The Waking Dreamer: 2025

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Satisfied

Psalm 63:1-8[1]

We live in a culture defined by dissatisfaction. In fact, we live in a world defined by dissatisfaction. I’m not talking about our “little world” around here. I’m talking about the great big world of all 8 billion people! In 2022, Gallup concluded a 15-year survey of people from all over the world measuring their sense of “happiness.”[2] They did over 5 million interviews, and they determined that “happiness” or “wellbeing” was based on five metrics: fulfilling work, little financial stress, great communities, good physical health, and loved ones to turn to in crisis. And their survey concluded that, in 2022 people felt “more anger, sadness, pain, worry and stress than ever before.” I don’t think that’s changed for the better. One of the reasons they offer for this situation is that most world leaders have been preoccupied with measuring income inequality. Of course, that’s important. But what the survey suggests is that the world’s leaders need to be paying much more attention to “wellbeing inequality,” or this global rise in dissatisfaction. I would say it’s all interconnected.

We don’t have to look around the world to see this for ourselves. It plays out in our lives and in our families’ lives every day. As a people we’re driven to do more, to have more, and to be more. We’re obsessed with perfection. All we have to do to verify that is open any of our social media accounts. We tend to want to put on the façade of “perfection” in the version of ourselves we present on Facebook or Instagram. But what all the pictures are hiding is the fundamental sense of inadequacy we feel. Not everyone posts out of insecurity, but the constant stream of “perfection” we scroll through can convince us we’re not “enough.” When that happens, it’s likely that we’re stuck in the rut of measuring our worth solely by external means. Living in the “right” neighborhood. Having all the “right” friends. Driving the “right” car. But all too often, what all this “striving” leads to is growing depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. And it leaves us incapable of any real contentment with what we have, where we are in life, or who we have become. But the wisdom of the ages has taught us time and again that it is precisely through that kind of contentment that we find lasting happiness.

Our Psalm lesson addresses this issue of where happiness is to be found. In fact, it’s one of the fundamental themes in the Psalms. We find it in the psalm-singers’ use of the language of “blessing.” It’s the first word of the first Psalm, and the idea of a life that is “blessed” resonates throughout the Psalms, echoing some 26 times. And the gist of what the psalm-singers have to say about “blessing” or happiness is that it “derives from living in complete dependence upon God.”[3] As we discussed in a different light last week, the Psalms clearly emphasize that this “blessing” or happiness is something we experience in the present. It happens right here and right now, even and especially in the midst of hard times. The reason for the ability to find “blessing” or happiness in the present is because of the confidence we have that it is the LORD who reigns over all things with “unfailing love,” and with justice that promotes peace and freedom for all peoples everywhere.

We find this general perspective reflected in our Psalm for today, even though it doesn’t begin in a way that sounds “blessed” or happy. Rather, the psalm-singer is so weary with longing for God’s help that he can liken his present experience to living in a “parched and weary land where there is no water” (Ps 63:1, NLT)! Even though he had worn himself out with looking for God’s deliverance, the psalm-singer had a resource in the past experiences of deliverance not only in the life of the people of Israel, but also in his own life. As he looks back over that history, he says, “I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory” (Ps 63:2). And the display of “power and glory” that he recalls, the reminder that despite it all God does indeed “reign,” is defined by remembering that God has always been true to his promise to show “unfailing love” (Ps 63:3).

The way in which the Hebrew Bible presents this kind of “blessedness,” this promise of happiness, is with the language of being “satisfied” as if one had just finished a fabulous feast (Ps 63:4). In fact, the idea that God’s “blessing,” or even God’s “deliverance” is to be found precisely in being satisfied with more than enough food echoes throughout the Psalms and the Hebrew Bible itself.[4] We heard it in our lesson from the book of the Prophet Isaiah as well: “Come, all you who are thirsty. Come and drink the water I offer to you. You who do not have any money, come. Buy and eat the grain I give you. Come and buy wine and milk. You will not have to pay anything for it. Why spend money on what is not food? Why work for what does not satisfy you? Listen carefully to me. Then you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the richest food there is” (Isa 55:1-2 NIRV). Joyful feasting is a recurring image in the Bible for the way God satisfies us with his love.

The key to finding this kind of satisfaction in life, come what may, is to learn to trust God’s unfailing love. As I mentioned earlier, the way the psalm-singer saw God’s “power and glory” was through God’s faithful exercise of unfailing love. So much so that he can say, “Your unfailing love is better than life itself” (Ps 63:3, NLT). I think this is the point of the psalm: we find satisfaction in life by trusting God to be faithful to show us his “unfailing love” right here and right now, through it all. To see that, however, we have to do what the psalm-singer did. We have to look back over the course of our lives and recall all the ways that God has done that in the past.

It may take some doing to adjust our focus to see that, especially when we’re going through hard times. In those times our experience may be like that of the psalm-singer. We may search for God and feel only silence. And we may continue the search so long that we feel worn out. But like the psalm-singer, when we continue to seek out the God we have known as our deliverer before, we find God’s unfailing love at work even in the midst of the pain. This kind of faith isn’t a “quick fix.” The psalm-singers knew what it was to suffer and to wonder where God was. But they kept looking back over the course of their lives. And as they did so they saw again all the ways God had been faithful to keep his promise of unfailing love.[5] That invitation is open to us as well. When we continue that search in our lives, in my experience we usually find ourselves at some point able to say with the psalm-singer, “You satisfy me more than the richest feast” (Psalm 63:5, NLT). People can find joy in many ways, as it should be, but this psalm invites us to a deeper joy that’s rooted in the God whose love for us is better than life itself. We can be satisfied when we remember that God has been our help in ages past, and that same God will be our hope for years to come.[6]

We live in a world defined by dissatisfaction. In our culture, I wonder whether the narrative that fuels that dissatisfaction isn’t the myth of the “American Dream.” We should be able to do better and have more than our parents, and our children should be able to do better and have more than us. But the realities of our economy and our society make it clear that narrative may actually drive us to be deeply dissatisfied with our lives as they are. What if we turned the narrative around and learned to be truly content with what we have? Can you imagine a world in which we were more concerned about communities thriving together than we were with outdoing our neighbors? Can you imagine a world in which we’re more interested in lifting up all those who are broken, or hurting, or displaced, and offering them what they need rather than being so obsessed with getting everything we want. I think that would be a world filled with people who are happier, more content, and truly blessed. I think that would be a world full of people who know what it means to be satisfied. That vision of the world, one where we seek to lift one another up rather than beating others down, might sound like fantasy. But through God’s unfailing love, the dream becomes reality right here and right now.

[2] Jon Clifton, “The Global Rise of Unhappiness,” Sept 15, 2022, accessed at https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/401216/global-rise-unhappiness.aspx on 20 Mar 2025.

[3] J. Clinton McCann, Jr. “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV:666.

[4] In the Psalms: Ps 22:27; 37:19; 81:17; 103:5; 104:28; 107:9; 132:15; 145:16 (“every living thing”!); 147:14.

[5] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed., 183: “the Christian doctrine of providence is not based on what we can figure out for ourselves from our own experience or observation of the world, balancing evidence for and against faith in God. It is a Christian doctrine based on what scripture tells us about the presence and work of God in the story of ancient Israel and above all in Jesus Christ” (emphasis original).

