Cake and the Economy of Grace--June 23, 2022

Cake and the Economy of Grace—June 23, 2022

"For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive?  And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?" [1 Corinthians 4:7]

You’ve seen it plenty of times before, I’m sure.  You’re at a kid’s birthday party, and the host starts serving up the cake.  And even though every single guest will have their piece by the time the last strains of “Happy birthday to you… and many more!” have been sung, the kids have a way of turning even the distribution of cake into something worthy of bragging rights.  “I got mine first!”  “Oh yeah?  Well, my piece is a corned piece—more buttercream flowers for me!”  “Well, mine is CHOCOLATE, and you all are STUCK with vanilla!”  “Sure, but mine is a little bit bigger than yours!”  And an almost infinite number of variations on that same theme.  You’ve been there. We all have.  Sometimes as the kid, if we’re honest, and probably sometimes as the adults trying to prevent the dessert course from becoming a battlefield.

As grown-ups, we’re pretty good at recognizing how childish it is for guests at a party to be bragging and fussing over whose piece of birthday cake is better than whose.  We have no illusions that this is something to brag about or belittle someone else about.  We know that everyone’s cake is a gift, after all.  It is a sign of graciousness and generosity from the hosts of the party, not a reward for personal achievements or compensation for the gifts the guests have brought. 

That’s it: everybody’s piece cake is a gift; which is to say, it is grace.  And the thing about grace is that by its very definition, it’s not something anybody can brag about, because it is given with reckless disregard to anybody’s “earning,” “worthiness,” “merit,” or “accomplishments.”  We can see how foolish—and maybe even downright disrespectful and ungrateful—it is for kids to be bragging to one another about their pieces of cake at a birthday party, because we are aware that a birthday party is entirely an economy of grace.  But we have a hard time realizing that among the people of God, everything is an economy of grace.  There’s no room anywhere for bragging about who you think you are better than, ever, in the community of Jesus, because everything we have is a gift of God, beyond our earning. 

And not only that, but the purpose of God’s gifts is not to compare against one another so we can declare ourselves better than someone else, like children do at a party, but rather where my gift’s abundance meets someone else’s need, mine is meant to be shared.  If you’re the grown-up at the party and you realize that someone you got a giant piece of cake and some kid ends up with a really small one, or lets their fall into the grass, then, yes, absolutely you share some of your cake with the one who has none.  This is not a moment to brag or pat yourself on the back for better cake acquisition skills.  This is a time to share, because that’s how an economy of grace works.

In the same way, among the followers of Jesus, we come to learn that my skills, abilities, and resources are all God-given, and therefore, they are meant for the benefit of all, rather than just being for my own self-interest.  Your talents, time, and treasure, as well, have been given by God, and they are meant to be used for the building up of everybody.  And when we see things that way, we realize how childish we must have seemed—to God, and to the watching world—when we fought or squabbled or bragged about the things we possess, from the tangible stuff we keep in our houses and garages and bank accounts, to the skills, abilities, and positions that can’t be locked up or cut into slices. Paul is going to keep pushing in this direction throughout the letter we call First Corinthians, because he really does believe it.  Everything in our lives is a gift, and that makes everything in our lives a part of the economy of grace, which is the only economy God recognizes.  So there is no room for anybody to childishly boast about pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps—there is only the recognition that not only your boots, but your feet themselves, are a gift of God in the first place, along with the hands you have been given in order to help somebody else to rise up onto their feet as well. 

That’s the bottom line for us, today and every day:  if everything is a gift of grace (or rather, “SINCE” everything is), nothing is sheer achievement or earning. And everything we have has been placed in our lives for the sake of everybody’s mutual and full joy.  The reason you get cake at a party is that the host wants everybody to be glad to be there.  What if we lived this day like we are stepping into a party that God is throwing, and looked at how we can offer what we have so that everybody else around can rejoice in the celebration?

Lord God, give us the grace of seeing our lives as grace, too.  And enable us both to rejoice in your good gifts, and to use them for the sake of all.

Living Parables--June 21, 2022

Living Parables--June 21, 2022

"I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, 'Nothing beyond what is written,' so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another." [1 Corinthians 4:6]

The people we put in positions of honor or leadership will end up shaping the kin of people we become.  There is no way around that.  So it is particularly important to pay close attention to how we allow other people's examples to affect our thinking, our acting, and our way of seeing the world.  Both for good and for ill, we become like the people we allow to be our role models, sometimes in ways we do not even perceive we are doing it. We had better be wise about the ones to whom we give that power to shape us. 

The apostle Paul certainly seemed to think so, at any rate.

And there's a line from Octavia Butler's piercingly incisive dystopian novel, Parable of the Talents, which seems to back Paul up on this point. Butler writes (from back in the 1990s, mind you) these haunting words:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery."

Paul might add, too, that to be led by people who are arrogant is to give yourself over to delusions of grandeur along with them.  He knows what can happen when leaders get full of themselves and build little factions and demand that others give their allegiance unquestionably to them.  Paul knows how easy it is for egos to get inflated and then little cults of personality to develop around them--and he knows that's bad news for the whole community.

But on the flip side, Paul also knows the power of leadership that looks like Jesus, and the ways some people have of making us to be more like Jesus because of their example and the way they create opportunities for us to grow to be like Christ.

So while Paul can sometimes be an utter realist about how rotten we can be to each other, or how we humans have a way of bringing out the worst in each other at times, he also has seen the ways good leaders can model best practices to bring out the best in us, too.  Paul himself, for example, learned about the depth of Christ's love even for enemies because other leaders showed him a courageous love when he was first welcomed into the Christian community after having persecuted it.  Paul learned about the importance of gentleness and humility from having seen good leaders model it themselves, to the point where Paul himself strived to embody it for the people and congregations he served.

So perhaps Paul might offer a hopeful corollary to Octavia Butler's stark advice:

To be led by a servant is to learn the dignity of serving.
To be led by someone who is humble is to understand the quiet power that does not need to brag or bluster.
To be led by people who do not need to puff themselves up is to belong in a community built on solid ground.
To be led by someone who is generous is to be brought into an economy of grace.
To be led by someone freed from their own ego is to find you and those you love freed from obsessing over what others think of you, so you are free simply to love and serve all.

At the risk of sounding a little saccharin, I do think there is reason to hope that good leaders can grow goodness in us, just as truly as rotten leaders can bring out the worst in us.  And I do believe that Paul did his very best to model the kind of gentle serving that he had learned as the way of Jesus.  Here in these verses from First Corinthians he holds up the way he has learned to deal with his relationship to other leaders, like Apollos, and he understands that the rest of the congregation is watching him. They are looking at him and listening to the ways he works alongside others.  They are paying attention to whether he gets consumed by petty squabbles, or whether he needs to pull rank or brag about how great he thinks he is.  They are listening to see whether he puts other people down as his way of puffing himself up. They are scrutinizing whether he leads like someone who really knows the way of Jesus, or is just another pompous blowhard in a long line of pompous blowhards.  

And because Paul knows that they are all watching, he does his very best to keep his own eyes on Jesus, so that Paul himself will keep being shaped more fully and completely by the character of Jesus.  Paul understands that being a disciple of Jesus in public is to be a walking, living parable, and that people will draw conclusions about what the Reign of God is like from what we show them and how we model it in our lives.

