How Will Your Shed Your Latch (Matt. 23:1-12)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ²‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; ³therefore, do whatever they teach you and guard it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴They tie up heavy burdens, and lay them on the shoulders of others … but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.

⁵They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the seats of honor in the synagogues, ⁷and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi.

⁸But you … you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. ⁹And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.

¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

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Prayer of Illumination: God who is our parent, our teacher, and our savior: Stretch us with your truth, that we may become more fully human, as you have created us to be.  For the sake of your kingdom. Amen.

—

This text kind of has me in a pickle…

For anyone who doesn’t know who I am, or why there is a strange man standing in the pulpit, my name is Will Norman.  I grew up here at Eastminster, and after 19 years, went away to college and began working in another Presbyterian church in Atlanta.

A few years after graduating, I decided to pursue ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church, and so I enrolled in grad school at Columbia Theological Seminary, where I am currently a 2nd year student, and where part of my course work is a supervised ministry internship with a local congregation … You!

And so I’ve come full circle.  I’m back at EPC and am really excited to be here and appreciative to all of you for helping me to walk on my path towards my call, some of you since the day I was baptized in this very spot. [update: while at lunch with my parents after the worship service, I was informed that I was not baptized at EPC, but at a Methodist church in Tucker, GA.  Oops!]

As luck or providence would have it, however, my first sermon text, assigned for today by the Revised Common Lectionary for Christian Worship, is particularly applicable to my current situation, and not in a good, upbuilding way, but rather with a sharp criticism, which frankly, leaves me a bit befuddled.

Let’s look again at verses 7 & 8: They love … to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸But you are not to be called rabbi …

I’m not really sure how to weasel my way out of this one … Jesus is talking to his followers … Of whom I would count myself as one … And he’s talking about positions and titles denoting religious status and authority … Which is precisely what I am currently in school pursuing!  And as if that weren’t enough, he’s specifically forbidding the title “Rabbi,” which literally means “one who teaches,” and I have to stand at the front of the room and “TEACH” this passage while you all sit out there and listen to me.

Can you feel my tension with this sermon?

We don’t call our religious teachers Rabbi, we call them Reverend in the Presbyterian church.  Matthew didn’t know about that title when he was writing his Gospel story, but I imagine its no better than Rabbi … As a matter of fact, I wonder if it may be worse.

The word Reverend actually derives from a 15th century adjective meaning, “to be worthy of respect, so that logically speaking, we who are Christians may go to school for 7 years, pass some tests, and receive a call from a congregation all on our journey to becoming “worthy of respect” … That is, if we can afford to go to school, and if we are able to read and write … If we are Christians, and if we are called by God into the ministry … Then we can be greeted with respect.

My question is this: what of everyone else?  Are people who haven’t jumped through all these hoops … People who weren’t borne into the “right” family situation … People who with all their heart know that they are called to some other equally important, but less revered work …

Are these people any less worthy of respect than a preacher?

Reverend is a convenient place to start because it actually means respectable, but one could argue that the practice of putting titles in front of our names at all is acknowledging a kind of social hierarchy built on the idea that some people deserve more respect than other people.  We want to know what role a person plays in the world so that we know how or whether to greet them in the marketplace.

Walking around the halls of an institution, for instance, there are always certain professors whose doctor is of the utmost importance, and it would be disrespectful to call them otherwise because they have borne such a heavy burden in pursuit of those letters.

We humans tend to do this thing where we take functioning society, with all of its pieces and its people and its positions, and we start to build a totem pole, carefully placing those deemed to be more respectable or valuable on top, and leaving those less respectable, less valuable people at the bottom … Bearing on their shoulders the heavy burden so familiar to people without a title.

That’s tough, and there are a number of us in this room, and I am often one of them, who would be willing to contest that idea of social hierarchy as I just laid it out.  We don’t like, or dont believe that people are arbitrarily placed on the top or on the bottom of the totem pole, but might suggest, instead that the people who are on top of the totem pole, at least in most cases, are there because they have earned their way to the top … Those people have usually worked harder and longer, bearing the heavy burden of climbing the corporate or the academic ladder.  They have learned to function within our set of social norms and deserve to be given a place of honor and a title that commands respect.

At the same time, not always, but at least in some cases,  people find themselves at the bottom of the totem pole, without a title, and excluded from places of respect because they have “earned” their disrespect; They have acted immaturely, made thoughtless, selfish decisions, failed to learn the standards of self-control necessary to function in our society, or were just plain lazy … And so these people are on the bottom, and their burden is not one that is unfairly placed upon them, but rather is simply the prize for their labor …

There are different ways of talking about our social totem poles that may be called liberal or conservative or progressive or practical; we have the categories that we use.  I would suggest that for the purpose of reading and understanding the words from this gospel, that our political/social categories are actually insufficient, and will only leave us confused.

Matthew has some regular motifs in his writing, and one of them shows up just three chapters earlier, in a familiar parable picturing what the Kingdom of heaven is like.  As you hear this, listen for how Jesus’ words about the Kingdom of heaven challenge our social and our economic categories.

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.

You know the meat of the story … the owner goes out at 9 and at noon and at 3 and at 5, hiring more workers each time, and then at the end of the day, pays all of them the whole day’s wage. No one gets more and no one gets less than anyone else, though people gave more and people gave less … Its a frustrating parable, isn’t it.  But listen to the way it ends:

Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me, or are you envious because I am generous?

This … According to Matthew’s Jesus is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Each person is valued equally, regardless of his or her productivity; regardless of what a person may or may not have earned; regardless of who has borne what for how long. What probably feels unfair to some … not be recognized as “more valuable” than other … is actually generosity to the others.  It’s a new way of seeing the world, and it isn’t very effective at building these totem poles that we have grown so fond of … and Jesus has the nerve to call it the Kingdom of Heaven.

We may call it generous, or we may call it unfair, but we cannot in the same breath call Jesus our Lord and say that “no, the kingdom of Heaven is not like that.”

