Breaking Down Walls

For he himself is our peace

who has made the two groups one

and has destroyed the barrier

the dividing wall of hostility.

In this Advent season, we remember not only that Jesus Christ brings hope, joy and love, but also that he brings peace. Peace can be understood and expressed in a number of ways, but the words of Paul to the Ephesians which I cited above communicate one of the most significant expressions of peace: that Jesus breaks down the barriers that divide us.

Most importantly Jesus has destroyed the barriers that separated us from God. No longer must we approach God with fear and trembling, hoping that God might look upon us with mercy rather than wrath. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus we can now approach God with boldness and confidence, not because of what we have done but because of what Jesus has done. Paul says this quite clearly in the same letter to the Ephesian church:

In him and through him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Jesus has established peace between us and God, if we choose to embrace it.

But the peace that Jesus brings extends beyond the relationship between humans and God. If we understand his peace only in that single dimension we have failed to grasp the powerful transformation that Jesus brings to us. For as the earlier words of Paul told us, Jesus has broken down the dividing walls that separate us from each other. In the specific context of that verse Paul refers to the divisions that existed between Jewish-background and Gentile-background believers, or perhaps to the general distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Elsewhere Paul makes it quite clear though that Jesus destroys all barriers between humans. In his letter to the Galatian church he states in profound words:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Some mistakenly interpret this to mean that we must all be uniform, clones of one another. But Paul doesn't say that. He says that the differences to which we humans ascribe so much importance matter not one bit to God. Jesus has destroyed the walls we create between ourselves. Jesus is the author of diversity. He celebrates it, so when we speak of all people being one in Jesus, we are most certainly not saying they must all look, think and act alike. By continually creating walls that separate, by defining who is “in” and who is “out,” we destroy the very peace that Christ brought to us.

If we would live in this radical peace that Jesus has established, we would stop trying to force men and women to follow certain prescribed gender roles. We would stop judging and condemning people because their lifestyle looks different than our own (for ultimately it is God who judges each of us). We would see our fellow humans for who they are, as God has created them, and affirm the worth and dignity of each individual. We would set aside our own “rights” and surrender our privileges so that others might live in freedom and dignity. We would stop othering those we view as a threat and embrace them in the bond of peace through Jesus Christ. This would be what the kingdom of God on earth would look like.

I'm sure some will tell me that I'm a hopeless optimist, that my vision of the kingdom of the kingdom is hopelessly utopian. I'm under now delusions that the peace of God through Jesus Christ has not been fully realized on this earth. As much as I hope it will, I cannot say that I expect it to come in my lifetime. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't work towards this and in my relationships and my attitudes. I can choose to practice the peace of Christ towards others, breaking down the dividing walls of hostility that continue to plague us two millennia after the birth of Jesus. Peace doesn't have to be some ideal dream we sing about only at Christmas. The prince of peace is with us now and if we choose to live in and through him, we can be his instruments of peace here and now.   

My Prayer for Election Day

I have received numerous requests, invitations and exhortations to pray for the outcome of this election. Most of the time these requests come with an expectation--stated or not--as to what that outcome should look like. I've heard time and again that this is the most important election in the history of our nation, quite a statement considering that this is the 57th presidential election in this nation's history. I wonder how many previous elections were deemed at the time to be "the most important"? Do we have a false sense of our own significance?

Leaving that question aside for the moment, I do believe that we as followers of Christ should pray for this election, but not necessarily in the way that many may think. I do believe there are important issues at stake and I certainly have my own opinion on most of them. I know how I would like to see the results turn out Tuesday evening. I also know that many of my friends and acquaintances fervently hope for exactly the opposite outcomes. And in many cases we would all say that our result is more in accordance with God's will. Since elections cannot end in a tie, one side will be disappointed in every instance. Tuesday night (or perhaps later in case of a close race), some people in this country will go to sleep rejoicing that "good has triumphed" while others will go to sleep grieving over the demise of our nation. A bit melodramatic really, considering that the God of the universe has been known to work through some pretty amazing circumstances ranging all over the spectrum. Do we really think that God's will may be thwarted by the outcome of our little election? Can God not take into account our choices and still transform them to bring about their kingdom on earth?

So here, in broad strokes, is my prayer for election day 2012:

I pray that regardless of the outcome, we as a nation will realize that our strength lies in our unity (not uniformity) and that the road forward lies in working together, not in holding tightly to our precious agendas.

I pray that those who celebrate their victories would remember that many are grieving over those same results and act with grace and dignity.

I pray that we as a nation would learn humility and turn from arrogance and pride.

I pray that we would learn again to converse civilly and reasonably.

I pray that we would realize that this nation is not going to hell in a shopping cart just because any particular candidate gets elected. The world will not end on Wednesday just because B.O. or M.R. has won the election. Let's stop pretending otherwise and dump the hyperbole.

