Let the Crows Preach Easter--May 12, 2020

Let the Crows Preach Easter--May 12, 2020

"Jesus said to his disciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!" [Luke 12:22-24]

Every day, across the whole world, birds are a day away from starvation and death.

And every day, over this whole beautiful globe, God provides food for the birds and rescues them from the grave.

If you think about it, every day is a little resurrection for the birds, whether it's the cardinals and orioles folks have been spotting at their feeders around here these days, or the crows and ravens Jesus mentions here, or the proverbial "sparrow" that God's eye is on, too.  Every day God provides enough, and every day without their earning it or buying it, God's economy of grace pulls hungry little birds back to life.  You've got to figure that is part of why Jesus chose birds for his object lesson--if you're a flying bird (like not an ostrich or a penguin), you can't afford to store a lot of energy in fat on your body, because you can't get too heavy to lift off the ground with your wings.  And while you might have a nest (and while some members of the crow and raven family are known for hiding treasures they find, from sparkly rocks to bits of food), you can't really take those things with you wherever you are flying.  In other words, unlike, say, a big ol' grizzly bear eating extra in the fall to be able to hibernate through the winter, or a colony of ants who are constantly working to store food for later, birds are constantly on the brink of going hungry... and Jesus says that God is constantly feeding them and bringing them back to life.

Funny--Jesus doesn't think the birds are lazy.  Funny--Jesus doesn't chastise or scold them for not having a good enough work ethic.  Jesus doesn't say that their habit of depending on food to be provided is morally dubious.  In fact, just the opposite--Jesus says that the birds are an example for us of sincere faith!  (As a side note, there is a story about Martin Luther from the Table Talk that he saw dogs as an example of authentic faith, because his own dog, Tolpel, so persistently focused on his master to give him food and trusted that it would be given. Same lesson, different species, it seems.)  All of this is to say that all of our lives are lived constantly in utter dependence on God to raise us up to life again from the brink of death.  Every day, then, is both a gift of grace and an miracle of resurrection from the dead.  Every day of life is a dress rehearsal for the grand resurrection we are promised, too, when at last we let go of our lives and find that God has not dropped us even for a moment, not even then.

Seeing things this way does something to us, I think.  For one, I think it changes the way we understand that promise of life beyond death.  If Jesus is right (and I think it is safe to say he is), then resurrection from the dead has to be understood as a gift of grace, not as a reward for good behavior.  After all, every day, God grants us--and the birds, too, mind you--a rescue from death with food provided when our hands are empty, and that is not a matter of earning, but of receiving a gift.  Every day our continuing existence is made possible because God is generous, not because we have worked for it... and that means, too, that life beyond death is only possible because of God's grace as well.  That should put to rest all of our Respectable Religious nonsense about who we think is, or is not, worthy to be in heaven--it ain't about "worthiness," and it never was.  And if the heart of our faith is about a God who gives life to those at the brink of death, well, then that means our whole faith is inescapably about grace, too.  Taking Jesus seriously will mean we give up the old religious tendency to see the afterlife as a great settling of accounts where prizes are doled out for looking respectable and demerits are meted out for the naughty, because the whole of life--from birth to death to resurrection--has always been powered by the unearned, unmerited goodness of God to stinkers, just like God feeds a world full of freeloading birds.

And if all of that is true, it will do one more thing for our view of this new day: we will see each day, even the ones that feel "blah" or routine or tedious or difficult, as miracles of resurrection.  After all, this day wasn't earned, but it was given.  This day could have been the day all the birds died of starvation, or you and I finally had these old bodies wear out on us.  But we have been given this day, like we are awakened out of the tomb every morning, and to treat it as anything less than an awesome wonder is to miss the glory of God right under our noses.

I know it can be frustrating to keep on going sometimes.  I know, especially in these days, when it feels in so many ways like we are being asked to keep running without any chance to rest, no finish line in sight, and no change of scenery, either, it can seem like the sheer drudgery is too much to bear any longer.  But at the same time, each day is a gift you and I did not earn and could not buy.  Each breath reminds us that these bodies of ours are uncannily fragile and rely precariously on a puff of air coming in and out of our lungs  Each moment we get, even the ones that feel rotten to live through at times, is handed to us like seed for birds.

