Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

March 10, 2022

Life is Not Some Deal to Be Struck, Nor Does it Last Forever

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and make good your vow to the most High” (Psalm 50)

Here in Psalm 50 God rejects both the religious (“I will take no bull-calf from your stalls…”) and the irreligious (“since you refuse discipline and toss my words behind your back”) but looks only for a word of appreciation (two times here: “offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving”), though watch this carefully: needs it not (“if I were hungry I would not tell you, for the whole world is mine and all that is in it”). 

What is God daily doing to us? Not demanding a deal, some righteousness from us in order to reap righteousness from God. Rather this: providing a magnificent home wherein we live out our days (“the Lord, the God of gods, has spoken; he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting”). This encouragement, not caution, to “offer thanksgiving” means to open us up to what is most real and true. Life is a gift to be lived out until it is exhausted, not a deal to be struck so as to claim victory. It is an invitation to full expression, not an admonition to proper obeisance. 

                                                              Take That Road

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

March 14, 2022

On Confidence in the Face of Annihilation

“Arise, O God, maintain your cause.” (Psalm 74)

It deserves an exclamation point. There is none. I want to place an exclamation point. There is none. So is it written in exasperation of realizing nothing will come of it? Or is it rather written in the firm and steady confidence that the advent has already begun and all will be rectified and all will be well?

Will something this week with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine plunge us into a global conflagration? Chemical or nuclear weapons unleashed?! The specter of such changes all war. But what is the cost of “allowing” Russia to swallow Ukraine? This is insane that we have nation-states invading others. But why would be think we have evolved to something more civilized?

When I realize that Jesus’ death and resurrection is the merciful love at all costs (death) declared to be the eschaton on and over all human endeavor (resurrection), I end up with the conclusion of “the firm and steady confidence that the advent has already begun and all will be rectified and all will be well.” “Arise, O God and maintain your cause,” means that. 

But how could I say such a preposterous thing? On what basis? What evidence? Why is it not some pipe-dream of the innocent and the poor?

[Excursus on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and confidence in God: Bonhoeffer, in “After Ten Years,” writing in 1942 of the previous 10 years of resistance to Nazism and companionship therein with family and colleague and friends, 1 year before his imprisonment for such and 3 years before his murderous hanging for the same, asks “Who Stands Firm?” and answers not one who has confidence in godliness but rather one who has confidence in God (this is my language, the way I can say it). He writes, “Who stands firm? Only the one whose ultimate standard is not his reason, his principles, conscience, freedom or virtue; only the one who is prepared to sacrifice all of these when, in faith and in relationship to God alone, he is called to obedient and responsible action” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition, Vol. 8, p 40). This is a difficult distinction for us to make – this godliness vs. God, because we cannot not think of ourselves as the actors on every stage, the subject of every sentence. Outcomes always and only depend on our ability to act, whether in behavior or belief. We cannot, we will not allow ourselves to be taken out of the game so that our outcomes, our destiny, lies solely in someone else’s hands. Faith in God, confidence in God, is not an add-on to virtues (e.g. reason principles, conscience or virtue) but rather the annihilation and lose of virtue, just so there is nothing left of Self, only God remains. Faith is being bereft of Self and filled by God. Luther writes in his Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1531, LW 26): “And this is why our theology is certain; it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience or works, but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive.”

If we cannot allow ourselves to give up our place on the playing court so as to win the game by letting somebody else play, how do we get to that victory?  How do we come to such faith, this faith that is the absolute opposite of weakness, the opposite of an atrophy in the face of evil, but rather a confidence in God so that all godliness can falter and fall and in fact be killed, but always “stand firm”? We come to it only kicking and screaming all the way as God drags us out of the game, benches us. How do we come to such faith, such confidence in God? How do we stand firm? We are placed there, put there, killed (of any agency) (I think of Colossians 1 here: taken from darkness and transferred to the Kingdom). We come to such confidence in God by God. 

The great irony then occurs. The one bereft of all virtue and ability to affect any change becomes the most powerful resistance to evil, the only thing that defeats evil, a confidence in God alone and not a confidence in positive outcomes. Who stands firm? The one who cares not anymore of stability and strength but only God, who is unmerited and unconditional mercy. The one who loves at all costs simply because faith in God alone means only that that action and option, faith active in love, is left on the table. You cannot trust in God alone and not only love (bring mercy) at all costs and to the end.]

