The Waking Dreamer: Unconditional Love

Showing posts with label Unconditional Love. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2026

What Joy!

Psalm 32[1]

Christian worship can seem strange to people who aren’t used to it. Especially a traditional service like ours. Everything we do in worship has a reason for it. But because the way we worship was shaped literally centuries ago, it can reflect a mindset that some people just don’t connect with. I think that’s especially the case with our unison “Confession of Sins.” Even if we’re actually praying the prayer as a way of confessing our sins to God, and not just “saying” the words because that’s what comes next in the service, it might seem strange that we all “pray” the same confession. As I said, the way we worship can seem strange to people who may not be used to it.

Some of us these days may be uncomfortable simply admitting that we have sinned. Some of us are even more uncomfortable admitting that we are sinners. But from the biblical perspective, both are true: we have sinned—that relates to our actions. And we are sinners—that relates to who we are. But it’s not something that’s easy for us to admit. Especially out loud. The pride that can lie at the heart of our personal insecurities can also lead us to make our own selves the most important thing in our world. We name that choice “sin” because it means turning away from the love that shapes our true humanity and therefore it means turning away from God.[2]

I think this can be a problem even and especially for those of us in the church all the time. In the evangelical world, people can tend toward the thinking that “I’m saved, I asked Jesus into my heart and confessed my sin on such-and-such a date.” They may feel the need to confess “really bad” actions here and there, but they tend to think that they’ve already confessed to being a sinner. They’ve got that part covered. In our branch of the Christian world, we can tend toward the thinking that “I’m a good person, I go to church, I try to help people and be kind to them, I volunteer my time.” Given all of that, some of us may feel like the demand to confess that we “are” sinners is offensive and even harmful. Rather than confessing our sin, some think we should be affirming that we are good enough just as we are.

In the midst of all this incredibly complicated approach that we have toward the simple fact that we all can do and say things that we regret, the Psalmist in our Scripture lesson for today insists that confessing our sin is something that’s important for our spiritual health and well-being. Despite the fact that this lesson was written before Christ was even born, it still remains a truth of our human existence that when we refuse to acknowledge our wayward behavior, it tends to fester inside us and comes out in all kinds of ways that aren’t pleasant. Pride, anger, and bitterness are just some of the ways that we can behave when we try to repress a feeling of guilt for what we have done.[3]

From the Psalmist’s perspective, refusing to clear his conscience by admitting his wrongdoing made him feel like God’s hand was “heavy” upon him (Ps. 32:4). I think most of us can relate to that “heavy” feeling. And it’s one more clue that we all need the relief and release the Psalmist says comes as a “blessing” when we confess our sin (Ps. 32:1-2). And that is precisely what the Psalmist promises in response to the heartfelt, genuine confession that “I have sinned, and I am a sinner”: relief from the burden of guilt. That’s why the confession of sin is so important. As long as we hold back, as long as we refuse to acknowledge who we really are and what we’ve really done, we will always have lingering doubts about whether God really accepts us as we are. But when we admit our wrongdoing, we find God’s love embracing us, God’s grace abounding, and God’s mercy healing us. More than that, when we come to God with the confession, “I have sinned, and I am a sinner,” and we experience not condemnation or rejection but acceptance and love and forgiveness, we walk away from that experience with a stronger sense of trust in the God whose love for us never fails.

Unfortunately, for too many of us, “confession” is only something we do at the beginning of a worship service. And even then, because we do it every Sunday, in the same way, and at the same time, it can begin to feel like something routine. But for confession to be genuine, it has to be more than a routine. It has to be something that is heartfelt. It cannot be relegated to a few words we mumble on Sunday morning. Ongoing confession is an integral part of the life of faith. If we need to be reminded why it is so important to confess our sin, all we have to do is remember that, as we say in one of our Presbyterian Confessions of faith, it is God’s love poured out for us in Jesus’ death on the cross that exposes our sin.[4] Jesus’ death on the cross shows us that there is something about sin so damaging to us that God felt it necessary to die for us in order to do something about it. If our sin is that serious to God, maybe we should take it more seriously.

The way the New Living Translation of Psalm 32 words our lesson is with the exclamation, “what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven” (Ps 32:1, NLT). It might seem like a strange thing to some of us. We have a difficult and complicated relationship with aspect of ourselves at times. And admitting, even to ourselves, that we have fallen short in some way, can be deeply disturbing. It can challenge our sense of self-worth. But when we take that approach, we let our own pride get in the way of the acceptance that God offers us freely. We’re only harming ourselveds. The very words, “I am a sinner” get caught in our throats as we say them. Yet, they are so important for us to say. Only when we confess—to ourselves, to one another, and to God—that we have done what we regret do we fully experience the joy of God’s unconditional and unfailing love for us.[5] But as the ancient words of Scripture promise, if we’re willing to take that step, we find what people of faith have experienced for millennia. When we confess our sins, we know the joy of being embraced by God’s acceptance and love. A love that claimed us “before the foundation of the world” as Paul says, and a love that will never let us go, world without end! And what joy it is to know that our God loves us in that way. What joy indeed!

[2] Cf. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, II:50, where he defines sin essentially as “hubris” or pride.

