The Real Scandal (Mark 9:38-50)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Sep 27, 2015)

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The Problem Is Not Without—It’s Within

In the portion of Mark that we’ve been looking at, Jesus is leading his disciples to Jerusalem. Along the way, he’s been teaching them about the way of the cross (8:34). The world says greatness is being first and most important and strongest. The way of the cross says greatness means being last and welcoming the littlest. The world prizes upward mobility. The way of the cross is the way of downward mobility. The world wants certainty and security. The way of the cross celebrates the mystery of faith.

Today Jesus continues his lessons about the way of the cross.

John and the disciples have just complained to Jesus about a healer who is working outside their group. They sound a little like tattletales pointing the finger—“he wasn’t following us!” (8:38). For John and the disciples, it was a bit of a scandal to have an outsider healing people. Just as it might be a bit of a scandal for someone to suggest that sometimes the real healing at Gayton Road happens not in this building but in the building next door where the AA groups meet.

In response to his disciples’ concern, Jesus does what he does so well: he turns things upside down, inside out. He says that the real problem here is not to be found without but within. The real danger is not a stranger who heals people. Where else could that healing come from but God? The real danger for the disciples—or the “stumbling block,” as Jesus will start saying—is the disciples themselves.[1]

The “Scandal” of Losing Trust

Actually, the word for “stumbling block” is skandalon in the Greek, or as we would say, “scandal.” Now, Jesus is not talking about the flashy scandal that attracts the media: not the scandal of former governor Robert McDonnell, not the scandal of the Ashley Madison leak, not the common scandal of celebrity mischief. The kind of scandal that Jesus talks about today is what you would read not on the glossy pages of a magazine but only in the secret, and perhaps dusty, archives of one’s heart.

The scandal that Jesus talks about is losing trust, or as we sometimes say, becoming jaded. When Jesus first addresses the disciples, he warns them against “scandalizing”—against putting a stumbling block in front of—a little one who trusts in him. And as Jesus hinted at last week, little children are remarkable in this way. They walk through life with an exceptional trust and vulnerability. They expect goodness. They say, “Yes,” to life just like God did when God created the world and blessed it and called it good.

Jesus says that it would be a real scandal to cause a little one to lose trust in God. To make them dread the morning instead of eagerly anticipating it. To extinguish their dreams of the impossible with a cold bucketful of what the world imperiously calls reality. To shut their storybooks of truth and throw them into the account books of facts.

There is a sense in which it is these little ones who trust in God that are the lifeblood of our world, the real religious leaders. It is their spirit of trust that keeps us open to the God who is always doing a new thing.[2] And so, Jesus says, using exaggeration to make his point: anyone who causes these little ones to lose trust would do better to drown. Because to make the little ones lose trust is to deprive our world of the only hope that it really has.

Deadly Scandals

When I was growing up, my family and I would religiously go out for Mexican food on Friday nights. My tastes evolved over time—from the burritos locos to the enchiladas verdes to chilaquiles calientes. But one thing would always be the same. At the end of the meal, having devoured baskets of tortilla chips and whatever my main course was, I was stuffed. And if my mom or dad asked me how the food was, I would reply, “I’m full to death.” Just as someone still sitting at her work desk after 8 hours might say, “I’m bored to death.” Or like someone who was tired of a nagging problem would say, “I’m sick to death of this.”

They’re all exaggerations, of course. In each case, we’re biologically very far from death. And yet, our exaggerations get at a certain truth. When we say these words, it’s because life has, in a sense, come to a standstill for us.

And I think it’s this kind of exaggeration that Jesus uses when his talk of scandal entertains the idea of lopping off hands or feet or taking out eyes. It’s a scandal enough that we cause little ones to lose trust, but that’s not the whole story, Jesus says, because really, when we do this, it may be a sign that we ourselves have already lost trust in God. To such an extent that it might be said we no longer live. And the real scandal for Jesus—the scandal that leads him to talk about missing hands or legs or eyes—is almost too easy, too plain for us to catch. The real scandal is not the dramatic public failure, but simply our feeling of self-sufficiency. The real scandal—the real stumbling block—is the trust we place in ourselves: our hands, our feet, our eyes.

We use our hands to possess things, and we acquire more and more. To the point that we are full…but unfulfilled. Full to death. And so the real scandal is not when a man is caught for embezzling but rather is the moment that his paycheck replaces his lifelong passion, whatever God is calling him to do. It won’t be long before such a life is nothing more than burnt ash.

We use our feet to go places, to reach a destination that we think will be better than where we are. To the point that we are busy…but bored. Bored to death. And so the real scandal is not the shocking affair that covers the frontpages but the loss of wonder in the here and now. It won’t be long before such a life is nothing more than burnt ash.

We use our eyes to see how we are seen, to see how we stack up against the world. To the point that we can be idolized…and yet somehow sick of ourselves. Sick to death. And so the real scandal is not the paparazzi photos plastered on the tabloids but the heart that no longer receives love freely because it thinks that love must be earned or won. It won’t be long before such a life is nothing more than burnt ash.

The real scandals of our lives go by unnoticed, like a text message we never receive because we’ve silenced our phones. In such moments, we are as good as dead. Biology may confirm that our bodies are alive. But what life is there in a world in which we only can trust ourselves, a world that is limited only to what we can imagine or muster? Such a life becomes meaningless. Or as Jesus would say, flavorless.

The Great Cook

Left to our own devices…we would eventually lose flavor. We would become fossilized around our habits and assumptions. We would become automatized, like a computer program set into an infinite loop.

Thank God we are not left to ourselves, to our dulled desires and our petrified presumption. Everyone, Jesus says, is salted.[3] And so pardon my imagination as I envision a great Cook stirring all of us into a big pot of Brunswick stew, and then occasionally adding a dash of salt. The salt does not magically transform us into something different. It draws us out of ourselves even as it makes us more ourselves. There’s a paradox here. When we trust in ourselves only, in our hands or feet or eyes, our flavor stays locked inside and we lose ourselves. But when we open ourselves up to the unknown mystery and allow the great Cook to sprinkle salt on us, our distinctive and tasty flavor comes out and we become more ourselves.

And I’ve tasted it here at Gayton Road. Not the Brunswick stew—I mean, I have tasted that, and if any of you haven’t, you should. It’s wonderful. But I’ve also had a taste of the Brunswick stew that God is stirring. Ivan’s earnest hellos and handshakes, Emily’s channeling of our children’s energies into creativity, Daniela’s floral enthusiasm, Carl’s buoyant welcomes…each and everyone one of us have a divine flavor within us. And chances are, we’re not even aware of it, because we’re most flavorful, we’re most ourselves, when we’re not even thinking of ourselves. It’s like when a sports player is in the zone, or when a poet is caught in the rush of a spirit deep within herself. We are most ourselves when we are most in tune with the God who stirs within our hearts and calls us out of ourselves.

