Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible- by John Polkinghorne, Chapter 4- Ambiguity

Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible – by John Polkinghorne

Chapter 4- Ambiguity

The tapestry of life is not coloured in simple black and white, representing an unambiguous choice between the unequivocally bad and unequivocally good.  The ambiguity of human deeds and desires means that life includes many shades of grey.  What is true of life in general is also true of the Bible in particular.  An honest reading of Scripture will acknowledge the presence in its pages of various kinds of ambiguity.

So John begins Chapter 4 of the book.  He begins this reflection with Genesis 22, the testing of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah.  Why is Abraham, repeatedly promised a son from whom will spring multitudes and become a great nation that will be a blessing to all people, apparently cruelly called upon to sacrifice his beloved only son?  Of course, to Christian interpretation, this is the symbolically anticipatory event of the death of Christ on the cross.  Both images reflect the ambiguity of a world in which there is both beauty and ugliness, fruitfulness and wastefulness, joy and sorrow.  The Bible does not seek to disguise that fact by an attempt at facile piety that closes its eyes to the ambiguous strangeness of creation.

Abraham’s grandson Jacob, patriarch of the 12 tribes of Israel is a man of cunning who swindles his brother Esau out of his birthright and deceives his father in order to be blessed in his brother’s place.  David, “a man after God’s own heart”, iconic figure that he is, still is a man of great moral ambiguity.  He commits adultery with Bathsheba, then treacherously murders her husband who was being honorably faithful to David.  Then there is that ugly incident at the end of David’s life.  He pardons Shimei, a member of Saul’s family who cursed David, in an apparent act of clemency only to make his son Solomon promise to execute Shimei as soon as possible.

Of course, the poster-child of ambiguity in the Old Testament has to be Proverbs 26:4 & 5:

4) Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

5) Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Yep, clear as mud.  Thank God for the perspicuity of Scripture.  I like what Fred Clark, the Slacktivist, says about Proverbs :

Proverbs is like a high-school level introductory class in physics. It gives you the basic formulas — discounting friction and any other real-world complications that would make the math too complex. And it avoids all the weird stuff that happens on the micro or macro levels where the neat little Newtonian formulas melt away into quantum mysteries. The stuff you learn in that physics class is true, but only under certain limited, qualified conditions. It’s true, but not the whole truth.

I’ll bet Polkinghorne, the physicist, would approve of that analogy.

Yet another kind of ambiguity appears in the Gospels.  An ambiguity not of character, but of circumstances.  Life is such that there is often no single ideal choice to be made, but all possible actions have an inescapable shadow side of one kind or another.  Jesus, living a truly human life, was not exempt from having to make this kind of perplexing decision.  In the course of his hectic public ministry, his mother and brothers came to see him, perhaps to try and persuade him to return to a quieter, safer life at home.  Maybe they saw where he was headed; to a dangerous clash with authorities that would result in his being killed.  Jesus must have been aware of his family responsibilities and ties of affection that are so important to Jewish life.  But Jesus knew his allegiance lay elsewhere in fulfilling the will of his heavenly Father.  So he was forced to treat his family with painful coolness, because they saw the danger coming.  Mark 3:21 “21 when his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”  When he is told they are outside asking for him he says (Mark 3:33-35), “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.  Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus and the Canaanite Woman

On another occasion, Jesus is in the region of Tyre, seeking an interval of rest, not wishing to be disturbed by the almost constant demands of the people.  So he goes to a gentile region, where he figures he isn’t as well known.  Jesus feels his ministry must be concentrated on the “lost sheep of Israel”, but a gentile women, whose daughter is ill, seeks him out.  At first he is unwilling to help her and gives her a harsh reply, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and give it to dogs”.  Calling someone a “dog” is one of the severest insults, to this day, in the Mideast.  Polkinghorne says:

At first sight, this seems a troubling story about the one whose life was so full of compassionate reaction to the needs of others.  I believe that Jesus was wrestling with ambiguous choice between necessary rest and further healing ministry, together with the need to focus his activities on the Jewish people to whom he had been sent.  In his humanity, he was willing to accept the help that the women’s bold response gave him in deciding what he should do.

Another ambiguous figure is Judas Iscariot.  Why did Jesus choose him to be one of the twelve?  He must have partaken in the miracle ministry along with the other 11, otherwise they would have noticed.  Hey, we are all casting out demons and healing the sick, except for Judas, what’s up with him?  Many speculate that, like Peter, Judas did not want to accept Jesus as suffering Messiah, but wanted the warrior Messiah, who would overthrow the Romans and restore the kingdom to Israel.  While Peter seemingly came to grips with this, Judas could not.  Many suggest his betrayal of Jesus was a tactic to force his Master’s hand and compel him to call on a “legion of angels”.  When that didn’t work, he was driven to remorseful despair and suicide.

Peter, too, displays the human tendency to ambiguity.  Boldly confessing Jesus as Messiah, then forbidding him to go the cross (Matthew 16:13-23).  Boldly swing swords and cutting off ears, then denying he even knew the man (Matthew 26).  One of the most ambiguous passages in the New Testament has to be Matthew 28:16-17, “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.  And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.”  Those of you who insist on empirical evidence before you’ll believe may want to ponder that passage.

And talk about ambiguity; how about Paul’s soliloquy in Romans 7:

15) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… 21) So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23) but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24) What a wretched (ambiguous) man I am!

What a wretched (ambiguous) man I am!  So are we all, and so the Bible portrays it just as it is.

Another Look: The Power of Stories

Rock Creek Canyon. Photo by Ansel Adams

Stories are better than doctrine, at least in the way we have come to state doctrines. Over the course of my ministry, I have constantly fallen into the trap of thinking that being able to state a doctrine means that one has mastered its meaning. It’s great to be able to rattle off what we believe, to explain it, advance it, defend it. To be sure. To have it nailed down.

I don’t really think the more propositional teachings of the Bible are like that. They function more like a snapshot of a majestic mountain range. Doctrine to some extent accurately represents the truth, but stand there before that awesome vista and hold your little picture up against the backdrop and you can see the difference.

However, we tend not to do it that way. We have our doctrinal statements and we think we’ve actually climbed the mountain. We go to school and read a few texts and take tests and graduate and get ordained and think we’re qualified to run the museum at the foot of the mountain, where we teach others everything there is to know about the range. Or, as a lay member in a church, we read a few books, go to Sunday School, listen to sermons, and participate in Bible studies and suddenly we’re confident in our ability to be a mountain guide for others. Sometimes I wonder if any of us could even find the head of the first path.

But this post is not about doctrines, it is about stories and why I like them better.

Alan E. Lewis says it well:

Up to a point, the stories in both our Testaments prove effective because they are so readily understood. Utilizing characters and situations which are familiar, quotidian, and mundane, and events whose sequence can clearly be followed, they communicate with a simplicity and directness which is inevitably sacrificed when the truth they contain is subsequently refined into concepts and propositions — as must, nonetheless, be done, as we shall see below. Yet does not the power of the parables, indeed derivatively of all the biblical narratives, also rest in the fact that they do not understand too much? Stories are extended analogies; and by their very nature and form as stories they openly announce that they are only analogies, merely approximations and pointers to the truth. The directness with which narrative approaches us is matched, therefore, by the indirectness with which it approaches God. In consequence, stories both acknowledge that God is beyond all description and comprehension, and yet demonstrate vividly that God can be known and understood.

• Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday

There it is: by their very nature stories admit their limitations, thus making us aware of our limitations and keeping us hungering for more. By them we can know, but by them we also learn that there is much we do not and cannot know.

We can never master the truth, only be more and more mastered by it. As Jacobs says, stories declare “with ‘indirect directness’ the truth of God, announcing the gospel which theology must then elaborate, while indicating the mystery which theology must not then violate.”

That is why stories have priority in the Bible. That is why stories should have priority in the faith formation of our lives and churches.

Keep the snapshot. Put it in an album and pull it out and look at it now and then as a reminder of the general beauty and majesty of the mountain. But don’t ever stop telling the stories, which transport you to the mountain and leave you breathless in the climb.

Another Look: Moving

Note from CM: As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been in the process of moving. We’re in our new house now, but there’s a lot of work to do before we really get settled. It’s a bit sobering to realize this may be our last move. I will be writing more about this in days to come, when the ache in my muscles subsides and I have a clearer head. In the meantime, here’s a post from a few years ago which describes my life on the move.

• • •

I received an invitation today. Friends from my eighth grade class at school are planning the next reunion and get-together. That’s right, my eighth grade class.

