The Waking Dreamer: Spirituality

Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 02, 2024

The Waiting Place

Lamentations 3:19-32[1]

Most of us are familiar with the classic by Dr. Seuss, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” It’s a wonderfully encouraging look at life’s journey. The idea is that, especially when you’re starting out, you really can’t even begin to imagine the places your journey will take you. And the theme is that “Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.” But then, of course, he adds, “Except when you don't. Because, sometimes, you won't.” And one of those times he mentions is when you find yourself in what he calls “The Waiting Place.” The “Waiting Place” is for people “Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow.” Even Dr. Suess calls the “Waiting Place” a “most useless place.”[2]

We’re not a people who like to wait. For anything. It’s irritating at best, because time spent waiting seems like wasted time to us. At worst it can be infuriating, because nothing brings out the worst in us quicker than having our plans or expectations thwarted. And waiting is one of those things that can definitely thwart our plans! Our instant economy has spoiled us. We’re used to getting whatever we want right when we want it. If we do have to wait, we tend to take out a smartphone or another device and dive into the screen. The idea of just waiting quietly and patiently seems to be a foreign concept to us.

But waiting is part of life. And through the ages, those who have taught us the most about what it means to “walk humbly with our God” have made it clear that learning how to “wait for the Lord” plays a central role in spiritual growth, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.[3] In the Bible, “waiting” is an expression of faith. We “wait for the Lord” in faith because we recognize that much of our lives is out of our control. But more than that, we “wait for the Lord” because that’s how we grow stronger in our faith. It’s a bit like the concept of leaving a portion of the ground fallow for a season as a means of restoring and enriching the soil. Or the fact that in Winter, trees that appear to have gone “dormant” are doing some of their most important growing. They’re sending down roots to seek out nutrients, growing deeper and stronger underground while it may seem to us like not much is happening. Waiting for the Lord is how we send down deeper roots to grow stronger in faith.

The prophet Jeremiah knew about the value of waiting for the Lord, as we saw in our lesson from Lamentations for today. Much of Lamentations is not particularly uplifting. It came from a bitter time in the history of the people of Israel. The Babylonians had invaded the land, and the city of Jerusalem was under siege. The famine that resulted led to shocking atrocities. When he looked around, what he saw was his nation in ruins, his beloved city of Jerusalem besieged, and his people seemingly abandoned by God. Much of the earlier part of Lamentations contains the outpouring of his grief. At the end of it all, he could say, “Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!” (Lam 3:18, NLT). Imagine the prophet Jeremiah saying that! It sounds like he had given up not only his hope, but also his faith!

But the prophet turned a corner precisely when all seemed lost. Although he could say that he would never forget that “awful time,” he remembers the most fundamental affirmation about God in the Bible, the bedrock of faith: “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning” (Lam 3:22-23, NLT). It’s phrased in different ways in different verses, but this is the essential expression of faith in the Bible: God’s love never ends, and we can always count on him to be faithful. So, despite all the bitterness and the grief Jeremiah had been through, he could hold onto his faith: “I still dare to hope” (Lam 3:21, NLT).

We might wonder what made it possible for him to have such a dramatic change of heart—from “everything is lost” to “I still dare to hope.” If we listen carefully, he tells us. It wasn’t some spectacular vision from God, nor was it the presence of an angel that gave him new hope. The situation hadn’t changed. What changed was his attitude. And he made that change by waiting for the Lord. I think he show this was what made the difference when he affirms that “it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord” (Lam 3:26, NLT). To be sure, waiting for the Lord is no easier than any other waiting. In fact, it may be harder! We may often suffer from doubt or anxiety. But what makes it “good” to “wait quietly” for the Lord is that’s how we learn that “no one is abandoned by the Lord forever” (Lam 3:31, NLT). I think in light of what the New Testament teaches, I would say that “no one is abandoned by the Lord ever”!

We live in a world of “perpetual motion,” 24/7/365, year after year! “Waiting” is what we do when we’re helpless to change the situation. We “wait” only when it’s the only option. “Waiting” calls to mind boredom, or anxiety, or restlessness. But in the Bible, “waiting” for the Lord refers to a posture of trust. To “wait” for the Lord in the Bible refers to trusting God’s unfailing and faithful love when everything in life seems to have given way. This may remind you of one of my favorite hymns: “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” I suspect that some of you may share that opinion. You may know that it’s based on this passage. It might seem surprising that such a wonderful encouraging hymn could come from such a bleak and dismal situation. But if you look at it from the biblical perspective, it’s not surprising at all. With all due respect to Dr. Seuss, the “Waiting Place” is not a “most useless place” after all. In fact, it may be one of the most useful places for growing our faith. That’s because the “Waiting Place” is where we learn again that God is faithful always! Always has been, always will be. It’s where we learn again that God is always for us, never against us. It’s where we learn again that God loves us with a love that never fails, no matter what.[4]

[2] Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! 1990.

[3] Cf. Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, 91: “Waiting … is the foundation of the spiritual life” (quoted from Simone Weil, First and Last Notebook).

[4] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1, 385: “[God] is wholly Himself and true to Himself in the fact that he is true to us.”

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Following Jesus

John 10:22-30[1]

The church in our day is known for a lot of things. Unfortunately, not many of them are positive. At least not in our culture at large. In our day, the church is known for things like covering up serious abuses by the clergy. At the same time, it’s known for heaping loads of guilt on people who don’t seem to “fit in.” The church in our day is known for manipulating people into giving what amounts to huge sums of money. Almost in the same breath we could say it’s known for spending extravagant amounts of money on itself. Or at least it is known for the extravagant amounts of money its “leaders” spend to create their own versions of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I’m not sure that much of what the average person on the street thinks about church seems very positive.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus makes some interesting remarks about what characterizes those who at least claim to follow him. In the first place, he calls them “my sheep”! While that is a familiar image in the Bible, I’m not sure it’s one that makes following Jesus attractive in our society. Being a “sheep” means not having the ability to stand up for oneself. Being a “sheep” means blindly following someone else, even when that person doesn’t deserve our loyalty. “Sheep” are meant for “shearing,” and in our world, that means being taken advantage of by those who are unscrupulous and deceptive. Being a “sheep” isn’t an image that most people would embrace in our day.

