Interesting Lines

There are some biblical lines that stick out. They seem like throwaway lines. Extra epitaphs added at the end of the story. Like at the end of Moses’ life. “His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. (Deut. 34:7).” Or when Isaac finally finds a place to pitch his tents, “And there Isaac’s servants dug a well (Genesis 26:25).” Or the introduction to Isaiah’s call, “In the year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1).” They seem innocuous enough, until you stop to think about them and realize how deep they can actually be. Moses’ sight might be his physical sight, but it is also what allows him to see the Promised land from afar. He will not enter it, but God allowed him to see it. Moses was always clearsighted in the ways of God. But what exactly did he see up on that mountain? Isaac was a digger of wells. Maybe if as a kid you had been strapped down to an altar, you would find something else with which to praise God. And the water, the living water which bubbles up to eternal life, which is not simple water only, is a deep and eternal well. I’ll leave the puzzling over Uzziah to you.

Our Epistle lesson for the day has a bunch of those phrases, but the one I want to call out is applied to Abraham. “And he went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).” Normally taking off on a journey not knowing where you are going would be frowned upon. Failure to plan is planning to fail and all that. But then Abraham is the man and model of faith. And a journey is a metaphor for life. When we “go out” do any of us know where we are going? Oh, we might have an idea, a goal, an aim. But knowledge? The younger we are – like elementary kids – we just go out the door each day and whatever we meet that day, there we are. Only a few 8 year olds have plans for the day. Yet most seem to be right where they belong. Trusting that those around them have arranged things just so. Abraham would occasionally try and help God out, but largely he wandered around like an 8 year old. Whatever the day brought, the day brought.

He may have not known where he was going when he set out, but by the end he seemed to have a better idea. “For He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder was God (Hebrews 11:10).” Abraham’s journey of not knowing took him out of Ur, the original Babylon. It took him all the way down to Egypt. He dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah and the Philistines. In all his journeys in life Abraham had seen every city that man might build. And he knew that none of them were where he was going. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had faith that God would build the city. I imagine Moses’ keen eyes were seeing the same city as Abraham.

At the core of any man of faith is an interesting tension. There is a contentment with where one is for God has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today. He has provided me everything I need to support this body and life. And yet…and yet there is a longing for a better country. One that we know we cannot see perfectly. One that is not possible in the land we have set out from. And if we want to settle into contentment here in this land, we probably could. But the faith keeps our eyes looking at the horizon, our ears desiring a clear trumpet. For any sign of The City, a heavenly one.

Hidden Impressions

There are some weeks or fortnights that get indelibly marked in your mind. And I’ve usually found that there is some piece of media – music, movie, TV show – that you just happen to have been listening to that becomes the shorthand for that time period. The week my brother died it was this CD by a group called Butterflyfish. I was attempting at the time to build a VBS around the songs. Anyone who has done a GROUP VBS knows the format. There is a song of the day for 5 days. There is an overall theme song. There are one or two reworked hymns which are usually the best songs. This disc included a Doxology in that category. Day 4 – the highest attendance day, kids disappear on Friday – is resurrection day. That Butterflyfish CD had this incredible Day 4 song, “All Sad Songs”. “I know all sad songs have another verse/It’s the one the heavenly choirs rehearse/For that day when the broken will mend/And the sad songs will end.” It is not Evening and Morning or O God, Our Help in Ages Past, but it was what I was listening to at the time. And it stuck. Putting that record in takes me right to that week or right to my brother.

When in the idiocy of the world we all decided to larp the black death, and all of a sudden my kids were home all the time. And the job of keeping a struggling church afloat became even tougher. Having sheriff’s cars drive through your lot most Sunday’s because you complied with the “no more than 10” rule by having 4 services instead of one, was memorable. Especially when you got more visitors than you expected because yours was one of the few doors open. The TV show that marks that time for me is Stargate SG1. COMET was showing three episodes an evening. I could DVR them and in 90 mins at the end of the day escape into the fantasy of stepping through the Stargate to a world that hadn’t lost its mind. It’s not that there weren’t some theological works that also kept one sane, but echoing the Apostle Paul sanity isn’t always about “prophetic powers and understanding mysteries and all knowledge (1 Cor 13:2).” Those things aren’t nothing, but absent love, I’m still empty. And the can-do attitude of Col. O’Neill was honestly more important that any deep understanding. Which five years later we might just be entering into some reflection. I’m told I have to go see the movie Eddington in these matters. We’ll see. Might still be too early. I can feel the anger still.

