Advent Reflection 2015: Week Two

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
Then I said, “Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

“I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (And all the people who heard this, including the tax collectors, acknowledged the justice of God, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism. But by refusing to be baptized by him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves.)” (Luke 7:28-30)


John the Baptizer offended people with his message. Calling people a “brood of vipers” (Luke 3:7) doesn’t seem like the best way to build a following of happy customers. But the imagery was apt: If the ongoing sin of the people of Israel was going to bring God’s wrath to bear on the nation, then they would flee like snakes trying to escape a fire. People were apparently concerned about the situation, and came to John to seek a remedy.

Rather than demand that people become more rigorously religious, John called them to ethical behavior. He told them that their ethnic identity as children of Abraham was insufficient; how they lived out their calling from God was what really mattered.

When Jesus affirms John, he also makes it clear that the Baptizer doesn’t enjoy a place of hierarchical dominance in the kingdom of God. The economy of God’s kingdom values “the least” in ways that flies in the face of conventional thinking about human significance.

Luke’s parenthetical addition to Jesus’ words is worth our consideration. He says that when the Pharisees—significant religious leaders in that time—refused John’s baptism, they were actually rejecting “God’s purpose for themselves.” God’s purpose, it seems, was to realign the people according to his desires as reflected in Isaiah 40: To do God’s will and to have his law written on their hearts. Too many of the religious leaders thought they had God’s desires all figured out, and had reframed them according to their own preferences. Luke says that they missed out on a gift that God was presenting to them and (since we know the end of the story) they ended up trying to protect their preferred convictions by seeing to the deaths of both John and Jesus (yes, Herod imprisoned John and had him executed. But we don’t hear about any Pharisees coming to John’s defense).

In this Advent season, as we consider again how the coming of Jesus challenged the conventions of both government and religion, it might be good for us to reflect on how our convictions are often formed by culture, politics, family traditions, and even church experiences. Do we express those convictions in ways that reflect the heart of God? Could some of our convictions be misplaced? Would it be heretical to challenge some of our most cherished beliefs (heresy shouldn’t be defined as telling me something I didn’t already know)?

Every so often we might stop and reflect on these things. Perhaps God is always presenting us with the gift of repentance—to turn from one way of ordering our lives in order to embrace another way that is in touch with God’s purposes and desires.

A Lenten Reflection for February 26, 2013

Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. (John 4:46b-53)


The problem with email is that you can’t hear a person’s tone in the message. Misinterpretations can take place and feelings can get hurt. That’s why emoticons were invented.

It’s too bad that ancient scribes didn’t think of emoticons. I could have used a scriptural emoticon when Jesus said, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” I’m not entirely sure, but it seems like he’s chastising the royal official, who has come in desperation to ask Jesus to heal his son. In fact, the man does indeed believe Jesus as he heads home, trusting that his son has been made well.

Was there a sad or angry face next to Jesus’ words? I don’t know. Perhaps there was an emoticon of curiosity or even of happiness. Could it be that Jesus saw, in requests for signs and wonders, a recognition that his words had been true, that indeed the kingdom of God was at hand? Weren’t such things signals of a greater reality yet to come, one that had erupted in present time? Maybe longing for signs and wonders was a good thing, and not a sign of spiritual weakness.

I confess that I need the occasional sign and wonder in order to believe. It doesn’t have to be spectacular (although spectacular now and again wouldn’t be so bad); it can be as simple as folks from a church coming together to help a family in need. It can be followers of Jesus giving of their time and money to see to it that impoverished people have clean water to drink, houses to live in, and wheelchairs so they can get around. It can be faithful people gathering each week to serve God in worship, to remember who they are, to express love to one another, and then go out in the power of the Spirit to love and serve God and the world.

Actually, I do get to see these things, and I do believe.

What Happens in Vegas . . .

A couple of years ago my wife and I decided to take a wedding anniversary trip to a place we had never been: Las Vegas. I have lived in southern California my entire life and, except to pass through once on my way to somewhere else, I had never been to Las Vegas. The town simply does not connect for me. I have no interest in gambling and the never-ending nightlife offers no appeal, since I find the night a very convenient time for sleeping.

We chose to drive there, however, in order to see the Cirque du Soleil show, Beatles Love.

We are both fans of the Beatles and have been since their arrival in the US in 1964. I was just entering the netherworld of male puberty when I was imprinted with this music and it has been echoing in my brain ever since. I think that if someone were to do study about the kind of music you listen to when puberty hits they would find that the music forms your appreciation for a certain type of music for the rest of your life. That’s my theory.

We arrived at the hotel in the afternoon and decided to walk around the Strip for awhile. It was December and the Nevada desert was sparkly and chilled. I marveled at the garish architecture and tried to steer clear of the street hawkers attempting to hand us invitations to strip clubs. Then we had a very nice dinner and entered the theater, where we ran into one of my students and his wife (reminding me that God's watchful eye is even in Vegas, and nothing will just stay in Vegas).

The show was delightful and clearly worth our time and money. We then stood outside with all the other tourists and watched the fake volcano spew water all over the place, forcing us all to clap our hands as if we’d never seen such a thing.

The next morning we had breakfast and then walked through the casino part of the hotel as we prepared to head for home. As we walked the curving, carpeted pathway that drew us through the aisles of slot machines, I heard music playing over the hotel speakers. Holiday music had been playing at the hotel constantly since our arrival. It was the culturally-correct stuff that you often hear, fun but having little to do with Christmas. My eyes were taking in the images of early morning gamblers staring at the lights and flashes of the machines, some with drinks from the bar at their elbows, when I stopped in my tracks. The music was different now and the difference hit me like rock. Rather than hearing Mel Torme or Bing Crosby, I heard a choir, and these were the words I could make out:

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glory of his righteousness
And wonders of his love

It was Joy to the World, but with a boldness that I had never heard before. It was a proclamation of the kingdom of God, not coming from a small band of the faithful out in the street, but right in the middle of a casino. The good news that God is king resonated through the building, and I may have been the only one to hear it.

