"The Groaning of God" (Rom 8:22-27)

Shared Feelings

If you have ever been to a youth sporting event or concert or dance performance or graduation ceremony, I imagine you have observed (if not experienced firsthand) the special connection between a child and their parents and grandparents. When a child has just completed a special achievement, whether that’s a touchdown or a solo or high school education, and they are beaming like the sun, you can often tell who their parents and grandparents are. They are the ones cheering the loudest. They are the ones whistling with pride or shouting their child’s name.

Likewise, if a serious mishap occurs, they are the first responders. I remember a soccer game when I was thirteen or so, when a teammate went down under a rough challenge, and it immediately became clear he was in great pain. Something was wrong. His parents were among the first people to run across the field, maybe even before the ref blew his whistle. It was as though his pain was their pain. His cry was matched by their breathless, worried dash across the pitch. My teammate had broken his collarbone. But in that moment, it seemed like his parents were broken too. His agony was theirs.

Pentecost and Divine Intimacy

Today is Pentecost, the day that commemorates the Holy Spirit filling the first followers of Christ. Jesus had promised his followers that when he departed, they would not be left alone. He would send the Spirit of God to them, a spirit that he named the paraclete, which can be translated as “helper” or “advocate” (John 15:26; 16:7). The most celebrated story of Pentecost is found in Acts 2, in which “suddenly from heaven there [comes] a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it fill[s] the entire house” where the followers of Christ are gathered, and “divided tongues, as of fire, appear among them, and a tongue rest[s] on each of them,” and “all of them [are] filled with the Holy Spirit and [begin] to speak in other languages…about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:2-4, 11). Peter, a leader among these first Christ-followers, stands up and explains that this colorful, multilingual display of enthusiasm for God is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that God’s spirit would one day be poured out on all flesh (Acts 2:17). It is, in other words, an opening of the floodgates, a universalization of God’s Spirit. The final words to the prophecy that Peter shares are among the most uplifting in all scripture: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

Lest the miraculous events of this scene make it seem overly distant, lest our never having seen tongues of fire upon each other’s heads leave us feeling left out, I think it is worth asking what is the meaning of this event. What is the significance of this sign? What’s really going on? A good place to start is with Jesus, who promised the Holy Spirit in the first place. Jesus himself had such an experience, you know? For him, it was not with tongues of fire or a violent wind, but with a dove and a voice from heaven, proclaiming, “You are my beloved son; with you, I am well pleased” (cf. Mark 1:11). For Jesus, to experience the Spirit of God is to know our intimate connection with God, to know that we are in fact God’s beloved child, with whom God is well pleased. This is the good news that Jesus went about proclaiming, when he ate with tax collectors and sinners, when he healed the marginalized and oppressed, when he lifted up children and the lowly, when he touched lepers and talked with Samaritans and gave dignity to women who had been shamed and shunned. His good news begins with a simple but revolutionary message, “You are God’s beloved child, with whom God is well pleased.” So he calls the woman who has been bleeding for twelve years, whom countless doctors have failed, who has become an outcast in society, “Daughter” (Luke 8:48). So he addresses the paralyzed man whose friends bring him to Jesus, “Son.” So he calls Zacchaeus, an outcast by way of his occupation, “a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).

In many of these stories in the gospels, the good news of sonship and daughtership is accompanied with a miraculous sign. Paralysis disappears. Bleeding stops. A life of greed and fraud turns into a life of gratitude and generosity. The point, I think, is not just the miracle, but the wonderful news that the miracle reflects. We are beloved children of God, with whom God is well pleased. That is what changes a life. That is what makes a world of difference. That is the seed of a new creation. The change that matters most of all is not a material or physical one, but a spiritual one. It is a change in the story we believe and live by. A change in our orientation toward the world.

Pentecost, then, is not just about the marvel of a bunch of people speaking different languages. It is about the marvel that we are sons and daughters of God. It is about the marvel that God is near to all of us, that God’s Spirit is not a privileged possession but belongs to all who would receive it, who would dare to believe the good news. As Peter proclaims, quoting from prophecy, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

The Spirit Amid Our Suffering

In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes what it is like to have God’s Spirit dwell within you. His description proceeds in a rather surprising direction. He does not talk about pure, unfiltered joy. He does not talk about a blissful state of perpetual peace. He talks instead about…suffering.

Just before today’s passage begins, he sets the stage for his description: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). It is telling that Paul describes God’s Spirit, twice, as what raised Jesus “from the dead.” If Jesus’ example is anything to go by, the promise of the Spirit is not the promise that there will be no darkness or death, but rather that God will be with us in these moments. God will be with us amid disease, disgrace, devastating loss, even death—with the power to raise us to new life.

Paul develops this point with a rich and provocative image, which in summary is this: when we groan, we do not groan alone. God is groaning with us. Paul introduces this image in verses 15 and 16, where he says that when we cry out to God, “Abba! Father!” it is not just us crying out to God; it is the Spirit of God within us crying out too. It is as though we hear an echo of God’s cry in our own. He unfolds this idea further in today’s passage, where he says that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26).

Now, there’s one minor brush stroke in Paul’s portrait of the Holy Spirit that makes all the difference in the world, and Paul makes it at the beginning of today’s passage: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now” (Rom 8:22). This is crucial, because a groan can point in many different directions. A groan can be a sigh of despair. It can be the sound of death throes. But Paul portrays it in a very different way. As the sound of labor pains. This groan is not the sound of despair or death. It is the sound of pain, yes, but much more importantly, new life.

Death Throes or Birth Pains

Why is this important? William James, sometimes known as the “Father of American psychology,” points out that faith deals with what is scientifically unverifiable. He acknowledged, for example, that the question, “Is this a moral universe” is scientifically meaningless and unanswerable because morals are immaterial. They cannot be identified and counted and measured in the same way that atoms and molecules can be. Yet he argued against the religious critics of his day, insisting that in fact this question makes a world of difference—to how a person lives. If they answer “No, the universe is not moral,” then they may well live without regard for themselves or others. But if they answer, “Yes, it is moral,” then they might live as though they and other people matter, as though a person’s conduct matters.

In a similar way, the question, “Is our groaning the sound of death throes or birth pains?” makes all the difference to the way we live. If death throes, then what’s the point? Throw in the towel. Abandon all hope. If birth pains, then live with longing, with hope, with fidelity to the kingdom of God. “Wait,” as Paul says, “with patience” (Rom 8:25).

I think back to our youth on the playing field or in the concert hall, whose parents beam when they beam, and groan when they groan. I think back to the parents who raced across the pitch to be with my teammate. I know that their groaning was filled with fear, but even more than that, with longing, with hope, with the will to do everything they possibly could to ensure the safety of their son.

How much more so our heavenly father and mother?

This Pentecost is a day of joy, and as we share in fellowship over lunch today, I hope we can feel God’s smile mirroring our smiles. I hope we can feel in our bones God’s insistence that we are God’s beloved children with whom God is well pleased. But as we leave one another and return to our world…we will likely find ourselves groaning. Diagnoses of disease. Natural disasters. Wars. Hateful words. What would it mean to hear our groans not as quiet, resigned, solitary sighs of despair, but as an echo of all of creation, as an echo of the Spirit of God? What would it mean to hear these groans not as death throes, but as birth pains?

