“Something New”

Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:4-14[1]

It was the “preacher” of Ecclesiastes who perhaps said it first—there’s nothing new under the sun. That sentiment would have sounded strange about 50 years ago. In the decade of my childhood, the sixties, there was still a sense of optimism about the future. We were just venturing into space, and every new technological breakthrough inspired us to dream about the progress that lay ahead.

But something broke that spirit. Was it political scandal—learning that our leaders misused their office and lied to us? Was it the violence of wars both cultural and actual? Was it social upheaval—the speed of change growing more and more dizzying? Was it simply the process of urbanization—more and more people stacked on top of each other in our cities making life more and more frustrating? Somehow, somewhere along the way, our optimism for the future was broken. For most of us, the future is something we fear. It seems that life gets harder and harder and the future seems to hold only unseen and unknown difficulties.

Of course, that’s not the case for young people. For them, it’s the future that defines them. Not only in their eyes, but also in our eyes. We see them as full of potential.[2] When we talk about them, the conversation inevitably turns to what their plans are for school or career.

But at some point, we all cross a line somewhere and we no longer see ourselves as “young people” any more. We tend to shift our attention from our future to our children’s future. While that is a normal part of life, unfortunately it also tends to mean that we no longer have a “future.”[3] We tend to call it the “mid-life crisis.” But the loss of a “future” is one that we shouldn’t take too lightly. It is in fact a catastrophic loss; it can be deadening, because only those with a future have hope.[4]

The heart of the Bible’s promise is that we all are people with a future. I think one of the most important tasks Christians face in this day and age is to reclaim our hope and our future. I’ll give you a hint, though; it looks nothing like the frightening fire and brimstone predictions of Hal Lindsey or Tim LaHaye!

The future that the Bible promises us is construed in many ways. Isaiah pictured it in terms of the blossoming of a desert into a lush and verdant land. He also depicts the future as a great feast where everyone has a place at the table and more than enough to eat and drink. The Revelation of John uses the image of a city of light that is set in the midst of a new paradise, the Garden of Eden restored.

In these and other ways the Bible points us toward a future that consists of a wonderful life—free from pain, suffering, sorrow, and death! It points us to a life that is beautiful—full of love and joy and freedom. All our images of utopia pale in comparison—a “place in the sun”, where “the hills are alive with the sound of music” and the fields are all “fields of dreams.”

Of course, the fact is that all people everywhere have dreamed these dreams. Throughout time there have been various images of paradise. Despite the pain and suffering in the world, or perhaps precisely because of it, people throughout history have cherished dreams of a perfect world.[5]

But there is a difference. The promise of a future in the Bible is not just wishful thinking. This future rests on the promise of the God who raised Jesus from the dead.[6] This future rests on the reality of God’s Spirit creating faith and hope where there is nothing to believe in or hope for.[7] This future, this hope, this promise rests on the new life opened for us all by Jesus the Christ. It is the witness of Scripture that Jesus’ death and resurrection broke the power of death that overshadows so much of what we experience in this world and marked the dawn of a new life that is still breaking through the clouds.[8]

That is our future; that is the “new thing” that God is doing; that is the future that defines us all. What if we really believed that? What difference would it make for us? I think it would fill us with enthusiasm for life. I think it would give us courage to love—truly give ourselves away in love. I think it would give us a perspective on things we tend to occupy ourselves with—things that don’t really amount to much in comparison with what God is doing in this world. I think it would enable us to see everybody in a whole new light—as those who are destined for this future.[9]

We usually think of Lent as a time for changing our lives through mourning and penitence. But part of what re-orients our whole being toward the Gospel is the promise of a future that is beyond all imagining. The promise that the one who created us and who loves us will come to finish the work he has started forges for us a future and a hope that has the power to inspire even the most skeptical among us.[10]

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[1] A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/25/07 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. J. Moltmann, In the End—The Beginning, 3-10.

[3] This is true not only experientially, but also in modern philosophy; see Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics, II:96.

[4] Weber, II: 99, suggests that without this hope of a future, our lives here boil down to “the loving care and tending of graves”!

[5] Cf. Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember, 29-30.

[6] Weber, II:99, reminds us that the one who promises a new creation is the one who created all things in the beginning and who “does not surrender his creation to the fate of death”! Emil Brunner, Dogmatics, III:345, says, “The same God who in Christ assures me of His love, assures me also in Him of its eternal fulfillment.”

[7] J. Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 191; he also says that the Spirit “makes enslaved creation live and fills everything with the powers of the new creation.”