The one born in Nazareth (and the story says Bethlehem so to ensure we know his salvific lineage) is hung up on a tree, ignominiously, and savagely executed by the State. That is the evidence. After that, you see, there is nothing left of our aspirations to wealth and well-being. There is nothing left standing. It is a nuclear and chemical war let loose on creation and it is an annihilation. Not maybe. Not could be. But actual and done. It is finished. That is the way Jesus put it, of course, and it makes sense that we should take him at his word. Nothing left, then, but what? But what? Anything left when nothing left? What can come of nothing? Only that whom created nothing in the first place and then created something out of nothing. 

God. 

Arise, O God, and maintain your cause!

                            Overlooking the Beach in the Winter Coming on Spring

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

March 9, 2022

Vladimir Putin and God and War

“Nevertheless, you have rejected and humbled us and do not go forth with our armies” (Psalm 44)

Everybody claims a corner on God. Everybody who believes in God believes God is in their corner (even those who do not believe in God believe this – but that is for another day’s notes). I’m thinking this morning of how Vladimir Putin of Russia believes that God wants to create a Russian empire, or he, Putin wants such and is using God (take a look at Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill), ordained by God to rule with impunity and that he, Putin, will be God’s agent for this destiny. Read Psalm 44 from Putin’s place and his view from there of Ukraine’s Zelensky and people: “you (God) have made us fall back before our adversary, and our enemies have plundered us” as he, Putin, worries that his invasion of Ukraine isn’t going as smoothly as planned. 

We, of course, should leave God out of it. When there is a brawl or a war, we should leave God out of it.  And, of course, it is impossible for us to do that. I say “of course,” of course, because it is entirely too evident that we all go through our days claiming justification for our wanton self-centeredness and self-absorption and we will stop at no boundaries claiming support, including any boundary on the temporal and the human. “The eternal and the divine are on our side, thank you very much.  Can’t you see that!?” 

It’s all pathetic. Not only the warring world but the hauling in of God to defend destruction. The Bible’s narrative is thick with Israel’s claim that God actually killed on Israel’s behalf. And that claim is staked by stating in true self-righteous fashion that Israel trusts God to do the victory and does not trust their own measly strength. Oh, how humble of you. At least that same narrative is honest and forthcoming enough to say that God, their own most amazing God, turns the tables often enough and kills them, Israel, just as well. 

Just who is this God who kills both the righteous and the wicked, no matter who claims to be which? What is the story being told here? What is the destiny being written?

The moment you put God into the equation of our territorial and economic and political pursuits is the moment you have to do gymnastics with theodicies. 

Better to just leave God out of it (the equation) and see what you have left. What is left of the human condition and what is left of God?

What is left of the human condition is a massive mixture of good and bad, seemingly devolving, it seems to me at least, as we see in our economic exploitations, political oppressions, social injustices and environmental degradations of this our 21st century. 

What is left of God is One who is, well, God – which means to say not us – not doing anything related to us. 

But then, follow the Christian Biblical narrative until it ends, which means to say, until Jesus. Hebrews 1 puts it like this:  “In many and various ways God has spoken to us in the prophets, but now in these last days he has spoken to us in his son.” The account of Jesus, when you tell the truth of it and don’t try to turn it into a glory story to support your own self-righteous positions (which again, is just what we do – “you do you!”), taking the Resurrection account as a story that claims God defeats all the bad guys in the end rather than what it is: God leaves all the bad guys and the good guys to their own devices and simply closes the door on all that song and dance to mean anything for eternal destiny and simply and profoundly declares “mercy” on the whole shootin’ match, on us, on all. 

When we take the glory story out of the Jesus story (call it “the hero’s journey” of literature and lore of every culture since the dawning of time) because we see that there actually is no glory there, only suffering and death, we see that the Resurrection account is not to tell us that suffering (of God: we do, like it or not, suffer from the likes of God’s Godness) and death (death to our own ego and self-project) are defeated but are actually the way of life, are redemptive. We see that love is the only redemption. 

The Resurrection is an exclamation point on the suffering and death of Jesus (and us!), not their obliteration. We see then that the Jesus Story is all about God staying out of our power struggles (and wars) and declaring it all for naught and replacing it all with mercy. Everybody dies. Everybody is to blame. But fear not: mercy!

What is left of God? Mercy. Unmerited and Unconditional Mercy. 

Take God out of our warring madness and let God loose on what and who is God: Mercy. If the Christian story is anything (and not, again, a stand-in for our own claims to superiority and status) it is that. God has not left the building. God is in the building as it collapses and shouts aloud with borasco-like ferocity: “Mercy!”. On us all, and all creation, as the whole thing turns to rubble and dust. 

                                                            Recently on Cedar Key

Field Notes From A Religion-Less Christian

March 1, 2022

What Good is a Lifeguard Who Drowns? 

