it the "strong nuclear force," and it is quite amazing. Everybody remembers, I trust, their basic science education from back in middle school or junior high school, where you learned that positive repels positive and negative repels negative, just like the poles on a magnet repel poles of the same kind, too. And I'll bet you recall, too, that every atom in the universe is made up of protons (which have a positive charge), neutrons (which are neutral), and electrons (which have a negative charge). And while electrons go whizzing around in orbit on the outside of an atom like a buzzing, moving shell, the center of every atom is densely populated with protons.

So, in the center of just about every atom in the universe (okay, not hydrogen, which has only one proton to begin with), from the carbon atoms in your eyes as you read these words to the silicon atoms in the microchips within the computer on which I am typing them, there are subatomic particles pushing away from each other. Inside every nucleus of every atom there are protons that are repelling one another, and if there were not another force at work holding them together, that pushing would rip apart every atom in creation, and there would be nothing but subatomic particles zipping around the chaos of otherwise empty space. If all you had was the basic description of things from middle school science, you might say, "The universe shouldn't work! It shouldn't hold together at all!" If all there were was the meeting of one proton's charge butting up against the force of another, then, to borrow a phrase of Yeats, things would fall apart, and the center would not hold.

And yet... here we are.

There must be a force, a power, that is of a different kind than the you-push-me-I'll-push-you-back repulsion of one proton against another. There must be another kind of force--somehow even stronger in those close, infinitesimally small distances, that can make all the protons stay with one another. This is the mystery. This is what scientists call "the strong nuclear force." And instead of being a pushing kind of force, like positive charges push against and repel other positive charges punch for punch, somehow the strong nuclear force is a "giving" kind of force--it binds protons together by getting them to trade even tinier particles, called mesons, back and forth.

We don't need to delve further into the intricacies of subatomic particles to get the point for today: at first glance (a 7th-grade level knowledge of science), it looks like nothing should hold together at all, but there is a deeper power at work that still binds everything even in spite of our assertions of what "can" or "cannot" happen. Curious, isn't it, that the force of giving things away back and forth ends up being more powerful that the force of one proton pushing and shoving on another like drunk brawlers in a barfight?

Except, maybe not that curious at all, for people who dare to believe that the Maker of all things leaves fingerprints in the universe--that in some way, creation itself bears the mark of the Creator like an artist might sign their work with a telltale symbol or stylistic flourish (kind of like the way you can spot a Van Gogh or a Monet becuase of their distinctive brushstrokes). And I don't mean that God hides tiny crosses in the structure of molecules, or stamps "John 3:16" onto the far side of planets for us to find, like some theological version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I mean that if God's own nature is to bind all things together in the act of self-giving love, then maybe it isn't all that surprising that God has fashioned the universe in the same way--that in the face of our most powerful bouts of anger and pride and pushing and shoving, God reserves the right nevertheless to bind all things together in the power of a force whose strength comes from self-giving, too.  

Or, as the writer of Colossians says it, in Christ Jesus, "all things hold together."  The risen life of Jesus courses through the whole universe, binding it together with a power stronger than our own divisions and repulsions.

This is exactly the Christian claim: that even though we seem determined to divide ourselves up, we human beings, God insists on binding all things together in love anyhow. We keep angling for ways to exclude and accuse, to condemn and to hate one another along all sorts of lines, and then to push and shove back and forth at one another because we are afraid of "the other" getting more power than we have... and then God instead says, "No, I am still holding you all together." And God doesn't do it with coercion, not with guns or decrees or imprisonment or threats or angry bluster. God holds all things together in the risen life of Jesus and in the same self-giving love that gave itself away for us on an ugly imperial death stake that we call the cross. God's power to gather up, God's power to bind up what is broken and scattered, God's power to embrace, is going to win out in the end, like the strong nuclear force holding together even ornery protons that are still wanting to push and shove each other into chaos.

To be a follower of Jesus is to stake your claim now to be a part of God's work of self-giving love--love that does not back down from speaking out for those who have been stepped on, made to be afraid, or left out, but love also that does not shy away from giving itself away, to bow and to bend and to make room for the other as well. We are people who dare to believe that, as impossible as it might seem to a rudimentary surface knowledge, God's self-giving love and the risen life of Jesus are more powerful than our impulse to hate, to divide, and to dehumanize one another. So we will be about the work of love today, even when it takes the form of courage, and even when it takes the form of suffering.

Lord Jesus, bind all things together within us, and bind us together with all creation in your self-giving love.

Chosen--May 9, 2024

Chosen--May 9, 2024

[Jesus said to his disciples:] "You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another." [John 15:16-17]

He's right, of course.  

Jesus did the choosing.  The disciples are the ones who, well, who find themselves found.

For all the red-faced bluster of TV preachers and other Respectable Religious Leaders urgently asking their viewers, "Have you chosen to make Jesus your Lord and Savior?" or "Have you decided to accept Christ into your heart?" the real issue is the one that's out of our hands: the question of Jesus having chosen us--indeed, a whole world full of us.  As hard as it may for our ears to hear it in this culture obsessed with made-to-order customized fast food and instant-click-and-ship ordering online, the truth is that the Christian life is less about choosing Jesus and more about discovering you have been chosen by Jesus already.

That was certainly the case for the original circle of Jesus' first twelve disciples--the stories all note that Jesus went out and found people who were looking the other way, working at the family business, or not even paying attention, until Jesus called to them and drew him into his beloved community.  They weren't applying or auditioning to be students of Rabbi Jesus, nor were they showing off their skills and scholarship.  Some of them didn't even seem very impressed with the idea of a Nobody from Nazareth ("Can anything good come from there...?" asked one would-be disciple) calling them to follow.  Jesus was the one who initiated the relationships.  Jesus was the one who took their fearful wallflower selves by the hand and out onto the dance floor.  Jesus was the one, in short, who chose them--and they, in return, discover what it means to have been chosen by Jesus.  They grow into what it means to find yourself found by him.

And of course, the ways that Jesus' followers grow up in their faith is much the same, too.  The disciples do eventually find their courage, risk their lives, lead a community, and venture out into the wide world with the news of the risen Jesus, and when it takes root in new places--or "bears fruit," to borrow Jesus' wording here--it's not an act of their sheer willpower.  It is because Jesus, who has first chosen them, still chooses to work through them to reach others.  In fact, through them, Jesus goes on choosing other people, people of all kinds, backgrounds, skin colors, languages, and lifestyles.  Jesus goes on choosing people, telling them--and us!--that we are beloved and that we belong, on his say so, and that as a result our lives will be different... for the better.

Sometimes you hear people talk about being a Christian like they are selling subscriptions to a magazine:  "If you act now and choose to sign up now, you'll get all these benefits, sent right to your mailbox, and then you'll just need to keep renewing your subscription and paying each month in order to keep your account in good standing."  It all hinges on my action first to place my order.  But Jesus turns the tables on us and reminds us that we are not customers selecting a purchase, but we are children adopted into a family.  We are claimed by Jesus, who has already loved us. We are called for his purposes, without us having to audition for a spot first.  We are chosen by Jesus, rather than needing to elect him as "Personal Lord and Savior" like he's running for office in our souls.  It's less about worrying if we've chosen Jesus accurately or decisively enough (like all the worry back in 2000 over properly punched ballots with "hanging chads" clinging to the paper), and more about receiving the relief of knowing that Jesus has decisively said "YES" to us first.  That's how his life flows through us and comes to fruition--his gift, his choosing, and his initiative.

