Who can escape the secret desire to breathe a different atmosphere from the rest of men?
• • •
And now I am thinking of the disease which is spiritual pride. I am thinking of the peculiar unreality that gets into the hearts of the saints and eats their sanctity away before it is mature. There is something of this worm in the hearts of all religious men. As soon as they have done something which they know to be good in the eyes of God, they tend to take its reality to themselves and to make it their own. They tend to destroy their virtues by claiming them for themselves and clothing their own private illusion of themselves with values that belong to God. Who can escape the secret desire to breathe a different atmosphere from the rest of men? Who can do good things without seeking to taste in them some sweet distinction from the common run of sinners in this world?
This sickness is most dangerous when it succeeds in looking like humility. When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless. Here is a man who has done many things that were hard for his flesh to accept. He has come through difficult trials and done a lot of work, and by God’s grace he has come to possess a habit of fortitude and self-sacrifice in which, at last, labor and suffering become easy. It is reasonable that his conscience should be at peace. But before he realizes it, the clean peace of a will united to God becomes the complacency of a will that loves its own excellence.
The pleasure that is in his heart when he does difficult things and succeeds in doing them well, tells him secretly: “I am a saint.” At the same time, others seem to recognize him as different from themselves. They admire him, or perhaps avoid him – a sweet homage of sinners! The pleasure burns into a devouring fire. The warmth of that fire feels very much like the love of God. It is fed by the same virtues that nourished the flame of charity. He burns with self-admiration and thinks: “It is the fire of the love of God.”
He thinks his own pride is the Holy Ghost. The sweet warmth of pleasure becomes the criterion of all his works. The relish he savors in acts that make him admirable in his own eyes, drives him to fast, or to pray, or to hide in solitude, or to write many books, or to build churches and hospitals, or to start a thousand organizations. And when he gets what he wants he thinks his sense of satisfaction is the unction of the Holy Spirit.
And the secret voice of pleasure sings in his heart: “Non sum sicut caeteri homines.” (“I am not like other men.”) Once he has started on this path there is no limit to the evil his self-satisfaction may drive him to do in the name of God and of His love, and for His glory. He is so pleased with himself that he can no longer tolerate the advice of another or the commands of a superior. When someone opposes his desires he folds his hands humbly and seems to accept it for the time being, but in his heart he is saying: “I am persecuted by worldly men. They are incapable of understanding one who is led by the Spirit of God. With the saints it has always been so.”
Having become a martyr he is ten times as stubborn as before. It is a terrible thing when such a one gets the idea he is a prophet or a messenger of God or a man with a mission to reform the world….He is capable of destroying religion and making the name of God odious to men.
I must look for my identity, somehow, not only in God but in other men. I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being.
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
• Matthew 5:1-12
• • •
INTRODUCTION
Several years ago, Gail and I were given the opportunity to go to a Marriage Encounter weekend, a retreat where couples go to enrich their marriages. When you arrive at the hotel, a group of people meets you. They open your car door and welcome you. They ask for your suitcases. They insist on carrying everything, and won’t take no for an answer. (Made me kind of mad at the time. I’ll carry my own suitcases, thank you!)
Other folks greet you, walk you in, direct you to registration, answer your questions, and give you the schedule. They escort you to your room and make sure you are settled. They do everything for you and try their best at every moment to make you feel welcome and cared for.
The whole weekend is like that. The staff takes care of every detail so that you can focus on each other. From the moment they greet you to the end of the weekend, when they gather around you and bless you, pray for you, and send you off, it’s all about welcome. It’s all about hospitality. It’s all about friendship, and help, and encouragement. It’s all about BLESSING.
Today in our Gospel reading, we learn that Jesus began his ministry by blessing people. In fact, the first word Jesus is recorded speaking in a sermon is the word “blessed.” Chapters 5-7 of Matthew are presented as Jesus’ first sermon, the “Sermon on the Mount,” and he introduces it with 8 words of blessing. We call them the Beatitudes. They are pronouncements of God’s blessings to the most unlikely people. In the Beatitudes, Jesus proclaims that the blessings of God’s Kingdom have invaded the world and are available to everyone.
These words are similar to other pronouncements recorded in the Gospels which describe what Jesus came to do for people in this world of sin, corruption, and death.
For example, there Mary’s song that we call, “The Magnificat” in Luke 1:46-55—
“My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. “He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. “HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS; And sent away the rich empty-handed.”
Mary’s song is about what some have called The Great Reversal. This sinful world has a system by which it identifies “winners” and “losers”:
The rich, the powerful, the proud, and the popular seem to be the “winners” in the game of life. They get the perks, no matter how corrupt they might be in getting to the top, no matter how many people they step on to lift themselves up.
On the other hand, the poor, the humble, the meek and ordinary folks are the “losers.” More often than not, they get taken for a ride, cheated out of their hard-earned wages and kept in their place by powerful people and oppressive systems.
But notice Mary’s song. She sees what has happened to her as a sign of what’s to come when Messiah takes over. She’s one of those poor, humble, meek, and ordinary folks. Yet God exalted her and she became the Mother of God’s Son. Mary proclaims that what happened to her will one day happen everywhere—the proud will be humbled, the mighty will fall, the rich will become poor, while the hungry will be filled and the lowly lifted up. That is the Great Reversal.
Do you see it? Jesus came to turn the world upside down, or we should say, right side up. All that the world exalts, Money, Sex, Power, Pride, will be cast down. Those who fight their way to the front of the line will go to the back. The poor, the hungry, the mourners, the persecuted and oppressed will be invited to the front. The first will be last, and the last will be first.
