God As a Problem and Why I Don’t Blame People for Having a Big Problem with the Church: Part 2
Continuing on the topic of bad theology and misrepresentations of grace as a reason people see the church as boring….or irrelevant…(see my last posting for “Part 1”).
A couple of problems with seeing Christianity as all about sitting up and flying right: One, being nice simply is not a sure fire formula for things turning out right. It’s all too clear that the good do die young and the fair and caring often get the shaft. Secondly, even if temporal security and prosperity do work out for you and you do in fact attribute it to your fidelity, still, can you be certain of your eternal destiny? The payoff for faithfulness is always a bet, and not a good one at that.
We like to think the Devil is our problem and God is our friend who rescues us, when it’s really God who is the problem. God is just too “omni-everything!” Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent and all the rest, and all that we do and believe never consistently or determinately produces the results we want from Divinity.
I think most thinking and feeling people have figured this out and when they hear or see a church life and preaching/teaching that espouses what I am calling here a “Erasmusian theology” they figure it’s not worth their time. Others have figured it out, have seen the theological stumbling blocks, but still stick it out in churches where church gets defined as this place for the upright (or at least for those who admit they are not but who have gathered the gumption to say they are sorry and have enough faith to put them in the best light once again) because gaining a foothold for a decent life through being good is worth the price of suspending honesty from the pulpit (truth be told, being decent and fair is, actually, a good bit of the time, good for business and certainly good for the children to learn!).
But what if you want to be theologically and anthropologically honest? Is there any good word for us concerning our problem with God? Certainly there is, but I don’t think it’s heard enough in today’s church. I’ll finish next week with a thought on what that “good word” actually is.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
God As a Problem....and Church Too. Part 1
God As a Problem and Why I Don’t Blame People for Having a Big Problem with the Church: Part 1
It’s possible, perhaps even probable, that the reason so many people are abandoning the church is because it’s theology and practice keeps trying to be Erasmusian in order to appeal to the “common herd” (Erasmus’ own term for the regular folk outside of the university and academic elite – see Luther’s Works Volume 33:45) and this “herd” is tired of being rounded up, corralled (and slaughtered?!).
Most preaching and teaching about Christ today makes Christianity about being morally upright and doctrinally correct. Erasmus, in his debate with Luther over the freedom of the will, was concerned that if grace were free there would be no motivation for people to behave decently and believe accordingly and the result would be societal chaos and degeneration. Erasmus argued that Christianity was about getting on the right track ethically and morally and Christ was required to get you there.
There are, of course, just a couple of problem with this approach! Next week I’ll lay them out for you, but in the meantime, why don’t you chime in and tell us all what you think.
Do you think grace is cheap or costly or free? And what would you say is the difference between the three? And how much difference does it make how grace is preached and taught on how much people give the church the time of day?
(I think that most people who have given it much thought have figured out that the Erasmusian theology is problematic and that any church that divies it out is not worth their time. To them, the church is boring and irrelevant)
“God as a Problem….” to be continued!
It’s possible, perhaps even probable, that the reason so many people are abandoning the church is because it’s theology and practice keeps trying to be Erasmusian in order to appeal to the “common herd” (Erasmus’ own term for the regular folk outside of the university and academic elite – see Luther’s Works Volume 33:45) and this “herd” is tired of being rounded up, corralled (and slaughtered?!).
Most preaching and teaching about Christ today makes Christianity about being morally upright and doctrinally correct. Erasmus, in his debate with Luther over the freedom of the will, was concerned that if grace were free there would be no motivation for people to behave decently and believe accordingly and the result would be societal chaos and degeneration. Erasmus argued that Christianity was about getting on the right track ethically and morally and Christ was required to get you there.
There are, of course, just a couple of problem with this approach! Next week I’ll lay them out for you, but in the meantime, why don’t you chime in and tell us all what you think.
Do you think grace is cheap or costly or free? And what would you say is the difference between the three? And how much difference does it make how grace is preached and taught on how much people give the church the time of day?
(I think that most people who have given it much thought have figured out that the Erasmusian theology is problematic and that any church that divies it out is not worth their time. To them, the church is boring and irrelevant)
“God as a Problem….” to be continued!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
95 Reasons to Love Halloween!
If you caught Martin Luther at the grocery store, probably in the beer isle, and asked him “if you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?” he would look you in the eye and tell you in no uncertain terms that he has no idea and that is his dilemma if not also his angst and then in the same breath and as breathlessly as this run-on sentence is spilling out onto line after line he would tell you with greater certainty what he does know….and that is that he has heard the word of Jesus Christ, born, lived, died and rose again and that that word is simply is too good not to be true and he is going to trust that light over against the darkness of not knowing and not being able to do anything about his ultimate destiny.
I am a believer in that word too. And if you caught me in the beer isle, after asking if you like lager or ale I would tell you I have no idea what will become of me. But I do know this. I have heard the word of Jesus and he is sweetness to my sour soul.
And I will go there. Much like John watching Jesus approach the river Jordan and pointing to Jesus with “behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” I see Jesus and I am going there. The darkness is too deep for me and I have no answer nor can I provide any light. But God does. In Christ Jesus.
The notion that God is a Judge who holds court and decides who is in and who is out is an image we have fabricated out of our own deep sin of thinking we can take our destiny into our own hands by saying “yes” to a proposition about Jesus or others and fabricated out of our own deep despair at knowing we really do let ourselves down and let others down and so too we must be letting God down too.
The bible is at pains to let us know God is Love who holds court to throw us a feast if we but sit down and eat and drink!
Behold! God is not out to get us! God is out to give us….everything…including our future. But we will not have it! And in the case of our ultimate destiny, because we can’t impact that (why? Because we are not God! Only God is in the destiny business! So we are stuck….and do not know!) we are left in the hands of God. What is God going to do with me? I don’t know! But….God knows I do not know and in his love put on “clothes” in Jesus. And it.s really more intense and radical than that. God didn’t become Jesus. God is Jesus.
