Theological Project Scraps . . . Question 4 continuned

As promised, I have read the articles from Jan Milic Lochman, and as I expected they affected my answer. Lochman emphasizes flesh. I am not enough of a creedal scholar to know the history of the Apostles' Creed. If memory serves, we don't know the exact origin or author of the Apostles' Creed. Which leads me to ask, in what language was it originally written. My guess would be Latin or Greek. I've looked at both the Latin and Greek versions, and they use carnis (Latin) or Sarxos (Greek), and both mean flesh. His emphasis, however, reminded me that no words in our creeds are unimportant. I hope you find the added paragraph enlightening. I'm opening for questions. I need to be able to defend my answers and I'll never be able to do that if I don't get questions. Without more delay . . .

4. What is your understanding of the Christian eschatological hope expressed in the Kingdom of God, Resurrection from the Dead, and eternal life?



In the gospel accounts Jesus makes reference to the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven repeatedly. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God, saying the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1.13). The Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed it was and is radical, and even revolutionary. Just the phrase the kingdom of heaven implies that there is kingdom other than Caesar’s. It was a threat to the Roman Empire. Today it is no less revolutionary. When we proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God, we proclaim a promise of change. In our world, where Sin seems to be the only constant, where evil seems to reign, and injustice seems to be victorious, we proclaim that God’s kingdom has begun and will come and what seems will not always be so.

The Statement of Faith of the Korean Methodist Church reads, “We believe in the reign of God as the divine will realized in human society, and in the family of God, where we are all brothers and sisters.” Theologian Ida Maria Isasi-Dias coined the term the Kin-dom of God, in which we are all related and inter-connected. I believe this is the hope of the Kingdom of God – a kingdom where social divisions are non-existent, where all have enough, where we are as concerned for our neighbors as we are for our own families, because our neighbors are members of our family.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 37 – 39). Within those two commandments, there are three – love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. I believe that most of humanity does not know how to love themselves, which means they have no idea how to love God or their neighbors. In fact, Sin tells us that we are not worthy of love. As the Holy Spirit works in us, healing us, we find ourselves learning how to love. This work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and in our world moves us toward perfection, toward a full and perfect relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves, which is the hope expressed in the Kingdom of God. This kingdom has begun, in the Christ event and will be completed in the parousia.

Each Sunday in worship, I invite my congregation to affirm our faith. Regardless of which affirmation of faith we use, each Sunday we proclaim our faith in the resurrection of the dead. In Romans 6, Paul tells us that in baptism we have died with Christ, or we have taken on the death of Christ. He goes on to say in chapter 8, the one who “raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Charles Hartshorne states that after we die, what we have been continues to be, especially in God, but also in those we leave behind. Our influence of the lives of those we knew continues on, but they no longer influence us. What we have been continues but we no longer continue to be. In essence, for Hartshorne, when we die, we die, and we are no more – at least we have no future influence. While Hartshorne speaks to the rational and reasonable yearning within my theology, the faith I confess each Sunday disagrees. It may not be rational, and I may not fully understand how, but I believe that Christ will come in final victory, and my body will be resurrected, fully resurrected.

To clarify, in the Latin version of the Apostles’ Creed, this belief is expressed, “carnis resurrectionem,” and in Greek it is, “σαρκος ανάστασιν.” Carnis and sarxos are both translated as flesh. We confess our belief in the resurrection of the flesh. This is distinction is important for a couple of reasons. First, we confess to the resurrection of the flesh as opposed to the immortal soul. Jan Lochman makes the case that this is a specific argument against dualism and Gnosticism. It is important to note that these same heresies exist today. Still there is a tendency to denigrate the material and elevate the spirit. Secondly, in confessing our belief in the resurrection of the flesh, we reclaim the dignity of the physical and the material world. I believe that all of me, my whole being will be resurrected. Moreover, the writer of the John opens his gospel by proclaiming that that Logos became flesh (sarx). Even if our “flesh” represents our sinful and fallen nature, as is so often the distinction made in Pauline writings, the Christ event redeems our whole selves, even our flesh.

This is not to say that in the resurrection we will be the same, in the same form. I do not pretend to know what my resurrected body will be. The Gospel according to Saint John, where the resurrected Jesus makes the most appearances is unclear, at best, in describing what the resurrection looks like. In some places, he seems like a ghost. He walks through walls in John 20:19, and 26. In John 20:27, he tells Thomas to place his hands in his wounds, as if he is a resuscitated corpse. He cannot be both, so I would say that he is neither a ghost nor a corpse. In his resurrected form, Jesus is something entirely different, never before encountered. Therefore it is not unreasonable to hold faith in the resurrection of the body, without knowing exactly what that resurrection will look like.