I pray in particular that those who call themselves by the name of Christ would demonstrate love in word and deed, not only to those we agree with but even more to those we disagree with. We dishonor Christ when we speak words of hatred and demean other humans who are created equally in God's image.

I pray that even as we all long for economic recovery and better days ahead, that we would remember that God's blessing does not reside in our financial or economic well-being. May we actively care for those who are in need as Christ has taught us and demonstrated to us.

In summary, I pray that God's kingdom will come and God's will shall be done here on earth as it is in heaven, affirming that this can happen whatever the outcome of any political race.

I get the sense, at least from Facebook, that many are anxious about the future of this country. Although I hardly consider myself an optimist, I don't feel that same anxiety. I trust that God's will shall prevail no matter what the results of the election are. God's kingdom is so much bigger than the United States and the outcome of our elections. I find great assurance in that. So yes, I'll be watching the results Tuesday night, and I hope to have some reasons to rejoice and probably will have others to grieve. But in the end, God's kingdom will not be hindered by this and I shall continue to pray and act that God's will may be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Out of the Shadowlands

I am quite fond of C.S. Lewis' writings. I'd say I'm fond of C.S. Lewis, but since I never met the man personally, that seems to be overstating my position. I've read much of what he wrote, although I cannot say that I have read everything. Like many others I enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia very much. Our children went through a phase when they loved the Chronicles also. We would listen to the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre presentation of the Chronicles so often that I felt like I could recite the lines along with the actors. Now my children seem to be in a stage of life where the Chronicles do not speak to them with the power they once did. Perhaps they will return to them. Certainly they were a foundation stone for my daughter's love of fantasy literature, even if at present they have receded from her active memory.

Of the Chronicles, I have always particularly liked The Last Battle. I love Lewis' portrayal of the end of Narnia and the unfolding of the real Narnia. I resonated with the cry to go “further up and further in,” to experience the unfolding dimensions and depths of this eternal, real realm. Certainly this was an accurate depiction of what heaven would be like.

Although I still love the Chronicles and The Last Battle, I no longer hold to the idea that Lewis has given an accurate depiction of heaven. I've long understood that Lewis' thinking was significantly shaped by Greek philosophy and mythology, as well as the mythologies of many other cultures. I even understood that this philosophy shaped his depiction and understanding of heaven and earth. What I failed to grasp though was the flaws in this. I come from a background that treats Lewis as a significant Christian theologian. But as Dianna Anderson argued very well in her recent article, Lewis did not seek to write as a theologian. He was first and foremost a philosopher and to the extent that we can consider him a theologian, we must read what he wrote with a clear understanding of his philosophical presuppositions.

In The Last Battle and throughout his writings, Lewis views the world through the eyes of Platonic (or perhaps neo-Platonic) philosophy, which sees this world as only a form of the real world. Everything about this world is at best an image of something real. Narnia, as experienced by the various children who inhabit the stories of the Chronicles, is not the “real” Narnia, but only a form of it. They only enter the real Narnia at the end of the series and find that it resembles the Narnia they have known, but yet is much larger and more substantial. It would be more accurate to say not that the real Narnia resembles the physical, earlier Narnia (an imprecise term because the real Narnia is physical as well, in fact more so, but somehow I must distinguish between the two), but vice-versa, because the physical Narnia is in fact only a form of the true Narnia.

I did not realize until recently, and Anderson's article helped me to solidify my thinking on this topic, that this Platonic philosophy had come to profoundly shape my understanding of heaven. I had come to see earth as a poor copy or image of heaven. We will only experience the true heaven when we reach it and when we do, it will seem a lot like this earth but somehow bigger, better, more solid and more real. I can say that there may still be some point in which this is an accurate description of heaven, but now, following the exposition of N.T. Wright, I've begun to understand that this earth was not a poor copy of something better. It was created in perfection. It's current condition is not due to any lack in its creation. It is not a poor copy of something more real and perfect. Rather, it is the real thing, only affected profoundly by fall and the ensuing influence of evil over the centuries. It's not that things on this earth are there just to give us reminders or hints of heaven. Heaven will be this earth but in the fullness of its created perfection as God originally intended and formed it.

To some this argument may seem purely rhetorical, but I think it makes a significant difference in how we view the world and how we understand what it means to live as people of faith in this world. In another post related to this topic, Anderson discusses this in relation to one specific and pertinent topic. I strongly encourage you to read her articles (she has three about properly and improperly interpreting C.S. Lewis.) If we adopt a Lewisian theology influenced heavily by Platonic philosophy, we end up with a sort of dualistic mindset that views this world as temporary and expendable. It's not the real thing anyway. At best (or perhaps worst) it leads us to efforts to reshape this world into our best guess as to what the “real” looks like. But since we don't know that (since all we can see is the form anyway), we end up just trying to shape things in the way that seems to best suit our own concepts. Again, read Anderson for an illustration of this.

