All of God's Chips--January 12, 2021

 

All of God's Chips--January 12, 2021

"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross." [Colossians 1:19-20]

It was God who went to a cross, got buried in a borrowed grave, broke open the powers of hell, and came out the other side alive. It is none other and no less than God who wears the nail-scars like trophies of triumph now. 

This is a pretty big deal, if you think about it. And it's why the early church fought very hard and wrestled for a very long time to make sure they were clear on what they believed about Jesus, "the image of the invisible God." And the conclusion of all that debating, arguing, writing, sweating, and praying, was the conclusion that in Christ Jesus, we don't simply have a divine press secretary, a heavenly placeholder, or a celestial vice-president of human affairs: we have none other than "the fullness of God" embodied in the particular human body of a homeless rabbi from the backwater of the empire. 

Other splinter groups, both in the early centuries and still today, got squirmy with the idea of a God who comes that close. They would be willing to say that Jesus is God's first and best creation, or that Jesus is empowered to speak for God, or that Jesus is the earthly messiah who had been promised by the prophets--but passages like this one insisted that wasn't enough. It's not enough to say that God wanted to reconcile with humanity and so sent a very, very good diplomat to broker a peace treaty or negotiate a deal on God's behalf. It's not enough to say that God appointed Jesus to be the divine representative, law-giver, teacher, or heavenly proxy. The scandalous thing about the New Testament is its insistence, over and over again, that you lose something vital to the Christian faith if we don't recognize God's own face in the crucified Christ, and see God having taken on death in the risen body of Jesus.  We lose what makes the Gospel "good news" if we miss that God's power is most clearly seen on a cross--dying for enemies rather than killing them... and indeed for a whole world of us.

And the difference is in what lengths God will go to for rescuing us. If you need to be picked up at the airport, and I tell you I'm too busy, but I'll ask another mutual acquaintance to go meet you, I'm kind of telling you that I think my other business is more important than you are. Maybe it's the hassle, or the need to have to go out of my way all the way to the airport, or maybe the roads are dangerous (if it's wintertime) and I just don't want to risk it myself. But whatever the reason, I'm sending the message that I'd rather do my other work, or keep myself safe, rather than go to the lengths of picking you up at the airport. But if you need a ride and, despite everything else on my to-do list, I come myself to get you, well then, it's clear, there are no lengths I won't go to. It's clear that you must be pretty important to me. 

Well, if the Christian story is simply that God appointed the assistant manager to come rescue humanity while God minded the store, that tells you what God really values most. But if Jesus really is the fullness of God in a human life, well, that means that God doesn't hold any chips back, but goes all in for you and for me. It says that God wasn't more afraid of death than God was in love with you. It says that God was willing to be permanently scarred for our sake, rather than to be without us--and, to hear Colossians tell it, that "us" includes all things in creation--in the risen body of Jesus of Nazareth. 

I have to tell you, in all honesty--that's why I keep on in this faith of ours, instead of giving up or looking for another religion. For all the ways we screw it up, and all the ways we have let our faith be co-opted by angry mobs, mixed it with the idols of nationalism or political power, or allowed it to be tamed by fussy Respectable Religious people, the thing that holds me in the Christian faith is the audacious claim that there are no lengths God is not willing to go to for us--not even being killed by the state while it mocked him for being a loser. 

That's why I dare to believe it is good news that Jesus is risen: not simply the idea of someone coming back to life after death (which happens in the stories of a lot of other religions, too), but that the One who went through death and hell and resurrection is none other than the fullness of God in the flesh. The Greeks and Romans and Vikings all had plenty of mythological gods and goddesses and demigods and heroes who had brushes with death and then came to life. The ancient near East was full of them, too, from Mithras to Persephone to a long list of dying and rising sun gods. Resurrection stories were a dime a dozen in the ancient world. 

And to be honest there are lots of things that are frustrations and heartaches about the institution we call Church today, too--we get fussy over things Jesus didn't seem to care about, and we overlook the things Jesus said were essential; we get crank ywhen we don't get our way or feel inconvenienced; and we can end up divided over the things that were meant to unify us. There are lots of reasons one could cite for giving up on the ungainly hippopotamus that is the church (as T.S. Eliot called it once), and still find another religious story that involved an afterlife. The thing that keeps pulling me back to this story, this Gospel, this messy and frustrating community called Church is the news that none other than God entered into the mess all the way down to death--a real, human death--and raises that scarred, tortured body into life again, forever marking God's own being with the wounds. 

 If the Christian message were just that God sent Jesus to fix things, but that God in God's own being didn't go through that death and resurrection, I wouldn't be able to be a Christian. It just isn't worth it if God says at some point, "I love you, but there's a length I won't go to for you, and in those instances, I send a substitute." But if the one we call Christ really is the "image of the invisible God," then there are no lengths God will not go to, and there are no boundaries or limits to the reach of God's love. And that, of course, is why the writer of Colossians can say that in the risen Christ, God has reconciled with "all things." No limits. Nothing held back. God goes all in. 

Look, I don't mean to disrespect the sects and spin-off groups (I don't think I need to name names here) that talk about Jesus but can't bring themselves to confess with Colossians here that in Christ we have the fullness of God in a human life, but as I look at the mess of this world, the only hope I can see is if God really says there are no limits to how far God will go, how deep into our pain God will dive, or how much God will endure to reconcile with all things. If there are limits we are all doomed, because we are sure to push the boundaries and cross them one day or another. 

