Month: March 2011

Categories
Spirituality Theology

The Ventriloquist's Gospel

Recently I attended an event sponsored by a para-church organization that was aimed at evangelizing children and their parents.  The main attraction was a ventriloquist.  He was a skillful ventriloquist and his schtick was pretty funny.  By the end of thirty minutes, he had most of the audience on his side.

If you’ve ever been to this kind of evangelistic event, you will recognize what happened as his routine began to wind down.  Slowly he became serious.  It was time for the illustration, the connection between ventriloquism and the gospel.

“I speak for my ventroliquist dummies,” he said, “but before God, no one can speak for me or for you.”  He continued with the dilemma: “God is perfect and he can only let perfect things into his heaven.  But if you’ve done even one wrong thing, you aren’t perfect.”  Then, the product / solution:  “Now, God sent Jesus to die for you and so he has done everything necessary for you to get into his heaven.  But he has left one thing up to you — only you can do this one thing.”  And, the pitch:  “You need to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  Only you can do it.  Your parents, your grandparents, your church — they can’t do it for you.”  Finally, the close:  “Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes while we pray.  Maybe you want to pray these words….”

I don’t use the language of sales — dilemma, solution, pitch, close — to demean this man’s character.  He seemed to be, and I think he was, earnest and sincere in his desire to share the gospel.  Yet this language fairly describes, I think, the techniques that were employed.

Maybe “techniques” aren’t so bad.  All communication employs some methods, tropes and techniques.  But what if the drive to simplify the technique distorts the message?

Driving home from the event, I reflected on the message distilled into this exercise of technique.  

“Only perfect things can get in to God’s heaven.”  How distant is the idea of “getting in to God’s heaven” from the Bible’s vision of creation and new creation, of God’s purposes for the “very good” of each person and this world, of the physicality of the Resurrection!  The Gospel is good news precisely because — and only when — it unveils God’s transformation of this created world.

“God left one thing up to you….”  How vastly alien to the Biblical Gospel!  You and I on our own have gotten it all wrong.  We have bound ourselves to the addiction of sin.  The Gospel is good news precisely because — and only when — we realize that God did everything because we could do nothing. 

“Only you can do it — not your parents, your grandparents or your church.”  How utterly foreign to the Biblical ekklesia, the “body of Christ,” the authority given to loose and bind, the great cloud of witnesses of the saints through the ages!  Yes, God calls each of us to respond with  repentance, faith, worship, and good works.  But it is not all about you or me as individuals.  It is all about participation in Christ through participation with the Church.  The Church is the bearer of the Gospel’s good news precisely because — and only when — the individual sinner is enfolded into the community that is engrafted into the vine of Christ.  

This is the Gospel:  new creation!  This is the Gospel:  God did it because you cannot.!  This is the Gospel:  Christ lives in and through the Church because you cannot do this yourself! 

This is the invitation:  you are invited to participate in the Church, joined to Christ by the Grace of God, in the life of the new creation.

Categories
Daybook

Daybook: March 9, 2011

March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday

Lectionary

Psalm 32

Blessed is the one
   whose transgressions are forgiven,
   whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the one
   whose sin the LORD does not count against them
   and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent,
   my bones wasted away
   through my groaning all day long.
For day and night
   your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
   as in the heat of summer.

 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
   and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
   my transgressions to the LORD.”
And you forgave
   the guilt of my sin.

 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
   while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
   will not reach them.
You are my hiding place;
   you will protect me from trouble
   and surround me with songs of deliverance.

 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
   I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
   which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
   or they will not come to you.
Many are the woes of the wicked,
   but the LORD’s unfailing love
   surrounds the one who trusts in him.

 Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous;
   sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Reflection

“Sin is first of all unfaithfulness to the ‘Other,’ a betrayal.  For a long time now, sin has become reduced to morals.  And nothing leads away from God, from thirst for God, as precisely as these morals.  All morals consist first of all of bans and taboos….  A saint is thirsty not for ‘decency,’ not for cleanliness, and not for absence of sin, but for unity with God.  he does not live interested in himself (the introspection of a clean fellow), but in God.” — Fr. Alexander Schmemann

Prayer

God who waits
while we rush off
to spend the riches you’ve given us
on unworthy pursuits
that always end with us slopping with the pigs
in the mud.