[8] Weber, II:97-98; Brunner, III:346, 366; Moltmann, Church in the Power, 98-100; cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, 311-12.

[9] Moltmann, Church in the Power, 78, 82-85, 88-89, 164-189.

[10] Brunner, III:374.

“Coming to Our Senses”

2 Cor. 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32[1]

The story of the prodigal is so commonly told and retold that it has become commonplace in our society. But for all our sentimental attachment to it, I don’t think we as a culture have embraced one of its central points: there is only one way to find wholeness and peace and joy in this fallen world. That way is through brokenness. The one segment of our culture that has taken hold of this truth is found in the various twelve-step support groups. They know it as “hitting bottom,” but they know that it’s the only way to find freedom and true happiness.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, it is portrayed as a young man “coming to his senses.” He has wasted his fortune, he is starving, he has been reduced to feeding pigs—the most unclean of the unclean animals. And he’s so hungry he would eat the slop that he’s feeding them! But unless he “comes to his senses,” he cannot begin the journey back home. For many of us, the prime question we have to ask ourselves is what it will take for us to “hit bottom,” to “come to our senses,” to realize that we are starving.

The problem with this is that it all sounds to hard, so painful, so humiliating. And that it can be. But for most of us, the only way we ever find out that we’re headed in the wrong direction is to run headlong into a brick wall! And yet, as painful and difficult as it can be, most of those who experience this brokenness will say it was the best thing that ever happened to them. As one preacher puts it, “the paradox of conversion is that in the break-down there is a break-through—to a new experience of God and the human family.”[2]

The truth is that great freedom comes from brokenness. There is great freedom in acknowledging something you want to keep most secret about yourself—especially to someone you love and respect—and finding out they accept you unconditionally any way. There is great freedom in having your worst nightmare come true, and learning that you can live through it and come out on the other side stronger and happier.

For Paul, what provoked this life-changing crisis was his experience of God’s love in a way he had never known. In 2 Corinthians, he talks about the way his experience of the love of God poured out for us in Jesus Christ and the gift of wholeness through him re-oriented his whole outlook on life. In a very real sense, that’s what happens when we experience God’s forgiveness—unconditional, complete, unwavering, irrevocable acceptance. It creates in us the desire to change our ways.[3] When we are “grasped by the certainty that we are forgiven,” we learn to accept ourselves, to love others, and to enjoy life—perhaps for the first time!

In the light of that sunrise of a new day, Paul saw that his former point of view on pretty much everything was “flesh.” It was self-oriented, it was plagued by the burden of proving oneself by clawing one’s way to the “top” (wherever that might be), and it was occupied by the constant attempt to outdo somebody else in order to justify one’s own existence.

That was the perspective of the “self-righteous” religious people of Jesus’ day—they were the ones, like Paul, who had devoted their whole lives to doing God’s will. But the whole thing really boiled down to an elaborate attempt to justify themselves in God’s sight and everybody else’s. That kind of self-justifying “righteousness” misses the point of the gospel altogether. That’s why the older brother stays fuming out in the field when the father throws a party for the prodigal.

I must confess that I’ve never really been able to identify with the prodigal. Oh, I had my “prodigal moments” when I was a teenager like everybody else did. But I can honestly say that I have spent my life trying to do the “right thing.” I may not have always succeeded, but I did try!

The problem with that kind of “righteousness” is that it can blind us to our own fallenness—as if saying a few prayers or memorizing some Scriptures or going through the motions of rituals could possibly heal what is wrong with us! All of our efforts to do what is right become another means of hiding the ugly truth that we would rather keep secret. Yes, we all have ugly truth that we would rather keep secret.

So for me—and for those of you like me—the real challenge isn’t overcoming the guilt of some wretched past, but rather it is a matter of getting to the place where we, too, realize that God accepts us unconditionally, regardless of all our (mostly misguided) efforts to do the “right thing.”

Whether we are “prodigals” or “older brothers,” Lent brings us face to face with the reality of our sin so that we can find true freedom and wholeness.[4] It provokes in us an “awakening to the whole gospel”[5] in a way that completely re-shapes our whole life!

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[1] A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/18/07 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2] Fr. Patrick Brennan, “From Conversion to Mission,” a sermon preached 3/7/1992, accessed at http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/brennan_3621.htm.

[3] Paul Tillich, “To Whom Much is Forgiven …,” in The New Being, 3-14.

[4] Emil Brunner, Dogmatics III:285-89.