All this Eastertide, as we've been exploring the risen life of Jesus, I hope it's been increasingly clear that we're not sent into the world as Jesus' sales force, trying to get new customers to sign up and choose Jesus rather than a Competing Brand.  Rather we've been sent, as people first chosen by Jesus, to tell others (especially folks who have been told before that they are unworthy and unlovable), "You are chosen already.  Jesus claims you as his own."

Who might you tell today?  And the next day?  Beyond that?

When we run out of people in our neighborhood to tell, or in our town or our state, well, then we just take the same news to the whole wide world.  

How can we not?  Jesus has chosen us for it.

Dear Jesus, tell us again that we are your chosen ones and beloved ones... and let it lead us to tell others that you have chosen then as well.

The First Domino--May 8, 2024

The First Domino--May 8, 2024

[Jesus said to his disciples:]“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. [John 15:12-15]

I don't believe I know the complete set of official rules for playing a game of dominoes, but I do know how to arrange them in a line so that when the first one is knocked over, it sets off a chain reaction that knocks them all down.  And I have always thought that was more fun anyway.

Along the same lines, what I have always found most frustrating with a set of dominoes is when I try to set them up in some pattern, then knock the first one down, only to discover somewhere down the line that one was placed just a little bit too far away from the previous domino so the reaction stops and it doesn't fall to keep the process going.  Seeing an incomplete line of unfallen dominoes just feels like a failure--like you know exactly what was supposed to happen, but somehow got interrupted.  There's a peculiar beauty, I've always thought, to watching how just one fallen domino can affect all the rest in succession.

And I think of that odd loveliness, and the accompanying clicking sound of one domino tipping the next and the next, when I hear Jesus talking to his friends about the particular shape of his kind of life, and how it is meant to flow into the lives of those around him.  Jesus offers himself as the One who lays his life down for his friends--for those same disciples-turned-confidants in the upper room on their last evening together before the cross--and he calls them in turn to be people who lay down their lives for others as well.  Jesus intends to start a chain reaction with his own self-giving kind of life. His choice to give himself away for their sakes will set off ripple effects as the growing community of his followers practices the same outward pointing love.

Now, all that said, I want to be clear about what I believe Jesus means when he talks about "laying down your life."  Because even though it will mean a literal cross for Jesus, just a few hours from when he says these words on the night of his betrayal, I don't think Jesus means that the only way to participate in his self-giving way of life is to literally die.  Christianity isn't meant to be a suicide cult. And while the early Christians were indeed willing to die for their allegiance to Jesus--whether on crosses like his, as food for the lions, or as victims of the gladiators before cheering crowds in the Coliseum--they didn't seek out an untimely death.  In fact, I think what Jesus has in mind is a way of life that makes for many kinds of self-giving, maybe even over decades, in which his followers choose over and over again to offer up their love, their energy, their time, their presence, their resources, and their reputations, for the sake of others.  It's a lifelong chain reaction, not just a swan song and a dramatic death.

I think Elaine Puckett was on to something when she wrote, "When we think about laying down a life for another we usually think in terms of a single event. But it is possible for us to lay down our lives over the course of a lifetime, minute by minute and day by day." That's what Jesus has in mind--not that we have to prove our devotion to Jesus or commitment to the cause by literally getting ourselves killed, but that the shape of our whole lives takes on the form of his own self-giving life.  The sound of our lives will have that click-click-click-click of one domino laying itself down for the next, as each in turn sets the next one into motion.  And that makes for a million--or a billion--little acts of love that become our lifetimes.   That's part of how Jesus' life continues to live through us--the same spiritual kinetic energy, so to speak, that touched us flows into us and then through us on to the next person, who passes it along further down the line, radiating out in every direction.

These days my daughter will occasionally try a strategy to rationalize doing something foolish and dangerous, like sitting on a ledge, or rollerblading without a helmet, or wanting to slide down the banister on the stairs. When I see her starting to do something dangerous and I tell her not to, she will say back, "But Dad, Jesus died for US, so now it's ok if I die doing this risky thing to save you, too..."  And every time she tries this faulty logic, I'll say back, "But the difference is that falling off the ledge or sliding down the banister doesn't save anybody else--it doesn't help anyone for you to risk your life in this particular way, so please don't waste your life by falling off a ledge or handrail."  The calling from Jesus is not that we find increasingly reckless ways to shuffle off this mortal coil, as if just dying by itself is redemptive.  It ain't.  The calling from Jesus is to find increasingly compelling ways to give ourselves away in love for others, as Jesus has done for us first.  Instead of sliding down the banister and breaking your neck, it might be helping to do a chore unasked for the tired mom who will be home from work soon.  Or instead of hanging from a cracking tree limb when you've been warned not to, it might be helpful instead to share some of your snack with the neighbor kid who doesn't have one.  But just doing something foolish or reckless isn't the same thing as "laying down your life" for someone.  Just because someone tells you, "I'm undergoing this unpleasant thing for you," or "I'm suffering this persecution because they're really trying to get to you..." does not mean it's true.  Laying down your life doesn't have to be melodramatic, and it often won't attract headlines or reporters; but it always reveals love.  That's the key.  That's the Jesus way of life--his risen life, in us.

Dallas Willard put it this way: "Jesus tells us we have no need to be anxious, for there is a divine life, the true home of the soul, that we can enter simply by placing our confidence in him: becoming his friend, and conspiring with him to subvert evil with good."  That's it--Jesus has made us his friends, and he has set down his interests and his life for our sake, setting into motion a worldwide ripple of self-giving love, which will reverberate throughout our whole lives as the same movement passes through us and into the lives of people around us.  

We find our place in that ever-widening circle because we have first been touched by the self-giving love of Jesus, the first domino in the chain.  What will it look like to lay down our lives in love for others, in little and big ways, today?

Lord Jesus, send us outward into the world with the same self-giving motion of your love and your life laid down for us.

The Life of the Party--May 7, 2024

The Life of the Party--May 7, 2024

[Jesus said:] "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete." [John 15:11]

Jesus wishes our joy. How about that?

No, more than just that.  Jesus does more than "wish" our joy, like the empty gesture of someone looking up to the stars for help or blowing out candles on their cake with a heaping helping of magical thinking.  No, Jesus does more than merely wish for, hope for, or dream about joy for his followers: he makes it possible.  Jesus enacts it. He initiates it.  Jesus fills us with his own exuberant life, so that we, too, may be full of his joy.

Honestly, I don't know that we talk, or even think, in those terms very frequently... or very well.  All too, often, I hear people talk about Christian life and faith as some joyless matter of drudgery, like we are signing on for miserable lives in the present in order to avoid damnation when we die.  All too often, I hear Respectable Religious Voices talking about the Christian faith like it's all dour-faced scowling at sinners for not measuring up (while being secretly jealous that we're missing out on all the "fun").  And to be honest, the way some folks describe heaven as a never-ending church service floating on clouds as disembodied souls, even that picture of eternal life doesn't sound all that appealing--it somehow sounds like being less alive than we are now, rather than more alive.  And for a lot of people, that's exactly how the Christian faith has been presented: a trade-off of quantity for quality--like you get less fun in life if you're a Christian, but you get to live forever. By that description, Christianity might sound like the safe long-term bet... but somehow it still doesn't sound very satisfying.  You know the old Billy Joel lyric: "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints--the sinners are much more fun, you know that only the good die young."  Fair point, Piano Man.

