Living Ahead of the Curve--December 1, 2022

Living Ahead of the Curve--December 1, 2022

"Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near." [Romans 13:11-12a]

These days, when the alarm clock starts buzzing at our house, it is an act of faith to believe that it's really morning.  The light on the display says it's 5:00am or 6:00am, but the absence of light outside the window makes it look identical to midnight.  And from time to time, I will confess, I almost have to talk myself into accepting the fact that it's time to get out of bed.  After all, to my eyes, it looks like the dead of night, and to my perfectly comfortable arms and legs, staying in bed seems like the ideal plan.

My guess is that you have been there, too, before.  I suspect you are more disciplined than I am and can will yourself out of bed even on a very dark morning with less self-persuasion, but you probably know what it's like to have to tell yourself it really is morning even when it's still dark outside.  And you probably have had to remind yourself that you do need to get up and face the day.

But for that one moment, the decision to put your feet on the floor and begin the day flies in the face of the outside evidence.  Choosing to arise, take your shower, get dressed, and step into the day is, at least in that moment, a sort of defiant hope that a sunrise really is coming.  Waking up and getting out of bed is an act of faith in spite of the external circumstances outside your window and your own internal impulse to stay as comfortable as possible for as long as possible.

While I don't know what time the apostle Paul would have set his personal alarm clock for, I do get the sense he's thinking along the same lines for us as the followers of Jesus.  Except it's not just the start of another workday that he wants us to wake up for--it's the dawning of God's new day and the coming of Christ.  Paul sees--and wants us, his readers, to see as well--everything in our present life illuminated by the hope of Jesus' coming in glory and the fullness of God's Reign.  For Paul, the coming of Christ is as sure and certain as the arrival of the sunrise. And just as the world looks completely different once the dawn has come, he knows that all creation is in for a transformation at the coming of Christ's Reign of justice and mercy.  For now, of course, the world looks like it's stuck at midnight, weighted with gloom outside and the tempting impulse to just pull the covers over our heads and go back to sleep.  But Paul is convinced that it is worth it, right here and now, to begin to live in light of the promised future for which we are keeping watch.  It is worth it, even if the rest of the world thinks we look utterly foolish for doing so.

Of course, in Paul's day, it would have been laughable to suggest that the Roman Empire wouldn't last forever and that some new rightful figure would arise on the world scene.  It was even more preposterous to say that the one they were waiting for was actually the same one the Empire had crucified.  Even still today, it sounds like nonsense to many to suggest that there is another way of living, rather than the Everyone-For-Themselves-Dog-Eat-Dog logic that passes for conventional wisdom these days.  Paul doesn't deny that all of that crookedness, violence, and greed is how an awful lot of the world operates right now--he just dares us to live out of step with it, by starting to live in light of the new way that is beginning through Jesus.  He dares us to be ahead of the curve: to start now while it still looks like midnight outside to wake up now in anticipation of the dawn the world can't see yet.

It reframes our whole understanding of the Christian faith, and our entire life, really, to see things this way.  It means that our way of life--what we sometimes call "Christian ethics"--isn't so much about controlling bad behavior in order to avoid punishment in the afterlife, but more about beginning to live now in the kinds of right relationships we look forward to in the new creation.  When Christ comes, we believe that there will be no more greed, violence, and hatred--so we begin to practice living now without those vices, like people who know to leave behind their pajamas and put on clothes for the day ahead.  It's less about fearing punishment and more about stepping into God's promised future.

What if we changed that piece of our thinking today?  What if each day now was begun with the question, "How will we live and act in the fullness of God's reign when Christ comes?" and then we started to step in that direction?  What if we no longer worried about how we look to the rest of the world, but rather saw ourselves trying to live ahead of the curve?  What if we believed Paul's alarm clock voice telling us the night is far gone, even we can't see the dawn yet when we look out the window?

That's the challenge for this day.  It's time to put our feet on the floor... and to rise to greet the new day.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage and strength to live in light of your coming reign, even when that makes us seem out of step with the violence and greed of the world around.

Waiting for a Welcome--November 30, 2022

Waiting for a Welcome--November 30, 2022

"I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!'" [Psalm 122:1]

All my life, I have been told I was welcome in God's house.

Wow. That's really something. I mean, for those of us who grew up as part of church life, we have a way of taking that for granted. We just assume we can stroll into a sanctuary, walk up to a pew, and make ourselves at home. We have been made to feel that we are welcome and are allowed to join in whatever activities are happening, from the social hall to the Sunday School to the sacristy. And that is a beautiful thing.

For me, at least, that meant I was pretty much always glad when the sentence, "Let's go to church!" was spoken. I realize I was lucky that way. I can relate to the excitement the psalmist has when he says, "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!'" He sees it as a place he is welcome. The pilgrimage that faithful Israelites would make every year to the Jerusalem Temple at festival times was a happy one, because those who made the journey knew they would find doors open, gates lifted, and welcome when they arrived to celebrate and praise God's goodness.

It is, indeed, a good and beautiful thing to know you are welcomed into the place you associate with God's house, and it is a privilege to get to live your life knowing there is always a place for you--a place at the table, a place for your voice to be added to the chorus, a place for safety and sanctuary. I am glad and grateful that such has been my life's experience.

But I also realize that my experience is not universal.

And for whatever twists and turns in my life that made me always feel welcome from within a steeple and stained glass, that has not always been true for everybody. And it occurs to me in those more honest moments that I have a way of taking for granted the welcome that was never in question for me, even though I'm a pretty big sinner and a pretty consistent mess-up.  It turns out I have a pretty privileged position: I've never had to be told to wait for a real welcome.

But... there are a lot of folks who aren't glad when someone says, "Let's go to the house of the Lord!" because they have been turned away before. They have been told they do not belong, that they are not acceptable, that they are not dressed properly or don't behave well enough. They have been told that the company they keep disqualifies them, or that their native language or skin color means they "just don't fit in." They have been told their kids are too noisy, their family doesn't match the cookie cutter, or that their shoes are not proper. They have been told, whether in words or in scowls, "You're just not 'our kind of people'."

Or maybe even more cruelly, they have heard words of hospitality at the beginning, maybe even the sentence, "All are welcome here!", only to be told they do not qualify for Jesus' table, or that there was an invisible asterisk and fine print beside the word "welcome," which meant they were not really welcome as they were.

And so they leave.

Maybe they try again once or twice when they work up the nerve to show up on a Sunday again, but at some point it is less and less a "glad" thing to hear someone else say, "Let us go to the house of the Lord." At some point when you've been turned away for long enough, you feel like you're just setting yourself up for another rejection, just waiting for a shoe to drop or a scowl to stare you out the door. At some point, when you hear enough people wearing cross necklaces say, "Go back where you came from," you not only stop trying to find a welcome there on Sunday, but maybe you even give up on the God associated with the cross they so casually wear.  And you can't blame them if at some point it feels like it just will hurt less to give up on waiting for real welcome--so you stop risking it.

