renewal

Holy Saturday ends the fast of Lent, which has been a fast with a purpose. Many people may not understand fasting, since it’s not making a statement like a hunger strike does. It’s devotional. It focuses one’s consciousness and makes one mindful. The purpose of the Lenten fast is to prepare to welcome Christ as king once again, to acknowledge that we continue to fail at our duty but that we are grateful for God’s mercy. Rejoice! The bells and the hallelujahs sound. Death in all its forms is not lasting.

I am, it turns out, too tired to develop this theme further tonight. Let me, then, share part of tonight’s Easter Vigil service. The Book of Common Prayer leads the congregation, with the pastor, through the following vows:

Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil and renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?
I do.

Do you believe in God the Father?
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
I will, with God's help.

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
I will, with God's help.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
I will, with God's help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
I will, with God's help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
I will, with God's help.


Simple questions. The answer is harder—“with God’s help.” If we learn anything from Lent, it should be this: that is the only way to say “I will,” the only way we can do anything. Yet we must strive to do it all, persevering, loving, and respecting.

were you there

They took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

—from the Gospel of John, chapter 19

I thought about what Pilate wrote during the Good Friday service we attended this evening. For the gospel writer, it seems important that Jesus was publicly declared “king of the Jews”, even while he was being executed, and even by the foreign occupying power that Pilate represented. The verses preceding this selection indicate that Pilate was very nervous about Jesus and what he might be. But he was also troubled by the threat of unrest on the part Jesus’ accusers, and I wonder if part of his purpose was to write, “This is what happens even to the kings of unruly peoples in the Roman Empire,” so that other would-be leaders would be discouraged. Either way, there were objections: for those who wanted to discredit and dispatch Jesus, the inscription gave him too much credence.

I mused earlier this season about whether it was inevitable that Jesus would be killed, and if in fact all good people in dire situations are bound for martyrdom. The hope of the world is that the light of good deeds shines even through death. My favorite text that I have “happened across” in the Project Gutenberg files is Thoreau’s “Plea for Captain John Brown”, written in defense of the abolitionist John Brown after the raid on Harper’s Ferry led to his arrest. It is eloquent, powerful, convicting, and uncompromising. It elevates Brown to a stature above the other great men and women America had theretofore known. The ideas of the following passage reach their pinnacle in Jesus as he is led to the crucifixion:

This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death,—the possibility of a man’s dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; for in order to die you must first have lived. … Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you are going to die, sir? No! there's no hope of you. You haven’t got your lesson yet. You’ve got to stay after school. We make a needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take. Memento mori! We don’t understand that sublime sentence which some worthy got sculptured on his gravestone once. We’ve interpreted it in a grovelling and snivelling sense; we’ve wholly forgotten how to die. … These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man’s acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do.

And still the world plods on, murderously and indolently. The real hope lies in the days to come, when all glory shall be restored, and only the deeds of light shall withstand exposure to the light. Until then, we must learn how to live.

abide with me

Mammoth Cave preserves everything. The statistics were cited to us a dozen times in the last two days: 54° Fahrenheit, 87% humidity, all year round. Things stick around. We saw a log leaning against the wall that was dated at 2000 years old. Archaeologists working at the site told us that they had found shells of sunflower seeds from prehistoric times. And we heard about the mummified bodies that, in the early 19th century, cemented Mammoth Cave’s place as a tourist attraction.

The first one was found among a set of stone slabs that were set up as a rudimentary coffin. As more were found, some became traveling curiosities to advertise the cave, while others were set up in glass cases or on stands inside the caves for visitors to see. Our guide today told us about one mummified body that was found by a pair of explorers—it was a man that had been crushed under a rock. In the 1930s, while teenaged boys were working on laying out the trails through the cave that are still used today, they lifted the rock off the man, using a cable and tripod, and extracted the body. His was one that was shifted from room to room and put on display. Eventually, it was decided that showing off the corpse might be too disrespectful. Because it had no proper burial place, it was returned to the tunnel “near” where it had been found, so that it could be left undisturbed, with not even the guides knowing where it was.

I commented to Hannah at this point in the tour that humans sometimes have strange notions of respect for the dead. At times we put bodies on display, study them, or amuse and shock ourselves with them. Other times we treat them with the utmost reverence, hoping that giving rest to the bones will give rest to the spirit. One reads of Achilles dragging the body of Hector around the walls of Troy to dishonor his remains and dishearten the inhabitants. Why should these feelings be so powerful?

