The First Creed

The First Creed--June 29, 2018

"When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it... you shall make this response before the LORD your God: 'A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.  The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched are, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.' You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house." [Deuteronomy 26:1, 5-11]

There are these stories we tell ourselves, stories that remind us who we are.  And they are essential for life.

Sometimes, the stories we tell ourselves are grounded in family history: "We come from four generations of farmers who worked this same land and provided for their families," or maybe, "Your great-great-grandfather came to this country from the old country with nothing but the determination to work hard for a better life for his family," or perhaps, "There have been doctors in every generation of our family going back for the last hundred years," or something.  Sometimes the stories are about our own individual dreams: "You left your old hometown so that you could pursue your goal of being a breakout star in country music!" or "You will be the first in your family's history to go to college--you can do it!"  Sometimes the stories are less heroic but just recount the details of our lives that left the biggest marks on us: "You are the child of divorced parents, who struggled with drinking and drugs and is now trying to turn things around," or "You are the one who always makes bad life choices, and look where your choices have led you now..." or "You are stuck in a dead-end job, in a dying town, in a crumbling industry."  The stories we tell ourselves aren't always hopeful.

But they do have a way of defining how we see the world.

The kid who grows up hearing the story of hard work and grit that allow a great-great grandparent to start a small business and make a better life for his family in a new country is going to be more likely to try and live that same story, and to value tenacity and hard work in their own life.

The kid who keeps telling herself that she will be the first in her family to go to college is more likely to choose a path in high school that will get her there.

The kid who is told he was a mistake, unwanted by parents and burdening the family, is more likely to believe it and treat his life like it is of no use or worth or meaning.

The stories we tell matter.

And that in large part is why it is important to pay attention to the stories that the people of God have been telling themselves for thousands of years.  The stories become codified almost, like there is a right way to tell them, with just the right phrasing, and a particular direction to the movement.  And these stories come to define how we see the world--they become the lenses through which we see the rest of reality, bringing some parts into sharp focus and pushing others into a blurry background, or rendering them invisible by colors and shading like trying to see blue while you're wearing rose-colored glasses.  

At some point, the people of God settle on an official way to tell the story, and often we call those official versions creeds.  The early church had a handful of retellings of the Christian story, beginning with God the creator and moving to the story of Jesus, the cross, and the empty tomb, and then moving to the Spirit and the promise of life beyond death.  Many Christian groups, my own included, recite these words week by week almost to the point where we forget that they are indeed stories, and that they are a particular kind of story: these are the stories we tell ourselves to remind us who we are... and to help us to see the world clearly.  

There is no option of having no story in this life--whether you recite an ancient creed word for word or make up your own narrative for your life, we are all creatures who see the world through the stories we tell ourselves.  But it does make a difference what story you tell, because each story will highlight some aspects of reality, and just as much will diminish other parts of reality as less important.  The ancient Christian re-telling we call the Nicene Creed spends a lot of its time insisting that God--and none other and no less than God--took on human flesh in Jesus... but it spends no time at all talking about whether it is a sin to gamble or what our policy on graduated income tax should be.  That by itself says something about what the ancient church thought was worth spending its breath talking about... and what was less certain, less clear, or less important.  The stories we tell ourselves matter, because in many ways, they are what help make us the particular people of God we are.

And that, dear friends, is why it is worth it, on a day like today, to reach back long before Jesus and long before any official creeds or councils talked about the Trinity, to what is arguably the first creed the Bible contains.  Or at least, it is one of the first creed-like stories that the people of God told themselves to be grounded in who--and Whose--they were.  It is the story that the Torah commands to be retold every time you brought an offering from your harvest to God.  And it was a story that bound the people of God who called themselves Israel before there was a Temple, before there was a written Bible, and before Jesus was even a glimmer in his mother's eye.

The story I have in mind is this passage from Deuteronomy 26, which at this point I will hope you have read again.  It begins, "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor..." and from there it tells the story of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and his family, and how they were aliens, first living as squatters without papers in Canaan, and then as they sought asylum in Egypt during a famine, and then how God brought them from slavery in Egypt during the time of a terrible, self-absorbed, fearful, and petulant tyrant Pharaoh, and then brought them into a land that was at last safe from the grip of Pharaoh's armies, a land in which their children could live secure and free.  It is a story about how God was with them at every turn, whether in the decision to leave an old homeland, or the risky journey to seek a better life in Egypt, or the dangerous trek of the exodus and wilderness years.  And it is a story that reminded the people who told it to themselves several important things: one, we know what it is to be the outsider and the alien, at the mercy of someone else's welcome and kindness; two, we have always found that God went with us on the journey, wherever we went; and three, we don't want to become like the cruel oppressors of Pharaoh's Egypt, who treated us harshly when we were the ones living under his authority and threats.

Well, if you tell yourself that kind of story, and you teach that recounting of history to your children, too, it will do something to the way you see the world.  That's exactly what this story was meant to do--to shape the way the people of Israel, and all their descendants, saw the world and lived in it.  They were supposed to learn empathy for the alien, because--as God took great effort to remind them--they, too, had been aliens.  They were supposed to learn to trust God, because as the story went, God had been there for them at every turn.  And they were supposed to learn that everything they had was really a gift from the same God who had preserved them through their days as refugees and slaves and who had given them a land of their own eventually.

And so, because of that storytelling, as you catch here in Deuteronomy, even in the ritual act of retelling this liturgical story about the "wandering Aramean," the people of God were supposed to then act in ways that flowed from the story itself.  They were to offer back to God a portion of their harvest, and they were to share the harvest joyfully with the aliens who lived with them in their towns and villages, however they had gotten there, because God had provided for them when they were the aliens in Canaan and in Egypt. See--the story you are taught to tell about yourself makes a direct impact on the way you see the world and on how you act within that world.

