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//