 

Sermon Scraps . . . well, not really

Hey there, blog-o-peeps. I must apologize for neglecting you for the last 2 months or so. I have no good excuse, except that the holidays happened and then . . . well life keeps happening. Here's my proposal. I'm in the midst of preparing my theological project for ordination. How about I blog about it? Tonight I began working on the 4 theological questions all ordinands must answer for our project. They are:

1. What theological issue are you especially engaged in working out for yourself at this time?

2. What is your understanding of salvation with attention to the work of Christ in atonement and with attention to the human condition?

3. What is the meaning/significance of the sacraments? What is the meaning/significance of ordination?

4. What is your understanding of the Christian eschatological hope expressed in the Kingdom of God, Resurrection from the Dead, and eternal life?

Tonight, I've been working on number four. I don't think my answer is finished yet, not even finished with this draft, but I think I want to post it tonight anyway. I have an article to read tonight from, THE FAITH WE CONFESS, by Jan Milic Lochman about the resurrection of the dead and maybe one to read about the communion of the saints. I figure I'll read those before bed, and perhaps, they will influence my answer some. If so, I'll update my answer and post it again tomorrow. If I don't feel like they've added to my answer, I'll post on another question.

So here is what I wrote tonight:

4. What is your understanding of the Christian eschatological hope expressed in the Kingdom of God, Resurrection from the Dead, and eternal life?

          In the gospel accounts Jesus makes reference to the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven repeatedly. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God, saying the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1.13). The Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed it was and is radical, and even revolutionary. Just the phrase the kingdom of heaven implies that there is kingdom other than Caesar’s. It was a threat to the Roman Empire. Today it is no less revolutionary. When we proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God, we proclaim a promise of change. In our world, where Sin seems to be the only constant, where evil seems to reign, and injustice seems to be victorious, we proclaim that God’s kingdom has begun and will come and what seems will not always be so.

The Statement of Faith of the Korean Methodist Church reads, “We believe in the reign of God as the divine will realized in human society, and in the family of God, where we are all brothers and sisters.”[1] Theologian Ida Maria Isasi-Dias coined the term the Kin-dom of God, in which we are all related and inter-connected. I believe this is the hope of the Kingdom of God – a kingdom where social divisions are non-existent, where all have enough, where we are as concerned for our neighbors as we are for our own families, because our neighbors are members of our family.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 37 – 39). Within those two commandments, there are three – love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. I believe that most of humanity does not know how to love themselves, which means they have no idea how to love God or their neighbors. In fact, Sin tells us that we are not worthy of love. As the Holy Spirit works in us, healing us, we find ourselves learning how to love. This work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our world moves us toward perfection, toward a full and perfect relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves, which is the hope expressed in the Kingdom of God. This kingdom has begun in the Christ event and will be completed in the parousia.[2]

Each Sunday in worship, I invite my congregation to affirm our faith. Regardless of which affirmation of faith we use, each Sunday we proclaim our faith in the resurrection of the dead. In Romans 6, Paul tells us that in baptism we have died with Christ, or we have taken on the death of Christ. He goes on to say in chapter 8, the one who “raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Charles Hartshorne states that after we die, what we have been continues to be, especially in God, but also in those we leave behind. Our influence of the lives of those we knew continues on, but they no longer influence us. What we have been continues but we no longer continue to be.[3] In essence, for Hartshorne, when we die, we die, and we are no more – at least we have no future influence. While Hartshorne speaks to the rational and reasonable yearning within my theology, the faith I confess each Sunday disagrees. It may not be rational, and I may not fully understand how, but I believe that Christ will come in final victory, and my body will be resurrected, fully resurrected.

The Gospel according to Saint John, where the resurrected Jesus makes the most appearances is unclear, at best, in describing what the resurrection looks like. In some places, he seems like a ghost. He walks through walls in John 20:19, and 26. In John 20:27, he tells Thomas to place his hands in his wounds, as if he is a resuscitated corpse. He's spirit and he's material, or bodily. He cannot be both, so I would say that he is neither a ghost nor a corpse. In his resurrected form, Jesus is something entirely different, never before encountered. Therefore it is not unreasonable to hold faith in the resurrection of the body, without knowing exactly what that resurrection will look like.       

---

[1] United Methodist Hymnal, 884

[2] Sampley, J Paul. Walking Between the Times.