I moved to the Chicago suburbs during the years we used to call “Jr. High.” Now, it’s “Middle School.” My folks built a brand new house in a new subdivision. Dad had been transferred to his company’s office in Wheaton from Dixon, IL, his hometown and the place we had lived for a few years near my grandparents. Now we were starting a new adventure.

I can still see the tears in my grandfather’s eyes as we drove away.

The community into which we were moving was made up of “immigrants” like us — folks who had come from other places to take jobs in the burgeoning western suburbs of Chicago. Families with baby boom babies like me were filling the subdivisions and schools. I got my first job as a paperboy in our neighborhood. We were in “section three,” which was still under construction. I started in the late fall and remember the panic of watching the late afternoon skies grow dark while I tried to find street signs and addresses on unpaved lanes and cul-de-sacs. I finally gave up, crying, and Dad drove me around and helped me get the papers delivered.

The school I attended was not one of the newer “Jr. Highs” but a K-8 elementary school. We had a dress code, and I was sent home the first day to change because I wore blue jeans. For boys, hair had to be neatly trimmed above the ears, collared shirts tucked in and belts worn. No sneakers were allowed. Girls had rules about skirt length and make-up was forbidden, as I recall.

I entered the school just as we were all being immersed in adolescence. Thrown together like refugees on a ship, we became close, so close that today, over forty years later, we who lived through those junior high years still feel like best friends, and we reunite whenever we can.

I have more than one story like that, because I am a person who has moved often. Now, I haven’t relocated as often as people whose folks were in the military or in similarly transient vocations. However, over the course of my life, I have been transplanted with fair regularity. Like many who move often, my memories are compartmentalized, like separate chapters in a storybook that have little relation to one another.

There’s my life in small town northwestern Illinois as a child. We lived in three houses in that town. I don’t remember the first one, but we moved to the second when I started school. I got my first bee sting crawling under the clothesline and putting my hand down on a bee in the grass while mom was hanging wash. Dad taught me how to ride my bike there, and he caught me with my grandpa’s old catcher’s mitt as I learned to throw a baseball. They gave me my first watch and I set it back and lied about it having stopped when I didn’t want to stop playing and came home late for supper. I stayed up into the wee hours one night with the searing pain of an earache and had my tonsils out while we lived there. I don’t remember any of my friends’ names, but it seems now like I must have been outside playing with them all day, every day.

It’s the next house that I remember best because it remains my favorite. The small attic had been converted and I had the whole thing for my room. We had the best basketball court in the neighborhood and a two and a half car garage in which we made a haunted house one Halloween. Most of all I remember Mark and Jimmy and other friends, playing wiffleball and war and climbing trees and getting in trouble for breaking the neighbor’s windows and throwing tomatoes at the grumpy old man who lived behind us. Dad took me to high school basketball games and the local team did their warm-up routine to “Sweet Georgia Brown,” just like the Harlem Globetrotters. I explored under the bleachers and picked up change that had fallen so I could buy baseball cards.

That’s where we lived when Roger Maris hit 61 homers and I fell in love with watching Sandy Koufax pitch. That’s where we had the weeping willow in the backyard that was like my own personal “Giving Tree.” Dad brought home a dog for me once. We called him Rusty and he didn’t have a tail. He dug so many holes in the backyard that Mom finally had enough and we took him back to the pound. I used to dress up in my dad’s huge hooded sweatshirt, pull it up over my face and head and run around the backyard until Rusty knocked me down and dug through the fleece until he found my face and licked it. I hung grandpa’s catcher mitt on the back of the garage on a nail and practiced my pitching.

There’s a whole rich chapter in a corner of my mind for that place, even though we only lived there a few years. I was young enough that one Christmas I laid awake in bed and looked out the dormer window of my room at the moon, just waiting for the moment when Santa would ride his sleigh across its path. My sisters were born there after my younger brother had died. Our street was still paved with bricks. One time I took the word of a neighbor and thought I could run and find the end of the rainbow and get the pot of gold. Gosh, I loved that place.

From there we moved back to Dad’s hometown. It was great to be near my paternal grandparents. Grandpa suffered with diabetes and had trouble with his eyes, but I was the first grandchild and his pride and joy — he loved having us close. Nothing could be finer than watching the Cubs on TV with my grandpa while he sat in his recliner, muttering through each loss and saying, “One day when you pitch for the Cubs, things’ll be different.”

We rented a two-story house on a busy street and I played in the yard whenever I could. Even if no friends were around, I’d toss the wiffleball up in the air and hit it and play my own ball game. When we moved into the house, I found a treasure. Down in the old cellar, under the coal bin, were cases and cases of old pop bottles. We had a little neighborhood store two streets over from us, and I made several trips to turn those bottles in for the deposit money. I’m sure I spent it all on baseball cards.

We walked to school, and sometimes I would take a shortcut by climbing the wall of the old quarry at the end of the street. Our school was at the top of a large hill. One of the streets near the quarry was our usual route — a long and very steep climb — and when we weren’t trudging up or down it on school days, we would ride our bikes or skateboards down it, faster than I’ve ever gone, as I remember. It really is a wonder we survived.

My best friend was Randy, and we went to church as well as school together. The best thing of all was singing in the choir on Wednesdays after school. Rosie, our choir director, was an angel to put up with boys like us, and wow, could she make us laugh. Afterwards, I would walk to grandma and grandpa’s house or home for dinner. I sang my first solo on Palm Sunday one year, from the balcony up on the right, wearing a red robe.

That’s also where my mom introduced me to my first phonograph record: “The Best of the Kingston Trio.” But before long it was the Dave Clark Five and the Beatles and the radio, and there was no looking back. Each week WLS in Chicago came out with a “Silver Dollar Survey,” listing the Top 40. I’d go down to the record store and pick one up on the day it was released. For a long time I saved them (wishing I had them now!). Every day after school I’d play in the yard or on the swingset and listen and sing along as they counted down the top songs. When I could I would buy a 45. I had a friend sleep over one night and we were jumping on the bed when he fell off and broke my new “She’s a Must to Avoid” by Herman’s Hermits. My favorite movie was “Pinocchio” and mom and dad bought me the record that had the storybook with it so I could relive the story at home.

One time I cried and asked to be kept home from school because that day I had to dance with a girl. My favorite indoor game was “sock basketball.” We’d hang a wooden box with the bottom cut out up on the wall in our playroom and shoot a ball of rolled up socks at it. Dad still took me to the high school games — he had been a star at that school. One time they let the YMCA kids play at halftime and I think I missed every shot I took. Dad liked the Drum and Bugle Corps. shows on the football field too. That’s also where I started playing Little League and I used to pitch sidearm. We played on fields by the river and the old Borden milk factory. Occasionally dad and I went fishing.

Then one day it was off again, to a new life in a new subdivision with new friends in the suburbs of Chicago. From Chicago, several years later, we moved east and everything was different. That move initiated new chapters and additional journeys to places I’d never dreamed. But those are other stories for another day.

All these things came back to me this past week when we went to Tennessee to move my parents into a retirement community. They sold their home in the same town and have taken up residence in a new place that has cottages, apartments, assisted living, and rehab facilities. They’re still healthy and active, and have a beautiful new, smaller home now, and no longer do they have to do the upkeep, yard work, and so on.

It’s stunning to me that this will be their last house.

As one who has moved a lot throughout my life, I’ve developed an ongoing, nagging sense of “What’s next?” My life has not so much been a novel as it has been a book of short stories, each with a definite beginning, middle, and ending. The characters in each tale continue to live in my mind as they did when I knew them. They don’t cross into the other worlds and the other experiences of my life, they exist within distinct ecosystems that somehow each remain unique and special inside of me. Life has been a wonderful journey of moving through these separate stories, each one holding its own meaning and significance. It’s hard for me to fathom that one day the book will end, the final chapter will be written, and the cast of characters in that final story will take their last bow.

When I go to the reunion next month and see Tom, Debbie, Jan, Bob, Dawn, Pat, and others, I will enter a time warp. It will be as though I open up the book to that particular chapter and step right in to the story again. I will want to say to them, let’s go walking through the neighborhood. Let’s do a James Brown dance. Let’s play homerun derby or basketball in the driveway, or two-on-one football in the street. Let’s record the Beatles album on your dad’s reel-to-reel and play it backwards and see what we can hear. Let’s spend the day at the pool. Let’s go steady.

