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.)

Politics

It’s November 4th and I have failed to even mention the election or politics before now. For the last three months especially I have been daily bombarded with news clips, sound bytes, campaign promises, propaganda, and a literal mound of political jargon. There is much talk about this campaign being different, about it being ground breaking. But once we get past the jargon and political clout, racial significance and romanticized ideals, it’s still the same. The theme of this election has been Hope and Change. The pastor at the church I visited last week made an excellent point; has there ever been an election that did not promise change? Can anyone remember a Presidential election where the candidate promised to keep things the same? Granted, I’ve only been alive for a handful, but I do not remember that being the case. Now it could be assumed I am referencing only Obama’s campaign, but McCain also wishes to distance himself from the presidency before him.

So once again we have the stratification of the nation. Obama is made out to be a ‘false prophet and terrorist sympathizer,’ and McCain is made out to be a rich elitist who has no idea how to fix the economy. On the converse side, Obama is the savior of a nation and a people, while McCain is the war veteran who will protect the American way. So where is the truth? For Christians, truth must always come before stereotypes, wishful thinking, and just the ease of labeling the Other as a villain while idolizing what we believe to be right. For Christians, what should be our response?

As I write this, two fellow Divinity School classmates are sitting behind me. They have been talking loudly and blasting the ‘far right’ and Republicans. I have heard this same matter of talk used for Obama as well. Now I am going to propose a new idea of how to handle this election. Why is it that we feel the need to elevate a human onto a pedestal every four years? Whether Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or unaffiliated, we all lift up our own candidate while we vilify the other. The sad and disturbing truth, the only absolute for every, single candidate, is that they will let us down. They will disappoint. They will fail. They will not fulfill their promises. The world will not change. As Christians, we must recognize that America will either rise or fall and it will have nothing to do with who is President. God is Sovereign. Obama is not sovereign; McCain is not sovereign. Now very few people would ever use this language to describe their candidate, but it comes across in how we think, speak, and act every single day.

Jesus’ political policy was not right or left. Jesus would be neither Democrat nor Republican. If the role of Christ in his first coming was to establish a right-minded political system, then he would have. As it was, he lived within one of the finest tuned political machines of known history; the Romans had few equals. So instead of vilifying the other, Jesus calls us to love the other. Instead of labeling and hating and stereotyping, Jesus dares us to get out of our comfort zones, off our soap boxes, and to engage the other. We engage by talking, but also by listening. We need to listen to one another, understand one another, maybe even disagree with one another, but always love one another. This changes worlds and nations, not politicians. The leaders of today will be dust tomorrow. The pillars of the state will crumble over the years, and the generations after us will wander these shores and say, “This was once America.”

And God will continue to say, “I Am that I Am.”

Know No Suffering

I have recently completed the first half of Peter Storey’s book, With God in the Crucible. Peter Storey is the former president of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and of the South African Council of Churches (SACC); he provided a powerful voice against the apartheid regime in South Africa for over three decades. The subtitle for Storey’s book is Preaching Costly Discipleship. His work hearkens to the previous works of individuals such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Reading about his immense suffering, I have come to question what it means for the Church to exist in such a tranquil state here in North America. I have no idea what it is like to suffer for the sake of Christ, at least to the degree Storey graphically intimates for his readers.

On a similar note, in my Christian Ministry class last Thursday two people stood up and discussed the state of the Christian Church in Rwanda and Zimbabwe. They humbly rebuked the Western notion that wealth equals God’s special blessing on a people. In the US so many churches concern themselves with foreign missions in an effort to take God to these foreign lands. My two friends reminded me that God was there before the missionaries came. Oftentimes, God even seems to be more present in these lands. There is a disparity between how we view God’s goodness here in the States and how God’s goodness is viewed in war-torn Rwanda. Even though I personally reject the ever more popular ‘Health & Wealth’ gospels, I often catch myself speaking of God’s blessing when it especially pertains to my own benefit. The global community of the Church must work in dialog and not in monologue. The Church in American may bring the money, but it seems the Church in Africa could show us a faith ‘forged in the furnace of suffering.’ We go to church with smiling faces because we’ve been convinced that God is in the business of making us happy, and if we are not happy then we must not be pleasing to God. Rwandans go to Church praying and weeping for the strength to forgive the murderers of their friends and neighbors. There is a reality of faith in suffering which simply does not exist in a life of plenty and comfort. In North America, how in the world do we understand these words of our Lord?
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:24-26).

Peter Storey pens the story of his people, of a mixed people. The story is in his sermons, given for the love of his people. With a culture that is every more global we can no longer ignore the pains of this world. Starvation, slavery, illness, poverty, racism, murder, war, toils, and strife are rampant on the Earth. In our effort to respond to this pain, however, we must be careful not to ‘go to the nations’ and forget our own. Having been on several mission trips I found it easier to minister there than at home. My excursions into the world will not save me from refusing to minister at home. The sick are here, the poor are here, the discriminated and hated are here, the lost are here, the fullness of Christ in the least of these is here in the United States.

Triune God, let not our comfort mold our faith, but let our faith disband our comfort.

A God-Centered God

In a recent discussion with a friend of mine, we very briefly disagreed over God’s ultimate desire. He suggested that God’s greatest desire is to be relational with God’s people. I countered and suggested that God’s greatest desire is to bring glory to God’s self. Now this language is already problematic. Can God desire? When we speak of desire, we tend to imply need, or the longing to attain something previously unattained. So with this understanding, God could not desire because God does not need, nor does God lack anything from a previous time or moment. There is no Time for God and there is nothing that God does not already possess. When we speak of desiring, I suppose we mean the purpose of existence, or natural expression of one’s self.