This term, “Kingdom of Heaven” is one of Matthew’s favorites: mentioned 32 times in Matthew’s Gospel, which is 28 chapters long.  17 of those 28 chapters contain at least one reference to the Kingdom of Heaven … So it would be reasonable to suggest that Matthew thinks that this Kingdom of Heaven is important for people to learn about … Jesus seems to really harp on the Kingdom of Heaven as if it is of particular importance to his reason for living, and teaching, and dying.

And though our lectionary text for this morning doesn’t actually contain the phrase, the verse immediately following does, and as is so often the case, the “very next verse” might be the key to the twelve that came before it.

Matthew 23:13 – “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.

The scribes and pharisees, as we remember are the people who are so concerned with their status … They love to be greeted with respect in the grocery store, or in bass pro-shop; love to have the best seats at parties and in church; they demand much from others, but won’t belittle themselves with tasks which could be considered “below” them … And in so doing, they are locking people out of the Kingdom of Heaven …

Because the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who sees all of her workers as equally valuable … equally worthy of respect, even though they didn’t all show up at the same time.  She is unhindered in her generosity by the fact that many of them have been standing around idle all day long, unhindered by fulltime or part time, unhindered by veteran or rookie, unhindered by anything resembling a title or distinguishing mark.

The kingdom of heaven values people, not because they are producers or because they are popular; not because of their position on the totem pole, but because they are people.  This is why Paul can say with such boldness in a hyper-nationalist, status-conscious world that there is no longer Greek or Jew, male or female, circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free, but that Christ is all, and is in all.  Someone must ahve unlocked the kingdom of heaven for Paul … and he now sees the world as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven … no longer Saul of Tarsus.  That person, upon encountering this Jesus was blinded, you remember, and then given new sight … and a new name … new citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven always acknowledges what is true about a person, regardless of what the totem pole says … And what is true about every person that you will ever meet is that Christ is all and Christ is in all.

Or as Matthew lays it out for us here in our text, contrary to the world of titles and totem poles, “we have one teacher, and we are all brothers and sisters … we are all students”

For this reason … because the kingdom of heaven is radically and scandalously unbiased, and egalitarian, we, who are citizens of the kingdom of Heaven, are not to be called “rabbi” {…walking out of the pulpit…} … or reverend.

We’re not to be called Doctor, or Judge, or Father or Mother.  Because we, all of us have one teacher, and we have one instructor; we have one parent, and we have one judge.  We’re not to be titled in this way, because in addition to misinterpreting our place in God’s world, titles that buy into the totem pole system of social hierarchy too easily become the latch … A latch with which I can and do lock people out of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And what Jesus suggest is that we aren’t just locking those people without titles out, but that whenever we lock anyone out of the kingdom of heaven, for any reason, that we have locked ourselves out as well.

Maybe this is what Jesus means when he says that it is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle … this is not a statement, in the end, about money … but about the easily exploited status and power that so often comes along with money.

And confused, his disciples ask “who then can enter the kingdom of heaven?”

And Jesus’ response is this “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

According the rules of the world that is run by human beings, we must lock the door because certain people are not welcome in our world.  But according to our passage today, when we lock the door for any reason, we have locked ourselves outside.  We have blinded ourselves to the world as God sees it; blinded ourselves to the world that values people because they are people, not because they have earned our respect.

And left to our own devices it would be impossible to escape our blindness, but we are not left to our own devices.  We have a God who has chosen to reveal truth to us in this Jesus.

We have a god who has seen our latch and has raised us a key.  That our scales might fall off and that our latch might be shed, and that we might enter and see as God sees and as Paul began to see…

How will you shed your latch?

People will call me Reverend; People will call you Doctor or Boss, Madam, Sir or Ma’am; Mother and Father …

But just as Jesus’ way doesn’t allow for valuing possessions or paper, over people, neither does it allow our positions to name us or shame us.

If you have a title … you have a latch.  If you have money, you have a latch.  If you have the respect of even one person … you have a latch.

We all have  latch.  How will you shed yours.

I can’t answer this question for any of you, but we can choose to be a community of people that is committed to opening the door to the kingdom of heaven for all who would seek it.  We can be that kind of community.

The Gospel of Matthew flows well together in a number of ways, and I don’t think that it is coincidental that Jesus uses language of keys and gates, when he gives the responsibility for starting the church over to his disciples.

“On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

We all have a latch … but we have also all been given the key …

… for we have one teacher; one key …  and we are all sisters and brothers in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Wild Goose Synchroblog … more like Linkroblog!

other bloggers participating this month with reflections on the festival or on the wild-goose-on-the-move:

• Anna Snoeyenbos – Wild Goose Festival – A Spirit of Life Revival
• Lee Smith – Goose Bumps: Opportunities Everywhere for Offense. A Fair and Objective Review
• Ryan Hines – 30 Years Later – “Controversy” at Wild Goose
• Karyn Wiseman – Flying With the Goose
• Kyla Cofer – I went to the Wild Goose Fest and came back in love
• Brian Gerald Murphy – Born Again (Again) at Wild Goose
• Chris Lenshyn – Chasing the Wild Goose
• Cherie at Renaissance Garden – Wild Goose Return
• Deborah Wise – Wild Goose Chasing
• Custodianseed – “every day they eat boiled goose”
• Martin at Exiles in NY – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose
• Kerri at Practicing Contemplative – Waterfowl in My Life
• Allison Leigh Lilley – Chasing the Wild Goose and Catching the Wild Goose: Thanks and First Thoughts
• Abbie Waters – Jessica: A Fable
• Steve Knight – Why Wild Goose Festival Was So Magical
• Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying
• Michelle Thorburg Hammond – I heart Jay Bakker and Peter Rollins
• Matthew Bolz-Weber – Remembering Wild Goose
• Paul Fromberg – Celebrating Interdependence Day
• David Zimmerman – Wild Goose Festival: A Recap
• Dan Brennan – U2, the Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom
• Mike Croghan – The Wild Goose is Not Safe
• John Martinez – The Table
• Callid Keefe-Perry – Gatekeeping the Goose
• Eric Elnes – The Inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Recovering Something Lost
• Shay Kearns – The Power of a T-Shirt, Apologizing to Over the Rhine, and Public vs. Private (Part One)
• Glen Reteif – Duck Duck Goose
• Peterson Toscano – I’ve Been Goosed, What I Carried Into Wild Goose, and What I Blurted Out at Wild Goose
• Seth Donovan – About More than “The Gays”
• TSmith – What I’ll Take From Wild Goose
• Dale Lature – Wild Goose Reflection
• Steve Hayes – Wild Goose Chase?
• Minnow – Grace Response
• Christine Sine – Encounters With A Thin Space
• Jeremy Myers – Giving Up the Wild Goose Chase
• Robert – Thoughts On the Inaugural Wild Goose
• Anna Woofenden – Slippery Slope Reflections
• Wendy McCaig – Loosing The Goose
• Joey Wahoo – Into The Wild

