Stephen's Martyrdom and Paul's Forgiveness, a reflection on Acts 7

The other day I was reading the story of Stephen’s Martyrdom in Acts 7, and I started to put together some dots I’d never connected before. In 7:60, immediately before he dies as the first martyr for the Faith, Stephen cries out in a loud voice—“Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And then he “falls asleep.”

In his commentary on Acts, Luke Timothy Johnson points out how carefully Saint Luke has crafted this narrative so that it mirrors the crucifixion of Jesus. Stephen glimpses “heaven standing open” (7:56) in a way similar to how Jesus saw heaven opened at his baptism (Luke 3:21). The angry mob drags Stephen outside the city to stone him (7:58) in a way similar to how the angry mob drove Jesus outside town to kill him (Luke 4:29). Stephen commits his spirit into the Lord’s hands (7:59) in a way similar to how Jesus commits his spirit into the Father’s hands on the cross (Luke 23:46). And, as mentioned, Stephen prays that the Lord would not hold the sin of his murderers against them (7:60), in a way similar to how Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified him (Luke 23:34).

It seems like Luke wants us to read Stephen’s execution as participating, in some way, in the story of Jesus himself, and, especially, in the death of our Lord on the cross. Stephen’s martyrdom, that is to say, is a cruciform death, one informed by and patterned after the death of Jesus himself.

That, on it’s own is a sobering thought, but it becomes all the more so when you read the very next verse that follows. Because immediately after we read Stephen’s prayer asking God to forgive his executioners—a prayer patterned after the prayer of Christ on the cross—we read in 8:1 that Saul (aka Paul) was standing there, “giving approval to Stephen’s death.” Whether Paul personally threw a stone or not is moot, here; the narrative clearly implicates him in the travesty of justice that happened that day. Very likely it was this moment that Paul himself had in mind in places like 1 Timothy 1:15, where he describes himself as “the chief of sinners” (see also 1 Cor 15:9).

Here is where the connect-a-dot of Bible verses forms a fascinating picture, though. Because those who have read the Book of Acts to the end will know that Saul goes on to become one of the most influential and indefatigable missionaries for the cause of Christ the church has ever known. The Saul whom Stephen prayed for on the day of his death would eventually become Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who counted everything as dung in comparison to knowing Christ and roamed the world seeking places to preach Him where the name was not yet known.

In other words, God literally answered Stephen’s prayer that day, and showed his executioners His divine mercy and grace. Certainly in Paul’s life, at least, he did, because by God’s grace, Paul became an apostle of Christ Jesus himself, forgiven and empowered to preach the name he once persecuted. Speculating about “what ifs” is kind of futile when it comes to the Sovereignty of God, but even so, I can’t help but wonder: how might Paul’s story have turned out differently, if Stephen had not followed his Lord’s example and prayed for the forgiveness of those who persecuted him.

It reminds me of Jesus’s promise to his disciples in John 20:23, that anyone they forgive will be forgiven, and those they don’t forgive will not. More than reminding us of them, Stephen’s story vividly illustrates them. Stephen forgave Paul (if not directly, certainly as part and parcel to his prayer for all those who murdered him that day). God forgave Paul (Acts never directly connects Paul's forgiveness to Stephen’s prayer, but the fact that Act 8:1 follows directly on the heels of 7:60 make it fair game, I think, to align the two). And Paul, forgiven, goes on to champion the Gospel of Reconciliation that he once tried to snuff out.

What if Stephen had not learned the lesson of the cross so well? 

And what might God do in the lives of those we forgive, if we will learn the message of the cross as well as Stephen did?

The Heart's Referee, a devotional thought

In Colossians 3:15, Paul says that, as we live out our new life in Christ, we are supposed to "let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts."  I'm familiar with this passage (I've even preached on it before) but something jumped out at me the other day that I'd never really noticed before.

I always sort of assumed it meant "rule" in the sense of "having top place," or "being in charge." Like a king rules a country, so the peace of Christ ought to rule our hearts. But it's actually more specific than that. The verb he uses for "rule" in verse 18 is not the verb used to describe a king's rule (basileuo), it's the word used to describe a judge or an umpire in an athletic competition, who makes a ruling about the winner (brabeuo; the noun form is used in Phil. 3:4).

In Paul's imagery here, the peace of Christ is not so much the king of the castle that is our hearts (Christ himself is that); it is the referee in the hockey game that is our whole inner life. I actually had that picture in my mind as I was praying through this verse this morning: my thought life, my emotions, my ambitions, my desires, my goals, my opinions, everything that goes on inside was like a big hockey game, with players moving around and crashing into each other while they all chased the puck of my attention. And then the peace of Christ blew the whistle (sometimes I get pretty imaginative in my prayers)-- anyways, the Peace of Christ blew the whistle: that ambition was off-side; that emotion was roughing; five-for-fighting on that opinion. Anything that doesn't contribute to, or promote, or express the Peace of Christ gets called out, and put in check and sometimes even thrown in the penalty box for a while.

May God grant us all the grace to make His Peace the referee of our lives.

Mercy and Doubt, a devotional thought

There’s a somewhat unusual command for us in Jude 1:22.  Jude is a pretty obscure book, as far as New Testament letters go, tucked way in the back and right before the book of Revelation and all, so it's understandable if this particular verse doesn't get equal air-time with John 3:16 or Romans 3:23.  Nonetheless, 1:22 is worth some careful reflection. It's talking about the way Christians are supposed to be in their interactions with different people in and outside the church, and in v. 22 it says, “Be merciful to those who doubt.”

This is especially interesting, because the Greek word for “doubt” here refers to a believer who is experiencing doubt or wavering in their belief, more than it does an unbeliever who has rejected the faith or plain never accepted it. It is, I think, a very tender thing for Jude to say.

Sometimes we go through times in our lives, experiences, life changes or unexpected circumstances that leave us in seasons of doubt, questioning our faith, maybe, wrestling with the really hard questions, hanging on by a thread. This is true for even the most stalwart of Christians. And sometimes, I’ve noticed, when Christians are in these times and places, it can leave other Christians feeling threatened, uncomfortable, judgmental, anxious to “fix,” looking for trite platitudes to sweep the doubter’s “doubt” under the “easy-believism” rug. Inasmuch as so much seems to ride on faith, for the Christian, genuine doubting can be very disconcerting.

And if you’ve ever seen what I’m trying to describe here, and how unhelpful the trite platitudes are, how harmful the judgement can be, how much damage the anxious efforts to fix can cause, then maybe you’ll feel how tender Jude is being here, too. “Show all kinds of gracious, gentle mercy,” he says, “for anyone who’s there, in that season of doubt.” Mercy, he says, is what’s needed; and when you read it in the broader context of the surrounding verses, it looks like mercy is also what will bring the doubter through, to firm footing again.

May God give his people grace to be as merciful with each other in our times of doubting as he is with us.

The Thursday Review: How Do You See?

First Published September 4, 2010

When you think of your bowels, do you think, primarily, about feelings of mercy and compassion?

