More Majestic than the Mountains

Glorious are you, more majestic than the everlasting mountains.
-Psalm 76:4

I was reflecting last night on Psalm 76, and it led me to wonder whether anyone has ever really been an animist in the primitive sense we imagine worshipping trees and wind and mountains and so on. The verse above from Psalm 76 really speaks to me. I know God in the way of which this verse speaks.

I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in western Maryland, and these mountains always had a special draw for me. They were home. When coming back from a trip to Baltimore, the cut at Sidling Hill always felt like the gateway to where I lived. Before that pass, I was away and the mountains were in front of me. After that pass, I was home and the mountains were all around me, surrounding me as a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings.

Then in my 20's I moved to Oregon, and I got a whole new picture of what is meant by "majestic mountains." If you've never lived in a city near a mountain like Mt. Hood, I'm not sure I can really convey what it's like. You'll be driving down the street like you would any day, and then you turn a corner and suddenly, as if it appeared out of nowhere, there is an 11,000 foot mountain right in front of you, dominating the landscape. And the beauty of this mountain is glorious. Pristine and pure, serene, unmoveable. It's easy to see how the early inhabitants of these lands could have personified the mountains. There's certainly something numinous about its all-seeing presence.

And here, at the numinous quality of nature, is where Psalm 76 meets the language of animism. It's been said that God is invisible, but it simply isn't true. I see God all the time. Often, I see God when I look at the sky. The sky is God, but only some days. Frequently, I see God in a lone tree in the middle of a field. The tree is God, but not always. And the mountains.... "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." (Ps. 121:1, KJV)

Obviously, I don't really think the sky or a tree or a mountain is God, but quite often when I look at them I see God. I know I am seeing God because I am seeing more than sky or tree or mountain. I am seeing God, who is more majestic than the everlasting mountains.

Calling

Regular readers of this blog (and maybe even some of you who are irregular) may recall that I have an ongoing struggle with the idea of vocation. I can't help feeling that the traditional Lutheran teaching on vocation is too easily co-opted to support the status quo. As frequently expressed, it seems to come down to "whatever job you happen to be doing, that's your vocation." Yes, a baker helps answer our prayer for daily bread, but what about someone in a marketing position whose job is simply to convince people to buy company A's product instead of that of company B? How does that figure in the Kingdom of God?

Last night I got some help in this area from Brian Taylor's book Spirituality for Everyday Living: An Adaptation of the Rule of St. Benedict. Taylor uses the example of an artist who works as a waiter to pay the bills.

When asked what they do, one may find the reply: "I wait on tables for a living, but my 'work' [vocation] is painting." Vocation is a matter of our identity in God. It is who we are called to be in Christ. It is the activity through which God is made manifest. We are all created in the image of God, and each of us presents one facet of God's infinity. ... If one has a sense of personal vocation, then why not join the painter as a waiter in order to make ends meet?

The reason that I always struggle with vocation is that I can never see how my job contributes anything to either the Kingdom of God or to human society, and I don't feel "called" to it in any way. On the other hand, there are things to which I have a very strong sense of calling. So why not join the painter as a waiter (or software engineer, as the case may be)?

St. Nicholas (a day late)

I was out of town yesterday and so missed St. Nicholas' Day. I suggested to a co-worker recently that Santa Claus has long since escaped from Christmas, thus making him a safe character for pluralistic settings, but really he still has a lot of potential as a proclaimer of the Christian message, besides which the historical St. Nicholas is a really neat guy.

A couple of years ago I was in Russia on a business trip. One of my Russian co-workers, Eugene (Evgeny), took a group of us around town to visit various tacky knick-knack shops and such things. After visiting a number of stores I noticed that there was one particular icon that I kept seeing. I asked Eugene who it was. Eugene, who is Christian, took a glance and said, "Oh, that's probably Holy Nicholas." I about fell over. It was the middle of June and Santa Claus was all over Russia.

But in America, the good bishop has what I would consider a bit of an image problem. Every year the horrid claymation story purporting to tell children Santa Claus' origins gets under my skin. St. Nicholas has a really interesting history. Why did the makers of the wretched "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town" feel the need to invent a new history? Was is because they wanted to help Santa escape from Christmas?

This year, I got some unexpected help bringing Santa back into the Christian fold for my family. My wife has been looking for a Christmas puzzle. Yesterday, she picked up a puzzle called St. Nicholas in His Study. The picture has a fairly American Santa, but he's surrounded by images linking him to the saint of Christian tradition. The back of the box relates the story of St. Nicholas, explaining the various symbols.

