Thursday This & That

Chaplain Mike on answers. This especially in regard to the quake and tsunami in Japan. I think Chaplain Mike is right.

Meanwhile, there's great benefit in "daily going backwards." Read about it at Journeyman. That's wisdom, dude.

And read about "augmented reality" church in Florida. As Elvis C. says, "I used to be disgusted, but now I'm just amused . . ."

Finally, one of my favorite bloggers of any kind is Sippican Cottage.

Done searching

After yesterday's post about our most recent church visit, I thought I'd update you on the status of our search for a church.

It's over, more or less.

My honey and I have agreed on a church to attend in the immediate term. It's called Harvest Bible Chapel and is part of the family of churches planted out of James MacDonald's church in the Chicago area. BTW, here's a nice sample of MacDonald, particularly relevant these days:

Keep Your Eye on the Ball from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

So, anyway, we'll be attending a Harvest Bible Church. They're in the process of changing location just now. Having sold their old building on the outskirts of everything, they're now renting some warehouse space in a much more densely populated area. I didn't fall head-over-heals in love when I attended this church a few weeks ago. I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of God's presence, or the sense of being exactly where I belonged. But both my wife and I have kind of quietly come to the conclusion that it's the right place for us, the right bunch of folks, at least for now.

I say "for now" because there's a group in my area that is preparing to plant a "Christ-centered" church, and I want to check in with them when they do. I'm acquainted with the church-planter and will be attending a 4-week Bible-study at his house next month, and I really anticipate, if all goes well, being a part of that church.

BTW, if I do get involved with that new church, I promise not to have any of these attitudes.

Of Easter Eggs and Cotton Balls

So we visited another church this past Sunday.

This one meets in an old neighborhood church building on the other side of town. We arrived after the worship set had started and a kindly usher showed us to our seats . . . in the second row! Now, this was a smallish room with a sixties-style drop ceiling, and the band was pretty much deafening.

[Brief aside for discussion of volume issues in the church: everyone knows that young folks like things turned up loud, then middle-aged folks like it turned down, and then really old folks like to turn things up loud again. This is the way of all flesh. If you complain that something is too loud the goateed guys at the big panel of lights and switches in the back of the church, which I think is called a sound-board, will laugh and make old-fogey jokes about you behind your back (and on their blogs). Then of course there are the middle aged guys that dye the gray out of their hair, have recently gotten a tongue-stud, and always seem to be sucking in their gut when young women are in the vicinity . . . they like it loud too!]

OK, so back to our church visit. This was a smallish low-ceilinged room, very intimate, which made the double rack of spotlights hanging from the ceiling and the good-size amps on stage seem kind of, well, out of place. But that's how you do church, don't you know, and these guys were doin' church by the the book. Anyway, I could tell by the expression on my Honey's face that this second row positioning was not going to work, so we wound up defying the kindly usher who had showed us to these choice seats and clamored back to the rear of the church. That was somewhat better. I would have explained myself to the usher, but he wouldn't have been able to hear a word I said!

But enough of the pleasures of contemporary church worship! After that was over there came the sermon. The preacher, cleverly dressed in worn-out jeans and and un-tucked shirt-tails, leaped to the platform and flashed a smile that reminded me of none other than--I can't help saying this--Joel Osteen. He proceeded to deliver a pretty darn good message though. Based on the story of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus asking, "What must I do to have eternal life?" The preacher unpacked the story nicely and concluded by asking everyone what comes first in your life? Is it God, or is it something else? Money, perhaps. Or gaming. Or work. Or health. But God wants you to put Him first!

I was all set to shout amen here, but then the sermon took an unfortunate turn. You see this church is about to put on a big Easter Egg hunt. And they're going to need volunteers to help fill several thousand plastic Easter eggs with candy. As a form of outreach, you see. To the community! And well, if you've been convicted about how you've not been putting God first in your life, but instead have been putting gaming first, here's your chance. Help stuff candy into plastic Easter eggs! We need all the help we can get, and you'll be serving God! John Newton may have preached to break the hard heart and to mend the broken heart, but our modern day preachers--this has been my experience--preach to sustain the production.