I don't. But then, I'm not a 1st Century Palestinian. For them, the "bowels" (in Greek splangnon) were the seat of your tenderest affections, where things like pity, and empathy, and compassion came from. Usually we associate these things-- tender affection and warm feelings- with the heart, like when we say: "my heart really goes out to you." But in Jesus's day it wasn't your "heart," it was your "bowels." (Look, for instance, at 2 Cor 7:15, Phil 2:1, Col 3:12, Phm 1:7, 12, 20, or 1 John 3:17 in an old KJV, but don't try writing "My bowels go out to you" on your next Get Well Soon card (especially if it's for someone who's just had a coloscopy).)

But I'm not trying to be gross. I'm saying this to illustrate how easily we can miss the point if we don't remind ourselves that moderns and ancients often used different "psychosomatic categories" for talking about the body.

Sometimes, for instance, we hear people quote Jesus when he said: "These people honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." And because we use the "heart" to describe our emotions, we conclude that Jesus is saying he wants people to worship "with emotion." Now, it may be (and I believe it is) that Jesus wants people's emotions engaged when they worship. But in the Bible, the “heart” actually refers to the whole "inner self," and not exclusively, or even primarily, the "feelings." The "heart" is the seat of knowledge and reason (Mk 11:23, Ac 7:23; cf. Ex 35:10, Deut 8:5, 1 Kin 10:2, 1 Chron 29:9), will and resolve (1 Cor 7:37, Eph 6:22; cf. Ex 23:2, 1 Sam 9:20, 1 Chron 24:4), affections (Ac 2:26, Jn 16:22; cf. Deut 11:16, 1 Sam 1:8), and is better understood as a parallel to the “soul” than to “emotions.” Jesus’ criticism is not that the Pharisees lack emotion, but that their adherence to empty tradition at the expense of real holiness betrays hypocrisy, and is a sign that their “inner selves” are not aligned with God.

And speaking of "inner selves" and ancient psychosomatic categories, have you ever thought about Jesus' saying in Luke 11:34 about how the eye is the lamp of the body, and when the eye is good, the whole body is full of light? Modern science always told me that light goes into the body through the eye, so I always figured that Jesus' point here was that the eye is like a lamp letting light into the body, lighting up the soul, and if the eye is working properly, then the whole inner self will be full of light.

But then, I'm not a 1st Century Palestinian. Apparently many, if not most ancients, when they thought about it at all, believed that the eye "saw" by emitting light out from the body. This ancient theory of vision is called "extramission." And if you believed in extramssion, then the eye would be the lamp of the body in a way similar to how the headlights are the lamp of a car.

If Jesus is taking to a 1st Century Ancient Palestinian, then it's quite likely he means: "If your eye is good, it's because your whole body is full of light." The light that's "inside" will determine how the eye's seeing, because what's happening on the inside (light or dark) is what shines out, and will determine how you look at the world.

The question is not "is your eye working"; it's "is your heart full of light?" Because, as Jesus says elsewhere, "If the light that's in you is darkness, how great is that darkness."

When I do this psychosomatic shift in my imagination, the whole saying makes perfect, profound sense to me. And I discover it's quite true after all: as the light of Christ illuminates ever deeper and darker corners of my heart, I find I'm looking at the world more and more differently. And when I let the light of His Spirit shine out through the lamp of my body, I discover I really am seeing the world in ways I've never seen it before. The worldly treasure and ambitions and distractions that once looked so tantalizing now seem rather shabby; and humble things, simple things, pure things that I might never have given a second glance before, start to gleam with transcendent beauty.

The Thursday Review: The Full Divine Panoply

first posted May 10, 2010

I can still remember when I first learned about that famous passage in Ephesians 6, the one where Paul talks about putting on the "whole armour of God." It was Bible Camp, grade 6. I vividly recall how the speaker walked us through each item in our spiritual panoply: the Belt of Truth, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Shield of Faith, and so on.

I`d been working my way through Tolkien that summer, so I guess my 12-year-old imagination was pretty fertile ground for images of spiritual warriors armed with mystical armour with arcane names like "The Helmet of Salvation" and "The Belt of the Truth." When I got home, I drew an elaborate picture of some elfin warrior who bore a striking resemblance to Aragorn (as I pictured him in my imagination; this is, remember, well before Peter Jackson), bearing a flaming"Sword of the Spirit" and warding off demonic darts with his "Shield of Faith."

A talk on "The Whole Armour of God," I'd discover later, is standard fare for Bible Camp speakers. I`ve heard the most elaborate talks explaining obscure details about the typical armour of the Roman Infantry, and relating them to intricate details about the means and methods of spiritual warfare for individual Christians. I was even at one Bible Camp where the speaker was a Christian children`s entertainer named (I`m not making this up) Fester the Clown. Fester the Clown made an entire set of the Whole Armour of God out of balloons, Sandals of Evangelism and all. One lucky camper got to take it home with him in a giant plastic bag as a reminder of his call to arm himself for spiritual warfare.

Now, I hate to burst Fester`s balloon, but the thing that he never told me, nor did any of the other speakers I`ve ever heard expound on this passage, is that throughout Ephesians 6:10-20 Paul uses the 2nd person plural. He is not talking to or about individuals here, arming themselves for solo combat against their personal demons and temptations. He's talking to and about the group, the community of faith, the Church. Put differently: "you" are not called to put on the whole armour of God as much as "we" are called to do so together. This is a subtle point, perhaps, but a few examples will show that it's not so subtle as to be moot.

Take, for instance, the Bride of Christ imagery. While Jesus is most certainly the lover of individual souls, when the Bible says that "you" are the Bride of Christ, it means "you" plural, that is the church together, is the Bride of Christ. And we miss a vital theological point if we miss this distinction. A more obvious one, perhaps is the Body of Christ imagery, where we are each, clearly, only members of the whole Body and can't function without the others; a less obvious one is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, where the primary reference is to the community of Faith together being built up together into the Temple of God (Though it's common to hear talk about how you (sg) are the Temple of the Spirit, out of 7 references to the Temple of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, only 1 refers to individuals and all the rest are about the community together).

What difference would it make if Paul's envisioning the Community of Faith in Ephesians 6, arming itself together for spiritual combat, and not individual spiritual gladiators? Maybe a good place to start thinking through the implications would be 6:18, where he talks about the "secret weapon of prayer" (as I heard one preacher call it picturesquely). If Paul's primarily imagining corporate prayer here as a "weapon" in our battle against the powers of this dark world, then it will mean, I think, remodelling the "prayer closet" a bit. In most of the discipleship material I've ever seen, the emphasis has been almost exclusively on individual prayer.

And if Paul is calling the church corporate to take up the "Sword of the Spirit," which is the Word of God, then sharpening my personal knowledge of the Bible in my personal "quiet time with God" will certainly not do it. Instead, the call will be answered as the community of Faith itself becomes a place where together we seek out, listen for, weigh together and respond in one spirit to the utterance of God (the word there is rhema, not logos) as it is breathed by the Spirit through the Scriptures into the gathered community. Puts a little different spin on the "sword drill," that other staple of Bible Camp spirituality.

