A Song For Our Time

Photographer Mark Lennihan's picture of "Charging Bull" & "Fearless Girl"

Illusions of paradise; we hoard them all, those graven images of liberty;

and Wall-street’s silos storing needs

sing well an indivisible nation’s liturgies;

doctrine of trading farmers for industry,

flow of life follows the Nile’s fertility

right through the ghettoes of prosperity,

“in God we trust” in Caesar’s currency

buying up Victoria’s secret iconography,

found tranquility in mindful mass captivity,

ordaining the weak, the prop for our longevity,

gun proliferation blessed my weaponized-economy,

quick sanitize their bodies under gravestones of sanity,

honored for sacrificing the children to the Flag; finally

we are free from the need to need, feel, receive, fail, forgive and grieve.

Growing as a Culture of Peace (Prt 3 & Final)

To continue building on the last section, when it comes to being a people of peace, knowing and explaining what is right is far easier than putting it into practice.  I insist that it begins with a heart that has been transformed by God’s grace, but there is a progression in living a life found in grace. But it must be further learned and shaped within the domestic life of the church community.

I find it best to look at the guidance from the early church. The very early church was good about forming a people that would act more in the way of peace as appose to a people who just try to convince others that it was the right way to be while showing no sign of it themselves.  This was not, and should not be, viewed as a behavioral modification emphasis, but rather it was unique transformation.  In fact these Christians drew lots of people because they were known for being radically peaceable and patient and it was for that reason that the early church improbably flourished amid the violent Roman Empire. That is of course before Constantine and others drove Christian growth via violence and force thus making our story a cautionary tale, but let that mark the way not to go.

            To get back on topic, in Alan Kreider’s book on the early church he shows that some of the practices that initiated their habitus was memorizing scriptures that they felt embodied the Gospel and God’s Kingdom being present.[1] Yes, this looks like one of the spiritual disciplines discussed in the last post because it is, but I’m moving to somewhere new I promise.  The Sermon on the Mount was among the obvious that Christians focused on, but Kreider highlights another one that was cited most by early writers. It was Isaiah 2:2-4,[2]

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

This poem in Isaiah comes right after chapter one’s judgment on Israel, but it strangely looks beyond judgment to a vision of hope and a day when YHWH is tabernacled with the world again. He will be the life giving presence in Jerusalem which makes it the central place of peace that draws all nations. Walter Brueggemann also adds that Jerusalem is the torah of YHWH in which the torah will be the clue for peace and points to the way of justice for everyone.[3]  Perhaps a justice that only acts restoratively.  

            Fast-forward to the Christian writer Justin Martyr who said that while Isaiah’s words were not seen as fulfilled on the grand scale of a still violent and war stricken world, they were already being formed and fulfilled within the culture of church communities.[4] “We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have changed our warlike weapons (our swords into ploughshares and our spears into implements of tillage) and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”[5]  Jesus’ life and teaching offered creative expression for the church community to live this out because it had a new way in which new possibilities were emerging.  But we can only get to the new way if we are willing let grace and spiritual humility lead us into rethinking everything.

As I said in part 1, conflict is not a bad thing, but our perspectives and responses to it tend to be quite terrible. Look at race in the U.S. right now. The black population clearly sees inherent racism in many areas but particularly in our justice system.  It seems that very few whites (especially those in power) are taking them seriously and many white people say awful things like slavery was in the past and “they just need to get over it” because it was their great-grandparents and grandparents enslaved and not them.

The black majority realize they are not being heard or taken seriously and they protest and form movements that attempt to highlight that they are witnessing police brutality and mass incarceration rates higher among them than anyone else and they are right. Yet nobody wants to step up for them and say “black lives matter” so they have had to do it themselves. The response to that from many has been to say well “all lives matter” even when they clearly don’t believe that and it only became another division for the political right and left to take sides on which itself seems to be a new turf for racial division.  Still not being heard though, many protests have turned violent which brought new condemnation and equally violent responses. 

Mark my words, this intractable polarization will continue so long as the adversarial thinking continues. Those with the dispute will continue to be ignored and downplayed by those who do not experience it firsthand and by those who want to make sure they stay suppressed.  Now I am sure there are arguments against me from other sides of the conflict, but it will not negate that somebody was first not being heard and the same old cycle of conflict with anger, violence, depression, broken relationships and so on is just being carried forward.

The counter-cultural witness that was in Isaiah’s vision, Jesus’ embodiment and the church’s continuation was that conflict was the uncomfortable failure that brought opportunity for change. But the hurt ones were heard by the other side who would confront the issues by taking it seriously and empowering all parties to work for change as one people, not “colorblind” as they say, but color-bound. 