Now, well, ummm, I hesitate to say this, but it's kind of a fundamental point of mine . . . I'm not so sure that serving your church is equivalent to serving God. I think it's just, well, serving your church. Getting with the program. Being a warm body in the never-ending stage-presentation we call church.

If I had to think of a few ways to put God first I might come up with some different options:

1. loving someone
2. forgiving someone
3. asking forgiveness of someone
4. praying for someone
5. loving someone (oh wait, I said that)

But stuffing candy in plastic eggshells might be on that list somewhere too, I suppose. Way down at, oh, number 348 or so.  And besides, everybody knows stoking kids with sugar is a harmless and wholesome activity!

I could say a lot more, and one thing I should add is that I got the feeling with this church that they are trying hard, as best they know how. Good for them. But they should have a little bowl of cotton balls in the vestibule . . . for us middle-aged types.

[UPDATE: In the mail today, a gift card for Dunkin'Donuts with $5 loaded to to it. A gift from the church I attended on Sunday. Their way of thanking me for the visit. How cool is that!]

Americana Monday 2

More this, more that

99.9% of all pastors agree with Rob Bell, at least when they do funerals.

I think that the storm of Christian punditry and theological correction that has passed over the Christian blogosphere since Rob Bell's video is a more interesting and more disturbing problem than what Bell thinks (or doesn't think) and says (or doesn't say) about hell.

Think about this, folks. John Piper's response to Bell, a 2-word "tweet" (vacuous thy name is twitter), seems to have been interpreted as a permission slip to declare Bell every kind of baddie in the right-thinking Reformed lexicon. The chorus of correctors came into full-throated harmony, blasting Bell as wrong, wrong, wrong, and this Bell-ish heresy must be struck down before many many many people are led tragically astray, etc. But Dan Edelen would have people stop and think. Read How would Jesus blog? and Boomerangs for better or worse.

But enough on all that. May it all go away, replaced instead by the Kingdom of God.

Jesus came, in fact, to launch God’s new creation, and with it a new way of being human, a way which picked up the glimpses of “right behavior” afforded by ancient Judaism and paganism and, transcending both, set the truest insights of both on quite a new foundation. And, with that, he launched also a project for rehumanizing human beings, a project in which they would find their hearts cleansed and softened, find themselves turned upside down and inside out, and discover a new language to learn and every incentive to learn it. God’s kingdom was bursting in to the present world, offering a “goal” the like of which Aristotle had never imagined. Human beings were called at last to rediscover what they have been made for, what Israel had been created for. They were, after all, to be rulers and priests, following Jesus’ ultimate royal and priestly achievement, and they would have to learn from scratch what that meant. They were to practice virtue–virtue of a kind never before imagined.

That's from N. T. Wright's After You Believe, and I found it at Ted's place.

We have guy in our town who goes to a busy plaza on Friday afternoon and preaches his lungs out. He has a booming voice, which has to be booming, because everyone steers quite clear of him. It's like there's an an invisible (but unfortunately not sound-proof) dome around him. People crossing the plaza skirt him by a good fifty feet or so. No one comes near. I passed him on Friday and heard him shouting something about "a lie from the pit of hell!"

He's the anti-Bell, you see. Message: you better get right with God or you're going to hell! Once I saw an angry-looking guy standing across the street, facing the preacher, and giving him a long and passionate middle-finger salute.

Anyway, the bellowing street-preacher, as I was saying, is universally off-putting. It's a test of stamina to simply sit on a bench fifty feet away and drink your coffee. I guess he must think it's a kind of badge of honor that no one wants to come near him. It proves he's preaching the Gospel, right? And this is the face of Christianity in our inner-city. It makes me sad.

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

The March Poem

Getting late in the month, so it's time I wrote the March poem. I've been writing a poem per month for over a year now, and a couple of my readers seem to really enjoy the work (I'm grateful for them!). I began this monthly-poem series as a way to simply keep alive in myself a way of using words and images that I have always taken great pleasure in. But for me the poetic instinct needs to be fanned now and then, or the flame dies out. Pleasure, believe it or not, is a big part of why I do this!