We could do the same with the rest: what if lacing up the Sandals of Evangelism was less about me personally leading individuals to the Lord (though it may include that), and more about the community of faith becoming, and being, a place where the Gospel or Peace is proclaimed, and lived out, and given room to touch and transform lives? Of course, Fester the Clown would have to do a whole lot more balloon twisting if this reading is right, but as a spiritual exercise go through Ephesians 6:10-20 and read it asking yourself: would it make any difference if this was about "us" and not "me"?

Angels Among Us

In the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation, the Risen Jesus dictates a series of prophetic letters to St. John the Divine, addressed to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor: the Church at Ephesus, the Church at Smyrna, the Church at Pergamum, at Thyatira, at Sardis, at Philadelphia and Laodicea. For those even vaguely familiar with the Book of Revelation, this will probably ring some bells. These seven churches are in various stages of success and failure, hopefulness and helplessness, victory and defeat, and Jesus sends them each a letter, warmly commending them for their spiritual victories, tenderly comforting them in their trials, and sternly warning them when it’s needed.

I think about these seven letters to the churches in Revelation a fair bit in my work as a pastor; they come to mind, actually, on a pretty regular basis. It’s not, however, because of the specific content of any individual letter. To be sure, they are among some of the most poetic and compelling passages in the whole New Testament, and I fully trust that the same Jesus who promised the Pergamonian Church a taste of the hidden manna should they overcome, promises to reward the FreeWay’s overcoming in like manner.

But that’s not what draws me to these letters.

It’s this curious observation that I made a few years back and I can’t “unnotice” now that I’ve noticed it: Jesus addresses each letter, not to the “pastor” of the church, or the “over-seer,” or the “elders board” or even the individual congregation. Instead, in each letter he address “the angel of the church.” “To the angel of the church at Ephesus” he says, “write ....”

“To the angel of the church at Smyrna... to the angel of the church in Pergamum ...” and so on.

This is supposed to be a blog post about church ministry, specifically, not angelology, so I won’t delve too deeply here, but it strikes me as all kinds of interesting that, when addressing the trials and triumphs, the struggles and successes, the warp-and-woof of each church’s spiritual life together, Jesus does not address individuals, specific leaders, or even corporate congregations. He addresses the angel of the church.

If you’ve read the work of Walter Wink before, or William Stringfellow, or Hendrikus Berkof, who each write eloquently and insightfully about the “inner” or “invisible” realities that exist in all human efforts to order our life together—from political power structures, to economic system to, even, church institutions—you may see where I’m going with this. There is—the Bible is quite convinced of it—a spiritual life or a spiritual entity (words are difficult here) that becomes evident whenever we structure human life-together.  It emerges from the power structures we erect, and at the same time transcends them. The Bible calls these things Powers and Principalities, Thrones and Dominions, Authorities and Rule. In Colossians we’re told that Christ defeated the Powers and Principalities through the cross (2:15); and in Ephesians were told that Christ is enthroned above them all (1:20); and later in Ephesians we're told that our battle as Christians, is not against flesh and blood but against them (6:15).

The Bible regularly depicts these “Powers and Principalities” in personified ways, as angels and/or demons, variously at work in the world. In saying that, I don’t mean to imply that I take the Bible’s talk of angels and demons as “mere” metaphor, as though there was nothing “real” behind Daniel’s demonic “Prince of Persia” (Dan 10:13) than “simply” the power structures of the Persian Empire. What I am saying is that, as far as the Bible is concerned, the two are intimately connected. The demonic “Prince of Persia,” and the concrete realities of the Persian Empire—the spiritual beings in the heavenly realms and the human power structures that exist on earth—are opposite sides of the same coin. The later are concrete expressions of the former; and the former draw their meaning directly from the later.

I promised I wouldn’t delve too deeply, so let me resurface with this. Put simply: nation states—as human efforts to order our life together—nation states all have an “angel” that exists invisibly, but powerfully, and exerts an invisible but powerful influence over the people who “belong” to that nation state. So do multi-national corporations. And economic systems. And institutions of higher learning. And, as far as the Book of Revelation is concerned, it would seem, so do churches.

There was, in a very real sense, an “angel of the church at Ephesus”—a spiritual entity, a spiritual reality—a spirit—that exists because the church at Ephesus exists, and though it transcends the Ephesian church and exists separately from it, its life is intricately bound up with their life. And so, when Jesus wishes to address the life of that church, even though he has very real, flesh and blood human beings in mind while he’s doing it, he doesn’t address individual leaders or church members. He addresses “the angel of the church at Ephesus.”

There’s an angel of the church at Laodicea, too; and at Sardis, and, if I am reading the Bible right on this one, an angel of the church called FreeWay, at Oshawa.

Every church has its angel.

Anyone who’s ever walked into a church and just sort of knew without being able to put a finger on it, that the “spirit” of this church was dead, or bitter, or vibrant, or reverent—anyone who’s ever been in a church that just couldn’t seem to break through a spirit of failure, or pride, or what have you, no matter how many times they changed the pastor, no matter who moved on or who moved in—anyone who’s ever been in a church where the spirit of the place was full of life and love and joy and before they knew it they were radiating life and love and joy, too—will get what I’m trying to say here.  There is a spirit to every church—every church has, for lack of an even more biblical way of putting it—its angel.

This is why I think about the letters to the churches in Revelation regularly in my work at the FreeWay, because in my more imaginative moments, I wonder: what is the FreeWay’s angel like? Don't worry.  I’m not going new age here, or theologically flaky or dropping off the deep end. I don’t waste much energy on this; but every once in a while, in good Book of Revelation fashion, I wonder.

What does the Angel of the Church called FreeWay look like? (I imagine him as shorter and spunkier alongside the more staid, noble and somber angels of the Heavenly host. His armour of light is held together with duct tape, his wings affixed with chewing gum, and where all the rest of the assembled angels have swords, he has a slingshot protruding from his back pocket...)

More important than what he looks like, though—and this is a question I do spend a fair bit of pastoral energy on—what would Jesus say to the angel of my church, were he to address it the way he addresses the angels of the churches of Asia Minor?

The Thursday Review: Picturing the Footstool of Christ

First Posted June 19, 2009

A couple of summers ago we visited the Montana State University Museum in Bozeman, Montana. They were hosting a touring exhibit of the treasures of Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb, with full-scale reproductions made by Egyptian craftsmen, accurate down to the finest detail.

And here 's where I stopped dead in my tracks: the footstool of King Tut's throne is decorated with stylized illustrations of his defeated enemies. Whenever King Tut sat in state, his court-- and indeed the whole world-- glimpsed this potent reminder that he had literally subdued the enemies of Egypt under his feet.


His sandals add imperialistic insult to political injury: the insoles are decorated with images of Semitic and North African prisoners of war. King Tut couldn't take a step without reminding himself and his empire that Egypt had truly tread down her enemies.