I suppose I should be getting around to a point. The past fortnight has been one of those. Having a major surgery at 86 years old focuses the mind, or at least it focused my dad’s. He’s been gathering all his “in case this all goes wrong” files and having “last suppers.” This has included many extra evening trips to correct or rescue from disaster various computer files and passwords. It has also included wrangling the entire family together on some type of decent behavior. This fortnight also has graced me with the gout flareup such that walking is difficult. Preparation for a Congregational meeting. Annessa, who keeps me sane in the office, telling me she’s getting a real job. And a few other sidebars. Somehow I stumbled upon Detective Bosch in this fortnight. A salty LA detective that never lets go of a bone. The note he hangs on his desk reads, “get off your a** and go knock on doors.” He’s got a sharp eye and plenty of courage, but Bosch’s greatest attribute? Nothing life throws at him is too much if you just do the work. The truth reveals itself in the end.

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossian 3:3-4)” That’s the apostle Paul in this week’s Epistle lesson sounding very Bosch like. “Put to death what is earthly in you…put on the new self, which is being renewed.” What exactly we will be, we do not know. But we press on. We do the work. Because the way, the truth, and the life are hidden in that work. And one day all will be revealed.

High Sounding Non-Sense

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. – Colossians. 2:8 NLT

I love the zest of the New Living Translation. We live in an age of empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense. Around every corner there is someone attempting to lure you into a way of life. And all of it being sold as if it would make you into the most noble human ever. Whether that is such things as “manifesting” – putting the good vibes out into the universe such that the universe will repay you seven-fold, or believing “the science” – which was always contrary to actual science. Science isn’t believed because it is proven or disproven and invites challenge as its only way forward. The world is a smorgasbord of ways to live your life. All often reduced for easy consumption down to bumper stickers and focus grouped phrases. Love is Love. And don’t you ask anyone to define their terms. They are empty and high-sounding, and they have no solid ground.

The Apostle Paul tells us these things come from a couple of places. They can “come from human thinking.” It is not that the Apostle Paul is condemning all human thinking, but he is warning us of that specific type that thinks itself “the smartest man in the room.” Floating around recently was a syllabus of the last semester of Columbia University’s Core Curriculum. Marx, Freud, Fanon, Foucault and Saito. Now I don’t expect you to know all those names, nor even necessarily to look them up. But all of them could easily qualify as empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that comes from human thinking. The workers/psychological/colonial/sexual/ecological utopia is right around the corner. If you just implement my ideas and kill 100 million people. It’s for their good. (And yes, there would be a solid academic reason to read them, if the reason was to be aware and warn of such foolishness, but that is not why they are on the Ivy Syllabus.) Such is our sinful nature.

The other place the Apostle Paul tells us these things come from is “the spiritual powers of this world.” It is funny (at least to me) that I saw reported just this week that some start-up was reporting a way to turn mercury into gold in a fusion reactor. (https://gizmodo.com/startup-claims-its-fusion-reactor-can-turn-cheap-mercury-into-gold-2000633862). The alchemical dream has not died. Although it is an open question which is further away, stable fusion or mercury to gold. Joseph Smith’s tribe continues to proclaim their spiritual powers to get you your own universe. Maybe you can make it easier to transmute lead into gold. And of course the largest cult of the day holds that men can become women and vice versa. And they do so with high-sounding nonsense leading untold numbers into stunted lives and ruined bodies. Such is the world and Satan’s schemes.

Against these the Apostle tells us is the Word of Christ. For He “is the head of all rule and authority (Colossians 2:10).” And through your baptism, “you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh (Colossians 2:13),” God has made you alive together with Christ “by cancelling the record of the debt.” In the Incarnation of Christ, in His flesh, He has defeated our sinful nature and given us His nature. Likewise by the power of the cross, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them.” The World – Pontius Pilate – and Satan thought they had won. They killed The Son and heir, and the world would forever be theirs. But death could not hold Him. And “you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God.” Christ has defeated the World, and Satan’s time is short.

So don’t let anyone capture you. You have the solid philosophy of the risen Christ, not some made up myth. Christ is risen indeed. You have the plain Word of God. Your sins are forgiven. Hold fast and grow into the fullness of Christ.

