It was a warm sunny spring day on Monday. And next to my coffee pot was the "list" left by my wife, Karla, of my "honey do" projects for the day. A top priority was pooper scooping the back yard.
Spring pooper scooping is a challenging task. As the snow cover recedes with each warm day, many little treasures left by our cocker spaniel, Koira, are revealed. And so with a bag in one hand, and the pooper scooper in the other, the ritual began.
I wonder about the methodology of each person's approach to this task. I'm torn between two approaches. One approach is the disciplined and orderly manner. Begin in one corner of the back yard and systematically take a six foot swath across the yard, then the next swath, avoiding the temptation to divert from the orderly journey to pick up that turd lying in the next swath. I usually start out this way. And then the other method is the turd to turd method. Less organized, this simply follows the most prominent and visible 'signs' in an unpredictable wandering around the yard.
As I set to my task on Monday my thought process went something like this. The first turd, still slightly frozen, went cleanly into the bag. Then the next, and the next followed neatly behind. There is a feeling of accomplishment. I'm thinking that it will be nice not to have to examine my shoes so closely the next time I walk into the house. As the minutes continued on, I'm thinking "Oh crap, another turd." "And another." "Shit, why couldn't a dog learn to deposit all their treasure's in one place in the yard. And then there is the debate that comes up. Spotted is a turd that obviously has laid there since the first snow fall. These turds, as the experienced pooper scooper knows, are already molding themselves into the landscape. They've been there for five or six months by now, do I really need to pick them up? And then my thoughts go to Karla. She's not going to be any happier about six month old shit being tracked into the house, than she is about the fresher variety. And then in our yard are the occasional pile left, not by Koira, but by the moose that visit our yard all winter. These take a concerted effort. Scoop after scoop. "Olive" after olive, into the bag.
As I grew weary of the task, I found myself longing for a fresh cover of 3 or 4 inches of snow. Yes, Spring is nice, but a freshly fallen snow makes the whole world look pristine and allows us to forget the turds lying underneath.
I'm in the midst of doing my 4th Step. The 4th Step of the 12 Steps of recovery is to do a thorough moral inventory of our lives. It is the pooper scooping of life. Resentments, shame, guilt, anger, hurt, and any number of other residuals of living lie within like stinking turds. As I do this inventory, I'm torn between the same two methodologies that guided me in the back yard. The first is the systematic approach. Let's take an orderly pattern. First, the family of origin issues, then marital, then children, then work, etc..
And then there is the stream of consciousness path. One turd to the next, in no particular order.
I've been working on this for weeks. "Crap, another turd in my life!" is a constant thought. It just goes on and on. "That one's been there for a long time, do I really need to disturb it now?" And yes, I long for yet another "snow fall" to cover up all this shit within my soul, so everything looks pure and clean, even if there is shit within. Alcohol was my way of covering up this shit. Somehow, for years, with a couple of Scotches, the whole world looked better, the hurt didn't hurt as bad, or a least I couldn't feel it for awhile. However, the turds remained. The same lesson is true, old shit is no better than new shit to step in time after time. Its all still crap, and healthy living means it can't just be buried or swept to the side.
Lent is a time set aside to pooper scoop. Have at it.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Meeting John (Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Advent)
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
“Come, Lord Jesus!”
Come, Lord Jesus! We pray.
But first, it is John that we must see. First it is the baptizing firebrand of a preacher, calling the nation of Israel to repentance that enters into our life. And so it must be. You see the Messiah cannot come, until the prophet prepares the way.
John calls us to repentance. His is a ministry of truth telling. The truth telling that is repentance is not the harsh words of a wild haired preacher declaring “you brood of vipers!”
The truth telling of repentance is what happens in that moment when we look into the mirror and we can no longer pretend. It is that moment when we see ourselves for who we actually are, not for who we wish we might be.
Such truth telling is painful and frightening. So much so that many of us spend our entire lives running from the truth, and creating a virtual palace of lies within which we live and with which we will die.
Unless we come to meet, John.
I have been gone for awhile, now. Perhaps a few of you noticed! My first reaction, coming back to preach today, and seeing that the Gospel lesson began with John’s exhortation “You brood of vipers!” was that there was no way in the world that I could return to preach on this text. But then, on Friday I realized that there was no more appropriate text for me to wrestle with.