Think for a moment, how things would have been different if the ancient Israelites told themselves, "All this is mine, mine, mine, because I earned it, and nobody else cut me any breaks.  It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and every one has to look out for themselves."  Think of how that kind of storytelling distorts and misshapes a heart... a community... a people.  Or if the story you told yourself was, "It's a random world, and some people get to eat and others don't, and there's really no obligation anybody has to help anybody else out."  Or if the Israelites had believed the lies of Pharaoh's story, which basically went, "Egypt is great because Pharaoh is great and powerful, and you had better do what the great and powerful Pharaoh says, or else he will kill you with his armies or wield the power of the gods on you"?  Imagine, if all you had ever known was Pharaoh's dominant story of empire--you'd feel you had no choice but to be a cog in his machine and work yourself to death while thanking Pharaoh for the chance.

Please make no mistake--the stories we tell as the people of God make a difference.  And it makes a difference, not just thousands of years ago, but in this very moment.  For the people who dare to call themselves the people of God right now, there are competing stories.  Some of them say, "If you have in this life, it is because you are favored of God, and if you don't, well tough luck. So hold on tight to whatever stuff you can get your grubby little mitts on in this life, because everyone else is out to get you."  And some of them say, "We over here are more favored by God because we are over here... and those people over there are simply unlucky not to have what we have.  Tough break.  But get your paws off my stuff and go away."  Some of the stories that are told among us nowadays are hopeless: "It's all meaningless and the only thing you can do is numb yourself to the pain of everything--so find a drug or a screen or a distraction of your own choosing, and just bury your head in the sand."  Some of them are downright wicked: "Us and our group are more important than anybody else, and in this life we have to look out for ourselves first--to hell with every one else."

But the people of God are dared in the ancient words of this story, this first creed if you will, to recall who and Whose we are, and to let that change how we see the world and act in it.  If we take these words from Deuteronomy seriously, we will remember our family story has always been one of being sojourners living away from our true home.  If we take these words seriously, we will remember that God has been faithful and there for us all our lives long, and will continue to be with us into the future. If we take this storytelling seriously, we will see our faces in the ones who live among us now like Jacob and his children, strangers in a strange land... and we will share our bread and lives with them.  And if instead we believe the lie that me-and-my-group are more important than anybody else around me, we will have become the worst thing of all--a new version of Pharaoh's Egypt... the one thing the people of God were to avoid.  

It matters a great deal which stories we tell ourselves.  The story we tell ourselves shapes the people we become.  And the living God has it in mind to shape us into people who reflect God's own goodness, generosity, and compassion.

What story will you and I live by in this day?

Lord God, we are your people.  Re-story us, so that we will see the world rightly, through the eyes of your mercy.

Grace in the Plural

Grace in the Plural--June 28, 2018

“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:14)

The thing about grace is that it cuts both ways. 

In the end, that’s a good thing, but it can also make us squirm uncomfortably in our seats, too, in the mean-time.

Here’s what I mean.  Everybody likes the me-side of the grace equation.  Everybody likes to sing about how grace was “amazing” for “a wretch like me.”  It’s great to know that even when I was a mess, and even when I still am a mess, Jesus loves me through it all, and has forgiven me and accepts me.  In other words, when grace is a first-person-singular experience (grace for me, welcome for me, a new start for me), I’m all for it.

But if grace is what allows me to know God has put away the failures of my past, then—and here’s the hard part—grace also gathers in other people into the mercy of God… even people I don’t know, or don’t like, or don’t want to see forgiven.  Grace tells me that I have been brought into the family of God, not by my earning but because of God’s overflowing kindness—and that means that grace is bringing in other people, too, regardless of whether they meet with my approval.  I don’t have to like someone in order for God to love them.

Grace isn’t just first-person singlular (me), but second person (you), and third person (them, too!). And frankly, that can be difficult for… me.

It’s more “fun” to be the returned prodigal son, reveling in the abundant mercy of a forgiving and generous dad, than to see ourselves cast as the older stick-in-the-mud son who wants to poop the party because he doesn’t think his younger brother is worthy of all the attention at his homecoming.  But that’s the thing about grace—if grace is what “will lead me home,” as the song says, then everybody else who’s there in glory will be there by that same grace, whether I would have let them in or not.

That brings the humbling reminder that grace is Christ’s gift to give, not my personal get-out-of-jail card for me and me alone.  Jesus doesn’t have to ask my permission before he welcomes in a Zaccaheus, or a Matthew the tax collector, or an anonymous Samaritan woman who can’t seem to settle down, or self-important Martha, or skeptical Thomas, or blowhard Peter, or insecure Paul.  That puts each of us in our place—and it also, at the very same time, is what makes a place for each of us at the table.  I can’t help but offer welcome to you here in the family of God, because God has welcomed me the same way.  That might be tough, but it is also such a source of comfort, too.

This is the key to what it means that Christ Jesus is our peace.  Not merely that he taught us to live in peace.  Not merely that he made a helpful suggestion that we live at peace.  Not even that Jesus can give us a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that will make us like each other better and therefore be more agreeable.  But Jesus is our peace, because only a Lord who rules by grace can make us able to welcome one another.

If I am still stuck in the old earning-your-way mentality, I will be always comparing myself to the next person, trying to edge them out, get a better spot or ranking than they have, acquire more, do more, etc.  And when that happens, I cannot really be at peace with anyone around me—they will always be threats to me getting enough of what I want.  But Jesus makes peace because he breaks the old ‘earn your way’ thinking by grabbing a hold of all of us apart from what we deserve and simply on the basis of his choosing to love us when we didn’t earn it.  