It will be good. And then I’ll move on again.

iMonk Classic: I Have My Doubts

Note from CM: Here is one of Michael’s all-time best posts, a classic example of why people loved and listened to him. He spoke as a human being to other human beings. Our Christian faith doesn’t permit us to skip the “human” part, though many of its practitioners advertise it in precisely those terms. In fact, if it doesn’t take us even more deeply into our humanity, including the pervasive doubts and questions that we all have — yes, even you, Church Lady — then I feel justified in questioning just how real it actually is.

• • •

I Have My Doubts
The many reasons I don’t believe.
by Michael Spencer

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

• Mark 9:24

Let’s start with bugs.

Bugs have always….well…bugged me. They bite me. Wasps hate me. Mosquitoes swarm around me. Gnats head for my ears and eyes like some bad remake of “The Birds.” There are a thousand varieties of bugs that all seem dedicated to devouring me. When I was a kid, my friends called me “bug eyes” because of this curse. Now, I can go for a walk and look up to see a swarm of bugs like a cloud over my head.

Is this right? I mean, even if there is a curse on creation, didn’t mosquitoes always drink blood? Aren’t they designed that way? So why would God make the little bloodsuckers? Why make wasps that sting? Why make me in such a way that bugs want to appropriate my body for their own purposes? Sure, the wonders of biology speak of intelligent design, but wasn’t there some way to do this to the glory of God without eating, stinging and killing me?

It’s one of those thoughts that hit me a few dozen times a day. One of those thoughts that make me wonder if God is real, or if I am a fool to believe that God created and runs this universe of mosquitoes and gnats.

Ever think about forever? I hear the word all the time, but when I get down to thinking about it, it grinds my pea brain to a halt. An atheist friend once asked me if a person would want to do anything forever. No matter what it happened to be or how pleasant the experience. I’ve gotta admit, heaven seems like a wonderful alternative to earth, but every time someone says we will be “praising the Lord forever,” I get a little sullen. I’m sure to get bored.

It makes me stop and wonder if Freud was right. Do we make it all up to make ourselves feel better?

My daughter just got her driver’s license. I now go to bed, wake up and spend all day worrying that she will die in an accident. (I’m just being blunt here. Sorry if I am shocking you.) I worry about that because I know people–lots of good, Christian people–who have suffered such a loss. Most of them hold on to their faith and make it through–somehow. It’s a miracle to me. I can’t understand it because I suspect such a loss would gut me beyond ever being able to stand up and say I believe in God. My best scenario would be to become like C.S. Lewis, who at one point said his wife’s dying with cancer made him believe God was a vile, cosmic monster who no moral person could trust.

If God won’t answer my constant prayers for my daughter’s safety, why am I praying them? What kind of God asks me to trust him, and then is, in the matter of my daughter’s safety, very untrustworthy? Is it really easier to believe in such a God, or as Anthony Flew says, in no God at all?

One more. When I think of how often God has been real to me; how often I’ve sensed His reality in other people; how often I’ve seen direct and specific answers to prayer; how often I’ve had a no-questions-asked assurance that God is my Father, the Bible is true and Jesus Christ is Lord, I find myself wondering if it’s all true, or am I just pretending, faking and putting on an act? My honest Christian experience is pretty meager, and the experience I have that goes beyond all doubt to the “I just know it’s true” category is even slimmer.

I have my doubts. About it all. God. Jesus. Life after death. Heaven. The Bible. Prayer. Miracles. Morality. Everything.

“But you are a pastor. A Christian leader.” That’s right, and I am an encyclopedia of doubts. Sometimes it scares me to death.

I’m terrified by the possibility that I might have wasted my entire life on the proposition that Christianity was true, when in fact it wasn’t even close. I wonder if I have been mentally honest with myself or with others, or have I compromised my own integrity in order to collect a paycheck and have a roof over my head? Have I acted as if the case for faith was clear when it was a muddled mess in my own mind?

What’s really frightening is that these doubts persist and get stronger the longer I live. They aren’t childish doubts; they are serious, grown-up fears. I don’t have the kind of faith that looks forward to death. The prospect terrifies me, sometimes to the point I am afraid to close my eyes at night. I have more questions about the Bible and Christianity than ever, even as I am more skilled at giving answers to the questions of others. I can proclaim the truth with zeal and fervor, but I can be riddled with doubts at the same time.

When I meet Christians whose Christian experience is apparently so full of divine revelation and miraculous evidence that they are beyond doubts, I am tempted to either resent them or conclude that they are fakes or simpletons. The power of self-delusion in the face of a Godless, meaningless life is undeniable. If there is no God, can I really blame someone for “taking the pill” to remain in his unquestioning certainties?

There is sometimes nothing worse than being able to comprehend both all my doubts and all the accepted, expected answers. It tears at the soul, and declares war on the mind. I feel remarkably alone in my moments of doubt, and wonder, “Do other Christians feel this yawning abyss of doubt, or am I just a bad Christian?”

My doubts are bad enough that I have to make frequent daily reexamination of the very basics of my own faith. These aren’t matters that were resolved in a conversation somewhere back in college and have never visited me again. Oh, no. Almost daily I travel back down some of these well-worn paths. Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Doubt has given me many opportunities to ask myself why I am a Christian, and to appreciate those who chose not to believe.

These doubts have made me respect my honest, unbelieving friends. To many of them, it isn’t so much the content of Christianity that is ridiculous. It’s the idea that Christians are so certain; so doubtless. They find it untenable that anyone could bury their own doubts so deep that you are as certain as Christians appear to be. Our television and radio preachers, our musicians and booksellers, the glowing testimonial at church, the zealous fanatic at the break table at work–they all say that Christians no longer have the doubts and questions of other people. Only certainties. And for many thoughtful unbelievers, that appears to be lying or delusion, and they would prefer to avoid both.

So do I. I profoundly dislike the unspoken requirement among Christians that we either bury all our doubts out in back of the church, or we restrict them to a list of specific religious questions that can be handled in polite conversations dispensing tidy, palatable answers. Mega-doubts. Nightmarish doubts. “I’m wasting my whole life” doubts are signs one may not be a Christian, and you’ve just made it to the prayer list.

Martin Luther was one of the few Christians who honestly experienced and conveyed what it was like to live in honest suspension between one’s worst doubts and fears, and the promises of God in the Gospel. In his book Luther: Man Between God and Death, Harvard professor Richard Marius says of Luther’s theology,

In this life, God does not lift the Christian out of human nature, and God does not reveal himself beyond any shadow of doubt. Weak human nature will not let us believe in the promises of God with a confidence that purges from the soul the anguish of fear and unbelief, the Anfechtungen… Therefore, in Luther’s discovery of justification the Christian was liberated from the self-imposed requirement to present a perfect mental attitude to God, to confuse belief with knowledge, faith with the direct intuition of an observed world. Whereas in the earlier Luther the fear of death was the ultimate form of unbelief, the Luther who discovered justification by faith understood that no matter how great our faith, it cannot be strong enough to stave off terror before death.

It is interesting that many skeptics fault Luther for being, well….frankly, nuts. But I believe Luther was courageous enough to see and feel the verities of a universe without God and a universe where sinners were under the judgment of a Holy God. With such options on the table, it is hard to be coolly academic about reality. Only in justification by faith through Christ did Luther find a spirituality that contained room for both his damning doubts and his liberating experience of grace.

Such a spirituality is the only option for an honest Christian. As Luther suggests, there is no escape from human nature, and therefore no escape from the kinds of doubts that can vacate the universe of God’s presence. It is precisely this spirituality that I find in the Bible, and it is a significant discovery.

The early chapters of Genesis make it clear that sin created a profound division between God and human beings. Not just an interruption in communication, but a universe-sized separation.. There is great evidence that this abyss creates a situation where human beings may reasonably, sensibly feel that God is absent, or that there is no God. This is not because of an absence of evidence for God’s existence, or because God has abandoned the world, but because human experience is fundamentally changed and we are blinded to the resident glory of God in the universe and within our lives.

We see this most clearly with Job, whose tragedies bring him into a disparate experience of being certain of God and his justice, and also being overwhelmed with the absence of God. The ringing cry of many Biblical sufferers is “Where is God?” The skeptic says “There is no God.” Israel experiences judgment and announces that “God has forsaken us.” It is not uncommon or strange for doubts to overwhelm faith, or for life to take on the appearance of a universe without God. The Bible attributes this to who we are as fallen persons, and seems to accept it as part of the fabric of Christian spirituality. Even Jesus, in his human nature, knew what it was for pain to bring him to the point of saying, “God, why have you forsaken me?”

Justification does leave us as people who are still fully human, and the more honestly human we are, the more aware of our doubts we may be. The question may become, “Do I banish my doubts, call them the devil and refuse to examine them, or do I accept my doubts as part of the paradox of my human experience, and realize that faith may exist right alongside such feelings and questions, as Mark 9:24 suggests?”