For us, even two thousand years later, I'm convinced that's our work as well.  We are called to be servant-leaders ourselves, whose way of leading looks like Jesus' kind of leading: the kind that takes the towel and washes the feet of the rest, the kind that doesn't need to brag, and the kind that wields strength only and always in gentleness.  There is a world of difference between bad leaders who use the language of religiosity to cover over the same old crookedness and egotism, and Christ-formed leaders who don't need to keep telling you how devout they are because it just radiates through the ways they serve without tooting their own horns about it.  Paul knows that his readers are watching him--not just to see if he walks the talk, but also to learn how to embody the way of Jesus themselves.

Today, someone is watching you.  Someone else is listening to you.  They are looking to you, whether you like it or not, and whether you perceive it or not, as a role model. How could we embody the gentle leadership of Jesus, even when we don't think anybody is paying attention, so that we can be authentic in our witness... and so that others may see Christ in us?

Lord Jesus, keep our eyes on you so that we may be shaped in your likeness to love and serve as you do.

Becoming (Or, Watching the Paint Dry)--June 20, 2022

Becoming (Or, Watching the Paint Dry)--June 20, 2022

"Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  Then each one will receive commendation from God." [1 Corinthians 4:5]

I was painting the walls of our upstairs bathroom over the weekend--you know, one of those chores that had been on the to-do list all spring, waiting for a free enough window of time.  And the new color was one we had never used anywhere else in the house, a shade of sea green that I believe they call rather evocatively "Tidewater."  It had been a while since we had first picked out paint samples once upon a time, and I tend to be an only-eight-colors-in-the-crayon-box kind of guy when it comes to picking colors for painting walls, so I really didn't know what to expect this stuff to look like.

So as I'm rolling this stuff on the walls, there came a moment when I paused in fear and panic--some of the walls had darker patches on them, and some were still really light.  I was worrying about whether one shade or the other was the "right" one, and then I was worried that I hadn't properly stirred the paint before pouring into my tray, or that something had gone wrong at our local Sherwin-Williams when we ordered it, or... something.  And just before I went into full panic mode wondering if my walls were going to be permanently splotched or would have to be painted over all over again, I remembered: sometimes paint dries funny, and the color the paint appears to be when it's wet isn't the shade it turns out to be when it's dry.  Whew.  Cue deep breaths, followed by a sigh of relief.  I just needed to remember that I wasn't seeing the final product yet, and it was not going to be helpful to judge the appearance of the walls fifteen minutes into the project.  In time, it would all even out, and it would be the right shade we had chosen--but I would need to be patient, and not try to make a judgment while the painting was still in process.

In fact, if I did stop partway through to go and re-paint a spot that was turning darker to try and make it match the other, wetter spots on the wall, I would find that those other areas were starting to dry and darken, too, and I could have been at it forever, never getting everything all the same shade until I had gone through all my paint!  No, the right thing to do at that moment was just to keep on keeping on--to keep doing the best work I knew how to do, and to trust that in the end, it would become clear that the color was true and my work was decent.

In moments like that, though, sometimes it is hard not to stop midway and second-guess yourself, or to look for flaws that might not actually be flaws, or to get fussy that nothing looks like it's in its final form.  It's hard to remember that alongside the labor is waiting... and allowing things to become.  And it is surprisingly tempting to bring the actual progress to a halt and to waste your time literally watching paint dry.

And while the apostle Paul had probably never had to paint a bathroom "Tidewater" green, he does see our work as God's people in much the same way.  It is a tempting, but wrong-headed, move to start judging work while the work is still in progress.  It's tempting to see the dark splotches on the wall and think that something has gone wrong, or that someone has failed, when maybe it's actually a sign that everything is progressing precisely as it should.  It's easy to judge our own work, or others' work, and to decide that something has gone wrong, or somebody has failed, when maybe things are still becoming what they are meant to be. Sometimes we had one idea in mind of how something was supposed to go--a project, a conversation, an opportunity to do good or share your faith, maybe--and it doesn't go in the direct you had expected.  Rather than assuming it's all for naught, maybe it's worth continuing on in doing good work as well as you know how to do it, and to trust that God is able to work both through and beyond our efforts.  Sometimes our efforts take a little additional time to come to fruition.  Sometimes we were expecting one outcome while God's Spirit is working out something different from our labors.  Sometimes we are looking for results you can measure in numbers--more people, more money, more social media "likes"--and God is interested in something deeper than those kinds of things.  Like the old saying goes, if you want crabgrass, you only need to wait a day or two--but if you want an oak tree, you're going to have to give it a few more decades.  

So here's a reminder to all of us: where you are doing good but still can't be sure what the outcome of all your striving is, keep at it.  Don't stop to judge whether the paint is all drying identically; just give it time.  And where you are quick to judge others' work for God's Reign, give it some time as well.  Give others the same grace God is giving your work to simply let things... become.

Lord God, give us the grace to be patient--both with our own efforts and the work of others--so that we can come to see how you bring forth good things from our efforts.

A Good Bake--June 17, 2022

A Good Bake--June 17, 2022

"But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself.  I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.  It is the Lord who judges me." [1 Corinthians 4:3-4]

So, true confession: I am a fan of The Great British Baking Show.  It is a delightful program that makes for the perfect show while folding laundry or some other mundane domestic task, and I love the whole premise.  Amateur bakers strive to create cakes, tarts, loaves, and other culinary curiosities as set forth by the judges of the show, who then taste, evaluate, critique, and praise their work.  Sometimes the food to be baked is pretty familiar to everyone--something like, "Bake us some gingerbread cookies" (well, "biscuits" in Britain).  Sometimes it's a really rare item, like an obscure kind of French cake from the 18th century.  Sometimes, the judges ask the bakers to create things they've never made before, never tasted before, or that the bakers themselves don't particularly care for. And that means there will be times in the competition where one baker will be sure their creation is the best, only to have the judges disagree and not like how the cake turned out.  Or there will be times when a loaf looks done on the outside, but when they cut into it, reveals itself to be underdone and inedible.  Or there will even be times when a contestant is sure their baked good is a failure, only to have the judges really like what they've done.

Now the thing that I find really intriguing about all this is that sometimes the contestants doing the baking are harsher about their own cooking than the actual judges are!  Sometimes a baker will be sure they're about to be dismissed from the baking tent only to discover the judges thought they did well.  And because it's not a democracy, the other contestants don't get to conspire together over whom they should vote out.  It's really all to do with what the judges think, and not anybody else, or even yourself.

So if you've got a harsh, mean-spirited, or capricious judge, that's bad news, even for a good baker.  But if you have a judge who is fair-minded and decent, it often means you've got a better shot at success than if you let your own worst criticism of yourself carry the day.  Sometimes in life, we are our own worst enemies, after all, and we can sabotage our own efforts to do something good if we've told ourselves already we are failures or don't belong.  And on a show like The Great British Baking Show, everyone understands you have limited time, limited information, and limited resources to bake with, so the real question is simply, "What did you do with what had been given to you?"

