Calling Him King

Here in the birthplace of modern Democracy most Americans remain hopelessly and happily clueless regarding the vagaries of royal rule. While we look fondly across the pond at the tabloid tales of the House of Windsor, never hiding our fascinations and even occasional envies toward kings, queens, and all things royal, the vast majority of us seem to prefer our own form of meritocratic governance, one whose most popular notions of monarchs are safely limited to The Lion King.

So we do not, admittedly, take the same insight or baggage to the table that Brits, Swedes or Ethiopians do when we walk into church this weekend to celebrate the annual feast of Christ the King.

While what it’s like to have that person’s face on our money may be beyond us, most of us probably still have general notions of what it might be like to live under royal rule. We imagine that the citizenry would expect to receive some important things like; protection against malevolents at home and abroad, justice in settling disputes, evenhanded punishment for transgressors, and a general economic framework for living a prosperous life, to name a few.

In exchange we subjects would agree to surrender most everything to the king; our taxes, our obedience, our respect and honor, and our ultimate loyalties, which, in times of unrest, would mean consignment to the military and perhaps the gift of our lives for our king.

Calling Christ our King is a bit like that. For this Sunday is ultimately a feast of surrender. It is our annual invitation to contemplate our deepest loyalties, our obedience, our respect, our possessions, honor, and ultimate commitments. What does it mean, for example, to truly honor Jesus – in our drive to work, our water cooler conversations, and the way we treat telemarketers? What does it mean to respect the things that we freely admit do not belong to us; our homes, cars and our bodies? In what ways do we give the king his due – do we really consider that a portion of our money and possessions might belong to Someone else?

This feast comes at a fitting time for me, and maybe you too, because there are so many things in my life vying for this same allegiance and commitment. So this Sunday I will ask; how can I surrender more? How might I bring more honor, respect and loyalty to the One whom all this, and more, is due?

Reading
Tefillin – Martin Sandberg
The Bottom Billion – Paul Collier
Inclusion: Making Room for Grace – Eric Law

Left Behind

I’ve been Left Behind.

Literally.

While entranced readers (63 million and counting) have made Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ ‘Left Behind’ series one of the most popular book series of our generation, I am still rather indifferent about the whole thing.
Yes, Publisher’s Weekly says it’s the most successful Christian fiction series ever, the New York Times and Chicago Tribune have said positive things about them, and many people, maybe even you, think these are the most influential books we’ve seen since the Bible. Yet little old me, with a library of chock full of hundreds of Christian books, has yet to crack the spine of even one (of about 20) of these bestsellers.

Sure, I have never been much into fiction, even science fiction, but I must say that the biggest reason I’ve steered away is because this series is based on the biblical book of Revelation, and more to the point, an interpretation of apocalyptic writings that just doesn’t sit very well with me.

This Sunday many of us will hear Mark 13 read from our pulpits – this is a ‘mini-apocalypse’ that is full of Revelation-like images, symbols and warnings. Just like Revelation, it mimics Old Testament and Apocryphal imagery with dire warnings of the coming day of the Lord. Through the centuries interpreters have had a field day concocting kooky links between modern events with apocalyptic writings. Martin Luther thought it so full of potential pitfalls he suggested removing Revelation from his New Testament Canon. John Calvin simply avoided it all by writing commentaries on every New Testament book except Revelation.

Colorful, mind-stretching, difficult to interpret – sure. But apocalyptic writings continue to keep their place in the canon because each generation seems to figure out what the real purpose of this kind of literature is. It’s not really about foretelling the future. It’s about encouraging faithfulness, patience, discipline and single-mindedness through tough times.

Sure, no one at my suburban church is facing the kind of serious persecutions that the first hearers of Revelation or Mark 13 were facing – the only time I see Christians going to the Lions here in Detroit is on game day. However, we are all still facing the kinds of things that Jesus warns us about when he says, “Beware that no one leads you astray.”

For then, as now, we are tempted to lose sight of the goal. Every day we face a myriad of distractions and diversions that keep us from keeping the main thing, the main thing. Just like Mark’s audience, we face the real peril of amnesia – forgetting who we are, and assuming a different identity simply because we want to avoid pain or amass worldly gain. What are some of the things tempting to lead us astray today? How are we addressing them? Are we cool with it?