For God, therefore, what is the purpose of God’s existence? What is the natural expression of God’s self upon all of reality, sensible and insensible? To clarify this we must understand who God is. What is God’s nature? For only in understanding God’s nature can we express that nature’s expression upon reality. As a result we must be careful in what we use to understand God. One individual may equate God with a negative experience involving a former pastor or minister. One may understand God through health and wealth, viewing the blessings of their life as being from God. With all these various experiences, one must be careful in what they deduct concerning who God is. For this reason, Scripture remains the most important source of revealed information involving God.

From Scripture we know that God is many things. God is relational, but God is also the greatest good. God does not desire relationship with us because we have anything to bring to God. If God is the greatest good, then God loves perfectly. If God loves perfectly, then God’s love for us will lead God to reveal to us the greatest good. God’s love will result in God revealing God’s self to us. In addition to this, because God is the greatest good then God will also love that which is good. With nothing greater to love than God, God loves God’s self. If we say that God loves the good, then God must first love God’s own good nature. So the question remains. If God is the greatest good, then would the greatest good love what is most good or what is not mostly good, namely humanity? This is common sense. The good would love the good. Humanity is not more good than God. Therefore, God will always love God’s goodness before God loves us.

But…because Christ died for humanity, the elect before God assume the aspect of Christ, thus becoming the greatest good in the form of Jesus, the Word of God. God’s love for us issues from a love for God’s own self in the form of Jesus. I realize this is a very God-centered soteriology, but I cannot see how it could be any other way. The universe is not concerned with us. We are not its center. We are merely a pin-prick on the scale of infinite magnitude; I believe this to be for a reason. We are not the ones who matter, as much as we like to think the opposite. From birth to death, the ages of humanity are like dust before an eternal God.

Praise be to the Father for allowing us to matter. Praise be to the Son for making us lovable in the eyes of the Father. Praise be to the Holy Spirit for sanctifying our souls and communicating the perfect relationship between Father and Son. Praise be to the Trinity for loving the greatest good, and allowing us be loved as a result.

Scripture-less

During my time at Duke I’ve had various conversations concerning numerous points of conflict within the Church. It seems an almost daily occurrence. Looking back at these talks I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. In all but one we never once consulted Scripture. I remember only one talk, concerning the ordination of women, where my conversant proposed to actually read some Scripture concerning the topic at hand. In all other conversations, ranging from the Eucharist to the Virginity of Mary, from homosexuality to universalism, Scripture remained eerily absent from our words.

Why is this? Why does a community founded on the Word of God so often forget that foundation? What happens in our mind, what gives us the freedom to run away with our thoughts, only occasionally glancing back to the Word that gave us the language with which we play? We toss around words such as ‘Trinity,’ ‘salvation,’ and ‘Incarnation’ as if they were always in our mind, waiting for our intellects to make use of their mysterious implications. In doing so we not only reject the presence of Scripture, we also reject the extensive and costly tradition of the Church. Wars came and went over the same arguments we banter about during lunch or in our leisure. Initially, I ascribed the absence of Scripture to two things.

I know for me, I just assume I know it already. (Wow, that felt horrible to even write). I do not mean this in a conclusive way, but I easily lapse into this assumption that because I spent my last twenty-odd years hearing the same verses in churches and classrooms and devotions that I’ve heard all there is to hear. This thought vanishes entirely whenever I read Scripture, because it is new and fresh and convicting every time I pick up the pages. Nevertheless, I am slow to pick them up.

Another reason I suspected we avoided Scripture is the simple fear that we would find it disagreeable. How miserable is our arrogance here in North America? The illusion of egalitarian existence has each person convinced of their own autonomous authority. As a result, authority has vanished within society. From parents to teachers to pastors, anything and everything we hear must first and foremost must suit our tastes before we will accept it. We must approve of our authority figures. To some extent this is needed for the simple purposes of accountability and protecting against the corruptive seductions of power. But to subject all manner of authority to our own leanings or tendencies is not only foolish, it could be damning. This lack of authority has found its way into how we even read Scripture, because now we believe Scripture must agree with us before we will agree with it.

I suspected both of these reasons as being responsible (though not exclusive)for why we are so hesitant to read Scripture amidst our disagreements. Yet now I believe there may be a third reason. We simply do not believe for that which we argue. The topics we so hotly contest are not always matters of truth or falsehood; they are matters of pride. Our opinions do not affect truth; we are either right or we are wrong. Any dialogue that occurs must always commit itself to the pursuit of truth and not to the preservation of our ideas. Unfortunately, I feel as if these conversations have decayed into the habit of debate. We come to enjoy the dialectic, especially when we can present our cases succinctly and with conviction. We have become skilled rhetoricians. As such, for what need have we of Scripture? We are our own authority.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

My wife found out today that her grandmother passed away at four o’clock this morning. So here I sit, studying and training to become a pastor, a figure who we look to for answers, for guidance, for reason, for purpose, and sometimes just for help, and I’ve realized in less than twelve hours that I have no answers, no guidance, no reasons, and no hope to give to others. I’m just a man. I can’t see past the horizon and heaven doesn’t avail itself to me in my dreams. Of course, my friends will tell me no one expects this of me. My one day parishioners will not chase me from the church when I cannot divine next week’s weather or tell them what God expects from each of them. But I feel the need to push back against my friends for just a moment. Those parishioners may not expect me to have the answers or to fix the world, but when their world comes crashing down around them they will come to me, and they will weep, and they may not ask me for the answers because they cannot dare not hope, but their eyes will beg me to fix this.