The great Cook desires this: that the sacred flavors we were created with be drawn forth from our lives more and more. The great Cook desires that we avoid the scandal of trusting ourselves alone and that we give ourselves over to an evolving recipe we will never know completely, that we allow ourselves to be salted and drawn out of ourselves even as we become more ourselves.

The great Cook desires, quite simply, to cook.

Prayer

Draw us away from the scandal of self-certainty, Lord. Salt us anew and from deep within us, from a place we know not where, bring out our unique and sanctified flavors in fresh ways. Amen.

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[1] The word Jesus uses is skandalízō, a verb that means “to cause to stumble.” Its noun form is skandalon, which is often rendered “stumbling block.”

[2] See, e.g., Isa 43:19 and Rev 21:5.

[3] “For everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49). This verse is cryptic, but many scholars read it as a reference to the ancient Israelite practice of salting sacrifice (cf. Lev 2:13). It is not uncommon for the New Testament to envision life as a sacrifice. In such a framework, this verse would be suggesting that we are all salted so as to become pleasing sacrifices to God—in other words, so as to live meaningful lives.

pealing

i have watched men
with carefully combed hair and
suffocated suits
turn god into bullet points

i have heard unrestrained laughter
pealing from a room full of
play and imagination
where the Impossible is not

Downward Mobility (Mark 9:30-37)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Sep 20, 2015)

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Grownups Move Up

By all accounts, the disciples of Jesus were grownups. They had already learned how things worked in the ancient world. They knew all about money and taxes: one of them was even a taxman. They knew all about power and politics: one of them was even a revolutionary intent on seeing Rome fall. They knew all about the humdrum routine of adult life: more than one of them got into a boat each day and went fishing for a living.

According to today’s text, these grownups following Jesus had a very grownup conversation on the road to Capernaum. What do grownups talk about? Well, once they get past the weather, and perhaps a bit of politics or scandal, they have a tendency to talk about themselves. They talk about their plans and expectations. And generally these are plans and expectations for moving up in the world: a new house, a raise at work, accomplishing a great achievement, winning an award.

We don’t know exactly what the grownups who followed Jesus were talking about on the road to Capernaum—Mark doesn’t tell us—but we can assume it went along these lines. Jesus was becoming more and more popular, and so his grownup disciples were naturally speculating on their own upward mobility. Who among them would be the greatest?

Jesus Moves Down

Grownups can be a bit silly. Sometimes they get so lost in their own plans and expectations that they do not see the reality in front of them. In the case of these grownup followers of Jesus, they were daydreaming together about their own personal success and greatness just moments after their leader had told them about a very different fate: suffering and death.

And so there is an odd movement to the story. The grownup disciples fantasize about moving up. But everything their leader Jesus says and does is about moving down. First, Jesus is literally moving down: he’s leading the disciples to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, and this would have involved a descent of thousands of feet over the course of two or three miles. Second, when Jesus addresses his disciples, the story offers us a delightful little detail: it doesn’t simply say that Jesus spoke to his disciples, but rather that he first “sat down” and then spoke to them. So they’ve walked down thousands of feet. Then Jesus sits down. And when Jesus speaks, his words are all about a downward turn: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

You can bet that Jesus’ words raised an eyebrow or two among his followers. Remember, these are grownups. They treasure upward mobility: they gravitate toward the biggest, the strongest, the most powerful, the best. Sure, they may say they’re content with a modest living and good health, but their eye is almost invariably directed upward: on whatever extra bit of power or money or security they can obtain.

I imagine that Jesus’ words would raise an eyebrow or two among us too, if we’re listening with honest hearts. “If anything is certain,” it is that at an early age, we have been taught the desire “to be the best, the strongest, and the most powerful. The attitude of ‘We’re number one!’ is nurtured with all diligence and on all levels [in our culture]: in athletics, business, technology, and military power.”[1]

Be last of all? Be a servant to all? To any grownup, which is to say, to anyone who has learned the way of upward mobility, Jesus proclaims an upside-down gospel: the gospel of downward mobility.

And Jesus—having walked down thousands of feet, having sat down amidst his disciples—takes a final step down on the way of downward mobility. He takes into his arms an individual who has yet to be initiated into the world of finance and politics and proper social behavior, an individual who is of little account to the world. He takes into his arms a little child.

A False Welcome?

Which might not seem so revolutionary in itself. If you think about it, even the most powerful or wealthiest among us will take a little child in their arms from time to time. Who would refuse to care for a little child?

But Jesus is talking about more than merely taking a child in one’s arms. He insists on welcoming the little child. Whoever welcomes a little child welcomes God.

And this is precisely where Jesus’ gospel of downward mobility sinks its teeth into real life, precisely where its rubber meets the road of reality. Because how often do grownups actually welcome a child? We’re all familiar with the expression, “to treat [someone] like a child.” To treat someone like a child means to look down on that person, to treat them as though their view of the world and their way of doing things doesn’t matter. And this expression suggests that the way we treat children, the way we welcome them, is often a false welcome. We may look a child in the eye and smile; we may nod as we listen. But in the end, we already have it figured out, and the only real question is whether the children will abandon their ideas and feelings and be initiated into our world, or not. In the end, we grownups have the right of way: we speak before spoken to, we interrupt when the child wanders off on a tangent, we instruct and direct as needed, we reserve the right to the last word.

Now I’m not advocating a rug rat revolution, and I don’t think Jesus was either. But I do think that Jesus is diagnosing a certain illness of our world, a certain grownupitis, of which the primary symptom is a settled and secured and self-enclosed life, a life that is calibrated almost exclusively to one’s own concerns and expectations. When we grownups with grownupitis welcome a child, it is often a false welcome because we welcome the child only insofar as the child becomes like us, only insofar as the child conforms to our image. In the end, we grownups with grownupitis are not welcoming the child at all…we are welcoming ourselves.[2]

Welcoming the Little Children

Moving from a false welcome, where we demand conformity to our world and our way of doing things, to a genuine welcome, means allowing the other to be other. It means allowing a little child to be a little child.

I’m reminded of a scene I recently saw on television. An estranged parent reconciles with her young son for an evening together. She sits at her son’s shoulder as he colors a picture. After a period of silence, she compliments him, “Hey, nice drawing. You’re even staying inside the lines.” Silence. Another attempt: “Hey, you want to do something? Why don’t we go get some ice cream? Wouldn’t you like some ice cream?” The son pauses, and an eyebrow arches momentarily, but he soon resumes coloring. No. It’s as if he knows that his mother, despite her good intentions, is patronizing him. Her comments betray a different world, the grownup world, a world where staying inside the lines is good, where goodwill can be bought at the price of an ice cream cone.

