Lenten Reflections, Day 3: Giving Up Independence

I finished up my teaching assignment on Saturday afternoon and hurried to the airport to catch my 4:40 flight home, only to find, upon my arrival, that the flight had been cancelled.

The next flight was at 6:35, so I had to hang around the airport and kill some time. It was a minor inconvenience for me—I was just heading home rather than racing for a connecting flight or trying to get to an important meeting on time. I had plenty of reading material and a computer to keep me occupied during my wait.

The man at the airline’s check-in counter was apologetic and kind. We explored a couple of options for me and agreed that waiting the extra couple of hours was the best choice. He gave me my new boarding pass and I went upstairs, passed successfully through security, and settled in.

That airline official, at the end of his shift, would climb into his car, drive home, eat dinner, chat with his family, catch up on past episodes of Breaking Bad, and go to bed. All the people who had to be redirected because of the cancelled flight, however, had evenings that were disrupted because of the delay. Each traveller—including me—had become dependent upon a man (and the airline he represented) who did not have to share the inconveniences that had been inflicted upon us. Perhaps he had to put up with some grouchy customers, but he still got to go home on time.

Given the circumstances, I am not holding a grudge against that man. He recognized my plight, helped me consider some options, and expressed his apologies on behalf of his employer. I didn’t come away feeling exploited or disparaged, even though I recognized my dependence on him and the airline to get me home at a reasonable time.

There have been times when people have been dependent upon me. How have I treated them? Did they come away with a sense that they were lesser humans than others because of their need for care? Did they feel that I had little or no concern for their pain or discomfort because it was not truly shared between us? Or did they experience me entering into their circumstance with them, helping to shoulder a burden they could not endure alone? Did they hear me express grief over a tragedy that was not mine to share, or did they just hear the clicking of my tongue as I stood away from them, glad that the sufferer was not me?

In speaking of Jesus, the writer of the book of Hebrews says,

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)

We can confidently expect God’s mercy and grace in our time of need because we believe that, in Jesus, God has fully entered into all that it means to be human. When others become dependent upon us, may we cast our lots with the One who truly sympathizes with our weaknesses.

Science and Artistry in Theology

The creation account in Genesis chapter one didn’t emerge out of a vacuum. There were already mythologies about creation that would have been available in the ancient near east and Africa. The Babylonians had the Enuma Elish, which described a violent, cosmic battle among the gods, who, after tearing each other to shreds, created human beings to do all their work for them. Egyptian and central African cosmologies have primordial deities who vomit things into existence. Quite a lovely image.

I find it interesting that people want to interpret Genesis chapter one scientifically rather than artistically. Genesis is an iron-age creation, written over a period of time when science, at least as we have come to understand it, did not exist. Ancient writers knew how to write things that were procedural, methodological, and structural (think of God’s directives in the construction of Noah’s ark, or of Solomon’s temple).

But the creation account isn’t that way. It flows like poetry, it dances to hidden music, it tells a story that is prone to melody and song.

It is also deeply theological, something we often miss when trying to force it into a creationistic-scientific box.

There is something different at play with this story that sets it apart from those that came before it. Creation is not the result of divine nausea, nor are human beings fashioned in order to be slaves of the gods. The emergence of the universe comes because God speaks the words of creation. He forms human beings to reflect God’s own image as male and female. And then he calls it all good.

This is grand artistry.

There are some radical declarations in this theatrical theology. Creation might come ex nihilo—out of nothing—but it doesn’t come as a result of the self-focused infighting of the petty gods. There is a rhymic peacefulness to the account as God seems to gently say, “Let there be . . .”

The Egyptians put the sun god Ra at the top of the divine hierarchy. They saw this god traversing the sky on a daily basis, and served under the power of his avatar, Pharaoh. But Genesis topples that connection between god and sun, and demotes the sun to the fourth day of creation.