Anyway, not feeling particularly inspired, I decided to let the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke fire up the receptors. This is almost a sure-fire way to prompt a poem. Just start with an image, or in this case a set of images, that someone else (in this case, Rilke) has used, and see where it takes you. Rilke, by the way, is one of my favorite poets, but he is strange and enigmatic and dream-like, so a poem inspired by Rilke will likely be the same.

The Rilke poem I used as my prompt was Annunciation (2). I think it's a very beautiful poem, very stirring. It's images stick with you. And this morning something about the feel of this poem reminded me of a few verses in the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes (especially verse 6). So I put together some things from Rilke, and a little bit from Ecclesiastes, shook them all together, spread them on the table and let the light glint off them in new ways. That's how poems often work for me. The words are not intended to "mean" in the common sense, but maybe to glint with light from levels deeper than words can go.

Anyway,here it is. I guess I'll call it "A Love Story: After Rilke"

1.

I was the ear your song
was seeking, and I was the gate
you entered secretly.

Mine were the leaves
your breezes stirred, and yours
was the dream my tossing sleep disturbed.

2.

I stood on the ramparts and listened for
your fractal music.

I opened all my windows
to your incandescent rain.

3.

And now, the broken pitcher by the well
is mended,

and the wheel once shattered turns again,
as it was long intended.

4.

When the leaves are stirred,
the dreamer wakes,

and when the dreamer wakes
the unheard music sings
in his sleeping ears.

Friday Songbook: They Say It's Spring

Fridays at Fandango are for the great American Songbook, which is a treasure trove of musical delights. To put it plainly, this music makes me happy. And now that it's Spring (yes, even here in Maine we can tell), I'm going to feature a series of Spring songs. First up, Blossom Dearie (even her name is Spring-like) singing They Say It's Spring:

Thursday This & That

Someone who says she suffers eco-anxiety commented (on Facebook), "I pretty much don't want the human race to go on existing."

Hmmm.

Gratiafied has a good post about, ummm, gratiafication. I think. It's called, Christless moralism for Jesus. How we do slip into that. And it's the enemy of all that is good.

Carl Trueman discusses something he calls "churchly piety" (Part 1, Part 2). No offense, but that sounds scary!

The Rob Bell brouhaha is simmering down. Or was it an imbroglio? A contretemps? An evangelical catfight?

Jeff Dunn at Internet Monk has put together a nice bunch of quotations.

I'll finish with something from the original imonk, Michael Spencer:

The human experience of weakness is God’s blueprint for calling attention to the supremacy of his Son. When miserably failing people continue to belong to, believe in, and worship Jesus, God is happy.

I had a funny feeling someone was watching me...

Ok, this is off-topic, but then I don't really have any particular topic any more. Anyway, I'm trying to get into a running routine these days. Bought myself some new sneaks, running about two miles every other day. Now I find that MapMyRun does fly-over video for your course. Here's my 2-mile jog-path today:



Cool, no?

My first ebook

At my library they let you check out Kobo ereaders and "borrow" books--temporary downloads--from an as yet fairly limited selection.

So now I'm reading my first book on an ereader. It's Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst. I thought I'd better make my first book a real "page turner," as they say.

First impression: it's hard to take such a small block of text very seriously. It's hard to take seriously a "book" that you can see so little of at any one time. I'm enjoying Furst's tale-telling, but the bottom line is, this is not an improvement on the traditional reading experience. Not even close.

I get that it's convenient at times--on planes, for example--and I get that the books are often cheaper, but I'm mostly a library guy anyway, and buy very few books. I also think that the more good books one reads on one of these devices, the more a reader will begin to associate all the pleasures of the "reading experience" with the device in his hands. This little piece of plastic may just grow lovable over time!

But . . . no, it's not an improvement. The lag as the device "turns" the page is definitely annoying (Kindles and Nooks, I'm told, do not have this problem). It is not in any way easier to read a book on one of these things, and it is certainly not a pleasing object in itself (as many books are, with their distinctive covers, their distinctive typeface, etc.).

