Happy Reformation Day

In honor of Martin Luther and the Reformation the Holy Spirit brought about through his daring, let's have a few words from him:

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for He is victorious over sin, death, and the world.

This sounds quite odd at first blush, but as I've thought about it, it's really a neat idea. God doesn't love us because we've cleaned up for him, or we're every quite composed and religious enough to be holy and loveable -- he just loves us. Gratuitously, entirely apart from anything we do or don't do. We are free to acknowledge that we are sinners, completely undeserving of His love, but deeply privilaged recipients of it just the same. "From His fullness we have recieved grace upon grace."

Luther also had quite the sense of humor. When one of his ministers came to him complaining that one of the regional religious leaders approved of practices that were far too "Romish," he responsed thus:

Why don't you, for heaven's sake, march around wearing a sliver or gold cross, as well as a skull cap and a chasuble made of velvet, silk or cotton? If your superior, the Elector, thinks that one cap or one chasuble is not enough, then put on two or three, like Aaron, the high priest, who wore three coats, one on top of the other, and they all looked wonderful...

If your Electoral Excellency thinks one procession is not enough, marching around with singing and with bells, then do it seven times, just as Joshua did in Jericho with the Children of Israel. They shouted and blew their trunpets. Perhaps your Electoral Excellency might even jump around and dance in front of all the people with harps, drums, cymbels, and bells, just as David did before the Ark of the Covenant on it's way to Jerusalem. I completely approve of such things, as long as they ar not abused or steal the thunder from the gospel; and as long as they are not viewed as necessary for salvation, or binding on consciences.

Uh, sure, whatever...

Superpowers

Many of my friends have a real dislike for flashy, media driven Pentecostalism. You know what I'm talking about: Hagee, Parsley, and others whose messages are manuals of manipulation – simplistic primers in heresy that encourage men and women to approach God as if he were some kind of cosmic bookkeeper who deals in credits and debits and in exchange for our showy spiritual favors will count out blessings in return –twice, and exact to the penny.

These preachers bother me. They hold their flock in dark bondage, and lead some of us outside their circles to reject out of hand any detailed theology of the Spirit’s work in their lives. One of my brothers made a comment to this effect: I just cannot believe that God reaches down and gives us flashy superpowers so that we might impress one another and be entirely irrelevant to the world in which we live. Alright, so that’s not a direct quote, but that’s the idea, and the “superpowers” phrasing has stuck with me for a good week or so.

My friend is absolutely right. But the Holy Spirit really does come and give us superpowers. These powers do not equip us in any way we would have wanted or imagined on our own. It is the way of our dark and fallen world to see power in terms of control, deference, and authority. This is wrong, but a seducing concept because it seems to work so well. We tell ourselves that if only we could be respected, influential, affluent, and loved by everyone, then we would be happy and at peace. This is not true, of course. It would be in that inability to be affected by the dark aspects of humanity that we would be most untouchable and miserable.

Our God has shown us the way of real power in the self-giving love of Christ. His last word regarding our sins is forgiveness. Our master Jesus has faced all of our darkness, weakness, mixed motives and rebellion, and absorbed every last bit of it. There is no manifestation of our fallen condition that has not demonstrated sympathy for by the ministrations of his cross. As his body, the Church continues these ministrations by absorbing sins and giving away his forgiveness: “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:23).

It seems to me that I spend far too much energy in attempts to gloss over my own failures and shortcomings only to find that the image I’ve created is entirely meaningless. If the self I present for the acceptance of other people is not really me – if it is rather an unrealistic depiction of myself as I want others to see me – I cannot gain any real affirmation. I might be able to make people love the image, but they would not be loving me – not from lack of willingness, but because the real me would remain hidden. So many of us create images hoping to be accepted, but wonder why we feel empty when the plan works.