I stood there transfixed for a moment. Ringing in my mind's ear were the words of King David's messianic oracle: "The Lord (Yahweh) says to my Lord (Adonai), sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool."
In the ancient world, it seems, this was more than just a throw-away line of poetic imagery. In the ancient world, apparently, you really did make your enemies your footstool, literally and symbolically.

I wondered about King David, and what they might have drawn on his sandals. Philistine mockers? Assyrian barbarians? Babylonian idolaters? The Lord (Adonai), this oracle says so confidently, will strike through kings and judge the nations. And the Lord himself (Yahweh) will draw the illustrations for the Messiah's footstool.

But then, still transfixed, I wondered about Jesus. What pictures would we see on his sandals? What illustrations adorn the footstool of his throne?

"Death. The fear of death. The Devil," says the author to the Hebrews, the teacher of the early Church whose midrash of this entire Psalm points us inexorably to Jesus. These have always been the enemies of God's people, he says. And this is why Jesus took on flesh and blood in the first place: "so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-- that is, the devil." St. John agrees: we'd see a representation of sin-- the works of the devil. After all, this is why the Son of Man appeared: "to destroy the work of the devil."

St. Paul would agree, too. Only, he'd add, we'd also see a picture of those idolatrous systems of human power that so dehumanize us, making people into things. Because in the cross of his Christ, he says, God disarmed the powers and authorities of this world, leading them captive in his victory parade. With typically Christian irony, Paul might say that on the sandals of God's Christ, we'd actually see a picture of an emperor's sandal all decorated with pictures of the empire's defeated enemies. Imperialistic power itself is one of the enemies of God's Anointed Emperor.

The Devil. Sin. Empire. The fear of Death. Death itself.

With every step of his nail-scarred feet, Jesus reminds us again that he has really tread down these enemies. And he invites us to walk, free and transformed, in the path of those footsteps.

No Loitering, a devotional thought

Any careful reader of Mark's Gospel will notice that one word, in particular, shows up with unusual frequency in his account of the life of our Lord, especially in the opening chapters.  In Greek the word is euthus, which means "immediately," or "right away." Jesus came up out of the baptism water "immediately" (1:10); the Spirit led him into the desert to be tempted "immediately" (1:12); the first disciples left their fishing nets to follow him "immediately" (1:18).  It actually appears 5 times in the first 21 verses alone (about once every 4 verses), and 42 times in the entire book (which is about 10 more times than all the other Gospels combined).

And here's what I think it's doing there: you see, Jesus' Gospel is breaking over Mark's world at such a thrilling pace with such a breathless urgency, that in his telling of these tales, the immediacy of the events seems to get special emphasis.  Things happen one after the other at such break-neck speed that the next wave's upon you before you even have time to clear the foam of the last one from your eyes.

A friend of mine suggested once that Mark's telling of the Gospel reads a bit like a 2nd Grader's retelling of a story they can't wait to get through for excitement: "And then .... and then ... and then ..."

I get that.  But it leaves me wondering if we share Mark's sense of urgency when it comes to the Story of Jesus. Do we feel the same immediacy and excitement and expectation about what's happening in our midst and all around us as long as Jesus is walking among us, as Mark seems to have? When I'm most honest with myself, I have to admit that I seldom do.  More often than not, I'm spiritually sauntering in my walk with Jesus; not a peaceful stroll, mind you, but a lally-gagging shuffle, sure I'll get there eventually...

Whatever else Mark's euthus is doing in his book, I think it's there so that we might catch a little bit of Mark's spirit as we read, and feel it in our core how urgent it is, what Jesus's doing immediately, here, right now in front of us, in his mission to bring the Shalom of God to the world.

Notes from the Ashes, Part IV: Been There, Done That

When I was studying biblical Greek in Seminary, I made a commitment at one point to read through the entire Greek New Testament in a year.  I figured out the number of pages I’d have to cover each day to get through the whole book in 365, and just started slugging.

Matthew was agonizingly slow.  Mark a bit better.  Luke a bit worse.   After Luke, John was a breeze.  Acts was more agony, but by the time I was done it, I felt like I could tackle anything.  Romans: check.  1 Corinthians: check.

And then I hit 2 Corinthians. 

I was light-years away from being an expert, of course, but even so, here was Greek unlike anything I’d come across in the New Testament to date.  Mark was raw but concrete.  John was simple but stunning.  Acts was convoluted but sophisticated.  2 Corinthians was all of those first things—raw and simple and convoluted—and none of the other—concrete and stunning and sophisticated.  I would read sentences over and over and try as I might, I just couldn’t make sense of them.  The grammar was so clipped, the constructions so terse, the language so allusive that for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out.  I’d consult English translations and sometimes they’d help, but sometimes, too, it looked like they were having as much difficulty as I was.

My Greek prof knew about my read-it-though-in-a-year project and he’d check in on me periodically.  One morning when I was right in the middle of 2 Corinthians he asked how it was going.  When I explained how different, and difficult, the Greek in 2 Corinthians seemed, he kind of smiled knowingly.

And he said: “You’re not the first to notice that.  Many scholars think it’s because Paul’s just so worked up—so exasperated with the situation in Corinth—that he can barely get his thoughts out coherently.”  (Remember, of course, that this is the second letter he’s written to this imploding congregation, and from what we can tell things have been going from bad to worse and somewhere before the writing of 2 Corinthians, it had gotten personal).

I’ve since come back to 2 Corinthians a number of times.  With a bunch of years experience in reading Greek behind me now, it doesn’t seem as bad as it did that first time through, but still, there are exposed nerves all over the place in this letter, and it really does bleed through in the Greek.  It reads more like a hurting, hurried, harried Dear John letter than it does a theological treatise (although, interestingly, it happens to include some of the most theologically verdant texts in the whole entire New Testament.  2 Corinthians 5, anyone?). 

I’m not saying that the Paul who wrote 2 Corinthians was necessarily burned-out when he penned this letter; but I am saying this: as far as I can tell, it sounds in places a whole lot like the kind of letter a burned-out pastor might write, if he were writing to his church in Koine Greek.

Biblical scholar N. T. Wright puts it like this: “[Paul’s] tone, even his writing style, indicates ... that something has happened [at Corinth] which has changed him, and that he and the Corinthians have been through something that has changed their relationship.  ... [He] does not say what, precisely has happened, but he tells the Corinthians the effect it had on him: he was so utterly overwhelmed, beyond any capacity to cope, that he despaired of life itself.”

And then in his analysis, N. T. Wright adds this: “Paul's talk about internalizing a death sentence sounds close to what we might call a nervous breakdown, and certainly indicates severe depression.”  (Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 297-9).

Ok, maybe I am saying that the Paul who wrote 2 Corinthians was burned-out.  Sort of.   And perhaps my hesitancy to put it that starkly indicates some of the lingering stigma that I still carry about burn-out itself.  Could it really be that the author of one of the books of the Bible actually burned out in ministry?  And that he made one of his major contributions to the Canon in that emotional state?

I’ll let you read it and decide for yourself.

