Uncontrolling Love (4) - When God is a Child, None Shall be Afraid

In the chapter, "God is a Baby", of Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God, Ricardo Gouvea speaks about the coming of God as an infant from Luke 2:12. He challenges us to take seriously the manifestation of God in a baby and to realize that it is as much a part of God's story as is the crucifixion. It matters greatly that God manifested himself in this way if we are to better understand who he is and what he is like. 

He argues that by bringing Easter themes (personal salvation) into the Christmas story (which American evangelicalism likes to do) obscures and takes attention away from the message of the birth and infancy of Jesus, and that message is that God is revealing his true nature. Gouvea says the following:

"...The inferences we can take from this are astonishing...first of all, a reconsecration of matter itself ...Matter becomes sanctified. It means the sanctification of time and history...time and history became the abode of God...it also implies the sanctification of the human condition...the annulment of the curse...

"That the Eternal Word became a baby also points to something even more shocking that goes against the grain of our accustomed theological conceptions: it denotes the sanctification of tenderness and fragility...God was revealed to us as fragile and tender.

"...The incarnation and the theophany (manifestation) of God in Christ speak to us, therefore, of God's own frailty, fragility, and...of God's interest in taking risks; for the tenderness of babyhood is very risky, and God took that risk, out of love.

"...When we see with the eyes of faith that God is a baby, we see God's love in its utmost depth...and we are absorbed by God's love and we love God back with the deepest love possible, and this perfect love drives out all fear, including all fear of God and of judgment and of punishment, for God is love (I John 4:8)...driven by the power of love, we can become disciples of Jesus Christ, followers of Jesus in his love...

"God is a child, and as such God calls for our help, for our tender love and care...God has revealed God's own being, nature, and character to us in Christ as a poor little baby who needs and wants to be tenderly embraced, who needs and wants to be loved, and who wants to become our friend and play with us. God is not a menace...

"...when God is a child, the last shall be first and the weak shall be strong, and none shall be afraid."

I will close this post with a quote from Leonardo Boff which Gouvea includes in this sermon: 

"...every child wants to be an adult, and every adult wants to become rich and important like a king, and every rich, important person wants to be a god; but God wanted to be a child."

Uncontrolling Love (3): Earthquakes that Break Open Closed Minds and Hearts

Continuing this series on the uncontrolling love of God (Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God), I'm   quoting from Patricia Adams Farmer and her sermon on Matthew 28:1-10:

"I have always associated earthquakes with fear and destruction...in this passage in Matthew, we discover another kind of quaking -- the kind that wakes us up, gets our attention, jolts us out of our everyday assumptions about the world. These are the earthquakes that break open tightly closed minds and hearts--the kind of quake that issues forth new life and fresh possibilities.

"The Easter story in Matthew begins with this kind of earthquake: a quaking of pure wonder, awe, astonishment...(the text says that) 'they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy.'

"With this astonishing news (of an empty tomb), we are jolted out of our limited vision of ourselves and our world...This is the earthquake of Easter: it shakes us out of our everyday world with its heartbreaks, injustices, and might-makes-right philosophies; it cracks open an astonishing world of divine possibility and spiritual treasure...

"When the world values brute force and violence, we are astonished to see that, after all the destruction and suffering, it is love that survives -- love that triumphs. Love is the greatest power in the universe because God is love...

"But moving from death to resurrection, from darkness into light, from the world as it is to the world as it might be, is not as easy as it sounds...when fear becomes the master of our lives and lodges itself like a boulder inside our psyche, our worldview, even our religious life, it keeps us prisoners inside tombs of spiritual darkness. Such intrenched fear leads to depression and despair or mutates into hate and us-vs-them worldviews. 

"Twice in this passage in Matthew, we hear the words: 'Do not be afraid.' Radical transformation can be a scary thing. Fear is more familiar so we cling to what we know best. But in order to meet the risen Christ...we must, like the two Marys, muster the courage to move past that heavy boulder of hard stultifying fear, and accept the divine invitation to enter a world of fresh imaginings..."