If, however, we see this world as the pinnacle, albeit fallen and deformed, of God's creation, then we don't have to try to reshape it into some unknown ideal, but instead can work to mend the brokenness that is painfully apparent. We can become agents with God in restoring creation to the perfection that she or he originally intended for it. As Anderson writes:

God did not create this world to be a mere copy of some other better, more ideal one. This is the ideal world! All of it. It will be renewed, recreated, and reformed into the ideal, but it is not merely a placeholder for the ideal in the meantime. (emphasis Anderson's)

We're not here in the Shadowlands, just waiting to break through into the real world. I used to think that. Now I think I was wrong. We're in the real world. It's broken, wounded, deformed, but this is the real thing. This is the world that God will renew and reform as/when the Kingdom is fully established. I don't know what that renewed Kingdom will look like, but I'd sure like to contribute to seeing it realized here and now.

Surprised by Hope

As I sat in the worship service yesterday morning (yes, in the end I did choose to go) listening to our pastor lament the decline of the United States and express his pessimism concerning the future, I understood one of the factors that leaves me uncomfortable not only with this particular worship community, but with much of conservative American evangelicalism. Despite the Good News brought to us by Jesus, we have become by and large a pessimistic people. We see the world negatively and we expect things to get worse. There is precious little hope in the messages I hear coming from the conservative wing of the American church and it not only discourages me, but I increasingly think that we fail to truly represent the Kingdom when we present such a negative outlook.


I am not saying that all is well in the world or in the United States. We face real problems and we may endure some very rough times in the years ahead. I do not affirm in any way a gospel of prosperity and success that claims that true believers will know nothing but God's blessing. The Bible clearly tells us that those who follow God will endure hardship. But I react negatively to the underlying pessimism that I hear in the conservative evangelical church. This derives in part from their worldview which sees the best years as already behind us and tries to hold on to that past rather than continuing to work for positive progress in society. It also stems from a faulty theology.


I only began to recognize this in the past few months, particularly after reading N.T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope. I have read much theology in my day, but rarely has a book impacted by theology so strongly and unexpectedly as this book did. It shifted my worldview. At the risk of oversimplifying a remarkable piece of writing, Wright says essentially that the Church, at least the evangelical wing of the Church, has come to misunderstand heaven and fails to properly affirm the central truth of bodily resurrection, with tangible effect on both our beliefs about the future and our daily lives in the present world.

Salvation, according to Wright, is not a matter of being rescued out of this world. “Salvation,” he wrights, “is not 'going to heaven' but 'being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth'.” Salvation and resurrection and intimately intertwined. They are not just about, or even primarily about, a future outside of this place. They are about the inbreaking, transforming work of God's Kingdom in this present place; not ignoring the fallen, corrupt nature of the world but believing that God through the power of resurrection is at work now to renew and restore that fallen Creation to the glory it originally had, which will be heaven. The resurrection of Jesus marked the first step in in this process.


“The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing, close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term, in the future. And what he was promising for that future, and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world present is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project.”


Wright does not speak out of a rosy-eyed optimism that ignores the real problems of the world. Nor does he assert that human effort and progress alone will result in the overcoming of these problems. He recognizes and asserts the need for God to bring about this renewal and transformation. Without God's activity there would be no hope. But, he affirms, in the resurrection of Jesus God demonstrated God's commitment to restoration. God worked in that event and continues to work in this world through those who accept the invitation into the Kingdom. We are God's co-workers, through whom God is at work in this present world, not merely preserving it long enough to save as many souls as possible before the “End,” (lest we should be “Left Behind” as a very popular but theologically inaccurate series described) but bringing about transformation that will be made complete at some point in the future when Jesus returns to culminate his reign over this world. 


When I hear pastors speak, as my pastor did yesterday, pessimistically about the future, I now compare that with the word of hope that Wright points to in the Gospel message. We, the Church, need not be pessimistic. We need not merely “hang on” and try to hold fast until we get our escape ticket out of this place. Rather we are called to participate with God in the renewal of this world in which God placed us. I can get excited about this message, much more than about a pessimistic message that says things will continue to get worse and worse and all we can do is try to save as many from this sinking ship as possible before it goes under. I wonder whether our failure to speak a message of real hope is part of what hinders people from getting excited about this message.


I don't think this is a minor matter. I see it as a major difference in one's theology that affects how we live in the present world, how we view the future and how we understand salvation. I'm sure there are churches that proclaim more clearly this message of hope. I'd like to hear it within my own worship community. I need to meditate on it more and seek to live my life in line with the positive impact this hope can give me and my world.

The Lord's Prayer - Part 6

Today we reach the end of our series looking at the Lord's Prayer through the insight of N.T. Wright in his book The Lord and His Prayer.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.