Back from the Wild Goose Fest

This past weekend I was in Shakori Hills, NC. Until a few months ago I had never heard of Shakori Hills, and apparently, neither had a number of North Carolinians. In any case, Shakori Hills is a little farm town in North Eastern NC that is complete with pigs, well-water, Wi-Fi service, and at least for the weekend, and bunch of pinko lefty practitioners of Christian Spirituality. We slept under the stars and didn’t shower; we sat around camp fires drinking cheap alcohol and playing songs that we’d written in critique of the church followed by two-hundred year old hymns; we made statements and asked questions about the church creeds that would elicit fire from the eyeballs of the guardians of “orthodoxy.” David Bazan sang us to sleep with his perfectly-broken, low-range melodies laying forth haunting inquiries of our God:

when job asked you the question
you responded “who are you
to challenge your creator?”
well if that one part is true

it makes you sound defensive
like you had not thought it through
enough to have an answer
or you might have bit off
more than you could chew

These were my people! For four days, Shakori Hills, NC felt like Heaven with a broken AC unit … and maybe it was. At the very least it was a glimpse of hope for the future of the Church in an increasingly post-denominational, post structural America.

It took me a while to get over the initial sense that I was at a Christian conference; I couldn’t help but scan the crowds for goatees and fanny packs … and while the stereotypical Christian conference elements were there, the fanny packs were touting things like organic, local-harvest bread, and the goatees were spewing fiery declarations that equal rights around sexual orientation should be understood as a justice issue, in line with racial discrimination and gender inequality.

We wandered around the campgrounds together, meeting new friends and running into old; having our minds stretched and prodded by the likes of Irish theologian, Peter Rollins, and Episcopal Priest, Paul Fromberg. Conveniently enough, Peter and Paul were my two favorite presenters of the weekend (totally a coincidence). Collectively, though not together, they explored ideas about Christology, the Eucharist, Belief, and Doubt.

What does it mean when we say things as part of a ritual that we actually don’t agree with or believe? If God is Love … what is God not? Are we simply trying to seduce a god who is revealed to be a fake when the temple curtain is ripped in two? And if so, what implications does that have for our worship? My mind is taken to the fifth chapter of Amos:

21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

If God will not be seduced, but rather, is Love … this text seems like it has a lot to teach us … like it has a lot to teach me.

This is the beginning. I process my experiences at the pace of a three toed sloth, and those questions are the ones I have been sitting with (along with Bazan’s lyrical genius). And to tell you the truth, I’m left with doubt. Upon climbing into bed last night, it felt as if the existential prosecutors had planned an ambush under my sheets. As I listened to David question God over and over I started (or rather, continued) to question God. I even believed that this was all a farce … a human need that we fulfill by creating god in our brains … that real enlightenment ceases to need the self-motivating creation that we mistakenly name “the Creator” …

This doubt will upset people. It will not be exciting for my Committee on Preparation for Ministry to read. It will make my mother and father sad. It will discredit Peter, Paul, and David in the eyes of much of the Church. This doubt really terrifies me … and this doubt really is me.

And it really is you. Believe it or doubt it, you can’t have one without the other.

In my opinion, this is why the Wild Goose Festival is critical to our future as practitioners of Christian spirituality. Because if true faith in the God of Israel, who is the God of all people and all things, is going to continue, it must continue amidst great doubts. Indeed, faith can only be true if it is holding hands with doubt. May we never be ashamed of our doubts.

A great thank you to the appropriately named Peter, Paul, and David, and to the rest of the crew of people who made the 1st annual Wild Goose Festival a reality in such a way that our true reality was laid naked before our very eyes! May we never again be ashamed of our nakedness!

Grace, Peace, Love, Faith, Hope, and Doubt to ALL

Sermon: Romans 5:15-6:2

The Wonder of Salvation

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:42-43

 There is this really beautiful thing about the stories and letters and poems in this book … but I don’t find the beauty at its purest in intense academic study … and I don’t find beauty by reading the Bible like a newspaper—trying to extract from its pages without bias every detail of every story.

No, what is beautiful about this book are often its holes … the questions that simply refuse to be answered in the text … and whether we want to or not; whether we think that it is heretical or not … this book simply does not allow us to engage it without the use of our imagination … without the use of these two words that open so many doors:

“I wonder …”

And here, in Luke’s telling of the story of the cross, I wonder what the next line of dialogue would have been … what did the criminal think? How might he have responded?

Here we have this menace to society who is literally in the process of being executed for crimes against humanity.

I know you’ve all probably experienced this before—It’s as if once he had crossed the threshold of opening his mouth, more ended up coming out of it than he had intended to actually say.

It is only after the other criminal has begun hurling insults at Jesus that the co-crucified finds the courage to speak. The criminal’s first words are spoken to the other thief … in defense of Jesus …

“Do you not fear God…? We have been condemned justly … we are getting what we deserve … but this man has done nothing wrong.”

And then, I imagine, he turns his head … or maybe he doesn’t … maybe he’s too ashamed of himself even to look Jesus in the eyes …

In either case, our nameless criminal has opened the floodgates and out come the words that I doubt he had intended to speak, but once he had started …

Addressing the crucified King more intimately than anyone else ever does in any of the gospel stories … simply calling by his first name … “Jesus, remember me…”

Not, “get me down from here” … Not, “Jesus, save me” … because certainly that would be too much to ask for a sinner such as he was.

