Sunday, January 7, 2007
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christmas Blog
"For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales, and lay them at the apostle's feet; and they would be distributed to each, as any had need. And . . . Barnabas . . . who owned a tract of land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet."
--Acts 4:34-37
As best I can figure it, Christians formed the first communist organization. After that first Christian Pentecost, when thousands of diaspora Jews became believers and hung around to learn more, they ran out of funds and food. So, Luke’s Acts tells us, all believers in the Judean region sold their property and brought it to their central location.
No one now considered it his own. It was distributed to whoever had need. That was done long before Karl Marx. This common-unity established a communism, "pure" and "simple." And it worked. For a while. A problem of equal distribution arose, but it was quickly set right.
Widows of the Diaspora had no one to speak up for them, and they were not being given their proper share. So the leaders asked the entire group to choose from among them seven men, "of good reputation full of the Spirit and of wisdom." So they elected the seven "deacons." ("Deacons," as an official position, are not named here, but the Greek term, diakonos, means servant, and the word is used in this passage.).
How do we elect deacons today? And what responsibilities do we assign, or they assume? On what basis do we choose them? Is it because they have a good reputation downtown, because they are well-known for living in the Spirit, because they possess "worldly" wisdom?
Separate note interjected:
The word we translate into English as, "saint," has the root meaning: "a holy one," someone who has separated their life from the ways of this world, and has been brought into close relation to The Holy One. A person who has turned from the world and come into close relation to God the Son derives their from this new relation to The Holy One. Thus, the word, saint, in the New Testament is synonymous with: believer, follower, Christian, disciple, and any other designation given to one whose life has been transformed by their faith in Jesus.
But the discussion of Christian communism, of holiness, and of deacons must be postponed, because all the above was written mostly to introduce a Christmas emphasis. Today is December 25, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Christmas. The children have been awaiting the arrival of "Santa Claus," or Saint Nick, or Kris Kringle.
Notice the names of those seven "deacons." Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch. Each of these men is of good reputation in the young Christian community, Each of them is seen to be full of The Holy Spirit, and each–whether Timon, Stephen, Nicolas, or one of the others–full of wisdom. They are genuine, solid "Christians," as we might call them today.
Note that last named servant of the community: Nicolas. As a Christian, he was a follower, a disciple, a believer, and a saint: Saint Nicolas. The real one. He was from Antioch, not the North Pole. He did not bring brightly wrapped gifts, he served food at the table (and perhaps also helped distribute not only food, but also financial aid). No brightly colored suit, rather the common dress of an ancient Hebrew. I doubt he smoked a pipe; I doubt he was fat, and I doubt that his beard was white. Nonetheless, Saint Nicolas–real, not mythological–was chosen and his name made the pages of the Bible.
And the point? If you find one in here somewhere, that’s the point. Otherwise, the point may have been only a note of biblical trivia.
--Acts 4:34-37
As best I can figure it, Christians formed the first communist organization. After that first Christian Pentecost, when thousands of diaspora Jews became believers and hung around to learn more, they ran out of funds and food. So, Luke’s Acts tells us, all believers in the Judean region sold their property and brought it to their central location.
No one now considered it his own. It was distributed to whoever had need. That was done long before Karl Marx. This common-unity established a communism, "pure" and "simple." And it worked. For a while. A problem of equal distribution arose, but it was quickly set right.
Widows of the Diaspora had no one to speak up for them, and they were not being given their proper share. So the leaders asked the entire group to choose from among them seven men, "of good reputation full of the Spirit and of wisdom." So they elected the seven "deacons." ("Deacons," as an official position, are not named here, but the Greek term, diakonos, means servant, and the word is used in this passage.).
How do we elect deacons today? And what responsibilities do we assign, or they assume? On what basis do we choose them? Is it because they have a good reputation downtown, because they are well-known for living in the Spirit, because they possess "worldly" wisdom?
Separate note interjected:
The word we translate into English as, "saint," has the root meaning: "a holy one," someone who has separated their life from the ways of this world, and has been brought into close relation to The Holy One. A person who has turned from the world and come into close relation to God the Son derives their from this new relation to The Holy One. Thus, the word, saint, in the New Testament is synonymous with: believer, follower, Christian, disciple, and any other designation given to one whose life has been transformed by their faith in Jesus.
But the discussion of Christian communism, of holiness, and of deacons must be postponed, because all the above was written mostly to introduce a Christmas emphasis. Today is December 25, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Christmas. The children have been awaiting the arrival of "Santa Claus," or Saint Nick, or Kris Kringle.
Notice the names of those seven "deacons." Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch. Each of these men is of good reputation in the young Christian community, Each of them is seen to be full of The Holy Spirit, and each–whether Timon, Stephen, Nicolas, or one of the others–full of wisdom. They are genuine, solid "Christians," as we might call them today.
