The Waking Dreamer: Reconciliation

Showing posts with label Reconciliation. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Take the First Step

Matthew 18:10-20[1]

As is too often the case with men, my most difficult relationship was with my father, Harold Brehm, who passed away in May. For me, it seemed that no matter how hard I tried to do my best, it was never good enough. It’s a dilemma I’ve heard from other men and women regarding their relationships with their parents. I haven’t kept it secret that I was never close to my parents. That happens. My case was not simply one of normal “tension” between parents and children. There’s a lot I could say about that, but I choose not to out of respect for them. I will say this, the distance I kept from my father was not without cause. If I told the whole story, I’m quite sure some of you might be shocked. I’ve never spoken of this in a sermon. I refrained from doing so while he was alive out of respect for him. But now that he’s in the presence of Christ, where he’s whole and healed, I feel that I can tell my story.

I realized many years ago that it was up to me to forgive my father. I’m not ashamed to admit the process took decades. It began when I was a young man. I realized that holding on to bitterness toward my father was hurting me and my relationships. But it’s one thing to recognize the need for forgiveness. It’s another thing to actually forgive. I continued to take steps toward that goal over the years as I grew in my understanding of myself, and in my understanding of my father. I’m deeply grateful that the process led to my ability to fully forgive my father about five years ago or so. To be sure, he never apologized or asked for forgiveness. And I never confronted him for what he had done. I didn’t think it would do any good. Nevertheless, I am grateful to God for giving me the ability to let him be who was, flaws and all, and to love him despite what had happened.

It may be hard to see this, but I believe our Gospel lesson is about forgiveness. I think the reason why it may be difficult to see this is because the lesson outlines a procedure for “admonishing” or “rebuking” another person may seem impractical to us. As the basis for the practice of “excommunication” in its various forms, our lesson for today seems to be at odds with what we know of Jesus. These verses have been used to justify everything from excluding people from the Lord’s Supper to completely shunning them. I would say when Christians cut off someone else in the name of Jesus, we’ve missed something. Our lives are meant to be directed toward loving God and loving others.

I think Matthew was aware of this problem. I think we see this in the way Matthew has arranged Jesus’ teaching in this chapter. We have to take Matthew chapter 18 as a whole. When we do, we find that Matthew himself has “couched” this difficult passage about admonishing others in the context of humility, compassion, and forgiveness. We who follow Jesus are called to become “humble like a child” (Mt 18:4). We’re called to practice concern for the “little ones” by taking care that we not cause anyone to “stumble” (Mt 18:6). We’re reminded that God does not look down on any of his “sheep” who may have “gone astray” (Mt 18:10-14). And we’re called to forgive one another not seven times but “seventy-seven times” or as some translations render it, “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22). Whatever the situation was behind this procedure for admonishing others, it was meant to be carried out with humility, compassion, and forgiveness.

We can see a similar situation with the Apostle Paul, where the question of eating meat was one that caused Gentile converts to “stumble.” In response, Paul actually urged both sides to take the first step: if you’re the one who is offended, he asks, “who are you to judge”? The idea is that rather than holding a grudge or harboring bitterness, we’re to take the first step toward resolving the problem. And if you’re the one who has offended another, he urges us to “never put a stumbling block or hindrance” in the way of another (Rom 14:13). Paul himself insisted that if he did anything to give offense to anyone, he was going to take the first step by avoiding anything that might harm others (1 Cor 8:13). The basic principle here was one of humility, compassion, and forgiveness for others.

Jesus said something similar in the Sermon on the Mount. He said that if we come to worship and remember that we have done something to offend someone, we must first be reconciled before we can rightly worship God (Mt 5:23-24). Think about it: how can we truly worship God while we’re harboring bitterness or a grudge against someone? It just doesn’t work. Jesus may have been following the lead of some of the Old Testament prophets here, like Isaiah or Jeremiah. That we cannot truly worship God without making things right with the people in our lives is a theme that they emphasized. And Jesus also insisted that we take the first step toward making things right.

I think Matthew knew what he was doing when he based the step-by-step process for setting things right on humility, compassion, and forgiveness. I think he had some keen insight into who we are as human beings. Humility enables us to look at ourselves and recognize that my attitude or my actions may be the problem, not the other person. That’s not something that comes easily. Compassion enables us to see things through the perspective of those with whom we may be at odds. It also enables us to care about them as people, and so to care about their wellbeing. Forgiveness enables us to drop any sense that we may feel we have a right to judge or to blame the other person. And when we take the first step to make things right prayerfully, we can hardly do so without a change of heart from one of blame and bitterness to one of humility, compassion and forgiveness.[2]

I’m not going to pretend that the process of healing broken relationships is one that can be undertaken lightly or carried out easily. The deeper the hurt, the more work it’s going to take from us. It took me decades to forgive my father. There were times when I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to get there. The key for me was that I continued to pray, and I continued to try to see him through eyes of compassion. It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen quickly, but I can honestly say that I’m grateful for all the many “first steps” that God helped me to take over the years. For me, forgiving my father was crucial to my ability to “live and breathe a spirit of forgiveness”[3] toward everyone, which I would say is at the heart of following Jesus.

[2] Ulrich Luz, A Commentary on Matthew 8-20, 458. He reasons that we can hardly “pray” for the punishment of offenders, but rather for their salvation and restoration to the community!

[3] W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 8-18.