And even though I don’t know my destiny, and the darkness of not knowing and not being able to be God and determine that destiny is too dark for words, I have seen the light.
I have seen Jesus Christ. And he is my mercy. And I will trust Him and I will trust in Him.
On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther did not go trick or treating and he knew nothing of our “Halloween” but certainly did know that that day was “All Hallows Eve” from which we get our holiday name if not the way we observe the day, but he did go trucking down to the Castle Church on the opposite side of town in Wittenberg and, being the honorable Professor that he was, proposed a debate by posting his proposition publicly on the church doors. The Thesis for his debate numbered 95 and I mean to tell you they stirred up a hornets nest. Luther’s major contribution and the explosion of grace did not come, in my estimation, from the issue of indulgences of which the 95 are so famous. But that posting event and the Guttenberg press aid in distributing the printed document put him on the map. For me, the genius and power of Luther comes in his work on the freedom and bondage of the will….related to the “if you died tonight” discussion above.
As a closing Halloween treat, and no trick, and related to the beer isle discussions, I offer to you some thoughts from Guther Gassmann and Scott Hendrix’ The Lutheran Confessions (1999) from their chapter on “The Christian Life.”
“Luther agreed with Augustine’s decision and held the doctrine of predestination throughout his life. He acknowledged its danger, however. Conceivably you could believe in Christ and still not be saved because you were not predestined. Luther admitted that such speculation had once almost driven him to despair. Fortunately, he had been consoled by his monastic superior and counselor, John von Staupitz, who advised Luther: ‘Why do you torture yourself with these speculations? Look at the wounds of Christ and at the blood that was shed for you. In their light predestination will shine.’ Luther learned from his own experience that predestination, which belonged to the hidden will of God, was secondary to faith in Christ, which was revealed in Scripture as the way to salvation. He then advised others to put the revealed Word of God ahead of speculation: ‘Accept the present promise [of Christ] and predestination, and do not inquire too curiously about the secret counsels of God. If you believe in the revealed God and accept his Word, he will gradually also reveal the hidden God. For “he who sees me also sees the Father” (John 14:9).”
Happy Reformation Day 2010!
Happy Halloween!
I am a believer in that word too. And if you caught me in the beer isle, after asking if you like lager or ale I would tell you I have no idea what will become of me. But I do know this. I have heard the word of Jesus and he is sweetness to my sour soul.
And I will go there. Much like John watching Jesus approach the river Jordan and pointing to Jesus with “behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” I see Jesus and I am going there. The darkness is too deep for me and I have no answer nor can I provide any light. But God does. In Christ Jesus.
The notion that God is a Judge who holds court and decides who is in and who is out is an image we have fabricated out of our own deep sin of thinking we can take our destiny into our own hands by saying “yes” to a proposition about Jesus or others and fabricated out of our own deep despair at knowing we really do let ourselves down and let others down and so too we must be letting God down too.
The bible is at pains to let us know God is Love who holds court to throw us a feast if we but sit down and eat and drink!
Behold! God is not out to get us! God is out to give us….everything…including our future. But we will not have it! And in the case of our ultimate destiny, because we can’t impact that (why? Because we are not God! Only God is in the destiny business! So we are stuck….and do not know!) we are left in the hands of God. What is God going to do with me? I don’t know! But….God knows I do not know and in his love put on “clothes” in Jesus. And it.s really more intense and radical than that. God didn’t become Jesus. God is Jesus.
And even though I don’t know my destiny, and the darkness of not knowing and not being able to be God and determine that destiny is too dark for words, I have seen the light.
I have seen Jesus Christ. And he is my mercy. And I will trust Him and I will trust in Him.
On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther did not go trick or treating and he knew nothing of our “Halloween” but certainly did know that that day was “All Hallows Eve” from which we get our holiday name if not the way we observe the day, but he did go trucking down to the Castle Church on the opposite side of town in Wittenberg and, being the honorable Professor that he was, proposed a debate by posting his proposition publicly on the church doors. The Thesis for his debate numbered 95 and I mean to tell you they stirred up a hornets nest. Luther’s major contribution and the explosion of grace did not come, in my estimation, from the issue of indulgences of which the 95 are so famous. But that posting event and the Guttenberg press aid in distributing the printed document put him on the map. For me, the genius and power of Luther comes in his work on the freedom and bondage of the will….related to the “if you died tonight” discussion above.
As a closing Halloween treat, and no trick, and related to the beer isle discussions, I offer to you some thoughts from Guther Gassmann and Scott Hendrix’ The Lutheran Confessions (1999) from their chapter on “The Christian Life.”
“Luther agreed with Augustine’s decision and held the doctrine of predestination throughout his life. He acknowledged its danger, however. Conceivably you could believe in Christ and still not be saved because you were not predestined. Luther admitted that such speculation had once almost driven him to despair. Fortunately, he had been consoled by his monastic superior and counselor, John von Staupitz, who advised Luther: ‘Why do you torture yourself with these speculations? Look at the wounds of Christ and at the blood that was shed for you. In their light predestination will shine.’ Luther learned from his own experience that predestination, which belonged to the hidden will of God, was secondary to faith in Christ, which was revealed in Scripture as the way to salvation. He then advised others to put the revealed Word of God ahead of speculation: ‘Accept the present promise [of Christ] and predestination, and do not inquire too curiously about the secret counsels of God. If you believe in the revealed God and accept his Word, he will gradually also reveal the hidden God. For “he who sees me also sees the Father” (John 14:9).”
Happy Reformation Day 2010!
Happy Halloween!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
On Quitting Christianity Today (and a surprise from 1845!)