I have to give credit to the folks who are brave enough to walk inside a church, whether by themselves for the first time, or invited by a friend, even if you don't know anybody else. I have to give credit to the folks who come back to churches they went to in childhood but at some point felt they were not really welcome in, even if it is just to visit at Christmas or Easter, despite the way preachers often single them out as unworthy or take cheap shots at "those people."

But beyond just giving those folks credit for their courage, maybe we are called to something more. At least, if we really are followers of Jesus, we have some obligation to change things when people feel they are not really welcome in our local houses of God. And if we really do seek to worship and honor Christ, it will mean we give special attention to the folks who have been told before that they do not belong. Especially in this season when we retell the story of a certain unmarried couple looking for a place to stay while their baby is born, only to be told, "There is no place for you here," it is worth remembering that our Lord knew what it was to be unwelcome, to be rejected, to be seeking refuge and a safe place to stay, and to be homeless. Jesus knew what it was to be told, "Go back to where you came from," too.

All my life I've heard folks in congregations complain that people don't come to church like they used to, when really it also seems to me that we've done a lot of things to drive people away and tell them they didn't really belong anyway. So if we are upset that the pews aren't full or our halls aren't bustling with the sounds of children, it is worth asking first, "What reason have we offered for people to be glad when someone says, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord'?" What have we done to the Good News if instead of welcoming people--all people--through the doors to be fed and to find belonging, people shudder and decide they don't want to get burned again by Respectable Religious folk? And what could we be doing to get out of the way of Jesus, who keeps on inviting everybody, because he knows, too, what it is like to be left waiting but never welcomed in?

Maybe in this Advent season when we turn our attention to the baby who was laid in a manger because somebody else told Mary and Joseph, "There is no place for you here," it is worth asking what we will say when an expectant mother comes to our door, or when new faces from far away show up in need of our welcome, or when someone who has been turned away before looks for sanctuary among us. Because ultimately our hope as Christians is about the welcome Jesus has given us--all of us--despite all of the things that anybody else thinks should disqualify us.

What if we dared to be the church where people really were glad when someone else says, "Let us go to the house of the Lord"?  What if we truly opened our doors and tables to those who are still waiting for a genuine welcome?

What would that look like?

And... what's stopping us from daring it right now?

Lord Jesus, as you have welcomed us and made our hearts glad to be in your presence, let us welcome others whom you love and invite as well.

Mutual Assured Construction--November 29, 2022

 

Mutual Assured Construction--November 29, 2022

"The LORD shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." [Isaiah 2:4]

If I can be honest with you, I think it can be hard for people to take these words seriously.  Maybe especially hard for a lot of religious folks in our culture at this moment in time. 

I think for many it is hard to imagine a life where we don't need to have weapons at our disposal to fend off the ones we see as enemies.  It is woven so tightly into the fabric of our society, we can hardly conceive of a world that doesn't operate by the logic of "You've gotta get them before they get you!" And nobody wants to be the first one to lay down their arms--everyone's afraid that if you would put yours down first, the rest of the world will pounce and take their shot at you.

For at least the first decade of my lifetime, and for forty-odd years before I was born, that was quite explicitly the order of the day on this beautiful blue planet: the "superpowers" of the day held a fragile balance they called "mutual assured destruction," and everybody just accepted it as "the way things are."  During the Cold War, the prevailing logic was basically one eternal worldwide Mexican standoff--each country pointing its missiles at their enemy, and everyone certain that if you fired yours, they would fire theirs and blow up the whole planet. And that assurance was supposed to be enough to keep someone from pushing the button to launch Armageddon.

Even now, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the assumption is that the only way to have peace is to have a bigger stick than your enemy, so that you can hit them before they hit you.  It is a shallow kind of peace rooted in fear and intimidation--if you can make the other guy afraid of getting hit by your stick, maybe he won't take the risk of attacking you with his.  But as fragile and hollow as that notion of "peace" really is, we have largely convinced ourselves that's the best and most we can ever hope for.  And we cannot bring ourselves to imagine that things could ever be any other way--we are so ingrained with the idea that we have to be able to reach for our stick, our sword, or our Stinger missiles that we can hardly envision what Isaiah talks about here.  It can sound downright scary to hear the prophet talk about hammering swords into plowshares--after all, how will we keep the next "bad guys" in line from winning the day unless we have a weapon to point at them?

But that is in fact what Isaiah dares us to picture: a world disarmed by grace. What if, Isaiah says, we didn't have to resolve our disputes by killing each other, but rather we let God point us in the direction of justice?  What if nobody had to worry about a mass shooting erupting at a Wal-Mart... or a grocery store... or a dance club?  What if we didn't automatically see those who are different as a threat?  And what if we were brave enough to be the ones to take the first step, to lay down our arms and to say, "There is no one I will ever meet who is not made in the image of God, and therefore, I will not mar that image or dishonor that God by threatening anybody's life"?

I know--it feels like a gamble.  It would mean refusing the right to attack someone or threaten somebody else, pre-emptively.  It would mean taking the risk that someone else might still tighten their grips around their sharpened sticks even if you have laid yours down.  It would mean creating a whole new way of living together as human beings--one not based on fear and threats, but on a promise not to do harm.  It would mean creating a new order of things--a new arrangement built on "mutual assured constructive care" rather than "mutual assured destruction."  What Isaiah dares us to imagine is a world in which love really does animate our actions--even love for those deemed "enemy."

So yeah, I can understand why we may not want to take Isaiah seriously, or why we may want to dismiss these words as just an ancient version of John Lennon's "Imagine," offering hopelessly out-of-touch platitudes and unrealistic wishes for everybody to just get along.  It feels easier to dismiss Isaiah's vision or push it off into some distant future that can only be possible once we're in heaven.  At least then we won't have to let his words remake our actions and attitudes in the here-and-now.  But... what if we dared to let these words go to work on us?  What if we let the prophet's vision overhaul our whole way of seeing the world?  What if we really were transformed, disarmed, and embraced by the God who whispered these images to Isaiah in the first place? And what actions might that lead us to take... today?

Lord God, make us brave enough to take the first step of building genuine peace today. Disarm us in your embrace.

The Slow Work of Learning--November 28, 2022

The Slow Work of Learning--November 28, 2022

"In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised about the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." [Isaiah 2:2-3]

It turns out that peace can't be coerced; it is learned. Justice, too, is more than mere brute force--it is a way of life you grow in.  And love, as well, isn't merely a feeling that turns on or off like a switch or a snap of a finger, but more like a path you step into and keep walking in.

The Reign of God, then, looks more like instruction and less like enforcement.  And that calls for patience.