“Remember me when you come into your kingdom”

And then, this dying, condemned criminal receives the grace of becoming the last human being to whom our Lord speaks before giving up his spirit.

Wonder at these words with the condemned:

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”

The text simply moves on here … as if there was no response given.  Maybe he was awestruck … maybe Luke just chose to leave it out … or maybe upon hearing Jesus’ word the criminal actually died …

We don’t know … its not in here … but something had to have happened …

Think about what he had just heard from Jesus himself.

His wheels had to be spinning … we read it now and can’t figure out what Jesus meant … and we’re not hanging on a cross … waiting to die … wondering at our fate … or maybe we are.

Jesus … are you really talking to me?  I … a condemned criminal… will be in paradise? That’s too much … I don’t deserve it and I wasn’t asking for charity … I couldn’t … what is it like … is today really today?

But its simply not there … it is a hole … and Luke isn’t stupid … it is a hole on purpose.

Because when Jesus talks about salvation, which is what Jesus is doing here with his very last breaths, the only appropriate response is Wonder.  You can’t describe it …

What is paradise?

I don’t know … but I know its good!  Jesus didn’t explain it, He just promised it, and in that promise of salvation, the criminal receives the invitation … and the freedom to wonder.

And when you are hanging on a cross, waiting to die, maybe the best thing that anyone could do for you is to take your mind on a field trip to paradise.

I wonder what it’s going to look like … and smell like, and feel like and taste like …

I wonder …

What Draws us Together…

I was driving up to Buckhead today to meet with a friend of mine who was in town from California for a few days.  I used to work for Scott at a Presbyterian church out there, and since then we have developed a great friendship, even if it is somewhat infrequent.

Often, as I drive I look around at the buildings surrounding my car–I’m more intrigued by architecture than I am knowledgeable concerning it–and today received a bit of a revelation in my gazing.  As I pulled up to the red light, there was  large, brick church building to my left that looked like it was probably one of those churches that fills up with stuffy rich people every sunday.  I located the church sign and (this is about to get confessional) my attitude toward the people who (in my mind) inhabit the pews was immediately set: “BAPTIST”

I don’t know what it is about that word … maybe it’s the people I knew in high school who were associated with that word … but in my head I had quickly decided that those were Christians who really didn’t get it (I told you this was getting confessional).  I figured that they were probably close-minded, elitist, insensitive, old-people along with all their brainwashed children … then I shifted my gaze from the sign back to the building itself.

There on the wall facing my car were five stained glass windows with five different scenes: Jesus at the Table with his disciples; Jesus in Gethsemane; Jesus carrying his cross up the hill; Jesus on that same Cross; Jesus, alive and outside of the tomb.

And I was suddenly made aware of my ironic sinfulness:

I am close minded

I am elitist

I am exclusivist

I am certainly going to teach my children what I believe to be right

But our reality is that no matter how fractured we may appear as a body, we are unified in our depravity, and more importantly, we are unified in Christ at the table where we are undeservingly invited to dine with Jesus as well as with other disciples who deny and betray our savior.  We are unified in Christ on the cross, where even thieves are promised paradise and mockers are prayed for and forgiven.  We are unified in Christ in the resurrection, where we find hope in Jesus as the first-fruits of God’s plan for all of creation.  And even though we are splintered, we are unified in Christ as members of the holy catholic church because it is Christ who established the church.

My friend Scott works for a church that stands on the other side of a fight within our denomination … as matter of fact, most everyone who has had a significant impact on my spiritual development is on the other side of this fight.  And yet, they are my brothers and sisters and mothers.  We are one family and I am united to each one of them, not by our shared rightness, but by our shared Lord and Table.

I am thankful for the Baptist Church and for its windows; for my Baptist classmates and professors who have allowed me to begin redeeming my ideas of that title; for my brothers and sisters and mothers of all expressions of faith who share in the ongoing work of Christ in our world.  I’m certain that we will continue to fight, but I hope that we can hold one another to identifying first as family; loving and respecting one another in the name of Christ, who was given without prejudice for the redemption of all.

 

So Good it Needs A Warning Label

Romans 5:15-6:2

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through Adam’s sin, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

And the free gift is not like the effect of Adam’s sin. For the judgment following ONE trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following MANY trespasses brings justification.

If, because of Adam’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one man, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

But law came in, with the result that sin multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks Be To God

February 26: a video is uploaded to YouTUBE. That same day, a blog is written in response to the video.

On February 27, a well-known and respected pastor tweets 15 characters + a link to the blog that was a responding to the video.

And by the end of February 28th, the quickly penned blog had received over 250,000 unique page views. And yes … I was one of them

And so, the fight had begun. Countless blogs and tweets and facebook posts and sermons were written about the church’s soteriological doctrines … and because this is a seminary, I can use the word soteriological in a sermon and you all now know, if you hadn’t already figured it out, that the video that set this whole firestorm off was Rob Bell’s promo video for his new book: “Love Wins: a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived” … the blog called Bell a heretic, and the tweet bid him farewell … presumably from the church universal? Or from what is getting called “Orthodoxy”in America these days. Either way; he was out … of something … according to someone …

What is orthodoxy anyways? Is it a term that only applies to doctrine,or does it apply to behavior as well?

Is it always clearly defined in a way that any given statement of belief can be declared right or wrong, black or white, in or out?

Is it something that needs to be defended with a sword? With fences? Or both?

Does it need to be defended at all? And who get’s to stake out the plot and build the fence? Who gets to wield the sword?

In this example, when a new book questioned a popularly held doctrine of Hell, we got to hear from—or read—a number of people who unashamedly answered these questions from a firmly rooted position inside their fence, some of them indeed clutching their weapons of choice.

Now we’ve got a newly declared heretic, we’ve got all kinds of articles about “the importance of Hell” and we’ve got at least one REALLY CONFUSED SEMINARIAN …

Even if we do want to say that Rob Bell is a sinner for his thoughts, questions, and teaching … I thought that where sin increased grace abounded all the more.

I thought we were supposed to ask questions … I thought we were supposed to wrestle with God and explore the free gift of new life in Christ.