[3] Hartshorne, Charles. Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. 44 – 49

Sermon Scraps from 11/21 -- Christ the King Sunday and Biblical Authority

In my sermon on Christ the King Sunday, you might have missed that I was actually picking apart my understanding of Biblical authority. I said, in the UMC we have no specific doctrine to say what we believe about the Bible. Yes, we hold that it "contains all things necessary for salvation," (forgive me if I'm not quoting properly -- I have no books with me), and we hold that in the epistemic quadralateral, scripture is primary, sort of above tradition, reason, and experience.

As I discussed a narrative of salvation, or story of our salvation, I was touching on Narrative Theology. Being the English major I am, narrative theology tends to speak to me. I tend to find myself thinking in narrative terms. My story is taking place within the story of others, and those stories are taking place within an even larger story. This is comfortable for my mind. It's kind of Fulgum-ish (All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarden) way of thinking. The problem is, narrative theology is inadequate. As a Francesca Aran Murphy says, God is Not a Story (see the book by the same title). And truthfully, the Bible is not a story. Narrative theology speaks to the reasonable part of me, the part that craves logic and understanding. God, however, is rarely logical or reasonable -- seriously why would God chose to come to earth as a baby to an unwed teenage girl?

So if God is not a story, and the Bible is not a story, what's going on? I believe the question I am asked for ordination is, "What is meant in the claim that the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation?" or something to that effect (it's been a year since I answered my commissioning questions, and I haven't yet pulled out my ordination questions). Anyway the question comes down to Biblical authority. I don't know that I'm going to answer that question here today, unless you view my answer through the lens of sanctification.

During my last semester of classwork at Perkins, I foolishly decided to take a class called the Authority of the Bible as a Source for Theology. It was foolish for many reasons, one -- I didn't need it (I graduated with 3 extra hours), and 2ndly this class really messed with me. I wanted to take it because Charles Wood and Roy Heller were team teaching and when presented a class like this from GIANTS in their fields, it's hard to pass it up. About mid-way through the semester, while eating lunch with Dr. Wood, I told him that he had destroyed my faith. I didn't know what I believed anymore, but I was pretty sure the Bible didn't have any authority. His response was, 'Good, let's get to work.'

As I begin with my answer, a brief disclaimer -- please remember me that I have none of books with me and I'm doing this from memory.

The Bible  is filled with beautiful writings of the people of God who have spent generations upon generations trying to be open to God's continuing self-revelation. Sometimes God's self-revelation comes through brightly--think of the repeated OT description that God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Even better, read Psalm 137, and ask yourself, why is the psalmist reminding God to remember the Edomites? Sometimes what God does not do reveals more than what God does. And sometimes, we have to search or struggle to understand the revelation. God is tricky that way.

This collection of writings came together over centuries. Many of the early stories began around campfires, with elders telling the tribal stories to the next generation. Think of the liturgy of the Passover -- Papa why is this night different from all other nights? Anthropologically speaking, it is probable that there were other stories, beyond those that were codified and bound together with our Bible. In the Jewish tradition, we have the Tanakh, (Torah, Nevim or prophets, and ketuvim or writings), we have centuries of Midrash, and the Talmud. In the NT tradition, we're discovering texts still that we did not include in our Bible for one reason or another.

Schubert Ogden says that there was a certain kerygma of God or even of Christ that drove the creation of the canon. The canon created the text. Delwin Brown says that may or may not be a central principle or kerygma which drove that process, but that there are boundaries or canons that guided that process -- for instance, we don't know exactly who God is, but there are things we know God is not. Over time, those writings that did not play within the boudaries or traveled too far over the canon line, (or maybe even there were other reasons), those writings fell away. Sometimes, people just stopped telling those stories, they were forgotten, and in our more recent NT history, sometimes we burned the writers at the stake as heretics. For Brown, the text played within on the boundaries of the canon.

As a christian and a United Methodist, I really do believe that Holy Spirit works in groups (or committees). I believe that the Holy Spirit was involved in the writing of what became our scriptures, in maintanence and its inclusion in our current protestant canon. The Holy Spirit spoke to and through the prophets. Hear this, there were other prophets outside of those we know as the Biblical prophets, but the test of a prophet is did what he said happen. Those who could not pass this test, fell away. I believe that the Holy Spirit, as the Triune vehicle of revelation, speaks to our spirits and shows us what is of God and what is not. Think of the gospels according to whoever that have been discovered in the last century. Contrary to the fascinating stories contrived by Dan Brown, many of these gnostic gospels were excluded because they were inconsistent with God's self-revelation. These gnostic gospels describe secret wisdom, but the Hebrew wisdom tradtion tells us that Wisdom stands on the streets calling out to anyone who passes. The wisdom of God is not a secret. These gnostic gospels were inconsistent with the revelation we have previously known from God -- not just inconsistent, but opposed. God does not hide but wants to be known.