All the Suffering in the World

Some internet wit posted an aphorism the other day. Something like, Protestants find sin in pleasure, Catholics find goodness in suffering. It is something of a perennial observation that comes back in multiple places and styles: Northern Europe vs. Mediterranean, Prussian vs. Bavarian, Yankee vs. Reb. I don’t know about you, but I always hated it everywhere it shows up. It superficially might fit, but the second you scratch the surface it doesn’t. The real point is to elevate some third group that is neither Protestant or Catholic above such trivial concerns as sin and suffering. As if all the sin and suffering in the world would just disappear if we all were as flippant as the enlightened wit.

The Apostle Paul in our Epistle lesson for the day (Colossians 1:21-29) makes one of his deepest statements. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” The world might have ever shifting ideas of what is sin but there is always something that the world thinks is sinful. The natural law is too powerful, written on our hearts, for the world to get away from sin for that long. With sin what the world tries to do is get the individual to justify themselves and the larger community to act like Pharisees about ceremonial laws instead of moral laws – stop self-reflecting and start cancel culture. We might lose the word sin, but we never lose the concept. Suffering is different. The World, that third enlightened group, doesn’t know what to do about suffering. The Apostle Paul does.

Now, not all suffering is the same. If one suffers because they have trespassed, that is earned. “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? (1 Pet. 2:20)” The rhetorical answer is none. Suffering in itself can just be the due natural punishment of sin. If we avoid it, it is by the mercy of God. Because we are all sinners. St. Peter in his contemplation would say, “but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed (1 Peter 4:13).” To Peter there is a suffering that shares in Christ. It is more a reflection of what Jesus had instructed them: “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. (Matt. 10:25 ESV).” But Paul takes it beyond emulation. ‘I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Ponder for a second how remarkable that is. The bearing of the cross is not an emulation, but participation.

To Paul the church is the body of Christ. And “whatever you do to one of the least of these, you have done unto me (Matthew 25:40).” Suffering that is endured for the sake of Christ or his church, suffering that is taken on for goodness, is a participation in Christ. If we endure such suffering, we are being conformed to Christ. It is not as the wit thinks that the Christian finds goodness in suffering. Because all suffering is ultimately because of a sinful and broken world. But innocent suffering is a participation in the cross. And the cross has been redeemed. The cross is where all those sins have been collected and paid. The cross is the beginning of the glory. The Christian might rejoice in these sufferings, because the mystery of God is being revealed.

The World has no place for suffering because it is passing away. Every day the glory of the World diminishes a bit more. And suffering reminds the World of its temporality. But Christ is eternal and through sufferings, made full in his body the church, has overcome the world.

Love and the Law

How does one love God? How does one love their neighbor?

There are lots of sayings that Jesus is unique on, but in regards to the law, Jesus was shocking in his clarity, but not in his innovation. The shock of Jesus on the law is that he took it seriously and would not accept the lawyerly loopholes. He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). His innovative summary of that law of God is at the end of his re-upping of the 10 commandments in that Sermon on the Mount, “you must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).” But Jesus also nods assent to the more standard summaries of the law as seen in the introduction to our Gospel Lesson (Luke 10:25-37). “Love the Lord with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” The lawyer is probing Jesus for what loopholes he will support. And by the end he realizes that Jesus’ answer is “none.”

All of that is so much the second use of the law – religious or mirror use of it. Looking in the zero loophole law of Jesus shined to a perfectly smooth finish with full silvering on the back we can see every single moral flaw on our face. And in doing that there are one of two reactions. Either Jesus is an overly scrupulous nutcase in which case we can just walk away. Nothing that he says is “reasonable”. Or, Jesus is the one who loves us enough to tell us the truth. Being a “good person” is not going to save you. For salvation – and the lawyer’s initial question is “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” – for salvation you must look outside of the law.

But that does not mean the law is useless. The promise of the law – “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them. (Leviticus 18:5)” – is a false misleading dream. We cannot keep it. We have not kept it. We are not perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. But the law does tell us what true love of our neighbor looks like.

