No Enemies

I saw a bumpersticker today that said: Love your enemies and you won't have any.

This is true, but only from a certain angle. YOU won't have any.

But, understanding this through the life of Jesus, we must be willing to love our enemies, and thus have no enemies, even if they consider and treat us like we are their enemies.

Image of the Trinity

"Wherever you go, there you are."
Nope.
If you are running to "find yourself"
you will always carry with you
and so find "there"
a shell of who you are.

But you will also find there other people
offering yourself to you
by asking everything of you.

untitled

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
Just so much Jibberish;
We were walking on the Sea.
Surely you are
the Son of God.

Church Planter's Ballad

I am but dust.

God's breath enlivens this dust.

Bankruptcy. Ridicule. Hunger. Homelessness.
Fundamentalists. Power Brokers. Fear Mongers. Internet Trolls.

Cannot Harm dust.

Nor can they harm the breath of God.

Ikon

During prayer this morning, I pictured my own funeral. The artistic renderings of the cross and the empty tomb at the front of the chapel were more prominent than the casket.

If this proves true at my actual funeral, then the body lying in that casket will have been put to good use and will attain a glorious hope.

Tedious and Beautiful Work

Off and on for a long while now I have been working on hand copying the Bible. I am about 3/4 of the way through Genesis, and started doing this simply as a discipline, like the manual labor of the Desert Fathers. As such, it has been very fruitful to pay attention to what thoughts arise as I do this tedious work.

There are MANY distractions. Like: I should just read a Psalm? I love that earthy poetry so much more than I love copying this earthy genealogy. Or: should I play with switching the way I do my lower-case "a's"?

But many beautiful insights often come as well, and in surprising places when I force myself to slow down and engage with the text in this way. One of the most common blessings has been one I, given my own inclinations and interests, desperately need: I often think of some words of encouragement for others. This, I hope, helps them as I pause to shoot them a quick email or give them a call, and then get back to my self-imposed copyist work. But it also helps me appreciate the depth of the people around me and how blessed I am to have the opportunity to steward these relationships.

Incarnation is Hard Work

We constantly compare ourselves to others. In fact, it seem we are indeed quite good at praying without ceasing, so long as our prayer is like that of the Pharisee in Luke 18:11.

However, rather than finding our identity in the distance we can put between ourselves and others who are less successful, our deepest identity is rooted where we are like all other people - weak, broken, sinful, but sons and daughters of God.

This matters deeply to me, as I have recently been wrestling with ambition and the perceived need to achieve. Sometimes I mistakenly take thoughts like the above to allow, or even require, laziness. But, rightly understood, this shows me that hard work should come as a result of our love for others and the concomitant desire to serve them, and is not necessarily rooted in the desire to distance ourselves from other in order to compare. When rooted in love, this work is the recapitulation of the incarnation - an act that brings us to intimate closeness in Christ.

Hiding in Bold Exposure

"And only when the clear sky again looks through the broken roofs (of Cathedrals) and down upon grass and red poppies on broken walls - only then will I turn my heart again towards the places of this God."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zurathustra"

Many mourn the fall of Christendom, either through wails or battle cries or forwarded emails, but others celebrate it. Neitzsche and I would both fall into this latter category, though for fundamentally different reasons.

I see that now we have nowhere to hide but in Christ, and he, in our hiding, constantly pushes us out into the world in a new bravery birthed in love. Therefore the crumbling walls of cathedrals mark a time of enormous potential for a truly surrendered, and thus truly embodied, faith of boldness.

Good Friday

May you grow to love the God-man who lived our life and died our death. May you know the victory he has won as he took all the evil that rebellious powers could pour out, absorbed it and rendered it powerless. And may his courage take root in you and enable you to live for God and the salvation and healing of those around you.

Multidirectional

"The church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness."
- Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Healing requires forgiveness, and forgiveness must both be offered and received in order to heal.

Trespass

Hear this well: God is looking on us right now in love. Whatever else we may feel colors his vision, is wrong.

But, why is this love so difficult to accept, especially when it is impossible to live without? Perhaps it is exactly because it is impossible to live without, and there is something inside all of us obstinately bent towards death.

If our life is death, then death is life.

Let us trespass in the realm of death.

An Advent Meditation

God's coming cannot be forced or coerced. It comes only as a gift. And as a gift, we must wait for the giver. But this waiting itself, even if painful and characterized by a felt absence, is the reception of God's gift of God's-self.

See, we can only truly long for the presence of one who is already present to us. We can long for someone, in the abstract, who is absent and unknown, but we can only long for God, in the particular sense of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who fully revealed himself in Jesus of Nazareth, this God we can only long for as his very presence creates in us the longing we feel for his presence.

So, may we, in our Advent longing for God's presence, sit in both anguished longing and the peace of God's presence, for they belong, indeed can only exist, together.