Moments later, the mother picks up a toy figurine, holds it close to her ear, opens her eyes real big…and says, “What’s that? You don’t have a house? Every hero needs a house.” Hearing this, the son giggles, drops his crayons, and picks up some surrounding legos to begin building a house. It’s at this moment, I think, that the mother has truly welcomed her son. She’s relinquished her concerns and expectations, and allowed her son’s world—a world of play and imagination, of the unknown and the impossible—to become her own.[3]

“As One Unknown”

Welcoming little children changes the way we see and live in our world. As grownups, our natural trajectory is upward. And the more we move up, the smaller things look below, the more we have a sense of control over everything. But the more we move down, the bigger the world becomes, the more daunting and inscrutable and open-ended. The world becomes a place full of secret treasures waiting to be discovered.

My third or fourth Sunday here, during the prelude, Corinne wandered with wide-eyed curiosity up the steps and ran around the altar and the lectern. I can only imagine what her inquisitive eyes took in…the bread, the cup, the stained glass windows and the empty space of the baptismal beneath, the big Bible up on the lectern, all the attentive faces staring back at her from below. I can only imagine what she saw and what she thought. But I have a good hunch—judging by her wide-open eyes—that she saw all these things as strange and wonderful, as mysterious and full of unknown power. And I’d like to think that that’s part of what Jesus admires and praises in little children. If we welcome little ones such as these, he says, if we move down and allow their world to become ours, then we will be taking one step closer to God. We will be taking one step closer to a special faith that looks for God in uncharted territory, that appreciates God especially in new and unfamiliar faces, that anticipates marvels and miracles emerging behind each and every corner.

To truly welcome little children, to move down and live in the uncertain and wonder-filled world of the littlest, is, as Jesus says, a true mark of greatness. For instead of merely welcoming ourselves—instead of reducing the world to what we already know and what we expect—we are welcoming God. We are welcoming the unknown, the unforeseeable, the unthinkable, the impossible.

Just as Corinne will discover God in the bread and the cup, in some of the special words that we say, in the love of her family, and in many other ways that none of us could imagine, so we too can discover God. Every time we welcome little children, we welcome a God of surprises and new adventures, a God whose promise of new life means that mornings cannot come fast enough. We become born again. As it was for Corinne that morning when she wandered around the altar and the sacraments, so it becomes for us as we wander throughout the mysteries of love and grace and forgiveness and hope—the fingerprints of God in our world. We enter a world where Christ calls us anew, breaks open our stale, self-enclosed view of the things, disrupts us with the unimaginable. By truly welcoming little children and their world of the unknown and mysterious, we meet Christ as the disciples in today’s text met him: not as the God whom they already knew, but as the God whom they could have never imagined.[4]

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, when you said
that to welcome a little child
is to welcome God,
what did you mean?

Are we to be naïve or to ask questions?
To be innocent or to be trusting?
To be shy or to sing?
To be docile or to be open-eyed?

Show us how to welcome and become
not the ideal child we imagine
but the real child you took in your arms and blessed.

Teach us,
if we have done too much growing up,
how to grow down. Amen.[5]

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[1] Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life (orig. serialized in Sojourners, 1981; Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis, 2007), loc. 153. 

[2] John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), loc. 5485-5490: “[H]ospitality…means to make the other welcome, which is very much the opposite of what hospitality means in the world. Outside the kingdom, hospitality means welcoming the same, even though it pays lip service to welcoming the other. The world’s hospitality, which is carefully calculated and practiced under strict conditions, is extended only to those who are on the list of invited guests, which is made up of selected friends and neighbors who can be counted on to reciprocate. But that is precisely not the…welcoming of the other, but rather staying precisely within the circle of the same.”

[3] Adapted from Season 5, Episode 4 of The Wire: “Alliances.” Beginning at 47:45.

[4] Cf. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (trans. W. Montgomery; New York: MacMillan 1956), 403: “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me!’”

[5] Adapted from Present on Earth (Wild Goose Worship Group; Glasgow: Wildgoose, 2002), 86.

God Is Pleading... (Prov 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Sep 6, 2015)

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Discrimination in Ancient Israel

Since the beginning of time, we humans have made sense of our world by dividing it up. By observing differences. This berry tastes good. This other one gives me a stomach ache. This animal is friendly. This other one bites.

It’s only natural that this tendency to observe differences has affected how we relate to one another. We observe differences among people. We can then group them as we did with the berries and the animals. These people are reliable. Those people are aggressive. And that group of people over there? They’re just lazy.

The ancient Israelites observed differences and grouped people just like we do today, just like we always have. For them, the great divide was between the rich and the poor. The traditional wisdom of their day more or less taught that the world operated according to a law of reciprocity. If you did good, good things would happen to you: riches, honor, long life (Prov 3:13, 16). If you did bad, bad things would happen. In other words, the poor just got what was coming to them. We see this way of thinking in the book of Job. When Job loses everything, his friends state matter-of-factly that his newfound poverty and suffering means he must have done something wrong.

It’s no surprise that this way of thinking encouraged hostility toward the poor. They had it coming anyway, right? If the words of the prophet Amos are any indication, it was common practice in ancient Israel for the rich to treat the poor with disregard, as though they didn’t matter (e.g., 2:8; 4:1; 5:11-12).

Our text today, though, offers a subtle challenge to this discrimination against the poor. First it rejects money as the standard by which a life should be measured. Then it offers its own standard of measurement. “The Lord,” it says, “is the maker of [everyone, rich and poor]” (22:2). Which is a way of reminding people that everyone is made in the image of God and blessed by God (Gen 1:27-28). So in the end—or rather, in the very beginning—there is no difference between the rich and the poor. Both are made in God’s image. Both are blessed. Both matter.

Seeds of Discrimination

So far, so good, right? We’re on board here with the wise teacher of Proverbs. God made everyone. Everyone deserves that dignity.

But let’s not rest easy just yet: the funny thing about fighting discrimination is that it often becomes a sort of discrimination itself. Think about our world. If someone discriminates on the basis of race, we call that person a racist. So there’s a clear divide: you have racists and you have non-racists. All you have to do is address the racists: punish them, re-educate them, lock them up if you have to.

Our text today is well aware of this sort of reverse discrimination, I think. It knows that at the very same moment we say, “All people carry the image of God,” we may also be vilifying a person for being a racist or a bigot or an extremist. And so our text paints a more complicated picture of things. It says that discrimination comes not from certain people but from certain words and actions. It paints the picture of farming. It says that if seeds of injustice are sown, then quite naturally these seeds will grow into trouble and sorrow. In other words, if you want to get to the root of the problem, then you have to stop fixating on one person or one group of people and pay attention instead to the seeds. The seeds are the root of the problem. Any farmer can throw down the seeds of injustice. One farmer just as easily as the next.