But still, there are writings in the Bible that I absolutely hate -- Judges 19, the haustafeln (The household codes in jazz-fusion Pauline writings). What do we do with those? If God has been involved in the creation and preseveration of these writings, why are these texts excluded? Or said another way, if they are still in the Bible, why do I get to treat them the way I do-- with distain. Do they not reveal something about God? Who are we to know how God feels about Judges 19? How do we know this is not a consistent revelation of what God would want us to do in a similar situation?

I've been trying to remember the scholar, and I believe it is Ellen Davis who wrote about the virtuous reader. If not, I'll correct this later. She wrote that the way we approach these texts makes all the difference. If we come with humility, with charity, with patience (other virtues as well), then we come prepared to struggle with our Scirpture. And we SHOULD struggle with all of the scriptures. All of them. We should never simply accept them at face value. First of all, we can't. We're incapable of unbiased readings. Secondly, it's not just the words that reveal God to us. It's the struggle as well, if not more -- the struggle breaks our hips and renames us. I'm not sure I know who to explain this any better, but I would recommend trying it. Find a scripture that you really love or that you really hate and read it. Read it again and again. Then read about it. Pray over it. Pray about it. Read commentary. Invite the Holy Spirit into the struggle, and see if your understanding of God is not broadened, and see if you're not changed in the process.

I'll tell you, the other day, in our Bend Bible study on the gospel of John, I read something I had never read before in the account of Jesus' arrest. When the guards first come to arrest him, they ask for him, and responds I am. They all fall down. I'm turning this over and over in my head. Jesus spoke the Divine Name, and they fell to their knees. I'm struggling with this old and new part of the story I thought I knew. The more I pray, the more I read, the  more I think about it, my understanding of the power of God is in motion.

So what does all this mean about the authority of the Bible? In Ellen Davis's explanation of the virtuous reader, the Bible has defacto authority -- its all in the way I approach it. While there is something to this, it's not fully adequate. It's not just the way I or we approach the text, but also it's testimony. Generations of church mothers and fathers, of scholars and pastors, and friends whom I trust have testified to its dejure authority. Morever, the revelation of God testifies to the Bible. I experience God when I come to the Bible. We might even say, though I am not at all comfortable with this language, that the Bible testifies to itself. Let me put it in United Methodist terms.

If we hold the Outler quadralateral of scripture,tradition, reason and experience as a basic epistemic frame (Br Scot will be all over this -- I can feel his argument already), then what we read in scripture should testify to our tradition. It should be consistent and even expand our reason. It should be consistent with our experience and expand it. Our reason should testify to it, and so on and so forth. And the Great Cloud of Witnesses (saints militant and triumphant) stands with us as we approach the text. And in all, God is revealing God's self to us -- which really is the whole point. Our whole purpose in study is to learn more about God, to learn more about ourselves, and to learn who we are as children of God. I should say, not just learn in a gathering-knowledge way, but learning in a way that fosters growth.

I welcome your questions. I know there are holes all over this, so please bring it.

Sermon Scraps: the not-so-left-overs, continued

I believe I left off with Maryology. I love Maryology. I truly believe we are supposed to be (metaphorical) Marys for the world -- we are supposed to be the God bearers (theotokas) in the world. I heard once that we may be the only Bible that some people read. I believe that is our mission, to carry God, to carry the Word to the world. Anyway . . . I digress.

I believe it is essential that Mary was fully human. Jesus had to be born with all the trappings of original sin. Now, don't go saying that I said Jesus was born with original sin. That's not what I said. That's an entirely different topic. If God became human, I believe that shows an ontological shift for God. We were incapable of moving ourselves closer to God, so God moved closer to us.

While the divinity of Jesus is important, I believe we get that. I can understand that Jesus was God. We seem to have trouble understanding that Jesus was human -- like us. He laughed, cried, told jokes, went to the bathroom, had headaches, toothaches (poor dental coverage in the 1st Century). He got angry; he may have suffered bouts of insomnia. He was hungry, and thirsty. He was like us. He experienced what we experience.

But Jesus was also God. He loved like only God can -- fully, in your face, confrontationally, unconditionally. In truth, I don't think we know what do with divine love. I have a wonderful friend (a former brother in ministry) who preached the gospel -- he preached the love of God. When I had my spirit and my heart broken, he was there to pick me up, to show me God's love for me. And yet, he could not believe the love that he preached. He could not believe that God loved him, that God forgave him, even him, and he self-destructed. And the truth of the matter is that God's love is overwhelming. I don't pretend to understand how God could love me, how God could forgive me. I know what I've done. I asked in the last post about whether or not we could worship a God who could forgive us.