I'm not sure I've ever thought about it this way, but here at the start of this season of waiting we call Advent, it becomes clear.  The prophets like Isaiah envision a changed world, but it's not changed by tanks or armies overrunning the world in God's name. God doesn't bring about justice and righteousness by marching in hosts of angelic warriors to intimidate us into good behavior. Rather, the promised future comes as God teaches us all how not to see each other as neighbors rather than threats.  And that requires a willingness to take the time for us to learn, which is always a process, always something of a struggle, and often involves the dance of taking two steps forward and one step back.  But it doesn't come through fear and violence.

Over the course of human history, we have had plenty of empires looking to enforce their ways and their will on the peoples they conquer.  And for a time, it sure looks efficient.  You can intimidate people into doing what you want--or not doing what you forbid--for a while, and it looks like you have brought peace and security.  But at some point the grip of every empire gives out, and the fist gets tired of clenching.  If you really want to accomplish peace and justice, it cannot come by threats or yelling.  It comes with patience for teachers and learners both.

That means God chooses to be patient, rather than a tyrant.  And it means that we are called to be patient as well, as we both strain forward yearning for a world in which nations do not invade one another or brutalize their citizens to maintain control over them [stories that are sadly all too fresh in our awareness these days].  It will mean, too, that for us as the followers of Jesus, we are both learners and teachers for others at the same time.  We are still learning God's ways ourselves--learning how to unclench our own fists, and learning how to see others as siblings made in God's image rather than primarily as threats we need to fear.  We are unlearning the way of life that sees everything as a zero-sum game where your success means my loss.  We are learning to seek the good of all rather than just my narrow self-interest.  And some days we get it right, and sometimes we blow it.  We will need patience with ourselves as God is patient with us in our learning.

And at the same time, we are called to be examples to the watching world as well.  When people recognize us a folks who name the name of Jesus, they will be paying attention to whether our lives reflect Jesus' own peaceable way of living in the world.  They will be watching to see what it looks like for us to treat others well even when we cannot get anything from them in return.  Even as we struggle to learn it ourselves, others can see at least where the next footstep goes as we all seek to learn to walk in God's ways.

Today, let us practice what we see Jesus modeling for us, and let us be patient enough to let it take time.  We are learning how to love the world as God does, who doesn't force compliance at the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun, but rather walks with us and makes of every step teachable moment.

Let us stake the next step together... today.

Lord God, teach us yours ways, and make us patient as you are with this world you so love, as you teach us all your kind of justice and peace.

Disarmament of the Heart--November 22, 2022

Disarmament of the Heart--November 22, 2022

"Love is not irritable or resentful..." / "Love is not easily provoked and keeps no record of wrongs." [1 Corinthians 13:5b]

I don’t want to get us bogged down in a lot of inside baseball here, but I wanted to include two different translations because this is one time when the often-reliable New Revised Standard Version misses the punch of the Greek. Saying that love merely “is not resentful” sounds rather weak, something akin to answering someone’s question, “How is that restaurant?” with “Not awful.” Talk about damning someone with faint praise.

So let’s go with The New International Version for the day. Its translation of the same verse, “keeps no record of wrongs,” is getting somewhere. It says something about how love keeps on going, how it works. It says something about the inner workings of forgiveness. Really, Paul is saying that forgiveness is ultimately simple. Not easy, certainly, but simple. Simple, in the sense of being uncluttered with lots of old odds and ends that are being saved for who-knows-what.

We have a word in our society for people whose homes do get filled up with piles and stacks of things, things that are compulsively saved and held onto in the name of “you-never-know-if-you-might-need-this-one day.” That word is hoarder. We know the stories. We’ve seen the TV shows. People with towers of old newspapers stacked precariously in the living room so you can’t really walk around freely. Folks with scraps of this, odds and ends of that, all stored in piles in their own homes, just because they think they might possibly, maybe, one day have a use for those things. And all the while, they are losing usable space in the present in their actual living rooms and dining rooms.

What is the solution, the help, for hoarders? To simplify. Sometimes it takes someone else’s loving but honest wake-up call to make someone get rid of (or do it for them, whether they like it or not) some of the stacks and piles and bags and collections, and just pitch them. You help a hoarder, not by feeding their habit and saying, “Yes, you just might need to have a copy of the newspaper from seventeen years ago—you should keep it just in case!” but rather by helping them part with the things they had thought were important enough to keep. You have to say, “Your life will actually be better with less, not with more.”

For most of us, watching the plight of real hoarders whether on television or in real life, this seems obvious. Just because something might possibly of use one day in the future, it doesn’t automatically follow that you should hold onto it. You might need a collection of empty tin cans one day (who could say what, but let’s give you the benefit of the doubt, you crazy person), but even so, you definitely need the space in your kitchen to be able to walk around with to cook breakfast and wash your vegetables, so the cans will have to go out from your pantry and into the recycling bin just to help you keep your sanity.

Odd, isn’t it, that we can understand it when we are talking about disorders that lead us to hoard things compulsively, but that we have such a hard time seeing the same thing, the same impulse, working in us when it comes to our inability to forgive. Or wait, maybe it’s more honest to say “our refusal to forgive.”

The issue is that we are hoarders at heart. Quite literally, in our hearts, we often find ourselves unable and unwilling to forgive and to be reconciled to others, because we have stuffed our souls with stacks of newspapers, collections of empty tin cans, and other odds and ends we are “just sure we’ll use someday.” We hold onto memories and hurts inflicted by others, and we keep picking at the scabs they leave so that they will not heal. And we hold onto those memories of what others have done to us (or sometimes, just what we perceive they have done to us) because we are convinced in some place of our souls, that we “might find them useful again,” with the same delusion of the crazy cat lady who never throws out the cardboard tubes from paper towels and toilet paper. We hold onto wounds others have inflicted on us, and worse yet, by holding onto them and agitating them, we build scar tissue in our spirits, and that in turn calcifies our bitterness even more than before. We are so easily hoarders of the heart, holding onto past wrongs, and then our accumulated bitterness about those wrongs, even when the original offenses were small. And it’s all in the name of thinking we might just need it later—to use the past as a weapon against someone, a way to beat them with the same mistakes of the past every time we want to hurt them.

What would you tell someone who hoarded stuff in their space? You would do something to help them unclutter and simplify the inside of their house.

So what would the Scriptures tell us when we are the ones hoarding the memories of wrongs from others in our hearts? I suspect you would hear something like, “genuine love doesn’t keep record of wrongs.” And then the Scripture offers us a new path, an alternative way of living in the world. Instead of stockpiling our hurts so we can weaponize them later, what if we let go as soon as we possibly could of the right to weaponize the past? What if we decided we were done with hoarding in any sense of the word? 

