tabletalk

Loving America

I have traveled quite a bit.  Little by some standards and a lot by other standards.  I love meeting people all over the world.  I'm getting antsy to get out and about.  But no matter how long I'm gone, I do enjoy coming home to the United States.  For all its flaws it is the place that allows for the most freedoms and makes room for me to hold my opinions without reprisal.

Bill Bishop in his book "The Big Sort" says this:

"The country may be more diverse than ever coast to coast.  But look around: our own streets are filled with people who live alike, think alike, and vote alike.  This social transformation didn't happen by accident.  We have built a country where everyone can choose the neighborhood (and church and news shows) most compatible with his or her lifestyle and beliefs.  And we are living with the consequences of this segregation by way of life: pockets of like-minded citizens that have become so ideologically inbred that we don't know, can't understand, and can barely conceive of 'those people' who live just a few miles away."

One of the ironies is that the freedom we enjoy, love and take for granted, is the very freedom that makes it possible to ignore and deride one another.  As we seek to associate with those who are like us, we lose touch with the majority of people we need to meet and get along with.  Every time we refer to "those people" we get further away from the American ideal of a united people.  Even more significant is that we get further away from God's vision for us to be "one people" in Christ. (see Bob Pearson's comment on the Big Sort article earlier.)

By sticking to "people like us" we become impoverished.  The Statue of Liberty has been a symbol for our country of our willingness to be an inclusive people.  Let's go further than being inclusive and love America.  Not the flag, or the rules, or the ideals.  They can become vague symbols that have no reality.  But let's love America the people.  This will put us in community with those whose ideologies and orientations and opinions challenge our own.  It will make us vulnerable to other thoughts and ways of living.  But isn't that the point?

Questions From Without: Hell and Reading the Bible

Anytime someone reads the Bible they come to it with a set of expectations. Every single person brings prejudices, insights, wisdom, ignorance, good methods and bad to reading the Bible. Many times in our 21st century existence we forget that there are 20 centuries between us and those who wrote the texts we read. Often we simply lift the texts out, transporting them over the centuries into our modern existence without any translation or context. This can cause us to go horribly wrong in our interpretations. We all want it to speak to us. Often all of these expectations and methodologies end up keeping us from understanding. Every approach has its limits. There is no "right way" to read the scriptures. But there are better ways to read it than ohters. This requires great discernment and good mentors and a lot of honesty.

We are going to look at a way of reading the passages on Hell, suggested by Brian McLaren in chapter 19 "Homework Assignment" in The Last Word and the Word After That. It's a method that I believe allows us to let the passages to speak for themselves. This is Lewis's point, let the text speak and learn from it without imposing your expectations and needs on it. We can't do this perfectly but we can approximate it. Here is McLaren's method:

"Make a table with four columns, headed 'Passage,' 'Behavior,' 'Consequence,' and 'Point.' Read through Matthew, and note each passage that deals wit the subject of judgment (not just the passages that explicitly mention hell of Gehenna or Hades). Then note the behavior that will be judged, along with the consequence that follows that behavior. Then try to identify the point: what is the rhetorical purpose of the passage?
Here's what I think you'll find.
1. Our contemporary modern Western conservative Protestant gospel would say this:
Behavior: Not accepting Jesus Christ as personal savior, not being saved or born again, not asking Jesus
into your heart so your sins can be forgiven, etc.
Consequence: Being sent to hell.
Point: Accept Jesus as your personal Savior.
2. Not one passage from the Gospels says anything remotely like this."

We're going to use this method. If you would like to try it on your own that would be exceptional, but if you trust McLaren not to misquote the scripture, then we'll simply use his table from the above chapter.

The next few blogs will look at how this works. One of the things to know is how the people of Jesus' day viewed hell. Each of the principle religious groups of Jesus' time had a different way of approaching this concept. Hell was in no way accepted by all the religious people of that time. It took centuries for it to become something like what we have today. Remember we can't simply understand a text in our own time without understanding it first in Jesus' time. We will need to know how the Sadducees look at a text and how the Pharisees would view it. There are other groups like the Herodians and more. So I will comment on them as their views are addressed in different texts.