That's what breaks down the boundaries between us--the radical, wonderful, humbling admission that all of us belong simply by grace.  The wall comes down (or as Ephesians says, Jesus broke the wall down--go Jesus!) because everybody, on all sides, has been gathered into to the beloved community by grace.  For the Christians in Ephesus, who came from Jewish and Gentile (anybody who wasn’t Jewish) backgrounds, all of this was very real and very important.  Each side, each group, had to come to the point of admitting they were there, not because of their own religious accomplishments, but by grace.  And once they could accept it about their group, they realized that Jesus had given the same gift of welcome to the others.  He was their peace.

And this is really the subversive beauty of what grace does.  The Jewish members of the early church had to recognize that it was by sheer divine grace that they happened to be born into the nation, culture, and covenant in which they found themselves.  And the Gentile members of the early church had to see that their inclusion was a gift, too, which they had not earned.  That meant everybody recognizing that the other had been welcomed in already by God, by grace, and that that they themselves had only been included by God, by grace.  There is nowhere you can stand within the beloved community and not be there "by grace," which means that I don't get to say things like, "I have a right to be here, and you don't."  I am here as a gift I did not earn... and that means recognizing when others ask for the grace to be accepted in included as they are, too, they are asking for nothing less than the grace already shown to me, grace which was my only hope already.

Let's be utterly clear about this: among the beloved community, nobody--not a one of us--get to say, "I have a right to be here that I earned, and you don't belong because you didn't earn it."  Among the beloved community, there is only grace... well, grace, among the rubble from a dividing wall that Jesus has already knocked down.

From now on, there’s no comparing anymore between me and you.  There’s no need for fear that if you’re in the group then my place is threatened.  There’s no more pretending that I’m “in” with God because I have the right heritage or do the right deed or even that I have memorized the correct set of religious facts.  That was the vital issue in the first century when the lines were drawn between Jewish and Gentile people, and the same is true for us:  because Jesus has claimed each of us, regardless of our actions, Jesus really is our peace.  That’s good news for me… but not just me.

Grace is given in the plural.

O Christ our Lord, you have already knocked down the wall we put up between one another, and yet we keep building them back up. Come with your gracious bulldozer and break it down again.  Amen

The Outdated Globe

The Outdated Globe--June 27, 2018

"When [the Lamb] had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song:

   'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,

      for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God 

      saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; 

   you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God,

      and they will reign on earth.'" [Revelation 5:8-10]

The lines are imaginary.  Sometimes we forget that.

I remember a couple years ago finding an old globe somewhere in our accumulated treasures (which eventually became a very cool indoor star projector, once we painted it black, poked some holes in it in the rough configuration of some constellations, and put a battery powered light inside it), and noticing with a blush how dated it was.  The continents hadn't changed, of course, but a good number of the countries had.  This particular globe labeled a large pastel yellow shape sprawling from Europe to Asia as "the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," and it had two Germanies, East and West, as well as a solid light-green shape labeled "Yugoslavia."  There were, of course, other countries with different names and boundaries, as well--Zaire, rather than Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sudan was still just one, instead of a North and an independent South (ever since 2011).  I never even thought to check how that globe handled Hong Kong or Jerusalem.

Of course, when that globe was first purchased, it was accurate.  It is only the passage of time that has made its lines and labels increasingly incorrect. And it would be an interesting article of history, showing not how the world is, but how the world was just a few short decades ago, when we were steeped in a Cold War (and Pluto was still regarded as a planet).

But looking at that globe, and thinking of the change in where those pastel colors would fall now, it occurred to me--the lines are all imaginary.  They are our inventions, not fixed and rigid things in the world.  The boundary, for example, that separates lavender Canada from the pink United States of America is our human creation, and, aside from the natural lines of the Great Lakes, that line is basically determined by our human fascination with straight lines.  And that's just it--some of the lines between countries on an outdated globe follow natural phenomena like rivers or coasts, but we are the ones who arbitrarily assign the pastel yellow here, and the light orange there.  

We have done the same, we line-drawing human beings, not just on maps and globes and pieces of real estate, but also between groups of people.  In the years since my old globe was printed, the Hutus massacred Tutsis in Rwanda after decades of building tensions, the Rohingya have been victims of violence in southeast Asia, and that neat and tidy little shape called Yugoslavia tore itself apart into factions of Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, and the more.  Human history is, sadly, all too often the story of humans drawing lines and then forgetting that we were the ones who drew them in the first place, and instead assuming that they have always been eternally carved in stone.  That's the same old story, the same old song.

So we need a new song.  

We need a new song like the one John the Seer overheard and scribbled down the lyrics for in what we call the book of Revelation.  It is a song that reminds us what we should have known and remembered all along--the lines between us are imaginary and invented.  They did not come from God, and they will not last forever, either.

And at its heart, this new tune is a love song.  It is our love and worship of the Lamb who lays down his life for the world, sure; but it is first and foremost the love of the slain-yet-living Lamb for "every tribe and language and people and nation."  And in that vision, the heavenly singers make it clear--the lines between us are our temporary inventions, and they are not ultimate.  The vision John sees here is of a future in which the living God erases the boundaries we have drawn, like a sweep of your foot can wipe away the line drawn in the sand.  At the last, John says, every single classroom globe will be out of date, as the Lamb gathers together every tribe and language and people and nation and pronounces, "You are my beloved" over all of it.

Now, that kind of a vision--as sweeping and expansive as it is--gives the people of Jesus a particular kind of hope for the future... but it also does something powerful to the way we see the world right now.  Listening to the Lamb's Love Song in Revelation 5 reminds us that the lines the world takes as permanent right now are not ultimate.  The world likes to say, "This is how it is, and this is how it always has been and always will be... these lines will never change." But we blink, and the globes are out of date again.  Much like Orwell's fictional Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia in 1984, which keep switching alliances and hostilities and then telling their citizens, "No, nothing has changed--we have always been at war with these people over here and always been at peace with those people over there," all of human history has been the drawing and re-drawing of lines on globes, and then our arrogant insistence that the lines are fixed and definitive.  But that is a lie.  The lines are imaginary.  The love of the God who binds us all together is real.