An initial comment on this phrase is in order. Many translations, including the NIV ©2011 that I most often use, do not include this phrase in the main text, relegating it to a footnote because it is not found in the most reliable early manuscripts of Matthew's gospel. Wright acknowledges this but affirms the place of this phrase within the prayer, arguing “it is actually inconceivable, within the Jewish praying styles of his day, that Jesus would have intended the prayer to stop simply with 'deliver us from evil'. Something like this must have been intended from the beginning. In any case, it chimes in exactly with the message of the prayer as a whole: God's kingdom, God's power, and God's glory are what it's all about.”


With that in mind we'll put aside any discussion of whether this phrase belongs in the prayer or not and consider what it tells us as pray-ers. Wright spends most of this chapter examining the role and significance of Caesar in the time when Jesus walked on the earth. For those of us who were born and raised in a modern democratic state, we relate with difficulty to life under a autocratic monarch. In fact the idea may be repugnant to us. But such was the state of things in ancient Palestine and such is still the condition in many parts of the world, whether the title Caesar or king still used by the one in control.


In light of this, Wright reminds us that Jesus' actions as well as his prayer teach us to turn our eyes to the true source of power, authority and glory. He sets up a stark contrast to the man on the throne in Rome, because in Jesus himself the kingdom of God has come in power and glory. The very king of heaven walks on the earth among his people. And he demonstrates his power and authority in ways quite different from what most Jewish people expected or desired. He did not come wielding physical power to overthrow the existing kingdoms of the earth. He didn't exalt himself. In fact he sought to put attention off himself onto the God he himself served. He did not behave as one would expect a king to behave, and for some of those who were inclined to follow him at that time this created too much internal dissonance for them to take that step of discipleship. Still today many struggle with accepting a Jesus who demonstrates his power through weakness, humility and ultimately surrender. We are still not comfortable with this real Jesus and often recast him in an image more palatable to our conceptions of power, authority and glory. As we pray this prayer and reach this closing phrase, we should keep in mind that Jesus is indeed king and that to him do belong power and glory. We should also keep in mind that he expresses this in ways that run in stark contrast to the ways of the world.


As we pray these words we should also be challenged to work as representatives, ambassadors of this king. We are here not only to allow this king to transform our own internal lives. Jesus came to restore the created order and to inaugurate the kingdom-rule of Jesus. He confronts any who set themselves up as an alternative source of true authority over and against him. He declares that he will cast kings from their thrones and lift up the humble. He will send the rich away empty while filling the hungry. (See Luke 2:46-55). And he invites us to participate in this process.


“It is not enough, though it is the essential starting-point, that we submit in our own lives to God's alternative kingdom-vision; we must pray and work for the vision to come in reality, with the rulers of this world being confronted with the claims of their rightful king. We cannot, then, pray this prayer and acquiesce in the power and glory of Caesar's kingdom.”


Ultimately then, the Lord's Prayer is not just a pray for the comfort and renewal of our own souls. It reminds us that we are part of something much, much larger and more significant than ourselves. In Jesus God's kingdom has entered our world and is in the process of transforming it into the kingdom of heaven. We his people are not called to just sit quietly in our churches or homes, working to live lives of personal purity and holiness. We are called to join Jesus in establishing his kingdom. Our prayers should be joined by our actions in bringing God's desired restoration and renewal of his created order. This is a high calling indeed and one that should leave us both overwhelmed and enthusiastic. We cannot do it on our own or in our own strength. That's why we must regularly pray this prayer, bringing our focus back to the one through whom the world has been and is being transformed.  But we can be enthusiastic – literally filled with God – because he has invited us to join him in this fantastic work. I wonder whether much of the current apathy both within and outside of the church toward the Gospel message comes because we have so reduced it to a message of personal salvation that it fails to ignite the passion of many. It simply offers too little to compel others to join in the cause. A proper understanding and practice of this prayer may be a good place to start changing that perception and focus. I close with Wright's words, who expresses it quite well:


“If the church isn't prepared to subvert the kingdoms of the world with the kingdom of God, the only honest thing would be to give up praying this prayer altogether.”


How has Wright's exegesis of the Lord's Prayer impacted your perception and practice of it and of your faith?

The Lord's Prayer - Part 4

After a hiatus due to traveling that kept me away from the book I am discussing, we return today to N.T. Wright's The Lord and His Prayer and the particular phrase:

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

I used to reach this phrase in the prayer and run through a mental examination of my life in the day – or whatever time had elapsed – since the last time I confessed my sins. The words of 1 John 1:8-10 weighed as a heavy burden in the back of my mind. At times I would agonize over the possibility that I might leave something unconfessed and therefore find myself excluded from grace. This would lead to an exhausting examination of every detail, wondering whether a particular act or thought constituted sin.