That's the perspective Paul finds himself with here in these verses from First Corinthians.  Like a baker on the TV show, he knows that he doesn't have to worry, in the end, about what anybody else thinks about him or his work.  He doesn't even really have to worry about his own self-critical impulses, either, because he's not the final arbiter of the quality of his work.  Paul knows that his own work gets presented to God, not to any other church leader, and not even to himself.  And he knows that God's question comes down basically to, "What did you do with what has been given to you?"  In other words, how have we stewarded the things, people, and resources that have been entrusted to our care?

We should note that none of this conversation for Paul is about going to heaven or hell.  Paul is decidedly NOT saying that if your work is good enough you get a ticket through the pearly gates, but if you're the worst baker for the day you get thrown out into the outer darkness.  It's not even about trying to compete with someone else to do better than them while you're vying for the top spot in the contest.  It's more that Paul knows that since God is the One in the end whose opinion really matters, we don't have to spend our lives constantly worrying about how we measure up in anybody else's eyes.  We don't even have to listen to our own self-defeating inner voice that tells us we aren't good enough or don't belong.  God is the One who gets to evaluate--the same God who has already loved us deeply enough to go to a cross for us in Christ.  We don't need to worry that the judge is a jerk--this is the same One who has saved us by grace and claimed us forever.

And once we realize that this is not a matter of being "good enough" to get into heaven by our accomplishments, but rather a question of using what has been entrusted to us because we are already beloved of God, then this is all about freedom.  When you know you don't have to waste time worrying about what someone else thinks of the way you use your time, energy, words, and actions for the sake of love, you are freed to love all the more deeply, and more fully like Christ.  When you know you don't have to care about looking popular or trendy or "successful" or "strong" or like a "winner" or "tough" but rather only about walking the way of Jesus, you realize you can stop fussing about an awful lot of things that others are obsessed with.  In our lives of faith, then, we are each free to ask simply, "How can I use this day and its opportunities as well as possible, so that when I get to the end of the day, I know that God see I have used them all well?"  We're not worrying anymore about doing enough to make God love us or accept us--we are already loved and accepted permanently and unconditionally by God.  And once we know that we are free to ask, in the famous words of Gerhard Forde, "What will you do... now that you don't HAVE to do anything?"  In other words, once you know you are irrevocably claimed by God before you have done a thing to earn it, now how will you use the freedom, the time, and the resources in front of you out in ways that reflect how you've been loved already?

So yes, what we do in this life matters--not as our way of earning a spot in the afterlife, but for the same reason the people on the baking show keep coming back week after week to bake: they love what they do, and they want to do what they do as well as possible, simply for the love of doing it.  What if we saw this day as the opportunity to love others well, not to earn gold stars or heaven points (which do not exist) but simply because the God who has claimed us already will smile to see what we do this day to show love?

That seems like a good way to spend a day, don't you think?

Lord God, enable us to use this day well, in whatever it brings, with the freedom of knowing we are yours already.

Just the Help--June 16, 2022

Just The Help--June 16, 2022

"Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy." [1 Corinthians 4:1-2]

Sometimes I think about the fact that it's somebody's job to walk through the halls of an art museum, taking in all the beauty, and to get to share it with visitors to the museum so that they can appreciate the works of art on display there more fully.  And I think to myself--that's a pretty good gig.  In an alternate timeline, or maybe some day down the road when I'm looking for something to do with my time, I could be a museum docent.

Of course, it's not just at the art museum:  there are guides at the zoo and the botanical gardens, at the aviary and the aquarium, and at the science center and at our local Underground Railroad Museum, too.  And all of them have the same basic job, really: to appreciate things that are good and wondrous, to look after them for the sake of sharing them, and to find ways to let others appreciate them more fully.  Whether it's a collection of Van Goghs, an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, a rare tropical bird, or a working model of a lunar lander, the docent's job is to enable others to fall in love with the artifacts (or animals) that have captivated them in the first place.  When you are a docent, you realize pretty quickly that, unlike Billy Joel's "piano man" character, it's not you they're coming to see--but you get to be a part of bringing forth wonder in other people.  In a sense, to be a museum docent or zoo guide is to be "just the help"--the hired hands who know they are not the reason people have come.  But in another sense, you are a steward of mysteries, a guardian of treasures, and a sharer of wonders.

And in all honesty, maybe that's the best way to think about the people usually regarded as "leaders" in the community of Jesus.  Because of who Jesus is, Jesus-shaped leaders are going to be in the mold of servants, like Jesus himself.  They know (at least if they are honest) that they themselves are not the center of attention, nor should they be; but instead, Christ-formed leaders are ones who point beyond themselves to the good stuff: to the compelling beauty of grace, to the faces of neighbors in whom Christ is present, to the sheer goodness of God's creation, and to the adventure of kingdom-work waiting for us to pick up.  In other words, Christ-formed leaders are, at their best, freed from the need for ego-stroking and attention-grabbing, and they can find their deepest fulfillment as, well, docents in the hands-on gallery of God's treasures.  To use Paul's language for it, they are "servants of Christ" who are also "stewards of the mysteries of God."  Or, in a lesser-known image of Jesus, they are like the head of a household "who brings out of his treasure what is old and what is new."  To be a leader among the followers of Jesus is simply to be the local zoo guide for the menagerie of God's Reign, helping everyone else to get to see the pandas more clearly, to learn about the zebra's stripes, and to be drawn in wonder to the fluid motion of the octopi.  It is the calling to serve others so that they will be drawn more deeply into the goodness of God and want to share it even further and wider.

In a culture like 21st-century America, that tends to praise the ones who draw the biggest crowds at their rallies (or who praise themselves and claim they have the biggest crowds at rallies), this Christ-formed kind of leadership that serves is surprising--maybe even seen as foolish.  In an age where authoritarian dictators are praised for being "strong leaders," it's counter-cultural to see a different kind of leadership modeled that doesn't depend on shouting, intimidating, threatening, or saber-rattling, but only inviting others to deeper participation in wonder.  Our society tends to assume good leaders will want their own image carved into a monument to honor their greatness, while Paul pictures the genuinely good leaders as tour guides helping others to see the God who is really worth honoring, but who think it would be ridiculous to have their names or faces carved in stone or brick or bronze.  

To the rest of the world that might seem absurd, but to people who know the way of Jesus it makes perfect sense: we are the stewards of mysteries that do not belong to us, but which we have the privilege not only of seeing but also of sharing.  We are not the featured exhibit--we are the docents who show the real treasures to others.  We don't need to make ourselves the center of attention--we're just the help.  And that's exactly right.  After all, if you're in a gallery hall with Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," you know that people have come to the masterpiece of pointillism, not to hear you talk about what you ate for lunch.  The most you can do is to help others experience the beauty and the wonder of what is in front of them--to help them stop and notice the tiny dots, the multiplicity of color, and the surprising depth of its composition.  You know you're "the help" in that circumstance, and yet you are fulfilled in being exactly that because that is what allows you both to enjoy the masterpiece for yourself and to find the joy of letting others enjoy it, too.

That's one of the beautiful ways that Christian community is so different from the dog-eat-dog competition of the world's order of things.  In a time when everyone else seems to be vying for the top billing, the followers of Jesus find their deepest fulfillment pointing others to Jesus because they know already they are deeply beloved and do not need to do a thing to earn anybody's praise.  When you are a docent, you are free just to help people fall in love with the animals at the zoo or the Rodins in the sculpture garden.  And when you are a leader among the community of Christ, you are free simply to let people be pulled by God's grace to fall in love more deeply with the One who laid down his life for them in love first.