Nevertheless Jesus calls those of us who would follow him “my sheep.” I think at least a part of what he is saying is that those who seek to follow Jesus belong to him. Not only does he give his “sheep” eternal life, but also Jesus says very pointedly, “No one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). So part of following Jesus, part of being one of his “sheep,” is that we belong to him. I find that aspect of being a “sheep” to be comforting. In a world so full of uncertainty, injustice, corruption, and even violence, it is a comfort to know that no one can snatch us away from Jesus.

More than that, Jesus says that those who follow him are his “sheep” because they listen to him. He says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me” (Jn. 10:27). Earlier in this chapter, he makes a similar statement: “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father” (Jn. 10:14-15). Those who belong to Jesus know him in the same way that Jesus and the Father know each other. They hear his voice and follow him. That seems to me to be a remarkable way to describe the church: the fellowship of those who know Jesus, who hear his voice, and follow him.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Talk of hearing voices in a religious or spiritual context can make people think you’ve lost touch with reality. And the claim that “God told me” has been used and abused in every conceivable way. Yet, when it comes down to it, what Jesus says distinguishes those who belong to him is this: “I know my own and my own know me” and “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” It would seem to me that some kind of spiritual relationship with God is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Christ. And that includes an active attempt to know God, to hear God’s voice, and to put into practice what we hear.

I don’t think that means that we turn loose all moorings and leave the church at the mercy of whatever someone claims God told them. For one thing, I think we can assume that the voice of God in in our day will speak in a way that is consistent with the Scriptures as the primary witness to the living interaction between God and the human family over the centuries. So paying attention to the Scriptures can help us in our effort to listen for the voice of God. Another check on an “anything goes” approach to spirituality is that we tend to hear God’s voice better when we do so in community with others than when we are listening alone. I think a final test for the quality of our attempt to listen for God’s voice has to be the fruit it bears in our lives. If our discernment of God’s voice leads us to be more patient, more kind, more merciful, more understanding, more loving—in short, if it leads us to live in a way that is more like Jesus—then I think we’re on the right track.

At the end of the day, however, there has to be some kind of effort on our part to actually seek God. That is an essentially personal endeavor. You can do it together with others, but no one can do it for you. In order to do that, you have to finally give to God that place in your heart that you usually reserve for the things you cherish most in this life. Somewhere in your being you have to make the decision that seeking God’s presence is a vital part of your life. Sometime you have to decide in your heart that aligning your life with God’s will and God’s way is of central importance. Somehow you have to come to the place in your soul where you realize it’s essential to at least try to listen for God’s voice.

When I think about his, my first thought is a question: Can you imagine the response if the church came to be known as the people who belong to Christ, and who seek to listen for his voice? Can you imagine what would happen if the church became known as the people who know Christ and who truly seek to follow him? I’m not sure I can. But I’d like to try.[2] I think we have to begin by making the decision that listening for God and seeking to follow Christ is something vital to our ability to experience what Jesus called “eternal life.” When we are living out the mercy and compassion of Christ, it seems to me that we’re doing a pretty good job of listening for God. Then maybe we can become the kind of people who are known for knowing Christ and for seeking to follow him.

[2] Cf. The Book of Order 2017-2019, F-1.0301 (p. 2), where we say that we believe we are called to demonstrate in our life as a community that “in Christ, God is making a new creation,” which is “a new beginning for human life and for all things” that has occurred in Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Energy, Intelligence, Imagination, and Love

Mark 12:28-34[1]

It seems to me that we live in an age when it’s hard to focus on anything for very long. It seems that we always have something clamoring for our attention. Those of us who have “smartphones” may have “dings” or a “beeps” coming at us on a regular basis all day long. When I got my first “smartphone,” it was set to sound off at me for just about everything: email, text messages, calendar reminders, Facebook notifications, and more. It didn’t take too long for me to decide I needed to find out how to turn off most of that noise! Even without the “dings” and “beeps,” we seem to be tethered to a whole web of electronic connections.

But more than that, we all have a wide variety of involvements that constantly claim our focus. Between work, family, social life, civic organizations, exercise routines, financial obligations, church commitments, and others, it can feel like we hardly have a moment in the day when we can catch our breath. So much for the promise that advances in technology would give us more leisure time!^{^[2]} I would say that technology has actually expanded the work week rather than shortening it, as some predicted in the 1960’s and 70’s. We’re accessible 24/7. It can make it difficult to focus on anything spiritual.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus answers a question that was much debated in his day: “which commandment is the first of all?” The question of the “first commandment” was, of course, the question about which one was the most important. The answer Jesus gave would have been considered fairly conventional: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:29-31) That was the shema (Deut. 6:4-5), which devout Jewish people recited every day. That he combined it with a “second” command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” would not have come as a surprise either.

There was widespread agreement that these two commands constituted the essence of what God wanted from his people. But I think then as well as now, the real problem is how to fulfill these two great commandments. I’m not the first person to wonder how we finite human beings can “love” God, the one who is both far beyond all that we can understand and also who is as close to us as the very air we’re breathing. It’s a question that St. Augustine framed over 1600 years ago: “What do I love when I love my God?”^{^[3]} It’s a question that continues to be asked by many who are willing to face the difficulty of living in relationship with the God who made the heavens and the earth. Just how do you have a relationship with a God you can’t see, you can’t touch, with whom you can’t have a regular conversation?