[3] Cf. Karl Menninger, What Ever Became of Sin?, 178: “I believe that all the evildoing in which we become involved to any degree tends to evoke guilt feelings and depression. These may or may not be clearly perceived, but they affect us. They may be reacted to and covered up by all kinds of escapism, rationalization, and reaction or symptom formation.”

[4] Cf. The Confession of 1967, 9.12: “The reconciling act of God in Jesus Christ exposes our sin in the sight of God.”

[5] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 146: “God’s way is to forgive sinners, and we do not acknowledge his grace unless we present ourselves to him as sinners.”

Monday, July 21, 2025

Free Enough to Serve

Galatians 5:1, 13-26[1]

I recently spoke about one of the reasons some people give for not being involved in organized religion. It’s because they see the church as “full of hypocrites.” And I suggested in that sermon that one reason for that criticism is that they hear us saying one thing while they see us doing something very different. I think another reason why people avoid religion is because, truth be told, we can come across like very selfish and self-centered people. Especially when it comes to salvation. When we make salvation all about “me, my, and mine,” what other people may hear is that we really don’t care about anyone else.

I think that’s a sad state of affairs. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ making the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life away selflessly so that we could all live together in the freedom, peace, and joy of God’s love. And somehow, someway, too many of us who profess faith in him do so in a way that strikes the people around us as so utterly selfish and self-centered that it turns them away from the community of those who claim to follow Jesus. To some extent, I can understand that. Too many in the church have focused on their own salvation to such an extent that it can come across as if they have no concern for anyone else’s salvation. Surely those of us who follow Jesus must share his concern for the whole human family!

I think part of the problem is that we can get caught up in our own “stuff” so much that it’s hard for us to look past it and really care about those around us. It’s a natural thing. And it’s true for all of us. It’s part of being human. Our life experiences are what are most real to us. But we can get so bent out of shape about our malfunctioning cell phones (just for example) that we lose all sight of the fact that there are many people in the world who have to walk miles for clean water! Now, I don’t want to suggest that what preoccupies us is always as trivial as a malfunctioning cell phone. We have much bigger concerns that, very naturally, occupy our attention. But the “optics” of that mindset don’t make for a favorable portrait of the church and those of us who are devoted to it.

I think our lesson from the book of Galatians for today addresses this question. Paul emphasizes the freedom we have in Christ. A big part of that freedom is that through his faithful obedience to God even to the point of death on a cross, and by placing our faith in him as our savior and lord, we’re set free from all the guilt and fear and all the other “stuff” that might plague us. For Paul, the cross means that God has “justified” us. That’s the language of the Bible. It’s a theological word for the idea that God accepts us and loves us just as we are. Unconditionally and irrevocably. Paul was insistent that we don’t have to do anything to earn that love and acceptance. In fact, he made it clear that if the believers of his day thought they could do anything to earn it, it would cancel out the message of the gospel!

We can read a passage like this and think that freedom is simple: you don’t “do the works of the flesh” and you “do the works of the Spirit.” But in reality, true freedom is something that’s really quite complicated. For one thing, if you look at the vice lists in the New Testament and think that any one of those behaviors excludes us from God’s love and acceptance, then we’re all in that boat because we’ve all fallen short in some way. And if you look at the “fruit of the Spirit” and ask whether we consistently embody those characteristics in our daily living, the answer is “sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.” It’s a tough list to live up to. Freedom is something that’s quite complicated.

Many in our society think freedom means “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to.” But that’s not freedom. It’s just “license.” As in taking liberties that aren’t necessarily thoughtful, kind, or caring to others or to ourselves. License differs from freedom in that in that it means doing whatever we please without thinking about how it may affect anyone.[2] It’s a matter of indulging ourselves however and wherever we want. License means choosing to ignore that there are always consequences to our actions and choices. And such blatant self-indulgence never results in real freedom. We can do whatever we please whenever we want as much as we can get away with, and never feel truly loved, or accepted, or valued as a person. And when we lack that basic foundation in our lives, we are never truly free. Freedom is complicated.

I think that’s one reason why Paul insists that the gospel of salvation through Jesus is a free gift. It makes a difference in how we not only look at ourselves, but also how we treat others. Recognizing that the only “justification” that really means anything comes to us through Jesus and the unconditional acceptance God extends to us through him frees us from all that would bind us in this world. That also frees us from all the ways we might think we have to bolster ourselves by putting down others. Trusting the gift of God’s unconditional acceptance frees us to serve one another, all others, in love![3] The only way to truly find freedom is to give yourself away in love, and the only way to truly give yourself away in love is when you find freedom from all that can bind us in this world.[4]

If we truly find that freedom to love, we’re naturally going to extend that love to everyone. We’re naturally going to be concerned with the salvation of the whole human family, not just ourselves. We will be motivated to serve others in a way that truly brings “liberty and justice” to all, in a way that recognizes the dignity of every person, regardless of race, gender, ability, or class. Serving others in love starts with recognizing the dignity of every person. Now, I will be the first to admit that it’s incredibly difficult to live out this level of love and freedom all the time. We all have a variety of influences within us that get in the way of giving ourselves away to others in love. What St. Paul wanted the people of his day and ours to know is that what God has done for us in Jesus sets us free to explore what it means to share love in a community of people, like this one, who are committed to sharing God’s love with the whole world.