This is my own experience. I cannot remove my doubts, but I cannot erase my faith. At every level, these two experiences exist together, convincing me that I am, indeed and exactly, the kind of contradiction that Luther believed all Christians were at the center: both righteous and sinful simultaneously. (Simul justus et peccator.) While these two experiences are at war over the most basic assumptions of my life, they actually blend together into a single experience that is what one person called “the awesomeness of being human.”

At a fundamental level, I cannot get past the fact that the universe exists, and it is completely unnecessary. That there is something rather than nothing overwhelms my doubts daily. No matter how many times the brevity and meaninglessness of human life plunges me into despair, I look at the world around me, at the Hubble photos, at the beauty of the mountains or of my children, and cannot explain why these things should exist, could exist, or have any possibility of existing if some being did not call all this into existence, and sustain this universe out of pure pleasure. It is not the God of deism or of Islam or Aristotle that explains this. It is the God of Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. For him. There is no other explanation, no matter how contrary it all seems to the life I may experience today.

My doubts exist alongside my appetite for God. I believe no one has put forward a more cogent and persuasive critique of theism than Sigmund Freud. Freud’s contention that human beings create a God in the sky out of their longings for a perfect father and their fear of death has the virtue of common sense and realism. As a Christian, I do not doubt that vast tracts of human religiosity can be explained by Freud’s analysis. Yet, Freud is wrong. The Biblical God is not wishful thinking, but the center of the spiritual “appetite” of human beings. Billions of human beings would prefer no God exist. Billions of human beings would like to make God in the image of Santa or Oprah. Yet, Christianity, Judaism (and even Islam) persistently put forward a God who is terrifying to who we are. A just, holy God of judgment. A God of heaven and hell. Not the God of the wishful thinkers, but the God who is a consuming fire.

And it is this God that we long to know. This God who repulses us and damns us. This God who demands the purity of thought and action. A God who demands that we love Him with all that we are and love our fellow persons as His creations. It is this God that we long to know in intimacy. It is this God we long to be accepted by, to trust and to praise. This God is the source of all the notions of beauty, truth and goodness that we find in this universe. C.S. Lewis said that appetite could not prove the existence of food, but I don’t think that speaks for the experience of the starving person.

I cannot explain my longing to know God. Talking about it is like undressing in front a crowd. I am not embarrassed that I avoid the topic. But I know to what extent it is a part of my deepest identity. As Augustine said, I have no doubt that I was made for God and my heart is restless till I find my rest in Him. I am persuaded that my longing for human happiness is the echo of my creation in the image of God. I believe my doubts are what it means to be told I cannot go back to Eden, but must go forward to the New Jerusalem.

My doubts about the Bible are profound, but my faith in the Bible is persistent. I know all the apologetic schemes for “proving” the Bible. They persuade me a bit here and there, but they fall far short of answering my worst doubts about whether a God that exists has communicated to me in words that I can understand and depend on. What ultimately persuades me that the Bible is, indeed, such a communication are two things. First, the truthfulness of the Bible in describing who and what I am is convincing. There is the glory of being made in the image of God contrasted with the rebellion and evil of my depravity. The shadow and the light within our souls. The Christian view of humanity is the only one that makes sense of my experience. The longer I live, the more the scriptures describe me accurately. This feeds my faith that scripture is also describing what I cannot see behind me and ahead of me in the journey of life. The Bible is not, as a whole, a book that would be created by persons like me. It is simply too truthful. It is not a fairy tale or a myth. It is autobiography of the most surprising kind.

Ultimately, I am persuaded of the truth of the Bible by its presentation of Jesus. I cannot explain or unpack this reasoning, for it comes down to an encounter with a person. Those who are Christians know well what I mean. You know what it is like to see no evidence of God in the world, in the church or in the mangled mess of your own heart, yet to be drawn powerfully after the Jesus of the scriptures. You know what it is like for Christians to act completely contrary to anything resembling Jesus, and to be sickened by their mistreatment of people in the name of God, yet to know that you cannot abandon Jesus himself as flawed, because you know the resemblance between Jesus and those who claim to follow Him is superficial at best.

The portrait of Jesus in the four Gospels towers above the paltry whinings of modernists, the thrown pebbles of critics and the repeated foibles of a scandalous church. Jesus is not the creation of any person or any tradition. He alone, of all the versions of a human soul, radiates the undoubtable evidence of “God with us” that other spiritual leaders only hint at. Jesus alone defies categorization and trivialization. He towers over history, culture and the human heart. This is no portrait of human longing or an exercise in wishful thinking about what we might become. This Jesus is, as John said, the Word made flesh.

I am persuaded that something happened that Christians call the resurrection, an event so galvanizing and transforming that its aftershocks continue to reverberate across history. Unlike any other person on planet earth, Jesus exerts a continuing and growing influence over individual human lives. The transforming, liberating, revolutionary power of Jesus breaks into the mundane of human history in a way that cannot be compared to Buddha or Mohammed’s insights into reality or inspirational example. Throughout the world, the Spirit of Jesus creates life and hope in a world where philosophy and technology have explained all the questions and made irrelevant all the answers.

There is simply no one like Jesus. And all the lofty things that might be said about him cannot begin to explain why one doubting soul will repeatedly choose to place his life’s hope of meaning in a person that lived two thousand years ago; a person who communicates unconditional love through his brutal death on a cross. Jesus is, ultimately, a mystery. We can point to him, and point to his cross, but each person must walk to that cross alone and choose whether this is a meaningless, pointless execution, or God saving the very world that despises Him.

What I believe Luther recovered was the stunning truth that God saves doubters who believe. Jesus chides Peter for doubting when he sinks on the sea, but the scripture also tells us at the close of the Gospel of Matthew, Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. I have returned to this verse many times and thought about the meaning of its inclusion in the Gospel. Men who had seen miracles. Men who had spent days, even years, with Jesus. Men who had been with the resurrected Christ. Men who had personally experienced the power of God in their own hands and words.

These men doubted, even in the presence of the resurrected Christ; and these men believed and died for their faith, having turned the world upside down. Nothing could banish, once and for all, from their experience the possibility that they were wrong and that it all meant nothing but delusion and deception. For this Jesus did not condemn them, but commissioned them to be His Church, and to preach the announcement of the Kingdom to the world. I doubt if they ever stopped doubting. I also am quite sure they never stopped believing.

On that point, I return to a promise that belief itself, in this barren world of ours, is a miracle of God’s own creation. The seed of faith is planted by the very God that we reject in our disbelief. This is part of His gracious dealings with those He has made for Himself, and is surely among the greatest mysteries. Yet, for those who believe–and still doubt–it contains a hope. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6) If faith is the work of God in the life of those who believe, it exists and triumphs, in spite of the doubts that continue throughout our human journey.

Because of this, we can be honest about our doubts and be grateful and unashamed of our faith. Perhaps among Christians who are unafraid to say that they sometimes tremble in uncertainty, there will grow a more beautiful and authentic faith. Let the wheat and tares grow together, Jesus said, until the day of judgment. So our belief and our worst fears grow together, until the time when God Himself harvests the faith that He has planted.

Epiphany II: God Revealed to Skeptics

The Jacob’s Dream. Chagall

Sermon: Epiphany II: God Revealed to Skeptics
• John 1:43-51

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

• • •

The Lord be with you.

When I was in high school, I went through a fairly ordinary period of skepticism. I used to love getting into arguments about religion. I delighted in coming up with questions to stump people I thought were just following their faith because they had been raised that way and hadn’t really thought it through. I’m sure I frustrated them, because I’m sure they thought I was being mocking and disrespectful. When I look back now, I think it was an essential part of my faith development. Even though I was being kind of a jerk about it, God was keeping me involved in thinking and questioning and talking with others about matters of faith, and when the page eventually turned my faith was stronger for it.

It is not uncommon for people, at various periods of life, to begin to question the things they believe. Personally, I don’t think we should be alarmed by that. Often, it is simply part of of being human, of becoming mature, of working through things in our lives. It can represent “growing pains” that we have to get through in order to develop into more thoughtful and grounded people.

There are those who take a more fundamentalist approach to religion, and they tend to get frightened by doubts, questioning, and skepticism. For them, it’s either black or white, you’re in or you’re out, the light is on or you’re in the darkness. So when someone expresses lack of certainty about something they hold to be absolute truth, they get worried and think that maybe the person has lost his or her faith. That is when the pastor starts getting phone calls from worried parents or friends. However, if we view doubt and questioning and skepticism as an integral part of faith, we can be a bit more patient with one another.

