"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Thursday, 26 March 2009 | |||
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Call a Priest | |||
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The conversation somehow turned to Catholic jokes. It was
not entirely surprising since my pastor friends and I were eating lunch
together in a Catholic retreat center. One of us shared one that goes
like this: "An old woman was kneeling in the church before a statue
of Mary, praying intently. All of a sudden, Jesus Christ spoke to her,
'My daughter.' She did not answer or even look up. So the Lord said
again, 'My daughter!' Again the woman ignored what she heard, so finally
He said, 'My daughter, it's I, Jesus!' Looking up in irritation the old
lady replied, 'Won't you be quiet? Can't you see I'm speaking to your
mother?'" Unfortunately, it's not only our Catholic brothers and sisters who forget what the writer to the Hebrews emphasizes for us this week's text Hebrews 5:5-10 . It is only in and through Jesus Christ as our mediator that we have access to God and the blessings of salvation. We are not naturally children of God. We are not naturally obedient to His will. It's only by coming to God through the obedience and faithfulness of Christ that we can claim God as our Father (or Mary as our spiritual mother, for that matter). In most Protestant churches, we have very little to guide our minds in appropriating this priestly imagery which permeates the letter to the Hebrews. We are so accustomed to the Reformation doctrine of the "priesthood of the believer" that we may almost ignore the unique priestly and mediating role of Jesus Christ. At least in the churches that call their clergy "priests" there is one more barrier to a presumption of an immediate and unrestricted access to God that may simply ignore failure and sin. The Greek and Latin words for priest ("iereus" and "sacerdos") mean one who offers sacrifices. We often think in terms of Jesus offering the sacrifice of His life, or of His blood, but here the important thing seems to be His offering of obedience. Jesus gave to God for us what we are unable to give Him in and of ourselves, a whole life of obedience. Verses 8 and 9 say that by Jesus' obedient life, even to the point of suffering and death, Jesus became the source of our salvation. One commentator notes that verse 9 says, "he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him," emphasizing that last phrase and our own response of obedience. Christ's priesthood for us is meant to bring us into a relationship of believing obedience, like Jesus' own obedience. That kind of faithful life is what our Lord mediates for us and to us in His priestly role. Another reflection on this text lies in the quotation from Psalm 110 which the writer appropriates here in verse 6, "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." It suggests Christ's priestly role is unending. We never "get over" our need for Jesus to mediate His righteousness for us and to us, but we will forever live as people who meet God in and through the person of Jesus Christ, even in eternity. As the Lamb at the center of worship in Revelation shows, Christ is forever the center of our existence. | |||
Tuesday, 17 March 2009 | |||
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Between Two Worlds | |||
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They were taken from a lean-to made out of tarps and
blankets and from a pink shack that sits right next to a sewer. They were
put on a plane and flown to the most glittering city on earth. The world
last month watched as the children from "Slum Dog Millionaire"
had the incredible experience of walking down the red carpet of the
Academy Awards and then climbing onto the stage as their film received
