The Arrival

Well, for those of you reading this, you've survived Black Friday. Only 29 shopping days left. This build up to Christmas is a study in contrasts. Some people look with eager expectation to the biggest shopping day of the year; others loathe it; some bear it as a necessary evil; corporations rely on it, in this economy more than ever. Some even consider it a thrilling adventure.

Of course it's called Black Friday for a reason, not just because it is a chance for some companies to get in the black, but because it can become a dark feeding frenzy. The term apparently started up with the Philadelphia police department in the 1960's because it was such a crazy day. The crazy has not gone away; it's gotten worse. People have been trampled, shot, stabbed, beaten, department store doors are smashed by the onslaught of shoppers.

This consumer mania contrasts quite sharply with what we tend to believe Christmas and the holidays are supposed to “be all about.” Joy, cheer, generosity, what Dickens called the “milk of human kindness,” all of those things we and others are supposed to be and emulate, at least between Thanksgiving and Boxing Day.

We are not even mentioning the heart of the Christian proclamation in this season, that God became a human being and lived among us. So Christians in particular should not get quite so wrapped up in the holiday hysteria, though I've seen more than one harried shopper with a “Jesus is the reason for the season” pin. Makes me wonder if they are paying attention to their own bumper sticker theologies.

On top of all that madness, there is gathering of family and friends, the days spent together, the cooking, the eating, the presents. For many people that is even more dreadful and stress inducing than the sorties to the mall. Yet again, we are to believe that this is a time when families gather and old grudges are set aside and people are more nice than tolerant.

It makes me wonder about what we are all expecting; what we are all waiting for. There is the kind of waiting that is passive, a waiting that just keeps on doing the same thing every year, playing the same game, waiting in the same lines, and believes that if God is going to fix it, God will miracle it all better. Or that if we just find the right formula, cook just the right meal, say just the right thing, get just the right present, that God will miracle it all better. In the professional thinker business we call that magical thinking and it pretty much never works, and when it does, it's just blind luck (or a miracle, you can never be sure).

But there is another kind of waiting, a waiting that is active, a waiting that is faithful and patient. It is a waiting that doesn't expect things to fix themselves all at once, but knows that if we don't change ourselves, then nothing ever will. It is the day-by-day, year-by-year change that can really mold something different for us and those we love. It is the water dripping on the rock that wears it away, the life-style change verses the crash diet. It is trusting that when we are faithful the change will happen so don't give up when the results don't pop right away. It is the waiting that is awake and watchful for the hints of hope. The waiting that each advent sees the arrival of Jesus in the thousand ways he makes himself known to us.   

Does God Exist?

We all have asked that question before, or perhaps more, “Does God really exist?” Maybe even the big related question, “How do we know God exists?” There have been a rash of books by famous, angry atheists of late, for whom book publishers have been falling over themselves to get, that loudly try to demonstrate that God most certainly does not exist. And there have been another stream of books which try to answer those big questions and provide rationals for the existence of God and to delimit the horizon of epistemological certainty.

The oldest argument in support of God's existence, and probably still one of the best is “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Which is not a question about the big bang, but an observation about the known universe, an observation which science continues to confirm. Everything we know about the everything of the universe is that everything in it, matter, anti-matter, energy, exists in a web of necessary relations on which it is dependent for existence. Nothing exists on it's own; it is contingent. If the nature of the universe is one of contingency, then how can it have brought itself into existence, or even always existed? Therefore, so the argument goes, God becomes the non-contingent source of all things, and not at some point in the distant past, but moment by moment upholding the contingent everything in existence. Some foolish people dismiss this as hooey; others see it for a rather deep conundrum, have sophisticated ways of dealing with it, and are still atheists. That's all fine.

Because the question is, after all, a philosophical question. A question that might do us all well to consider or even study at times, but a question which has almost no bearing on why people, including me, really believe in God. When it comes down to it, the real reason I believe in God has nothing to do with arguments or debates. It's because I have a relationship with God.

Indulge me in an analogy for a moment. By simple argument it is actually very difficult to prove that my wife exists. I see her; I hear here; I can touch her. But senses can be fooled; hallucinations are a known part of our lives. For all I know there is something controlling my brain that is making me experience all this. In the based-on-a-true-story movie, A Beautiful Mind, the main character, a brilliant mathematician, experiences exactly this: a series of very life like delusions that convince him that non-existent persons are a part of his life.

But at some point, I have to ask the question: does it matter? Is it arguments that convince me that Michelle exists? No. Not really. I believe Michelle exists because I have a relationship with her. I trust that she is there not only because I can see and hear her, but because we have this mutual living of life going on between us. I keep bumping up against her in my life.