The leading character in today’s text, the disciple Nathanael, was a doubter and maybe a skeptic. Now for sure, he was part of the Jewish people, had been raised to believe in God, to revere God’s word, and to follow the various rites and practices of the faith of Moses. But Nathanael was one of those people you feel uncomfortable having in your Sunday School class. He was always expressing contrary opinions. He raised questions about the validity of certain things everyone else just accepted. He seemed implacably negative, like he was always trying to pull up the rug and find the dirt under their accepted religion.

So how do you think Nathanael responded when his friend Philip came to him all excited one day and said, “We have found the Messiah!” This was no small claim. In fact, it was the most audacious claim any Jew could have made. Philip was announcing that the One they had been waiting thousands of years for had arrived. That God was fulfilling his promises and would be restoring the kingdom to Israel. That their enemies, like the Romans who occupied Israel at that time, were about to be defeated, and Israel’s long exile under foreign powers was coming to an end. Philip was not just giving some enthusiastic personal testimony, this was the best of all good news for Israel and, indeed, for the world. This was history-making news, world-changing news, and the most significant religious news that any Jew could imagine.

How did Nathanael respond? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he scowled. In other words, “Sure Philip, what have you been drinking?” Like most Jewish people, Nathanael probably thought that when the Messiah came, it would be a bit more glorious than some guy from a backwater town walking around and gathering disciples. To him, Philip’s claim was ludicrous.

Philip, to his credit, did not become alarmed at Nathanael’s skepticism. He merely said, “Come and see.” Here is an example of how to relate to skeptics. Don’t argue. Don’t try to convince them with proofs. Just offer an invitation: “Look, I know it seems crazy, but why don’t you come take a look for yourself?”

To his credit, Nathanael took Philip up on his invitation. And when he did, he met Jesus. And that made all the difference.

You may not recognize the nuances in this story, but as Jesus talks with Nathanael, he makes several allusions to the story of Jacob in the book of Genesis. Like Nathanael, Jacob was a hard guy to convince about stuff. He had a rough childhood and was something of a delinquent, until his parents sent him away to live with his uncle Laban, an even tougher person they thought might teach him a few lessons.

Along the way to Laban’s, Jacob had his first experience with God, at a place called Bethel. When he laid down to sleep that night, he dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven and God’s angels were going up and down on it. He woke up in the morning and said, “Wow! God is in the place, and I had no idea!”

This is the very story Jesus is referring to here. The name “Jacob” means “deceiver,” and when Jesus confronts Nathanael he says, “Now here’s an Israelite without deceit — an Israelite who’s better than ‘Jacob’! Here’s one who has honest doubts and questions about God!”

He then says he saw Nathanael under a fig tree, which probably means Nathanael was sleeping, taking a nap under that tree. Like Jacob at Bethel, Nathanael had no idea Jesus could see him when he was sleeping.

And finally, Jesus makes reference to Jacob’s ladder, saying that Nathanael would see God’s angels ascending and descending upon him. In other words, Nathanael would recognize Jesus as the One where earth and heaven meet, where God is present and active. Jacob named the place where he first saw God Beth-el — the house of God. Nathanael would recognize that Jesus is God’s dwelling place.

This was Jesus’ first encounter with Nathanael, and Jesus likened him to Jacob in this episode. Jacob represents the kind of person who constantly struggles with God. And yet he is considered one of the fathers of Israel. In fact, it was Jacob whose name was changed to Israel, in recognition that he and his children and his children’s children would always contend with God. That’s not a sign of lack of faith, it’s a sign of people who are trying to work out their faith, trying to understand their faith, trying to make sense of their faith in a world where it often doesn’t seem to make sense. Jesus was suggesting that Nathanael would follow the path of Jacob, a person who wrestled with God his whole life.

Perhaps there are some Nathanaels here this morning, some people who are kin to Jacob. Faith doesn’t come easily to you. You wonder and ponder and doubt a lot of different aspects of the faith you’ve been taught. When you read the Bible, it raises more questions than answers for you. Church is sometimes hard and you don’t always feel like you fit in.

You know what? That’s okay. It really is. Here, this morning, in the Gospel of John, is a person like you. His name is Nathanael. And I will say the same thing to you that his friend Philip said to him: “Come and see.” Come and meet Jesus. Get to know him. Listen to him. It may seem unlikely to you at the moment, but you might just find someone who knows you better than you know yourself, One who loves you and will show you the most wondrous and glorious things about God.

That’s a lot like what happened to me back in my most skeptical days. A very joyous and loving group of Christians invited me to join them at church and in their youth group. They didn’t try to argue with me, they just welcomed me. They gave me the chance to meet Jesus. And that has made all the difference for me. I still have loads of questions and doubts, but having met Jesus, I’m content to keep on struggling with him.

May God bless all who wrestle with God. Amen.

Saturday Brunch, January 13, 2018

Hello, Friends, and welcome the weekend? Ready for some brunch?

Image result for brunch meme

The Golden Globes were last Sunday. Everybody’s talking about the big speech Oprah made — and a lot of people say she should run for president. But I don’t think President Oprah is going to  happen:

  • Why would she choose a demotion?
  • With a smaller house?
  • Oprah is Harpo backwards and what’s Harpo’s last name? Marx! We aint electing no communist!
  • It would be too weird at her State of the Union, when Congress keeps checking under their seats for a free car. “YOU GET A CAR AND YOU GET A CAR!”

On the other hand, did you see this from a Boondocks cartoon….12 years ago:

The Oprah scene appears in Season 1, Episode 9 of the series, called "Return of the King."

On Monday,  President Trump held a bipartisan meeting on immigration reform, which focused mainly on reforming our policy of allowing immigrants.  On Wednesday President Trump said he would not sign a bill to replace the DACA immigration program that does not include funding for a border wall. Yes…the wall, again. Man, I thought that was over. How about this idea: Let’s just tell him the wall is built; he’s never going to check. We will just tell him its big and manly and, by the way, Hillary fell off it onto the Mexico side at the ribbon cutting ceremony. Then we can move on.

I saw a link promising the world’s largest picture frame. I was not prepared for this:

Image result for Dubai

Yes, kiddos, that is a 450 foot high picture frame in Dubai (of course, Dubai),  offering up panoramic views of the skyline while framing views of iconic buildings such as the Burj Khalifa for visitors and residents all across the city. Visitors can now ascend the structure to its 280 foot long viewing bridge, which features a glass-floored walkways. A neon ‘vortex’ tunnel will then usher visitors into an interactive, augmented reality exhibition on the history and future of the city. Here is a short video with more information:

Moody Bible Institute announced Thursday that President J. Paul Nyquist and Chief Operating Officer Steve Mogck have resigned, while Provost Junias Venugopal has retired.  The school has lost enrollment and had to cut some programs ans staff. The board of trustees said the move was made because of “widespread concerns over the direction” of the school.

“They are godly, honorable men to whom we entrust to the Lord and offer our deep gratitude for their years of faithful service to Christ and to Moody. However, we are unanimous in our decision that it is time for a new season of leadership. I ask that you be in prayer for them and their families.”

Also,  Richard Stearns has announced his plans to retire from World Vision at the end of 2018. He has served two decades as president of one of America’s largest charities.

I read this week about a company that’s working on technology that would let you make video calls with your pets. It’s might be fun to video call my dog, but I imagine my cats would just decline the call, which would be depressing. Recall that last year another company promised that it would, in a few years, develop a pet translation device. So, conceivably you could combine the two techs, and have online conversation with Rover. Though, really, what is he going to say?

Chaplain Mike sent me this. I’m not sure if he’s not trying to tell me something about my writing…

How to Avoid Mixing Your Metaphors

 

It’s not rocket surgery.

First, get all your ducks on the same page.

After all, you can’t make an omelet

Without breaking stride.

 

Be sure to watch what you write

with a fine-tuned comb.

Check and re-check until the cows turn blue.

Its as easy as falling off a piece of cake.

 

Don’t worry about opening up

a whole hill of beans:

you can burn that bridge when you come to it,

if you follow where I’m coming from.

 

Concentrate! keep your door closed

And your enemies closer.

Finally, don’t take the moral high horse:

if the metaphor fits, walk a mile in it.