This was the announcement Israel had been waiting for. The hope of this lowly, oppressed people was that Messiah would bring the blessings of the age to come. They were waiting for a new exodus , a reversal that would release them from bondage to their enemies.
And that’s the good news Jesus brings. The Beatitudes are not ethical demands. The Beatitudes are not character qualities that he is instructing us to develop in our lives. Rather, in the Beatitudes, Jesus is pronouncing the Kingdom’s blessing upon downtrodden people. This is his way of telling us that these blessings are not for a few but for everyone.
There are 8 Beatitudes, and they break down into two groups of four.
First Group: JESUS WILL REVERSE THE FORTUNES OF THE OPPRESSED
• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The poor in spirit are people who are spiritually bankrupt. These are people with no spiritual resources. They’re empty, they have no spiritual gas in the tank. It’s not good to be poor in spirit. Jesus is talking about people who are in the sad condition of having no spiritual resources, no faith. They don’t seem to have any interest or even capacity for spiritual life..
Now you might think that Jesus would bring God’s blessings to those who are spiritually vibrant and strong in faith, people who know their Bibles and who are intent on serving the Lord. But in order for us to know that the Kingdom is about God’s grace and not anything we earn or achieve, Jesus says that he has come to bless those who don’t even have the least bit of spiritual capacity. Even the poor in spirit, the spiritually bankrupt, those who have absolutely nothing to offer spiritually are blessed by Jesus.
• Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
The second group Jesus gives his blessing to are those whose lives are overcome with sorrow. Jesus blesses people who are in the condition of sadness, mourning, and grief. This is not a virtue he is commending, but a circumstance in life that we all dread. We long to be happy. We dread sorrow and loss. We don’t like to cry. We hate the feeling of despair. There is nothing blessed at all about being in mourning. But Jesus promises to reverse this condition.
As a hospice chaplain, I visit sad, grieving people each week. In their sadness, they have little strength or ability to give much to others. They often withdraw from the world and become isolated and invisible. Even their churches forget them, for we often define the Christian life in terms of activism and service. But if that’s what the faith is all about, they get left out. Jesus, however, includes them. He blesses the sorrowful, and promises them God’s comfort.
• Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
The meek are people in the world who have no power. Jesus’ words here are from Psalm 37, a psalm that describes folks who are tempted to envy the prosperous and powerful people who seem to get all the breaks. They are under the thumb of those in power. They lack connections. They don’t have any clout. Without deep pockets they can’t buy favors. They get ripped off and taken advantage of easily and often. The meek always feel insecure because they know the real movers and shakers in this world might make a decision that could rock their world. And they don’t have much recourse because they are easily intimidated and don’t feel comfortable standing up for themselves. Jesus is describing people who the world considers “losers.” They are at the end of the line, the bottom of the pile.
You might think that Jesus would want to work with powerful people, those who have influence, who can get things done. Instead he gives his blessing to the meek and promises them favor. He will reverse their condition and give them the earth as their inheritance.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
The final group of people described in the first set of Beatitudes is often misunderstood. Many have taught that these words describe those who are serious about their faith. They interpret “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” as meaning that these folks have an intense desire for holiness and personal piety. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is saying at all. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are those who long for God to make things right. These people have suffered because the world is unfair and unjust. Life has ripped them off. And they are yearning for justice, for fairness and equity to triumph.
All four of these first Beatitudes depict people who are suffering under this world’s system. This sinful, corrupt world has impoverished them, bereaved them, intimidated them, and treated them unfairly. Yet Jesus says to them: “Bless you.” He says I’ve come to turn things around. I’m announcing today that you who have been under the pile are going to come out on top. This upside down world will be turned right side up again. And you will share in it.
Second Group: JESUS WILL REWARD THOSE WHOM THE WORLD REJECTS
The second four Beatitudes describe people who are out there, trying to do something about the pain and suffering in the world. The world by and large does not recognize their efforts; in fact the world thinks they may be foolish to think they can change the world by doing what they do. The world thinks change comes through having power and influence and leverage. But look at these folks, and they way they go about trying to make the world better:
• Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
These folks quietly serve others, taking pity on people in pain. That’s not much of a plan.
• Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
These folks think the best way to help the world is to start with themselves. So they focus on purifying their own hearts first. That’s silly, the world says. You don’t need religion, you need power.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Peacemakers mediate disputes and try to bring reconciliation to broken relationships. The world thinks bringing our enemies to their knees through force is more effective.
• Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This final category describes all those who try to do good in the world and get in trouble for it. Jesus would have pointed to the prophets as an example of this. Of course, he became the greatest example when the world crucified him when all he did was work to make things right.
Being a servant can be thankless work, hard going, and you often don’t end up with much to show for your efforts. Your wages aren’t very high, you don’t get a lot of applause, and even if you can help things change, they don’t change quickly or easily. Few appreciate what you are doing. Many think what you are doing is worthless in the long run. Our world prefers fast change, innovation, technology, efficiency, results, profits. It doesn’t put a lot of stock in the daily, plodding, hidden work of faithfulness.
But Jesus notices. And he says, “Bless you.” What the world despises now will one day be honored. The quiet, unassuming work of the servant will be exalted above the highly praised works of those who are applauded in public for their great achievements.
CONCLUSION
And so here is Jesus, pronouncing God’s blessings. He is telling us that the Kingdom has dawned and that life in the Kingdom of God is based upon completely different values and estimations than life in this age. There are no “winners” and “losers,” no people with power on top ruling over folks without power on the bottom.
Instead, everyone is a winner because Jesus has brought God’s blessing to all — even the most unlikely people, even the ones that are currently not valued or esteemed highly.