[2] John Paul II, in “The Gospel of Life,” 19.3, said that we have “a notion of freedom which exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and service of them.” See J. Michael Miller, C. S. B., The Encyclicals of John Paul II, 808.

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 188. He says that the church is the “fellowship of the justified, who no longer have to justify themselves” He goes on to insist that this freedom sets us free to serve others in love. As I have suggested before, I believe this is idea of freedom to love is a central theme in Moltmann’s understanding of the Christian life. It runs throughout his discussion of the church’s identity and calling; he begins the idea that Jesus establishes the freedom of God’s kingdom by sacrificing himself for others (117), by breaking the powers of oppression through the resurrection (98-99), and by assuring us that we are accepted by God, and therefore enabling us to accept others (188-89); therefore Moltmann understands the freedom of God’s kingdom as that which enables us to serve one another in the effort to bring freedom to others (84, 195, 278, 283-84, 292); he construes this life under the concept of “friendship” which Jesus models and we are called to emulate those who are “open for others” and who “love in freedom” (121, 316).

[4] St. Augustine said it this way: “love, and do what you will”; cf. Augustine, Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John; http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170207.htm.; See John Caputo, On Religion, 3-7, 24-28, 109-116, 134-36, 139; cf. similarly, John Calvin and W. Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, 160 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc): “He who loves will render to every man his right, will do injury or harm to no man, will do good, as far as lies in his power, to all.” See further, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.2:732-33.

Wednesday, April 02, 2025

The Burden Lifted

Psalm 32[1]

If we live in a world defined by dissatisfaction, as we discussed last week, we also live in a world defined by competition. There’s probably no better time of year to talk about this. “March Madness” isn’t just about basketball. It’s a symbol of how deeply competition is drilled into our lives. In every area of our lives, from school, to work, to sports, to even the games we play for entertainment. The level of competitiveness in our world can leave us feeling like life itself is a “zero-sum game.” That’s just a fancy way of saying that somebody has to lose so that somebody else can “win.” In a tournament like “March Madness,” a whole lot of “somebodies” have to lose so that just one team can win.

I realize that this competitiveness is so much a part of our way of life that some of you may seriously ask whether there is any real alternative. We see it when more than one company has to “compete” for our business. That can be a good thing. To be sure, we also see many ways in which cooperation brings people together for mutual benefit. I think of how communities rally around a farmer who has been injured or is sick and can’t get their crops planted or harvested. But at the end of the day, when the driving force is to “win,” that means “beating the competition.”

I think that’s at least one of the reasons why the message of God’s grace gains so little traction in our culture. The idea that God’s unfailing love is unconditional, unqualified, irrevocable, and unlimited, and that it extends to everyone, everywhere regardless of who they are, where they’ve been, or what they’ve done, just doesn’t compute for us. Like everything else, we view love as something we have to “win” by outdoing others. Even many of us who sing God’s grace in church every week may try to “win” God’s love for ourselves with our morality and our religious devotion. But the very effort means we view others as the “competition.” Maybe that’s one reason why the church has lost so much spiritual credibility with so many in our day. The idea that God extends his grace and love to all people everywhere solely because that’s who God is gets lost in the drive to “outdo” others. We just cannot envision a world in which everyone “wins.” But maybe that’s part of our problem.

You might think that’s a surprising way to introduce our Psalm for today. We hear the language of “righteousness” and we think we have to “measure up” to some kind of standard. In some of the Psalms, the bar for being “righteous” is set so high it leaves us wondering who can ever reach it.[2] But that’s where the Psalm for today comes in. We discussed last week that in the Psalms being “righteous” means trusting in God completely and wholly. Our Psalm for today expands on that: the “righteous” who are “blessed” or truly “happy” are not those who by their own efforts achieve some unreachable standard of morality. Rather, the “righteous” are those who know that they are embraced by God’s love.[3] They’ve learned to be vulnerable enough to admit their pain not only to themselves, but also to God. When they do that, they know the meaning of the psalm-singer’s words: “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!” Unfortunately, we tend to hear this kind of language in terms of guilt and shame. But this Psalm isn’t about guilt or shame, it’s about grace.

This is more than just religious jargon. The psalm-singer knows by experience the pain of feeling “not good enough.” To paraphrase the ancient words of the Bible, when we try to hide that pain, it becomes a burden that crushes us. It grinds us down as long as we keep silent. Many of us may know by personal experience the suffering that comes from keeping silent about our burdens. Some things are too painful to admit, even to ourselves. That’s because we may we think we’re unworthy of love and acceptance, by God, by others, or even by ourselves. But the burdens we carry don’t disqualify us from God’s love. We’re more than our worst failure. We’re more than the labels people put on us.

The psalm-singer also speaks of the freedom that comes from honesty. The promise of the Psalm for today is that when we admit all the ways in which we feel unworthy or disqualified, we find God’s total and complete acceptance. Even the language of sin and forgiveness demonstrates this. The variety of Hebrew words for sin and forgiveness in Psalm 32 offers the promise and the hope that our all guilt and shame in all its dimensions is resolved in every way that is necessary.[4] And this total and complete acceptance is available to us just for the asking. All we have to do is open ourselves enough to admit to ourselves and to God who we are, what we’ve done, and how we feel about it. We may be able to share this burden with a trusted friend or a counseling professional. The offer of healing held out to us by God’s grace applies not only to what we’ve done, but also to the pain we may carry for what has been done to us. When we name what hurts in a safe environment, we find that we’re still loved by God. Always have been and always will be. The joy and the freedom that comes from this kind of honest vulnerability is rooted in knowing that we are accepted for who we are, now and to all eternity.