To borrow Kreider’s illustration, in Acts the Hellenists within the church community were upset with the Hebrews because they were neglecting to feed their widows in the daily distribution of food (6:1-6).  Now note that the response was not to ignore them, or downplay their issue, but rather they assembled as a community and decided to appoint seven notably responsible people who would shoulder the task of distributing food just to them. The whole community liked the idea and it worked well.

So what I am trying to get at is that along with God’s grace and spiritual formation is the need to develop practices and skills that say we to belong to each other.  There are three main skills I will throw out there to consider (Kreider and Augsburger both tout these).  The first two are interlinked, “attentive listening” and “truth speaking”. Each highlight that communication is the key to a strong relationship, yet always has to be centered on some idea of love for the other. As David Augsburger says, “To love another is to invite, support and protect that person’s equal right to hear and be heard. To love is to listen; to be loved is to be fully heard. Love is first the action of the eyes attending, the ears attuning and then the soul connecting.”[6]  And if you follow the God who is love then there should be no reservations about wanting to follow this.

Subsequently, “attentive listening” is to suspend judgment and receive the criticism not in a way that reads something else into it or using what is being said to create ammo for a counter argument, but by truthfully attending to what is said and meant and uninterruptedly identify with what they are feeling. Another way to think about it is as a matter of being open to a different perspective and goals and taking it seriously.  "Truth speaking" correspondingly works to mutually use the simplest and clearest words one can come up with to convey and clarify their meaning and experience.  Then, as Miroslav Volf says, “…we enlarge our thinking by letting the voices and perspectives of others, especially those with whom we may be in conflict, resonate within ourselves…”[7] This helps us to see and hear each other.

          The third skill is alertness to community wisdom. Community is always a complex intertwining of lives and experience that is part of something larger especially in the church sense. Churches are usually a close knit people who have entered the story of the Prince of Peace and we can often recognize those among us who genuinely embody that (usually the older generation). We then learn that way of peace best when those who have been well formed by it consistently model it, teach it and empower others to do it better.  We are creatures of mimetic behavior (see Rene Girard for more on that) and so it must first be learned by observing others doing it well and then become a padawan of sorts to follow "the way". Thus the way justice and peace is learned and practiced inside the church will become the way justice and peace is practice outside of the church and if it does not embody Christ’s peace we might need to raise some questions to our church leaders.  

 Now, I believe this can only lead to conversations about mutual accountability and how to discern as a community. Yet what this is about is that we are to be a people so committed to the practices and values of peace (as-well-as belonging to each other) that good outcomes will be subsequent but not central to our task.  Peace is the way, not the end goal. 

So to tie this back together we live lives in flux. What began with encountering God’s transformative grace and work should continue with our connecting with God in spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, worship, silence and so forth to internalize Jesus’ way of peace, and then this should lead us to outwardly rethink how we relate to everyone else and become better at making room and tending to each other.  If we do this regularly together, we will be a community that no longer needs to fear conflict because with God we know how to care for it, transform it and even welcome it into our lives growing together.   

[1] Alan Kreider. The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2016), 91.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Walter Brueggemann. Isaiah 1-39: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 1998), 24.

[4] A. Kreider, 92.

[5] As quoted by Kreider from Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho 110.3.

[6] David Augsburger. Caring Enough to Confront: How to Undersand and Express Your Deepest Feelings Toward Others (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Publishing 3^rd Ed. 2009), 29.

[7] Miroslav Volf. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press 1996), 213.

Growing as a Culture of Peace (Prt 2)

I am continuing on the point that peace should not be the end goal to conflict, but rather that peace should be the means by which we respond to conflict and be the very thing we embody. I think people might scoff at this because we have an entire history of proving the enlightenment wrong about knowledge equaling right behavior. As James K.A. Smith says in his book, You Are What you Love, there is an enormous gap between what we know is right and what we actually do.  So how does one close that gap?

It may sound cliché, but the conflicts we experience externally are usually conflicts that began internally and we are witnessing the result. In the same breath, peace can also flow from the person who has internal peace because old thought patterns have been transformed into rhythms of humility and grace.  We Christians know this as the inner work of the Holy Spirit.  That sacred place where God is in search of us (and often us of Him) and we suddenly find ourselves found and reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:18-19). More shocking is that God then dwells with us.

The revelation is that there can be and is peace with our Creator because God says in His kingdom you count too and that He won’t count you out if you won’t count you out (Lk. 15:1-32). When you know that you count there is deeper understanding that we all count, so then to rage against someone else for our own vindication or claims of righteous indignation is to only diminish what is true about both of us and all of us.

I believe most Christians know this to some degree. Maybe many haven’t been able to put it into words and give it language, but the inner workings that made anyone want to follow Jesus in the first place was usually some internal revelation like this.  The problem is that this was the beginning of something really big and it soon became a distant memory for too many Christians. They return to life as usual internally and externally.