Considering the lyrics of the new song in Revelation is a lot like staring at a Cold War-era globe in the 21st century: it brings home the humbling, joyful realization that the lines we have drawn and keep drawing will not last.  Part of the hope nurtured in the Christian tradition is the admission that for all of our attempts to divide ourselves from one another, whether by language or skin color, culture or background, national origin or splintering tribes, or just plain old straight lines drawn on a map, at the last, the lines will be erased, because Love has ransomed the whole lot of us.  We won't stop being ourselves in all of our uniqueness.  We just will finally have realized that the lines we kept drawing in between were imaginary all along.

O Lamb of God, grant us the honesty of vision to see how you have gathered all nations, peoples, and languages together in your love.

The Four Scandalous Words

The Four Scandalous Words--June 26, 2018

"Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests." [Matthew 22:1-10]

If this parable bothers you, if it feels like Jesus is poking at you somewhere, well, good.  I believe that is exactly his intention.  It means your and my ears are working if we hear these words and start to squirm.

But I'll be honest.  I don't think the most scandalous part of the parable is how vengeful the king in the story is toward the near-treasonous subjects who insult the king by not going to his son's wedding.  Truthfully, I think we all understand that feeling--that impulse to be bitter and brutal when we feel we have been slighted or insulted.  I suspect that, after maybe a moment or two of blushing, we are actually pretty comfortable with the king's act of revenge--that's what any of us would do, quite probably.  Someone is mean to you--you lash back out at them with equally mean words.  Someone slights you or insults you--you return the same back at them.  Someone embarrasses you in an attempt to shame you, well, you just go right back and do the same back to them.  We can relate to the whole revenge fantasy in this parable--we just picture the faces of people we don't like, or don't agree with, in the parable on the receiving end of all the king's righteous indignation, and we can probably swallow all of that violence just fine.  This is because we are, to use a technical term, jerks. And beyond that, we are often the worst kind of jerks--the kind who don't realize that we are jerks in the first place.

But like I say, I don't think that the king's retribution on the rebellious citizens who refuse to attend the crown-prince's wedding is really the part that rubs us the wrong way in this parable.  I think there are four other words that shake us to the core even further... because they are words that stop us from indulging our wishes for revenge against the people we cast as villains.  Are you ready for them?  Because once you read them and notice that they are there, you can't unread them or pretend it isn't a part of Jesus' parable.  

Ok, now you've been warned.

The real scandal of this story of Jesus lies in the words, "both good and bad."

Who gets invited and included on the guest list at the end of this parable?  "Both good and bad."  

Who does the king make room for at his grand royal celebration? "Both good and bad."  

Who is now declared worthy of being at the celebration?  "Both good and bad."

And who is it that, now at the end--by their mere presence at the party itself--makes the party un-poopable? "Both good and bad."

The scandal is that in the end, the people at the party are not just "good" people.  In the final celebration, belonging as a guest doesn't depend on your behavior, your "permanent record" from grade school, your rap sheet, or even your politeness and manners.  At the big celebration, Jesus says, the reception hall is jam-packed with nice people and rude people, pleasant people and bitter people, Boy Scouts and tax cheats, pageant-winners and prostitutes, people you would want to want to have a cup of tea with and people you would think have already had too many beers.  The "bad" people don't change before being "gathered" into the party.  And the "good" people don't seem to have a fit that the "bad" ones are there on the dance floor, either. Somehow the sheer magnitude of the celebration itself overrules the impulse to moralize or kick people out because they are unpleasant to be around.  The party--the royal celebration of the king in the story, and the great eschatological final victory party of the living God--is a motley crew of good AND bad.  

And if that hasn't upset us and our legalism enough yet, I suspect that when we get there, to that grand celebration day, there will be people who would put you in the "good" category... and there will be people who take a look at you and are dead-certain that you belong in the "bad" category.  But here's the thing: the celebration party is not a reward for good behavior.  The celebration is Jesus' party, and he has determined that the party is un-poopable, and that the celebration will go on, regardless of the rottenness of anybody at the reception.  Jesus doesn't only let in the "nice" people or the "polite" people, or limit the celebration only to people who have never so much as had a parking ticket.  Jesus packs the party with people who are rough as a corncob,  mean as a rattlesnake, and crooked as a dog's hind leg--and that is his choice, because it is his party, so he gets to include the people he chooses.  There will be people you respect, and people for whom you have lost all respect.  There will be people who respect you... and people who used to respect you.  There will be people who dress and speak and vote like you... and there will be people who do just the opposite.  We should be clear here at the get-go--this is just how Jesus does things.

Scandalized yet?  See--it's so much harder for us to deal with grace, and a truly audacious grace at that, than the revenge fantasy in the middle of the story.  We have this way of turning Christianity into a story about rewards for "good people" (who, what a coincidence, are the people who look and think like us already!) and punishments for "bad people" (who break rules, cross lines, and don't do things the way do them around these parts), when Jesus himself envisions surrounding himself with "both good and bad" when it comes time for the party.  The festivities were never about carrots and sticks for behavior, but about the joyful Reign of a God so good that even the nastiest and rottenest of stinkers gets included.  Like Jesus says in Luke's Gospel, God is, after all, kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  And like Paul would say to the Philippians, one day every knee will bow.  The Reign of God is so good, and the reach of God is so wide, that even at the wedding party, it is more important to Jesus that the hall be full, than that we dicker and haggle over keeping out the riff-raff.