For one thing, memory is powerful. We remember the deeds of our ancestors, and we are grateful for their efforts that have led to our being here. Being good to their earthly remains seems to equate with being good to these people who are no longer with us in consciousness. For another, I think the hope of resurrection is embedded in us. It would be a strange superstition that the dead could walk again, because nothing natural suggests that it’s remotely possible. I suppose one, or a group of people, could find evidence that some personality is still at work even after their passing. Still, the desire to see certain people again, or the fear that we might see them again, is hope working beyond reason and stretching past the reality of loss. Respect for the dead is humane because we are connected to each other by more than physical interaction; the greater reality of our selves imbues dignity and meaning even to dry bones.

I’ll close tonight with a short passage from Psalm 73:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

still let the spirit cry

Before going to bed tonight, I was flipping channels in the hotel room. I came across Joel Osteen’s (best known for his books Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You) broadcast, where he preaches to 30,000 people in person and likely millions more via TV. He seems to be a fabulous motivational speaker and self-help author, but as far as pastoring, he doesn’t use the Bible much except as a source for illustrative examples. I figured this method of preaching would get some people riled up, so I went searching. Indeed, there are plenty of people willing to vent at Osteen and call him a “false teacher” and, frankly, something of an inconsistent coward (most prominently referenced is his appearance on “Larry King Live”, where he dodged questions King knew many ministers had previously taken head-on).

The second part of the program I saw was a member of Osteen’s ministry team broadcasting from Israel and explaining the clear signs he sees that we are definitively in the world’s last days, according to Biblical prophecy. The formation of Israel as a nation in 1948 was familiar evidence to me; unfortunately, the Six-Day War has apparently also become a mine for signs and a lens for interpreting prophecies, such as in Hosea and Daniel. The list of signs continued with passages from Isaiah describing how God would call his people out of all parts of the earth to return to the promised land, and followed somewhat predictable lines of selective interpretation.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m all for encouraging people, and even for using the Bible as support and authority and inspiration in those times that comfort and encouragement are needed. I’m also not given to rants in what should be a meditation. The promise of success is a powerful force for hope, but how unbalanced is the message “You can do it, because you’ve got greatness in you!”? It’s even true, but there’s some denial of the reality of life embedded in it. …I really shouldn’t go on with this, because it could take a long, painful time to sort out in a public forum my issues with “prosperity gospel” preaching and “end times” prophecy.

* * *

The title of this entry is taken from the hymn “Soldiers of Christ, arise” by Charles Wesley. Here are three excerpted verses:

Soldiers of Christ, arise, and put your armor on,
Strong in the strength which God supplies through His eternal Son.
Strong in the Lord of hosts, and in His mighty power,
Who in the strength of Jesus trusts is more than conqueror.

Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul,
Take every virtue, every grace, and fortify the whole;
Indissolubly joined, to battle all proceed;
But arm yourselves with all the mind that was in Christ, your Head.

From strength to strength go on, wrestle and fight and pray,
Tread all the powers of darkness down and win the well fought day.
Still let the Spirit cry in all His soldiers, “Come!”
Till Christ the Lord descends from high and takes the conquerors home.

The main Scriptural basis for the imagery comes from Ephesians chapter 6, where Paul describes the battle that is part of being a Christian. The call is not to war against unbelievers, but to battle corrupt spiritual powers. This is a hard notion to swallow in today’s Western world, but many of us have had times when we feel we are not wrestling with ourselves alone. Endurance is key, as is preparation. We “soldier on”, to use a relevant idiom. And when our strength fails, even before then when we still feel like we can stand firm, our hope is in God. As Psalm 121 says,

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

That trust is what will carry us into next Sunday, and through the rest of our lives, until we meet God.

who in the lord's name comest

It is now less than a week until Easter dawn. Six days until the bells ring and rejoicing begins afresh. All the world waited expectantly over the ages for the birth of Jesus; it did not even know to hope for his resurrection. Yet in that morning is all of our hope for more renewal, more glory, more joy and peace.

These past few days I’ve been spending time playing hymns in the evening rather than writing. There are so many depths to plunge in meditation, but as I found the ordinary work days more and more tiring, I needed to spend time in simpler, more prayerful worship—music revives me, while writing draws a lot of energy out of me. It has been a good week.