The most ancient of the Hebrew people—the ones who were liberated from their slavery in Egypt—would have remembered the old cosmologies. They also would have remembered that the God declared by Moses—the I AM of the burning bush—was the one who defeated the gods of Egypt and brought about the rescue of his people.

One of the most radical revelations of Genesis one is that it links the God of Israel’s rescue to the God who created all things (keep in mind: The Exodus took place long before the writing of Genesis). The I AM was no territorial god who happened to be stronger than the others in the neighborhood. There were, in reality, no other gods in the first place. The God of rescue and the God of all creation was—and is—the same God.

Only an artist could really tell that story. Good theology—the kind that liberates and reveals—is best when it is art. Too much of our current theology is dominated by thinking that tries to be scientific. Once our precisely constructed, immoveable theologies are crafted, we then crash people against them. We sometimes act as though humans were created for theology, rather than the other way around.

There are a number of theological artists in our day who are asking new questions. It’s too bad that we burn some of them at our respective stakes. That’s a tremendous loss to us all because we need the artists to remind us who we are and from where we’ve come. We need artists to help us as we hope for God’s intended future. Part of their role among us is to ask disturbing questions about our certainties and help us explore new possibilities that we might have missed along the way. Scientists deal in facts and tangible realities, and I’m glad we have them. But in theological reflection we need more artists than scientists. We need a more robust theological imagination among us than we’ve had in recent years.

We need more theological artists.

A Lenten Reflection for March 21, 2013

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore. (Psalm 131)


I now have an app on my smartphone that feeds news stories to me from several sources. Now I can get the news from a variety of perspectives. And I can learn about some of the dramas and dangers that make me feel anxious, angry, and afraid.

It’s interesting to me how news about environmental crises, wars, nuclear threats, political maneuvering, professional sports, and celebrity misbehavior can make us obsessively dependent. We end up feeling as though we need the information to feel like we matter, like we have a voice, like we are joining in with things that are not only disturbing, but that also feel too great and too marvelous for us.

The psalmist speaks of a heart not lifted up and eyes that are not raised too high. Is it a posture of defeat, or is it the recognition of helplessness in the scheme of things? Either way, we are given the image of the calmed and quieted soul being like a weaned child with its mother.

It’s an image rather strange to us, I think. But perhaps it is the picture of one who is no longer dependent on the drama of the nation. For the ancient Hebrews, their identity was tightly bound in the identity of the nation. There was no identity for them outside of Israel. The psalmist might have been speaking of being weaned from that national dependency.

We are so bombarded with information about world events that it is often overwhelming. Much of the information pertains to things over which we have no control, which creates even greater distress. Sometimes we need to be quieted. A lot of the time we need to be weaned from the drama.

It would be an incredible experience to remain aware of—and even, at times, to participate in—what is going on in the world while resting in our dependency upon God. I wonder what that would do to our anxiety and frustration levels?

O world, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

A Lenten Reflection for February 27, 2013

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. (Romans 1:28-2:1)

Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant.
Let your mercy come to me, that I may live. (Psalm 119:76-77)


It’s very helpful to have those people around. You know the ones—they’re responsible for doing all the bad things that we hear about. They provide us with the opportunity to objectify evil so that we know it’s out there with those people. That way we can be secure in the knowledge that it’s not in here with us.

But it is.

The apostle Paul was writing to help Jewish and Gentile Christians figure out how to live together, to be one body in Christ. In doing so, he leveled the moral playing field by making everyone culpable in acts of wickedness. Jesus did this too:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)

The mind is tethered to the hand. I may not have committed adultery, but I have shared the same mind with the adulterer. I may not have committed murder, but in my anger I have opened the possibility of such an action. We’re not so far apart, those people and me.

I take comfort in remembering that, in Jesus . . . “we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15b-16).

I can’t really think about those people without recognizing that I am kin to them. But the recognition is important. It motivates me to turn to God, who, in the person of Jesus, has entered into the entirety of human existence. In that turning he rightly judges my life and draws me into a life that is new.