It seems instead like much of our church has responded to one man’s probing and questioning and wrestling … not with justification and life … but with anger … and with fear.

We don’t denounce someone’s teaching or throw someone out unless we think that they are a threat. And the church has been doing it sincebefore there was a church … and maybe we’ve been right to cast certain people out at certain times.

…When he was sleeping with his father’s wife, or when they believed that the Holy Spirit descended from the Father, but not from the Son, or when she served communion that one time before she was ordained, or blah blah blah … I really don’t know when we’ve been right.

Bad behavior, questionable doctrines, improper sacramental reverence, … is this really a list of the things that we should fear? And further … do we really believe that those things are at the core of our fear? Or is it something deeper.

Maybe our fear is that sin really does still have dominion. And so we need to always be prepared for battle with our tyrannical Lord.

Maybe our fear is that if we haven’t figured out how God brings about this good news that we might not get to participate it in. And so we logic our way to whatever doctrinal statements make the most sense; and we root ourselves in these doctrinal statements; and we declare even the slightest departure from them or questioning of them to be heretical … because what would happen if we were wrong about God?

Maybe our fear is that the body and blood of Christ might fall into the wrong hands. Wouldn’t that be horrible? And so we take this piece of bullet-proof plate-glass and distribute bread and juice through a hand-sized hole, exclaiming proudly that “everyone is welcome at my table …

you’ve just got to stay on that side of it.”

I get it … I really do. Those are really scary things and there are really scary people in the world whose presence really does merit fear and fences. I don’t want to be exploited or taken advantage of. I don’t want to get to the pearly gates and find out that I misunderstood God’s purposes and hurt God and God’s children. And I have literally made myself nauseous by deciding that someone else mishandled the Lord’s Supper.

… BUT …

It is in my fears that I really believe that I must join my voice with the father from Mark who says “I believe; help my unbelief”

How often do we hear in scripture the commandment “do not fear”or “do not fear, only believe?”

After all, it certainly sounds like Paul thinks that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is infinitely more Good than any bad news is Bad …and it is precisely because the Gospel allows itself to be exploited and taken advantage of. It is a FREE GIFT!

I don’t know if the ‘bad news’ is trespass, or if it is sin having dominion, or if it is that we are being dangled over a hell of eternal torment … but I do know that whatever the bad news was … it doesn’t matter … it’s obsolete! Because the Good News that Jesus is the Christ trumps the bad news.

Paul, even though he just got through eloquently proclaiming the freedom of the Gospel, also seems to share our fears … because he knows that nothing that we can do will trump God’s good work … that it is so good and so freeing that it needs to be packaged with a warning label … “What then, should we go on sinning that grace may abound?

[Because, make no mistake, Grace will abound … it’s really that good! And there is room in this gospel for even the worst sinners and heretics out there] …

So let’s go on sinning, right?

Of course not!” Exclaims Paul! “Your life as a slave to that tyrant is over … dead! Why would you keep living like you’re a slave. That is a ridiculous response!”

But it’s not ridiculous because the freedom of the gospel is only an illusion …

That freedom is real.

The bad news is no longer to be feared.

Sin is no longer our lord.

The Law is no longer our lord!

The fences have come down and everyone is invited in and has been given the free gift of grace and of new life. And it is a life where we can and should:

• live and make mistakes
• be creative in seeking to know and be known by God
• smash our idols & replace them with new, still-incomplete ones
• ask questions that we don’t have answers to
• dislike and challenge the answers that we have been given, and finally …
• get nailed to and hoisted up on a cross, maybe even by the ironic hand of leaders of our churches.

The pastors and leaders who are verbally excommunicating Rob Bell… aren’t really concerned with getting rid of Rob Bell … they are really concerned with trying, with every ounce of strength and spittle they can muster, to contain God.
But God will not be put in a box. God is Free. And we have been given the free gift of getting to share in that very freedom of God and trust that it is God who has given us that gift, and that it is God’s love … not
our rightness or our morality … that will finally usher us into eternity …whatever that may end up looking like.

So what the hell are we so afraid of?

The body of Jesus has already fallen into the wrong hands. The blood of Christ has already been shed on the shameful and foolish cross.The veil has been torn, the presence of God is on the loose, and the free gift has finally trumped the trespass.

In an earlier letter, Paul quotes a hymn that the early church had been singing in worship and it goes like this: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Let the same mind be in us that was in Christ … who gave himself over to be accused, betrayed, abused, mocked and finally to be killed … all so that we might walk with our creator in the newness of life.

This is the charge: Go preach a gospel that is so good it needs a warning label – that is so freeing and selfless that it can and will be taken advantage of. Go preach a Christ who is so good he needs a warning label – who is so freeing and selfless that he can be, and has been, and will be taken advantage of.

To say that the bad news it bad enough to keep us in line is no gospel at all!

But the free gift is greater than the bad news. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Death Moving in Reverse: Bremen 1st Presbyterian Church

I’ve recently had the opportunity to preach a few Sundays at a small church in Bremen, GA to a congregation of less than 30 people.  They are wonderfully welcoming and intelligent people who need a full-time pastor, but in the mean time are incredibly gracious and grateful to even have a 1st year seminary student.  This is a transcript (loosely) of my sermon from the first Sunday in Advent.

¹The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

²In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house [will] be established as the highest of the mountains, and [will] be raised above the hills; all the nations [will] stream to it. ³Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that YHWH may teach us the ways of GOD and that we may walk in God’s paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

⁴YHWH shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; [and] they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

⁵O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD::

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

So, just a brief historical background for this text: Israel has divided into two kingdoms, north and south, and Isaiah is a prophet in the southern Kingdom of Judah, whose capital is Jerusalem.  Right around the time that Isaiah would have begun his prophetic career, Israel is conquered by the nation of Assyria.  Now, Assyria in the 8^th century is the world’s superpower and is creating the largest empire the world has ever seen … So the small little nation of Judah, you can imagine, is simply waiting for the massive army to march south and conquer them, just as they have conquered Israel.