 

Brian Bilston

In National Affairs, Rishabh Bhandari and Thomas Hopson argue that “identity politics” is a problem on the left and the right:

Identity politics is not just a problem of the left. It is a way of thinking that pervades our self-understanding. Our rancorous political conversation now consists of three competing theories of identity in America — three stories of how our differing backgrounds should shape our common political life. One of these (espoused by a significant swath of the left but increasingly co-opted by an influential minority on the right) treats politics as a continuous struggle across racial lines, and so conceives of coalitions on racial grounds. Another (advanced more commonly on the right in our time) insists that the principled distinction in our politics is not between racial groups but along the legal line of citizens versus non-citizens. Finally, the third theory of identity (espoused by some elites of both parties, and barely aware of itself as a theory of identity at all) views the other two schools of thought as pernicious and proposes its own form of identity defined by an ideal of cosmopolitan dignity.

Each of these theories, as practiced, is unstable. And each rejects the other two as un-American without really quite understanding them. It is this problem — our country’s conceptual blind spot on identity — that drives so much of our present polarization.

Bono said in a recent interview that he thinks “music has gotten too girly.” Well, you know what they say: Opinions are like U2 albums, even when you don’t want them, Bono’s gonna give ’em to you.

Sandrina Duniau, 30, of France, simply wanted to use the restroom. Unfortunately for Sandrina, she was vacationing in Australia at the time. Because blocking the door to the loo was this:

“Draw me like one of your French girls”

“It was right in the middle of the toilets blocking the entrance to the doorway and there was no way I was brave enough to go and bother it. I couldn’t believe it and thought wow — only in Australia would something like this ever happen.”

You have likely heard of the lawsuit James Damore filed against Google on Monday; it paints the company culture as extremely hostile to employees with unpopular opinions, especially conservative views, and discriminatory toward certain groups. What is fascinating (and worrisome) is not the details of the lawsuit, but the glimpse into the way the company and many of its employees view their world. Seeing details from diversity training sessions, accounts of alleged reverse discrimination, and screenshots of internal communications on company forums and message boards, we can learn a little about our tech over-lords. Here a few items from a list at The Federalist:

Plural beings: In a section claiming Google tries to “stifle” conservative parenting styles, the suit reads: “Google furnishes a large number of internal mailing lists catering to employees with alternative lifestyles, including furries, polygamy, transgenderism, and plurality, for the purpose of discussing sexual topics. The only lifestyle that seems to not be openly discussed on Google’s internal forums is traditional heterosexual monogamy.”

A footnote next to the word “plurality” adds: “For instance, an employee who sexually identifies as ‘a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin’ and ‘an expansive ornate building’ presented a talk entitled ‘Living as a Plural Being’ at an internal company event.”

The suit also includes a screenshot of the presentation on “living as a plural being” when the presenter is discussing how to address coworkers with multiple identities. Examples of “not okay” etiquette listed include “addressing any one headmate in particular; we’re all listening!”

Our side must always dominate; your side must always accommodate. The suit claims Gudeman was fired in part because he took issue with the merits of a “derail document” written by Google manager Kim Burchett. “The thesis of this document is that on this one particular set of topics, the left-wing political frame of systematic bias, must always dominate, and the receiver must accept that frame, and its associated worldview, in their response,” the suit claims. It does not provide the actual document.

Peer Bonuses. The suit includes a screenshot of one of the emailed “peer bonuses” awarded to those who opposed Damore. “Congratulations, Simone Wu!” the email begins. “You did something so amazing that Matthew Sachs awarded you a Peer Bonus. Here’s what Matthew Sachs had to say: Simone has been doing a fantastic job speaking up for Googley values and promoting [diversity and inclusion] in the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is [Damore’s memo] … Visit your award history page to see your certificate to print and proudly hang on your cube, wall, fridge, robot etc.”

This is where my tolerance ends: with intolerance. “You can’t support Donald Trump without also supporting his racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia,” a Googler wrote in a lengthy communication on Trump supporters. “Or even worse, if you vote for Donald Trump because of his economic policy or because you feel the other party is corrupt, then what you’re saying is that economics is more important than the safety of your peers. This is where my tolerance ends: with intolerance.”

Let’s end with some photos of the week, courtesy of the Atlantic:

A man participates in a Christmas tree throwing competition in the County Clare town of Ennis, Ireland, on January 7, 201
A man looks at at a snow-covered slope in the Sahara Desert near Ain Sefra, Algeria, on January 7, 2018
Saudi women at the first auto showroom dedicated to women
A Rohingya refugee child sits on a hill at Unchiparang refugee camp, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on January 11, 2018
A fox wanders through a cemetery in England
incoming storm, Sydney, Australia
An observation point at the base of Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is covered in ice as the falls are illuminated by colored light on January 9, 2018.

iMonk Classic: Thoughts on Merton’s “Walnut Street Epiphany”

iMonk Classic: Thoughts on Merton’s “Walnut Street Epiphany”
From a 2005 post by Michael Spencer

“Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion….I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

• Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

For those who don’t know, Thomas Merton was one of the most influential spiritual writers of the twentieth century. Born in France to a New Zealander father and an American mother, Merton grew up in England, converted from atheism to Catholicism, and eventually came to America to attend Columbia University. In 1941 he entered the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani near Louisville, Kentucky, where he spent his life as a writer and spiritual director. Merton’s books continue to exert a strong influence on contemporary Christian spirituality.

Thomas Merton is a friend of mine. He has been endlessly helpful to me as a Christian, a minister and a human being. Many who study Merton divide his life into three “epiphanies.” The first being his conversion to Roman Catholicism and the third being his vision of a unity between Eastern and Western monastic spiritualities. It is the second- and most influential- epiphany that interests me: his famous “Walnut Street” epiphany of connectness to the world of “real” humanity, an experience that reclaimed and re-birthed a love for the world he had renounced.

This experience contrasts with what’s going on in contemporary evangelical worship and what seem to be the goals of contemporary worship. In my opinion Merton’s “epiphany” shows where true Christian spirituality takes us, and shines light on the disturbing contradictory currents that are being evidenced in evangelicalism today.

The “Walnut Street Experience” happened at a crucial point in Merton’s life. He had come to the monastery with the zeal of the new convert, and wanted nothing more than to fade from the surface of the earth into a life of prayer. Instead, on the orders of his superiors, he wrote an autobiography (The Seven Storey Mountain) and became a best-selling author. He was the best known Catholic in America in the 1950’s. After following up with several other books, Merton became disillusioned with his writing career and notoriety, and wanted to stop writing and resume his calling as an anonymous, contemplative monk. His superiors wouldn’t hear of it, and told him to keep writing. Merton was miserable….until he went to Louisville one day to see the dentist, and was captured by a vision of humanity and his love for and commonality with, the human race. It is one of the brightest and best paragraphs Merton ever wrote, and his joy is evident.

It was a transforming experience, one that all Merton lovers are grateful arrived when it did. The “Walnut Street epiphany” returned Merton to his writing, but it was not the same writer. He took off in new and daring directions, writing his most influential and appealing books; books that explored the connection between the Christian and the world of suffering, art, love, war and real living. Instead of the retreated spiritual writer, Merton became the involved political and social writer. He became “worldly,” and embraced a role as spiritual advisor to movements for peace and social justice. After moving to a private hermitage away from the monastery, Merton became a celebrity again, but this time hosting writers, poets and musicians whose names are a “who’s who?” of the sixties.

It would be easy for me to quibble with the politics of Thomas Merton, because I do not share a number of his liberal stances, and have to smile at some of the naive sixties’ sentiment that fill his pages during this period. But at the same time, I am impressed with Merton’s spiritual progress. He came to the monastery convinced that following Christ would take him out of the world, into prayer, into a separate world of Christian spirituality. The Walnut Street experience brought him back into the world, back to the place where involvement and service to people was a clear expression of love for God.

In his early years as a convert, Merton had worked in Harlem with a Catholic ministry to the poor. Merton considered this as a vocation, and then later considered life in a Franciscan lay order that would have allowed him to teach and work in the world, rather than live in the monastery. Merton decided against these callings, feeling in his new convert’s zeal that God surely wanted him to disappear into a life of prayer for others. (It should be understood that Merton saw monastic prayer as undergirding the ministries of those in the world, and not cut off from them.)

Did the “Walnut Street epiphany” reconnect Merton with his earlier callings? Perhaps, but it is more likely that Merton discovered a very simple truth, a truth that inevitably flows from the Gospel when properly, deeply understood.

God is love. God loves me. God loves people. I love people. Not a series of “shoulds” and “oughts,” but a discovery of the reality of the Christian God. Not an audible voice, but the discovery of how the world looks through the Gospel and in Jesus. A stark contrast to non-Trinitarian understandings of God and certainly a contrast to views of reality that cannot accept the incarnation. It was, I would contend, a most healthy development in anyone’s Christian journey.