Jesus comes along and says,
“It’s yours. I am bringing God’s blessings to you. No strings attached. No requirements. Simply trust me and pull up a chair to the table. Everyone is welcome. It doesn’t matter where you’ve come from. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter what you have in your wallet. I don’t care about your race, your nationality, your class, or your status in society. No matter what the world or religion thinks of you—no matter what you think of yourself—none of these things disqualifies you from receiving the benefits of the Kingdom.”
Remember, this is Jesus’ first word! Before any teaching, before any instruction, before any commandment, he tells us that the Kingdom has come and we are blessed. No matter who you are or where you come from, this is the very first thing he wants you to hear: this word of absolute grace: Blessed are you. No matter who you are. No matter what the world thinks of you. Even if you feel like you are on the outside looking in, come to the head of the line and hold out your hands.
Just like that Marriage Encounter group Gail and I attended, it’s all about welcome. It’s all about hospitality. It’s all about friendship, and help, and encouragement. It’s all about BLESSING.
BWV 14 is one of the latest extant Bach cantatas we have, dating from Jan. 30, 1735. The text’s constantly recurring theme is the need of God′s protection against our enemies. The two outer movements use texts by Martin Luther based on Psalm 124 (a hymn of deliverance and communal thanksgiving), while the inner movements have an anonymous text with vivid imagery of the battle God’s people find themselves threatened by.
Our selection from this cantata is the delightful soprano aria, “Unsre Stärke heißt zu schwach,” which features Kay Johannsen and the kind of magnificent Bach trumpet flourishes, in the style of corno da caccia (hunting horn), that I love so much. It is the only section of the cantata written in the major mode. With confidence and joy, she sings of the Lord’s help and banishes the dark mood set in the opening chorus.
Unsre Stärke heißt zu schwach,
Unserm Feind zu widerstehen.
Stünd uns nicht der Höchste bei,
Würd uns ihre Tyrannei
Bald bis an das Leben gehen.
Our strength is said to be too weak To withstand our enemy. If the Highest did not stand by us their tyranny would Soon touch our very life.
Hello, friends. Been a while. Chaplain Mike asked me to pinch hit for him this weekend. Ready to Ramb….? Wait…
Okay, so we’re brunching now. Fine. I like brunch. Who doesn’t like brunch? Let’s do this thing!
First on our plate: IT’S GROUNDHOG’S DAY!!! Well, almost. Definitely this week. And if you don’t love that movie you should probably stop reading now, sit in a corner, and think of how your life became such a mess. Because it is amazing. In fact, I think they should make a sequel to it, and then just re-release the original. This movie is such a classic that I’m taking the liberty to splice quotes from it onto pictures from last week’s inauguration.
Oka, enough of that silliness. We have other silliness to get to.
Your dog likes Reggae. That was the conclusion of a Scottish study about the effects of different kinds of music on our canine friends. Now ya know, so throw some Marley on for the hounds today.
Pope Francis has called on the media to lighten up, and to quit harshing his mellow. Well, he didn’t say it quite that eloquently:
I am convinced that we have to break the vicious circle of anxiety and stem the spiral of fear resulting from a constant focus on ‘bad news’ . . . This has nothing to do with spreading misinformation that would ignore the tragedy of human suffering, nor is it about a naive optimism blind to the scandal of evil.”
Speaking of Francis: On Wednesday Arnold Schwarzenegger met Pope Francis (or, as he calls him, Pump Fracas) and tweeted “It was my great honor to meet His Holiness @Pontifex. I am a huge fan – a true leader for the Church & a steward for all of God’s creatures.” Francis tweeted, “I couldn’t understand a word that guy said.”
The American Interest annually publishes their list of the Big 8: the most powerful nations in the world. They just published their updated list.
USA
China
Japan
Russia
Germany
India
Iran
Israel
Agree? Disagree?
Hey, have you heard? The New England Patriots are in the Superbowl again. Isn’t that special…
Oscar nominations were announced Tuesday, with La La Land taking the lead. Best actress nominations went to Emily Stone for “la La Land”, ” Natalie Portman for “Jackie,” and Hillary Clinton for smiling her way through the inauguration.
Best picture nominations are below. Did you see many of these? What’s your vote for the best movie you did happen to see last year?
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Well, that’s a relief. Japan takes its toilets very seriously. Maybe too seriously. You see, foreign tourists say they’re often unable to understand the control panels (yes, they have control panels) which operate features often not found on Western toilets (such as bidets and warm air drying). The Japan Sanitary Equipment Industry Association has helpfully agreed to unify the iconography used on the baffling control panels and gave us this wonderful picture:
The icons in the image above mean (from left to right) raise the lid, raise the seat, large flush, small flush, rear spray, bidet, dry, and stop. The (way too happy) executives hope the iconography becomes standard internationally, so look for it soon at your nearest Taco Bell (though they will need to add one for explosive diarrhea clean-up).
“This book is everything Christians want to read right now, all wrapped up into one…And best of all, you get to color every page yourself!”
There was a time when the Vatican did not think to highly of one Martin Luther. As he put it, “If I fart in Wittenberg they smell it in Rome”. Luther, deemed a heretic by Pope Leo X, was excommunicated by papal decree on Jan. 3, 1521, an edict that has never officially been rescinded. But times change. Last October Pope Francis delivered kind words about Luther’s impact on the church, saying the reformer “helped give greater centrality to sacred scripture in the Church’s life.” They even put a statue of him in the Vatican. Earlier this month a Vatican department issued a document referring to Luther as someone deserving recognition for being a “witness to the gospel.” And last week the Vatican announced an official 2017 stamp honoring the reformer. Great work, my Tiberian friends. But can we talk about that statue? It’s kinda creepy, and looks like it is made out of melted crayons.