For me, these last two months were a wilderness experience. Like the Jewish people in John’s day, I was led into the wilderness to encounter John, but more importantly to come face to face with myself and with the truth.
I have struggled with depression since my youth. The one symptom that has been continuous since my adolescence was insomnia. 15 years ago I was first diagnosed and entered into treatment. I went through about four years of counseling, detailing about every experience of my life. And yet, I realize that in a very profound way, none of that truth telling was in fact the truth telling that really makes a difference.
During that time we explored:
- My childhood and the profound hunger for affection;
- A relationship with my band director and the affection that was abusive;
- The deep hurt experienced when a pastor and father figure was involved in sexual misconduct;
- The feeling of betrayal and abuse that I have experienced from the Church itself;
- And many other issues.
There was a lot of truth in all of that. But John was not there.
There is no value whatsoever in confessing other people’s sins. No redemptive value whatsoever. It’s not that those things didn’t impact my life, they clearly did. And, the truth is that
- Children need to know they are loved;
- Young boys should never be abused;
- Pastor’s should not engage in sexual misconduct;
- The Church should be a place of love and forgiveness, not betrayal and abuse.
These things, are in fact, all true. True, but irrelevant. Recognizing past wrongs, confessing other people’s sins, only creates a sense of being helpless victims or a false sense of self righteousness. And when we do that, we are merely adding to that palace of lies in which we live and with which we will die.
But then there is John, calling us to a rigorous honesty, calling us to repentance, calling us to lives changed, and renewed.
These last few months I have been in conversation with John. My John the Baptist was not a first century prophet, but a twenty first century Psychiatrist. What they have in common though, is that sitting face to face with them, one can simply no longer lie. One must finally, face the truth, not about others, but about ourselves. The truth is not easy to acknowledge.
The hardest words that I have ever heard were:
“Dave, you are an alcoholic.”
And a thousand times harder than hearing those words, were saying to my wife, “I am an alcoholic.”
Back in ’97, when I began treatment for depression, in addition to an anti-depressant, I was prescribed Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication that also helps one sleep. And sleep I did. For the first time since adolescence I was able to lie down, go to sleep, and remain asleep for 7 to 8 hours.
What I didn’t know then was that Ativan is highly addictive and habituating; and it works in the brain very similar to alcohol. In 2003, I was feeling so good that I decided to go off all of my medications, including Ativan. What happened was that those receptors in my brain that had become addicted to Ativan sent off an alarm, which basically said: “If you’re not going to give us Ativan, you better come up with another alternative.”
Almost immediately I went from an occasional drink to needing two Scotch doubles a night just to sleep. Throughout the first twenty five years of our marriage I had drank alcohol only occasionally. Most of the time we didn’t have any at all in our house. I would have beer in the heat of the summer, and perhaps into the football season. I never consumed hard alcohol.
This last spring as my depression worsened, a new psychiatrist changed the antidepresent and put me back on Ativan, despite knowing that I was still regularly consuming alcohol. That is a potentially lethal combination and nearly cost me my life on October 14th. The time had come and I had to face the truth.
I am an alcoholic. I am powerless over alcohol and my life had become unmanageable.
John the Baptist calls us to such repentance. And my John the Baptist is known as “Dr. C.”
Would that that truth was the only truth I had to acknowledge. It has taken a life time to build a palace of lies, and such self deception doesn’t go away over night.
One of the reasons my depression has been worsening relates to my hopes, dreams, and sense of calling in ministry. When I entered ministry, it was with the most deep seated hope and conviction that if I were a faithful pastor, hard working, creative and caring, and one with a heart for mission and ministry—then the Church would thrive and nothing would be impossible. When I came to First Lutheran I shared with the council that though the worship attendance had been on the decline since 1986, I was absolutely committed to changing that, especially because Sandpoint was a growing community.
Growing it was, but not in worship attendance or Church membership. That decline in worship attendance that I noted in 2000 has continued. And the only thing that has changed is the color of our hair, or how much hair is left on some of our heads. And so I found myself being quite jealous of my father’s generation of pastors. Pastors such as Bob Nale who entered ministry after WWII and saw the Church thriving and growing during the post war years of the fifties, sixties, and seventies. And the more I thought about it, the more depressed I got.
