Living the Word
Illustration by Livia Falcaru
THE HOLY SPIRIT has a starring role leading up to Pentecost, not only on the day itself. Jesus prepares the apostles to receive “another Advocate.” Other readings jump forward to what occurs when disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit. This could be an unusual level of holiness meant for a few, but it sounds like a holiness to which we can all aspire. Stephen and the apostles were granted heavenly visions or the ability to speak new languages. The challenge for believers today is to recognize when the Spirit of truth “comes upon” us.
A clue might be found in how Jesus describes the approach of the Holy Spirit to the disciples (Acts 1:8): This verb (eperchomai) conveys the sense of moving from a transcendent position toward one who is less powerful. The writer of Luke-Acts also uses the verb in this way when Gabriel answers Mary’s question about how it could be that she will bear the Messiah.
Mary, the apostles, Stephen, and others weren’t powerful to begin with. It is the Spirit who empowered them, who made risky discipleship possible. And the “signs and wonders” (Acts 5:12) that flow from being full of the Spirit aren’t always spectacular. We could be filled with the Spirit when we turn a vacant lot into a community garden. Or when we register new voters. Or furnish a home for a family seeking asylum. We don’t need a certain level of education, status, or holiness to live into Jesus’ promise that his followers can receive power to do great works (John 14:12).
May 3
Churches ‘Heal’ Debt
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
AMID “SIGNS AND wonders” by the apostles, Acts 2 describes how early Jesus followers provided for each other by selling off possessions and goods, praying together, sharing meals, and holding property in common. That may seem an impossible ideal.
But sharing resources beyond our individual household can be creative while supporting communal stability and security. The early Christians intertwined worship with economic relationships and forged bonds of community. Congregations can do this in diverse ways.
Several Chicago-area congregations have helped to raise money for canceling medical debt through a nonprofit organization called RIP Medical Debt. RIP uses the same method as debt collectors—it buys debt in bulk from brokers at a deep discount—except RIP then collects donations to clear the debt. Individual contributions as small as 50 cents or a dollar from people in the pews together wiped out thousands of dollars of medical debt, freeing a family. Members of the participating congregations rejoiced in worship that they could relieve financial stress, even while many of them also had such debt.
Illustration by Mary Haasdyk
OUR LECTIONARY REFLECTIONS for April encompass Palm Sunday and three weeks of readings for Easter. I found these scriptures deeply moving as they presented Jesus of Nazareth through different eyes and in different contexts.
One spring many years ago, our small Mennonite church near Chicago centered our worship services from Easter to Pentecost on stories of Jesus’ resurrection. It was my first experience of “Eastertide,” and I never forgot it. Each week we focused on a different resurrection account in the New Testament—one from each gospel (two from Luke) and 1 Corinthians 15. Comparing different perspectives, our services highlighted the many witnesses to a singular, unexpected event that can help convince us today that this crucified prophet has been resurrected and exalted as Messiah and Lord (see Philippians 2:9-11).
Two more thoughts: First, in the passages below we unfortunately miss the terrifying events after Palm Sunday, during which Jesus confronts the Powers—both high-priestly and Roman—that want to get rid of this “King of the Jews.” Jesus was crucified as a political threat. To accept the risen Jesus as Lord is to take on the (often political) struggle between good and evil in our current contexts.
Second, our faith is not just spiritual. Jesus’ bodily resurrection speaks of the value God places on physical bodies. Though Jesus was black-haired and brown-skinned, God loves all shades and shapes of bodies. Through Jesus’ resurrection, we catch a glimpse of the age to come. It may indeed be, as C.S. Lewis characterizes the new Narnia, deeper and more solid than our present age.
April 5
A Risky Donkey Ride
Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 21:1-11
ABOUT 40 YEARS after the original “Palm Sunday” in Jerusalem, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote a history called The Wars of the Jews. In it, he described the welcome received by the Roman Emperor Vespasian when he returned to Rome after destroying Jerusalem and its temple.