A book is coming out next week that would make an excellent gift (hint, hint) for anyone who enjoys beauty and history. It is a collection and description of the most unique and famous chess sets ever made. Here are a few, with descriptions. You can see more about it here.
A Ivory Chinese set from the early 18th century. The pieces are depicted as rats, part of the Chinese zodiac. The eyes are pieces of ruby and amber.An intricately carved ivory chess set, which has been called “the most incomparable chess set in the world”, created in China in the late 18th century.An ivory and mother-of-pearl chess set created in South Asia. In 1712 it was gifted by the Emir of Bukhara to a Polish prince.The late 18th-century amber chess set commissioned by Catherine the Great of Russia.A 1905 Fabergé set, one of only two ever made by the company.A John Company—the informal name for the East India Company—chess set, made in India c. 1830.The king (left) and queen from Max Ernst’s surrealist chess set, 1944.
Poem of the week: Thou Hidden Love of God
Thou hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathom’d no man knows,
I see from far thy beauteous light,
Inly I sigh for thy repose;
My heart is pain’d, nor can it be
At rest, till it finds rest in thee.
Thy secret voice invites me still,
The sweetness of thy yoke to prove:
And fain I would: but tho’ my will
Seem fix’d, yet wide my passions rove;
Yet hindrances strew all the way;
I aim at thee, yet from thee stray.
’Tis mercy all, that thou hast brought
My mind to seek her peace in thee;
Yet while I seek, but find thee not,
No peace my wand’ring soul shall see;
O when shall all my wand’rings end,
And all my steps to thee-ward tend!
Is there a thing beneath the sun
That strives with thee my heart to share?
Ah! tear it thence, and reign alone,
The Lord of ev’ry motion there;
Then shall my heart from earth be free,
When it hath found repose in thee.
Gerhard Tersteegen, translated by John Wesley
Two of the nations top Divinity Schools, Duke and Vanderbuilt, have issued directives encouraging their faculty to use inclusive language when speaking of God. Duke’s guidelines are especially interesting:
The exclusive use of either masculine or feminine pronouns for God should be avoided
Metaphors showing God’s personal relationship with humans should be used, but need not be gendered:
“God is parent to us all”
God and Godself can be used as substitutes for he/she and him-/herself:
“After God created the world, God rested”
“God knew Godself to be great”
A variety of gender-specific metaphors can be used:
“God is the father who welcomes his son, but she is also the woman for search for [sic] the lost coin”
I dunno. What do you think God Godself thinks of this?
To my Orthodox friends: Is this normal?
When inter-faith services go bad. Earlier this month St Mary’s Episcopal in Glasgow decided to mark the feast of the Epiphany by inviting local Muslim worshipers to contribute to the service, which was aimed at improving relations between Christians and Muslims in Glasgow. They were invited to read a portion of the Koran. They did. It was the part about Jesus not being the son of God. That didn’t go over well. Police were called after members of the church received “hate-filled messages” from far-right extremists after the service. And the Queen’s Chaplain has resigned after he called on the church to apologize to Christians “suffering dreadful persecution at the hands of Muslims” and added that the denigration of Jesus in Christian worship would be called “blasphemy” by some. But don’t worry; the queen still has 32 more chaplains.
Shout out to Mary Tyler Moore, who died this week. She was great in the Dick Van Dyke Show, and even better in her own. In fact, here is my list for best sitcoms of the 70’s. Yours?
M*A*S*H
All in the Family
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Bob Newhart Show
One Day at a Time (listed this high cuz I had a huge crush on Valerie Bertinelli)
The Odd Couple
Welcome Back, Kotter
Happy days
Sanford and Son
Barney Miller
By the way, that list will stand up to the top ten sitcom list from any other decade, IMHO. I couldn’t even include Mork and Mindy, WKRP, Taxi, the Jeffersons, Laverne and Shirley, Maude and Three’s Company. I think the 70’s and sitcoms were made for each other.
So we end today with a classic clip from the Mary Tyler Moore Show:
End note, if you don’t mind: a little snark directed towards public figures is one thing now and then; but let’s keep Internet Monk an island of constructive engagement toward each other in the comments. There are a million comment sections on the web filled with arrogance and insult. Not too many with humility and charity. This is a community, not a battleground. Thanks.
A truly prominent, not-post anything blogger has put forward the following theory:
Those who use the prefix “post” to describe themselves are claiming to be smarter than those who don’t.
Example: A “post-modernist” is saying “I used to be mired in the darkness of modernism, but now, through my superior intellect, I have arisen from the tomb of modernism and ascended to the higher plane of post-modernism.”
Or: A post-conservative is saying, “Once I lived in the dark swamps of conservatism, but now I’ve finally used my brains and looked at what Neanderthals inhabit conservatism. I’ve packed my bags and left for the sunshine and springtime of post-conservatism.”
And, of course: A post-evangelical — such as yours truly — is saying “Those stupid, sheep-like evangelicals can’t hold an intellectual candle to the brightness of my post-evangelical insights. How truly significant and wonderful it is that I have emerged, under the power of my stupendous brain, into post-evangelicalism.
You may send your best examples in to the Internet Monk research department.
I have three responses.
First, I don’t think that’s a completely wrong analysis. Intellectual arrogance is a common sin, and I’m sure I’m guilty of it. There are other reasons a person might take pride in being “post” whatever. There’s certainly a social dimension, as people “join up” with groups and movements they feel have moved beyond other groups and movements or just have an image they want to identify with. Pride comes in many different forms and some of them are quite subtle.