Monday, March 11, 2019

Now is the Time

2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10[1]

We live in a “throwaway” culture. That’s not a particularly original observation. In fact, the first use of the phrase was in an article called “Throwaway Living” in the August 1, 1955 edition of Life magazine. Ironically, at that time, “throwaway living” was something that was celebrated. The article opened with a picture of a family tossing plastic goods into the air that would have taken hours to clean. Instead, they could just throw away these items and devote their time to something other than the “tedious” chore of cleaning. Unfortunately, I think the idea of throwing away something instead of taking the time to clean or mend or otherwise make it useful again spread from simple items used in everyday living to a broader mindset about life in general.

It seems to me that these days we are more aware of the problems created by throwing away packaging waste and plastic or Styrofoam utensils. That’s a good thing. But I fear the “throwaway” mindset has migrated into more important areas of our lives. Relationships these days seem to be viewed increasingly as something that one can simply “throw away” if they get too unpleasant to manage. I’m not talking about the fact that some relationships have serious flaws. I’m talking about the casual way in which people approach relationships. The attitude seems to be “If it works out, great. If I have to put any work into it, I’m outta here!”

We’ve seen before that St. Paul’s relationship with the church at Corinth was a difficult one. Paul was their spiritual “father,” so to speak, in that he was the one who had brought the gospel to them in the first place. In spite of the fact that Paul founded the church, it would seem that a majority of them had been turned away from him by other teachers. These others came to Corinth and scorned Paul for the fact that he didn’t “throw his weight around” as an Apostle apparently “should have.” The idea seems to have been that if he were truly an Apostle of Jesus Christ, he would have demanded to be treated with the proper deference. Instead, by his own confession, St. Paul served them in “weakness” and humility. And his opponents used that to turn the church against him.

As I have mentioned before, the tension between St. Paul and the church at Corinth came to a breaking point. We have to do some “reading between the lines” in 1 and 2 Corinthians, but when we do, a troubling story comes to light. Apparently, on one of his visits to the church, the majority of the believers at Corinth, led by one only known to us as “the one who did the wrong” (2 Cor. 7:12) openly spurned St. Paul and his ministry among them. As we might expect, Paul speaks of this as a painful experience. Some might think he should have simply “shaken the dust from his sandals” and moved one, treating his relationship with the church at Corinth as something that he could readily “throw away.”

But as his letters demonstrate, St. Paul never did that with any of the churches he served during his ministry. No matter what kind of opposition he faced, his letters display a determination not to let any of these relationships go without making every effort to reconcile whatever differences or problems there may have been. And in this case Paul goes to great lengths to argue that his ministry among them was not fraudulent, as his opponents claimed. Rather, the mark of the authenticity of his work was precisely the fact that it was accompanied by “afflictions, hardships, [and] calamities” but also by “patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, and truthful speech,” among other qualities (2 Cor. 6:4-8). Paul turned the very accusations leveled against him—that he was weak—into proofs that he truly was a “servant of God” (2 Cor. 6:4).

I don’t think this was just a matter of St. Paul defending himself. His primary concern here was for the fact that when the churches he served rejected him, they were also rejecting his message. And it was their adherence to the message of the Gospel that he was his primary concern, not his personal reputation. And so he made every effort to call these believers to reconcile with him, that the gospel seeds he had planted among them would not go to waste. He made every effort to reconcile with them, so that their reconciliation with God through his gospel would not be endangered.

Being reconciled with someone with whom you may have difficulty is not easy. It takes work. Sometimes it can take months of work to heal the broken relationships we have with others. That was true in this case as well. St. Paul spared no effort in his appeal to the people at Corinth. In fact, by the time we get to Paul writing the Scripture before us today, there had been a significant amount of work behind the scenes to make amends. All of this took place while Paul was working with other churches. He could very well have delayed the effort while he was busy elsewhere.

But the gospel message would not allow him to do so. He knew that if they spurned him they were in danger of spurning the offer of being reconciled with God he brought them in the gospel. Rather than putting off the work of reconciling with the believers in Corinth, he knew that it was something that needed immediate attention. It was something that had to be done “at the acceptable time,” and that time was now. His determination and persistence point us in the same direction. When it comes to being reconciled, whether with God or with others, the right time is always “Now”!

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Enemies No More

Matthew 5:38-48[1]

We as a people seem to have a “terrible love of violence.”[2] Many of us have grown up watching TV programs and movies that are essentially based on the premise that there are “good guys” and “bad guys” in the world. And the natural instinct is that we want the “good guys” to win—even if it means using violence. We have been taught to believe in what one scholar has called the “Myth of Redemptive Violence.”[3] We’ve seen the story played out hundreds of times: the “bad guys” threaten innocent people; the “good guys” confront them; the “good guys” overcome the “bad guys” through some kind of violence; and the innocent people can live their lives in peace as a result.

This idea is something that is so ingrained in us that we believe it with the fervor of religious faith: when our safety is threatened, it takes some kind of violence to restore it. Whether that violence may take the form of war, or execution, or the excessive use of force, we believe it is the only way to ensure our safety. And yet the truth that has been repeated to our deaf ears throughout the ages is that violence can never overcome violence.[4] It’s like a virus: when we use violence of any kind it only breeds more violence. If we want to know the source of the violence in our society, I think we have to look at the hostility in our own hearts.

Our lesson from the Sermon on the Mount for today is the central text that has inspired a completely different way of being and living with our fellow human beings. Instead of dividing up our world into “us” and “them,” Jesus challenges us to approach the differences between us from the perspective of a basic recognition that we all are children of God. When we look at it from that perspective, there are no more “friends” and “enemies,” but only brothers and sisters in the one human family.

This section of the Sermon on the Mount continues Jesus’ call to those who would follow him to embrace the values reflected in God’s ways and purposes. In our lesson for today, he continues to teach us that obedience comes from the heart. It might seem initially that Jesus contradicts the teaching that said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But actually, he’s following the same pattern as before. We can see this when we realize that “an eye for an eye” did not require retribution, it actually limited the extent of vengeance that was considered appropriate. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” meant that you were not allowed to execute someone for taking an eye. If you did take revenge, its extent was to be limited by the extent of the injury.