Sale of ebooks are skyrocketing, and so I suppose we will all be reading on these devices more often than perhaps some of us would wish. I am by no means a Luddite waxing nostalgic for old technology, but when the new technology comes along, it is often in some significant way an improvement over the old (even if something is always lost as well). But that does not appear to be the case with ereaders.

Foucsing strictly on the reading experience, it is serviceable, but it is not an improvement.

Americana Monday

Saturday Morning Musings

Ah, Saturday.

The lovely lass with whom I wistfully wander this wilderness way has had to go into work today (don't ask), leaving me dangerously on my own. What's the plan?

Read some. Go for a run. Do some laundry. Read some more.

We've picked out another church to go to tomorrow. This one will be the first "Spirit filled" type since we've begun looking. By the way, I bracket the term in quotations to indicate my niggling dissatisfaction with it; it's more a reference to style than to actual Pentecost-like realities . . . as is usually the case, isn't it?

Does it seem like churches that emphasize the Bible neglect the Spirit? And vice versa? I'm not the first to make that observation, I know. Just thinking out loud.

The Rob Bell imbroglio--or maybe it should be called an evangelical rhubarb--Jesus Creed features some interesting responses. One of the quotes he features is from theologian Richard Mouw. Here's a snip from that:

A prominent evangelical had criticized those of us who have been in a sustained dialogue with Catholics for giving the impression that a person can be saved without having the right theology about justification by faith. My response to that: of course a person can be saved without having the right theology of justification by faith. A straightforward question: Did Mother Teresa go to hell? My guess is that she was a little confused about justification by faith alone. If you think that means she went to hell, I have only one response: shame on you.

And here is probably a good place to add this.

But enough about all that. I really just wanted to use the word "imbroglio."

I mentioned a few posts back I've been focused on the Sermon on the Mount lately. Just thinking and musing and journaling and picturing. And just now it reminds me of this:

Friday Songbook: Lazy Afternoon

How many drifting lazy afternoons have you had lately, watching the clouds pass over, forgetting what time it is, busy doing nothing. I wanted to feature the great June Christy here, singing this beautifully slow musical portrait of a "lazy afternoon." You can close your eyes and almost hear the wind rustling the tall grass.

In honor of the day

Chinaberry Sidewalks

Well, all I really want to do is read books. When the weather gets nice maybe play some catch, go for some walks, but until then, read.

My mother told me when I was a kid that you could know if you're going to like a book by reading its opening paragraph. I think that's true most of the time.

Which brings me to my latest new arrival: Chinaberry Sidewalks, by Rodney Crowell. I know I'm going to like this one, because I love the opening lines:

The four beer-blitzed couples dancing in the cramped living room of my parents' shotgun duplex were wearing on my nerves. In particular, I didn't like the sound of their singing along with my prized Hank Williams 78s. Coon hunting with my grandfather, I'd heard bluetick hounds howl with more intonation than this nasal pack of yahoos.

Rewviewed at the NYTimes, the LATimes, Washington Post, The Boot, and Book Chase, among many others.

Like I needed another book to read . . .

I picked up Making Haste from Babylon: the Mayflower Pilgrims and their World from the new books shelf at the library and brought it home, knowing I was already reading too many books at once. Too bad.

I read the first chapter and was hooked. First of all, it starts in Maine, of all places. It starts, in fact, with a bald eagle soaring over the Maine landscape. I like that. This is one of those books in which the author simply revels in the data, pulling together a thousand disparate facts to form, it is hoped, not only a collection of facts but a grand tale. Without a firm sense of story, the author would simply be creating an erudite encyclopedia, but he has definite story-telling chops. Likin' it!

What am I looking for, anyway?

I've written a series of posts here about my slow-motion adventure of looking for a church. But I've had a fairly difficult time explaining, to my own satisfaction, what I'm really looking for, probably because I'm not really sure myself.

People have all kinds of carefully thought-out ideas about just what church should be and do, and why we should almost never leave a church, and why we should never not be an active church member, and just what the responsibilities of membership are to begin with, etc.

They also have carefully thought-out ideas of what a person should look for when searching for a church. They talk about creedal statements, "what we believe" statements, attitudes about church governance, the practice of church discipline, and on and on.