At other times I would pass lightly through these words, confessing my sin in broad, general terms without feeling the need to do a thorough examination of my conscience. Now I doubt that Jesus had either of these responses in mind when he gave us this example.

N.T. Wright, not surprisingly, connects these words with the events of Israel's past, reminding us that Israel's oppression and exile were always related to their sins. Therefore, proclamation of forgiveness from sin was to announce freedom and this is precisely what Jesus brought through his life, death and, ultimately, through his victory on the cross. Forgiveness of sins meant not only something spiritual and existential, but something real and tangible. It meant walking, or seeing, or even rising from the dead.

It meant sharing bread and wine – partying – with those whom “spiritual” people consider outcasts.

"Healings, parties, stories and symbols all said: the forgiveness of sins is happening, right under your noses. This is the new Exodus, the real Return from Exile, the prophetic fulfilment, the great liberation. This is the disgraceful Advent of our astonishing God."

As those who have received and who daily or regularly receive once again this forgiveness from God, who now participate in the freedom of life in Jesus, we are rightfully called to reflect that same forgiveness to others. We cannot expect forgiveness for ourselves while withholding it from others. Not to extend forgiveness to others would mean, as Wright says, that we haven't really grasped what is going on.

"The only reason for being Kingdom-people, for being Jesus' people, was that the forgiveness of sins was happening; so if you didn't live forgiveness, you were denying the very basis of your own existence."

Forgiveness is a key part of the life of a Jesus-follower. It is central not only to the personal, individual life of faith, but crucial to the very life and message of God's people, the Church. Without receiving the forgiveness of God ourselves AND extending that forgiveness to one another and to the world, we cut ourselves off from the very grace by which we claim to live. Our practice of forgiveness should draw people to this astonishing God who practices forgiveness freely and abundantly.

"The church is to embody before the world the disgraceful, glorious, shocking and joyful message of the arrival of the King. When the world sees what the Church is doing, it ought to ask questions to which the proper answer would be a story about a father running down the road to embrace his disreputable son."

Now, ever-so-slowly, I am changing my understanding and practice of this phrase. Yes, I still need to examine my heart for the personal trespasses of any given day: the anger toward another, the overeating at lunch, the bad attitude toward my boss. But I also strive to allow God's Spirit to show me where I have failed to be an ambassador of his Kingdom on a larger scale, such as how I have perpetuated a lifestyle of privilege and indulgence that harms his world and my fellow humans, or how I have failed to love those who I find unlovable. At the same time I ask God to help me forgive, to truly set free, those who have wounded and hurt me, those who by their actions or inactions have placed me in a position of bondage through my own anger, hurt or other woundedness.

I'm still figuring out what this looks like in practice. I have found this chapter in Wright's book the most difficult to work out in practical terms. But two thoughts he shares in closing make a good starting point.

"It is our birthright, as the followers of Jesus, to breathe in true divine forgiveness day by day..."

"As we learn what it is like to be forgiven, we begin to discover that it is possible, and indeed joyful, to forgive others."

How have you experienced the connection between forgiveness and freedom?

Making the Invisible Visible

“The Kingdom of God can easily seem like a dream,” writes Kathy Escobar in her book Down We Go. It doesn't take much observation to concede how true that statement is. The Kingdom of God calls for peace, love, justice, mercy, compassion and a number of other attributes that run counter to the dominant trends in human society. Yet, we cannot give up on the Kingdom as a hopeless ideal. We need to remain “hopeful dreamers” as Kathy describes herself.

When we work with God to bring the Kingdom here on earth we discover that “dreams are much prettier when they are just dreams.” When we really start on the downward life, Kathy assures us that we will confront this difficult reality. “Diversity usually sounds best in theory,” she states. It would be far easier to keep talking about the Kingdom and upholding its lofty ideals while remaining safe, comfortable and secure in our everyday lives. I'm naturally inclined to that. I don't want to have to actually “do” anything that would make my life messy and uncomfortable.

What's more, if I want to enter into real relationship with others in this downward life, Kathy reminds me that I must embrace humility and a theology of brokenness. What does this look like?

“A theology of brokenness embraces our spiritual poverty, questions, doubts, and desire for love, hope and redemption, and reminds us that the stink and the beauty are wrapped into one. We can't just focus on the group of people who will confirm that our ministry is a success. Instead, we must include people who will challenge our definitions of success and stretch our imaginations about what the Kingdom of God looks like. It turns things upside-down. It includes people we wouldn't. This is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

This is not easy stuff. It means I have to admit my own brokenness and stop trying to uphold the image that I've got it all together. It means admitting that I don't have all the answers because, as Kathy puts it, “An 'I've got it all figured out' attitude leaves no room for God or others.” But admitting these things means making myself vulnerable and I hesitate to do that, even in Christian community, for fear that I will be judged or deemed less spiritual by those around me. Going to church or most any Christian community more often than not becomes an exercise in hiding and denying that brokenness, because admitting it is too risky. The truth is too ugly and painful and it is easier to hide it than to acknowledge it and begin to find freedom. Kathy says: “Maybe wholeness begins with accepting our brokenness.” I am increasingly inclined to agree with her.