I always chuckle at what gets left out of the lectionary readings. Leviticus 18 and 19 are an enlargement of the 10 commandments. The way Luther answers “what does this mean?” in the catechism with “we should fear and love God so that we don’t do X, but we do Y” can be seen in these chapters. The lectionary picks up the “fear and love God” introduction. “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them I am the LORD your God…I am the LORD (Lev 18:1-5).” But what is the first law that is expanded upon that the selected reading completely skips? The sixth commandment. Do not commit adultery. The entirety of chapter 18 is given over to a laundry list of things that God through Moses says, “stop doing that.” And it covers everything from peeping-toms, to incest, to homosexual acts, to child sacrifice. And it comes with a warning. Doing these things makes the land unclean. That is why the Canaanites are being driven out. “The land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants (Lev 18:25).” True love of the neighbor means not using them sexually.

What else does the chosen reading skip? The first table of the commandments which is in Lev 19:1-8. True love of the neighbor includes worshipping God rightly and honoring your parents.

The lectionary reading picks up the 5^th commandment (don’t kill). That is the point of not harvesting to the edge or stripping the vineyard bare. As Luther would say keeping the 5^th commandment includes “help and support him in every physical need.” The poor and the sojourner don’t have land, but they need a way to feed themselves. True love of the neighbor is ensuring they have that way.

The lectionary reading continues with commandments 7 through 10. And it calls out the various ways we steal from our neighbors or create injustice through the well-placed lie or knowing how the system works. And notice that the way the system works include bias both to the poor and the great. “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great (Lev 19:15).” True love of the neighbor is honest justice.

How does one love their neighbor? By faithfully living the commandments. Do we do this perfectly? No. Does that mean they are meaningless? Absolutely not. This is how we love our neighbor. So how do we love God? By loving our neighbor. God needs nothing from us. In fact he gives us all that we need to support this body and life. We love God by walking in his statutes, not the statutes of Egypt or Canaan we ourselves sojourn in the midst of.

Rivers of Glory

“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream…” – Isaiah 66:12

I grew up on the Mississippi River. Saw that big river daily. Never really understood this verse. Isaiah uses the same metaphor is Isaiah 48:18, “Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” There it makes more sense to me. The idea is the never-ending nature of the river and likewise the waves of the sea. It’s a poetic way of saying what I often do about the law – “your life will go better if you live according to the 10 commandments.” There is some variance. Rivers rise and fall with the rain. Sometimes they jump their banks. Like the waves of the sea with the tides. The returns to observing the law in a fallen world are not guaranteed. The law does not save. But God’s original creation was good and even in its current brokenness that goodness can be seen. Seedtime and harvest do not stop. But in what way is peace like a river? We don’t declare wars anymore, but what was the last year that we didn’t bomb somebody? The last year July 4^th felt like a truly shared holiday of thanks for being Washington’s “distant posterity?”

Isaiah’s reuse of this phrase in chapter 66 is not linked to the covenant of the law as it was in chapter 48. It is not a lament over the peace that was forfeit. Here in chapter 66 it is promise. The Jerusalem that Isaish sees is not the earthly one. The last chapters of Isaiah are largely written to those who had returned from exile. They were in the earthly Jerusalem. And while they might be happy to be back, it wasn’t the promise. And that became evident to them quickly. The temple was never what it was, the monarchy never came back, the walls took generations to rebuild. They were always ruled by someone else. The Jerusalem that Isaiah speaks about is the New Jerusalem. It is the Jerusalem of the divine promise.

In that Jerusalem, “behold, I will extend peace to her like a river.” The eternal flowing nature of a river – at least rivers like the Mississippi if not the Agua Fria – is the promise. The wars and rumors of wars will be over. The game of thrones that never stops, will have ended, because the rightful monarch is on the throne and all pretenders have been cast down.

As much as we might like peace, the truth is that we can often think of peace as boring. We all know those who can’t go a few days without drama, although maybe as we age we come to appreciate boring better. But the thing that Isaiah puts in the poetic comparison is not righteousness as before but now glory. “The glory of the nations like an overflowing stream.” Glory isn’t boring. We endure the drama, we run the race, for the glory of a crown that fades. The New Jerusalem described is peace and glory. And this is a crown that does not fade but overflows.

In the promised Jerusalem peace and glory are not enemies. Peace denying the one desiring glory the opportunity for it. In the promised Jerusalem they are the bedrock of everything. The Peace extended and the glory overflowing allow for flourishing. They allow for mothering (nursing, carrying and comfort) and they allow for growth. “Your bones shall flourish like the grass.” Peace is anything but boring in the New Jerusalem. It’s more like that Big River that could take you wherever you want to go. Just waiting for the Resurrection Huck Finn to get on the raft.