The thing that gets me, though, is that Jesus doesn't seem to buy any of that hogwash about following him being all misery and malaise.  Jesus says, in these words many of us heard this past Sunday, that his message, his mission, his community, and his life in us are all meant to bring us joy... to the fullest.  Jesus doesn't think that being in his company requires the silencing of laughter and the stifling of our lives, but rather just the opposite.  Where Jesus is, there is joy.  Being in his beloved community is to be where joy is embodied more and more completely.

Now, it is worth noting that there is a real difference between Jesus' life of genuine "joy" and the fleeting, flighty, and often ephemeral thing we call "happiness," which is often just a matter of brain chemistry reacting to the endorphins released by ordering something new on Amazon, getting a sugar and caffeine rush from your mocha latte, or getting a good parking space.  The things that make for the short-lived feeling we call "happiness" rarely offer us that good feeling for very long, and soon enough we need to buy the next shiny new thing, climb the next rung of the corporate ladder to win a sparkly trophy or a corner office, pour another drink, or distract ourselves with the next glamorous vacation, just to keep treading the same emotional water.  Jesus hasn't promised us a golden ticket to the chocolate factory, or a shortcut quick fix in the pursuit of the mirage called "happiness."  But he has come, he says, that our joy might be complete.

Joy doesn't depend on getting free shipping or extra whip and chocolate shavings on your frappuccino.  Joy is not a commodity for sale, and therefore cannot be "super-sized" for an extra $0.99.  Joy, rather, is the word for being fully enlivened by the One who truly is the Life of the Party himself, and being brought into connection with the whole motley crew of his Beloved Community.  And when you actually stop to think about the experience of people around Jesus in the Gospel stories, you rediscover that they weren't moping in misery, but constantly whooping it up at unlikely dinner parties where the misfits were welcome guests, passing loaves and fish with delight at surprise picnics by the sea, and raising glasses of water-turned-wine at wedding receptions.  The people around Jesus may not typically have the wealth, the luxury, the technology, or the status that are often associated with "the pursuit of happiness," but they sure do have joy.  Joy himself is there at the table next to them, and he's the one who welcomed them to the party.

That's the kind of life we are pulled into because of Jesus.  That's what the Christian life is really all about--the beginnings of the big party, the first notes of the parade, and the first course of the resurrection feast that has no end.  It is a raucous good time, in other words, and we have been let in on the glorious and hilarious work of telling everybody we meet that there's a place set for them there, too.  That's what we're inviting a friend to share in, what we tell a neighbor about, and what we offer to the strangers around us who are aching to belong.  And it's all real, all there for the having, because Jesus does not merely wish for us to be joyful--he activates joy to the full within us now.

Who will you tell... today?

Lord Jesus, let your risen life bring us joy to the full, so that it even overflows to the people around us.

Dumbledore, Desperado, and the Walking Dead--May 6, 2024

Dumbledore, Desperado, and the Walking Dead--May 6, 2024

"We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death." [1 John 3:14]

The terrible thing about being a zombie (aside from that whole "eating brains" thing) is that you don't even know you're dead.

I'm no expert on the whole catalog of zombie movies and shows, but I think I get the basic premise. Whether they are "the living dead" like in the George Romero movies, victims of a parasitic fungus like in The Last of Us, caused by a supernatural curse, or the result of a <gulp> global pandemic like in 28 Days Later, the gist of being a zombie is that you pretty much lose self-awareness and can only exist to feed the endless hunger for more. To be a zombie, in the storytelling, is to be not exactly dead... but you're certainly not truly alive, either. And as both your body and your mind decay, your whole purpose becomes centered only on self-preservation--eating to keep on moving, and moving to feed again, without end.

As I think about it, that's probably the scariest part of zombie movies--it's not so much that you could die if a zombie finally got a hold of you; it's the fear that once they do you in their grip, you become one of them...forever. That's what keeps you up at night after the movie is over--the fear that you could be reduced to such a terrible, wretched state of being where you can no longer recognize others as anything but food for your unfillable belly, and where you can think of nothing else but your own gnawing hunger. That sounds like a fate worse than death to me.

And honestly, I think that's the point of stories, shows, and movies like these. They make a point about just how truly awful it is to reduce our lives to an animalistic self-centeredness. They are exaggerations, to be sure, but zombie movies are meant to show us something about ourselves, and about the ways we let ourselves become dead inside. And a silver-screen zombie is really just a caricature of the life that is lived centered only on itself... only on consumption... only on looking out for "me and my interests first." It is the sort of existence that does not consider the good of the neighbor around you... and maybe even more piteous, that cannot any longer think in terms of the good of the neighbor. It's like you forget how to do it... almost like the way you see in a classic zombie movie these moments where the walking dead show hints of the humanity they used to have, but no longer are capable of showing.

That is, in so many words, what the book we call First John says about our existence, too: when we attempt to live our lives oriented inward--that "me and my interests first, and who cares about you?" mindset--we lose something essential to our humanity. We lose something of being fully alive, and, not to put too fine a point on it, we become spiritual zombies, who lose more and more of the ability to do anything but feed our own endless hunger. It is not even really a "life" anymore, but a state of being dead inside. As First John says it, "whoever does not love abides in death." That's exactly it.

Maybe all of us, at some level, have been abiding in death somewhere inside, and we haven't even realized it. By definition, you can't "feel" when you start to go numb, right?

The worst part of it, of course, is that you don't even realize when it has happened. Nobody ever sets out to become dead inside. But it happens slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, as our compassion deadens and we lose the capacity to care about others, like neuropathy of the soul. It happens subtly, usually presenting itself as something good and decent. Nobody goes carrying banners that say, "I want to be dead inside!" or even, "I don't want to care about other people!" but it starts with mottos like, "Me and My Group First!" or "Nobody Can Tell Me What To Do, Because I'm Free!" and it just snowballs. And from there it becomes easier and easier to decide that some other people just don't matter... and I become less and less willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of others' well being... and I become more and more inclined to treat the lives of others as disposable if it gets in the way of what I want.

And the next thing you know, I have become numb to how cut off I have become from others... and how I have let my world shrink down only to a narrow view of me-and-my-interests. That sounds like being a spiritual zombie to me--it sure ain't being "alive," even if all your efforts are focused on self-preservation.

Over against all of that is this vision we are given of life in Christ--of having been brought back from death to life, and of how that little resurrection within us draws us into love. Not schmaltzy romance--which, so often, is really just a means of dressing self-interest up in eveningwear--but love for all, love for neighbors, love for faces and stories of both saints and stinkers alike. That's what happens because of our life in Christ. These verses from First John make the connection clear--when you have been pulled from the old deadness into life, it leads you to love your neighbor, because you are finally freed from that old deadness in your soul that was only focused on you. Part of what assures us of the resurrection of our bodies beyond death is that Jesus has begun a resurrection of our hearts from their old zombie-like self-centeredness into a new way of being fully alive.