In this Psalm, as in the Psalms as a whole, the key to finding this kind of freedom to learn to trust God’s unfailing love. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Psalms are filled with testimonies of the “blessings” that come from trusting God’s unfailing love. It’s about more than just comprehending God’s love as a concept. It’s about embracing God’s love wholly and completely with our whole hearts as well as our minds, even with body and soul. It’s about entrusting all that we are and all that we will ever be to God’s care! It may be hard to wrap our heads around something that big. Maybe we need to bring it down to a level we can grasp by taking the risk of trusting a friend enough to share our deepest pain. When we do, and we find love and acceptance in the place of the rejection we feared, the burden is lifted.

More than that, this process of healing can lead us to a whole new sense of worth, value, and acceptance. When the burdens we carry are lifted by God’s unfailing love, or even by the love of a friend, we find the freedom to accept that we are accepted. We find God’s unconditional, unqualified, irrevocable, and unlimited acceptance. That’s what “grace” means.[5] It means we’re accepted by God for who we are, now and forever. Always have been and always will be. When we find this level of freedom because the burdens that may have weighed us down for years have been lifted, we’re free to live fully in the present in a way that’s grace-filled and loving. We’re free to pass on to others the acceptance we have received. It transforms us and everyone around us, as God’s unconditional love is meant to.

[2] Psalm 15 is a great example: the psalm-singer asks a question that boils down to who may live in God’s presence, and the answer is, “Those who obey God in everything and always do what is right, whose words are true and sincere, and who do not slander others. … They always do what they promise, no matter how much it may cost” (Ps 15:2-4, GNT). I think we all tend to assume that “I could never live up to that.”

[3] J. Clinton McCann, Jr. “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV:806, where he points out that one of the purposes of this Psalm is to demonstrate the truth that “to be righteous is not a matter of being sinless but a matter of being forgiven.”

[4] Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, 266.

[5] Paul Tillich, “You are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 162. He says that we truly experience “grace” not by anything we decide to believe or do, but rather it’s as if “a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’” (emphasis added). See also James L. Mays, Psalms, 146: “Calvin observed that all that the Scripture says about blessedness in other beatitudes depends on the blessedness commended here, ‘the free favor of God, by which he reconciles us to himself’ (Calvin I:526).”

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Satisfied

Psalm 63:1-8[1]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Truly Free

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, May 01, 2024

Original Blessing

1 John 4:7-21[1]

One of the things that we in the church are “known” for is our emphasis on “sin.” Many would call it an “obsession.” You simply don’t find the word “sin” used much in our culture outside the church. So it’s no wonder that the church has come to be associated so closely with “sin.” And that’s not necessarily a good thing. People who have no church background tend to view our emphasis on “sin” with a kind of puzzled curiosity. They know that we “confess” our “sins.” But the whole concept just doesn’t compute. It’s almost as if they wonder why, with all the challenges that life in this world brings, anyone would choose to add to that burden by heaping guilt on themselves with all this talk about “sin”!

One of the great challenges throughout the ages for thinkers of all varieties is how to explain human nature. It’s obvious that we have great potential for good. And many people maximize their potential for good in so many ways. But at the same time we also all have potential to cause harm. It’s this combination of our inherent goodness with our inherent capacity to misuse our potential in ways that harm others that creates the mystery of sin.[2] Sadly, we tend to want to simplify that mystery. We either blame it all on the “devil,” or we blame it on human irresponsibility, or some combination of the two. But the mystery remains: people can be both incredibly good, kind, and loving, and also incredibly selfish, mean, and cruel.[3]

One of the ideas that the church has used to explain this mystery is “original sin.” In the Bible, the stories about the origins of sin emphasize that sin includes everyone, and it always has, but that’s not what we were created for.[4] But the church’s teaching has been very different. Due to a mistranslation of the book of Romans in the Latin Vulgate, the idea arose that Adam’s sin was literally handed down to each generation through the physical nature of human sexuality. Although that idea could not be more contrary to biblical teaching, it has persisted to this day. To this day, thousands of people take vows of celibacy as priests, monks, and nuns, in the notion that they are devoting themselves to a “more spiritual” life. Despite the Bible’s teaching that our creation in God’s image is something “very good,” including our sexuality, these notions of “sin,” and particularly “original sin,” continue to make people believe that being fully human is something “bad.”