I’ve seen pain in other’s lives my whole life. I watched my Dad lose his dad; I watched my Mom lose hers. I saw a child die from cancer when I was seventeen. I’ve seen poverty and illness in the mountains of Guatemala. I watched a mother fall to sleep with her daughter on a cardboard pad in Mexico. I held my friend when his dad died of a heart attack. And I hold my wife now when she cries just because she misses her grandmother. Is this the role of pastor? To weep for the world yet sit powerless to change it? Can I do nothing?

I know people will read this and shake their heads, go tsk, tsk and utter such wisdom as, “He doesn’t realize it’s not about him; it’s about Christ, and all answers are found in Christ. Only God can change the world.” And they would be right. But I guess I feel as if the world isn’t looking for answers. It seems sometimes that the world has given up on answers. For so long we in the Church have been screaming all the right answers at all the people we knew needed to hear them, only to realize these people weren’t looking for answers at all. Too much pain clouds the senses, dims the spiritual sensibilities, and makes you want to not believe in God, for that would mean God allows the pain. So to reject pain one rejects God. But one cannot reject the pain. It lingers on, becoming dull in time only to sharpen again when tragedy comes back to us. With all this, hope seems distant, where death is the only way out. We lose everything, the bad with the good, and fall to sleep in this world only to wake in another.

In pain, however, is the answer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who plotted against the Nazi’s during World War II, wrote this while awaiting his execution in a Nazi prison: “God allows himself to be edged out of the world and on to a cross…and in that way, God can be with us and help us…Only a suffering God can help.” Our God suffers with us. To be omniscient, to intimately know everything, is to suffer. So in all illnesses, natural disasters, deaths, broken hearts, lost jobs, imprisonments, poverty, and pain, God knows the suffering of His people. God suffers with us; if God did not, then there would exist an experience that God did not know, and God would no longer be omniscient. If God did not suffer, God would no longer be God. Perhaps in this truth lies what it is to pastor, to suffer with one’s people. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” In addition, we cannot weep for those we do not love. From love follows the mourning. From mourning follows the blessing. Let us then love one another, for this is from God.

Another Poem

Coming Home

Sweet breath of sunset and shadows starved,
Sing for me a moment and remember her.
Sigh for me and show me her hues and lost
Colors, like so much gold in the sand.

Walk and let your legs grow weary with mine
Along the passages of the earth; pass along
With this, my memory, and tell me where
She's wandered into the pale.

Hold me in this stillness, this breathless
Place, where warmth fades into frost
And I reach for her hand before I
Realize she's gone and silence laughs at me.

Tell me where heaven went, where God
Promised He'd wait for me, before
Hell came to me in the form of
What she once was, but now, no more.

Can you remember her laugh? Can you
Remember how to forget? Teach me
To forget the day's hours so dreams
May haunt this holiness.

It was a Tuesday, and flowers in your hair
Told me Spring would come, but now
The colors melt into tears and run down
The memories of where I loved you.

Can we wait? The sun comes
For me, but my eyes will
No longer open, for the moon's
Run away with our dawn.

The branches crack the sky
Above me, fingers reaching
To heavens I forget
As snow blinds the light.

There is no one here.
She's gone for now.
Come back tomorrow,
And bring her to us.

I gasp and close my
Pain against false
Hope and reach
Once more.

Then shadows
Fade into
Sun rises;
I see.

Glancing
Back
Towards
My love,

As she
Reaches
Back
For me.

Augustine and My 'Not-Goodness'

Not long ago I came across a section in St. Augustine’s Confessions that discussed the nature of the human will. During his time the Platonic notions of willing the good represented the rational opposite of the irrational desires to will the not good, or the evil. Augustine, never one to settle with a simple answer to a complex problem, began thinking on what leads a person to will what is evil. Did an outside force influence the weak minds of humanity? Can one blame the spiritual realm for the sins of the material realm? Regardless of why one sins, Augustine accepted the thought that one still must will what is evil for there to be evil.

That is until Augustine began paying attention to his own thought life. Because of his past, largely spent womanizing and enraptured with lustful struggles, Augustine would experience bouts of lust, where thoughts from his past assaulted his mind. As these thoughts came, Augustine recognized that he did not will these thoughts to come. They arose without his will and afflicted him without his desire for them to do so. Nevertheless, they were his own thoughts, coming from no other source than his own fallen past. From this he concluded that something inherent in human nature naturally tended toward the evil. The matter of sin was not a simple problem of irrational desires.

What does this mean for our own lives? Augustine’s thoughts on this issue later developed into his concepts of original sin and inherent depravity, ideas still with us today almost two thousand years later. Secular society would have us believe that we are really good, even if it is deep down. Some churches would likely argue the same on our behalf. Despite what Fox News and CNN would have us believe, the world is largely populated by good people. The evils of the world are results from radical extremes on the fringes. With these radical images of evil from mainstream media and twenty-four hour news coverage, however, America has fallen into a pit of comparative morality.