Reading
The Book of Revelation (Commentary) – Robert Mounce
The Book of Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary – Leon Morris
Strength for the Journey – Peter Gomes

Guilt vs. Pride

Many of us may be thinking that the timing of this Sunday’s Gospel reading, on ‘The Widow’s Mite,’ was purposely chosen for the fall fundraising season (‘Stewardship Season’ is the norm in Episcopal churches this time of year). It was selected, you may be thinking, as a way to guilt the pew warmers into coughing up more money for the church and also make an example out of this poor widow; that we are not acceptable to God until we sign over everything we own to the Church. “Yes, you can make your checks out to St. David’s in Southfield, Michigan…”

But what if we were to read this text a bit differently, as some theologians have suggested, and look at this encounter not as a lesson in selfless giving, but as an example of selfish pride run amuck. Not, of course, on the part of the widow, but on the part of the Temple elite who had concocted a shady religious system in which God was not the main beneficiary, they were. Let’s take a closer look.

As we know, this story (found both in Mark and Luke) comes on the tails of Jesus’ observations regarding the religious leaders of his day. Jesus warns, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes…” He then points out their self-centered prayers, processions through the market places, and the taking of the best seats at worship services and banquets. This observation is followed by another, that of the widow giving all she has to the Temple Treasury. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Try reading this last statement like the first - as a simple declaration as to what’s going on. Now imagine this paraphrase, “What a tragedy for religion to look like this! That poor woman has to give away everything she has to meet Temple approval. She has been taught and encouraged to donate as she does, now she has nothing left to take care of herself or anyone else who might be in her household.”

The two texts, if they are interpreted this way, become a unified declaration against what has been called our biggest, most lingering sin: pride. For it was a prideful clergy that concocted such a self-perpetuating, get rich scheme as this in order to line their pockets, not to prepare for the Kingdom of God. It was a prideful system that did not recognize God even when he walked up and introduced himself. It was a prideful system that led to death rather than life.

Whenever Scripture describes the colliding of kingdoms, as it does here, I often think of the ways that I may be contributing to the wrong side. In what ways does pride weasel its way into modern religious life? In what ways do our frameworks of introducing others to Christ get derailed and sidetracked by our own desires for respect, honor and praise?

Religious shammery (if this is a word) has been around for a long time as we, too often, choose the comforts of religious frameworks over the difficult and liberating work of giving ourselves totally (another theme in this reading) to the call and work of Christ. In what ways might we identify and address these?


Reading
The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman
A People’s History of Christianity – Diana Butler Bass
Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes – Kenneth Bailey
To read more about this take on ‘The Widow’s Mite’ see http://www.visionsofgiving.org/widowsmite.htm

All Saints' Rising

We all knew she was going to die.
It was Grandma, for Pete’s sake.
She was well into her 80’s, her health was not good, and she’d begun to get snappy these past few years. She was angry, uncomfortable, and had told us more than once that she wanted nothing more than to see her husband, her parents and her Savior.
Yet we did not want her to go.

For a week she hung on, after her sudden collapse on the bedroom floor.
She had a single room at St. Joe’s.
We took turns visiting.
She slept mostly, moved a bit, but we couldn’t be sure if it was she or the medicine doing it.

She was no Lazarus, struck down in the prime of life, to the awe and surprise of family and friends. But we were Mary and Martha asking similar questions - saddened, mourning, crying. Why did grandma have to go now? I know others, alert and vibrant, who live, work even drive well into their 90s, why couldn’t grandma be one of them? There were great grandchildren to meet, stories to tell, advice to give and holidays to round out. What would it be like not to have that familiar presence – that voice, that laugh, that touch – that had been with us ever since any of us could remember?

We came to the Master’s feet with our Lazarus-tomb questions: ‘Why her?’ ‘Why now?’ ‘Only if!’ And we imagined the myriad of alternative scenarios.

Oh yes, the Master did finally come. Jesus had heard us. God knew how out of sorts we were. And He showed up on the scene. But in the end, He was too late. Grandma died. And Jesus joined us. He stood there in room 717 and wept right along with the rest of us. We were not the only ones grieving.