So today, before the grumping that may be bubbling up from somewhere in your or my soul, let us pause to consider the glorious, grace-filled miracle of the beating hearts and the gift it is that God rescued us again from the grip of death once again.  That might make this day feel like something of adventure, if we dare to let the crows preach Easter to us today.

Lord Jesus, turn our eyes to see your way of bringing us--and the whole world--back to life again.  And let us respond to you in this day with thanks for your grace.

Crashing the Wake--May 11, 2020

Crashing the Wake--May 11, 2020

"[Jesus] went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, 'Do not weep.' Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, 'Young man, I say to you, rise!' The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, 'A great prophet has risen among us!' and 'God has looked favorably on his people!' This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country." [Luke 7:11-17]

You know what really stands out to me about Jesus?  He doesn't use other people as props to show off his power, and he doesn't ignore other people around him because he is too busy for them.  He sees other people through the eyes of love, and that directs his actions.  That's actually a really big deal.

I don't know that I had noticed before the way Luke tells this story.  Preachers are used to thinking of Bible stories only in terms of plot points, and obviously this one is memorable for the big finale of raising the dead.  But notice that as Jesus approaches the funeral procession headed out of town, Luke says that Jesus "had compassion" for the young man's mother, and that's what leads him to raise the dead man back to life.  What drives this miracle is love--not somebody's need for spectacle or attention or ego-stroking.  That means Jesus didn't set out to "wow" people with a publicity stunt that day, and it doesn't sound like Jesus was planning on crashing a wake when he woke up that morning.  No, rather, Jesus simply enters every situation he is in with the eyes of mercy, and because of that, his attention is on anyone and everyone who hurts, and from there how he can be a part of the work of bringing life where it is needful.

That is to say, Jesus is constantly reading every situation he is in for the needs of others, and that makes it possible for him to respond out of the resources he has at his disposal.  He isn't so focused on his busy-ness that he misses seeing the needs of others as he zooms right on by them. Nor does Jesus ignore people by some kind of social conditioning to treat others as unimportant. And he doesn't have his head buried in a screen, either, so he doesn't miss what's happening around him because he's got to check how many likes he has gotten recently, either.  Instead, because he is free of distractions and blinders, he can see the needs, the pain, and the suffering of others, and he can respond to it.  Jesus is able to do what he does, at least in part, because when he comes up to a funeral procession, his first thought is, "Oh, dear, that young man's mother must be heartbroken!" rather than, "Ugh, now I have to wait longer at this intersection before the last car goes through."  And because he sees the world differently--that is, through the eyes of compassion--he is ready to bring life to those who need it.

This is something that you and I can practice.  We may not have the divine power of Jesus to work miracles or start a heart beating again, but we can do something about our eyesight.  We can gain the skill like Jesus has of seeing the hurts and heartaches of others rather than missing them, or ignoring them, or turning them into props for our own advancement.  We can internalize the habit of entering a situation with the thought, "What might my neighbor need in this moment, and how can I be a presence of goodness for them?" rather than scanning the moment for how I can get ahead, or just missing out on others around me altogether.  And from there, the more we are attuned to compassion in each moment, then we will be able to offer what we do have--time, resources, ability--regardless of whether it is a miraculous resuscitation like Jesus performs here, or something entirely ordinary.

Jesus is, in a sense, primed for bringing resurrection because he knows to be looking for those who are hurting.  That is so different from thinking, "I need to get some good publicity--how can we set up a photo op where people can catch me dishing out a bowl or soup, or where we can get a photograph of me helping at the food pantry?"  Instead of being worried about what people see of himself, Jesus is focused on seeing those that others might not see, on loving those who might otherwise fade into the background, on recognizing the signs of pain in others that could otherwise be swallowed up in the crowd.

On this day, for example, many are in the same position as this unnamed widow from Luke's story.  Some are people I know--who have just come through another Mother's Day weekend grieving the death of their own children, or who are feeling the loss of a loved one close to them at this moment.  Some are names I only know from the news--like the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, who is grieving the loss of her son, too.  And beyond that, everyone we meet is carrying some kind of hurt like an iceberg--most of it held deeper beneath the surface than they let on, and submerged from view.  Most of the time we learn just to pretend it's not there with a quick, "I'm fine, thanks," because we have been taught not to mention the pain we are bearing, much less to keep our eyes open to see the pain of others.  But just because we don't talk about it doesn't mean it's not there.