I certainly cannot nor will not try to speak for the hearts of almost three hundred million North Americans, but are we a good people? Forget the news, forget the murders and atrocities, rapists and shootings. Are we good when no one is looking? At midnight, in the early morning, in our cars, in our minds, in our thoughts, in our secret desires, in our darkest secrets, are you and am I, a good person? My gut instinct, my knee-jerk response, is a deafening, “No.” I am not a good person. Without even attempting to explain the theological framework for what is good in the first place, namely God, I know I am not good. And for Augustine, whatever is not good, is evil. Therefore, I am evil. That’s not exactly a word we toss around lightly, I know. Evil is reserved for the ‘crazies,’ the demons, and anybody else besides us.

Augustine is not concerned about those others; he is concerned about himself and what God knows about him. If anyone knows our secrets, it is God. Therefore we have the cry of the tax collector, tearing our clothes and begging forgiveness while the Pharisees thank God they are not like us and those others, those ‘evil’ people. I am not good. Therefore, I am evil. Only in the recognition of that evil, however, can one repent. This is Gospel. God cannot forgive the unrepentant; it is illogical. If we are a people certain of our own righteousness, we will not receive the righteousness of Christ. To speak of the Gospel any other way makes the Gift of salvation just one more bauble for the well behaved brat on Christmas morning.

The Body and Blood...All Over the Floor

With my increasing interest in the Anglican tradition I’ve been blessed to experience the Eucharist in a variety of settings. A few weeks ago, during Morning Prayer in the Div. School’s chapel, we celebrated the Feast Day for St. Michael the Archangel (also known as Michaelmas). The priest blessed the Cup of our Lord then smoothly turned and offered it to her assistant right before the chalice lurched and a couple ounces of wine splashed across the floor. Now less than a year ago this would have meant very little to me. Perhaps I would have felt pity or shame on behalf of those administering the sacrament, or God forbid even found it funny. This particular morning of September 29, however, I did not laugh.

The blood-red wine made scattered streaks across the cool, Duke-furnished stone of our Goodson Chapel. The robes of the priest and of her attendant bore similar stains, as if dropped from some gaping wound. My eyes widened as the drink poured out in front of us all, gathered round the altar of God’s grace. Even as the smell of fermented grapes reached my nose I already knew that I was not looking at wine poured over so much brick. My breath stopped, my head felt light, and if I could remember correctly I would wager I even experienced a bit of a cold sweat. “The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.” The words of the priest came down on me; the wine had been hastily cleaned and no longer marred the clean stone, but the robes still bore the stains.

We try to keep it neat; the wine rests peacefully in a glistening chalice and the bread sits silently on so many plates upon the altar. We call it the Blood and the Body, we treat them both with reverence, we experience something during their consumption, and then we go on with our lives as if we never came close to the Crucifixion. But when that wine splashed across the floor, I felt like I was finally seeing the Blood of our Savior. The same Blood that was not kept in aesthetic cups or in the bellies of well-fed Americans, but torn from the body of our redeemer with whips, thorns, fists, and rods. It flowed along the ground of the governor’s palace, marked a trail up the Via Dolorosa, before flowing over a spear and mingling with water as it fell over a Roman soldier who became the first to experience the Cup of our Salvation.

Now what in me, a Baptist boy who always thought of the Lord’s Supper as anything but the literal Body and Blood, came to witness the Eucharist as something much more significant to the life of the Church? I’ve spent a lot of time on that question, and to be quite honest…I have no clue. I think that is the point. I am not supposed to know; in an age where mysteries only exist on the History Channel and the only unknowns are what we forget to look up on Wikipedia, God refuses to be completely known. In fact, it is an impossibility to know God. This too does not sit well for a well trained Baptist who learned early on about how one can know God through the Incarnation, through Jesus Christ. Yet while I believe God knows me and I know God, there remains an eternity to discover the rest of the God I know. So in the meantime, I shall sit quietly in my pew and wonder how the Blood of a Crucified God still grips me
as we faithfully consume loaves of wheat bread and $10 bottles of wine for the remembrance of our Lord. Such things are the mystery. Such mystery is the Gospel.

Does Ordination Matter?

In my Intro to Christian Ministry class we’ve often discussed the special status, if any, an ordained Christian experiences against a member of the laity. Does a minister experience a special call, or is it just a different call? Does the call to be a minister require one to be a ‘super-apostle,’ like those for whom Paul warns the Corinthians? Do ministers receive a special grace? Do ministers possess a special sacramental authority for churches that uphold apostolic succession and the consecration of the Eucharist? All these questions are important and must be answered, but those answers will likely vary from tradition to tradition.

Two nights ago I attended an event for the AEHS (Anglican-Episcopal House of Studies) here at Duke Divinity School. The Assistant Bishop for the diocese of North Carolina administered communion, we had dinner, and held a forum concerning the Lambeth Conference held once every ten years by the Anglican Communion in England. After a lengthy discussion concerning the hopes and fears of the Church, I discovered that the Anglican Church, represented by a faith in apostolic succession and a strong ecclesiology, had very little power to address the current problems assailing the Church. What does this say of ecclesiastical authority? What good, if any, is such nominal leadership?

With the erosion of authority in our nation, this problem is one the Church must address. We are so used to having opinions, feeling entitled to what we believe, and enforcing those beliefs on others that we no longer question our own authority. There is no humility in the laity, at least pertaining to submission to Church authority. We critique Sunday sermons and ignore our own Scriptures. We explain away textual difficulties we feel demand too much of us, while we belligerently hurl other portions of Scripture against those we believe deserving of judgment. Can ordained ministers even participate in a community such as this one? We spend our lives submitting to the specialists in our culture, from doctors to lawyers. Yet when it comes to theology, we feel like we know it all, or at least know it well enough to ignore anything we find threatening or unsettling. I do not believe pastors should view themselves as specialists, but what good are three years of seminary training and subsequent years of Church experience if no one respects the education?