The hard thing for us is to set aside our agendas so we can listen to the biblical agenda. Wouldn't it be best to get close to what God wants of us, rather than to make God get close to what we want?

PBS Discussion on Moral Values

Dr. Mouw is the President of Fuller Theological Seminary.  If you're interested in the discussion you'll enjoy his thoughts. 

Jan. 7 -- Dr. Mouw is on the PBS Tavis Smiley Show for a special program
focusing on Morality in America.   This half-hour show airs at 11:00 p.m. in
Los Angeles and at various times throughout the country (please check local
times).  Dr. Mouw is part of a panel discussion including Rev. Chip Murray,
retired pastor of First AME Church in Los Angeles; Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor
of Tikkun Magazine; and Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, president of the AME
Church Council of Bishops.

Advent Morality

This week I'm preaching on the "Magnificat" the song that Mary sings in the presence of her kinswoman Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. This song is modeled after the song of Hannah in Samuel.  It is a fascinating view into the Gospel of Luke and into the very character of God.  Again, what we value ought to be what God values.  Luke is often about the reversal of fortune.  Mary sets the table.

We have held a class at our church over the years called "Discover the World."  It has been a training for people wanting to go on short-term missions from our congregation.  One of the early points in the class is the following: "If you want to know God's will for your life, find out what God is doing in the world and come alongside it."  Good guidance.

Fred Craddock in his commentary on Luke says of Mary's song, "So sure is the singer that God will do what is promised that it is proclaimed as accomplished fact."  After a brief thanksgiving for her own circumstance, Mary sings about what God is intending to do in the world in the sure confidence that it is what God is doing now.

Here is what Mary sings about what God is doing: The proud are scattered in their own thoughts; the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the lowly are lifted up; the rich are sent away empty and the hungry are filled with good things. God will help his people those who fear [reverence] him from generation to generation.  (find all this in Luke 1:46-56)

If I want to know God's will for my life, then I need to recognize where the above things are taking place or about to take place and come alongside what God is doing.  In some funny sense these are sacramental places - visible expressions of an invisible grace.  Where do we see the proud needing to be humbled?  Where are the poor who need to be lifted up?  Where are the hungry that need to be fed?  Where are the rich who need to be made empty so they can be filled with God instead of mammon? 

I've read with some disappointment the effort that some Christians are putting in to making sure that retailers make mention of a Merry Christmas as though this is the heart of the Gospel. Jesus doesn't need endorsements from marketers.  Jesus needs us to be a reverant and attentive people.  Mary's song tells Christians where to find God.  She is a great disciple. She sees and she welcomes God into her own life and rejoices at what he has done and will do. 

Those who have eyes to see...

Beyond the Manger

I have found the publishing of a series on moral values a bit daunting and it has taken me back a few steps. It is too significant a topic for me to blog casually.  I intend to follow up with the series in relation to the Sermon on the Mount.  But I want to share a little more personally this time out.

Currently I am preaching and teaching from the Gospel of Luke.  One of the fine commentaries on this is a new series by N.T. Wright.  It is his "For Everyone" series that is destined to be the contemporary replacement of William Barclay's time honored The Daily Bible Studies Series.  "Luke for Everyone" is truly helpful for disciples of any stage in their walk.

The story of the birth of Jesus in Luke 2 has everything to do with what we value.  In the birth of Jesus, Luke tells us that we can expect God's Kingdom to be in complete contradiction to the kingdoms of this world.  The contrasts between how the kingdoms of the world function and the Kingdom of God couldn't be more clear and spread throughout the Gospel of Luke. 

When we mention a phrase like, "The Kingdom of God," it means quite literally, the "Rule of God."  That is, God being in charge of lives, of churches, of nations.  God's rule is seen in the very person of Jesus, even in his birth. 