The truth that I must now face, is that my own grandiose thoughts about how far my faithfulness and hard work could take the Church were really delusional. And my depression is the dark side of that delusion. To allow myself to feel responsible for the decline of the entirety of Christianity in our country, and to beat myself up for my failures, is in the end, to fanaticize that if I had just tried harder, I could have accomplished what in fact only God can accomplish.
In this John the Baptist gives us an example for living. “I am not the Messiah,” he says, “but there is one who is coming.”
And so we pray “Come, Lord Jesus!”
And Jesus will come.
But first we need to have a frank, honest, conversation with John the Baptist. We need to acknowledge that we are powerless and in bondage. Our confession of sin says it this way: “I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.”
In Alcoholics Anonymous this truth is reflected on page 60 of the big book, words that are read at the beginning of each meeting:
A) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.B) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
And then, comes the promise:
C) That God could and would if He were sought.
Personally, I wish John the Baptist were not part of the picture. I would prefer to simply have the sweet baby Jesus, a child lying in a manger, and one to save me from my sins without having to face the demands of John the Baptist for repentance. I would prefer not to have to face the truth about myself. But it is only in truth, rigorous, painful, truth, that we are prepared to receive the Messiah.
If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God could and would if he were sought.
The bad news none of us wants to admit is that we need a savior. The good news is that he was, he is, and he is to come.
And so with the Church of every time and every place we pray “Come, Lord Jesus. Come.”
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
What’s the Point? Take Two.
What is the Church’s mission? What is the point? Why aren’t people inclined to come running to
the Church as part of their spiritual quests?
The big question facing so many of our congregations in
particular is ‘Why are there very few young families with children?”
One of the most revealing books I’ve read in recent years is
“UnChristian” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons of the Barna Group. Their research into the perceptions common
among those people, outside of the Church, ages 16 to 29, is revealing. Certainly others have looked at it and
interpret the basic facts differently.
But what they have to share is worthy of thought and reflection.
Here is the summary slide from the UnChristian powerpoint:
Outsiders, age 16 to 29 perceive the Church to be:
Antihomosexual 91%
Judgmental 87%
Hypocritical 85%
Sheltered (old-fashioned,
out of touch with reality) 78%
Too political (especially right wing) 75%
Proselytizers (insensitive to others,
not genuine) 70%
If this is true, and my experience inclines me to believe it
is, we in the Church have a problem attracting these young people and their
children.
Not many people wake
up in the morning and say, “Where can I take my children so that we can all
learn to be more anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical, sheltered and out
of touch with reality, beholden to right wing politics, and insensitive to
others and only concerned about ourselves.
I presented this information to a group of Church folk and
the response they had to it actually confirmed every aspect of these
perceptions. And it only took a couple
of minutes.
So if our mission has something to do with spreading God’s
message of love and forgiveness, we’ve got a problem. The problem of course is that either we are not loving and forgiving, or we
have a very poor public relations department.
The only way we can change is to acknowledge how we have
contributed to these perceptions, beg God’s forgiveness, and begin to live our
lives in a manner that reflects the message of Jesus.
Monday, December 3, 2012
“What’s the Point?”
I recently underwent inpatient treatment for alcoholism,
addiction to Ativan, depression, PTSD, and, for good measure, an anxiety
disorder thrown in as well. In the weeks
since I’ve discovered a new community in the Alcoholics Anonymous groups. I have rarely experienced anything of
community outside of the Church, so this is a new venture for me. I am learning much. I have experienced grace in a way I haven’t
experienced it in all my years in the Church.
And I’m convinced that we have much to learn. My first thoughts are about Mission and
Purpose.
When people hear the words “Alcoholics Anonymous”, or AA,
there is incredibly wide knowledge about AA’s mission, its purpose. It is simple.
It is clear, so clear that even a drunk reclining in a gutter knows
it. AA helps people stop drinking. Period.
“Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic that still
suffers.” (Tradition 5) The only criterion of membership is a desire
to stop drinking. And the most important
part of remaining in sobriety is by helping others. Finally, this purpose is rooted a very
real need in the world. If no one wanted
to stop drinking, AA would cease to exist.
If science ever devised the magic pill that would enable an alcoholic to
drink normally, AA would have lost its reason for being. As it is, day after day, alcoholics around
the world wake up to the reality that they are powerless over alcohol and their
lives had become unmanageable. And so
they turn to AA.