Bryan Stevenson, a black American lawyer who’s been in the practice for thirty years, has observed how these seeds can be unintentionally sown. Here’s one particularly memorable story he tells:

I was in a courtroom…getting ready for a hearing one day, and I had my suit on and my shirt and tie…sitting there at the counsel table, and the judge walked in and…said, “Hey, hey, hey, hey. You get out of here. I don’t want any defendants sitting in my courtroom without their lawyers. You go back out there in the hallway and wait until your lawyer gets here.” And I stood up, and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, your honor. I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Bryan Stevenson. I am the lawyer.” And the judge started laughing, and the prosecutor started laughing. I made myself laugh because I didn’t want to disadvantage my client. … But afterward I was thinking to myself, what is it about that judge that he sees a middle-aged black man in a suit and a tie at defense counsel’s table, and it doesn’t occur to him that that’s the lawyer? Do I think that that judge is going to treat minority defendants differently? I do. Do I think that’s going to manifest itself in disparities based on race? I do. And that’s not somebody who is consciously bigoted; that’s not somebody who is proudly racist.[1]

We don’t have to be a racist or a bigot to throw down seeds that will take root and grow into a prickly pasture of discrimination. And that’s why racism or any way of stereotyping and discriminating against others is so infective. It is ultimately sustained and transferred not through people—not through racists—but through words and deeds that foster the fear of others and discrimination against them. The problems of our world cannot simply be attributed to unjust people. The judge in our story, for one, was no racist or bigot, and yet if his court verdicts reflect the offhand judgment that he made upon seeing the black lawyer at the defense table, then he may subtly be sustaining an unbalanced and hurtful worldview that promotes a fear of others, that discriminates against the already discriminated.

In the Courtroom: God Is Pleading

Let’s stay in the courtroom a moment longer. Because according to the last two verses of today’s text, that’s where we may find God. Our text sets the scene: the poor and afflicted are standing at the gate, which in ancient Israel was the equivalent of the courtroom. It’s where all the key decisions of a community went down. So here we are, sitting at the gate, which is to say, at the courtroom. And all of a sudden, God makes God’s entrance.

Now the theme of judgment is no stranger to the Bible. But it usually features God as the judge. Here in our text, when God enters, I imagine that there’s an audible gasp among the audience. Heads turn. People gawk. Because God does sit in the judge’s seat. God sits at the defense counsel’s table.

Our text is absolutely clear about this change of roles. Even in its English translation, you can hear the juridical echoes: “[T]he Lord pleads their case.” God is the advocate of the poor. Which doesn’t mean that God says they’re any more innocent than the rich, that they’re any better, but simply that God takes their side. And perhaps it’s simply because God takes the side of any person who is discriminated against. God speaks up for any person who because of institutional and cultural biases does not have a voice of his or her own. In ancient Israel, where the experience of the poor would suggest that their lives did not matter, God stood up and argued that their lives mattered just as much as anyone else.

And is it really any surprise? That in the end, God here is not the judge but the advocate who sits beside and suffers with and speaks for whoever is discriminated against? Isn’t this also exactly what God does through the life of Christ? Jesus was “born in poverty, and his family belonged to the lowest [level] of ancient society. When he announced his ministry he said it was directed to bringing good news to the poor.”[2] And he identified himself directly with the “least of these,” those whose lives the world said didn’t matter.

Make no mistake. All lives matter to God. But in Proverbs and in the life of Jesus, God specifically takes the side of the poor and says, “Poor lives matter.” And God does this precisely to address a world that by and large said poor lives don’t matter.

If God Is the Defense, Then Who Is the Judge?

The idea of God as defense attorney instead of judge is radical enough on its own. It should leave us restless enough as it is. But if we allow it stir about in our hearts long enough, it may disturb us even more deeply. For if God is the defense attorney…then who is the judge?

There is a sense in which, in the end, it comes down to us. God calls. We answer. God invites. We respond. God pleads. We give the verdict.

And today just as in ancient Israel, God is pleading. Not long ago I witnessed a scene we probably have all witnessed: a presumably overworked, underprivileged parent snapping mercilessly at a child in the grocery store. And I felt an inexplicably deep ache—not just for the child but for the parent, too. I felt an ache that was much deeper than my self-interest and my own personal concerns. An ache that wondered what unfair and complicated life circumstances had denied these two their dignity and divine blessing, told them they didn’t matter, and brought them to that one miserable moment. An ache that simply wished things were different. Perhaps you’ve felt something similar before too. That ache, that mysterious pain that stretches our heart—that, I believe, is not simply our own heart aching. That is the cry of God, the great defense attorney. A cry that may be as simple as, “Why?” Which is a question that no spoken response could ever satisfy.

Even today, God is pleading for justice. How will the jury respond?

The Jury’s Still Out

I don’t know what the verdict will be. The jury’s still out. I do know that God is an unconditionally faithful advocate, and our hearts will always be restless so long as we live in a world where some people’s experience tells them they don’t matter. I do know that God will continue to live with the oppressed and suffering, and will continue to speak up for them, perhaps in socially organized movements, perhaps in the strange aches that invade and stretch our hearts. And I do know that the verdict God calls for is one not simply of words but of deeds. Not simply of good wishes, but of good seeds.

At the bond hearing for the man who brought hate and death into that church in Charleston, the victims’ relatives had the chance to speak directly to him. And when they did, more than one of them planted the impossible seed: they forgave him.[3] They somehow were able to look beneath the enormity of evil that this man had done and to see a glimmer of the divine image, of that original divine blessing. God had made this man.

And several days later at a eulogy for one of the victims, a relative said that his grandmother “was a victim of hate, but she can be a symbol of love.”[4] In other words, hers was a life that was taken by hate, but hers is a seed that will yield the fruit of love.

God is pleading for justice. And the jury’s still out. It really is undecided. But if it follows the lead of Emanuel Church and plants seeds of love—especially for others, especially for those whose experience tells them they don’t matter—then I have a feeling God may yet win the case.

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[1] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2015/08/14/april-24-2015-americas-incarcerated/25852/. Visited on Sept 1, 2015.

[2] John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (Church and Postmodern Culture; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 83.

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/i-forgive-you-relatives-of-charleston-church-victims-address-dylann-roof/. Visited Sept 1, 2015.

[4] http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/25/us/charleston-church-shooting-main/index.html. Visited Sept 1, 2015.

The Song of Songs—What a Scandal (Song 2:8-13)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Aug 30, 2015)

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Chased Out of the Church

My best from high school and I went separate ways when it came time for college. I headed east to Williamsburg. He went west to Charlottesville. But we stayed in touch, and from time to time we’d call and shoot the breeze. We’d usually talk about classes and grades (we were nerds before it was cool to be nerds). But there was one call when we didn’t touch on any of this. One call that was very different….

My phone buzzed, and I saw that it was him. I answered expectantly, only to hear hushed breathing. The breathing soon gave way to a low, murmuring voice. I could only make out bits and pieces of what was being said. Something about “golden, flowing locks.” And as the voice increased in volume, I heard something about “roguish eyes.” And then “voluptuous lips.” By this point, spasms of laughter were interrupting the flow of strange images. Then there was the sound of running. A shriek or two. And just as strangely as the call began, it ended.