Union with God

In my previous post I mentioned some ideas on union with God that I found a while ago in Lawrence Kushner's book God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know. I went back and re-read this section in Kushner's book. It's very good stuff.

The rabbi he references is Kabbalah expert Moshe Idel and the Hebrew term Idel uses to describe the mystical union is devekut. He gives three types of union: cognitive devekut, devekut of behavior and devekut of prayer. Kushner summarizes this way:

We don't want just to read about what God wants. We don't want someone else telling us what God wants either. We don't even want God telling us what God wants. We want our eyes to be God's eyes so we can see the world the way God sees it. We want our teaching to be God's Torah. We want our hands to do God's work. We want our prayers to be God's prayers. We want what God wants. Devekut: being one with God. At last the "little i, Anochi," and the "Great I, Anochi, of All creation" are one.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

It reminded me of what St. Augustine said of his conversion experience: "This was the sum of it: not to will what I willed and to will what you willed." (Confessions, Book 9, Chapter 1)

Praise God

I confess, I have a bit of a problem with praising God in prayer. Not that I don't think it's right, for it is indeed right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places offer thanksgiving and praise. But what I mean can be seen by my use of a traditional quotation in the previous sentence. Namely, it just doesn't come naturally to me to speak this way.

When I try to say a prayer of praise, it comes out sounding like the prayer from Monty Python's Meaning of Life:

O Lord, you are so big...so absolutely huge. We're all really impressed down here I can tell you. Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying and barefaced flattery.

And, while I'm at it, contemporary praise songs like "Our God is an Awesome God" sound like that to me too. I'm forced to rule it out, based on prayer advice I've heard attributed to Martin Luther: "Don't lie when you pray."

That is, I'm not going to pray "O Lord, you are so big..." if that's not what's on my heart.

But something occurred to me recently that put me at ease about this, which I'd like to share with you. Some time ago, I was exposed to a sermon series on Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages. At the time, I was appalled to be attending a church that would do such a heinous thing, but now, unexpectedly, a seed from that time has come to bloom. Chapman's idea is that different people express love in different ways, and if we want good relationships we need to learn to recognize each other's love languages. Some people show love verbally, others physically, others by service, and so on.

The thing that occurred to me this week is that if people can learn to recognize and respect each other's love languages, surely God will do at least that. Words of praise just aren't my love language, and they aren't likely to become so. But God knows not just what's in my heart but what my various actions mean.

I once heard an interview with the arch-heretic John Domminic Crossan. Asked if he prays, Crossan said that he doesn't understand the difference between prayer and study. For him, when he studies that is prayer. I was shocked to realize that I knew exactly what he meant. While I'm not so bold as Crossan to give up traditional forms of prayer, I think I could say, and this may scandalize both prayer-oriented spiritualists and service-oriented spiritualists, that study is the primary medium by which I experience God's presence.

Lawrence Kushner, in his book God Was In This Place and I, i Did Not Know tells of a revered Rabbi who taught that there are three ways to union with God: prayer, service and intellect. This maps directly, I think, to the three Hindu margas of bhakti (devotion), karma (service) and jnana (intellect). I think it's a fine example of something Christians can learn from people of other faiths. And it came together for me this week as I reflected on how I love God.

Afterthought: To what extent do the theological virtues of faith, hope and love correspond to these three paths of intellect, prayer and service? Is the correspondance more than superficial?

Birthday Meme

Via LutherPunk

The Rules:
1) Go to Wikipedia
2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year.
3) List three events that happened on your birthday
4) List two important birthdays and one death
5) One holiday or observance (if any)

Here are my answers:

Three events that (may or may not have) happened on my birthday are:
1) 445 BC - Ezra reads the Book of the Law to the Israelites in Jerusalem
2) 1517 - Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg
3) 1892 - Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Two important birthdays and one death:
1) 1887 - Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist Chinese leader, former Republic of China president (d. 1975)
2) 1963 - Fred McGriff, baseball player
Death:
1) 1926 - Harry Houdini, Hungarian-born magician (b. 1874)

Holidays and observances
1) Reformation Day

Christ the King

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate asked him, "What is truth?"
-John 18:33-38

My wife read an essay on Fundamentalism today. One of the five main points of Christian Fundamentalism is belief in a 1000 year reign of Christ on earth with the saints following the second coming. She sent me an e-mail at work asking, "Do you believe in the 1000 year reign."