Just as he desires to do for those people.

A Lenten Reflection for February 22, 2013

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. (Deuteronomy 10:12-15)

Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest . . . (Hebrews 4:11a)


Our Sunday night church services when I was young were aimed at getting people to come forward to the altar for prayer. Once there, a group of the fine old saints would gather to pray for those who were brave enough to make the journey up front, signaling to the congregation that something was amiss and needed to be fixed (I made that trip often). There was a comfort in that experience, but it was also occasionally confusing, as one would encourage the seeker to “hold on!” while another would urge, “let go!” I never quite knew which one to do, and sometimes feared I would let go when I should have held on and end up making God mad at me.

The writer of Hebrews comes close to creating that kind of confusion in admonishing the readers to “make every effort to enter that rest.” Rest is rest, isn’t it? To rest is to take a break from one’s labors. Yet we are told to exert effort in order to enter rest. Seems counter-intuitive at first.

But the rest isn’t one of disengagement, it seems. Moses speaks to the ancient Hebrews about God’s historic love for them and his choosing of them “out of all the peoples.” In that choosing they are to exert effort in service and obedience. This choosing is a bit like how we see the ordination of a priest or pastor: One is called out from among the people to lead the people in the way of the Lord. In a similar way, the Hebrew people were chosen, not to the exclusion of the world, but for the sake of the world. They were to be the light on the hill that would draw the world to God. That was their rest. And it’s ours as well.

If my effort is one of trying to curry God’s favor and rack up celestial points, then it becomes legalism. If my effort is one of posturing and power-grabbing in order to show others that I have attained sainthood, then it becomes hypocritical abuse. But if my effort is one of love, devotion, and service, then I just might find rest there.

The writer of Hebrews leaves us with a call to redemptive rest as we follow Jesus, the one who carries the ultimate ordination:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

A Lenten Reflection for February 21, 2013

And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has known you. (Deuteronomy 9:23-24)

“Mark this, then, you who forget God . . .” (Psalm 50:22a)

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. (Hebrews 4:1-2)


I once had a friend—a bartender, by trade—who defined sin as forgetting about God. It was a great biblical description, even though he might not have gotten it from the Bible. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, and it is still a definition that, for me, captures the essence of sin.

It’s interesting how we tend to think of the term, good news. Good news for us is gospel (from the old English, godspel, meaning good story) and we think that it emerges right out of the New Testament and starts with Jesus. And while Jesus clearly was the ultimate proclaimer and demonstrator of that good news that the kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15), the writer of Hebrews claims that such good news came first to the ancient people of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness.

The good news, of course, is that God is king, and there is no other—no Pharoah, no Ra the Sun king, no territorial gods, no Roman emperor. This news came to those ancient ex-slaves when they were dramatically rescued from Egypt. They were cared for in the wilderness and given a promise of a new identity and a land of their own.

Then they forgot about God. And so, it seems, can we.

We (certainly there is more than just me in this failure!) forget about God and get busy with things that we decide are more urgent, more important. Having tasted of the new reality of God’s kingdom we forget about him and find new gods in our political parties or national loyalties. Having loved our neighbor we begin to trust in the gods of fear and forget that God’s heart is for the world.

In a way, forgetting about God is worse than just resisting him and demanding our own way. At least in that resistance we are still oriented toward God, even in our rebellion. But once we forget him, we often don’t remember until things start crashing down on our heads.

I’d like to remember God all the time, even though I know that I don’t. I want to remember him when I suffer and also when I am comfortable. I don’t want my memory jarred by a disaster that forces me to see that God was the only true king regardless of my forgetting.

After all, I’m pretty sure that God remembers me.