But, to follow Christ is to be formed into Christlikeness, also known as “spiritual formation” (Gal. 4:18-19). As Dallas Willard defines this formation, it “refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.”[1] We are taking on the character of Christ in that we become, like Paul says, a people marked by peace and characterized by compassion, kindness, humility, patience and forgiveness (Col. 3:12-17). 

Being this kind of person can sound vainly wonderful, but the missing component is our cooperating with God in the work of self-emptying. This is primarily the work of emptying the self of all arrogance, hardened insensitivity and self-sufficiency.  To consciously be walking with God and learning to let those things go regularly changes how we think, feel and relate to everyone.

This is precisely why the mystics regularly practiced what is known as the “spiritual disciplines”. These are that habits of worship, prayer, fasting, simplicity, meditation, service, confession and so on.  Each one of these practices produces many things in our walk with God but at the top of the list would be the practice of unhurried listening to God, the practice of trusting God and the practice of loving God and neighbor. This takes the peace we so often experienced as new Christians and gives it much deeper roots and much more meaningful attachment to others.

So if you feel like your relationship with God and love for others has grown cold then this is a pretty good place to start, but to my main point, if the church is ever going to grow into a culture of peace and embody peace amid conflict, then spiritual formation must be practiced regularly and be part of how we disciple someone who wants to follow Christ.

Ideally I would suggest finding someone who can teach you this within your own church family.  But if that looks bleak, no matter what stream of Christianity you come from, you might just find that a priest (Catholic or Orthodox), Franciscan monk or nun, or protestant pastor in your area is receptive to teaching someone who wants to learn.  If you are not comfortable with that, then my personal reading suggestions for more on this are:

1.      Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline The Path to Spiritual Growth

2.      Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

3.      Henri Nouwen’s Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit

4.      Richard Rohr’s Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi

[1] Dallas Willard. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs: NavPress 1989), 22.

Growing as a Culture of Peace (Prt 1)

Banksy

Peace is probably one of the most important topics the church should be discussing right now. I say this not just because we have so little of it these days, but because how we understand peace set the parameters for how we view and resolve conflict, personally or otherwise.  For example, if we simply define peace in the dictionary sense it is freedom from disturbance, a tranquil state of being, or a state of not being at war. That alone makes peace an end goal with a lot of open territory for how one can arrive there. 

If a marriage is hurting from lack of communication and lots of disagreements you can just terminate it: get a divorce and file under irreconcilable differences and peace will ensue; if you have a friend, sibling, coworker, or someone of the sort whose relationship with you is centered only on them, their needs and based on seeing everything their way, then go along with it and you will never be without peace; if another country or people group is standing in the way of peace blow them all to hell so peace can be restored.  Of course none of these are good ideas, but they are where we tend to take them when conflict disrupts our definition of peace.

As an alternative idea, what if we stopped thinking of peace as the end resolution to conflict and make it the means to resolve conflict? And while we’re at it maybe we could stop seeing every conflict as a bad thing and become alert to the fact that it is necessary for alerting us to a need for change.   

Why would I say this? Because, when Jesus says things like, “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12), and “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (Jn.14:27), peace is not the end goal because we already have it. We have God’s peace so when we read something like “Blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God” (Matt. 5:9),  we cannot see it as peace being the final resolution, but rather peace being the way to treat each other and the means by which we do life together. 

Miroslav Volf (theologian) says it like this: “Inscribed on the very heart of God’s grace is the rule that we can be its recipients only we do not resist being made in into its agents; what happens to us must be done by us.”[1] To my mind this is the epitome of what the church should be, representatives of God’s grace and peace wherever we go.

Yet as the Kreiders have said, churches really do not describe themselves as being “cultures of peace” even though that was one of the good things being cultivated by the early church.[2] As far as I can tell the church now might struggle with even wanting to be such a people because we are more comfortable drawing lines in the sand that reinforce our stance against those we don’t support. Rather, what should be happening is learning to posture ourselves as a loving people who were and are recipients of grace and peace and therefore extensions of it. 

My point is there is a much better picture to this creation story we are in, but we have to insist on re-finding and refining it in our lives.  This is just the beginning of what needs to be said about this, which more will be coming in the following posts, but I want this to launch the conversation. And I want this to remind us to be aware that “the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus… make(s) you complete in everything good so that you may do his will…”(Heb. 13:20-21).  Peace is already present even amid our conflicts.

[1] Miroslav Volf. Inclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 129.

[2] Alan Kreider, Eleanor Kreider, and Paulus Widjaja. A Culture of Peace: God’s Vision for the Church (Intercourse, PA; Good Books, 2005), 9-10.  

Robert Jeffress Trumps the Bible

A pastor from Texas, Robert Jeffress, recently said that he believes that the Bible, particularly Romans 13, gives Donald Trump the moral God-given authority to wipe out evil using whatever means necessary whether that be by assassination or war to topple evil dictators like Kim Jong-un.  He goes on to say that the only time we are to love our enemies and forgive is in interpersonal relationships, but he says the government is never told to turn the other cheek.  Here is a link to hear the segment in full (Robert Jeffress on Fox & Friends). 