This is the question. How can God forgive us? I believe God can forgive us because God lived as one of us, because God felt our brokeness. God felt our hurts, our alienation, our lonliness, our shame. God took our brokeness upon God's self, and responded with love. When confronted with divine love, we (humanity) responded with the cross. Often, we fear what we don't understand, and we don't understand God's love. Moreover, what we fear, we often try to destroy, and so we tried. We tried all the way to the cross. I don't know have any theological weight to explain this, but somehow I believe that Jesus experienced every sin on the cross -- he felt every sin from mine to the Sho-ah. He took on every sin, all sin, Sin itself.

And it was enough to kill him. It's important to say that Jesus wasn't pretending to be dead. It's not like he was faking it, or just passed out. Jesus really, really died on the cross. Sin killed him. On the last men's Walk to Emmaus I worked, one of the pastoral team said something that really struck me as particularly apt. When we forgive someone, we take on the consequences of their action. The example (I think it was) Jason (or maybe Bill) was gave the thrown baseball. If you throw a baseball through my window and break it, you owe some money. If I forgive you of that burden, then I take on that burden -- I pay for the window. Don't push this example too far -- you'll end up back with St. Anselm and Cur Deus Homo.

But hear this, Paul wasn't kidding when he said that the wages of Sin is death (Romans 6:23). Sin will kill us. Sin does kill us. In my head I always think of Sin as Mestophales -- so cunning, promising good things, but those same things we think we want, usually are not what we need and are often the very worst for us. As an example, consider this: I love junk food. I could live on hamburgers and pizza, but hamburgers and pizza will raise my bad cholestoral level, raise my blood pressure, and they will kill me. Morever, Sin alienates us from one another. We were created for relationship (with God and with each other). If I eat nothing but hamburgers and pizza, I'll be as big as my house, unable to leave my house, and I will have fractured my relationship with others. Moreover, science has shown that junk food like hamburgers and pizza release neurotransmitters of joy (happy feeling stuff) in our brains, like drugs, or dark chocolate. In essence, we can become almost addicted to this food. It can become our obsession, our God, and then we've fractured our relationship with God.

The wages of Sin is death. This isn't metaphorical. Sin kills. It killed Jesus. Jesus took on the consequences of Sin. He died. But that's not the end of the story.

Now for some undeveloped theories. Billy Abraham (google him) makes it a point to say that in atonement, God makes an ontological shift toward us. Schubert Ogden (google him) wrote that the Christ event (that is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus) re-presents salvation to us. In the end, I would lump Ogden in the narrative theology of atonement group (I'm skipping some steps here; it's worth reading Ogden on your own). I find this inadequate. Yes, on one hand, the narrative of the Christ event does re-present the possibility of salvation to each of us individually. We all make the choice. But if God ontologically moved toward us, it's God who's done the work, not us.

Billy also goes on to say that atonement has to be bi-lateral. God moved toward us, and we move toward God. I like to think of the empty tomb accounts. The women come to the tomb. The women come toward God. In my mind (as yet, this is still an undeveloped theory), the women were the first to move toward God, even if they didn't know that was what they were doing.

I think somehow, all of us come to the empty tomb. Sin killed Jesus, but as I said above, that is not the end. Sin does not have the last word. Death is not the end of that story. We come to the empty tomb, like Peter and the beloved disciple, hoping to see for ourselves that the story isn't over. Some of us come, like the women, believing the story is over, ready to bury the one who took on our Sin, but he will not be buried. He lives. Some of us can't even bring ourselves to the empty tomb -- it's too much to believe. And Jesus walks through walls and tells us, like Thomas to touch the wounds. Each of us comes to a point where we have to choose to believe that the tomb is empty and Jesus is risen indeed, or we choose not to believe.

In exploring this with my theological sparring partner, Br Scot, I asked, but what if the women hadn't come to the tomb? What if we didn't move toward God? I don't know the answer to the 'what ifs' of this particular story, but I believe God would have found another way. Br Scot's answer to this was, do you have to know what God is doing for God to work in your life? But it still come down to this; we have a faithful step that we must take, an epistemic step to take. We have to choose to believe or accept that what has been told to us, or revealed to us is true. In that step, we are shifted ontologically (notice the use of the passive voice). We do not change ourselves, but we are changed. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever would believe in him would not perish, but have eternal life (paraphrase of John 3:16).