Its important to understand that to be conquered by a foreign nation is to lose all certainty.  You may be exiled to another land, you may lose the freedom to worship your God … or you may simply be killed.  No matter what it ends up looking like, though, its not going to be good.

Now, I want you to keep Keep that history in mind as we listen to these word from Elie Weisel’s Night:

ILLUSTRATION OF EXPECTANT WAITING

At four o’clock in the afternoon of the same day, as usual the bell summoned all the heads of the blocks to go and report. They came back shattered. They could only just open their lips enough to say the word: evacuation. The camp was to be emptied, and we were to be sent farther back.

Where to? /// To somewhere right in the depths of Germany, to other camps; there was no shortage of them.

“When?” /// “Tomorrow evening.”

“Perhaps the Russians will arrive first.” /// “Perhaps.” /// We knew perfectly well that they would not.

The camp had become a hive. People ran about, shouting at one another. In all the blocks, preparations for the journey were going on. I had forgotten about my bad foot.  A doctor came into the room and announced: “Tomorrow, immediately after nightfall, the camp will set out. Block after block. Patients will stay in the infirmary. They will not be evacuated.”

This news made us think. Were the SS going to leave hundreds of prisoners to strut about in the hospital blocks, waiting for their liberators? Were they going to let the Jews hear the twelfth stroke sound?

Obviously not. /// “All of the invalids will be summarily killed,” said the faceless one. “And sent to the crematory in a final batch.”

“The camp is certain to be mined,” said another. “The moment the evacuation’s over, it’ll blow up.”

As for me, I was not thinking about death, but I did not want to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much, borne so much together; this was not the time to be separated.

I ran outside to look for him. The snow was thick, and the windows of the blocks were veiled with frost. One shoe in my hand, because it would not go onto my right foot, I ran on, feeling neither pain nor cold. /// “What shall we do?”

CONNECT TO TEXT

This is one of the milder scenes from the novel and yet, it conjures up the depths of human fear and anxiety in a way that may help us feel the weight of what Israel and Judah were going through when Isaiah comes on the scene.

A few comparisons: In Auschwitz there is the threat of evacuation :: in Judah there is the threat of being conquered and exiled, while in Israel, those things have already happened. /// In Auschwitz, there is a faint hope that; a waiting; a life and death need for the Russians to show up and liberate the captives :: in Israel that same hope and waiting and need is put on YHWH. /// For Weisel, above all else, he is afraid of being separated from his father :: and at the heart of the fear of exile from Jerusalem is the fear of being separated from the Temple and from the Promised land … these things are the identity of the Jewish people and to be separated from them is to be separated from YHWH … from their father… It can leave you numb, only able to ask the question “What shall we do?”  “What CAN we do?”

CONNECT TEXT TO PRESENT

Now, in the Christian church, we believe that the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament is holy scripture and therefore we should be able to glean wisdom from these stories … and yet, it can be incredibly difficult to relate … right?  We are not living in, or even under the threat of conquest and exile.  I doubt if any of us in this room have endured the conditions that were endured by Weisel and his father, who was eventually beaten to death, in Auschwitz … and I actually think that it would be wrong to assume that we can fully understand their perspective unless we’ve actually been there ourselves.

I think that there is a common Christian understanding that defines Advent as the season in which we remember our understanding of this part of the story … In other words, Advent is remembering Israel, or even the world, as it waited on Jesus.  And while that is true in some ways, it would do us well to remember that the Jews weren’t waiting on Jesus … they were waiting on the day of the Lord … the day when all things would be made right and humanity would live in harmony with creation and creator, and that’s not how Jesus showed up!  At least not yet.

It’s difficult for me to believe that an understanding of Advent that is only about what has already happened sometime in the past isn’t also an understanding of the scriptures that doesn’t give its stories any freedom to speak into our lives today.

Maybe we think this way because we’ve been told that Jesus’ resurrection marked the end of the race and that our waiting is over … or maybe we just don’t like waiting and its easier to pretend we don’t see the unfinished, unacceptable state of the world in which we live.

But I believe that it is fair and true to say that we are still living in a world that exists in painful need of redemption.  In many parts of the world, genocide is still a reality; children are dying simply because they can’t get a clean drink of water, or enough food.  War continues to plague this planet, and that one starts to touch home.  We’re still in Iraq, and regardless of your political ideas about that war, I doubt that anyone would argue against the claim that war is not a good way of life … necessary or not … war is a way of death.

Let’s bring it even closer to home; according to the CDC, the divorce rate for the US in 2009 was exactly 50%.  Half of the relationships that come to life on account of love end up falling apart … end up dying.

Beyond that, 1 out of 10 persons over the age of 18 in the US suffers from some form of depression … that means this one touches someone in this room.

And I’m sure you’ve seen it in the news recently, that in the month of September 2010 alone … one month … at least six gay youth — all of whom endured a relentless stream of taunts and oppression by their classmates — ended their own lives.

I could go on and on, but there’s no need … the glaring, obvious truth of our current situation, is that SIN is still very alive and extremely powerful throughout our entire world … and we live in captivity to it.  We still live as exiles from the garden.

State the Problem

Life as we know it is not as it ought to be … it is incomplete; and just like Israel waited on the day of the Lord, and just like the Jewish prisoners of WWII waited on their liberators—so we still wait!  For much of the world—even for privileged us—life isn’t even the right word.

In the second half of John 10:10, Jesus is quoted as having said “I have come that they might have life…” – in Greek the four English words “they, might, have, life” are expressed in one word, and it is in the subjunctive case, meaning “not yet & not definitely.”  In other words, Jesus recognizes that incarnation doesn’t yet make real life a reality for humans.  And as the first church new and we just re-stated, neither does resurrection immediately fix things.

Our reality is still waiting.  And in the narrative that we’ve been given as Christians, what we are waiting for is heaven, right?

“For Israel, thought they may have used slightly different language, their reality is our reality … waiting on the day of the Lord.

It is in the midst of this waiting that Isaiah speaks these words … of imaginative, expectant hope—of advent—expecting the day of the lord … imagining heaven. But Isaiah doesn’t use the same kind of language we do to talk about heaven, does he?