[6] McCann, “Psalms,” NIB IV:667: “To be happy is to entrust one’s whole self, existence, and future to God.” Cf. also Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 184: “Remembering the past gives hope for the future. Again and again the psalmist expresses his confidence that the God who has been present to help, protect, liberate, and save will do it again. The memory of the powerful love and justice of God in the past brings hope for the powerful love and justice of God in the future” (emphasis original).

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

God's Goodness in This Life

God’s Goodness in This Life

Psalm 27[1]

You’ve heard me preach enough that you know I try to focus on how our faith shapes how we live here and now. I do that on purpose, because I believe Jesus focused on that. On the other hand, I’m well aware that for centuries our faith has directed our attention away from “this life” to the promise of eternal life to come. This shift took place for a lot of reasons. Essentially about 1800 years ago the church shifted its focus from what the kingdom of God challenges us to do with our lives here and now to the promise of going to heaven when we die. Since that time, our faith has been oriented toward what happens “in the sweet by and by” rather than “I’m gonna live so God can use me”!

The psalm singers had an interesting way of doing something similar. They tended to view “danger” as something that happens to us “out here” in real life, while safety is to be found “in there” in God’s presence. And God’s presence was identified with the Temple in Jerusalem. It was there, in “the Lord’s house” that the psalm singers sought refuge. As our Psalm for today puts it, “he will shelter me in his own dwelling during troubling times” (Ps 27:5, CEB). In a sense, “locating” God’s deliverance in a particular place, like the temple in Jerusalem, was similar to thinking of salvation in terms of what happens at a particular time, after we die. There’s nothing wrong with either one of those notions, as far as they go. But to limit God’s deliverance to a particular place or time runs counter to the fundamental assurance that God is sovereign and reigns over all of life, everywhere, all the time.

One of the challenges we face when dealing with the faith of the Psalms, as we’re doing this year during the season of Lent, is that they were written before Easter. All that we’ve discussed recently about how Jesus’ death and resurrection has changed everything for everyone everywhere was only something the psalm singers might have a vague hope for. While it’s still also our “hope” in that we have only tasted the salvation God has in store for us, we do have good grounds for that hope. Jesus’ death and resurrection happened. That’s not just a matter of “wishful thinking.” We have ample testimony to Jesus’ death and resurrection, not only in the writings of the Apostles, but also in the faith of believers throughout the ages, and in our own encounters with God in our lives.

Even without knowing the hope we have in Jesus’ resurrection, the psalm singers held a hope that was just as real and just as powerful for them. Their hope was in the God who created all the heavens and the earth (Ps 121:2; 146:6). Their hope was in the God who, although he is “Lord” over even death, does not promote death, but rather as the Creator of all things “affirms life and only life.”[2] Their hope was rooted in the belief that God brought order from chaos and life from nothing. More than that, their hope was in the God who had delivered their ancestors time and time again (Ps 22:4; 78:3). Particularly, despite the fact that they continually turned away from him, God was the one who “led his people out of Egypt and guided them in the desert like a flock of sheep” (Ps 78:52, CEV). They affirmed God’s power over even the dangers that his people still faced based on the many times he had delivered them from dangers of all kinds.

The psalm singers, like the prophets, affirmed their faith in God in the face of all that would threaten them. Psalm 107 particularly recounts the many ways God delivered His people when all hope seemed lost. Psalm 107 repeats the refrain “so they cried out to the LORD in their distress, and God delivered them from their desperate circumstances” four times (Ps 107:6, 13, 19, 28, CEB). The people had centuries of testimonies behind them already at the time the Psalms were collected and made into the “prayer book” of the faithful. Their hope in God as their refuge, as their deliverer, as their safe shelter, was based on their own experience, as well as the experiences of the people as a whole.

That brings us back to our Psalm for today. The psalm singer affirms that “The LORD is my light and my salvation” and “the LORD is a fortress protecting my life” (Ps 27:1, CEB). As I’ve observed before, this affirmation of trust in God as deliverer was not made in a time when all was right with the world. Rather, this psalm singer was engaged in a desperate struggle for his very life.[3] He speaks about brutal and vicious “evildoers” who were trying to “devour” him. He describes being surrounded by a vast army determined to destroy him (Ps 27:2-3). The situation is so dire that he truly feels afraid that God might “hide his face” from him, which would mean abandoning him to his enemies.

It’s in that setting of real danger and real fear that he can affirm his faith that God will bring good, not harm, into his life: “I have sure faith that I will experience the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living” (Ps 27:13, CEB)! That’s quite an astounding statement! He’s not just saying that whatever happens in this life, he trusts God to fulfill his promises ultimately. He’s saying that he’s firmly convinced that he will see God’s goodness in this life. And the way this affirmation is worded in the Hebrew, we might say that this psalm singer had “established” or “solidified” his life by trusting in God.[4] In a very real sense, the God who Created all the heavens and the earth, the God who had been Israel’s Deliverer throughout the centuries, had become the “solid rock” on which he staked everything! In the midst of very real danger and equally real fear, the psalm singer puts his trust wholly and completely in God.[5] That’s the pattern of faith throughout the Psalms.[6] At the end of the day, that kind of faith allows him to say that since God is on his side, there’s no one and nothing in life that truly deserves his fear!

Bringing this back to our lives, the question this Psalm poses for us is whether we can put our trust in God as wholly and completely as the psalm singer did.[7] To be sure, it’s not an easy thing to do. And it’s not something that you start your faith journey being able to do. It takes time and experience to build up that kind of faith. And we learn it precisely by doing what the psalm singer calls us all to do: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Ps 27:14). As we “wait” in faith and hope, in essence “relying” on God to bring good into our lives here and now, we’re staking everything on God, just as many others have done before us.

I think the essential factor in being able to do this in the face of real dangers and real fears is that we have to let go of our expectations about what God’s “goodness in this life” will look like. We all tend to have some expectations about that: “If God’s going to be ‘good’ to me, he’s going to give me what I want, or he’s going to make this problem go away.” Faith in God does not guarantee specific outcomes in life’s hardships. Sometimes life and faith are mysteries we simply can’t explain. Sometimes, we have to go out on a limb, and say with St. Paul, “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” Sometimes we have to go out on that limb a little further and say with Paul, “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love” (Rom 8:33, 38, NLT). Nothing that life throws our way, nothing that anyone brings down on us, can ever separate us from God’s love! Even when our hardships don’t come to an end in the way we want them to, when we stake everything on God, come what may, we find God’s goodness in surprising places, sustaining us through it all, despite it all.[8] In a sense, this kind of faith, this level of trust, is about developing the capacity to see the good that God is always bringing into our lives, no matter what we may have to go through.

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.3:616.

[3] H.-J. Krauss, Psalms 1-59, 337: “Even though still far from the sanctuary, the psalmsinger puts his confidence in Yahweh. He longs for the redeeming bestowal of salvation in the temple area and for being sheltered in the holy place (v. 4*). But the God of salvation (אלהי ישׁעי, v. 9b) is also present in the midst of the battle, in the midst of the external danger of his servant (vv. 1–3).”

[4] Krauss, Psalms 1-59, 336; cf. also H.-J. Krauss, Theology of the Psalms, 161: “האמין (“believe”) contains the root אמן (’aman), which means ‘to be firm,’ so that the hiphil of the verb could be translated as ‘make oneself firm,’ ‘have unshakable certainty’ (cf. Ps. 27:13).”