I looked again at the floor of the casino. There it was: The place of empty promises and broken dreams. And into the midst of that false reality came the proclamation of the only thing that is real—the kingdom of God.

How amazing that the good news that Jesus proclaimed and lived out would come to us as invitation to his table. How amazing that, just for a few moments, voices would call out to the bleary-eyed Las Vegas gamblers that a new reality was theirs for the receiving. I wondered: Who were the people in the casino who were being called through this song? Surely there were just everyday people off on an excursion, but there might also be a pickpocket or two and maybe some prostitutes. There might be people who had lost it all and were dumping their last dollars into the machines that they prayed would change their lives. The music went out to them all.

While I couldn’t hear it, there is a verse that precedes this one:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found . . .

Sins—the many ways that we humans forget about God—and sorrows—the consequence of believing that God has forgotten us—are, we hear, no longer allowed to grow. Jesus has come to bring blessing to the world and the song was sung that December morning in a Vegas hotel casino. I wonder if someone else took notice. I wonder if someone got up from a slot machine, looked around, and headed outside to find the wonders of God’s love. I don’t know.

But I know that I heard it. And I believed it.

(From my book, Shadow Meal: Reflections on Eucharist)

Is Jesus Reckless?

In reading Luke chapter nine this morning, I was struck by the way Jesus seemed to play a bit fast and loose with the qualifications for joining him in his work. We know that the twelve disciples were pretty sketchy in their understanding of who Jesus was and what he was up to, yet they were sent out in his authority to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, to heal the sick, and to cast out demons. And Jesus sent them out unsupervised!

On top of that, when he was told that someone was out there casting out demons but not as part of the group of disciples, Jesus told his friends that it was okay: If a person isn’t against you, he says, then consider yourselves on the same team.

But what if (I am thinking to myself) that other person doesn’t think rightly about things we consider to be important? James might be wondering, “What if that person thinks that Samaritans are just as good as Jews?” John might ask, “What if that person is like the Sadducees, and doesn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead?” Peter could be asking, “But what if that person hasn’t given up everything like we have?”

If the disciples were to have asked Jesus these kinds of questions, there’s a good chance he would have answered them like he answered Peter much later, described in John 21:22:

“What is that to you? Follow me.”

I wonder if, today, Jesus wanders through the halls of power, up and down the grimy streets of the city, along the corridors of the prisons and the sanctuaries, seeing people acting out their dramas as ones who are sometimes for him and sometimes against him. In those places of turmoil and intrigue, does he continue to whisper the same words over and over to all the broken and misguided people he encounters?

“Come, follow me.”

And when we who call ourselves faithful describe who is in and who is out, whose political posturing constitutes good or evil, whose doctrinal declarations are truthful or heretical, whose worship practices are valid or invalid, does Jesus continue to say to us,

“What is that to you? Follow me.”

Religion, Slavery, and the Mission of God

There's an interesting article on CNN's Belief Blog titled "How Religion Has Been Used to Promote Slavery." It ponders the idea that ancient religious leaders like Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Mohammed didn't outrightly (if at all) condemn slavery. It addresses the historic variances in the types of slavery that existed in the ancient world, but also the way that more recent (i.e. American) pro-slave cultures have used religion to validate the enslavement of human beings.

I wonder if Jesus and his earliest followers didn't make a political stand against slavery because they didn't see the work of God in the world as the equivalent of political power, as we too often do in the US.

When Jesus said that the kingdom of God was near, it was clear that this kingdom was breaking into a particular point in human history that operated in specific ways—like normalizing slavery. Rather than speak about how things ought to be, Jesus seemed to be more about introducing a new reality with his entire self. He touched the untouchable, embraced the excluded, broke the power of pain and death, and then allowed all the powers of evil have their way with him. There was nothing theoretical or abstract about his life and work.

And he did this in a real world with real problems.

Rather than rail against the institution of slavery, Paul offered a new way of relating for slaves and masters, who would now see themselves as brothers and sisters in Christ. Slaves flocked to the newly-emerging Christian movement and found new life there.

I believe that the Bible's lack of clear opposition to slavery is not an endorsement of slavery or even a benign acceptance of it, but rather the revelation that God's mission takes place in a real world and engages that world right where it's at. When Jesus cites Isaiah 61 as he speaks in his hometown synagogue, he claims that he has come, among other reasons, to set the captives free. It appears that he does that, but not in the way that most people expect. Jesus did a lot of things in ways that most people didn't expect, and still don't.

Christians of the Agenda

CNN ran a recent story titled "Progressive group starts training pro-abortion rights religious leaders."

This causes me to think, once again, how Christians are coming to be defined in the US. We seem to be viewed as people of various agendas.

We're all about abortion and contraception - on one side or the other.

We're all about immigration - how to keep people out or in.

We're all about nailing down the true American way - as various forms of either conservative or progressive.

(On that note: What exactly is it that we wish to conserve? Is everything worth conserving? And what does it mean to be progressive? What "progresses" people? What are people progressing from, and toward, and by what power?)

If I remember correctly, we are to be people of the Spirit of God, called to be his people for the sake, blessing, and reconciliation of the world. We are called to proclaim and demonstrate the reality of the kingdom of God. We are to be branded with the name of Jesus, living as people willing to drink his cup and submit to his baptism. I think all that's in the Bible somewhere.

People of the Spirit? or People of the Agenda?