It is a pain relived at this time every year as we lift up this memory, and countless others - of all the souls and all the saints who have touched our lives, who indeed are here, but here no more. The miracle we look for is not that of a man wrapped in burial cloths arising like some haunted house mummy, rather it is one that carries every bit as much meaning as did the miracle witnessed by Mary and Martha. For we are assured, by the testimony of Scripture, the promises of our fore bearers, and the strange warming of our hearts that this life is not all there is. Our miracle is the promise and reality of new life.

All Saints’ Day reminds us of this. It tells us that a thin veil is all that separates those who live on this side of eternity or the other. And the miracle of Lazarus raised reminds us that we will all be raised. We will reunite with loved ones one day. Death has been overcome. God has that kind of power.

In what ways can we remind ourselves of God’s eternal plans for us?
How can we better convince ourselves that God is in control of our destiny?
What things can we let go of, knowing that God, ultimately is in charge?


Reading
Mixed Blessings – Barbara Brown Taylor
A People’s History of Christianity – Diana Butler Bass
World Without End – Ken Follett

Despite Bartimeaus

Don’t we all wish it was just that easy…

“Hey Jesus, it’s me, ya the blind one… or the poor one… or the one without a job… or the one with the goofy nose.” (You can fill in the blank however you’d like.)
“And I have faith and I want healing, food, employment, plastic surgery.” (Again, fill in the blank.)
“Go ahead, wave that magic wand!” we say, “We heard you did it for blind Bartimaeus in Jericho, It was so simple for you. All he did was call your name, tell you what he wanted and bingo! So have at it, do your stuff! I’m waiting!...”

And wait we do.
In the doctor’s office, the bread line, the unemployment line…
Drumming our fingers, furrowing our brows, taking another hit of Maalox…
Sure we pray… till we’re blue in the face… in a lot of different ways… in special places… to special people.
Visit the Pentecostal Revival tent. Bury a statue of St. Joseph in the yard.
And when we don’t get what Bartimeaus got we react in a number of different ways.

Some of us get angry. We no longer talk to God. We boycott church, refuse to pray, anything to get back at that capricious charlatan who obviously doesn’t think I’m worth listening to. Sure, our anger doesn’t help matters, but it makes us feel better.

Some of us give up on God. We consider our experiences proof that there is no God. So we focus more on logic, reason and rationale, all the while ignoring the mysterious parts of our souls that opened our eyes to faith in the first place. We shun the Spirit’s tugs and tingles. Sunsets become ‘geological phenomenon.’ All is dismissed as fairy tale, innuendo, and the leftovers of a work-in-process evolutionary progression.

This story of ecstatic healing becomes a tale of cold betrayal.
The intimate becomes distant.
Joy becomes pain.

Some of us have been told we need faith like Bartimeaus.
But most of us need faith despite Bartimeaus.

For at the very moment of heightened doubt, when we are convinced God has done nothing and once again left us out in the cold, let us remind ourselves that God, indeed, has done something. God has come among us. God has become one of us. And God has not simply come down to our level - God has gone lower. From the peaks of heaven to the pit of hell, Jesus came to endure for us what we would never want for our worst enemy. No, we never, ever suffer alone. There is no place on earth where you and I must look up to Jesus, for He is always right next to us.

And lest we think we are alone in our suffering, desperation and abandonment, let us remember that whatever’s happened to us has also been experienced by God in the flesh. No matter how bad things are, how angry, depressed or forgotten we feel, God knows what it’s like to go through that, and worse. Because when you and I think that at least God hasn’t killed us, we also remember, oh yeah, he saved that for Jesus.


The Road to Daybreak – Henri Nouwen
The Source – James Michener
Jesus - Borg

Follow

OK, I’ll admit it, for ambitious people like me this Sunday’s reading, about the demands of James and John to, “grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left” is more than a bit off-putting. After all, I never had an ambition to be ambitious it just came to me.

Maybe the great psychoanalyst Alfred Adler was right in positing ambition as humanity’s dominant impulse. While Sigmund Freud contended that sex was our governing urge, Adler argued that the quest for recognition, our desire for attention, is the basic drive of human life.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus didn’t come down too hard on the brothers Zebedee for their incredibly self-centered and obnoxious request. He didn’t even call them on the carpet when they immediately agreed, ‘Yes Lord, we’ll drink the cup you drink and take the baptism you’ll take!’ It’s as if they’re 4-year-olds demanding a Golden Retriever from Mom and Dad, and just as willingly agreeing, ‘Sure I’ll take him for a walk three times a day, play fetch till it’s dark and donate all my allowance to feed him until I’m 17!’