When we embrace our brokenness, Kathy tells us, we can begin to see the world with new eyes. We can begin to see those whom we didn't see before. We stop giving priority to those who seem to have it all together, to those who are talented or esteemed in the eyes of others. We see past appearances. We begin, as she says, to make what is invisible visible. We affirm the worth of each and every person, regardless of how much he or she exhibits the qualities that this world values.

“I believe wholeheartedly that Christ-followers could change the world, a city and their communities if we humbly and actively participated in making the invisible, visible—if we were part of calling out the dignity, beauty and worth of every human being regardless of race, age, gender, socioeconomics, religion, brokenness, weird-life-circumstances and social status.”

That's a vision I can embrace. So I am asking myself how we can become authentic people, particularly in our Christian communities? How can we not only allow for vulnerability, but actual invite and affirm it, not in an effort to “fix” one another, but in order to accept our mutual brokenness and release its power to control us through shame and fear? How can I affirm the dignity of each and every person I interact with and how can I actively seek out those who have been invisible to me? I am wrestling with these questions a lot these days. For myself the first step is to stop pretending, to own my failures and my brokenness and to let go of an attitude that claims I have the answers. I'm trying to live a more authentic life, but it's scary because it's not so neat, orderly, secure and controlled.

Why This Friday is Called Good

I've seen several comments on Facebook and elsewhere today related to Good Friday. Many ask the question why it is called “Good” when it commemorates the death of Jesus. Certainly on one level the label doesn't seem to fit.


But it does fit, because for humanity this day marks the beginning of the process by which the entire story of the universe was transformed. The event we commemorate on this day will culminate on Sunday as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. No better, no more significant, no more meaningful event has ever happened in the history of the world. Yes, the opening scene appears to be a tragedy, loaded with grief and sorrow. We should grieve. But we should keep in mind that today is only the opening scene. And we know the end of the story. As Tony Campolo reminds us, citing a sermon he once heard, “It's Friday, but Sunday's comin'!”


In the events of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday we, everyone, all humanity, receives the opportunity to live in freedom. Freedom from sin, freedom from shame, from injustice and bondage (and there are many types of bondage). The death and resurrection of Jesus announce the redemption of the world from its fallen state, from its brokenness and all that accompanies this. This redemption is of course for us humans, but it also touches on the whole creation. With the resurrection of Jesus we see God's Kingdom break into the world in a new, radical and powerful way. 


By accomplishing his purposes for creation through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God demonstrates that her ways are not the ways of the world. God could have acted with power, with violence, with dramatic signs to overthrow the powers of this fallen world. She could have established her kingdom through methods that we could more easily understand. But God didn't. God chose to work through weakness, through humility, through dying in order to bring new life. And more than 2,000 years later we still struggle to grasp and accept that and how much more so to actually live it ourselves. 


God's people—the Church—proclaims this amazing, profound message that in the dying of God we have salvation. The restoration of the world has begun. But we all recognize, in ourselves and in the world around us, that the process is not yet complete. This is one of the mysteries of Christian faith, because we proclaim that in fact it is complete. Jesus did it all. At the same time it is on-going. We and the world are still being transformed. We who respond to God's invitation are now the very ones he uses to continue this work of transformation. As N.T. Wright powerfully states it:


“We are now called to be the people through whom the unique victory of Calvary and Easter is implemented in and for the whole world.”


We call today “good” because today we remember the death of Jesus, which marked the first step toward the redemption and transformation of the world. On Sunday we will celebrate the victory of Jesus over death, over corruption and brokenness and all that is not as God intended it to be. And beginning on Monday we will once again go out into the world and seek to live as people through whom this victory continues to be proclaimed and implemented to the whole world. 


And that's something to celebrate.

Praying the Lord's Prayer -- Part 3

Give us this day our daily bread.

This phrase seems so simple, so straightforward. We ask God to provide that which we need for our sustenance today. Of course one can debate what exactly is necessary. I think that most of us Americans really have no idea what we need to survive. But maybe that's not the core issue here. Jesus invites us to ask the Father for what we need. He tells us that we shouldn't be ashamed or afraid to bring our concerns and our needs (perceived or real) before him. So as annoying as I find it, all those prayers in the home group, Bible study or Sunday School class for Uncle John's health or Cousin Joan's dog matter. They matter to God. He is not inattentive or indifferent to them. He may not choose to answer them the way Uncle John or Cousin Joan or anyone else desires, but that does not mean he doesn't care or that he doesn't hear. As N.T. Wright says in his book The Lord and His Prayer:


“To turn then to the specific things we honestly need right now is not trivial. Is is precisely what children do when they love and trust the one they call 'Father.'”