[5] Brennan, “From Conversion to Mission.”

“Good Fruit”

Luke 13:1-9[1]

One of the most dangerous facets of religious faith is the tendency to assume that we’re right, we’re on God’s side, we’re the “good guys.” Of course, that often means that we assume the people who are different from us are wrong, they’re outside of God’s grace, they’re the “bad guys.” What makes this particularly toxic is when the “good guys” who think God is on their side presume that they can do what they like with the “bad guys”—and that they do so with God’s sanction.

For some reason, this aspect of religious faith is universal. It doesn’t matter what the faith, I would be willing to bet there have been fanatics who committed horrible acts of violence in the name of God. Of course, we’re not people who tend to go out and slaughter innocents in the name of God! But part of what makes this problem universal to religion is that most people of faith either think they are immune from any and all scrutiny or they are obsessed with the notion of divine scrutiny and go to the extreme to “please” a God for whom nothing is ever good enough.

I think that is the heart of what Jesus is addressing in this strange text. It’s strange to us in the first place, because Jesus says, “unless you repent you too will all perish.” I think talk about “repenting” and “perishing” sounds pretty foreign to our ears. I’m afraid it just doesn’t compute with us. After all, when we assume that we’re the “good guys,” why should we be concerned about repentance?

I’m not really sure how we got to this point, because much of the message of the Scriptures is concerned with calling the people of God back to obedience, back to faith, back to God. Prophets like John the Baptist continually called Israel to repentance and to produce “fruit worthy of repentance” (Matt. 3:10). In this respect, Jesus wasn’t very different from the prophets of old. Much of his ministry was occupied with calling Israel to repentance. Jesus warned that a tree is known by its fruit—whether it bears good fruit or bad fruit (Lk. 6:43-44). The fruit Jesus was looking for was for those who consider themselves “God’s people” to renew their commitment to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves.

The crowd comes to Jesus to get answers from him about how God could allow the tragedy they reported to Jesus. They come to him questioning God’s justice, and Jesus reminds them that everyone must stand before a holy and just God someday, where God will do the questioning.

When John the Baptist told the people of his day they were to produce “fruit worthy of repentance,” he was quite specific about what that should look like. He told the crowds, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” He told the tax collectors to “collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” He told the soldiers not to threaten anyone for money. In a nutshell he was telling them to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Mic. 6:8).

I think it’s a good thing to be reminded of that. It is when we think we are exempt from scrutiny that we turn faith into something toxic, poisonous, harmful, exclusive, prideful, arrogant, selfish and even cruel and heartless. A good dose of repentance is essential to maintain a proper attitude of “walking humbly” with God.

This text is also strange because, just when it seems that he couldn’t be more demanding, Jesus turns around and tells a story about grace! The parable of fig tree in this context depicts God as patient gardener, always allowing people another chance to respond to him in faith and obedience. Of course, that too was not a new idea. The story of the Bible shows that God demonstrated his steadfast love time and time again by disciplining Israel and then restoring them after they returned to him. Even after he handed them over to exile, he did not abandon his disobedient people. God continued to love them fervently, to long for them to return to him, and to send his messengers to them to draw them back to their relationship.

I think this is Jesus’ answer to those who are obsessed with the idea of pleasing a merciless God. The heart of the Bible’s witness to God always has been and always will be: “the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6).

Like the prophets before him, Jesus called God’s people to bear the good fruit of loving the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving their neighbors as themselves. But he also called them to live in relationship with a God who is all love, all grace, all mercy. That’s why we observe Lent: it reminds us that “we must all repent,” but it also reminds us that God always gives us one more chance.

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[1] A sermon preached 3/11/07 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

“The Quality of Mercy”

Luke 6:27-38[1]

The perspective on God in the Hebrew Bible is a rich and multi-faceted one. It’s impossible to come away from it without a sense of awe and wonder. And the most awe-inspiring feature of this portrait of God is the fact that every facet of God’s being bends toward and every aspect of God’s work is designed to enhance the quality of life—all life! God’s whole intent is to bring peace, love, freedom, and joy to life. The Hebrews called it “shalom.”[2]

I realize this doesn’t fit very well with the image of God most of you would think what we call the “Old” Testament presents. You know, a God of wrath, a God of vengeance, a God of punishment and condemnation. But in fact, that line of thinking is a fundamental misunderstanding of the God who inhabits the stories and prayers and faith of the Hebrew Bible.