That is the same reason I really believe, or trust in, God. Not because of a clever argument, not because someone told me it was true, and not because I walked down an aisle or had an ecstatic experience. Not because “Jesus touched my heart.” It is the ongoing, day to day experience of relationship with God that shapes my belief. The word of God from the Scriptures, the meal, the presence of God in the people I see, the love of God I see in nature, the give and take of prayer and life and work. It's not a big idea, or a convincing argument, or even a flash of light from the heavens. I believe in God because I keep bumping into God. Simple as that.

Hell

The following is a reprint of an article I wrote a few years ago. I reprint it because of some questions I have heard recently.

Last month's newsletter article ended with a description of someone at the last judgment. Several of the readings in the last few weeks and in coming weeks refer to a place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This month I thought I would write an article that puts together – however briefly - some of my own ideas about hell. Any discussion of hell tends (for obvious reasons) to revolve around two questions: “What is it?”and “Who's going to be there?”

First I should say that these are opinions that I hold lightly; they are not foundational. Second, none of them are really my own. They have been derived from various theologians, writers, conversations I've had with others, etc. Third, and perhaps most important, hell is only spoken of in metaphorical ways. That is, it is never discussed in a discreet and explicit way, only using images, usually of heat and darkness. These images have mutated and changed over the years, depending on the culture they find themselves in.

What is it? My own idea is itself a metaphor. I think the thing we can say about hell that is not metaphorical (assuming it exists at all) is that it is a place without God. It is a place that is closed off from God, separated from God's influence and grace. Since I believe there is a continuity between the now and the then, for me hell is a kind of penal colony, a world in which humanity rules without God's mercy. I think of the world which Mad Max lives in, or the island prison in Escape from New York (check out the 80's section in your local movie rental store). These are places of wealth but no joy, of power but no love, places where every desire can be fulfilled and satiated, so that only the novel titillates. Jesus describes hell as a valley of garbage. I think it would be a place that operates by the rules God has consigned to the dust bin of history, but which we humans still cling to far too tightly. Hell, then, is not a place made by God to punish the evil, but a place created by people, who want to live by their own rules.

Who is going to hell? In the past this has often been answered with allusions to dogmatic beliefs or moral deeds. One must either believe a certain thing or do a certain thing(s) (in which case faith and works become the same thing). Certain acts (mortal sin) without contrition and penance were punishable by consignment to eternal torment, as was heresy.

I do not think that is what Jesus and the apostles taught. First, as Lutherans, we have argued (and I believe the church has always taught) that it is faith and not works that “saves” us. That is: bad people do not go to hell and good people do not go to heaven. That is not how it works: it is faith. However, we can all too often transform faith into a work as well: one must believe “enough,” one must believe “the right thing.” I think this misses the point. The point, we discover, is that what is important is to trust God, and trust the good news that God loves us, that we have a relationship with God, a relationship created and founded by God and in God. This doesn't mean we always “believe” it, but that not the same thing as trust. After all I can doubt all kinds of things, but still trust, even when everything else in life and the world is pointing in the opposite direction. There are times when I have found the love of God hard to believe, but I still trust it.

Who could resist this good news? Perhaps, in the end, no one. There are plenty of passages that point to what is sometimes called “universal salvation,” that in the end no one and no thing in lost. Jesus says he will draw all people to himself; several epistles say things like, God is reconciling all things, salvation comes to all. There are ancient theologians who believed in this idea (Gregory of Nyssa to name one) that God and God's love are ultimately omnipotent, that God will win every heart and renew every blade of grass, such that nothing will be left unredeemed. I find this a very compelling argument.

On the other hand, it is Jesus who speaks of hell and judgment more than any other figure. It is hard to disregard, or balance, his harsh words with some of his other sayings and some of the apostle's writings. People who simply want to dismiss hell as an archaic idea from a barbaric time are merely ignoring and discounting the words of Jesus, rather than seeking to understand them.

So if there is a hell (I'm not sure there is) and there are people “in it” (I'm not sure there are), who will be there? I first have to start with the principle that I cannot be more compassionate than God. For some this is a controversial statement, and opens up another line of argument that I will not indulge in. However, if I cannot be more compassionate than God, and I look around and see all the people who I could not consign to even a moment of intentional pain, I find it hard to believe that God would.