What’s the point?
What’s the purpose? Does the path
work? Is there a real need?
What is the Church’s mission? Can we state it with clarity? Does the world outside the Church know what
our mission is? And does our mission
respond to real issues in the world and in the lives of those outside the
Church? Most important, does what we
have to offer to the world work?
When I consider the Church’s mission I have found great
meaning in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20. We are
agents of reconciliation. Is that the
point? Is that why we follow Jesus? Is that why the Church exists? Let’s suppose it is.
Does the world know and understand that? When people and nations struggle with
conflict, violence, and all forms of discord that are destroying their lives
would they turn to the Church to find reconciliation and peace?
Certainly we could argue that there is a clear need for
reconciliation in this world. Animosity
runs rampant. Families are divided
against themselves. Our human community
has been divided against itself for not just centuries, but millennia. Reconciliation is clearly something the world
needs.
But are we any good at it?
Here is where the Church fails miserably. If people come to the Church wanting to be
reconciled, desiring nothing more than to live in peace with one and all, and
to become part of a loving community—they will be disappointed. If I turned to AA in hopes of stopping
drinking and arrived at the local meeting room only to find everyone there
passed out in a drunken stupor, I would quickly turn elsewhere or give up hope
altogether. But isn’t that the
experience of many who come to the Church?
How can we who are so divided against ourselves possibly engage the
world with any credibility as “agents of reconciliation”?
What’s our mission?
Does it address a real need?
Do we offer a credible solution?
The Church should ask itself those three
questions and answer with rigorous honesty.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Longing for Easter
The
only death you need ever fear is the death you already died in baptism. What lies ahead is totally, and completely,
the life you live in Christ. And in
Christ, there is nothing to fear. . . for as he was raised, so also are you.
Preaching the resurrection was difficult for me this year, more difficult than most years. I recognize the difficulty at anytime of preaching the great festivals of the faith. As we hear of the Word made flesh in Bethlehem, of the cross and the empty tomb, and of the rush of the mighty wind and the tongues of fire, who are we that we can add to the witness of the centuries? That’s my struggle every year at Christmas, the Resurrection of the Lord, and Pentecost. What possibly can I add to the proclamation that has come down through the ages?
But this year the struggle was even harder for me. The struggle was rooted in the depth of my own experience. On Christmas I brought communion to the home of my physician and friend who was dying of cancer. Lent began with his funeral. And Holy Week was marked with two more funerals. In the midst of all this my own emotional struggles dating back to childhood paid another visit. The result was total exhaustion and a profound feeling of emptiness in the days and weeks following Easter. Good advice from caring people helped me to decide that some time off was not only advisable, but necessary. And so, somewhat rested, I’m resuming the pace of ministry.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been reflecting on the cross and resurrection. One thought that overwhelmed me is that it is a whole lot easier to preach Good Friday while living in the light of Easter, than it is to preach the Resurrection while still walking through the darkness of Good Friday. I love the theology behind the opening paragraph of this blog. It is rooted in the conviction that death has already lost “its sting”, that we already participate in the new life of the risen Christ, and that we have been set free from all reason to fear.
I wish that I could reflect on Good Friday like our parents and grandparents used to remember walking to and from school, you know, “uphill both ways in raging blizzards with five foot snow drifts”. Would that Good Friday was a distant memory of a difficult time now past, and that our lives now truly reflected the new life lived in Christ, specifically, the risen Christ.
But we find ourselves straddling these two realities. By faith we live as Easter people basking in the light of the risen Christ. And yet, this mortal flesh, indeed, “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.[1] “ For me, life too often involves groaning inwardly for the redemption of my mind.
I have struggled throughout my life with Dysthymia, i.e., chronic depression. In another generation I would have been considered just one more melancholy Scandinavian. I long to be able to wake up in the morning with the joy of Easter dancing in my mind. Yet, there is that ever present cloud of the Good Friday world. I watch the residents of our Memory Care facility next door struggle with their ever increasing cognitive impairments. I see young and old struggling with conditions that are chronic by nature and simply won’t go away with the dawn of a new day. And of course there is this world, still groaning in travail, still suffering as it suffered in Jesus’ day.