All of this I find discouraging and somewhat frightening. As the Church spirals into relativistic Unitarianism, in practice if not in name, and individual members elevate their own doctrine and theology, what will be left of the Orthodox Church? The tradition of the Church will persevere with or without contemporary recognition. Perhaps the question of pastoral authority can only be answered by encountering the secularized world of American religion. Regardless, the Church must act with authority whether or not the culture accepts it; otherwise, the secularization of the Church will only result in heterodoxy.

Feeding the Birds

Walking across campus today I looked up and the familiar tower of Duke Chapel stood up tall against the skyline. This view in itself was nothing new; more often than not I’m scared I’ll just get used to seeing that Gothic masterpiece. This time, however, I saw a small group of birds fluttering near the pinnacle of the tower. All the time I never stopped walking; I just watched them fly a short distance before disappearing into one of the shadowed alcoves. Nothing about the birds stood out to me; they were not colorful, they did not sing, and I certainly couldn’t tell what species they were. In that moment, however, none of that mattered. I witnessed something older than the stones of Duke Chapel, older than its foundation, and more ancient than the concept of higher education and university life. I saw birds flying.

Every day we walk past the mundane, ignoring it all out of repetitious habit. Squirrels bark from trees while those same trees sway in a breeze. Bells in a church tower ring off in the distance; your baby makes those same indefinable sounds; clouds block out the Sun giving you an instant of shade; that same Sun beams down in perfect harmony with an atmosphere that allows for perfect, 75 degree comfort while you rest on soft grass. You take a step to perform action; you sleep, eat, taste, swallow, blink, sweat, shiver, burp, hiccough, and laugh. You hug, touch, brush, kiss, sigh, cry, and smile. You work, build, think, write, copy, cut, paste, ponder, get bored, have a drink, and do it all over again. We pass our lives in an infinitude of moments that make up the mundane, each moment giving way to the one before while we sit trapped in the process, missing each moment as we wish for the next and never seeing the miracles of every, fleeting second.

We go to school for the job we’ll one day have; we date for the spouse we’ll one day win; we try to have children for the family we’ll one day see; we build schools for the education the future can share; we earn money for the retirement we hope to earn; we work ourselves into the dirt for a dream that doesn’t exist and a reality we’re never meant to witness. Sometimes it is good to look to the future; not all the above examples are necessarily negative. In each instance, however, there is something to be missed while we want what we don’t yet have. I walk to school worrying about tests, papers, grades, acceptance, worth, value, jobs, and degrees, forgetting all about the fact that I’m here, at Duke University, receiving an education I don’t deserve for a future I can’t begin to imagine.

I know we all do this; we look to tomorrow while we worry about today. I believe somewhere in this human tendency lies the hope of heaven, when all these things will truly pass from our memories. In the meantime we must continue to hope. In the meantime we must strive to fill every second with meaning and intent. Worrying and plotting or just constantly wishing for tomorrow will only make us miss it when it becomes today. Just stop and notice the mundane. While we go about our works, earning money and stressing ourselves into the grave, the birds still fly like they always have. And their heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not much more than they?

And the Two Shall Be One

My wife left for her job training last Wednesday. I flew down to Atlanta to her for the weekend and to attend the wedding. I’ve been back since Sunday; she won’t be back until Friday. In the period of about thirty six hours I’ve already realized how helpless I am without her. I do not mean to imply helpless like I can’t feed myself, but more like I don’t care if I feed myself. Life just seems to be crawling, and everything that made sense a week ago no longer does. My mind keeps reeling over new subjects and topics. I can’t seem to just enjoy being here, enjoy class, or enjoy Duke. I’ve been married for fifteen months today (as corny as that is) but I’ve only just now realized how much marriage completes the purpose of humanity (or at least my humanity).

In this experience I attempted to interpret the second chapter of Genesis and the creation of woman in a different light. “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh.” First, it is peculiar that God put Adam to sleep in order to remove the rib for the woman-to-be. For the pre-Fall state of humanity one can only speculate, but it seems logical to assume pain and death had no claim or effect on Adam’s life. Even so, God puts Adam to sleep. Is it possible this sundering of the singular ‘man’ into the plural ‘humans’ would have inflicted much pain if not for God’s anesthetic act? What can we draw from a symbolic and/or literal reading of this verse?

When my wife was at home there was harmony. Now that harmony is absent. Not only am I alone and without someone with which to share such harmony, but the atmosphere of my home feels discordant. Adam lost a part of himself through which his wife became formed. After this occurs, the narrator establishes the role of marriage; it is an act of reconciliation and rejoining. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” As I read this today, I asked, ‘What is the reason?’ Why must they be reunited in marriage as a result of a creative act of God?

This led me to consider the difficult passage of I Corinthians 11:7, “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” This verse deserves a book, but here are my thoughts, nevertheless. If Creation is approached holistically, then we notice man was made in the image of God prior to his split and the formation of woman. Then God commands for man and woman to be reunited. What was lost in this act? What was gained? The ache in my soul and the absence of my wife indicate to me what man lost. Though joined in marriage, man always reaches out to be joined back to woman in perfect harmony. In this state exists the image of God. Apart from each other they are a sundered Creation.

