Category: Uncategorized Page 6 of 71

It’s near the end of the Coen brother’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? that the bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley sings the brooding ‘O Death’. It is a haunting song echoing a common plea: “O death, won’t you spare me over ’til another year…”

That plea, or at least that desire, is the driving force behind all philosophy, according to Luc Ferry in his well-regarded and often recommended book A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living. Both religion and philosophy, Ferry suggests, are driven by the same engine, the passion to find a way around, through, or beyond the anxiety caused by the reality of death. Both are, that is, seeking a path to salvation.

Unable to bring himself to believe in a God who offers salvation, the philosopher is above all one who believes that by understanding the world, by understanding ourselves and others as far our intelligence permits, we shall succeed in overcoming fear, through clear-sightedness rather than blind faith. (page 6)

Perhaps, of course, blind faith in the promise of philosophy is all that the philosopher has left once he has jettisoned God. But that he has identified this basic fear of the unknown (the ‘darkest of all things’ noted my then 11 year old son) as the primal human concern is fascinating. Ferry notes that:

All philosophies, however divergent they may sometimes be in the answers they bring, promise us an escape from primitive fears. They possess in common with religions the conviction that anguish prevents us from leading good lives; it stops us not only from being happy, but also from being free. (page 10)

If philosophy and religion are heading the same direction, then, why jettison religion in general and Christianity in particular? Ferry is honest in his answer. He rejects Christianity for two reasons.

First and foremost, because the promise… – that we are immortal and will encounter our loved ones after our own biological demise – is too good to be true. (11)

That calls for its own response, but I want to set that aside to look at his second reason.

Similarly hard to believe is the image of a God who acts as a father to his children. How can one reconcile this with the appalling massacres and misfortunes which overwhelm humanity…. (11)

With this Ferry dismisses Christianity as being insufficiently satisfying. But what, one might ask, do we put in its place? Whatever philosophical salvation is proposed as an alternative must still deal with the “appalling massacres and misfortunes which overwhelm humanity”. How do these philosophies deal with such realities?

I’m no philosopher (which is why I’m reading this book). But it seems to me that that which appalls us is either purposeful and therefore meaningful, or random and therefore meaningless. One either faces a universe that has no concern for him and in fact is tilted toward his destruction, or one faces a universe in which there is a God who, however mysteriously, guides events toward an end which is good. One does not escape the misfortunes by eliminating God from the answer.

I’m well aware that bringing God into the picture creates hard, hard questions. I can’t explain a God, a Father as Ferry correctly notes, who would permit the atrocities and horrors common in this world. But neither can I adequately explain why those horrors are not more common, why life itself exists at all, or why philosophers have the space and time and breath to contemplate death and the rejection of God. I don’t know God’s reasons for permitting evil or for raining good down upon us.

But, it seems to me, that it is not blind faith that convinces the Christian that Christianity is right. Ferry cannot see it, but it may be that the most satisfying explanation for the good and bad in the world is found in a purposeful God who is bringing redemption to a broken world. A God who has not remained distant from that world, but who himself entered into its suffering.

So, if death spares me over ’til another year I intend to try to understand the answers others posit. But I remain convinced that that philosophy which allows us both happiness and freedom is in fact NOT too good to be true.

I’m getting closer to the day when I will preach through the book of Revelation. It is such a fascinating book, but one about which so many people have such strong opinions. I want to make sure that I can swim before I wade into those waters.

Recently a certain motif, a certain way of looking at the book, has occupied my mind which, if justified, may be very helpful in my trying to understand and then to communicate the sense of the book. John, it seems to me, was a painter.

So much damage has been done to the book by trying to force it into a linear pre-telling of human history. The book does not bear a forced linear interpretation and those who try to treat it as an overlay of current human history are always embarrassed by the result.

We need to think of the book less like a western history and more like Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. It is a collection of images masterfully sketched and shaded and ordered to convey a grand vision of God for his people, some who are facing severe persecution and others who are in danger of allowing their passion to dry up and blow away. It is a great work of art in which a variety of images come together to form a unified whole which speaks more than the individual images isolated from one another.

I’ve not developed this much further, and would not be sharing it here were it not for some corroborative input from the late New Testament Scholar Donald Guthrie. In his New Testament Introduction he assesses the structure in this way:

The majority of interpreters of this book assume that the action is not intended to be continuously described but rather that successive groups of visions each portray similar events in different ways. (page 969)

Much time spent in the evangelical subculture would lead one to be surprised by this statement. Most, in the evangelical world ASSUME that the book contains history ‘continuously described’, and that before it happens.