Some insist that we love God by maintaining spiritual practices like prayer, Bible reading, and worship—both publicly and privately. I would agree that maintaining our personal and public spiritual lives is an important component of what it means to love God. But those who have explored this question throughout the ages developed other disciplines as well: welcoming strangers, sharing what we have, helping others, and giving care wherever it’s needed. This echoes a theme that is biblical: we love God when we walk in his ways. I would say that we “walk in God’s ways” when we seek to live out God’s grace, mercy, and love in our own lives. And if we want an example to follow, I think we need look no farther than Jesus. He constantly and consistently lived out God’s grace, mercy and love. He devoted his whole life to loving God and loving others.

Loving God leads us naturally to the “second” commandment: loving others. Scripture says that we cannot love God without loving others (1 John 4:11-12, 19-21). What we may not know is that this “second” command comes from Leviticus 19. In that chapter, the Bible is actually very specific about what it looks like to “love your neighbor as yourself.” It means to refrain from oppressing your workers, cursing the deaf or trying to trip up a blind person; it means that we’re not to show partiality to the rich over the poor, slander anyone, hate another person, take vengeance, or bear a grudge (Lev. 19:13-18)! Of course, there are other Bible passages that spell this out with different specifics, but I think you get the idea. Loving God leads to loving your neighbor in the real ways in which we treat other people on a daily basis.

In these distracted times, it can be difficult to keep our focus on these matters. The push and pull of life constantly drags us away from our primary calling: to love God and to love our neighbors. It’s not always easy to determine what that kind of love looks like in practice. I will say this: if we take it seriously, it will claim all that we are, and call forth the best we can give. Those of us who are ordained officers in the Presbyterian Church take an oath to serve others with “energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.” That’s not a bad way to approach trying to fulfill the two great commands. As we offer all that and more to God, I think we are setting out on a journey of discipleship in which we are constantly learning what it means to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

[2] First introduced by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, “Cyborgs and Space,” Astronautics (September 1960): 26-27, 74-76.

[3] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 10.6.8.

Monday, February 22, 2016

(Un)Willing?

Luke 13:31-34[1]

I think for most of us, it can be a challenge to find a way to get a handle on our relationship with God. When we think about relationships, we normally have in mind the connections we have with people. We can interact with people. We can talk to them, we can laugh with them, we can touch them and they can touch us back. Nevertheless, human relationships can be incredibly challenging. Even though you may have spent a lifetime living, eating, laughing, and loving with another person, it can still be incredibly difficult to know what is going on inside. You can spend a whole lifetime with another person and still not feel like you really know him or her.

How much more difficult is it to carry on a relationship with God, whom we can’t see. We can talk to God, but unless you have a special gift that I don’t have, we don’t hear God speaking to us in audible words. Yes, we may have a feeling that God is telling us something, or leading us in a particular direction, but it’s incredibly easy to misinterpret a “feeling.” And, although Jesus made God more “real” to us by living as a human being, in our time we can’t actually touch Jesus, or God for that matter, in the same way we can touch another human being. I think one of the great challenges of our faith is how to maintain a relationship with God throughout our lives, through thick and thin, come what may.

Our Gospel lesson for today addresses what I think is the crucial element in this challenge. To better understand this text, I think we would do well to put it in the context of Luke’s Gospel as a whole. In this section of the Gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where he knows he is going to complete his mission of giving up his life.[2] As Luke recounts this story, he seemingly drags it out—for almost half of the book! The reason for this is that, as he tells the story of Jesus’ journey, Luke recounts a great deal of Jesus’ teachings about what it means to follow him.[3]

In this particular chapter, Luke begins with a story at the synagogue—just as he began his account of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’ initial visit to the synagogue in Nazareth, as you may recall, provoked criticism because he made it clear God’s mercy was not going to be bound by the people’s prejudices. In this chapter, Jesus’ visit to the synagogue provokes a similar reaction (Luke 13:10-17). When he heals a woman who had been bound for 18 years, the synagogue leader responded with a very stingy view of God: she should have come on another day, not the Sabbath (Lk. 13:14).[4] But Jesus reminded them that if they had the decency to unbind their livestock for a simple drink of water on the Sabbath, how much more should God’s grace be allowed to free someone who had suffered for years (Lk. 13:15-16).[5]

This sets the stage: Jesus represents a view of God that most of the Jewish people could not accept because they were too tied into their traditional ways of thinking. And so Jesus laments over them all when he laments over Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Lk. 13:34).[6] His view of Jerusalem—meaning the people of Israel as a whole—as those who are unwilling to live in relationship with God echoes sentiments expressed throughout the Hebrew Bible.[7]

His view of God as a mother hen trying to gather her chicks under her wings is one that may seem startling to us at first, but it also expresses one of the key messages of the Bible. God loves us with a love that will not let us go. God is constantly working in each and every life to “gather us” to himself through various ways. In fact, some would say God will use whatever it takes in order to bring his people back to him.[8] But Jesus knew that many of the people of his day and time were “unwilling” to be drawn into God’s ways and God’s life in this way.[9]

It seems to me that when we think about our own relationship with God, that’s the fundamental question we have to address: are we willing to be drawn into God’s ways and God’s life, no matter what the cost? It is not a question that is simple or easy. It’s not simple because it requires us to be willing to open ourselves to what God may be doing in our lives.[10] That doesn’t always line up with the agenda we have for ourselves.

And it’s not easy because it’s not something that takes place quickly. God draws us into his life and his love over time as we open ourselves to him by practicing spiritual disciplines. Traditionally that has taken the form of prayer, solitude, submission, and service.[11] But for some of us, there are other disciplines that can be more helpful: being mindful of God’s presence every day, finding ways to practice our faith in the routines of life, or simply experiencing God through the beauty of a sunset.[12]

Whatever means we use, the key is to be willing to open ourselves to God’s presence and work in our lives. Like any relationship, it’s something we have to cultivate. That can be challenging because we can feel vulnerable when we open ourselves, and most of us don’t like feeling vulnerable.[13] So we may find ourselves unwilling to face the difficulty and the discomfort of allowing ourselves to be drawn more fully into relationship with God. But that just leaves us stuck in the same old ruts. On the other hand, if we’re willing, it means finding ways of opening our lives more fully to God’s presence.[14] It means embracing the new life that God wants to give us through repentance and new levels of obedience. It means cultivating our relationship with God. At the end of the day, however, it means responding to what God is doing in our lives by being willing.