Uncontrolling Love (2): Power Exercised by the Beast in Contrast to Power Exercised by the Lamb

In a similar vein as the previous post, this chapter by Ronald L. Farmer from Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God deals with Jesus' words in Matthew 22:15-22 in which he responds to the Pharisees and Herodians who team up to attempt to trap Jesus with a question about paying the census tax which had to be paid with a Roman denarius. (The denarius in itself was considered an idolatrous object by many Jews.)

While theologians have historically and correctly used this passage for guidance in the delicate dance between the state and God, Farmer brings out a third teaching and says,

"Most Christians are aware of the danger of 'rendering to Caesar things that belong to God,' but the danger of 'rendering to God things that belong to Caesar' is often overlooked...

"...This error occurs whenever people conceive of God in terms of Caesar, in essence creating God in Caesar's image, only 'bigger'. This all-too-common theological error results in Christians picturing God as exercising coercive, controlling, unilateral power like Caesar, except raised to the Nth degree (mathematically speaking). 

"Herein lies contemporary Christianity's fundamental flaw, the nearly ubiquitous error that alters, or at least taints, every other theological and ethical teaching and practice--including one's assessment of and vision for the socio-political order...

"I write in my commentary on the book of Revelation: 

'A person's conception of divine power greatly influences his or her understanding of power on the human level...Thus if divine power is viewed as coercive, all-controlling, and unilateral, then the corresponding understanding of the highest/ideal form of human power will be coercive, all-controlling, and unilateral--like the power exercised by the beast, the Roman empire. But if divine power is understood to be persuasive, all-influencing, and relational, then the corresponding understanding of the highest/ideal form of human power will be persuasive, influencing, and relational--like the power exercised by the Lamb.'

Uncontrolling Love (1): A Theology that Starts with Love Takes Us to a Different Place than One that Starts with Power

Because love desires the full freedom of the loved one, it is not controlling. If God is Love, then God is not controlling.

The implications of this statement mess with the ideas/beliefs that many of us who call ourselves "Christian" have been taught about the nature of God. They force us to reconsider how we think about the One we call God and his way of relating with his creation and how we, who profess to follow his ways, live and act. 

I have been working with this for a number of years and am delighted to find more and more material available to help give me language and to expand my heart and mind as it relates to God and others. Because this has been such a help to me, I want to do a series of posts about the uncontrolling love of God. These will be sporadic and short posts with quotes taken from the book, Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God. Each chapter is by a different author, giving a wide range of input on this theme.

The following is from Ignacio Castuera in his sermon on Hosea 11:1-4 and Matthew 7:7-11:

"(...in the passage from Hosea) the image of God saying it was God who taught Ephraim to walk is one that is filled with tenderness. Jesus (in Mt. 7) is building on that. Our faith...echoes that strong division in the Bible between the faith of the religion of rules, regulations, and rituals of the temple, and the faith taught by the prophets about a loving God, a caring God, a God who wants us to love each other and to spread that love...it started with the teachings of Jesus...and that image of Jesus when he says, 'if you, filled with faults as you are, can give good gifts, how much more your heavenly papito, your heavenly Abba...' That image is one that impels the church to become the force that it was in the Roman empire.

"But Constantine saw that that force could be used for his purposes...the Caesars of Rome hired the theologians of the church to create the images of power that have been passed down to us. All of the attributes of Caesar were assigned to God and the vision of tenderness that Jesus and the prophets had given us almost disappeared...

"The religion of the God with the attributes of Caesar is challenged by the religion of love, of a caring loving God. It is not omnipotence that is important for us as followers of Jesus. Instead, it should be love...

"A theology that starts there is going to take us to very different places from a theology that starts with images of power."

Brute Force, Cunning Strategy, Ruthless Competition, and "Winning"

 A short article by Kenneth Tanner, The Great Humility that Redeems the Cosmos, expresses well how wonderfully different God's ways are from ours and how far astray the church in the west is from God's ways. He writes:

The gospels upend every human (perhaps every rational) notion of strength.