First let me say this, if all of Jesus’ talk about not resisting an evildoer and not retaliating against aggressors and being forced to walk a mile with someone and praying for those who persecute you was solely for interpersonal relationships, then they had odd interpersonal social lives (Matt 5:38-45).  Call me crazy but this almost had to have been directly related to Jewish life under Roman occupation.  They were the ones doing most of the forcing and persecuting.

Second, Jeffress clearly needs some refreshing on the world surrounding Romans 13.  Aside from the fact that there is an inherent contradiction in thinking one can still be a good, loving Christian and stand behind state sponsored destruction of people, there is a bigger flaw. By Jeffress’ logic Christians of Rome should have championed Nero and the rest of the Roman government while they wielded the sword against those who they deemed evil.  By the way they deemed Jews and Christians as troublesome and evil.  Nero’s reign was the political-climate Paul was speaking into, and so my point is whatever Paul meant here it could not have meant what Jeffress thinks it does.

What I think Paul does here is continues his discourse from 12 in 13 about never vengefully repaying evil for evil. The Roman Christians could do that by refusing to act like the rest of the world who bought into the myth of redemptive violence especially against their own citizen-killing government.  It would have been plausible for Christians to want vindication and attempt assassinating someone like Nero themselves, but Paul is telling them to continue doing good no matter who is in authority over them. 

Paul’s point seems to be that the Church is distinct from the Government because the Church is to exist as an alternative community within the patterns of the world, namely sword wielding governments.  The only thing Paul does say about government is that God ordered and uses them to create some order (and I don’t mean "use" in a way that violates their freedom to make decisions, namely terrible ones).  God merely ordered them in as much as He allows the governments to keep having a place within the created order of the universe.  We also cannot forget that God says that world rulers were an entity working against His will (see 1 Sam. 8), so while governments will not be the means by which God sets things right, He isn't going to stop them from bringing what order they do manage either.

Unfortunately I believe Jeffress represents the voice of our larger Christian culture that has rejected the way of Christ to follow the way of the nation. That my friends will always find false-security in things like “fire and fury” and using threats to control others.  

Empire Baptized Review

I am reviewing a book this month! This is thanks to Speakeasy who sent it to me in return for an honest review, no matter how critical. The book is Empire Baptized: How the Church Embraced What Jesus Rejected 2^nd-5^th Centuries, and it is penned by Wes Howard-Brook (J.D., M.Div.). Wes is a professor at Seattle University. He previously practiced law, but now he teaches theology at SU, he works in a deacon formation program for the Archdiocese of Seattle and of course writes books, among many other things. As apprehensive as I am about lawyers writing books on Christianity, I gave him a shot anyway and he does not disappoint. 

Let me begin by saying that I have to consider this book to be an important contribution to the topics of early Christian history and the evolution of Christianity. The early Christian writers have been important voices to both the Orthodox/Catholic traditions and the many streams of Protestantism. Yet, Howard-Brook challenges their views from Origen to Augustine. While giving a critical analysis of several of these writers, he asks his readers to consider the idea that it was actually the internal workings of the Roman Empire’s religious, philosophical, social and economic structures that came to undergird their Christian formation, as oppose to the Jewish rootedness and culture of its origin. He argues very well that this is most evident through their (and now our) narration and interpretation of scripture and the subsequent development of our theologies and doctrines over the millennia. 

As a side note, for those who are up on the “New Perspective on Paul” and where it is going (by Sanders, Dunn, Wright and Co.), I felt this absolutely complimented that work as well. It too confronts faulty soteriologies and anthropologies that have been based on misunderstanding of the ancient Jewish culture.

Nevertheless, within this contextual setting Howard-Brook enters into a much needed exploration on the important themes of ecology/creation care, anti-Semitism, war and nonviolence, sex, hierarchy, social justice and other things that we Christians have notoriously mishandled. So, while I definitely tout this book as well researched history book and critical analysis, Howard-Brook also points directly toward the contentious issues that we divide over now and no doubt will continue to do in the future thus offering many points of relevancy.

It is also worth mentioning that Empire Baptized is a continuation of another book Howard-Brook had written titled Come Out, My People. In this book he seems to outline God’s leading Israel away from the “religion of empire” in exchange for the “religion of creation” throughout the Biblical narrative. I say “seems” because I have not read Come Out, My People, but he offers a brief recap in the forward. With that, I had little trouble keeping up with Empire Baptized, so I felt this was a good standalone book. With that said Howard-Brook does rest on interpretive assumptions about the Bible that I presume he worked out more fully in the first book which would be helpful for many beforehand, or at least something to keep in mind while reading this book.

