Sunday Reflections

I almost never read the back of church programs. 99% of the time, you find some really stupid poem or some failed attempt at art. Its the place of acrostics and anecdotes. By the way, do people even do acrostics anymore? I thought we dropped that in like ... I don't know 1st grade or something? But I digress. In my experience, the best use of the sad, hidden, oft neglected back-flap is silent note passing.

Its perfect for a quick question to your spouse or friend in the middle of a sermon ... Where are we meeting your parents for lunch? -or- Do you see what ____ is wearing? -or- What is Rev. _____ talking about?!

-DISCLAIMER: I NEVER PASS NOTES DURING SERMONS .... -

Its the sad truth but its the honest truth ... nobody reads the back flap.

Yet lo and behold, Sunday morning I stumble across it! Obviously by accident - I wouldn't have turned there on purpose of course. I stumble across the back flap of our church program only to find an absolute gem of theological artistry. It caught me off guard - as any reading of the back flap tends to do. Expecting rubbish, I found pure gold. Imagine that! SO, I would therefore like to shine light on the dark neglected region of ... dum dum duhhhh - the church bulletin back flap. So here it goes.

J. Abigail Brown writes:

HE IS YOUR GOD

Not in a pompous palace,
But a quiet humble stall.
Lies a helpless tiny baby,
God almighty, Lord of all.

[...]

Not shunning want or hardness,
But accepting servile birth.
Jesus came to live, to die here.
King of Heaven, child of Earth.

A mystery is born:
Our God, in Servant form.
Bow in awe and worship:
He is your God.

-------------------------------------------

I like my God strong and mighty. I like Him rough and tough. I like to think of Him breaking into my world and shattering reality as I know it. I like to think of Him putting to shame all the mighty by beating them down and making them submit. I like the Psalm 2 God - who breaks the teeth of those who stand against His anointed. Ya ... I like my God powerful. I suspect you do too.

But here, found in obscurity, on the dark side of the church program, I'm reminded of the mystery made manifest in Christ. The mystery in which, I can only begin to understand yet never fully comprehend, God made low for us. God's power made known in powerlessness. His great freedom and strength in the willingness to be enslaved and weak. The God who, for the sake of His sheep, lays down His life and lets Himself be born - in servant form. The God who balances Psalm 2 with Philippians 2. The God who calls me to join Him at the bottom, ironically to find that I am with Him at the top. The God who pierces all darkness with His light and makes even the low places high and the high places low.

This is my God. This is your God - as J. Abigail Brown so insightfully notes. God Almighty, Lord of all. Yes Lord of all.

So it seems that this Sunday - in the hidden obscurity of cheap neglected poems, I find the hidden mystery of Christmas. God Almighty in servant form.

//Ex Profundis//

A Very Happy Unthanksgiving

"Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations."
- Psalm 100:4b-5

So during Thanksgiving we always like to reflect on things that we're thankful for. We go through the list - family, friends, the roof over our heads etc. We list all the things that are going well in life, and we throw out God's name as the source of all those good things.

And indeed we should do this! I'm not belittling it. But I'd like to take a different approach to Thanksgiving this year. Before the list of blessings, I'd like to stop and think of all the things in life that don't make sense. All of the things that we are NOT thankful for: the person who just absolutely annoys, the burden that seems to heavy to bear or the plans that just didn't go as planned.

I'd like to take all the frustrations, all the things for which I am UNthankful for (yes I'm aware its not a word - but forgive me if I play with the theme a la Alice and Wonderland) and with all of these things in mind I would like to dare to recite the Psalm above. To bravely and faithfully recite it two or three times with all the trials and frustrations in mind. To meditate on it.

If you do this along with me, what you will find is that this Psalm is a Psalm of hope - just as much as it is a Psalm of thanksgiving. God in Christ pierces deep into the desperation of life, He cuts down even into the frustrations and complications and He says like thunder -

I AM THE LORD AND THERE IS NO OTHER

He makes known at the Cross of Christ and in His resurrection that He is faithful through all generations. His love for His creation endures forever. There - in the cross and in the resurrection (in the incarnation and ascension too for that matter) - He makes known to us that He is what He is and He is this forever; all generations. His love endures forever.