But I'm still not exactly clear. The thing is, most churches feature a creedal statement or a "what we believe" statement on their websites, and all of these are the standard church boilerplate. Going by these formulas is about like thinking you understand warfare because you looked at a few battle-plans on maps. Things can be very different "on the ground."

On the ground, there's an awful lot of "keeping up appearances." There's a lot of maintaining to be done if you want people to have the right impression and the church to grow. Some churches seem to be nothing more than a club in which the leaders try to get the rank and file to get involved. As long as it's with the right attitude, of course!

I've been out of the church for about a year now, I guess. Maybe more. A part of me wants to go sit in the pew in blessed anonymity, but another part of me wants a lot more than that. Not so much church activity, but praying together, bolstering one another, trying to walk out our faith together where we're at. That would be a pretty good start. How would the body of Christ in my town manifest itself if all the church buildings burned down over night? That might be the "church" I'm looking for.

I said in a recent post that the church is like a Galilean hillside. The reference, of course, is to the hill where Jesus taught his disciples (Matthew 5-7). Our attention, then, is directed to Jesus. All about Jesus. The world needs a savior, not just an enhanced sense of community or slight improvement in behavior.

The "Sermon on the Mount" has recaptured my imagination lately. It's crazy how little I've ever heard Jesus' sermon exposited in church preaching (except the snippet about not worrying); exposited, that is, from start to finish as a coherent and intentionally constructed statement from Jesus about what it means that the Kingdom of God has come. As blogger Joshua Graves says (here) these are among Jesus' most difficult words. Jesus is clearly not out to simply rouse us to kindness or congratulate us on our Christian-ish ways.

He's out to re-orient our imagination, to show us the world from His perspective, and to call us into a life that is nothing more than the consequence of seeing things His way. He's not out to put on a show.

"Coming to a church near you . . . YOUR CHURCH FAMILY . . . one morning per week only! . . . featuring live bands . . . INSPIRING VIDEO PRESENTATIONS . . . Powerpoint! . . . along with engaging professional speakers!"

He's out to shake our foundations!

Hauerwas on the Church

Another gem from Resident Aliens:

For us the world has ended. We may have thought that Jesus came to make nice people even nicer, that Jesus hoped to make a democratic Caesar just a bit more democratic, to make the world a bit better place for the poor. The Sermon [on the Mount], however, collides with such accomodationist thinking. It drives us back to a completely new conception of what it means for people to live with one another. That completely new conception is the church. All that we have heard said of old is thrown up for grabs, demands to be reexamined, and pushed back to square one. Square one is that colony made up of those who are special, different, alien, and distinctive only in the sense that they have heard Jesus say, "Follow me," and have come forth to be part of a new people, a colony formed by hearing his invitation and saying yes. (p. 92)

And again:

The only way for the world to know that it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people. (p.94)

More on Hauerwas

I've been reading two books by Stanley Hauerwas lately, and they're both stirring things in me which haven't been stirred in some time. For example, a desire to get with Christians and talk about Jesus and life.

The two books are: his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)), and the classic, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, written with William Willimon back in the '80s.

Resident Aliens is a really fantastic book. I'm reading a library copy, but I'm definitely going to have to purchase my own. Trevin Wax, reviewing the book at Discerning Reader, said, "Resident Aliens has the effect of an earthquake that shakes things up and then leaves you with a new landscape once the dust settles." Yup, that sounds about right.

You can read a great article on Hauerwas here, and Nathan Colquhon has a nice post which follows from his reading of Resident Aliens. And by the way, why isn't Nathan's blog, Based on a True Story, on my blogroll? that oversight has now been corrected!

Anyway, you'll be hearing more from me about these books. They are both going on my highly recommended list!

Friday Songbook: Someone to Watch Over Me

How have I come this far in the Songbook series without a Gerschwin tune. Someone to Watch Over Me shall right that wrong. Here's a snippet from the Wikipedia page for Ira Gerschwin:

The work of Ira and George Gershwin runs deep in the American consciousness. The opening clarinet glissando from George's Rhapsody in Blue, the taxi horn theme from his An American in Paris and the brothers' songs – "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love", "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Fascinating Rhythm", and many others – are instantly recognizable.