Anne Rice is now famous for her move to “quit Christianity.” She says she hasn’t lost her faith. She just has quit the organized religion. True enough. And right on target for why – she refuses to be anti-life in the many ways so much of the mainstream church in all its forms has been and still is. But realize that Christianity itself was never intended by Christ. It was the outgrowth of people trying to take the one who announced their utter freedom and using him as a front. This freedom of Jesus, identified as Christ, is the total reliance on God and total obedience to God that had nothing to do with using reliance or obedience to shape identity, community, meaning and destiny by claiming a place for self or by creating boundaries to keep others from polluting the purity of it all.
We take Christ and declare positions and demarcations in his name for our own status and power, our own safety and security. Christianity is a system of belief and morals used to justify ourselves. Christ is the end of all justifications. He is the end of all our projects and schemes to create a safe haven for ourselves by either building up our cache or by tearing others down or fencing others out.
But people, perhaps including Rice, are deluded in thinking a Christian can follow Christ without church. Not church as “organized religion” in the form of existing or developing denominations or judicatories or even congregations. Yes, you can follow Christ without those forms of church, but you cannot follow Christ without church in some way shape or form since when you follow Christ you are church. Those that reject today’s “organized religion” are not wrong or radical in such a move. There’s nothing original or particularly creative, however, in rejecting a pattern or style of organizational management that doesn’t meet the needs of one’s needs or worldview. This happens generationally, if not more often. To quit organized religion and go one’s own way of following Jesus on your own – whatever that may mean – is to distinctly miss the mark of Jesus himself. His focus was the dream (aka “kingdom”) of God, to be sure. But this dream is built on the community connection and in many ways is itself the community connection. Church, do we need to say it again, is not what you attend; it’s what you are when you follow Christ. You can stop attending organized religion as a follower of Jesus but you can’t stop being church. Not if you are following Christ. So the challenge and privilege of Anne Rice and all of us who do not agree with an “anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-Democratic, anti-secular humanism, anti-science organization” approach (as Rice put it), is to follow Jesus Christ into organizing into loving all these “anti’ folks as much as we love our self-righteous and politically correct selves and to shape this new organization, however wonderfully amorphous as it may be, around Jesus Christ and his radical love that destroys our self-justifications and leaves us free to love and serve others at all costs. You cannot not organize if you are people working and living together in mission. And if you are following Christ, you are doing it together, not alone. So, given that, what might the organizing principles be for today’s church? How about love your enemies (teaching of Jesus), see the secular as the sacred and the sacred as secular, with no distinctions (a worldview where it’s all holy, it’s all belonging to God) and making sure nobody goes without (a seriousness and intentionality about community)? How about that?
Interestingly, there needs to be something more, though, than this new or renewed manifesto. There must be more than Jesus and his way of life and living. There must be Christ and his destruction of the myth of human constructions and his new creation of a human being freed from all self-justifications (aka self-improvement plans…take your pick of all the choices! Shall we Eat, Pray, Love or shall we dance?) Today’s church must renew it’s following of Jesus, but it cannot do so while throwing out the thing that Christ did: he died for our sin and was raised from the dead for our life. This work of Christ gets thrown out when those critical of the “theology of glory” (bluntly and too simplistically put as seeing Christ as using the cross as a starting point for personal gain, a place of becoming healthy and wealthy and successful because of God) replace this theology of glory with what is called a “negative theology of glory.” A negative theology of glory takes the end result of the theology of glory (namely a right and secure place with God because of your belief and behavior) and simply applies a “sacrifice self and serve others and become vulnerable and poor and faithful because of God” approach to get that right and secure place instead of the “positive” theology of glory’s application of Jesus’ sacrifice.
We don’t need a negative theology of glory to counteract the positive theology of glory.
We need something entirely different. Martin Luther called it the “theology of the cross.”
For our purposes here, we could simply say that the theology of the cross allows Jesus Christ to do all the saving and doesn’t replace him with anything, not even our wonderful new plans to be what Brian McClaren identifies, in referencing various key leader and voices showing us the way into what the church will or should look like (A New Kind of Christianity, 2010) as “a Christianity worth believing with Doug Pagitt or the new Christians with Tony Jones, whether we call it generative Christianity with church historian Diana Butler Bass or emerging mission with Marcus Borg, or a generous orthodoxy with Hans Frei or integral mission with Rene Padilla.” In other words, again, Jesus Christ is the end of all our scheming, however salutary and genius, and the beginning of new life (see Romans 6 for Paul’s expression of this in death and resurrection language). Once this is done to us, we are free to have at it.
And, well, have at it is what we need.
We do need to be the church of Jesus Christ even as we might “quit Christianity.”
By the way, in closing, let me just make a reference to a stark and direct connection I made with all of this. Just coincidently I finished last week reading the classic little tome Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass’ autobiography published in 1845. The whole thing is compelling, but it was the “Appendix” that was the amazing correlation to Anne Rice’s critique of today’s Christianity. In this Appendix Douglass cuttingly critiques the church of his day and calls it up short against Christ. Listen: “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”
In every day and age we lose sight of Christ and replace him with our own agenda, social or other wise. Some agendas are destructive and need themselves to be destroyed, but destroyed by the love of Christ, not brute force. And certainly, as per the theology of the cross, the constructive agendas cannot be our saving grace or holy grail. Only Christ saves. And he never quits.
We take Christ and declare positions and demarcations in his name for our own status and power, our own safety and security. Christianity is a system of belief and morals used to justify ourselves. Christ is the end of all justifications. He is the end of all our projects and schemes to create a safe haven for ourselves by either building up our cache or by tearing others down or fencing others out.