So that in even the darkest of situations, Psalm 100 is a Psalm of hope. It is a Psalm of trust. A beacon of light - bright and true. God is faithful.

In that, we can be thankful even in our UNthankfulness. We can be thankful when we are NOT thankful because our hope is in Christ - our hope is in the Lord ... and there is no other! In Christ, God reaches even into the muck and mire of our despair and says - Give thanks!

Sure we can list the things that are going well in life and be thankful but I daresay it may be too shallow a thanksgiving. There is a richness beyond all reason, a peace that surpasses all understanding - it takes place when we remember that God is faithful even in our lowliness. He exalts every valley and every mountain and hill He makes low. He makes the crooked straight and the rough places plain. Only when we recognize this is the good truly good. Only then, when we see things from this perspective, is thankfulness truly thankfulness.

He is faithful to all generations. He is our God. Our hope is in Him.

Give thanks!

"Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations."
- Psalm 100:4b-5

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS

//Ex Profundis//

Specks. Logs. Hypocrites.

And Jesus says to His church:

"Do not judge so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure that you measure with, you too will be measured. So why do you see the speck in your brother's eye when you do not observe the plank of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother: 'come, let me take that speck out of your eye' when behold - the plank of wood in your eye! Hypocrite! First take out the plank of wood from your own eye and then, seeing clearly, take out the speck from your brother's eye."

If God has made Jesus Christ Lord and Judge over all humanity, then I am free to be judged and not the judge. If the church is supposed to be the community of those called out as witnesses to the reality of Christ's Lordship - His position as God's chosen Judge; then is not the church supposed to be the incarnate form of Jesus' teaching here?

There are two positions I have come across in my studies which I find absolutely untenable; specifically as they relate to Jesus' teachings here and on the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. Disagree if you'd like, but they are as follows:

I

That the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount - and therefore Jesus' teaching here on judgment - is forward pointing. That is, it is simply an ideal for a purely future, coming Kingdom of God. It is not to be lived out in the here and now but can only take place in the Kingdom of God that is to come.

That the Kingdom is not fully established and that therefore some of these teachings will be shadows of what is to come or at least somewhat tarnished by human sin - I have no disagreement. But God forbid we refuse to live the ethic of Jesus' Kingdom here and now. When He says "Do not Judge" he means it for the church - the church that was, and is and is to come - for that is the time frame in which He exercises His Lordship and Divine appointment as the Judge.

II
That the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount - and therefore Jesus' teaching here on judgment - is simply for the individual. That it is not a matter of the church, or the Christian community as a whole to take to heart - but that it applies only to individuals and their individual respective relationships.

OK.
So, where did this come from?! How is it even possible to make such a distinction? Is not the Christian 'individual' an 'individual' in community? Is not the church a make up of many different individuals relating to each other in Christlikeness? If so, what difference is it? How can we say: "the individual should not judge" but "the church can and does have the right to judge?!" Is not the one simply a part of the whole? In my opinion to distinguish between the individual application of this passage and the corporate, community-wide application of this passage is a plain and simple cope out. It borders on disobedience to the Living and Active Word of our Lord Jesus Christ.

-----------------------------------------

But then again ... who am I to judge?

//Ex Profundis//

Go and Do Likewise

The First Baptist Church of Shingleton, a small African-American church in NorCal, decides to hold their annual youth retreat in San Diego.

The kids have never ventured down to the southern side of the state and the newly hired, hip young pastor wants them to see new things. Naturally, the youth group is pumped!

Bags are packed, waivers are signed and before you know it, a van filled with 17-18 year old kids heads south for San Diego. The lush green backdrop of NorCal slowly gives way to the empty, open fields of the Central Valley. Hours and hours pass. Light fades. Then suddenly ... the city. Los Angeles. Hustle and bustle.

Amazed, the children ask the young new pastor to make a short pit-stop. Hollywood. Hollywood is what they want. The stars, the glamour, the fame. "We want to see Hollywood!" they shout.