Ira Gershwin was a joyous listener to the sounds of the modern world. "He had a sharp eye and ear for the minutae of living." He noted in a diary: "Heard in a day: An elevator's purr, telephone's ring, telephone's buzz, a baby's moans, a shout of delight, a screech from a 'flat wheel', hoarse honks, a hoarse voice, a tinkle, a match scratch on sandpaper, a deep resounding boom of dynamiting in the impending subway, iron hooks on the gutter."

I first heard these tunes as a boy, but grew to appreciate them later in life, often in the renditions by Willie Nelson, believe it or not. But in this case I choose Blossom Dearie. She was one of the great interpreters of these standards, always eschewing the over-production of other singers of her era. Here's she comes through with a typically artful rendering. I think it's beautiful!

Another Church Visit

So I went to church again last week.

This one was about as standard-brand as you can get. Ministry team up front on a raised platform, facing an audience. Half-hour of heart-felt music, then pass the plate, then half-hour or so of preachin'.

The people here were genuinely welcoming. That hasn't been typical in my experience so far. Also, the pastor seemed genuinely a part of the congregation, not just the hired Bible-expert. His message focused on evangelism, and I didn't completely concur with it all, but he was earnest and unassuming.

This was not exactly an inspiring church experience, but it was refreshingly un-flashy, not straining after relevance, and essentially Word-centered. It was real. The music was God-focused, and we sang one of my all-time faves, By the Blood.

This group will be transferring to a new building soon, and in fact will be moving from the exurbian fringe (out beyond the mall and the industrial parks) and into the city (reversing the normal direction of church migration) for which I highly commend them.

Seems like I'll probably go back to this one.

Michael was right

From Michael Spencer's Mere Churchianity:

The stage of Western culture is crowded with Christians delivering rehearsed, made-up lines. Almost none of it sounds like Jesus. Virtually none of it acts like Jesus. The average non-Christian long ago made his or her decision that if this act is the closest you can get to the real deal with Jesus, then there is no real deal. Let’s move on to something else.

"A New Sign"

John Barth:

"[The Church] exists . . . to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world's] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise." (Church Dogmatics 4.3.2)

Quoted in Hauerwas and Willimon's Resident Aliens, p.83

Three more for the reading list...

Artillery of Heaven, by Ussama Makdisi [reviewed at Books and Culture]

Why Jesus? by William Willimon (reviewed at Jesus Creed]

The Survival of the Bark Canoe, by John McPhee [reviewed at Looking for Church]

The Bell Curve

Gee, the whole Christian blogosphere is alive with talk about Rob Bell and his supposed slide into apostasy. I have no opinion about Bell (though I didn't care much for Velvet Elvis and I think his hair is weird...but hey, at least he has hair), but now that a certain set of theology-guardians have painted him as decidedly universalist--based mostly on a recent promo-video Bell had made--you can bet they'll go over the book (when they finally read it) with scrupulous assiduity. They really won't want to back down, having defamed Bell on the vaguest of evidence. My guess is that the book won't pass their rigorous examination, what do you think?

[By the way, Jesus Creed has the best take I've seen on the whole overblown snarkfest.]

MacIntyre via Hauerwas: "Riches are an affliction"

Well, I didn't intend to write a whole series of posts interacting with Stanley Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew, but I'm loving the book far more than I expected to.

Publisher's Weekly had this to say about it:

Hauerwas is as delightfully irascible and hard-hitting as ever, suggesting, for example, that the parable of the sower "helps us to read the situation of the church in America as Jesus' judgment on that church." Believing that "Matthew's gospel is…an ongoing exercise to help us see the world through Christ," Hauerwas attends to the Gospel chapter by chapter, teasing out theological themes while resisting the temptation to create a systematic Christology... Insightful and provocative, Hauerwas adds a valuable theological perspective to the Gospel of Matthew.

Let me share with you the Hauerwas take on the words, "give us this day our daily bread."