[5] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 132: “Trust is active and real precisely when one is aware of one’s vulnerability, of one’s ultimate helplessness before the threats of life, ‘in the day of trouble,’ as the psalmist puts it.”

[6] Indeed, Karl Barth would say that is the faith of the Hebrew Bible. Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.3:618, “That God exists, and is true to Himself, is Israel’s help and consolation in death, its deliverance from death, and its hope.” While Barth speaks primarily of the “danger” posed by death, I think his observations relate to faith in God in general. He says further (p. 620), “All man’s [sic] deliverance, redemption, preservation, and salvation in and out of death is enclosed in God, in His existence in faithfulness. That it is all enclosed in Him and to be expected from Him, is the hope of the Old Testament in relation to death.”

[7] In fact, that is the testimony of the Psalms as a whole. As J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible 4:667 puts it, in the Psalms to be “blessed” or “happy” “is to entrust one’s whole self, existence, and future to God.”

[8] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed., 189: “Remembering what God has done in the past and promises to do in the future,” which is the biblical foundation for trusting in God’s ongoing care, “recognizes signs here and now of God’s presence and work in our lives and the world around us.” (emphasis original)

Sunday, March 16, 2025

God is our Refuge

God is Our Refuge

Psalm 91[1]

I’d like to share with you another in my occasional stories of my personal interaction with Scripture. Psalm 91 has been a companion on my journey for almost 45 years. I still remember reading it the first time it made an impression on me. I was a 19-year-old sophomore ministerial student in college. I can still picture in my mind the first time the words of Psalm 91 really sank in for me. I was sitting at my desk in my dorm room, and the words of this Psalm “jumped off the page.” It felt like God was speaking the promises of this Psalm to me personally. The one that stood out was “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (Ps 91:7, NRSV). I found that deeply reassuring as I wrestled with the uncertainties and fears I faced as I was trying to find my way as a young man.

Fast-forward twenty years, and my relationship with the promises of this Psalm became complicated by the disappointments of life. I had lost my marriage, my family, and my career. It was a time when I felt like I was living through my worst nightmare, only it had somehow become real. I wondered, oftentimes out loud (literally) what those promises of protection from harm meant in light of all I had lost. “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” seemed an empty promise at best. At worst, I wondered if it offered false hope. In my mind, it felt like all the calamites Psalm 91 promised God’s protection from had come down on me in one fell swoop. I felt (and said out loud in prayer) that God had somehow let down his end of the bargain.

What I know now is that this was a necessary step in my relationship with this Psalm, with the Psalms, and with the Bible as a whole. Simply taking a particular Bible verse as if it were promising that I would not have to endure the hardships of life was not realistic. What I discovered is that the Psalms themselves, and this Psalm in particular, address that very issue. One of the major themes of the Psalms deals with a person who has done everything in their power to live out their faith in God and yet finds themselves in dire straits, suffering loss or grief or pain so great that makes it feel like God has abandoned them. One of the Psalmists actually asks God (out loud) “Why are you sleeping?” (Ps 44:23, GNT). And then, of course, there’s the Psalm Jesus quoted from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1, NRSV). Long before Jesus uttered that cry, it was the prayer of someone who felt like God had let them down.[2]

The Psalms as a whole deal with this troubling question. To be clear, it’s not just the question of “why do bad things happen to good people?” That’s a hard one, but the Psalms wrestle with a different question: “why do bad things happen to people who put their trust wholly and sincerely in God?” At times, the Psalmists lay the blame for these calamites at the feet of the “wicked.” In the Psalms, the “wicked” are not people who have typically been singled as “immoral” or “sinful.” The “wicked” in the Psalms are deemed so because their only value, their only “moral compass” is about gaining power, influence, or wealth. God’s purposes, God’s truths, God’s ways mean nothing to them. And they demonstrate that attitude precisely by taking advantage of the most vulnerable people.[3]

But not all of life’s hardships have a single, clear-cut cause. There are times when those who put their trust wholly and sincerely in God, who are called the “righteous” in the Psalms,[4] simply find themselves in dire straits. In a very real sense, the suffering of those who trust in God is just part of the mystery of life. That’s an essential perspective I had to learn. Despite the language of this Psalm to the contrary, the promise is not that hard times won’t come. The promise is that that the hard times that inevitably come won’t last forever. The “righteous” may “fall,” but they will not “be utterly cast down.” The reason for this is because the Lord “upholds” them him with his hand (Ps 37:24 KJV). Or, as the Good News Translation puts it: “If they fall, they will not stay down, because the Lord will help them up.”[5]

That brings us back to Psalm 91 and the affirmation of faith that “the Lord is my refuge.” One thing we have to keep in mind as we read this Psalm is the human perspective of the Psalms as a whole. We’re used to dealing with Scripture as “the Word of the Lord,” and we sometimes forget that all Scripture also has a human component. That’s particularly on display in the Psalms, because they’re prayer-songs that came from the life experience of the people who lived out their faith in God. Sometimes we find very human hurt and anger expressed in the Psalms. Other times, like in Psalm 91, we find the personal testimony of someone knows the joy of having been delivered by God from suffering. And those testimonies of personal faith were incorporated into the worship of the people as a whole and became a part of the collection of the Psalms. I would say that there are times however, when the psalm-singers may have gotten a bit carried away. That’s understandable. They’re expressing thanks to God for deliverance from suffering and they’re trying to praise God in the highest ways they can. But at times they promise more than God has promised. And throughout the ages, sincere people have staked their faith on the promise of protection from any and all harm that we find particularly in Psalms like this one.[6] When life doesn’t turn out that way, it leaves us wondering what comfort this Psalm actually offers us.

I think we find a clue in Psalm 91 itself. Much of it reflects the Psalm-singer promising God’s protection to other faithful people by using “you”: “a thousand may fall at your side, … but it will not come near you.” And those promises reflect an honest but human perspective on the assurance of God’s protection. But the last couple of verses shift to a declaration of God’s intent with “I”: “I will rescue those who love me.” In order to keep a balanced perspective on what this Psalm promises and what it doesn’t, we have to read the whole Psalm. At the end, when God “speaks,” he says: “I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them” (Ps 91:14-15, NLT).

The bottom line for our faith is that God doesn’t promise anyone what they will never have to deal with hard times.[7] Notice, when God “speaks” at the end of Psalm 91, he acknowledges that those who trust in him will have times of trouble. But the promise is, “I will be with them in trouble.” That’s what it means to trust in God as our “refuge” in life. Trusting in God as our refuge, as this Psalm calls us to do, is something that takes place in the midst of the hard times we face in life. It means trusting those hard times will not last forever, and in the end God’s love will have the final word: “I will be with them”; “I will protect them”; “I will rescue them.” God is, and always will be, our refuge!

Learning to take what I would consider a balanced perspective to Psalm 91 didn’t happen for me overnight. I still cherish the promise, “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” But it took years of experience to come to a more balanced perspective on what that promise actually means. I had to learn the hard way that it doesn’t mean that God will somehow exempt those who trust him from the hardships of life. I learned that from my experiences, but also from reading this Psalm more carefully, and from reading this Psalm in light of the rest of the Psalms, as well as the witness of Scripture as a whole. What I also learned was that with promises like the ones made in this Psalm, we have to hold our faith in tension with the challenges of life. We may not see God’s promises fulfilled immediately, but the assurance of Scripture is that we will see them ultimately. That may feel like small comfort while we’re struggling, but it is a comfort nevertheless. As we take our journey through Lent this year, we’re going to continue looking at what the Psalms teach us about faith. I hope that it will make the promises in the Psalms, and in the Bible as a whole, make sense in the light of the experiences in life that often contradict them. I hope that it will help us all learn more fully what it means to affirm that God is our refuge.