Of course, I couldn't give a simple answer like "no" to this but had to go into my understanding of the symbolism of revelation, the apocalyptic imagination of the Old Testament prophets and the meaning of the kingdom of God. Valiantly wading through all this, she pressed the question, "So in what way are we reigning now?"

I gave her my thoughts on the hiddenness of the kingdom and the lordship of Christ, but I have to admit that it's not a simple question. Then while I was at lunch it dawned on me that this Sunday is Christ the King Sunday. So many of you have probably also been contemplating this topic, right?

So, how do you view the reign of Christ, present and future?

On the Basis of the Breads

As I've been trying to learn Greek, one of the things I've been doing is trying to regularly read a passage from the New Testament. To this point I've been doing this just to get comfortable pronouncing the Greek, since I hadn't had either the grammar or the vocabulary to quite make out what I've been reading. But slowly, the lights are starting to come on. According to the text book I'm using, I ought to know about 70 percent of the words now.

Last night as I was reading I came across the phrase "epi tois artois". Since epi is a word that's been giving me trouble, I slowed down to figure out what that was saying. So I parsed it out, "epi followed by a dative is...'on the basis of'". And then I looked, "on the basis of the breads"??? I try not to pay attention to what passage I'm reading, but here I looked it up.

"for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened"
-Mark 6:52

Strange book, the Bible.

The New and Living Way

I started listening to Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book today. Thirty minutes in, I'm finding it to be full of great insights, the first of which came together with this week's lectionary texts for me.

Peterson begins his book with a story about his grandson Hans. Seven-year-old Hans had just been given a New Testament as a first communion gift. Though he couldn't read, he sat and looked at the book reverently. He was, Peterson says, "honoring in a most precious way this book but without awareness that it has anything to do with either the lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich he has just eaten or the museum he is about to visit, oblivious to his grandmother next to him: Hans 'reading' his Bible. A parable."

I listened to this shortly after having read this week's lectionary texts. I was wondering very curiously what my pastor will do with this week's texts. Having recently studied the book of Daniel, and apocalyptic texts more generally, I felt like I knew pretty well what these readings were about, what tied them together, but it's not the kind of thing you hear very often in a Sunday sermon.

But how deep was my understanding?

From Daniel 12:1 ("At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise."), I was summoned into the apocalyptic imagination. I've become convinced recently that the Gospel is intrinsically apocalyptic. It's all about God breaking in to the world to bring history to it fulfillment.

So as I read the text from Hebrews, I was looking for this message. It begins with some teaching about Christ as our high priest and moves on to an exhortation to enter by "the new and living way he opened for us". With enough force I could stretch that into the apocalyptic message I was looking for, but it wasn't quite natural. Then, there it was, in 10:25, "and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Check.

And, of course, the gospel reading this week is Mark's little apocalypse. So I was confident that I had grasped the meaning of the texts, but I couldn't imagine my pastor preaching an apocalyptic sermon.

But when I listened to Eugene Peterson's "parable" it hit me. In my "understanding" of the week's texts I hadn't really asked myself what it had to do with the lettuce sandwich I had just eaten or the museum I was about to visit.

So I went back to the texts, and there it was. Earlier I had read the Hebrews passage as saying, "Yada yada yada ... and all the more as you see the Day approaching." But the "yada yada yada" was the important part. It was telling me what all of this message about the inbreaking kingdom of God has to do with the lettuce sandwhich and the museum.

Therefore, my friends,...let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

This is the meat of the text, to be savored and taught by.

I'm always very suscpicious of people who are quick to say that Christianity isn't about doctrine or even proclamation but about the way we live with one another. I think it sells Christianity short. But if the doctrine and the proclamation aren't leading us to this new way of living with one another, they are nothing.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Bible to eat.

Evidence and Existence

Yesterday on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" one of the topics was "evidence for and against the existence of Bigfoot." "Bigfoot" wasn't at all what I was expecting to follow that introductory phrase. Forgetting that it was "Science Friday" I expected to hear "evidence for and against the existence of God" though I would have probably been annoyed. It got me thinking about that.

Generally, I think that there can be NO evidence for or against the existence of God. As a matter of principle, there can be no "evidence against" the existence of anything, including Bigfoot. But what about evidence for existence? The idea of "evidence" for the existence of God seems to me to involve either a misunderstand of who God is or a misunderstanding of what evidence is, at least as applied to existence.

Evidence as applied to existence is an inherently scientific construct. It is based on the physical -- examining the physical to see what has effected it physically. God on the other hand is other than physical. I don't mean to say that God is "supernatural" and thereby divorce God from the physical world, but rather to say that God acts in the physical world in non-physical ways (though perhaps sometimes through the physical and with the Incarnation as an obvious exception).