So can I worship a God who could forgive me? Yes. If I can  be forgiven, if my sin is forgiven, then the worst of humanity's sin is also forgiven. Sin is sin is sin in God's eyes. Jesus forgave all sin -- even those we can't forgive yet. If I can accept my own forgiveness, then I can accept (even if I don't understand) that God's forgiveness is for all.

Well, bring on the hole-pokers. I want to be ready for questions, so seriously, ask me now, when I have to look for answers. I would rather hear them now, not in my mock-board of ordained ministry interview.

Sermon Scraps: the not-so-leftovers

I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks, but I have a really good excuse. 1) I was sickity-sick-sick last Sunday (11/7), so much so that everyone kept their distance from me and my fever. 2) I didn't preach this Sunday.
So, what's been on my mind lately? Well a whole lot of stuff--holiday preparations, theology, worship planning, theology, church conference preparations, theology, family, theology . . . Are you noticing a trend? At our last ordination meeting / RIM retreat / whatever you call it, the leaders mentioned that when we meet in January, we will go through a mock board of ordained ministry interview. So I'm thinking, I've got to get my theological chops in back in shape. So, let's get started. How about we begin with atonement (everybody's favorite BOoM subject).
When I was being interviewed for commissioning, the question was something like, 'how would you explain atonement to a young adult -- say a young man says to you, Pastor if God really knew what I had done, how could I ever be forgiven?'
The question reminds me of a quote, but I can't remember from where it comes right now. The quote is, "I'm not sure I can worship a God who would forgive me." If I ever remember where it's from, I'll post it. Nevertheless, let's dig deeper. Can we worship a God who would forgive Hitler? What about a God who forgives a child predator? or Chuck Taylor (if you're unfamiliar with him, Google him w/ chuck taylor + warlord, and then check out the work of Exile International)?
The Apostle Paul told us that there is no one righteous, no, not even one (Romans 3.10). Even those we believe to be the most saintly, they fall short. All of us fall short (again, paraphrasing Paul in his letter to the Romans).
So what does it mean that we have fallen short? What does it mean that we've sinned. Let me back up to say, I know I'm a sinner. I committ deadly sins -- If I learned anything during my sermon series on the 7 deadly sins, it is that I can see myself in all of them. St. Anselm said that our sin causes it to appear as though we have offended the righteousness of God (Cur Deus Homo). Anselm also spoke of an immutable God, and I find flaws in that theology. But the question remains, how does our sin affect God? Does it affect God? If not, then what's the problem? Does Sin only affect us? Instead of asking questions, how about some answers?
Yes, our Sin affects us. It also affects our relationship with God. It moves us farther from God. Being that I cut my theological teeth in process theology, I would even go so far as to say that our sin affects God. I believe it causes God grief. God feels the pain of seperation. Beyond that, I'm not comfortable deciding how our sin affects God. Perhaps more learned scholars could comment.
I believe God feels our need for healing. If you're interested in reading more about our need for healing, I would recommend reading some of Andrew Sung Park's work on the concept of Han.
In order to break the cycle of Han, to release us from the power (read: lordship) of Sin, God chose to become us -- to enter into creation, to take on all the trappings of our sinful condition. This is where many Roman Catholic theologians and I disagree. I believe it is essential to atonement that Mary be fully human -- born with original sin. Mary is just like us. Mary is the one from whom Jesus gets his humaness. Does anyone know any good Maryology scholars. I would like to be able to quote some here.

And now . . . well, I hope I've whetted your appetite for a good theological discussion. Alas, the topic is bigger than one post. Here's my deal. I'll try to continue sometime this week, but I want comments. The whole reason I started this blog to talk theology and to have an outlet for the stuff that I can't seem to fit in my sermons. So I want comments. I want suggestions. I want folks to find the holes in my theology.

To Make Up for Last Week: A Sermon

With my travel schedule last week, I never got to post anything. I didn't really have anything new to post about a sermon anyway. Last week, Bend UMC heard the final sermon in the "I am" series and Lometa UMC had laity Sunday (I don't blog about other's sermons, most of the time).

Anyway, I figured that instead of blogging my sermon scraps (what didn't make it into the sermon), I would post one of my sermons -- sort of. I gave this sermon for my RIM (Residency in Ministry) group last month, so it's a sermon to pastors. Still I think there is something for all christians. Where I said "sort of" above, I should explain. This is the sermon as well as I can remember it. I usually preach from notes, not a full manuscript. I have only recently, for discipline and training purposes, gone back to writing out my entire sermon. I wrote this manuscript based on my notes and what I could remember about what I said. Without further ado . . 