But if we can dare to trust the vision of Colossians, then God really has put all the chips on the table, as it were, and has risked it all... for all of us. And that is news that will let me work up the nerve to put my feet on the floor another day. That is hope enough. 

Lord God, let us dare to believe it is true, that you have completely taken on our life and our death in Christ, and that there are no limits to the power or reach of your love.

On Not Being First--January 11, 2021

On Not Being First--January 11, 2021

"He [Christ] himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything." [Colossians 1:17-18]

There's a wise man I know who has taken to woodworking since his retirement, and he has imparted this truth to me on more than one occasion.  When he finishes a project and still can see a blemish, a flaw, or a mistake in his handiwork, he says with a sense of peace and acceptance, "Only God is perfect."

It's beautiful to hear him say it, because I hear in that sense both a recognition that he doesn't need to try to pretend he is perfect, and also maybe a reminder that nobody else around is, either.  There's a sort of freedom to be what we are that way--we can quit pretending we'll never make mistakes, and we can quit striving for the Number 1 spot on the list of excellence, because that only belongs to God.  That same freedom allows my wise friend to give what he has made to someone as a gift--a table, a chair, a set of shelves or bookends, or whatever--without constantly holding it back to work on it just a little bit more to see if he can get it "perfect."  No, if we were all waiting for our gifts to be perfect, none would ever be given." Only God is perfect" means that I can stop trying to make folks think I am, and that I can abandon the attempt to be better than God.  

I've been thinking of that notion as I read these couple verses from Colossians, because I think there is a similar wisdom in these words.  Here the apostles insists that Christ is first... in everything.  Christ is chronologically first, in that he existed prior to the foundation of the universe.  He is first in order of importance, in that he as "first place in everything," by virtue of his resurrection.  And he is first as the foundation of all of our existence--that is, without the God we know in Christ, we would cease to exist.  My being is dependent on Christ much like my existence depends on the existence of electrons, protons, gravity, and Higgs bosons--without their existence, I couldn't exist, either, since they are the "stuff" I am made of.  In all of these ways, from all of these perspectives, the apostle says, Christ gets first place.  

And here's the rub: if Christ is first, I am not.  If Christ is first, then I don't have permission to put something or someone else as the most important, most foundational, or most non-negotiable priority in my life.  Rather like my wise friend saying, "Only God is perfect," recognizing that "Christ is first" tells me that I don't get to occupy his spot, and I don't get to put anything else in his place, either.

Think for a moment about the clarity that brings me.  If Christ is first, then I don't get to put myself or my group's agenda before him.  I don't get to say, "Me and My Group First!" as a logical principle of life, because Christ has occupied that spot--and he insists on putting others' interests above his own.  I don't get to say that some other abstract concept gets higher priority than Christ, either--I don't have permission to say, "Well, sure, Jesus would have me to X here, but that's not convenient for the advantage of my political party!" or "Yes, I know Jesus would want me to set aside my rights or convenience for the sake of someone else, but... but... freedom!"  I don't get to say that the way of Jesus can be set aside in the pursuit of getting my group's interests advanced or to get my political party to hold onto power--because those are all ways of saying Jesus really isn't first, he's only in whatever position is convenient for me at the time.  Nope--if we believe what Colossians says, we don't get to say, "Christ first!" when that suits my wishes and then, "Party first!" or "Country first!" or "The bottom line first!" when that seems better.  The letter of Colossians has gone to great lengths to insist that there is no category, no time, and no situation in which Christ does not occupy first place.

Maybe the real question is whether we are willing to take that seriously.  Because among a lot of Respectable Religious Folk I know, we kind of pay lip service to the idea of putting Christ first.  We like the idea of saying, "Christ first" when we see him as our mascot that we can use to put ourselves above other people like we are bragging about whose football team won.  We like the idea of thinking we can invoke "Christ first" to assume he endorses our agendas like the folks setting up crosses alongside the gallows they were erecting on the Capitol grounds last week, as if to say, "We have God on our side, and our attempt to intimidate people with the threat of executing our opponents has Jesus' guarantee of success, because you know, Christ is first!"  We like the idea of saying "Christ first" if we think it means that we get to occupy that same first-place spot and find ourselves calling the shots because we have merely mouthed the name Jesus.  

But that's not what this means.  These verses from Colossians say that if Christ is first, then... I'm not.  If Christ is first, no political party or economic philosophy or personal agendas come before him.  Nothing and no one gets to be more essential--not politicians, not a nation-state, not even abstract concepts like "success" or "winning" or "greatness."  No, if Christ is first, then those things can't be the be-all-end-all.

And yet--and this is the real divine comedy of it all--Jesus himself was the one who always insisted that in the Reign of God, "the first shall be last and the last shall be first."  Jesus' way of being first in all things was in fact to put himself last, and to lift up the least, the lost, and the left-behind.  It's safe to say that Christ is first without that becoming a giant ego-trip for Christ, because he's committed to overturning our understanding of first-ness and last-ness anyway.  What does he tell his followers in Mark's Gospel?  "Whoever wants to be great must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first must be slave of all--for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:43-45).  Jesus is constantly taking our old notions of what it means to be "first" and turning them inside-out.  Instead of demanding special treatment because he is most important, he puts the needs of others before his own--that is Jesus' kind of "being first."  And that's what makes Jesus different than all the long line of history's kings, emperors, autocrats, and other would-be leaders who call themselves "first."  Jesus understands that his being first is what puts him in the role of last--to serve those he loves.  The bullies and blowhards of history have it all backwards--they bellow about being first and most important, as though they are the end in and of themselves.