What were the mysterious events that lay behind this call? I would later learn that my friend had picked up a romance novel in the bookstore and then had mischievously begun to read it aloud. His dramatic recitation had soon enough caught the attention of one of the clerks, who asked him to stop, and when he continued unfazed, chased him around and out of the store.

If the Song of Songs were a person, I imagine that it would readily sympathize with my friend’s experience. Ever since its inclusion in the Bible, priests and rabbis have been trying to chase it out of church and synagogue. It’s no coincidence that the Song of Songs only shows up once a year in our lectionary, our calendar for church readings.

And this priestly and rabbinic anxiety is not without reason. The Song of Songs is a rather scandalous text. For one thing, if the Motion Picture Association were to give it a rating, they would likely confer upon it an R for “adult themes.” But perhaps even more scandalous than that, the Song does not make a single mention of God.

Merely a Human Affair?

Considering the circumstances, the Song of Songs has fared remarkably well: better than my friend, for sure, for while the bookshop clerk succeeded in chasing him out of the bookshop, the Song has remained in the Bible. But the priests and rabbis have succeeded in covering up its more risqué bits, making it more suitable for young children. (The Motion Picture Association would rate this priestly remake a G). The priests and rabbis have put on layer after layer of theological interpretation. The Song, they say, is really a song about the love between God and Israel, or between Christ and the church. It is really just a metaphor about God’s love.

The only problem with this, of course, is that the text itself never even hints at the possibility of metaphor. The text itself only sings about human love. Much like my friend’s dramatic reading, which spectacularly involved the impersonation of two enraptured lovers, the Song primarily features a dialogue between two lovers. And this is remarkable in its ancient context. In ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, love was often envisioned as more of a one-way street; love poetry typically featured only one speaker. The Song of Songs illustrates a remarkably egalitarian and mutual love, where both lovers speak of their desire, where both initiate romance. In today’s short passage, we hear the woman speak. She bids us on more than one occasion, “Look!”—giving the sense of immediacy, helping us to imagine that we are in her place, that we ourselves are looking at her lover. She reports what he says, and so we hear him too. It’s almost as though he’s inviting us to arise and go away with him.

It’s an invitation that probably already echoes in many of our hearts, an invitation that many of us have heard before. It’s a most unique feeling, isn’t it? Because we are normally so frightened of change and newness. We are normally so frightened of the unknown. And yet when we hear the call of love, that fear melts in the fire of anticipation, in the desire to explore the unknown, to see more, feel more, know more.

God Is Not in the Song, God Is the Song

When we hear the call of love, it’s almost as though, for a fleeting moment, we realize that our hearts are not ours but rather that they belong to the world. That they are always in relationship with other hearts. That they are connected in some fundamental sense with all of creation. Love not only channels our attention and desire toward another heart but opens us up to all of creation, to sights, sounds, tastes, smells: to the glory of budding flowers and the song of the turtledove (2:12), to the taste of figs and the fragrance of vines in full bloom (2:13).

Juan Ramón Jiménez captures this idea brilliantly, that the love for a particular person becomes a doorway to the universe. That genuine love does not lose itself in a single object but rather invites us to arise and to see and to glory in all of the life around us. Here’s how he puts it:

I unpetalled you, like a rose,
to see your soul,
and I didn’t see it.
but everything around
—horizons of land and of seas—,
everything out to the infinite,
was filled with a fragrance,
enormous and alive.[1]

Perhaps love is God’s invitation to life.

And perhaps the reason that the Song of Songs never mentions God is because to do so would be redundant. God is not in the Song because God somehow is the Song, because God is the mysterious call and response of love that leads us more deeply into life. The Bible very rarely tries to define God as one thing or another, but in one of the rare cases that it does, it says simply, “God is love” (1 John 4:16).[2] Not God is power. Not God is knowledge. God is love.

“Come Away”

Our passage today gives us one beautiful suggestion of what this might mean. Twice we hear, “Arise…and come away” (2:10, 13). Which implies that love is a call, an invitation. God has traditionally been defined as all-powerful and all-knowing, and many people ultimately treat faith as though it were about choosing the winning side, that is, making sure you’re in the good graces of the God who controls everything. But if God is love, then perhaps this sort of faith could use some rethinking. Maybe God’s “might” has less to do with the might of an all-powerful ruler and more to do with the “might” of a relationship, the “this might happen or might not,” the vulnerability that allows for new possibilities. Maybe God calls rather than coerces, entices rather than enforces; maybe God makes eyes at us through the window of our existence. Maybe God solicits more than God supervises. Remember God’s words that brought creation into existence? God does not imperiously say, “There will be light,” but rather, invitingly, “Let there be light.” Maybe God has more to do with a knock on our door, a call that draws us out into the unknown, into newness, into change. The kind of call that we would normally be terrified of. But when it is God calling—which is to say, when it is love calling—we are somehow emboldened to say “Yes.”

Over the last month, I’ve been blessed to visit with a number of our shut-ins. And commonly they’ve told me fond memories of dear loved ones. While each shut-in tells these memories differently, their faces share something in common: a certain glow. A glow that makes me think of Moses, whose own face glowed after he had spent time with the Lord. So I cannot help but wonder if perhaps the memories of these shut-ins are nothing less than memories of their encounters not only with their loved ones but with God. I cannot help but wonder if their stories of love are nothing other than the story of God. Each one of them heard a call and went “away.” They ventured into the unknown of other hearts and into the unknown of this wide world. And there they encountered God.

The Real Scandal

I’m happy that the priests and the rabbis and the others who’ve tried were not completely successful in chasing the Song of Songs out of the church and out of the synagogue. Yes, it is a scandalous poem, a poem of erotic human love, a poem without one mention of God. But then, perhaps it need not mention God because its story somehow is the story of God, of how God moves about our world. The human love that the Song sings about is like one of the main tributaries of God’s love, a tributary that catches us in its flow and carries us into the rapids of abundant life.

Perhaps the real scandal of the Song of Songs and the Bible is a God who is love. Perhaps the real scandal is that God does not sit at some master control board, seeing and controlling everything, but instead lives among us and loves us in a very real bodily way, through the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this world, through the relationships we are blessed with in this world. And perhaps the real scandal is that we follow this God not for reasons of power or knowledge but simply because we want to[3]: we find ourselves overwhelmed with a deep, unknown desire for something that no word can do justice for other than “God,” a desire that makes us say “yes” to life and to want more, a desire that draws us into a vulnerable and loving relationship with each other and with all of creation.

Prayer

The world is a wild and wondrous place, God, although we sometimes make it a terrible and terrifying place. Open our eyes, unstop our ears, heighten our senses, so that we may fall more fully in love with the world around us, so that we may feel your love for us in all of creation, so that we might be a part of this world’s redemption. In the calm of a sunset, in the gentle pull of a gentle moon, in the laughter of a child, in the unspoken understanding of a friend, in the sound of traffic that gruffly says, “Good morning”—in these moments, in any moment when are our hearts are somehow overwhelmed with life, may we hear you knocking on our door, see you looking through our window, receive you proposing on one knee, and may we arise vulnerably and walk away lovingly into the unknown newness of abundant life.