Reaching Out

The week is over; Friday barely had time to get here and I’m already sitting in an airport preparing for a flight to Atlanta. It’s a radical experience to go from a highly academic environment to a cultural canvas of diversity and secularization in less than twenty minutes. Christological interpretations, intertextuality, eschatological inferences, and feminist Biblical interpretations disappear into the mental drain attached to the basement of my brain. I see only people, now. Different shades, colors, accents, haircuts, garb, dress, and religions float around me and I’m not invited to invade their space. So where do I take this Gospel I’ve been shown?

How does Duke theology fit into the context of everyday life? What is a Scriptural process in engaging the culture around me? In the midst of this confusion and a passive concern for the world, the only truth I confidently pursue is the heart of the Gospel manifested in my own life. “Remember your baptism;” my friend’s admonition to never forget my changed identity repeats itself through my mind. If we have faith and passion concerning the theology about God, then we must translate that same faith into anticipation for what God continuously initiates within God’s Creation.

The ongoing revelation of God to humanity finds expression as God so chooses. Therefore, Christians must remain ever vigilant in mind and spirit to observe the intimations of the Spirit within their surroundings. By doing so, one practices a type of involvement with the culture that identifies with the heart of Christ by constantly seeking for a way to approach the world. At times I wish I could simply know the mind of Christ and act accordingly, but then I face the possibility of lacking the necessary courage to act as Christ.

In my Church History precept we discussed the eschatological reality of being a part of the resurrected body of Christ. We are hidden with Christ, and made sharers in His death so that we may also share in His life. By this same power we are new creations, constantly exhibiting the truth of the Gospel in the face of doubt and resistance. Faith allows us to act; it brings our grace to fruition. The same grace of salvation, brought to pass by a saving faith, continually clashes with our sinful nature. This forces us to constantly shift our conviction from doubt to faith, trying to live every minute with purpose. Every conversation, action, deed, thought, and so forth possesses the infinite potential found in the ordained purpose of God. As a Christian I often feel as if the interaction with the world rests on my initiative or good planning, but God prepares the hearts of the people to respond to God’s call. We are agents of God’s Will, members of Christ’s body. We are not our own; we are bought with a price. I need not live afraid of what I’ve missed; rather, I should live with an intense focus on the present, every mindful of what God has done, is doing, and will do around me. With this in mind, being a passive-aggressive Christian doesn’t sound quite as bad.

Sitting

I’ve been sitting for the past five hours. During those hours I’ve incorporated a variety of busy work to convince myself I really haven’t been sitting. I read half of a book, prayed, walked to a different chair, sat down, ate lunch, walked to the library, sat down, read some more, got out my lap top, and started typing my journal entry, still seated. I’m not accustomed to sitting; the stillness grinds on my mind and my thoughts disappear into fragmentary laments and ponderings over irrelevant concerns. I desire action.

I met with Dr. Jo Bailey Wells a little over a week ago. I came into her office, sat down, and in her disarming British accent she proceeded to inform me on how to productively sit and wait, in this case on the timing of God. Since my recent interest in the Anglican Church I’ve begun to remedy my ignorance of that centuries-old tradition. While simultaneously facing doubts over ordination, my usual thirst for action became a quest for meaning and a future. I wanted to fix the problem, read a book, study Anglican history, smoke English tobacco, and talk theology with my ecumenical pals; Dr. Wells told me to sit.

“Just push the boat out, Brad; test the waters. Even row a little if you like…but just enjoy where you are.” So I am. For some reason I can imagine sitting in a boat (where at least I’m moving, or rocking, to and fro in imaginary symbolism) as more fruitful than sitting in class chairs, church pews, or my home recliner. At this point the shore lies a meter off my bow with my back turned to the horizon, but I’m sitting. From time to time I reach out to grab the oars, pretending as if a quick pull or stroke will yank the horizon into view and cast the shoreline into memory. I know it won’t, however, so I sit.

Perhaps it’s my Baptist background, but so much in me cries out to reach out and do. It’s my job, my life, my soul, my call, my career, my family, my wife, my purpose. All these realities compound my inability to let God take me where God wills. I want to offer my own sacrament of exhaustion and hard work alongside the body of the Christ. Just sit, God seems to whisper. Wait. These whispers sometimes seem less than a whisper, like a hollow breeze that mimics a whisper. Before you’ve heard the voice the breeze is gone and the trees are still again, sitting on their roots and looking down at you walking along in such an awful, worried hurry.

It’s time to get up for now; I’ll walk about a hundred meters then sit down in my Hebrew class. But I’m not worried for now. I’m going to sit, and listen, and write out this journey. The word of God comes and goes, leaving us with impressions of the Spirit, while we sit and wonder if in these tarnished images God still sees Himself.

Without Faith

What constitutes a person’s faith? Less than a year ago I probably would have possessed a succinct conclusion regarding that question. At this time in my life, however, I struggle to understand what composes my own faith. Is faith simply a set of beliefs, a type of intellectual acceptance of certain facts and figures? Jesus plus the Cross minus my sins equals salvation? Or is it more of a world view? Creationists versus evolutionists, those who read the Bible as history versus those who read it all as formational literature, conservatives versus liberals, and many more controversies illumine stark contrasts between people of faith, even in the Church. What makes me Christian? Is it because I believe in six days of Creation, a literal Flood, prophets who sent bears to maul mocking youths, Israelites who smashed infants and murdered women because God told them to, or is it because I somehow manage to justify and explain all these things in my head? In truth, I believe faith is none of the above.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. What proves that certainty? Is there some type of action required of me, or do I only need to feel certain? Much of the confusion I’m feeling regarding this question comes as a result of a tough question that was put to me earlier this week. If a person claims to follow Christ but his life clearly implies the opposite, then what are we to conclude regarding his faith? It is not our job to judge, but it is our job to learn from each other in the Church how to conduct ourselves in a way that honors Christ. So if a person follows Christ in action, but not in word, what comes of her?