And so it is that the young new pastor, swayed by their demands, took the exit - Hollywood it is. Let's stop for dinner.

--------------------

It's about 10'oclock now. Dinner is over. They've all done a bit of sightseeing; the group is getting ready to head back to the van. Its getting late.

As the pastor and the kids are walking along Hollywood blvd., a group of 20-somethings start to follow them. At first, there's no notice. Nothing out of the ordinary. In time though, the pastor picks up the pace. Things get a little tense. Something isn't right. Sensing the urgency, the kids follow their pastor's lead. They all speed up. They're being followed.

Things begin to spiral out of control quick. This group of hoodlums, gang-members - starts to hurl insults at the young kids running. Racial slurs of every type accost the pastor and these young teenage kids; inhuman words, words that dare not to be mentioned or graced with recognition.

Insulted, humiliated and in fear for his life, one of the young teenage boys turns to face his pursuers. Infuriated by their ignorance and hate, he demands that they stop. He demands dignity. In the background he hears the voice of his fearless leader - the pastor - shout: "keep running kids don't stop!" It hits him. He is abandoned, alone to face the hate of his pursuers. For a minute, it almost seems that they'll leave him alone. They stare at him, as if amazed that he would have such bravery - such gall. But then it happens. Swift punch after swift punch. Bat to the jaw. The irony taste of blood in the mouth. Sharp piercing pain in the chest. Then - blackness ... unconsciousness ... helplessness. The young teenage boy is left half-dead, sprawled out lifeless by the curb.

Across the street a curious figure approaches. An odd heroine. She emerges cautiously. A provocatively dressed, heavily make-up' ed prostitute makes her way to the boy. She heard the cries of the young man as she traveled to work - i.e. her corner. She stopped to see what the commotion was and now she stands over the half-dead, lifeless African-American boy sprawled out on the curb. She looks one way, she looks the other. Moved by the young man's helplessness, she picks up his cold, bloodied body and carries him away from the scene.

She takes this boy to her place of work - i.e. a motel. She lays him down on the bed and dresses his wounds to the best of her knowledge. Like a mother to her child she nurses the boy back to consciousness.

"Thank You" he murmurs with the little breath he has.

"You're still not well hun. I needa call an ambulance for ya ... you need more help than I know to give." says the prostitute, "but I can't be around when the police get here ... they don't look too kindly on my profession if you know what I mean ... "

So she calls the police and the paramedics. She gives them the room number and the name of the motel and she leaves the boy behind.

--------------------

It's the next morning now. The whole youth group stands bedside over the young man. The pastor, excited and proud to see him awake, jumps up.

"The police contacted us as soon as they found you! Thank God you're alright! The kids and I, we were so worried for you! We prayed long and hard for you last night and look, God answered our prayers!"

Here the young man shakes his head. He looks out the window and back at his peers. He gathers up the rights words and simply asks:

"Where were you guys? Why did you leave me? Why didn't you come back to get me?"

The whole room is quiet while the pastor looks sheepishly at the scratched white hospital floor.

"You left me in need. I was lifeless - half-dead in the streets and you prayed for my well-being while a prostitute off the streets dressed my bloodied wounds. You did nothing while this stranger saved me."

"You tell me," says the young man, "last night in the streets - who proved to be a neighbor to me?"

A long silence is broken by the young man's wise brave words:

"Please pastor, you've told us that we are called to love our neighbor ... go and do likewise."

Needless to say, the drive home to Shingleton was a quiet one.

Luke 10:25-37
God help us to tear down the boundaries and limits we set up of who we will and will not love

//Ex Profundis//

Good Ole' Gustav Sure Had a Way With Words

"Let us respond to the world when it aims to make us fearful: your lords are leaving, but our Lord is coming"

So, I turn on the T.V. and there's this guy. He's wearing something like a three-thousand dollar suit and from his comfortably air-conditioned studio he hysterically rants about the economy and its failures - and when I say hysterically - I mean ... he was hysterical. Freaking out - lost his mind! You know, the real heavy, "this is the end of things, capitalism is failing us, we're all going down in the sinking ship" kind of stuff. Not something I want to hear when I get home from a long days work - especially from a guy who's wearing a three-thousand dollar suit. What right does he have to talk about economic crisis? Hypocrite.