[2] Another example is Psalm 77:9: “Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” (NIV). I think it’s important to remember that “merciful” and “compassionate” are two of the essential characteristics in the basic declaration of who God is in the Hebrew Bible, Ex 34:6: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth” (NASB). Essentially, the Psalmists asks whether God has forgotten to be “God”! Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed, 183: “The Old Testament writers are very realistic about the contradiction between what their life was really like and what they believed about the God who chose and promised to help them. The psalmist expresses it most clearly. Over and over again throughout the Psalms he complains about the distance, silence, absence and hiddenness of God… .”

[3] Cf. Hans-Joachim Krauss, The Theology of the Psalms, 129, the “wicked” is “not only one who denies God in some sense yet to be defined; he is above all a person who has no shame before God or humans when he carries his evil, deceitful, deadly murderous plans into action. … With unshakable confidence he goes his way. He relies on the destructive power of his words and asks in his hubris and sense of superiority, ‘Who is our master?’ (Ps. 12:4).” See further J. Clinton McCann, Jr, “Book of Psalms” in New Interpreters Bible IV:667, where he defines the “wicked” in the Psalms as those “who consider themselves autonomous, which means literally ‘a law unto oneself.’” He continues, “Self-centered, self-directed, and self-ruled, the wicked see no need for dependence upon God or for consideration of others.”

[4] They are also called “the poor” in the Psalms. Cf. Krauss, Theology, 150-57. The “poor” in the Psalms are those who “find comfort and support” in God, and who “rely on Yahweh alone” (ibid., 152). On the “righteous” in the Psalms, see further McCann, “Book of Psalms” NIB IV:667, where he defines “righteousness” or “the righteous” in terms of “fundamental dependence upon God for life and future” which he observes is definition of happiness in the Psalms: “To be happy is to entrust one’s whole self, existence, and future to God.”

[5] This reminds me of St. Paul’s affirmation that “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:7-8, NIV).

[6] James Luther Mays, Psalms, 297, puts it even more bluntly: “The Psalm itself poses a danger. Because its assurance of security is so comprehensive and confident, it is especially subject to the misuse that is a possibility for all religious claims, that of turning faith into superstition.” He points out that “bits of the text have been worn in amulets that were believed to be a kind of magical protection for those who wore them”! McCann, “Book of Psalms” NIB IV:1048, picks up on this and insists, “We must not use Psalm 91 as a magical guarantee against danger, threat, or difficulty. Rather, this psalm is a reminder to us that nothing ‘will be able to separate us from the love of God’ (Rom 8:39 NRSV).” He continues, “In fact, Jesus’ and Paul’s faithfulness to God and to God’s purposes impelled them into dangerous situations” and he points out that “when Jesus did claim the assurance of the Psalms, it was from the cross” (emphasis original)!

[7] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 298, where he says in response to the misuse of Psalm 91 in the temptation of Jesus that “Real trust does not seek to test God or to prove his faithfulness”! Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.3:518: “we must remember that the protection of angels consists in the fact that by their witness to God they keep those committed to them in fellowship with God” (when he says “those committed to them, he clear means those angels [plural!] to whose care individuals may have been entrusted by God). Cf. also John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I.14.12, p. 171, where he insists that “whatever is said concerning the ministry of angels” the purpose is that “our hope in God may be more firmly established.”

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Truly Free

2 Corinthians 3:7-4:7[1]

I would say that our notions of freedom in this country are defined more by our secular values than they are by our faith. We believe, as the Declaration of Independence so eloquently puts it, that we are all “endowed” by our Creator “with certain unalienable Rights,” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That was a truly revolutionary idea about freedom in that day. It was based, however, not on biblical teaching, but on the best political philosophy of the time. And while I agree with it, I would also point out that in 1776, that statement only applied to men who owned a certain amount of property. It wasn’t really a statement about how all people equally deserve to be free. It was a response to the tyranny of the day, but we’re still trying to work out what that means for all people.

For most of the history of the world, “common people” have lived in fear of “powers that be,” whether secular or spiritual. Kings ruled absolutely. What they said was the law of the land. Whether or not it was true or right didn’t really matter. Tyranny was simply the way things were. People have also lived in fear of spiritual powers they don’t understand and can’t control. In ancient times, the “gods” were no better than the rulers. They could be just as fickle and cruel. I think some of mythology was just projecting the unpredictability of life onto spiritual powers. At least that way people could make sense of their hardships. The “gods” or the “demons” were responsible. In response most people turned to various means from astrology to magic to try to fend off the troubles of life. It was, at best, a feeble attempt.

Many people through the ages have feared death above all else. Without the light that dawned on that first Easter morning, people live in fear of death. They’ve had all kinds of beliefs about death throughout history. Some saw death as a kind of shadowy place, where you were only a “ghost” of your former self. Some saw death as the doorway to hell, where everybody would spend the afterlife being punished for everything you did wrong in this life. Even those who worshipped the one true and living God feared death, because they saw the grave as a place where they would not only be cut off from the joys of life but also cut off from God.

As we’ve been discussing the last few weeks, St. Paul insists that Jesus’ death and resurrection sets us free from all that. As we’ve seen, Paul proclaimed that Jesus’ death on the cross has broken the power of all that threatens the meaningfulness of our lives. That’s because he willingly submitted himself to the “powers” of evil, and when they did their worst to him, they effectively “spent” their power. But Paul goes beyond that. He says that Jesus also broke the power of sin and death when God raised him from the dead. As we heard in our lesson from last week, Paul declared that “Just as everyone dies because [of] Adam, [because of] Christ everyone will be given new life (1 Cor 15:22, NLT).

That first Easter morning revealed a power at work in this world greater than sin or death. Jesus’ resurrection pointed to the power of God’s life-giving Word, the same Word he spoke over the darkness in the beginning, “let there be light!”, creating all life out of the vast nothingness. And in Jesus, God revealed that his Word still has the power to bring life out of death. As we discussed last week, Paul was ultimately pointing us to the hope that we will all live in God’s (re)new(ed) creation after Jesus has returned to “make all things new.” But more than that, St. Paul was convinced that through Jesus’ resurrection, God began the process of making a whole new creation right here and right now in the midst of this world.[2] The life that God effectively “injected” into this world by raising Jesus from the dead is like a transfusion spreading through all things and everyone.

That’s why St. Paul could say in our lesson for this week that we’re all in the process of being transformed to become “more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Cor 3:18, NLT). Because we have all seen the light of the “glory of God … in the face of Jesus Christ” and we now “have this light shining in our hearts” (2 Cor 4:6-7), it’s as if God’s new work of creation is already working in our lives. So it is that Paul could say later in 2 Corinthians that “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17, NIV).[3]

What does all that Paul has to say about Jesus’ death and resurrection mean for us on this day? I may be wrong about this, but we don’t seem to fear sin or death all that much. That’s one reason why the traditional gospel tends to fall on deaf ears in our world. But I would say that sin still brings its own sting. We just have a way of denying it, or avoiding it, or rationalizing it away. I would also say that while we might no longer subscribe to ancient superstitions, death is still a very real enemy. We can see that power at work every time anyone anywhere abuses their power to harm or even kill innocent people. It happens all the time in our world. We just choose not to look. I would say that we still need freedom from sin and death, we just don’t see it that way.