Whenever I wrestle with these thoughts, one idea always bleeds through the mental jargon. It isn’t complicated; it doesn’t require belief, or acceptance, or explanation. It’s just to love. And I do not mean to suggest that this idea to love reserves itself only for those I already love. The thought is more of an imperative, like a command from God, a whisper from the Holy Spirit. Just love. In every second of my day each person that I encounter, every enemy and/or friend I come across, is to be loved. I think this is faith. I don’t need faith to have the idea, nor do I have to believe in love or that I’m supposed to love. I am simply to love, and that action is faith given flesh. This is Gospel.

So when things are confusing, when Hebrew texts don’t exactly line up when any English translation in existence simply because Hebrew and English can’t be precisely translated into the other, when dozens of assumptions I’ve held about my beliefs can no longer be reconciled to my faith, then I will love. At moments like these, a person discovers the presence or absence of their faith. Somewhere in these tangled thoughts lies the foundation of being a pastor/priest, a person of faith.

Remember Your Baptism

Until last Thursday I had never given much thought to my Baptism. That is to say, I have never given much critical, analytical thought to it. I remember it clearly; I was seven-years-old in the Southern Baptist Church and it was a night service. In my mind then, and up to now, the act of Baptism served as an external symbol for an internal change. My sins were forgiven; I was washed clean. And the Baptism reminded me, and the entire congregation at my first church, of that change.

Last Thursday, however, I had a conversation with a classmate from a small country in Southeast Africa. Being from a region torn apart by genocide and war, the act of Baptism meant something entirely different for my friend. Coming home one day, my friend asked his mother why he should continue as a Christian. Constantly confronted with individuals who had once murdered or shown violence to his own family and friends, the love of Christ became more of an ideal and less of a reality in his own life. He told me how his mother turned to him and simply said, "*Name*, remember your baptism." And he did. For my friend, his baptism (although occurring when he was an infant) became not only a symbol of internal conversion, but of his adoption into the body/family of Christ. The faces of his enemies became the faces of people who needed the love of Christ. Therefore, by joining with Christ in Baptism (which 'kick-started' Christ's own ministry), all Christians become capable of serving as literal members of the body of Christ. In this light, my friend could do nothing but love his enemies, for that is what Christ would do and did.
In order to understand all the implications of baptism, I had to first recognize that my own Baptism was not a private act of obedience between myself and God. I also did not receive my Baptism so that other Christians could remember their own private moment with God during their Baptism; rather, Baptism incorporates new believers and children of believers into a real relationship with the Church (body of Christ). In this way Baptism becomes an act of community, not only with the Church but with God as well. When Christ was baptized, God said, "You are my beloved Son." This same phrase is offered to us; "you are beloved." This is our worth as Christians. Money, power, knowledge, beauty, material goods, athletic ability, and other markers within society tend to dictate a person's worth in the secular world. But no matter the outward condition of a person, whether poor or rich, fast or slow, beautiful or ugly, intelligent or not, and so on and so forth, the true worth of a person rests in the eyes of God. As a result, baptism marks the moment when we become the "beloved" children of God. In this do we have hope and value. This is what my friend remembered during difficult times in his own country; he was "beloved" by God.

With this in mind, if we are beloved by God through His grace alone, earning nothing by ourselves and understanding even our faith itself comes from God (Eph. 2), who are we to deny love to others, even to our enemies?

Post-Genesis

So...my first day of official divinity school classes came and went. My life didn't magically change and I'm still pretty much the same guy, except now I can sing the Hebrew alphabet better than most 2-year-olds in Israel. Life here can only be called atypical. Actually it could probably be called many things, but this is only a blog and I don't want anyone to take me too seriously:)

My first class was Hebrew, followed by a exhausting lecture on early Church History. Our Hebrew teacher was so nice I almost forgot how deadly the language would eventually prove. Church History ran at a quick pace and I've never typed so fast in my life. We learned some fascinating things:

--> Example: Contrary to popular thought, the Roman Empire actually lacked any type of cohesive action against the Christians. In addition, much of the persecution aimed at Christians seemed to arise out of misunderstanding and rumor-mongering. What we know as the Lord's Supper, where we eat the body and consume the blood of our Savior, understandably began to sound a little too much like cannibalism to the Romans. Also, these private Suppers were also called Love Feasts, so it came as little surprise that the Romans suspected these Christians guilty of mass orgies. We read a couple of primary documents by a Roman historian named Tacitus and a Governor named Pliny the Younger. Both of these writings convey a sense of confusion in dealing with the Christians. As a result, our teacher concluded to us that the Roman government only demonstrated widespread persecution of Christians at certain moments in history, and not spanning the three hundred years from Christ to Constantine (the Emperor who legalize Christianity). All in all...it was a cool class.

I've been having a few difficulties with the readings, however. Some of the authors seem to write with a very humanistic approach, which basically means they leave little room for God in the equation. For example, one book I'm reading treats the Jewish faith and the Old Testament as if their development came about through the actions of radical, crazy prophets. At first glance this sounds OK, but not when you hint that these prophets really weren't acting on God's behalf and were doing all this at their own whim. There is so much arrogance in some modern scholarship. I've read things that needed citations, but never received them. Some scholars just make claims, but then don't back them up. I don't care who you are; that's just lazy.