Maybe that's all forgiveness really is in the end--the choice to de-weaponize the past and to unilaterally disarm by dismantling the grudges we otherwise would have stockpiled to return fire in the event of an attack.   Whether it's our forgiveness of others or God's forgiveness of us, it involves the choice to let go, rather than to hoard, the record of wrongs done.  That doesn't mean pretending the past hasn't happened or that we are perfect peaches, but it means we refuse to attack others with that past, just as God refuses to attack us with our past, so that in turn we can instead tell the truth about the past, face it, and begin again.  It is much as James Baldwin wrote:  "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."  So then, the challenge of loving well is to face the past without weaponizing it.

 Let’s dare that today—and see what it does to our ability to forgive.

Lord Jesus, unclutter our hearts, and simplify our love, so that we can let go of all the things that prevent us from reconciling with our neighbors.

Love Makes Room--November 21, 2022

Love Makes Room--November 21, 2022

"Love does not insist on its own way..." [1 Corinthians 13:5]

I think this might actually be both the hardest thing about love, and the most beautiful at the same time.  Love isn't about control or coercion; it's about seeking the good of the beloved.  And sometimes what I think you should have or want or do turns out to be close to what you actually know you need... but sometimes, my wishes or agendas don't line up with what is genuinely in your interest.  But love has to be able to get over itself and admit that maybe we don't know what's best for everybody else all the time... and that maybe our calling is to make room for the needs and good of others, even if it's not what we would have picked or chosen.

That's just it: love makes room.  It makes room for other people at the table.  It makes room for people who think differently.  It makes room for seeking the good of others even if that doesn't mean a direct benefit for "Me-and-My-Group."  Love is brave enough to be humble, and humble enough not to pretend it sees all and knows all.  And that means love keeps on creating safe places where people who think, act, live, and love differently can do more than merely survive, but to thrive. Love summons up the courage and strength to say, "Here's what I would choose, but I can live with things not going my way, and I will still seek the good of all anyway, even if I don't get my way."  In a time like ours when so many resort to scorched-earth tactics rather than find some way to work together, that kind of love is a hard sell.

So much of the public discourse around us these days is no longer framed in terms of "What will be good for all of us?" but rather, "What will be advantageous for MY side?" or even worse, "What will harm the OTHER side more, so that MY side can get more power and position in the next election cycle?"  So much of the way we are trained to think and talk about issues makes everything into a zero-sum game, where your win is my loss, and my success means your failure.  And once we've accepted those terms, it becomes almost impossible to truly seek someone else's benefit--because we'll see it as a direct threat to our own advantages.

Even more heartbreaking in these days is how easily we let ourselves be goaded from, "We think differently on this subject," to "You who don't agree with me are now targets for violence."  It is one thing to be able to name differences of opinion, conviction, or deeply held beliefs.  It is entirely another thing to say, "Your disagreements are such a threat to me that I can use violence or threats to get rid of you."  And yet... here we are, coming through another weekend with multiple mass-shootings in our country, with so many more in the rear-view mirror that we have lost count and lost track, and so many of them boil down to a belief that some people are not worthy of life because someone with a gun decides "those people" are too different... and therefore unacceptable.  While the details and motives of the shooting in Colorado are still being investigated, it certainly brings back memories of the shooting in Buffalo, New York back in May, in which the gunman targeted Black shoppers at a grocery store because he felt threatened by their "other-ness."  Or the shooting in El Paso, Texas in 2019, where again, a gunman felt so threatened by other ethnic and racial groups that he believed he was justified in targeting them because they weren't like him.  Or the Christchurch mosque shootings earlier that same year in New Zealand. Or the time before that... or the time before that.

We are awash in violence, and what's worse is that so often the terrible logic behind the violence is, "I was attacking people who are opposed to my way of doing things--and therefore I decided they were expendable, or actual threats to me and my way."  And all too often, the folks pulling the triggers claim to have some kind of faith in the God we know in Jesus.  So often, the violence is committed [or condoned] by people who fear difference and think that the "other-ness" of their targets is a threat to Jesus.  In fact, all too often, it is voices who publicly name the name of Jesus who insist that it is their faith as "Christians" that convinces them everyone needs to be like them, think like them, and act like them--and how easily that becomes a license to get rid of anybody who is outside those lines.

And again, here are Paul's plain words:  Love does not insist on its own way.  The real travesty is how folks who name the name of Jesus so easily forget the love of Jesus, which doesn't demand its own way, but rather makes room even for those who do not share that way.  The terrible reality is how easy it is for people who are really afraid of losing their comfortable positions to use that fear to justify attacking people they see as threats, when Jesus doesn't respond to hostility that way at all.  There's a reason that nobody wears a bracelet or t-shirt that says, "Who would Jesus shoot?"--because there's never anybody whom Jesus would target.  There's never a point where Jesus gets so insecure about people not sharing his way of life that he feels justified in attacking the ones who don't follow him.  That's because, as Paul puts it so well, love doesn't insist on its own way.  Love is willing to make room for difference rather than enforcing uniformity. And as hard as that is for us to accept and live out, that kind of love makes a beautiful and good life possible.

Today, we are given a chance to say a clear and resounding "No" to the impulse out there to attack anybody who doesn't fit your mold.   We are given the chance to support, stand with, and advocate for folks who are feeling really scared and threatened today.  We are given the chance to say "Yes" to the love of God, which doesn't insist on its own way, but makes room for us, where we are... and as we are.

Lord God, give us the courage and humility to love others in ways that make room for difference.

What To Say No To--November 17, 2022

What To Say No To--November 17, 2022

"Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude." [1 Corinthians 13:4c-5a]

Sometimes you get clarity on what you are supposed to be by saying a clear "No" to what you are not.  Sometimes you get a better understanding of what is good by contrasting it with what is clearly bad.  And sometimes you see a sharper image by paying attention to the contrast of extremes--the chiaroscuro of light up against the dark, and the negative space that makes the focal points pop out.

That's what Paul does here as he continues to sketch out what the way of love--which is the way of Jesus, as well as the character of God.  He gives us a sharper silhouette of the shape of God's kind love by tracing out what love is not like, right alongside his description of what love is.  Like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, or some other old master of classical painting, Paul highlights bright spots by setting them beside shadow, showing us gloomy traits that are opposed to the way of love.  And by seeing them side by side, the good and the bad, he hopes we'll see what makes love so compelling.

I'm reminded of a similar move that author Octavia Butler made in her dystopian novel, Parable of the Talents, that still haunts me every time I read it.  Her narrator offers this observation, highlighting good and virtuous leadership by contrasting it with its opposite:

"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."

If Butler had just stopped with the opening line, focusing on "wisdom and forethought," it would have bordered on empty cliche.  Yes, yes, we all want wise and virtuous leaders, but we don't give it much thought beyond those generic adjectives. But by highlighting the contrast with crooked leadership--cowardice, foolishness, thieving, lying, and tyranny--she sharpens her point and makes it clear just how high the stakes are.