So how then do we in the 21^st Century frame the good news that in Jesus Christ we are truly free? The biblical view of freedom is first and foremost that we are free to live in the way that God intended for us when he created everything very good (Gen 1:31). Paul says it this way in our lesson for today: “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor 3:17, NLT). And in his mind, the Spirit of the Lord is at work throughout God’s creation, especially wher there is faith in Jesus Christ. The way we see that freedom is in the Spirit enabling us to become more like Jesus, aligning our lives with God’s purposes and ways.[4] Through Jesus and through the Spirit, God is setting us free to let go our selfish and self-centered efforts at justifying the meaning of our lives, by having the right title, or living in the right neighborhood, or knowing all the right people. That way of trying to find meaning in life still brings its own “sting.”[5]

Jesus sets us free to obey God, following his example of what it means to be fully human by surrendering fully to God’s will (1 Pet 2:16). That means we’re free to give without any thought of what we may get in return, which is the essence of how Jesus lived, and the essence of how Jesus taught those who would follow him to live (Lk 6:35). Because of Jesus, we’re free to serve others, sharing food with the hungry, compassion with the outcasts, and shelter with the refugees (Mt 25:35). You may see where I’m going with this: living in a way that’s truly free means loving without constraints.[6] We’re truly free when we love God with all our hearts, tearing down the shrines to false gods that we’ve all built. And we’re truly free when we love our neighbors as ourselves. All our neighbors. True freedom, from the perspective of our faith, is not found in rights or resources, not in privileges or buying power, not in influence or success or wealth. Regardless of who the powers that provoke our fear may be in our day and time, the promise of the Gospel is that true freedom is found in a life defined by love (Gal 5:13). Love for God and love for others. When our lives are defined by love for God and love for others, then we are truly free.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/2/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Viktor Paul Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul, 126: “while the salvation which God effects is first of all an object of hope, God’s power is nevertheless already effective for men [sic] in Christ. … Salvation, then, is not unambiguously ‘future,’ and it is not only a ‘hope.’ Even in the present age the ‘first fruits’ of salvation may be savored and the authenticity of hope confirmed.”

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.1:311, where he connects 2 Cor 5:17 with the complete “alteration” of the “human situation,” of “our whole existence,” through Jesus’ death and resurrection. This not only means the reconciliation of those who are “in Christ” with God, it also means “the reconciliation of the world with God”! Barth speaks of this “alteration” throughout the Dogmatics, but especially so in volume four, where he relates it not only to those who are in Christ, but to all humanity. Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope, 55, where he says that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ “the eschatological turn of the world begins, from transience to non-transience, from the night of the world to the morning of God’s new day and to the new creation of all things” (emphasis original

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 271, where he argues that since in the Bible (not just the New Testament!) “‘Lord’ is the name for the experience of liberation and for free life, then the name is misunderstood and brought into disrepute if it is interpreted in terms of masculine notions of rule.” He also insists that “living freedom and free life can endure only in justice and righteousness. In justice, human freedom ministers to life—the life shared by all living beings. In justice, human life struggles for the freedom of everything that lives, and resists oppression.”

[5] Cf. A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a commentary on the Greek text, 1301: “it is sin, the human turning away from God to become centered upon the self, that has turned death into such deadly poison, so that it hurts and kills like a sting.”

[6] I would suggest that this idea of freedom to love is a central theme in Jürgen Moltmann’s understanding of the Christian life in his works. See for example, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: he begins with the idea that Jesus establishes the freedom of God’s kingdom by sacrificing himself for others (117), by breaking the powers of oppression through the resurrection (98-99), and by assuring us that we are accepted by God, and therefore enabling us to accept others (188-89). On this basis Moltmann understands the freedom of God’s kingdom as that which enables us to serve one another in the effort to bring freedom to others (84, 195, 278, 283-84, 292). He construes the Christian life under the concept of “friendship” which Jesus models and we are called to emulate as those who are “open for others” and who “love in freedom” (121, 316).

Tuesday, March 04, 2025

Not In Vain

Not in Vain

1 Corinthians 15:25-28, 35-58[1]

I mentioned last week that hope is something we all need to thrive in this life. But hope can be tricky, because it can be hard to know what to place your hope in. Especially in times when it feels like everything you thought you could count on in life has dropped out from under you. Those of us who practice faith in Jesus Christ have a hope for something more, beyond this life. But that hope has resulted all too often in an attitude that what happens now doesn’t really matter. That was why Karl Marx criticized religion as a kind of drug that made people passive in the face of the wrongs that were being perpetrated against them. I think that’s why we need the full version of the Christian hope: not just that we’ll go to heaven when we die, but also that God is working to restore all our lives and everything he created in the same way that Jesus was raised to new life. The miracle of the resurrection on that first Easter Sunday points us to the promise that God is working to change this world, and everyone and everything in it.

Even with that hope, there are still some pitfalls to avoid.[2] For some of us, it becomes all too easy to take an overly optimistic view. Because we have the hope of being with Jesus at our death, we can treat death like it’s no “big deal.” It’s just “passing on” to another stage of our journey. That’s not the biblical view. As Paul puts it in our lesson for today, death is an “enemy” (1 Cor 15:26). Death has a “sting” that is real and harmful (1 Cor 15:55). Paul’s not just talking about physical death, although as many of us have experienced, that can be truly harmful to those of us who have lost loved ones. Paul is also talking about the destructive power that “death” exerts in our lives and in our world to this day through the powers and persons who align themselves with evil.[3] Our hope is not that somehow death is no “big deal.” Our hope is that in Jesus’ very real death on the cross, and especially by raising Jesus to new life, God has overcome the power of death.

The other pitfall goes to the opposite extreme. For some of us, it becomes all too easy to take an overly pessimistic view. Because of the harm that death continues to inflict in our lives and in our world, we can decide that God must not be able to do anything about it.[4] But that’s also not a biblical view! Not by a long stretch! The God to whom the Apostle Paul points us is the God who not only worked in the lives of the people of Israel and in the lives of believers in the early church all those centuries ago. This God is the God who continues to work in and through us to bring life out of all the harm that death can inflict on us. We have this faith, this confidence, this hope, because Jesus died a very real death on the cross. But we also have this faith, this confidence, this hope, because God raised Jesus to a new life that is just as real. That means death will not have the last word for anyone.

The hope of the Gospel is the promise of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s the promise that the life God revealed in Jesus’ resurrection is a new kind of life that is stronger than the worst that death and all its powers and those who align themselves with them can throw at us. Paul points to this hope when he insists that “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54), the victory Jesus won when God raised him from death. Paul can go so far as to “taunt” death like one might do to a defeated and humiliated bully: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55, NLT). The reason he can act so confidently in the face of the harm that death still can and does inflict on us is because he knows that God has given us “victory” over all of it “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57). The life that God has injected into this world through Jesus’ resurrection has already defeated death and all the powers and persons aligned with it. And the promise of our faith is that this new life will finally and fully define all creation. For everyone and everything!