the best picture Oscar. For 9-year-old Rubina and 10-year-old Azharuddin, especially, it was an incredible journey from the slums of Mumbai to the lights of Hollywood and rides of Disneyland. As their celebrated performances catapulted them into global fame, their lives were changed forever. Yet now they are back in Mumbai. Better housing has been promised, but it has not happened yet. Education trust funds await them when they are older, but they haven't received them yet. Memories of comfort and excitement will always be with them, but right now they live once again in squalid and dreary circumstances. How very like the slum dog kids is the transition pictured for believers in Christ in Ephesians 2:1-10. Verse 1 says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live. . ." and Paul goes on to paint a picture of just how drear and hopeless our situation was in the realm of the evil ruler of this world. Then in verse 4, Paul writes "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. . ." and on in verse 6 to say, "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus." Raised out of death and into life, like the kids raised out of the darkness of India's slums into the spotlights of Los Angeles. Yet just as those poor children caught a brief glimpse of the lights and have now gone back to live a little longer in the slums, so we who have received the grace of Christ still struggle to be truly raised out of the sin in which we formerly lived. Like them, we are between two worlds, saved by Christ into God's kingdom, yet still in and wanting to be free of Satan's kingdom. In order to make the most of what they've received, Rubina and Asharuddin will need to be disciplined and careful not to waste or have stolen from them the opportunities awaiting them. Between now and age 18 when their trust fund matures, they could go wrong in many ways. They will probably receive other chances to act, but that could go well or poorly. Their future very much depends on how they handle themselves in the next few years. The blessing we enjoy as Christians is that in our hope for a place in God's kingdom we do not rely only on ourselves. In Christ we have the assurance in verses 8 and 9 that we have been saved by grace through faith, not from ourselves, not from works. God's kindness came to us in Jesus Christ and not by our own performance. Whether we act it out well or not, the grace of Jesus saves us. Yet our security in grace does not leave us without a call to perform well. Our situation is not totally unlike that of the slum children. Our happiness and joy in this time between two worlds depends very much on realizing what Paul says in verse 10, "For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Like that wonderfully lucky little girl and boy from India, we may choose to live into the blessing of grace we have received, make the most of it, and allow God to turn us into the fine performers He meant for us to be from the beginning. May the saving grace God grants us include the grace to do His good work, and may part of that work be discovering how we can care for the millions of poor children around the world who are still waiting for their opportunities, for their gift of a new life, and especially for the gift of the grace of Jesus. | |||
Friday, 13 March 2009 | |||
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Fools for Christ | |||
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O.K., here it is, Friday before I wrote the first blog entry
on this week's text
I Corinthians 1:18-25, and here I am writing another, just because I
can't resist saying a bit about the Russian Orthodox institution of the
"Fool for Christ." My own personal foolishness. In Russian Orthodoxy there's a long tradition of saints who occupied a very specific sort of role identified as a "Fool for Christ." These were Christian ascetics, who often went about partially unclothed, engaged in somewhat bizarre behavior, and seemed to have social license to speak direct and uncomfortable spiritual truths, even to the Tsar. They often appeared to be insane, some probably truly so, others feigning madness for the sake of their "ministry" as holy fools. So, anyway, today I came across one of these characters whose title I had not heard before. Blessed John the Hairy (more often known as the Merciful) was remarked for bearing a copious head of hair. He had no permanent home, suffered great deprivations, and exhibited humility, patience, and a life of unceasing prayer. Here's a Russion "kontakion" (a hymn) in John the Hairy's memory: By distributing your wealth to
the poor, O John most wise, Seems like one could do worse
than go down in memory as a hairy, generous, merciful, fool for Jesus. God help
me, I think I probably only rate the first title (and not because of my head)
and I'm certainly a fool.