So maybe part of our calling as resurrection people is to be attentive to the wounds, to the griefs, to the heartaches, that each of us carries but which could just as easily go ignored or unnamed.  Maybe it starts just as straightforwardly as entering every situation primed with the thinking, "How are the others I am interacting with doing right now--how are their hearts, and how can I be useful to them?"  Maybe that posture begins to change how all the other actions in our day go, because it keeps each of us from getting bent in on themselves and focused only on our own list for the day.  Maybe it grows the seed of empathy in us. And then, when we choose to face the day with our eyes open like Jesus, to see others through the lens of compassion, we will take those opportunities to bring life to those around us who need it.

And who knows--even if a miracle doesn't happen, your choice to act with compassion still just might bring someone else to life anyhow.  Maybe it will be you.

Lord Jesus, help us to see our lives and our world with your kind of empathy, so that we will be ready to respond to every situation in ways that let your resurrection life flow among us and in us and through us... for all.

A Confession of Failure--May 8, 2020

A Confession of Failure--May 8, 2020

"Help, O LORD for there is no longer anyone who is godly;

    the faithful have disappeared from humankind.

 They utter lies to each other;

    with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

 May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,

    the tongue that makes great boats,

 those who say, 'With our tongues we will prevail;

    our lips are our own--who is our master?'

'Because the poor are despoiled,

    because the needy groan,

 I will now rise up,' says the LORD;

'I will place them in the safety 

    for which they long.'

The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure,

    silver reined in a furnace on the ground,

purified seven times.

You, O LORD, will protect us;

    you will guard us from this generation forever.

 On every side the wicked prowl,

    as vileness is exalted among humankind." [Psalm 12:1-8]

In the end, hope doesn't come from religious people.  It comes from the God who rises up to act when others have been stepped on, the God who raises up the vulnerable.

Okay, truth in advertising: I stumbled upon the words of this psalm in what seemed like random chance today, as I was paging through my Bible looking for a different passage.  And, to be further honest with you, I don't think I had ever taken note of this psalm before today.  

And now, I can't help but think that I needed these words--that we need these words--and the permission they give us to be disappointed in the world at large.  Even in religious people.... maybe especially in religious people.

One of the things I find so refreshing about the psalms of lament like this one is that they are so unflinchingly honest.  They can see the rottenness in the world around, and name it, even when it means accusing the supposedly "faithful" and pious of selling out.  I say this, of course, as a professional religious person, and as much as it may run against the grain of what's good for "business," I have to confess that there are so many ways that "respectable religious people" have disappointed me that I need the reminder from this psalm that it's OK to confess that disappointment.  I need to know that it's OK to just be frustrated, to be disheartened, to be let down, by the ways that we religious folk sometimes totally blow it.  And I need the psalmist to take me by the hand one step further, too, to consider that there are surely ways I have let down others, too, as the face of "respectable religion" that sold out, too.

Sometimes I think churchy folk make the mistake--a well-meaning mistake, but all the more destructive for all those good intentions--of thinking that it is the church's job to be the center of attention.  I think we imagine sometimes that the goal of church is to get ourselves to be more and more powerful, more and more influential, more and more in positions of control, so that we can, you know, fix everything.  I think we sometimes imagine that our job as church is to promote ourselves, and that once we get enough people signing up to join, or watching our videos on YouTube, or following us on social media, then we will have enough influence to make the world be holy and good and righteous.  World saved, problems fixed, story over, thank you very much, we will say, dusting off our hands.

But that is a damned lie.  As theologian Lesslie Newbigin once put it, "A church that exists only for itself and its own enlargement is a witness against the gospel."  Sometimes what makes me most frustrated about the Respectable Religious Crowd is their (our) willingness to put ourselves in the center rather than God.  And when we think the point of the institution called "church" is just to keep propping up the institution called "church," the world sees through us and sees our fakery.  When we are only interested in making ourselves look good, or in getting the photo op of our service project or mission trip, or in rubbing elbows with the politically well-connected, or pushing for an agenda that is convenient for ourselves but harmful to others, we reveal just how anti-God we really have gotten.