The God of the Hebrew Bible is a God who is passionate for life—all of the wonderful diversity of life that God created.[3] The God of the Hebrew Bible has the fervor of an artist brooding over her favorite work. God has the ardor of a lover who devotes his whole heart to the beloved. God has the dedication of a parent who loves a child no matter what.

Somewhere along the line, all these wonderful relational categories for understanding God got translated into something more abstract, more philosophical, more sterile. The central truth about the God of the Hebrew Bible is that God is faithful. In that context, what that means is that God never, ever gives up on relationships!

That’s why the Psalmists can celebrate joyfully God’s “righteousness,” “justice,” and “mercy”![4] In the Hebrew Bible, the fact that God is “righteous” is defined in terms of Israel’s covenant relationship. In that light, God’s “righteousness” refers to the fact that God remains faithful to the relationship no matter what![5] God’s “righteousness” is what “sets right” everything and everyone (Cf. Romans 1:16-17; 3:21-26; 4:25; 8:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Theologians call it “salvation” or “redemption” or “justification,” but what it boils down to is that God promotes the well-being of all life!

God’s “justice” may give us more difficulty. For some reason, we just cannot get past the notion that “justice” equals “judgment,” which equals condemnation. I’m not sure where things got so mixed up, because that’s not the way God’s “justice” is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Maybe it was when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. Or maybe it was when the church became the official religion of the Roman empire.[6] Or maybe it was due to the fact that so many theologians started out as lawyers!

God’s “justice” really has little to do with condemnation. God’s justice is what enhances the quality of life. God’s justice sets out to redeem the helpless and the hurting.[7] Even when it comes to those who may be at fault or in the wrong, God’s justice comes to them as grace and mercy rather than condemnation![8] God’s justice makes us whole! In a very real sense, God’s “justice” is synonymous with God’s “righteousness.”

Then there’s mercy—or as some translations put it, “steadfast love.” One of the essential qualities of God’s character is that God is merciful. And in that context, what that meant was that God loves us with a love that will not let us go.[9] The prime example of this is that God continues to love an unfaithful people just like Hosea continued to love an unfaithful spouse.

Am I beginning to sound like a broken record? I hope so—because God’s “mercy” is also synonymous with God’s “justice” and “righteousness”! The image of God in the Hebrew Bible is that God never gives up on relationships; God works to make everything and everyone right again; God promotes the well-being of all life; and God never quits loving us this way. All this is the background to Jesus’ statement, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

I can think of no better illustration of this kind of mercy in action than the 1986 film entitled “The Mission.” It tells the story of Jesuit priests working among the Guarani Indians of South America. The Jesuits not only seek to convert them, but also to help them thrive. In part that entails protecting them from those who would exploit them for financial gain. Among their enemies is a mercenary named Rodrigo Mendoza who hunts the Guarani and sells them as slaves.

After killing his brother in a fit of jealous anger, Rodrigo joins the Jesuits, who have him choose his own penance. He decides to drag his armor around with him in a sack. When they return to the Indians, the journey to the Guarani village is a long one, and it ends with a long climb up a sheer cliff. Of course the climb is difficult enough for the Jesuits. But it is almost impossible for Rodrigo with his self-imposed burden. Finally he finishes the agonizing climb, only to have one of the Guarani, who know him as their former enemy, come up to him with a machete, cut the rope to the sack of armor, and throw it over the cliff.

At first Rodrigo is stunned speechless. But then he begins to weep uncontrollably as the burden of his guilt is lifted, and one by one the Guarani and then the Jesuits embrace him as a brother. That is the quality of mercy that defines how God relates to us. That is the quality of mercy that Jesus said should define how we relate to one another!

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[1] A sermon preached 2/18/07 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson TX.

[2] James L. Mays, Psalms, 311

[3] Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, 75-6

[4] H.-J. Kraus, Theology of the Psalms, 42-46; Mays, 33, 311.

[5] H. Berkhof, Christian Faith, 134; J. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 112-120, 143-148: “God is the same God all the way from promise to fulfillment” (115).

[6] Berkhof, 136; Borg, 127.

[7] Borg, 76: “in the Bible justice is the social form of love”; cf. also 139: “God cares about justice because the God of the Bible cares about suffering.”

[8] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.1:375-84: “According to the witness of the Old and New Testaments, the love and grace and mercy of God, …, are the demonstration and exercise of the righteousness of God” (384); Berkhof, 134-35; Borg, 127: “The opposite of God’s justice is not God’s mercy, but human injustice.”

[9] Berkhof, 128.