That's a pretty good way to spend a life, it turns out.  And it is held out to each of us right now to be our way of life today.

Now, pay attention to the next masterpiece through the next door on your left...

Lord God, give us the joy of looking after your Gospel of grace, and give us the wonder of sharing it with everyone we meet--make us trustworthy stewards of your good gifts.

Go Team Jesus--June 15, 2022

Go Team Jesus--June 15, 2022

"So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." [1 Corinthians 3:21-23]

I say the following as someone who cares deeply about good theology, who is committed to living out my discipleship in the intentional community of congregations, and who openly owns the tradition, the Lutheran one, in which I have grown up in the faith:  in the end, it's not about me holding the right membership or set of beliefs about God, but rather about God holding onto us.

That change, that flipping of polarities so to speak, between my grip on God and God's grip on me, makes all the difference in understanding the gospel as Good News, rather than just being another failed self-help scheme.  It all comes down to God's claim on us--a claim that comes to us through Christ, and yes, then through a whole host of different individual people who have shaped us, grown our faith, and pointed us toward Jesus.  But it's God's pull and power I rest in, not my ability to have chosen the "best" denominational structure to belong to, or to attend the "trendiest" congregation in my area, or even have learned the most "correct" theology, that matters in the end.  It is God who makes me belong--through Christ--and not a matter of how strong, smart, or sanctified I make myself.

Something else changes, too, when I follow Paul's train of thought here.  When I realize that it's God's grip on me that really matters in the end, I can see other followers of Jesus, and even other groupings of Christians, not as competition or enemies, but all part of one great movement initiated and sustained by Christ himself.  We are collectively "Team Jesus," so to speak.  And that makes a huge impact on how we see our life and work together as real people living our faith out day by day, because it means we don't have to waste our energy trying to "outdo" the church down the street or across the state, but can see that Christ is present and working through them as well as through us--and that Christ reserves the right to correct, grow, and stretch both "them" and "us."

In the first century, Paul was dealing with people who were aligning with the particular names who had first brought them to faith, whether Paul himself, or a popular and eloquent speaker like Apollos, or even Simon Peter himself (here referenced by his nickname in Aramaic, "Cephas,").  And it's worth noting that these three did not always agree on everything or get it all right all of the time.  Paul makes mention in others of his letters about a time he had to call Peter out for discriminating against Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians when there were other Jewish Christians from Jerusalem around.  Or there were times when Paul and Apollos butted heads.  And even Paul himself could be something of a stinker--there was a time when he couldn't work things out with his good friend Barnabas over their intern Mark, and it broke up their partnership to go their own separate ways.  All of this is to say that when Paul says that all these different names--Apollos, Cephas, and Paul himself--all belong to God in Christ, he's not saying that they are all in total agreement about everything all the time.  They had clashes of personality, differences of opinion, and even different theological takes at different times.  Paul doesn't see their "belonging" as dependent on their sameness, or even on their "rightness," but rather on God's grip on them through Christ.

That's a really powerful--and maybe provocative--thing to realize in our day and age.  It is so easy in this time and place for Christian groups not only to split from one another, but to treat the "out" group as though they are damned to hell and irredeemably lost heretics.  And it is really easy to assume that our being "in" with God depends on our being "right" about whichever set of theological positions we think are the deal breakers.  I went to an undergraduate college where the mindset tended to be (sometimes implicitly and somes explicitly), "We're not saying that only Calvinists can be saved, because you know, if someone in the Middle Ages, centuries before John Calvin was born, came to the same conclusions as Calvin and believed them in defiance of Roman Catholic teaching at the time, they, too could have been saved."  In other words, "You can be saved by explicitly being in our group, or by unofficially being in our group, but we are still the group you have to have a connection with in order to be saved... but we're still technically saying you're saved by grace."  That's not what Paul is saying here--that still puts the focus on our rightness, rather than on God's claim on us that we belong.

We also have a tendency in this era of polarization to ratchet up the urgency of our differences--it's really easy to say, "That group of Christians believes differently from what we believe on this hot-button issue, and we have decided that THIS issue is really the test of whether you love Jesus or not!"  And with that we end up casting out people whom Jesus still claims.  There is a really big difference, I would say, between being able to say, "On this question here, we do not agree, and we need to be honest about that," on the one hand, and, "Not only do I not agree with THOSE people, but I won't be in fellowship with anyone else who is willing to be in fellowship with THOSE people!" on the other.  It's worth paying attention to where folks are drawing those kinds of lines.  And before we decide that some group is "out," we should see what happens if we put their name in the sentence Paul gave us--to they still belong to Christ?  And if so, can we dare to say they do not belong to God?  

The market-driven culture in which we live has infected the American church in particular to make us see everybody else's church group (whether at the congregational or denominational level) as competition for business in a zero-sum-game environment, rather than all being a part of Team Jesus.  And if I accept that damnable logic, I'm going to see every other church out there as a threat to mine, or deficient in some way, or an enemy to be defeated.  The lingering effects of COVID on the church has only made that worse--when so many congregations feel their own health threatened with lower attendance, limited giving, aging membership, and depleted energy, we can so easily see the church down the road as a threat to be stopped rather than partners on the same team.  If in the end our greatest allegiance is to our own little sub-group, sure, then, I guess we have to see everyone else as competition, and we'll see the world as a dog-eat-dog contest for survival.  But if we see ourselves--as Paul surely does--as part of Team Jesus, then the people around us are still claimed by the One who claims us, whether or not we are always in agreement or get along or would choose the same color carpet for our sanctuary.  

It's ok--more than that, it's healthy and honest--to be real about the differences between different ways of following Jesus.  But it is a huge mistake to assume that the ones who don't agree with me are outside the grip of Jesus' grace.  They're not.  I'm not, either.  And Jesus doesn't need any of our permission to hold onto people in a wide and strong embrace.

Go Team Jesus.

Lord Jesus, hold us, and allow us to see the ways you are holding others.

Choosing Oh-So Pleasant--June 14, 2022

Choosing Oh-So Pleasant--June 14, 2022

"Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness,' and again, 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile'." [1 Corinthians 3:18-20]

One of my favorite movie lines of all time comes from the great Jimmy Steward classic, Harvey, when his character, Elwood P. Dowd, says, "In this life, you can either by oh-so smart, or oh-so pleasant.  Well, for years, I was smart... and I recommend pleasant."

That has always struck me as solid advice, but there is a cost to accepting it and living by it.  After all, in the story of Harvey, Stewart's character is the one everyone else thinks is crazy for being able to see a six-foot-tall rabbit who wears clothes like a human (and who goes at least some of the time by the name Harvey).  All the other characters are dead-certain they are the sane ones, but they are also largely miserable, incapable of wonder, and playing different versions of the same game of trying to impress people.  Whether they're trying to climb the social ladder into high society, vying for respect and accolades in their profession, or just want to look respectable to their neighbors, they're all pretty dour people who can't seem to get out of their own little worlds to look around at what kind of spectacular things might be going on all around them.  In other words, all the other "sane" characters are following the conventional wisdom for how to be successful in life:  get ahead in your career, impress your peers, and make a name for yourself in your field.  They are all "smart" as the world sees smart, and they are also, by and large, pretty unpleasant.