An analogy.... This summer as I was driving around the country, I came across a sign that said "high winds may exist". I remarked to my wife what a delightfully philosophic statement this was. I mean, in what way can you say that winds exist? Can you look closely and find wind? Can you hold it? If you examine the air in the presence of wind all you'll find is the particles of air that were there before the wind came, and they're not even all moving in the direction of the wind. So does wind exist?

This analogy breaks down quickly, of course, because while wind is a secondary effect of the physical, I would say that the physical is a secondary effect of God, but it kind of captures what I was thinking. People are far too ready to see physical explanations of what God does as evidence against God's existence.

Prayer and Life

Tonight I learned what very well may be the most important thing I've ever learned about prayer, and I learned it in one sentence. I'll give you two for context.

We pray from the same base as we live. Our prayer reflects the way in which we respond to life itself, and so our prayer can only be as good as the way we live.
-Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict

I'd be a bit surprised if this hit you the way it hit me, but for me this was one of those things that as soon as I read the first sentence above I said to myself, "Of course! That's what I've been overlooking."

I tend to struggle with prayer, by which I mean the oratory kind of prayer. I can't sit myself down and speak to God. It just doesn't go well. And from what I gather, this is a common experience. If Esther de Waal's insight is correct, and I think it is, this is likely because we (those of us with this struggle) live a life relatively free of God for 23 hours and then expect to be able to sit down and commune with God in the other hour.

Actually, that's not quite my problem (and probably not quite anyone else's either). I possibly spend more time thinking about God than anyone I know. What I fail to do, or at least fail to do consistently, is relate my "secular" activities to God. Take cooking for example. I like to cook, but I don't think about God while I'm cooking. Yet if you think about it there's a really deep connection there.

And so I have this result. Lectio divina really clicks for me as a form of prayer. I open the Bible. I listen for God's voice. I "hear God's voice" (I'm reluctant to say that too strongly). I respond. This works for me. But I have trouble integrating my personal life into prayer. Trouble is, I've been approaching prayer "from above".

20 Books

Ben Myers at Faith and Theology started a tidal wave by posting a list of the 20 books that have most influenced his theology. I can't pass up a chance to make a list of books.

Whne I read some of the other lists I thought, "Man, some of these guys are pretentious." Then I made my own list, and I had to think, "Man, this guy is pretentious too, but perhaps not as well read as the others." Anyway, here's my list:

20. The Kabir Books translated by Robert Bly
19. On Earth as in Heaven by Dorothee Soelle
18. Confessions by St. Augustine
17. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
16. God For Us by Catherine Mowry Lacugna
15. Eyes Remade for Wonder by Lawrence Kushner
14. A Christological Catechism by Joseph Fitzmyer
13. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky
12. Christus Victor by Gustaf Aulen
11. The Rule of St. Benedict
10. Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
9. The Nature of Doctrine by George Lindbeck
8. Lutheranism by Eric Gritsch and Robert Jenson
7. On Being a Theologian of the Cross by Gerhard Forde
6. Mysterium Paschale by Hans urs von Balthasar
5. Lectures on Galatians by Martin Luther
4. For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann
3. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2. Getting to Know Jesus by George MacDonald
1. Baptized, We Live by Daniel Erlander

Listening

Last week's Speaking of Faith radio program featured Jacob Needleman talking about the religious roots of American Democracy. One part that I found particularly interesting was his idea that freedom implies duty. Needleman says,

A democratic citizen is not a citizen who can do anything he wants. It's a citizen who has an obligation at the same time. And just to give you an example, if I may, the freedom of speech, what is the duty associated with it? Well, if you ponder that a little bit, you'll come to the conclusion very clearly that the right of free speech implies the duty of allowing others to speak. If I have the right to speak, I have the duty to let you speak. Now, that's not so simple. It doesn't mean just to stop my talking and wait till you're finished and then come in and get you. It means I have an obligation inwardly — and that's what we're speaking about, is the inner dimension. Inwardly, I have to work at listening to you. That means I don't have to agree with you, but I have to let your thought into my mind in order to have a real democratic exchange between us.

This is really powerful. The idea of freedom is really cheapened if we see at as freedom from everyone around us. And the idea that freedom of speech implies the responsibility to listen to what others are saying is very good. I suspect some people wouldn't say half of what they do if they were listening to others.