            My only “con” for the book is not so much a flaw as much as a friendly caution. This book is geared toward an academic audience which I personally do not have problem with, but I know some will. Being of that genre and vocabulary it can at times feel daunting. This, however, is not to dissuade anyone from trying. In fact if I can get more people in my own sphere to take the time to work through it, I will. It is definitely a book worth having on the shelf for any who are interested in these topics and dilemmas.

Becoming You

One of the most unique aspects of human life, to me, is that our identity often begins pre-birth when someone else gives us the gift of distinctiveness in the form of a name and grants us belonging in the shape of a home.  Yet, as people grow and develop in the different stages of life we often deconstruct and reconstruct our identity sometimes for ourselves and often we receive it again from others.  Because of that our identity will take different shapes for better and for worse, especially if others have been at the heart of disfiguring it.

Nevertheless, identity is essential among communal creatures.  Think of what it is like, perhaps your inner desire, to have a place of familiarity where others gladly affirm your belonging. Think of the loneliness in its absence. Think of how it feels, the part of your brain that perks up, when someone says your name.  Think of what happens inside when you hear how you are being talked about, good or bad.  It shapes our self-awareness and how we relate to the world around us. It can aid in forming a fractured self-image in need of attention and healing, or it can build a healthy self-image that is not afraid of letting go of ego because our worth is rooted elsewhere. I say this to make the point that our identity is important, but again it is first and foremost a gift that we must receive, not some ideal projection of our making to aggressively pursue and protect. 

But, the conversation changes when those around us seem better at offering flighty labels to our personhood, which can either be an unattainable high ideal or belittle us as a person. The truth is people who struggle with their own identity also lack what is necessary to see the true identity of all the other people around them. So if we ourselves struggle to find it and all struggle to see it we must ask, who then should we trust to give the decisive say to our identity?  

Yes I am obviously going to say God, but here’s why.  If we stay attentive to the relational turmoil throughout the whole Biblical narrative we will see identity is a regular struggle for precisely these reasons. For instance, the Hebrew texts reveal the ups and downs of the formation of human identity and Israel gaining an identity and God trying to reclaim the world’s identity. In the Gospels there is a dichotomy between how Jesus indentified and related to others and how his traumatized, angry and retreating community identified and treated them.

The main point I want to draw from, however, comes from Ephesians. Here salvation is being reoriented for the church of Ephesus as a divine creation and gift that no one had any power to make happen, just as our own lives were never by our contribution (2:1-9). Verse 10 peaks by saying that the salvation of people is God’s workmanship, like an artful masterpiece, created in Christ to carryout God’s goodness in the earth as our way of life because our identity and location was always found within Himself. In fact the entire cosmos is located in YHWH. To be disconnected from this is to lose our origin and our ability to understand ourselves, others and the universe in the right context.  

When Ephesians says that we are God’s workmanship/masterpiece, I found John Berger helped me (indirectly) relate here.  Berger (art critic, novelist, artist, poet, prophet), in his 70’s BBC broadcast “Ways of Seeing”, made an interesting observation about the art we observe. We usually see art in the context of museums, art exhibitions, photographs, televisions and so forth which is fine supposing the art-piece is good in its own right, but we also need to remember that it is always outside of its original setting.  When an art piece is experienced outside of its original setting its meaning gets lost. This is because most art was never arbitrarily created, but was commissioned for a certain purpose within a specific architectural setting (e.g. churches, castles, government buildings, etc…). It was part of a story, a history.  Berger said, “With art, each image captures some memory from the interior life from the place it was made for, thus everything around the image was part of its meaning. Its uniqueness is part of the uniqueness of the single place where it is; everything around it confirms and consolidates its meaning.”[1] What a profound statement and a frightful one for those who interpret art amid a world that desecrates its meaning for the sake of things like advertisement!

            It is worth mentioning that Berger saying this then leads into a deconstruction and critique of the manipulating that can and does occur to art after being severed from its context.  He shows it did in fact form new interpretations of art (not to be confused with better) that come from manipulating its identity and giving it new surroundings, invented location. So if it is not already obvious this falls in line with what I am saying.

            We are at the epicenter of where God begins to set things right. God locates our identity in Jesus and in His incarnation reveals what we were always supposed to be; genuinely human (Isa. 2; Matt. 5-7). But with this God insists on giving us a new name (as opposed to the empire which assigns a number) as part of our new creational identity (Compare Rev. 2:17; 22:3-4; with 13:16-18).  See, like art we have been intentionally formed within a universe where our surroundings confirm and consolidate our meaning and in our new identity we take part in confirming and uniting with the universe’s meaning because it all belongs.

Therefore, this is an identity we do not get to make up, though we can perceive it and live in it, and we certainly do not get to demean another’s identity to prop ours up as more significant. It cannot be validated by our own accomplishments, rightness or ego because that’s a different game.  Truth is you are enough as you are and you cannot earn an identity which you were already given. All we can do is accept it as a gift and stop trying to actualize it through our rigged point systems. If we let the humbling call of God (who is love) define our identity (which He insists is in His likeness) we might just find ourselves within the loving wholeness of belonging.  