I know that seeing the book as a series of images or impressions is nothing new. But I also know that it is not a view often spoken. I make mention of it here as a help for those of you reading the book and as a helpful alternative for those whose thinking is only informed by the linear approach.

I’m hoping that thinking down this line might help us make better sense of a difficult but profound book. I’m thinking I will begin to preach on the book by the end of 2014 should the Lord tarry and I not come to my sensese.

The flow of worship at the church I pastor follows a pattern by which we rehearse the gospel message. We are confronted with God, we confess our sin, we receive his grace, and we celebrate our new and renewed lives. Week after week we do this.

And this worship is not meant to be passive. We invite participation in a number of ways – through song and corporate prayers and creeds. This participation reaches a climax at the end of the service where we are invited to ‘participate’ in the Lord’s Supper.

As important as all the other elements of worship are, they all nevertheless lead us to this final act of participation. The rest of worship presents Christ to us. At the table, we take him by an act of faith to ourselves. The rest of worship exposes what a life of faith looks like. At the table, we take hold of the One who can enable us to live that life. And at times, the rest of worship exposes our sin. At the table, we have the opportunity to repent of our false saviors and take hold of the True.

So, in a sense, all of worship prepares us to respond to Jesus at the table. As we worship this morning, listen, sing, pray, and attend to all with the knowledge that you will, at the end, join in communion with the one who makes it all real.

I’ve probably lost possible readers over the years by calling this blog by its rather gray title. Who wants to hang around someone, or something, that is all somber and dull? I gave my contact info to someone this week and they looked, read the URL of the blog, and gave something of a puzzled chuckle. Years ago a friend, a friend who had never been to the blog, but only knew of it, cautioned me that posting stuff about my (he presumed) depression on-line probably was not a good idea.

There have been plenty who have suggested I change the title.

But I never will.

I give an explanation for the blog’s name in the tab above labeled “It’s Ironic“. Navigate there if you like.

I bring this up now because recently Justin Taylor posted a brief survey of books which give guidance to people engaged in pastoral ministry. Of the six books mentioned, two are fiction. Of these, he writes:

Every pastor would also profit from carefully pondering Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. Why fiction? In both books, the protagonist is a pastor, and you will learn how Christian life and ministry work on the inside amid the untidy details of life lived.

Both books are superb reading for any, not just pastors. Stephen Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country quickly became my hero, a model of nobility and innocence and faithfulness and compassion and grace. If he happened also to be ‘somber and rather dull, no doubt’ as Paton describes him, so be it. He is a model I’m proud to honor in my blog’s title.

Christian worship is far too often judged for its immediate effects and not its long term value. Surely things such as the quality of the sermon, the selection of songs, and even length do matter, but I wonder if we often ponder enough the vital transformative power of regular participation in worship. Is there not something in the character of the liturgy itself with power to integrate itself into our own perceptions and to form and shape our own rhythms of experience? I cannot really recall any of the sermons of my childhood. I cannot reflect any of the hundreds of thousands of words spoken or songs sung. Nevertheless, I am certain that the character of my life and or my thoughts and of my desires has been shaped and directed by those weekly routines of song and word and prayer and, in my case, quarterly sacramental participation.

I cannot PROVE the value and I cannot point to academic comparative studies substantuating my claims, but I sense this is true.

Joking with a newly married couple the other day, they spoke of something they had now done ‘twice’ which had become for them, therefore, a tradition and needed to be kept up. Clearly there are aspects of family life that through repetition and priority form the members of that family into certain shapes and develop within them certain attitudes and passions. As family tradition and ritual can do that, so can regular participation in Christian worship.

A fellow pastor lamented to me recently the low commitment to worship evidenced by members of his congregation. I know the temptation to treat worship lightly. On a Sunday I had ‘off’ a few weeks ago, I faced the desire to just kick off my shoes and sit quietly at home for a Sunday. In nearly thirty years of pastoring, I’ve heard my share of ‘reasons’ for missing worship on Sunday far less substantive than I would have had. But I wonder what sustained and regular absence does to us. I wonder what we lose.