As it turns out, I heard this the same day I began reading Esther de Waal's Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict. As de Waal spoke of the importance of listening in Benedictine spirituality, I couldn't miss the connection. One of the core foundations of Benedict's rule is that members of the community must listen to one another and in this listening they hear the voice of God.

Speaking of listening, this week's guest on Speaking of Faith is going to be Martin Marty.

Back on the horse

After a four month hiatus, I've finally picked up my study of Greek again. I had retained most of what I learned earlier from the opening chapters, but at around chapter 10 it's looking like I need to re-read carefully.

I'm at the point now where I can read Greek about the way archeologists in movies read obscure ancient languages...dusting off the ancient inscription I say slowly, "It says something about 'the Son of Man.'" Looking more closely, I add, "Ah yes, here it is ... he's going to be betrayed," followed by a dramatic silence as the non-scholars standing by ponder what this might mean.

Redemptive Suffering

Many Roman Catholics speak of Mary as Co-Redemptrix. I've always had a really hard time with that. In fact, I've had a hard time with many Catholic attitudes toward Mary, but I've discovered that in many instances if I substitute "Church" where they're saying "Mary" it makes sense to me and I think there's probably a road back to the Catholic faith from there.

My proposed substitution still doesn't work for a lot of people because they see the Church as an institution trying to tell them what they can or can't do or even believe. I've never seen the Church that way. To me, the Church is us.

All of this is a very long introduction to my encounter with this' week's lectionary texts. I think this week's text picture the Church, each of us individually and all of us collectively, as co-redeemers with Christ.

The Old Testament lesson is the servant song from Isaiah 53. I don't think any Christian can hear this and not think of Christ, yet the scholars tell us not to, or at least to think exclusively of Christ. Perhaps Isaiah means Israel, perhaps himself, perhaps another.

I'm intrigued by the handling of this in the discussion between Philip and the Ethopian eunuch in Acts 8. "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" the eunuch asks. And then the book of Acts does something amazing. It leaves the question open. It reports, "Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus."

Now a lot of people read into that that Philip simply explained that it refers to Jesus, but the actual text allows for a much bigger interpretation. Suppose the prophet means himself AND someone else AND the people of Israel AND Jesus Christ AND the Christian people of God. Suppose we all bear one another's iniquity and by this we are healed.

The psalm for the week includes the passage Satan tries to use to tempt Jesus in the desert: "he will command his angels concerning you." The whole passage does tempt us to look for glory instead of suffering. It speaks of protection and deliverance. Yet the New Testament's use of this text shows us something deeper in it. The line that jumps out at me is this: "I will be with them in trouble." This is God's plan for our protection. He doesn't keep us out of trouble. He is with us in the trouble.

In the New Testament lesson the author of Hebrews expounds on Christ's high priesthood. Speaking first of every high priest chosen from among mortals he says, "He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness." O that all our leaders were so. Then Jesus in the days of his flesh became our high priest. "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered." The mortal high priest is able to deal gently with others because he shares their weakness. Jesus is able to redeem us because he shares our suffering.

So far it may not seem like I have much of a case for my co-redeemer reading of these texts, but I think it comes together in the gospel reading.

James and John come to Jesus and ask for places beside him in glory. Jesus asks, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" The beautiful little fools respond, "We are able."

Jesus tells them that they will, but he goes on to explain "whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant," and the basis for this teaching is in Christ himself, "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." As the master came to serve, so the disciples will serve.

So how are we co-redeemers? I certainly don't mean that our suffering makes atonement for others or that we somehow accumulate merit for others. Those theologically loaded ideas of redemption obscure the depth of the gospel and block us from seeing our involvement in the gospel. But if we view the gospel in terms of God breaking into the world, then each of us can be agents of redemption.

When we server one another and bear one another's iniquities in the name of Christ, we are certainly a means of grace to one another, as surely as when we preach the gospel or administer the sacraments. And so I don't think it is a stretch to put any Christian into Isaiah's servant song and say, "upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."

You know the commandments

This week's gospel reading is the story of the rich young man who comes to Jesus asking how he may inherit eternal life. The opening verse portrays a sense of urgency in the man's request. Jesus was setting out on a journey when the man "ran up and knelt before him."

Barbara Rossing points out how much this looks like a healing story. This is the way they begin. Someone comes to Jesus and falls at his feet, begging for his help. See, for example, the stories of the leper in Mark 1:40, Jairus in Mark 5:22, and the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:25. They all come before Jesus, kneel and ask for his help.