The contrasts between the royalty we see on earth, the Caesars, the Kings, the Emperors, the Presidents, the rulers of the present age, and the King of Kings born in Bethlehem are striking.  A royal birth would be accompanied by fanfare and festivities, parties and vigils.  Yes, Jesus has a fanfare, but to a few shepherds and a lowly family crowded into their relatives' home during a census.  The King is laid in a manger not a royal cradle.  He is hailed as the Savior of the World, countering the claim of Augustus that he was savior and lord and god.  Jesus is born on the frontier of the empire, not at the seat of power, but the backwaters.  Wright puts it this way.  "But the point Luke is making is clear.  The birth of this little boy is the beginning of a confrontation between the kingdom of God - and the kingdoms of the world.  Augustus never heard of Jesus of Nazareth.  But within a century or so his successors in Rome had not only heard of him; they were taking steps to obliterate his followers.  Within just over three centuries the Emperor himself became a Christian.  When you see the manger on a card or in church, don't stop at the crib.  See what it is pointing to.  It is pointing to the explosive truth that the baby lying there is already being spoken of as the true king of the world.  The rest of Luke's story, both in the gospel and, later on, in Acts, will tell how he comes into his kingdom."

Maybe the moral point is this: See in the humble coming of Jesus God's own values.  See his understanding of power and righteousness and justice and mercy and love.  Go beyond the sentimentality of the manger and see God's strategy for salvation.  It is the antithesis of the worldly kingdoms we are part of.

Well I've not said much.  But the point is, well, see the point beyond the manger.

Interpathy

Thought you would enjoy this observation by my friend Fyfe Blair in New Zealand.  You can read the context of this in his comments to MV101.b.  He's a thoughtful friend.  Check out his website at the right.

"Interpathy = an expansion of empathy relating to thinking with and
feeling with a person who is other to us. It is actually to step into and
genuinely be involved in the experience of the other and see from their
world view. Interpathy is cross cultural and so in terms of morals - is
this what Jesus is doing in relation to all alienated social moral groups
in his day, therefore what about us?"

Fyfe raises a great observation and thoughtful question.  The observation though I think should state: "This is what Jesus is doing."  Fyfe more humble than I am.  Also, the what about us? question is truly helpful.  Are we expressing interpathy in our Christian practice?

One of the things that must be said is that our sense of moral values will be better identified by what we do than what we say.  Praxis is the key to knowing what someone believes. 

Enjoy Dr. Blair's comments and his challenging questions.  This shows up under "missional church" because it is the attitude we must have to be missional in our ministry.

Moral Values 101.b

I've decided to entitle each of these articles with a 101, that in our academic pursuits signifies a beginners class.  The .a or .b is simply to denote the order in which they were written.  But I doubt I'll ever be much more than a novice in all of this.  To re-phrase Dr. Seuss - "O the things I could think...if I could think!"  Always a learner never an expert on this.

If Christian morality/virtue begins with the person of Christ, if it is Jesus' character that is supposed to rub off on us and find its way into our hearts and hands, then we must ask - "What does Jesus value?  What is Jesus' character?"

For the beginning of this let me turn to the Beatitudes.  You'll find them in Luke 6, and in the better known version of them in Matthew's Gospel in chapter 5.  Many have said that the Beatitudes are the 10 Commandments of the New Testament.  What they mean by this is that they are the new morality of the people of God.  For many they are seen as calling people to a higher standard of morality than that of the Old Testament.  Both are true.  Both need more added.

The Beatitudes represent the very character of Jesus Christ.  This is what Jesus values, what he is concerned about.  If Christians are to have the character of Christ formed in them, then we should begin with what Jesus values. 