I think part of our contemporary problem is that we are unwilling to consider that we have been taught by some voices around us to call "success" or "freedom" or "the good life" actually requires some level of being dead inside, because we are taught to seek after our own personal interests, comforts, or whims before the needs of our neighbor. And then to discover that it never leads to the abundant life we had been promised, well, that sets us up for a letdown. I know it may seem a bit cliché, but there's wisdom in that line from the last Harry Potter novel, where the voice of Professor Dumbledore says, "Do not pity the living. Pity... above all those who live without love." It seems like something of an echo of the line from the Eagles' classic song, "Desperado," which rings in my ear, too: "And freedom? That's just some people talkin'... your prison is walkin' through this world all alone."

Look, it's probably a pretty rare occurrence in this world to have George Romero and his zombies, Harry Potter and his wizarding world, and Don Henley and the Eagles all adding their voices in chorus as back-up singers for the same tune the New Testament is singing. So when it happens, maybe we should give them a listen. Maybe each of us has been dead inside at some deep dark place in our hearts, and we were taught to ignore it, or to think it was just a way of "standing up for your own independence." And maybe we need to surrender that deadness again to Jesus, who keeps resurrecting our zombified hearts to full life again, every time we keep running back into "me-and-my-interests-first" deadness.

Maybe today's another day for a little resurrection.

Lord Jesus, in all the places we have let ourselves become spiritual zombies, call us back to life, and free us from just living for ourselves, our comfort, and our convenience. 

Not For Treats--May 3, 2024

Not For Treats--May 3, 2024

[Jesus said:] "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." [John 15:9-10]

We are not Jesus' lap dogs, and God is not training us to respond to treats.

I want to be clear about that at the outset here, because it can certainly sound like Jesus is just doing a little bit of behavioral conditioning here, promising us affection if we'll do as we're told.  When you're training a dog, you offer rewards for compliance, even if there is no logical or obvious connection between the behavior and the treat.  There's no reason in nature, for example, that a dog would roll over on command, or play dead, or even obey the direction, "Sit!" other than that we train them with treats. Eventually, we condition the dog to associate a reward with the behavior we want to see from them, and they do the trick or respond as we wish.  And eventually, you end up with a dog that connects the treat with the proper trick in its brain, much like Pavlov got his canine experimental subjects to start salivating at the sound of a bell, even if there wasn't any food around. 

And like I say, sometimes we can make Jesus out to sound like he's just setting up the same kind of conditioning: "Obey, and you'll get my love," like he's dangling a treat in front of our noses hoping we'll learn to sit, beg, or roll over.  It's easy to hear Jesus' talk about "keeping his commandments" as just a set of unrelated religious behaviors he is bribing us to do, the way a dog doesn't really care about sitting or playing dead, but just wants the treat.  

To be honest, a lot of what passes for Christianity sounds like a piously polished version of dog training, where Jesus tells us what we have to do in order to win the affections of our divine master and secure spiritual rewards.  Whether it's going to heaven when we die, or promises of health and wealth now, or some ambiguous sense of "divine favor," it is so easy for us to hear (and then repeat) the message as some version of "Do these things in order to get these treats and affection from God," no matter how random the behaviors or actions might seem to be.  And once we've bought into that kind of transactional thinking between us and God, we lose sight of loving God--or being loved by God--and really just see God as a means to getting the reward.

But, of course, that isn't really what Jesus has in mind here.  Jesus isn't running a divine obedience school for disciples-as-dogs. Jesus isn't just conditioning us to respond to a stimulus or the promise of a treat, and he isn't bribing us with the promise of affection if only we will be good little boys and girls.  He is saturating us in his own love, so that love will be our own way of life.  He is immersing us in his own life, so that his presence will flow from us into the world around us.

That's the connection we so often miss between Jesus' "commandments" and his talk of "abiding"--they are both centered in love, and they are both grounded in his life.  Jesus' commandments to us are not random tricks like teaching a dog to beg, sit, or roll over; they are directions to embody the same love we have found in him!  That's the key difference.  If I try to get my dog to roll over on command, there is no expectation that I will do the same.  At no point am I teaching my dog, "Do what you see me doing, and let my way of life be your way of life."  But when Jesus directs us to keep his commandments, it is worth remembering that his commandments are never just random behaviors unconnected with Jesus himself--they are directions to follow Jesus' own way of life.  When he calls us to love one another, to love strangers, and to love enemies, it is because this is Jesus' own way of living in the world.  When he calls us to share our abundance, to welcome the outcast and excluded ones, to forgive those who have wronged us, and to lay down our lives for one another, these are exactly the same things we see Jesus himself doing.  So at no point is Jesus just conditioning us to do tricks for his entertainment; he is soaking us in his kind of life until it becomes our own.

Today, what if we were at long last done with the old assumption that the Christian faith is just about doing the right actions to earn favor or rewards from God, and instead saw our lives as being immersed in Jesus' own love?  What if we saw the connection between Jesus' commandments to us and his actions toward us in the first place?  And what if we saw our lives no longer in terms of getting prizes for good behavior but becoming more like the one who loves us?  What would we do with this day?  

Lord Jesus, immerse us still in your love so that our lives become saturated with your life, and so that our actions and words will take the shape of yours.

Coming to Fruition--May 2, 2024

Coming to Fruition--May 2, 2024

[Jesus said:] "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing." [John 15:1-5]

For whatever it means for a plant to be alive, it seems certain to me that the same "life" that courses through the main trunk also courses through the tendrils, leaves, branches, and stems that branch off of it.  The nutrients from the soil, the energy from the sun, and the sap within each structure all flow throughout the whole plant, from roots to the tips of petals, from leaves that harness solar energy to fruit that prepares seeds to be scattered so new life can begin elsewhere.  In fact, as much as we scientifically-minded modern people might want to dissect and diagram a plant into discrete "pieces" and "parts," a real living organism is rather blurry on the inside.  That is, the various components flow into each other, so that you can't really tell where the one stops and the other starts.  

Where, exactly, does a root stop being a root and start being called the "trunk" of the tree?  Where does the bud begin and the stem end?  In a sense, the most accurate way to picture a plant, whether it's a gingko or a grapevine, is as a whole, with the same life and energy flowing through the whole. 

I think that's at least part of how Jesus' imagery of a vine and branches works, too.  When he talks about his community of disciples "abiding" in him just as he "abides" in us, it is with that sense of his life flowing into us, through us, and then beyond us, so that our life and Jesus' life blur together. It's maybe just a different angle on the same idea that Paul phrases as, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me... and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).  The idea is that none of us is left to our own devices in this life of following Jesus. Rather, we are tethered to Jesus as surely as a branch is attached to the main vine from which it grows and draws its own life.  The same DNA that is in every cell of the trunk is in every cell of the leaves, too (yes, plants have DNA), and the same kind of life characteristic of Jesus--the unique way he loves, trusts, gives, speaks, and acts--is given to us as well.  And of course, in some sense that means the watching world will be able to see a glimpse of Jesus' own life being lived in us, much like you might spot a deep red pointed leaf on the ground and know it came from a Japanese maple, or see an acorn and know it is the telltale sign of an oak.  