My hunch is, it would make a world of difference. May it be so.

Prayer

Tender God,
Who looks upon us as a doting father,
As a nurturing mother,
Who calls us beloved children—
We celebrate your intimate presence with us,
Your Spirit within us,
A helper in all things
…
Bless us in our joy,
With gratitude for all your gifts.
Bless us in our groans,
With ears to hear in them
Your own groaning
And the sound of birth pains,
So that we long for
And live for
Your kingdom,
Which is at hand.
In Christ, our brother: Amen.

"Far Above" (Eph 1:15-23)

Popeye and the Myth of Redemptive Violence

Did you know that Popeye—as in, “Popeye the Sailorman”—did not appear in creator E. C. Segar’s comic strip for almost ten years? Olive Oyl was a main character at the start, but it took nearly ten years for Popeye to appear, and even then, he was only a minor character. But the audience loved him, so Segar increasingly gave the people what they wanted. It wasn’t long before Popeye was the main man.

The popularity of Popeye is no coincidence, according to biblical scholar Walter Wink. Popeye renders in simple, dramatic form the central myth of our modern world, the key story that explains life. “In a typical segment,” Wink explains, “Bluto abducts a screaming and kicking Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend.” In the beginning, then, there is chaos. Conflict. Evil. “When Popeye attempts to rescue her, the massive Bluto beats his diminutive opponent to a pulp, while Olive Oyl helplessly wrings her hands. At the last moment, as our hero oozes to the floor, and Bluto is trying, in effect, to rape Olive Oyl, a can of spinach pops from Popeye’s pocket and spills into his mouth. Transformed by this gracious infusion of power, he easily demolishes the villain and rescues his beloved. The format never varies. Neither party ever gains any insight or learns from these encounters. Violence does not teach Bluto to honor Olive Oyl’s humanity, and repeated pummelings do not teach Popeye to swallow his spinach before the fight.”^[1]

Walter Wink and others have named this kind of story, “the myth of redemptive violence,” and trace it all the way back to the Babylonians and neighboring cultures. In Babylon, this myth was told originally as a creation story, known as the Enuma Elish. The myth is simple. Chaos is the original setting of the world, and it is bad, evil. Only through a violent act can evil be subdued and order established. Indeed, violence is how the world is created. Literally. One set of gods kills another set of gods, and with their dismembered body parts, they fashion hills, rivers…and humans. Murder is in our DNA, according to this myth.

This mythic pattern can be found all over the world. From international politics to the playground, it reigns supreme, far above any other story. Nations understand that violence is necessary to secure their interests from a chaotic world (how many nations are formed, or preserved, through war?), just as children understand that justice sometimes requires knuckles and blood. That this myth forms the basis of a seemingly quaint, popular children’s cartoon is only reflective of how deeply ingrained and unquestioned it is in our social psyche. Indeed, one figure cited from research indicates that by the age of eighteen, a youth will have seen on average 15,000 murders on television. This is the way the world works, we are shown and told, again and again and again. (One hour a week of Sunday School, of hearing a radically different story, of a good creation and the redemptive power of love—one hour a week is hardly going to make a dent on this myth that inundates our world. On this Mother’s Day, however, I’m reminded and grateful that the radically different story of redemptive love does occasionally get told outside church—by mothers who know firsthand the power of unconditional love.)

David Lipscomb’s Critique of Christian Allegiance

The power of the myth of redemptive violence became unmistakably clear to David Lipscomb, a 19th-century minister in the Stone Campbellite tradition from which our own Disciples of Christ movement emerged. David Lipscomb was born in 1831 to parents Granville and Ann Lipscomb, who both hailed originally from down the road in Louisa County. David grew up amid the strife and discontent of late antebellum America, and he would later be profoundly troubled by the ravages of the Civil War. He struggled to reconcile the fighting with his faith. How could followers of Christ, the prince of peace, turn on one another in violence? How could ministers of reconciliation employ weapons of division and death? In his view, it was bad enough that his brothers and sisters in Christ had submitted to violence. But it was even worse to see them fighting against one another. He could only conclude that the primary allegiance of Christians was no longer to Christ and the kingdom of God, but rather to their respective nations, to what he called “the government of man.” The great tragedy of the church, he says, “is that the children of God enter into the kingdoms of this world, imbibe the spirit of those kingdoms, bring that spirit into the church of God, defile the church and drive out the spirit of Christ.”^[2] In other words, the war had betrayed the true hearts of most Christians. They might proclaim the way of Christ, but in truth there was a limit, a point beyond which the way of Christ became irrelevant, impractical—perhaps even “unjust,” insofar as it could not quickly enough resolve the perceived injustices of the world. At this point, only violence would do. Lipscomb thought that Christ-followers had forsaken the gospel of God’s redeeming love and drunk the kool aid of the myth of redemptive violence. 

David Lipscomb is a radical. His conclusions may themselves seem impractical. Even so, I am inspired by his example and plan to share his story with you, not only today, but in the months to come, because one thing he does remarkably well is to keep Christ and the kingdom of God in the center of his view at all times. He sincerely asks, “How do I live as a follower of Christ in a world that does not follow Christ? How do I live as a citizen of God’s kingdom amid the kingdoms of this world?” In this way, Lipscomb stands in good company. The early Christ-followers would frequently refer to themselves as “strangers” and “sojourners” and “resident aliens” to distinguish themselves first and foremost as citizens of God’s kingdom rather than citizens of the land where they lived. One of the dangers of our place and time, as I see it, is that we live amid a clamor of cries demanding our allegiance, issuing a call to arms. They can be as diametrically opposed as right and left, liberal and conservative, reactionary and revolutionary, and yet they all share the same foundation: a belief in the myth of redemptive violence. Ultimately, evil is out there somewhere and must be defeated by us, the good guys—if not by the ballot, then by the bullet. To believe the gospel of God’s redeeming love in a world such as this would indeed make a person stick out like a sore thumb. It would make a person a stranger, a sojourner, a resident alien (if not an alien from another planet altogether).

Ascension Sunday

In today’s scripture, Paul shares his prayer for the church community in Ephesus. In a nutshell, he prays that they would put Christ first. In typical Pauline verbosity, of course, he expresses this with a proliferation of ideas and images, conveying his desire that the Ephesians would gain a fuller understanding of their “hope” in Christ, their “glorious inheritance among the saints,” and the “the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power” for people who trust in God (Eph 1:18-19). But what else is this hope, this inheritance, and this power of faith, than the kingdom of God, the world where Christ reigns? Indeed, Paul concludes his prayer by imagining the risen Christ “seated…at [God’s] right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph 1:20-21).

In the church calendar, today is “Ascension Sunday,” which always falls on the Sunday before Pentecost. It celebrates the scriptural account in which Jesus ascends to heaven forty days after his resurrection. It is typical on Ascension Sunday to imagine Jesus ascending into heaven and sitting on a throne beside God. That’s basically what Paul imagines in our scripture today. But lest we mistake this scene as communicating, “God’s in heaven, all’s right with the world,” the scripture passages for Ascension Sunday point emphatically beyond skyward worship to earthy, nitty-gritty responsibility. In Luke, just before Jesus ascends, he addresses his followers and entrusts them with spreading the gospel: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [my] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witness of these things” (Luke 24:47-48). It is, in other words, a holy handoff, a passing of the baton. It is not the end of Jesus’ work, but the beginning. And so in a parallel story in Acts, two angels address the followers of Christ who are gazing up toward heaven after Jesus, saying, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11)—as if to say, what you are standing around for?

