Eucharist

First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope you all had a peaceful end to your year. Emily and I were able to come home for the week, trading time between our families…a couple days here a couple days there. We’re very thankful our families live in the same city. Through all the chaos we ultimately had a very lovely Christmas, being able to spend time with just about everyone. But it’s back to Durham, NC tomorrow and back to the ‘Salt Mines.’

Some of you have been reading these posts pretty regularly, being very patient with me as I try to sort through everything I’m learning at Duke Divinity School. It was a very intense semester, but it was also incredibly rewarding. I just wanted to thank all of you who are reading these posts, especially to those who offer feedback. While at Duke, surrounded by people who live in the ‘Duke world,’ I often find myself speaking the same language with everyone else. It’s so refreshing to have people from the outside world ask questions and offer criticisms or raise points of thought because it interrupts that ‘Duke language’ I previously mentioned; I thank my wife for this constantly.

With that said, I wanted to share some thoughts I had while attending church on Christmas Eve. Em and I attended the same church where we basically grew up. It has grown from a humble beginning to one of the largest churches in Birmingham, AL. It draws largely from the Southern Baptist tradition, but also differs from the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) on a couple of minor points (but not by much). Incidentally, we took Communion during the Christmas Eve service. Now, keep in mind I’ve just come home from a Methodist/Ecumenical seminary where the Eucharist is big deal. Combine that with my Anglican/Catholic leanings and you’ve got someone loaded up on all types of ideas, none of which are very present in a traditional Baptist church. This says nothing in criticism of the latter, only of the condition in which I find myself, trying to make sense of various theologies and age-old teachings of the Church. I only said all that for the sake of context.

As we took Communion, our Pastor quoted from Scripture the passage where Jesus administers the first Eucharist. As he spoke those words, however, he accidentally misspoke and said, “This represents my body…” I seriously doubt anyone else in that whole service cared, but remembering the context I mentioned above (and because I’m a theological nerd) it mattered a lot to me. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus tells the disciples that the bread “is” his body and the wine “is” his blood of the new covenant. I only mention this because I wonder if the Baptist church (and any church that does not celebrate Communion for the sake of God’s Incarnation and only for a type of memorial celebration) is missing out on some very powerful truths that the Church believed in and upheld for well over a thousand years and even after the Reformation.

For Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran and other churches the Eucharist is celebrated every Sunday and on other certain special days. The altar or table is at the center of the Church, and the pulpit where the priest stands to preach is usually off to the side. They do this because behind the Gospel, behind the Crucifixion, behind everything we celebrate as Christians, is the foundational truth that God became human. Jesus Christ took on the likeness of human nature, uniting fully the nature of God and humanity. This is the Incarnation. If Jesus had not become human, then the Crucifixion would not have ‘worked.’ Salvation could not have been offered to humankind. The Father poured out His wrath not only on Christ, but on humanity. Christ was not only the perfect Son of God, He was the perfect human. Without the Incarnation, Christianity falls.

In order to experience this truth, each and every Sunday, the fore mentioned churches celebrate the Eucharist. In this Sacrament, the Church believes that the substance of Christ replaces the bread and the wine. By ‘substance’ I mean the identity of something. Think of your first name. What makes you, ‘Joe’ or ‘Brad’ or ‘Jason’ or ‘Angela?’ We each have identity. But we also have ‘accidents,’ or traits which have nothing to do with our identity. For example, I have reddish hair and am tall and have two eyes and a mouth and am wearing shoes. None of these things make me ‘Brad;’ none of these traits give me identity. Change my hair color, put me in a wheel chair, ruin one of my eyes and take off my shoes, and I’m still ‘Brad.’ Now think of the bread and wine. They are ‘bread and wine.’ We might say they taste like bread and look like wine, but these are only traits that we expect from bread and wine. Now, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, and they ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ, they do not look, taste, or feel like human flesh or human blood. None of the accidents, or traits, have changed. The only thing that changed is their identity. They look, feel, and taste like bread and wine, but now they ARE the body and blood of Christ. Before we roll our eyes, though, and say this is crazy, think of your own identity. I am ‘Brad.’ But, because I’m a Christian and because I am a part of the body of Christ’s headship, I am also ‘Christ,’ in the Mind of God. Christ takes on our identity and gives us his own. He makes us righteous not because we magically are perfect now, but because Christ becomes our righteousness. Christ becomes our new identity. I still look, feel, and act like ‘Brad,’ but now ‘Christ’ has taken over my identity.