I need to hear this message, because sometimes I get into a hyper-spiritual mode where I think it is a sign of spiritual immaturity to pray for mundane, concrete needs, especially for myself. I feel that I should turn my prayer focus toward more lofty, weighty matters, such as those who are spiritually lost or those who are suffering real hunger, or injustice or oppression. But if God is my Father, then I should be comfortable and free to come to him with anything that's on my mind. That's what Paul tells the Philippians when he writes that they should not be anxious about anything, but instead pray about everything. As we do, he asserts: “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” How badly do I need to hear that word. I worry and fret so much about so many things, when Jesus would have me lay those things before the Father, asking him to provide my daily bread and then rest in the peace of knowing that I have a heavenly Father who will not abandon me.


N.T. Wright acknowledges this aspect of the phrase “Give us our daily bread,” the aspect that addresses our needs, as I cited above. “The Kingdom-prayer isn't a prayer, such as some religions advocate, for our desires to be taken away or annihilated.” Rather, as we pray them within the greater context of hungering for God's kingdom and will to be done, “it asks for our desires to be satisfied in God's way and God's time. And, since God himself is most truly the deepest object of our hunger, this clause asks that we may be fed with God himself.” When we pray these words we seek not only for God to meet our immediate and real earthly needs, but to satisfy our hunger for the in-breaking of His Kingdom in our lives and in our world.


This leads us to recognize that, even as we pray for ourselves, our needs and the needs of those we know and love, we must not forget the larger picture.


“It is impossible truly to pray for our daily bread, or for tomorrow's bread today, without being horribly aware of the millions who didn't have bread yesterday, don't have any today, and in human terms are unlikely to have any tomorrow either.”


The needs of the world can overwhelm us. People speak of compassion-fatigue and no wonder, given the level of need in the world and the ability we now have to be aware of it.  How can our prayers engage with the real need of the world? Wright suggests “we should be praying this prayer not just for the hungry, but with the hungry.” He elaborates on this by saying:


“We offer ourselves, in this prayer, as representatives of this world...turning into words the unspoken prayer from thousands of hungry folk in our own country and millions around the world, turning it into words that plead with our heavenly Father to feed the hungry, to care for the desperate. And when we have prayed in that fashion, the test of whether we were sincere will of course be whether we are prepared to stand physically alongside those for whom we have claimed to speak.” (emphasis mine)


As I pray these words, I can freely bring my own needs and the needs of those closest to me before our heavenly Father without feeling shame that these needs are somehow too trivial or insignificant for the attention of Almighty God. At the same time, even as I pray for those needs, I do not want to forget the needs of the wider world. I think for each of us God can and will help us focus our prayers on specific areas of need, so that we can avoid feeling overwhelmed by the needs confronting the world. As we pray for those needs, we can also ask God to speak to us and help us to take concrete steps to be a part of bring the Kingdom to fulfillment precisely in those areas. Our part may be small, but we can still play a part if we will ask and listen and be ready to serve.

Praying the Lord's Prayer -- Part 2

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I have felt for some time now that these simple words capture the heart of how we should pray. After all, aren't all our cries and prayers for the salvation of friends, family and others, all our agony for the sick, injured and wounded, and all our longings for justice and shalom in the world summed up in the wish that God's kingdom would come on this earth? When God's kingdom is fully realized, when earth and heaven become one, then we will no longer need to pray for these things, because creation will be restored to the perfection that God originally gave it.

N.T. Wright in his short book The Lord and His Prayer, as well as in the other writings of his that I have read, has helped me regain a healthier focus on the interaction between heaven and earth. Prior to reading his writings I would have described heaven as some other place that we go to when we die. I would have emphasized the temporal nature of this earth and this life, regretting its fallen nature and the implications this has for all of creation. I would have encouraged myself and others to strive to live godly lives so that we could enjoy the fruit of it in that future heavenly place. I would have read this phrase from the Lord's Prayer with the emphasis on that future day when we, the redeemed, will enjoy the fulness of God's kingdom in heaven.


I cannot do full justice to Wright's perspective and would encourage readers to pick up his books and read them for yourselves. In addition to the volume we're looking at here, I particularly recommend his book Surprised by Hope, which led to this profound shift in my own understanding of heaven, salvation and a host of related areas. In the work at hand Wright reminds us that this statement, this cry for God's kingdom to come, was fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus.


“Jesus' first followers, to their own great surprise, quickly came to believe that God's kingdom had come, and his will had been done....They believed that in the unique life, death and resurrection of Jesus the whole cosmos had turned the corner from darkness to light. The Kingdom was indeed here, though it differed radically from what they had imagined.”