In this context, the action of this rich young man is something I can relate to. He doesn't need physical healing but spiritual healing, and he knows it. So he comes to Jesus, kneels and says, "Help me, Lord. What must I do?" He wants to be holy.

Jesus' response is blunt: "You know the commandments." This is the tragedy of trying to live a spiritual life. If it were just a matter of not knowing what must be done, we could imagine that if only we knew, we could do it. But we do know. As Moses says, "The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe." (Dt. 30:14)

At this point, I'm still hearing this story as an individual. But I want to turn now to receive it in a bigger context. The Old Testment lesson this week is from the prophet Amos. Amos is one of those prophets we Americans very much need right now. Amos speaks to those who "trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain" (Amos 5:11), those "who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate" (5:12).

I don't believe there are people (or at least not many people) in this country who intentionally and knowingly trample the poor. And yet by our actions, by our policies, we do just this. And we do it because we have many posessions. We would love to help the poor. We just aren't willing to jeopardize our own financial standing to do so.

And I don't think this just applies to Republicans. I suspect all of us who have many possessions know exactly how this feels. I am a bleeding heart liberal. I desperately want to help the poor. But I don't want to risk my own family's comfort to do it.

John Henry Newman once said, "the aim of most men esteemed conscientious and religious, or who are what is called honourable, upright men, is, to all appearance, not how to please God, but how to please themselves without displeasing Him." And that is why Amos stings. That is why when we say to Jesus, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth," we know it's not enough as well as he does.

But the good news, the Gospel in this week's gospel reading, is that when the young man said this, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him." The young man went away grieving. The disciples were astonished at all that happened and asked, "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus told them, "for God all things are possible," which leads me to this week's New Testament lesson: "the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword."

This week's readings cut me. They showed me a failing in myself and in my country. But it's a good cut. We don't know how the story of the rich young man ends. Maybe Jesus' words lead him to life. God kills and he makes alive. He strikes and he heals. He casts down and raises up. Through his Word we receive new life.

The Evangelizing Church

Picture a time when although most people are nominally Christian, the large majority of them have a confused idea of the basic message of Christianity. The Bible isn't much read and the preaching in churches is often about anything but the Gospel. Despair and hopelessness are widespread. Many people think they can secure their hapiness by buying things.

It's present-day America, right? Or is it sixteenth century Europe?

This juxtaposition of the problems of the Reformation era and the problems of modern America is from the second chapter of The Evangelizing Church: A Lutheran Contribution. The authors (primarily Kelly Fryer for this chapter) offer a fresh look at the power of Lutheranism. What if rather than seeing the Reformation as a correction of bad doctrine, we see it instead as a revival movement where the Gospel was spoken with power and the Church was renewed not by a return to better theology but by the impulse to spread the Gospel? Does that look anything like the Lutheran churches we know?

I've aired my reservations about evangelism here before. And yet it's a problem that just won't go away. As much as I'd like to, I can't get around the Great Commission.

The authors of The Evangelizing Church identify three typical Lutheran stances toward evangelism:

1) Skepitcal

In this stance, the whole enterprise of evangelism is viewed with suspicion. In as much as evangelism is proselytizing, it is seen as a bad thing. In as much as it is a holdover from colonialism, it is seen as something for which the Church needs to repent. And in as much as we live in a pluralistic society, evangelism shows disrespect for those of other religions. All of this lets us sidestep the call to evangelize.

2) Pragmatic

Fully embracing the call to evangelize, the pragmatic approach looks around at other denominations and borrows whatever they are doing. And so we have Lutherans embracing the Four Spiritual Laws and Evangelism Explosion and the Purpose Driven Life and whatever else is popular in the wider church culture without worrying about the question of whether these methods are faithful to our Lutheran traditions.

3) Romantic

This stance views everything the Church does as evangelism. It loves the slogan, "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary." But in general it never feels words are necessary. And so we feed the poor and clothe the naked, but we never actually verbally express the Gospel to anyone.


Seeing these position before me, I was able to easily identify myself as an adherent of the first position. When pressed with the necessity of evangelizing, I might be willing to fall back on the third position, but I hate the second position with the fury of a thousand suns. But, of course, I do see that all three positions are tragically flawed.

The authors of The Evangelizing Church promise a way forward. And so I'm reading on with great hope. I'll let you know what I find.

Economics of Immigration

The Republican candidate for governor in Oregon is running television ads proudly proclaiming that he thinks "illegal means illegal" and so if elected he will crack down on illegal immigrants.