Note that last named servant of the community: Nicolas. As a Christian, he was a follower, a disciple, a believer, and a saint: Saint Nicolas. The real one. He was from Antioch, not the North Pole. He did not bring brightly wrapped gifts, he served food at the table (and perhaps also helped distribute not only food, but also financial aid). No brightly colored suit, rather the common dress of an ancient Hebrew. I doubt he smoked a pipe; I doubt he was fat, and I doubt that his beard was white. Nonetheless, Saint Nicolas–real, not mythological–was chosen and his name made the pages of the Bible.
And the point? If you find one in here somewhere, that’s the point. Otherwise, the point may have been only a note of biblical trivia.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
"Lent began and I was asking Jesus to help me see that it's madness to have such overt hostility to Republicans, and I was praying to Jesus to make me more like Him, welcoming all beings, even Pat Buchanan. Because that is the truth: Jesus welcomes Pat Buchanan in exactly the same way that he welcomes my tiny princess self, even though Pat Buchanan is batshit crazy."
–Anne Lamott
Anne–a favorite of mine--once told a group in Indianapolis that she was not one of those Christians who is heavily into forgiveness. Someone asked then, "What kind of Christian are you? She said, "I'm the other kind."
After that, and a less than glowing review she had written about Pat Buchanan’s latest book, she was attacked repeatedly in a flood of phone calls. Voices filled with hate told her she would rot before the Judgment Seat of God, and all the variant forms Christian hate can take. After several such calls, she found herself enraged by these people and their attitudes.
"I finally found the phone and hung it up and stood there in the bedroom and realized that there was no difference between my callers and me, that we were both trapped by rage and judgment and profound lack of willingness to forgive.
And it was at that moment that Lent actually started for me, and once again I became so relieved that I have a Savior."
I wonder if her callers likewise came to their Christian senses.
–Anne Lamott
Anne–a favorite of mine--once told a group in Indianapolis that she was not one of those Christians who is heavily into forgiveness. Someone asked then, "What kind of Christian are you? She said, "I'm the other kind."
After that, and a less than glowing review she had written about Pat Buchanan’s latest book, she was attacked repeatedly in a flood of phone calls. Voices filled with hate told her she would rot before the Judgment Seat of God, and all the variant forms Christian hate can take. After several such calls, she found herself enraged by these people and their attitudes.
"I finally found the phone and hung it up and stood there in the bedroom and realized that there was no difference between my callers and me, that we were both trapped by rage and judgment and profound lack of willingness to forgive.
And it was at that moment that Lent actually started for me, and once again I became so relieved that I have a Savior."
I wonder if her callers likewise came to their Christian senses.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Faith or Facts
"If faith is about facts," [liturgical scholar Gail Ramshaw] writes, "then we line up the children and make them memorize questions and answers."
--Kathleen Norris, Cloister, p. 61
Yet, too often, we teach the Christian faith as a body of facts that we should know and affirm. We do this not only in Sunday School classes but also in required religion classes in Christian universities and in theological seminaries. We reduce the Christian gospel to a body of objective facts that we then set out to prove scientifically. We assign priority to knowing all the relevant facts, and having certainty of their objective truth.
But naked facts don’t mean anything until we link them appropriately. We must interpret the texture they form. We must add value. We must discover and illuminate the purpose of the whole.
If we make the Bible our starting point, we find that it does not present us with a body of factual truths, but with a narrative story of Truth. It forms a storybook: one great, complex, overarching story which comprises a multitude of stories, parables, metaphors, and poems.
All of this can be reduced to facts and their importance and truth can be debated. There may be value in this kind of study. But when we analyze it--take it apart-- we lose its life and meaning just as surely as the microscope slide of an alfalfa stem can be analyzed, but no longer flows with the life of the entire plant, root, blossom fragrance, livestock feed value, and all.
--Kathleen Norris, Cloister, p. 61
Yet, too often, we teach the Christian faith as a body of facts that we should know and affirm. We do this not only in Sunday School classes but also in required religion classes in Christian universities and in theological seminaries. We reduce the Christian gospel to a body of objective facts that we then set out to prove scientifically. We assign priority to knowing all the relevant facts, and having certainty of their objective truth.
But naked facts don’t mean anything until we link them appropriately. We must interpret the texture they form. We must add value. We must discover and illuminate the purpose of the whole.
If we make the Bible our starting point, we find that it does not present us with a body of factual truths, but with a narrative story of Truth. It forms a storybook: one great, complex, overarching story which comprises a multitude of stories, parables, metaphors, and poems.
All of this can be reduced to facts and their importance and truth can be debated. There may be value in this kind of study. But when we analyze it--take it apart-- we lose its life and meaning just as surely as the microscope slide of an alfalfa stem can be analyzed, but no longer flows with the life of the entire plant, root, blossom fragrance, livestock feed value, and all.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Counter-cultural or Cultural Christianity?