Sometimes the cost of being "oh-so pleasant"--or perhaps to give it a little more bite, of being "the ones who love well"--is that everyone else stares at you like you are a fool for doing it, for seeing the world differently, and for not playing the game like everyone else.  Sometimes, to be the presence of kindness and compassion means everyone else thinks you are crazy, and sometimes telling people such kindness for all comes from your faith in God will sound as absurd to them as saying you see a six-foot-tall rabbit at your side.

Of course, the big punch-line by the end of the story (seventy-year-old movie spoiler alert here) is that Harvey turns out to be very much real, even though his existence sounds like utter nonsense.  There is just a touch of magic by the end of the story, when one or two other characters come to meet Harvey and discover that he has been real all along.  Not everyone will be able to accept that such miracles have been leaning on lamposts at the corner of 18th and Fairfax, but enough people come to see Harvey by the end that the audience is left discovering that Elwood P. Dowd has been the only sensible one all along... exactly because he has been willing to look and act out of touch with what everyone else considers "smart."

In a way, to be the people of Jesus in this world full of rat-racing, image-obssessed self-absorption is to be like Jimmy Stewart's character Elwood.  We are people convinced we see Jesus--not just in churches, but alive and well and moving in the world around us--and who have made the decision (even if we are not great at living it sometimes) to be "oh-so pleasant" rather than making ourselves "oh-so smart" on the world's terms.  That is to say, we have made the choice to love as Jesus embodies it for us, even if it looks foolish to others.  We have made the choice--and we keep choosing it again every day--to look out for the interests of others rather than just our own, to give our time and energy to others even if it won't get us anything, to take the time to listen and look around at the world in front of us even if we don't make a dime from doing it it.  We keep choosing to love even when that costs us bigger profits and it doesn't make "good financial sense," and even when the loud voices around us shout how we have to look out for "Me and My Group First."  And we don't have to get all fussy or have a persecution complex when others look at us like we are out of our minds, because we understand--of course, choosing to love in a world full of self-interest sounds foolish.  We are just prepared to risk looking foolish by the world's terms, because we are done playing the games of trying to impress anybody.

And when you are done with that old rat race, not only are you truly free, but you discover you are freed for loving others, and discovering the goodness to be found in listening to them where they are at, sharing their stories, and seeing Christ present in the conversation.  You discover, in a manner of speaking, that it is far better to be oh-so pleasant than oh-so smart on the world's terms.

Today, what will it look like for us to make that same choice--the choice to love rather than to impress?  I suspect it will be something amazing.

Lord God, give us the courage to live in ways that look out of step to the world's kind of logic, so that we can be in step with your way of love.

 

Honoring Image-Bearers--June 13, 2022

Honoring Image-Bearers--June 13, 2022

"If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." [1 Corinthians 3:17]

Consider this one more friendly reminder from the Scriptures that God so fiercely loves humanity and regards us as precious that God will not stand for the ways we dehumanize each other and treat one another as disposable.  That isn't of God.

If that's the conclusion to be drawn from this statement of Paul's, let me go back and show my work to make it clear how we arrive there.  At first, we might think this verse is just God getting territorial about turf--as if Paul is merely saying on God's behalf, "You don't mess with God's stuff, or God's property, or God's house!" possibly followed up with, "And you kids better get off God's lawn, too!" with some angry fist-shaking.  We might be tempted to read this just as a matter of protecting God's ego, like God is so insecure as to feel threatened over puny human actions.  But of course, this isn't really about brick-and-mortar buildings needing to be protected--it's about people.  And when it comes to the well-being of people (all of whom are made in the image of God, mind you), the living God does have a way of going all Mama Bear and protecting those who are endangered.

This is an important point: God turns out to be a lot less worried about religious buildings (even if it's called "The Temple") than about the way human beings (who are made in God's image and meant to be living temples for God) are treated with dignity and respect.  The actual Jerusalem Temple was destroyed--twice--and both times, the Scriptures record God warning the people it would happen and then letting foreign empires raze it to the ground to shake the people awake from their complacency.  In the sixth century before Christ, God had been warning the people that the Babylonians would come knocking, and the prophets insisted that God had in fact allowed their armies to destroy the temple.  Ezekiel even saw a vision of God's glory getting up and moving out of the Temple in advance, as if to say God was shaking the dust off the divine sandals and getting out of there before it happened, so that it was clear God wasn't going to be hurt, affected, or injured by the demolition of a building.  Jesus, too, warned the people of his day that their current trajectory was going to lead to the Second Temple being destroyed, and he lamented that he longed to gather them from their wayward path to his care like a mother hen.  And again, what do you know, but a few years after Paul wrote this letter, the Romans besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple once again.  Jesus himself was the one enacting a symbolic "destruction" of the Temple when he drove out the moneychangers and overturned the tables in the Temple, bringing business to an end for at least a short while.  All of this is to say that the Bible's actual witness is that God is not nearly so territorial about the physical building of the Temple than we might have thought at first blush.

But on the other hand, when it comes to human beings, the Scriptures show that God takes a much harder line.  Human beings, after all, are the original "temple" of God--the meeting place between God and creation, the bearers of the divine image like a temple was supposed to be in the ancient world.  So Paul takes the idea of a Temple as most people thought of it and says that really it's us--the people of God--where God has chosen to dwell. And yeah, God is protective about people.  God will not let harm of other people go unaddressed.  God does not shrug with indifference when image-bearers are treated like they are disposable--especially when other image-bearers are the ones causing the harm.  Now, it doesn't mean that the moment someone hurts someone else, a divinely-sent lightning bolt zaps the offender for causing damage to a person who is a "living temple."  God's kind of restoration and justice will come in God's way, in God's time, and by God's choice of agency--so that rules out you or me appointing ourselves God's instruments of vengeance.  But like Dr. King was fond of reminding us, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."  In other words, God does care about putting things right, defending those who are harmed or dehumanize, and God will not let that abuse be the last word.

What that means for us is two-fold. For one, when we are the ones suffering harm, hurt, or dehumanizing treatment from others, God sees, God knows, and God will not let those wrongs go uncorrected before all is said and done.  We are not authorized to deputize ourselves into pursuing vendettas and revenge or returning evil for evil (much less pre-emptively seeking to "get them before they get us"), but we can be confident that God does not want us to continue to suffer abuse.  But it is also vital to say the same about the other side of the coin--when someone else is being hurt, or being treated like they are disposable, or belittled, threatened, or endangered, God takes a side there, too--and God summons us to care for the vulnerable in those situations.  We are called to be advocates, allies, and accompanying presences when other human beings--who are bearers of God's image simply in the fact of their humanity--are harmed or regarded as less-than.  We can walk with those having stones thrown at them.  Our presence can shield them and suffer with them.  We can offer our bodies in solidarity and our voices to amplify their own cries for justice.  And we will respond that way when others are endangered because we have learned here from the Scriptures just how fiercely God cares about those who would harm the human temples and image-bearers of God.

Instead of taking pot-shots about how "easily offended other people are," maybe the question we should be asking is why instead it is so easy for us to dismiss other people's hurt, or the ways they are treated as less-than.  Maybe then God's own fierce love for other image-bearers will become our own... and stir us to walk with the vulnerable.