Galatians 6:14 – 18 (NRSV)
May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

Matthew 11: 25 – 30 (NRSV) 
At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ 

The Marks of Ministry
When I was preparing to leave Perkins for in my internship, one of my professors said to our group, from now on, wherever you go, you will have a steeple coming out of your foreheads. You don’t know what that means until you know what that means, am I right? In our epistle lesson today, St. Paul writes, From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. This is his hand written benediction to this letter. As he wrote this, he was referring to the actual marks that had been branded on his body, the scars he had received from his years of imprisonment for having the audacity to preach the gospel. He refers to the scars he received because he bore the name of Jesus Christ.



Marks -- Car, banners, tree limbs
But this got me to thinking about the marks of ministry, the marks of being a Christian. My car marks me as a pastor. A few weeks ago I was driving to an Emmaus meeting when a bird of scavenge hit my passenger side mirror and took it off. I swear; it hit me. I did everything I could to avoid it, but it had its aim. I have a perkins sticker on my back windshield, and an OSL sticker. I even bought one of those clergy stickers with the cross and flame, but I haven’t put it on yet. I tend to multitask while I drive and I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea about pastors.


I’ve been keeping a mental list of the things they didn’t teach us in seminary that come up with some regularity. How to get a cow back in the fence. I could have used a course on banner hanging 101. That left a mark. The other day, I found that one of my other duties as assigned included piling up branches. While I was piling up the branches, my foot found the fire ant bed. Did I mention I was wearing flip flops? Yeah, that left a mark.


Marks of Sound
But we receive other marks from ministry, don’t we? Our people make their marks on us. I was having a discussion with one of my musicians the other day about changing the 2nd hymn on Sunday. I said, I’m preaching on I am the light of the world, and the words to I want to walk as a child of the light works well. And he said, yes, but we don’t know that hymn pastor. And I said, I’ll sing loudly; and he said, I know. And then he said, listen to this pastor. Doesn’t this sound like light? And he was right. Later on, he came to asked, it’s the words that are important to you isn’t it pastor? And I said, yes. I’m a poet. I studied poetry in college. It’s not for you. And he said, no, it’s the music. I’ve been mulling over this conversation for a while now, and it’s affecting my theology. It’s marked me.


There are sounds in ministry that mark us. When my congregation sings How Great Thou Art, and we get to that last verse, and I hear so many voices singing about bowing at the throne of our Lord. I’m overwhelmed every time.


Other sounds in ministry mark us, brand us with the marks of Jesus. I met Jerry a week after I moved to Lometa. Over the next few weeks, each time I was in Lampasas I would stop by his nursing home for a visit. I didn’t know that 6 weeks later I would walk into Jerry’s room for the last time. I had been told about that sound. That sound, you’ll know it when you hear it, and when you hear it, you’ll never forget it. That sound that people make as they’re dying. And then there was the silence that followed. Jerry branded me with the marks of Jesus.


St. Francis’s Marks
The reason this lesson was chosen for the feast of St. Francis, is because St. Francis himself was branded with the marks of Jesus. One day, while he was deep in prayer he received a vision of the feast of the cross. Upon having this vision, he received the stigmata – the wounds of Christ. He lived with them for the rest of his life. But long before he received the stigmata, he had been branded with the marks of Jesus. Later in his life, when he was no longer able to work, he dictated his memoirs. He told a story about his life before he belonged to Jesus. He would leave his house and if the wind was coming from the right direction, the stench coming from the homes of the lepers would overpower him. He would hold his nose and run to get away from that smell. Later, after his conversion, he told about the joy he had in ministering to those same lepers from whom he used to run. He told of his joy in caring for them, and tending to their needs, even cleaning their wounds. Long before he received the stigmata, he bore the marks of Jesus branded on his body.


In our gospel lesson, Jesus said, Come to me to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.


In the rabbinic tradition to take the yoke of your rabbi meant to take on his teachings, to follow your rabbi, wherever he went. Rob Bell reminds us about that old saying for the rabbinical students. May you follow your rabbi so closely that the dust from your rabbi’s feet covers you. The whole thing about taking on the yoke of a rabbi means that we will do what our rabbi does, go where our rabbi goes, that we will follow so closely that the dust from his feet will fall on us. And if we have studied his teachings, if we have followed closely enough, if we have listened to him closely enough, if we have truly taken on his yoke, eventually, we will begin to look like our rabbi.


If we go where our rabbi is already at work, we’re going to receive the marks that our rabbi has received. If we do what our rabbi does, we will be marked like our rabbi is marked. That easy yoke of Jesus sends us out to hospital rooms, and nursing home, to bad neighborhoods. That yoke of Jesus sends us out to receive the marks of Jesus branded onto our bodies. And may it be that the dust from our rabbi’s feet covers and we look like him. Amen.