God who waits
each morning outside the gates
straining into the distance
to see if we’ve finally begun,
once again,
the long and tired slog back home,
into your happy embrace,
into feasting and laughter and dance.

God who waits
here we are
now waiting with you.

Categories
Spirituality

Reading Journals

Last week I picked up a copy of The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann.  There is something beautiful about reading a thoughtful and spiritual person’s journals.  In Schmemann — in his formal theology of worship and liturgy and in his personal journals — I feel that I’m finding a kindred spirit.  Here is a person of great learning and insight, a theologian and pastor, who struggled with the daily grind of life and the difficulties of dealing with people in the Church, who often becomes quite discouraged, but who always returns to the practices that proclaim light and resurrection. 

Perhaps it’s particularly helpful that his ecclesiastical context — Eastern Orthodoxy in the 1970’s and 80’s — is so far removed from mine.  The joys and the problems are the same.  No one is immune — but also no one is alone.  Here, for example, is part of his entry for March 26, 1973:

Today, I thought about it all:  about the low level of church life, about fanaticism, lack of tolerance, the enslavement of so many people.  A ‘New Middle Ages’ is engulfing us in the sense of a new barbarian era.  Many churchmen are choosing and, what is worse, love Ferapont [a Dostoevsky character who is illiterate and rigid].  Especially ‘clear’ is the fact that all that is higher,  more complex, more difficult to comprehend — all this is a temptation and has to be destroyed….  If one remains in the system, one accepts it, albeit unwillingly, along with its methods.  If one leaves — in the role of a prophet or an accuser — one slides into arrogance and pride.  I feel constantly tortured and torn.

Or this on March 30, 1973:

Only when we write it down do we understand how much of our time is spent empty, how much fuss there is, not worthy of our attention, unimportant yet devouring our hearts.  All these days, in a state of total exhaustion as well as revulsion at the duties I need to be performing.  I find myself passively watching television.  But at the same time, when lecturing in the morning, I feel inspired again and again.

Or this, on October 22, 1974:

Yesterday we had a faculty meeting at our house.  Rather peaceful, but, Lord, how difficult it is for people not only to agree with each other, but simply to hear the other.  If it is the case with a small group of people who are essentially of one mind, what about the world at large?  Division and alienation are the essence of the original sin.  Unity can be restored only ‘in Christ.’

 Yes Father Schmemann — we need to hear this today again.

Categories
Daybook Spirituality

Daybook: Feb. 25 – March 8, 2011

February 25 – March 8, 2011

Lectionary

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of
destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my
footsteps firm.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of
praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the LORD.

Reflection

“I am convinced that if people would really hear Holy Week, Pascha, the Resurrection, Pentecost, the Dormition, there would be no need for theology. All of theology is there. All that is needed for one’s spirit, heart, mind and soul. How could people spend centuries discussing justification and redemption? It is all in these services. Not only is it revealed, it simply flows in one’s heart and mind. The more I live, the more convinced I am that most people love something else and expect something else from religion and in religion. For me this is idolatry, and it often makes contact with people so difficult.” — Fr. Alexander Schmemann

Prayer

God who waits
while we rush off
to spend the riches you’ve given us
on unworthy pursuits
that always end with us slopping with the pigs
in the mud.

God who waits
each morning outside the gates
straining into the distance
to see if we’ve finally begun,
once again,
the long and tired slog back home,
into your happy embrace,
into feasting and laughter and dance.

God who waits
here we are
now waiting with you.

Categories
Spirituality

A Lenten Blog Comment Fast

I really enjoy blogging, including commenting on others’ blogs, in many ways.  It has helped me clarify my thinking about many things.  It gives me an outlet to talk and debate about things I think are important.  At its best, I’ve learned from some really smart people, and have made a few virtual friends.

But, I am about to take a sabbatical from commenting on blogs, at least for my Lenten fast.  I’ll keep posting here at TGD — at the very least I’ll work on my Daybook — but I’ll be keeping comments closed and I won’t be commenting on other blogs.