The way in which Jesus goes to the heart of this matter is to teach those who would follow him not to take revenge at all. He says it this way, “Do not resist an evildoer” (Matt. 5:39). That might seem confusing on the surface of things. How can we not “resist an evildoer”? If we see someone committing a crime, or endangering a life, surely we have a responsibility to prevent it. But that’s not the kind of “resistance” Jesus was talking about. As the examples he uses make clear, he was talking about not retaliating against those who insult or humiliate or attack us personally. We’re not to take revenge against those who treat us wrongfully.

Many have debated whether Jesus’ surprising instructions here are actually practical enough to follow in real life. I would say it’s simple enough to “turn the other cheek”—in principle at least. But how can we give in to an unjust lawsuit or outright abuse by authorities? I think the answer lies in that Jesus was, to some extent, speaking ironically. The strategies he proposes are meant to shame and even ridicule the one who is in the wrong. This can be seen with the lawsuit over garments. What we may not realize is that to literally do what Jesus recommends would leave a man standing naked in court. But the point was that such an action would shame the person who failed to recognize the dignity of a brother by taking advantage of him in the first place.

All of this leads up to what Jesus has to say about the great commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We find many ways to limit the concept of our “neighbor” to those who are like us. But Jesus makes it clear that truly following this commandment means loving those who are different. It even means loving those whom we may consider our “enemies.” The most important reason for this is that it’s the way God treats people.[5] We’re to love others in the same way as our heavenly Father, without making distinctions between “us” and “them,” or “friends” and “enemies.”[6]

One consequence of our belief in violence as a means of ensuring our safety is that we tend to see the world in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys,” “friends” and “enemies.” Unfortunately, when we do that we fail to recognize that approaching our world in that way leaves us not with more safety, but with less. I think one of the easiest ways to reveal the error in that mindset is by asking “Whom would Jesus consider an ‘enemy’?” As Jesus pointed out, God pours out the blessings of his love on all people equally. As people who seek to follow Jesus, we can do no less. At the heart of his challenging teaching is the call to “see that every human face is the face of a neighbor.”[7] When we really take that challenge to heart, we can only respond to others as friends, with love. When we follow Jesus, we can be “enemies” no more.

[2] I adapted this phrase from James Hillman’s A Terrible Love of War.

[3] Cf. Walter Wink, The Powers that Be, 42-43, where he describes the “Myth of Redemptive Violence” as “the dominant religion in our society today”! Cf. ibid., 39, where he describes the “domination system” it is intended to support: “unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, biased race relations, patriarchal gender relations, hierarchical power relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all.”

[4] Cf. Wink, Powers that Be, 134: “violence can never stop violence” because its very success only breeds more violence. See further, Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? , 67: “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Cf. also Dhammapada 5: “Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.”

[5] Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1-7, 562, where they say, “To obey Jesus words ... is, therefore, to love utterly: no more can be asked.” They further observe (p. 563) that “The motivation for being ‘perfect’ in love is grounded in the Father’s ‘perfect’ love, in his giving without measure.” See further ibid., 560, where they suggest that what actually lies behind the “be perfect” of Mt. 5:48 is the command to “be holy” in Lev. 19:2.

[6] Cf. Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, On Human Dignity: Political Theology and Ethics, 128, where he quotes the 1981 Declaration of Peace by the Society of Protestant Theology: “There are no conflicts of our life, neither personal nor political, which are not embraced by God’s will for peace with human beings and his whole creation. There are no enemies, neither personal nor political, for whom God’s will for peace does not apply.” Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope, 202: “We are not the enemies of our enemies; we are ‘the children of our Father in heaven’, ... . If we do not react to enmity with enmity, we creatively make it possible for our enemies to turn away from their enmity and to enter into the life we share.”

[7] Cf. Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 41: “compassion … breaks through the boundaries between languages and countries, rich and poor, educated and illiterate. This compassion pulls people away from the fearful clique and into the large world where they can see that every human face is the face of a neighbor.”

Tuesday, August 09, 2016

Bending Towards Justice

Psalm 52[1]

It’s not too hard to notice that the values and the principles taught in the Bible contradict those of our society.[2] That is, if we take the Bible seriously. The Bible’s values are determined by the confidence that God’s reign is the reality that is ultimately true in this world. The Bible looks forward to the day when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven: when justice and fairness prevail; when love and mercy and compassion define the human family. It is an outlook on life and on our world that will not let us stay comfortable with the “values” of our society. The Bible teaches us to hope that the affairs of this world are “bending toward justice.”

It’s also not too hard to discover what our true values are. In our world, winning isn’t just a good thing, or even an important thing, it’s the only thing that matters. We value winning and really don’t care what it takes to get there. In our world, money makes the world go around, and those who have the most money can spin just about anything to suit their every whim. In our world, might makes right, whether we’re talking about physical strength or other kinds of power. If we can do or say something and get away with it, we will, with little or no thought to whether it’s actually right. In our world, the only thought we give to justice is whether or not those we deem to be criminals get punished adequately.