Hauerwas says that our ability to pray for no more than we need for today rests on our confidence that God will have enough for all our days. In other words, anxiety about the future having been removed, we are happy to pray for no more than what we need today. That such a community can even exist is good news to the poor, says Hauerwas. It is anxiety about the future, after all, that causes us to store up, to feel that we must always and always get more, increase, expand, and all this getting turns out to breed economic injustice, cynicism, and resentment. Hauerwas says that a community of people capable of being satisfied with only that which they need is a community that testifies to its trust in God's great abundance and care for his creation. Such a community would be marked not by anxiety but by celebration, for it is a people that trusts God and one another.

In the course of this discussion, Hauerwas quotes the philosoher Alisdair MacIntyre:

Christianity has to view any social and economic order that treats being or becoming rich as highly desirable as doing wrong to not only those who must accept its goals, but succeed in achieving them. Riches are, from a Biblical point of view, an affliction, an almost insuperable obstacle to entering the kingdom of heaven. Capitalism is bad for those who succeed by its standards as well as for those who fail by them, something that many preachers and theologians have failed to recognize.

Hmmmm, dang boat-rockers, these two.

Hauerwas: "...a people who ask for no more than their daily bread."

On page 78 of Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew, the author considers the prayer request, "give us this day our daily bread." Hauerwas looks at this entreaty through the lens of the community-of-the-called that is the church. Here's his apple-cart upsetting take:

Only on the basis of the work of Christ is it possible for us to ask for no more than our daily bread. Just as God supplied Israel daily with bread in the wilderness, so followers of Jesus have been given all they need in order to learn to depend on one another on a daily basis. Without the community that Jesus has called into existence, we are tempted to hoard, to store up resources, in a vain effort to insure safety and security. Of course our effort to live without risk not only results in injustice, but it also makes our lives anxious, fearing that we never have enough (Matt. 6:19-21). In truth, we can never have enough if what we want is the bread that the devil offered Jesus. But Jesus is good news to the poor (Matt. 11:4), for he brought into existence a people who ask for no more than their daily bread.

Foundness is the Difference-Maker, or The Church is a Galilean Hillside

It has long been my contention that the church in America has too often positioned itself as a kind of local pool of Bethesda (John 5:2-4) to which people are invited to come and receive healing (or at least therapy), rather than a kind of hill in Galilee where we are invited to sit and hear the master teach us about the Way (Matt 5:1).

There is not an absolute divergence between these two attitudes, of course. I'm certainly not dismissing healing ministry out of hand. I'm only suggesting that, as we look at the pool of Bethesda story in John 5, for example, we ought to be encouraged to read it not as folks who need healing like the people gathered at the pool, but as followers of Jesus, his disciples, watching and learning as Jesus demonstrates Kingdom realities.

I think that much preaching is in this mistaken mode: appeals to the broken and hurting in which (or, because) everyone is defined primarily as broken and hurting. Thus, Bible texts are chosen for their ability to comfort the broken and hurting. These turn out to be the most successful sermons (that is, they elicit the most emotional response) and so the preacher learns to return to the theme frequently.

In all this it is not disciples who are being addressed, but simply folks with problems.

But hey, isn't everyone broken and hurting? Even disciples? Yes, yes, but what I have noticed is that this sort of preaching winds up having the effect not so much of healing them than of encouraging people to continue to self-define as victims. Just what the wider culture does! It's as if this self-definition (hurting and broken victims) were inescapable, and church then becomes primarily a place of momentary solace or an interlude of hope rather than a place of equipping.

See, I think there is a whole lucrative industry out there (both in the Christian branch of capitalistic enterprise and the non-Christian) which rests on the recognition that if you can keep people self-defining as needy, you can sell them the latest solution (which is usually nothing more than snake oil). The thing is, I-once-was-lost-but-now-am-found must mean something! Foundness is a glorious difference-maker. It is a self-definition closer by far to the NT view of the believer than that of needy one. Though I remain seriously bent (for the Kingdom has not yet come) this is no longer my primary way of thinking about myself. My primary way of thinking about myself now is healed (for the Kingdom has come).