I’d like to commend this idea of a Lenten blog comment fast to others, particularly if you’ve found this to be true in the past year (these are all things I’ve done):

  • You’ve managed to insult someone you admire.  I did this very recently to one of the public figures I admire most, someone I consider a sort of virtual mentor;
  • You’ve posted a blog comment in anger that displays your anger;
  • A debate in blog comments has distracted you from interactions with friends or family;
  • You’ve taken a tenuous position in a blog comment, a position you might not really want to endorse, to win a debate;
  • You’ve made assumptions about another commenter that turn out not to be true;
  • You’ve posted a comment primarily to get yourself noticed or bring attention to yourself;
  • A blog debate has caused you to lose sleep.

I could add to this list, but the picture is clear.  James 1:19-20 summarizes a wealth of Biblical wisdom on this:  “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

If you find, as I do, that when commenting on blogs you are often slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry — it’s time for a fast.

Categories
Spirituality Theology

McKnight on Blogging on Bell

Scot McKnight’s post today on the Rob Bell controversy is a must-must-read, both for its take on the topic in general and its exhortation to how we should discuss the topic. I reproduce it below.

I stood in horror watching the blogosphere light up last week, but my horror was not simply over the accusations made against an author whose book was not even yet available nor just over those who were denouncing Rob Bell for what they were absolutely certain was universalism. No the horror was that there was a volley of posts put up about hell. It looked like a tug of war between Love Wins! and Wrath Wins! Is this what we need? the way to proceed? the way to find resolution?

My horror, then, was three-fold: first, the image of God that is depicted when hell becomes the final, or emphatic, word and, second, the absence of any context for how to talk about judgment in the Bible and, third, the kinds of emotion expressed: we saw too much gloating and pride and triumphalism on both sides. I felt like those who watched the sinking of the Titanic and who didn’t cringe at the thought of thousands sinking into the Atlantic to a suffocating death. They were instead singing and dancing to a jig that they were right or had been predicting the sinking all along.

If there is an eternity, and I believe there is, and if there is a judgment, and I believe there is, then let us keep the immensity and gravity of it all in mind and refrain from flippancy, gloating, triumphalism — and let it reduce us to sobriety and humility and prayer. When Abraham faced the prospects of the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 18, he didn’t gloat that he was on the safe side but supplicated YHWH for mercy for those who weren’t. We need more Abrahams.

I have myself weighed in on this Eternity.Life debate in my book One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow, so I don’t want to weigh in again or repeat what I have already said. Instead, I want to set this discussion into a slightly different context: the image of God that jumps from the pages of the Bible in passages that might be called final triumphant grace. I will put it this way: there are passages that sound univeralistic, that sound like somehow God will reconcile all things in the End, and that if we don’t occasionally sound universalistic we are not being as biblical as God — and as Jesus and Paul. Yes, these passages are not the only ones to consider, but — let this be said — neither are they cushioned or cautioned or cornered off by Jesus and Paul so they don’t give the wrong impression. What the Bible is talking about here is that God’s grace will win. God will make all things right. I’m not a universalist but I want this language to be the way I talk about these topics.  So, here goes:

I begin with Jesus, whose parable of the Prodigal Son should make us stop in our tracks, from Luke 15:28-32:

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

And now to Paul, beginning with 1 Corinthians 15:20-28:

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

And especially Colossians 1:15-20:

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

And this line from James:

Mercy triumphs over judgment (2:13).

And, once again, I don’t consider these to be the only passages that have to be considered. But let this grand and glorious vision of hope and triumphant grace and putting things to rights be in our minds and on our lips and in our emotions whenever … whenever … whenever we talk about final matters.

To talk about wrath apart from this depiction of the grace-consuming God is to put forward a view of God that is not only unbiblical but potentially monstrous. And, to put forward a view of God that is absent of final judgment, yes of wrath, yes of eternal judgment, is to offer a caricature of the Bible’s God.

No one should begin to talk about hell without spending fifteen minutes in pausing prayer to consider the horror of it all.

I find some people can get intoxicated on wrath and it can lead them in a triumphalist dance of anger. And I find some who get intoxicated with a flabby sense of grace. Isn’t it better to get lost in the dance of God’s good and triumphant grace and of making things right? If we are to be intoxicated, let it be from imbibing the hope and grace of God’s love which will both win and be right in the End.

Remember the supplications of Abraham. Every.Time.