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[1] Juan Ramón Jiménez, “I Unpetalled You,” in Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation (ed. Roger Housden; New York: Harmony, 2003), 60.

[2] Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 16.

[3] Jean Vanier, “Where the Weak and the Strong Dance Together,” in The Life of Meaning: Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World (eds. Bob Abernethy and William Bole; New York: Seven Stories, 2007), 376: “[W]e yearn to discover and know a God who became flesh, not a God who came to manifest the power of God but rather to manifest God’s love and togetherness and tenderness.”

Spiritual Struggles, Real-World Consequences (Eph 6:10-20)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Aug 23, 2015)

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Privatized Religion

It’s the beginning of sixth grade, and the three new friends throw their lunchbags on the table and get to talking. They talk about which eight graders to avoid. Share mischievous rumors about their new teachers. Speculate boastfully on their chances of making the different sports’ teams. Dare each other to go sit down at the table of cute seventh graders. And as lunch wraps up, they make plans to hang out on the weekend.

Paul says, “Well, I can’t do Sundays, because that’s when church is.” David shakes his head, says, “And I can’t do Saturdays, because my mom said I need to go to synagogue this weekend.” And Mo, with a deep sigh, says, “And I can’t hang out on Friday evening, because my family’s going to the mosque.”

These three boys don’t know it, but they’ve given us a rather common definition of religion. For many in society, religion remains confined to a certain time and a certain space: while we may carry our religious identities everywhere, we only do religion on a particular day and at a particular place. Which is why politics and religion are discussed as though they are two separate things. Politics is what happens in the real world. Religion is what happens, more or less, between a person’s two ears or in the confines of a person’s heart.

The modern world, in other words, has privatized religion.[1] It is in the best interests of the governments and corporations that run much of our world to keep religion locked up in people’s souls, limited to isolated times and places. Corporations would much rather people keep their pious beliefs about compassion and charity tucked away in their hearts, so that they can continue to open their pocketbooks and buy whatever new product is promising happiness. A government would much rather people keep their religious convictions about the divine dignity of each person locked deep away in their inner self, so that they won’t take to the streets to protest laws and practices that might lead to oppression and discrimination.[2]

The powers of our world more or less offer religion a truce, a peace treaty: “[G]o practice the kingdom of God in your heart, on weekends and after hours, and the rest of the time, march in step with the powers that be.”[3]

A Real-World Spirituality

The common assumption underlying this truce is that religion has to do with what you cannot see and that politics and the economy and the rest of the world has to do with what you can see. Religion has to do with visions and dreams and feelings and intuitions, while politics and the economy and the rest of the real world has to do with what’s right in front of your eyes. But our personal experience tells us something different. Our experience tells us that the things we cannot see—like love, hate, envy, greed—are inseparable from the things that we can see, that the spiritual is inextricably linked with real-world effects.

One of my new roommates has a beagle, and every time he comes home from work, you’d think the pair of them were reuniting after years of separation. It’s like I’m not in the room: he’s down on all fours, butting heads with his buddy, returning sloppy dog kisses with kisses of his own. Try telling him that the love he and his beagle feel isn’t real. Love is just as real as the kisses it leads to. Hate is just as real as the violence it leads to. Greed is just as real as the obsessive consumerism it leads to. The spiritual is part and parcel of the real world.

So how then do we take a text like the one we have today, where Paul seems to focus exclusively on the spiritual? Where he says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against dark and cosmic powers, and so instead of recommending iron and steel for the struggle he urges spiritual virtues like truth, righteousness, peace, and faith?

On the one hand, we could read the text the way the powers that be in our world would want us to read it, that is, as a text that has nothing to do with the world outside our bodies. We could read it as a set of instructions on how we should try to have better thoughts, stronger beliefs, a purer heart. We could think of these dark and cosmic powers that Paul talks about as spiritual super-villains that live in another dimension, as creatures that we could see if only we had the right set of goggles.

But that would be gravely missing the point. The whole point of spiritual struggle is real-world change.[4] “On earth as it is in heaven.” The dark and cosmic powers that Paul refers to are not spiritual villains against which God and the angels do battle in some other world, but are the very things that prevent the kingdom of God from breaking in on this world, the very things that prevent heaven on earth. The dark and cosmic powers are tied up with the powers that be: with assumptions, ideologies, and ways of thinking. Greed. Racism. Sexism. Ageism. Consumerism. Ways of thinking that turn people into numbers, into dollar signs, ways of thinking that label people either normal or strange, that say “no” to the image of God in certain people. These are the dark and cosmic powers that Jesus fought against when he reached out to include Samaritans and women and children and the lepers in his kingdom, when he reached out to welcome those whom the powers that be had generally excluded.

Real-World Consequences

And look where it got him. The world does not take kindly to people who question the way things are.[5] The scary truth is, the spiritual armor of God does not defend against real-world wickedness. If anything, it emboldens us to step more confidently into the midst of such wickedness, where anything might happen. The shield of faith will indeed quench the arrows of the evil one (6:16) but not the nails driven into the cross, the bullets from a gun. The shoes that make us ready to proclaim peace (6:15) do not promise us a peaceful passage but instead a risky journey into places that need peace, places of hostility and oppression.

About thirty-five years ago, a priest in El Salvador named Oscar Romero put on the armor of God. And he went to proclaim peace and justice in a nation ravaged by an oppressive government, where the poor and the needy received kick in the side rather than a helping hand. One day he found himself speaking in front of a number of soldiers, who were regularly tasked with killing civilians, and he offered them these words: “No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. … In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression.”[6] The next day, as Oscar was serving mass to his parishioners, a car stopped outside the church. A single shot rang out. Oscar’s body was broken. His blood spilt.

A Different Kind of Power

Because both Jesus and Oscar wore the armor of God and both suffered death at the hands of the powers that be, I cannot help but wonder if the whole point of Paul’s armor image is to suggest not a similarity between the armor of the world and God’s armor but a contrast. A Roman centurion’s armor is one kind of power: the kind that enforces the soldier’s will upon the people around him. God’s armor is of a different kind of power. If the examples of Jesus and Oscar are any indication, God’s power is one that operates not by force or compulsion but by an enduring, undying love. A love that lives past our deaths.

I don’t mean to suggest that point of Paul’s message is that we all must prepare for a violent end like the ones Jesus and Oscar endured. But rather that the armor of God prepares us not merely for a fight inside our minds or hearts, but for a risky life lived in the real world. It’s no coincidence that Paul refers to himself as an “ambassador in chains” (6:20). The armor of God takes us not away from the real-world but straight into it, where our faith may land us in uncomfortable places. The armor of God enables us to live for what is true rather than what is convenient, to proclaim peace in in places where there is no peace, to work for rightful relationships among a broken world, to hold an unswerving faith in the powerless power of God’s love. The armor of God enables us to stand firm when the powers that be put us in chains; or more simply, when people raise eyebrows, when it would be so much easier to retreat into our privileged corners of the world.