So I change the channel. Same suit, different guy: "the Republican party needs to understand ... blah blah blah// the Democratic party needs to understand ... blah blah blah// the Independent party needs to ... oh wait that's right, we don't value independent thinkers anymore - so forget it who cares about those guys ... they don't understand anything." He rants and banters on and on. Meanwhile, congress and the United States political scene get nestled away into a pretty little hand basket with a big pink bow - and they go straight to hell. Chaos.

God! So I shut off the T.V. and go to sleep. No more of this. I'd rather not listen to this fear mongering hysterics. Enough.

Cut scene. I'm in my office. I pick up this book and I read the following quote from a dead German guy - Gustav Heinemann. German guys rock. Well, ok ... most German guys rock ... ok wait no, hold on ... most German theologians rock ... there that's where I'll land. ANYWAYS! I read this quote from Gustav Heinemann (who actually wasn't even a theologian; he was a member of the Confessing Church under Nazi rule and he went on to become the president of the Republic of Germany). Good ole' Gustav says:

"Let us respond to the world when it aims to make us fearful: your lords are leaving, but our Lord is coming"

I know what you're thinking - I thought the same thing: "This guy was a politician?!" Right?! How does a politician come up with such a profound truth. He's obviously a politician from another time - we don't have those truth-speaking profound politicians laying around anymore! But I digress from my point.

Do we believe this anymore? Do we respond to the world's fear mongering and hysterics with the comforting, quiet words of assurance: "Yes, your lords are leaving - but our Lord is coming?"

Have we as the church maybe lost our witness to this profound hope? Have we joined the world around us in hopeless lament? Joined the bandwagon perhaps?

Or, maybe we have so associated with the gods of this world - money, comfort, self-image -that these in fact have become our lords and now that they are leaving we in fact do despair with no hope? I'd like to think not, but sometimes I think so. I wonder ...

Our Lord is coming. He's alive. He is active. He is ... reigning.

May the church say again, as it has in the past - with undying hope and witness to our true Lord - " Come Lord Jesus, Come"

//Ex Profundis//

Edmund the Inflatable Astronaut and What He Taught Me About The Kingdom of God

THIS ... is a giant inflatable astronaut.

He is in my office. He is staring at me. He has friends. His friends include Zoom the space traveling teenager, Twila, Zoom's timid younger sister and yes ... where would this kind, gentle astronaut be without the likes of his good friend Sid the super-intelligent space dog.

THIS ... is a giant inflatable astronaut and he is in my office.

But why, you may ask? Why is he in my office? What use could Jeremy possibly have for such a childish, silly, waste of space as this giant inflatable astronaut (who will from now on be referred to as Edmund - for no other reason than that the name is a properly English name and such a proper name seems ridiculous for such an improper inflatable object ... but I digress). Yes, anyhow ... WHY?! Why is Edmund staring at me? What is Edmund's purpose?

Well there is a perfectly good answer: Vacation Bible School.

You see every year at the church in which I serve we hold a Vacation Bible School for the children of the community. Bible lessons, games, arts and crafts ... you name it we have it! And this year, who has the task of organizing this great fanfare? None other than yours truly.

Over the past three months I have been ordering, reviewing, administrating, overseeing and yes ... inflating. Now I must confess sincerely - this is not at all my comfort zone.

I am not prone to children, nor am I prone to the simple, concrete ideas to which children can cling and own. I taught a group of 3rd and 4th graders for a year in Sunday school long ago. My first lesson I digressed for 30 minutes on how Jesus was Divine and Human in one single Person. Hypostatic Union + 3rd and 4th Graders = Animal Crackers Being Thrown at Mr. Jeremy During Snack Time.