While the Bible clearly emphasizes that we’ve all fallen short of our potential for goodness, that whole way of thinking couldn’t be more contrary to biblical teaching. I think we see this to some extent in our lesson from 1 John for today. To be sure, the Elder John is dealing with internal divisions in his community, where Christians are turning against one another. And he sees this as something that contradicts God’s love. But I think if we only look at that part of our passage, we may miss out on something more fundamental that could help us with all of that wrong-headed thinking about our being sinful creatures by design. I think we miss out on what I would call the “original blessing”: God’s essential nature as loving, and the gift of that love to the whole human family from the beginning.[5]

We see this reflected in our lesson for today in various ways. The Scripture says that “love comes from God” (1 Jn 4:7). I think we can read that statement to include all love. The reason why “love comes from God” is because “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16). That’s the most fundamental statement about who God is in the whole Bible. More than that, we see God’s love reflected in Jesus: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son” (1 Jn 4:9) to “give up his life for us (1 Jn 3:16). That love defines who God is, always has and always will. And one of reasons why God sent his son was so that we all would share in that “original blessing” of love. The whole purpose for God giving us his love in the first place is so that we would reflect it in the way we show love in our lives. Notice that the Scripture says, “Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God” (1 Jn 4:7) Anyone who loves! While I do believe that statement is meant to be interpreted as broadly as possible, I would say that we shouldn’t read this to mean that anyone who shows love in any way is a follower of Christ. But I would say that it means that any time anyone shows love in any way they are reflecting God’s love, because God’s love is the source for all love. So it is that Scripture can say, “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (1 Jn 4:16). Not only is God’s essential nature defined by love, but God’s love defines and shapes our love. And the point of it all is that our love is to reflect that “original blessing”: “if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (4:12). God blessed us with his love in the beginning so that we would love others.[6]

You may have noticed that I don’t talk a whole lot about sin. I don’t care to heap burdens of guilt on people and browbeat them into breaking down and admitting they’re sinners in need of salvation. I think the world does more than enough of that. I much prefer to focus on God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love that never fails. That’s an intentional choice on my part. As I’ve said before, where you start out with your theology makes all the difference in where you wind up. If you start with the message that all people are “sinners” by nature because we’ve all been infected with the “curse” of “original sin,” that’s inevitably going to lead to a response of guilt, shame, and fear toward God. The focus on “original sin” leads to the very “fear of punishment” that our lesson warns against (1 Jn 4:18). We’ve had far too much of that already. By contrast, the Scripture teaches us that when we truly understand and experience God’s “perfect love” for us, it “expels all fear.” Think of it, what do we really have to fear if God is love and God has given this love to us all?

I much prefer to emphasize God’s “original blessing.” It was God’s love that motivated him in the first place to create all things and us as his human partners. It was God’s love that kept him coming back to a wayward people he had chosen to share his love with the world. It was God’s love that Jesus lived out though his mercy and compassion, and in giving his life for us all. And it’s God’s love that is the “original blessing” we can all claim as the true purpose for which we were created. That’s why I prefer to focus on God’s love as the “original blessing” that we’re all learning to live into. For some of us it may take a lifetime to fully embrace the good news: God loves us all, unconditionally, undeniably, and irrevocably! And whenever we show love to anyone, brother or sister, parent or child, friend, neighbor, or stranger—and I would even say to any of God’s creatures as well—we’re participating in God’s “original blessing”: the love that the Bible tells us God bestowed on the whole human family before anything was created!

[2] In part, of course, the “mystery” of sin goes beyond that which is human. There is a cosmic dimension to it that is also a mystery in the context of God’s “very good” creation.

[3] Cf. Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 192-215. After a thorough analysis, he concludes: “Sin is still as mysterious as before: a senseless and mortally dangerous rebellion against the purpose of God.”

[4] Cf. Berkhof, Christian Faith, ?

[5] I realize that I am taking this passage in a direction that is likely very different from the theology of 1 John. In I John, love for one another is a mark of a true believer. He is arguing against those he would consider “false believers” or “antichrists” because they have broken the bonds of love in the community. And yet, I would insist that, despite the conflict in the Johannine community and it’s influence on the theology of the Johannine writings to the effect that he sees the “world” as a threat, 1 John can still recognize that Jesus Christ died for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2). While the rhetoric against “outsiders” is harsh in 1 John, when taken in consideration with the Johannine writings as a whole, it must be acknowledged that the term “world” is complex in this context. I would also argue that while the intent of 1 John is influenced by the situation of conflict, the theology of God’s love transcends that particular setting. Even if 1 John cannot recognize the full expression of the theology of God’s love to the whole human family through their creation in God’s image, it is a point that theologians have recognized in 1 John (cf. e.g. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 5.2; cf. On the Making of Man in P. Schaff, H. Wace, & H. A. Wilson, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers series 2, vol. 5: Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, 391).

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 250: “For Christian experience, the spirituality of the love of God is to be found in the vitality of true human love.” He applies the same approach to friendship with the “wholly other” God and friendship with the “other” whoever that may be (ibid., 259). He applies this line of thinking to human love in general, asking (ibid., 260), “In experiencing human love, are we not supposed to think of the experience of God? And in experiencing God, are we not supposed to think of the experience of love?”

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Nothing You Can Do

Psalm 145[1]

I meet a lot of people who seem to think that there’s some “line” out there they can cross over that will put them forever outside God’s grace, mercy, and love. Of course, the church has spent centuries not only engraving that message into our souls, but also spelling out just exactly what kinds of things constitute crossing the “line.” There was a time when “drinkin’, dancin’, and card-playin’” were high on the list. And, of course, anyone who didn’t come to church on the Lord’s Day had crossed the line. In fact, that’s still true in some churches to this day! The funny thing about those “lines” and the people draw them is that they always point the finger at what somebody else is doing. They always conveniently overlook their own faults.