It may be helpful to remember that, in antiquity, vertical representations of “up” and “down” conveyed more than literal position. “Up” conveyed transcendence. It conveyed the superiority of a thing. So when Paul plays with these same images and says that God raised Christ not only “from the dead” but also “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,” he is actually saying that, for us followers of Christ, Christ is the supreme authority. In today’s way of speaking, where we project the spiritual reality of things less into the heavens and more into the interiority of our hearts, we might say that Christ is enthroned in the center of our heart. However we say it, the result is unmistakable. The kingdom of God is not something that gets imposed from above with force. The kingdom of God, rather, becomes a reality through our making Jesus first, through our flesh-and-blood faithfulness, through our being witnesses to a way other than the myth of redemptive violence. To put it lightly, we follow Jesus, not Popeye. To put it a little more seriously, where the world proclaims, “Evil is outside us, and needs to be destroyed,” we believe otherwise. Sin is within, and the remedy is not destruction but love. Or as Jesus charges his followers just before his ascension, “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [my] name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).

Putting Jesus First:

More Than “Lord, Lord”

I remember in Sunday School and youth group occasionally hearing the call or invitation to put Jesus first in my life, or to give all my life—not just part of it—to God. I appreciate the invitation insofar as it is biblical in origin. We see it today in Ephesians, where Jesus is proclaimed to be “far above” all things (Eph 1:21). But I must confess, making Jesus first in my life was a rather vague idea. To make Jesus first in my life usually just meant being as “Christian” as I possibly could be, which could mean going to church, listening to Christian music, reading Christian books, and having Christian conversations. It wasn’t that different from what’s going on when Jesus talks about the people who say, “Lord, lord,” as though knowing and saying Jesus’ name is the same as living in God’s kingdom. But Jesus says it isn’t the same thing (cf. Matt 7:21-29).

One of the reasons I really appreciate the identification of “the myth of redemptive violence,” is that it shows me where the rubber actually meets the road. It gives teeth to the idea of putting Jesus “far above” all other things, the idea of living as a “stranger” or “resident alien” in this world. It points out one crucial difference (and to be sure, there are others) between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God. For Jesus to be enthroned in my heart means for me to trust and live by his good news that it is love that redeems all things, not violence. It means instead of getting even, I’m called to own up to my part and forgive the part of others. It means instead of looking out for my own good, I am called to look out for the common good. It means instead of taking up arms for the right cause, I lay them down for the kingdom of God, where in the name of Christ forgiveness is proclaimed to all nations. By living this way, I become a witness to the kingdom of God.

When Jesus ascended, his work was not done. It was just beginning. In us, “the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:22-23).

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You entrust us with the task of being witnesses
To your way of forgiveness and transformation:
As strangers in our own land,
May we tell a different story
Than the myth of redemptive violence.
May we sing the good news of your redeeming love
And be witnesses to the power of forgiveness and transformation.
In Christ, who longs to gather us all together,
As a hen gathers her chicks—
Amen.

---

[1] Walter Wink, Walter Wink: Collected Readings (ed. Henry French; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 150-151.

[2] David Lipscomb, On Civil Government: Its Origin, Mission and Destiny and the Christian’s Relation to It (orig. pub. 1866; Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 144.

"The Victory That Conquers the World" (1 John 5:1-6)

School Memories

I remember very few of the specific assignments that I had in primary and secondary school. The only assignments that stand out in my memory are the ones that filled me with excitement and imagination and the ones that filled me with fear.

I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle in sixth or seventh grade. I loved it. I still remember the characters, the brooding and brilliant Charles Wallace and his shy sister Meg, who becomes the story’s hero. I remember many of the specific scenes, such as the impromptu midnight snack that Meg and Charles share toward the beginning of the story during a terrible thunderstorm. I remember the lesson that the story taught me, namely that love is different than control. I don’t remember my book report or what grade I received for it.

On the other side of my memory, lies the terror of a ninth-grade English assignment, which was to memorize and recite in front of the class a Shakespearean sonnet. I was consumed with fear from the start. I began learning my lines from the first moment and practiced them day and night, even in the middle of other classes. I would freeze up with dread every time I could not remember a word. As it happens, I recited the sonnet perfectly, not missing a single word. I got a 100. A+. My teacher did make a comment about how my recitation lacked any sort of dramatic feeling, which does not surprise me one bit. I was feeling only one thing when I recited that sonnet. Fear. Interestingly, if you asked me which Shakespearean play we read in ninth grade, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t remember the play at all.

I find these contrasting experiences instructive. On the one hand, there is the motivation of fear. It is very effective. It got me an A+. But I don’t remember the Shakespearean play at all. (And to be quite honest, I don’t really like Shakespeare today! Is that a coincidence?) On the other hand, there is the motivation of curiosity and desire. It is very effective too, but in a very different way. I doubt that I received a 100 on my book report for A Wrinkle in Time. But what I did receive was a lasting impression, a story that has stayed with me since, a lesson that has informed the way I understand the world and live in it.

Teaching by Fear and Teaching by Desire

Journalist and teacher Colman McCarthy makes a helpful distinction between two ways of teaching. One way is to teach by fear. He suggests that grading, testing, and homework are all common forms of this way of teaching. Their motivation is fear: fear of failure, fear of falling behind, fear of how others judge you. In this way of teaching, the main question that concerns people is, “What grade did you get?” Not “What did you learn?” or “How were you changed?”

The other way to teach is by desire. Teaching by desire has less to do with results and final product and more to do with questions and exploration and experience. It has less to do with the grade at the end of the course and more to do with cultivating curiosity at the beginning of the course.

I find this distinction between fear-based teaching and desire-based teaching helpful. Maybe it’s a bit simplistic. I can hear some people saying, “That sounds beautiful in theory, but is it practical to teach only by desire?” I don’t know if it’s practical. I have little training in pedagogy. What I do know is my experience. The lessons that have made an indelible impression on me, that have stayed with me long past the course itself, are not the ones where I got an A+ out of fear. They are the ones in which I was genuinely curious and interested.

Obedience Motivated by Desire

“The love of God is this, that we obey his commandments.” (1 John 5:3). When I first read that line in today’s scripture, I paused in my tracks. It sounded a little off to me. I was a little repulsed to hear language of “commandments” right next to talk of God’s love.  What I heard was, “If you love me, you’ll do what I tell you to do”—which sounds a little coercive, a little manipulative. It sounds like teaching by fear. It conjures in my mind the image of an authoritarian God who is less concerned with the spiritual freedom of love and more concerned that I do everything just the way he wants. What happened, I wondered, to my freedom in Christ (cf. Gal 5)?

I’m grateful that I kept reading, because it quickly became clear to me that John’s language of obedience is not coming from a tyrannical teacher. Rather, it is spoken out of care and concern and is addressed to our need—indeed, our desire. “The love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome…”  (1 John 5:3). That is, God’s commandments are not repressive; they are not spiritually constrictive. From this, I conclude that our obedience is not meant to be motivated by fear. Our obedience is not about trying to get it right, trying to get an A+. Rather, our obedience is meant to be motivated by desire for a better life, a desire for freedom from heavy burdens.