Billy Joel famously sang, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints--the sinners are much more fun... only the good die young."  He was wrong on both counts.  At the party, Jesus envisions that "both good and bad" are packed into the party hall. And secondly, if anything, it's the ornery, stubborn stinkers who are doing their damnedest to ruin a good time but ultimately can't; the saints are the ones in on the joke of God's audaciously graceful divine comedy.  The party will go on.  The guest list of Jesus people includes Goofuses and Gallants, black hats and white hats, sinners and saints... of which we all are both.

Welcome to the party, people of Jesus.  Look around at the people Jesus chooses to celebrate with.

Lord Jesus, gather us in to your celebration and give us a good honest look at how wide and big your gathering of people are.

Taking the Leap

Taking the Leap--June 25, 2018

"Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured." [Hebrews 13:1-3]

There is no discounted "observer" ticket among for the Jesus-community.  If you are in, you are in all the way--and you take the leap.  That's the whole point.

This is one of the key differences between being a follower of Jesus and going to the bouncy-castle place they have set up in our local mall.  The spot at the mall will allow me to go in for free as the watching "grown-up" supervising my kids, but I don't have to (or am not allowed to, depending on how you want to frame it) jump in the ball pit, climb up the indoor jungle gym, or slide down the inflatable slide.  I am there simply to be an observer, safe and sane and sound, with no risk, no possibility of looking foolish, and no participation.  

But the community of Jesus are different--by design.  There is no option of the Observation-Only Wristband, which allows us to sit in a pew on Sunday and allow others in white robes and colorful assorted vestments to entertain (or bore) us for a Sunday morning, and then go back home untouched and unchanged.  There is no option where we watch from the sidelines and hear vacuous talk about "loving the neighbor" with no actual action for the sake of the neighbor.  There is no choice of being a spectator--at least, not according to the New Testament's own voices.

This is a crucial distinction, because I sometimes think that the 21st Century American Respectable Religious Crowd falls victim to some illusion that there is an Observer-Only status, one in which we do not risk ourselves for the sake of the other.  Sometimes, maybe because we are surrounded by plenty of other organizations that allow for uncommitted, un-invested "observer" status, we think that must just be the way of things.  We figure we aren't expected to jump into the ball pit or slide down the slide. We stand and watch, and we look down on those who do take the leap of putting themselves out there as foolish or childish or wrong.

But when the writer of Hebrews describes life among the people of Jesus, note here how there is not even the slightest hint of an option of standing and watching with twiddling thumbs.  There is daring.  There is a leap.  There is risk, yes, because that is the whole point--genuine love means an investment of one's self into the life of others.  And every investment--every act of self-giving--comes with the possibility that we could be taken advantage of, or mistreated, or not get back what we gave away.  That's the nature of the beast.  As the writer of Hebrews sees it, it doesn't mean we don't take the risk--it means we do it with eyes wide open, knowing we might suffer... and knowing that other folks around us might think we are fools for doing it.  But that's okay--the other folks standing and twiddling their thumbs or sitting on their hands don't have to "get it" for us still to take the leap into genuine love.

When the writer of Hebrews gets down to business to describe what genuine "mutual love" might look like, notice the kinds of "risky" actions he describes.  Welcoming strangers (the Greek word carries the sense of "foreigner" or "outsider") into our homes, neighborhoods, and lives... speaking up for those who are in prison, as if we were the ones imprisoned... caring for those who have been subject to torture and mistreatment... with the thought of what it would be like if we ourselves were the ones enduring the suffering.  This is risky stuff here.  You can imagine all sorts of reasonable-sounding excuses, too:  "Don't welcome strangers--they will just bilk you out of free room and board, or rob you when you go to bed, or take your car, or steal from your kids, or... or... or..."  Or maybe, "Don't have any sympathy for anybody who is imprisoned--after all, prison is for law-breakers, and if they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be in prison in the first place!"  These are all perfectly "reasonable" and perfectly "respectable" excuses... but they are not of Christ.

Here's the thing: the writers of the New Testament were neither naïve nor foolish.  They knew full well that welcoming the stranger into your home meant a risk... but they dared the people of Jesus to do it anyway.  In fact, they saw it as a great honor and privilege to that we might get to welcome them into our midst--we might, after all, really be entertaining angels without knowing it!  The writers of the New Testament did not blush at the thought that someone in prison might actually be guilty of a crime--they just thought that maybe mercy is for guilty people, too, because that's the whole point of mercy.  We sometimes come to these texts of the New Testament and assume "we just know better" than they did, or that they couldn't have meant what they seem to be saying, because that would mean risking ourselves and putting the needs of others before our own comfort and insulation from risk.

Well, let's get this out of the way and be done with it: the writers of the New Testament knew exactly what they were saying when they called the people of Jesus to take the leap into the ball pit and actually welcome the stranger right into our midst, and to actually empathize with those who are imprisoned, mistreated, and tortured--without any fine print that such love is reserved only for the wrongly-accused or those who we like.  And if that sounds like that means the Bible is calling us to put the needs of others before our own comfort and insulation from risk, it is because... the Bible is calling us to put the needs of others before our own comfort and insulation from risk.  There are no two ways about it: to be a part of the people of Jesus is to leap out onto the inflatable slide, to jump into the ball pit, to climb on the jungle gym... and decidedly not to just stand back making excuses that "this stuff doesn't apply to me."  There are no observer-only wristbands.

In this day, if we listen to the words of the New Testament and take them on their own terms, we will be dared to jump.  There will still be plenty of reasonable religious-sounding voices that say, "You can't be serious!  How can we be expected to let our guard down and let some stranger into our midst?  How can we be expected to show sympathy for law-breakers who got themselves in prison for their crimes?"   And to those voices, we will simply say, "Whether or not we end up entertaining angels when we welcome people to our table, this is what love looks like--and love is not a spectator sport." We are called to nothing less.