Merton’s experience suggests that Christian spirituality, worship, prayer and calling ought to bring us, eventually, to the love of people. Where God is most clearly seen and known, compassion and love for people ought to overflow. It is a wrong expression of Christianity that bears the fruit of hostility towards the world of humanity, and directs the Christian away from that world’s brokenness and reality. Merton shows us a rediscovery of true humanness, one where the world and the people in it have the glory of God about them, and we are called by that God into that world.

Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible- by John Polkinghorne, Chapter 3- Creation and Fall

Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible – by John Polkinghorne

Chapter 3- Creation and Fall

What is the genre of the opening chapters of Genesis?  What type of literature is it?  Even the most convinced young earth creationist admits that the Psalms are not to be taken “literally”; that figurative language and the language of metaphor is used often in the Scriptures.  Even Jesus made up stories (that’s what parables are) to get his point across.  Does anyone believe that if a certain man didn’t go down from Jerusalem to Jericho, was attacked by bandits and left for dead, and was cared for by a Samaritan, if that didn’t happen “literally”; then Jesus had no right to tell us “go and do likewise”.  You will notice carefully, that in verse 30, Jesus does NOT say this is a parable, he tells it like it really happened.   So back to my original question; who gets to decide what genre any certain passage of Scripture is?

One way to answer that question is to appeal to the record of the Church.  Most YEC, like Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis , like to say the Church has always taken the early chapters of Genesis literally.  That is not strictly true as the following quotes show:

For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally” – Origen (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 [A.D. 225]).

“The first seven days in the divine arrangement contain seven thousand years” – St. Cyprian (Treatises 11:11 [A.D. 250]).

“Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent. . . . The nights in this reckoning are considered to be component parts of the days that are counted. Therefore, just as there is a single revolution of time, so there is but one day. There are many who call even a week one day, because it returns to itself, just as one day does, and one might say seven times revolves back on itself” – St. Ambrose of Milan (Hexaemeron [A.D. 393]).

 

“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation” – St. Augustine of Hippo (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20 [A.D. 408]).

Polkinghorne says:

In fact, from the earliest Christian centuries it was recognized that Genesis is not giving a literal account.  People noted that light was created on the first day but the sun, moon, and stars, the apparent sources of light, only appeared on the fourth day.  The Church fathers, such as Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, understood that the “days” of creation could not be literal 24 hours and some considered that they might stand for vast expanses of time.  In fact, the late creation of the heavenly bodies in the narrative illustrates the theological character of Genesis 1.  In the ancient world, sun, moon, and stars were often worshipped as deities.  Genesis is at pains to make it clear that they are merely creatures, appearing rather late on the scene in order to indicate their properly subordinate status.  That is why Genesis does not use the proper names, Sun and Moon, which were also the names of pagan deities, but refers simply to the greater and the lesser lights.

The much older story of Genesis 2 is even more obviously mythical in its character, meaning by “myth” not a fairy story but a truth so deep that only story can convey it.

Not a fairy story but a truth so deep that only story can convey it.  In researching this post, I spent some time looking up various rules and guides for assessing genre in literature.  One guide , for 5th graders, was:

  1. Fantasy- a story including elements that are impossible such as talking animals…

And another category was:

  1. Traditional Literature- stories that are passed down from one group to another in history like, folktales, legends, fables, fairy tales, myths.

This brilliant comment, by Chaplain Mike, in my last post on Denis Lamoreaux’s book, expresses the ancient use of story as genre perfectly:

Why couldn’t the ancients, who did not have this modernistic mindset, have built their faith upon stories and poems and other kinds of literature that gave them their identity and helped them know God?

I think that’s exactly what they did, passing these stories down from generation to generation, and at times throughout their history editing and adapting these stories and even adding others to communicate to new generations. That’s not to say there is no historical core to these stories — there very well may be and I happen to think there is. But that does not mean we have to defend what are obviously ancient stories written according to ancient literary forms and genres as some modern kind of journalistic reporting.

This does not “deny the authority of Paul, Peter and John” because the mere fact that someone refers back to a story as fundamental and formative to faith does not mean that they accepted it as the kind of historically precise reporting you think is required. The “truthfulness” of scripture is not dependent upon nor does it equate to the historical factual precision of scripture.

Assuming that one is at least as smart as a 5th grader, it seems apparent that the early chapters of Genesis were written with an agenda; to offer important theological insights by means of the story it tells.  Important theological insights such as:

  1. God alone is to be worshipped as divine. The divine worship of sun gods, moon gods, river gods, and so on is negated in that these are merely the creations of the one divine God.
  2. Humanity’s place within nature. Man was not created to be a slave for the gods, but as bearing the divine image and therefore as God’s representatives.
  3. Creation is portrayed as a process (the six days), not a divine battle between competing gods. A process that happens at God’s bidding with nature having its own part to play i.e. “Let the earth bring forth… (vv. 11, 20, and 24).

So what is the genre of the early chapters of Genesis?  As I said in an earlier post on Science and the Bible , the most respectful reading we can give to the text, and the most “literal” understanding, is the one that comes from their world, not ours.  The artistry of the early chapters are stunning and, to ancient readers, unmistakable. It casts the creation as a work of art, sharing in the perfection of God and deriving from him. My point is obvious: short of including a prescript for the benefit of modern readers the original author(s) could hardly have made it clearer that the message is being conveyed through literary rather than prosaic means.

What we find in Genesis 1 is not exactly poetry of the type we find in the biblical book of Psalms but nor is it recognizable as simple prose. It is a rhythmic, symbolically- charged inventory of divine commands.  None of this should trouble modern Christians, as if truths expressed by literary device were somehow less true than those expressed in simple prose.  In fact the above is the “face-value” or “literal” reading of the passage.

This face-value reading does the following:

  1. Recognizes Genesis for the ancient document that it is.
  2. Finds no reason to impose a materialistic meaning on the text.
  3. Finds no reason to require the finding of scientific information “between the lines”.
  4. Avoids reducing Genesis to merely literary, metaphorical, or theological expressions.
  5. Poses no conflict with scientific thinking to the extent that it recognizes that the text does not offer scientific explanations.
The Expulsion from the Garden by Chagall

Polkinghorne then deals with Genesis 3 and the story of the fall.  He does not think that the chapter is the historical account of a single disastrous ancestral act, but is a story conveying truths about the relationship between God and humanity.  He believe the story of the Fall should be interpreted in the following manner.

Human beings are self-conscious in a way that greatly exceeds any other animal’s experience of consciousness.  Not just a degree of heightened self-awareness, but also the remarkable human power to project our thoughts into the future and back into the past.  Especially, the unique human ability to be aware of our eventual death.  No one knows when, in the chain of hominid evolution, this first emerged, nevertheless, it is certain that it happened.  Presumably not a single discreet event, but a gradual process.  Polkinghorne believes that this process would have been accompanied by a dawning consciousness of the presence of God (the formation of the imago dei).  In the course of this process of the correlated emergence of these distinctive hominid powers of perception, there was a turning of our ancestors away from the pole of God and into the pole of the human self.  Polkinghorne says:

This declaration of complete human autonomy, the assertion that we can simply “do it my way”, is the root meaning of sin.  The refusal to acknowledge that we are creatures in need of the grace of our Creator is the source of subsequent human sins, those deeds of selfishness and deceit that mar our lives as the result of believing the false claim to be completely independent of the assistance of divine grace.

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5)

This turning from God did not bring biological death into the world, for that had been there for many millions of years.  What it did bring was what Polkinghorne calls “mortality”; human sadness and bitterness at the inevitability of death and decay.  He says because our ancestors had become conscious of this impending death and because they had alienated themselves from God whose steadfast faithfulness is the only true ground for hope of a destiny beyond death; this realization brought deep sorrow at the transience of human life.

Polkinghorne’s approach to the Fall illustrates the continuing power of Scripture, persisting under changes of interpretation induced by changes in knowledge and experience.  The ancient myth of Adam and Eve in the garden was used by Paul to illuminate the Christian experience of the saving power of Christ, and it can be reinterpreted by us for the same purpose in the light of modern scientific knowledge, in a way he believes preserves the essential core of its meaning.  Polkinghorne concludes:

The discussion of this chapter will serve, I hope, to illustrate how ancient religious wisdom and modern scientific knowledge can blend in a way that does justice to the valid insights of both.  This is possible because Scripture is not a dead deposit of unchanging meaning, the repository of assertions that have to be accepted at face value without question, but a living spring from which new truths and insight can be expected to continue to flow.