And I think that's what the writer of the psalm has in mind here, when he sets his sights on the so-called "faithful" who have sold out in order to flatter the powerful and make themselves their own bosses.  The poet here has seen religious people sell out. He's seen them turn a blind eye at crookedness when it suited them.  He has seen pious people trade their faith in for good marketing.  He has seen folks who call themselves godly willing to sell their souls for a little more access to the well-heeled, a little more influence, and a little more power.  And the poet here is just disillusioned with all of it.

We live in an age when it is so much easier to see that crookedness in one another--we advertise it on social media after all!  We find ourselves posting and sharing Bible verses and memes to call for everybody to pray more in one moment (because, you know those things look pious), and then the next moment, we're selling out our credibility by the rottenness and selfishness that comes out of our keyboards in the next moment.  We religious folks talk a good game about how much we wish everybody would follow Jesus, sharing pictures of him knocking on an old wooden door to show just how pious we are, but at the next moment we give our true selves away by sharing some hateful meme, or being terribly unkind, or ignoring all sorts of injustices all around us because it is inconvenient to do so.  And when we do those things, we are pulling back the curtain for the world to see just how crooked these hearts of ours are.

Sadly, so often in this world, terrible things happen, and the first response of the Respectable Religious Crowd is, "I will feel very upset if WE are inconvenienced by this!" rather than to share the place of those who suffer, to sit beside those who have been stepped on, or to sacrifice our comfort for the sake of reflecting Christ to those most at risk.  In the face of a global pandemic, the Respectable Religious Crowd insists, "We will keep on having church as usual, because you can't tell us what to do, and we won't let ourselves be controlled by anybody!" rather than to see our calling to refrain from gathering as an act of love for our neighbors, including neighbors we don't know yet.  In the face of another (another!) shooting of an unarmed black man, this time just jogging in his own neighborhood because somebody else thought he looked like someone they suspected in past burglaries, the impulse of the Respectable Religious Crowd is to say, "They were righteously defending their neighborhood, just as the church must defend its territory, too!" rather than to cry out against the cavalier and rash way that Ahmaud Arbery's life was taken from him.  And in the face of an economic crisis that flows from the pandemic we are living through, it is folks in the Respectable Religious Crowd leading the way with theories that the coronavirus was all invented as part of a secret conspiracy to get people to succumb to the "mark of the Beast" or to serve a political agenda, rather than simply being a terrible and tragic complicated crisis with many factors that enabled its spread and effects.

And this is what disappoints me the most--again, saying this as a professional religious person myself--when our neighbors see a tragedy like a pandemic, or a murder, or the specter of a recession unfolding before their eyes, and the first thing they see "religious people" doing in response is angry shouting at their inconvenience, or burying their heads in the sand at injustice, they will want no part in the Gospel we have to share with them.  They will want to hear nothing of the God we say we serve, and they will want to hear none of what we say is "good news."  I sure as heaven wouldn't want to.

Sometimes, the biggest obstacle to the spread of the Gospel turns out be religious people... myself included.  I wish it weren't so, but it is.

But what gives me deep hope on a night like tonight is that the psalmist here doesn't pin his hopes on "religious people" getting it right.  He doesn't expect that "the faithful" will save the day--he knows better, probably from having been let down by pious folk before.  But he does have hope that things will be set right.  And the poet sees that hope comes from God, even in spite of the rest of us if need be.  God sees the need of those who have been stepped on, and God rises up to act.  God hears that the ones most at risk and on the margins are groaning with grief, and God moves.  God raises up those who are most hurting, most in need, most regarded as disposable or expendable, and God promises help and safety for them. Yes, even when we still live in a world in which "on every side the wicked prowl."  The writer of the psalm says you'll spot God in the lifting up of those who suffer injustice and exploitation.  Whether or not the Respectable Religious crowd thinks to look there, too.