I think we need that kind of heightened contrast from Paul, because we need to be clear that choosing the way of love rules out certain other modes of thinking.  Striving to love more authentically cannot coincide with envy, boasting, or arrogance.  They are fundamentally pointed in opposite directions.  Envy and pride point inward--as though I am the center of the universe, and as if I'm the only one whose interests matter.  But love points outward to ask, "How am I in relation to others, and how are my actions interconnected with the lives of others?"  

Envy sees something good and wants it for itself--to possess it and control it and prevent anybody else from enjoying it, while love sees something good and wants the good to flourish.  It's rather like the old line, "If you like a flower, you pick it and put it in a vase; but if you love a flower, you let it grow and bloom."  

Similarly, arrogance and boasting are about puffing our selves up, often at the expense of others, rather than lifting up the people around us.  It's a mindset that sees everything as a competition, where I cannot let your accomplishments or strengths be seen, or at least be seen as "better" than mine, so I have to make myself look stronger, smarter, richer, more successful, and so on.  And in that regard, arrogance and boasting quite often come from a place of deep insecurity--it's when I don't really know or believe my own worth that I feel the need to brag and strut.  But when I am grounded in love and know I am beloved, worthy, and accepted, I don't have to go shouting about how great and glorious I think I am.

The way of love is an alternative to envy and arrogance, to boasting and rudeness, because we know we don't have to play those games anymore.  For the followers of Jesus, our identity starts with knowing we are beloved--forever and without condition or exception--and when that sinks in, we do not have to compare ourselves to anybody else or want what someone else has.  We are freed, then, to seek the good of others around us because we aren't hung up on wanting more or how we measure up to anybody else.

We need the contrast presented here in today's verse, because we need to be clear that saying "yes" to the way of love, the way of Jesus, means saying "no" to other things.  And as much as God's love is inclusive of all sorts of people, it is not compatible with all sorts of attitudes.  To say yes to the way of love means learning to say no to envy, greed, and avarice, and to the sense of entitlement that says I should be able to have whatever I want whenever I want it.  To say yes to the way of love means growing out of the insecurity that makes me feel the need to brag and talk down to others.  And to say "yes" to love means we orient our lives toward seeking the good of all, and that we turn away from the voices and influences that suck us backward into the old ways of jealous and pride.  All of that is possible because we are first beloved by God exactly as we are, and because God is so completely grounded in knowing God's own worth and value that God doesn't need to brag, boast, or covet.  Our kind of authentic love is possible, once again, because it flows from God's authentic love at the source.

Today, when we catch ourselves being pulled into those old patterns of envy and arrogance, and when we feel the old insecurities whispering to us again, it's wise for us to stop, say a clear "no" to going down that path, and to remind ourselves, "I am beloved of God.  Jesus calls me worthy and accepted.  I am filled with the Spirit's love for me and for all."  And once again we find our bearings and can choose which path to take.

Let's take the next step.

Lord God, ground us in your love so clearly that we don't need to fall for our old insecurities.

Time for Faces--November 16, 2022

Time for Faces--November 16, 2022

"Love is kind..." [1 Corinthians 13:4b]

The thing about kindness is that I don't think it can be impersonal.  Kindness stops to see faces. Kindness asks your name--and commits to learning it, so it can call you by your name the next time you meet.  Kindness learns your likes and dislikes.  Kindness notices when you have a lot to carry and holds the door or lends a hand.  Kindness pauses to listen, and it makes the effort to find a word to lift your spirits.  These may be small graces in the big scheme of things, these sorts of gestures, but I think that is where kindness shows up: in small acts of goodness, offered just because they might lift up another person's heart.

Other things we call "virtues" can be rather abstract.  We talk about "justice" being blind--that is, we want a legal system that doesn't preference the rich over the poor, or give special treatment to people with a certain color hair, or eyes, or skin.  To some degree, then, that means that justice has to be impersonal.  The same could be said about being "prudent" or "wise" or "self-controlled."  We might recognize each of those qualities as virtues, but they don't need to see your face or hear your story.  You can be "prudent" in an empty room, but it's hard to be "kind" without another person around.  Wisdom can deal in abstractions and justice can speak absolutes, but kindness needs faces.  And kindness takes the time to see them, rather than walking on by or turning away.

Oddly enough, that doesn't mean that practicing kindness is always easy--it often isn't.  Nor does it mean that being kind can never be controversial or provocative.  Because kindness insists on seeing people's faces, it has a way of seeing those who others have conveniently chosen to ignore or leave out.  Because kindness is willing to go out of its way for others, it will not accept, "But why would I choose to be inconvenienced for someone else?" as a meaningful excuse not to go the extra mile.  Because kindness is capable of seeing the humanity even of those who would call themselves our "enemies," it will insist on doing good to people who won't say thank you and succumb to meanness themselves.  And all of those things can upset people.  

It was, after all, the choice to practice kindness that led folks to wear masks for their neighbors' sake during the height of the pandemic, even when it was unpopular or felt tedious, or you risked being made fun of or looked down on for wearing one.  It is kindness that has led people to welcome refugees fleeing war in Ukraine, or Syria, or any of a number of other places, even though it brings challenges to open up your community to newcomers from other lands.  And it is what Jesus calls God's "kindness" that leads God to be good, not only to well-behaved polit Respectable Religious people, but to "the ungrateful and the wicked."  Kindness sees faces where others only see "not my problem," "not my kind of people," or "not on my side."  And then kindness makes the effort to do good to the ones it sees.

In the last several years especially, I've seen a lot of folks with t-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and tote bags all with some variation of the slogan, "Be kind."  And I'm glad so many have gotten the message that far.  But we should be prepared, in all honest, for how we will be changed if we dare to take that slogan seriously.  Practicing the kindness of love means a new kind of vision--a deeper one--that is unhurried by its own affairs, so that no one is overlooked.  Practicing kindness doesn't always win you a pat on the back or a round of applause from an approving crowd.  Sometimes people will feel provoked when your kindness compels them to see people they had found a way to conveniently forget.  Sometimes they will not like the way your choice to go the extra mile for a stranger puts pressure on them to do the same.  Sometimes they will not like that kindness turns "enemies" into "people who still bear the image of God, no matter how unkind or rotten their behavior is."  Kindness, in other words, ain't easy.

But it is worth it.

Today, let us make the effort that kindness calls for, and get a glimpse then of God's own heart, since God is kind to even the ungrateful and the wicked [Luke 6:35]... even to stinkers like you and me.

Lord Jesus, slow us down enough to practice kindness the way you do.

The God Who Waits--November 15, 2022

The God Who Waits--November 15, 2022

"Love is patient..." [1 Corinthians 13:4a]

Try an experiment with me, would you?