You gained the wealth of heaven and were called the merciful one: Therefore we honor you and celebrate your holy memory! | |||
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Wisdom or Foolishness? | |||
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It turns out I've never before preached on the passage which
is our text this week,
I Corinthians 1:18-25. There may be a fairly obvious reason. Here
Paul seems to be none too complimentary about an endeavor to which I've
given a great deal of my time and attention, namely philosophy, literally
"love of wisdom." The NIV/TNIV makes a serious mistake, in my personal perspective, by rendering verse 20, "Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? . . ." The word translated philosopher is not actually "philosophos" in Greek, but another word that much more literally means "debater" or "disputer" in the old KJV language. Contemporary readers of Scripture might be much more likely to identify the "debaters of this age" as media personnel or politicians, rather than as poor, much maligned academic philosophers just trying to get along in a time of crumbling support for study of the humanities. In the ancient world one might think more of the sophists, clever rhetoricians with a reputation for being able to make any proposition sound reasonable, rather than figures like Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, the shining lights of Greek philosophy. O.K., so the preceding was a pitiful piece of whining. I'm sorry. And, Scripture still has some lumps for philosophers in Colossians 2:8 wherein we are warned against being taken captive "by hollow and empty philosophy," where the word really is "philosophia" this time. We philosophers like to point out that the operative words here are "hollow and empty," with the suggestion that there might be another sort of philosophy, which is not so empty or dangerous. But all this is fairly petty defensiveness on behalf of my academic background. Our text has bigger fish to fry in terms of challenging a general cultural perspective on the message we as Christians hold most dear. The point is that a crucified God is, from the viewpoint of wisdom and power in the standard order of things, a foolish thing to worship. In ancient Rome, crucifixion was perhaps the most despised way to die, a clear sign of foolishness and failure. In America, both Christians and non-Christians are familiar enough with basic Christian teaching that we often don't perceive the inherent conflict between the knowledge, success and influence we value so much and a faith that has suffering and death right in the heart of its story. The question for the Church today seems to be whether we will in fact believe and act upon a faith that a crucified life is wiser and more powerful than a successful, profitable, victorious life. And what does a crucified life look like in concrete terms? Shall we be completely imprudent regarding making a living? Shall we let go of attempts to demonstrate the reasonableness and advantages of Christian faith? Or is it something more like foregoing attempts to show that Christianity can foster and support what is often called "the American dream"? These thoughts here are probably as humanly foolish as any. Thank God that, as Paul says, God's foolishness is wiser than any of this. May He give us some of that divine foolishness. | |||
Wednesday, 04 March 2009 | |||
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Unwavering Faith | |||
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In our text for this week,
Romans 4:13-25
, Paul expresses what I might say is the difference
between self-confidence and faith. Generally I have a fair amount of the
former, but less of the latter. Faced with a broken or malfunctioning appliance or electronic device, I am pretty fearless about loosening the screws, taking the back off, and plunging in to make repairs, even when I've never dealt with that sort of machine before. I trust in my ability to reason out how something is supposed to work and then to set about making it work right again. I've been successful with garbage disposals, clothes dryers and television sets, not to mention automobiles. Sometimes, though, I can't accomplish a thing. I've pulled a computer hard drive apart to absolutely no avail, except to assure by my fumbling that it was completely beyond repair. I've gotten in a car repair mess or two where I thought I was doing everything right, but I finally had to turn the job over to a professional. It can be hard to know how far you should trust your own abilities. Paul's talk about law and grace is a case for caution about one's own moral ability. Obedience to law, doing what's right, like mechanical aptitude, is a good thing, a way of setting one's personal life in order. The problem comes in a mistaken overconfidence that what I am able to do rightly in obedience will finally make my life work out well. How many times have I thought I was doing almost everything right, only to have life go to pieces all around me in ways I can't hope to repair? Abraham is held up as the example for all of us to place our trust in God, rather than in our own ability to accomplish what is good. With regard to having an heir, Abraham at first attempted to make it happen through what was possible for him, a child through the handmaid Hagar. But God asked him to believe in what Abraham had not been able to accomplish himself, a child through his wife Sarah. Contrary to verse 20, it seems as though Abraham did waver at first (see Genesis 17:18), but he does come around to a full persuasion to trust in God, as our text says. I'm going to abstain from most of the debate over imputed versus infused righteousness that surrounds this text (and chapters 3 and 4 in general). But I'm inclined to think that Abraham being "credited" with righteousness in verse 22 (and verse 3 earlier) does not have to mean that he is only regarded as righteousness, rather than actually becoming righteous by the work of Christ. As James 2:21-24 says clearly, Abraham's faith was clearly displayed in what he did. His trust in God was made manifest in obedience, which is also a major theme in Romans, as in the phrase "the obedience of faith" (a connection which is severed by mistranslation in Romans 1:5 in the TNIV, almost certainly with a theological agenda). In any case, may we learn Abraham's kind of faith, trust in God that allows us to go forward in obedience, even when we cannot see how it will all work out. | |||
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Profile |
I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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