I have to confess: it is disheartening as we live through these days to see the first response of so many "religious" folks be, "How will we prop up our own institutions?  How will we keep our religious clubs going? How long do you think we can bear the inconvenience we are being asked to bear for the sake of others' help, before we decide we just are going to do our own thing?" rather than to look for ways we can show up where God has already promised to show up--lifting up those who are most bowed down.  And I know the impulse myself as a leader of a congregation, only to focus on "How do we keep our own lights on?"  I know the impulse to think, "We just can't think about other people and their needs right now--we have to look out for ourselves and our own interests right now!"  And I am glad that the salvation of the world isn't up to the church, or to pious people, or to religious professionals.  

It is enough to know that God doesn't have to think about an institution first--that God is free simply to give new life to those at the brink of death, to bring about little resurrections for those who have been stepped on, to bring about justice for those who have been denied it. It is enough to know that even when so many religious folks can't bring themselves to tears, God weeps for Ahmaud.  It is enough to know that God doesn't need to worry about paying light bills or managing salaries, but can spend all of the divine effort on raising up the lowly who are at risk because they've lost their job or are afraid of where their rent money will come from.  It is enough to know that even when religious people (like me) disappoint, God always proves faithful.

I didn't intend to stumble on these verses tonight.  But maybe the Spirit needed me to hear them again and made the onion-paper pages of my Bible stick here because God knew I needed it.  Maybe we all need the reminder of where to place our trust for life.

Lord God, we are letdowns and disappointments so often.  We give your ourselves, flaws and all, asking you to work for good in the world--in spite of us, if necessary, but through us wherever possible.

Escape from the Spiritual Zombies--May 7, 2020

Escape from the Spiritual Zombies--May 7, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe today's another day for a little resurrection.

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

Quality of Life--May 6, 2020

Quality of Life--May 6, 2020

"Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called--that you might inherit a blessing." [1 Peter 3:8-9]

There's an old joke I love, framed as a complaint about a restaurant: "The food is terrible there--and the portions are so small!"

I know, I know--insert your own rimshot on the drums here.  And I know that it ruins the humor of a joke to dissect the way it works, but in this case, that's OK; it wasn't very funny as a one-liner in the first place.  The thing I value about this joke is how it reminds me that quantity isn't enough.  Quality is essential.  After all, having a huge portion of terrible food isn't appetizing.  What you want is a satisfying amount of genuinely good food.

Now, the reason I mention this is that sometimes religious folks talk about the kind of life we are given in Christ only in terms of quantity, rather than being a different quantity of life, too.  Too often, we hear talk about "eternal" life only in terms of a length of time, rather than understanding "eternal" as a different kind of life, too.  Jesus also talks about bringing "abundant" life in similar terms--and we can make the mistake of hearing that only as an amount of time, rather than hearing it as a differnt way of living our lives even now as well.

Now, as anyone who has lived through watching a loved one suffer through an extended illness will tearfully attest, sometimes it seems like modern medicine is only able to prolong death, rather than to restore the quality of someone's life.  And if you have been in that place before, enduring the suffering of someone you love, you know that just keeping a person's heart beating or lungs breathing isn't much of a quality of life.  The Gospel doesn't just offer us an infinite number of years of existence--the promise we are given is of, as another New Testament writer would put it, "the life that really is life."

And that's what I want to spend a moment exploring here.  I think somewhere along the way we allowed those "religious" voices to turn the Gospel message simply into, "Follow Jesus and you will get to live for an infinite number of years even after you die," while saying next to nothing about how Jesus' WAY of life was better, even now.  But that came at the cost of hearing how many times and ways in the New Testament we were given descriptions of how our quality of life changes because of Christ.  We turned Christianity into, "Believe these facts about Jesus so that you can still be a selfish, vindictive jerk forever in the afterlife," rather than, "Follow Jesus so that you are freed from the cycle of hatred and rottenness that runs rampant in the world around us, both in this life and beyond death, too."  And here in what we call First Peter, there is a reminder about how our lives in Christ are different, not just in quantity, but in quality.

At the heart of what First Peter says here is the core teaching of Jesus that we not respond to evil with evil, hatred with hatred, or reviling with reviling.  And we are taught not to do those things, not as a way of earning some other prize called "eternal life," but rather because it is an essential part of the new way of living life that has a Jesus-quality to it.  See, refusing to answer evil with evil isn't a means toward some other end--it is the way itself that Jesus gives us.  The life freed of the cycle-of-rottenness is itself a gift of grace.  It is the thing we are freed for.  It is the better kind of life--the life of blessing and blessedness--"to which we were called," as First Peter puts it.  Like Catherine of Siena wrote, "All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, 'I am the way'." 