We saw last week that the Psalmist attributed this state of affairs to the spiritual “powers that be.” And God essentially fires them for not seeing to it that his justice was done on earth as it is in heaven. But as we touched on last week, the Bible also addresses those who abuse their position and their power to get whatever they want, regardless of the consequences.[3] Not only the Psalms, but also the prophets rebuked the “high and mighty” for taking advantage of their power to take advantage of other people. They spared no one in the process— the wealthy, the powerful, even prophets, priests, and kings. Anyone who abused their power to benefit themselves was exposed by the truth they spoke.[4]

Our Psalm lesson for today unmasks the blatant evil in what those who are the “high and mighty” can get away with. The psalmist doesn’t spare anyone’s feelings in his rebuke: “you are plotting destruction. Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth” (Ps. 52:2-3). It’s not a pretty picture. He cuts through all the fanfare and the acclaim that can surround those who climb the ladder of success by stepping on anyone who gets in their way. And the essential message is that anyone who presumes to take this path in life will eventually find it to be their undoing.

One of the interesting features of this Psalm is that the “title,” which was very likely added later, seeks to identify a specific individual who was guilty of this kind of arrogance.[5] The psalmist finds such a villain in a story that took place when King Saul was pursuing David in the wilderness of Judea. It mentions someone most of us probably never heard of: Doeg the Edomite. What we have to understand is that in the days of ancient Israel, the quintessential villain probably would have been Doeg the Edomite. Doeg was the man who informed Saul that David consulted with and received help from a priest named Ahimelech. But worse than that, when Saul’s own troops refused to kill Ahimelech because he was a priest of God Most High, Doeg not only killed him, but also all the others who were with him—in all 85 priests!

Part of the problem with this story in the Hebrew Bible is that we never learn what happens to him.[6] There’s no resolution to the tension that’s left when Doeg the Edomite seemingly gets away with a vicious crime scot free. That’s why the title of Psalm 52 designates it as a response to his treachery. But in fact the Psalm addresses the problem of anyone who abuses their power and wealth to get what they want—no matter what it takes. Psalm 52 promises those who “boast of mischief,” who practice this kind of blatant injustice, that “what goes around comes around.”

What this Psalm reinforces is the conviction that anyone like Doeg the Edomite will not get away with such blatant injustice without facing the consequences. Even the worst of the “high and mighty” who apparently think themselves above the law and above God’s justice will one day learn the lesson that “you reap whatever you sow” (Gal. 6:7).[7] It’s a truth that Martin Luther King, Jr. was fond of stating: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”[8] Those who seem to get away with all kinds of evil now will ultimately confront God’s judgment of their dirty work.

But the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ goes beyond the justice of retribution that says, “an eye for an eye.” The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus, the one in whom all the fullness of God dwells, the Lord of all the powers, does not resolve the problem of injustice by “breaking down forever” the villains of this world. Jesus resolves the problem of injustice by reconciling all things to God. Jesus undoes the evil of those who arrogantly presume to abuse their power by “making peace” through his death on the cross. Essentially, he brings us all back to God and realigns our hearts to God’s ways And as the effects of that peace continue to work in the lives of people like you and me, perhaps we can catch a glimpse of this world “bending toward justice” after all.

[2] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV: 891: where he says that the depiction of the “mighty one” in Psalm 52 depicts “precisely what much of contemporary society consistently presses us to do—to ground our lives in nothing but ourselves and our possessions.” Cf. also Artur Weiser, The Psalms, 413: “Without trust in God man falls prey to the power of evil; he cannot help trusting in something and, if it is not God whom he trusts, then it is his own self or his wealth which he makes his idol, and even his malice appears to him to be a sign of strength of which he can boast.”

[3] Cf. McCann, “Book of Psalms,” NIB IV: 890: “The mighty one is willing to use any means to get ahead, regardless of how destructive. In short, the mighty one represents the essence of wickedness in the Psalms: autonomy, self-rule.”

[4] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 205: “The psalm was composed for a time when power joined to wealth was destructive of the social order and a tribulation and scandal for those who loved good and trusted in God. Its basic theme is the conflict between the wicked and the righteous in a world governed by God. … The basic confidence is that God will overrule the way of the wicked.” Cf. similarly H.-J. Krauss, Psalms 1-59, 511-512.

[5] Cf. McCann, “Book of Psalms,” NIB IV: 890: “The superscription identifies this “mighty one” as Doeg, one of Saul’s servants, who informed Saul of David’s locale and killed the priests of Nob at Saul’s command (see 1 Samuel 21–22; 22:9 is quoted in the superscription). While Psalm 52 makes sense as the words of David in such a situation, it is much more likely that the superscription should be taken illustratively rather than historically.”

^{^[6]} Cf. F. Hossfeld & E. Zenger, Psalms 2: A commentary on Psalms 51-100, 30: “The Samuel narratives leave Doeg’s fate open, whereas the psalm announces his punishment.”

[7] Cf. McCann, “Book of Psalms,” NIB IV:891: “In contrast to the affirmation that God ‘will uproot’ the wicked, …the psalmist knows the nature of true security: Life ultimately depends on God rather than on ourselves or our possessions (see Luke 12:13-21, esp. v. 15).” Cf. also ibid., “The punishment of the wicked is that by pursuing wealth they have cut themselves off from God, who is the source of life. Conversely, the reward of the righteous is that they are grounded in God and thus connected to life’s source and destiny.”

[8] Cf. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?” a speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 16 August 1967. Accessed at http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry /where_do_we_go_from_here_delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention/ . Dr. King very likely was paraphrasing from a statement made by Theodore Parker, a controversial 19^th Century Unitarian minister and prominent abolitionist, in a sermon entitled “Of Justice and the Conscience,” published in Ten Sermons of Religion, 1853, 84-85: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” Accessed at https://ia800504.us.archive.org/21/items /tensermonsofreli00inpark/tensermonsofreli00inpark_bw.pdf.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Visualizing Peace

Eph. 2:11-22[1]

Last week, we talked about St. Paul’s vision of God’s plan to restore all things by gathering them together in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10). It’s a vision of unity, wholeness, and peace, for the whole human family. But when you look at the human family in our day, I wonder if we can even begin to conceive what that kind of peace might look like. We are divided by politics, divided by religion, divided by race, and divided by the violence that runs rampant through this family of ours. Can we really imagine unity, wholeness and peace—between Republicans and Democrats, between Christians and Muslims, between Jewish settlers and Palestinian activists, between tribal warlords who wreak havoc all over the globe? I think in fact that in the current state of things, with all these different groups of people who are so at odds with each other—who even hate one another enough to kill—it’s difficult if not impossible for us to visualize the kind of peace St. Paul hoped for.

