July 7th, 2008 -- Posted in Grace, Listen, Love, Remember |
I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov
I know so many people who are sad right now. And if you’re sad, please, please stop and take some time to listen to this podcast on suffering by Tim Keller. He is one of the few I’ve heard talk about suffering in a comedic, grace-filled way. You will be blessed.
Happy Birthday, my little lady. You are missed. Your brother Isaac wants to come see you. He is sure that your house smells like grapes.
July 3rd, 2008 -- Posted in Grace, Listen, Look, Speak |
The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
So fundamentalism is no different than any other ‘-ism’ really. It’s just more. And in the moralism game, the one who dies with the most rules wins! There are no people on the planet more disciplined than those in fundamentalism. It’s like the Marines of religions — stunning but dated uniforms, terrific defense and offense, and the cultivated knee-jerk response to comply without hesitation.
In fundamentalism you’ve got the haves and the have-nots — with the currency being not property, of course, but rules. As with any system, this bifurcation morphs into a spectrum. There are two poles–rules vs. no rules or law vs. license–and everybody actually lives somewhere in the middle. So conversations about a particular rule develop like this: “Pants on women are WRONG! Haven’t you read your Bible?” “Well, I actually like wearing skirts. It makes me feel more feminine.” “Well, I wear modest pants and never shorts.” “Huh? Pants are wrong? Says who?” Bring up any lifestyle rule among fundamentalists, and a similar spectrum will develop from the it’s-clearly-biblical position to the rules?-what-rules? position.
The stock resolution in these conflicts is always the same: balance. It’s not that you should not have any rules or that you should have too many. Instead you need to find that delicate, subjective balance between neo- and anti-nomianism.
The problem with the metaphor of balance is that it completely ignores the real problem. The problem is with the human scale that’s doing the weighing. It isn’t just. It isn’t sufficient. It’s flawed. We all have our fingers on the scale making sure that our side comes out ahead. “Well,” we think, “I don’t have as many rules as so-n-so. But at least I have more rules than they do! And I have a good reason for my rules!” And for those who wield more cultural power than another, judging and punishing those in our care is easier if we don’t communicate our standard of “balance” too explicitly. That way, those whom we serve can maintain themselves in fear a la Foucault.
On the same day that Isaac and I played War and “Little People,” I discovered another little gem from my childhood–If Jesus Came to My House. Isaac was captivated by the little sing-songy text, and so was Mommy by the end:
I know the little Jesus
can never call on me
in the way that I’ve imagined
like coming in to tea.
But though He may not occupy
my cozy rocking chair,
a lot of other people
would be happy sitting there.
And I can make Him welcome
as He Himself has said,
by doing all I would for Him
for other folk instead.
That’s it. That’s the Rule. God’s Rule. Not keeping a clean house per se or finishing a knitting project. And it’s the Extreme Golden Rule. It’s showing kindness to others because you are showing kindness to Christ when you do so. Since Luther would say, God is masked in our neighbors.
And it’s not a reserved, throw-a-couple-of-bucks-in-the-offering-plate kind of giving. It’s not as simple or as reactive as not chewing gum in church or wearing a skirt to class. It’s way, way more than that. It’s a feast. It’s anything but balanced! Lavish, a little too-too. Like buying the best perfume and washing Another’s feet with your hair. Or serving cailles en sarcophages to elderly rustics.
Martin Luther calls this serving our “vocation.” We all have vocations, and their purpose is not serving God as much as serving others. “God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does” Gustaf Wingren concludes. Gene Veith says it like this:
The person who has been justified by faith, who realizes the forgiveness of Christ and who is thereby changed by the Holy Spirit, is motivated by love, not by the rules and regulations and threats of the Law. The good works which follow, however, are not done, as is often piously said, “for God,” but for other people. Strictly speaking, we do not “serve God”–rather, He is always the one serving us; instead we serve our neighbors.
I always have to read that several times. Go ahead–read Veith’s article a few times too just to see how different it is from your fundamentalist background. Fundamentalism taught me to do everything for God. And if I wasn’t doing everything and I wasn’t doing everything for God, then I was guilty of sin and God didn’t want any part of it. That leads to an independent (cum solipsistic) kind of living as the most holy. Luther wouldn’t recognize this as Christian piety at all:
If you find yourself in a work by which you accomplish something good for God, or the holy, or yourself, but not for your neighbor alone, then you should know that that work is not a good work. For each one ought to live, speak, act, hear, suffer, and die in love and service for another, even for one’s enemies, a husband for his wife and children, a wife for her husband, children for their parents, servants for their masters, masters for their servants, rulers for their subjects and subjects for their rulers, so that one’s hand, mouth, eye, foot, heart and desire is for others; these are Christian works, good in nature.