And so we wait. We wait as people of the Easter promise, and yet also, aware that this promise is for us still a future hope. That hope, my friends, will need to suffice for now.
Preaching the resurrection was difficult for me this year, more difficult than most years. I recognize the difficulty at anytime of preaching the great festivals of the faith. As we hear of the Word made flesh in Bethlehem, of the cross and the empty tomb, and of the rush of the mighty wind and the tongues of fire, who are we that we can add to the witness of the centuries? That’s my struggle every year at Christmas, the Resurrection of the Lord, and Pentecost. What possibly can I add to the proclamation that has come down through the ages?
But this year the struggle was even harder for me. The struggle was rooted in the depth of my own experience. On Christmas I brought communion to the home of my physician and friend who was dying of cancer. Lent began with his funeral. And Holy Week was marked with two more funerals. In the midst of all this my own emotional struggles dating back to childhood paid another visit. The result was total exhaustion and a profound feeling of emptiness in the days and weeks following Easter. Good advice from caring people helped me to decide that some time off was not only advisable, but necessary. And so, somewhat rested, I’m resuming the pace of ministry.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been reflecting on the cross and resurrection. One thought that overwhelmed me is that it is a whole lot easier to preach Good Friday while living in the light of Easter, than it is to preach the Resurrection while still walking through the darkness of Good Friday. I love the theology behind the opening paragraph of this blog. It is rooted in the conviction that death has already lost “its sting”, that we already participate in the new life of the risen Christ, and that we have been set free from all reason to fear.
I wish that I could reflect on Good Friday like our parents and grandparents used to remember walking to and from school, you know, “uphill both ways in raging blizzards with five foot snow drifts”. Would that Good Friday was a distant memory of a difficult time now past, and that our lives now truly reflected the new life lived in Christ, specifically, the risen Christ.
But we find ourselves straddling these two realities. By faith we live as Easter people basking in the light of the risen Christ. And yet, this mortal flesh, indeed, “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.[1] “ For me, life too often involves groaning inwardly for the redemption of my mind.
I have struggled throughout my life with Dysthymia, i.e., chronic depression. In another generation I would have been considered just one more melancholy Scandinavian. I long to be able to wake up in the morning with the joy of Easter dancing in my mind. Yet, there is that ever present cloud of the Good Friday world. I watch the residents of our Memory Care facility next door struggle with their ever increasing cognitive impairments. I see young and old struggling with conditions that are chronic by nature and simply won’t go away with the dawn of a new day. And of course there is this world, still groaning in travail, still suffering as it suffered in Jesus’ day.
And so we wait. We wait as people of the Easter promise, and yet also, aware that this promise is for us still a future hope. That hope, my friends, will need to suffice for now.
[1] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version.
Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Ro 8:22-23
Sunday, March 18, 2012
For this Christ died
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. [1]
Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.[2]
Imagine raising a child the way we have worshipped God. Imagine if every conversation we had with our child was to begin with a focus on their failings, their inabilities, and their unworthiness. That is the question that I put forward to my congregation this morning. I’m questioning why every worship service must begin with a focus on our sinfulness, even wretchedness, as opposed to God’s goodness and the potential that is ours in Christ.
In our parenting we would consider a continual focus on our children’s failures to be, quite frankly, emotional abuse. I have known parents who have done that. The consequences are varied, but never good. What is troubling to me is that if the beginning and end of our every conversation with God goes no further than our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness, we’ve missed something very important.
Christ did not die solely for the sake of the forgiveness of my sins. No, the redemption of the world is NOT, is NOT, I repeat—just about our being able to live as forgiven sinners. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
We are a new creation. We are what he has made us. We are created (and re-created) in Christ Jesus for good works. God intended from the beginning for this to be our way of life.
This morning I proposed to the congregation that we should begin our service with a different sort of confession. Let’s start with Psalm 8:3-9. And then, let the pastor respond with Ephesians 2:8-10. Prior to beginning the Eucharist, I was handed a note from a parishioner that said “Pastor Dave, Start next Sunday with God’s wonders, not our sins!” Another parishioner was not so delighted and informed me that he would continue praying that I would quit ignoring part of scripture. Overall, though, the feedback on the sermon was very positive. To focus on our potential in Christ Jesus, as opposed to our failures apart from Christ, struck a resonant chord.