Criticism of sermons is painful, but a part of the job. Complaints about music I take to heart but despair of satisfying. I do want worship to have an immediate positive impact upon all who participate. I do want worshipers to drive home with their hearts full of the power of the gospel and the greatness of God. And yet, I think the real, lasting, deep, and abiding value of worship is in its regularity. It is a discipline that shapes us.

Psalm 84
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah

Those who lived for any time in Tampa Bay hold former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy in high esteem. I’m sure the same can be said for those who live in Indianapolis where Dungy ended his NFL coaching career.

He is esteemed not only for his success on the football field – he was fired in Tampa, we should note – but for his character, character formed and molded by his Christian convictions. Dungy’s Christianity was not a PR image, but something real and deep impacting the life he lived. And people noticed.

But people also noticed with sadness that this righteous man had a son, a student at the University of South Florida, who in the depths of depression took his own life.

I don’t know much about Pastor Rick Warren, but controversy aside I sense that he, too, is a man who loves God and has sought to live faithfully before him. His son, like Dungy’s, has taken his life.

Pain and tragedy, and yes, the deep darkness of depression, does not spare the faithful in this broken world. My wife and I this morning recounted the names of those we have known who have taken their lives, attempted doing so, or have expressed the desire. It breaks our hearts.

I have often been asked by those trembling with the pain of suicidal loss to weigh in on their loved one’s eternal state. There is a tradition in Christianity suggesting that those who commit suicide go to hell.

When asked, I respond, I must respond, with a question: “What saves us – Jesus’ sinlessness or our own?” Clearly the Christian gospel trumpets “…nothing in my hands I bring / simply to thy cross I cling…”. Self murder is unquestionably a sin, a desperate, horrible, selfish abandonment of faith and hope. But it can no more undo the sufficiency of the work of Christ than any other sin. Jesus saves us, not our sinlessness. Those trusting Jesus are saved by him, even if their final act was a sin.

Some argue that suicide is different, that one cannot repent of the sin of suicide. But without diminishing the value and importance of regular repentance, of particular sins, particularly, nevertheless, our hope of salvation rests in Jesus not in repentance. Jesus, not repentance, saves us.

Do we not, though, by speaking thus encourage the suicidal to hasten a path to peace that seems to otherwise always elude them? I have been asked bluntly, “If I killed myself, would I go to hell?” Warren reports his son saying, “Dad, I know I’m going to heaven. Why can’t I just die and end this pain?”

A superficial understanding of grace will always make sin seem easier. And yet, in reality, an understanding of the love of God behind grace makes sin ultimately harder. Love, not fear, best keeps us from sin.

And yet, we still sin. We forget his love and we act contrary to it. And some, in such a moment clouded by a deep darkness which others cannot comprehend, flee the pain in the only way they know how. Can we not see, though, that the Man whose cries of despair echoed from the cross probably understands that despair and darkness better than most? Jesus loves even, perhaps especially, the despairing.

Our hearts break. And that is a good thing, for only from broken hearts will flow words of grace, not law. My preaching, and your speaking, is to broken people, whose brokenness we cannot fathom, and often cannot see. We need to speak, and to hear, but one wonderful and comforting truth: the steadfast love of a gracious God.

O, Father, enable us to hear it and hold on to it.

===

In 2002 friend and fellow pastor Petros Roukas took his own life. Bryan Chapell’s funeral sermon on that occasion stares the demons head on and fills the occasion with grace.

The question of the month for me is this: “If you take all the carbon out of sugar, what do you have left?”

Those who actually know biochemistry tell me it depends, but that basically one would be left with nothing but a collection of H and O atoms in some configuration. I say, “Water” because I don’t really know what I’m talking about.

What spawns such a silly question is an even sillier label on this bag of sugar I bought last week.

I know what is meant, but context is everything, and this being a bag of sugar, a CARBOhydrate par excellence, I could not help but be amused.

I wonder if Dr. Atkins would approve?

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back— it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:1-8)

To be a Christian is to be a part of something impossible.

People struggle with Christianity as long as it contains vestiges of the impossible. An invisible God. A body of water split in two. A man raised from the dead. Things which our minds cannot comprehend.

That we are Christians is a glimpse into the impossible. Born children of wrath, we are welcomed as children of God. Inclined by nature to deify ourselves, we are moved to cast our crowns at the feet of Another. Those unable to imagine a god who can care for them find themselves comforted by his favor.

To be a Christian is to be a part of something impossible.