Jesus, in a sense, is the only one who can be trusted to be in the position of first place--because he is the one who doesn't abuse that to feed his own ego or take advantage of the rest of us.  

Today, our calling is to remember that we ain't first: Christ Jesus is.  And that means the question for us at every turn today is not, "What will help Me and My Group's Interests most?" or "What will advance my political cause or help my party?" but rather, "What can I do that most reflects the love, the truth-telling, the decency, and the goodness of Jesus?"  

And at the same time, we are freed: freed from the never-ending rat-race style competition the world is still playing to be "first."  We don't have to play that game, because we are done trying to make ourselves first.  We know the good news: Christ is first above all else--and because of who Christ is, his way of being first means willingness to be last.  

If only God is perfect, I can quit pretending that I am already perfect.  And if Christ is first, I can be done with the wrong-headed quest to put Me and My Group's wants first, too. It all belongs to Christ, and that is good news.

Lord Jesus, free us from the futile burden of putting ourselves first, and give us the freedom of letting you be first of all, in your beautiful, upside-down way.

The Touchstone of God--January 8, 2021

 The Touchstone of God--January 8, 2021

"He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him." [Colossians 1:15-16]

For a long time--most of human history, in fact--nobody knew for certain what the moon was made of.

Far, far back in our collective memory, when people looked for faces in it, surely some of our ancestors thought it was a living being of some kind--maybe a spirit, an angel, a demon, or a god.

At another time, after the invention of rudimentary telescopes, there were early astronomers who could have sworn the dark patches they saw were seas, or bodies of water, like the oceans on the earth.  To this day, we refer to features on the lunar surface as "Mare," or "Sea," like the  famed "Sea of Tranquility" (or "Mare Tranquilitatis," if you want to be fancy and Latin) where the Apollo astronauts landed.

There have even been occasional theories about green cheese.

All of these, however, have been proven incorrect.  We know it now, because astronauts went to the moon, and in fact have brought back samples that could be analyzed, examined, and identified.  (You can even touch one, fittingly called the Touchrock, at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum!)  And the results are unquestionably in: the moon is made of rock.  What you see in a moon rock that you can touch with your own fingers at a museum is what the whole moon is like.  The touchable, visible, perceptible moon rock here on Earth reveals, truly and decisively, what the substance of the moon in the sky is like.  No green cheese, no alien oceans, and not a supernatural being, but honest to goodness rock.

If I show you what appears to be an ordinary gray hunk of stone and say, "But wait--this isn't just any old rock: it's from the moon!" well, that does two things.  First, it makes the rock special, but second, it makes a claim about the moon and what it's actually made of.  Sure, at one level, it's cool if you're the visitor at the museum and you think to yourself, "Wow!  This rock is very special--it has come all this way, and I get to touch it!"  But going a step further, that also means you have learned a great deal about the moon that is still very much beyond your grasp: the rock tells you what it is really like, without any more guessing.

Ok, so why all the talk about lunar geology (or would that be lunology?  Moonology?) on a day like today? Well, for just this reason: while one baseball-sized rock from the Apollo missions is not entirety of the moon, it does reveal, once and for all, what the moon is really made from... what its substance is actually composed of... what is really like.  The big shiny cratered disc in the sky is, of course, much bigger, but the moon rock will tell you--will show you--what the whole thing is like, all the way down.

And the claim of the letter to the Colossians--and really the whole of the New Testament--is that Jesus does the same with God.  He reveals to us what God is actually like, much as a moon rock at long last revealed to humanity what the moon is really made of.  If I show you an ordinary human being--say, an average height Middle Eastern man from a small town in Palestine--and then tell you, "But wait--this isn't just anyone, this is the very image of God in a human life!"  well, that does two things. Sure, it tells you that the human being is very special--maybe we might even use titles like "Messiah" or "Christ."  But it also makes a claim about what God is really like.

And this is the thing we can't avoid, if we claim to be Christ-ians: Jesus reveals to us what God is really like, all the way down.  Jesus is the Touch-Rock of God.  Jesus reveals what and who God is, all the way to the innermost of God's heart.  And what Jesus reveals is not merely power... but love.  Jesus shows that God is not just strong... but self-giving.  Jesus is the evidence that God is not merely "great"--God is good, as well.  And in a very real sense, that's the controversial thing about the Christian message--it's not merely saying that Jesus is important; it says that Jesus shows us who God is, even when that makes God seem scandalous.

The claim of these verses from Colossians, then, is that the way Jesus loves enemies, is actually God's policy toward enemies.  And Jesus' passion for justice that lifts up the lowly and humbles the proud and arrogant--yep, that's God's approach to justice, too.  Jesus' refusal to kill his enemies, shove his opponents to the ground, or return evil for evil is in fact God's refusal to do those things.  And ultimately, it means that no less than God chooses to save the world through a cross--lynched by an angry mob--rather than staying up in some heavenly office somewhere, watching the mess on earth on some celestial TV screen at a safe distance.  