Of course, that’s given people the idea that God is the ultimate nitpicker, the definitive fault-finder. The idea that there’s a line we can cross that puts us outside God’s grace, mercy, and love leads to the image of God just waiting to “strike” us. With that kind of image of God, it’s no wonder people have been leaving the church in droves for the last fifty years. Who wants to go to church only to be criticized and berated for always failing to measure up? Who wants to live in constant fear of stepping over some unseen line that puts them outside God’s love forever? Who wants to be beaten over the head with the message that they have no hope? Not many people I know!

All of this is introduction to one of my favorite chapters of Scripture: Psalm 145. I’ve been reading the Psalms on a regular basis since I was a freshman in college. But I didn’t really “discover” this Psalm until my first year as a pastor in the PCUSA, 2006. I think what caught my attention was the statement, “The LORD is gracious, kind and tender. He is slow to get angry and full of love” (Ps 145:8, NIrV). The reason that verse caught my attention is because I know it’s an echo of the original revelation God gave to Moses: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). That’s a statement about who God is that echoes again and again throughout the Bible.

Unfortunately, in the original setting, that “revelation” about God is complicated. It follows the incident when the people who had just come out of Egypt and promised to love and serve only God made a golden calf to worship as their “god.” God’s response isn’t “slow to anger,” but rather God immediately gets angry enough to threaten to destroy the people of Israel! I think that may have actually been a test of Moses’ commitment to the people, because Moses pleads with God for them, and God “changes his mind” (Ex 32:14). But then Moses leads the tribe of Levi to slaughter those who had worshipped the calf, 3000 people in all. It’s not a very inspiring story!

By way of reassurance that God would not abandon them, Moses asks God to “show me your glory” (Ex 33:18). God fulfills his promise to “make all my goodness pass before you and … proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’” (Ex 33:19) as God “covered” Moses in the “cleft of the rock.” And the revelation of God’s very “goodness” is found in the statement I quoted earlier: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). But in this original context, it goes on: “keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex 34:7)! On the surface, at least, it doesn’t sound very assuring. How do you know whether you get to be one of the ones whose “iniquity” or sin gets forgiven or the ones whose guilt is passed down to their children’s children’s children?

For one thing, in that situation, God forgave even those who were guilty. The whole people took part in worshipping the golden calf, breaking their promise to be true to God. And in response to Moses’ prayers and the people’s repentance, God forgave them all and restored the relationship they’d broken. I think that’s why, in the echoes of this basic statement of God’s character, it’s the first part that gets repeated over and over: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” That was Israel’s experience with God. They continually went astray, and God continually forgave them and restored them.

By the time this Psalm came to be written, that had become the focal point for God’s true character. As we heard in our Scripture reading for today, the Psalmist praises God for being “gracious, kind and tender. He is slow to get angry and full of love” (Ps 145:8, NIrV). The Psalmist expands on that theme: God is good to everyone and “He shows deep concern” for all creation (Ps 145:9, NIrV). God is trustworthy in all his words, “faithful in everything he does,” the one who always acts out of his unfailing love (Ps. 145:13, 17). God “takes good care of all those who fall” and “He lifts up all those who feel helpless”; God “opens” his “hand” and satisfies “the needs of every living creature” (Ps. 145:14, 16). And the point is that God does all of this and more for us because of who God is, not because of anything we’ve done.

By the time we get to Jesus, this is clearly what he emphasizes about who God is: God is full of grace, mercy, and love. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, God pours out his blessings of sun and rain, which are necessary for us to have food, equally on those who do what is right and those who do wrong (Mt 5:45). And if that seems unfair, we hear in the parable of the workers in the vineyard from our Gospel lesson for today a story that illustrates how God gives us all what we don’t deserve. And he does so simply because he is “generous” (Mt 20:15). That’s what grace means: God freely gives his blessing to all of us equally, and he does so simply because that’s who God is!

With this in mind, I want to take us back to our original question: is there some line out there that we can cross that will forever put us outside God’s grace, mercy, and love? I’ve known people who think so. I’ve known people who seem to be afraid that the answer is, “yes.” The answer from Psalm 145 is a resounding “No, there is not!” And Jesus gives us the same answer, “No, there is not some line out there you can cross.” So does St. Paul. He assures us that God has demonstrated once and for all by sending his Son Jesus to die for us that he is “God-who-is-for-us,” not a God who is just waiting to “strike” us. And Paul asks, “if God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:31). The whole intent behind everything God has done for us is to restore us to himself. Since that’s God’s purpose, Paul concludes that there is nothing “in all creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:29). The reason for that is because there is nothing and no one who change who God is or undo what God has done for us in Jesus. That’s why I love the blessing that Archbishop Desmond Tutu has handed down to us: “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more” and “there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”[2]

[2] Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, 32.