Babette lived that. She served generously–so extravagantly that the pious she served didn’t even recognize her feast as a gift from God. They assumed it was nothing but carnality–sin. And it took a doubting General–a man not at all versed in their peculiar living–to point out the beauty they were missing.
Then there’s Tim Keller’s sermon on breaking the yoke of injustice. I’ve listened to that sermon three times now, and what Keller describes is the exact opposite of the fundamentalist ethic. Honestly, it’s one of the best antidotes to my own life as a Pharisee. I haven’t even digested it all. He talks about Shalom which is not just complying with authority, but a well-running, interdependent, healthy web of life that mirrors Luther on vocation. He describes the wicked not as simply sexual deviants, but as those who use their resources selfishly for only themselves (think Judas!) rather than for others (think Mary Magdalene!). Just hearing the introductory Scripture reading from Isaiah 58 alone has me scraping my jaw off the floor.
Babette demonstrates Keller’s ideal as well as Luther’s. Even when the far-from-peaceful pious are determined not to enjoy her gift, they can’t help themselves! That’s how well Babette serves. Her gracious dinner breaks down their walls. By the fruit course, they start to relish their meal, and over coffee they begin to forgive.
God calls us to a generous kindness. Doing good, loving mercy, and walking humbly. Shalom. As I face the very sentimentally heavy month of July, I’m praying that my part in this righteous Shalom will become obvious. May the chains of injustice be finally broken.
This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
Amen.
June 29th, 2008 -- Posted in Grace, Listen, Speak, Vent |
Jesus didn’t die for the stupid things we do. He died for our sins. If I just call my sin ’something stupid I did,’ I’m not truly repentant.
Jim Berg, BJU Dean of Students
In my perceiving and (over)reacting to other’s rules (both spoken and unspoken), I remember my own. I’ve got a ton of them. I tell myself that I’m a good mom today if I read to my kids, if we get our Green Hour in, if we eat enough (any!) fruits and veggies, and if I don’t yell. And I’m a good wife if I manage to feed my hubby a nice dinner, if I keep the house picked up — vacuumed, dishes away, laundry folded — and if I have sparkling conversation ready for dinner. I’m a good person if I exercise, if I lose some weight, and if I walk the dog.
Sometimes I do these things fairly faithfully. But I’m no SuperMom — even if Gavin bellows, “MOOOMMMMMYYYY” every time he sees a Wonder Woman toy. I goof. I fail. I can’t even keep up with my own rules.
During the corporate prayers of confession at church, you know what comes to my mind? Stupid things. And I mean, things that are more attributed to my normal human limits, not my sin. The smocking projects that I haven’t finished. The terrible state of the too-often-washed downstairs carpet. The cucumbers I forgot about and let rot in the veggie drawer. Knitting mistakes. The dishes I left in the sink. The emails I haven’t answered. The rust on my tomato plants. The fitness program that I’m avoiding.
Tim Keller cuts to the chase on this one often when he divides us all between moralists and secularists. Either you follow corporate rules religiously or you express yourself shamelessly. Either you’re a neo-nomian or an antinomian. Either you’re the Prodigal that stays or the Prodigal that leaves.
And neither works. Both are as Godless as the other.
Martin Luther talked about it too. He compared the theology of glory with the theology of the cross. Theologians of glory push a “proper righteousness” that appears good and attractive. They are very busy but are puffed up, blinded, and hardened in their activity. On the other hand, theologians of the Cross feature what Luther reasons seems like an “alien righteousness” that appears evil and ugly. Since they feature God’s sovereignty over salvation, they believe much (instead of doing much). Luther sums it all up by saying that “the law says ‘Do this’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this’ and everything is already done.”
Now I’ve been eating, sleeping, and breathing fundamentalism for 20+ years. I was an earnest follower, a committed apologist, and a firm ideologue. On top of that, I’ve devoted my professional life to trying to explain the way fundamentalists talk, and I don’t believe I should stop now that I’m just outside its walls.
In order for fundamentalism to work, you have to live it inside and outside and upside and downside. My brother’s prof at Ohio State, when he heard the salary rate at BJU, used to say “You can’t get bad people for that little. That salary guarantees a certain ideological devotion.” So the whole system supports a fervent loyalty. And if their ethic reads everything as a fight and then the fight turns internal and interpersonal, you end up scratching and clawing to prove that you’re loyal and to make sure you’re on the “right” (a.k.a. powerful) side.