But people, perhaps including Rice, are deluded in thinking a Christian can follow Christ without church. Not church as “organized religion” in the form of existing or developing denominations or judicatories or even congregations. Yes, you can follow Christ without those forms of church, but you cannot follow Christ without church in some way shape or form since when you follow Christ you are church. Those that reject today’s “organized religion” are not wrong or radical in such a move. There’s nothing original or particularly creative, however, in rejecting a pattern or style of organizational management that doesn’t meet the needs of one’s needs or worldview. This happens generationally, if not more often. To quit organized religion and go one’s own way of following Jesus on your own – whatever that may mean – is to distinctly miss the mark of Jesus himself. His focus was the dream (aka “kingdom”) of God, to be sure. But this dream is built on the community connection and in many ways is itself the community connection. Church, do we need to say it again, is not what you attend; it’s what you are when you follow Christ. You can stop attending organized religion as a follower of Jesus but you can’t stop being church. Not if you are following Christ. So the challenge and privilege of Anne Rice and all of us who do not agree with an “anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-Democratic, anti-secular humanism, anti-science organization” approach (as Rice put it), is to follow Jesus Christ into organizing into loving all these “anti’ folks as much as we love our self-righteous and politically correct selves and to shape this new organization, however wonderfully amorphous as it may be, around Jesus Christ and his radical love that destroys our self-justifications and leaves us free to love and serve others at all costs. You cannot not organize if you are people working and living together in mission. And if you are following Christ, you are doing it together, not alone. So, given that, what might the organizing principles be for today’s church? How about love your enemies (teaching of Jesus), see the secular as the sacred and the sacred as secular, with no distinctions (a worldview where it’s all holy, it’s all belonging to God) and making sure nobody goes without (a seriousness and intentionality about community)? How about that?
Interestingly, there needs to be something more, though, than this new or renewed manifesto. There must be more than Jesus and his way of life and living. There must be Christ and his destruction of the myth of human constructions and his new creation of a human being freed from all self-justifications (aka self-improvement plans…take your pick of all the choices! Shall we Eat, Pray, Love or shall we dance?) Today’s church must renew it’s following of Jesus, but it cannot do so while throwing out the thing that Christ did: he died for our sin and was raised from the dead for our life. This work of Christ gets thrown out when those critical of the “theology of glory” (bluntly and too simplistically put as seeing Christ as using the cross as a starting point for personal gain, a place of becoming healthy and wealthy and successful because of God) replace this theology of glory with what is called a “negative theology of glory.” A negative theology of glory takes the end result of the theology of glory (namely a right and secure place with God because of your belief and behavior) and simply applies a “sacrifice self and serve others and become vulnerable and poor and faithful because of God” approach to get that right and secure place instead of the “positive” theology of glory’s application of Jesus’ sacrifice.
We don’t need a negative theology of glory to counteract the positive theology of glory.
We need something entirely different. Martin Luther called it the “theology of the cross.”
For our purposes here, we could simply say that the theology of the cross allows Jesus Christ to do all the saving and doesn’t replace him with anything, not even our wonderful new plans to be what Brian McClaren identifies, in referencing various key leader and voices showing us the way into what the church will or should look like (A New Kind of Christianity, 2010) as “a Christianity worth believing with Doug Pagitt or the new Christians with Tony Jones, whether we call it generative Christianity with church historian Diana Butler Bass or emerging mission with Marcus Borg, or a generous orthodoxy with Hans Frei or integral mission with Rene Padilla.” In other words, again, Jesus Christ is the end of all our scheming, however salutary and genius, and the beginning of new life (see Romans 6 for Paul’s expression of this in death and resurrection language). Once this is done to us, we are free to have at it.
And, well, have at it is what we need.
We do need to be the church of Jesus Christ even as we might “quit Christianity.”
By the way, in closing, let me just make a reference to a stark and direct connection I made with all of this. Just coincidently I finished last week reading the classic little tome Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass’ autobiography published in 1845. The whole thing is compelling, but it was the “Appendix” that was the amazing correlation to Anne Rice’s critique of today’s Christianity. In this Appendix Douglass cuttingly critiques the church of his day and calls it up short against Christ. Listen: “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”
In every day and age we lose sight of Christ and replace him with our own agenda, social or other wise. Some agendas are destructive and need themselves to be destroyed, but destroyed by the love of Christ, not brute force. And certainly, as per the theology of the cross, the constructive agendas cannot be our saving grace or holy grail. Only Christ saves. And he never quits.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Grace is Not Being Let Off the Hook of Punishment but rather Being Put On the Hook of Radical Reliance and Radical Obedience
The life of living graced is one of radical reliance on God (freedom) and radical obedience to God (service).
The reliance is the hard part. You’d think the obedience would be – but no, it’s the reliance. This is so because reliance comes from being put in our place from rebellion being squelched by God in Christ. To have nothing to provide or “bring to the table” for our identity, community, meaning and destiny is all together unnerving to our “Old Self.” To be defined not by the possibility of our own new and ambitious plans or accomplishments that will transform or save us (“a new you in 60 days” or “why can’t they cap that oil well if we know enough to go down there and drill” or “there is no military solution in Afghanistan” or “we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones…”) is not, it’s safe to say, our preference! To be defined not by that possibility, as invigorating and, indeed, critical and vital as that can be in its own right (there is a place for rigorous optimism that translates into action for improvement) but rather by the promise of God that all things are made new in Christ Jesus, well now, that is really something new! Not something reformed or revamped but rather something resurrected! That is to say, you and I cannot accomplish it We can’t get to that place of radical reliance. We must be brought there. And I think we only go there kicking and screaming because nobody wants that peace brought by being humbled until they are actually there. Once there, well, there is no place you’d rather be.