It’s not as if the world St. Paul lived in was any less divided. He was facing his own set of prejudices in the churches he served. Most if not all the churches of his day were living with the tension between Jewish and Greek and Roman members . From a Jewish perspective, all non-Jews were Gentile heathen. From a Greek and Roman perspective, all others were uncultured and uncivilized barbarians. As you can imagine, this created some problems among the churches. In fact, that’s probably an understatement. A careful reading of his letters suggests that St. Paul was always dealing with one conflict or another relating to the divisions in his world that were troubling the churches.

Nevertheless, he could still envision all those divided people coming together in Christ in a world of unity, wholeness, and peace. The reason is that he believed that Jesus’ death on the cross effected reconciliation between the divided parts of the human family. He framed this from a Jewish perspective—in his mind it was the rules and regulations of the Law that separated the Jewish people and the Gentiles of his day and therefore built a dividing wall of hostility between them.[2] At least part of the outcome of Jesus’ death was to cancel out the validity of the rules that divided people.

But I think there was more to it that made St. Paul believe that the future of the human family was one of unity. He says that through Jesus’ death, he “made peace” for us all. In part, it would seem that Paul is referring to the idea that Jesus’ death reconciled us all to God. The implication is that if we can be reconciled to God, then we should be open to reconciliation with each another.[3] But I think more importantly, one aspect of this line of thinking has to do with the idea that the only way to overcome hatred is to absorb it by responding with love. It’s an ancient concept: you cannot overcome hatred with hatred. You can only overcome hatred with love. You cannot overcome violence with violence. You can only overcome violence with peace. [4] And so it is that St. Paul viewed Jesus’ death as an act of peace overcoming the hatreds and divisions of the human family. He believed that the peace inaugurated by Jesus Christ could heal the divisions of his world.

I guess the question facing us is whether we believe that peace can heal the divisions in our world. Despite St. Paul’s proclamation of a “new humanity” united in Christ, it seems that, if anything, the conflicts of our world have proliferated. I wonder whether part of the problem is that we have not taken our role as the “Body of Christ” seriously enough. As the Body of Christ, it is our task to demonstrate what that unity looks like in our life together as communities of faith.[5] It is our job to extend the grace and mercy and love and peace of Christ to the people of our world.

That may seem a daunting task. There is so much division, we may wonder what one person can do to change all that. What can our peaceful acts accomplish in the face of so much hatred and anger and violence? In spite of the size of the problem, I do believe that one peaceful act can transform the whole world.[6] One act of patience, one act of kindness, one act of understanding, one peaceful act can have a ripple effect in our world, the end of which we may never know. Our peaceful actions in our everyday lives can contribute toward the vision of a human family living together in unity, wholeness, and peace.

Jesus of Nazareth believed this, and he gave his life for it. St. Paul believed it, and he called the churches of his day and ours to demonstrate that unity. Saints and sages throughout history have believed it, and have taught those who were willing to listen for generations that it is possible for us to live a different way. When we believe that what we do can make this kind of difference, then maybe we can visualize the peace St. Paul envisioned—because we will see its effect on ourselves and on the people around us.[7]

[2] Cf. Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, 35-36; cf. also Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:399.

[3] Cf. Perkins, “Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:398.

[4] Cf. Dhammapada 5: “Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.”

[5] Cf. the Book of Order 2011-2013 G-1.0304: Faithful church membership includes “demonstrating a new quality of life within and through the church.” Cf. also Confession of 1967, 9.21-26: “To be reconciled to God is to be sent into the world as his reconciling community. We are entrusted with God’s message of reconciliation and share his labor of healing the enmities which separate us from God and from each other.”

[6] Cf. Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart, 39-41: “Our entire society can be changed by one person’s peaceful presence”; Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here, 6-7: “Peace is contagious.”

[7] Cf. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, 32: “The apostle’s teaching holds out the hope and prospect of a reconciled, unified, and amicable society, whose microcosm is seen in the church’s worldwide, transnational, and reconciling family.”

Friday, July 23, 2010

It's (Not) My Life

It’s (Not) My Life

Col. 1:15-20[1]

I think perhaps one of the most destructive myths to define our lives is the notion that “it’s my life, I’ll live how I want.” Despite the fact that the vast majority of us live that way, it is a formula for life that pretty much completely undermines all chance of real happiness. When we live from the standpoint of “it’s my life,” we have to define who we are in competition with others. Our stubborn insistence on living as if “it’s my life” leads us to the foolish thinking that if I’m going to win somebody’s got to lose. And that kind of win-lose scenario means everybody loses.[2] The real truth of our existence is that we were made to live in community with God’s whole creation, which means we were made for a higher purpose than “it’s my life.”