Lord God, train our vision to see your people around us as your own living temples, and to recognize in all human beings your own image--and to treat all people with the reverence due to your dwelling place.

 

Present Without the Flags--June 10, 2022

Present Without the Flags--June 10, 2022

"Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" [1 Corinthians 3:16]

So there's a long-standing tradition in the United Kingdom that the "royal standard," the official flag of the royal family, only flies at Buckingham when the Queen is in residence there.  If she is somewhere else--say, on a trip, or at another royal estate, there's no royal standard flag flying.  As the current queen of England has advanced in years, she has had fewer and fewer public appearances, and that has also meant there were fewer and fewer chances people might have actually to see the Queen.  No flag at the palace means she's not there at the time, and if she's not there, you're not going to catch a glimpse of her. Pretty straightforward, right?

Of course, the other thing about being the Queen of England is that if you aren't in the royal palace where the public can at least make a tourist visit, you aren't going to be reachable anywhere else, either--it's not like the Queen would saunter out the front gate of Buckingham Palace to go shopping alone in the local market to pick up some potatoes to cook up for dinner and some new light bulbs to replace the one that's gone out in the hallway.  Buckingham Palace was the best chance you had of seeing Queen Elizabeth, and even at that, you knew the odds were slim.  

To be very honest, I think a lot of Respectable Religion assumes that God is basically just a cosmic version of the Queen of England--generally distant, and the only chance you really have of catching a glimpse will be at the proper street address, and only at times when the flag is flying.  That is to say, we often act like God is bound to a particular location, and visitable only during posted office hours.  Call it a temple, a church, a shrine, or a "thin place" (as the old Celtic tradition conceived of those locations that were closer to the unseen and the divine), but basically they are all variations on the same assumption that God is tied to particular locations, and if you want to encounter the divine, you show up there. Ancient Israel flirted with this thinking from time to time, occasionally telling the people that was only to be found in this ONE Temple in this ONE city, Jerusalem, which just happened to be controlled by the king and his forces.  And certainly Christians have carried the same thinking forward over the centuries, too, building special churches on the sites where special events happened (or were rumored to have happened), and making a big deal about our buildings as "sacred" space.  We still get all fussy about what you're allowed to do inside a church building, or who is allowed to touch the altar, or not swearing once you're inside the main church doors and underneath a steeple, as though it's the street address that makes the difference.  We still operate in so many ways like meeting God is a "where" question, akin to catching a glimpse of the Queen when you notice the flag is flying at the palace, rather than as a "who" question--as in, God choosing to be present and dwelling within the gathered community of people.

This is Paul's point here, even though it blows up an awful lot of conventional wisdom about encountering the divine.  The standard thinking for many, both in ancient Israel and in the Roman and Greek pantheons, was that you met the god or goddess of your choice by going to the right temple, and at that location you were more apt to get in touch with the deity you were seeking.  It was about getting to the right place at the right time--akin to getting to the palace when the royal flag is flying--because the assumption was that the gods were somehow tethered to their temples and holy places.

Paul lights a match and sets all that thinking on fire here, because he insists that God isn't primarily interested in a "where" so much as in a "who"--that God chooses to dwell, not at a certain street address, but among people... who are like you and me.  Paul's way of cutting to the chase is to say, "You are God's temple, and God's Spirit dwells in you." That blows apart the old conventional wisdom that meeting God is about getting to the right place at the right time, and instead insists that God chooses to be present especially among the gathered people, rather than inside a temple, sanctuary, or shrine.  

That doesn't mean that it's bad or sinful for congregations to have buildings, but it does dramatically change our understanding of their importance.  Buildings are tools--they can be useful for particular things, but they are not where God is confined.  At our best, our corporate worship recognizes that, too--we can worship together in the park or in the town square, or in the church yard, or at the hospital, or in the woods, and the thing that assures us of God's presence isn't whether the space has been properly blessed, but simply the fact of God's blessing on the people of God wherever we go.  

So what would happen if today we saw our actions, our words, and our thoughts as always happening in the very temple of God--the meeting place between God and humanity?  What would happen, what would change, and what would we be more daring to try if we saw our daily ordinary human existence as the place to meet God, rather than assuming God only meets people for an appointed hour on Sundays underneath steeples?

That's what we so often get wrong in Respectable Religious Circles--we are still struggling with the old logic that our buildings are what make us holy, rather than the exact opposite as James sees it: it is our presence as God's holy people that makes any street address holy as a secondary echo.  It's not the real estate--it's the real presence of Christ with us, among us, and within us. 

Lord Jesus, help us to see your presence among your people.

The Good Underground--June 9, 2022

The Good Underground--June 9, 2022

"If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire." [1 Corinthians 3:14-15]

So... true story.  A few years ago, one of the congregations where I serve was having problems with water leaking in a corner of our church basement.  The corner where we happen to have our elevator... the same corner which supposedly also has an underground spring of water... the same corner where we have had problems with joints in the gutters up on the roof.  We had any number of complicating factors we thought could be contributing to the water problem.  And in the process of investigating it, some professionals took a look at the poured concrete walls underground at the corner of the building, and they found that the concrete itself had not been properly mixed and poured in the first place when the building's footers were being set, well over a century before.  

As you might imagine, that was a pretty scary prospect for the leaders of the congregation--we were wondering if the corner of the building was in danger of collapse, or whether the whole underground support structure of the building would have to be excavated.  And along with that, we were worried whether the costs of fixing this problem that had sat waiting to reveal itself would consume the church's savings, as well as whether the congregation would support the decision pay whatever those costs would be.  It is easier, after all, to mobilize people's support for a project they can see and understand the value of--like an addition of rooms, or the installation of a new organ or piano, or a renovated kitchen.  But replacing concrete that's hidden underground where nobody would ever notice a difference?  That is decidedly less glamorous.

Blessedly, the congregation and its leaders had the wisdom of Saint Paul at the time.  They knew that it was worth doing the hidden work of repairing the walls, having fresh concrete properly poured, and keeping the building on a solid footing for the generations to come.  We told ourselves in those days, "This is our gift to future disciples and members of this congregation in the future--they will not have to deal with a catastrophe in the future because we were able to catch this now, before it has become a crisis, and to deal with it now."  Of course, those future saints in this place decades from now won't know our names or likely even realize what we did for them.  They won't know because there won't be a disaster, and they won't have to see their building sink into the ground, or start to lean.  They won't have to face an astronomical repair bill because this generation of their church family took the time, the treasure, and the thought to make things right in our time.  

And to be honest, just knowing that the children, grandchildren, and future disciples yet to come to faith in this place will have a building in which to do ministry, that was all we needed.  Nobody wanted a parade or a plaque on the wall to commemorate the great basement-wall-repair-project of 2019, and nobody needed a cash reward or framed certificate.  The thought of helping our future congregation to thrive because we had made the effort now to do the job right was enough.  That's all we really needed, and it wouldn't matter that nobody in the distant future would know what had been done to fix things.