This week Hannah and I are in Kentucky, visiting Mammoth Cave National Park with both sets of parents. It is Cornell’s spring break, and a good chance for us all to come together. I will try to write at least briefly each evening; it is Holy Week, after all, and holiness comes from devotion.

come, almighty, to deliver

I’m making a couple of corrections to a choral piece I wrote several years ago, which never got performed, but will be sung by my church choir this spring. It’s based on (portions of) the text of Psalm 18 (which is a very long psalm overall). In the score, I include the preface of the psalm, even though it’s not sung, because I find it a striking situation and a marvelous context in which to compose a poem:

A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord rescued him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.

For those not familiar with the setting, Saul is the king of Israel and has become angry with David, who is anointed to be the next king, and has been pursuing him through the wilderness (even though David provided great comfort to Saul during some periods of what appears to be mental illness). The chase ends when David is hiding in a cave, Saul and his men come in to rest for the night, and David sneaks up to Saul and cuts a piece off of his cloak; in the morning he calls out to Saul and shows him the piece of cloth. Saul sees that David had a chance to kill him, yet spared his life, and so he repents and stops seeking to kill him. David, rejoicing, writes this song of thanks and praise.

Here is David’s description of God’s intervention:

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings and routed them.
Then the channels of the sea were seen,
and the foundations of the world were laid bare
at your rebuke, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

He sent from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of many waters.
He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.

Amazing! We have the story; we know exactly what happened, and there were no storms and hailstones and lightnings involved. This gives some insight, I think, into how God’s people respond poetically to God’s faithfulness. By God’s might are we able to act, they say. We would have been overwhelmed, but for God’s help. And that help is magnificent. Even if we are surrounded by darkness, God breaks through the clouds and raises us up. That has always been his plan: to raise up his people, and through them the whole world.

how we watch and struggle, and now we live in hope

The weather here has been, if not fickle, at least suspicious lately. Monday was a glorious balmy day, and by Tuesday morning the snow and freezing rain had returned. This is no unfamiliar experience to anyone living in a northern temperate region, but it led to an image this morning that prompted some thinking.

Yesterday evening it was just warm enough to rain, but the temperature dropped slightly overnight. You know what that means: ice accumulating thickly on the branches of trees. Outside our apartment is a large shrub, which normally stands some ten or twelve feet tall. This morning its branches were bowed so low that they covered the sidewalk on the way to the bus. As far as I know, the freezing rain was not such that trees were damaged (I experienced the gravest such damage in Memphis’s 1994 ice storm). This bush simply couldn’t hold up to the burden placed on it. It would be fine once the weight was lifted, but for the moment it was struggling and thereby inhibiting my own passage.

I thought about the shrub as I walked to the bus, and how it reminded me of a person leaning over in harsh labor. So many people feel and have felt a weight almost as physical as the ice on the bush pressing them down. They may break, or they may just need for the time of oppression to pass. And while their burden remains, the world is held back in its progress. It seems a silly thing to think on the oppressed in such a trite manner while looking at a bush, but the analogy sprung to mind. Perhaps the rest of these thoughts will justify what appeared to be idle musing.

Historically, religion (at least its political side) has been used as a tool for power and oppression. I can think of two ways in which this happens. First, as a “trump card”: this order is the way God established it, and by God we (the rulers) will uphold it, even if that means dehumanizing the rest of the populace. Second, as a sedative, Marx’s “opiate of the people”: there’s no need to worry about bettering your life here and now, because the afterlife has a much greater reward waiting for you. I am sorry for this. I am sorry that words of hope led to feelings of resignation. I am sorry that divine order has been co-opted and misconstrued to pervert divine justice. To my brothers and sisters throughout the world and throughout time who have suffered at the hands of my church or governors who claimed to speak on its behalf, I am sorry. Your burden should have been lifted by those who should have been serving you. And now, in our silence, we may be pressing down on that yoke when we should be aiding you.