Go ahead, push it further and see just how radical the gospel becomes then: Jesus' choice to crash dinner parties with the notorious sinners and unacceptable people turns out to be God's choice for dinner companionship.  Jesus' welcome of outsiders is shown to be God's acceptance of them, too.  Jesus' sharp words of criticism to the Respectable Religious People who sold out their loyalty to the Empire in exchange for cushy jobs and first-class perks are--gasp--God's judgment on the Respectable Religious Crowd, too.

This is our faith, dear friends: that in Jesus we have been given an honest to goodness moon rock that reveals all the way down what God is really like.  And if we believe that God is really like what Jesus shows us, then we don't get to pretend any more that God is our personal mascot, whom we can remake as we like.  It means I don't get to claim that God supports violence and intimidation, or that God smiles on my greed.  It means I don't get to say that God loves my country but not yours, or that God disapproves of the language you speak.  It means I don't get to say that God underwrites my desire to be a jerk to other people, or that God wants me to be rich at the expense of my neighbor getting to eat. Racism, sexism, nationalism, reckless greed, and militarism--all of them are exposed as ungodly because they are un-Christ-like.  They are imaginary oceans and green cheese, not the solid, touchable rock of the homeless rabbi from Nazareth.  Quite simply, if it runs counter to what we have seen in Jesus, well, then, it ain't the heart of God, either.  Jesus, the divine moon rock, the Touch Stone of God, shows us what and who God is like.

An awful lot of terrible things have been done in human history by folks who were convinced they were doing the will of their god or gods.  And, as terrible as it is to face this, an awful lot of that awfulness has been done by people who claimed they were followers of the Christian God, even down to waving flags with crosses on them or banners that read, "Jesus Saves" while doing terrible things.  But the New Testament itself calls us out on that--its voices say, "No, what doesn't line up with Jesus doesn't line up with God.  Jesus reveals what God is really like, all the way down." 

So today, the question for each of us is really pretty straightforward: how can we let our lives be more Christ-shaped, rather than trying to make God fit our expectations or agendas?  How can we respond to the beautiful and terrible things in the world on this day in the way Jesus does... with the same love Jesus shows... speaking the honest-to-God truth like Jesus does... and with the all-the-way-down authenticity that Jesus embodies?  There will be ways we mess up at it, and ways we fail, to be sure.  But when we realize it--often, when someone else helps us to see past our blind-spots to recognize it--we are called to start over again, letting Jesus be our touchstone of what is in the heart of God... no matter how scandalous that heart turns out to be.

Lord Jesus, reveal to us the heart of God, and make us over in the likeness of your image, so that your divine love will reflect in us into the world you so love.

Why We Stay--January 7, 2021

Why We Stay--January 7, 2021

"[God] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." [Colossians 1:13-14]

I have to confess something: it is a great deal harder to read these words at the end of the day on January 6 than it was even twelve hours ago, and still to believe them.  

It is hard to mouth an "Amen" over the claim that God has already "rescued us from the power of darkness" like it is an accomplished fact after seeing angry mobs storm the United States Capitol Building, armed and equipped for a pre-meditated confrontation.  

It is hard to believe we have been already "transferred into the kingdom of his Son" like it is a done deal when we have just witnessed violent clashes that claimed at least one life and led to several other severe injuries fueled by blind rage and fear.  

It's hard to believe that redemption is something we already have, after seeing Confederate flags, that old symbol of both treason and enslavement, waved proudly through the halls of our government's heart when they had not ever made their way inside even during the Civil War itself. 

And it is very hard for me, as a would-be representative and follower of Jesus, to see the cross of Christ used as a symbol in such a violent insurrection, as though Jesus in any way supported what happened today in our nation's capital.

This is one of those days it's hard to believe the promises and claims of the Scriptures.  I'll own it--and I'm the preacher.  It's also one of those days that raises the recurring question, "Why would you, or anybody else, stay in the midst of a place where such rotten things happen--or, God forbid, where they are cheered?"

And again, to be really honest, that is always a difficult question to keep finding answers for.  Why stay in the midst of a situation where there is so much rottenness, meanness, and hatefulness?  Why stay in a place--a community, a country, a world--where such terrible things not only happen, but are all too often celebrated or defended rather than unilaterally lamented?

Well, okay, here's my answer.  Maybe it only makes sense to me, and I won't assume it will be persuasive for everybody.  But to me, the challenge of these verses is the same challenge of staying in a world, a place, a time, and a situation that doesn't feel like it's been "rescued from the power of darkness."  And facing that challenge looks something like this:  to say we have been "transferred into the Reign of Christ" doesn't mean we have been taken out of the world--after all, it is the world, all creation, and the whole universe that is Christ's rightful domain.  To say, as Colossians does, that we have been rescued from the powers of evil and transferred into the Reign of God means that we are freed from having to live under the rule and order of the rottenness and wickedness around us.  We do not have to participate in it.  We are freed from having to live under its terrible logic, and we do not have to give our allegiance to its loud bellowing voices.  We live, right under the nose of the powers of the day, free from their domination over us.  We are freed to live by a different set of values, a different vision of life, a different Lord--the Crucified One, Jesus Christ.  But we don't leave the world in which we live to do that--we just discover that we can stop listening to the angry shouting voices that still think they are in charge of us. 

Well, they ain't.