But intellectual pride goes both ways. There are those who take intellectual pride in their “old fashioned” legalism and their King James Onlyism. It’s no less potentially sinful to say “I’ve never changed and never will” than to say “I’ve changed and that makes me better.” It’s prideful to say “I’m smarter than those _________ Christians, who can’t see their own flaws and apostasy in comparison to my group.”
While I agree with the prominent blogger that being “post” whatever may be evidence of intellectual arrogance, I can’t say that’s automatically true or that there isn’t just as much arrogance in the other options of where we position ourselves in relationship to other Christians. It’s all a version of “My way of looking at things amounts to a kind of righteousness.” I think not.
Secondly, the process of thinking, learning and discovery, by its very nature, takes us in the direction of being “post”-whatever we were before we thought, learned or discovered. There’s nothing wrong with being “post-ignorant” or “post-uninformed.”
It seems that some Christians want to present themselves as being “keepers of the foundational” truths, and that their “progress” has always been “back to the truth,” but not “post” anything. Ahem. So Calvinists, for example, don’t call themselves post-evangelicals, but in actual fact that’s precisely what many of them are. They are people whose journey of discovery has taken then into the world of reformation Christianity POST their sojourn among generic evangelicals.
Charismatics are usually post-cessationists. Catholic converts are post-protestants. Many reformed Christians are post-revivalists or post-Arminians. I don’t think anyone is making a claim the other camp is stupid. Just wrong, from the learner’s perspective.
If the purpose of learning, study, inquiry and discovery isn’t to transcend your previous ignorance and to move forward in your experience of truth, then what are we doing pursuing so many books. sermons, lectures and classes?
Why are we reading prominent blogs, if not to be “post” something in our own knowledge of the truth?
Third and finally, my own “post-evangelical” journey isn’t a triumphant parade of intellectual triumph over the stupid. That isn’t to say that there isn’t plenty that’s stupid, worthless and even spiritually dangerous going on among evangelicals. It’s to say that I’m intentionally moving past where evangelicals are going, to take a broader, deeper examination of their roots, their valuable contributions and their diverse options for the future. I believe that evangelicalism’s current directions are dire and portend an end to the movement as classically defined, but I believe evangelicalism “deep and wide” has hope worth stirring up and content worth keeping.
I have far more respect for evangelicals in general than those who typically criticize me for being “post evangelical.” Their pessimism exceeds mine by far. I believe there is much about evangelicalism that can be salvaged and much about it that reaches into the broader experience of truly “catholic” Christianity. My prominent critics typically find evangelicalism a train-wreck with only one hope: a wholesale rejection of all things Charismatic and catholic in favor of a kind of reformed Baptist/independent Baptist fundamentalism.
If there’s a competition for who is the most pessimistic “post-evangelical,” I can’t really run with the big dogs. Look up the people who think Rick Warren is a new age guru and Tim Keller is a mystic.
My intention is to discover what in evangelicalism presents a “Jesus-shaped spirituality.” I do not adopt the post-evangelical label as a way to say I am smarter or others are stupid. I adopt it to say that living among evangelicals must be an intentional, deconstructive journey, sorting through tradition and trend, looking to scripture for authority and being open to the work of the Spirit, even among people very different from me…and maybe even not as “smart” as me.
The warning that “post” anything can be intellectual arrogance is a good word, well heard and hopefully heeded. But at the same time, drawing a caricature of other Christians who may use the label “post” may be another version of the same thing.
There’s no immunity for any of us; just a constant need for humility, mutual respect and careful consideration of what God may be doing in those different from ourselves.
There is no defending God. There is no proving his way is right. To do so would require that I understand God, that I can substantiate the claims of truth my faith calls me to hold.
I can explain what I believe well enough. I can demonstrate to a certain degree that my faith is reasonable and not the delusions of a crackpot. But I can’t prove anything. I can’t argue an airtight case. I can’t campaign for Jesus on a platform of certainty.
You see, all the “evidence” is ambiguous. It is capable of being interpreted in a variety of ways. What convinces one person to believe may lead another to have serious doubts.
Even the bedrock occurrence in the story of our faith — the resurrection of Jesus — was not what you would call a public event. It was unexpectedly discovered by a few common people in the hazy dawn of Easter morning. All of Jesus’ appearances were reserved for people who became his witnesses. It is their word we have to trust. I happen to be convinced that they were trustworthy and that they had no reason to invent a story so fantastic, but I can see why people might have doubts.
I suppose this is why some Christians feel the need to posit an inerrant Bible, a fully trustworthy revelation directly from the mouth of God that demonstrates in incontrovertible terms that it is TRUTH™. Thus, all we have to do is open up the book and — there it is! — a sure and certain foundation for our beliefs. However comfortable that might make believers feel, in reality it just creates another proposition Christians must defend. Proving the divine perfection of the Bible requires herculean efforts and, as centuries of dispute over Scripture’s nature, meaning, and interpretation show, the evidence here is muddy too.
So, I don’t really have an apologetic. At best, it’s ambiguous.
The other day I was thinking about the shepherds in Luke’s Christmas story. Surely they had a sense of certainty. Surely what they experienced was so unambiguous, so transformative, that they lived the rest of their lives in the assurance of faith. Surely God had proven himself to them. They beheld the angel hosts! They heard the gospel announced directly from heaven! They saw the baby Jesus in the flesh!
However, sometimes I wonder what happened next. The Gospel tells us they went back to work later that night. We never hear from them again. What was it like for the shepherds a week later? a month? ten or twenty years? I don’t know if they were around when Jesus went throughout Judea proclaiming the Kingdom. I’d like to think their faith was confirmed and strengthened over the years, perhaps by personal encounters with Jesus in his ministry.