For my part, I have come to see 2 Corinthians as one of God’s great gifts to pastors, and especially to burned-out pastors.  Because it’s the letter where God not only told me, but showed me, that He gets it.  He really gets it and in his book he acknowledges it: the despair, the distress, the discouragement, the darkness that can sometimes be part of this high and glorious calling.  He neither condemns it, nor sweeps it under the rug, but tenderly embraces it.

Having been through burn-out and come through better on the other side, I take a lot of encouragement from the fact that God included 2 Corinthians in his book.  But I also take a few practical lessons from it.  And if anything I’m saying is resonating with you today, let me offer them in closing.

First:  There is great power in the words “Been there.”  Part of what Paul is saying to burned out pastors in 2 Corinthians, is simply, “I’ve been there.”  And there is healing and hope and help in those three simple words, in knowing that you are not alone. 

The second lesson is related:  If you have been there, then be there for someone who is there.  One of the reasons I’ve been doing this series, in fact, is because I’m trying to learn the very same lesson that Paul’s burn-out (if that’s really what it was) taught him: “That God comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble, with the same comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Cor 1:4).  If you’ve come through a burn-out, understand that it wasn’t for your sake that you came through; it was for God’s glory and the sake of others.

Third—and this, I think, is the most important lesson of all—burn-out does not, and will not disqualify you from ministry.  One of the lies that makes it so hard, I think, for pastors to get help or make changes, is this one: “If people knew how much you’re struggling right now, you’d lose all credibility as a pastor.”  We could stretch this out if we wanted to include all Christians: “If people knew how much you’re struggling, you’d lose all credibility as a Christian.”

Whatever else 2 Corinthians is, it’s evidence that this lie is just that: a lie.  Paul’s transparency did not disqualify him as a pastor.  Second Corinthians’ emotional rawness did not disqualify it from the Good Book.  Neither will honesty and humility about how heavy the burden is right now disqualify a hurting pastor from God’s calling on his or her life.

The sooner we call out the lie that says it will, the better.

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The Pearl, the Treasure and a Quarter in the Snow: A Homily

Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Once when I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11 years old, I was walking home from School one day in the middle of February.  And it was cold, so I was all hunched up with my head down, which is probably why I spotted it.

It was a bright, shiny quarter in the middle of the road.

Now, I got to say, this was back in the days when a quarter was still worth something.  I mean, they still had the penny back then, and a quarter was a whole entire 25 of them.  The convenience store in town sold gummy-bears for a penny each, so, I mean: you do the math.  That was a bag of 25 sweet, chewy gummy bears just waiting to be purchased, right?

There was only one problem.  Like I say, it was in the dead of February, and that quarter was frozen into the ice.  This was in small town Alberta, so they didn’t salt the roads, and this street wasn’t used so much, so the ice was smooth and clear and hard, and you could just see that quarter there—all 25 cents worth of it—shining up at me.

But I couldn’t get at it. 

Now, I hate to say it, but that quarter became the obsession of my little 10-year-old life, and every day for the next week, I’d go home by that road to check and see if the quarter was still there.  And it always was.  We were in the middle of a cold-spell.  And it was always just out of reach.

Until one day, there was a Chinook.  A Chinook is  a really warm wind that blows in from the Rockies right in the middle of winter, and the temperature can go from 20 degrees below to 5 above in a matter of hours. 

So you probably know what I was thinking about all afternoon at school, as the snow banks outside the classroom window kept melting and melting?

That quarter.  Cause I knew that come 3:30, I’d be on my way home, 25 cents richer than I was before.  I was already imaging the 25 gooey gummy bears I was gonna buy with that 25-cent treasure.

Maybe you know how this story’s gonna end?  Because the bell rang, I dressed in my coat and boots as quick as I could and practically sprinted to the spot.  The asphalt was all shiny and wet from the Chinook, not an inch of ice in sight, and I walked out into the middle of the street and ...

My quarter was gone.

Maybe I wasn’t the only 10 year old that had his eye on it, but someone, apparently, beat me to it.

I always think of that story whenever I read that parable about the buried treasure in Matthew.  Because Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven—life with him as Lord, leading us and directing us and showing us how to live—Life with God in charge—is sort of like that quarter frozen in the ice.

Well not exactly.  Exactly what he says is: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which, when a man found it, he sold everything he had so that he could buy the field; or it’s like a merchant looking for fine pearls, and when he found one of great value, he sold everything he had so he could buy it.” 

Of course, as a 10-year-old boy, I didn’t have much to my name that I could have sold.  Even if I’d sold all my Lego sets and my video games, I’d still wouldn’t have had enough to buy that road with the frozen quarter in it.

But that’s not really Jesus’ point, anyway.  Jesus’ point is that life with him is worth everything, and whatever it takes to enter into life with him, and to hang on to life with him—it’s worth it. 

Like a treasure buried in a field, and once you know it’s there, you’ll do everything you can to get your hands on it.

Or like a quarter, frozen in the ice, for a 10 year old kid; and once you know it’s there it starts to occupy your every waking moment because you want it so much.

I’m saying this, partly because  sometimes you can be following Jesus for a long, long time, and you can sort of forget how beautiful, how precious, how valuable a thing we have in him.  I mean: the love and life and presence of God, his goodness and mercy following us all the days of our lives, the promise that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Forget the retirement savings fund, what we may or may not have in the bank account, the 25-cent piece frozen in the road, if we’ve got that, we are rich beyond compare.

But I’m also saying it because sometimes it’s tempting to wonder if life with Jesus really is worth it?  I mean: life with Jesus as Lord sometimes means saying no to things we’d rather say yes to, or saying yes to things we’d rather say no to.  It means making the effort when it would be easier not to.  It means sacrifice sometimes, and hanging on to some things so we can let go of others.  And sometimes you can sort of wonder: is it really worth it?  Is he really worth it?

And if that’s making sense to you, then I hope you’ll get it when I say that: Life with Jesus as Lord is worth everything.  And on that day, when we stand with him in glory, and he rewards all the sacrifices and effort with a beautiful, loving, tender, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  On that day wel’ll know:  whatever it took, it was worth it.  

Jesus and the Marriage Trap, a close reading of Matthew 19:1-9

Sometimes asking just the right question of a text can open it up for us in ways that we might not have otherwise seen coming, but that speak straight to the heart and soul of our life with Jesus, once we do.  Matthew 19:1-9 is such a text, where the Pharisees approach Jesus “to test him,” and they ask if it’s “lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason” (v.3).  The crucial question here is just: “In what way is this particular question about the lawfulness of divorce a test for Jesus?”

Most commenters on this passage point out that the Pharisees seem to be asking Jesus to clarify his own stance on divorce, vis-a-vis the prevailing schools of rabbinical thought at the time.  The question here seems to centre around the directions found in Deuteronomy 24 on when, and why, and how a man may issue his wife a certificate of divorce.  There were, basically, two prevailing approaches to this passage in Jesus’ time.  A rabbi named Shammai held that Deuteronomy 24 actually prohibits divorce except in the case of marital unfaithfulness, whereas Rabbi Hillel argued that Deuteronomy 24 permits divorce for any reason. Inasmuch as the followers of these two rabbis disagreed quite sharply over the correct reading of Torah when it came to divorce, the Pharisees seem to be asking Jesus if he is more of a Shammaite or a Hillelite in this regard: is divorce always okay, or only okay in the case of unfaithfulness?