             

[1] John Berger. Ways of Seeing: Episode 1. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk May 10, 2017. 

Death Swallowed a Body and Encountered God: Happy Easter

Χριστός Ανέστη! Christ's Resurrection Icon

Let none fear death; for the death of the Saviour has set us free.

He has destroyed death by undergoing death.

He has despoiled hell by descending into hell.

He vexed it even as it tasted his flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he cried:

Hell was filled with bitterness when it met Thee face to face below;

Filled with bitterness, for it was brought to nothing;

Filled with bitterness, for it was mocked;

Filled with bitterness, for it was overthrown;

Filled with bitterness, for it was put in chains.

Hell received a body, and encountered God.

It received earth, and confronted heaven.

O death, where is your sting?

O hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen! And you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is risen! And the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is risen! And the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen! And life is liberated!

Christ is risen! And the tomb is emptied of its dead;

For Christ having risen from the dead,

Is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be the Glory and Power, now and forever, and from all ages to all ages.

Amen!

-St. John of Chrysostom: Paschal Homily

Why Jesus Hates Fig Trees

So in honor of this week set apart to observe all the things that surrounded Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection (Holy Week) I believe one of the most unsettling verses might just be the best way to enter into it!

In Mark 11 Jesus and his disciples stroll into Jerusalem. Jesus, who is riding on a peace donkey instead of a war horse, gets a kingly welcome with palm branches and coats thrown over the road and the people confess him as the continuation of the Davidic kingdom (11:7-10).  Things might just turn out okay!  Except, the very next day Jesus does something completely un-peaceable and unpredictable. He curses a perfectly good fig tree when he found it had all leaves and no fruit! What’s more is that he does it on his way to indict the Pharisees and the temple for desecrating what was supposed to be set apart for God. 

I have to admit, for a long time I never understood why Jesus would curse a tree for not having any fruit on it (while he was hungry mind you) especially since it wasn’t even the season for figs (Mk 11:12-14). My initial thought was, gee I guess Messiahs are prone to smite when their blood-sugar is low, but as much as I like to insist on this as a valid interpretation that is not what’s happening.  This is actually something more akin to performance-art of the prophetic genre. And like performance art, which seeks to rejuvenate art after artists have become dissatisfied with the traditional forms of art, Jesus too was dissatisfied with some traditions mucking up God’s expressions. 

Therefore, interpreting symbolism is vital to our making sense of this scene. Consider the idea that a “Fig Tree”, especially in Jerusalem, is no more just a tree than the Bald Eagle is just an eagle in Washington D.C. (or anywhere in the US).  It carries enormous symbolism with it. Fig trees were an icon of blessing, leadership, provision, but most importantly, it symbolized the temple and its structure which itself was a sign of justice and maintaining order. We should then conclude that the fig tree is thematically tied to the following temple scene and thus stands as a symbol for God’s judgment on Israel’s “out of season” religious leaders.

In Tim Geddert’s commentary on Mark, he makes the point that Jesus was no more punishing the tree than he was the temple as neither did anything wrong, but the religious leaders were being unfaithful to God and neighbor (12:40) so it became a prophetic symbol.[1] Upon entering the temple, Jesus’ suspicions are confirmed (just like with the tree) the religious leaders are “all leaves and no fruit”[2]  We should infer some things from the elements pointed out in Jesus’ condemnation to see what their out of season fruitlessness means.

Here is the temple scene for easy reference (so scroll on if you don’t need it):

¹⁵ Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; ¹⁶ and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
    But you have made it a den of robbers.”

¹⁸ And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching (NRSV).

In v. 15 we have money changers whose job it is to exchange currency so that foreigners could both pay the temple tax and buy sacrificial animals. These were promised to be ceremonially kosher and goods of convenience from temple dealers. The doves were the less expensive, but acceptable choice for those who could not afford a sacrificial lamb.[3] Jesus is asking in what way is this a place of worship? It clearly cannot be because it is commercialism and commercialism is enslaved to and worships Mammon.

So also, since Jesus points out that this is a house of worship for “All Nations” (compare vs.17 and Isa. 56:7) they have probably managed to exclude the Gentiles from worshiping. Whether the temple leaders organized it spitefully out of nationalistic smugness or just for selfish gain, Gentiles were only allowed to worship in the outer court where all the transactions were taking place. Thus worshiping God in such a noisy market for the Gentiles would have proved impossible.  To add to this, Geddert says that other sources affirm that profit-taking was commonplace and dealers could charge inflated prices (even on the doves) from those who have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and had no convenient way to travel with sacrificial animals.[5]  The temple had been made into a burden for everyone, but those who profited.