I think that's the logic we're called to as the people of God as well, even when we're not talking about physical buildings.  We're called to use the time, treasure, energy, and resources we have to build well even if our work isn't glamorous, or even noticeable.  We are called to see the worth of our work in helping things to stand strong, rather than to collapse because we didn't want to put in the effort for something nobody would notice.  We are called to care enough about those who will come after us in faith to do our work well.  And when you do something for the sake of love like that, the hope of making their lives better, even if they never know what you've done for them, is enough.  You don't need a paycheck, a statue, a medal, or a ceremony to reward you.  The good done for those you care about is the reward, because love has its own logic that the world of deal-making and attention-seeking just cannot understand.

Now, none of this is to say that the church folks a hundred years ago, give or take, weren't genuine Christians, or that they weren't truly saved, because they let a church basement wall get constructed without properly set concrete. We don't strike their names from the membership list just because it was in their time a century ago that somebody didn't mix cement the right way. It just means that the work our predecessors oversaw didn't last--so we in this moment had to deal with it.  Those who went before us are indeed beloved of God, and we will one day laugh and joke and tell stories around the table with them at God's Great Resurrection Feast.  You can't lose your salvation over a matter of poorly mixed concrete, after all.  But the work done in that earlier time just didn't last--we had to tear out the bad wall and put in a new one.

So, too, we need to be clear that Paul isn't threatening anyone with hellfire or losing their salvation if the work they do has some poorly mixed concrete in it.  He isn't warning us that if our accomplishments in life don't last, then we'll be cast into some outer darkness.  Rather, he's reminding us that while God's grip on us in grace is sure and unshakable, our actions and choices still do matter.  And we do have the opportunity to use our time, treasure, talent, and thought either to contribute to things that last... or they'll crumble and will have to be ripped out so that something solid can be built instead.  

As far as the apostle Paul is concerned, nobody is going to find themselves at the gates of heaven and turned away because their work wasn't up to code or their labor didn't hold up.  It's not about your work, your goodness, your badness, or your religiosity anyway.  We're all saved by grace, completely from beginning to end, every day of the week, and that not just a six-month trial offer for new customers.  All our lives long, our works, accomplishments, achievements, and list of infractions do not enter the equation as far as God's view of us.  God loves us, claims us, and redeems us by grace and grace alone... end of story.  And yet at the same time, what we do with our lives does make a difference--and either our life's work can be a gift to others around us or who come after us... or it can be a hidden mess waiting to become a disaster, like malformed church basement walls.  The question, then, for every day is simply this:  what will you and I do with this day, this opportunity, this life for as long as we have it, to do lasting good in the world?  And we can ask that question simply for the sake of what is really worth doing with our lives, not with the constant fear of whether we are doing "enough" or being "good" enough to get into some post-mortem country club.  When we know we are secure in God's hands, then we are free to do good for others regardless of whether we get noticed, praised, or honored for it.  We can be the ones who take the time and effort to rebuild the basement walls for future generations, just as an act of love and care for those who will come after us.  And we don't need to worry about whether anybody else sees what we've done, or whether God is taking notice and giving us the appropriate "heaven points" for it, either--there are no points to worry about, and this isn't about getting ourselves "saved."  It's just the opposite--it's about how we are freed to live looking out for the interests of others because we are finally done worrying about whether we've done "enough." 

So... with this day in front of us, what will we do that is worth doing... whether someone else sees it, or even your dedication and care for others remains good but is hidden underground?  What can we do in this day now that we know we are freed from worrying about being "good enough"?

Lord God, enable us to use our freedom and assurance in you to do good with the time and energy we have been given in this day.

Built to Last--June 8, 2022

Built to Last--June 8, 2022

"Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw--the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and fire will test what sort of work each has done." [1 Corinthians 3:12-13]

Forgive me for sounding childish, but these verses sound a bit like a religious version of the story of The Three Little Pigs.  Instead of a Big Bad Wolf, you have the threat of fire, of course; and you've got a slightly different list of possible building materials beyond the pigs' options of straw, sticks, and bricks.  But the basic underlying idea sure seems to run parallel between the two, doesn't it?  In life you will have the opportunity to build something sturdy and solid that will last... or you can choose to slap together the fastest and cheapest thing you can and cross your fingers that it doesn't collapse with anybody inside. 

Now maybe at first, to the untrained eye or the casual observer, both the well-made house and the thrown-together shanty look comparable. You might not be able to tell which is which from the outside. They may both have a roof, a door, and windows--maybe the cheaply built one can even afford to have more trim and decorative flourishes, because the contractor didn't have to sink as much money into doing things well behind the scenes where no one thinks to look.  But there is a difference between building something cheap... and building something to last.  And Paul is here to remind us that it is worth making the effort to build things well, so that they can endure.

If you're in the real-estate business just to make a buck for yourself, you don't really care about building high-quality, long-lasting houses, so much as you care about making a quick return on your investment.  You'll be more tempted to cut corners to maximize profits, and you'll want to push construction to move along as fast as possible, so you can sell one and move onto the next before anything has time to go wrong.  And, truth be told, in this day when so much of our economy is driven by the need to have things wear out so that consumers will throw away the old one and buy a new item all over again, that's a sure-fire way to make a buck.  Build fast and cheap and get out of town fast enough to be selling lots in your next development in the next county over.  If your reason for building is personal profit at the expense of everything else, there's little reason not to be like the first or second piggy in the story and build on the cheap with straw or sticks.

But what if you are a builder who cares about the people who will live in the house you are constructing?  What if you take pride in your work beyond what you get paid for it?  What if you are thinking, not of your bottom line at the end of the fiscal quarter, but of the well-being of the people who live in this house in fifty years who haven't even been born yet?  What if you care about doing things well, simply because they are worth doing well?  Ah, that's an entirely different kind of logic, isn't it?  If you are concerned about the house standing sturdy and strong for generations of people to live in it, then you are going to take the time to do things right. You'll measure twice and cut once.  You won't skimp on the construction materials, and you'll make sure the house is built to code, and that the walls are standing square.  You will do this even if it eats into your profits, because you are more invested in building something with quality, worthy of the solid foundation it is on, rather than being seen as a real estate mogul.  These are the brick-building piggies, who are willing to take the extra time to do something right so it will last, even if it means more sweat equity is sunk into the project.

In all honesty, Saint Paul doesn't have much time for folks who are only interested in the quick buck and the slapdash construction.  You can build out of straw and sticks if you insist on it, Paul says, but don't be surprised if what you build just doesn't last.  Paul is trying to get us to spend our lives taking the additional effort to do it right, even if it takes more time, we get less credit, and there are slimmer paychecks.  He wants us to be the kind of people who spend our lives building something good and true on the foundation of Christ, not so that we can blow out of town on the next train and sell lots to the next city's worth of suckers for more money, but because we believe that building things well is simply worth doing.

Maybe that's the question to start with in this day: why do we do what we do?  Not just our jobs, whatever field they may be in. Not just for our immediate families, or in the things we'll get an immediate profit from. And not just our churchy activities done underneath steeples.   But in the parts of our lives where no one will notice that we've taken the additional time to do something well... in the interactions with strangers who will never know our names or pay us back... in the times of our lives when it would be easier (or more lucrative) to do a half-baked job and pocket the savings... are we doing what we do just for the payback we'll get in return, or because we are committed to doing things well, and building with good materials?  Will we take the extra time with someone who needs us, just because they need us?  Will we make the additional effort regardless of whether we get thanks or applause?  Will we love when it would be easier to be indifferent?  Will we give the best of ourselves because we care about how we spend our days? If we can say, honestly, that we will dare these kinds of things, it's a sign we are on the same page with Paul, who dares us to reject the quick-buck-making mindset of the stick-and-straw swine, and instead to be the kind of builders who take the time and make the effort to do things well.