The Romans were so fired up that many exited the city to meet him: “The whole multitude ... came into the road and waited for him there.” With great joy, “they styled him their Benefactor and Savior.”
In contrast, Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem parodies the ancient tradition of a victorious king welcomed home to his city after a battle. Rather than riding a white horse, the Middle Eastern Jesus borrows a donkey (Matthew 21:2). Although a large crowd of outsiders created a path for him with cloaks and branches, Jerusalem’s citizens have one startled response: “Who is this?” (verses 8, 10). But even his followers do not call him a king; he is “the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” (verse 11).
Rather than a victorious welcome such as Vespasian received, Jesus knows he is raising the stakes in a land as sharply divided as our own. He must nonviolently challenge the corruption that lies at the core of its leadership—Caiaphas and other chief priests who negotiate with Rome for their own interests. Jesus of Nazareth knows his dramatic action will likely result in his execution, but to honor God, he must take the risk.
Only after these Jerusalem events can the “daughter of Zion” go back to her scriptures and find texts such as Zechariah 9:9 where “your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey” (Matthew 21:5). Or the song of victory in Psalm 118: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord ... bind the festal procession with branches!” (verses 26-27).
Later believers can sing a hymn to their Messiah Jesus (in Philippians 2:6-11), who had “humbled himself to the point of death” and then became exalted above every other human as Lord.
Illustration by Karlee Lillywhite
ON THE CHURCH calendar, the entire month of March is devoted to Lent—a period of self-examination as we follow Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem to confront the powers who have usurped Yahweh’s temple for their own purposes. Examining our own motives and desires, our private resentments and need for control, is one of the hardest tasks we can ever do. But there is no better time than Lent to deal with our own egos as honestly as possible. Time and time again I hear of family members or friends who are estranged from each other over money matters or misunderstandings. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ story The Great Divorce, when various characters would rather take the bus back to hell than reconcile with a brother or sister.
Besides interpersonal relationships, there are societal sins in which we participate. What is our responsibility to the community in which we live? What policies would best help the homeless or relieve unnecessary cruelty in the criminal justice system? How much should we change our lifestyles because of impending climate change? How does love of money and power affect our relationship with Jesus who laid them aside to identify with “the least of these”? Our lectionary readings for this Lenten period of self-examination range across both testaments and different genres of literature. References to sin and law are prominent—but so are the antidotes: confession, repentance, forgiveness, and grace.
March 1
Repentance Is Hard
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
TEMPTATION, SIN, CONFESSION, repentance, and forgiveness—or resisting temptation from the start? For those who engage Lent as a time of self-examination, these readings provide two examples, one from each testament. Psalm 32, attributed to King David, most likely refers to his own sins of adultery and murder. But after David repented and experienced forgiveness, he was able to eloquently express both the misery of the conviction of sin, and the rush of relief and wild joy that accompanied confession and repentance. You would think people would try repenting more often.
In Matthew 4:1-11, we learn that even the most intense temptations were resisted by Jesus, the “Son of David.” In the wilderness, Jesus confronted the voices within. “Use your power for yourself!” the tempter urged. “Change these stones into bread—like Yahweh made manna in the desert!” “Show your power to those big shots in Jerusalem! Then come up the mountain, and I will show you all the kingdoms of the world. They can all be yours ... if you worship me.” Don’t think the human Son of David did not struggle hard against these thoughts. At that very moment, Roman soldiers were occupying his land. What aspiring king, president, or politician could have turned down such an offer?
Truly repenting of sin is hard. Resisting temptation is hard. When have you repented of a sinful act and found forgiveness? When have you found the support—of friends or angels—to resist temptation?