I find it telling that Jesus uses similar language, referring to his commandments as an “easy yoke” and promising “rest” from our “burdens”: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28-29). This is the one place in the gospels where Jesus explicitly invites his disciples to “learn” from him. And in the Greek, “disciples” is more literally translated as “learners.” So, as “learners” of teacher Jesus, this is our lesson. This is what Jesus wants to teach. And it’s simple: “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

Learning Jesus’ Gentle and Humble Heart

We are learning Jesus’ gentle and humble heart. Not because an authoritarian God is coercing us by means of fear and threats. But because we desire to lay our burdens down.

So how do we go about learning Jesus’ gentle and humble heart? Our scripture today talks about obeying God’s commandments. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “commandments,” my mind immediately goes to “the Ten Commandments” that God gave to Israel. Certainly these commandments are essential to a good way of life. They are a baseline. But will they alone bring rest to the soul? Will they address the host of burdens we carry, whether it’s our expectations and worry, or resentment and grudges, or greed for more?

Throughout the history of our faith, spiritual renewal groups (from the Desert Fathers and Mothers in 4^th-century Egypt to the Anabaptists in 16^th-century Europe to Stone and Campbell in the 19^th century) have emerged to remind us that as followers of Christ we have a unique set of commandments given to us by Jesus. They’re not numbered in simple fashion like the 10 commandments. But if you do want to get a quick rundown of them, many of these spiritual renewal groups would point you to the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew 5-7. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus issues a series of invitations (or “commandments”) that distinguish his way from the way of the world, his adventurous, abundant life from the autopilot on which even good and law-abiding citizens live most of their lives.

If you have some free time this week, I would encourage you to read Matthew 5-7 slowly, thinking anew about what it would look like to obey Jesus’ commandments. “If a part of your life causes you to sin, tear it out, cut it off, throw it away” (5:27-30; my paraphrase). “Do not resist an evildoer” (5:39). “Give to everyone who begs from you” (5:42). “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (5:44). “No one can serve two masters…you cannot serve God and wealth” (6:24). “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat…what you will wear…but strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:25, 33). “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (7:1).

The gentle and humble heart of Jesus—which we are to learn and “obey,” by which we lay our burdens down—is all these things. It is, in summary, a heart of faith. Trust. It is not dominated by the need for results, for a profitable bottom line, for control or success. Rather, it is free from the slavery of results, the hollow quest for control. Thus it can be merciful, non-violent, generous, patient, compassionate to all. It trusts that God is working good in the world through these qualities, even if they do not manifest in the immediate results that are desired (…even if they end up putting you on a cross).

In our scripture today, John refers to this way of Jesus as “the victory that conquers the world.” By now it should be clear that this is not victory in the way our world understands victory. It is not a victory of getting our way. To get our way is usually to fight fire with fire. To get our way is like winning a battle…in a war we have already lost. The victory that conquers the world is a laying down of burdens rather than a taking up of arms. It is, as John says, “faith,” trusting and bearing witness to God’s love regardless of results. It is, to borrow from Paul, “not [being] overcome with evil, but overcom[ing] evil with good” (Rom 12:21).

Prayer

O God, who is love,
We follow you not out of fear
But out of desire:
We see in Jesus Christ
A way, a truth, a life
That we desire to live
…
When the world dullens our heart
And enslaves us to the need for results,
For control,
May we hear the call of Jesus
To lay our burdens down
And learn from his gentle, humble heart.
In Christ, our brother: Amen.

"Perfected in Us" (1 John 4:7-21)

A Parable

Once upon a time, there was a village in decline. There had been several meager harvests in a row. Resources had been mismanaged. A shadow hung over the homes in the village, as despair crept into the hearts of the villagers.

It was around this time that a stranger appeared in the village. He carried nothing with him but a violin. No one took much notice until the first time he began playing the violin. It was a drowsy Saturday morning when people heard music coming from the town square. It was gentle and soothing at first, slowly gathering speed. It was lyrical. Even though there were no words, the music clearly told a story. There was birth. There was growth. There was light and energy and hope. There were pauses, moments of quiet, marked with sadness, but the arc of the story was love—a steadfast love that endures forever. When the violinist finally finished his song, it was as though the town was rubbing the sleep from its eyes. Life looked different. Better. Even though the harvest had been bleak. Even though supplies were running low.

Over the next several months, there were several more impromptu performances of the same song—or, at least, it sounded the same, even if the notes were sometimes different. Once, on a Sunday, the violinist was heard playing atop a hill just outside the village. Another time, on a weekday evening, he showed up in the public house where people had started to gather once more. Soon, everyone knew his song and longed to hear it.

And then one day, just as suddenly as the stranger had appeared, he left. No one knows why. Rumor has it that he was heard playing in the next village, and then the next. In any case, the village mourned the loss of his music. It wasn’t long before people were clamoring that this beautiful song should be preserved for all generations. They prevailed upon one of their own musicians to transcribe what he could remember of the song into notation. He complied and produced a very fine score of the song that the town had come to love. The score was ornately framed and hung up in a prominent position at the local museum. Every year around the time that the stranger had visited, the score was taken out of its exhibit and paraded through town.

But as one generation gave way to the next, the music faded from memory. The sheet music was still there in its special place in the museum, and every year it was still paraded around the village. The people continued to venerate the song, to praise it. But no longer were they touched by it. No longer did it move them. Because, of course, sheet music that is not played, is not music. It is just a piece of paper. The shadow that had once hung over the village returned.

It wasn’t until three generations later, that a young, curious saxophonist brought her saxophone into the museum one morning when no one was there. She began to play the music on the sheet. Captivated by the song and its beauty, she began to play it everywhere she went. Listeners were likewise overwhelmed by the song’s beauty and began to inquire about it. She said she was playing the song from the legendary stranger, the song that had been enshrined in the museum.

The village came to life once again under the spell of this song. But this time, they did not seek to preserve it for all generations. This time, they sought to learn it. Everyone with an instrument began to play the song. In the quiet of their home. Together at the public house. Out in the open field. On pianos and tubas and cellos. Even people who did not play an instrument, began to sing it, to hum it, to whistle it. In every person, on every instrument, it sounded a little bit different, but it bore the same unmistakable melody. The arc of the story was the same, namely love—a love that endures, a love that brings life.

Perfection

“No one has ever seen God,” writes John (1 John 4:12). Sort of like, no one has ever heard a sheet of music. No one has ever heard a piece of paper. The music on it is real—just as God is real. But until it is played, until it is given expression, until it makes a sound, it is practically meaningless. It cannot touch us. It cannot move us. It cannot inspire us and bring us to life.

But if the music is played, then it lives in us and its song is perfected in us. Likewise with God, whose music is love: “If we love one another, God lives in us, and [God’s] love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12).