The cosmos—superclusters of galaxies, delicate wildflowers on countless meadows, the waves of every ocean—thrives on one source of energy, a hidden force of charity that does not seek its own, a Person with an unremarkable face, who came not to be served by his creation but to serve.

...The biggest challenge presented to humanity by his gospel is our mistaken bedrock belief that what drives the universe is an unbridled might that rules by fiat. This is after all the only form of power we humans recognize: brute force, cunning strategy, ruthless competition, and, above all else, "winning."

 

It goes against everything that man has built and everything that man has ventured to accept the idea that the real power that sustains all movement and all life, that binds all things together—from subatomic particles to intergalactic distances—is a self-sacrificial love without measure.

 

"If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it."  Jesus is not just talking about your life but is describing how *everything* works.

 

The losers in this scenario do not "win" but instead come to participate forever in the life of him who lays down his life for the life of the world and in so doing—by a great humility—redeems the cosmos and makes all things new, makes all things well.

 

This belief is not going to get you anywhere in the world that humanity has made but you can serve that world—this world that Christ loved before it loved him—by embracing this sacred path of humility and renouncing all the other ways and means and kinds of power.

 

All of them. Political. Military. Intellectual. Physical. All.

 

It is telling that almost every news story that compels the urgent attention of Christians these days can only do so because we have denied that we serve a Lord that rules by a mysterious humility that conquers all hearts by self-giving.

You Will See Jesus "There"

In Matthew 26:31 Jesus promises his disciples that after his resurrection, he will go ahead of them to Galilee.  In chapter 28, the angel at the empty tomb tells the women that Jesus has gone ahead of them to Galilee and that "you will see Jesus 'there.'"

God is always out in front of us moving forward; in the Christ we see him going ahead of the disciples with the promise that following him to the "there" is where they will see him.

This sounds appealing in theory but is disconcerting (to say the least) in practice because it implies that we leave behind the comfort/security of what we've known, whether that be our long-held belief systems or our long-held practices or our long-held relationships.

Our Shepherd is out ahead of us today bidding us to follow him to the "there." Just like sheep, we aren't good at following but at least we can tell him we want to follow and make our weak effort to go after him...

Dear Shepherd, we want to go "there" because "there" is where we will see you; help us as we clumsily attempt to follow you and help get us to the "there" where you are this day, this season, this era. May we find peace in the reality that you are moving on ahead of us always and wanting us to be with you in your present activity. Amen.  

Thoughts for Lent (10) - Authorized for Risk

This is the final post for this Easter season from Walter Brueggemann's Lent devotional, A Way Other Than Our Own.

We find ourselves in the Saturday of the story; just as the disciples had no idea of when their "Saturday" would end and whether or not there would be a "Sunday", neither do we in our present world, whether that be in our personal life or in national or global conditions. We wait, not knowing but hoping that there is another way of living in our world other than the way of power and money and violence. 

Our faith and hope are bolstered by remembering the story in John 20 of the appearance of Jesus among his fearful followers on that Easter day. Brueggemann says of this moment: 

"He (Jesus) stood there in the midst of the violent restless empire, and he said, 'Peace be with you.' ...when they recognized him, he said a second time, 'Peace be with you.'

"And then, 'He breathed on them.' ...He gave them spirit. He performed artificial respiration on his bedraggled followers...He gave them the surging gift of surprising life, so unlike the lifeless charade of the empire that only knows about violence and control but nothing about giving life.

"...Imagine that you and I today are part of the Easter movement of civil disobedience that contradicts the empire...Let's see if life is longer than death...we have been breathed upon..To us he said, 'Peace be with you' three times, and then he charged us with forgiveness (healing, transformative reconciliation)..."

"You summon us to life in the midst of death, peace in the midst of violence, praise in the midst of despair. Filled once again with your unruly Spirit, may we answer your summons and be part of the movement of life. Amen."

Thoughts for Lent (9) - On Changing Our Minds

In this reading from Walter Brueggemann's A Way Other Than Our Own, the author issues an invitation to us as the final week of Lent begins. Based on Phil. 2:4-8, he challenges us to change our mind and alter our opinions about self and neighbor and our world. 