To understand the Beatitudes, I'm going to enlist the help of two great theologians - Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Dale Bruner.  Bonhoeffer wrote about the Beatitudes extensively in his book, The Cost of Discipleship.  Bruner has put together a profound commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.  Both will prove helpful.  I may have to break this into two or more parts just to get through the Beatitudes.  Bear with me.

Let me up front state that I deplore the kind of thinking that would make the Beatitudes a self-help program in our increasingly self-centered Western world.   This thinking brought us titles like "The Be-Happy Attitudes" among others.  No thanks, no way.

When it comes to the word "blessed", Dr. Bruner is helpful when he translates it as meaning "I am with you," "I am on your side."  The first Beatitude reads, "God bless the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Bruner's translation)  We must be quick to point out that Luke omits the qualification "in spirit" and simply says "God bless the poor..."  In my way of thinking, we must embrace both sides, the spiritually impoverished and the physically impoverished.  Bruner suggests that an adequate translation  might say "blessed are those who feel their poverty" or "who suffer their poverty."

God is on the side of those who know their poverty and will cry out to God.  Jesus is on the side of those who are afflicted by what they lack.  Whether it be the world's goods, not having food or shelter or warmth, or the lack of spirit, being dispirited or disheartened or depressed or those who have suffer personal defeat, Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is for these people.  God is on the side of people whose spirits are being crushed from without or from within.  When acknowledged before God, both are spiritual crises, and God seeks to welcome both into his sanctuary.

This is the starting point for knowing the character of Jesus.

Bruner states: "The great enemy of the evangelical message, in the light of this first Beatitude, is successism and the teaching that says that it is the winners of the world who have God and his blessing. ('Blessed are the rich,' or 'Blessed are the rich in spirit.')  The Beatitudes set the world's value systems on their head.  Jesus is the countercultural force par excellance. (Who in Jesus' opinion, are the really underdeveloped?)

One thing to note, is that though it is not noble to be starving in and of itself, and one should not seek poverty as though there were some intrinsic goodness in poverty, Jesus recognizes that one may not rise above their poverty in this life.  And so they are blessed by God as they cry out to him.  Not to remain there with no hope, but to have hope that their poverty is not the last word in their life.  Whether they rise out of it in this lifetime or the next, the poor are not destined to be that forever.

The successful are usually the ones who don't need God.  Usually the successful are people who see themselves as "self-made" or "self-reliant" or just damn good at what they do.  There is nothing wrong with competence, but it often becomes a deterrant to trusting God for our lives.

Bonhoeffer put it this way, "Jesus knows all about the others too, the representatives and preachers of the national religion, who enjoy greatness and renown, whose feet are firmly planted on the earth, who are deeply rooted in the culture and piety of the people moulded by the spirit of the age."

Of the privileged, Bonhoeffer believes that they serve the status quo.  When the religious begin to be the servants of maintaining the cultural status quo they have lost their moral center.  It may all be couched in a lot of God and Jesus talk, but unless it represents Jesus' talk it doesn't come from him.

When we have the moral values discussion, the very first value of Jesus is the world's poor.  Why isn't this where the discussion of moral values begins with us?  Laregely I think it is because the proponents of the moral values conversation are seeking to maintain their place of privilege and power in the culture at large. 

Much of the conversation about moral values has centered on christians (lower case c on purpose) promoting a moral agenda that would have influence in the courts (i.e. - abortion rights, stem cell research, homosexual marriage, etc.)  The goal as I understand it is to "take back the moral center of the United States."  These issues do not form the center of Jesus' moral teachings.  Christians would do well to begin where Jesus begins.

Well - one Beatitude.  Bruner says that he believes that the purpose of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount - chapters 5-7 of Matthew, is "to drive us back to the first Beatitude.  Just as the as the First Commandement in the Ten Commandments is the hidden soure of power and real telos of every other commandment, so, in a similar way, the first Beatitiude is both the goal of every subsequent sentence in the sermon and the source of the ability to live it."  I like this perspective.  For it is not until all of us have come to the realization that we are all impoverished, from the least to the greatest, and cry out to God for his mercy, that we will know God's love.  Empathy is when you can walk in another's shoes.  Jesus walked in the shoes of the poor.