I learned piano growing up, and one of my faults as a pianist was perfectionism. (Which, at its root, was fear. The fear of making a mistake. And as John notes, fear is debilitating.) I wanted to play the music perfectly, and I thought perfection was hitting all the right notes. Anyone who loves music knows that hitting all the right notes is not perfection. You can hit all the right notes and produce a very stale, lifeless, unmoving piece of music. “Perfection” has more to do with expression and the listener’s experience. I love Donna’s piano playing not because she hits all the right notes but because she brings the song to life and plays it with feeling. I think of how Linwood frequently regales me with stories of a musician or band whom he has just heard. My guess is that their music is not completely without missed notes or miscues, and yet that doesn’t make a difference to Linwood, who sings their praises and can probably still hear their tunes in his head. Because the musicians are playing with real soul, any mistakes become a thing of grace and are enfolded into a once-in-a-lifetime performance that leaves the listener (Linwood) breathless and saying, “That was perfect!” I’m sure you’ve felt the same way after a special performance. Perfection. Bravo! Nothing can recreate what has just unfolded before your eyes and ears.

The word “perfected” in our scripture today could be translated more literally as “completed” or “finished.” So God’s love being “perfected in us” does not mean that we are perfect. It means God’s love is “completed” in us; God’s love is finally given expression, finally made real, finally played out loud. This perfection is not playing perfectly, getting everything right, note for note. This perfection is playing for the love of the song, which really brings the song to life in a unique, once-in-a-lifetime way. This is the perfection of a grandmother’s hug, a cup of water given to a thirsty soul, a smile offered to a stranger, a tearful embrace of reconciliation.

“God Does Not Exist; God Insists”

I read once about a clinical therapist who had anorexic patient. Every visit, she would bring him a big bag of donuts. She would tell him how good they were and beg him to eat them. The irony of it all, he thought—that the patient would proclaim the goodness of an experience of which she deprived herself. It would be like…worshipping a piece of music and never playing it. It would be like proclaiming the good news but living in fear and sadness.

In all the Bible, God is equated with only two things: spirit and love. We find these two explicit statements. God is spirit (John 4:24). And in today’s scripture, God is love (1 John 4:8). What this means is that, like music, God needs to be played. Like sheet music needs a musician, the spirit of God, which is a spirit of love, needs flesh. According to John, this is how we know God: God’s love is “revealed” through Jesus (cf. 1 John 4:9). Jesus played the song of God. He gave flesh to God’s love.

I’ve heard it put this way—rather provocatively, but I find it helpful—“God does not exist; God insists.” In other words, God is real, very real, as real as love or fear or anything else that moves us to act in a certain way. But for God to be revealed, God needs flesh. God’s call needs a response. We give existence to God’s insistence. Or as John puts it, “No one has ever seen God [but] if we love another”—if we play the song of God’s love—“God lives in us, and [God’s] love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12).

I shared with you last week a saying, a motto of sorts, that was common among Christ-followers in northern Africa in the second and third centuries: “We do not speak great things, we live them.” It is a helpful reminder for me that the good news is not a sheet of music to be enshrined, but a song to be played. (Jesus himself reinforces this point on more than one occasion, reminding us that not everyone who knows the name of the song is a follower. Not everyone who says his name, “Lord, Lord,” is a doer of God’s will.)

The Christ-followers in northern Africa were a marginal community, sometimes persecuted for their faith. But, remarkably, they were not defensive. They did not retaliate. They did not tell others what to do or think. They simply played the song that had captivated them, that they had come to love. They lived out its beauty. When plague after plague hit their villages, they were the ones taking in the sick. They were the ones burying and honoring the dead. They were the ones meeting week after week to share the hope they had in Christ.

They gave existence to God’s insistence. Which is to say, God lived in them, God’s love was completed in them, like a sheet of music given a heart-stopping performance. (Perfection! Bravo!) They were part of the one song that plays over the noise, and the noise has not overcome it.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You have revealed God’s love for us in so many ways:
At the table, where you welcomed the shamed and neglected
And acted as a servant;
Among crowds, where you made sure
All were fed;
On the road, where you touched the hurting
And welcomed interruption;
On the cross, where showed us the depths
Of God’s compassion
…
Help us to hear your song in our own lives.
And may it be perfected in us,
Not with fear and all the right notes,
But with love for the song.
Amen.

"In Truth and Action" (1 John 3:16-24)

Confessions of a Conscience Haunted by Homelessness

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, I was unwinding quietly on the couch with a cat and a book when I got a phone call. I looked at my phone and I saw “Tom ?”. The question mark is there because I don’t know Tom’s last name. I don’t know Tom’s last name because Tom is afraid to share it, even with the people he trusts. I first met Tom at Deep Run Park, where I would go to run. He was known by some of the park-goers as the “goose guy” because he would spend much of his time near the lake and look after the geese. One year, one of the geese had an injured leg. Tom hovered over that goose like its own mother and protected it to the best of his abilities.

Tom is homeless. When I first got to know him, he traveled around by bike and made makeshift tents in undisclosed locations. He had seen a social worker. He had received helped through several of the local charitable networks. And he had decided that he would never get the help he needed in these places, so he lived on his own. Today he has an old minivan that a friend gifted him. When the phone rang that Sunday evening, I was surprised to see his number. I don’t run much at Deep Run Park anymore, and it had been over half a year since I’d seen him. He was calling to ask if I knew of any good places where he could park his van at night without getting harassed. We talked about other things too. He’s a fan of English soccer, so I could commiserate with him over Liverpool’s recent woes.

Shortly after I hung up, I checked my email. I saw that I had just received a note from Lu, a woman at Gayton Road Christian Church who had been the liaison with a local homeless ministry, the Blessing Warriors (who are a little bit like MCEF). Like Tom’s phone call, the email was out of the blue. Lu was sharing news about Richmond’s inclement weather shelter for the homeless—how it was closing temporarily, and when it reopened, it would only accommodate 50 persons at a time. If you’ve followed the news, you’ve probably seen headlines about the growing homeless population, not just in places like San Francisco, but here in our own city, and all across the nation. Fifty openings in a temporary shelter is better than nothing, but it will not go very far. I thought of Tom, whom I’d just spoken with. I thought of how he was fortunate to have a van, but even so he too was struggling to find a place where he could park it in the evening and sleep in peace.

By then, my plans for a peaceful evening had been irrevocably disturbed. But the disturbances were not done. As I closed my laptop, I had one final haunting. (Three hauntings—very Dickensian! Just like Scrooge.) This final haunting was not a phone call or an email, but a fresh memory, from earlier that Sunday. When I had arrived at church, I saw by the side of the shed a shopping cart. Perhaps you saw it too. It’s a longer story than I have time for here, but here’s the short version: that shopping cart appeared on our parking lot about half a year ago, on a very rainy Sunday when a man (who was presumably without a home at the time) pushed it here all the way from Kroger down the road. His story was convoluted, but the short of it was that he was leaving on a Greyhound for Ohio the next day and needed to secure a few last items before his departure. (A friend later picked him up from our parking lot.) Ever since that day, I’ve kept the shopping cart hidden behind the shed, purposefully out of sight, with the vague intentions of one day securing a truck to take it back to Kroger. But I’d never returned it. On occasion, it has reappeared. I will arrive at the church in the morning, and there it is, sitting in plain view in the parking lot, an unwanted, unsightly, haunting reminder of homelessness. As I push it back behind the shed, I have a vague sense of guilt, as though I am trying to bury a piece of evidence.