In a way, it's almost like every day we are presented with the same dilemma that theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer was given about whether to stay in a comfortable teaching position at a university in America, or to return to Germany during the days of Hitler's Reich, knowing he would be called to resist its evil if he went.  In 1939, Bonhoeffer told an American colleague that he knew he had to go back into the belly of the beast--back into the midst of the evils of Nazi Germany, and it was his faith in Christ that led him there.  He wrote, "I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people....Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make this choice in security."

In other words, for Bonhoeffer, his faith in Christ was not permission to go somewhere easy and safe where he never had to be a part of resisting evil and speaking up for the powerless.  Rather, his faith in Christ was the very reason that he chose to stay, and first to go back, in the places that were most difficult and hostile.  Bonhoeffer believed, like the letter to the Colossians says, that he had been rescued from the powers of darkness--but he knew that didn't mean he didn't have to engage or face it.  It meant he didn't have to be ruled by it as its subject anymore.  Bonhoeffer could go back into the presence of the worst human evils and the demonic powers of the Reich and resist it--to say "No" to it as he said "Yes" to the way of Christ.  And he knew that only if he was there in the midst of that situation could he also say "No" to the way Hitler's Reich was co-opting the church to make it give its loyalty and blessing to the Fuhrer.

Let me say it again, then, for clarity's sake: yes, we are freed from the grip of evil in the sense that we do not have to play its games or by its rules, and we do not have to believe its lies anymore.  But we are very much called, with Jesus himself, to find ourselves in the midst of that rottenness as a presence of salt and light.  We are called to embody the alternative. We are called to say our "No" when the signs and symbols of Christianity are co-opted by angry mobs storming the Capitol, too, alongside Confederate flags, long guns, and bombs.  We are called, on more ordinary days, too, to say "No" to the ways the name of Jesus gets mingled with hatred and self-centeredness in the name of being "great."  We are called to name not the big idolatries we cannot ignore when they make the day's headlines, but also the countless little ways we are tempted to sell our souls for a little more influence, a little more money, a little more comfort or power or reputation.  We can only do that if we are willing, like Bonhoeffer and the ancient Christians in Colossae, to continue living in resistance in the midst of the tension, rather than looking to leave it.

The early Christians, after all, all lived under the rottenness of the Roman Empire, and they didn't run away from it to go live in some imaginary "other" place where it was easy to live.  They lived their lives right under the nose of Caesar and all his violence and arrogance, but they knew that they did not have to listen to his orders or his propaganda.  They had indeed been rescued from the powers of the day--but they never left the places they lived when it happened.  They chose to stay, because it allowed them to be faithful witnesses to Jesus.

So here's the deal, dear friends: I hope and pray we never see another day like January 6, 2021--I hope that this is a lone day of infamy that my kids will remember as a terrible exception rather than the norm.  But I know that there will be other rottenness, other meanness and hatred, other crookedness and wickedness, and other evils that they--and I, and you, too--will have to face, no matter where we go and no matter what happens.  We aren't given a pass to "beam out" of the world, and we aren't given permission to just go somewhere where there will be less tension or less hostility or less friction.  We are called to go where Jesus sends us, even if that feels like living our lives right under the noses of the powers of evil.  But we are freed in that living, too, because we don't have to accept the terms or play by the rules of the powers of the day, either.

That's how a light is seen to be shining, anyway--you notice it when it is put in a dark place.  If we're called to be a light, then we had better get used to the idea that we may be called to remain in situations that feel gloomy and dark.  That's why we stay.

They may think (and say, or shout) that they have power over us, but they don't.  We are freed, by Jesus himself, to tell them "No, thank you," and instead to live like we have been made citizens of an alternative domain--the Reign of Christ, whose way of being King was to lay down his life, and whose throne is a cross borne for the love of even his worst enemies.

The powers of the day won't have a clue as to what to do with us if we live in the freedom of that kind of love. We don't have to go anywhere else to live in Christ's Reign--we can do it right here, right now, even though it is hard a lot of the time.  

Come on, let's make them wonder--whatever else comes our way in this day.

Lord Jesus, free us and remind us we have been rescued already so that we do not have to live by the ways of the rottenness around us.  Help us to stay where you have placed us, and give us the courage to offer light to places of gloom.

Strength That Endures--January 6. 2021

Strength That Endures--January 6, 2021

"May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." [Colossians 1:11-12]

It's not about bench-pressing or tearing phone books in half, and it never was.

Strength, that is.  At least the genuine article.  I think the New Testament is a lot more interested in talking about the kind of strength that makes us able to endure, like a fortress, than the kind that smashes or rips something else apart like a battering ram.  Real strength is about weathering the storm, not threatening or intimidating others.  And that means, too, that real strength doesn't need to rattle sabers, make threats, or use fear.  Real strength doesn't need to advertise or tell the world how great and big and powerful it is--real strength can walk softly, to borrow a phrase.

This is important for us to be clear on, especially because sometimes religious folk can get confused.  We end up falling for the idea that being strong is about looking tough or having the power to dominate others, rather than the ability to endure what comes against us from outside.  And sometimes we end up making the nonsensical claim that following Jesus will make us more muscular, more aggressive, or more intimidating.

I can remembering hearing years ago about a traveling group of "Christian" affiliated (and I use the word loosely here) weightlifters who would go around putting on shows in church amphitheaters or the gymnasiums of "Christian" schools where they would do a whole routine, a performed show, with different feats of strength, from lifting weights to literally tearing phone books in half, to all sorts of other tricks and displays of power.  And in between the circus act, there would be testimonies that would try and persuade the cheering audience that Jesus gives this kind of power--that being a good Christian would also improve your muscle mass and your ability to destroy things.