I will be even more honest with you ... at times over these past few months - I have found myself grumbling over my preparations. Frustrated. Indeed, bitter over having to prepare such simple, foolish, CHILDISH programs. I have a degree, I am a grown man, I am ... SMARTER than this! I read Kafka and Kierkegaard and I think I understand them!! I wrote papers in seminary refuting German source critics and analyzing deep theological complexities. I KNOW GREEK! I KNOW LATIN! I KNOW WHAT SUPRALAPSARIANISM IS AND CAN PROBABLY EXPLAIN IT!! What in the hell business does Edmund the giant inflatable astronaut have staring back at me in my office while I watch over, and over, and over cheesy children's skits from the curriculum pack?!

WHY?!

Oh, but then there is God's silent, soul-striking way of re-framing our questions. Driving to church one day this last week I heard the verse from Luke18:17 spill out over the radio and shock my inappropriate arrogance into submission ...

"Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God
like a child will not enter it at all.”

Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.

At all.

Nada.

No Entrada.

You see, in all my vanity, in all my arrogance, in all my big-headed intellectualism it hit me. It struck me that possibly I was in fact hiding! I was hiding from the truth that indeed I haven't fully grasped the beauty of God's Kingdom because I haven't fully become a child. I haven't become simple, dependent, wishful, hopeful ... childish.

Perhaps I had missed the depths of what it meant to be in the kingdom of God because I had refused to become a child. I had entered on the terms that I would be intelligent, independent, smooth ... hip! I had entered on these terms and yet - no one CAN enter on these terms. I had been and am mistaken.

So you see it struck me then and it strikes me now that perhaps God isn't using me to teach the children, maybe He was using the children to teach me! To humble me! To say to me: "Jeremy, you are like these before The Almighty Wisdom of My Name!" Maybe you need to hear the same striking message. Maybe you too must become a child and stop hiding under the pretense of adulthood. Maybe we all do.

So now Edmund looks at me - and I look back him - and I remember as I leave each day from my office the humiliating - yet paradoxically dignifying - words of Jesus ...

Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.

//Ex Profundis//

Lost and Found

"And when Jesus saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them - because they were harassed and tossed about; like sheep having no shepherd."
- Matthew 9:36

Humanity. All of it. The multitudes. Harassed, dispirited, wandering ...

Do we not all find ourselves in this crowd, this multitude, this constant 'tossing about?' Do we not catch a glimpse of our own presence in the midst of this people. Being led this way and that. Finding rest here, leaving when it is done. Looking for hope there, yet moving on when the well turns dry. Rag dolls, marionettes.

If we look hard at our today, the day we live in - can we not honestly say that Jesus looks out at us, from His Heavenly dwelling, from His Holy of Holies and weeps over us ... has compassion for us? Can we deny that He looks down at us - harassed, tossed about, in constant unrest ... wandering as sheep - and weeps?

Do we not need a Lord? Do we not need a Shepherd?

Have not our shepherds failed us? Have not our "lords" led us deeper into the tumult, deeper into disappointment ... into even more serious wandering about in the pastures of life? Harassment from every side.

O Lord Teach us to see ourselves in this multitude. For if we do not, we are deceived. For truly are we this multitude. Truly are we this humanity in singularity.

Humanity. All of it. The multitudes. Harassed, dispirited, wandering.

Humanity.

The Lord is my Shepherd - I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the quiet waters

\\He refreshes my soul//

May He ever lead us ... may He ever refresh our soul.

Let it be

"It is an unfortunate habit that we all like to think of others, but not ourselves, as belonging to this common herd, the mass, humanity. In so doing, we only show that we ourselves DO belong [...] the moving pushing jostling throng of those who all think of themselves as special cases, protesting their different individualities; wanting to be and have something for themselves but in so doing merge into a sea of heads, a herd in which names are indifferent and distinctive features are lost and this or that one emerges for a moment only to disappear again in the common mass in which men are no longer men in any true sense - this is the multitude which when He saw it moved Jesus to compassion."

- Karl Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 P.85

This is our 21st century multitude. We find ourselves in the midst of it and yet Jesus takes us out of it only to place us back into it. He makes us new and then he places us amongst the old so that we might bear witness of His Shepherding. His life-giving, hope restoring Shepherding.

He makes us His. He refreshes our soul. He becomes our Good Shepherd.

We shall not want.

//Ex Profundis//