When “Our Hearts Condemn Us”

After these three, Scrooge-like hauntings intruded on my Sunday evening, I felt this same vague sense of guilt. Was this my only response to all my homeless brothers and sisters? To push their homelessness out of view?

Guilt and shame can be paralyzing feelings. Today’s scripture seems to address this paralysis, as John writes with concern about how, on occasion, “our hearts condemn us” (1 John 3:20). That seems a very apt description of guilt and shame: “Our hearts condemn us.” So I’m very interested in what John advises. What do you do when your heart condemns you? What do you do with guilt and shame?

Well, it’s open to interpretation. Some people read John to say it’s about putting our love into action. If we simply do more good deeds, if we love “in truth and action,” then those feelings of guilt and shame will disappear. We’ll have no reason to feel that way. Or in John’s words, “we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him” (1 John 3:19). So maybe what I need to do is just to up my giving to the poor and the homeless, to attend more meetings in support of their cause, to preach more on the issues that are faced in our community, and so on. If I just do more, I’ll feel better.

But something about this interpretation rings a little hollow for me. Is John really addressing first-world problems like the shame and guilt I feel when I see others who are worse off than I am? And is he really just saying, “Come on, get with it, do more! Check off more boxes, and you’ll have a clean conscience!” That sounds to me like a merit-based spirituality, where God’s love is conditional upon my performance. It sounds to me like a faith of “works-righteousness,” that is, a sort of self-righteousness that believes I can be okay in God’s book by doing good works.

“God Is Greater Than Our Hearts”

Another interpretation, however, is that nothing we do can reassure our hearts. Rather, it is God’s unconditional love and acceptance that reassures our hearts. (We are already okay in God’s book.) Here, I appreciate how other translations render the subordinating conjunctions in a different manner. Consider the NIV’s translation: “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20). I hear this not as threat—“Watch out, God knows every little thing!”—but more as the comforting reassurance that God understands the difficult stories behind our flaws and shortcomings and always has compassion. (I have a friend who will say whenever he encounters a difficult person, “Well, I imagine there’s a story there,” which is his way of expressing compassion and acceptance. According to John, God always knows “the story there.”)

“If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts”—which is to say, God is greater than our shame or guilt. If our hearts condemn us, we can remind ourselves that God does not. Rather than live at the bidding of shame and guilt, we can live in the freedom of God’s love. We can be ourselves, the good selves God created us to be.

The ”Way Out”:
A Friend by Our Side

I remember a conversation I had with a friend in Sheffield, Barbora, when I was studying there. We were discussing how we responded to the people who sat outside the grocery stores and begged for money. Barbora was a psychology PhD student, researching epileptic and related seizures, which are more common among the homeless population than among the housed. She is not a Christian, at least not confessionally, but her response has stuck with me as remarkably Christlike. She said, “Well, I’m a student, and I usually don’t have spare money. But I can still give them my attention. I can give them myself. So, usually, I try to look them in the eye and say, ‘Hello…’ If they have a request, I respond, even if that’s a ‘Sorry.’ I try to share my goodwill with them.” What struck me about Barbora’s approach was how honest and humble and free it was. What she gave others was not necessarily money but something even more valuable, her honest self and the gift of a relationship (however brief). I was reminded of Barbora’s approach when, years later, I heard Pope Francis make a remark along the following lines: “The question when we give to the poor is not, ‘How much do we give?’ but rather ‘Does our hand touch theirs in the giving?’”

There is a story that gets told in recovery circles of a person trapped in a ditch. A preacher comes by and prays with him and gives him a Bible and then leaves, and he remains in the ditch. A therapist comes by and asks him about his feelings and listens to him and then leaves, and he remains in the ditch. A doctor comes by and gives him a bottle of pills and then leaves, and he remains in the ditch. Finally a stranger comes by and jumps in the ditch beside him. The man in the ditch cries out, “Are you crazy? Why did you jump down here? Now we’re both stuck in this ditch.” The stranger replies, “I’ve been in this ditch before. Take my hand; I know the way out.”

The “way out” is not a handout from above, but a friend by our side. Relationship. That is the good news of Jesus in a nutshell. “We know love by this,” that he got into the ditch with us—that is, “he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16). Laying down our lives may sound like a tall order, but at its root, it’s really simple. It’s sharing our honest, true selves with others. Entering into relationship with them. That, I think, is what “truth and action” looks like. “Truth and action” is not good deeds for the sake of chalking up points or checking off boxes and assuaging guilt or shame, but being our true selves in relationship with others, especially the needful.

I kept trying to push that shopping cart out of view, and it kept creeping back, as though to say, “You can’t hide from this.” Finally I got the message. Not a message of guilt or shame, but the message that there’s nothing to hide from. I am not to fix every problem in the world, but simply to offer my honest self to the world in friendship. There are many hurting folks who have immediate needs for food and care, and we can and should meet those needs with our donations to MCEF. But they also have a deeper need for relationship. That is why instead of hiding the shopping cart, I’ve told its story and brought it (for the next couple of weeks) inside our church doors. For me, the shopping cart stands as a remembrance of all our brothers and sisters who are in need, and as a reminder that whatever I give them, my hand can always touch theirs. I can always give them my honest self in relationship.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You laid down your life for us—
Not just on the cross,
But in the little moments when you welcomed interruption,
Like when the bleeding woman touched you in the crowd
Or the little children were brought before you
…
May we feel deeply in our hearts and in our bodies
Your honest love and acceptance for us
And our worth in God’s eyes.
May your love inspire us to live likewise,
To share our honest selves with others.
Amen.

"We Are God's Children" (1 John 3:1-7)

The Family Way

This past Easter Sunday, I enjoyed dinner with my parents and my brother’s family. These meals bring back memories. I remember when I was a child, how I would finish my meal before before the adults and then wonder how long I needed to remain at the table before I could make the reasonable request to be excused. I remember the lure of my grandparents’ basements, where there were all sorts of special wonders, like marbles, a nerf basketball hoop, and at one point in time a ping-pong table. Truth be told, my mind was often already in the basement (so to speak) before the meal even started.

All of this to say, I can sympathize my five-year-old nephews, Nathan and Matthew. About halfway through the meal, they hastily excuse themselves and remove themselves to the back room where there sits a floor table and on it the pieces to a wooden train set. This past Easter, during a lull in the conversation, we happened to overhear Nathan and Matthew playing in the back room. It was a pleasant surprise, actually. No bickering, no yelling. Rather, we heard Nathan thoughtfully suggesting things that Matthew might like to do. “Matthew, maybe you would like to operate the crane? Maybe you would like to move Thomas?” Now, Nathan may have had ulterior motives, such as keeping Matthew on the other side of the table. But what tickled us—and pleased us—was that Nathan was, knowingly or not, reproducing the same kind of behavior that his parents and grandparents have employed with him. That is, when he seems upset or restless, they offer suggestions for constructive activities that he might enjoy doing. “Nathan, maybe you’d like to do this? Or maybe you’d like to do that?”

Nathan was mirroring what had been modeled for him. He had learned this behavior from his family, even though they had never purposely taught it to him. He learned it by experience. He learned it by being with them. He naturally imitated the family way, the good way he had seen modeled for him.