In fact Jesus’ condemnation and cleansing of the temple means that it was so corrupted and failed that it could never be the completion of God’s eschatological promise (probably also the reason in Jn. 2:19, Jesus tells them to tear it down and he’ll rebuild it). The temple as it was had become a “dry withered tree” (Mk 11:20-21) with no future.  This scenario should make the reader exclaim, then where is the temple that is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision?

It is this question that we should reflect on from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.  The fig tree is withered and can no longer draw and feed all nations, but there is the new Temple and he draws nations and exiles and captives and feeds them in the desert. The fig tree becomes the “lynching tree” of control, but this is the very tree that Jesus destabilizes and transforms into the communion table, the forgiveness tree, where bread and wine has been broken and poured out for all who will come.

[1] Timothy J. Geddert. Mark: The Believers Bible Commentary. (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001), 263-264.

[2] Ibid, 264.

[3] Ibid. 266.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

Lent and Trust

Many of us are on the annual Lenten journey of prayer, fasting and interior examination. This time offers the church opportunity to regain sight of and grow into the identity handed us at baptism. More specifically as individuals and as a community we intentionally deconstruct the postures and images of ourselves that we hide behind (acceptable illusions for thriving in a world of acquisition) and humbly trade it all in for a cross.  We can’t very well have resurrection without dying first, can we?

            Learning to discern God’s voice from other competing voices can never be done well while obeying the rules of the busy and demanding world. For forty weekdays in our liturgical calendar we give up the noise that hinders our discipleship.

Forty days reminds us of the 40 days Jesus leaves the safety of life-as-usual for the wilderness of testing (Lk. 4:1-2) which itself points to Israel leaving Egypt’s empire of greed and anxiousness for 40 years in the wilderness (Ex. 12:31-33). In both instances we learn to let God feed us; we learn to trust God with our suffering as much as with our joy; we trust God to give a beginning where there was only “The End”. So it is in light of this that we should with fresh eyes read these two Lenten passages from Isaiah and Peter:

 “Shout...
    Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives,
    face my family Jacob with their sins!
They’re busy, busy, busy at worship,
    and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—
    law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
    and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
    ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
    Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’

 “Well, here’s why:

“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
    You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
    You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
    won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
   and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
    a fast day that I, God, would like?

 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you get rid of unfair practices,
    quit blaming victims,
    quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
    and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
    your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
    I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
    firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
    a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
    rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
    restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
    make the community livable again. (Isa. 58:1-12 MSG)

And!

“This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.

He never did one thing wrong,
Not once said anything amiss.

They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:21-25 MSG)

Revelation: Speaking Truth to Power

Wall Street’s “Charging Bull” sure has come 

a long way from being a “golden calf”...

This is one of what might be a couple of follow-ups to my post on interpreting Revelation (See Here).  While I’m still not offering the typical “future events to come” interpretation, it is a book relevant for our day which is my main reason for looking at parts of it. This is to say that what John is revealing to the seven churches of Asia applies to churches across generation and geography in every era. Why? Because Empire still lives on and the whole earth, including large portions of the church, follows that Beast! The church needs ears to hear, eyes to see and the willingness to unmask the Anti-Christs, Beasts and Harlots of Revelation for what it really was in John’s day as-well-as what it is in ours.   

The Beast

 Looking first at Revelation 13, John is calling out the people’s blind loyalty to the Roman Empire (again see my other post for why I would correlate the Beast to Empire).  The Beast comes out of the sea and has ten horns and seven heads(13:1) which, as Ted Grimsrud says, symbolizes “the power of domination” and domination is antithetical to the power of the Slain Lamb.[1]  So also, the rest of its animal-attributes (bear paws, lion’s mouth) are given to it to paint the picture that this thing is a violent devourer(13:2). 

The verse then says that the seven-headed monster has blasphemous names written on its head(s).  What this probably implied to the ancient imagination was names that speak of fidelity to the Beast or equate itself to God such as, well, God, or Son of God, or Lord, or Messianic-Caesar, and so forth, but they will get the hint that any Beast-Empire demanding such recognition would always be quite the counterfeit. 

            As the chapter continues, Grimsrud points out, the motifs of “worship” of the Beast and the Beast’s “conquering” unfolds (13:4-6) but in the text it raises the question of who indeed can fight against the Beast (rhetorical propaganda in this chapter but a concrete question overall)?[2]  The statement is that the people all seem to consensually follow because any kind of physical resistance would be futile! Yet, the counter theme and exception is the perseverance and faith of the saints refusing to follow suit, but also refuse to fight like it fights (13:7-10).