Jesus lands more or less with Shammai on this one:  the spirit of Deuteronomy 24 was to place limits on the practice of divorce, not to open it wide.

So far so good, but this doesn’t answer the question of why this would have been a test for Jesus.  If both approaches had rabbinical precedence in Jesus’ time, it’s hard to see how asking him to come down on one side or the other in the debate would have been a test—a controversial position, maybe, but hardly a test.  The problem intensifies when you notice that this question sounds a lot like a question they’ll ask him later on about paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15-22); and there Matthew calls the question a “trap.”  In what way might this have actually been a trap for him?

These questions hang in the air until you notice that Matthew starts off this story by pointing out that the Pharisees ask him about his position on divorce after he “left Galilee and went into the region of Judea, to the other (i.e. the east) side of the Jordan.”  This is no random piece of Jesus’ travel itinerary.  Jesus left Judea and went into Galilee way back in 4:12, when he heard that John the Baptist had been put in prison.  John, of course, was imprisoned by Herod; he was beheaded in Matthew 14:1-11 and his death, it seems, was one of the events that precipitated Jesus’ return to the region around the Jordan. 

And here is where one plus one plus one equals “Ah-ha...”  Because we know that before his execution this is where John conducted the majority of his preaching and baptism ministry: in the Transjordan region of Judea, the very the spot where Jesus is now answering questions about his position on divorce.  And we know that John was beheaded specifically because he had spoken out against Herod’s marriage to Herodias, his brother Philip’s ex-wife.  Herod had convinced Herodias to leave Philip and marry him, and John spoke out against this divorce, saying it was not lawful for Herod to marry her.  It was John’s challenge to the powers that be, over the question of marriage and divorce specifically, that got him killed.

Suddenly the trap becomes altogether obvious, because we know, as well as those first century Pharisees knew, that John saw his ministry as a preparatory work, preparing people for Jesus.  In this sense, Jesus’ ministry stands in continuity with John’s, and (and this is a big and), it was John’s commitment to the sanctity of marriage that got him killed.

So, Jesus, what do you think?  Is it okay for a man to divorce his wife (like Philip did Herodias)?  And if so, is it okay for the wife to remarry (like Herodias did with Herod)?

We could unpack the very profound things Jesus says about how marriage permanence and exclusivity was in the Creator’s mind right from the beginning (19:4-5), and how, in this sense, permanent and exclusive marriages contribute in some mysterious way to Creation Shalom.  In this regard, divorce is sort of like open-heart surgery.  There may be times when it’s the only option left, but it should only be undertaken when there are no options left, and even then it’s a sign that something very serious has gone wrong, deep down in the heart of Creation.

We could reflect on all that; but what I’m mulling over, instead, is how in affirming the Creator’s design for permanent and exclusive marriages, Jesus is quite literally laying his life on the line.  He knows it, and the Pharisees know it, but, like a pastor friend of mine put it when we were talking about this passage, “Jesus cares so much about the Creator’s heart for marriage, that he’s prepared to die for it.”

This is where the text starts to speak to the heart and soul for us, because it's asking us, I think, if we share his commitment to the Creator's plan for marriage.  This question speaks differently to all of us, of course, depending on our circumstances--newly weds just starting out, singles praying for God's direction in their lives, long-time married couples for whom the flame's been flickering, those who have been through the open heart surgery of divorce and are trying now to pick up the pieces, couples dating and trying to set boundaries, couples engaged and waiting, those who have chosen celibacy, families, communities of faith--it speaks differently, but it does speak to us all.  Are we prepared to join Jesus in the self-sacrifice and personal risk and laying-down-of-life that it takes to make marriage a true witness to the Creator's plan for things?

Kicking Against the Goads: A Devotional Thought

There's a line in Acts 26:14 that I've always sort of wondered about.

Paul's explaining to the King Agrippa how he met Jesus on the way to Damascus, and he adds something that wasn't there when Luke first described the event, back in Acts 9. In this telling of the story, after asking why Paul is persecuting him, Jesus says: "It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Like I say, I've never really understood what that line meant-- to kick against the goads-- so the other day I looked it up. And whoah, it makes you think.

Apparently it's a proverb that comes from the practice of plowing with oxen. Plows would have a "spur" or a "goad" on them to poke the ox and keep it moving in the direction the plowman wanted it to go. Once in a while the ox would get a notion in its head that it didn't like being goaded, so it would kick back against the goad, injuring itself. A rebellious ox kicks against the goad, and the resulting discomfort is meant to teach it to do as the plowman says.

Paul, on the way to Damascus, is most certainly in rebellion against God-- kicking against the goad of the Christian Message, (so to speak)-- and the blinding, humbling encounter he has with Jesus-- as painful as it is, will most definitely teach him to submit to the will of the Great Plowman (if you catch my drift).

It gets me thinking about the ways and the times in times in my life, when I've "kicked against the goads"; that is to say, when I've rebelled against God's will for my life and found myself in some spiritual (or literal) discomfort because of it. It really is hard on us, spiritually, when we push back against his good, loving, perfect will for us. Thank God for his patience, and even for his goading. May it teach us all deeper submission, and fuller rest, in his will.

When the Devil went down to Ephesus

first appeared on the conneXion Aug 21, 2012

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in Acts these days, and feeling like it's a book I’ve read a dozen times but never seen before. One of the episodes I find particularly fascinating is the account of Paul’s visit to Ephesus.

If you recall: the Holy Spirit arrives in Ephesus and in its wake we see stuff happening that would make the best of Frank Peretti look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. The Seven Sons of Sceva are beat black and blue by a demon-possessed man (19:14); dabblers in the occult perform public burnings of their paraphernalia (19:19); the silversmiths of a pagan goddess incite the mobs to riot (19:28). I mean: the Gospel’s beating the bushes and the demons are scattering like so many startled sparrows.

But Frank Peretti aside—and this is a point that I’ve never seen Frank Peretti address, or Screwtape, or Dr. Faustus for that matter—whatever else they're about, the Ephesian exorcisms are about issuing God's challenge to the oppressive economic structures that promote systemic evil.

For instance: it’s an assumption on my part, but not an outrageous one, that the Seven Sons of Sceva have set themselves up as Exorcists for Hire, and this is why their interview with the devil goes so painfully wrong (the fact that Sceva is styling himself as a ‘chief priest’ in Ephesus is highly suspect). Bob Larson leaps to mind, here.

And this isn’t an assumption but just a plain reading of the text: the economic value of the books burned in Acts 19:19 works out to about 136 years wages (say 6 million dollars?). A lot of Ephesians have sunk a lot of money into occult junk over the years.