As Lutherans we have focused so much on justification that the “new obedience of faith” and the relationship between faith and good works has often been totally ignored. True, we are not saved by what we do. We are saved for the sake of the work to which we’ve been called. There is a purpose for which we have been saved. Again, our Lutheran predisposition has been so leery of works righteousness that we often have failed to deal adequately with the new life that is ours in Christ Jesus. Jesus says: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus does not say: “You can do nothing.”
The bottom line: If we focused on the potential that is ours in Christ Jesus, and all that the Holy Spirit can do through us, instead of this constant fixation on our sinfulness, might we discover that we can realize much more of that God given potential than we currently do? It’s worth a try.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Atoning Work of Christ: “I can’t get no, satisfaction!”
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NRSV)
I continue to focus my thoughts and reflections around the concept of intimacy with God and one another as the final objective of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. I must confess that the only way I can make sense of our relationship with God is to compare and understand how our relationships with one another work.
Last month my wife and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary. There are a lot of things that go into a marriage that lasts 34 years, or a life-time for that matter. Obviously, a great deal of love freely given and gratefully received is a wonderful place to start. Another equally obvious thing is that for relationships to last and to grow in intimacy over the years there will need to be a willingness and capacity to forgive. To put it differently, if you are going to insist on keeping score, there is going to be hell to pay down the road.
In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,d not counting their trespasses against them.
The basis for intimacy, forgiveness, and reconciliation is in not keeping score. It is not about retaining meticulous records of all the wrongs done and demanding some action to correct the wrong or compensate (make satisfaction for) the wrong done.
One of the things I learned about myself in the years past is that part of my psychological profile is distinctively “shame based”. One dimension of that shame based profile is “to never bury the hatchet”, or more specifically, never forget a wrong as the day may come when you may need the ammunition. This became particularly clear when I reflected on memories of hurts that I was preserving from the earliest days of my life and of my marriage. Such a memory is an act of score keeping. And as long as we continue to keep score, as long as the days of our lives are counted in terms of merits and demerits, forgiveness is not possible.
Now if I was totally honest, I’d probably confess that within our marriage I have a lot more to be forgiven for, than I have to forgive. But again, that is just another way of score keeping. Would forgiveness be served if at the end of the day, my wife and I could look at each other and say, “OK, you have done this and I that, we’re even. Let’s call it good.” Or more to the point, if I were unfaithful to my wife, is there anything that I could do, any price that I could pay, that would merit her forgiveness and justify it? Going back to the original question posed by my parishioner, if I sacrificed our family pet would that atone for my sins? What about a child? Does blood have to be shed in order for sin to be forgiven?
In my example, if forgiveness were possible in that situation, it would only be possible as a free gift of grace, offered unconditionally because of the love that defines the relationship. It would be a conscious choice on one person’s part of “not counting (the other’s) trespasses against them.”
This I believe is the reconciling work of God in Christ Jesus. It is about not counting trespasses. It is about the Son declaring from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” It is about God loving us unconditionally, in spite of ourselves.
There is an old adage that “Love is blind.” Loving intimacy is not blind, it just doesn’t keep score.
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,d not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. [1]
“Pastor, why does there have to be a ‘blood sacrifice’? I’ve never understood how the shedding of one’s blood, could atone for another’s sin. So we’ve sinned against God. What good does sacrificing a sheep or a bull do?” More to the point, was Jesus’ death necessary for our forgiveness, or could there be something else going on here?
Can forgiveness be freely offered? Or must there be some objective act of satisfaction in order to open up the possibility of forgiveness?I continue to focus my thoughts and reflections around the concept of intimacy with God and one another as the final objective of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. I must confess that the only way I can make sense of our relationship with God is to compare and understand how our relationships with one another work.
Last month my wife and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary. There are a lot of things that go into a marriage that lasts 34 years, or a life-time for that matter. Obviously, a great deal of love freely given and gratefully received is a wonderful place to start. Another equally obvious thing is that for relationships to last and to grow in intimacy over the years there will need to be a willingness and capacity to forgive. To put it differently, if you are going to insist on keeping score, there is going to be hell to pay down the road.
In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,d not counting their trespasses against them.
The basis for intimacy, forgiveness, and reconciliation is in not keeping score. It is not about retaining meticulous records of all the wrongs done and demanding some action to correct the wrong or compensate (make satisfaction for) the wrong done.