So much of what passed for Christianity in the world around me over the last four decades of life has said something like, "Christianity is about how you get to life-after-death."  And everything was framed in terms of what necessary steps had to be taken in order to unlock the reward of some post-mortem prize called "eternal life."  Within that framework, all the different branches of Christianity were just seen as differing answers to "how you get to heaven after you die."  Some said, "You need to recite the correct answers from the creed," and others said, "You need to have had a moment where you invite Jesus into your heart and accept him as your savior," and still others, I was told, said, "You have to do a certain number of good deeds, or follow a sufficient percentage of the rules for a sufficient amount of the time," and some said, as if to cover their bases, "You need to do all of the above--doctrinal orthodoxy, righteous deeds, and a born-again-experience moment in your life when you specifically invited Jesus into your life."  And against that backdrop, First Peter's talk (and Jesus' talk, mind you) of not answering evil with evil was usually relegated to one of the good deeds you could do, like an optional merit badge project for Boy Scouts, or as something you could skip as long as you could recite the Apostles' Creed without flinching.

But that's just not how the writers of the New Testament themselves actually saw things.  They recognized that the life Jesus gives us is not just something that starts after your heart stops.  It is a kind of life we live now.  And it is not simply a matter of doing enough good deeds now, in utter misery and suffering, in order to reserve our spot in glory.  It is about a different kind of life that, by its very nature, is freed from the weariness of unending cycles of tit-for-tat getting-back-at-one-another.  It is a life freed from that hamster wheel of always attacking back... and then always looking over your shoulder to see if someone is going to get revenge for your act of revenge.  It is a life that feels more like an adventure and less like a treadmill, because we don't have to keep walking on the same old track of answering evil for evil and hatred for hatred.

I wonder, how might my day, my week, my year, my life, be changed if I could simply step out of that rut of always needing to "get back," always lashing back out when someone has been rotten, always seeing every interaction with others as a contest to be won?  What might I be freed from if I didn't let other people's rottenness determine my course of action in the day?  What could happen if I let love, compassion, humility, and kindness be the hallmarks of my life, rather than a constant drive to win arguments, demean people, or shut others down?

I have a hunch I would feel more alive, even right now.  I have a hunch I would call that kind of life, even now on this side of the grave, "eternal" and "abundant."  And compared with the petty smallness of needing to answer every insult with an insult back, I would say that kind of expansive, grace-filled, loving life sure feels like a little resurrection.

Lord Jesus, don't let us settle for the old way of living with bitterness and hatred, but pull us into your new kind of life even now, and let us dare to believe we can live your way of life beyond death, too.

Grief and Hope--May 5, 2020

Grief and Hope--May 5, 2020

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope." [1 Thessalonians 4:13]
The last phrase in that sentence makes a world of difference, and we need to spend some time with it. We Christians do not grieve as others do, Paul says. But that does not mean we do not grieve--it is simply that we grieve differently. We do not grieve as though we "have no hope," Paul says. But we do grieve. We do feel loss. We just cling to the conviction that even that loss does not get the last word with us.

You really need both halves of that to get a complete picture of how we Easter people think about death--it can't be just one piece or the other, or else you'll lose something important. On the one hand, we don't believe that death gets the final say over us. We all constantly lean on the promise that God does not let go of us even through death--as Robert Farrar Capon says, in death, all we lose is our ability to hold onto our own lives, but Jesus emphatically does not lose his ability to hold onto them. We are convinced--at least on the days our faith has not taken a beating--that we will be reunited with those saints who have gone before us. And we are further convinced that those "saints" are simply all those who have been loved into faith in Jesus, not a special elite class or a select few. So, not because God owes it to us to reunite us with those we love, or because the human spirit is somehow just unthwartable and keeps coming back, buoyant as ever, but rather because God is just deteremined not to let us go, we believe that death is not the end of us. And that means death is not the end of our relationships with others. We await both the resurrection of our friends, and the resurrection of our friendships, which is to say that we believe that even when death separates us, we will one day be able to relate to and love those we have lost. Once again, we will be reunited and rejoined to those we love, and so our memories of them do not have to have the despairingly heavy weight of finality. We are never at the end--at least, so we have come to believe, because we believe in the God of Lazarus, the God who raises the dead. And so, just as Paul says, we don't grieve the way the world grieves--we do not grieve as people who have no hope. We do have hope. It is real, and we bank on it.