As we take Paul's description of love phrase by phrase over these coming days, see what happens when we insert the name of God where Paul has first written the word "love."  [I think that's fair game, since Paul himself has been pointing us all along to see what God shows us what genuine love looks like.  And for that matter, another New Testament voice just comes out and says plainly, "God is love."]  So, let's see what happens.  Let's see how our perspectives are changed, how our understanding is deepened about both God and about love, when we speak God's name where love was.

Are you ready to try it?  Here goes.

God... is patient.

Huh.  Right away that strikes me as an unusual thought--but one really worth exploring.  We are used to thinking of patience as "the waiting you have to do in life when you aren't in control of the situation."  We think of patience as what ornery toddlers require of their weary parents.  We speak of needing patience in the waiting room of the doctor's office when the physician is already running late.  We insist on patience when the line is too long or supplies are running short.  And while we might think it perfectly sensible to teach our children patience--or to remind ourselves to practice patience when we are the ones being delayed--we rarely think of God being patient.

Maybe that's because we often picture God as the one pulling the levers, executing the "divine plan," setting everything into motion, and in control of the universe.  Maybe it rubs us the wrong way to think of God having to be patient with anybody--after all, waiting seems to be "beneath" God, right?

But, really, the whole story of the Bible is very much a story of a God who is patient with us--despite our persistent way of messing things up.  Because of who God is--that is, because of God's character as One-Who-Loves--God chooses to be patient with us.  God takes the risk, you could say, that we will mess up again, choose rottenness again, go astray again... and when we do, God has committed to stay with us rather than to abandon us.  God stays. God waits.  Even when it hurts.  Even when it costs God.

That's a whole other dimension to this facet of love.  Our English word "patience" doesn't capture all the fullness of Paul's language.  The word Paul uses here translates more literally to "is long-suffering," or "is willing to endure great stress and hardship."  Patience isn't merely twiddling your thumbs or furrowing your brow while you scowl at the clock.   Patience isn't merely the condition of being inconvenienced.  Patience, in this biblical sense, is about the willingness to endure suffering for the sake of the beloved.

And really, if you give it much thought at all, that is exactly what the Scriptures show us about God.  To speak of the patience--or "long-suffering"--of God doesn't mean picturing God giving passive-aggressive sighs while waiting in the lobby of the auto shop for an oil change.  It's not that a very busy God is troubled by having to stand in long lines like we are when we speak of the need for patience.  It's that God, from beginning to end, is committed to enduring pain with us, as well as because of us, when we keep getting ourselves into trouble.  From Eden on, ours is the God who waits--the God who doesn't instantly "zap" the transgressing couple for eating forbidden fruit, the God who hangs up the bow and arrow after the flood promising never again to deal with human sin by wiping us all out [even when our crookedness and cruelty might really deserve it], and the God who goes on the long journey with wandering Abraham and Sarah, into slavery with the Hebrew children, on through the Sea with Moses and Miriam, and into the wilderness once again.  The whole epic story of salvation, with all its unexpected detours, twists, and turns, is the story of a God who is long-suffering while human beings go off on their own in the wrong direction.  Exile and homecoming.  Hope that waits for a Messiah.  And even when Jesus himself appears on the scene, he describes himself as one who waits with long-suffering, like the mother hen who longs to gather her brood under her wing, despite their stubborn refusal to be drawn to safety.  

The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes:  God really is patient, in the sense of a chosen waiting and enduring that doesn't give up even when we make things harder for God.  God waits.  God accompanies.  God endures.  And on top of it all, when we want things to go faster, or we want answers right away, God is willing to bear our shortsighted doubts and complaints that God is taking too long and must be making us wait.  That's not it.  It's God who is being patient with us.  It is God who is enduring suffering because we are holding up the show.   It is God who bears the pain of our mess-ups and lost-ness, not because God is stuck without a choice like feeling trapped in a waiting room, but because God continually commits to sticking it out with us, even when that is costly.  As William Willimon has put it, "God refuses to be God without us."

So for whatever else we may have to say down the road about how we practice patience, and for whatever good reasons we may have to instruct and encourage each other to endure and bear suffering for others, it really all starts with God.  God is patient with us, because that is the nature of love.  Like a parent who has already bought and wrapped the presents months ahead of Christmas and now holds in the excitement until it is time for the children to receive them, God is patient with us even in the gifts of grace God has already prepared for us.  

Before we get carried away with sentimental overkill from too many romantic comedies that love is best seen in rash, impulsive grand gestures, maybe it is worth remembering with Paul here how beautiful love is when it is experienced as patience.  When love shows up, holding our hand at the hospital bedside, or keeping vigil, or walking beside us for the long haul, we know what the apostle means by saying that love is long-suffering.  And we know, too, then, how we are beloved by the God who waits.

Lord God, thank you for your patience with us, and your endurance that bears the heartache we cause. Thank you for walking with us and telling us we are worth the wait that comes with sharing the journey with us.  Thank you, Good Lord, that your love is patient.

Beginning to Love Well—November 14, 2022

 

Beginning to Love Well—November 14, 2022

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” [1 Corinthians 13:1-3]

This is one of those times when you can draw a straight line between the teaching of Jesus and the witness of Paul and the early church.  Paul gets it that for the followers of Jesus, it’s all about love.  And for that matter, he understands what Jesus meant when he told his inner circle on his last night with them that he wanted the world to be able to identify his followers in the world by their love, before anything else.

I know it can sound cliché, or naïve, or unrealistic in a world full of mean-ness, to say this, but that is such a beautiful vision of how life could be for us, it almost brings me to tears to think of it.  And then… to see the ways that we Christians are actually known by the watching world, and how often we are not known at all for our love, but for our pettiness, persecution complexes, self-righteousness, and willingness to sell-out the way of Jesus for political parties… well, that actually does bring me to tears.

It's that utter contrast—between the compelling vision of what we are called to be, and the dismal disappointment of how we actually act in the world—that ties me up in knots.  It’s not that Jesus, or Paul, or any of the rest of the New Testament writers for that matter, are not clear—they are.  Love is meant to be the hallmark of our way of life, and Jesus makes it clear [as Paul will do, as we follow in this chapter] that “love” is neither the flighty emotion of romance, the empty sentimentality of nostalgia, nor the closed-circle of tribalism.  It is the commitment to do good all around, for those near to us, those who are strangers, and even to those we think of as enemies—and to seek their interests as inseparable from our own.  In the world, we are meant to be known for love—and without genuine, Christ-like love, whatever we do have is hollow.