SO…this exact thing happens when we celebrate the Eucharist. It is the Incarnation, being given for the sake of the Church, always remembering and acting into God becoming flesh and giving Himself up for us all.

This is far too long, and I thank you for reading these thoughts. Please let me know what you think…I’ll finish the thoughts later. Godspeed in all things…

A Suffering God Pt. 2

In the previous entry I discussed the reality of God suffering with his people. Having talked with a few individuals about this, I’ve come to recognize a concern, if not a problem, some people have with identifying God as a Being who suffers. This issue concerns God’s Sovereignty. In our minds it seems illogical for a God who maintains control over all things to be susceptible to suffering. Why would a Being with ultimate power and authority ever be subjected to suffering? This threatens some people’s understanding of the sovereignty of God.

This response may be simplistic but I do not mean for it to be so. Why could God not be Sovereign and still will suffering upon God’s self? Again, this sounds illogical and also masochistic. But what does it mean for God to will Himself to suffer? We must begin with what we know about God.

God is a God of revelation. Why does God seek to reveal God’s self? God is the greatest good, and included in that goodness is the desire to share goodness within community. Being sufficient in the Trinity, God nevertheless desired or willed to share God’s goodness with humanity. With this in mind, God created all material reality and revealed God’s goodness through the prophets, Holy Scripture, and ultimately through the Incarnation. Now those who argue that the suffering of God does not follow with the theology of God’s Sovereignty have a very difficult time in explaining the Passion of our Lord. If God’s Sovereignty simply served to protect God from any and all suffering, then why did God not simply ‘snap his fingers’ and fix the soteriological mess within which humanity finds itself? God willed the life, death, and resurrection of Himself in the fullness of Jesus Christ the God-Man. So before we even discuss the implications of a God who suffers alongside humanity, there is the problem of a Sovereign God who utilized suffering as one of the greatest acts of love ever known throughout human history. God suffered on a Cross because God willed Himself to suffer on a Cross, for the sake of His glory and the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is Gospel.

So what do we say now in the post-crucifixion world? God continues to be a God of revelation. How do we see God today? We see God the same way as before, namely in the prophets, Scriptures, and the Incarnation. But now we have the Holy Spirit, operating in and through and under the work of the Church and her saints. In this truth we notice something else. In love towards one another, in and through the suffering of this world, God reveals God’s self in the work of God’s saints. Loving the sick, caring for the helpless, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the lonely, and every other act of love engaged with the world is Incarnational ministry. Immanuel, God with Us, is still the greatest of things. If God is with us then God suffers with us. The Father is not removed from the nature of His children, and God’s omniscience demands that God know all things, especially the painful, excruciating atrocities of human suffering. God knows us in all our suffering; God knows us intimately. Therefore, God knows our suffering. In this truth, God’s Sovereignty means that God chooses to suffer for love’s sake and for the sake of God’s name. God loves us. Let us then love one another.

A Suffering God

This is a topic we cannot escape but often ignore. It is the topic of suffering. This morning I spent an hour and a half with a chaplain at Duke Hospital and went on rounds with him during that time. In our visits we talked to one patient for fifteen to twenty minutes. This person was not only physically ill, but they had also gone through a lot of pain and loss in their immediate family. That being said, this person demonstrated an unrelenting faith in the goodness of God and that all things would eventually work out for their good. It was like watching Romans 8:28 take form before me. In facing suffering, especially in the suffering of the faithful, how does the Church continue to dialog with a hurting world and attempt to remind them of God’s goodness? What can be said when storms destroy cities, tsunamis wash away coastlines and homes, earthquakes swallow up neighborhoods where children play and live, illnesses take young and old alike, and suffering continues to plague all of our existence, regardless of religious affiliation? There is no answer to this question; a rationale can be constructed and proposed to explain away the problem of a sovereign God and a crippled world, but this rationale can not offer solace to a mother who has lost a child to cancer or a husband whose wife has been lost in a car accident. For the suffering there is no immediate answer. But there is one ultimate truth which continues to offer hope.

