Monthly Archives: March 2012

go to hell

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This is the week I have been waiting for since the quarter began back in January. Spring Break. Ok, it’s not the same sort of excitement I used to have when the phrase “spring break” was uttered throughout the hallways of my grade school or high school. And no, it isn’t the same joy I had during college or my first two years of seminary when I realized I now had a break from all studying, reading, and those other entanglements that occupy so much of my time. This week is so exciting because I have a narrow window to read and study the things I want to rather than what I have to.

Contained within this week was the planned reading of a few books and articles that spoke to the struggles I had been going through, especially toward the end of the quarter. But as always, life injected itself into my plans and although it’s only a day in, plans have changed. I don’t know yet whether this change is good or bad, only that the week I thought I was going to have is not going to happen. I imagined a week of rest, sitting on a couch or chair with coffee at the ready diving deep into the pages I longed to digest. Only, there was work to be done around the apartment, and it wasn’t going to do itself.  Now, before I lead you to think I didn’t have time to do anything but work I must admit that I still found time for a nap and tomorrow I’ll still find time for my coffee. But what should have taken 5 minutes took an hour and a half and I lost my day. Tomorrow will bring work, and the following days will bring other tasks to be completed. Today, the day I thought I’d have to do whatever, ended up being just another day that forced me to do things I didn’t want to do.

However mundane the tasks were and however distracting they became, they did give me time to clear my head, and hopefully my heart, of the attitude I had been carrying the last few weeks of the quarter. Time spent on something other than theological notions has its advantages, not the least of which is that I get a break. My mind doesn’t often let me takes breaks, my wife reminds me, and sometimes I remind her, i just cant shut it off. It’s my great achilles heel, I focus so much on one thing and tear it to pieces only to drop it a day later and attack the next thing. Im like a rabid dog, looking to bite the jugular of theological positions I don’t see as tenable.

This too has its advantages and disadvantages. In a way it is helpful because it forces my ear to the ground, always listening for both the words being spoken and that which lies behind them. I don’t always have an ear for both, but more often than not I get lucky enough to hear the answer, even if they don’t come out and say it. Like I said, it’s something I can’t always turn off and when it goes in my ear, it isn’t always nice enough to go out the other side.

Jesus didn’t understand his divinity. Or so I read this morning. One of those things that went in and didn’t easily come out. It was argued that when Jesus predicts his death, he isn’t actually doing so prophetically in the sense that he knows it is going to happen, just standing in line with those other revolutionaries who give over their lives to a movement, like MLK when he preached about not getting to the promise land. But this notion bugged me because it seems like we (btw this was spoken by a Christian and that’s why I say we), are more often than not happy about undermining the person to which we cling for the sake of what we think makes Him more fashionable.  The quest for the historical Jesus is such an endeavor that does the same thing. Taking the man Jesus and the Divine Lord and gluing them together like two boards that, although they are one are completely separate ideas or persons, results in not one Christ but two. But why is that problematic? Because this notion was rejected with Nestorious long ago.

Now, I will readily admit that we, as people who take seriously the claims of scripture, need to address the arguments against inerrancy and inspiration and, for the sake of the Truth, need to spend more time becoming the implied reader in order to understand the author of each document. That being said, I abhor the notion that to be a thinking Christian means I have to reject the historic notions of the church. I don’t just mean notions that became innovations like preaching in the native language, I mean those supported biblically, whether we like it or not. But those things we don’t like, the things that scare us if they are actually true, are precisely what needs to be embraced for the sake of others.

What do I mean by this? Why even talk about it? Well, as I pondered the claim that Jesus didn’t know who he was I reached out to a friend, one who should get back to business, and he pointed out something I missed. He said, “To accept that Christ was prophetic in such a manner, 2nd person of the Trinity, Savior of the world demands that we recognize there is a higher power at work and that we’re really fucked up and continue to fuck up, and that takes a lot. It’s extremely frustrating. Especially when people come up with these pseudo theories to baptize their insecurities before a Holy Christ and so many fall prey. And all you wanna say is that you don’t have to feel this way. Let go. Believe.”