A Lenten Reflection for February 15, 2013

“It was this Moses whom they rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ and whom God now sent as both ruler and liberator through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up.’ He is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living oracles to give to us. Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will lead the way for us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’ At that time they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands.
But God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?” (Acts 7:35-42)


When the ancient Hebrew people grew frustrated with their wanderings in the wilderness, they decided that following after the mysterious God who had rescued them from their slavery in Egypt was just too uncertain. They wanted gods more tangible and predictable than this One who Moses claimed to obey. It felt more familiar and comfortable to turn their worship to the “host of heaven”—most likely the astral bodies of stars, planets, moon, and sun. They even threw in a golden calf, which would reflect the light of the sun. After all, the sun was the top level divinity in Egypt—why not out there in the middle of nowhere?

Worshipping the heavenly bodies wouldn’t be so bad, would it? This rescuing, redeeming God of Moses was up there and out there, and the lights in the sky we also up there and out there. So worshipping them was close enough, right?

Our worship can also be “close enough” to suit us. There are all kinds of respectable things that seem to be in close proximity to God: Dynamic churches, charismatic speakers, favorite writers and books or preferences for music. We can even turn our worship to our well-constructed systems of faith (“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” James 2:19) or to the Bible itself (“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.” John 5:39). Worshipping the God who is simultaneously unchanging and mysterious can be too unpredictable at times. It is much easier to have certainty in what is tangible or quantifiable than to have confidence in the God who redeems and rescues on his terms rather than on ours.

Forgive me, Lord, when I turn my worship to my own heavenly hosts.

Evangelicals Need a New Definition

And maybe even a new name.

I once asked a group of Catholic friends how they defined the term evangelical, and they saw it as identical to fundamentalist. Each one had a story of an evangelical cousin or uncle who hammered them at every family gathering, insisting that Catholics were on a sure pathway to Hell. For these folks, evangelical brought up descriptors such as judgmental, condemning, and mean.

If I’m reading the political pundits correctly, evangelical is a term that refers to a block of USAmerican voters that conflates nation and religion, lining up with the extreme right of the political spectrum. Evangelicals appear to hold a great deal of power in making or breaking particular political campaigns.

I’ve heard others say that evangelicals are the folks who hold to a wooden and hyper-literal view of all aspects of the Bible, see the theory of penal substitutionary atonement as a theological hill to die on, and have a clear understanding of who is in and who is out with God.

I am saddened by what I see in these descriptors. If these are what define evangelical, then I don’t want to be one.

But none of these are proper definitions of the word. The word evangelical comes from a Greek word (used in the New Testament) that means good news. When Jesus, in Mark 1:15 says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news,” the term “good news” utilizes that Greek word.

It’s actually an ancient term with military implications. After a battle, a runner would leave the front lines and bring news of the outcome to the military leaders. If the battle had been won, then it was good news. The messenger was the good news bringer. The messenger was the person who bore witness to the good thing that had happened.

This meaning is at the heart of the word that we now call evangelical. To be evangelical is to be the bearer of the same good news that Jesus brought: That the kingdom of God is at hand. It is to speak of a reality that has already come to pass. Keeping in mind that those folks who don’t like the idea of God’s rule and reign (perhaps like the army who lost the ancient battle) might not hear the message as good news, it is proclaimed nonetheless because it is believed by the messenger to be true.

The message granted to us is not one of political power or domination; it is not about who has been assigned to heaven or to hell; it is not license to stand in judgment over anyone. It is a message that is intended for the good of all, and it is one to be both proclaimed and demonstrated.

If the earlier definitions I offered hold sway, then I suggest we find a different word with a proper definition. It would be a shame to lose a word that is rich with meaning and purpose, but it might have to happen. There is some biblical precedent for such a change: The ancient Hebrews became Jews; the followers of The Way became Christians. It has happened before.

I don’t have a replacement term. But maybe one might emerge if we Christians, rather than being known by our political preferences, or by our tendency toward judgmentalism, or by our rigid theologies, we were known by our love. I wonder what would happen then. Maybe those who are impacted by that love would hear that good news and offer a new name to us.

Let’s give it a shot.