Immanuel, God With Us. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matt 25:35-36). What does it mean to love God in the form of other humans? What does the Incarnation mean for God and mean for us as Christians? Do we believe the Holy Spirit is with us? Do we believe Christ is Incarnate God? When I visited that patient this morning and they told me their story, when I held their hand while the Chaplain prayed over the three of us, did I believe I was visiting Jesus Christ in the hospital, in the form of a sick, elderly individual? Do we dare to believe in such a thing?

If anything can offer solace to a world such as ours, it is the suffering of our God. A God who loves us so much that the greatest expression of that love was in the Self-Sacrifice of God’s own Son and God’s self in the crucifixion; the Gospel is God sacrificing Himself to Himself in the likeness of human flesh, all for the love of the world and the glory of God’s name. So when we suffer, we cannot forget that God suffers with us. God does not possess a distant knowledge of suffering nor did God the Father require God the Son to somehow explain to Him what suffering was. The Father knows all things, including the suffering of Creation. The Holy Spirit binds the Father and Son into the reality of humanity, allowing for the Incarnation to be perpetually present in and throughout our actions.

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit….God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him”
(I John 4:11-16).

God the Bible or God the Word?

Over the last three months I’ve encountered some incredible things. New friends, new ideas, and new understandings all wrapped up in a new environment in a new state with a new home and my new bride have spurred on some interesting developments in this new life. I hesitate to say this because I know next week will only bring a new emotion or new experience, but the most significant encounter I’ve had over the last three months has been my approach to the Scriptures.

My understanding of Scripture has drastically changed over the last 3 months. For most of my life, the reading I now bring to Scripture was known as a ‘liberal’ way to view the text. But I do not want to get caught up in that word. The terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are simply words used to categorize people and label them, thinking we can understand them and thus judge/approve of them accordingly. I despise these words and only use them out of necessity. Besides, they are inadequate. For example, despite my ‘liberal’ reading of the text, I still consider myself a morally ‘conservative’ person. ‘How does that make sense?’ some might ask. That is the point; it doesn’t work because these words ultimately fail to provide any type of understanding or clarity.

Before coming to Duke I assumed a lot about my beliefs. By assumed I mean there were certain elements of Scripture and theology that I distantly knew about and for which I had opinions, but never once tried to understand or clarify. In some cases, I did not know why I believed what I believed. I simply believed. In some scenarios there is nothing wrong with this. I believe in many things which I cannot explain or clarify, like the Trinity or how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ were necessary. These are mysteries. So in some situations, faith is all you have and all you need. Where this ceases to be OK is when one approaches certain issues in Scripture.

These issues are not unfamiliar to many in the scholarly world. They are points of tension and conflict between evangelical conservatives and Protestant liberals. These two groups barely exist as unified groups, but they very often say and write things concerning the other while rarely talking with each other. The left decries the fundamentalists (another inadequate term) while the right sets up bastions of apologetics against the liberal hordes. And nothing changes. What both groups refuse to see is that both sides are part of the Church. There is no correct side. From both groups have come encouragement as well as pain, liberation as well as imprisonment to lifestyles and ideas, harsh as well as loving words for the Church, and far too many words of misunderstanding and judgment.

Since coming to Duke, however, I’ve had some of the most passionate encounters with the Holy Bible that I have ever had. I’ve seen and learned things I’d never heard of before. And above all, I feel as if I’ve fallen in love with God all over again. There are weaknesses in how both conservatives and liberals read their Bibles. If one strays too far to the left, the Bible simply becomes a book of human texts, lacking authority and intentionality. Too far to the right and one’s faith rests in a book rather than in God. Textual contradictions and problematic historical data shake a faith founded on straw and toothpicks, and if one of those toothpicks falls then one’s world can shatter. Regardless, the Bible exists as the written Word of God, to serve as a revelation to the Incarnation of God, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. This is our God. May the Father keep us from making an idol of His revelation.