(Just What is Salvation Anyway?)

Often enough when someone reflecting on life’s tough circumstances attempts to make sense of just how it could be that God is making good of it or how it is simply that God is anywhere in sight, the conclusion is not that God is or could be fixing anything about the concern but that the redemption of it all is that “God is with us.” And why not, since what popularly and easily comes to mind is Matthew’s Gospel moniker for who it is that is born in that divine birth narrative is none other than “Emmanuel,” which the author even spells out for us as meaning “God with us” as if we dare not miss the point. 

But that has always struck me as a kind of “misery loves company” solution to the problem of pain: no real solution at all, just a lot of hand holding as the ship sinks. 

But then again, for years now I have contended that the best illustration for how it is that Jesus saves anything is not as a lifeguard who swims out to the flailing person drowning in the water and hauls them back to shore in the nick of time, but rather as that same lifeguard swimming out, yes, but instead of hauling you in tells you to be calm because she is with you now and will be drowning with you as you sink and then wraps her arms around you so there is no mistaking that you are not alone, and verily dies right there with you.

The value of this illustration of salvation is that there is not fix by a knight in shining armor just as in life when there is too often no cure or when the bombs fall on the innocent. The “dying lifeguard’ illustrates most baldly how divine salvation really works – everybody drowns, but not everybody gets the actual promise that everything is alright that comes with the companion of the Company, the Standard of Life, God. So we are back to what Steven Paulson (Luther’s Outlaw God, Vols.1-3) lifts up as Martin Luther’s breakthrough distinction and identification of God being both “unpreached” (silent and lurking, waiting for us to get our act together before blessing) and “preached” (loudly and in plain sight telling us there is no need to get our act together because we are not loved because we are lovely but rather we are lovely because we are loved).  Everybody drowns, but some get only the Demand from the lifeguard that is folded arms standing on the shore glaring at us because we are such poor swimmers and can’t remember our swimming lessons, while others get the Promise from the lifeguard who tells us all is well and all will be well forever as she dies right along with us. Salvation as healing, not cure. 

So, what, have I now talked myself back into accepting that the “God is with us” sermon does the trick and is not just a religious platitude to numb the pain? I think so, in the end.

But you see the thing about the “God is with us” answer to pain that bothers me, I think, is that it can be used as a cover for a lack of personal or corporate responsibility in the face of injustice and evil. An excuse for a dereliction of duty. Rather than throw yourself at the problem, work to be the solution, one acquiesces and relies on God to clean up the mess. Rather than even trying to swim, one simply lets the waters roll while thinking the Lifeguard will take care of things (when we dive into the Diatribe of Erasmus and Luther’s Bondage of the Will (1525) we find that this in fact is Erasmus’ key objection to Luther’s insistence that free will is a fiction: if we cannot or need not obey the commandments of God for perfection and unity with God what becomes of morality? Won’t we all just slough off and let things go to pot?).

Well, now we see there is a Lifeguard. But she will not take care of circumstances but will only take care of you [or more correctly put, so as to remember we are but dust (timely, as tomorrow March 2 is Ash Wednesday!) and not to exclude the wonders of flora and fauna), will only take care of all creation]. You and I need to take care of circumstances. And won’t you and I do this please before the whole place goes up in flames – or better, before we all drown in the rising seas?

But if and when we don’t remember our swimming lessons just as when we do, the truth of the matter is that the Lifeguard is there with us and swims or drowns with us whether we have tried to swim or not. There is no earning this lifeline. It is gracefully, mercifully, there. 

But how will we know this if the Lifeguard doesn’t swim out to us and tell us our death will be in her death? How will we know if we only see a Lifeguard standing on the shore shaming us?

Aha, there she is, the Preacher, the one who declares, the one who announces the Promise. There is a reason that the Augsburg Confession’s (the 1530 Reformers statement on just what is good news about the Good News) Fifth Article specifying the need and divine gift of the Office of Ministry, comes immediately following the Fourth Article that is the center of it all – Jesus Christ as good news for mere mortals. Somebody must embody the Promise and deliver it. We must be told. Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10). We will not believe it on our own. We will instead only see the “unpreached” Lifeguard on the shore staring at us, and my goodness, that is not a pretty death. 

So, am I back to accepting that “God is with us” is good soteriology? I guess I am. I am just aware that for the sake of the planet and neighbor it would be better if we all went down swinging (swimming?!) instead of dumb or inebriated. Everybody still gets the Promise, whether I like it or not. But if we all did the justice thing we’d have a better chance of living longer in the Promise rather than dying sooner in the Promise. 

So, there you have it. Emmanuel!