So I am left with two understandings of who might be in hell. First, the people who end up in hell are the people who do not want to be with God. This may sound strange at first, but I believe it is a valid point. There are people who do not like the Christian God. They do not like the way God holds up the weak and forgives evildoers. I think there will be people who, if they see Hitler or an abusive parent rejoicing in the Kingdom, will turn and leave God behind. These are the Elder Brother from the story of the Prodigal Son, who cannot forgive and cannot rejoice at the reconciliation of others. They are self-righteous, entitled, and ultimately make themselves judges of God. These are the people who will march into hell, their head held high.

The second idea is one which the Eastern Church has presented for many years. Hell is the other side of heaven. There are some who experience love, forgiveness and reconciliation as the worst kind of torture, the worst kind of betrayal. For them the love of God and the forgiveness of God are unbearable, and because that love and forgiveness will be experienced in such High-Definition clarity and intensity for all time in the Kingdom to come, it will be a kind of unending hell for them.

But ultimately, who knows? I find it hard to believe that any evil can withstand God's reconciliation, that any power can withstand God's love. If anything is clear it is that the Kingdom of God and hell start right here and now, are available right here and now, and we begin our ultimate journey towards them (spending time on both paths, no doubt) in the here and now. Yet somehow I also feel that there is enough hell now, and that all eternity will be too short to fully enjoy the Kingdom of God.

July

This month I feel a certain need to talk about our Welcoming Statement that was voted on and approved on June 5th. I spoke in my sermon at Pentecost about this subject, but not everyone is there for every Sunday, and it was a busy day as well. Perhaps I can simply summarize my main points about this statement and what I think is important.

First: The statement is, and needs to be, explicit. It is a general welcoming statement, but in today's world we must be explicit about who we are not excluding from that welcome, specifically gay, lesbian, trans-gendered and bisexual persons. In doing this we are following the example of Paul, when he was explicit as well: In Christ there is now neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free. Paul could not settle for a general “All are Welcome,” and frankly neither can we. And it is an explicit welcome into full participation in the life and ministry of this congregation; one's orientation or gender identity will not be a barrier to serving in any capacity, whether serving on committees, teaching Sunday school, participating in worship or moving chairs.

Second: The statement is a public statement not a private one. This statement, as a welcoming statement, is not simply something we have agreed upon amongst ourselves. It is a statement about who we are to the broader community. It is a witness about how we understand the gospel and the abundant love of God for us all and where we are being led by the Holy Spirit. By its very definition it is not for us, but for others.

I look forward to the continuing conversation we have together as we seek to live out this new statement. I am sure we will have more to do in this area, but I also feel another tug right now....the tug of summer.

July is upon us and if you're like me the last couple of months have been busy. It seems like everyone is doing everything in the first couple weeks of June as everyone tries to get everything done before the beginning of summer. Now July stretches before us. And it kind of looks quiet(er).

Is this a chance to have some quiet before Festival? A chance to relax? A chance to reflect? A chance to take some time off, visit family, get away from it all? Maybe a chance to learn something new?

I hope to take some time off in July. I'm not sure when yet. I'm also planning on learning something new. Michelle and I are (Lord willing) learning some Spanish downtown at the JC Community Center. I also hope to spend some time reflecting and planning what the rest of this year might hold. Or even not thinking about it. I'm amazed at what I learn when I step away from something, get a good night's rest and look at it again the next day.

Take some time to breathe in July. The rain has stopped, the sun is out, the vegetables are growing. Festival is far enough away and “tomorrow's worries are enough for tomorrow.”

For Us

Kids love ten dollar words. I don't know why, and adults find them irritating, but kids love'em. Whether it was fake words made up by magical governesses or real ones, I remember as I child delighting in saying, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Triceratops or antidisestablishmentarianism. We even got big words in church. The favorites were the omni-words. We learned that God was omnipresent (not bad), omniscient (better) and omnipotent (best church word ever).

We learned that these words meant God was everywhere, knew everything and could do anything. For kids God becomes a kind of superhero, faster than light, stronger than Superman, smarter than Einstein. God is big, and strong and lives up in heaven. We learn the word infinite and begin to wrap our minds around that. But there is a problem with this. God can become distant, strange, unapproachable; God can seem powerful just to be powerful. But that is never how God is presented in the Scriptures. In fact those omni-words never appear in the Bible, they are words made up to explain God's attributes based on passages like this in Psalm 139:

Psalm 139:1-18

O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,"

even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them-- they are more than the sand; I come to the end-- I am still with you.

Do we read here a God who is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent? Yes. But notice the why. God is all these things for us. These are not stark attributes of a distant deity, but are presented as the power and strength of God's infinite and intimate love for us. God is not naked power, presence and knowledge. God is infinite love, a love so strong that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, not things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”