Instead of being done in by God (we would traditionally call this “repenting of our sin,” not an active move by us on God but an allowing of the active move by God on us) we turn to religious journey and pilgrimages. These forays can be “sacred” and filled with “spiritual practices” of prayer, bible and the like or “secular” and filled with “lifestyle changes” of yoga and book clubs or financial makeovers with debt reduction. What they hold in common is dependency on our aspirations and actions. If you can do these things they can be, and usually are, salutary. And the more power to you! But if you think they will provide peace, I’d have to say “good luck with that.” Not because they are not of value and you are not accomplished. But because of their nature. They are you. And you are not you. You are not made for you. Rather, you are made for God. Now by this I don’t mean to deny each person’s individuality, uniqueness and freedom. I mean rather to state in blunt terms, perhaps to get our attention (I can hear our objection: “What do you mean I am not me! I am the real deal!”), that all our personal singularity finds its strongest expression when we live as mortals in the larger ecology of life rather than as conquerors over each domain, real or imagined. This whole business of being most “found” as an individual when we are most “lost” in the community is what I believe Augustine was talking about when he said “our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”
The whole Adam and Eve story is not one to describe how we break God’s rules and need to be forgiven, but rather how we are made to live in this radical reliance on God but refuse to do so. So, you are indeed you, but you might say it this way: the real you lives most fully when defined by God rather than your own futurings.
So, this is all just a bit on the “radical reliance” piece of the puzzle. Much more could and should be said just about this, let alone all that needs to be said to describe the “radical obedience” piece.
But before I close on the “radical reliance” piece, but me say just a bit more. Being there, at that place of radical reliance, is called faith. And if you look closely at what I said above regarding “repenting” you will notice something critical. It’s something that has been at the heart of the disagreements, not to say also disruptions, within the Christian family pretty much from day one. It’s that “allowing” part of the dynamic. We don’t save ourselves, but we “allow” Christ to save us. And isn’t that “allowing” something we do?!
In order for Christ to be our Savior and not some quaint or even severe disciplines of our own to be so, the answer must be “no.” But we are active and we do believe don’t we? No doubt.
To get a sense of what this struggle to actually live out faith in serenity that comes from letting it be given to us versus living out the faith in striving that comes from taking hold of it ourselves…..to get a better look at what this struggle is actually like, let’s take a look at one of the more common ways we live it out.
There is hardly a mantra more prevalent in Christian circles when engaging the storms and struggles of life than, after all the striving, you end up at the place of saying “well, I’m just going to ‘let go and let God’!”
And everybody kind of shakes their head in recognition and approval of this time-worn and seemingly now so popular strategy for spiritual and mental health.
The problem is it doesn’t work. Not because its not actually a place of peace, this place of being cared for and carried along by Benevolence, a merciful and good-giving God. It is a place and it is real and it is salutary and life-giving. It’s just that you will not go there on your own, no matter what lip-service you give it. You will not because if you did you would be taking yourself out of the driver’s seat….and that is something that you simply will not allow. It’s too risky. It’s too, well, dependent.
And you, by your very nature, are independent.
So how do you get to this place of peace where God is the control and security?
The answer lies in realizing it’s not a place you can go on your own. You have to be taken there. You have to be put there. You have to be put in this place. You have to be put in your place.
Many people wonder why they keep struggling with being able to “let go and let God” even when they walk away from a conversation with a friend where that’s the conclusion for the best strategy. There is no getting there, there is no letting go because the moment you attempt to do so, you, by definition and de-facto, are attempting to let go instead of actually letting go. You are actually, in the attempting, hanging on to yourself and your capabilities and not relying on God.
But our bondage to this condition of self-determination is more than the philosophical bind of activity versus passivity. It’s more profound than that. You cannot let go because you will not let go. We will not will it. The only thing we are willing to do is will our own preservation. We will not not do everything to save ourselves. We cannot “let go” because that would mean the end of us, and that is something we will not allow.
But I did say that place of peace and serenity, that place of letting go, is possible.
So how?
Jesus Christ brings you there. He looks at you and has the first word about you before you have a chance to speak: “I choose you” he says, and does not even give you the chance to choose him. He chooses. He decides.
You don’t find that place of peace and serenity of living in his first word decision about you by figuring out how you are going to let him in or let him take over. Here’s the key: You find that place by confessing that you do not let him in or over. You simply stop all the protesting and acknowledge your resistance. You don’t “let go and let God” to find the peace but you confess you will not “let go and let God” and you are given the peace.
This, I believe, is why confession is so necessary. Confession has gotten a bad rap over the centuries, and for good reason. The church at large corrupted it’s meaning of recognition of identity and place (I am a child of God, dependent on God, earthbound and mortal) that receives the already given grace, to make it an active payment for benefits (I am a person who has disobeyed God who, through this statement of guilt and perhaps some added service, can only receive grace fully by taking these steps). Confession can enumerate sins (the things done or left undone) but that is not its core: its core is simply stating we can’t and don’t do this on our own, this finding of peace, inwardly and outwardly, and that God can and does.
The problem with grace is that it’s just too easy. We can’t simply be given peace can we?! What about all the spiritual disciplines and all the religious life we hear so much about and within which we have so much invested?! What, in essence, about “me”!?
Grace as radical reliance and radical obedience.
A radical reliance that can only be done by admitting you cannot and will not do it.
A radical obedience that can only be done by not even knowing you are doing it.
Here we have only touched on the radical reliance, and that only in a fast-handed sort of way. We haven’t said a word here, for example, of how the cross, what Luther called “the theology of the cross” is the touchstone of it all.
We haven’t spoken at all of the radical obedience so desperately needed in our world full of debt, war-torn and melting down. That speaking will have to wait for another writing.
Those of you familiar with Luther’s “freedom of a Christian” will recognize in radical reliance Luther’s “subject to none” and in radical obedience Luther’s “subject to all.”
Maybe future blogings can unpack that as well.
The reliance is the hard part. You’d think the obedience would be – but no, it’s the reliance. This is so because reliance comes from being put in our place from rebellion being squelched by God in Christ. To have nothing to provide or “bring to the table” for our identity, community, meaning and destiny is all together unnerving to our “Old Self.” To be defined not by the possibility of our own new and ambitious plans or accomplishments that will transform or save us (“a new you in 60 days” or “why can’t they cap that oil well if we know enough to go down there and drill” or “there is no military solution in Afghanistan” or “we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones…”) is not, it’s safe to say, our preference! To be defined not by that possibility, as invigorating and, indeed, critical and vital as that can be in its own right (there is a place for rigorous optimism that translates into action for improvement) but rather by the promise of God that all things are made new in Christ Jesus, well now, that is really something new! Not something reformed or revamped but rather something resurrected! That is to say, you and I cannot accomplish it We can’t get to that place of radical reliance. We must be brought there. And I think we only go there kicking and screaming because nobody wants that peace brought by being humbled until they are actually there. Once there, well, there is no place you’d rather be.