[2] Cf. Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 534, where he points out that “Central to the Lukan depiction of Jesus’ mission is its grounding in the divine purpose.” He summarizes further, “As the divine agent of salvation” Jesus “must carry the divine message to Jerusalem, but Jerusalem kills those whom God sends.” Cf. similarly, Fred B. Craddock, Luke, 169, where he says that “the approaching passion in Jerusalem casts its shadow over” this whole section of Luke’s Gospel.

[3] Cf. Joel B. Green, The Theology of the Gospel of Luke, 105, where he says that Luke’s purpose is to “solidify th relation between disciples and master, to provide instruction in the way of discipleship, and to encourage people to join him on the journey of serving God’s purpose.”

[4] Cf. Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 523. He says that the synagogue leader “publicly challenges Jesus’ authority as a teacher and reasserts himself as the authorized interpreter of Scripture” by simply making a pronouncement that implied “the legitimacy of his interpretation is a given.” He also adds that according to scribal tradition, her condition was not life-threatening, therefore “Her treatment could thus wait until tomorrow, so, …, her need did not supersede Sabbath law.”

[5] Cf. Green, Gospel of Luke, 519: “Jesus’ encounter with this woman and his ensuing interpretation of her liberation as a necessary manifestation of the divine will, an outworking of the presence of the kingdom, on this day, the Sabbath.” Cf. also ibid., 525, where he points out that Jesus counter-argument expresses his view that “today, this day, even a Sabbath day” is “the right time for the redemptive purpose of God to be realized.”

[6] This is a very difficult saying because it can tend toward anti-Semitism. Unfortunately that is an anachronistic reading of the text. Jesus, as a Jewish teacher, carries on the tradition of intra-Jewish debate about the people’s obedience to God (or lack thereof). In that vein, Green, The Gospel of Luke, 538, says, “How will Jerusalem respond to Jesus? Will its inhabitants receive him with pronouncements of blessing appropriate to ‘one who comes in the name of the Lord’? Or will they declare him to be a false prophet, an apostate, as they had God’s earlier envoys? Jesus seems to hope for one response while expecting another.”

[7] Cf. Green, Gospel of Luke, 537: “Jerusalem, then stands as a cipher for Israel as a whole: hence, not only must it be the ultimate destination of the prophet proclaiming the message of reform, but it is there, where the message of reform contrasts most sharply with accepted beliefs and practices, that resistance to the prophet will reach its acme.”

[8] Cf. Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, 15, where he says that Franciscan spirituality “incorporates the seeming negative and moves our life to its hard edges, thus making things like failure, tragedy, and suffering the quickest doorways to the encounter of God.” He continues, “There is nothing that God cannot and will not use to bring us to divine union—even sin (felix culpa).” Felix culpa is a latin phrase meaning “happy fault,” and it is prominent in the Roman Catholic liturgy for the Easter Vigil: “O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer,” the “happy fault” referring to the original fall of humankind into sin.

[9] Cf. Green, Gospel of Luke, 539: “Jesus so identifies with God’s care for Jerusalem that he is able to affirm his long-standing yearning to gather together his people for shelter and in restoration. Alas, this desire is not shared by the Jerusalemites.”

[10] Cf. Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 8-14, where he describes the process of opening up three inner spaces: our minds, our hearts, and our bodies. He says (p. 8), “To finally surrender ourselves to healing, we have to have three spaces opened up within us--and all at the same time: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body.”

[11] For a summary of these disciplines, see Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline. For an account of how mainline Protestant churches are using them as a source of renewal, see Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us.

[12] Cf. Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World, xv, where she describes spiritual discipline as the process of “becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”

[13] Cf. Gail R. O'Day, “New Birth as a New People: Spirituality and Community in the Fourth Gospel,” Word & World 8 (Winter 1988): 54, “We are afraid to embrace newness, to accept transformation, because such acceptance would mean letting go of the things that defined our lives before newness was offered. We stubbornly cling to our definitions of life, because we are afraid to accept God's offer of new identity.”

[14] Cf. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, 56, where he says that the deepest meaning of our personal experience is “a constant invitation calling us to turn our hearts to God and so discover the full meaning of our lives.”

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Belonging to God

Belonging To God

Psalm 139:1-12; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20[1]

One of my favorite confessions of faith isn’t a confession at all. It’s a catechism. It’s called “Belonging To God,” and it was approved by the PCUSA in 1998 as a “children’s” catechism.[2] In fact, when it comes to explaining our faith, that which is intended for children usually does a better job of getting to the heart of things. After all, with children, whether it’s a translation like the Contemporary English Version or Sunday School literature or a catechism, the goal is to keep things simple. When it comes to understanding what it means to live our lives in the power and presence of the Spirit, I would say that simplicity is a very good thing.

Here’s a sample. The first questions go like this: “Who are you?” And the response is: “I am a child of God.” “What does it mean to be a child of God?” To which the response is: “That I belong to God, who loves me.” I find it interesting that this catechism defines our relationship to God, it defines what it means to be a “child of God,” by saying, “I belong to God, who loves me.” I’m not sure about you, but I think that says a whole lot about our faith in a very few words: we belong to God. And “belonging” to God is about the fact he loves us. And so as a result a later question asks “How do you thank God for this gift of love?” And the answer is, “I promise to love and trust God with all my heart.” We respond to God’s love by seeking to love and trust God with all our hearts. I like the simplicity of that statement: the life of faith is about knowing that God loves us and about loving God back.