That’s a difficult thing for us to hear, too—that without love, the other things we think of as assets turn out to crumble to dust in our hands.  Even “spiritual” things—like supernatural abilities to speak or to heal, or the insight to understand beyond what others can perceive, or faith that defies gravity and moves mountains—these are empty and devoid of power if they are not animated by love.  You can easily imagine Paul calling us on the carpet for boasting about the other things that Respectable Religious Folks like to pride themselves on, but which lack love.  You can almost hear the apostle saying, “If you have a million—or even a billion!—dollars to your name, but do not have love, you are bankrupt in all the ways that really matter.  And if you brag about your strong ‘traditional family values’ but cannot see how Christ’s love makes a new family of outcasts, God doesn’t want to hear it.  And if you spend your credibility on getting political influence with the loudest demagogue you can find but do not live in a way that embodies love, you have wasted your life.”  If Paul wasn’t impressed with other “spiritual” assets like faith, knowledge, or supernatural powers, he sure as heaven wouldn’t be impressed with the things modern-day Respectable Religion sells out for.

Look, we are about to take a deep dive into what it really means to love like Jesus, and if we are going to do that with integrity and authenticity, it’s going to mean we leave fluffy sentimentality behind and own up to all the ways we keep trying to live the Christian life without love, so that we can do better.  It sounds like a contradiction—or at least it should—that we would try to live out our faith in Christ without love, but honestly, that’s what so many folks perceive of us in the wider world.  They see Christians talking a good game about “love,” but quickly find out how narrow and limited that love turns out to be—it is reserved only for in-group members, or doled out only to the “worthy,” or offered only with strings to people think, look, or vote like you.  And we just need to be honest—that ain’t love.  That’s manipulative garbage.  That’s dressing up the same old transactional “I’ll-be-good-to-you-if-I-think-it-is-in-my-interest-to-do-so” thinking in the language of love and hoping it fools someone.  Paul is calling us to something more.  Something real.

Today, I invite you to begin a renewed commitment to learning how to love well—to love like Jesus.  And the place a lot of us have to start is to own up to the ways we have been settling for something less, or trying to make Christianity about power, influence, dominance, and culture-war nonsense rather than what Paul—following Jesus—calls us to be about.  Whatever else we have, if it missing love, is nothing—because when we are missing love, we are missing Christ himself.

That’s where we start.  Let’s go together from here.

Lord Jesus, re-center us in your love, and let that love re-orient us in everything else.

Beyond the Mirage--November 11, 2022

Beyond the Mirage--November 11, 2022

"But strive for the greater gifts.  And I will show you a still more excellent way." [1 Corinthians 12:31]

So, first a spoiler alert or two [consider yourself warned]:  The Maltese Falcon turns out to have been a fake.  "Rosebud" was just a child's sled and gets burned with the trash before anyone can find out its meaning for Charles Kane.  The Monty Python boys, all dressed up in their knightly Arthurian garb, never find the Holy Grail.  And nobody ever learns what's causing the mysterious glow from the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.  The main characters in all of those movies might spend all their energy and passion trying to find before the credits roll, but in the end, none of them turn out to have been worth all the fuss.

That's because every last one of those fictional objects is a MacGuffin--that is, they are objects that characters in a story strive after to move a plot forward in a story, but which don't really matter in the end.  Sam Spade could have just as easily been tracking down a statue of a Burmese Stork or a Tibetan Owl, and the story would have played out identically.  "Rosebud" could have turned out to be the name of Orson Welles' childhood puppy, and the Monty Python troupe could have all been hunting for spam and eggs rather than the Holy Grail, and that movie would have worked the exact same way.  It's a stock storytelling device to have an elusive object that everybody's after in the movies, and it's a fine way to move a plot forward, sure.  But in the end, the objects themselves are illusions that disappear in a puff of smoke--they are, as Bogey famously said about the Maltese Falcon, "the stuff that dreams are made of."  But dreams are less than a mist--they vanish into thin air because there's nothing really "there" to them.  You can spend a lifetime on a quest striving after a MacGuffin, only to find you were seeing a mirage.  That's the nature of MacGuffins.

And of course, in real life, we like to imagine we are leading much more meaningful and purposeful lives than those kinds of empty quests in the movies.  We "know better" than all those characters on the silver screen than to strive and chase after lost treasures and mythical objects, right?  And yet... we do seem awfully tempted to spend our lives on the more respectable MacGuffins of the twenty-first century. We go chasing after ambiguous things like "success" or "prosperity" or "social-media influencer status" or "security" or "the American dream" or... "enough". And they either always seem just out of reach, or when we grasp them they turn out not to be what we had hoped for.  But we keep striving and seeking them, I suspect, because deep down we feel such insecurity that we think we need to prove our worth to the world by reaching at least some of those supposedly worthy goals.  We just can't admit to anybody that we've been wasting our lives chasing mirages.

There's a spiritual equivalent to all of that MacGuffin hunting in the name of acquiring the "best" and "greatest" spiritual treasures.  Paul has been talking about it here in this chapter--we so easily turn our God-given gifts of the Spirit into objects to be sought and strived after, as though we were in a competition to get the most or have the best.  And isn't that just like us?  God gives an abundance of good gifts, talents, abilities, and skills among us, for the common good, and we end up sizing up the gifts we think are most important and go angling a way to get the "good" ones.  And we do it, thinking that we are pleasing God because the things we are after are "spiritual."  Sometimes folks pour their energy into getting power and authority--either in the Christian community, or using their faith as a stepping stone to higher prominence in the wider world.  Sometimes people strive after roles of influence, or positions that get applause from others.  Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we can impress God [as if we needed to] by our spiritual disciplines and moral achievements.  But here's a secret, and something of a spoiler alert:  it's all just the same old MacGuffin quest dressed up in its Sunday best.

Paul's point here in this verse is that for all the talk of spiritual gifts that God has given to each of us, those gifts themselves aren't meant to give us our worth.  We aren't ranked by the gifts we have, and we can't do anything to trade with someone else for a gift that they have.  So spending our energy chasing after any MacGuffins, whether the ones we use to play church with, or the ones the wider world tells us to strive after, is waste of time and energy.  

So what are we to do then?  If I shouldn't spend my life striving after what the market or the TV or my social media tells me I should want, and if I shouldn't strive for the things that I think will make me a spiritual superhero, what should I do with my life?  Paul has an answer for that, too.  He is about to point us toward a "still more excellent way."  And if you know this passage from First Corinthians, you already know [spoiler alert] that it is love.  Paul is calling us to leave behind not just our MacGuffins of success or popularity, but also to leave behind the entire notion that life is a quest where there's some "other" thing we are supposed to be seeking after.  Rather, we are made most fully alive, right where we are with what we have, when we walk the way of Love, which is always the way of Jesus.  

And as we'll see in the coming days, love really is a whole way of life--it's not about striving for something else we think will "fix" all our problems or give us success on the world's terms.  It's about reorienting the way our lives work, so that they are no longer built around questions like, "How do I reach the level of success or influence that I want?" but rather, "How can I love more fully and deeply in this moment, and participate in Christ's joyful life by doing that?"  That's the "more excellent way."  And it really does involve that we stop "striving" for lesser things, because it turns out the things that are worth striving for aren't "out there" beyond our grasp, but right at hand in the chances in ordinary ways, right here and now, to love.