Where Does the Armor of God Enable Us to Walk?

But perhaps it’s difficult to identify with spiritual superheroes like Paul and Oscar. So the last question that must be asked is, “What about us? Where does the armor of God enable us to walk?” The answer might begin closer to home than you’d think. 

I’m reminded of a simple scene I witnessed at a church back in England. A street drifter had drifted in off the street, and at the time of communion, he stood up and began stumbling forward. He was half-speaking, half-praying, mumbling some of what seemed to be nonsense, making a bit of a commotion. A number sitting in the pews looked about, wondering who was going to tidy up this strange scene. But no one got up. No one except the minister. And with a kind smile hiding behind his bemused eyes, he stood firmly in front of his congregation and served the man communion. Sure, he may have been risking the wrath of some of his parishioners, those who would have preferred a proper communion over a shambles such as this and would as likely as not later tie the minister up in emotional chains…but how better to live the truth of God’s unconditional welcome, to proclaim the good news of God’s peace, to reconcile among different groups of people, to let God’s kingdom come on earth, than to eat and drink at the Lord’s table with a man whom most would never think about eating and drinking with, a man whom the powers that be would not even acknowledge?

For what and for whom do we need to stand firm in our community, our workplaces, our circles of life? Where does the armor of God enable us to walk?

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[1] Cf. Kim Knott, The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis (London: Equinox, 2005), 62.

[2] See Russell D. McCutcheon, Religion and the Domestication of Dissent, or How to Live in a Less than Perfect Nation (London: Equinox, 2005) for a broader discussion of the interests that various world authorities have in keeping “religion” delimited to the private realm.

[3] John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), loc. 6544. Here Caputo exposes the interests invested in the concept of private religion, namely that such a religion’s adherents would remain subject to the world’s “powers that be.”

[4] Thus Eph 1:10, in which the Pauline writer asserts that the ultimate desire of God is “to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” This ultimate eschaton, or in-gathering of all things, is one that collapses the distinction between heaven and earth, between “things in heaven and things on earth.” The kingdom of God that dwells in our hearts, in the heavenly realm, becomes none other than the kingdom in which the material world lives. On earth as it is in heaven.

[5] Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 508, cites Rutilio Grande, a Salvadoran martyr, who said: “It is a dangerous thing to be a Christian in our world.”

[6] Christopher M. White, The History of El Salvador (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2009), 100.

The Days Are Evil, So Give Thanks (Eph 5:15-20)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Aug 16, 2015)

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Impossible?

It was a dark night, and darker still because of all the heavy hearts. In a Nazi concentration camp, a group of Jewish prisoners huddled together. The evil that they had suffered was unthinkable. And so tonight, they would do the unthinkable. They would put God on trial. They appointed attorneys. They worked through a number of accusations. And after a period of deliberation, the judges solemnly announced: “God has not held up God’s end of the deal. God owes us something.”

And if that were not outrageous enough, immediately after they closed their proceedings, they gathered for evening prayer. In the space of seconds, words of accusation gave way to words of devotion and thanksgiving.

I’ve often wondered about this legend. Did it really happen? Could it possibly be true? Because it seems impossible to me: to pray and give thanks to the same God whom you’ve just accused.

And I’ll confess, Paul’s words in today’s scripture seem impossible to me too. If you’ve read your bulletin carefully, you’ll already have noticed that I was, as the British would say, a bit “cheeky” with the sermon title: “The Days Are Evil, So Give Thanks.” If that strikes you as a bit impious, then you’ll have to take it up with the apostle Paul. They’re his words, not mine. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me to struggle with the question: If these days are “evil” (5:16) as Paul says they are, then what could it possibly mean to give thanks “at all times and for everything” (5:20)? Isn’t it illogical—impossible—to give thanks for everything if the time we live in is evil?

Escaping Life

It’s an interesting coincidence that Paul lived at precisely the time that the motto “Pax Romana,” or “the peace of Rome,” first appears in writing.[1] This slogan was meant to suggest that for the first time in the history of the world, there was an empire of order and peace. And while this may have been true from a broad political perspective, it wouldn’t have fooled Paul or anyone else in his day into thinking that life was actually peaceful, just as no-one is fooled today by the relative security we enjoy. One look at the paper, one minute of news would have told you then as it tells you now that despite our living in a nation that enjoys unparalleled power in world politics, we live in days that could rightly be called evil. How else do you describe days plagued by senseless gun violence and hateful discrimination, or more simply, days when millions wake up and go to sleep hungry for the same food that millions elsewhere enjoy an abundance of?

For Paul, there are two basic ways of responding to the reality of our evil days, two ways of making sense of a seemingly senseless world. He describes the first way with the specific image of “get[ting] drunk with wine” and earlier in his letter with words like “empty” (5:6) and “unfruitful” (5:11). This collection of words and images bring to mind a striking memory from one of my first experiences of culture shock in England. I was walking home from a friend’s on Friday night, and my walk took me straight through West Street, which was the main drag in Sheffield. It was lined with pubs, bars, clubs, and sprinkled throughout were a handful of “chippies” and kebab shops. And on a Friday night, it was hopping. Needless to say, my personal space bubble (a radius of six inches or so) was violated again and again. I rubbed up against University students decked out for themed parties, dressed as pirates or smurfs or wearing Hawaiian-themed attire. I pushed through locals who were wearing a few layers less than I would have thought England’s perpetually cool and damp weather called for. I stepped over puddles of people’s sickness. I walked by countless adverts that promised the best night ever.

I would later acclimate to West Street. I would even walk it myself with a few friends from time to time, and we could enjoy ourselves. But even so, I can’t help but feel that much of West Street on a Friday was little more than misery dressed in happiness, desperation wearing the mask of a good time. As a chaplain at the university, I saw this firsthand. Students would post Facebook pictures of their fun on West Street, and yet in the safe space of a few close friends, they would reveal their deep and abiding unhappiness.

West Street holds a curious place in my memory. I remember it not with disgust, but with a surprising sympathy. Because we all have our own West Streets. We all try from time to time to escape the reality of our evil days. Confronted with personal unhappiness and the despair of a world that doesn’t make sense, it’s tempting to think that the solution is somewhere else—if not at the bottom of a glass, then in the next job or social gathering or relationship or maybe even just the next nice meal. But like Paul says, this way of living is empty and fruitless. Life is hollow when we look for it somewhere else.