I just spent some time searching for Christian human rights organizations. Not surprisingly, many of them are devoted to helping Christians around the world who are persecuted for their beliefs—and there are many places where this happens. I applaud their work, and I pray that God will protect his people. Finding general human rights organizations that are Christian-based took some more doing. But I did find the International Justice Mission, whose information page includes the following paragraph:

In the tradition of abolitionist William Wilberforce and transformational leaders like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King, Jr., IJM’s work is founded on the Christian call to justice articulated in the Bible (Isaiah 1:17): Seek justice, protect the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

To illustrate their work, here is their “Justice Agenda” for 2008:

• Protecting vulnerable women and children from illegal property seizure
  
• Protecting vulnerable women and children from sexual violence and rape as a risk factor to AIDS
  
• Securing citizenship documentation for vulnerable populations
  
• Building a justice system that protects children
  
• Working to end slavery by increasing perpetrator accountability
  
• Fighting trafficking of women and children through capacity building and training

These are goals I can support wholeheartedly. I had not heard of this group before tonight, but I want to find out more about what they do and how I can help. Does anyone want to join me?

refresh Thy people on their toilsome way

One has to wonder, as one gets older, whether one is simply becoming more interested in the political process, or whether this time around is actually more interesting than the analogous events in the past. During previous election years, I would hardly have given any heed until after the major parties had chosen their candidates. But this time the entire nomination process has been charged and vibrant and visible. A collection of historic conditions have brought intense scrutiny to this early part of the season, particularly on the Democratic side. I heard on the radio the morning of Super Tuesday that many network producers were treating it in their scheduling like the ultimate reality show (a special boon since the writers’ strike was still on). Now the votes of Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island are being counted, and it seems the furor will continue, as the support of Clinton and Obama remains relatively balanced. I am still afraid, though I think not in the same way as the pundits and analysts, that the more protracted this battle is, the more vicious it will become, and the more difficult it will be to heal any hurt and divisions it may cause. I can pray that the competitiveness will have a strengthening effect on our national dialogue, as well as our resolve to act justly as a country. So far, the campaign seems to have been about as civil as one could hope. May it remain so, so that when we emerge, having chosen based on our consciences and our candidate’s convictions, we are again a whole country, ready to speak with each other and with the world around us.

for all gentle thoughts and mild

There’s so much to find in William Cowper’s poetry, that I’m going to quote from “The Task” again tonight:

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visitor unwelcome into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field.
There they are privileged; and he that hunts
Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm,
Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all—the meanest things that are—
As free to live and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too. The spring-time of our years
Is soon dishonoured and defiled in most
By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots,
If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth,
Than cruelty, most devilish of them all.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,
By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man;
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it and not find it in his turn.

I’ve often felt that “gentleness” is one of the virtues I’m “good” at. At least, in reading these lines of poetry I’m reminded of a time, when I had just taken a spider outside and placed it on a bush instead of squashing it, that a friend of mine said, “Josh, you’re so gentle.” And I think I can and do treat people with gentleness as much as possible, though I may be becoming sour in my old age.

Gentleness is way down on the list of the fruits of the spirit. It doesn’t show up often in hymns, except to describe Jesus or Mary; the only reference different from these I know of that occurs in a familiar hymn is in the title of this entry, from “For the Beauty of the Earth”. It just doesn’t get the “air time” that, say, love or patience does. So self-assessment on this attribute doesn’t occur all that often. It may have to come, as it recently did for me, at a time when the word itself isn’t mentioned.

Just a few weeks ago, the Chesterton House in Ithaca held their annual Institute of Biblical Studies program. The theme was “Gospel Freedom: Ancient Words, Modern Wisdom”, and each session focused on one of the Ten Commandments. I went to the morning sessions on Saturday. The first session dealt with the sixth commandment: “You shall not murder.” The speaker said he had once been invited to speak to an audience of clergy and seminary students. One of the attendees had joked beforehand that there shouldn’t be too much to say on that topic to this particular crowd. And it’s easy for most people, Christian or not, to think that they’ve got this commandment under control. (Incidentally, the ESV’s footnote says, “The Hebrew word also covers causing human death through carelessness or negligence.”)

The story continued with the speaker pointing out that Jesus’ take on this commandment is much fuller than a cursory read would lead to:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

As many church leaders, including Luther and Calvin, have pointed out, the proscriptive commandments come with (perhaps implicit, but Jesus is drawing them out in the Sermon on the Mount) prescriptive commandments—in the case of “do not kill”, the converse “love your neighbor” is implied. Even more, as the speaker told his clerical audience, Jesus’ words above show us that we must recognize we are all at times murderers in our hearts. Hatred and indifference are ways we denigrate and dehumanize others; he spoke at length about how the phrase “says to his brother, ‘Raca’”(above translated by the ESV as “insults his brother”) means calling someone worthless and beneath contempt. If we do not acknowledge the dehumanizing tendencies we harbor, we will not be able to take hold of the gospel of grace.