Now, take your shoes off, walk up to the edge, and take the leap with the people of Jesus.

Lord Jesus, grant us the courage to love as you have called us to--the love that takes the leap of risking ourselves for the sake of the other.  Show up among us, and give us the eyes to see you when we open our doors and our lives to you.

The Timpanist's Calling

The Timpanist's Calling--June 22, 2018

"When [the temple police] had brought [the apostles] before them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, 'We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name [of Jesus], yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man's blood on us.' But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.' When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them...." [Acts 5:27-32]

When you know who you are and what you are about, it is amazing how clear things become, and how free you become, to boot.  When you know who you are and what you are about, all of a sudden, a whole lot of things you might have been afraid of before lose their power... and you are given the courage to endure whatever else remains.

I think that way, for example, about the timpani player in the orchestra.  If you are sitting in the audience while the orchestra is playing some grand Beethoven symphony or something, the whole thing might look like a hurricane.  Strings going one way in the violin section, brass blaring in another area, string basses pulling their bows like they are preparing for war.  And it might look from the outside like an incredibly chaotic mess, too complicated for anybody for ever figure out where their entrance is.  You've got to wonder how the timpani player knows when it's time for his two bars in the limelight of "DUN-dun-DUN-dun," especially when it would be terribly embarrassing to get the timing wrong and play the big finale at the wrong time.  That might seem like an impossible thing to get right, if you are just an audience member listening to the symphony for the first time, worrying if the timpanist will get it right.

But if you actually happen to be the timpani player?  Well, if you are the one standing in the percussion section, having practiced on your own, listened to recordings for hours, and rehearsed with the whole orchestra for weeks, and now are standing looking at your sheet music, things are different.  You have clarity.  You know what you are there to do.  You know what to watch for.  You are ready--even for that intense moment when the rest of the orchestra falls hushed and you break the silence alone with your mallets.  The stakes are high, yes, but you can face it, because you have been prepared for this moment.  You know who you are.  You know what you are supposed to do.  You have a clarity that might seem impossible to someone sitting in the balcony.  And you are free--free and unencumbered for playing with all your might for your big finale.

I get that kind of sense from this important scene in the book of Acts.  It's one of those moments where the people of Jesus have amazing clarity and freedom because they know exactly who they are and what they are about.  The leaders of the early Christian movement--the apostles who had been Jesus' inner circle--had previously been rounded up by the police and told not to preach, teach, or heal in Jesus' name.  They had been punished, imprisoned, and threatened over it, and the authorities had been insistent--no more.  "You can't speak the name of Jesus anymore--it's the Law.  Or, if it's not exactly a new law... well, it's our policy. So don't go naming the name of that Nazarene."  Seems pretty cut and dry.

But the apostles were not intimidated.  They were clear about who they were--they were (and are) Jesus people.  And because they were clear that Jesus, the crucified and risen rabbi, was (and is) the very Lord of the universe and Messiah of God, they knew they were free not to obey an unjust law.  They didn't have to be jerks about it.  They didn't have to cause any violence or trouble while resisting.  But they didn't have to obey.  They, after all, had given their first and last allegiance to Jesus, and they understood that their faithfulness to the way of Jesus was a deeper commitment than their obligation to the powers of the day.  The apostles would not use violence or chaos or hatred to attack those authorities, but they would not yield where their loyalty to Jesus came into conflict with the decrees of the powers.  The apostles had an amazing freedom that way--they would not be beaten or threatened into silence because the rulers of the day didn't like it.  They were free, because, like the timpanist reading the music, they knew that they might be the only ones making noise while everyone else was paused in silence.  But when you are a timpani player, you just come to learn that there will be times when you are the only one playing, and you are no longer bound by the need to check what everybody else is doing for those last few measures of the finale.  You know your notes, and you play them, even if the violins and cellos and woodwinds are silent at the moment.  You are, in a word, free.

And at the same time, the apostles have clarity.  They are free because they know exactly what they are about.  They do not have to obey the authorities' attempt to silence them, because Jesus is the "Leader and Savior" to whom their allegiance belongs.  And they do not have to be afraid of what the authorities or the temple police  or the council think of them; their eyes are on Jesus. If a bossy second-violinist starts shushing you because their part says to be silent, a good timpanist will know to stay focused on the conductor's baton and to watch for the cue to play anyhow.  When you are clear about the one from whom you are taking your cues, you know you don't have to pay attention to the bossy second-violin who assumes that your part is the same as his.  You watch for the direction from the conductor, even when it means you stand out from the rest of the orchestra.

Now, all of that said, the apostles are clear about one thing further: they are prepared to suffer for speaking up and naming the name of Jesus.  That, by the way, is precisely what happens--not only in this chapter of Acts, but throughout the story of the early church. The followers of Jesus were, of course, often run out of town, stones, fed to lions, tortured, imprisoned, or ostracized.  And the followers of Jesus were neither surprised nor afraid when it happened.  Clarity and freedom do not mean you get a pass on the hard stuff in life--they simply give you the capacity to move through it.  The apostles know both that they are free from obeying the authorities' attempt to silence them, but also that the cost of not obeying will likely be to suffer. They may lose their social standing. They may become alienated from their friends.  They will get locked up and thrown in jail.  And they will risk getting beaten, whipped, punched, or worse.  And amazingly, the apostles here do not run from that possibility or seek special treatment.  They know that following Jesus will put them out of step sometimes with the world around them, and they are prepared to accept the consequences of that.  That, too, is part of the clarity and freedom of knowing who they are and what they are about.