If we have eyes to see them, we’re living with two very obvious demonstrations of the fact that “it’s my life” doesn’t work. The first is the global economic meltdown. It was triggered in part by the fact that banks gave mortgages to people who had no business buying their “dream house.” It was also caused by the fact that just about every bank out there was trying to “hedge” their loans by dumping some of the risk on somebody else. When the whole thing came crashing down, it was all too easy for us to point the accusing finger at the financial industry, but the reality is that we’re all responsible. As author Parker Palmer puts it, “Who doesn’t know that an economic system that encourages us to live beyond our means and refuses to regulate greed is one in which our avarice will come back to bite us?”[3] If you doubt that we’re all responsible for the collapse, take a look at your own spending habits. If you’re like me, unless you’re one of the people who have lost your home and livelihood, your spending habits haven’t changed much.

The other very obvious demonstration that “it’s my life” doesn’t word is the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Despite the fact that BP appears to have stopped the well, we still have thousands of barrels of oil poisoning the Gulf of Mexico and habitats from Texas to Florida. I don’t even like getting a few drops of gasoline on my hands when I fill up—think of having a coating of heavy crude over pretty much everything around you! We can point the finger at BP or at their partners in this country, or at the federal government, but once again the reality here is that we are all responsible. Again, if you doubt that, ask yourself whether this catastrophe has lessened your use of gasoline. Here is a disaster that has not only destroyed whole swaths of the natural environment, but also thousands of lives all up and down the Gulf Coast. And will continue to wreak havoc around the Gulf of Mexico in other countries for months if not years to come. Yet, as awful as it is, it hasn’t really lessened my consumption of the nasty stuff!

These are two very stark illustrations of what happens when we think we can just go on living as if “it’s my life.” In our lesson from Colossians for today, St. Paul reminds us that we were made for something different. He reminds us that we were literally made for Christ; we were made to live our lives in service to others. [4] The perspective St. Paul takes on human existence is one defined by the conviction that we are part of “the whole” (Col. 1:16, 17).[5] This implies that we were made to live our lives in loving relationship with God and others. We are part of a community that includes not only the whole human family, but also the whole of creation. And if we doubt that’s the case, then St. Paul also reminds us that we were restored to wholeness in Christ (Col. 1:20). So not only were we made for community, but we were also “re-made” through Jesus Christ for community with God’s whole creation.[6] In a very real sense, this means that “it’s not my life to do with as I please.”

This means that we can no longer do what the people of Israel did so long ago—enslaving the poor for silver and trading the needy for a pair of sandals (Amos 8:6). [7] If we take seriously the conviction that we were made—and “re-made”—to live in community with God’s whole creation, then we must always ask ourselves “what effect does my lifestyle have on others?” [8] For some this will be oppressive and confining. For others, it will be liberating. When we live out of the perspective that we are accepted by God—completely, unconditionally, irrevocably—then we can be freed from the need to find meaning and value to our lives by competing with others in a win-lose game. Then we can find true freedom though giving ourselves away in love; then we can find fulfillment through living in community with God’s whole creation.

[2] As sociologist Robert Wright observes, “the world seems to be set up in such a way that either humans make moral progress in the sense of expanding their conception of compassion and love more broadly or they pay the price of social chaos and collapse. Interview with Krista Tippet, “The Evolution of God,” broadcast on Speaking of Faith March 4, 2010; see http://speakingoffaith.public radio.org/programs/2010/evolution-of-god.

[3] Parker Palmer, “Trusting Our Deeper Knowing: On Cataclysms, Contemplation, and Circles of Trust,” accessed at http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/ 2009/rv-palmer/palmer-deeper_knowing.shtml; this essay was discussed in an Interview by Krista Tippett, “Repossessing Virtue: Parker Palmer on Economic Crisis, Morality and Meaning,” broadcast on Speaking of Faith July 23, 2009; see http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/rv-palmer/index.shtml .

[4] Cf. A. T. Lincoln, “The Letter to the Colossians,” New Interpreter’s Bible XI:570: Christ “is the one to who all creation is directed, the very purpose of its existence”; of course, I think on one level we can take that at face value, but at another level we have to unpack what it means that Christ is the “very purpose” for the existence of all things.

[5] He uses the phrase ta panta, which in Greek literature referred to the whole cosmos; cf. Bo Reicke, “pas in the NT,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament V:893-96; A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, 34.

[6] Cf. Lincoln, “Colossians,” New Interpreter’s Bible XI:610-11: “If reconciliation of all things in Christ is at the center of God’s purposes, then the pursuit of peace and acts of reconciliation by Christians serve these purposes.” In fact, he says that this means that “the most urgent task of Christians is to play their part in making the church a place of healing for broken relationships, where divisions caused by class, race, wealth, education, age, gender, nationality, or religious tradition are overcome, and an agent of peace and justice in situations of conflict, whether in the home or the workplace, at the national or the international level.” Elsewhere Lincoln comments on a similar phrase in Eph. 1:10, God’s “ordering of history focuses on Christ and involves the bringing together of everything in the universe into a state of harmony in Christ.” See Lincoln, Ephesians, 42. Cf. similarly Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 274-286: “the church prefigures and foreshadows the temple of the Holy Spirit which the whole cosmos is destined to become” (276). He says that the ultimate goal of NT Christology is “a reconciled, Christ-pervaded cosmos” (278).

[7] Cf. Terence E. Fretheim, “The Prophets and Social Justice: a ConservativeWord and World 28 (Spring 2008): 159-168. Agenda,” in

[8] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 85, 106-108, 164-74, where he discusses the idea that the church is to be the “social form of hope” and the initial demonstration of “the world as it is changed in the Kingdom of God,” (164) which includes how we live our lives in terms of economics, politics, and culture. Regarding the former, he says that a commitment to Christian faith “includes turning away from the lethal tendencies inherent in our present economy and towards a life which overcomes death” (173). Among other things, Moltmann suggests that this means Christians must “choose the path that leads away from the ruthless satisfaction of demands to community.”