But that said, we do grieve when death separates us from those whom we have loved. That's important to hear--it's not that Christians don't grieve, but that we grieve differently. That keeps us honest, because it does hurt when we are separated from those we love. It does hurt--it rips us open--to lose a loved one to death. We may eventually land and settle in a place of peace about the God who promises to raise the dead and to roll away the stone, but the way to that place of peace is through honesty about our loss. There's just no way around it. So it's a distortion of our faith if we tell those who grieve, "Don't feel sad. They're in heaven now." We have that confident hope, yes, that our loved ones, those "brothers and sisters" in the faith whose lives God has not let go of, are indeed in the presence of God. But we still feel sad. We feel sorrow. We feel helpless. We feel hurt--and to be honest, it is precisely because "they are in heaven now" and we are in our lives as usual. It is the separation, our being pulled away from them, that makes us sorrowful, even if not the thought that their lives are lost. Easter people still weep for those they love and have lost--there were tears, after all, on that Easter morning on the way to the tomb, and there were still sorrows even on Easter evening as those two walked the Emmaus Road.

In fact, it is because people matter, and matter so deeply, that we grieve when we are parted in death. It is because we believe a human life is so precious and valuable that we hurt so much when their lives are separated from ours. Even when we know full well by faith, even when we have rock solid confidence, that we will be reunited at the last with those whom we have loved in Christ, we hurt to be pulled away from them, exactly because they matter so much to us and we have loved them. You could say it this way, I suppose: it is because people matter to us that we grieve, and it is because we are convinced that people matter to God that we have hope.

That surely gives a different spin to our way of talking about death and separation as Christians. If all we had to offer the world was a forced, candy-coated, smile and the insistence that we are happy all the time even when we lose people we love, the world would see right through it and know it was a lie. And for that matter, the watching world would ask whether we really cared about those for whom we grieve, even with our hope of seeing them again, if we never let our guard down or never admitted that it hurt.

But that cannot be the last word for us, either--Christianity is not just a program for learning how to be sad honestly. There is hope--the hope that as much as we have loved those we have lost, the living God loves, and continues to love, them even more deeply, and has an even tighter grip on them. That is how we talk about our hope and our grief together--with the honest confession of our wounds, and with the truthful hope, not just that there is one who will tend to our wounds, but who will never let go of those who have been pulled from us, and who indeed, will mend us all back together, on that day when "God will be all in all," as Paul says elsewhere, at the last. Whatever of each of those two, grief and hope, you bring with you today on your way, in any case, what we are invited to do with both of them is to bring them to God. We hold them in our hands, and we say, "You take these, and you make something out of them." And we trust... with tears of one kind or another (grief and hope sometimes each take that form, as you know) that will be enough.

O Lord, for whatever losses we have known, we offer to you both our sorrow at the pain of separation, and our hope that your grip will not let go of us. Mend all things, as you have promised, Lord--both the rips between us and the tears within us.

This Again?--May 4, 2020

This Again?--May 4, 2020

"Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.' So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." [2 Corinthians 12:7b-10]

The risen Jesus, the Scriptures note, apparently has special powers and abilities beyond our own. He can appear behind locked doors, travel at superhuman speeds, and produce miraculous catches of fish, among other things. But one of the most underappreciated (but especially needed) talents of the risen Christ, it would seem, is extraordinary patience.  

The risen Jesus keeps bearing with us when we are dense, doubting, or don't get it.  And he doesn't give up on getting through to us, even when we keep banging our heads into the wall chasing after things that are not good for us.  Long after I would have sent Paul away with a frustrated, "This again?" Jesus keeps listening, keeps bearing with him, and keeps pointing Paul toward something better.  I would not have that sort of long-suffering compassion, I confess.