I might list the various persons who influenced over the years my Christian convictions – parents, pastors, friends – and sketch in great detail how their influence molded my ways of seeing God, but in the end they were channels he used to impossibly capture my heart. It was he who enabled me to delight in what my stubborn heart would otherwise have refused to see.

I think of others in my congregation, who sit with us on a Sunday morning, and I ponder why they are there. There is no plan or scheme that could have drawn them there. Only God. We are all a part of something impossible.

The Christian church by worshiping on Sunday is reminded that is a part of something impossible. It was on a Sunday, the first day of the week, that a group of women gathered at a tomb and found it empty. And at Easter we gather with them to once again peer into that empty tomb and declare, “He is not here. He is risen!” Impossible though it was and always will be.

Easter is that grand reminder that what is not possible for humanity is possible for God. To be a Christian is to be a part of something wonderfully impossible. And the God who did the impossible continues to surprise us with the impossible.

I cannot tell you where the next member of my church or yours will come from. But I can tell you that he or she will surprise us. There will be something impossible in their story, and the path that led them to us. And so we build relationships and probe our networks and live the gospel among those around us knowing that if any respond, it will be a surprise. It’s impossible. But we are a part of something impossible made possible.

This Easter, you may be facing impossible situations in your family, in your marriage, in your health, in your work, in your financial situation. Some hopes and dreams and expectations may have to die, and pain may have to be endured. But what God resurrects will be glorious, and we cannot now imagine it, because it may now seem impossible.

God calls us to ministry, to show mercy, to seek opportunities to speak the gospel into the lives of others. It’s impossible, we say. God cannot use us. Sure he can. To be a Christian is to be a part of something impossible.

I’m not easily aroused to hope. I stand at the edge of the Red Sea and prepare to die while Moses lifts his rod and the sea parts. I do not easily grab hold of the impossible and move forward. But that is what God calls us to.

This Easter my prayer is that we will once more be reminded that to be a Christian is to be a part of something wonderfully impossible.

—

Note: this was adapted from ConTent, the newsletter of Covenant Presbyterian Church of Oviedo, Florida

When Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we do so not merely as an ancient ritual celebrating a historical event. Rather, we come to the Table within an Easter framework, believing that he who lived and died is yet alive. Our participation is set in the context not only of ‘what he has done’ but also in the context of ‘until he comes’ (1 Corinthians 11:26).

Rightfully, therefore, we come to the Table looking forward to the consummation when we will join with him at the eternal Table, where sin and pain and death will all be taken away and when we can dwell on his beauty and enjoy him forever. The joy and rest of that is beyond comprehension, and so we take the bread and drink the wine with great longing in our hearts.

But sometimes, we come empty. We come as those who are in the wilderness, whose ‘now’ experience of any taste of that which will be future is weak and diminished. We come lonely and isolated, assuming (often wrongly) that all around us are having a deep and refreshing walk with God while we feel exiled and cut off. We take the bread and drink the wine and walk away unfulfilled, and unaware of what the Spirit is doing deep within us.

Even then, we must come to the Table, and come again, with that Easter longing in our hearts, persisting in our longing ‘until he comes’. The coming we long for in such situations is not simply his return in glory, but his return in intimacy with our souls, which we passionately desire.

Our doctrine of the Holy Spirit dances around Jesus’ teaching that the Spirit ‘blows where he wills‘, coming and going according to his own purposes. We rather think we can by formulae get him to show up. That is, of course, a fiction. He will come when he wills, and he is never late.

The King, our covenanted husband, has his reasons for being away. But we long for him. We long for intimacy with him. We long to love him and to know his love. We come to the Table pursuing these longings until he comes, with the hope that come he will. Sometimes we take the bread and the wine with force, desperate to be fed with the One of whom these are symbols. In the midst of great doubt, there is an act of faith, performed until, in his time, he comes.

Come to the Table, until he comes.

Come, Lord Jesus.

I’m sincerely interested in what those who read this blog think of the recent SNL production based upon the revenge movies of Quentin Tarantino and starring Tarantino’s favorite Christopher Waltz. Is it good humor or blasphemy? I want to hear others’ opinions before I share my own.

I have been for some reason unsuccessful in embedding the clip here. So here is the link to the video on the NBC site.

That link was not working on Chrome or Safari for me (Firefox seems to work fine), and so if you are having trouble, you can view the clip here.

Warning: if you have NOT seen this and are bothered by Tarantino-style blood and gore you should not watch this!

Let me know what you think.