The Christian life, then, is not a product that we, like consumers, might try a sample of to try on (or not try) as we like, leaving off with the parts we don't like.  Rather it is a matter of letting Jesus' kind of life animate us, and letting Christ-like love be what courses through our words, actions, and choices.

And here's the thing, dear ones: once we see the Christian life as a matter of letting Jesus' vine-life flow through us like we are the branches, the worry of "Have I been good enough?" or "Have I done enough?" or "Am I acceptable?" fades away.  It's not a matter of earning your way in or making yourself acceptable--it is simply a matter of letting the life that has been given to you come to, well, fruition.  Where we aren't growing in the right ways or right direction, the Vine-Grower prunes--not as punishment, but as a means of training branches to more fully be what they are meant to be.  Where we have dead extremities, they can be clipped so that what is alive can thrive.  In other words, I don't have to be afraid of being cut off, lost, or burned in the fire--I am simply free to trust that the life that comes from the Vine will enliven me and enable me to grow.

While we're on the subject, the life that comes from the Vine is always going to be particularly Christ-like, since Jesus is the one who is the source of our life.  The same way a grapevine produces grapes rather than deadly nightshade berries, the living Jesus will produce in us fruit that is particularly Jesus-like in flavor. Our presence in the world will have the character of Jesus--his courageous love, his audacious welcome, his abundant generosity--because it is his life that fills us. Selfishness, arrogance, rudeness, hatefulness, and bigotry will shrivel the more we are fed by Jesus, but love, truth-telling, justice, and mercy will thrive.  That only makes sense, because it is Christ himself whose life becomes our life.

I hope as we continue in these remaining weeks of Eastertide it's becoming clear that talking about the risen life of Jesus isn't just about a period of forty days when the resurrected body of the man from Nazareth walked around Palestine after the empty tomb.  It's about the way this same risen Jesus is now actively animating our lives, making us like him.  And I hope we can hear that as good news--as a gift from Jesus himself, nurturing us like the roots feeding the treetops--rather than as a worry about how we measure up.

Today, let's simply allow Jesus' own life to fill us and make us more fully alive--and more fully like him.

Lord Jesus, fill us with your own life, and bring forth from us what we are meant to be.

The Light Inside--May 1, 2024

The Light Inside--May 1, 2024

"Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us." [1 John 4:11-12]

A little bit of basic junior high school level science: generally speaking, when you look out your window, you don't see light, but you see objects that light is hitting and bouncing off of. The trees and houses, the sky itself, and people you see when you walk out the door, they are all being lit by something that is invisible as it flies through the air. The little particles, or waves, (or both, say scientists, who still seem befuddled with what light is actually all about) that we call light are invisibly hurtling through empty space, and we don't see them until they hit some other object and the light bounces off and into our eyes. Aside from staring at the sun or into a light bulb (neither of which is advisable for very long because it is too intense for us to take in), pretty much we only ever see things that are lit up by light that comes from somewhere else.

This is the way John talks about God, us, and love. You can't see God--but you can see people who have been lit up by the love of the living God, and that kind of love starts bouncing around and touching other people, too. So others, who have never seen God, either, still get a sense of what God is like because they have come to know divine love through reflections of that love in God's people.  Because God lives within us, John says, the world can see that borrowed light of God from within us.

The Bible has a curious recurring theme in it that says you can't look at God, and if any one had such an opportunity, you would die from being in the awesomely brilliant holiness of God as a poor, finite creature. It's Moses up on the mountain, asking God to see the divine glory, and only getting to see God's backside and afterglow as the LORD passes by. Or there's Isaiah seeing a vision of God in the temple, and when he realizes he is in the presence of the living God, starts bemoaning that he is unworthy as a "man of unclean lips" who belongs to a "people of unclean lips." I am beginning to wonder whether we are hearing those stories rightly. For much of my life, I heard those stories much the same way I saw the Wizard character from The Wizard of Oz--putting on an awesome display to keep us off at arm's length. But maybe it's not about God needing to keep his distance--maybe it is about the sheer brilliance of who God is, and like staring at the sun, we are not supposed to do it very long for our sakes, and not for the sun's sake. It doesn't bother the sun one bit for us to look at it--it is that our eyes can only take in so much light before they are overwhelmed. And instead, we are meant to look at the world full of things that the sun illuminates. Moses doesn't get to see God's face, but not because God's ego is fragile and God can't stand to look the man in the eye. Isaiah rightfully turns his face from the divine majesty, but not because God insists on some privacy. It is because looking on God fully would overwhelm our eyes, our wills, our minds, and our hearts. So when John says that no one has ever seen God, he means it the same way someone taught you not to stare at the sun for very long--it is because we can only take so much of God's brilliance in before we are overwhelmed.

Instead, what we can see is the lives of people in whom God's love is radiating, through whom God's light is reflected onto us, and in whom God's own life pulses. This seems to be precisely how God prefers to run things--shining on us, the just and the unjust alike, like the sun, and then letting that light, that love, bounce around creation and enter our hearts and our lives. That means when our hearts are touched by the love of friends who comfort us when our spirits are broken open, we are experiencing the reflected and refracted love of the God who creates such people and who places them in our lives. It means when someone in the Christian community offers the word you needed or a hug when words fail, you are indirectly being illuminated by the light of God, just at a brightness that your eyes and heart can handle. And it also means that when the watching world wants to know what God is like, John says, it falls to us to reflect God's love onto it, so that all will see and know what the light of God's love is all about.

Today, we step out into another day knowing the world is full of light that is bouncing all around--off of the people and places who will be in our path today, and even bouncing off of us into their eyes. We also face this day knowing the very same about God's love. It is bouncing off of others who will show us divine love in their own actions and words today, and it is bouncing off of you today for the sake of someone else. Be in the light today.

O Lord God, our Light and our Salvation, let us live in the light of your love today, so that it will shine on someone else through us and because of us. And give us the eyes to recognize your love bouncing off of others into our lives, too. We pray it in the name of Jesus, who showed us your face in a way we could grasp.

Styrofoam Cups By the Beach--April 30, 2024

Styrofoam Cups By the Beach--April 30, 2024

God's love has been revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. [1 John 4:9-10]

If you want to know what love is really like, look at the crucified and risen Jesus before you bother looking in the Hallmark card store or the florist.

If at first that doesn't sound like a fair comparison (obviously the cross of Jesus is a more serious business than my stopping for flowers and candy on Valentine's Day), it's because it's not a fair comparison, and it's not meant to be. That's part of John's point. The gestures, words, feelings, and actions that we often equate with love (and really, they are barely even romance, much less real love) all pale in comparison to what God has done for us and the depth of God's love for the world. They are leaky styrofoam cups of water next to the wide sun-lit ocean.