So what did I miss? That life is scary, especially when you see it for what it is. Turn on the news, read a paper, look out the window and you will be confronted with a world that seeks only its own gain. Life is even scarier when instead of looking out the window, you look into the mirror. You know you better than I know you. I know those things I dare not speak. Things I’ve done, thoughts I’ve had, notions I’ve pondered. When we look into the deepest parts of our souls we see ourselves for what we are, broken. It shouldn’t surprise us then that the world we have, it’s broken too… and that is our fault.

I could be wrong. There are those who think that people are basically good and kind and caring, and at our core that is who we are. Some people, like the one I am reading, think that this Christian idea of original sin isn’t biblically, intellectually, or scientifically supported. But I wonder how a claim like that, which in this case is buttressed by scientific theory which rejects the historical facticity of Genesis 1-3, is supported by an evolutionary theory which presupposes survival of the fittest, not helping the sick and weak. That may be a cheap shot, but before the fundie or conservative card gets played, please, hear me out.

Look at a newborn, does that child care about his or her parent’s sleeping habits. Does that kid care about mommy and daddy in their heart or do they actually just care about food, being changed, naps, and all around comfort. This is not to say kids don’t love their parents, but rather, that a child’s first inclination isn’t to the other, it is to their own needs. Why do you have to teach a kid to share but not to be selfish? Perhaps there really is something wrong with us. Something that scares the crap out of us.  Something that causes us to distrust our neighbor and hate or fear the world around us. Something that always reminds us that we are alone.

This is the world we live in, one that rapes, murders, steals, lies, and causes all sorts of pain and hurt. This is not the fault of anyone but ourselves. But instead of dealing with the problem, we find ways of coping. We present theories that allow us to escape the reality of a claim. We do as my friend said, we baptize our insecurities before a Holy Christ. Sin is real. But so is Christ. A Christ who took on flesh and dwelt among us as fully God and fully man. A Christ who was baptized in the Jordan, betrayed, and murdered. He was hung on a cross with nails in his hands, and you on his heart. For in this event he took on the sin that lies in each of us. The sin that separates us from God, our neighbor and ourselves. He became sin and paid the wages of it. He died.

But death, this is not the end of the story, three days later He rose again and conquered that which sin creates, He conquered death. But between death and resurrection, at least as our fore bearers confessed, He descended into hell. This descent was not to suffer, but to proclaim the victory that was His. The victory of His sacrifice over the powers of sin, death, and the devil himself. So what? Why should it matter that He preached this in hell, to the captives in prison? Because hell could not overcome His message. His resurrection put to bed once and for all the powers that would seek to kill and destroy, and there is absolutely nothing that can stand in the face of such a reality.

Tonight I listened to a sermon, one that I am borrowing from, and one that has impacted my life in ways I do not yet know. It spoke of  the story of Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ. In response Jesus says that upon this rock He will build the church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.  Some take the rock to mean Peter himself, but as for me, I think it is speaking to his confession, it is speaking about Christ. He is the rock, and the gates of hell will not overcome. Funny thing that expression, because gates are not things that go on the offensive. Rocks, on the other hand, do.

There is an expression, or liturgical greeting, often used when Christians gather together. Someone proclaims: The Lord be with you. Everyone responds: And also with you. While there are some variations to this, the idea is the same, a shared presence of the Lord in the lives of all who are there. But what if we were bold enough to greet each other a different way. Imagine someone getting up and saying: Go to hell. And the response: And you go as well. Our American minds may not be able to get past the phrase that is so often used to degrade or insult someone but if we are built upon Christ, to hell is where we should go, and we should go unafraid because those gates have no power over us.

Hell, whatever else it may be, is all around us. It is there for the mom who can’t pay her bills, and the dad whose best friend is the bottle. It is there in the one who chooses to sell a body rather than protect it. It is there in those who take what isn’t theirs, and murders for no reason. But it is also there in us, in our hearts that tell us we aren’t good enough, in our thoughts that teach us how worthless we are, and in our memories that remind us of things we wish never happened. It is to this hell we must march, unafraid and unashamed, carrying forth the banner of the cross and empty tomb of Christ. He is the one who destroyed the power of sin and death, once for all. His victory impels and empowers us to bring that freeing message to a world that needs it, to a person who feels it.