Sorry to end on a sour note, but everything truly is great here in Durham. My wife is doing well; she takes her CPA on Thursday (the 28th) and starts work on Sept. 10th. You can imagine our angst. I'll start work in the div school library next week.
I've already got a good routine with my carpool buddy. We get up early, come to morning prayer, then go work out, then come back and hit the books. It's nice to get the day going early.

Anyway, sorry to bother you with some of the extraneous details. It helps for me to write them all down. I hope all of you have a fruitful week.

Shalom(little Hebrew to mix things up:),
Brad

A Poem for the Road...

I wrote this poem to close out our Project Bridddge. It emphasizes the strained race relations not only in Durham, but in our society as a whole. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading:)

Color

I hate color, all color. All ideas of perfection and imperfection.
I hate midnight black and sunset gold. I hate them for their differences.
I hate soft whites and blazing reds. I hate modest yellows and tender violets.
I once looked around and saw the variety of our reality, and I realized I hated myself.

I hate my eyes and my skin and my hair and my voice and my height.
I hate my dreams and my hopes, my sorrows and my laughter.
I hate tomorrow and I hate today, because I’m still the same, the same as everyone else.

But it wasn’t always like this. Before I knew the words that made me different she was still my sister and he my brother. She talked different then as well, but “different” wasn’t a word I used. All I knew was that she was beautiful, and I could stare at her linen white smile and laugh into the night because she would be there in the morning.

I was jealous of my brother’s skin, bronzed in the sun and glaring in its own shade through the shimmer of summer haze as he ran into the surf, but they told me that was the very thing I must hate. So I did, and I found pale specters to run alongside me, showing me how to hate and how to reach for sameness.

Then one day I glanced around and all the color was gone. There we were, mirroring ourselves in homogeneity and ringing our bodies into halos, closing out variety.
And in the cold, stark bleakness of our heaven, I wept for my sister and cried for my brother. I called out for them in the night and under the old stars, but they were gone.

My feet bled as I searched through old neighborhoods where their shacks once stood. My hands ached as I carried lumber and tools, rummaging through warehouses where we used to build them houses. My eyes grew dim in the schools, reading age old texts and looking for answers from the wise, whose dust rotted in colorless coffins.

Then, on a day when I thought the shadow would blot out my own portion of creation, I found my brother and my sister. But as I reached toward them I recoiled, my heart lurched, and sweat sprang to my snow-white skin. Because we hated them, they tried to change. Cheap cosmetics, suited for whores, ruined my sister’s face, and my brother’s bronze frame sat broken on the curb, ashen and weak in his attempt to disappear.

I begged them not to go, but they no longer recognized me. I was one of the masses, grasping at uniformity and damning their variance. They disappeared into the crowd, because now they were the same. But now I had changed, and all the weight of heaven broke me, leaving me to wonder if I would ever love color again.

Getting to Know "Durh'm"

So I've spent my first week in Durham, NC participating in Project Bridddge, which is a program focused towards community service and awareness of the social/racial/class issues influencing the city of Durham. In the past 3 days so many assumptions and givens I've held onto for years have come face to face with reality, and the stereotypes are no longer holding their weight.

Before I came to Durham, Duke required all incoming M. Div students to read The Best of Enemies, which recounts the struggles of civil rights in the Durham area, and how the leader of the local KKK came together with a prominent, Black activist to work towards a peaceful integration of the schools. It is a story of hate, prejudice, segregation, self-righteousness, hopelessness, and powerlessness; but it is also a story of faith, hope, and ultimately, love between two people that were supposed to hate each other. This type of love transcends explanation and human understanding; it is a thing of the Gospel of Christ.

The Black activist (a woman who I met today by the name of Ann Atwater) opened up her home to us and spent 2 hours sharing her wisdom and encouragement to all the Bridddge participants. The meeting in her house symbolized a climax in my own understanding of the race and class divides plaguing our country. The answers to these problems are not simple; in fact, they may not exist at all. This has been a tough issue for me, but Christ promised we would always have the poor. In the face of such problems and wealth disparity, what is the necessary Christian response? What about wealthy Christians as they encounter the poor? Do we take Christ literally and give all we have? Do we give our money, our time, etc? Is there a balance?

Since I began this post, Project Bridddge has come to an end. As different groups gave closing presentations, we struggled to identify a proper response to the problems of race relations, class disparities, idolization of academics versus the pragmatic application of our faith, and others. We each had different responses, but there was one comforting truth. We can get involved in numerous areas. We can do community service for hours upon hours. But none of this will "fix" the problem. We must remember that God is Sovereign; we may not understand our place in a certain mission context, but we can go forward in condidence that each person we meet, every class we take, each service project we pursue, constitute intimate, ordained moments where the Spirit of God manifests itself in how we love others. This is the Gospel. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Social justice, distribution of wealth, and the other concerns of the Durham area must be addressed under the day-to-day reality of the Gospel. We can't allow ourselves to fall in love with visions and causes while we forget to love the person sitting next to us in class, or our next door neighbor, or even our enemies. This alone is possible through the love of Christ, demonstrated before us as an example to walk in the very (incarnated) footsteps of God on Earth.

This truth comforted me. I pray for God's wisdom and His heart as life continues in my new home.
-Thanks for reading:)