If we are really to be known and loved by others as we truly are, we cannot gloss over the ugly parts of our fallen humanity. This is one of many reasons that members of the Christian community confess their sins to one another: when baptized people exercise their priesthood by speaking prophetic words of correction and tender words of redemption to one another, we shine the light of God’s love and acceptance into the dark places of our lives. In forgiving one another the sins we commit against each other and the community at large, we absorb the brokenness of our sinful humanity in the name of Christ. This is not an easy or glamorous task. It rarely feels warm and fuzzy. But it is a necessary part of redemption, for reconciliation is God’s fervent desire for his people.

In his Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri J.M. Nouwen wrote, “In the context of a compassionate embrace, our brokenness is made beautiful because of the love that surrounds it.” God’s truth is spoken into our lives through the Word, the Spirit, and the Church that he might reveal our brokenness and sin. He does this for our redemption: that we might be healed. This healing is brought about also by the Word, the Spirit, and the Church. Being active in this for one another is a mark of authentic discipleship, a sign of redemption, and a cost of true fraternity.

The Holy Spirit has indeed given us superpowers. They do not work most powerfully by preventing us from sinning, quieting all the rebellion in our hearts, or perfecting our moral lives. This is part of sanctification, but in my mind not the most needful or difficult part. As we are deeply prideful, fallen people, the most exquisite example of supernatural, transformative grace occurs when having sinned, we confess and repent. When we rebel, we turn again, and ask forgiveness. When we fall, we ask God’s mercy, and that of his community. When we can trust in God’s love for us so powerfully that the ugliness we see in ourselves is made an offering rather than being hastily hidden, then we will know that the Holy Spirit has come to us.

Holy Spirit, come in power. May the same power by which God raised up our brother Jesus animate us to walk in new and abundant life, just as he does. Amen.

Technorati Tags: Henri Nouwen, Holy Spirit, church, discipleship

Maundy Thursday: I am...

We are Judas, failing to understand, and betraying him by supposing that we ourselves can work out our own redemption.

We are Peter, swearing allegiance yet trying to prevent the very cleansing that makes us God's own. We skulk around in the torchlight and watch the rulers of this age condemn the One with whom we should have remained, at all costs

We are the Eleven, promising never to leave or forsake the only One who can and will keep that promise, and quickly diving into the shadows of the night when the time comes.

But we are also Mary, trusting in the promise of our Lord even when all hope has dissipated and left us in the dark.

We are Peter, who is forgiven and restored and given an apostleship that we will fulfill, not on the basis of prior repentance, ability and faithfulness, but rather on that of Jesus' deep and abiding love for us, and the power our Lord has to do anything through and in our lives.

Technorati Tags: Lent

God On My Side

Or, Why Everyone Else Isn't Necessarily Going to Hell

God is on my side. I know, you see, because I prayed about it. I knew you’d disagree with me, too. The Bible says that anyone who tries to live righteously in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. So naturally if you give me a difficult time of things or disagree, you are a child of the devil. Or not “within God’s will.” Indeed, the Bible told me his will, and what more does a real Christian need? There are good or bad, worthy or unworthy people, and right or wrong beliefs. God loves the first and tolerates or even despises the second. I hear from people that there two sides: evil Afghanistan or guiltless America; evil Palestinians or divinely chosen Israel. I heard at church that Christians killed at the WTC hadn’t “heard from God” that morning. It’s enough to make me think twice about skipping morning prayers.

And yet...

Jesus characterized God as an equal opportunity lover: “He causes his rain to fall upon the righteous and unrighteous alike.” If this is true, the moral reasoning we credit to God is not his at all. It would seem he doesn’t categorize men and women according to simple ideas of good and bad as I do. Does he in some ways differentiate between those who obey and those who rebel? Yes. Do those differences determine his love for those men and women, or the whole of sinful humanity? No.