Love Your Enemies...

I just finished Brother to a Dragonfly, an autobiographical novel by Will Campbell. Set in the South, the author tells the story of his own ordination into the Church only several years prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s. While he worked towards integration, Campbell became an unpopular figure to individuals set on preserving segregation. During this time a deputy sheriff gunned down one of Campbell’s close friends and fellow ministers while he sat drinking a soda with two Blacks in a grocery store. The deputy was acquitted. In the midst of all his sorrow and wrath, Campbell had a revelatory moment.

Another friend of Campbell’s, named P.D., did not go to church but prided himself on being a pagan. P.D. separated himself from a Church he personally believed was in no way different from the rest of the world. He had a good argument on that point. In one of their conversations, P.D. confronted Campbell and commanded him to share the Gospel with him in ten words or less. Flustered and agitated, Campbell barked out, ‘All of us are bastards, but God loves us anyway.’ That simple statement came back to Campbell when Thomas Coleman gunned down his friend. From that simple Gospel statement, Campbell realized he could not say who was a greater ‘bastard.’ Was anyone less deserving of death or judgment? At that moment Campbell realized there was no ‘Enemy,’ that the KKK and every other pro-segregation individual shared an infinitely important commonality with every ‘radical liberal’ and pro-integration activist; they were all human.

If we really believe in a Gospel that changes people, in a God that shapes us, molds us, and transforms us while directly opposing our sinful nature, then how could any one individual be less deserving of grace? By definition, grace is never merited. There is no righteousness in humanity that deserves the love of God. Whether minister or murderer, pacifist or war-monger, lover or rapist, philanthropist or thief, all are guilty before a perfect God. By vilifying the evil in the world, by isolating the ‘perverts’ and labeling the serial killers and sociopaths, we somehow convince ourselves that we’re better off in the long run. We may have problems, but they aren’t like those problems. We are all generally good people and decent folk. We compare ourselves to those worse off, expecting God to somehow function off comparative salvation, as if humanity will be placed on a spectrum and a certain percentage located on the ‘righteous end’ will get Paradise as a reward.

But what does Scripture teach us? “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). In this there can only be one response. We must love one another; we must forgive one another. This is no easy task; in fact it’s damn near impossible. But in that pain of love and forgiveness, in living out the Gospel like Campbell did with the blood of his friend fresh on his mind, we can be ever mindful of the blood of God shed on a Cross while we sat guilty and alone in the dark.

Homosexuality (Continued from Below)

(Continued)
Here is the tension. If one wishes to argue the Gospel as being an experience of change, then it follows that the previous state of those who were changed could not have been acceptable to the Church or to God. Repentance is necessary; it is not an act of piety. By piety I mean the ongoing attitudes and actions of those committed to the Christian faith. Therefore, repentance of one’s sins is required to enter into a life of piety; it is not an action of one already pious. The point is this. We must all initially change before we can continue to change. Repentance precedes sanctification.

From this starting point we can begin to address the issue of homosexuality. Before the Church decides on whether or not homosexuality is a sin, it must first decide how to act in either case. If it is a sin, then Jesus left no other example for the Church but to love the sinner. This, however, does not apply to those within the Church. According to Paul in I Corinthians 5, individuals openly practicing sexual immorality are to be removed from fellowship with the Church. Paul is clear that the Church is to always have fellowship with the world, for how else can the world be redeemed but by the example of the Church? But when those in the Church adopt the lifestyles of the world, they are to be removed from the Church. But wait.

Homosexuality can in no way be isolated as the only sin condemnable by the Church. What of greed, materialism, adultery, lust, pornography, disobedience to parents, the breaking of Sabbath, or any other sin the Church has either condemned, ignored, or debated in the last twenty centuries? Why is the practice of homosexuality on a pedestal? Is the practice of homosexuality the speck in our brother’s eye that distracts us from the log in our own? This only complicates how the Church should address the issue of homosexuality in the Church.