One of the things I learned about myself in the years past is that part of my psychological profile is distinctively “shame based”. One dimension of that shame based profile is “to never bury the hatchet”, or more specifically, never forget a wrong as the day may come when you may need the ammunition. This became particularly clear when I reflected on memories of hurts that I was preserving from the earliest days of my life and of my marriage. Such a memory is an act of score keeping. And as long as we continue to keep score, as long as the days of our lives are counted in terms of merits and demerits, forgiveness is not possible.
Now if I was totally honest, I’d probably confess that within our marriage I have a lot more to be forgiven for, than I have to forgive. But again, that is just another way of score keeping. Would forgiveness be served if at the end of the day, my wife and I could look at each other and say, “OK, you have done this and I that, we’re even. Let’s call it good.” Or more to the point, if I were unfaithful to my wife, is there anything that I could do, any price that I could pay, that would merit her forgiveness and justify it? Going back to the original question posed by my parishioner, if I sacrificed our family pet would that atone for my sins? What about a child? Does blood have to be shed in order for sin to be forgiven?
In my example, if forgiveness were possible in that situation, it would only be possible as a free gift of grace, offered unconditionally because of the love that defines the relationship. It would be a conscious choice on one person’s part of “not counting (the other’s) trespasses against them.”
This I believe is the reconciling work of God in Christ Jesus. It is about not counting trespasses. It is about the Son declaring from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” It is about God loving us unconditionally, in spite of ourselves.
There is an old adage that “Love is blind.” Loving intimacy is not blind, it just doesn’t keep score.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Christ: On Being and Doing
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NRSV)
My conviction is that our obsession with the ontological question of who Jesus is has distracted us from the more important question of the work God is doing in Christ, namely reconciling the world to himself. Further, I would contend that we’ve stated more in our Trinitarian Doctrines than our human reason allows, and certainly more than one can conclude on the basis of scripture.
So Jesus is referred to as “the Son of God” in the scriptures. How would the evangelists or any contemporary of Jesus have understood such a phrase? In the Hebrew Bible the phrase “Son of God” or “sons of God” and other such references occur with a variety of meanings. The NRSV translates “sons of God” in numerous places as “heavenly beings”. It is also a reference to Israel or Ephraim or Jacob. In Psalm 2, the reference “you are my Son; today I have begotten you” is a reference to the Davidic King, and by extension the phrase “Son of God” becomes a Messianic title. Elsewhere, “sons of God” carries the connotation much more similar to ‘children of God’ in contemporary usage.
My point is that the question of ontology regarding Jesus being designated “Son of God” developed far beyond what would have been understood by the first disciples. I also find myself wondering if our focus on the question of Jesus’ being has resulted in a distraction from the work of reconciliation that God is doing through Jesus. To put it differently, if in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, have we in seeking to define Christ’s being, and by so doing, defining who are truly Christian, created the very estrangements that Christ’s reconciling work was meant to overcome? God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself—how then has it happened that our proclamation of Christ has often been so divisive, and has not reflected the message of reconciliation that was entrusted to us?
Finally, if God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, does anything else matter?
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,d not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. [1]
As our creator, God desires an intimate relationship with us. But where God would desire intimacy, we have become estranged. The work of Christ within this context is simply reconciliation. It is in this light that these two verses, quoted above, from 2 Corinthians have become for me a creedal statement of Christology. Who is Jesus? The One through whom God is reconciling the world to himself. And what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? It means that we have been entrusted with the message of reconciliation.
Historically, the Church has had an infatuation with Jesus ‘being’ as opposed God was ‘doing’ through Jesus. The Chalcedon Formula and the Athanasian Creed are prime examples of this. At times we have maintained that in order to answer the question of what God was ‘doing’ in Jesus, we of necessity had to come to understand Jesus being. The importance that we gave to doctrinal formulations regarding the Trinity was elevated to the extent that the Athanasian Creed concludes with the statement “One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.”My conviction is that our obsession with the ontological question of who Jesus is has distracted us from the more important question of the work God is doing in Christ, namely reconciling the world to himself. Further, I would contend that we’ve stated more in our Trinitarian Doctrines than our human reason allows, and certainly more than one can conclude on the basis of scripture.