As I've indicated in previous posts, I'm rather radical when it comes to immigration. I think the problem with "illegal immigrants" is with the "illegal" not with the immigrants. To me, closing our borders (literally!) to immigrant workers is just another way for the rich to oppress the poor.

It probably wouldn't change my opinion, but I'd like to at least know what the economic trade-offs are. I know very little about economics, but it seems to me that welcoming immigrants should be good for our economy in the long run. If our wealth as a nation is based on what we produce then increasing the number of workers should increase our overall wealth, right? That is, of course, assuming that the incoming workers don't simply displace existing workers.

According to the aforementioned ad, there are 175,000 illegal immigrants living in Oregon. I can't imagine that we'd be helped by running them out of town. I strongly suspect that our economy depends on the work they do. So why does this Republican want to "get tough" with them?

My sense is that conservative politicians don't really care about this issue and are just using it to maintain the inexplicable support they have from blue collar workers who are afraid that their jobs and/or wages will be hurt by immigration. But what if this fear is well-founded? I don't want to be just another knee-jerk liberal who is unwittingly hurting one group of working class people in the name of helping another.

Does anybody have a good source explaining the actual economic issues involved?

The Word of God in the Bible

I've dropped the ball on my investigation of the authority of God in the Bible, and I may just give it up as I don't think I'm going to have time to do it right any time soon, but I did have occasion to investigate the use of the idea of "word of God" in the Bible.

In the NRSV, the phrase "word of God" appears only three times in the Old Testament, but the phrase "word of the Lord" appears 238 times. Because of the volume, I won't treat each passage individually.

What I will say is that in the overwhelming majority of cases (and arguably all) where these two phrases are used in the Old Testament they are being used to reference something other than Scripture. Specifically, in most cases these phrases refer to a sort of power by which God influences the world. Most specifically, more than half of the instances refer to the power of God coming to or speaking through prophets.

In 109 instance, the use is of the form "the word of the Lord came to X." An additional 34 times someone speaking says something of the form "hear...the word of the Lord." Another 27 times, something happens "according to the word of the Lord" often in fulfillment of a prophetic announcement. And 10 times, something is said to be done "by the word of the Lord." That's 180 of the 241 uses just with those specific formulas. The other uses are generally also of this sort, including people keeping the word of the Lord and other people rebelling against the word of the Lord.


In the New Testament, the phrase "word of God" is much more common, but once again it rarely refers to Scripture. The phrase "word of the Lord" occurs 15 times in the NRSV New Testament, the phrase "word of God" occurs 37 times and the phrase "word of Christ" occurs twice.

I have gone through these occurences and classified them according to what they refer to.

I find only one verse which I think can be argued to directly refer to Scripture using the phrase "word of God", Mark 7:13, "thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this." This verse is clearly referring to what God has commanded. That could, quite reasonably, be understood as meaning scripture.

In two more cases (Lk 8:21 and Lk 11:28) the phrase "word of God" refers to the will of God that is heard. Again, this could arguably be understood as Scripture, but only in a limited sense. When Jesus speaks of "those who hear the word of God and do it" this cannot be a general reference to Scripture, for not everything in the Bible can be done as such.

In one case (Rev. 19:13) the term "Word of God" refers to Jesus Christ himself. In one more (Lk 5:1) "word of God" refers to what Jesus is saying. In two cases (Lk 22:61 and Acts 11:16) the phrase "word of the Lord" refers to something specific Jesus had said.

In five instances (Lk 3:2, 1Co 14:36, Col 1:25, 1Th 4:15, Rev 1:2) "word of God" seems to refer to the prophetic concept, as in "the word of God came unto John". In two cases (Heb 11:3, 2Pe 3:5) "word of God" refers to the creative word of God, as in God spoke and it was so.

In three significant cases (Ac 6:7, Ac 12:24 and Ac 19:20) "the word of God" or "word of the Lord" is described as something apparently insubstantial that spreads, advances and even grows as the Gospel is spread.

The overwhelming majority of the cases in the New Testament (31 occurences) are those in which "word of God" or "word of the Lord" refers to preaching or otherwise bearing witness to Christ. These include cases where people "praised" the word of the Lord (Acts 13:48) that they have heard, cases where the word of God is "received", a case (1Pe 1:23) which speaks of "the living and enduring word of God" by which people are born anew and another (1Pe 1:25) in the same context which says that "the word of the Lord endures for ever" and, lest we be confused, says "That word is the good news that was announced to you."