The real-estate moguls who just want their names on buildings in big gold letters have missed the point.  We are called to be people who give our lives to building what will last, apart from what it will profit us--because we believe that the act of building well is itself worthwhile.  And I've got to tell you: if I get to the end of my life and I haven't made a dime but have built something that was useful for someone else to find shelter and be at home in, that seems like a life well spent.

How will you and I each spend our lives, and what will we do with this day we have been given that will be worth the sweat and energy we pour into it?

Lord God, enable us to use this day you have given us well, for the sake of building something that will last.

The Unchangeable Foundation--June 7, 2022

The Unchangeable Foundation--June 7, 2022

"For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ." [1 Corinthians 3:11]

There's an important difference between "can't" and "shouldn't."  

There are an awful lot of things in the world that are possible, but not advisable--things you can do, technically, but which you should not do.  You "can" drink and drive--in the sense that it is physically possible to consume alcohol and then get behind the steering wheel of a car--but you shouldn't do that, for the sake of your health as well as your neighbors.  You could spread misleading, incorrect, or outright deceptive misinformation and conspiracy theories on your social media feed, but it's a bad idea to do it (so please don't--please check your facts).  Even the basic premise of the classic Jurassic Park got the memo: just because you CAN clone dinosaurs in a lab and bring them back to life doesn't mean it's a wise idea to do so.  And while I hope it is obvious that we shouldn't give into hatred of other people--not because of their race or their gender, not because of their language or culture, not even when you strongly disagree with their politics or taste in music--we all know it is quite possible still to be consumed by hate.  You shouldn't, but you can.

All of that is to say that as much as "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" might have some good counsel to give us, those words don't have the power we might wish them to have.  It feels terribly hollow to say, "You shouldn't go shoot up a school" in a society where anybody still "can," after all.  All the pearl-clutching, finger-wagging, or passive wishing will not stop what people can do, even if it might be clear what they should or should not do.  The word "should" is basically offering free advice--and anybody who has made a boneheaded decision after ignoring good advice will tell you we don't always do what we "should" do.

And oddly enough, it's that difference--the difference between "cannot" and "should not"--that gives me deep hope from this statement of Paul's.  It's exactly because Paul doesn't leave things in the realm of advice, morality plays, or stern scolding that there is good news to be heard here.  Paul notably does NOT say, "Now, listen here--I don't want anybody else laying a foundation other than Jesus. You shouldn't do that, please."  He doesn't speak as though this is a question of should and should not, but rather one of what can or cannot be done.  And to hear Paul tell it, you simply CANNOT lay any other foundation than Jesus Christ at the heart of our faith.  It simply can't happen.  It's not merely that it is not recommended, or strongly discouraged, or heavily frowned upon.  It's that you can't.  

That's really important in at least two different ways.  For one, it means you can't lay a foundation other than Jesus and still have Christianity.  That is to say, when the folks in the Respectable Religious Crowd sneak something else into the center--even if it's "alongside" Jesus of Nazareth--we've lost Christianity. Even if you think you're putting something else good right alongside Jesus, you've lost Christianity. So, if you put Jesus AND your particular interpretation of the Bible as the foundation for everything, you're already on shaky ground.  Try and put Jesus AND the free market together as your foundation for everything, and get ready for the house to fall.  Jesus-plus-your-list-of-rules-for-good-behavior?  Nope--our ability to follow rules just can't bear the weight, and it buckles under the pressure.  Jesus-AND-Getting-Your-Political-Party-In-Power?  That's headed for disaster, too.  Jesus-AND-America, or Jesus-AND-The-Constitution, or Jesus-AND-My-Rights as your foundation? These are all headed for disaster, not because Jesus can't hold the weight, but because the other things we might try to add into the mix just can't hold up. So please, let us once and for all be done with trying to co-opt Jesus by tacking our own pet agendas, causes, theological systems, political ideologies, or religious rules for good behavior onto him.  He's the foundation, and nothing else--because nothing else can endure carrying everything else.  It's got to be Jesus in all of his table-turning, expectation-exploding, overflowing graciousness, without any filler or cheap cement substitutes, or the house won't stand.

But even more deeply I think Paul is also insisting something even stronger.  He's not just saying, "Don't put something else alongside of Jesus as your foundation in life, or it will be bad."  Because honestly, that's still just Paul telling us what we "should not" do--but which we all know very well that folks try to do anyway.  All sorts of counterfeit Christianities abound, each with their own extra ingredients to add to Jesus, like they're trying to invent a new cocktail and can't stand to drink the strong stuff neat.  It's not advisable, perhaps--and every so often, you'll get a brave and wise theologian calling us out for the ways we want to add more to the recipe than just Jesus and his reckless love (I'm thinking, for one, of that brilliant line of Robert Farrar Capon, who says, "Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case."

Still, I think Paul is saying something even more solid.  This is a true case of "cannot" and not merely "should not."  You literally CANNOT lay any foundation other than Jesus Christ, because Jesus himself is already the foundation of all things--the Word by which all things were created, the Beloved in who we all find our own belovedness to God, the One in whom all things hold together already.  Jesus Christ is the foundation, not just of a religion, or of the Bible, or of a theological system--Christ is the beating heart of love that resounds throughout all the universe at every moment in every possible place.  When Paul says, "You cannot build any foundation other than Jesus Christ," he's not just warning us not to make a bad substitution, like saying, "Don't switch the salt in the recipe for sugar, or confuse baking soda for baking powder."  It's more like saying, "You can't have matter without Higgs bosons--because matter literally cannot exist without the Higgs field."  It's not a warning about what we shouldn't do--it's a confident assertation about what cannot replace Christ, because he is already the very ground of being for all things.

That also means that Jesus is already the foundation and center of all creation already, and he does not need our help getting "put back" anywhere.  He cannot be "taken out" of anywhere--not a school, not a city hall, not a public square, and for that matter, not at the bottom of the Marianas trench or the ice geysers of Jupiter's moon Europa.  Jesus is already the foundation of all things, and he needs our help to "take things back" for him just as much as a lion needs our help to "take back the savannah"--which is to say, not at all.  Jesus is already immediately present to every inch of creation and every instant of time.  He doesn't need our help getting put "back" as the foundation of things, because he is already the very bedrock of all existence.

So sure, to each of us and all of us, if we have been trying to sneak some other lesser substitute or extra ingredient into the scheme of things, we should stop wasting our time.  Let's be done with Jesus-plus-religiosity, Jesus-plus-partisan-political-power, Jesus-plus-country, and absolutely Jesus-plus-more-guns.  But don't for a second think that all Paul offers us is a warning not to do something foolish like that.  He isn't just giving us advice--he is declaring that we simply CANNOT remove Jesus from his place as the foundation of all existence, the Logos that orders all the cosmos, and the Word by which all things were made.  That's good news that is solid enough to build a life on, and certainly solid enough to face the day standing on.

Lord Jesus, help us today simply to trust that you are already the foundation of all things, and to walk forward confidently and courageously, knowing you bear us up.