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Embracing Restoration

Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-55[1]

After all my “confessions” this Advent season, some of you may be convinced that I am a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch! You may have wondered, “Is there anything about Christmas he does like?” Well, you’re in for a treat today, because that’s exactly what I want to talk about—what I do like about the way we celebrate Christmas. The one aspect of how we as a people “celebrate Christmas” that I like is the fact that we make it a time for family. We scheme with our families how to surprise other family members with just the right presents. We gather with families around the table and the Christmas tree. We worship with our families at the altars of our churches. It is a time for reunion and reconciliation, for embracing and entertaining, for sharing and supporting one another.

I guess I have to add another “confession”—I haven’t always enjoyed this dimension of Christmas. Truth be told, it’s one of the parts of the way we “celebrate Christmas” that many people dread! For many people, Christmas becomes a time when you have to endure your relatives, whether you want to or not. It becomes a time of fighting and re-opening old wounds, a time for throwing discretion to the wind and behaving in ways that are embarrassing and offensive—toward the members of our own family! Christmas is a time when the gaping holes in the fabric of our “family ties” become painfully apparent. It is a time when we desperately need restoration and healing in those most basic human relationships.

Advent is a time when we focus our attention on God’s work in this broken world. It is a time of waiting in silence, a time of looking for the salvation that God has promised, and a time of singing for joy over God’s presence among us. I think it’s tragic that in the midst of all this Gospel talk, many people in our society find themselves more depressed than at any other time of the year. I would venture to say that one of the main reasons for that is that it is a time when we become painfully aware how broken this world is—particularly our own families.

One of the themes in the lessons for this Fourth Sunday of Advent is that it is a time to celebrate the work of restoration God is carrying out in the human family—the whole human family. Take the lesson from Micah. At first glance, one might think that the prophet Micah was no different from many of his contemporaries. In virtually the same breath that he speaks about the coming of the Prince of Peace who will restore and reunite the people, it seems that he looks forward to the domination and oppression of their enemies! And yet, the prophet Micah may very well be an exception to the pattern of looking for restoration for Israel in terms of punishment for their enemies.[2] Like Isaiah, the future Micah envisions is one of “beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks” (Mic. 4:1-4). And in our lesson for today, that restoration includes the reunion of the divided Jewish family. Think of it—Micah looked forward to the coming one who would heal the bitter enmity between Judah and the tribes of Israel and bring them together in one family for the first time in 200 years!

We think of reunions as happy and joyful, but the reality is that sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. In Mary’s Magnificat, we hear that one of the ways God’s work of restoration would come about is through the “Great Reversal”: the proud humbled, the powerful pulled down from their thrones, those who are stuffed will go away empty-handed, while those who are disempowered will be lifted up and those who are hungry will be filled with good things (Luke 1:51-53). [3] Mary describes the overturning of the current system of consumption and oppression and violence by the norms of God’s kingdom: mercy, justice, and love.[4] I think many of us saw a little of that in action yesterday as we distributed food to needy families.

There’s just no way to avoid the fact that there is a barb in the good news that God is working to restore the human family. That barb is this—those among us who flourish on the backs of others, those who get rich by the poverty of the many, those who wield power through violence of any kind will be impoverished, overthrown, and overturned.[5] And yet, even here there is good news—the restoration that God promises is one in which some of us will suffer loss, but in the end we will all gain immeasurably more than we lose. The future Micah and Mary looked forward to is a vision of the restoration of the whole human family. They saw in the birth of the coming one the establishment of the justice that makes it possible for all people to thrive, to reach their God-given potential, to experience the joy and the vibrancy that God intends for all creation.

Advent is a time for waiting in anticipation. It is a time of looking for the fulfillment that promised salvation, and a time of singing for joy over God’s presence in our midst. It is also a time to embrace the restoration and healing God has promised to the whole human family in our families. Tread lightly this year, instead of taking up the challenge to engage in bickering. Do whatever you need to show a little extra consideration to your family—after all, we’re all stressed out during this time of the year. And after all we’ve been doing, many of us are frankly exhausted. Try to say the kind word, do the kind thing; extend your arms to the one who aggravates you and embrace the restoration that God is bringing to us all! Now that’s the way to celebrate Christmas!

[2] Randall J. Pannell, in “The Politics of the Messiah,” Perspectives in Religious Studies (1988): 131-143 argues that it’s possible that Micah actually contrasts the Prince of Peace who will bring restoration to the people with the way in which Israel would seek it’s own restoration—through violent means. For a broader look at the issue in Hebrew Scripture, see Hans Walter Wolff, “Swords into Ploughshares: Misuse of a Word of Prophecy?,” Currents in Theology and Mission 12 (June, 1985): 133-147. He states plainly (p. 137), “Biblical faith decisively rejects all that has to do with war.”

[3] Cf. the article by my friend and fellow seminarian Ruth Ann Foster, “Mary’s Hymn of Praise in Luke 1:46-55,” Review and Expositor 100 (2003):451-463. She says (p. 458), “Mary acknowledges God's mercy and love for the lowly and a radical reversal of normal human values in the coming messianic kingdom.”

[4] Cf. Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge: A Shortened Version of On Being A Christian, 89: in the light of the Kingdom of God, “all existing systems, all ordinances, institutions, structures and indeed all differences between the mighty and the powerless, between rich and poor, appear from the very beginning to be relatively unimportant: the norms of this kingdom must be applied even now.”