We don't know what this "thorn in the flesh" was that Paul wrestled with.  Some scholars think it was a physical sickness, or maybe an ailment that affected his eyesight because of some comments he makes elsewhere in his letters.  Others think he was afflicted by depression, or that he was taunted by demonic voices.  Still others just think that there was some other person in the church who really, really got under his skin.  In a sense, it doesn't matter what the specifics were.  What seems noteworthy to me on this day is that Paul keeps going back to thinking it would be great if the Lord would remove this thing.  And throughout three different seasons in his life asking about it, time after time after time the response from the Lord was, "No--this is not the right thing for you.  No, I know you think that pursuing this will be good, but it will not.  No, what you need is what you already have: me."

For a lot of my life, when I have read this passage, I have entered it from Paul's vantage point.  I know what it's like to keep asking and asking and asking, to keep seeking in prayer, and for only answers back to come as silent "nos".  I know what it's like to be sure--absolutely sure--I know what the next good and right thing is... only to have the door swing shut and the possibilities closed off.  And in those moments, sometimes we want to assume that if Jesus is really risen from the dead, he should be giving us the things we ask for.  

But today I've been thinking about how this whole recurring conversation must have seemed from Jesus' vantage point.  And when I think for a moment about what it must be like for the risen Jesus to bear our habit of again and again and again seeking after the things that are not good for us, it amazes me that Jesus doesn't zap us with lightning or at least smack us upside the head on a daily basis.  It's got to sound sometimes to him like we are that acquaintance everybody has who keeps getting swept up in one shady investment proposal or pyramid scheme after another, who keeps asking you to "get in on the ground floor" because "this time it's gonna be a gold mine for sure!"  Or that we're the relative who calls on the phone sporadically, every time from a different city and state, trying to convince you (and maybe themselves) that this new set-up they've got will work out "this time," but... also asking you for some money ("a loan!" they insist) to help them out "just this one last time."  Sometimes it's got to seem to Jesus like we are addicts who keep falling off the wagon asking for you not to tell anyone else that they're drinking again, because they're sure they can handle it all by themselves this time.  And each time in those episodes, the answer has to be "No" because of love... because the thing we are SO sure would just make everything great for us is really not the best thing for us.  And we just refuse to see it.

I am continually amazed that the risen Jesus refuses either to become our vending machine and just give in to every prayer request (even the terrible ones) just to get us to believe in his power, or to zap us with divine judgment when we seek repeatedly for the wrong thing.  Instead, Jesus shows a patience I have a hard time mustering for others in my life, and he remains firmly committed to give Paul what is really best in the big picture.  When Paul starts complaining, "But everybody else I know doesn't have to deal with this thorn in the flesh that I have!" Jesus' response is still, "I know, but I need you to trust me on this one--it is better for me not to give you thing you are asking for."  And when Paul starts over again, praying, "What's the harm that could come from me not getting this?" Jesus' response is again, the firm but loving, "This is not what you need.  It's not what you need, and it's not what is good in the big picture."  And then when Paul, even later in his life, tries to bring it up all over again (still surely thinking, "But THIS time it will be different!"), I am amazed that Jesus doesn't just throw angry fists down and shout, "This again?"

Instead, over and over again, there is graceful patience that puts Paul (and us) back on course again, and that bears with us when we seem hell-bent on running off in the wrong direction down some rabbit trail or chasing after mirages.

And that, if I am really honest, is really what I need.  It's what all of us need.  Look, I know me.  I know us.  We are wayward, thick-headed, stubborn, easily-fooled sheep, and we need someone who will both say "no" to us with love when we are chasing after a mirage or want to spend our last dollar on snake-oil, and who will also still answer the phone when we call at 3:00 in the morning, swearing that "this time" it will be different.

That's the power of the risen Jesus we most truly need.  I don't usually need someone to appear out of thin air a la Harry Potter like a parlor trick, and I don't need a miraculous catch of fish.  What I do need from the resurrected Christ is someone whose love even longer-lasting than my habit of running down dead-ends.

Thanks be to God for the wisdom to know when and where to say No to us... and who refuses to give up on us at the same time.

Lord Jesus, let your power be made perfect in our weakness, and let your patient wisdom be our guide, today and always.