I don’t know your experiences with conversations about heaven, but in my own experience and observation, we think about, and talk about, and even expect heaven in really intangible ways … and that’s not a bad thing, because I think it represents the truth that heaven is beyond our comprehension, but I want to read a couple of descriptions of heaven that I found online, and you tell me if they inspire you;

From GodANDScience.org – “The characteristics of the new creation tell us that it will be vastly different from what we are used to on earth. Probably the most noticeable difference will be the lack of gravity. The New Jerusalem is described as a 1,500 mile cube. Structures of this size would automatically become a sphere in this universe, because of gravity. Therefore gravity will either be absent or significantly reduced in the new creation.”

Not very exciting; not very imaginative; who cares? I personally don’t find any value in this kind of description of heaven.

From CBN – Heaven is where God is. He is the light of heaven, the joy of heaven. As you mature in your understanding of the Bible, you realize there is no material concept of heaven that will do it justice. The Bible talks about streets of gold as clear as crystal and walls made out of precious stones (see Revelation 21:18-21). All sorts of images immediately come to mind when we mention heaven. More than anything else, heaven is a spiritual condition where one spiritual being is in touch with another spiritual being, and there is total communication and fellowship.  Whatever we consider to be a joy here on earth will be heightened millions of times beyond anything we can conceive when we get to heaven. The apostle Paul put it this way: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (I Corinthians 2:9).

To me this is vague – veiled in Christian language that sounds good, but what does it mean?  This kind of description may be of value, but still is not imaginative … there is no expectation of anything tangible, and so it is hard to find any real hope in these types of descriptions of heaven.

Walter Brueggeman, in his book The Prophetic Imagination, says that “it is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order … because we are energized not by that which we already posses, but by that which is promised and about to be given.”

I believe that this is precisely what Isaiah is doing in this passage.  Let’s look at it again to see what Isaiah imagines for the communities in Jerusalem and in exile … and, as we’ll see, for the whole of humanity.

²In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house [will] be established as the highest of the mountains, and [will] be raised above the hills; all the nations [will] stream to it.

YHWH will teach us the ways of GOD so that we may walk in God’s paths.” Out of Zion will go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

⁴YHWH [will] judge between the nations, and [will] arbitrate for many peoples; [and] they [will] beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation [will] not lift up sword against nation, neither [will] they learn war any more.

⁵O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

BIG IDEA – Isaiah’s response to a world of war, and uncertainty, and exile … is to imagine, expect, and proclaim a day in which YHWH, the one, true God, will undo those things that hinder and destroy life, and do something altogether new!

This is a specific, poetic, imaginative expression of a new reality that challenges the current way of existence, and I, like a good Presbyterian, think that Isaiah challenges the old order in three ways:

1. 1. Wherever there is feared and realized separateness -> All Nations will stream to God’s House
2. 2. Wherever there is injustice -> YHWH will teach us the ways of God & will judge between nations
3. 3. And finally, wherever there is violence & death  -> the new reality is that “they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation [will] not lift up sword against nation, neither [will] they learn war any more.”

To me, the end of verse 4 is the climax of this passage and the statement that ties it all together.  It is the most poetic and the most totalizing statement that Isaiah makes here; and in a beautiful metaphor Isaiah says this:

All of the things that once promoted violence, the very instruments of death, will not be cast off into non-existence, but will actually be transformed into instruments of life; plowshares and pruning hooks are farming tools that allowed people to eat from the ground … specifically to eat food that doesn’t have to be slaughtered.  Isaiah’s imaginative vision of the day of the Lord /// is a vision of death moving in reverse.

It’s an incredibly powerful vision, especially in light of the idea that the words life & death encompass far more than physical existence and a pulse.

If death is separation and injustice, the lack of love and grace … if death is believing that you are better than someone else, or if it is self-hatred, then what does Isaiah’s vision do to those things?

What parts of your life aren’t life at all, but are actually shaped by the instruments of death?  And are you able to expect a day when those things are totally reversed? That is the kind of advent that we are invited into!  Not just a wish or desire, but a real vision; real belief, in the midst of uncertainty and exile …

Isaiah does not offer Israel a solution, but rather, in advent, offers an energizing vision of the future that has been promised. Advent is hopeful, expectant, imaginative waiting on the day of the Lord, and IT IS OUR REALITY!

Embrace it!  Learn the art of imaginative Advent, because anything less is simply waiting for death to finish its work!

PAUSE ///

It’s worth noticing the last verse of this passage.  This is the genius of Isaiah:  He doesn’t paint this vision of the day of the Lord and then move immediately into the berating that will come in the rest of chapter two, but instead realizes that the vision of God’s future is one that has the power to energize people … to energize nations!  And so, at the climax of the of imaginative vision … at the point where he says, DEATH WILL LITERALLY START GOING BACKWARDS AND REAL, TRUE, AUTHENTIC LIFE WILL EMERGE INTO A TOTALIZING REALITY, he inserts a simple invitation: ⁵O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

“I know you’re scared, I know you’re not living the life that you were created to live and that sin has its claws in you, but it won’t always be that way—these are the ways of the Lord—now COME … let’s start living them!”

PAUSE ///

You see, the thing about imaginative advent is that it energizes people to “live into reality” the new creation that has been promised and made known to them.  For Israel, their reality was a world of war … of swords and spears; a little imagination turned those weapons into farm tools and invited a better, fuller way of life.

What’s your reality?  And what will you do with just … a little … imagination?

A Conversation …

Do You love me?

What could I do that would convince you?

I don’t know … have that rabbit jump up on my lap and nustle his head against me lovingly.

You’d forget in a month and be asking the same question … Do you trust Me?

I think so.

I’ve spoken love to you since before you were conceived and I still do that.

But I NEED to feel your love now! I have this huge responsibility and expectations to live up to and people to impact for YOUR kingdom and I don’t even feel like you are with me. I feel like I will fail … and in some ways I don’t even want to succeed. My desires have changed and I don’t know why or when. That scares me and I don’t like it. I has been a while since I’ve been reminded…

Has it?