Illustration by Jackson Joyce
SEVERAL CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS celebrate the season of Epiphany from the feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6), which celebrates the arrival of the Magi (Matthew 2), through Transfiguration Sunday, which falls before Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of the season of Lent. “Epiphany” is from a Greek word meaning “to reveal.” Jesus was revealed to the non-Jewish world through the Magi and continued to show himself in multiple ways throughout his ministry, culminating (before the resurrection) in the glorious appearance on the mountain (Matthew 17). There, Jesus’ disciples saw the fullness of his glory. Their response was one of awe and reverence, but even that missed the importance of the moment. God spoke from heaven saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (17:5). What were they to hear from Jesus? What are we?
Is it possible that we have experienced something special and then want to praise the Lord, but still misunderstand what is required for acceptable worship? From what kind of people does God receive praise? Who qualifies to come into God’s presence and worship? Do attitudes and actions toward others matter? These are the questions that drive our devotional reflections this month.
It is often said that true worship must come from the heart. That is true as far as it goes—but these passages teach us that worship is very much a matter of our hands and feet too. The arena that molds us into a people fit for worship is the public square.
February 2
Sued By God?
Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12
WHO CAN ENTER before God to worship? asks the psalmist. Psalm 15 lists the virtues that are expected in order to enter for worship: truth-telling, care and respect of neighbor, and open-handed generosity. These qualities are to be practiced in everyday life, especially with the disadvantaged.
Micah 6:8 is well-known in justice circles—“to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” But it is easy to miss the full thrust and context of this message. In Micah 6, the Lord brings a lawsuit against the people for forgetting what (notice how many times this word appears in verses 1-8) had been done on their behalf. In the ancient world, when the gods were angry, they had to be appeased with gifts. This idea drives the question in Micah 6:6: What will the Lord demand to turn from judgment?
llustration by Charlie Eve Ryan
CHRISTMAS OFFERS AN opportunity to reflect on how well we know Jesus as he would want to be known. Can we be the kind of Jesus followers we should be without an adequate understanding of who Jesus really is? Only a good grasp of who Jesus is offers a solid foundation for our worship and service in the new year.
For many, this Christmas Jesus is a beautiful baby boy wrapped in swaddling clothes, sleeping in a trough on a bed of straw, as farm animals and shepherds look on pensively. Another common scene of tranquility is one of the baby Jesus in the arms of his mother Mary—the Madonna and child portrait so prominent throughout church history. In many ways, these depictions are appropriate for the Christmas season, but there is a potential problem. For many, these are the defining images of Jesus: helpless, dependent, silent.
This is not at all the person of the Messiah who is announced in the Old Testament. What was the expectation that gripped the Jewish people for centuries? What was the Coming One to do? How would he change the world as they knew it? How can he change the world as we know it?
These readings explore prophetic passages that describe the One who was to come. How does the New Testament celebrate Jesus as that long-expected Messiah? How can his coming help us to live out our faith well?
Illustration by Ellen Weinstein
WE ARE LIVING in a moment of ruptured imagination brought on by the growing specter of deadly violence, which has triggered in many a crisis of faith. But these lectionary readings say to Christians, “Wait a minute, not so fast!” A promise-bearing deliverer has come to topple competing kingdoms and bring distress to wielders of death. Matthew’s message is, “Keep awake.” And the prayerful petitions of the psalms outline the marks of righteous governance: defending the poor, giving deliverance to the needy, and crushing the oppressor (Psalm 72:4).
Salvation comes in the form of a child and angels act as divine emissaries—quieting fear in one instance and stirring up disquiet in the hearts of others (Matthew 2). Were it not for an angel allaying Joseph’s fear about Jesus’ atypical paternity, life as a teenage single parent would have been Mary’s lot. Had an angel not appeared to Joseph in a dream urging him to flee to Egypt, or had a dream not disrupted the course of the Magi warning them to not return to Herod, the scriptural record would have unfolded very differently.
The promise of coming joy and peace reveals much more than incarnational presence. Jesus’ coming brings to our expectant minds the essential nature of a God who wields love and salvation. God always provides a way to secure such provisions. Angelic envoys, as Matthew narrates, stand ready to do God’s bidding.