No, Jesus let James and John down ever so gently – he did not fault them for being ambitious, rather he sternly corrected them for being ambitious about the wrong things.

How many times have you and I been ambitious about the wrong things? How many relationships, possessions or experiences did we spend incredible energy to acquire only to find out it was not what we thought it was?

Check out this video to see what I mean (especially if you’re the parent of a teenaged girl).


Misdirected ambition is arguably humanity’s biggest fault. We think we know what we want, we go for it, and we find that in taking the lead we would have been much better off to have followed. And when we finally agree to follow, we find that Jesus does not take away our ambitions, He simply realigns them.

For human ambitions are often God-given, God-directed, and are at their best when they find their fulfillment in service. It is often seen when millionaires use their business acumen to clean up urban schools, good parents open up their homes to foster kids, and when you and I realize that our gifts were not given to us solely for our own pleasure and boasting, but to do God’s work.

Do any of our ambitions need redirecting?
How might the Lord be calling us to redirect them?

Reading
Among the Lilies – Ronald Rolheiser
Eventide- Kent Haruf
Microtrends-Mark Penn

Let the Children Come… With Purell

There she stood, as still as a sentry, as observant as any FBI agent on Presidential Guard Detail – our friend Carolyn, manning her post alongside my wife and our new baby on his first day in church. As so many people tried to make their way to the baby’s side found out; before you could get to baby, you had to pass by Carolyn, who was armed and ready with a big old bottle of Purell. ‘Wash your hands before you touch mine!’ reads the little red hexagonal sign pinned to baby’s car carrier. In these days of flu shots, viruses, random germs, N1H1, Mad Cow, Hanta, you name it - new parents take every precaution. We all understand this, and we all dutifully obey.

Yet this scene carried out in of all places, a church, couldn’t help but make my mind wonder… When Jesus bid the little children, ‘Come!’, as Mark 10 tells us, which of the disciples would have been the designated Purell holder? Would it have been Thomas who doubted Jesus’ divinity nearly until the end? Would it have been John, ‘the beloved disciple,’ who would’ve been more concerned about a child giving Jesus a cold rather than vice versa? Would it have been Judas, who would have bought the generic brand and pocketed the difference?

What’s more, would Mother Mary have taken Joseph to task in that smelly manger, reminding the new (old) father that no shepherd, angel or drummer boy could approach this pastoral setting without, first, a squirt of cold gelatinous antiseptic? And would these parents have been as obsessed with cleanliness as we are? Or would there have been the few waivers issued by dutiful parents who give a free pass to Popes and mothers-in-laws? And would Jesus have shared their concerns for cleanliness? Would Jesus have requested a Purell Sentry through which everyone would have to pass before coming in contact with Him?

The ways you and I approach God are studded with concerns like this. We have barriers of our own that keep us from Jesus. We skip our daily prayers because we’ve had a spat with our spouse or neighbor and feel hypocritical. We abstain from the Eucharist because we’ve been less than honest with our taxes. We skip church out of guilt over an affair. It seems like there is always a barrier between God and us. It seems like we are always looking out for some sentry that will keep us from approaching the throne of Grace.

If Jesus’ ministry teaches us anything, it is that no such sentry exists. Jesus’ mission was to remove them - every barrier that would keep you and me from God. Jesus turned over the moneychangers’ tables at the Temple and tore the curtain in the Temple in two. And this Thanksgiving season (Canadian is Monday) reminds us that more than a meal and the founding of this great country, you and I give thanks to a Christ who has given us 24/7 access to the Father.

Dear friends, there is nothing that can keep us from coming to Jesus, no sin, shortcoming or human ritual. It’s because, more than anything, Jesus wants us to come – He died to get this point across. And He is bidding us today, as He did the little children, to come.
What’s keeping us?


Reading
Among the Lilies – Ronald Rolheiser
Microtrends – Mark Penn
Where God Happens – Rowan Williams