And, yeah, a lot of times, we religious folk would fall for it--captivated by the idea that we, too, could be tough and strong and powerful like them, if only we prayed the right prayer to let Jesus in.  Never mind, of course, that there are internet videos teaching the trick of phone book ripping (Spoiler alert--it has to do with creasing the binding of the phone book before anybody is watching).  And never mind that Jesus himself never falls for that toxic masculinity garbage himself, and never teaches his followers that he will grant anybody the power to intimidate, dominate, or threaten others with some kind of divine strength.  Instead, Jesus constantly empowers his followers to endure, to withstand, to persevere. That's his kind of strength.

Forgive my cynicism, but I've lived through enough of seeing sports heroes get asterisks by their names and records because their great feats of strength turned out to have been accomplished with cheating through performance-enhancing steroids and other drugs.  I've seen enough internet videos giving away the tricks.  I've seen enough times when people confused being strong with being a bully that I'm just not interested in those kinds of shows of so-called strength anymore.  

We live in times when it is easy to want to have a show of force ready to intimidate the people we don't like, or don't agree with.  It is easy to take everything that doesn't go our way as a threat... and then to think you have to meet those threats with more shows of strength and power, like we are animals putting on a display in a battle for the role of Alpha male.  It's easy and tempting to believe the voices that say you have to overpower your opponents, crush your enemies, and intimidate everybody else if you want to "win" in life.  It's easy, too, following that train of thought, to believe that when you, say, wear a mask to protect your neighbor from COVID or follow a governmental request to suspend certain kinds of gatherings, that you must be "weak" because you are complying.  It is easy to think that caring for neighbors is weakness and being defiant must be the same as being strong.

And it is, of course, natural, then, that we would want to take that same thinking and apply it to our picture of God.  We want to assume that God's defining quality is the omnipotence that means God can coerce and force and threaten to make people do what God wants.  And we want to reimagine Jesus as the conquering hero, rather than as the Crucified One.

The late theologian Robert Farrar Capon once wrote that we keep trying to make Jesus into Superman--that we would rather have a bulletproof Savior who smashes his enemies than one whose power is seen supremely in suffering love; that is, what the world thinks of as losing.  In his fantastic Hunting the Divine Fox, Capon writes:

“We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he blasphemed: He claimed to be God then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim. It’s not that we weren’t looking for the Messiah; it’s just that he wasn’t what we were looking for. Our kind of Messiah would come down from a cross. He would carry a folding phone booth in his back pocket. He wouldn’t do a stupid thing like rising from the dead. He would do a smart thing like never dying.”

In a nutshell, I think that's our ongoing trouble with the notion of true strength.  We keep thinking that having Jesus in your life will let you rip phone books in half, intimidate others into submission, and dominate your opponents.  And instead, Jesus gives us a rather different kind of strength: one that looks like the capacity to endure suffering for the sake of love... even love of opponents and enemies.  

The letter to the Colossians is clear on this, too, if we actually listen to what it says.  For all the talk of God's "glorious power," note that these verses talk about that power and strength in terms of the capacity to endure.  It's strength like an anvil is strong, or strength like a full-grown oak tree to withstand the fury of the storm.  It's strength like a cleft in the rock in which you can take refuge, rather than a power you can wield to destroy somebody else.

In a time when lots of voices seem to think the way to show strength is with angry demonstrations, tiki torches, intimidating shows of weaponry (which all smack of a need to impress and overcompensate rather than real fortitude, honestly), or the tired old "Don't tread on me" motto, you and I are called to be different. No, let me correct that: we are empowered to be different.  We have been given true strength--Christ's kind of strength. We are a people filled from the inside with God's strength--the strength it takes to go to a cross, not the appearance of toughness it takes to bully others.  We are people given the ability to endure with love and integrity--and in a world full of hatred, indifference, and fakeness, that really is something.  

The world around us may not understand it or know what to call it, but we do.  It is real strength.

God give us the strength we need to face this day with love for all.

Acorn People--January 5, 2021

Acorn People--January 5, 2021

"...so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God." [Colossians 1:10]

Scientifically speaking, an acorn belongs to the category of oak trees.  Sure, it's a seed, but all the DNA, all the instructions and blueprints for making an oak tree instead of, say, an orangutan, are there in the acorn already.  An acorn doesn't "earn" the status of "oak-ness"--it already has it, before it's done a thing.  In fact, to be precise, it is the already-given "oak-ness" in the acorn's DNA that enables it to take raw materials like oxygen, nitrogen, soil, and water, and to become a giant of a tree in the forest.  It's all right there, waiting to become fully, in a sense, what it already is.

You could also say that the acorn seems to be more fully itself when it finally sprouts leaves puts down roots, and grows into a tree (which in turn puts forth acorns), but it's not a matter of earning or achieving.  It is a matter of becoming.