So if we really want to know what love is like, and even what Real Life is like, John says we had better go straight to the source and consider how God has loved us, before we go comparing our tiny gestures of love for God against each other. And truthfully, that's the only way to rightly make sense of what happens week by week in worship. At first blush, we might think that worship is primarily about us trying to show Jesus how much we love him. We give our offerings, we sing praises, we commit our time to be there for that hour or so on Sunday mornings--and it can be very easy to think that this is all about what we are doing for God. John says that's all upside down and backwards. What we are really doing week in and week out is gathering around God's signs of love for us and God's gifts of life to us, then we can't help but overflow with that kind of love and life ourselves--for the sake of others. But first and foremost, we are there because of God's love for us; we are alive because Jesus has given his life to us. We are centered around the Word where we hear again the story of what God has done for us, where we hear the promises of God is committed to doing for us, and where we hear the very presence of God coming to be with us in the hearing. We are centered around the Table where we taste and touch the presence of Jesus again, where we rehearse the story of the cross and resurrection, and where we receive what God has to give. What happens in worship is primarily about God's love for us, because the followers of Jesus have known for two thousand years that it doesn't make any sense to stare at water in a styrofoam cup while you're standing on the shore and then still miss the vast flowing beauty of the ocean. This is love, John says... not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  This is life, John says:  not our attempts to prolong our days or make ourselves richer, but God's self-giving choice in Jesus "that we might live through him."

If you want to look at what love is really like, we Christians says you look at a Jewish rabbi with nail-scars on his hands, having given himself away for the world.   And if you want to see what life is really about, in the fullest sense, you don't have to go to a resort, a Caribbean cruise, or a weekend of excess in Vegas--you look at the way Jesus makes us fully alive, even right here and right now where we are. Everything else we do in the name of love--the bold, romantic gestures, the flowers and candy, the poetry and kisses--it all pales in comparison to what God has shown us there in Jesus. And that's really what we are all about as the disciple-community. We come each week, not to impress God or impress each other with how much we love God, but simply to bask in the light and swim in the ocean of the depths of God's love for us... to be filled with the fullness of Jesus' life in us. Maybe that gives us a different answer to why we keep showing up each week for worship, beyond the tired answers of "Because you’re supposed to," or "Because we're doing our part for God." We gather because we are beloved, and we need to know it and hear it again and again and again.

Lord Jesus amid all the other lesser loves, let us never settle or fall for them at the cost of knowing your love.

The Contagious Life of Jesus--April 29, 2024

The Contagious Life of Jesus--April 29, 2024

"Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, 'Go over to this chariot and join it'.” [Acts 8:26-29]

The circle is widening. That seems to be a major motion of the book of Acts in particular, and of the whole New Testament in general—the rippling out of the Good News and the widening circle of the people claimed by this News.  In a sense, the story of the whole book of Acts is watching how Jesus' risen life spreads like a contagion, reaching out further in every direction, bringing people previously regarded as "outsiders" to belong as "insiders."  And it's the story of Jesus' followers get caught up in that motion, even when it pushes them beyond their comfort zones.

Geographically, the news and community of Jesus is spreading out from ground-zero in Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and out "to the ends of the earth." At the same time, that means the church was becoming more diverse ethnically, too—from a handful of Palestinian Jews to the gathered Jewish crowds from all over the world at Pentecost to the growing community of Samaritans who come to faith in Jesus, and now to an Ethiopian eunuch. Maybe it doesn't sink in at first just how radical it is that God is taking the initiative to widen the circle to include this person, but let's take a time out to consider it here.

First of all, let's be clear that God is the instigator here. It is alwyas a bigger step, a bigger risk, to be the one to act rather than the one to give silent, implicit approval of someone else's action. And now it is God--or, in truth, maybe it has been God all along--who clearly takes the "risk" of reaching out to this outsider. And just to be clear, also, the Torah was unequivocal that eunuchs are not allowed into the assembly of God's people. For a moment, let's just bracket out the fact that he is visibly of a different racial group (Ethiopia, even if not quite the same territory of the country we know by that name today, is clearly a place of Black African population, rather than the more Mediterranean population of northern African places like Egypt). That would be a hard enough pill for us to swallow today, we who still live in a society that, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, has Sunday mornings as the most segregated hour of the week. 

But just the fact that this man is a eunuch "should" disqualify him from eligibility in the people of God, if the prohibitions of the Torah were to stand. The ruling in the book of Deuteronomy was that no one with variations, alterations, or injuries to their sexual organs, whether from birth or done surgically later in life, was to be permitted to belong in the assembly of God's people (see, for example, Deuteronomy 23:1). Being a eunuch, mind you, is something you are, not something you can "repent of," or "try not to be," any more than you can will your body to grow a third kidney.  That meant that the Ethiopian court official didn't fit neatly into tidy boxes of gender expectations. And to some that would have made the matter crystal clear: "This unnamed eunuch should not be allowed access to the news and community of God," they would have said. 

And then the Scriptures do a funny thing—they open up what seemed permanently closed—the prophetic voice in Isaiah 56 announces after the exile that eunuchs who keep God's commandments and covenant will in fact belong in the assembly of God after all.  God, it would seem, reserves the right to bend--or even break--the rules first attributed to God, for the sake of bringing other people more fully to life. 

And now here in Acts, God puts his money where Isaiah 56's mouth had been, and God up and tells Philip to initiate conversation with this outsider. The lines that had seemed clearly black-and-white, in-and-out, us-and-them, have now been blurred. And God is the One who has blurred those lines. God is the One who has widened the circle. God is the One who makes Jesus' Easter community spread like a virus of life. That means we can't blame Philip for being a soft-hearted "liberal" for going out on his own, as though he doesn't care what the Torah had said--God is the one who has instructed Philip to join this eunuch! God resists being labeled in our categories as "liberal" or "conservative," and God instead surprises us left and right with welcome for the stranger alongside a relentless call for justice and mercy and holiness. But let's make no mistake about it—God has taken the initiative to widen the circle in this story.

This one might take a while to sit and simmer for us. What does it mean that God's earlier commands set clear boundaries, and then God does something new that rearrange those boundaries? How can we believe in a constant God who seems to change the rules on us? That's hard stuff to contemplate. But note, too, that God has a way of doing this throughout the Bible. We keep seeing a God who reserves the right to surprise us, to include the "other," and to bless those deemed by some as unblessable because they do not fit into someone else's tidy little boxes. Perhaps it is enough for us today to invite God to lead us to let go of our assumptions and to let God surprise us again today, or in other words, to let God be...God.  Maybe that's how the contagious life of Jesus will break out among us today.

Good Lord, help us to see how you are widening the circle beyond our expectations, and yet how we can be truly your people following your ways, and not just our inventions and theories. Let us hear your voice, however it may surprise us.

For Those Done With "Playing Church"--April 26, 2024

For Those Done With "Playing Church"--April 26, 2024

"Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." [1 John 3:18]

I guess the question really is this: are we for real, or is this just playing dress-up?

All this business of being disciples of Jesus, is this really what our lives are about, or are we just pretending?  The news, and the celebration, and all the messaging about being "Easter people" who shout the news that Christ is risen (indeed!)--is all of that just a game we play each year in the springtime, or is it who we really are?

I ask, not because it is easy to answer (or at least to live up to our intentions), but because these words we heard this past Sunday from First John won't let us avoid the question.  Are we people who just talk about Jesus, keeping things nice and abstract, easy and hypothetical, or are we people who live the Jesus life? 