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Deserters

Matthew 26:14-35[1]

I’ve mentioned before that none of us lives up to our image of ourselves. It’s an inescapable fact of our humanity. No matter how good our intentions may be, we all fall short. Sometimes we do much more than fall short. Sometimes we crash and burn. When that happens, we tend to want to look for someone to blame. Someone besides us, that is. And so it is that throughout the history of the human family we’ve found it convenient to find a “scapegoat” to take the blame for our failures. Whether it’s the way we were raised, or how much money we have, or what kind of breaks we got in life, it seems we can always find a scapegoat to blame. But a scapegoat only really serves to let us off the hook so that we don’t have to look too carefully at ourselves.

I think the way the church has looked at Judas Iscariot falls under the category of “scapegoating.” He has been known as the one who “betrayed” Jesus. Unfortunately, that’s about all we know about Judas. The only things Matthew’s Gospel tells us about Judas is that he was “one of the Twelve” (Mt 26:47) and that he betrayed Jesus. In fact, he is known simply as “Judas the betrayer” in Matthew’s Gospel, much like John is known as “John the baptizer.” I must say I’m a little disappointed in that. After all, Judas was one of twelve hand-picked disciples Jesus chose to accompany him and to join him in his ministry. It makes me wonder what Jesus saw in Judas that led him to choose Judas as one of his original “apprentices” in ministry. It also makes me wonder why Judas, who took the risk to join Jesus in going to Jerusalem for the last time, would have done something like betraying him. The Gospels tend to say simply that he did it because he was destined to. But I wonder if there was more to it than that.

I think it’s important to recognize that not only was Judas among those Jesus chose to join him in his ministry, in all of the Gospels he is also present at the Last Supper. We see this in the fact that the story of the Last Supper begins with Jesus’ announcement that “one of you will betray me” (Mt. 26:21). While those shocking words likely came in the course of the meal, I don’t think we pay close enough attention to this detail. Talk about a way to kill a party! And as a side note, some of you may know that Da Vinci’s famous fresco of the Last Supper was intended to portray the reaction on the part of the disciples to that shocking statement: “one of you will betray me.”

If we read the story closely, we have to reckon with the fact that not only was Judas present at the Last Supper, but that he also participated in the meal! Jesus knew that one of them would betray him. I think Jesus even knew that Judas was the one who would do the betraying. And yet, in the Last Supper, Jesus offered Judas the bread that represented his body that would be broken on the cross. And he offered Judas the cup that represented his life poured out as a demonstration of God’s unfailing love. Yes, Jesus gave Judas the bread and the cup! Jesus offered his broken body and his life for the sake of one he knew was going to betray him.

Perhaps the early church was so disturbed by Judas’ betrayal they couldn’t see past that. But I think the human tendency to find a “scapegoat” may have also affected the church. By the time Matthew’s Gospel was written about 40 years later, Judas’ act of betrayal had so completely defined his character that they could not think of him any other way. But if we keep reading the story, we find that there was plenty of responsibility to go around. After the supper, presumably after Judas had gone to get the Jewish authorities, Jesus told the rest of the disciples that “Tonight all of you will desert me” (Mt 26:31, NLT). We should hear the full impact of that word “desert.” The word in the original Greek refers to those who are either unwilling or unable to put their faith in Jesus! It’s a strong word. That’s why so many English translations read, “You will all fall away because of me on this night” (NRSVUE). It was a serious matter. And they knew it!

Peter speaks for the others when he says, “I will never fall away” (Mt 26:33). But Jesus knows better. In fact, not only would Peter “fall away” on that night, Jesus told Peter, “you will disown me three times” (Mt 26:34). Peter would become a deserter and a denier! Of course, Peter insists he would rather die, as do all the others. But when the time came, they all deserted him, just as Jesus had warned them. And when the time came, Peter disowned Jesus. Three times. And the last time he did so with an oath and cursing! What I want to come back to is the fact that at the Last Supper Jesus not only offered the bread and the cup to one he knew was going to betray him. Jesus also offered the bread and the cup to the one he knew would disown him. And Jesus offered the bread and the cup to those he knew would desert him. Everyone around that table on the night of the Last Supper was going to “betray” Jesus in some way or another. And Jesus knew it. And still he offered them all the bread that represented his body that would be broken on the cross, and the cup that represented his life poured out for them.

We have this idea that the Lord’s Supper is only for those who are “worthy.” In fact, some churches insist on that. But if we’re taking our cue in celebrating the Lord’s Supper from what Jesus did at the Last Supper, then we’ve missed something important when we restrict who can take the bread and the cup. Jesus gave the bread and the cup to Judas, who would betray him. Jesus gave the bread and the cup to Peter, who would disown him. And Jesus gave the bread and the cup to the others who would all desert him. The bread and the cup are for everyone!

We all fall short. And sometimes we crash and burn. Too many times in my life I’ve had to come face-to-face with the fact that I am not always the man I want to be, not always the father I want to be, not always the disciple of Jesus I want to be, not always the pastor I want to be. I think it’s safe to say I’m not the only one in that predicament. But we don’t gather here to celebrate our worthiness. We gather to celebrate the fact that Jesus offered himself to the one who would betray him, to the one who would disown him, and to those who would desert him. We gather here taste again the grace of love we can never deserve, nor can we ever forfeit. We come because, whether we have betrayed him, or disowned him, or deserted him, Jesus keeps offering himself to us all!