Our faith and our hope exist in a balance. We don’t naively water down the power of death or the very real harm those who align themselves with evil can do in our world. Rather, with Paul we take all of that seriously as an “enemy.” But on the other hand, we don’t just give up in the face of the sometimes overwhelming discouragement we feel over the influence of those powers and persons. That’s because we’ve seen the light of new life that dawned on that first Easter morning, and with Paul and the hosts of believers throughout the ages we put our faith and our hope in the power of that new life.[5] We hold our faith and our hope in the power of God to overcome evil in this world in a balance. But the scale is tipped in favor of hope, because Jesus’ resurrection points us to the day when the final victory will come.

We don’t place our hope in some idealistic vision that attributes to humanity a goodness that can prevail against all evil. There is much goodness to be found in the human family, to be sure. But it’s not equal to the task of overcoming the powers of evil and those who align themselves with it. Neither do we place our hope in sheer determination and willpower to resist in the face of all the wrongs that are so blatantly perpetrated in our day, every day. Human willpower isn’t sufficient to the task either. We place our hope in the confidence that, as the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth said, “God is not God in vain.”[6] Or as Paul puts it in our lesson for today, ultimately God will be “utterly supreme over everything everywhere” (1 Cor 15:28, NLT).[7] And so we place our hope in God, and in the victory he has won in Jesus Christ. And that hope leads us to the confidence that God will fulfill all that he has promised to do. One day, we will share in the new life that Jesus now enjoys.

So how then shall we live in these times of turmoil? Do we retreat behind the walls of our homes and churches and sit back, waiting for God to work a miracle? Or do we “plunge into the present struggle” as our affirmation of faith last week called us to do, putting the courage and energy our faith and hope give us to good use here and now?[8] I think St. Paul would have us do the latter. After all that he had to say about the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and the hope it gives us, Paul concluded this chapter by saying, “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (1 Cor 15:58, NLT). That last phrase is often translated more literally “in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” We may or may not see tangible results from our work. But I believe that every act of integrity, every act of kindness, every act motivated by faith and hope and love can and does make a difference.[9] Not just because of our sincerity, or our determination, but because the new life of our resurrected lord Jesus means that what we do here and now is “not in vain”!

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 2/23/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church.

[2] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed, 378.

[3] Paul speaks of this especially in Romans 5, where he contrasts the effects of death’s “reign” with the effects of God’s grace that lead to the “victory” that we have through Jesus Christ (cf. esp. Rom 5:17). See especially The Message translation: “If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?” Cf. also Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a commentary on the Greek text, p.1302.

[4] This was Harold Kushner’s view in Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. He and his wife had experienced the loss of a child, so while I may disagree with his view, I would not want to criticize him personally.

[5] Cf. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 283. See also ibid., 285, where he says that Christians “know of a power at work here and now greater than the power of evil, a power that keeps breaking into our godless and godforsaken world to heal old wounds, make new beginnings, and (if only now and then, here and there) give us a glimpse of the final victory of God’s compassion and justice that are on the way.” See further, ibid., 375: “The God in whom we hope is a God who not only will be but is the powerful and compassionate Creator and Ruler of the world. The crucified and risen Christ who will come to overthrow all the powers of darkness and evil that spoil God’s good creation and human life in it has already triumphed over them and even now is at work to complete the work he has begun.”

[6] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3.4.1:196. While he concedes that work of reconciliation that Jesus has accomplished through the cross and resurrection (elsewhere he calls it “the accomplished alteration of the whole world situation”; ibid., p. 191) still faces opposition in this world, he insists that we must see this “battle” as resulting in the victory of God.

[7] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 163, where he points to the final victory of Jesus’ resurrection as serving “the sole and all-embracing lordship of God.”

[8] Cf. “A Declaration of Faith,” 10.5 (Presbyterian Church in the United States, 117th General Assembly 1977, reissued by Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.], 1991).

[9] Cf. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 280-81: “we can and must confidently throw ourselves into the fight against evil in our own lives and in the world around us, knowing that we do not fight alone but with the one who is stronger than all the forces of evil.”

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Our Hope in Christ

1 Corinthians 15:12-26[1]

Hope is a crucial aspect of human life. We cannot thrive without a sense of hope. While I think many would agree that hope is a mindset we can learn, it doesn’t just come automatically. And when we lack a healthy sense of hope about our lives we can find it hard to believe that they have meaning and purpose. That puts us at risk for sliding into depression, anxiety, or even suicidal thoughts. A lack of hope can affect us in more “physical” ways, like diminishing our ability to cope with the stress we all face as a part of life. Hope gives us confidence to persevere in hard times, because we believe that there is indeed meaning and purpose to our lives, each and every one of our lives. That kind of resilience enables us to move forward with our goals in life and with our commitments to family and work and service.

Hope keeps us going when everything in life seems to conspire against us. But hope can be risky as well. We can put our hope in all the wrong things. We may be hoping for a nicer car, a bigger home, a better job, a more fulfilling relationship. Hoping for those things isn’t in and of itself wrong. There is a forward-looking aspect to all hope. But when we stake too much of our well-being on hoping for the wrong things, if those hopes come crashing down, so do we. That’s when false hope can hurt us deeply. It can shake our faith in others, in the meaning of life, even in the goodness of God.

Our lesson from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians for today addresses hope from the perspective of Christian faith. Specifically, Paul was addressing the hope of the resurrection. I dare say that’s not something that’s high on our list of hopes these days. As Christians, we hope to “go to heaven” when we die, to be with Jesus and to be reunited with our loved ones. But that’s not the focus of hope in the New Testament. The focus of Christian hope is that we will share Jesus’ resurrection, in bodily form, and that in that new body we will enjoy new life in God’s (re)new(ed) creation.[2] In fact, for Paul the hope of sharing in Jesus’ resurrection is so foundational for Christian faith that he could say, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless” and “we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world” (1 Cor 15:16-17, 19, NLT).

It may be hard for us to understand how Christians who lived only 30 years after the first Easter Sunday could somehow doubt the resurrection of Jesus. Part of the problem in Corinth may have been that in the Greek world, the idea of a future “resurrection” in which the dead live again in physical form was thought to be crude and disgusting. In the Greek world, people looked forward to being set free from the “prison house” of the body. They believed that death was a transition from physical life in a body to living among the stars in the heavens as an immortal soul. “Resurrection” just didn’t compute to them. They would have been much more comfortable with our notions of “going to heaven” when you die. In fact, it was the influence of this line of thinking about three hundred years after Paul’s day that shifted Christian hope from sharing Jesus’ life in God’s (re)new(ed) creation to eternal life in heaven.

Some of the believers at Corinth went to the opposite extreme. They heard some of the wonderful promises of new life in the Gospel message Paul and others had preached. And because they heard in that message that they already had eternal life fully and completely because of what Jesus did, they believed that they had all they were ever going to receive of salvation. They bypassed the promise of God’s future as resurrected people living on a recreated earth in the way God had intended in the first place—without sadness or pain, suffering or injustice, violence or even death. They believed that all they were ever going to get from their faith was what they had right then and right there.

But St. Paul wouldn’t accept either of these options. For him, the inevitable consequence of Jesus’ resurrection on that first Easter Sunday morning was that we would all share in the new life Jesus now enjoys. He says it this way: “Christ has been raised from the dead” as “the first of a great harvest of all who have died” (1 Cor 15:20, NLT). For Paul, Jesus’ resurrection meant more than God had intervened to vindicate Jesus and his message. For Paul, Jesus’ resurrection meant the beginning of the transformation of all things and all people! It meant the beginning of God’s whole new creation that would eventually “make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).[3] It’s hard to wrap your head around that big of an idea. But for Paul tampering with that hope meant tampering with the Gospel message. And that was something he never allowed!

The promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that he died on the cross so that we could know without a shadow of a doubt that God loves us—he always has and always will. The promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that his death broke the power of everything that could separate us from God or harm us in any way. The promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that his resurrection overcame even death itself and brought new life to everyone. Paul said it this way, “In Adam all of us die. In the same way, in Christ all of us will be made alive again. (1 Cor 15:22, NCV). And that means that what God has done through Jesus is nothing less than to set in motion the process of restoring everything in all creation to the way that he intended in the first place. Just as Jesus enjoys that resurrected life now, so we too can look forward to enjoying the same life in God’s (re)new(ed) creation.

We need all kinds of hopes to keep us going. Hope in the form of looking forward to doing something fun. Hope in the form of knowing that there are friends and family who will always love us no matter what. Hope in the form of trusting that all our needs will be supplied by our God. But more than that, we need a hope that can motivate us to do as our affirmation of faith for today puts it: “to take up our cross, risking the consequences of faithful discipleship; to walk by faith, not by sight.” It takes serious hope to give us the courage and the strength to “plunge … into the present struggle.”[4] The reason for that is that we can see injustice and violence and even death at work all around us to this day.

Yes, we already have a taste of the amazing grace of God at work in our lives here and now. But I think our experience with the bitterness of death can help us truly appreciate the hope Jesus gives us by rising from the grave.[5] Those of us who have looked into the eyes of a loved who was there a few moments ago, but is gone now, those of us who know the bitterness of death, must know that we cannot accomplish God’s work in this world on our own. It’s just too big! Because what God is doing is nothing short of restoring of all things and everyone to the life that God intended for us in the first place. And that’s what he is doing even now through the power of Jesus’ death and the power of Jesus’ resurrection to new life. Our hope is that power is already working to change our lives now. But our hope is also the recognition that we have not yet tasted it fully and finally as we will when we all share in Jesus’ life in God’s (re)new(ed) creation. Sharing that life, the life that Jesus now enjoys, in God’s (re)new(ed) creation: that is our hope in Christ. And that hope gives us courage and strength to press on, come what may.

[2] Cf. Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a commentary on the Greek text, 1229: “the resurrection of Jesus was not to restore life in the conditions of continuing earthly existence (and eventual death) but to initiate a transformed mode of existence as the firstfruits (v. 20) of the eschatological new creation.”

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope, 55, where he says that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ “the eschatological turn of the world begins, from transience to non-transience, from the night of the world to the morning of God’s new day and to the new creation of all things” (emphasis original).

[4] Cf. “A Declaration of Faith,” 9.5, 10.1, 5 (Presbyterian Church in the United States, 117th General Assembly 1977, reissued by Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.], 1991).

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 171-72, 210-11. He holds in tension the “deadliness of death” which still persists in our experience of life with the “promise and hope of a still outstanding, real eschaton,” that is, a future that is defined not by death but by life.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Worthy

1 Corinthians 15:1-11[1]

The question of our personal “worthiness” can be a thorny one. Some of us may feel that we’re unworthy at the very core of our being. We may think we don’t even deserve to be here. Others may believe without a doubt that they are deserving, worthy of every opportunity, achievement, and accolade they’ve ever received. And perhaps more! It can be tricky navigating the middle ground between a basic sense of shame over who we are and a fundamental arrogance. Many of us have worked hard throughout our lives, and we have a well-earned right to be appropriately proud of our accomplishments. Others of us have worked hard and have seen all they hoped for slip through their fingers. The question of our “worthiness” as individuals is one that is complicated and fraught with pitfalls. But it’s one that we all must face.

Our scripture lesson from 1 Corinthians for today addresses this question from the perspective St. Paul’s life story. The lesson tells us part of the story of Paul’s calling to serve as an Apostle, proclaiming the good news of Jesus. We might find it strange to hear Paul talking about how he was the “least” of the Apostles, and didn’t even “deserve” to be called an Apostle. When you take a close look at what Paul says about himself in his letters, two things emerge.[2] First, he confessed that all he was and all he was doing was the result of a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. When he met the risen and living Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, it transformed his whole life. Using the language of our lesson, Paul could say that all that he was and all that he was doing was the result of God’s grace at work in and through him. That’s what made Paul’s zeal for following the way of Judaism give way to his conviction that Jesus Christ had chosen him to serve the body of Christ—from “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4)!

The other thing that Paul says about himself is that he was unworthy to be an Apostle. I think a part of this came from the fact that he was always very consciously aware of his failures and shortcomings. Several times he expressed his feeling that, because he had persecuted the church before being called by Jesus, he wasn’t fit to serve as an Apostle. And this wasn’t just initial reluctance on his part. Even toward the end of his life, Paul continued to see himself as unfit to be an Apostle because he had previously “blasphemed the name of Christ” (1 Tim 1:13-15, NLT). But I think the other side of this sense of “unworthiness” on Paul’s part was because he knew in the deepest part of his heart, that “whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his grace on me” (1 Cor 15:10, NLT). And he knew two things about God’s grace at the same time: there was nothing he could ever do to deserve God’s grace, and he would never have to try to deserve God’s grace. It was all a gift!

I think this applies to the issue I raised last week: how we find the strength and the faith to continue serving others in a challenging time. For myself, I must confess that, like Paul I don’t think I deserve the opportunities I’ve been given. But, like Paul I’m also grateful because I believe it’s all been through God’s grace. Many of the people I grew up with wouldn’t be surprised that I’ve spent most of my life working in ministry. They would consider it a natural outcome of who I am. But it was never something that I would have thought. I came from a nowhere town and a no-name family. Although I knew I was good at school, I never thought of myself as being all that special.

I “volunteered” for ministry at the ripe old age of 17. I’ve always wondered whether God really wanted me or he just “had” to take me because I stepped forward. And, truth be told, I never thought I had what it took to be a pastor. I was quite comfortable in the classroom as a Seminary professor. It was an environment that I knew well, and it was a task that I was confident I had the skills and expertise to carry out. Working as a pastor felt a bit too risky for me. To me it seemed like starting a business from scratch, and I wasn’t sure I wanted go out on a limb like that. In fact, when I was 40 I stepped away from ministry for several years. I tried to move into a parallel career, but only made it more clear to me that serving the body of Christ was where I belong.

When it comes right down to it, however, I would have to say with Paul, “whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his grace on me.” Like Paul, I have certain gifts and abilities that God has used in my service to the body of Christ. And like Paul I’ve worked diligently to serve to the best of my ability for decades, continuing to “sharpen the saw” to be as effective as I can at what I do. But I would also confess with Paul that “it was not I but God who was [and still is] working through me by his grace.” Like Paul, I would say that, despite my reluctance about whether I am worthy to serve the body of Christ, I believe God chose me from “before the foundation of the world.” God’s grace led me down the path of life that has brought me to this place and time. And, like Paul, “I’m not about to let his grace go to waste.”

I bring this up because I think there are others who may find themselves at places in life where they never thought they would be. And I think most of us would agree that we could never have imagined we would be facing the issues we are today. You may know that I’m a “Lord of the Rings” fan. Throughout the years, I’ve found myself agreeing with Frodo Baggins when, while talking about the rise of evil, he says to Gandalf the wizard, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” To which Gandalf replies, “So do I … and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”[3] The truth is that none of us gets to choose the backdrop against which we live our lives. We don’t always get to choose the direction our lives take in the circumstances we face. All we get to choose is how we will live our lives right where we are.