So, go to hell. And go unafraid, for the one who leads you has already won.

remember the millstone

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Thankfully finals week is coming to a close. Only a few things left to check off the list and I will gladly welcome my weeklong break before my last quarter begins. I don’t have much left, but it’s enough to keep me busy and enough to make next week look glorious. Ok, maybe glorious is a stretch, it’s enough to make next week look comfortable. Time for to take a break from the books and just enjoy life, the weather this week in Chicago is making that very easy to do.  Today was near 70 if not more, but rather than don the shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops that I hold so dear, I was dressed head to toe, clerical collar and all. Why? Because today was graduation picture day, yet another step along the path that leads me to June.

I really am looking forward to getting back to St. Louis, and in some ways I can’t believe those words are coming out of my mouth. So much has gone on in my past and while there are still some feelings I need to deal with, I feel excited for what lies ahead. But more than just coming home to the denomination of my roots, I feel like I have been gifted something, not just a respect and admiration for those roots, which I know I could not have had if I never spent time away, but a confession. Truth be told I have always struggled with the idea of confession, not in the sense of confessing one’s sins to God or a brother or sister, but in the sense of proclamation.

Perhaps the best part of it is that my confession, as much as it is my own, it isn’t. It belongs to those in the faith that have gone before me, those in whose footsteps I walk. People like James Voelz, Tony Cook, Herman Sasse, CFW Walther, and Martin Luther, fathers and professors in the faith. But not just those who teach me what it means to have this confession, its the confession of J. Louis Oetting, James Ilten, Dave Adams, Tom Noll, Dan Wegrzyn and everyone else who served the church where I grew up by being pastors worthy of the calling. Yet it is not only theirs, it belongs to each and every person who understands or embraces the lonely way. But beyond even this confession stands another, the confession of Christ, the one the entire Church universal shares with one voice.

That voice though, it can be the most frustrating thing in the world. Sometimes that voice of the Church, or at least the voice of a preacher or parishioner, can be the difference between life and death. As I am often want to do, I find myself trolling youtube for videos that I might find interesting or frustrating. My wife gets frustrated by it because she knows in the end I’ll just get frustrated. But still I watch them, and sometimes they make me want to scream, other times they make me want to laugh, and still others, they make me want to cry.

Take for example one I saw just before I started writing this. A man using youtube to claim that Satan is a God and Yahweh is Heavenly Father and Jesus is not a real name. The kicker is that he openly professes his assembly is the only one which has this truth and no other Christian entity throughout the world understands what he does. That is enough for a red flag to go off in my mind, but for others, that may make the most sense in the world.

Theres this other guy, Pastor Steven Anderson, you can find clips of him everywhere on youtube. He is fond of screaming from the top of his lungs that Jesus wore pants. That women shouldn’t wear pants. That God knows there are differences between men and women, and thats why he calls men they that piss against the wall. That certain people are the devil or evil incarnate. And if you don’t like what he says, well, you can get the hell out of his church, or so he claims. I don’t bring this up simply to poke fun at it, though from where I sit that is very easy to do. I mention him because he could be the only exposure some people have, and in this day and age the message he is spewing is doing more harm than good.

But the same can be said of me. I’m judgmental, cynical, and have a Ph.D. in Sarcasm. I don’t help out when I should. I’m lazy and care about myself more than others. In short, I can be a real prick sometimes and sometimes I just don’t care. And what is scary, is that I could be the only contact someone has with Christianity. While I have this really great confession that I get to claim as my own, I wonder if I will ever do it justice because I know how broken and corrupt I really am. This is the real problem, the brokenness of humanity. The corruption that turns our focus from the other who could be affected by what we are saying and doing to ourselves because we just know we have to be right and the whole world needs to hear it. While I do think there is a message the whole world needs, I don’t think it’s the one that is always coming out of my own mouth.