And most telling of all: the reason Demetrius and his colleagues start a riot is because they’ve seen the economic writing on the wall:  if people abandon Artemis for Jesus, they’ll no longer need the silver images that are their stock and trade. I don’t suppose a good racket has ever died without a fight, and this must have been a lucrative racket:  Ephesus, you understand, was home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient World.

I’m pointing this all out because if you want to take the Book of Acts seriously, you can’t escape the conclusion that confronting the demonic is on the Church’s to-do list. But if I were to write a “theology of exorcisms” based on the Book of Acts, one of the first chapters, I think, would deal with oppressive economic structures, the “powers and principalities” that manipulate and dehumanize people in ways that seem so normal to us—even necessary—but are best understood as “demonic.” And then I would try to draw lines between what’s happening in Acts 19 and the Church’s call to both name and provide alternatives to these ways of doing business. Economic systems are by nature spiritual, I’d say, and economic structures are demonic when they make money ultimate and people a means to an end.

And then I’d brace myself.

But I’d also point out that in Acts 16 we see the same thing happening. Paul performs an exorcism (16:18), freeing a girl from demonic possession. But it’s not just a demon that's being excised here.  It's also the economic exploitation this girl's been suffering at the hands of her pimps. Because when the men who made their living off her “prophetic utterances” find out that their “hope of profit is gone," Acts says, that’s when the metaphorical excrement hits the proverbial air-circulation device.

By Acts’ reckoning, it seems: helping the vulnerable escape economic exploitation—girls the sex trade, say—or women the porn industry—or children the sweatshop—or workers the tyranny of the bottom line—or shop-a-holics the clutches of Mastercard—by Acts reckoning, at least, these are all ministries of exorcism with the potential to raise hell.

On Biblical Inerrancy and Mission (Or why every Good Creationist should handle a Snake now and then)

The Gospel of Mark ends with one of the more controversial passages of the New Testament. If you recall, the Risen Jesus summons the disciples to “preach the good news to all creation,” and assures them that, “These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands and when they drink deadly poison it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

I call this passage controversial because, as any good translation of the scriptures takes pains to point out, “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witness do not have Mark 16:9-20.” The controversy here is whether this epilogue is original to Mark, appended by an inspired scribe later on, or just out of place altogether.

But that’s not the controversy I want to tackle in particular. I’m going to follow N. T. Wright’s lead and assume that Mark himself “wrote a fuller ending which is now lost, and for which 8 – 20 are replacements by later scribes not altogether out of tune with Mark’s intentions.” And then I want to drill down for a moment on Jesus’ promise that believers will “handle snakes unharmed.”

Because there are, of course, some extreme branches on the Christian family tree (fundamentalist sects or charismatic cults, depending on your theological perspective) where they take Jesus as seriously as possible here. Among the Holiness Churches of rural Appalachia, for instance, a Mark-16-inspired ritual of snake handling (copperheads and rattlers, mostly) is a traditional part of worship and accepted expression of faith. The 1967 documentary, Holy Ghost People is one of the first and perhaps most objective treatments of this phenomenon:



Now in sharing this documentary I am not in any way endorsing snake handling as a legitimate form of Christian worship. (Though, if you’re like me and you prefer to follow St. Francis of Assissi in seeking not so much to be understood as to understand, I would recommend you read Dr. Richard Beck’s insightful analysis of “Snake Handling as Religious Phenomenon”, over at Experimental Theology.)

The whole thing, however, has me thinking about the mission of the church and inerrancy of the Scriptures. I’ve heard some preachers, for instance, hold up a “literal 6-day creation” as a litmus test of one’s position on biblical inerrancy. In some contexts this was presented almost as a test of saving faith: do you really believe God literally created the world the way God said he did in Genesis 1 (and are you prepared to accept any number of extra-biblical speculations and elaborations that would make the story seem more scientifically tenable)?

But intellectual assent to a counter-cultural explanation of cosmic origins seems to me a pretty safe (even whimpy) way to prove one’s faith in a literal interpretation of scripture, next to picking up a lethally-envenomed serpent in an ecstatic moment of worship. It seems to me, further, that if you really wanna show you’re committed to biblical inerrancy, you probably can’t put your money much closer to your mouth than it gets when you grab a deadly copperhead by the tail. (It’s like that old joke about the bacon and the eggs when it comes to breakfast: the chicken is invested, but the pig is committed. Next to the “bacon” of snake-handling, the 6-Day Creationist looks like the chicken of Biblical Fundamentalism.)

For the record: I’m not at all endorsing the practice of snake handling.  I'm simply observing that there’s a religious consistency here that none of the 6-Day Creationists I ever met could match.  (And for the other record, this is not meant as a comment on my own position regarding the Doctrine of Creation.  I'm not an evolutionist, theistic or otherwise, and though I hold details like the means and moment and timeline of "the creation event" rather loosely, I believe quite firmly that we're only here because God said it should be so in the beginning, and it was so.)

But more to the point, I want to confess that in some ways, I take a profound missional challenge from the Snake Handlers of Appalachia.

Because I don’t believe that Mark 16:18 requires the truly faithful to handle serpents literally, but I do believe it's describing something literally true for followers of the Resurrected Lord. It’s assuring us that in Jesus, now, the Kingdom of Shalom has come that Isaiah foresaw, when he looked ahead to Christ and said: "[On that day] the child will put his hand into the viper’s nest and they will neither harm nor destroy on [God’s Holy Mountain]."  And it's a sign that Jesus himself was speaking true over in Luke 11:19, when he said, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” The snakes in these passages, of course, are prophetic ciphers for those very real things in the world that stand contrary to God's Shalom:  spiritual bondage, emotional oppression, physical exploitation, sin, death, the devil.  And that's what Mark 16:18 is about, too.  It's God’s promise that under the authority of Christ’s reign, we will find ourselves “handling deadly things”—spiritually speaking—and we will not be harmed.

And this is a trustworthy saying.

So rather than mocking the Appalachian Snake Handlers for their hermeneutical naiveté, I find myself asking myself some gut-check questions these days: am I as willing to put my money where my mouth is with my “spiritualized” reading of Mark 16:18 (and Luke 11:19 and Isaiah 11:8), as those Appalachian snake handlers do with their “literal interpretation”? That is to say, do I believe that the Bible really meant it when it says that God in Christ has crushed the head of the “old serpent, the Devil,” that followers of Christ are now living on the Resurrection side of evil, and that in following him they will discover at work among them the spiritual resources to handle “deadly things” safely?

These are must-ask questions for anyone serious about following Jesus: because if we’re really walking after the One who defeated the powers and principalities of this world with his own life’s blood, we’re likely to find ourselves in situations with all the potential in the world to “rear up and bite us.” I’m talking here about ministry at the margins, ministry among the scandalous or the scandalized, ministry to those who have been deeply wounded by real evil. Because these are places, I think, where the church will find itself handling spiritual “snakes,” so to speak—the scorn of the “centre” and the disdain of the “powerful”, the risk of naming evil, the shame of identifying with the scandalized—things that might make us wish Jesus had simply asked us pick up a cobra.