Free Men

There are two contrasting pictures of Christ that the proclamation of the church seems to swing back and forth between. There is “the man of sorrows” which is usually connected with the passion season and gets expressed in atonement theology as substitutionary atonement. Christ suffers the punishment of sin for us and we receive his grace. Maybe this is just me but this Christ was the dominant theme coming out of 19^th century Romanticism and through most of the 20^th century. Full of pathos, always giving, his guts churned over sheep without a shepherd. The 17^th century Sacred Heart movement is very similar, and the 13^th century had a similar movement. The contrast to the man of sorrows is Christ the victor. This image is usually connected with Easter and the resurrection. In atonement theology it is simply Christ the victor over our great enemies: sin, death and the power of the devil. Hence in the picture I’ve used Christ is stepping on the lion and the snake – the lion which devours and the snake which tempts. But also reflect that this Christ is dressed as a soldier. The cross which he carries is the soldier’s ruck which would often include the sword. If the man of sorrows feels great things but is somewhat passive being silent as he walks to the cross, the victorious Christ does great things as he claims his kingdom. Historically you have the crusades. You also have the cults of St. George and you could add the YMCA which in its founding was emblematic of something called “muscular Christianity.” And my point in bringing these up is not to raise up one and deny the other. These are both valid and necessary parts of the faith.

Our texts today (1 Kings 19, Galatians 5, and Luke 9:51-62) lean hard into Christ the Victor. They have little time for great feelings. Elijah has just defeated the priests of Baal, yet somehow, he is moping in the desert bewailing his fate. And God more or less tells him to get up and move. “I have 7000 in Israel who have not bowed to Baal.” Anoint a King of Syria and Israel, find Elisha the next prophet, and “the one who escapes the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death.” And when Elisha receives the call and begs for some time to go say good bye to Father and Mother, Elijah brushes him off. Maybe I have the wrong Elisha. “Go back, for what have I done to you?” The call of the soldier is timely. Make your choice.

Paul converts that Christ of Victory into the demand to live as free men. “For freedom in Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” What is that yoke of slavery? To “use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” Whether you have our enemies as sin, death and the power of the devil or the devil, the world and our sinful nature, your call as a soldier of Christ, who has defeated death and the devil, is to make war against the sin that lives in ourselves. Live by the Spirit and walk by the Spirit. Mortify the flesh and its desires. Claim the victory over yourself.

And lest we think that we can put the man of sorrows great feeling against the demands of the call, our gospel lesson gives us a Christ more direct than Elijah. There are those who wish to follow Christ, yet whom Jesus dismisses as not understanding what they are asking. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Go home, you are not ready to enlist. There are those whom Christ calls, “follow me,” who respond as Elijah, “let me go say good bye.” To which Jesus gives one of his hardest sayings, “Let the dead bury their dead. You go proclaim the Kingdom.” The call is timely. Do you recognize the time of your visitation? And once enlisted, as the Spartans would say “come back with your shield or on it.” Jesus says, ‘no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom.”

The call of Christ to be a disciple is heavenward all the way. The final victory has been won. That doesn’t mean the war is over. Between now and that day, Satan has marked his prey. He fighting a scorched earth retreat all the way to hell. And the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Some martial rigor is needed for the way.

Endless Summers

I suppose it has slipped into a Brown family inside joke. Some celebrity name will come up and I guess I’ve asked – “didn’t they die?” – enough that Ellen makes fun of me because they are not usually dead. The flip side of this is Ellen coming home and informing me that so and so died, and me asking “who is so and so?” I’ll do the same thing with “so and so from a completely different cause of celebrity” and Ellen will ask back, “Who?” I guess we keep different death pool lists. But the death of Brian Wilson was the rare common celebrity.