On the other hand, it is possible they didn’t hear much about Jesus again, perhaps for the rest of their lives. If so, what would that long silence have communicated to them? Based on the angel’s message they would have expected, somewhere along the line, a Son of David to ascend the throne in Jerusalem, bringing lasting peace and relief from their enemies. An unambiguous fulfillment of God’s promise. But even if they did become part of the crowd and followed Jesus around Judea and Galilee, they never saw that happen, did they? How might they have reconciled that grand birth announcement with reality on the ground years later — an itinerant rabbi with nowhere to lay his head? And then, the cross? Some king. Some throne.
All this is pure speculation, of course, but I think it makes a point: In my opinion, Christians (and I include myself) have been far too cocksure in talking about Jesus and our faith. As though it’s about having a sense of certainty that carries us blissfully through life. As though what we believe and the reasons we believe are so clear, so transparent, so unambiguous that we just can’t imagine others being unable to see it.
I had a spiritual awakening in high school, and it was prompted by relationships I developed with a group of Christian young people in school and church. What I liked about them was that they were real. I saw their imperfections and could blow holes through their arguments. But I couldn’t get past their joy, their belief that life was worth living in spite of problems and doubts. There was something that kept them moving forward to embrace the goodness of life and faith and hope and love. They were pitiful at trying to explain it, but it was there. Ultimately, I found I couldn’t resist the song their lives sang to me.
So this is what I keep coming back to. Sometime long ago, on a dark night I heard angels sing. I saw the face of the Savior. And it was real.
My experience wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the show the shepherds witnessed. However, it just as effectively got my attention and caused me to change direction in ways that I suppose were as crazy as leaving your job in the middle of the night to go see a stranger’s newborn baby, and claiming you heard the news from angels.
But then, like the shepherds, I had to return to life, plain old life, everyday life.
Through the years I’ve had reason to doubt over and over again whether that experience was real. I have wondered whether the promises I received were genuine, or whether it might not all have been some adolescent fantasy born of hormones, naiveté, and group dynamics. It can get awfully ambiguous at times.
Whether or not the shepherds ever saw Jesus again, I can testify that since my epiphany, every once and awhile along the way I have encountered him. Thing is, he’s never what I expect. He constantly confuses me and makes me scratch my head. The more I try to define what he’s all about or what he’s doing in my life, the more mixed up I become. And when I go to speak, I fumble around for words to explain him, to express what he means to me, to put my finger on the gifts with which he has so graciously filled my life.
He’s real, and that’s about the best I can do.
And there you have it. My ambiguous apologetic.
Maybe you were hoping you’d read something today that would nail it all down for you, relieve your doubts, answer your questions, make it all certain.
I have to admit, I loved being a part of the story I posted yesterday. It was a great privilege to know Lenny and Frances, and their lives inspire me.
I got a sense from the comments that we all feel admiration for people like them — folks who seem to model Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness and turning the other cheek, who suffer without complaining and endure life’s intimidating challenges with a sense of grace and humor and simple faithfulness.
They should be admired. From all I know of them, their lives were exemplary. Their children and grandchildren rise up and call them blessed. Their priest sings their praises. Their story speaks for itself.
I have no problem recommending people like Lenny and Frances as models for us all to follow.
But I know one thing.
Their story is their story and your story is yours and mine is mine. And whether or not we ever come to earn the kind of respect those two simple saints gained, God still loves us and is at work in our stories too.
As I was driving today, I thought about the difference, for example, between Lenny and Frances and the patriarch Jacob. Or, “that rascal,” as I like to call him. From birth, Jacob was never anything but a piece of work. His entire life was one giant con. Born trying to supplant his brother’s place, Jacob lived as a schemer to the end.
As a youngster, his infamous career began when he tricked his brother out of both birthright and blessing. The fallout was so severe it forced the young scoundrel to flee home.
Then the living God met him on the road in an dream encounter that we sometimes speak of as Jacob’s “conversion” at Beth-el, the house of God. However, if it was a conversion, it didn’t appear to change Jacob very much. He emerged from the vision and immediately began bargaining with God and setting his own terms for their relationship:
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you” (Genesis 28:20-22).
What a deal for God.
Moving down the road, Jacob’s conniving ways were about to advance exponentially. His fugitive journey led him to a school of treachery as he went to live with his uncle Laban, a double dealer who almost proved to be a match for Jacob in treachery. The story of their many years together is a tale of two tricksters continually trying to outdo each other.
And Jacob had more on his plate than duking it out with Laban. In his own tent he had to deal with two scrappy wives who scratched and clawed to gain an advantage in the family like prizefighters.
Ultimately, Jacob won the showdown with his shyster uncle Laban, packed up his contentious clan, and hit the road with a pile of booty.
Having left that frying pan, he turned to travel back home toward the fire that was his brother Esau, who had held grudges ever since Jacob left. Jacob shook in his sandals at the prospect of meeting the brute and getting the beating he deserved.
One night, while camping en route, a man (an angel? God himself?) ambushed the patriarch in the darkness and they wrestled through the night until Jacob emerged a crippled “victor” with a new name — Israel.
I guess you could call that transformation. I call it a busted hip and the knowledge that the only hope he had was in hanging on to God for dear life.
For the rest of Jacob’s days, he and the family dealt with the consequences and ongoing patterns of his lifetime of deception. The character traits engraved on Jacob’s face and visible in his constant limp flowed through the rest of the household, and until the day he died, Jacob worried and struggled to keep faith, hope, and love alive in a clan full of connivers.