Again, if we’re trying to figure out how to keep on serving in circumstances that make it all seem futile, I think we can take our cue from St. Paul. What I didn’t say above is that he faced opposition and criticism of his ministry from the very first. Not just from “enemies” outside the church. Some of the believers in churches he had founded, some of the believers at Corinth, thought that Paul was unworthy to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ. In the face of that fierce opposition, Paul responded in a couple of ways. First, he admitted that he wasn’t worthy in and of himself to represent Jesus Christ. I think it may be healthy to follow his lead in that respect. Not one of us, and especially not me, deserves to serve the body of Christ in the ways we have open to us. But secondly, Paul confessed that all that he was and all that he did was due to God’s grace poured out in his life. I think each and every one of us can make the same humble confession today. We may not understand why we have been placed in this particular time and this particular situation. But we can trust that God will use our gifts and abilities right where we are. And we can draw encouragement from the community of faith that supports us as we seek to use our gifts and abilities where we are. But at the end of the day, God’s grace has called us, God’s grace has brought us to this place, and God’s grace is working in and through us. And that’s all the worthiness we need!

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.1.4, 196-211, where he surveys the story of Paul’s change of life from zeal for Judaism to proclaiming Jesus and serving the body of Christ as a prime example of the interaction between the knowledge and ignorance of “the accomplished alteration of the whole world situation” by God through Jesus Christ. Barth argues that this tension between knowledge and ignorance can arise only “to move to it’s overcoming” because “God is not God in vain” (ibid., 191). Of Saul/Paul’s conversion, he says (ibid., 202), “It was in the power of the self-witness of Jesus Christ that he passed from ignorance to knowledge. Jesus Himself met him before Damascus. … . This is the decisive element in the story.”

[3] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2004, p. 51

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

The Energy to Serve

1 Corinthians 13:1-13[1]

There are times in our lives when we are full of energy. Our work, our relationships, our hobbies are fulfilling to us, and we feel like nothing can stop us. There are other times in our lives when it seems like everything is against us. No matter how hard we may try, it seems like other people, or God, or perhaps even our own shortcomings conspire against us to make everything seem hard. In those times, it can feel like we’re trying to swim through molasses. Or perhaps quicksand. We just can’t seem to find the will, let alone the strength, to keep moving forward. Those are the times when we may ask ourselves why we’re going to so much trouble. We may do some deep soul searching to figure out whether we really want to keep pushing so hard.

It's those hard times in life that test what we’re made of. When we find ourselves running the gauntlets that life puts in our way, we may wonder what made us choose this path in the first place. We may wonder why we keep going. We may wonder whether we should change direction and just walk away from it all. But if we stay the course, we find that those hard times become the times in our lives when we do some of the most important growing we can ever do. Our ability to endure even the hardest of times may surprise us, as our faith grows strong and resilient. And the test of how strong our faith has become is, as always, how we respond to hard times. We can choose to respond in a wide variety of ways. We can feel hurt and decide to “pout.” We can get angry and perhaps nourish a grudge. But, as the Apostle Paul says it, faith “works” through love (Gal 5:6). When we respond to hard times with faith, it will clarify for us what keeps us going.

In our lesson from 1 Corinthians for today, the Apostle Paul is addressing a church that was badly divided. They were squabbling over just about everything, even who their “real” leader was—Paul, or Peter, or Apollos. While Paul had founded the church at Corinth, both Peter and Apollos had visited them, and had fruitful ministries there. I doubt that any of them could have imagined that the result of their work would have been a congregation fighting one another over which of them were most important. As Paul asks, “Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not!” (1 Cor 1:13, NLT). It was ludicrous to think that they had any other “Lord” than Jesus Christ!

One of the issues the believers at Corinth were fighting over was “spiritual gifts.” It was a time when spectacular displays of spiritual power were particularly valued. Perhaps like the “faith healers” of our day, many of the Corinthians believed that if your faith is real, you should be able to demonstrate it through obvious acts of spiritual power. Now Paul didn’t completely shut them down on this thinking. And the analogy of “faith healers” might not be the best one. For Paul, everything every one of us does in the name of Jesus Christ is a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit working though us. That’s one of the main points he wants to get across to them. The Spirit is at work in and through us most powerfully in ways that might not be so obvious.

This brings us to our lesson for today. Paul was trying to help the believers at Corinth find a healthier perspective than trying to prove they were more “spiritual” than each other. And to do that, he called them to follow what he called the “way of life that is best of all” (1 Cor 12:31, NLT). And that way is the way of love. It is the way that Jesus chose for his life. And as Paul says elsewhere, our faith really works only as we put it into action through love (Gal 5:6). Here he puts it more bluntly: he says that even if he had the ability to demonstrate spiritual power in the most obvious ways, if what he did wasn’t motivated by love, he would only be making a lot of noise (1 Cor 13:1, NLT)! He says that even if his faith were such that he could “move mountains,” if it didn’t express itself through loving actions toward others, he would be “nothing” (1 Cor 13:2, NLT). He said that even he sacrificed everything he had, even his own life, if he didn’t do it out of love, it would do no good for anyone (1 Cor 13:3)!

For Paul, the measure of our service is the motivation that energizes it. From his perspective, our service has meaning only when it is motivated by love that actually cares about the well-being of another person, especially those who are different from us, and most especially those whom we may perceive to be “on the other side” from us. Again, as I mentioned before, in the Christian sphere of life, Paul could say that the only thing that matters is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6, NET). From one perspective, that’s how we demonstrate that our faith is real: by putting it into action out of love for others. Of course, there are other motivations for our service. We may serve out of a sense of leaving a legacy, or because we are grateful for the gifts we have been given. But for Paul, it all comes down to faith put into action through love.

Some of you know that one of my “heroes” of the faith is Henri Nouwen. He was a Roman Catholic Priest who lived with a great deal of personal pain, and he became a pioneer in the field of pastoral care and pastoral theology. Because of that, he became something of a celebrity in American Christianity. He taught at the most prestigious and influential divinity schools in the country. But all of that left him burned out and empty. After spending a year living in France at L’Arche, a community where intellectually challenged people lived with their caregivers, he came back to serve as the chaplain at the Daybreak L’Arche community in Toronto. Many of his friends urged him not to “waste” his talents, reminding him of how much more “good” he could do in the Academic world. But I think Henri had found the joy of serving others out of love for them, and he never looked back.

We’re all facing some of the most challenging days of our lives. The very fabric of society has become frayed and is unraveling before our eyes. Sweeping changes are completely transforming our whole way of life in ways that none of us could have imagined or dreamed, even ten years ago.That has implications for everything from families to work to the ability to even talk to people who have different convictions from us. We’ve become so “tribal” that we can’t even talk to people who have different views from us. What does that have to say about where we are as a people and as a society? It can leave us feeling like all our efforts for good in this world are useless, just making a lot of noise. The difficulties we all face right now can test our motivation. It can leave us asking ourselves why we are doing what we are doing. Especially when it comes to what we are doing in and through the church to serve others. If we take our cue from Paul, we may find that the only way we can continue to have the energy to keep serving in a way that truly helps other people is through love. Whether through “obvious” acts of service, or simple everyday interactions with the people around us. The lesson that Paul wants us to learn is that faith works through love! It always has and always will!

The Waking Dreamer