I don’t know … how do you show me your love?

My mercies are new every day.

Do I have issues?

Yes … sin. But I love you. I want what is best for you; and what is best for you is best for everyone because you have my love inside of you … you will come back into the light, but in the meantime, be assured that I am always with you. Look for me and rely on me and you will be free!

Can’t Believe I’m Writing This …

I recently finished reading Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction and was inspired to write (or to think, then to write).  The book is pretty incredible, as most of his stuff is … Eugene is kind of an author-mentor of mine … and yes, we’re on a first name basis.  Either way, I’ve gone off on a tangent; back to the point.

While I was struck by a number of different ideas that were presented in the book, one, towards the very end, seemed to strike a particular nerve within my psyche.  In speaking of practicing obedience in blessing or worshipping our Creator, Peterson has the following to say:

“We are invited to bless the Lord; we are commanded to bless the Lord.  And then someone says, ‘But I don’t feel like it.  And I won’t be a hypocrite.  I can’t bless God if I don’t feel like blessing God.  It wouldn’t be honest.

The Biblical response to that is ‘Lift up your praising hands to the Holy Place, and bless GOD!’  You can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; it is a simple motor movement.  You may not be able to command your heart, but you can command your arms.  Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise.  We are psychosomatic beings; body and spirit are intricately interrelated.  Go through the motions of blessing God and your spirit will pick up the cue and follow along. ‘For why do men lift their hands when they pray? Is it not that their hearts may be raised at the same time to God?'”

I’ll just go ahead and say it … this makes me very uncomfortable.

[As a note of precaution, the rest of the post has the potential to be slightly offensive; I am simply explaining my experience and opening up conversation, not claiming that my experience is more valid, legitimate, or God-pleasing than anyone else’s.  Hope you’ll join in the conversation!]

I don’t know exactly why hand-raising is such big deal to me, but it always has been; I’ve never really felt like raising my hands in worship … it always seemed unnatural to me, and so consequently, I’ve had a hard time understanding people who’s hands, seemingly involuntarily, shoot up in the air every time they hear delay on an electric guitar riff.

My experience of corporate worship has ventured into a number of different settings, from the medium-sized presbyterian church that I grew up in, to high school FCA (the denominational mutt), to the mega-churches that I’ve either worked for or been a part of since the beginning of college, to youth workers conferences, to emergent church cohorts … I’ve seen a lot of hand raising … sometimes even convinced myself, begrudgingly though it may have been, to join in , but there was always this one little issue that I had with it; I have always believe that raising of hands in worship was a display of how close to God the person was feeling in the moments of worship.  And though I realize that this is not definitely true, the act has often seemed to me to give off a little bit of a “hey everyone, look how spiritual I am” vibe.  I remember not liking, or at least not trusting the hand-raisers in high school and college and thought that they were being hypocrites by acting so “showy” in corporate worship settings, but then living no differently than the rest of us.

On a few occasions I was coerced by worship leaders into raising my hands in worship. I don’t remember feeling any different other than simply becoming uncomfortable and worrying what people were thinking about me.  If they thought the same things about me that I thought about other hand-raisers, my feelings were certainly going to be hurt.  But what choice did I have?  The cool-haired worship leader had convinced me that I wasn’t really worshipping God with my whole self if my hands weren’t in the air.

I’ve often wondered why God would care whether or not my hands were up … it just seemed a bit arbitrary to the act of worship.  Kneeling, even laying prostrate, I could understand (though I am no more comfortable with either of those actions).  At least they are symbolizing the subjection of self to the authority of God in a kind of “Wayne and Garth: We’re not worthy” way … if anything, raising hands usually seems like the opposite, does it not?

And, though I do not believe this to be the primary purpose of acts of worship, I do wonder what the non-Christian thinks when he or she see a commercial selling a worship album full of songs that debuted 20 years ago, and the images are of thousands of jubilant Christians with hands high in the air, singing to their Lord.  My educated guess is that the majority are not seeing those images and thinking, “How can I get what those people have?” but rather, they are thinking “What a bunch of naive, elitist, arrogant people.”  And in a way, I can’t blame people for thinking this way.

What’s interesting is that Eugene doesn’t talk about raising hands in worship as a response to feeling a certain way (namely, particularly close to God), but as an act of obedience, designed to be a catalyst to feeling, or at least to changing the state of the heart … this is a whole new concept for me, and off the bat, seems to make much more sense of hand-raising as an act of worship.

The difference is subtle, but significant.  What if rather than raising our hands because we are so overwhelmed by how “saved we are” we raised hands because of how broken we are and how saved we still need to be … not as a show of our closeness to God in a given moment, but in response to knowing that our heart is far from God – reaching out in need/desire/hope to connect with God when the reality of our heart and our world is that humanity’s relationship with the Divine is still broken.

The action could no longer be thought of as the self-affirming act of pious Christians, but as the obedience of real people of faith, who know that their hearts are easily distracted and deceived.

Does this motivation for a given posture of worship not fit more cleanly into the narrative which we have been given in the Scriptures?  The Bible is a story of the people of God, old and new testaments, constantly being pursued by God, but rarely responding adequately.  It is a story of tearing sackcloth and crying out “my God, Why have you forsaken me?” … of captivity and crying out “Deliver us!”

And it is our story.  We at the same time live in exile because of ourselves and deliverance because of God. We choose distance, but God chooses closeness; and so all we can do in worship is to reach out in obedience – in spite of ourselves – knowing that God accepts our physical reach, even when our emotional/intellectual/spiritual ascent is nowhere to be found, and uses that reach to transform our hearts and even raise them up to God’s self, so that even our ability to worship God calls for our gratitude.

–

I don’t know how much of this is theologically defendable, but I do know that it is easier for me to write than it will be for me to do … maybe because theory is rarely reality, and patterns and perceptions are hard to change.  So how do those of us who have lived in discomfort with hand-raising (our own and that of others) adequately respond to the commands in scripture to raise our hands in worship – and to the challenge put forward by Eugene and other authors to do this as an act of obedience having nothing to do with feeling beyond acknowledging its lacking?

Comments encouraged 🙂