Another way to say all that is to say that fundamentalists are expert moralists. Pros. Prodigals that hang around for years working to earn the Father’s love. Articulate theologians of glory. Their earnest sincerity only enhances their commitment. They believe in some sort of cosmic reciprocity for every deed. They see God as a taskmaster waiting to give bonuses to the good workers and charge fines to the lazy ones. I say this as a former fundamentalist myself. The moralistic side of Keller’s equation was my life.
And it still is. Don’t get me wrong. I still feel the Pharisee in me. I’m just fighting it now. There’s really not that big of a difference between me 10 years ago and me now. I know the Apostle Paul understood since he was a recovering Pharisee himself — the chief of sinners.
And so while the secularists overlook sin as merely normal expression, moralists hyper-focus on mistakes and call them sin.
What the moralistic theology of glory does is no different than noodling the rules for a card game or emotionally bludgeoning a playmate for not knowing an unspoken rule about which Barbie wears what. UGH! It’s such hypocrisy. I’ve erected this terrific set of rules (which looks an awful lot like a Dumb-Things-I-Gotta-Do-Today list), and I judge my cosmic worth on my accomplishing those things. It’s all part of those lies that we Christians tell ourselves in our scramble to live impeccably moral lives. We think if we can just do X-Y-Z we’re okay, and we judge everyone — or at least ourselves — by that standard.
My rules are not God’s rules. Plain and simple.
Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
Matthew 7
February 11th, 2008 -- Posted in Giggle, Listen, Look |
Isn’t that Dr. Gingery conducting? Recognize the Costume Room’s uniform but Crayola-box sense of style? Those chandeliers look familiar too. How about the hair off the face and shoulders? And “rolled”? And I’m sure they are all using the same tube of lipstick. Can you see the outline of the pit pads?
Ah. . . the memories. Or close to it.
January 20th, 2008 -- Posted in Grace, Listen |
At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground—God hadn’t yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)—God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!
Genesis 2:5-7
God sent me to announce the year of his grace—
   a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies—
   and to comfort all who mourn,
To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion,
   give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes,
Messages of joy instead of news of doom,
   a praising heart instead of a languid spirit.
Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness”
   planted by God to display his glory.
They’ll rebuild the old ruins,
   raise a new city out of the wreckage.
They’ll start over on the ruined cities,
   take the rubble left behind and make it new.
Isaiah 61
But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.
Luke 15
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2
First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
1 John 4
December 22nd, 2007 -- Posted in Listen, Look, Love, Remember |
It was an adventure birthday. With pirates and heroes, swords and boots. You can hardly tell the difference between our four-year-old and Link himself, can you?
Thanks for the adventure, Little One! From your birth to this fourth celebration! A wonderful adventure!
December 9th, 2007 -- Posted in Believe, Grace, Listen, Look, Remember, Speak |
Some time ago, a friend made a decision I didn’t understand. I admit that. As I was praying for her back then, I said outloud, “I think she did the wrong thing. But I want to be her friend. Lord, help me be a friend.”
In the months to follow, many people told me how sinful her decision was and how she was officially punished for it. God reminded me to pray, “Lord, help me be a friend.”
In time, I better understand her decision. And now I realize that the judgment that was so quickly my first resort is easy within my limited perspective. But Grace is the thing that reminds me that I’m bent toward judgment because of my own puny eyesight. It’s Grace that pushes me to assume Christ is there even when I can’t see Him.
Six years ago we lost our Elise. I know that God allowed that to happen. I knew it then as much as I do now. And yet days after she was born, my body was preparing to nurture a life that wasn’t there. My body literally ached for her. And my heart hurt. Those are contradictions: to want your baby so badly, but to know that God has her and that He’s good. How do I endure those tensions? The same way as with a friend’s decision I don’t understand — with His Grace.
Holidays are a sentimental time. I pull out ornaments from dear friends that remind me of their sweet, tender care over the years. Grant rolls out the Christmas play lists, and I remember the times we sat in the choir loft in our robes listening to that orchestral offertory as he whispered, “This Christmas will be the best one ever!” — anticipating that gift in 1988 that would anticipate our wedding in 1990. Those are treasured memories. God wanted us there. And He wants us here now. That is a sort of contradiction. But in His Grace, we can all still be friends, knowing that in Him we’re all His.
November 25th, 2007 -- Posted in Believe, Grace, Listen |
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the name,
The strong name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.
Prayer of St. Patrick