Monday, January 09, 2023

Beloved

Matthew 3:13-17[1]

I have a confession to make. I sometimes have a hard time believing what I preach. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s true. I’ve always viewed preaching as a sacred duty. And I’ve worked hard to preach the truth as I’m able to understand it. I don’t have any problem believing that what I am preaching is true. I’m convinced that it’s true for you. What I have a hard time believing is that it’s true for me. I firmly believe that God’s grace, mercy, and love include each and every one of you. But I sometimes have a hard time believing that they also include me. The problem is that I struggle with feeling “unworthy” of God’s love. I’m keenly aware of all the ways that I fall short. That makes it hard to think that God might be “pleased” with me. As is often the case, I suspect I’m not alone in that difficulty.

There are so many reasons for us to feel “unworthy.” Some of us grew up with the message that no matter how hard you try, your best is never good enough. Even though we may receive compliments from our friends, we may find it impossible to take them to heart. When we look around us, we can always find someone who appears to be “better.” Regardless of the category—whether it’s who we are, what we have, or what we do—when we play the “comparison game,” we always come up short. Many of us just can’t get past the fact that we’re convinced in our own eyes that we’re “unworthy.” And it’s not far from believing that we’re “unworthy” in our own eyes to believing that we’re “unworthy” in God’s eyes.

You may be wondering what this has to do with our Gospel lesson for today. It’s Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism by John. All the Gospels make some mention of it, but they don’t all tell the story the same way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe the experience of “the heavens” being “opened” and the Spirit “descending like a dove” upon Jesus. But they differ slightly in the way the heavenly voice is worded. In Matthew, the voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). But in Mark and Luke, the voice is addressed to Jesus: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” To me, that sounds more personal, like an affirmation given to Jesus by God.

I’ve raised the question before whether Jesus would have needed that kind of affirmation. When you read John’s Gospel, it certainly doesn’t seem like it. Jesus begins his ministry knowing full well not only who he is but also that he had come to die on the cross. When you think of Jesus as “fully divine,” that makes sense. I’d say, however, that the other Gospels may present this aspect of Jesus’ life more from the perspective that he was “fully human.” There are statements in the other Gospel from Jesus about who he was, but you have to look for them. He doesn’t clearly announce that he must die on the cross until he is well into his ministry, perhaps even near the end. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus needed to hear that he was God’s beloved son as he was about to launch the kingdom of God that would turn over all the tables of the religious beliefs in his day.

The wording of this affirmation takes its cue from Isaiah 42. There God affirms his “servant,” the one who would carry out his saving purpose by saying, “He is my chosen one, who pleases me” (Isa 42:1, NLT). When you look at what Isaiah says about the “Servant of the Lord,” you can understand why there was a need for this kind of affirmation. The Servant was going to undergo suffering, rejection, and even death. But these kinds of experiences have been true of those whom God chose to carry out his saving purposes from the beginning. Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, and many others needed assurance from God, and affirmation of his support for what they were doing because they faced such hardship from those who opposed them. Given the kind of hostility that Jesus faced, it makes sense that he may have needed God’s affirmation as well.

That’s all well and good for Jesus, and for other “servants” of the Lord like Moses and Elijah. But it may not be clear to us how this applies to us. I certainly wouldn’t put myself in that company, and I’m not sure many of us would! But I’m taking a cue from one of my favorite authors here. Henri Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest and a pioneer in pastoral care. He struggled all his life with feelings of unworthiness, a topic he writes about in many of his books. I recently picked up a copy of a daily reader composed of excerpts from his writings called, “You Are the Beloved.” In the reading for January 2, he takes this statement, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17) and reminds us that this is true of all of us as God’s beloved children, daughters and sons with whom he is “well pleased.”

Again, if you’re like me you may be asking how we can presume to take something God said to Jesus and apply it to ourselves. It’s not hard to believe that God loved Jesus and was “well pleased” with him. But it may seem inappropriate at the very least to think those beautiful words relate to us. And yet, the great Reformed theologian Karl Barth insisted that when God chose Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, he chose us all in him (cf. Eph 1:3-10).[2] That statement rests on and implies a great deal of theological reflection. But the bottom line is that we are chosen not because of anything we’ve done or ever could do, but rather simply because it was God’s will to choose us as his “beloved” sons and daughters though Jesus. And this has been the truth about us from “the beginning,” it is the truth “now,” and it “ever shall be, world without end! Amen, Amen!”

It’s one thing to for us to hear that message and believe that it’s true. It’s another matter altogether to find a way for it to sink in so that we can really believe it. It can be difficult if not impossible to get past our own “unworthiness.” It can be difficult if not impossible to believe that God could be “pleased” with us. But the gospel message is that we are beloved by God and God is pleased with us simply because God chooses us as his beloved sons and daughters. Perhaps what we need is a way to remind ourselves of this beautiful gospel truth. You may have noticed that I wear a cross ring on my right hand. After reading the excerpt from my new book, I’ve decided to use it as my reminder that I am God’s beloved child. I would encourage you to pick something that can remind you that you are all, each and every one of you, God’s beloved children.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:117, where he says that Jesus’ “election is the original and all-inclusive election; … his election carries in it and with it the election of the rest.” Much of volume 2.2 of the Dogmatics is devoted to this theme.

The Waking Dreamer