There is a great need for healing in the world. As Jesus walked the roads of Palestine, he healed many, but it should be noted that the disciples were not the ones clamoring for healing. They were the ones who, defining themselves primarily as Jesus-followers, desired to learn his ways and then go practice them. When Jesus gathered his disciples to himself, it was not to simply offer them solace and commiseration, perhaps even a miricle healing or two, but to teach them Kingdom truths. For example, take a look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Upper Room Discourse in John.

I'm still searching for a church. I mentioned here that advice-dominated preaching is one thing I'll be trying to avoid. This is another: preaching that treats me as the helpless victim rather than Jesus-follower.

Friday Songbook: The Nearness of You

Hoagy Carmichael may be my favorite of the Songbook songwriters. Many crooners have recorded his classic, The Nearness of You, but they often over-orchestrate it (an almost generic problem among them). That's why I picked Norah Jones' bluesy version to feature today, which seems a lot closer to the way Hoagy might have conceived the song in the first place, and allows the simple and beautiful lyric to stand on its own.

Hauerwas: Jesus creates a unique kind of community

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying reading Stanley Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew. His fifth chapter, focusing on Matthew 5, is inspiring. His focus is on Jesus' creation of a kind of new community within the old, a community of Jesus folk, "resident aliens" who represent something that the larger community can perhaps aspire to or mimic, but cannot achieve on its own.

Jesus does not seek to violently overthrow Rome, because his kingdom is an alternative to the violence of Rome as well as to those who would overthrow Rome with violence. His kingdom, however, cannot avoid being subversive. That subversion is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees and as such is a subversion that will result in his crucifixion, for rather than violently overthrowing the old order Jesus creates a people capable of living in accordance with the new order in the old. The antithesis that follows his admonition that his followers are to be salt and light is but Jesus' description of the order of this new community. Yoder observes that Jesus does what God had done in calling Abraham, Moses, Gideon, or Samuel. That is, he gathers people around his word so that a society comes into being like no other society the world has ever seen.

". . . the measureless fullness of grace and truth . . . "

John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied

“Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that has been secured and procured for them in the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption, all of which they become the actual partakers in the application of redemption, and all that by God’s grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ…

It is out of the measureless fullness of grace and truth, of wisdom and power, of goodness and love, of righteousness and faithfulness which resides in Christ that God’s people draw for all their needs in this life and for the hope of the life to come. There is no truth, therefore, more suited to impart confidence and strength, comfort and joy in the Lord than this one of union with Christ.

It also promotes sanctification, not only because all sanctifying grace is derived from Christ as the crucified and exalted Redeemer, but also because the recognition of fellowship with Christ and of the high privilege it entails incites to gratitude, obedience, and devotion. Union means also communion and communion constrains a humble, reverent, loving walk with Him who died and rose again that He might be our Lord.”

Found at Tolle Lege.

The Baptizer

1.

You come from the margins, that hazy place where the known world fades into the unknown, where just to live is to exclude the comfortable, to accept without dismay the de-exalted self. Even your food is hard to come by. You fully expect to decrease, to fall behind, to become nothing. You go about shouting, "Turn! Turn!" You have nothing to lose.

2.

You come from the margins. The center seems strange to you, so full of itself, as if everything else needed its example to aspire to. It is crowded with people pretending to be necessary, pretending to do essential things. You, of all people, cannot be fooled. You shout, "Turn! Turn!" It is what the margin says to the center, always, and it is always dangerous.

3.

You come from the margins, from the fringes of the familiar, where absolutely nothing has been shaped for the task of creating the illusion of ease, and where all things crumble to dust except that which cannot crumble. So, you have developed the capacity to recognize unshakable things. Therefore, you will always be the frightening stranger, the fascinating fool, wrapped in animal skins and smelling of sand and sweat and shouting, "Turn! Turn!"

4.

You come from the margins. Like those wanderers from the east who knew when they saw the newborn in the cattle stall in the dusty nondescript village under its peculiar star that this was the King they sought, like them you will know, you will recognize your kin, the One who cannot be shaken. Everything changes now. Everything. "Turn!"