Christian theology (see Romans and John’s Gospel) holds that God loves all the people in the world so much that he expressed it in the death of Jesus Christ, in which he assumed the sinfulness of the entire world. Sinners are reconciled through Christ, and men and women can be called righteous (morally perfect) by virtue of his righteousness. This is what I’ve heard. But if grace is indeed God’s unmerited favor, and he insists upon justifying the unjust, then all disgraced men and women—oppressed and oppressors alike—are recipients of his unconditional love. If Christ crucified bore man’s burden as the godforsaken sinner and God raised him up, then each of the godforsaken has been brought near to God by this event.

If this is true, perhaps I’ve misunderstood some things and continue to do so. Perhaps the Risen Lord welcomes to himself the abused as well as their abusers: war hawks, pacifists, conservatives, liberals, fundamentalists, addicts, welfare moms, murderers, the wise, homosexuals, martyrs, thieves and everyone I (and society) seek to cleanly categorize as good or bad, worthy or unworthy of love and compassion. Perhaps the Master welcomes those we never would.

That admission does not come easily; people like to justify themselves by comparing their moral strengths and weaknesses to those of others. But if the Gospel is really good news, God does not honor such attitudes. He disagrees with them. Vehemently. Judge and you condemn yourself, says Paul. Judge and you will be judged by God, says Jesus. It would seem that my moral sensibilities often oppose God’s call to indiscriminate love. His judgments and mine are diametrically opposed.

Perhaps, then, the God who is for me is not necessarily on my side. If God loves indiscriminately, he certainly does not discriminate against men and women with respect to my shortsighted categories. Nor does he respect those of anyone else. Perhaps that’s why the Christ of God was so careful to say that a disciple’s deepest love should be reserved for his or her enemies. Perhaps instead of adopting our morality, God himself has a greater morality to which he calls us instead.

Of Street Preachers and Bad Religion

It must be springtime again, because a trio of sex-crazed religious fundamentalists has descended upon our campus again hurling hateful invective at us (three, including the former Georgetown student working the crowd). It’s generally the people who cannot cope with the challenges of their own sexuality who feel the need to denounce others for the wanton acts of carnality they may or may not be committing.

The older preacher has been showing up for the past several years sprouting fresh slurs against Greeks, fornicators, homosexuals, drunkards, pagans, liberals, and everyone in between for engaging in all manner of evils. These diatribes always seem to be a novel attraction to a number of students, but I must insist that the "gospel" these folks vomit out is not new, and it is not good news. Their sermons form an ugly caricature of Christianity, presenting their God as nothing but a small-minded accountant, doling out material blessings in exchange for moral behavior, and smiting his rebellious creations with sickness and destruction if they misstep.

St. Paul would beg to differ: he declares that while we were all separated from God and spiritually dead because of our mixed motives, sinful behavior, selfish living, and outright rebellion, Christ died for us. He offered himself for our redemption and in his resurrection, he made it possible that God might raise us from spiritual death now and physical death at the last day. The Christian Church is the Body of the Risen Christ—what Paul called the mystery of Christ in us. Christians are ordained as priests in God's kingdom by virtue of their baptism and equipped with the power of the Spirit to absorb the sins of men and women around them, forgiving and loving people deeply and authentically: God “has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). This is the ministry of Jesus Christ in our midst.

The street preachers are not qualified to speak to us, because they do not love us. If they cared about our own experiences and perspectives and wished to commune with us by listening to us, then they might speak. But they will not, and so cannot. They flatter themselves in supposing that they can call us to repentance.

The Spirit, however, always calls us to convert to the love of Jesus Christ, the true religion of the Church. Convert with me. Let us bear an authentic witness to God’s love, standing against legalism, bigotry, and a culture of ungrace. We must dare to love creatively those folks who are not like us, who do not agree with us, and who fit nowhere into our neat social circles. If we would be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives we must dedicate ourselves to loving recklessly those we feel most justified in despising.

So I will repent, and deny a religion that seeks to bind folks up and choke them with the Word, instead of setting them free by it. I will say no to a religion that places the written rule above forgiveness and mercy. I will repent of the attitudes I hold toward people who irritate me. I will stop devaluing people. I will stop judging people according to my own standards. I will walk in grace and compassion. I will be a Christian.