Today's a day to be done chasing after prizes, and instead to turn toward the people God has placed around you and in your life, and to dare to love.

That seems a good way to spend a day... or a lifetime.

Lord God, lead us on your still more excellent way.  Lead us more fully into love.

More Than Just OK--November 10, 2022

More Than Just OK--November 10, 2022

"Are all apostles? Are all prophets?  Are all teachers?  Do all work miracles?  Do all possess gifts of healing?  Do all speak in tongues?  Do all interpret?" [1 Corinthians 12:29-30]

Well, presumably the answer--to ALL of these rhetorical questions--is "No."

And in fact, that's OK.  More to the point for Paul, it's not merely "OK," as in permissible, but it's actually good that everybody doesn't do the same job, have the same gifts, or embody the same roles in the Christian community.  If we've been following Paul's train of thought over this whole section about bodies and members, this isn't a design flaw on God's part, or a limitation God had to settle for.  It is God's choice to make us into the kind of community we are, where all have different gifts, and all have different needs for the gifts of others.

Just taking that seriously is huge.  God didn't intend us to all do the same thing or have the same aptitudes, but rather, God's purpose is making a community in which all the members are interdependent because nobody does everything perfectly well by themselves.  We need each other, and that need is not an error in God's blueprints or a glitch in the universe's code; it is God's purpose that we be different and rely on one another.

Sometimes I think we act as though this were a mistake--either on God's part, or somehow attributable to human sin--that we need one another's gifts and talents.  Sometimes we act [or think quietly to ourselves without having to say it out loud] like the real mark of success in life will be when you really can "do it all" by yourself and won't need anybody else's gifts, time, or ability. But to hear Paul tell it, our interdependence is not a weakness to be overcome but a glimpse of grace for all of us.  God doesn't begrudgingly make human beings with a diverse assortment of gifts as though it is a back-up plan or less than ideal.  Rather, God has meant for us to give and to receive from one another's gifts an abilities as a way of showing us the way grace works in our lives.  We are always receiving the good of other people's talents and gifts, and we are always in a position to offer others good from our abilities, without turning it into a contest or a transaction.

Today, maybe all we need is to let Paul's questions hit us, and with them the presumed answer:  No, we don't all have the same gift. No, we don't all fit in the same mold.  No, we do not have to labor under the illusion that success means being able to do it all, and all by yourself.  But rather, because God didn't make a mistake in creating us as a community of different and diverse gifts, we can each simply be glad and grateful for the gifts we have, and offer them back for the good of everyone.

That seems more than just "ok" to me. That seems to me like a beautiful way to live our lives.

Lord God, help us to see the gifts we each bring, and to share them.

A Batman Community--November 9, 2022

A Batman Community--November 9, 2022

"Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.  And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues." [1 Corinthians 12:27-28]

I've pretty much always been a Batman fan.  Even as a kid, even before the Caped Crusader was up on the silver screen in one gritty reboot after another, I've always thought Batman made for the most compelling superhero, even compared to the other big names like Superman, Wonder Woman, or the Flash.  Batman always captivated my attention, even though he's one of those rare comic book heroes who doesn't have any superpowers at all.  Or maybe, it's exactly because he doesn't have them.  Batman doesn't come from an alien planet or have super-speed, and he isn't from a mythical race of metahumans, either.  He's not a mutant, a demigod, or a cyborg.  He's a basically ordinary human being in a costume--a very cool-looking costume, with plenty of equally cool-looking gadgets, mind you, but still a human being, not terribly different from you or me in a lot of ways.

I mention my fascination with Batman on this particular occasion because I find it striking that the list of special roles and gifts Paul lists here in First Corinthians is also surprisingly... unremarkable.  The gifts and callings he mentions among the members of the "body of Christ" are, in large part, ordinary.  That is to say, they are not superpowers--they are very, very human.  In fact, the top three roles Paul mentions--apostles, prophets, and teachers--are basically jobs centered on talking.  The word "apostle" really just means "sent person," as in, "someone who is sent to bring a message."  Over time it came to be thought of as a title or formal office held by the original followers of Jesus who had witnessed his resurrection, but these were basically people who had been commissioned by the risen Christ to go and tell the story of Jesus.  Similarly, the role of "prophet" in the New Testament sense isn't so much about predicting the future as it is about speaking a message--whether it was preaching to a congregation, witnessing in public to share the Good News about Jesus, or speaking truth to power in the face of the Empire.  And pretty clearly "teachers" are also speakers--people who instruct and model for others a way of life shaped by the Gospel.  Those are all vitally important, as Paul tells it, but none of them require superpowers, magical rings or hammers, or radioactive spider bites.  The same with "forms of assistance" and "forms of leadership"--those don't arise from mutant powers, bolts of lightning, or inter-dimensional alien technology.  They look like servant-leadership, and a willingness to lend a hand or share resources.  They look like the capacity to inspire and challenge people, and to hold out a vision for people to step into.  Paul is right that they are all essential parts of the whole body we call "church," but they are surprisingly down-to-earth.  They are the Batman kind of roles, not Superman spectacle.  They might not dazzle, but they do deepen our discipleship. To be sure, Paul's list includes more miraculous-sounding things like "gifts of healing" or possibly "various kinds of tongues," but they aren't at the top of his rankings.  Paul envisions a community of disciples that doesn't have to put on a show or pull off a stunt to embody Christ in the world; rather, we are people who use ordinary things like words to shape a community in Christ's likeness.  

In a time like ours that is oversaturated with superhero storytelling, and that tends to assume that what really matters is power, money, status, and a large dose of armed force, Paul sees the church as a surprising alternative in the world--surprising in particular because we rely on such humble things as words to change the world.  Nowhere in Paul's letters do we find a call for Christians to push our agenda with force or weaponry.  Nowhere does the New Testament demand we need a certain amount of money or status to fulfill our mission.  And not once do the Scriptures insist that we mesmerize the world with supernatural feats.  Rather, we have been entrusted, from beginning to end, with the Gospel--with a message and a way of life that can be passed along, shared, and spread with the mere use of human language.  We tell the story of Jesus.  We speak the love that has captivated us.  We communicate, rather than dominate.  And yet the apostle Paul himself is convinced that these are precisely the tools we need for the work entrusted to us.

The Church is a Batman kind of community, it turns out--we do not need exotic alien origin stories or attention-getting powers, but the gifts that come with our own humanity.  Even mere words.

That means you, who are capable in some way of sharing the Good News with people around you, are equipped for the mission, too.  Speak it.  Tell it.  Write it.  Sing it.  Share it.  You don't have to go to Krypton or Asgard to get some magical power.  You've got the gifts already from God.

Lord God, open our eyes to see the gifts you have given us for your work right in our hands already, so that we can use our ordinariness for the sake of the world you so extraordinarily love.