Some of us might object to the language of “belonging” to anybody. In its most negative sense, to “belong” to someone can be humiliating. To be in a situation where someone “owns” us and has complete control over us would normally be something harmful. But I think our Psalm for today gives us a different idea of what it means to say that we “belong” to God. Part of what that means is that God knows us completely. He knows our inmost thoughts, even the ones we may not want anyone else to know. He knows all our actions, both good and not so good. He knows our path; he knows where we’ve come from and where we’re headed. We might be tempted to avoid having someone who knows us so completely.[3] It can be frightening. And yet, the end result is that no matter what we’ve said or done, no matter where we’ve been or where we’re headed, “we belong to God, who loves us.”[4]

But there’s more. Belonging to God means not only that God knows us completely, but also that God is always with us. No matter where we go or what we do, we are always in God’s presence. The Psalmist uses the language of his day to describe this. He says, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” (Ps. 139:8). In his world, “heaven” was the highest you could go, and Sheol, or the underworld, was the lowest.[5] The Psalmist also speaks of taking the “wings of the morning” and settling “at the farthest limits of the sea” (Ps. 139:9). This refers to going as far to the East and West as you can. Essentially, he’s saying that we can go as high and as low, and as far in any direction we may choose, and still God is there with us.[6] As Gene Peterson puts it, “you’re already there waiting!” (Ps. 139:10). Belonging to God means that no matter where we go or what we do, God is always with us. Where ever we may find ourselves, “we belong to God, who loves us.”

I think all of this is summed up well by St. Paul when he says, “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,” which means that “you are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19). The heart of what it means to live in the presence and power of the Spirit is the idea that we are not our own, but rather we belong to God. Living the life of the Spirit means that we recognize that we “were bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:20) and therefore, as St. Paul also says elsewhere, “whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). In this respect, belonging to God who loves us can be challenging. It inspires us to rise above living only for ourselves. It calls us to live our lives to fulfill God’s purposes in this world.

When it comes to the idea that “we belong to God, who loves us” in all that we are and all that we do, we may respond with the Psalmist by saying, “I can’t understand all of this! Such wonderful knowledge is far above me” (Ps. 139:6, CEV). Knowing that we belong to the God who knows us through and through, and the God who is never farther away from us than the air we’re breathing can be a great comfort to us.[7] But it’s also a challenge to realize that our lives are not our own, to do with as we please, because we “were bought with a price,” the precious price of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. That can be intimidating. But I don’t believe God is demanding of us some kind of impossible ideal. It’s as simple as the catechism puts it. Because we know that “we belong to God, who loves us,” we respond by seeking to love and trust God with all our hearts. We respond by seeking to live our lives in the awareness that God is always with us, always loving us, and therefore we seek to love God back with what we do.[8] Living in the power and the presence of the Spirit is both as simple and as challenging as knowing in the depth of our souls that “we belong to God, who loves us” and living all of life out of that fundamental conviction.

[2] Cf. “Belonging to God: A First Catechism.” A catechism approved by the 210th General Assembly (1998) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Accessed at https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/theologyandworship/ pdfs/catechism.pdf

[3] Cf. Paul Tillich, “Escape From God,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 43-44. He says, “Nobody wants to be known, even when he realizes that his health and salvation depend upon such a knowledge. We do not even wish to be known by ourselves. We try to hide the depths of our souls from our own eyes. We refuse to be our own witness. How then can we stand the mirror in which nothing can be hidden?”

[4] Cf. Tillich, “Escape From God,” 50: “We are known in the depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision.”

[5] Interestingly, Karl Barth insists that God is present even in whatever kind of “hell” we may find ourselves. Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:482: “For the man whom God has created and with whom He covenants, there is no corner in which he does not exist for God, in which he is not enclosed by the hand of God behind and before. There is no heaven or hell in which he is out of the reach of God’s Spirit or away from His countenance.” Cf. similarly, Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 91: “By entering into the God-forsakenness of sin and death (which is Nothingness), God overcomes it and makes it part of his eternal life: ‘If I make my bed in hell, thou art there’ (Ps. 139:8).”

[6] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:327: “He ‘encloses us before and behind’ (Ps 139:5), and therefore altogether and in eternity. That we are in Him is true unreservedly and without any loophole for escape.”

[7] Cf. William P. Brown, “Psalm 139: The Pathos of Praise,” Interpretation 50 (July 1996): 284, where he says that the message of this Psalm is “You don’t have to explain yourself before God.”

[8] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, 12-18: “The divine becomes the all-embracing presence in which what is human—indeed everything that lives—can develop fruitfully and live eternally: ‘You encompass me on every side and hold your hand over me’ (Ps. 139:5).”

Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Good Fight

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11[1]

Like many of you, I still remember one of my first plane trips. I was 17, and I flew from Corpus Christi to Dallas to see my Great Aunt. I had received a neck injury in a car accident, and she was an orthopedic surgeon, so she insisted that she treat me. That flight was very relaxed. It seems that the airlines went out of their way to make people feel comfortable. The plane was only about half full. The whole experience made me think that this was the only way to travel. In fact, I remember thinking that to myself.

As many of you know, I recently flew to Calgary, Alberta, to visit my son Michael and his fiancée and her family. I can’t say those flights were particularly pleasant. These days the airports are jammed with people. It feels like you just about have to strip down to your skivvies to get through security. And then they pack you into the planes like sardines. Nothing like the relaxed and pleasant experience flying used to be. I can certainly understand why people who have to travel for their jobs are called “road warriors.” It seems like you have to fight for food, you have to fight for a seat on the plane, and then you have to fight for what little space you have. I’m glad I don’t have to do that much travelling!

I think many of us would say that life itself is a battle these days, not just travel. We fight to make ends meet. We fight to find a job, and then sometimes we have to fight to keep that job. We struggle with relationships to find the right person to spend our lives with, and then sometimes we have to fight to keep that relationship together. We fight to make a better future for our children, and then sometimes we have to fight to keep them headed in the right direction. And just about the time we think we’ve got it made, everything changes, the ground we’re standing on falls away from us, and we find ourselves fighting just to hold on until life settles into a new “normal.”