Will you repent with me?

If the preacher men return, bear the witness of Jesus Christ the Compassionate One: refuse to curse, refuse to argue; these men aren’t listening to rebuttals, but wish only to anger us. Turn your back on quick judgments, and cold, calculating religion, and refuse to encourage their message. Walk away.

Christ have mercy.

Against the Powers

I have particular affinity for the Baptismal Covenant as it appears in the Book of Common Prayer because of the emphasis that the presence of vows places on the newly baptized to live the Christ-life, not only at the moment the sacrament is received but every day of the convert’s life.

For my part, the most difficult vow is that to “renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” This seems to be in a different league from the “sinful desires that draw [me] from the love of God,” because of the internal and personal nature of the latter. The evil powers of this world are indeed everywhere, but they must be sought out to be recognized and resisted: they take the forms of governmental systems, economic policies, social injustices, and particularly the apathy with which human beings view the plight of others.

I find the greatest difficulty when I am called upon to suffer minor, meaningless indignities at the hands of others: being ignored, written off, disrespected, and otherwise devalued by folks whose only motivation is to make themselves feel better by lambasting someone they don’t suppose will answer them back. I have not often chosen to let such attacks die quietly, but have taken great joy in calling these folks to the carpet, especially while working service jobs. I discover upon further reflection, however, that such exchanges do have significance, in that they are opportunities for me to renounce evil powers or not. It would be Christ-like in such situations to grant grace to those with downcast hearts and darkened minds, and to stand up to those who would abuse others while respecting the human dignity of everyone involved.

The way to effectively rob the evil powers and “spiritual forces of wickedness” of their might to is to learn and live the truth that the only real power in a fallen creation is the force of suffering love. Our sufferings acquire meaning and become Christ-like only when we chose to make them for others. Bearing the insults and indignities visited upon us by other men and women can be a redemptive exercise when in them we choose to absorb the sinfulness of the people around us, and love them anyway. When we make this choice we make a stand over against the “evil powers” (and even against their own desires) to believe in the image of God that remains in fallen humans even behind all the sin and bloodguilt we bring upon ourselves.

Has anybody else had one of those "service" jobs where y'all were trying to learn how to cope with other people's garbage? It's easy for me to say these things now that I'm gainfully unemployed, but if I were to go back to the gas station, or the deli, or the fast food restaurant, I would have more trouble...

Pain

Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

-- Colossians 1:24 NIV

From Brennan Manning's Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God:

When the shadow of Jesus' cross falls across our lives in the form of failure, rejection, abandonment, betrayal, unemployment, lonliness, depression, the loss of a loved one; when we are deaf to everything but the shriek of our own pain; when the world around us suddenly seems a hostile, menacing place-- at those times we may cry out in anguish, "How could a loving God permit this to happen?" At such moments the seeds of distrust are sown. It requires heroic courage to trust in the love of God no matter what happens to us.

I don't know what that trust looks like. I hope I can find it.

Paul spoke of himself as filling up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ. God suffered as Jesus of Nazareth, and in our pain, the Incarnate God suffers as us. As Manning has pointed out before, Jesus could not suffer as a mother, or an old man. In coming to live with and in us, the indwelling Christ learns the shattering rhythms of addiction and the terror of abused children. Christ is no stranger to fear and to need, and he experiences all the variations and permutations through our ongoing lives, which he graces with his presence.

If in me, like Paul, God is filling up what is lacking, what does it mean for my present sufferings, be it a crushed body, alienation, fear, or anything else? Jesus is no stranger to any of these things, but what if he is experiencing them in a new way in me? What kind of purpose can be found?

The Christ in me wills to face suffering with a "face set like flint." This in no way means keeping a stiff upper lip, standing stoicly against the dark. It means refusing to turn away. For so many of us, suffering is a thing to be avoided, and if that fails, to put behind us as quickly as possible.