I think (and hope!) that most Christians recognize somewhere in their conceptual theology what Jesus' first followers understood. But practically the Church, in particular the evangelical American church, has come to speak and act as if the arrival of God's kingdom was very much a future event, one that will happen at the end of time as we know it. The focus has shifted to the future and we have lost the recognition that God's kingdom has already been initiated in this world. We have, as Wright argues in Surprised by Hope, lost sight of the significance of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. A key part of that, he reminds us, is that God in Jesus is redeeming and transforming this world and restoring it to the perfection it originally had. At some future point in time that process will be completed and, Wright says, heaven will come here on earth. Heaven, he tells us in Surprised by Hope, is not someplace out there. It's the fulfillment of the creation he originally began, in which we still live and in which he is still working.


Of course his Kingdom is not yet complete. We all recognize that, no matter how optimistic we are.  This should not surprise nor dismay us, for “The Kingdom did indeed come with Jesus; but it will fully come when the world is healed, when the whole creation joins in the song." We pray these words Jesus gave us not because we long for some future time when we shall be rescued out of this fallen world into the heavenly realms where all will be perfect. No, we pray them because we are joining with Jesus in asking God to complete her work of redeeming and transforming this fallen creation. 


“We look immediately out upon the whole world that he made, and we see it as he sees it....See it with the love of the creator for his spectacularly beautiful creation; and see it with the deep grief of the creator for the battered and battle-scarred state in which the world now finds itself.”


We need not pray for the coming of God's Kingdom and will as an escape from the harsh realities of this fallen world. Rather we pray for them to be fully realized because we understand that God loves this fallen world. We pray it because we desire to join Jesus in being agents of grace and transformation here and now. We pray it because we believe that God desires the healing of his world and that she will accomplish this, because the process began in and receives its power from the death and resurrection of Jesus.


“We are praying, as Jesus was praying and acting, for the redemption of the world; for the radical defeat and uprooting of evil; and for heaven and earth to be married at last, for God to be all in all. And if we pray this way, we must of course be prepared to live this way."


Now that's a prayer that I can get excited about.

Will I Choose Joy?

I've been reflecting this week on the story of the lost or prodigal son. To guide my reflections I read Henri Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal Son, in which he shares his insights into this story in light of Rembrandt's famous painting by the same name. As I finished reading the book this morning, I found myself challenged by a basic question. This question also indirectly arose from our Sunday morning worship time last week. In many places Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God as being a celebration--a party, to use the language Tony Campolo has used to describe it. The story of the lost son shows us a father who welcomes his wayward son home, not with recriminations and reluctance, but with joy and celebration, pulling out all the stops. Reflecting on this Nouwen writes: "Celebration belongs to God's kingdom....God does not want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share in it."


But Nouwen reminds us as well that we must choose to enter into this celebration. God does not force us. The elder son and others in the story face a choice. In Nouwen's words, "Will they understand the father's joy? Will they let the father embrace them? Will I?"


As I read this section of his book and probably in light of all that preceeded it in earlier chapters, I wrestled with the question he asks. Am I able to let the father embrace me? Am I able to understand and enter into the father's joy? I look at the world around me and more often than not respond with cynicism and gloom. I see the negative far more readily than the positive. I expect sadness, disappointment and pain. To quote Nouwen's words again, "Somehow I have become accustomed to living with sadness, and so have lost the eyes to see the joy and the ears to hear the gladness that belongs to God and which is to be found in the hidden corners of the world."


I see myself as a realist, one who sees things as they are. (My wife might disagree with this, since there is definitely an idealist in me as well.) Although I want to rejoice and celebrate God's goodness and love, I see a world filled with sorrow and suffering, with pain and grief. I see a world in which his kingdom, his shalom, have not yet been made complete. Not only that, but I look at my own life and I see the shortcomings and imperfections in myself and those closest to me. These things tend to draw more of my attention than the moments of joy, the moments of light, the moments when shalom breaks through in some small way. But God calls me to rejoice, not because everything has been made right in this world, but to rejoice when his kingdom breaks through in any way, no matter how small.


"God rejoices," writes Nouwen. "Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found. What I am called to is to enter into that joy."


The recognition that I lack the ability to rejoice, that I more often choose cynicism or gloom rather than with joy and celebration, hurts deeply. I don't want to be this way. Changing this pattern of behavior won't be a quick and easy process though, nor will it be one that I can accomplish on my own. But I want to begin that journey. I want to choose joy. I want to choose to enter into the joy of my father, to join him at the table of celebration rather than standing outside, refusing to participate. The circumstances in which I currently live do not promote a lifestyle of joyful celebration, but I think that if we as God's children can learn to live in his shalom even in the midst of those circumstances, that joy can become a powerful magnet to others.