Speaking of Jesus, Brueggemann writes, "...because of his passion for God's will for him, he collided with the will and purpose of the Roman empire and of the Jews who colluded with the empire. He is not crucified because of some theory of atonement. He is crucified because the empire cannot tolerate such a transformative, subversive force set loose in the world. 

(In Phil. 2), "Paul summons the church and its members to exhibit in their common life the self-emptying that is congruent with Jesus. Paul knew the way (we church people) tend to act, concerned for self and our pet ideas...and our vested interests that bruise other people. And he said, do not look to your own interests.

So here is my bid to you for Holy Week. As we walk the walk from Palm Sunday to Easter...imagine all of us, in the wake of Jesus, changing our minds, renewing our minds, altering our opinions concerning self and neighbor and world. The clue to the new mind of Christ is emptying of our need to control and our anxious passion for security. And as our minds change, we come to new freedom. It is Easter freedom, unburdened and fearless, freed for the interest of the neighbor.

Lord, "we are eager for Easter joy and new life, and yet we are haunted by the space between where we are and where you are. Grant us a new mind, a new readiness, a new heart, that we might stand with you in self-emptying obedience. Amen."

Thoughts for Lent (8) - Until

This reading from A Way Other Than Our Own is based on Psalm 73:15-17 and Luke 15:17. Walter Brueggemann sees the prodigal son story that Jesus tells as a commentary on Psalm 73. He links the phrase, "until I went into the sanctuary..." of Psa. 73 with the phrase, "when he came to himself" of Luke 15. 

Brueggemann says of this turning point in the life of the prodigal son: 

"He comes to himself in his true identity. He comes to himself as a beloved son of the father...(in) his 'until' (moment), he recognizes that his father was the only one he wanted to be with. It did not matter any more that his older brother got the farm as his 'portion,' because the father is the son's 'portion' and the only thing he wants in heaven or on earth.

"The son 'coming to himself' is a decision grounded in the father's love that permits him to slough off his false self and become, finally, who he is...Jesus fully understood the psalm. Indeed, Jesus' engagement in ministry is, among other things, that we should be weaned from the seductions of commodity for the gift of communion, a presence that leaves us in joy and well-being."

Dear Abba, may we have such a grounding in your parent love that we experience "until" and "coming to ourself" moment(s) which empower us to throw off the false self and become who we truly are - your beloved daughter/son whose greatest desire is you...Amen.

Thoughts for Lent (7) - Hope from Memory

In this reading from A Way Other Than Our Own, Walter Brueggemann reflects on Isaiah 54:7-9. He says,

"Ours is a time like the flood, like the exile, when the certitudes abandon us, the old reliabilities have become unsure, and 'things fall apart.' The falling apart is happening...all around us and to all of us.

"In such a context of enormous fearfulness, our propensity is to enormous destruction. We grow more strident, more fearful, more anxious, more greedy for our own way, more despairing, and consequently, more brutal...On many days we succumb to the need to look only after ourselves and our kind...

"The alternative is an act of imagination, seeded by memory, uttered by a poet that draws the health-giving memory into the present so that the present is radically reconstituted. We do not need poetry or artistry or imagination, if we only want to wallow in our status quo. The poet stakes a claim against such present reality. This act of imagination subverts our status quo and invites us to an alternative.

"The world comes at us in destructive, pathological ways. From out of the chaos, however,...comes the text shaping our future, not in hostility but in compassion, not in abandonment but in solidarity, not in isolation but in covenant, not in estrangement but in well-being."

"In the midst of troubled times, be with us, God of well-being. May faithful remembering lead to compassionate reimagining. Amen."

Thoughts for Lent (6) - Boundary-Crossing Generosity

From A Way Other Than Our Own...

Romans 10:9 is a well-known Bible verse that has collected "authoritarian baggage" in many church traditions. Brueggemann says that to confess Jesus is Lord is simply to make the claim that "Jesus, not the emperor, nor the system, nor our class or our nation state, can claim our loyalty."