In the face of deep human suffering, our first instincts seem to be to avoid responsibility, and to interpose as much distance as possible. Pain is awkward, confusing. It messes up one's theology and general outlook, especially those based upon blind optimism.

We don't like to feel awkward and helpless; and when we watch people suffer, we know for whom the bell tolls: if something dreadful can happen to my neighbor, I could be next.

The only thing keeping any of us from catastrophe is the interest (or disinterest) of a capricious, powerless, or merely non-existant deity.

No, say those of us who know the Lord Jesus. How do we ask the world to trust that answer?

The Real Presence

This is my body, he said. This is my blood. Take them, for they are food and drink indeed. The one who does not can have no part of me.

Christians of the sacramental stream have always maintained that the practice called the Lord's Supper is a true sacrament rather than an ordinance. This mystical meal is not something done merely to remember him, though that is indeed part of it. He said his disciples would eat his body and drink is blood, and before he went away, he celebrated the Passover, and told us that the bread and the wine, the most common food of the day, now was his own self.

I believe that insisting on the mere symbolic meaning of these words is symptomatic of the anti-supernaturalism that ran through the Church with the Enlightenment. It is odd how people pick and choose things to believe and reject; the same folks who believe that Real Presence is superstitious, overliteral, and just plain ridiculous will tell you that God does petty things to punish them, that women should wear doilies on their heads in religious meetings, and that God raised a man from the dead. I happen to believe the last one, but the others are ridiculous.

The prophet Isaiah tells us that the suffering servant would take our sins and sicknesses upon himself, and this Jesus did. To everything we are vulnerable, he was also. His humanity was just like our own in every way, and in his pain, ours is ameliorated. As he was broken, we are healed, mind, body and soul. This way of healing is important to me, now more than ever.

When we drink the cup of suffering, we in our brokenness of body and soul take the Crucified Lord into ourselves. When we own our brokenness and welcome his, we are healed. I think it's another paradox of the faith, and one for which I am grateful.

His broken Body hung asphyxiating. So did mine. Upside down, even. He shares in my suffering, and I would share in his. I'm not interested in blame and recriminations, for the Lord of the Universe has given Himself as sustenance. And it is enough; indeed it must be.

Because of this great gift, I've chosen to believe that I'm loved, and that purpose, rather than despair, can come from pain and loneliness. It doesn't have to, but I'm choosing just that. My suffering will not be the center of my world. Instead I look to the example of the saints who offer up their own brokenness to help others, a way of offering oneself as a Eucharistic sacrifice: my own body as a gift of thanksgiving, to God, for others. I don't know quite how to do that from my little cell here, so more on that in the days ahead.

Choices

A couple of opening thoughts...

There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot from that situation create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today.

—Bishop Handley Moule

God creates everything out of nothing and everything which God is to use he first reduces to nothing.

—Soren Kierkegaarde

In his Where Is God When It Hurts, Philip Yancey hypothesizes that of those women and men who are driven toward God in their suffering rather than away from Him are those who can stop asking the neverending question of "why," and take up the question, "to what end?"

I think that's the question I've tried to ask. I'm not really interested in the "why" of my accident — my body was broken because a stranger (though lawyers will be contesting this in the months ahead) lost control of his vehicle in the rain. I don't credit God with the accident —I'm not of the school that says a capricious deity is anxious to squish us to drive home points of personal morality (as if I've been doing anything especially naughty, I should only be having so much fun), so I throw that out altogether. I do, however, credit him with safeguarding my broken bones and battered organs. I can walk. I have feeling in all extremities. I will heal, and am doing so even now. I am grateful. And I will be grateful for what God will do in me in spite of, and sometimes because of these circumstances.

His broken Body hung asphyxiating. So did mine. Upside down, even. And so again I turn to a sacramental theology and the Lord's Table for sustenance. At Eucharist, I take His broken Body into my own, and am thereby healed. I'm not interested in blame and recriminations, for the Lord of the Universe has given Himself as sustenance. And it is enough; indeed it must be.