I don’t handle real rattlesnakes as an expression of my faith in Christ’s authority over sin and death. But then again, I’ve been in churches where, however much their statements of faith insisted they believed in “biblical inerrancy,” there wasn’t much spiritual snake-handling going on, either. Things were kept emotionally superficial and spiritually tidy and above all, safe.

But when the church shows itself willing to put its hand into the viper's nest—handling emotionally difficult or spiritually messy or socially risky stuff for Christ’s sake—I think that’s where we'll show how willing we really are to take the Bible at its word.

Saturday Morning Sermon (II)

Another excerpt from our work in Acts this summer (August 5).  The text was Acts 9:32-43, the post resurrection miracles of Peter.

You may not have heard of John Wimber before, but if you’ve attended a contemporary worship service sometime in the last 20 years, you’ve encountered his influence.

He was actually the keyboardist for a band called the Paramours, back in the day. The Paramours would go on to form a group called The Righteous Brothers, but not with John Wimber; John met Jesus back in 1962 and his path had a major course correction.

After becoming a Christian, he read his Bible voraciously. The story goes that he would read about the life-transforming miracles in the Bible, and then attend church services where the only miracle, it seemed, was that everyone was still awake at the end. So one Sunday he approached one of the pastors.

He said: “Pastor, when do we the stuff?” “What stuff,” asked the pastor.

“You know: the stuff. In the Bible. Like healing the sick and raising the dead—the stuff Jesus did.”

“Well,” said the pastor, “We don’t do that anymore.” John looked confused: “So what do you do?” “What we did this morning.” And John said: “Pastor: you gotta understand, I gave up drugs for this.”

Wimber would go on to become an influential leader in the charismatic movement of the 80s and 90s, a revival that challenged the church to start taking the Holy Spirit more seriously—and—as Wimber would maybe put it—to start “doin’ the stuff.”

He wrote books with titles like “Power Healing.” He taught courses called “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth.” He was also the leader of the Association of Vineyard Churches, from 1977-1994.

But I’m telling you about him today, because Acts 9 here is kind of asking us the same sort of question John Wimber asked his pastor back in 1963. When are we going to do the stuff?

And just to be clear, the stuff I’m talking about are the signs and wonders that the Holy Spirit does through us and among us, to show the world that Jesus really is alive, and to give the world a glimpse of what his kingdom actually looks like when it draws near. Just to be clear. We’re talking about the ministry of the Resurrection.

And I think I’d side with Wimber on this one, in principle anyways: a church that isn’t doing the “stuff of the Resurrection,” probably has some explaining to do. So I guess we should listen closely to what this passage has to say here about “the ministry of the Resurrection”; and let me start by pointing out that—according to Acts 9, at least—every good resurrection ministry needs an Aeneas, a Tabitha and a tanner.

You can hear the whole sermon here:  Acts 9:32-43 "Doin' the Stuff"

Some more sermons on 1 John

So much to blog, so little time.  We're right in the middle of a verse-by-verser through the Epistle of 1 John, and until the clouds of busy-ness part and some rays of spare time shine through, an update on some of the past few sermons at the FreeWay will have to stand in for more substantial blogging.  Enjoy.

1 John 4:1-6  "Spirituality 101"


1 John 3:18-24 "All's fair in love and peace"

1 John (II)

Here's our third sermon in our series on 1 John.

1 John 2:12-17 "War of the Worlds"

The Ultimate Love Letter

For our post-Easter preaching ministry at the FreeWay we're working verse-by-verse through the book of 1 John.  Here are the first two sermons in that series:

1 John 1:1-10 "When a What and a How is a Who"

1 John 2:1-11 "But Where's the Love?"

Palm Sunday and History

Yesterday was Palm Sunday at the FreeWay, which, outside of "the big two" (Christmas and Easter) is probably my favorite liturgical celebration.  I've blogged before about the significant but often over-looked connections between Christmas and the Triumphal Entry, and how each of the Evangelists handle Jesus' monumental victory parade into Jerusalem slightly differently, drawing out different spiritual, theological and political threads of the story.  I've preached three of the four accounts now-- John, Matthew, and Luke-- and what strikes me is how different and yet identical the view from the Mount of Olives was for each of them.

What I'm thinking about the morning-after Palm Sunday today, however, is how vital this prophetically-loaded donkey ride into Jerusalem is for historically embedding both Jesus of Nazareth and, more significantly, God's act of salvation in and through him.  What I mean is this:  Christmas, and the Incarnation that Christmas celebrates, could have happened anywhere and anytime.  Not really, of course:  Paul says it was at just the right time Jesus came, and Gabriel told Mary that she had found unique favor among God, but even without its specific historical provenance in 1st Century Bethlehem, we could still draw from the Incarnation the theological import that we usually want to draw from it: that the Creator came to his Creation to save it by being born in flesh-and-blood and through the flesh-and-blood of a virgin. 

So too, with Easter-- again, not really: there is a historical necessity to all these events, the where, the when, the who-- but then again an a-historical story about the Creator who loved his Creation so much he willingly died for it to heal and save and forgive it would still make sense to us whether it happened in 1st Century Jerusalem or not.  (And, as a test of this, notice how often our discussions of Easter and Christmas are distinctly a-historical (sometimes almost gnostically so).)

But with the Triumphal Entry it's different.  Who cares that Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, really, unless the political and spiritual and historical tensions of this time and place and allowed to shine like a spotlight on his mounted figure winding its way down the Mount of Olives?  At least: we have difficulty feeling the theological significance of this story as a story let alone as a saving act of God, until we discover the profound anti-Rome, anti-Herod, anti-Sadducean sentiment in the City, Jesus' allusion to the previous "triumphal entry" by Maccabeus in 164 BC, the historical iimportance of the Temple that Jesus purges, the ache for Shalom that echoes in the Prophetic Tradition of the Hebrew People, and the tragic fulfillment of Jesus'  own prophetic actions when Titus Vespasian demolished Jerusalem some 40 years later, in 70 AD. 

And whatever else it means, the Triumphal Entry reminds us that God's saving acts are deeply embedded in history:  Jesus' donkey is bearing him, not only into Jerusalem, but into the annals of God's salvation-history, and there he reminds us that our God is a God of history, and that an a-historical Gospel is no Gospel at all.

For the record, here's my sermon from Sunday:

Luke 19:28-44 
"A Prophet, the City, its King and his Donkey"

"The Baptism with which I am Baptized"

The other day I came across this stunning example of an ancient baptistry from the Negev (Early Byzantine). Amazing. I've preached four baptism sermons (I am, remember, a realatively green preacher), but this one photograph says a thousand words more than all of them combined, I think.

With what solemnity would we read Romans 6:4-6 ("Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.") if on the day of our baptism the baptistry looked like this?

It also helps me understand what Jesus must have meant in Mark 10:39, when he asked James and John if they could be baptised with the baptism with which he was to be baptised (meaning the pending agony of the cross). When they claimed they were up to the challenge, he replied: "You will be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with" (meaning, presumably, our union with Christ through baptism and the cross-shaped life we are called to live as his baptized followers).