Illustration by Darcy Muenchrath
THIS NOVEMBER CYCLE of lectionary readings encourages our stillness and trust in God in times of persecution (Psalm 46). It also asks us to reconsider the signs and wonders of Jesus’ public ministry as an invitation into his redemptive plan.
In Luke 19, Jesus extends mercy in the form of table fellowship to the wealthy and despised chief tax collector Zacchaeus, setting off alarms. Everyone who saw divine hospitality in motion “began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner’” (verse 7). The taxation system of which Zacchaeus is a part, by profession and association, is no doubt inherently corrupt and socially abusive. Ironically, salvation comes to Zacchaeus with “breaking of bread,” table fellowship, and in the context of divine hospitality.
Luke 20 presents one of several vignettes that raise questions about the nature and origin of Jesus’ authority. Here a dispute pits Sadducees, the keepers of the Torah who do not believe in resurrection, against Jesus, the rabbi who scrambles and puzzles their logic. What is revealed is a strictness of theological imagination on the Sadducees’ part and radical truth-telling grounded in well-timed perception on the part of Jesus. Then in Luke 21, Jesus foretells terror, the kind which we 21st-century, world-redemption seekers would do well to hear: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes ... famines and plagues ... and great signs from heaven” (verses 10-11). You will be hated, Jesus says, but “by your endurance you will gain your souls” (verse 19).
Photo by Nitish Meena on Unsplash
HOW A GROUP survives under adverse conditions helps its members see and know who they truly are. These lectionary readings are instructive for politically disoriented and lamenting people groups attempting to build community in exilic situations while also finding hope in their distress.
Walls crumbled when the kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonian Empire and tribal social culture and customs ruptured. Forced migration compels ruptured communities to take stock. What carries cultural permanence and what gets reconstituted from one generation to the next helps us see that we are at our best when we recognize that our creaturely identity and divine potential are bestowed by a benevolent Creator.
In the epistles, Timothy is taught to call upon his spiritual heritage to accomplish his pastoral assignment in Ephesus, though Paul worries that Timothy’s mixed Gentile-Jewish ancestry might be more of a barrier than a blessing for him.
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Wealth advisers teach us why and where to stockpile our assets and how to diminish our liabilities. “Save! Save! Save! Put away for rainy days. Establish your kid’s college nest egg now! Buy low and sell high! Get real estate to get more bang for your buck! Don’t touch your 401(k) or you’ll risk having nothing for retirement!” And of course, they earnestly urge, “Set aside enough for taxes or be bitten by Uncle Sam in the end!” Any good wealth adviser aims to cure their clients of unsound “robbing Peter to pay Paul” financial practices. Managing portfolios calls for vigilance because markets can be highly volatile and thus vulnerable to external forces beyond one’s control. For this reason, sound investment strategy requires advanced planning, goal-setting, and staying focused. This month’s gospel readings address the importance of honoring one’s faith journey by carefully calculating costs and practicing disciplined stewardship.
These themes color the pages of Luke’s gospel but also inform Paul’s eldering counsel to his young devotee, Timothy. Paul writes: “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment” (1 Timothy 6:6), for true satisfaction is discovered at the site of contentedness, not on “the uncertainty of riches” (verse 17).
Our spiritual ledgers get out of whack when wealth accrual is decoupled from gratitude and when we forsake practical wisdom. Dialing back the spiritual appetite for hoarding temporal goods is not only good stewardship but crucial for securing tomorrow’s sacred dividends. Having an appropriate perspective on wealth is the initial deposit for moving into the life-giving presence of a debt-canceling God.