            Then the second Beast rises from the earth (later revealed as the false prophet 16:13; 20:10) and speaks like the dragon (revealing that its power ultimately came from Satan). His job, however, is to support the first Beast and exercise authority on its behalf drawing people in with signs and wonders(13:11-14).  The subsequent oppression results in the people willingly taking the mark of the beast, six hundred and sixty-six, so that they can be part of its economy (13:15-18).  However, to draw from Grimsrud again, some deciphering of this number may be irrelevant.  It was a symbol pointing toward the people’s consent of the human-empire even though it would ultimately fall short of God’s completeness (seven hundred and seventy-seven) especially since Rome promised power, wholeness and peace.[3]

Nevertheless, John is warning the churches of Asia about Rome saying, in Bauckham’s words, “…either one shares Rome’s own ideology, the view of Empire promoted by Roman propaganda, or one sees it from the perspective of heaven, which unmasks the pretentions of Rome… Roman Empire is portrayed as a system of violent oppression, founded on conquest, maintained by violence and oppression.”[4] In brief, don’t be enthusiastically swayed by all the Empire’s vitality and prestige because in God’s eyes it betrays His creation and is anti-Christ.

The Harlot

Jumping ahead to Ch. 17-18, we meet the Harlot.  The Harlot is adorned in seductive colored clothing, but more crucial she is decorated with Rome’s finest commodities: gold, pearls and jewels and even drinks from a gold cup (Rev.17:4).

So, while John gave symbols and critique of Rome’s politics before, in this chapter he links the political with the economic by using symbols of commercial trade.  Simultaneously, and given that the Harlot rides the back of the Beast, we must see them as interconnected at least in their shared interests.  As Bauckham points out, the merchants of Rome benefited from the Empire because Rome (the self proclaimed eternal city) offered certain privileges and security for participation and bolstered their status within the society’s pecking order; thus “the Harlot lives well at her client’s expense.”[5] 

However, John’s main critique here is that the Harlot is an intoxicating deception (17:2), but one that will itself be devoured by the Beast (17:16).  Consequently, John’s angel explains, just as the Harlot’s self-glorification and luxuries will be brought to ruin and turned into torment and grief, so also will it be for those who get caught with her (18:3-7).  It is in this place of ruin that merchants can only greave the loss of the consumers even though it was the Empire that gave her power in the first place (18:11-19) but Grimsrud asserts that its fruit always rested on the backs of slaves and human souls.[6]  This brought an indictment against the Rome (their current Babylon), and those benefiting from it, as traitors. Its violence and inequality was an anti-creational and therefore seditious act betraying human life (18:20-21).    

Present Significance

If this has not felt reminiscent of America, especially now, I can only urge you to reread it.  The Beastly-Empire and its Harlot live on driving willing participants (with which it cannot operate without) for its political vitality and silos of wealth. It is a Pyramid and the Beast protectively sits at its top.  

Now before anyone goes quoting Rom. 13 or 1 Tim. 2:2 at me, let me say, yes, I believe we are subjected to governing authorities (they kind of make it that way) and yes we should pray for our leaders (and even the ones you disagree with in authority), but we Christians have another responsibility. It starts with dissociating ourselves from all that does not reflect the world’s Creator. We need to be a prophetic voice against unchecked power and a refuge for the poor, the hungry, the orphans, the widows and the immigrants (Lev. 19:33-34; Deut. 14:29; Jam. 1:27). This is especially true when authority feels rebuked (Isa. 1:17) and labels us traitors of their agenda.

Empires are part and parcel to a world that operates under domination as the main form of power. Its assumption is that it can coerce by deciding who is slave, who is free, who lives and who dies. This spirit aims to form us, but it is not real power! Who knows this better than those who have suffered the most? They are no longer blinded by the delusions that the Empire conscripts: its control, security and manipulated-logic. It is those who have both suffered and been comforted by God that know the Empire decides temporary things, but has no real power in the end (2 Cor. 1:3-5).

When you can let go of its lies and become aware that you live in God’s creation, you get to tell an alternate story.  The story is that we can let go and not cling to our lives because we die to living on our terms and become alive to the reality that we belong in the hands of He Who holds our lives and the lives of our oppressors. We are free to say No to the Beast that tells us to betray each other for something unattainable.

Power through domination is Anti-Christ. It is rooted in an ego that believes itself to be self-made, rather than other-formed, and by which every person is either a tool for its own success or a stumbling block in need of removal. So let me end by saying that it is the job of each generation to unmask this Beast and join the never-ending story of the Lamb who leads us another way.

[1] Ted Grimsrud. Revelation Notes: Chapter 13. Retrieved January 24, 2017 from https://peacetheology.net/2015/07/03/revelation-notes-chapter-13/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. With that said, I do know there are others (much more competent in Koine Greek than I am) who also say that 666 was a version of Nero’s name and was a mark or branding for people who wanted to buy and sell in that time period. So that is another interpretative aspect worth explore, though I don’t think it negates Grimsrud’s point.

[4] Richard Bauckham. New Testament Theology: The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 35.

[5] Ibid, 36.