I’ve seen this imitation in other ways in Nathan. Oftentimes when I am watching them for an evening, Nathan will correct me when I’m walking them through their nighttime routine. “That’s not how my daddy does it!” The family way—it is a powerful but often unseen and unacknowledged force in our lives.

The First Word

Our scripture today follows a pattern that I see all throughout scripture. To put it simply, I would say it like this: sin comes second. Think about it. Creation begins with God’s love, with God looking upon all the world and seeing that it is good and giving it God’s blessing. Second comes the story of sin. The sacrificial rituals described in Leviticus likewise begin with God’s love and goodness. The first sacrifices described are the voluntary sacrifices, the ones that symbolize communion, in which a worshiper draws near to God because they want to, and God accepts them because God wants to be with them. Second come the instructions for the sin offering, in which a person repents of their wayward behavior. I think too of the signs in the gospel of John, how the first sign is done at a wedding, an event of love and joy. Second come the signs of healing, signs that address the reality of sin and death in the world.

Sin comes second. The traditional doctrine of original sin can mislead us to think that sin has the first word, but in scripture it does not. In scripture, the first word is God’s goodness and love. And today’s scripture is no different. Even though the writer will address the reality of sin, he begins with an altogether different word: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God…. Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:1-2).

The first word is not sin. The first word is love. It is a reminder of our loving God, who calls us God’s children.

About Sin

Now John does get to the second word. He does address sin. At first glance, it probably sounds familiar. “You know,” John writes, “that he was revealed to take away sins” (1 John 3:5). Ah, yes, I do know about this. Christ is like a sacrificial offering. As Paul writes, Christ is our Passover lamb, who saves us from death (1 Cor 5:7). Or as John the baptizer proclaims in the gospel, “Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

You’ll have to pardon me, as one who received training as an Old Testament scholar, for taking issue with John the baptizer here. Technically speaking, John is mixing up his sacrificial metaphors. To be clear, the “lamb of God”—the Passover lamb—does not save the Israelites from sin. It saves them from the plague of death. There are no lamb sacrifices that take away sins. Bulls and goats take away sin, not lambs.

If I haven’t lost you already, hear me out. This might seem pedantic, but I think it’s actually quite significant. My point is not that John the baptizer got it wrong or that he confused his sacrificial offerings. Rather, I think he was doing what any good rabbi did. He was drawing from the strongest, richest metaphors at hand to describe the salvation of Jesus. In one deft phrase, he mixed two of the strongest Hebrew metaphors, namely the Passover lamb that saved the Israelites from death, and the sin offering at Yom Kippur that cleansed the temple and the land of sin. By combining these metaphors, he was also combining the ideas of sin and death, suggesting that sin is the real death, the real bondage from which we need delivery. He was anticipating Jesus with this move, who would say, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt 10:28). For Jesus and John the baptizer, to be saved is not just to have some literal shackles broken (although that certainly is part of it), but also to have the spiritual shackles thrown off. We all know this truth, intuitively. We all know about spiritual shackles. Anyone who has been eaten up with envy or bent on revenge; anyone who has been consumed with getting more or obsessed with winning; anyone who has been afflicted with addictive thinking or dysfunctional relationships—anyone knows that we have a host of bad patterns of thought and deed—that is, sin—that are like chains holding us back from “abundant life” (John 10:10), from “the life that is really life” (1 Tim 6:19).

Live in Christ

Likewise, we all know, again intuitively, that there is no quick fix for this sin, for these chains. Yes, symbolically, there is a quick fix. In the Old Testament, sacrificial offerings symbolized God’s forgiveness. In the New Testament, Jesus’ love unto death on the cross symbolizes God’s forgiveness. But the important thing to remember here is that symbols are symbols. They point to a reality, but then that reality must be accepted, must be lived out, must be given flesh—incarnated. The prophets in the Old Testament knew this well. They regularly chastised the people for believing that sacrifices alone would take care of any problems. They reminded them that sacrifices can be hollow. They reminded them that they are only meaningful if they are offered in good faith, by people who are earnestly seeking and following God. Jesus is quoting one of these prophets when he says, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matt 9:13; Hos 6:6). Or we might remember how David says in Psalm 51, “You have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give you a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit” (Ps 51:16-17). The symbolic significance of sacrificial offerings would only become real, would only find flesh, among people who were broken and honest enough about their sin.

In our scripture today, John provides his own explanation for how Jesus’ atoning sacrifice becomes real in our lives. And this is what strikes me as really good news. John doesn’t tell his listeners, with regard to their sin, “Stop it! Don’t do it!” Negative advice like this usually turns a person’s mind toward shame and the sinful behavior, so that they persist. (What we resist, persists.) It’s like telling a toddler not to do something. Your prohibition sometimes functions more like an encouragement!

Instead, John’s advice is positive and simple. “No one who abides in him [Christ Jesus] sins” (1 John 3:6). In other words, live in Christ. It goes back, I think, to the first word in today’s scripture, namely that God loves us and we are God’s children. The good news is not only that God already accepts us as we are, but also that we are part of a family. In Christ, we have special access to what might be called “the family way.” When we see the hurtful patterns of thought and deed (i.e., the sin in our world), we can like Nathan remind ourselves, “That’s not how my daddy does it!” We have more than negative advice; we have a positive example.

In Christ, we have the opportunity to learn how our daddy—our heavenly abba and eema—does it. This, I think, is how Christ “takes away the sins of the world.” Not through some magical sacrificial equation, but through modeling for us—even unto his death—the eternal way of love. Christ shows us the family way, a way of goodness, a way out of sin. “No one who [lives] in him sins” (1 John 3:6).

If the way of Christ is anything like “the family way” that we learn as children, it is not so much something we learn by someone telling us, but by someone showing us. Which is why gathering in community with brothers and sisters in Christ can be so important. Here, where are two or three are gathered in his spirit, Christ is indeed present, and we model and mirror for one another the family way. A way of forgiveness instead of retribution. A way of openness and listening instead of control and having the last word. A way of acceptance and gratitude instead of resentment and greed. A way of mercy and compassion instead of judgment and merit. A way that is gentle and humble and gives rest to our souls.

Friends, we are the beloved children of God. It is good news. We are accepted as we are even as we are shown by Christ how we might grow into our true selves as God’s children.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
Who takes away the sins of the world—
We are ever needful of your help.
Sometimes we forget we are God’s children,
And confuse ourselves with our sin
…
Remind us again of the first word
In your good news:
That we are already God’s beloved.
Lead us joyfully
In the family way.
Amen.

"What We Have Seen and Heard" (John 1:1-2:2)

“Bearing Witness”

David grew up the son of a Pentecostal music minister out in Arizona. He always assumed he’d become a music minister himself. In time, he would minister to many with his music. But not in the way that he anticipated.

In his teenage years, he began to write his own songs. Before long, he was putting out records on an alternative Christian label. His music had a compelling element that attracted listeners beyond the Christian subculture. He had a prophetic edge to him, a sharp honesty that both enticed and threatened the listener. I remember in college listening to one of his songs, the lyrics of which seemed to address the hypocrisy of religious leaders who preached one way but lived another: “Wouldn’t you like to be / on the cover of a magazine / healthy skin, perfect teeth / designed to hide what lies beneath?” His songs were all about “what lies beneath.”