September 1
Forsaking Fidelity
Jeremiah 2:4-13; Psalm 81:1, 10-16; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14
Biblical storylines of God’s dealings with Israel vary little in terms of plot. The master narrative of unrequited love loops over and again in the prophetic literature. Taglines proceed in this order: “As they pursued worthless things, they forgot their first love and were forced to submit to the exacting demands of their foreign foes. Yet again, a faithful God is love-spurned by a prized people who contented themselves with serving lesser gods of their own making.” Sacred love tales of this sort get nauseating, at least I think so.
THE NATURE OF dishonor and consequence are what these passages teach. For the average Bible reader, the front matter of the book of Hosea—specifically the first three chapters—disturbs the conscience. At the time of Hosea’s calling, God’s first words are: “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord” (1:2). Wow!
The writer of Hebrews proposes an alternate reality: Any reality worth seeing comes into view through faith in the unseen (see Hebrews 11:1). Prophet Isaiah sees what God sees through another portrait. Like believers today, empty rituals and defiled worship strain Isaiah’s eyes. Do we have eyes to see what the prophet saw in our context of racial intolerance and religious bigotry? Harsh judgment meted out in scripture is generally in response to an act of rebellion or for defaulting on a covenantal agreement. An aggrieved God enters our contemporary global vineyard asking Christians today, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (see Isaiah 5:1-4).
The essential work of the guardian is to protect the investments. While we are not permitted to “psychologize” the prophet Jeremiah, we can still say that shame is evident. To say, “Why me, God?” rather than “Why not me?” is to be imprisoned by a faulty internal transcript.
Pentecost by Jean II Restout / Photo illustration by Metaleap Creative
CERTAIN WORDS cause problems. When I ask first-year seminarians to take seriously the importance of using inclusive language for God and humanity, who would have thought my urging would generate such panic and skepticism? To my suggestion that “Father God” is grammatically (and theologically) on par with “Heavenly Parent” or “Mother God,” I can see in their blank stares and grimaces that they feel, yet again, that the God known to them is being tampered with.
Perhaps the term “inclusion” is difficult for some because it means that all things done in word and deed that do no intentional harm to others are at worst permissible, because God’s love is boundless. Equally fraught is the term “expansion.” Notions of colonialism, manifest destiny, and Christian triumphalism come to mind.
How did the words “inclusive” and “expansion” become problematic, polarizing terms? One might place blame squarely on the shoulders of postmodernity, with its demand that Christians shed their husks of credulity and theological defensiveness. Others argue that for Christians to be taken seriously today, they must join the postmodern conversation with a revelation that can hold up in a world of scientific advancement and Twitter.
PRAYER IS MOSTLY not a matter of getting what we lack; rather, as Thomas Merton taught at the very end of his life, it’s a means to experience what we already possess.
None of the gifts of the Spirit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23)—are fixed endowments. These are precarious resources, in the strict sense of the word “precarious,” which comes from the Latin precare, meaning “to pray.” These gifts must be rediscovered, relived, and newly explored, as we will in this Pentecost season.
THE BOOK OF REVELATION is one of our companions this Eastertide. We are invited to contemplate its central image, the axis around which everything revolves: “the Lamb at the center of the throne” (7:17).
Is this an image that can engage the imaginations of our contemporaries, especially those unfamiliar with the scriptural symbolism? In 2016, I had my tattooist in New Zealand inscribe on the inside of my right forearm a striking copy of a medieval sculpture, one of the few that survive from the great Abbey of Cluny in France. It depicts the Lamb of God, bearing a cross. The Latin inscription surrounding it means, “As carved here the Lamb of God is small, but how great he is in heaven!”
I hadn’t anticipated that bearing this image on my body would lead to all sorts of intriguing conversations. Curious strangers stop me in checkout lines, bars, the beach, the street, asking, “What does that mean?” I talk about the vulnerability of God’s noncoercive love, and its ultimate power. Nothing can take away the sins of the world except the love that is revealed on the cross and vindicated in the resurrection. “Here is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29).
Are these conversations sowing seeds of change? Only God knows. As for ourselves, we are still learning from the scripture’s insistence that the ultimate meaning of the Lamb is only accessible through adoration.