I also ask because all too often, Respectable Religious Folks have talked a good game about how important Jesus is, only to shrug off the actual call of Jesus to live his kind of life, to share his kind of welcome, and to embody his kind of love.  And love, after all, isn't meant to be merely a subject we discuss or a topic we can preach on, but an action we practice.  Love is a verb for living, not a topic for speaking about.

Honestly, I've lost count of how many times I've heard young folks in the church walk away disillusioned, not because we didn't play "their kind" of music or put enough posts on the latest platform for social media, but because the loudest voices they heard who called themselves "Christian" didn't seem particularly interested in acting like Jesus.  The disillusioned and de-churched people I know have most often felt like so many of the big name celebrity pastors selling books and televangelists hitching their stars to political candidates sold out on actually living the Jesus way of life.  And the ones who have walked out of church rarely do so because they stopped finding Jesus compelling--they've left because they've heard so many Religious Talking Heads invoke Jesus' name while ignoring the needs of refugees, closing the door to outsiders and outcasts, trading enemy-love for war-mongering, and selling out Jesus' love for political or financial advantages.  They have been turned off, not because Jesus is irrelevant to them but because they have met so many church people who treat Jesus as irrelevant.

And over against all of that, these words from First John call us back to practice Jesus' kind of love as a part of the Jesus way of life--in "truth and action," not just as lip service.  As we've heard from him over these last several days' devotions, Christ-followers aren't off the hook to merely mouth Jesus' name and then ignore the needs of others around us.  We are called to something genuine.  We are called to practices patterns of life that echo Jesus' own priorities and show a family resemblance to Jesus' own gathering of outcasts, misfits, and mess-ups.  

And all of that, honestly, is good news!  This isn't meant to be drudgery or an impossible to-do list--it's the freedom of actually getting to experience the kind of life and community Jesus intends for us! It's relief from having to keep up appearances!  It's an end to the stifling emptiness of religious hypocrisy!  That's all good news--that's what all of us who have been let down and disillusioned before are really waiting for.

The next time a demagogue tries hawking Jesus as a product to prop up their cause, we have an answer:  "Sorry--I'm not interested.  I'm not here for a bunch of 'talk' about God or religion--I'm here to love like Jesus in truth and action."  The next time we run across loud religious voices that don't actually seem interested in the things Jesus is interested in, like feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, freeing the oppressed, and welcoming the stranger, we know how to respond: "Thanks but no thanks--I'm done with playing church; I'm here to follow Jesus."  And the next time you run across someone who says they are done with church and organized religion because it's just full of a bunch of pretenders, maybe you and I can be the ones who say, "I'm not interested in being a pretender, either--I'm striving to let Jesus' kind of life unfold in me, too.  Will you help keep me real and join me?"

Who knows what might come out of that kind of honesty?  Maybe that's just what we've all been waiting for.

Lord Jesus, move us from empty talk and game-playing to lives that love like you.

Like the Wind Fills A Sail--April 25, 2024

Like the Wind Fills A Sail--April 25, 2024

"We know love by this, that [Jesus Christ] laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?" [1 John 3:16-17]

When I fill up my car's gas tank, the gasoline doesn't get any say in where I go once I've got it.  It is merely an object under my control.  I can do something wonderful in my car, like delivering a bouquet of flowers to the volunteers at the puppy hospital... or I can be a selfish jerk and drive myself alone to a casino where I could blow all my family's grocery money and college savings on slot machines.  The fuel can't stop me, because it can only give the car motion--but not direction.

By contrast, if I am navigating a sailboat, the wind that carries my ship has both.  It pushes in a certain direction as well as with a certain force. I can adapt my sails' position or adjust the rudder, but the wind definitely blows in a particular direction. The wind's force is what science-minded people call a "vector" rather than a "scalar" reality--it has both magnitude and direction.  We don't just say that the wind is blowing 10 miles an hour, but 10 miles an hour to the east, or to the west.  The gas in my car doesn't have a direction, but the wind that fills my sails does.  

And that difference is important when we think about the Christian life.  In fact, it's the key to understanding our life of discipleship and keeping us from imagining that Jesus is just along for the ride while we take the wheel.

Here's what I mean: I believe it is accurate to say that Christians are filled with Christ's own life.  And I believe that when we say it, it is more than merely a metaphor or a figure of speech.  But, just to be clear, when we say that we are filled with the life of Jesus, it isn't the same as saying you have filled your car up with gas for your next road trip.  Jesus isn't just a source of energy for us, to be burned up and consumed traveling in any direction we please.  Jesus gives us direction, too--his own life within us also comes with his kind of living.

The words from 1 John that many of us heard this past Sunday point to the same reality, as well.  Because we abide in God's love, that love will direct us to act in ways that are consistent with God's care for others in need.  Because we abide in Jesus' living presence, we will act increasingly in ways that offer glimpses of Jesus to the world.  Because we are filled with Jesus' own life like the wind fills a sail, we have both Jesus' power AND Jesus' direction--leading us toward neighbors, rather than away from them, and prompting us to give ourselves away for others rather than hoarding.

There is something profoundly contradictory, then, when people who call themselves Christians pride themselves on knowing that Jesus "laid down his life" for them but then who refuse to do the same for someone else in need.  It's a misunderstanding of Jesus' presence--it's like thinking Jesus just gives us gas for our spiritual engines, which we can then use to drive ourselves away from the needs of others, when Jesus is really like the wind that carries us on a certain course.  We can't NOT care for neighbors and have Jesus' life within us, because Jesus' kind of life is always concerned for the needs and well-being of those around us!  It's simply not an option to say, "I'm filled with Jesus!" and then say, "...but your troubles are NOT my problem!" to anybody--that's not the direction in which Jesus' life moves.  If you want the perks of divine life but not the particulars of divine love for all people, you're going to need to find a different savior, because Jesus insists on making us into people who lay down our lives for others precisely because we are filled with his kind of life.

Sometimes Christianity gets caricatured as just a ticket-to-heaven, or like Jesus is simply fuel for our spiritual gas tank in a car that we can then drive in any old selfish direction we want.  But Jesus himself doesn't think that way, and certainly neither does our old pal John here.  It's rather like the old line attributed to Saint Augustine: love God, and then do whatever you please.  Sometimes people hear that sentence and assume the old Bishop of Hippo meant that if you claim to love God, then you've got a free pass to do anything, no matter how terrible, rotten, mean, or selfish. (And given how many hateful Christians I've known over the years, I know we give the world plenty of evidence to think that's the case!)  But Augustine meant something more--he meant that when you love God, God's own love changes us, fills us, and re-directs us so that, more and more, the things we want to do become shaped by that love. When we love God--at least the God we have met in Jesus, who cares for the vulnerable and feeds the hungry--we will become people who do the same.  When we are formed by love, we become loving--and our love takes the same direction, the same trajectory, as the self-giving, life-laying-down kind of love of Jesus himself.  He gives us not only the power of his presence... but the direction.

So today, it is good and right for us to talk about being filled with the life of the risen Jesus--but let's also be crystal-clear about what that kind of life will do to us from within.  Jesus' risen life, which abides in us as we also abide in him, will make us into people who love like Jesus--neighbors, strangers, and enemies.  We will be people who can no longer just drive away from the faces of those in need, or ignore the heartaches of those who suffer.  Apathy is not an option for the followers of Jesus--his own life moves us like wind in our sails.