Instead of being done in by God (we would traditionally call this “repenting of our sin,” not an active move by us on God but an allowing of the active move by God on us) we turn to religious journey and pilgrimages. These forays can be “sacred” and filled with “spiritual practices” of prayer, bible and the like or “secular” and filled with “lifestyle changes” of yoga and book clubs or financial makeovers with debt reduction. What they hold in common is dependency on our aspirations and actions. If you can do these things they can be, and usually are, salutary. And the more power to you! But if you think they will provide peace, I’d have to say “good luck with that.” Not because they are not of value and you are not accomplished. But because of their nature. They are you. And you are not you. You are not made for you. Rather, you are made for God. Now by this I don’t mean to deny each person’s individuality, uniqueness and freedom. I mean rather to state in blunt terms, perhaps to get our attention (I can hear our objection: “What do you mean I am not me! I am the real deal!”), that all our personal singularity finds its strongest expression when we live as mortals in the larger ecology of life rather than as conquerors over each domain, real or imagined. This whole business of being most “found” as an individual when we are most “lost” in the community is what I believe Augustine was talking about when he said “our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”
The whole Adam and Eve story is not one to describe how we break God’s rules and need to be forgiven, but rather how we are made to live in this radical reliance on God but refuse to do so. So, you are indeed you, but you might say it this way: the real you lives most fully when defined by God rather than your own futurings.
So, this is all just a bit on the “radical reliance” piece of the puzzle. Much more could and should be said just about this, let alone all that needs to be said to describe the “radical obedience” piece.
But before I close on the “radical reliance” piece, but me say just a bit more. Being there, at that place of radical reliance, is called faith. And if you look closely at what I said above regarding “repenting” you will notice something critical. It’s something that has been at the heart of the disagreements, not to say also disruptions, within the Christian family pretty much from day one. It’s that “allowing” part of the dynamic. We don’t save ourselves, but we “allow” Christ to save us. And isn’t that “allowing” something we do?!
In order for Christ to be our Savior and not some quaint or even severe disciplines of our own to be so, the answer must be “no.” But we are active and we do believe don’t we? No doubt.
To get a sense of what this struggle to actually live out faith in serenity that comes from letting it be given to us versus living out the faith in striving that comes from taking hold of it ourselves…..to get a better look at what this struggle is actually like, let’s take a look at one of the more common ways we live it out.
There is hardly a mantra more prevalent in Christian circles when engaging the storms and struggles of life than, after all the striving, you end up at the place of saying “well, I’m just going to ‘let go and let God’!”
And everybody kind of shakes their head in recognition and approval of this time-worn and seemingly now so popular strategy for spiritual and mental health.
The problem is it doesn’t work. Not because its not actually a place of peace, this place of being cared for and carried along by Benevolence, a merciful and good-giving God. It is a place and it is real and it is salutary and life-giving. It’s just that you will not go there on your own, no matter what lip-service you give it. You will not because if you did you would be taking yourself out of the driver’s seat….and that is something that you simply will not allow. It’s too risky. It’s too, well, dependent.
And you, by your very nature, are independent.
So how do you get to this place of peace where God is the control and security?
The answer lies in realizing it’s not a place you can go on your own. You have to be taken there. You have to be put there. You have to be put in this place. You have to be put in your place.
Many people wonder why they keep struggling with being able to “let go and let God” even when they walk away from a conversation with a friend where that’s the conclusion for the best strategy. There is no getting there, there is no letting go because the moment you attempt to do so, you, by definition and de-facto, are attempting to let go instead of actually letting go. You are actually, in the attempting, hanging on to yourself and your capabilities and not relying on God.
But our bondage to this condition of self-determination is more than the philosophical bind of activity versus passivity. It’s more profound than that. You cannot let go because you will not let go. We will not will it. The only thing we are willing to do is will our own preservation. We will not not do everything to save ourselves. We cannot “let go” because that would mean the end of us, and that is something we will not allow.
But I did say that place of peace and serenity, that place of letting go, is possible.
So how?
Jesus Christ brings you there. He looks at you and has the first word about you before you have a chance to speak: “I choose you” he says, and does not even give you the chance to choose him. He chooses. He decides.
You don’t find that place of peace and serenity of living in his first word decision about you by figuring out how you are going to let him in or let him take over. Here’s the key: You find that place by confessing that you do not let him in or over. You simply stop all the protesting and acknowledge your resistance. You don’t “let go and let God” to find the peace but you confess you will not “let go and let God” and you are given the peace.
This, I believe, is why confession is so necessary. Confession has gotten a bad rap over the centuries, and for good reason. The church at large corrupted it’s meaning of recognition of identity and place (I am a child of God, dependent on God, earthbound and mortal) that receives the already given grace, to make it an active payment for benefits (I am a person who has disobeyed God who, through this statement of guilt and perhaps some added service, can only receive grace fully by taking these steps). Confession can enumerate sins (the things done or left undone) but that is not its core: its core is simply stating we can’t and don’t do this on our own, this finding of peace, inwardly and outwardly, and that God can and does.
The problem with grace is that it’s just too easy. We can’t simply be given peace can we?! What about all the spiritual disciplines and all the religious life we hear so much about and within which we have so much invested?! What, in essence, about “me”!?
Grace as radical reliance and radical obedience.
A radical reliance that can only be done by admitting you cannot and will not do it.
A radical obedience that can only be done by not even knowing you are doing it.