So Jesus is referred to as “the Son of God” in the scriptures. How would the evangelists or any contemporary of Jesus have understood such a phrase? In the Hebrew Bible the phrase “Son of God” or “sons of God” and other such references occur with a variety of meanings. The NRSV translates “sons of God” in numerous places as “heavenly beings”. It is also a reference to Israel or Ephraim or Jacob. In Psalm 2, the reference “you are my Son; today I have begotten you” is a reference to the Davidic King, and by extension the phrase “Son of God” becomes a Messianic title. Elsewhere, “sons of God” carries the connotation much more similar to ‘children of God’ in contemporary usage.
My point is that the question of ontology regarding Jesus being designated “Son of God” developed far beyond what would have been understood by the first disciples. I also find myself wondering if our focus on the question of Jesus’ being has resulted in a distraction from the work of reconciliation that God is doing through Jesus. To put it differently, if in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, have we in seeking to define Christ’s being, and by so doing, defining who are truly Christian, created the very estrangements that Christ’s reconciling work was meant to overcome? God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself—how then has it happened that our proclamation of Christ has often been so divisive, and has not reflected the message of reconciliation that was entrusted to us?
Finally, if God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, does anything else matter?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Intimacy and Estrangement
16 “For God so loved the world . . .”[1]
21 As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,f . . .”[2] “See, the homea of God is among mortals.
He will dwellb with them as their God;c
they will be his peoples,d
and God himself will be with them;e
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.”[3]
I continue to find the concept of “intimacy” as the most compelling description of what God is up to in the world. It is a desire to be intimately related to this world that motivated God’s creative activity in the first place. “It is not good that the man should be alone. . .” Perhaps this is a statement that God makes based on God’s own experience. Being alone, God and nothing else, was probably not too fulfilling for God. And so God began this venture in Being, and more specifically, in Being in Relationship. “Yes”, God proclaimed, “this is good stuff, very good indeed!”
Yet we must also deal honestly with the reality of sin that pervades this otherwise good creation. If the purpose of creation is intimacy with God and others, the nature of sin is to be estranged. Estranged from God. Estranged from others. Estranged from self. And Estranged from the world in which we live.
I’ve written before about the two polarities of Being, namely that of differentiation and association. Every entity that exists simultaneously is differentiated from the Other, and is placed in relationship to the other. To use Buber’s terminology, intimacy is achieved in the I-Thou relationship, when two individual “Thou’s” are in a balanced and harmonious relationship with each other. This encounter of the Other as a person, a Thou and not an It, is the basis of intimacy. In this manner, true intimacy will always be a matter of faith, not knowledge, of relatedness, not experience, for the mystery of the Other must remain. To reduce the other to an It, the mere object of our experience, is the way of estrangement not intimacy.
Estrangement begins with the Self. Estrangement can take two paths. First, estrangement is the consequence of an inflated sense of the Self. The human quest to be as god, to be the center of existence, to be the Lord of all, subservient to none, is the basic sin of this inflated sense of self. Estrangement follows.
However the converse is also true. Namely, that a deflated sense of Self, “I am a worm, and not human”, losing a healthy sense of self and being subsumed into the Other, also brings with it estrangement. Neither a pride filled arrogance, nor a shame based self-deprecation allow for intimacy with the Other.
Likewise, when relating to the Other, estrangement occurs when the scale tips in either direction. Whether the Other in question is God, or neighbor, or the natural world in which we live, either an inflated or deflated sense of the Other destroys intimacy. The God who is so Wholly Other as to cause terror, is not the God that Jesus intimately revealed to us as “Abba”. But a God whose very existence is a matter of indifference to us, hardly can be a partner in an intimate relationship. We likewise experience estrangement when the Other is another human being, but one who we see as either so above us, or below us, as to disallow the mutuality of intimacy. And this planet on which we live can be perceived as an overwhelming place in which we are powerless and vulnerable in the face of the natural forces—Or it can be seen as a mere object for our exploitation.
In other words, the intimacy that God envisioned for this world is one of a harmonious balance. It begins with the recognition that we are children of God. We are limited, children not God, but with great potential, Children of God, created in God’s image. We are creatures, not the Creator, but creatures of God, indeed.
[1] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Jn 3:16
[2] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Jn 17:20-21
[3] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Re 21:3-4
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