Today, the same will be true for the timpani section called the People of Jesus, the church.  If we are clear about who we are (Jesus people) and what are we are about (embodying the way and grace of Jesus), we will find immense freedom and clarity.  We will find the courage to play our notes in the limelight, even if we get the stink-eye from the second-violins who don't know that our part is different from theirs.  We will have the focus on the conductor's baton rather than looking around us at what everyone else is doing.  When you know the One from whom you are taking your cues, you are no longer ruled by fear of what anybody else thinks, or how anybody else plays their part.  And you can play with full force even if everybody else is silent.

For us to live as the people of Jesus, we will need, like a good timpani player, to spend time with the musical score, studying the notations on the page and becoming immersed in the examples of how others have played before us.  We will need to learn the style of our conductor to know how to watch for the cues.  We will need to keep practicing with the rest of the orchestra, too, so that we can learn where our part fits in with the whole.  Or, more literally, we will need to stay grounded in the Scriptures to let them paint a picture for what the Reign of God looks like, and we will need to be rooted in prayer and contemplation with the God to whom we look for cues, and we will spend time practicing the Christian life with one another in community, as the examples of others help me to find where I fit in the whole.  We will together need to be prepared for the likely possibility that we will suffer for the sake of playing our parts, and we will need to find the courage to make the right kind of noise when the conductor gives us the cue.

All of that is possible for us because we can be clear about who we are... and what we are all about.

Keep your eyes open and focused on the Conductor today... right now... the big solo from the percussion section is coming up.

Lord Jesus, direct us as you will and give us the grace of being a part of your music in the world today.  Give us clarity and freedom as we seek to join in your song.

Aliens Like Us

Aliens Like Us-June 21, 2018

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:  May grace and peace be yours in abundance." [1 Peter 1:1-2]

There has been a lot of talk lately, especially in the news and on social media, about "those people."  You know, "those people" who are aliens living away from their native countries... "those people" who are seeking asylum and waiting to have their cases adjudicated regarding entry into our country... "those people" whose children have been separated from them while they wait in detention centers. 

There is a lot of talk about "those people," these days, and I have noticed how much of it ends with the sentiment that "those people... should go back to their own countries."  And sadly--although this does not surprise me any longer so much as it just betrays a lack of biblical literacy--I hear this and see this sentiment coming from the mouths and hearts of people who name the name of Jesus.

Except... here's the thing. From the very, very beginning, like from the New Testament era itself, Christians understood themselves to be the aliens, the refugees, the expatriates and exiles, residing in lands that were not their true home.  From its beginnings, the church confessed that WE are "those people."  Truth be told, the whole story of the Bible is the story of resident aliens, exiles, and refugees, from Abraham and Sarah entering a land that was not their own without any official permission other than a voice from the sky, to Jacob's family seeking refuge in Egypt during a famine, to the Babylonian exile, to the Christian community scattered across the empire.

The opening verses of the book we call "First Peter" make that explicitly clear.  Here we have a letter, going back to the very first century (so there is no way of calling this a later invention of the church or a recent idea of contemporary theologians), which addresses Christians living scattered around the territory of the Roman Empire, specifically the region we now call Turkey, and the author refers to Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, as "exiles of the dispersion."  The Greek word used here in the text, "parepidemos," has the clear sense of people who are living away from their native land as resident aliens.  You could be a resident alien by your own choice--say, if you left your native land to seek better opportunities in another country--or you could be a resident alien because your people had been conquered and redistributed through the empire, or because some disaster or war had compelled you to flee for safety.  By this point in history, the people of Israel had all gone through the experience of being "resident aliens," too--both the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah had gone through the experience of foreign conquest and life scattered in other lands as exiles.  And, just as a reminder, all of the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians call the Old Testament) included the memory that "You were aliens in Egypt... therefore you are to treat aliens with justice and compassion yourselves, when you are the settled citizens and others come to reside among you."

All of that is to say that, from the Bible's perspective, both in the Jewish and Christian traditions, there is no split between "us, the people of God" and "those people who come to seek asylum in another land."  These are not two separate categories for the people of God--we are 'those people'.  

That kind of thing needs to be clear from the get-go to rightly frame any conversation we have, whether back in the first century or today in the twenty-first century, about how we treat those who seek a life in a land not their own.  We can--and should--have the conversation about how to maintain the integrity of national borders, and we can--and should--be able to prevent drugs or human traffickers from access to the land in which we live.  But when we talk about the human faces who are a part of all of this subject, we do not have the option of speaking about "those people" as if they were sub-human, or "infesting" our land, or as if we are qualitatively different.  No, at least not if we name the name of Jesus ourselves.  We are exiles, too.  We are the resident aliens and refugees.  We are the ones seeking asylum in lands that are not our ultimate home.  

This is vital to say because otherwise, we slide into the wicked habit of dehumanizing "the other," or of justifying indifference toward others because we see ourselves as morally better than "those people."  We say things like, "Well, we aren't breaking the law... those people are," or "If they have problems in their own countries, they should go back and fix them there instead of coming here..." or "Who will pay for all the expenses of having so many extra mouths to feed--because we citizens here shouldn't have to!"  We say things like that, assuming that there are two separate groups of people here--"us" who rightfully get to keep all that we have, and "those people" who are coming... you know, "to take it all away from us us!", we fear.

But of course, that's not how the story of the people of Jesus, or the whole story of Israel and the Church, goes.  The Bible itself assumes--takes it as a given--that the people of God are, or have been, resident aliens who depended on the welcome of others, and who are called to arrange their priorities in light of that experience by showing compassion to others who are resident aliens as well.  It's not an "us" and "them" thing.  It's not even a "we Christians will take pity on you refugees who come to our doors" thing.  It's a "we who are aliens will also have compassion for others who are aliens among us" thing.  If we are faithful to our own Scriptures, there is no line between "the people of Jesus" and "those people."  We ARE "those people."  The voice in First Peter made it clear in the first century: the Roman Empire is not our homeland or place of true belonging.  Neither is America ours--we are aliens still, too.  We always have been.