Here we have only touched on the radical reliance, and that only in a fast-handed sort of way. We haven’t said a word here, for example, of how the cross, what Luther called “the theology of the cross” is the touchstone of it all.
We haven’t spoken at all of the radical obedience so desperately needed in our world full of debt, war-torn and melting down. That speaking will have to wait for another writing.
Those of you familiar with Luther’s “freedom of a Christian” will recognize in radical reliance Luther’s “subject to none” and in radical obedience Luther’s “subject to all.”
Maybe future blogings can unpack that as well.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Letting the Bible Do Its Thing (and not your thing).
Letting the Bible Do Its Thing Rather Than Using it for our Own Purposes.
Diana Butler Bass has written a book entitled Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (2006)
She did some research around vital and growing mainline churches, among them Lutheran.
She writes this about them:
“All the congregations have found new vitality through an intentional and transformative engagement with a Christian tradition as embodied in faith practices. Typically, they have rediscovered the riches of the Christian past and practice simple, but profound, things like discernment, hospitality, testimony, contemplation and justice. They reach back to ancient wisdom and reach out through a life sustained by Christian devotional and moral practices. They know the biblical story and their own story. They focus more on God’s grace in the world than on the eternal state of their own souls.”
To know the biblical story is to know more than bible stories. Too often we take our sinful and self-justifying mindset and apply bible stories and morals gleaned therein to support our own agenda. They can be conservative agendas or liberal agendas or somewhere in between. To know the biblical story is to know Jesus Christ who died for our sin, destroying all self-justification, and is raised from the dead, creating a new person who trusts God alone and serves neighbor. How can we read various bible stories or accounts and come to different conclusions as to how we are to live (ethics/morality) and still remain together in mission for Christ? Because we know the biblical story. Because Christ is raised from the dead and now still raises the dead we are all alive because we are all first dead. Dead to our projects and agendas and lifestyles. And alive only in Christ. We believe in Christ, not the Bible. I know that sounds strange, if not against the faith, because we are used to talking about what we revere about God by saying we “believe in the Bible.” But we as Lutheran Christians have always seen the Bible as the “cradle that holds the Christ child” (to use a phrase of Martin Luther) where it is the Christ child, not the cradle, that is the vital (life-giving) word to us.
To honor and live out of our Lutheran identity and tradition most directly, we take the Christ from the Bible, not the Bible from the Christ.
So read your Bible. And listen for how God crucifies you and raises you from the dead, how God is faithful. When you read, instead of listening for ways for you to define yourself as faithful and correct, listen for the ways the holy breaks into the human and your identity and purpose become who God is and what God does.
Christ alone gives life. Your life does not.
The more we are dead the more we are alive.
The Bible tells us so.
Diana Butler Bass has written a book entitled Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (2006)
She did some research around vital and growing mainline churches, among them Lutheran.
She writes this about them:
“All the congregations have found new vitality through an intentional and transformative engagement with a Christian tradition as embodied in faith practices. Typically, they have rediscovered the riches of the Christian past and practice simple, but profound, things like discernment, hospitality, testimony, contemplation and justice. They reach back to ancient wisdom and reach out through a life sustained by Christian devotional and moral practices. They know the biblical story and their own story. They focus more on God’s grace in the world than on the eternal state of their own souls.”
To know the biblical story is to know more than bible stories. Too often we take our sinful and self-justifying mindset and apply bible stories and morals gleaned therein to support our own agenda. They can be conservative agendas or liberal agendas or somewhere in between. To know the biblical story is to know Jesus Christ who died for our sin, destroying all self-justification, and is raised from the dead, creating a new person who trusts God alone and serves neighbor. How can we read various bible stories or accounts and come to different conclusions as to how we are to live (ethics/morality) and still remain together in mission for Christ? Because we know the biblical story. Because Christ is raised from the dead and now still raises the dead we are all alive because we are all first dead. Dead to our projects and agendas and lifestyles. And alive only in Christ. We believe in Christ, not the Bible. I know that sounds strange, if not against the faith, because we are used to talking about what we revere about God by saying we “believe in the Bible.” But we as Lutheran Christians have always seen the Bible as the “cradle that holds the Christ child” (to use a phrase of Martin Luther) where it is the Christ child, not the cradle, that is the vital (life-giving) word to us.
To honor and live out of our Lutheran identity and tradition most directly, we take the Christ from the Bible, not the Bible from the Christ.
So read your Bible. And listen for how God crucifies you and raises you from the dead, how God is faithful. When you read, instead of listening for ways for you to define yourself as faithful and correct, listen for the ways the holy breaks into the human and your identity and purpose become who God is and what God does.
Christ alone gives life. Your life does not.
The more we are dead the more we are alive.
The Bible tells us so.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Supper is Ready! On Love and Enemies
S.O.A.P. (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer) is a way of encountering God through the Bible each day, following a prescribed pattern of reading so you cover the whole Bible over a period of time.
Its a good discipline for a disciple because we need to let God loose on us through this source (written word). Watching for God and listening to God through other sources (like, say, the beauty of the golf course!) has a tendency to allow us to build God into what we think God should be. Paying attention to the bible can do that too, of course, if you are less than honest. But if you are honest and let the wrestling with God commence, blessings occur.
So, a S.O.A.P from Wednesday May 12 2010 and my daily reading of that day.
“Supper is Ready”
Love and Enemies
Scripture
“All were happy about this covenant, for they had entered into it with all their hearts. Eagerly they sought after God, and they found him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies on every side”
2 Chronicles 15:15
Observation and Application
Last night at my Diakonia Class I included my “Parable of Salvation” (see below) as part of my lecture. The whole thing about finding God is not that we cannot but that we will not. And when we do see him he forces us to sit down at the table. We will not sit down on our own. We are forced to sit down. It is the force not of violence but of love. We are overcome by the unconditionality of it all – we have nothing to bring to the table, this feast, and our pride on the one hand, is shut down because, no, we are not allowed at this feast to bring any fare. We are served, unconditionally, by Christ. And our despair, on the other hand, is rejected because at this table no one, for any reason, is turned away. We then are forced, against our will, our will being destroyed by the fire of this love. Christ’s heart-melting (or piercing) gaze takes us beyond the choice of sitting down. It is too good not to be true. And so we do sit, we do find him, we do feast, after he has found us out, and we enjoy his presence.