The last story about Jacob before his death brings a smile. Son Joseph presents his two sons to their grandfather for his blessing. Manasseh, the firstborn, should be blessed with Jacob’s right hand. Instead the patriarch crosses his arms and places it on the head of the younger, Ephraim. Manasseh, the elder and rightful heir, gets the left hand — second best.
Joseph has a hissy fit and objects. He thinks the old man made a mistake because of his failing eyesight. This is the ultimate faux pas; it will scar his boys for life.
But Jacob insists. Here at the culmination of all his journeys, he wants to pass on what he’s learned about the only thing that really matters: It’s all about God’s choice, God’s blessing, God’s grace, God’s relentless promises. Maybe God is the ultimate Trickster.
I can just see that rascally twinkle in Jacob’s eye, as he puts one over on his own son and grandsons.
And I can hear Jacob chuckle a little at Joseph’s indignation. We chuckle with him. Joseph, who knew all about his dad and the ways of his family, probably broke down and cracked a smile himself. Perhaps a saint is nothing more than an old scoundrel we can’t help but smile at.
Fact is, Jacob was endlessly persistent in trying to get his own way and gaining advantage over others. But he was not nearly as persistent as the God who stuck with him and blessed him in spite of himself.
And I’d be willing to bet that if you asked God, he’d say, “One of my better stories.”
Unlike Lenny and Frances, Jacob was not someone any right thinking person would admire. Deceiver, con artist, trickster, conniver, swindler, rascal and rogue. From the day he was born to the day he died.
Frances died last week. Her family all said she missed her husband Lenny since his death a few years ago, and would be happy to be at peace and reunited with him.
Frances and Lenny were faithful Roman Catholic members of a city parish. At her funeral, the priest said Frances especially loved to share in the Eucharist and to pray. She and her husband raised a large Catholic family on the east side of Indianapolis and were the central figures in their family’s life, the hub around which all activities turned.
Over the past few years I served them both as their hospice chaplain, and loved every visit with this gentle, kind, and funny couple.
When I met Lenny, it had been several decades since he was forced to give up his work because of an accident. A large piece of drywall fell on him and injured his leg so severely it had to be amputated. From that point on, he stayed at home and Frances was forced to go to work to support the family.
It’s just what one did. As down-to-earth and realistic as they were faithful to their beliefs, they supported each other and took care of their family, and from all the reports I’ve ever heard, did so without complaining or ever suggesting they got a raw deal.
About eight years ago, when the couple was in their mid-70’s, Frances answered the door one night and a young man pushed her back into the house. She grabbed his sweater and managed to kick him in the groin as they fell to the floor. But she was no match for the intruder’s strength, and he beat her mercilessly.
Hearing the commotion, Lenny rolled his wheelchair in and soon found himself under attack as well. The home invader beat him in the face so badly his eyes were swollen shut. Frances gave the thief her purse and told him they had no jewelry in the house, and their brutal attacker eventually left. The wounded couple spent two weeks in intensive care recuperating from their injuries.
When the children came to visit them, angry and frightened that someone would do such a thing to their parents, they were surprised to hear words of forgiveness and pardon coming from Lenny’s and Frances’s mouths. The couple expressed not even the least bit of ill will toward the stranger, and they urged their children and grandchildren to turn the other cheek.
The children convinced their parents that forgiveness was fine, but that they should also consider moving to a safer neighborhood. They found a nice senior community a few miles east for their folks and Lenny and Frances relocated there.
And that’s where I met them, when Lenny was diagnosed with a terminal disease. Do you know that in all of our conversations during his time on hospice, neither of them ever once mentioned that home invasion? It wasn’t until after Lenny had died and I was making a bereavement visit to Frances that I learned about their ordeal.
A year or two went by, and then just last fall, Frances’s own health took a turn for the worse. She not only was terminally ill, but she also suffered from an extraordinary number of wounds on her skin as it broke down from her condition. She was almost always in pain, and had to endure the agony of daily wound care and dressing changes.
Once again, Frances refused to be a complainer. She never mentioned her pain to me, and instead always focused on making me feel welcome or asking me a question that was on her mind.
I went to see her the day she died, and in some sort of remarkable turnaround the swelling in her body had diminished and some of those intractable wounds that she had been battling were actually healing. She was comfortable now in both body and spirit. I prayed for her, gave hugs and words of affirmation to her daughters who were at the bedside, and departed. She died within a few minutes of my leaving.
Her priest, the same one who had officiated the funeral mass for Lenny, spoke wonderful words of tribute to Frances’s faith and character as well as providing hope in God’s promises of resurrection life in Christ.
Then, at the end of his homily he read something which Frances herself had written and asked him to share. It was a brief letter to her family.
Frances encouraged them to find solace in the many good memories of their life together and in the love that they had known. She urged them to remember that, although she would be gone from them for a time physically, the love they shared would always be in their hearts.
And then these unforgettable last words that tell you all you need to know about Lenny and Frances: “When all that is left of me is love, give me away.”
Hi, my name is Mike, and I am a recovering separatist. [Hi, Mike!]
My separatist life started when I had a spiritual awakening at the end of my senior year in high school. That “conversion” was to me like rounding a bend in the highway and driving straight into a blinding sun so bright that it washed out everything else in sight.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of his glory and grace.
Before that experience my life consisted of three major interests: (1) Girls, (2) Baseball, and (3) Music (and the accompanying lifestyle).