On the other end of the spectrum, if the Church does not judge the practice of homosexuality to be a sin, how could any other action be considered a sin? Scripture is clear on the issue, and the only defense against this is to question the authority or context of Scripture itself. To argue that Scripture does not condemn the practice of homosexuality would almost seem to argue that Scripture does not condemn any sin at all. If the Church accepts homosexuals without question, then how could the Church act in any other way in regards to adulterers, murderers, rapists, liars, thieves, or any other individuals whose actions the Church would readily condemn?

Personally, I feel as if the Church’s attempt to accept homosexuals has pushed the Church into a corner. Reaching out and accepting homosexuals into churches is not enough for many people; these would argue that in order to accept homosexual people, all language suggesting this lifestyle to be a sin must be utterly abolished. In the midst of all this debate we forget one key concern. What is the truth? Practicing homosexuality is either a sin or it is not. The beliefs of any number of people will not change what is. If God disapproves of homosexuality, then all those who encourage this lifestyle do not act in love towards homosexuals; they are merely sugarcoating a very uncomfortable truth. If God does approve of homosexuality, however, then many people are promoting condemnation in the midst of their own sin.

Homosexuality

The topic of homosexuality continues to be a hot topic here at Duke Divinity School. I attended a forum last week where this issue received attention from a group of Duke Professors and local pastors. The particular focus of this group addressed the need to reach out and include homosexuals into the Church. A friend of mine who I met at college recently told me that he was gay. With this in mind, I’ve become more concerned with how to welcome homosexuals into any Church community. But there exists a spectrum on which this issue is debated, and people are gathering at the poles.

For the forum I attended, to include homosexuals meant to accept them unconditionally, without any attempt to engage the sinfulness (which was not discussed) of practicing homosexuality. One of the pastors backed this up with the statement that “Jesus never rejected anyone.” Now I understand this idea and from where it comes, and this statement is true to a particular degree. The idea of a ‘come as you are’ Messiah, however, does not provide a sufficient appreciation for the holistic approach to Scripture, or even to just the Gospels. At the other end of the spectrum people reject the notion of homosexuals being ‘openly’ accepted into the Church in any fashion. I say openly because this issue has more than likely existed for quite some time in the Church in a subdued, ‘still in the closet’ fashion; it is only now becoming a more revealed concern.

Can the Church lovingly welcome people into its physical body without approving the lifestyle? Is accepting without approving really just another type of tolerant intolerance? For those who wish to reject homosexuals based upon their sin, are they willing to contend that their own sin does not also merit God’s rejection? What is to be said of the hierarchy of sin, and how much of our view of homosexuality is a cultural one rather than one based on Scripture and the tradition of the Church?

In order to accurately discuss this issue we must develop a very clear understanding of the Gospel. This cannot be done quickly and deserves more time than I am able to provide, but here are a few thoughts. According to the NIV, Jesus’ first words that he preached to others were, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’ (Matt 4:17). These words more closely fit the sermons of street preachers and prophets than an accepting Jesus who has no expectation of change or righteousness in those who come to him. The next words Jesus speaks are to Peter and Andrew; he tells them to, ‘Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’ (Matt 4:19). In order to follow Jesus, both brothers are forced to change. They are no longer fishermen. Change seems to be expected in order to follow the Christ. After gathering his group of disciples, Jesus delivers his famous ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ where most of his comments offer criticism to the current religiosity pervading Jewish culture. This left Jewish authorities and the Pharisees in a difficult position, for according to Jesus, no one could possibly be righteous. He had set the standard too high, as if the Law was not already difficult enough to follow.

From these very brief and insufficient points, one can begin to see that Christ is not a vessel of acceptance but of forgiveness. The Gospels promote this idea as well. The woman at the well, the adulteress about to be stoned, the demon possessed man, everyone Jesus heals, and numerous other events indicate how Jesus is a God who changes people. (Thoughts continued.)