 

Another Look: Weddings and Being Too Easily Pleased

Fiddler on the Roof – Wedding Dance. Photo by William

Weddings and Being Too Easily Pleased
• John 2:1-11

I used to not like weddings very much. They seemed like a lot of trouble, and people tended to overdo them. When we had children at home and lots of things on our plate, it seems that weddings always interrupted other plans and caused upheaval in our routine. Plus, they usually took place on Saturdays, and, as a pastor, Sundays were packed, so I was preoccupied and unable to just take part and enjoy. Sure, we were happy for the couple and their family, but we were also glad when the whole affair was over.

Now I love weddings. First of all, since I work for hospice and am on hand for so many sad occasions, it is a nice change of pace to participate in an event that is all about life and love and joy. Second, I don’t have as many Sunday responsibilities these days, so my mind is freer and more able to focus on the fun and celebration. Third, many of the couples whose weddings we attend are in some way connected to our children, so we are able to rejoice with our friends in the coming of age of a new generation of families.

Being outside of our former pietistic evangelical circles also enables me to enjoy the wine more freely. And the dancing. And many other celebratory aspects not always included in the wedding parties of the moralists.

I remember watching “Fiddler on the Roof” when I was a young man and being befuddled by the total abandonment to celebration pictured in the wedding scenes. What a killjoy I was! I wouldn’t have known a good time if it had bitten me on the tukhus.

And along comes Jesus in John 2:1-11, providing wine at a wedding — the very best wine, in large quantities, after all the other wine has already been consumed — as a sign of who he is and what he has come to do. Taking the stone water pots that were sanctified for the somber religious purposes of purification, he had filled them to the brim and then transformed their contents into the finest of alcoholic beverages — for the pure enjoyment of the people who were gathered there.

The result? A sign — a sign of the Kingdom. Glory — the glory of God. And where was God’s blessing seen and experienced? In glasses raised and toasts proclaimed! In whirling dances! In laughter and light-hearted banter! In joy and celebration!

Don’t imagine God is pleased with your sacrifices. Don’t believe he delights in your strenuous efforts at holiness, your morbid introspection, your sober demeanor and serious attitude. Don’t think for a minute that he wants you to rein in your passions and turn your back on pleasure. No! No! A thousand times no! Not for nothing does the psalmist say to God, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.” (Ps. 16:11)

As C.S. Lewis reminded us:

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

L’chaim! Now and evermore.

Amen.

• • •

Photo by William at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Another Look: Living in God’s Story

Note from CM: For many in evangelical traditions, the celebration of a special season around Christmas leads into a long period before the next special season of the church around Holy Week and Easter. There is little appreciation for seasons such as Epiphany. In my opinion, this is a great loss, for it is in seasons such as Epiphany that we focus on emphases that are sorely lacking in much American Christian religion. Our focus on “truth” and dogmatic theology rather than on narrative theology and the power of story betrays our lack of acceptance of the Bible as it is actually written and given to us as God’s people.

• • •

Living in God’s Story

Spiritual theology, using Scripture as text, does not so much present us with a moral code and tell us, “Live up to this,” nor does it set out a system of doctrine and say, “Think like this.” The biblical way is to tell a story and invite us, “Live into this – this is what it looks like to be human in this God-made and God-ruled world; this is what is involved in becoming and maturing as a human being.” We don’t have to fit into prefabricated moral and mental or religious boxes before we are admitted into the company of God. We are taken seriously just as we are and given place in his story – for it is, after all, God’s story. None of us is the leading character in the story of our lives. God is the larger context and plot in which all our stories find themselves. (Eugene Peterson)

God created humans, so the old Jewish saying goes, because he loved stories so much. What we have in the Bible is His Story; as Peterson calls it, God’s “immense, sprawling, capacious narrative.”

How did God make the world into a place fit for humankind? People may want to analyze and come up with scientific models, but God tells stories. Why is the world in the shape it’s in, filled with selfishness, conflict, and trouble? Social scientists study data and develop social theory and then policy. God tells us stories about people — people who hide from God in shame, people who refuse to accept that they are their brothers’ keepers, individuals, families, and nations that live for money, sex, and power. Do you want to know how God works to turn the world around? Look at this gaggle of slaves, set free from the world’s powers, and how God shapes them through a journey home. Stories. About people. About life. Stories that, together, become the Story.

Oh sure, there are sayings too. Commandments. Instructions. Warnings. Promises. Reassurances. Propositional truth is spoken, sages impart wisdom, prophets spout diatribes, psalmists chant inspired lyrics, apostles write Gospels and epistles, but these words are spoken always and ever in the context of what God is doing on the ground, in the lives of people, as the Story plays out.

When the Promised One came in the Story’s decisive act, he too told stories. What is God like? Let me tell you about this father who had two sons. What is his Kingdom like? The kingdom of God is like a farmer, who went out to sow seeds in his field…. What will it be like when the Kingdom comes in fullness? Well, let’s hear a story about a great banquet. His own life, in fact, becomes the greatest story ever told — an unforgettable narrative played out in familiar locales: Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee, Golgotha, the Garden.

And when Jesus disappears from human sight, exalted to heaven, the Story goes on. From Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth.

The simplest answer to the question, “What does it mean to live a Christian life?” is: It means to take our place in God’s Story.

Just like the people of Israel in every generation are taught to view themselves as those who have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their patriarchs, as those who have been redeemed from slavery in Egypt, who are cared for by God in the wilderness, made a holy nation at Sinai, and led into the Promised Land, so Christians see themselves as the new Israel, the people of God formed by the Story of Israel’s Messiah. Called by Jesus to follow him, we walk with him among the poor and needy, we scratch our heads and try to figure out his teaching, we receive fish and bread from his hands and distribute it to the hungry, we turn to him when our boat is overwhelmed by the storm, in awe we see him transfigured in glory on the Mount, when he stoops to wash our feet we blush in shame, we sense impending doom in Gethsemane, we weep helplessly and feel all hope leave our hearts as he breathes his last on the Cross, our mouths drop open in bewilderment when he appears alive and transformed among us.

This is our Family Story, our heritage. It is who we are. We are Christ-ians. In each generation, we tell our children the family name and what it’s all about. We recall the stories. We celebrate the family holidays and mark the special occasions. We practice the family rituals. In baptism we relive every Biblical story about how God brought his people safely through the waters, from life to death, from chaos to new creation. At the Lord’s Table, we give thanks for God’s provision and receive sustenance as we feast together in love and fellowship. When we marry, we speak of Cana, remember water turned to wine, and share the joy. At the grave, our grief is tempered by hope of resurrection and new creation — concepts made real by the fact that it happened before — in our family! It is our Story!

Following the Church Year is how we do it. The seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost form our family traditions.

  • In Advent, we take our place in the Story alongside the people of the First Covenant, who longed for God to rend the heavens and come down that this groaning world might give birth to a new creation.
  • In Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation of the Promised One, who joined us in our poverty that we might have our Father’s eternal riches.
  • In Epiphany, we follow and watch as Jesus is baptized and set apart for ministry. We walk with him through the villages and towns of Palestine, amazed at each word and act which shows the compassion and glory of God.
  • In Lent, we learn that following him means taking up our own cross. He bids us come and die with him. We know this death has arisen from our willfulness; we recognize our failures, weakness, our sins, and utter hopelessness apart from him. Without Jesus, our story is “ashes to ashes.”
  • In Holy Week, we join him in the streets, in the Temple, in the upper room, in Gethsemane. We stand at a distance in stunned disbelief as Roman soldiers nail him to the Cross. Overwhelmed by the shock of grief, we return home in silence.
  • On Easter Sunday, and for fifty days following, it is suddenly and unexpectedly springtime. Light breaks through — Jesus is alive! God raised him from the dead. We see him, we hear him, we touch him — we try to take it in. He ascends to his Father, and bids us wait for the next part of the Story to begin.
  • On Pentecost, it does. Fire falls from heaven! Good News is proclaimed to all people, in their own languages! Jerusalem is shaken. The Church is born. No matter who you are, or what you’ve done, you can join the family. Come, take your place in the Story! It’s all about Jesus! For everyone, everywhere.

Practicing the Church Year is one of the best ways by which we can live in the Story.

The concept should not be unusual to us. Our families, communities, and nations celebrate special days and seasons annually. We follow a pattern of life that forms our identity. These commemorations reinforce who we are, what we believe, how we live, and what our values are.

Just so, in God’s family, the cycle of the Church Year has been developed so that we might live in the story of the God who created us, redeemed us, and is making us new in Christ forever.