Sermon Scraps: The end of the “I am” series

I decided I’ve missed so many blogs, there is no way for me to remember what it was I wanted to blog about for the last 3 weeks. So what have I been thinking about with this series? I revealed this week (next week for you Bend folks) the grammar of the “I am” statements.


Why is the grammar important? The answer: because grammar is always important. I admit it; I’m a member of a group on facebook called, ‘I judge you when you use poor grammar.” Grammar is important, not just because of my judgement, but for the safety of grandmothers everywhere. Example:

Notice the difference in this sentence:

Let’s eat grandma.

Let’s eat, grandma.

That’s a very important comma. Nonetheless, you should all realize this little grammar lesson is brought to you by someone who couldn’t spell her way out of a paper bag. Seriously, I misspelled resurrection last week on the church sign. I tried to warn my Lotemians about my poor spelling ability, but they wouldn’t listen.

Anyway, back to the grammar of the I am statements. Jesus repeatedly uses the syntax ego eimi. Skipping a few steps, I’ll say this, the grammar of Koine Greek is such that we can translate this ego eimi as I am I am . . . For instance, I am I am, the bread of life. In these 7 I am statements, and in other places as well, Jesus is using the Divine Name for his own – meaning I am the one who is called I am, or I am I am, who is the bread of life.

Again, why is this important? These 7 statements are not just good sermon fodder. They tell us something about who Jesus is. Jesus is the perfect image of the Triune God (think, when you see me you have seen the Father), or said another way, God is most fully revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As such, these 7 I am statements tell us about who God is.

God is the Bread of Life: the basic staple of our lives. Or I should say, God wants to be our food. God is all we need, but we forget that. It is no accident that there is so much bread in Luke’s gospel. At the beginning of the gospel, the baby Jesus is placed (or seated, according to the verb) in a place for food. Throughout the gospel story, Jesus eats and eats and eats. We’re supposed to get that connection.

God is the True Vine: the source of our lives. When I think of this, I remember the 2nd creation account of the making of humanity. God formed the adam and breathed into his nostril the breath of life and the adam became a nephesh hiyah, or a living being. Our very breath is from God. Every time we breathe in we breathe in a gift from God. When we exhale, we give it back to God, only to be replenished again.

God is the Way, the Truth, and the Life: the path we should follow. I’ve blogged about my feelings about the ways this verse has been misused. One of the teachings I have taken from my time with Ruben Habito is this: we search for the path, for the truth, for the way, and in so searching, we miss that the path was there all along. We search for God, only to find that God has never moved.

God is the Door: the way. When we’ve searched and searched, and found that God has never left us, the only thing left to do is to come in. Do I need to say more?

God is the Light of the World: that which destroys darkness. In the Hebrew tradition, the glory of God or the cavod was bright, but it was more than just light. In that cavod was power and presence and something we can’t understand. God told Moses he could not see the glory of God and live, but he could see where God had been. In VELVET ELVIS, Rob Bell only briefly touches on this, but I’d like to take it a step further. We may not be able to see God directly, but we can see where God has been – we see the light of God remaining where God has been. Think about it. In the sanctuary in my church in Bedford, someone prayed over every seat before the service began. In a way that I can’t fully explain, when you left worship, you knew you had been in the presence of God. It left a mark or brightness on you.

God is the Good Shepherd: the one who always cares for us. Has it ever happened to you that when you felt most alone, someone called? It has for me. God gave us each other, and still God watches over us, caring for us, leading us beside still waters and through valleys of shadows.

God is the Resurrection and the Life: our hope when there is none. My favorite part of the Emmaus story in Luke’s gospel is the grammar (going full circle). Cleopas and his friend tell the as-yet-unrevealed Jesus that they had hoped Jesus was the messiah, the one. They speak in the past perfect, an event happened, but now it’s over. There grammar betrays that they now have no hope, only a memory of hope. That’s about as bad as it can get. And yet, they are walking beside the resurrected Jesus. I still have an unresolved theological issue at work here. Jesus really, really died. He wasn’t sleeping, or just badly wounded, in a coma, or pretending. He was dead. There was no hope. And then the tomb was empty. We are heirs to that promise, and as such, we always have hope. We always have light in the darkness.

These are just some final thoughts on this sermon series. Next week, I think I’ll post the sermon I gave for my RIM (Residency in Ministry) sermon. I hope you have enjoyed receiving this series as much as I have enjoyed preparing for it.