And then there is the “rest from the enemies.” I think of Psalm 23 and the table set in the middle of enemies. Think about that. Our enemy is just as likely to be sitting at the table with us as to be standing on the side causing all kinds of distraction (the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is noisy and obnoxious) so that it’s a serious challenge to actually enjoy the hospitality of God. Our enemies are everywhere. You could say the Enemy is everywhere: anything and everything that would be bent on keeping us from celebrating this meal – this life of unconditional love by God. No matter, though, where the enemy is or what he does. As Paul exhorts (Romans 8), nothing can separate us from this love of God in and through Christ. The party has started and nothing is going to shut it down.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, today my enemies surround me. Can you bring the food from the kitchen pronto, with lots of wine too please, so that in my hunger I don’t get up and walk away and really, then, be in a fix!
Amen.
A Parable of Salvation
Heaven is like a huge banquet hall in which God has set a table setting for every single person in the world. At each table setting is the name card for each person, signifying their invitation and the desire of the Host of the banquet to have each person join in. The door to the banquet hall is open to all. There is no admission charge. There are no credentials that must be shown in order to enter. The Host has paid for the entire banquet and has posted an open invitation. When guests arrive they are shown their place at the table and invited to be seated. Many do, and thus enjoy the service and hospitality of the Host. But many do not, for many reasons, not the least of which is that they feel there must be something they should offer to help with the festivities. In fact, when they entered the banquet hall they did so with the question if not the objection of an offering of some sort by saying “Is there not something I can bring?” There is an awkwardness, if not a resistance, on the part of the guests to letting the Host be totally responsible for all the fare. No matter that their place is reserved and open for them, they refuse to actually sit down to be a part of the party. Always gracious, the Host does not insist they participate but also is not interested in having “spoil-sports” interfere with the festivities. He asks that those who refuse to sit down and join the fun to then go off into another area of the Banquet Hall, albeit empty of banquet items, where they can commiserate or perhaps rethink their invitation.
© Johan Bergh 2006
Its a good discipline for a disciple because we need to let God loose on us through this source (written word). Watching for God and listening to God through other sources (like, say, the beauty of the golf course!) has a tendency to allow us to build God into what we think God should be. Paying attention to the bible can do that too, of course, if you are less than honest. But if you are honest and let the wrestling with God commence, blessings occur.
So, a S.O.A.P from Wednesday May 12 2010 and my daily reading of that day.
“Supper is Ready”
Love and Enemies
Scripture
“All were happy about this covenant, for they had entered into it with all their hearts. Eagerly they sought after God, and they found him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies on every side”
2 Chronicles 15:15
Observation and Application
Last night at my Diakonia Class I included my “Parable of Salvation” (see below) as part of my lecture. The whole thing about finding God is not that we cannot but that we will not. And when we do see him he forces us to sit down at the table. We will not sit down on our own. We are forced to sit down. It is the force not of violence but of love. We are overcome by the unconditionality of it all – we have nothing to bring to the table, this feast, and our pride on the one hand, is shut down because, no, we are not allowed at this feast to bring any fare. We are served, unconditionally, by Christ. And our despair, on the other hand, is rejected because at this table no one, for any reason, is turned away. We then are forced, against our will, our will being destroyed by the fire of this love. Christ’s heart-melting (or piercing) gaze takes us beyond the choice of sitting down. It is too good not to be true. And so we do sit, we do find him, we do feast, after he has found us out, and we enjoy his presence.
And then there is the “rest from the enemies.” I think of Psalm 23 and the table set in the middle of enemies. Think about that. Our enemy is just as likely to be sitting at the table with us as to be standing on the side causing all kinds of distraction (the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is noisy and obnoxious) so that it’s a serious challenge to actually enjoy the hospitality of God. Our enemies are everywhere. You could say the Enemy is everywhere: anything and everything that would be bent on keeping us from celebrating this meal – this life of unconditional love by God. No matter, though, where the enemy is or what he does. As Paul exhorts (Romans 8), nothing can separate us from this love of God in and through Christ. The party has started and nothing is going to shut it down.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, today my enemies surround me. Can you bring the food from the kitchen pronto, with lots of wine too please, so that in my hunger I don’t get up and walk away and really, then, be in a fix!
Amen.
A Parable of Salvation
Heaven is like a huge banquet hall in which God has set a table setting for every single person in the world. At each table setting is the name card for each person, signifying their invitation and the desire of the Host of the banquet to have each person join in. The door to the banquet hall is open to all. There is no admission charge. There are no credentials that must be shown in order to enter. The Host has paid for the entire banquet and has posted an open invitation. When guests arrive they are shown their place at the table and invited to be seated. Many do, and thus enjoy the service and hospitality of the Host. But many do not, for many reasons, not the least of which is that they feel there must be something they should offer to help with the festivities. In fact, when they entered the banquet hall they did so with the question if not the objection of an offering of some sort by saying “Is there not something I can bring?” There is an awkwardness, if not a resistance, on the part of the guests to letting the Host be totally responsible for all the fare. No matter that their place is reserved and open for them, they refuse to actually sit down to be a part of the party. Always gracious, the Host does not insist they participate but also is not interested in having “spoil-sports” interfere with the festivities. He asks that those who refuse to sit down and join the fun to then go off into another area of the Banquet Hall, albeit empty of banquet items, where they can commiserate or perhaps rethink their invitation.
© Johan Bergh 2006
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