Starvation in the Land of Plenty

This morning, I read this during the morning prayer of the daily office: "Nourish your people, Lord, for we hunger for your word.

As I was praying it for us, I thought, "Can I pray this? Because I'm not sure we really hunger for God's word."

Then I realized that I was placing too much importance on our own awareness. Realize it or not, we are hungry. Starving even.

There comes a point when a person is starving (in the sense of actual, life-threatening starvation, not in the 'argghhh! I haven't eaten in like 6 hours' sense most of us are used to) when the hunger pains the person once felt fade away. This is because the body has begun to eat itself! At this point, even the though of food becomes unappetizing. But this does not mean the person is not malnourished. Is not slowly descending to death.

So, we certainly hope we become aware of our condition. But until then, we pray, "Please do not wait, O Lord! For we are starving for your word."

This leads to a more truthful understanding of the next line I prayed: "Rescue us from the death of sin and fill us with your mercy, that we may share your presence and the joys of all the saints."

Kenosis

those of us with homes and cars and dining sets.
with refrigerators, 401(k)'s and televisions.
with furniture and electricity and cable modems.
those of us who can go two months without wearing every outfit in our closets.

those of us who have letters behind our names
and preach in churches rather than from the church ...

... we have less to give God than the destitute.

may You take our abundant nothing and make something.

For Someone:

We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

- W.H. Auden, "The Age of Anxiety"

Prayer: Reversing Narcissus

As it was with Narcissus, when we look at nothing but our own face, we die.

As it has been with so many anonymous and well-known saints, when in prayer we look upon the face of God, we die.

But these are entirely different deaths.

Wilson, Colbert, and Ehrman

Bart Ehrman (New Testament scholar from UNC) recently published a book that is getting a lot of attention, "Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)." If you are not familiar with Ehrman's work, this clip from The Colbert Report is an entertaining introduction.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

For anyone who is interested, I'm linking a paper I recently wrote in which I argue that the Gospel of Mark - the gospel generally held to be the oldest (and I say "generally" because who knows? a lot of people think a lot of things) and used by many who share Ehrman's skeptical point of view to argue for an earlier "low" Christology (that if you go back far enough the earliest followers of Christ never believed Jesus was truly God) - instead presents a very "high" Christology (that Jesus was God) throughout in the way the author structures and presents the narrative. It's somewhat long for a blog post (18 pages), and not necessarily for everyone. But, if you are interested in how I might respond to Ehrman, given the chance, this would be it.

You'll see that, on the issue of the title "Son of God" I actually agree with Ehrman. Though only so far, because I also agree with Colbert's response. Though Ehrman is a little right, Colbert it more right. :) Ehrman uses that little bit of info as a straw in a massive straw man argument that lifts the title, that can indeed refer to a mere human, out of its narrative context. Anywho ... if you're interested, here it is:


I would love any feedback. I'm sure part of Ehrman's work would include arguing for the surgical removal of some or all of the very stories I use from Mark's gospel. But, to put it crudely for the sake of space, for many reasons I reject this type of approach. I think in this type of surgery the patient always dies on the table. However, if you're undecided and want some more to read, Ben Witherington's response here and part two here deals with texts that are even earlier than the gospels.

Question

Viktor Frankl once wrote, "...we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."

I am working on a project that will hopefully turn into a message series, and, in the interests of that project, I have intentionally lifted this quote out of the context in which Frankl originally placed it so I can ask you this: what makes the difference?

(Rightness) Beneath Our Feet

i sit in a crowd
i led for years
and watch as they lean,
they're straining to hear
words from my wife,
who keeps her mouth closed,
but speaks with the wind
and cries as it blows.

i lie in a bed
dressed by a queen,
my hand on her chest
to feel how to breathe.
her head remains bare,
uncovered like trees
that crowd like a church,
and blush in his breeze.

i watch as she seeks
a peal in a sea
that's brown from the waste
of preachers like me.
she comes up for air
by diving below
(her gills are her prayers)
like water from stone.

The #1 Song When...

I found this over on Tim Keel's blog. Good fun. It will tell you what was the number one song on any date.

What was the number one song the day I was born? "(Just Like) Starting Over", by John Lennon. Sweet start.

The day my wife, Amy, was born? "Let's Hear it for the Boy" by Deniece Williams. They can't all be great...

My 16th birthday? "Un-Break my Heart" by Toni Braxton.

My 21st birthday? "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback. I'm embarrassed.

The day I graduated college? "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani. *Sigh* Dropping four in a row.

The day Amy and I married? "Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland. Wow. Totally inappropriate.

They day my son was born? "Just Dance" by Lady GaGa. Ahrrrrgh!!!

You know what, nevermind. The site sucks. Don't go there. I was a fool for thinking #1 songs might be consistently good anyway.