And to affirm that God raised Jesus from the dead is the simple "claim that the executioners did not and could not keep him dead...because God, that deep power for life, has shattered the system of death and made all things new."

The apostle Paul goes on in verse 12 to "draw a deep and decisive conclusion" from these two claims which is: "The Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call upon him."

"The defining mark of the Easter world is divine, cosmic generosity...

"There is no class structure. There is no exceptional tenure or entitlement, no riding in the back of the bus, no exclusion of Gentiles - women, or conservatives, or progressives, or gays, or whomever we fear and want to exclude.

"God is bringing the world to a new inclusiveness on the basis of God's own generosity."

"Deep Power of Life, draw us into your boundary-crossing generosity. May we be on the way toward others, toward new life, in sync with the one who is Lord of Easter. Amen."

Thoughts for Lent (5) - New Song, New Reality

Today's reading from A Way Other Than Our Own focuses on Isaiah's poem/song in Isaiah 42:15,16.

Brueggemann draws parallels between exiled Israel in the Babylonian empire and today's followers of Jesus in the American empire: "...scattered where we do not have much impact, sensing that the world is resistant to change, aware that the policies and practices around us are aimed at death. We are close to despair in our weakness and futility."

Brueggemann goes on to say of exiled Israel: "When this community of faith could do very little...it sang new songs, counter songs that refused to let the promise of the gospel sink into the landscape of the empire. The new song is a protest...and a bold assertion that the God of the gospel has...a will to reorder the world, to bring wholeness and health to the blind, the poor, the needy...and to the entire creation now so under killing assault."

The phrase, "...refused to let the promise of the gospel sink into the landscape of the empire", reminded me once again of how American Christianity has failed to be a clear contrast to the values of the empire by joining forces with the political powers (whether on the right or on the left).

Vincent Harding says, "It will take a miraculous overhaul of the church to become once again the bearer of good news." New songs, poems, art is all part of moving us out of the old and into the new.

Dear Abba, as you continue your gracious yet painful work of allowing the overhaul and dismantling of our structures and systems that have caused the gospel of Christ to become reduced to one more edifice on the landscape to serve the empire, give us new fresh songs and poems that envision a reordered world with wholeness and health for the blind, the poor, the needy and for all of creation. Amen.

Thoughts for Lent (4) - Like a Thief in the Night

Continuing our series from A Way Other Than Our Own...

Lent is a time set apart for us to recognize that the church is in a time of wilderness and wandering and must reconsider, rethink, and change our mind about many things. This reading by Walter Brueggemann looks at I Samuel 3:10..."Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, 'Samuel, Samuel!' And Samuel said, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'"

God speaks to Samuel in the night..."Night is a time when we cannot see. Night is when we cannot control...Night is when things are unclear and beyond explanation...the old priest was slow to figure it out...something not routine was happening.

"The anthropologists call this 'liminality,' an unsettling feeling at the threshold of something new, when life is gathered into a wholly new configuration.

"...too often the church in our society is thought to be a place of unambiguous answers and sure certitudes, where we come settled and cocksure, and the spirit has no chance to change anything...Then emerges something new from God that comes like a thief in the night.

"The narrative suggests that the holy place must be understood with...nighttime bewilderment. For it is in such moments that we sort out the voices of address, and God works the newness of nurture and vocation, demand and promise and healing."

Dear Spirit, enable us who call ourselves by your name to be at peace and even expectation in this place of liminality; help us humble ourselves and recognize that we DO NOT KNOW very much and that "nighttime bewilderment" is our place of rest as you upend all that we have constructed to secure ourselves in order to lead us to the "something new from God that comes like a thief in the night." 

Thoughts for Lent (3) - Summoned Beyond Ourselves

This Lenten challenge is from the second Thursday of Lent reading in Walter Brueggemann's Lent devotional, A Way Other Than Our Own...

Matthew 15:28 "'...woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.' And her daughter was healed instantly."