If I had to guess, the kernel of David’s grievance with the church had nothing to do with the gospel, with a God of love and forgiveness. It had to do with the people who took that God’s place, who presumed to speak for God, who demanded conformity to their interpretation of things. In interviews, David has shared how his religious upbringing alienated him from reality, from his feelings, from himself. He felt so forced to think a certain way and feel a certain way and live a certain way, and there was no space for honesty and conversation. (Our brothers and sisters in Islam have a saying that goes something like this, “Where there is compulsion, there is no religion.”)

What I will share next will probably sound like a turn for the worse, but I would like to encourage you to suspend judgment for a moment. It may not be what it sounds like. In 2009, when David was thirty-three years old, he came out with an album, Curse Your Branches, in which he publicly professed the loss of his faith. On it is a song that sprung to mind as I read this week’s scripture. The song is called “Bearing Witness,” and I’d like to share with you a couple of its verses:

I clung to miracles I have not seen
From ancient autographs I cannot read.
Though I've repented [i.e., renounced belief] I’m still tempted, I admit—
But it’s not what bearing witness is.

Too full of fear and prophecy to see
The revelation right in front of me
So sick and tired of trying to make the pieces fit
Cause it’s not what bearing witness is.

What is “bearing witness”? David concludes that it is simply being honest. “Let go of what you ‘know’ / and honor what exists / Son, that’s what ‘bearing witness’ is.”

“The Things That Your Eyes Have Seen”

Our scripture today is an exercise in precisely the “bearing witness” that David is describing—namely honesty, “honor[ing] what exists,” celebrating not some doctrine from on high but our flesh-and-blood experience: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). According to 1 John, our faith is not about a separate reality, a place we only know secondhand or in the third-person, a realm removed from this world that we do not know now but will later, as though God were there but not here. No, our faith is about the goodness of God that we have come to know right here—through what we’ve heard, seen, and touched.

I’m reminded of the way that Moses talks about faith when he prepares the Israelites to enter the Promised Land. Even though the old generation has died and he is addressing a new generation, a group of people who did not all experience the exodus from Egypt and all of the events in the wilderness, he insists: “Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us alive here today” (Deut 5:3). Now, as rabbis have pointed out for centuries, this claim is literally false. God made the covenant forty years prior to this moment, with the fathers and mothers of the people to whom he is speaking now. But perhaps this statement is true in another way. I think Moses is making a fundamental claim here about faith. For it to be real and authentic, it must not only be inherited but also experienced. It must not be only about “miracles we have not seen” and “ancient autographs we cannot be read”; it must not be from “fear” or “prophecies” of exclusion, whether from a community or an afterlife later; rather, it must be, in some way, from our own experience. “Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us” (Deut 5:3). He is inviting this new generation to understand themselves as God’s partners, to understand that what God did with their parents, God is doing now with them. Maybe they didn’t experience the crossing of the sea or the early miracles in the desert, but they have their own experiences to draw from, which are just as valid. “Take care,” Moses says, “and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life” (Deut 4:9).

Then Moses makes a claim about God that I think has been largely forgotten or neglected. “Acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above”—everyone knows that; no surprises there—“and on earth below; there is no other” (Deut 4:39). The Lord is God “on earth below”? That would mean that the Lord is God now, here. God is no different on earth than God is in heaven. What we see and hear and touch, is what we get. It’s all one reality. The reason that the gospel makes such a splash in the world, is that it reclaims this fundamental truth. It insists that within what we see and hear and touch, is God. Within this world, is the kingdom of God.

Faith as an Honest Story

I suppose what I’m hearing in today’s scripture and its counterpart passages in Deuteronomy is a reminder that faith is, at root, an honest story. What I think the writer of 1 John is getting at, is this. The good news that changes people’s hearts is not some memorized formula of truth, but our honest story. I know this might be pushing the envelope, but I believe it is worth pushing: I would suggest that there are no “right answers” in church, that the only “right answer” is an honest answer. At the Lenten Bible study, someone brought up the concept of the “priesthood of the believer,” which is an idea that gained popularity in the Protestant Reformation and therefore sits close to the heart of our own Disciples tradition. The priesthood of the believer is just a way to say that because “the Lord is God…on earth below,” each of us encounters God equally. Each of our honest experiences is equally sacred.

If you’re like me, perhaps sometimes you doubt that your own experience is shiny enough or compelling enough to be good news for someone else. So I appreciate how 1 John emphasizes the need for honesty, especially about our shortcomings. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). To manufacture that cover-worthy image, that “healthy skin” and “perfect teeth,” is in fact a disservice to the good news. Not only does it “hide” the broken reality that “lies beneath,” it also hides the grace and forgiveness of God. The good news is not all about us. It’s not that we are perfect. The good news is about God, that in Christ God accepts us as we are and liberates us from the chains of the past: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Looking for the Fingerprints of Christ

I don’t know how David Bazan, the musician whose music I mentioned earlier, would describe his faith today, or lack of it. But I do know that now he sings about what he has seen and heard, about what he has touched with his own hands. I do know that his honesty is much closer to the good news than any formula of truth is, and that like a good minister he invites the same honesty from his listeners. I suspect that he is himself closer to Christ now than he was before, whether or not he uses that name.

If it’s not obvious already, I feel a real sympathy toward David. I see many parallels between him and my friends who have left the church. Although some friends can articulate better than others the reasons they have left, I sense a common theme in all their stories, namely a sense of disenchantment or quiet disappointment. The “good news” that they had heard in church just seemed too disconnected from reality. It seemed cliquish and otherworldly, more like escapist propaganda than a deeply rooted trust in the goodness of a God who is with us right here, right now. It lacked the vibrancy of flesh-and-blood experience and the wild, nitty-gritty grace that does not abide by formulas.

I consider myself very fortunate to have known honest Christ-followers who shared with me not a cookie-cutter story of salvation, but the bumps and bruises and beauty of a real faith. I have known that among you. Oftentimes it’s in passing conversation at a table. Hmm. Oftentimes it’s at a table…

“We declare to you…what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1:1). The good news of God’s love is not in another world behind the clouds, but here in this very life—if you would believe it—in all the ways that we have been touched and transformed by Christ and his kingdom-way of love, forgiveness, and peace. This Easter season, I invite you to ponder the fingerprints of Christ on your life: what you have heard and seen, and especially how you’ve been touched, by Christ. And you might remember that, as poet Gerald Manley Hopkins reminds us, “Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.” Christ may have touched you through a parent, a river, a book, a child, an ocean of tears, a friend, the eyes of a wild animal, an eruption of laughter—through anything that brought to you the good news of God’s love, forgiveness, and grace.

And if your story is not a cover-worthy success story, well, all the better. We do not proclaim ourselves. We proclaim the God who is love.

Prayer

Holy God,
Who is Lord not only in heaven but also on earth below,
Who is revealed in the very midst of our lives,
In what we have seen and heard and touched—
Sometimes, like the disciples in the locked room,
We are afraid that you are gone
And we are alone
…
Greet us, like them,
With your peace, your encouragement,
And grant us hearts of faith
To know your presence
And declare your goodness in our midst.
In Christ, whom we have seen and heard and touched: Amen.