[5] Cf. Foster, “Mary’s Hymn,” 458: “even though Mary has been often ‘regarded as the comforter of the disturbed .. . she [or at least her song] is far more accurately the disturber of the comfortable’” (quoting Doris Donnelly). Cf. similarly Letty M. Russell, “God’s Great Reversal,” The Christian Century (Nov. 20, 1991): 1089. She says, “God's great reversal may come too close to home as we hear that Christmas is about lifting up the ‘lowly,’ filling ‘the hungry with good things’ and ‘sending the rich away empty.’ Yet it is by joining in the their desire and work for deliverance that we find out the meaning of the good news of great joy.”

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

“Never Alone”

Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25[1]

There is something woven into the fabric of who we are as human beings that cries out for companionship. We are simply not made to be alone. In fact, prolonged periods of forced isolation can damage a person’s very soul. In the 2000 film Cast Away, Chuck Noland is a FedEx executive who survives a plane crash and spends four years stranded on a patch of island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The need for companion-ship is so engrained in him that he makes a “friend” out of a Wilson soccer ball. When “Wilson” goes adrift during his daring escape attempt on a makeshift raft, Chuck weeps bitterly at the loss of his only companion.

I can empathize with that. I’ve never much liked being alone—especially at night. I think I’m probably not the only one who’s felt like that. Business travelers have all kinds of ways of dealing with that feeling—some healthy and some not so healthy. Loneliness is one of the most depressing, most frightening aspects of our human experience. We just need someone to be with us. We don’t even have to like the person, as long as someone is there.

Perhaps that stems from our general feeling of alienation. Deep down, we all have the sense that we’re “mourning in lonely exile here” as the hymn “O Come, O Come Immanuel” puts it. We have a feeling that it is not we who are hiding from God, but rather God is hiding from us while we cry out, “where art thou!” But with the birth of Jesus Christ, God answers that lonely cry with a resounding “Here am I!”

In Matthew’s Christmas story, the angel of the Lord not only explains to Joseph the mystery of Mary’s child but also explains Jesus’ identity. Based on the name “Jesus”, which means “Yahweh is salvation,” this child would save his people from their sins. Matthew views Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of “Immanuel” in Isaiah 7:14![2] That might not resolve much of the mystery for us. The very name “Immanuel” is a strange one. It only occurs three times in the whole Bible (Isaiah 7:14; 8:8; Matt. 1:23). Matthew follows what seems to a literal translation of the name, “God with us” (Isaiah 8:10). As the “Immanuel,” Jesus is the one who reveals God’s saving presence among his people.

Although the word “Immanuel” may be rare, the concept is not. God’s redemptive purpose has always been an effort to restore the relationship between God and “all the families of the earth,” as the call of Abraham puts it (Genesis 12:3). In a sense, “God with us” permeates all of Scripture![3]

I think it’s important to add a word of clarification here. Many have read the story of Jesus’ mysterious birth as proof of who he is—fully divine Son of God. But the main point of Matthew’s story is not that Jesus is “very God and very man.” If we look at Matthew’s Gospel as a whole, we find that Jesus’ special identity as “Immanuel” is defined in terms of what he does:

• Jesus carries out the role of “Son of God”, or God’s divinely approved envoy;[4]
•Jesus conducts his ministry with authority and power that come from God (Matt. 11:2-6; 28:18);
• Jesus fulfills the promise of the Kingdom of God (Matt. 3:15; 5:17-19; 12:28).

Matthew consistently defines what “Immanuel” means in terms of “he will save his people from their sins.”[5]

If you think about it, that may be the only way to do it. All the efforts of theologians to explain the mystery of Jesus’ identity with abstract theories have failed to make the same impact as Matthew’s simple story of Jesus as “God with us.”[6] From Matthew’s perspective, Jesus demonstrates that he is “God with us” in everything he does: in his obedience to God; in his teaching; in his ministry with authority and power; in his healings; and ultimately through his death on the cross, his resurrection, and ascension. For Matthew, the meaning of Jesus’ birth has to do with the conviction that “in the story of Jesus, God acts.” [7]

Nevertheless, we inevitably have to face the questions a claim like this raises. Think about it—God becoming human. How can something like this be? What does the hymn tune say? “Such a Babe in such a place, can he be the Savior?” It doesn’t seem plausible, does it? And yet perhaps another hymn may provide a clue in the verse, “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given.” There truly is something mysterious, something inexplicable about Jesus’ birth. There truly is “something surprising, unexpected about the appearance of salvation.[8]

Why does God go to such lengths to reunite us with himself? Karl Barth says it is because God “does not will to be God without us.” [9] The second verse of “Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light” expresses it perfectly: “He comes in human form to dwell, Our God with us, Immanuel, The night of darkness ending, Our fallen race befriending.”

The hope of advent is that in Jesus the Christ God has already started reclaiming the world for his own out of his settled determination to be “God with us,” not God without us. The joy of advent is that the light of God’s new day is already dawning, and we can already know God’s saving presence in our lives right here and right now. The urgency of Advent is that we are called to join with the risen Lord in sharing this life-giving presence of God with those around us who still feel so desperately alone.

[2] Craig Blomberg, Matthew, 57; cf. R. T. France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, 182–83

[3]cf. Ulrich Luz, Theology of the Gospel of Matthew, 31.

[4]Matthew 3:17; 11:25-27; 16:16-17; 22:41-45; 27:54.

[5]Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community, 166.

[6]Luz, Theology of the Gospel of Matthew, 32: “The presence of God can only be related and testified, not captured in concepts.”

[7]Luz, Theology of the Gospel of Matthew, 31-33; cf. Matthew 12:28; 17:17; 18:20; 26:29; 28:18–20.

[8]Paul Tillich, “Has the Messiah Come?,” in The New Being, 95. I don’t think anyone could sum it up better than he did: “The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child.”

[9]Karl Barth, Christian Dogmatics, IV.1: 3-20.

The Waking Dreamer