I think St. Paul knew how hard life can be. He had been through countless hardships, mostly because of his commitment to follow Christ and to proclaim the good news. Part of the message he proclaimed was the promise that one day Christ would return and finish the work of redemption. One day he would set right all the wrongs in this world. One day he would make all creation new again, as it was at the beginning. As you can imagine, that hope was something the early Christians clung to for dear life. In fact, they held onto it so tightly, some of them got their priorities confused and became almost obsessed with the idea that Jesus would return any day.

Paul reminded them, as Jesus had said before him, that their attitude toward that great day of restoration was to be one of watchfulness. He contrasts that with the observation that most of the people in his world were living as if they were either asleep or drunk. They had no sense that their life choices were self-destructive. They had no awareness whatsoever that there could be anything different or better than the life of satisfying their own selfish desires. When you think about it, it doesn’t sound like much has changed. It seems like many people in our world today are simply hurtling head-long from one day to the next, hardly giving any thought to what they’re doing or where they’re headed or what their future may be. And as a result, their lives consist of one tragic misstep after another. And they go on living that way, seeming not to notice the warning signs on the path they’ve chosen. They’re sleepwalking through their lives.[2]

The Apostle calls those of us who follow Christ to wake up from the fog and the haze of living like that, a life that he says is lived essentially in darkness. He says it this way, “for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober” (1 Thess 5:-6). Essentially, I think, what it takes for us to wake up and be watchful is to pay attention.[3] We are called to live intentionally. And throughout the ages, spiritual teachers have reminded us that one of the most important ways of doing that is to develop a discipline of prayer.[4]

But St. Paul also calls believers to wage the battle of life in a different way than most people do. It seems that aggressiveness, demanding our way, being assertive or even pushy, having a competitive edge, are all part and parcel of what we think it means to win the battle that life has become. Paul had a different idea about all that. He told the believers of his day to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:8). The Apostle knew that you can’t fight “the good fight,” you can’t wage the battle for God’s purposes in the world without using “the weapons of righteousness” (2 Cor. 6:6-7).[5]
And here he returns to what seems to be the foundation for all Christian living: faith, hope, and love. We can invest our lives for God’s purposes only as we have the faith to trust that God will fulfill his promises of a new world.[6] We can fight the good fight only as we hold onto the hope that one day that new world will become a reality, and in fact it already is dawning in our lives today.[7] Only when we hold onto faith and hope can we take the risk of loving those around us, all those around us, even those who are difficult to love, especially those who are seemingly “unlovable.”[8] When we have the clarity to see through the haze so many in our culture are sleepwalking through and determine to live our lives in the way of faith, hope and love, then we’ll be “fighting the good fight.”

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, In the End--the Beginning: The Life of Hope, 82. He characterizes the “sleeping” that Paul refers to by saying “Our eyes are open but we don’t see; our ears are open but we don’t hear.” He continues, “we no longer perceive the real world. We see only our dreams and think that our wishful thinking about reality is reality itself. But this again means that we don’t live wakefully in reality; we are asleep in the agreeable dreams of our fantasy world.”

[3] Cf. Moltmann, In the End, The Beginning, 84. He says, “The early Christians prayed standing, looking up, with arms outstretched and eye wide-open, ready to walk or to leap forward. We can see this from the pictures in the catacombs in Rome. Their posture reflects tense expectation, not quiet heart-searching. It says: we are living in God’s Advent. We are on the watch, in expectation of the One who is coming, and with tense attentiveness we are going to meet the coming God.”

[4] Cf. Moltmann, In the End, The Beginning, 83: “When we pray, what we are seeking is not our own wishes; we are seeking the reality of God, and are breaking out of the Hall of Mirrors of our own illusory wishes, in which we have been imprisoned.” See also Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, 43: “Spiritual wakefulness demands only the habitual awareness of him which surrounds all our actions in a spiritual atmosphere ....”; and Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, 68-69, where he says that is the “discipline of prayer” that helps us to come back again and again to “the active presence of God at the center of [our] living.”

[5] Paul lists them as “purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God” (2 Cor. 6:6-7). Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.4:7: he says that “the armour ... which the Christian is to take and put on is a freedom and power which is neither proper nor available to man by nature, which surpasses him in all its aspects” but it is nevertheless “appropriated to him as a freedom and power” which we must take up. He continues, “What a man puts on when he becomes a Christian is according to Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:24 no more and no less than—after the putting off of the old—the new man who is created κατὰ θεόν* (according to God) or κατʼ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν* (according to the image of the one who created him)” (translations added).

[6] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 337: “The expectation of the promised future of the kingdom of God, which is coming to man and to the world to set them right and create life, makes us ready to expend ourselves unrestrainedly and unreservedly in love and in the work of reconciliation of the world with God and his future.”

[7] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 107-109, where he discusses the idea that Paul “sets salvation ‘in the mode of hope’” by pointing forward to the resurrection of the death and the annihilation of death itself, but also sees the signs of this hope already in the healing ministry of Jesus.

[8] Cf. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 338: “Faith can expend itself in the pain of love, ..., because it is upheld by the assurance of hope” in God’s promised future. Cf. also Paul Knitter, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, 209: “As Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.--and the Buddha and Jesus long before them--realized, our best ‘weapon’ for changing the hearts of our oppressors or enemies is to love them. ... Only in this way will liberation come not just for the oppressed but also for the oppressors.”

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

(Not) Building the Church

Matthew 16:13-20; Romans 12:1-8[1]

When most people think of “church” these days, I would venture to say that many of them have some not so positive thoughts. Some people have been burned by a church, and will never return. Others have simply lost interest, and have decided to spend their time doing something more “useful.” Those who are still active in church tend to look church in one of two ways. Some see the way things are done these days and bemoan the loss of the “good old days.” Others see the church as a community that is losing its influence in our culture, and want to change things to stave off the threat of becoming a “relic” of bygone days.