Now if you care, you have probably read or heard enough about Brian Wilson in the time since. And if you don’t care, you’ve heard too much. I’m hope not going to add to the pile. Honestly I was too young for the Beach Boys to be a thing while I was growing up. They were on the “oldies station” already. (I know, stab me again. When did Motley Crue become classic rock?) Any time it would come on you were instantly transported to 1960’s Southern California. Even if you had never been there, as this prairie son had never been, those songs made it real. But you also realized that those early songs about girls, cars and surfing were about a California that no longer existed, and which now is even further away. Summer isn’t eternal. Wilson was the rare artist that while never really changing his style – all his songs are a blissed out melancholy summer – they grew in maturity and depth. But Brian Wilson was first under his abusive father, and then under an abusive shrink, and at one point he wondered if he needed the abuse to be creative. His story doesn’t really have a second creative act. When the muse is gone, it is gone. But he does have a second act of love. His 2^nd wife more or less rescued him and together they adopted and raised five kids. If you have never seen the movie Love and Mercy it is well worth a couple of hours.

Brian Wilson’s story came to mind while I was reading the epistle lesson for this week – Galatians 3:23-4:7. Paul reflects on the law throughout the passage as being “our guardian” or “being held captive under the law” or “when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” The reflection on the law becoming more severe: guardian to enslaver. And if one is raised in a certain way, the law can inspire great acts. And I suppose I should expand that, everyone has some type of law. You can’t escape it. Which is why Paul calls it the “elementary principles of the world.” The only difference is if you have a revealed law, or just the intuitive one. And for each type, there are always kids who will run through brick walls if the Father figure tells them to. Brian Wilson seemed to have been one of those. But if our salvation is by the law, when we can no longer run through brick walls, when the muse no longer stops by, where are we? Brian’s Dad owned those early songs and sold them for pennies because he thought his son was washed up. What surely started out as appropriate instruction becomes abuse. “We are enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” Instead of having a love of the law of God which is a lamp for our feet and a guide to our path, we learn to hate it, and are defeated by it. Our guardian becomes our tormentor. Especially if we have come of age.

“But we are no longer under a guardian.” The law is not our means of salvation. “The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” Because in faith we are not slaves, but we are sons. Like Brian meeting his second wife who created a secure place of love for him, in Christ we have that place of love. In Christ we can know the Father rightly. Not as a slave driver, but as “Abba! Father!” who gives us his Spirit freely. And we no longer have to worry about being turned out or used up. Because in Christ by faith we are heirs, heirs of the promise. God only know what we’d be without.

Theology and Doxology

It’s a saying that has been attributed to many people – “all theology ends in doxology.” My guess is that it is a common refrain of people who have read Romans 7 through 11. Paul struggles for the theology of gentile inclusion, Jewish seeming exclusion and what comes to be called the doctrine of election. And his entire struggle ends with “O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God…for from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Trinity Sunday always brings that thought back to me because Trinity Sunday is the most dogmatic day in the church year. It is a day given over to the culmination of a theological project. “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith…and the catholic faith is this.” The first 300 years post the apostles was the church struggling to define its belief. It had faith. That is the gift of the Holy Spirit. But it also desired some understanding, faith seeking understanding. That is the theological project. That is the point of doctrine. This is what we believe, teach and confess. We live or maybe I should say have lived in a time the has devalued theology. It has done that in two ways. Crudely it has often just dismissed doctrine as unnecessary divisions. “Deeds not creeds” which ultimately turns the faith in ethics. That is the long path toward Mohammed, or Paul would have said the Judaizers. Both will tell you the law as a means of salvation. There has also been a more subtle form of devaluing theology. Using it not as faith seeking to understand the God from whom we came, in whom we exists and to whom we shall return. But using theology as a means of power or maybe I should say anti-power as in our day it has been used to deconstruct and destroy order. This is the path to nihilism. The law won’t save you and nothing will save you. You are alone in the universe.

The entire purpose of theology as properly understood has been to understand the narrow way between those two conclusions – salvation by the law or meaninglessness. Now giving due to the nihilists, all theology is trying to put into words what is ultimately transcendent. It is an impossible task. It is a walking on Holy Ground. And as Moses was told about walking on Holy Ground, take your shoes off. Keep the dirt and grass of creation next to your skin. Because all understanding of God in words is by analogy. And all analogy fails at some point. The better analogies are those you can feel. That Athanasian creed uses analogies like majesty, infinite and eternal. If you have three majesties, you don’t really have one. The Godhead is majesty coeternal. There is only one eternal. Mathematicians can discern larger and smaller infinities, but looking at the night sky gives you one.