Do we care about who Jesus cares about?  What do our actions tell us?  This is the beginning of moral values 101.  Maybe we'll get somewhere in due time.

Moral Values Confession

Garrison Keilor in his ongoing stories from Lake Wobegon, says that if a pastor confesses to being "only human", the congregation wants to know who he's/she's been having the affair with and how long!  That's not what this confession is about (sorry to all you voyeurs out there). 

As I have read your responses and expectations for this conversation about moral values, it strikes me as a bit daunting.  I am most incapable of addressing this topic with any kind of authority or expertise.  Remember that this blogging thing is for conversation.  I learn more than I share.  That's the hope.

Well with that disclaimer out there.  We'll keep trying. 

By the way, the new masthead at the top of the page is and adjusted picture of one of the tables in Luther's residential quarters at Wittenberg.  Though it's been stretched for my purposes, it may well have been the table Luther sat at for his table talks.

Moral Values 101.a - Foundations

One of my reasons for writing these and risking huge misunderstandings and alienating people is that the conversation of what is right and wrong, what is moral and immoral, is almost non existent.  Alasdair MacIntyre in his book After Virtue suggests that the public conversation of morality has become an argument of "assertion and counter-assertion".  He says what has taken place is that once we get to the root of our argument, what MacIntyre calls the "premise" of our argument we are unable to argue any further.  It is because our culture has moved to the point where our premises are unassailable.  That is, you are entitled to your pre-suppositions.  Your core belief is 'personal' and therefore beyond logic and reason and it is inappropriate for us to question the personal realm.  One of MacIntyre's observations is that the moral debate has taken on a "shrill tone".  We argue passionately but not about substance and foundations of where our arguments come from.  We have held our positions "emotively".  And true discussion ends because we feel things so personally.  It becomes something like, 'If you question or attack what I believe, you're trying to kill me.'  But we have few reasons why we feel that way.  We simply re-assert our position as though the louder or stronger I make my plea, you'll finally give in to my earnestness.  I could be earnestly wrong, but the discourse will never find it out.

There are certainly many foundations from which we can function.  Much moral debate has traditionally, over the millenia, come from the writings of Aristotle.  In his Nichomachean Ethics, Artistotle puts forth categories of moral virtue that have been held and adapted in Western thought right up to our postmodern time.  And though they have been largely influential in Christian thinking, they are not to be the controlling categories of morality for Christian people.

Christian morality begins and ends with the person of Jesus Christ.  When Paul writes to the Colossians he says "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.  In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!" - Colossian 3:9-11 NRSV.

In this passage Paul gives us so much that is echoed throughout the New Testament Letters and Gospels.  In verse 12 of the same part of Colossians, Paul writes that the character (you could substitute "moral virtue" for "character" of a Christian is to be "clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body."

What I take from this passage and others like: II Corinthians 3:18; and Romans 8:29 and 12:2; as well as the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke; is that the foundation of Christian moral virtue, i.e. character, is the formation of the character of Christ in us.  His life in us.

This is made clear in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics where he comments on the above passsage by saying that our moral and ethical formation comes only when we are "Transformed in His image...To be conformed with the Incarnate - that is to be a real [person] man." (brackets are mine)

Christian morality does not emerge from a code of ethics but from the character of the risen Christ.  It is when we look at Jesus that we have the basis for how we are to behave in the world.  The Christian person cannot escape the titles of Jesus as representative of his character, Prince of Peace or Lamb of God.  Now there are a good many titles that Jesus will take on, some not as peacable.  But we are more concerned with how Jesus acted and how his actions can become ours.  This is where we begin, our foundation is Jesus.

Now you can assail this presupposition or premise for my moral discourse.  You can question whether one can base their morality on the person of Jesus.  You can attack the reality or veracity or character of Jesus if you wish.  It really is o.k.  I believe he will stand the test.