"I wasn't ready yet to accept that environment compromises values far more than values do their number on environment."
--Sidney Poitier, speaking of his young years
For the past seventy years I have been in church on Sundays most of the time. For the past sixty years I have noticed the words and lives of church members. For the past fifty years, I have observed the regular contrast between the words and lives. For the past thirty years I have gotten into sharp focus that the surrounding culture influences the life and thought of church members far more than the Bible they pledge allegiance to, the sermons and lessons they hear, and the hymns and songs they sing.
It is painful to accept the truth of Poitier's statement. It is dangerous to refuse to accept the truth of it. It is also dangerous to live the truth of it, because Christ-ianity always moves at cross-purposes with its surrounding cultures. We live at cross-purpose with our family, workplace, community, or the larger society's conventional wisdom, values, and standards, only a great risk.
Thus, we face a dilemma: either we risk our one brief life with our social environment, or we risk our one brief life with God. If we risk society's displeasure, we will, at best be social misfits. If we risk God's displeasure, we may be sorted with the goats, with the tares, or with the bad fish when that "Great day [is] coming . . . when the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left. Are you ready for that day to come?" Thus the conclusion of our dilemma is that will be, at best, social misfits or we well may hear God say, "Depart from me, I never knew you."
God's people will either become a counter-cultural community, or they will be like the salt that has become non-salt, thus worthless to God or the world.
Carlyle Marney once observed that God's church "has been through many desert places, but it has always come back to be the church." It is time we started back. As the old Russian proverb advises: "No matter how long you have been traveling down the wrong path, turn around."
--Sidney Poitier, speaking of his young years
For the past seventy years I have been in church on Sundays most of the time. For the past sixty years I have noticed the words and lives of church members. For the past fifty years, I have observed the regular contrast between the words and lives. For the past thirty years I have gotten into sharp focus that the surrounding culture influences the life and thought of church members far more than the Bible they pledge allegiance to, the sermons and lessons they hear, and the hymns and songs they sing.
It is painful to accept the truth of Poitier's statement. It is dangerous to refuse to accept the truth of it. It is also dangerous to live the truth of it, because Christ-ianity always moves at cross-purposes with its surrounding cultures. We live at cross-purpose with our family, workplace, community, or the larger society's conventional wisdom, values, and standards, only a great risk.
Thus, we face a dilemma: either we risk our one brief life with our social environment, or we risk our one brief life with God. If we risk society's displeasure, we will, at best be social misfits. If we risk God's displeasure, we may be sorted with the goats, with the tares, or with the bad fish when that "Great day [is] coming . . . when the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left. Are you ready for that day to come?" Thus the conclusion of our dilemma is that will be, at best, social misfits or we well may hear God say, "Depart from me, I never knew you."
God's people will either become a counter-cultural community, or they will be like the salt that has become non-salt, thus worthless to God or the world.
Carlyle Marney once observed that God's church "has been through many desert places, but it has always come back to be the church." It is time we started back. As the old Russian proverb advises: "No matter how long you have been traveling down the wrong path, turn around."
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Sin against the Spirit
"The sin against the Spirit consists in knowing a thing to be good and hating it because it is good."
Simone Weil
Admirers, detractors, and theologians engage in hopeless debate about whether Weil was a Christian or not. As with Emily Dickenson, there is considerable support for both judgments. Neither their writings nor their life stories furnish an indubitable answer. Obviously, their Christian commitment can be challenged. Nonetheless, both provide valid theological insights in spite of all they have written that is contrary to those insights.
Simone Weil presents an interpretation of the sin against the spirit that is closer to Romans 1:20-32, than to the words and intention of Jesus.
No matter what way the sin against the Spirit might be interpreted, this much remains true: I have known those who reject the good because it is good, individuals who deliberately chose to flaunt their "badness." Whatever has produced such individuals probably varies, but they sadly sentence themselves to death.
Simone Weil
Admirers, detractors, and theologians engage in hopeless debate about whether Weil was a Christian or not. As with Emily Dickenson, there is considerable support for both judgments. Neither their writings nor their life stories furnish an indubitable answer. Obviously, their Christian commitment can be challenged. Nonetheless, both provide valid theological insights in spite of all they have written that is contrary to those insights.
Simone Weil presents an interpretation of the sin against the spirit that is closer to Romans 1:20-32, than to the words and intention of Jesus.
No matter what way the sin against the Spirit might be interpreted, this much remains true: I have known those who reject the good because it is good, individuals who deliberately chose to flaunt their "badness." Whatever has produced such individuals probably varies, but they sadly sentence themselves to death.
Monday, December 18, 2006
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