It seems that there are a lot of people out there who have the “answer” about what the church needs to survive and to thrive in the 21^st Century world. Some think it depends on having the right kind of music in worship. Others think it’s a matter of keeping up with the latest technology. Others insist that we need to implement the right evangelism program. Others find the answer in a thriving education program. And a whole lot of people think that if they can just find the right pastor who can wave his magic wand things will turn around. All of these ideas are good--well all except the last one. There is no magic wand that I or any other pastor can use to revitalize a church. But many of the ideas people are promoting in order to help build up the church these days are helpful. And yet at the end of the day they leave out what I think are the most important dimensions of what it takes to help churches thrive in our day.

I think we find one of them in our Gospel lesson. The centuries-long debate between the Catholic and Protestant branches of the church about whether Peter is the foundation of the church has missed the point. Regardless of whether you define the “rock” upon which the church is built as Peter, or Peter’s confession of faith, or something else altogether, it seems more important to me that Jesus said “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18).[2] The bottom line here is that Jesus is the one who builds the church, not me, or you, or anybody else. If that is the case, then “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).

That reminds me of something St. Paul said about his ministry. The church at Corinth had become divided by their loyalties to different teachers. But Paul says that all those teachers were just workers in God’s field. One plants, another waters, and another one reaps the harvest. But the vital perspective on whether or not there is a harvest at all is that God is the one who “gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7). We can discuss strategies and programs all day long until we’re blue in the face, but unless we look to God to give the growth, I daresay we’re just spinning our wheels.

So how do we do that? How do we promote the well-being and growth of this congregation by looking to Jesus to build his church? I think this introduces the second important dimension to what it takes to help churches thrive in our day and time. At its core, this kind of work is spiritual work. It’s not organizational, it’s not programmatic, it’s not marketing. It’s spiritual work. It’s true that organizational health, robust programming, and even good marketing are important. But at the end of the day, building the church requires that we do everything we do in the recognition that God is the one who gives the growth, and so we have to seek to align our hearts and minds and lives with God.

I think that’s something of what St. Paul was talking about in our New Testament lesson for today. He urged the church at Rome to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1). He called them to be “transformed” in their minds and hearts so that their lives might reflect “the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2).[3] This is at heart a spiritual endeavor, one that we can undertake only by spiritual means.[4] When we incorporate prayer, worship, scripture, service, and witness into our daily lives, then we will experience the transforming work of God that can renew our congregation.[5]

This work is not the calling of just one person--the pastor--or even a few--the elders and deacons. This is the work of the whole body. And so St. Paul urges the congregation at Rome to exercise their unique and varied gifts “according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Rom. 12:3) and “according to the grace given to us” (12:6). Building the church in our day and time is something that takes all the talents and abilities that each of us has to offer. That’s what it takes for us to be the body of Christ, to be a community defined by faith, hope, love, and witness.[6]

In a very real sense, building the church isn’t something we do at all, it’s something that God does through us. But I don’t think God builds congregations regardless of whether they take their role as the body of Christ seriously. Our practice of spiritual disciplines is empowered by our faith, our hope, and most importantly, the mutual love which transforms our hearts and minds so that God can create growth through us. The Gospels tell us that Jesus recognized his need for a spiritual practice in his life in order to carry out his mission. How much more do we need to look to God to transform our lives and empower our work. How much more do we need to look to God to give the growth. How much more do we need to seek the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ to build his church.

[2] Cf. M. Jack Suggs, “Matthew 16:13-20,” Interpretation 39 (July 1985):294, “In spite of weaknesses and failures of faith, Peter is the Rock—heroic, but flawed. Perhaps it is only with blemishes that he can be the prototypical disciple, the reminder that there is recovery beyond failure, even the reminder that the final guarantee of the church's life is not the foundation at all but the One who says, ‘I will build my church.’” Cf. similarly, M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible VIII:345.

[3] Cf. Paul J. Achtemeier, Romans, 194: “Grace brings with itself specific structures. It brings with itself the power to reshape and restructure our lives in a way appropriate for life under the lordship of God.”

[4] Cf. The Book of Order 2011-2013, F-1.304, p. 5, which summarizes the calling of the church in “The Great Ends of the Church,” which was adopted by the United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1910: the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 306-7, where identifies the “essentials” as kerygma [proclaiming the gospel], koinonia [fellowship], and diakonia [service].

[6] Cf. The Book of Order 2011-2013, F-1.030, p. 2: “The Church is the body of Christ. Christ gives to the Church all the gifts necessary to be his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these gifts in its life as a community in the world (1 Cor. 12:27–28):
The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life.
The Church is to be a community of hope, rejoicing in the sure and certain knowledge that, in Christ, God is making a new creation. This new creation is a new beginning for human life and for all things. The Church lives in the present on the strength of that promised new creation.
The Church is to be a community of love, where sin is forgiven, reconciliation is accomplished, and the dividing walls of hostility are torn down.
The Church is to be a community of witness, pointing beyond itself through word and work to the good news of God’s transforming grace in Christ Jesus its Lord.”

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Building the Church

Haggai 1:15-2:9[1]

There are a lot of people wringing their hands about the church these days. They are mostly concerned about the lack of participation on the part of younger generations in traditional churches. So commentators of all stripes are weighing in about why younger people aren’t going to church and what we can do to reverse that trend.[2] While many are wringing their hands about the future of the church, I think there are just as many people actually in churches who are worried about the past. Remembering “the good old days,” they are desperate to find the solution that will make it possible for us to re-create those days, when the pews were mostly filled instead of mostly empty. Unfortunately, those days are gone for good.

I imagine that our situation isn’t all that different from the way it was in the days of the prophet Haggai. He was one of the exiles who returned to Judea from Babylonian captivity. And when they returned, they found that Jerusalem, their cities and towns, and especially the Temple, were all in ruins. There were those who looked at the ruins of their culture and their temple and who worried about the future: how would they survive? And there were those who looked at those same ruins and grieved over past greatness that had been lost. But for all their worrying and all their grieving, I’m not sure they knew what to do about it. Ezra had restored the worship of God and the study of the Torah, God’s word. Nehemiah had led the people to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem to protect them from their enemies. But the temple itself lay in ruins.