Lord Jesus, fill us with your own life and love, and then lead us where you will.

Un-Weaponizing the Name--April 24, 2024

Un-Weaponizing the Name--April 24, 2024

[Peter said to the authorities who had arrested him:] "This Jesus is 'the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone'. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved." [Acts 4:11-12]

I have seen kids at the grocery store pausing with impish smiles at the display of walking sticks and canes near the pharmacy aisle and muttering, "This would make a great sword!"

I have seen it, because I have that kid... and because I used to be that kid.

It's harmless enough, I suppose, the creative impulse we often have in childhood to see every possible way to turn ordinary household objects--even ones intended for healing and helping people to walk again--into makeshift weapons. It is, perhaps, an unavoidable element of childhood imagination to see a world full of swords (walking sticks), spears (brooms), and ray guns (spray hose nozzles) everywhere.

But outside of the realm of play, it is a sad and bitterly ironic thing when we grown-ups--especially we religious grown-ups--take things that were meant to bring healing and life and use them as weapons to beat people up with. It is especially tragic--not to mention wrongheaded and quite nearly blasphemous--to do it with the power that belongs to the name of Jesus.

This is one of those stories where such power is evident, practically bursting from the page, and yet we are so very easily led to imagine the walking stick is a sword--to (mis)use something intended to bring life, and to use it to smack other people down.

The power is brought out in the open in that familiar last verse of this scene. Peter says of Jesus' name, "There is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved." Those are, to be sure, good words to lean on. And indeed Jesus has power--power for life, power for healing, power for overcoming the rottenness in our hearts with self-giving, cross-shaped love. So, without a doubt, there is confident trust in Jesus' powerful name spoken in this verse. What is funny-but-really-sad to me is the way this verse is so often taken out of its context and then used to beat people like a religious stick, when that's not how it enters the conversation in Acts at all. Here's a whirlwind tour through what's going on:

First, we need to remember that this sentence about salvation only in Jesus comes at the end (or rather the middle) of a conversation. For those of us who learned Bible verses apart from the stories in which they come, we might think that this was how Peter started his small talk, or that the disciples went running down the streets of town shouting, "You're all going to burn in hell!" These followers of Jesus aren't afraid to talk about hell, but it's not used as a threat to scare people into faith, and it's certainly never the only thing they have to say. Hell is the locus of the powers that have been defeated in Jesus, not some ominous threat swung at our heads. We religious folk sometimes hear this line, "There is no other name..." and assume that it gives us license to dangle heaven in front of people like a big divine carrot and to threaten with hell behind people like a big stick of self-righteousness. But this sentence of Peter's comes within a larger conversation. And this particular conversation had started with the question, "By what name did you do this?"—as in, on whose authority, and with whose power, are you able to heal people?

So to be clear, let's remember that it's the religious authorities who open the can of worms with the "name" issue. Peter doesn't use the speech about "no other name" as a crude recruiting tool—he speaks the truth that the only name which speaks for the living God and carries the authority of the living God is that of Jesus, the one who shows that authority by dying! This isn't a matter of promoting a brand, like someone saying, "There's no refreshment like the refreshment you'll get from a glass of Pepsi--don't try that Coke stuff!" This is about saying, "Here is water that brings the parched and dying back to life!"

At the start of this whole episode in Acts (which starts a whole chapter earlier), the crowds marvel that Peter and John were able to heal this man. And they immediately point away from themselves and ask the gathered people, "Why are you worked up about this event, as though we did this by our own power?" The point for Peter is clear--it's not by his own authority or power or ability that anybody was healed. In fact, any time you find folks pointing to their own greatness or putting their own name up in giant gold letters or chiseling their titles in impressive granite blocks, it's generally a sign they are out of step with the character of the living God who actually does have the power to restore life.

Peter has been pointing away from himself to Jesus the whole time, from the moment of healing right up through this scene with the police and the religious authorities who have imprisoned him for continuing to talk about Jesus. He's not trying to put himself above the religious authorities by insisting his religion is better than theirs, he's making it clear to them that it was never in his own power to heal in the first place—it is the power of Jesus, not Peter, and not John, and not anyone else.

Second, we have a language issue: the same word in Greek, sōzō, means both "save" and "heal." These are related ideas in the Greek mind (think of the word "salve," for example, and you can see it is related to our word "salvation") even though in our day, we tend to isolate healing, which we usually think of as strictly physical (as in, "I had a cut on my arm, but it healed"), and keep it miles away from salvation, which we usually think of as strictly spiritual (as in, "When did you get saved and learn that you'll go to heaven when you die?"). But for Peter, to talk about healing IS to talk about saving, and the other way around—being "saved" is not about being yanked out of this world to float around in heaven as a disembodied ghost playing a harp. Being "saved" is about being made whole again, being rescued, being brought through danger, and being pulled into a new reality.

Put this back into the story, and all of a sudden, Peter's final sentence sounds a lot less like a weapon to beat people with and a lot more like a lens for making sense of the events they had all just lived through. The question put to Peter is, "By what name did you heal/save this person?" And Peter answers the only way he knows how: "Certainly not by my own ability, but in the name of Jesus, which is the only name that has any power to heal/save." Now, Luke, who is telling us this whole story, knows that more is going on than just a single man's physical healing from paralysis—he knows that "salvation" is a bigger reality than just physical healing. And surely our message to the world about Jesus as "savior" is not that Jesus will fix all your bruises and diseases and wounds with a wish and a magic invocation of his name.

But it is important for us to recover the background of the story here, otherwise, it seems as though we are invited to use the name of Jesus as a weapon to attack others, rather than the name that has the authority to bless and heal and welcome people. And that's just it: a walking stick is a tool intended to help someone walk again--to restore health and renew life, and it is a childish game to take what was intended to give life and use it as a weapon to beat someone else up with. Jesus' name is the same--Peter is not peddling a brand. He is pointing to the power beyond himself... a power that doesn't need to put its name on things in giant letters to attract attention or take credit.

In a religious atmosphere where so many are quick to use Jesus' name as a stick to bludgeon people with, and in a wider culture where success is sometimes defined as putting your own name up on a building in giant gold letters, we have an alternative message to speak. We point to a power and a name beyond our own, a power for life, rather than a weapon to smack people down with. But Jesus is neither a brand nor a bat. So like Peter, we will not peddle Jesus with sales pitches, and we will not swing a big religious stick in Jesus' name to threaten others, but we will do acts in his name, and when we are asked about it, we will say, "Certainly we have not done these things by our own ability, but in the name and authority of Jesus."

The word we have to offer is not merely the shallow message that people can buy their ticket to heaven if only they will speak the name, "Jesus," but that lives can be made whole again, even now, and we can be a part of the healing and saving of others as the community gathered in the strong name of Jesus. That is an invitation worth making.

Lord Jesus, we will name you boldly today as our Savior and Lord, and we will name you alone as your Savior and Lord. But teach us what it means to name you by these titles, and teach us how to live in your name, too, so that we will no longer slander your name by our pettiness, our egotism, and our self-righteousness, nor misrepresent your name by treating you as a deal or a scheme or a weapon. Train our lips to speak your name rightly, and our hands to live your name for the world faithfully.