I'm chosing to believe that I'm loved, and that purpose can come from pain and loneliness. It doesn't have to; those things can lead to the far deeper pain of despair. My suffering will not be the center of my world. Instead I look to the example of the saints who offer up their own brokenness to help others, a way of offering oneself as a Eucharistic sacrifice: my own body as a gift of thankgiving, to God, for others. I don't know quite how to do that from my little cell here, but I hope to work that out later.

By Way of Introduction

The Christian faith is marked, among other things, by a particular arrogance—the confidence possessed by ordinary, fallible men and women that somehow, despite all experiences of pain and suffering, longing, despair and sinfulness that seem to characterize our lives, the God of Jesus Christ loves us with great tenderness and compassion, and will not turn us away.

I am beginning this blog in the hopes that somehow I will think differently of it than my journaling practices, and be so prudent as to keep it with regularity. Perhaps not all of my thoughts and experiences these days are so sublime that they warrant recording, but since I put so much effort into everything I do at this point that I don't want the days to pass as quickly as they seem to. Perhaps they don't pass so quickly; I simply don't remember them.

The accident was October 15; I of course broke my neck, back and lots of other bones. Nine was the final figure, but I swear I didn't get a final, accurate count until two weeks after the incident. Oh well, I guess if I can't tell something's broken, it doesn't matter all that much? I am hopeful the halo apparatus will be removed at my follow-up appointment on December 17; if I can move from this ridiculous equipment to a mere (but freakin' huge) neck brace, I'll be greatly pleased. If it doesn't happen for some time yet, I'll cope with it; as it's been two months now, I certainly won't be heartbroken over a few more weeks. The worst is over, I hope, with the exception of physical therapy. I don't know what that's going to be like; today is my first regular session.

I'm juggling a few books right now, as my attention span remains pretty poor. I'm all drugged up, so at the moment it's "MTV attention span" as opposed to a self-discipline issue. :0P I'm working on Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of short stories; Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"; Justo Gonzalez' The Story of Christianity; and Georges Bernanos' The Diary of a Country Priest. Oh yeah, at let's not forget Philip Yancey's Where is God When it Hurts? I can't stand to be bored, and it's so easy right now.

I had a frightening thought last night -- not as frightening as some of my others, but it was something of an existential moment. I can be whatever kind of man I choose. As I lie in my bed and look at the ceiling (that's all I can look at) I realize that I can face the road ahead of me however I choose. There's nothing to make me walk with grace, and nothing to save me from bitterness except for my own choice. What manner of man should emerge from these experiences? A man of grace and compassion is being drawn out by God.

Being angry and bitter is a kind of control. When life is out of control, striking out with rage gives one a feeling of power in the midst of impotence. It would come easily, as there are so many things I require help to accomplish. Accepting one's lot and bringing grace into the lives of others is also certainly a way (and the best way) of taking control, but it's peaceful and free-flowing, instead of neurotic and grasping. Bitterness wants to control circumstances and lash out at the world around the man or woman it controls, while a man of grace would take responsiblity for himself and work to change the world, not beat it into submission.

I think my pain meds kicked in again for that last paragraph.

I think today that I will believe in hope, and that God is reaching for me, speaking words of tenderness into harshness of my soul.

First Post

Hiya! For those of you who are a friend of a friend, here's an introduction. I'm a student at Georgetown College, Ky. I broke my neck, back, and other important bits in an auto accident in October. But I'm recovering. Thanks for praying.

I am using this spot to bounce some ideas. I am Captain Sacrament, not Cheerfulness, so I'm going for dark, post-modern grit. I make no apologies for traces of protest atheism, social irreverence, or my expectations that the God of the Incarnation is working out his purpose in me THROUGH what I have experienced and will yet suffer in the months ahead.

Help me out, post or e-mail your insightful observations and pithy remarks. Just click on the "Comments" hyperlink.

If I end up with a large audience I've not met yet, I might post a bio.