"Jesus reached beyond his people, beyond his perceived mandate, beyond his tradition, extending himself to the 'other'. Notice that something powerful happens to Jesus in this narrative...She is the outsider who instructs the insider. She explains to Jesus his larger vocation that he had not yet embraced. He is willing, in turn, to be instructed by her...we can watch while Jesus rethinks his vocation and his mandate as Messiah...

"...this is the big issue for us in our coming world. All of us, to some extent, hold the line against the 'other.'...It is clear in these texts that the good news of God's love and God's healing and God's justice cannot be kept just for us and people like us...the pull of God's largeness summons all of us, often through the words and presence of 'the other.' 

"The old teaching of exclusion cannot fully protect us from God's pull to be a neighbor..."

Dear Lord, help me identify who 'the other' is in my world who I have decided should not be included in your family and who I won't listen to, thereby entrapping myself in my small world of small doctrines and small heartedness. Amen.

Thoughts for Lent (2) - On Terms Other than Our Own

On this first Tuesday of Lent in his Lent devotional A Way Other than Our Own, Walter Brueggemann speaks of a way of walking with God "on terms other than our own."

Exodus 33:19: God is gracious and merciful towards Israel after their turning to worship a false idol in the wilderness; but as God and Moses negotiate the terms for the future, it becomes clear that "the future is on God's terms...Israel is expected to give up all of its pet projects of religion, all of its favorite convictions, all of its conservative ideology, all of its liberal propensity, to notice that God has not signed on for any of our easy preferences...

"We people of faith do not have life on our terms. And we, like Moses, have to decide that we will walk into the future on terms other than our own."

This is as true for God's people today as it was for Moses and Israel; may we have the grace to do the hard work of discovering God's terms rather than settle for our "easy preferences".

Thoughts for Lent (1): A Way Other Than Our Own

During this season of Lent, I will occasionally share select thoughts from Walter Brueggemann's short devotional readings for Lent,  A Way Other than Our Own.

Today's reading (1st Friday of Lent) looks at Matthew 6:27 and challenges us to rethink our general approach to this season, that rather than giving our primary focus to our sin and suffering and self-denial, "we ask in fresh ways what the people clustered around Jesus make of the world they are in...Jesus affirmed that it's possible to be in the world in a new way, to be present to the people and problems around us with newness and freshness. The usual way of being in the world is anxiety..."

In Matt.6:27 Jesus asks, "Which of you, by being anxious, has ever added an inch to your lives?"

"Being defensive and frightened and coveting has never resulted in any gains...(Jesus) suggests another way: Seek the kingdom and his righteousness...

"The invitation is to get so involved in the emergence of humanness...that we don't have to be defending how it was, worried about what will happen to the things to which we have given our lives."

Brueggemann closes with this prayer:

"Free us, Lord, from our obsession with ourselves long enough to care for others; to be so concerned about the well-being of the human community that we don't have to worry about our place, our church, our class, our values, our vested interests. Help us to know the joy and freedom of putting all our trust in you. Amen."

Authoritarianism and Jesus

In our day of rising authoritarianism in many forms (both in society and the church), a timely word from one of my favorite books about Jesus (JESUS BEFORE CHRISTIANITY). Unlike all others, Jesus insisted on not using any titles for himself. Albert Nolan says this about him:

"Jesus' courage, fearlessness and independence made people of that age ask again and again, 'Who is this man?' It is significant that Jesus never answers the question. There is no evidence that he ever laid claim to any of the exalted titles which the Church later attributed to him.

"...did Jesus claim authority, any kind of authority at all, even implicitly? Would it not be closer to the truth to say that what makes Jesus immeasurably greater than any other human being is precisely the fact that he spoke and acted without authority and that he regarded the 'exercise of authority' as a pagan characteristic...

"Jesus was unique among the people of his time in his ability to overcome all forms of authority-thinking. The only authority which Jesus might be said to have appealed to was the authority of the truth itself. He did not make authority his truth, he made truth his authority...(He) did not expect others to obey him; he expected them to 'obey' the truth, to live truthfully..."