I think gentleness is part of the solution to indifference. A proverb says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” I can certainly discount people, either secretly or blatantly, intentionally or carelessly, and so I ask God to guide me to recognize, acknowledge, and respect the humanity of everyone I meet.

stamp thine own image

One of Hannah’s and my favorite pastimes, when we’re not going out, is watching Fraggle Rock. Recently we watched the first-season episode “I Want to Be You”, in which Red becomes jealous of the attention Mokey gets from her poetry, as well as the peaceful way she has of enjoying the world, and decides she wants to be like Mokey. She bemoans:

And how I wish I could change myself.
Change to somebody new.
And how I long to exchange myself.
How I wish I were you.

Now, Red is the impulsive, daring, spotlight-grabbing member of the group, and although Mokey is her best friend, she just can’t pull off the laid-back, hippie, artistic lifestyle. Her friends realize that she had been feeling neglected, and she realizes that she can’t win approval just by mimicking someone else, and the episode ends happily and affirmatively. It’s important to realize that making ourselves a mirror image of someone else won’t really succeed in changing our place in the world, or before God for that matter.

Except that often we speak or sing in words that echo Red’s:

O to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Those words are Thomas Chisholm’s. More recently, Kathleen Thomerson wrote:

I want to walk as a child of the light;
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world;
The star of my life is Jesus.

We may wonder as we sing these hymns—what do we mean? Once we cast off this “old man” (or “sinful self”, or “flesh”, as it is variously translated), what will be left? How much of myself will I lose if I become more like Jesus? The answer: everything and nothing.

A sort of trivial example: the Enneagram personality test has become popular in recent years, and I remember when I was introduced to it, the resource I was reading tried to specify one personality type or the other for Jesus (I can’t now remember which); fortunately, in my brief internet research just now I found no such hard-and-fast claims, though a few speculated 5 or 8 or 2. Others claimed that Jesus had the perfect aspects of all the personality types. In either case, where Jesus falls squarely on some vertex of the enneagram or epitomizes all of them, it’s easy to wonder what will happen to our personality as God takes over our lives. Will we switch from a doer to a lover? Will our distinctness be obliterated?

This is where we lose nothing. I mentioned last week that things gain their fullest character by belonging to God. There will be darkness in our lives and in our past that will be stripped away, but God will use the mettle he has put in each of us to glorify himself in ways peculiar to our gifts and position. As Paul explained to the Corinthians: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

But there are many times we fail to be ourselves, by which I mean we fail to be free in the sense that Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. … Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” That phrasing makes it sound appealing, but we all know the difficulty of believing in and following the truth. Thus we must lose everything: our pride and willfulness, our timidity and slothfulness, our anger and covetousness, which are not marks of any healthy personality. We must give ourselves up so that we can be remade, and though we may not recognize ourselves at the end, it will only be because of added glory, not because of lessened selfhood.

When we want to be like Jesus, it is because we want to be closer to God and better servants of others. Our guilt has already been exchanged for his righteousness; now we long only for his strength in exchange for our weakness.

take the dimness of my soul away

This morning, I alluded to Cowper’s use of the “theology of contentment.” That’s a somewhat loaded phrase, and I wanted to clarify what I meant by it, and why I claimed to find it in Cowper’s writing. One place in the Bible where this topic is discussed is in Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, where he thanks them for being concerned about his well-being. He is truly grateful, but he takes the opportunity to teach them about the sufficiency of God:

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Kierkegaard stretches out the description a bit further, describing his “knight of faith” in Fear and Trembling:

He takes delight in everything, and whenever one sees him taking part in a particular pleasure, he does it with the persistence which is the mark of the earthly man whose soul is absorbed in such things. He tends to his work. So when one looks at him one might suppose that he was a clerk who had lost his soul in an intricate system of book-keeping, so precise is he. He takes a holiday on Sunday. He goes to church. … He lives as carefree as a ne’er-do-well, and yet he buys up the acceptable time at the dearest price, for he does not do the least thing except by virtue of the absurd.