Embracing Life

The alternative, Paul says, is to look for life precisely where we are—in these days and these times, however evil they may be. This is why rather than advising us to run away from these broken times that we live in, Paul urges us to “mak[e] the most of the time” (5:16). In other words, Paul is saying, don’t try to escape reality. Embrace it. Don’t discard this damaged time. Redeem it. “Be filled with the Spirit” (5:18), Paul says, and what else can he mean but, “Be filled with the God who says ‘Yes’ to us and our world, who takes our flesh and lives among us, who comes not to condemn us where we are but to redeem us where we are.” There are divine possibilities simmering in every minute of every one of our evil days.[2]

We began today in a concentration camp, where a group of Jewish prisoners honestly confronted the evil of their days. If you’ll follow me, let’s go now to a different concentration camp, where another prisoner gives us a glimpse of how we might live the impossible—how we might actually embrace our reality rather than escape it, how we might give thanks to God amid evil days.

Corrie ten Boom was arrested by the Nazis for hiding and protecting Jewish families. After living in solitary confinement for a month, in a bitterly cold cell six steps long and two steps wide with a single light bulb that was operated according to the whim of her guards, she had just about lost the will to live. But at just this point, her life was transformed—by God, she would say. But if we were to take her at her word, we would all agree it was a God unlike the kind we would expect or want.

Listen to her account of the fateful morning: “Into my cell came a small, busy black ant. I had almost put my foot where he was…when I realized the honor being done me.”[3] At night, she crumbled bits of her own meager portion of bread on the floor. “[A]nd to my joy he popped out almost at once. He picked up a piece, struggled down the hole with it, and came back for more. It was the beginning of a relationship. Now, in addition to the daily visit of the sun, I had the company of this brave and handsome guest—soon of a whole small committee. If I was [doing anything else] when the ants appeared, I stopped at once to give them my full attention. It would have been unthinkable to squander two activities on the same bit of time!”[4]

Corrie ten Boom lived in the most broken of days. And yet it was precisely this shattered world that she embraced, precisely this evil time that she redeemed. She saw the divine possibilities for our world in the tiniest of God’s creatures. Corrie would survive the war, and she would later write and speak words of healing and peace, words of forgiveness and reconciliation. And I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that all of this happened because she saw God’s grace in one small tireless ant who walked into her life. And the grace of that encounter renewed her hope for more life, for more life-giving relationships like the one she had with this ant.[5]

The God of Impossible Possibilities

Perhaps it’s more than mere coincidence that Corrie ten Boom’s story of transformation involves the smallest of God’s creatures. Think about the Bible. Jesus tells stories about the smallest of seeds and the least of these; Paul talks about the nobodies and the nothings (1 Cor 1:27-28; cf. 2 Cor 11:30; 12:9-10); the rest of the Bible tells stories of the divine waiting to be born in the smallest and most unlikely of characters. All of this emphasis on divine grace springing from the smallest and weakest things illumines why Paul can say, “The days are evil…[so] giv[e] thanks...at all times and for everything” (5:16, 20). We worship a God who infuses the smallest of things and worst of times with divine possibilities. We worship a God who is born on a bed of straw, a God who dies weak and helpless on a cross. We worship a God of the littlest and seemingly most insignificant moments, a God of the most tragic and unjust moments, because inside these moments we are also worshiping a God of impossible possibilities, of new life breathed into the deadest and most hopeless situations...a God of resurrection.

The last eight words of our scripture today are probably the easiest to dismiss. We say them all the time at the end of our prayers: “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We say them so often that we may forget that these words actually have meaning. For Paul, these words are crucial.[6] They are precisely the reason we do not run away from our evil days but instead give thanks to God. To give thanks for everything “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” suggests that everything somehow assumes that name. It’s almost like all of creation assumes the last name, or “family name,” of Christ. So an ant becomes “the ant in Christ.” And that coworker you cannot possibly get along with becomes “that coworker in Christ.” The complication that you could have done without—when your car breaks down, when a friend calls begging for help, when someone hurts you—that complication becomes “the complication in Christ.”

All of which is to say, all of creation—every moment of every day—carries within it the new life promised by Christ. As followers of Christ, we don’t run away from this life because this life has been claimed by Christ, by the God of impossible possibilities. So we say “thank you.” We say “thank you” not for the evil of our times, but for the divine goodness that is waiting to spring from it and to redeem it. We say “thank you” not in spite of these devil days but precisely because of them: saying “thank you” is our only hope of redeeming the evil, of drawing forth goodness and life from within the worst of times. Saying “thank you” is the first step in welcoming God into our broken world. It’s our human way of cultivating God’s desire, it is the water and sunlight that nourishes the divine impulse, that strengthens its roots and brings it bursting up from the ground. Saying “thank you” is our way of opening ourselves and the world up to transformation, a transformation that may well lead us not away from the evil of our days but even more boldly into it so that it might be redeemed through the powerless power of God’s love and peace.

By saying “thank you,” we say “Yes” to God’s vision of new life, and we live to make that vision a reality.

I’d be a hypocrite to say it’s easy to embrace this life with thanksgiving. But I’m not sure I could call myself a follower of Christ if I didn’t passionately believe and feel compelled to say, “What a divine world of difference it would make.”

Prayer

Loving God, the goodness of your creation is all around us. But sometimes it is overshadowed by pain, death, and suffering, by the evil of our days, and we would rather escape than embrace this life. Assure us in times of doubt that you are the God of impossible possibilities, the God of ants and seeds and the tiniest elements—the God of resurrection. May our lips sing your praise, may our lives be a beautiful song to you. May your will be done in us. Amen.[7]

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[1] Ali Parchami, Hegemonic Peace and Empire: The Pax Romana, Britannica and Americana (New York: Routledge, 2009), 25, cites the first mention as occurring in Seneca’s writing at 55 CE.

[2] Cf. Jean Pierre de Caussade, The Sacrament of the Present Moment (trans. Kitty Muggeridge from original text of Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence; London: Fount, 1981), 36, who says that God is “forever available, forever being received.”

[3] Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place (???), ???.

[4] Ten Boom, The Hiding Place, ???.

[5] Yet another story from a different concentration camp helps to focus even more the idea of giving thanks in evil times. In the case of the Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe, who was arrested for sheltering Jews and speaking out against Nazi violence, one man destined for execution cried out in despair at the prospect of never seeing his wife and children again. Maximilian asked to take his place, and on the day of execution, he led other executionees in song and prayer. Kolbe’s feast day is August 14. His story demonstrates the extremities of what it means to give thanks in the worst of circumstances. Certainly he wasn’t giving thanks for his loss of life. Rather it was for the love and life of God that would continue because of the witness of their and others’ deaths. Cf. Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 400.

[6] Cf. Eph 1:9-12. The idea that the divine plan is “to gather up all things in him [Christ]” is fundamental to the theology of Ephesians. It inflects the letter’s discourse with an eschatological hope that reminds us of the divine desire to see all of creation redeemed.

[7] Adapted from Claiborne, Wilson-Hartgrove, and Okoro, Common Prayer, 398.