THE SENSE OF SMELL is intimately enmeshed with memory centers in our brains. Humanity’s experience of the evocative power of scent is not fanciful. The bereaved hang on to their loved one’s clothes, to inhale their unique scent, to flood themselves with recollection.
As we celebrate Holy Week, we can evoke the memories created by Mary of Bethany when she anointed Jesus with luxurious nard, six days before his final Passover. “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume,” we will read in John 12. Her lavish gesture, wasting this fabulously expensive Indian cosmetic, was to be ever linked with the excessiveness, the far-too-muchness, of Jesus’ own willingness to throw his life away on the cross. The theme of excess is taken up in John’s pointed note about the vast quantity of spices—a hundred pounds!—lavished on Jesus’ corpse before burial. When the disciples entered the empty tomb at dawn, the gorgeous aroma must have been overpowering. Perhaps the reluctance of so many to accept the empty tomb and the implications of the apostles’ testimony is related to a reductionist instinct, a recoil from divine excess. Judas was disgusted by Mary’s excess—and there are those who think that the bodily resurrection is incredible because it is over the top. Surely, they say, the idea of the exaltation of Jesus’ spirit, the resurrection as strictly metaphorical, seems more than satisfactory without anything actually happening to his corpse! But God exceeds through excess.
A Syrian man carries his daughter, as refugees abandon the makeshift camp of Idomeni in northern Greece. Giannis Papanikos/Shutterstock
THE DEUTERONOMY PASSAGE that ushers in our Lenten pilgrimage underscores the sacred mandate to embrace foreign immigrants with generous hospitality. Instructions for the liturgy for harvest thanksgiving conclude: “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you” (26:11). Worshippers are required to certify in the assembly before God that they have participated in providing what the vulnerable in society need, not least refugees. “I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows” (verse 13). Paul speaks of the Spirit of freedom removing the veil that blinds us to the core meaning of the sacred texts. In the current climate of xenophobia and incitements to make refugees into scapegoats, Christians are called to rip down the veil that prevents people from hearing this Word.
As for the intimate personal dimension or Lenten conversion, this might be the time to realize more profoundly that much of our own sinfulness and confusion arises from the harshness with which each one of us rejects and starves elements of our own inner “community of selves,” those parts of our humanity we try to disclaim and repress. It is the Spirit’s inner work of integration that teaches us to embrace those “selves of the self” we find ugly, pathetic, needy, or too passionate and creative for comfort. Our outer practice and inner practice of hospitality and inclusion belong together.
[ March 3 ]
Radiation Exposure
Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-43a
“And all of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Epiphany season’s celebration of the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ concludes with the theme of transfiguration (metamorphosis is the Greek word). The appointed scriptures are the key for understanding the dynamic of Lent as we prepare to enter that season of renewal. Our transformation can never be accomplished by conforming to external imperatives, nor by the embracing of “values,” however lofty and demanding. Our moral transformation works through contemplation of the open heart of God exposed in the self-giving life of Christ, a kind of contemplation as “radiation therapy” in which our inner falsity is irradiated by the beams of God’s unbounded, costly love, lived out by Jesus through his “exodus” (Luke 9:31) into the cross.
Prayer is the perpetual treatment in which, little by little, we deepen our participation in the divine life of vulnerability, transparency, and truthfulness. “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word” (2 Corinthians 4:2), but this is not the result of our own program of moral effort; it rises from “the Lord, the Spirit” doing the work of inner liberation in us while we are steadfastly fixing our gaze on Jesus.
Our mounting anxieties are confronted in the psalm for the final Sunday of this month. Not the wear and tear of personal difficulties, but stress, fear, and exasperation at the flourishing of injustice, denial, mendacity, and exploitation. All exacerbated by the frenzied input of the media in which we are saturated. The psalmist speaks: Be still before the Lord and wait patiently. Do not fret over those who prosper, who succeed in evil schemes (see Psalm 37). The psalms do not prescribe withdrawal, tranquilizers, or techniques of self-calming, but stillness “before the Lord.”