Also giving due to the legalists, if you don’t require something you don’t really know anything. The unknown God is a terrible monster. You don’t know if He is there is kill and devour you, or to save you. And any God who makes himself known reveals something about his ways. And if they are the ways of God, they should also be the ways of His creations. The Athanasian creed moves on from the majesty, infinite and eternal – all of which could be an unknown God. Aristotle comes to some similar conclusions without knowing God. The Athanasian creed also tells us “it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God has revealed himself in man. And not just man in general, but a man, a particular man – Jesus. The ways of God are revealed to us in Jesus “who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, and rose again the third day from the dead.” The God we worship is one who saves by grace, one who suffers, and one who works by death and resurrection. You don’t get more gritty dirt than a grave, or one who comes out of it.

The theology is necessary because the Spirit does lead us into truth, and the theology is the record of that. The errors never really go away. They always come back and the church can take out the record and say “you are here.” But the theology also at some point get put down and join the choir. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”

Come As You Are?

Mt. Zion, specifically the Choir, received a wonderful gift. Today, on Pentecost Sunday, we are blessing and putting into first use new choir robes sponsored by a generous gift. On such an occasion it is worth thinking about the bare facts of worship and presentation.

The prevailing ethos of our day might be summed up as “come as you are.” I’ve heard on more than one occasion in my life some form of “God doesn’t care what you look like, he cares that you are present.” And if I’m ascribing the best construction to such thoughts they come from places like Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well who was very concerned about proper worship. “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place people ought to worship…(John 4:20)”. And we normally skip to the later part of Jesus’ response, “the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth (John 4:23).” The hymn Just As I Am, without one plea, captures something true about worship. God doesn’t need anything from us. He doesn’t “eat” our sacrifices. He doesn’t exist off of our devotion. He doesn’t need fancy vestments. And Jesus on more than one occasion would mock the pharisees for their like of “long robes (Mark 12:38).” The worship that God’s desires – especially on Pentecost – is that in Sprit and Truth.

But the ethos of our day usually takes this much too far. It usually takes it to one of three assertions.

When something wonderful is done for Jesus – like anointing him with costly myrrh (Matthew 26) – there is a tut tut that “this large sum could have been given to the poor.”
That God does not really care about the form of worship
And ultimately “come as you are” ends with a statement like “God accepts you just as you are.”

It should give anyone pause using the first of these arguments that the bible tells us this was Judas’ argument (John 12:4). But Jesus’ response comes in two forms. First, “she has done a beautiful thing to me.” Nothing done for God is truly lost. And beautiful things have ways of reminding us that this is our Father’s world and He cares for it deeply. Deeply enough that he so clothes the lilies of field that are here today and gone tomorrow. We cannot equal the lilies, but copying the Father is never a bad thing. Jesus’ second response is “the poor you will have with you always.” This is not a dismissal of the ethical demands of charity, but a recognition that ethics – how you live – is subservient to belief. That when the God you believe in is present, that takes priority. Mary chose the greater part (Luke 10:42).

The second assertion is what Exodus 28, for that matter Exodus 25 through the end of Leviticus, should give us pause. God in painstaking detail in those chapters and books tells Israel exactly how they are to worship. Right down to the garments of the priests. We cannot say that God does not care. There is even a parable about showing up to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. The problem that the ethos of our day was reacting against was taking such things as a law. If you did not or could not worship in this way your worship was invalid. That would break what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman. But it also went too far in not hearing what Jesus first said to her, “You worship what you do not know, we Jews worship what we do know.” God went into painstaking detail about worship so that we might know him. Vestments and beautiful things in worship are not about us. We come as we are without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. These things point to the God whose first work post sin was to cover Adam and Eve in better clothes. And who ultimately gave us the robe of Christ’s righteousness.

Those earlier assertions all lead to that last one, which really is the natural religion of the day. The logic is something like God made all things. God is a good guy. Therefore God accepts us as we were made. He accepts us just as we are. There are many problems with this, but I will limit myself. What God made was good, and we broke it with our sin. The “good guy” doesn’t accept us as we are, he offers us absolution in Christ. He invites us into the divine life. Not to stay as we are, but to kill the old Adam and arise in before God is newness of life. Life in the Spirit is one of being conformed to the likeness of Christ. “We shall all be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51).”

We are putting something beautiful into the service of God. The worship of Spirit and Truth acknowledges the gifts God freely gives.