I want to suggest that this is what the Christian life looks like.  It is a matter of becoming, not of earning.  We aren't used to thinking like that, in a time and culture like ours that seems obsessed with how you impress, accomplish, and win things like status or belonging or some title or another.  We have been taught to strive and struggle (and if necessary, step on people along the way) to get ourselves to the position of "winning," no matter the cost or what we have to do to get there, in order to achieve this elusive thing called success.  And frankly, that impulse we have learned is destroying us--the terrible things we'll do to get that status of being seen as "winners," the ways folks will sell out their convictions or stoop to all sorts of crookedness rather than risk not "winning," they all reveal how deeply terrible that mindset really is.  It is slowly killing us all, the more we give in to it.  But it isn't the way the letter to the Colossians sees things.  No--it's not about climbing and clawing our way up to the top, no matter how crooked that makes us.  No, from the vantage point of Colossians, our life in Christ is about becoming what God says we already are.  It is about being made more fully ourselves, not vying for a lone spot on the top of the heap.  

We are, you could say, acorn people.

So when the apostle calls his readers to lead lives that are "worthy of the Lord," it's not like we have to drum up votes to win a religious popularity contest, or impress God into accepting us, or earn our way into a status of being "worthy" by pretending to be the winners we really aren't.  No, it's about becoming more fully what God says we already are.  And in Christ (who is God's Beloved), God says you are beloved, too.  In Christ (to whom we belong) God says you belong as well, forever.  In Christ, who is God's Word through whom all the world was created, God says that you are good--just as God declared creation "good" in the beginning.  We are acorns--given the "status" (if you can call it that) of belonging-to-the-oaks in our innermost selves.  What we are called to is to become.  Nothing more, and nothing less.  We are called to become fully ourselves, to become what God has intended us to be, like an acorn becoming an oak tree patterned on the very same oak tree which produced it.  We are called to become the embodied love that first embraced us in Christ himself.

That, of course, is very very different from the rat race our culture has tried to teach us, where we have to constantly impress, constantly try to convince others we are successful or acceptable or "winners," and constantly pretend to be something we are not, in the hopes of fooling someone into thinking we're the real deal.  I mean, honestly, how embarrassing to get stuck in that mode of operating!  How deeply sad, how truly pathetic we are when we try and earn the world's approval and and strive to make ourselves look like winners to do it. That is exhausting, and it never succeeds for very long. The truth eventually does come out, and the charlatans and fakers are revealed for what they really are, even if the trick worked for a bit.  Eventually, if we have been playing that game, it will suck the life right out of us.  It isn't worth playing.

But to live a life of becoming?  Well, just the opposite--we actually become more fully alive the more it happens.  When we can be done with pretending and preening and trying to impress--anybody--then we are free to come fully alive and to discover the good news that God has already said we are worthy, beloved, and accepted.  The question is whether we will dare to believe these things are already given to us by grace--like an acorn is given DNA as a gift in its own creation--and whether we will let God's grace in Christ enable us to become what we are made to be.  See how different that is?  It's not play-acting at being a winner in the hopes of fooling the judge; it's growing to maturity with the gifts that are already in you, and trusting the status of belonging you already have.

That's the invitation in this day: not to try and force or pressure or cajole or fool or trick anybody into any particular impression of you, but simply let yourself believe what God says about you already in Christ... and to let that move you from acorn-oak-ness to full-grown-tree-oak-ness.

That's the adventure all of us disciples are on.  We are, after all, acorn people.

Lord God, bring us to maturity and help us to become fully what you say we already are in you.

In Need of Realignment--January 4, 2021

In Need of Realignment--January 4, 2021

"For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding..." [Colossians 1:9]

Okay, so here's the thing: your cell phone is not God (a statement I hope goes without saying), but neither is God like your cell phone, either.

You may want to insist that those are both the same and both obvious, but it seems to me that we often have this unspoken assumption that God functions in our lives like a tool of technology--like our cell phones--and whose job is get us things we want.  Honestly, we treat our faith sometimes (maybe quite often) like the role of having God in your life is to acquire things, to make things the way you want them in life, or at least to arrange things the way you want them in the afterlife. Our lists may be different--sometimes we wish for money, job, career, "winning" (whatever that means), our political party to be in charge, or romantic relational fulfillments.  Sometimes the wishes are more "spiritual-sounding"--like "inner peace," or "contentment," or just the hope of going to heaven when we die.  But however you or I would word it, we often operate like God is a service provider--like your cell phone network carrier--and that God's job is to get us access to the things we want.

Now that by itself is, in all honestly, theological garbage, but then here's the second layer of garbage we add on top of that:  we often treat "faith" like it's the on-off setting on your cell phone that scans for available networks.  We assume that if we are feeling unspiritual, disconnected from God, or out of sorts in our souls, then it just must be a matter of flipping the right switch, so to speak, to get out of "airplane mode" and to start picking up God's signal again.  If we just do that--whether we imagine it's by going to church enough, praying the proper prayer, or having the right one-time come-to-Jesus moment, then we'll be instantly back in touch with God, we'll clearly see God's direction in our lives, and we'll be back on track to getting all the things we want God, our spiritual service provider, to give us access to.

If that sounds like a crude or unfair caricature of popular religion, listen closely to how so much of Respectable Religious out there sounds:  "You didn't get what you wanted because you haven't been praying for it enough..." or "We all must put on a show of religious contrition and start up a revival to get our land and our society 'back' to some glorious time in the fog of our memories that we think actually happened" (but was probably a good deal imaginary).  Or it's, "You must pray hard to get your candidate or party to win... and if your candidate or party doesn't win, it must be the devilish forces of darkness fighting against you getting the thing you want." Or even, "If you want that success in business, or your kid on the honor roll, or to meet that special someone who will make your life cookie-cutter complete, you have to "name it and claim it" in prayer, and then if you believe hard enough, God will give you want you have claimed in faith.  Those aren't far-fetched--that's an awful lot of the pop theology floating around us all the time.