When I met Jesus, I found I didn’t have to give up girls, because there were lots of pretty, nice Christian girls. I also discovered I could keep enjoying music. Back in those days before the commercialization of CCM, “Jesus Music” was emerging, and it was as important to the vitality of our Christian lives as the Bible. Of course, my old “worldly” LPs had to go, so I threw them in the dumpster (how often have I regretted that!). My heart was filled with fresh new sounds and for awhile, that was enough. I did, however, give up playing baseball (how often have I regretted that!). I had no conception of how sports fit with following Jesus, so out it went.
The world behind me, the cross before me, No turning back, no turning back.
I had all Christian friends all the time. The oft-quoted statistic, that most new believers have no non-Christian friends within two years of their conversion, proved true of me in a much shorter period of time (how often have I regretted that!). Within a year I had decided to attend Bible College and pursue ministry. My dad wisely tried to convince me to get a broader education and work toward a career in something I could fall back on if church work didn’t pan out, but I was too infatuated and immature to listen to him (how often have I regretted that!).
Three years of total immersion in Bible college — the cut your hair, wear a tie, no holding hands, no dancing, no movies, no rock music, room inspection every morning, mandatory daily chapel kind of Bible school — separated me from every facet of life in the world at large. I might as well have been stranded on a desert island. At the time, I didn’t mind. Looking back, though I’m grateful for the structure it gave my life, I can also see all kinds of ways it may have stunted my growth.
On to my first pastorate. Back into the world? Well…sorta. It was still pretty much all Christians all the time that formed my world. We lived in the mountains. No TV. Listened to a ballgame every now and then. Tentatively dipped my toes in the water and started to attend an occasional movie. A little bit of folk music found its way into the house through the radio. I occasionally had a conversation with neighbors, but still felt like a newborn foal every time I did, stumbling around trying to find something we had in common to talk about.
Then we moved back to Chicago for seminary. After a year of school, we experienced a great disappointment. My funding source dried up. I had to go to work and drop out of school for awhile.
An electronics factory became my daily world. Nary a Christian in sight (at least that I knew about). I made a few friends and was surprised at how much I enjoyed their company. Soon I found my way back to school and, providentially, into pastoral work once more. This wasn’t the mountains where a person could hide out. Serving in the city began to drag me, kicking and screaming, out of my naive isolation from the world. I took my first course in Clinical Pastoral Education and was introduced to life and death in the hospital wards. My professors, to a person, said repeatedly that being in a seminary atmosphere was fine, but if you really want to serve on the front lines of ministry, get out into the church and serve in a community. It resonated. I was starting to see a difference between church work and the work of the church.
Pilgrim’s Path, Maine 2014
So we moved to Indianapolis and I served on the staff of a non-denominational church. All in all, it was a pretty good experience, but I struggled with many aspects of it. For one thing, our family was growing, and our children were starting to get involved in school and sports in the community. I had a conviction about sending our kids to public school, and I started coaching Little League. Through my sons, I got baseball back!
However, we were swimming upstream in the local conservative Christian culture. Where we live is a highly “churched” area, and I watched as Christians changed churches like yesterday’s clothes because of conflicting “convictions.” Many home-schooled their children (despite living in one of the most conservative states in the U.S.) because of the “ungodliness” of public education. Parents forbade their kids from participating in youth group because of an emphasis on reaching the lost and (horrors!) actually including them in activities.
I saw people whose time and energy was totally taken up by church programs and activities. Churches around here began building mega-centers to provide full service, family-friendly activities for people of all ages, creating a world folks need never leave, allowing them to avoid worldly contamination. I started to feel out of place.
Following our kids’ activities, coaching baseball and working with young people and their families in the community was a constant joy. We had a “neighborhood.” We spent a lot of time together. For the first time in my adult life, I started to feel like I had a life outside of “churchianity.”
We moved down the road, and I took a senior pastor position in a sister church. It was a hard experience for a lot of reasons, but my own inward struggles made it even more difficult. As I look back, I must be honest and admit that, in a lot of ways, I was just not getting the church thing anymore and how it was supposed to work simultaneously with a life in the world.
Just before that pastoral ministry came to an end, I got involved with a family we knew from baseball whose son was terminally ill. Along with other members of the community, we spent hours at the hospital and walked with them through the difficult journey. The bonds formed then remain to this day. In the process, I received a taste of life, relationships, and ministry outside the church walls that transformed my life. It was only a couple of months later that I was hired to work with hospice, and now my parish is as wide as central Indiana.
I never have been what one might call a wild-eyed, hard-edged fundamentalist separatist. I was just a kid who was found by Jesus and thought that meant the rest of my life should be different, somehow lived in a separate category from the ordinary course of human life. Now I know that becoming a Christian doesn’t put a person one step above the rest of the human race, or mean that one should separate from sharing common life experiences with one’s neighbors.
I’m still blown away by the grace and mercy of Jesus to one who was so clueless for so long. And who, in so many ways, still is. But I think I’m recovering.
I still think the church is special, the amazing family of God in all times and places.
I just don’t want this whole “Christian thing” to keep me from being human.
By the way, I married a beautiful girl. I’m all about the music. And I got baseball back. Hey, the Cubs even won the World Series!
No longer does “the world grow strangely dim” when I look at Jesus. For some reason, when I’m most focused on him, the world also comes more into focus, taking on a strange, inviting beauty. And I’m ready every day to move more deeply into it with his kindness and love.
This is…about the second turning.
In the first turning, a Christian experiences the transformation from a natural person to a spiritual person. Instead of the “self” being the center of life — exploring, cultivating, adoring it — God becomes the center. This miracle is brought forth by the Holy Spirit giving us new life in Christ. It is a necessary, indispensable, basic step.
But it is only a first step. The work of the Holy Spirit should not stop here but lead to a second turning in which the spiritual person again becomes natural.
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