But if as Christians we are basing our moral stands on some other grounds than the very person of Jesus Christ being formed in us, then that test or attack may well cause us to feel like our legs are being taken out from under us.  And they should be.  For if we are forming a morality that is incongruent with the person of Christ, it is not Christian.  It is something else altogether and should be dismantled.

I recently watched a PBS interview with a woman whose name I can't recall.  She is a Catholic nun, author of over 30 books, and a professor at a prestigious university (at least I had heard of it!)  She spoke about the issue of abortion.  She commented that she was against it.  But she said that unless one is willing to do more than be against abortion, they could hardly be considered pro-life.  She went on to suggest that unless you are willing to care for children and mothers, change living conditions for the poor and the oppressed, make things like immunization available to all, or jobs for those who can't get them, and a host of other pro-life actions, then you can't consider yourself for people.  Your simply against abortion.   

My contention is that Jesus is consistently for people.  His life was given for Us.  Not U.S. - but Us - the world.  Jesus is not self-protective, or self-interested, he is completely committed to his Father in heaven and to his creation - people.  For Christians to assume otherwise or to take on a Pharisaical view towards others (like - I'm in your out - hope you change your ways or you'll be eternally out) is simply unhelpful and ultimately not like Jesus.

Well enough for today.  My point.  The person of Jesus, his character is to become our character, both individually and corporately as a church.  When we say he lives in us, we mean both in our hearts and among us as a people.  There is to be no privitization of our faith.  It is to be lived out in full view. 

Remember it is Christ in us that is the hope of glory.  Glory not for ourselves in being "right" but glory to God for being good.

Moral Values 101

I've been quiet for too long on this important topic.  With all the talk of moral values during the election I was struck by how narrow and issue oriented the conversation of morals has become.  What upsets me most is the fact that it is christians who lead the charge towards a narrowing and limiting of the morals issues.  In fact, it is christians (and the lower case is my intent), who have placed at the top of their lists concerns that are not at the top of the Bible's concerns.  The purpose of this blog is not to evaluate anyone's list, but let me help set the record straight on what the Bible does speak about the most.

If one reads through the Prophets of the Old Testament, major and minor ones, the biggest issues that are mentioned are justice and righteousness.  It is helpful to have these two words together.  One, justice, sometimes connotes a more secular position, while righteousness posits our standing before God.  The scripture does not separate the two.  There is no secular and sacred at this point. 

When we talk of justice and righteousness we talk about the poor and the rich.  In Amos, one is struck by God's judgment against those who think they are righteous, the wealthy and religious rulers, but act in unrighteous ways towards the poor.  God is on the side of those who suffer abuse at the hands of those in power.  Those in power are to act righteously, that is in right ways, towards those who suffer the most injustice, the poor - those who have difficulty gaining a voice among the powerful. 

There was not a single voters guide put out by the religious right that sought to uphold the poor.  And yet, this is the number one moral concern of the scripture.  Jesus has more positive to say about the poor, those who are marginalized by society, than he does to the wealthy and powerful.  In fact, Jesus has mostly negative comments for those who are in power.  Because they are not using their power to help the poor.

Remember this is not an evaluation of our current administration.  Neither party had anything about the poor in their platforms.  I don't believe governments are Christian.  But it is a challenge to the church.  If moral values discussions don't begin where the Bible begins, why aren't we saying something?  I believe it is because we either don't know what the Bible says, or we don't care.

So here's what I'm planning.  I'll write on several biblical passages that discuss morality.  My goal is to raise the consciousness of those who read this to what a real biblical discussion might look like.  I will not give you a list of 300 verses to look up as a way of proving my point.  I don't believe that's helpful or accurate.  But, we will look in context at texts that demonstrate the central themes of morality that Christians need to become aware of and obedient to.

Well, that said, I'll start tomorrow!