And to be clear, every one of those notions operates from the assumptions that (1) God is here to grant our wishes and provide a service to us like a cellular network carrier, and (2) getting in touch with God to make all that wish-granting happen is just a matter of some one-time religious action you must do. The voice we hear in the letter to the Colossians begs to differ.

In fact, this one verse from Colossians challenges both assumptions, first by turning the tables on whose will is most central, ours or God's... and the second by reminding us that getting in tune with God's will is not a matter of a single one-time flipping of a switch, but an ongoing, daily seeking and striving for clarity.  

Let's start with the first.  Contrary to the religious thinking in our age that often treats God as a glorified vending machine or spiritual service provider, the apostle says that what's most important is that we be filled with knowledge of God's will--not some leverage to get God to do our will.  Think about that for a moment.  When the apostle prays for these Christians in Colossae, he doesn't ask for God necessarily to give them their list of wishes, but that their wants, thoughts, desires, and hopes would be brought into alignment with God's will.  So if I've been yearning for a McMansion and a Lexus and haven't gotten it, maybe the problem isn't how to get God to do my bidding and cough up some sets of keys--maybe what I need is for MY heart to be re-shaped, and MY will to be re-formed, in light of what God's good vision is.  And maybe instead of me getting a bigger house and more expensive car, God's design is for me to use the resources I already have to help make sure someone else gets to eat and doesn't have to sleep in a bus stop kiosk to get out of the cold.  If I've been praying (or selfishly wishing and dressing it up as prayer) for more stuff or for my political party to get more power, and it hasn't happened, maybe what I need is for God to change me so that my priorities become aligned with God's priorities of justice and mercy and enough for all.

Here in this verse from Colossians, that's basically the move that the apostle makes:  instead of fervently praying that his readers would get what they want necessarily, he prays that God would shape what they want to be in line with what matters in the Reign of God.  And I've got to tell you , sometimes it's hard for each of us--myself included--to admit that my wish lists and personal priorities are out of whack with the vision of God's Reign as we see it in Jesus.  Sometimes I want my pet hatreds reinforced, or I want to only see good things happen for Me-and-My-Group-First.  Sometimes I can only think in terms of my immediate comfort or convenience, rather than what people far away from me might need--and how their needs might need to come first before my privilege.  Sometimes I don't want to admit that God loves people that I can't stand, and I don't want to allow the possibility that God not only loves them fiercely, but is doing good in their lives in ways that will shape them to be more like Christ as well, even if I can't see it yet.  All of that is hard, and Colossians reminds us here that this is happening all the time--God is at work (in answer to prayers like Paul's) changing each of us from the inside, so that what-I-want is slowly being brought more fully into alignment with what-God-wants.  Admitting I'm out of step with that is hard.  But then realizing that someone else might be praying for ME to be brought back in line with God's will and values is even more humbling.

And that's the second piece we need to spend a moment talking about here, too:  getting aligned with what matters to God--what we sometimes call discerning God's will--isn't some instantaneous flip of a switch or speaking of a prayer.  It's something that grows and deepens over time (and yes, sometimes we take steps backward between steps forward, too).  We want our religion to be reducible to a one-time prayer or an easy, obvious set of propositions (like, "God always want this political party to win, so always back them," or "God always sides with this nation of the world, so nothing they do can ever be wrong," or "God is always aligned with policies that lower your taxes... or help your business make more money... or maximize your personal freedoms" or "God's will is to make you more comfortable and privileged, and who cares about people who are outside your group"). But Colossians suggests (and I would add that I believe the whole of the Biblical witness backs Colossians up on this) that discerning God's will is often a lot messier, foggier to figure out, and interconnected with all of us.  And that means it's not simply a switch you can turn on. It's not just a matter of asking one time, "Dear God, show me your will" and then assuming that every gut impulse you have after that is the word of God or the nudging of the Holy Spirit.  

It means that seeking God's will in our lives is going to require patience, wisdom, humility, and the presence of other people.  We need others who will pray for us, sure, but also people who will be checks and balances in our lives and hold us accountable.  We need people to tell us when our gut impulses are really just our own wishful thinking rather than direction from God. We need people who can tell us when our actions or priorities don't line up with the way of Jesus, and who can call us out on them.  And we need the patience and grace with ourselves to keep muddling through on the days when God's will or direction doesn't seem clear yet.

All of that mean that the Christian faith is a lot less like paying for a spiritual service provider (where I am the customer who is always right), and a lot more like a daily walk in which we need the voices of companions on the journey--and a map and compass, too--to keep leading us in a good direction.  There are no switches to flip, and no simple setting buttons to toggle, to make God connect up to us.  There is instead the step by step adventure of a journey, shared with other sojourners along the way, on which God's voice becomes clearer as we go.

It's a long road, but it's worth giving your whole life to traveling it. Let's go.

Lord God, help us.  Re-align our wishes and wants to the shape of your Reign of justice and mercy.  And speak to us in ways that get through to us, so that we will recognize the sound of your voice leading us onward.