Those who are emotionally tortured by the enormity of the damage being done to humanity by so many powerful people need a renewed spirituality for activists that derives its strength from a deepened intimacy with God. The psalmist shows the frankest awareness of the howling frustration that wreaks havoc with our physical and mental health and shreds our emotional availability to one another, and yet is certain that the only ultimate antidote is personal exposure to the joy and tenderness of God. “Take delight in the Lord, and you will be given the desires of your heart” (verse 4). Those who listen closely will hear echoes of this in other readings. Very tellingly Jeremiah urges, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord” (17:7). Trusting in God, but more than that, experiencing the indwelling of God in our hearts and the pulsing trust from that heart living in us.
It is easy to overuse the word “prophetic” and tread it flat. We need scriptures like these to restore authenticity to our language about prophetic calling and ministry. Jeremiah recounts his experience of God’s call to be a prophet when he was still a youth. He resisted the call because he was still embedded in a culture weighted toward the kind of authority supposedly earned by years of experience. But a prophet must be disembedded from her culture to address that culture with God’s authority. And “experience” is often just a code word for initiation into the values of an unjust order. God challenges the normal requirement of experience, placing the prophet solely under the authority of God’s own promise. No experience necessary! I am reminded of God’s mordant skepticism toward society’s conventional valuation of experience in Charles Péguy’s great poem “The Mystery of the Holy Innocents.” Péguy writes: “As for what you call experience, your experience, I call it waste, diminution, decrease, the loss of hope.”
In Jesus’ confrontation at Nazareth with those who knew him only too well, he quotes a bit of folk wisdom: “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” By definition, a prophet is an outsider: She thinks outside the categories that form the common-sense worldview. And so she is drawn to the stranger and those on the fringe who are more likely to be open to acts of God invisible to conventional eyes. Jesus then scandalizes his former playmates by mentioning that the only successes Elijah and Elisha had at healing were with pagan foreigners. The congregation instantly changes into a lynch mob from which Jesus narrowly escapes.
Paul’s praise of love in 1 Corinthians 13 challenges our prophetic practice: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.” Prophets take their stand where God’s incandescent holy love meets human resistance. It is a perilous place where prophetic actions can insidiously draw on the dark energy of hostility and self-righteousness, and utterly forfeit their authenticity.
POWERFUL CLAIMS IN SCRIPTURE about the gospel are clothed in thought forms so archaic that most preachers shy away from them. The letter to the Ephesians has much to teach us this month, but what are we to make of the claim that we are called to ensure that “through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (3:10)?
We moderns assume that evangelism targets human individuals, but the New Testament writers insist that the revolutionary message is addressed to cosmic forces that exert control over our culture and our political institutions, giving them notice that God’s saving intervention in Christ is more than a match for their malign influence. These are the “rulers and authorities” that the writer to the Colossians insists were disarmed by Christ’s death on the cross, where he “made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (2:15). Let us do the hard work of translating these claims into terms that can apply to our own work of evangelism. We may no longer believe in actual heavenly entities that need to be deposed by the good news, but we must bring the gospel to bear on our contemporary equivalents. Don’t we talk glibly about “the markets”—as if they were an impersonal force we can do nothing about? But the gospel debunks this evasion of responsibility about how human beings distribute the good things of the earth.
A CLOTHESLINE IS AN ODD IMAGE for Advent spirituality, but it dances before my eyes, reminding me of the pleasure I had as a child helping my grandmother hang out our clothes to dry in the back garden. How fresh they smelled when we took them down! Those who have to use dryers may never know what they are missing.