The full list which I have classified as cases of preaching or witness is:
Ac 4:31, Ac 6:2, Ac 8:14, Ac 8:25, Ac 11:1, Ac 13:5, Ac 13:7, Ac 13:44, Ac 13:46, Ac 13:48, Ac 13:49, Ac 15:35, Ac 15:36, Ac 16:32, Ac 17:13, Ac 18:11, Ac 19:10, Ro 9:6, Ro 10:17, 1Th 1:8, 1Th 2:13, 2Th 3:1, 2Ti 2:9, Tit 2:5, Heb 6:5, Heb 13:7, 1Pe 1:23, 1Pe 1:25, Re 1:9, Re 6:9, Re 20:4


That leaves the following six verses, which I have classified as debatable. It could be argued that these are references to Scripture, but I think, in light of the above analysis and the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture, that it makes far more sense to understand these all as the powerful presence by and through which God achieves his will in the world.

Lk 8:11
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

Joh 10:35
If those to whom the word of God came were called 'gods'—and the scripture cannot be annulled—

Eph 6:17
Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Col 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

Heb 4:12
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

1Jo 2:14
I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young people, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Transendence and Immanence

I recently started reading Paul Laughlin's book, Getting Oriented: What Every Christian Should Know about Eastern Religions but Probably Doesn't. I picked this up because I had previously read Laughlin's Remedial Christianity and found it a good mental exercise. I disagreed with a lot, but he worked through some good topics. I came into this book expecting more of the same.

The thing that had bugged me most in Remedial Christianity was Laughlin's rather uninspired exploration of the ideas of transcendence and immanence. And, to my chagrin, I got more of the same in Getting Oriented -- exactly the same.

I think it would be fair to say that one of the things Laughlin is dissatisfied with about traditional Christianity is that it has too much transcendence and not enough immanence. He wants to reinvent Christianity to fix that.

But I think the real problem is that Laughlin's insistence on rigid categories blocks him from seeing the immanence of God that is proclaimed in the Christian tradition.

Laughlin offers two definitions each for transcendence and immanence. He defines "high octane" immanence as a view wherein God (or Ultimate Reality) permeates, saturates or infuses everything and everyone "as their very essence" while "high octane" transcendence is a view wherein God is wholly Other. He complements these definitions with a "low octane" immanence that is God present in the world "but only in a manner of speaking: as an agent acting upon it" and "low octane" transcendence as a God (or Ultimate Reality) that is beyond comprehension. Using these definitions Laughlin claims that Christianity offers a view of God that involves high octane transcendence but low octane immanence.

He says the traditional Western God "must impact the Universe from beyond it through creative acts, rather than as an abiding, inherent, indwelling, intelligence" (his emphases). I don't think this is right. I think traditional (and especially pre-Enlightenment) Christianity describes God precisely as an abiding presence in the world.

After describing the high octane versions, Laughlin says, "In a perfect world, that would be that: 'transcendence' and 'immanence' would each have a single, univocal meaning...." I think this statement reveals more than he would like. He allows that this being an imperfect world they each have a "second" meaning. What he doesn't seem to allow is that they each have ranges and shades and subtleties.

Laughlin's conclusions about Christianity seem to follow from Christianity's firm and non-negotiable insistence on the ontological difference between God and Creation. Combine that with his narrow categories, and you can't conclude other than he does. But throw out the categories, and we have all kinds of possibilities. What is needed, I suggest, is an acceptance of the fact that Christianity wants to proclaim both high octane transcendence and high octane immanence, even if we lack the terminology to do so simultaneously.

Laughlin dismisses Christian mysticism as an insignificant minority report, but I wonder if he realizes he is throwing all of Orthodox Christianity in that statement along with some very deep and influential streams in the West.

He says the "weaker sort of immanence does not allow for God to become the world or anything in it." Now you would think that statement alone disqualifies Christianity for this type of immanence. But Laughlin kind of dismisses it as "the exception that proves the rule, perhaps" and in any event says Christians "would not see it as a theological compromise, simply because of its unique, once-and-for-all character." In other words, we're committed to transcendence over against immanence and aren't going to let the Incarnation distract us from that.

Now here's where he really gets my goat. He says, "every other Christian theological issue and topic including the understanding and treatment of the cosmos, time and humanity, must begin with [the insistence on God's ontological transcendence] and continue to honor it, in order to maintain the basic monotheistic framework of the faith, at least as it is traditionally understood" Ummm, Dr. Laughlin, that was the boat. You just missed it.

In point of fact, I would maintain to the contrary that every other Christian theological issue and topic, including our ideas about God's immanence and transcendence, must, absolutely must, follow from the Christian proclamation of the Incarnation.