And so the word of the Lord came to Haggai. He rather pointedly reminded them that their efforts to restore their lives and to provide for their future had been in vain. Apparently they struggled with crop failures, food shortages, inflation, and famine--not to mention the lingering threat of their enemies who would like nothing better than to see their restoration project fail. And the word of the Lord came to them: “You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses” (Hag. 1:9).[3] Apparently, everyone was devoting their efforts to ensuring and securing their own fortunes--rebuilding houses, planting crops, trying to maintain their feeble hold on the land of their ancestors. And apparently, their efforts met with more failure than success. Haggai basically asks them this: “Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Hag. 1:4).[4] And Haggai’s words had their effect: “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel ..., and the spirit of Joshua ..., and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God” (Hag. 1:16).

But even though the people set about the work of rebuilding the temple, there were those who remembered the former temple, Solomon’s temple. And in comparison, this new temple looked pretty shabby. It was a poor reflection of the original. Once again, Haggai came with the word of the Lord: he recognized that this new temple was “as nothing” in comparison with Solomon’s temple. But his message was this: “take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:4).[5] Even though the results of their work may have been disappointing to those who had seen the original temple, the word of assurance that Haggai spoke to the people was that the “Lord of hosts” was with them. That was the whole point of the temple: it was to be a place where the people could come to encounter the presence of God in a unique way.[6] And so he told them to go on with the work despite their misgivings.

I would imagine that there are many in our day who are saying similar things about the church--or about their church in particular. Some would even say that the church as a whole is obsolete and it’s a waste of time to try to renew the church. It seems that more and more people agree with that view, preferring to be “spiritual but not religious” because they don’t believe in any form of institutional religion. And yet, I would ask them what specific form of “spirituality” they actually practice. It’s one thing to say you’re “spiritual, but not religious.” But the fact of the matter is that every form of spirituality takes place in buildings that house a community with specific rituals--whether it’s a Christian church or a Jewish synagogue or a Buddhist Sangha or an Islamic Masjid. Human spirituality thrives only when we practice it together, and it thrives on specific practices, like praying the Lord’s prayer, or observing the sacrament of communion, or listening to the Scriptures read and preached.[7]

Regardless of the nay-sayers who pronounce the doom of the church, the promise Haggai made to the exiles in Judea applies to us today as well: we can do the work because God is with us. The situation in which the church finds itself in the present may very well be disappointing in comparison with a former time. Just as the people of Haggai’s day needed foundation stones and timbers to build the temple, so we have specific things we can do promote new life in the church today. They aren’t secret: the means we use to build this or any other church are the same as they have always been: prayer, worship, studying Scripture, sharing our story, helping those in need, working for peace, promoting community, inviting others to join the community.[8] I think we can do this work to see the church thrive in our day because we know that we are not doing the work on our own. The most important factor in renewing this or any other church is not that we are building the church, but that as we do our work, it is the Lord who is building the church. And he has promised that it will not fail (cf. Matt. 16:18)!

[2] Cf., for example, recently Addie Zierman, “5 Churchy Phrases That Are Scaring Off Millennials,” 7 Nov 2013 blog on The Washington Post, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/11/07/5-churchy-phrases-that-are-scaring-off-millennials/; and Rachel Held Evans, “Why Millenials Are Leaving the Church,” 27 July 2013 blog on CNN, at http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/.

[3] Cf. Hans-Walter Wolff, Haggai, 54, where he says, “The people say: ‘Because the times are hard there is no time for the temple’ (2b*, 9a*). Haggai counters: ‘It is because you have no time for the temple that the times are hard’ (9b*). The prophet reverses cause and effect, and thereby strips bare the truth.”

[4] Cf. Elizabeth Achtemeier, Nahum-Malachi, 99, where she says Haggai insists “that not foreigner nor fate nor workings of nature control the Judeans’ lives, but God. Human life in its context in history and nature is in the hand of the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, beyond all other concerns, God’s people should be concerned about the relation with him.”

[5] Cf. Robert L. Smith, Micah–Malachi, 156–157, where he points out that this would have discouraged the work in general, and Haggai was effective at encouraging them to take up the work nevertheless. Cf. also Achtemeier, Nahum-Malachi, 101: “The old ones forget that it was not Solomon but God who filled the temple with glory, and so they mourn the past that can never return. Worse still, they obstruct the new glory that is arriving, for as long as God is on the scene his people may confidently expect things which eye has not seen nor ear heard. The Lord who has done so much in the past an establish new symbols of his presence in the future. The God who rules past, present, future can manifest himself in ways yet undreamed and unknown. The future that Haggai holds out before his discouraged and sorrowing countrymen is nothing less than a universal reordering of all things and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.”

[6] Cf. Achtemeier, Nahum-Malachi, 97: “When God is present with his people, that presence is symbolized by concrete reminders of his actions among them: for Israel, by a temple with an Ark containing tablets of law, even by a pot of manna (cf. Exod. 16:32-34) and Aaron’s rod (Num. 17:10); for us, by a cross, a Bible, and a table set with bread and wine.” Cf. also W. Eugene March, “The Book of Haggai,” New Interpreters Bible VII:717 : “The Temple was a place chosen by God where human beings could expect to encounter God, to be challenged and renewed by the divine presence.” Cf. similarly, Gerhard Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, II:281-82.

[7] Cf. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, 95: “We cannot live a spiritual life alone. The life of the Spirit is like a seed that needs fertile ground to grow. This fertile ground includes not only a good inner disposition, but also a supportive milieu.”

[8] Cf. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us, 45; cf. also The Book of Order 2011-2013, p. 5, F-1.304, which summarizes the calling of the church in “The Great Ends of the Church,” which was adopted by the United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1910

The Waking Dreamer