After Christmas, we will be reading from Colossians about the new styles of being human that the Incarnation attracts us to try out for ourselves. After stripping ourselves to put on the baptismal self, each layer of our new outfit is “pegged out” on the line for us to admire and try on. “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience ... Above all clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (3:12, 14). This same passage goes on to invite us to take seriously that meditation on scripture is a foundational Christian practice, not an optional one. Each of us must find our way of internalizing scripture, celebrating and investigating it in the inner space and landscape of our unique selves. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (3:16). Advent is a visitation to us of “words of Christ” that we need to invite in and entertain. Words of Christ as the coming Human One, our New Self, the indwelling Presence with which we are pregnant, the young Christ growing into God’s call.
NOVEMBER IS THE MONTH of remembrance and thanksgiving. It begins with the Feasts of All Saints (Nov. 1) and All Souls (Nov. 2), when Christians honor holy women and men. What does it mean to be holy? Too often, we think of holiness as an impossible task—we equate it with a scrupulous perfectionism none of us can attain. That is an easy, and spiritually immature, excuse not to ponder what holiness might mean for us. To be holy is to be one with God. As people of faith, we are all called to holiness. It is something that we grow into as we grow in our relationship with God, others, and ourselves.
The women and men whose names we sing in the Litany of the Saints (as well as the names of our loved ones who we might add to that litany) were not angels. They were humans, like you and me. However, we remember them because their lives witnessed to God’s loving presence in our midst. We, too, are called to witness to this grace. The readings for this month remind us that becoming holy will demand much of us. It requires that we “love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and that we “love our neighbor as we love ourselves” (Mark 12:31). They also promise us that God “will show [us] the path of life” (Psalm 16:11) and “fullness of joy” as we tend to God’s “kin-dom.”
[ November 4 ]
Beware Shiny Gods
Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Psalm 119:1-8; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34
OUR READINGS begin with the words of the Jewish Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Immediately, the scripture reminds us that God is to be the center of our lives. But how do we make God the center of our lives? In a world where distractions abound—where there is always some new and shiny god being launched for the low, low price of $29.99 per month—how do we love God with all our hearts, souls, and might? While the shiny false gods might be easy to identify and avoid, how do we genuinely attend to the variety of “competing goods” (as my colleague the ethicist calls them) in our lives? How do we balance time for prayer with time for family, friends, ministry, work, and self-care?
In Mark’s gospel, Jesus adds on to the Shema, stating that the second great commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Perhaps this is a clue as to how we can make God the center of our lives while also attending to our competing goods: Namely, we can see that God is always already at the center of those goods. After all, God is what makes them good! This does not mean that we do not commit to the discipline of prayer, but it does mean that the overall goal of prayer is to make us aware of the ever-present God in our midst. Imagine: What would that Monday morning board meeting look like if we really believed that God was present there? How about those 3 a.m. newborn feedings and endless diaper changes? Or that friend going through a divorce who just needs someone to listen? What if we really saw each of those moments, each of those people, as encounters with the living God? Perhaps then we might be able to say, “I am loving the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, and all my might. And I am loving my neighbor as myself.”
IN RECENT YEARS there was a popular religious meme with the question, “What would Jesus do?” But it has faded as these trends usually do. One of its weaknesses was that it seemed to invite us to supply the additional qualification “if he were alive today and in our shoes.” This month provides a great opportunity to explore in preaching and reflection the magnificent but neglected theme of Christ the Intercessor, found in the readings from the letter to the Hebrews. The question here is: “What is Jesus doing since he is alive forever?”
The answer is that, in total solidarity with us all as fellow human beings, the Risen Christ is representing and offering to the Holy One all that we are undergoing and struggling with and needing. “He holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (7:24-25). Christ was and is “in our shoes” as struggling human beings.
It is not as if Christ prays instead of us so that we don’t have to. Rather our sense of his total sympathy for our human vulnerability and weakness removes our inhibitions and encourages us to offer them to God, knowing that the Living Christ is identifying with our prayers and making them his very own. What riches we discover when learn from scripture what praying “in the name of Christ” actually means!