I used to fear wearing a cross to mark me as a Christian because I knew I was a horrible example of it. If people saw that cross and saw me at my worst they’d reject Christianity. However, if anything, that notion just shows me how much more highly I think of myself than I ought. The work of God doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the Father who created all and sustains all life. It belongs to the Holy Spirit who enlivens the heart, brings faith to those who have none, and continually communicates God’s love and grace. And it belongs to Christ Jesus, who is the Word of God. Christ that Word of God who tented among us, suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried. Christ who on the third day rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father, from where he will one day judge the living and the dead. Christ whose sacrifice brings forgiveness, life, and salvation, especially to me, a broken and corrupt person who in reality cares only about himself.

It is because the work of God belongs to God that I don’t fear wearing that cross anymore. While I recognize that I have a role to play, I won’t kid myself into thinking it is higher or lower than it really is. But with that recognition comes the realization of the responsibility I carry. Because, as afraid as I was about wearing a cross, I was even more scared about wearing a clerical collar. More than scared, I was ashamed of it. I know what atrocities have been committed by those who have worn them and I also know of the boundless love poured out by others who wear them. My fear is that I wont live up to the responsibility something like that carries and I’ll be one of the former rather than latter. But rather than be afraid of it, I know I need to embrace it. Not just because of the symbolism it provides to those who see me in one, but because of the reminder it gives me.

What reminder? The one Jesus gave to those who would cause any of those little ones to stumble into sin. The one about the millstone being put around their neck and being thrown into the bottom of the ocean as something that would be better for them. I know I need that reminder, and I think more people need to remember it because when someone opens their mouth about God and publicly proclaim something about Him, they better do so in full assurance that they aren’t misleading people. Too much pain and hurt has already been caused by people speaking or acting on behalf of God where it is doubtful God would have spoken or acted for Himself. I know this cant always be done, but that doesn’t mean we ignore the responsibility we carry as people of God.

In the end, the work of God will always belong to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we too are instruments, as Peter calls us, we are the royal priesthood, the holy nation. And that comes at a price. Remember the millstone. But more importantly, remember the Christ. The one who never misled, the one who always gives of Himself, and the one whose life was given so that all might live. Not because of the example we did or didn’t set, but because of the Love of the Father for his creation, shown through the death and resurrection of His Son, and given to the world through the work of the Spirit.

the lonely way…

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What better way to start your day with a little Liam Neeson? This time it wasn’t Star Wars, Taken, Schindler’s List, Rob Roy, Les Miserables, or Batman Begins. It was a film with some religious implications, and no I don’t mean Narnia. Instead of all of those wonderful films, I chose this morning to watch a PBS Documentary about Martin Luther, narrated of course, by Liam Neeson. It was well done as far as documentaries go and heck, what can go wrong when the likes of Liam Neeson narrate. It’s like March of the Penguins, nobody really cared what the penguins did or would do because Morgan Freeman was the real star anyway. But in a way this movie brought into view something for me that, at least for a time, I had failed to see.

Today wasn’t the first I had heard about the Reformation. I’ve read books, written papers, listened to lectures and seen movies all about it. By no means does this make me an expert, it simply means I have a picture of what went on. Today though, something in this documentary stood out to me about the events that gave birth to the 95 Thesis.

It’s well known that Luther’s trip to Rome left him disillusioned, as he felt less and less secure the more embraced the dogmatic thought of the day. But after his trip he was given that opportunity to teach and read the scriptures and those movements gave birth to the famously known, and often romanticized, Gospel insight. Salvation was/is a free gift from God to the sinner given through the work of the Spirit on account of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. No good work or slip of paper will secure salvation, because, salvation belongs to God. Only, upon realizing this scriptural teaching Luther didn’t immediately react, what the documentary seemed to suggest was that it was an issue of concern for people, not a matter of correcting theology, that forced his hand.

We often like to paint the picture of the Reformation as one of a great battle for a return to the orthodoxy of the early church as presented in the scriptures alone, and indeed it was. But this documentary seems to suggest, at least in part, that the Reformation was about caring for the common person whose conscience was troubled, and whose money could better be spent caring for their families than in a coffer clinging for a soul from purgatory to be springing. Indeed this is also true. Thats the problem with both presentations, one makes it an issue of theology, the other makes it an issue of community wellbeing, yet both are accurate.