I do not pretend that this provides simple, easy, or cheap answers to how we who live in this land called America address the very real and complicated issues of asylum, immigration, and refuge.  Nobody denies that there are costs to be accounted for, security issues that have to be attended to, or limits to the resources at our command in this country.  I do not even pretend that a simple few sentences from First Peter will get us all on the same page in terms of the right course forward in the national conversation.  

But I do think that these words from First Peter--and, the whole of the Bible which resonates with these few verses--are essential for getting us clear on the right way to frame any conversation about how we treat the stranger who comes seeking a life in the same land where we reside.  This is not a question of "us" versus' them," but rather a question of how "we" take care of "one another," fellow aliens the whole lot of us.  Because this land is not my homeland, either.  I am an alien.  I am decidedly not an American first in my identity--I am someone swept up in the all-encompassing Reign of God which makes me an alien everywhere else... just like First Peter said two thousand years ago.

It makes a huge difference whether I see this conversation as a matter of asking, "How are WE going to solve the problem of THOSE PEOPLE?" or as a matter of, "How are all of us going to care for one another, while we live this live as aliens and exiles in a land that is not our own possession?"  It makes a difference, not only for how we treat others who seek to reside alongside of us, but also because it reminds us not to pin our hopes on piling up stuff in this land and this lifetime.  This ain't our homeland.  This place does not command our ultimate allegiance, and it does not offer us our ultimate hope.  We are called chosen, destined, precious, and beloved by the living God--and it is to the all-encompassing Reign of this God that we have all been swept up.

Lord Jesus, you who were a refugee seeking asylum in Egypt as a child, and you who have called us to be your resident aliens scattered in the world, give us the grace and clarity to see one another rightly, and to recall that all we have is your gift in the first place.

Diagnosis, Not Verdict

Diagnosis, Not Verdict--June 14, 2018

"Whoever says, 'I am in the light,' while hating a brother or sister is still in the darkness.  Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.  But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought blindness." [1 John 2:9-11]

My grandfather used to say, "Walk like you're going somewhere."  As that little proverb was interpreted to me over the years, his point was always quite literally about walking--as in, when you are walking, you should be efficient, purposeful, focused, at a pace that gets you to your destination.  My grandfather was not a saunterer, and would not have looked kindly on moseying.  The walk-like-you're-going-somewhere philosophy of travel was always about being purposeful and intentional: the point of walking was to get where you were going.  He was not a competitive runner or racer--so the efficiency business was never about trying to be faster than someone else or to win a prize.  It was more about focus--if you're going to walk, walk, and go where you're going, I think he would have said.

The first Christians kept coming back to the picture of their lives as a walk.  "Christ was raised from the dead," Paul said to the Romans, "so that we might walk in newness of life."  And in fact, throughout the New Testament a good number of Bible translations will just put the word "live" where the original Greek uses the verb "walk," because the metaphor of walking=living was so well-worn for the early church.  And here in 1 John, we get more of this walking business, too.  John talks about the how and the where of walking (i.e., living), and whether we are walking "in the light" or "in the darkness."

But why does he ask?  What's the interest underneath the question?  Given the culture in which we live--a vote-the-loser-off-the-island way of seeing the world--we might think John is interested in dividing up the world, or the church, into piles for final judgment.  There are the "in the light" people, who are clearly heaven-bound, we would venture.  And there are the "in the darkness" people, who are not so lucky--is that about right?  We are tempted to hear this "in the darkness" and "in the light" business as the issuing of a final verdict, a description of who are the winners and who are the losers in some kind of salvation race.

But that's not really the way John talks here.  He doesn't seem to be giving final verdicts so much as giving present-moment diagnoses.  And the point of a diagnosis, as opposed to an autopsy, of course, is to offer a course of action to remedy what is sick or diseased.  John is interested in getting his readers to "walk like they are going somewhere," which is to say, to be mindful and purposeful in the ways they live.  He is not interested in refereeing a race or holding time trials--in other words, this is not about competition or comparison between people (who's a better Christian than whom?  Who's a true Christian compared to whom?  That sort of thing), but about getting people who are limping and stumbling along to walk rightly, the way they were intended to all along.  John describes what it looks like to walk in the darkness and to walk in the light, not so that we can label our friends or co-workers or fellow church members once and for all as "good eggs" and "bad eggs," but rather so that we can all be corrected when we are off the path or have lost the right pace or have started to limp.

In other words, when we find someone else is "walking in darkness"--which John equates with refusal to love--there is every hope that he or she can be brought back "into the light"--that is, back into the practice of Christ-like love.  And at the very same time, when someone else helps me to see that I have been "walking in darkness" and refusing to love the people put into my life, there is every hope that I will be brought back to walking rightly again.  When I'm no longer "walking like I'm going somewhere," I need those other voices to get my pace back in step with the one I am following.  When I fall away from loving the community of believers that God has placed in my life, I will depend on that community to help pull me back--to retrain my feet, you could say, and to learn to stop tripping over myself.

It would be so easy for us to start labeling people as beyond hope--as irredeemably "walking in darkness"--or to get comfortably complacent with ourselves and insist that we are "walking in the light" and therefore don't need others to help keep us in the way of Jesus.  But John insists that we are always on the move--always in motion following Jesus, and that will mean there is always the opportunity to be led back into love and out of "darkness" along the way.  Today, we have the opportunity to walk like we are going somewhere by practicing real love for the real people who cross our paths today.

Lord Jesus, keep us walking in the light, and keep us gracious as we seek to keep one another walking after you, too, while we entrust ourselves to their guidance, too.