So this same character is recognizable in “The Task” when Cowper writes:

He is the happy man, whose life even now
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come;
Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state,
Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose,
Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.

These examples have many other parallels in Christian literature, particularly within monastic writings. (One is also reminded of the folktale—told and retold, from what I can tell, in cultures all over the world—of the melancholy king, who is told that the cure for his sorrow is to find the happiest man in the world and to wear his shirt; when he finds the man, he has no shirt, and the king learns that he will never find contentment in riches or power.) Often, however, the additional point is made that contentment should not be confused with complacency or slothfulness. Cowper in particular says:

He serves his country; recompenses well
The state beneath the shadow of whose vine
He sits secure, and in the scale of life
Holds no ignoble, though a slighted place.
The man whose virtues are more felt than seen,
Must drop, indeed, the hope of public praise;
But he may boast, what few that win it can,
That if his country stand not by his skill,
At least his follies have not wrought her fall.

Paul says often that each member of a community should contribute as they can and as they have ability.

I do not have much to add to these writings; right now I mostly find it useful to have them collected. Even as we work to praise God and to serve our fellow creatures, we should be mindful that every aspect of our lives comes by God’s grace, and indeed God alone is sufficient for us to find peace in the world.

his wonders to perform

William Cowper was a man who looked for hope. He was afflicted by severe depression and anxiety throughout his life, often leading to the conviction that he was thoroughly damned. His association with the Unwin family and John Newton helped bulwark him, as did the devotion to God that he developed during a period in an asylum. I knew of him before today through his handful of hymns that have become standards. This morning I was reading through the Norton Anthology of Poetry and came across their selection from his monumental work “The Task”.

This section, taken from Book VI “The Winter Walk at Noon”, blends the imagery of English carols, the psalms, the Hebrew prophets, Revelation, the letters of Paul, and the theology of contentment to describe the hope of God’s renewing work:

Oh scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,
Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
…
Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restored.
So God has greatly purposed; who would else
In His dishonoured works Himself endure
Dishonour, and be wronged without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shattered world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate His laws,
And suffer for its crime: would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what pleases Him.
…
Come then, and added to Thy many crowns
Receive yet one as radiant as the rest,
Due to Thy last and most effectual work,
Thy Word fulfilled, the conquest of a world.

This hope, I think, is our key to Christian living. We have no excuse for failing to benefit the world when our God is so constantly working to restore it, and has given us the honor of working with him. Again, it’s not that we work to be good in God’s eyes; God makes all things good, and our hope in his efficacy inspires us to live well. We are always unsuccessful at making ourselves good, though we strive for it. Our hope is in Jesus (I still need to go back and reflect more on the crucifixion and resurrection) and the connection he gives us to God the Father, as well as in the promises of restoration God made before Jesus came to earth. Even when we are feeling dark and adrift, we can assert our confidence in the eternal source of light and strength.

I have heard thy voice

Each time I pray these days, I make sure to pray that what I do, I do to God’s glory. That’s a pretty frightening prayer, actually, since I spend a lot of time not really being “good” (not being “bad” per se, but sort of neutral). For example, as a grad student, I spend some portion of my day surfing the Internet. Unless I stick with strictly enriching/edifying websites, how does that give glory to God? And what about the time that I spend trying to work but just getting frustrated? I am not sober enough in temperament to spend all my time intensely goal-driven. I generally find self-help books annoying. Am I missing something?

I remember quite well one moment in a church in 2003, when I had just finished my Peace Corps service and was traveling before returning home. One spends a lot of time reflecting on how the service went and what it revealed about one’s character in that situation. I realized I had been struggling with increasing anger and self-doubt. I had nowhere specific I was going, and I needed to take some time to pray. I told God, “Whatever I am or become in the next few years, I am yours.”

Which reminds me of another story I enjoy telling. A friend several years ago asked me her favorite conversational question: what one word would you use to describe yourself? It posed an interesting, theretofore unencountered, challenge, because I had had opportunities (say, in English class) to describe myself in three words or something like that. One word is an entirely different issue. After thinking for a while, I replied, ”God’s”. Which really is the only answer I can give, because whatever else I am, I owe to him.