In recent days it seems my email/facebook news feed has been littered with several people saying the same thing. Take for example this quote I was emailed a few days ago. In his book, If the Church were Christian, Philip Gulley writes, “This is the great irony of Christ’s Church  - a significant number of its members care more about believing certain things about Jesus, than following his [as] an example of love and service. If the church were Christian, mirroring the compassion of Jesus would be more important than echoing the orthodoxy that has been built around him.” Gulley seems to be suggesting that Christians are bogged down with theology and in the end, what matters is caring for people and living the Christlike life rather than maintaining the orthodox understandings.

Facebook provided a similar experience. Tony Jones is exploring different understandings of atonement theory during Lent and every Wednesday posts one of them with some commentary. This weeks post entitled, A Better Atonement:Christus Victor, explore the notion that Christ’s death is understood through its result. Tony writes, “The crucifixion is not… cosmically necessary to reconcile God and humanity. Instead, Christ’s death is God’s victory over sin and death. God conquers death by fully entering into it. God conquers Satan by using the very means employed by the Evil One. Thus, the crucifixion is not a necessary transaction to appease a wrathful and justice-demanding deity, but an act of divine love. God entered fully into the bondage of death, turned it inside out by making it a moment of victory, and thereby liberates humanity to live lives of love without the fear of death. It’s a beautiful thing, the crucifixion, in this view. And, for those of us who are robustly trinitarian, it maintains an egalitarian view of the Trinity — one in which the Son and Spirit are not junior partners in the atonement.” The notion is explored more fully in the link above as well as Gustaf Aulen’s book which is also spoken about on the blog linked above.

While it would be easy to say that the notion is another attempt to widen orthodox thought, Tony brings up an interesting point concerning the crucifixion, “its a beautiful thing…in this view.” The question I would ask is, why does the crucifixion have to be beautiful? It seems to me that most of what passes for deep theological insight these days is nothing but an attempt to make palatable a Christianity that no longer seems to make sense. Only, the questions we should be asking, we stopped asking them a long time ago.

I attend a seminary in Lombard where in June I’ll graduate with an MA. In the fall I’ll be returning to the seminary I began my theological graduate education at to finish my M.Div. In 6 years Ill have gone from St. Louis, to Lombard, and back again. I bring this up because my journey encapsulates why I’m having such a negative reaction to what I see going on. In St. Louis I often felt as though theology was more important than the people in the pews. In Lombard, it is the exact opposite, so much so that I feel theology is sacrificed on the altar of community and service.

Right now I feel caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand there are orthodox theological standards, truth if you will. On the other, love and care for the neighbor. At each and every turn it seems as though they are at odds with one another.  Good practice means we pretend we don’t have differences or that any ideas about God are true. Good theology means we hide in our ivory towers and fail to engage in the world that just doesn’t want to understand things correctly. The problem is that both extremes fail to communicate the truth in love, and this is the call of Christianity. It is both word and deed, knowledge and caring, Christ and a cross. The way, the truth, and the life are not mere words that should be used to negate all other religions, they are an invitation to walk, think, and embrace.

Christianity, whatever else it has passed itself off as, is truth and love. Theology matters as much as people matter, this is the great insight of today. For Luther it wasn’t simply that the Roman church was usurping the power of the Gospel, but that people were actually being effected by it. That this world was not being cared for through the work of the Church is sounded by the hammer on the door in Wittenberg. In a time when it is easy to forsake that which separates us the Church needs to remember the truth from her past, the creeds she confessed, and the Christ who came to save her. But this remembrance is not simply for the sake of repristination, but the care of the whole of creation. We need both aspects if we are to be salt and light, if we are to be that which we were paid for. The question we should be asking, the ones we stopped asking a long time ago, is how do we hold in tension truth and love?

Hermann Sasse once called the road Luther walked to Rome a lonely way. Others who have followed in Luther’s footsteps claim to walk that same lonely way between Rome and Protestant thought. The lonely way we walk today is between ivory towers and empty community. It is the way that calls people to repentance, and feeds them bread when they are hungry. It is the way that holds on to what it has been given, but gives freely of what it has. It is the way that led Christ to a Cross, and out of a tomb.