It’s not only to myself that I enjoy applying this adjective. I drew a sketch in my youth of all the pieces of the universe I could then conceive of, and included a “quote” which I attributed to God: “Man cannot describe the wonders of creation—the sun and moon, the planets and the stars—with his mortal words. I can. It is—they are—mine.” When something belongs to God, it isn’t constricted by anything. It becomes fully itself. God will bring glory to himself, and if we make ourselves his, then what we are becomes a reflection of and a testament to his glory. So perhaps a better way to phrase that prayer I’ve been trying to get at is, God, please make us yours.

in cloud and majesty and awe

I wasn’t sure what to write about this evening, so I went over to Sacred Space for inspiration; this is a website run by a group of Jesuits in Ireland, intended to guide daily prayer through contemplation of a Bible passage. Today’s passage was from Matthew chapter 5:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Each passage comes with an optional aid in understanding the message. This one included the following:

The law is good only because it leads to Christ. All of religion is good only insofar as it leads us to God and through Christ.

This comes back to something I’ve mentioned before but haven’t had the chance to properly develop: namely, that religion isn’t about making us look or feel good, or beating ourselves or others down. It is about connecting with God. If God gave us a law, it wasn’t to provide a gauge of spiritual superiority; it was to bring us closer to him. Arbitrary? Hardly. We sort through the legal minutiae of the Old Testament to try to determine “what still applies today.” But if we’re simply arguing over whether or not to wear clothes of mixed fabrics to prove our dedication, we’re once again missing the chance to ponder what God has in mind for our way of living. How do we give glory to God?

I can’t say this is the most comfortable selection from Jesus’ words. For one thing, what does Jesus’ fulfillment of the law have to do with our keeping it? And how firm is this dichotomy between being “least” and “great” in the kingdom of heaven? At least a little law-breaking doesn’t seem to cast us out of the kingdom, although it does change our standing there. In a place where faithfulness is the ultimate expression of love—where God, who alone is perfect, alone is perfectly loving and faithful, having already demonstrated how far he will reach to fulfill his promises—our faithfulness will shine like silver, our weaknesses having been burned away (like dross in a refiner’s fire, as an image from the Bible suggests). If we are faithful with what God has given us (as I wrote about on Sunday), then we may be rewarded with the words “Well done, good and faithful servant”—back to the parable of the talents.

What’s clear is that we are not immune from responsibility after Jesus’ coming. Our freedom cannot come at the cost of our faithfulness, or we are building up lives of chaff. God gave us the law to chasten us, but also to save us through and from the law. Much goes into that statement; I hope it has some kind of clarity, since I don’t have the energy to expound more. I hope you all have a good night, and find a way to honor God by being faithful.

the birds their carols raise

We’ve been talking about creation in our Monday night Bible study. It’s led to some very broad and challenging topics—the nature and character of God, the problem of evil in the world (viz. Job), the Fall, the resurrection, evolution, predestination, eschatology, and so forth. Tonight we touched on most of those. At the end, we spent time in worship with the hymn from which the following verses are taken:

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This is my Father’s world, dreaming, I see His face.
I ope my eyes, and in glad surprise cry, “The Lord is in this place.”
This is my Father’s world, from the shining courts above,
The Beloved One, His Only Son,
Came—a pledge of deathless love.

The first of these two verses is often the concluding verse in hymnals. The latter I had never seen until I searched on Cyberhymnal (somewhat justifiably, because although the text isn’t bad, it doesn’t scan well with the traditional tune).

When I was younger, I thought the phrase “though the wrong seems oft so strong” meant that, when we are making choices, the wrong option is frequently attractive. “God is the ruler”, and so we should take that into account when we are trying to make the right choice. The context of the verse shows that, rather, a fundamental question is being addressed: why are things still going wrong all around us? It answers only with hope: we have plenteous evidence of God’s presence, not least in the natural world, and we have faith that Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s sovereignty will conquer at last sin, and death, and sorrow. (Another line reads, “This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?”) This is the constant problem one finds people in the Bible facing, particularly in Job, Ecclesiastes, and the psalms: why do the wicked prosper? And usually the only answer we receive is that God is waiting for the proper time to intervene and stop the world with its suffering. Not good enough, we want to say. But when we turn from the question of why is God allowing these things to why are we carrying them out, we have to face some dark features of ourselves. We can’t fix them; somehow, we can’t stop ourselves from being bad. We will need God. Maybe he’s just waiting for us to realize that. Once we do, we realize that all we ever needed was God.

small things

It happens time and again, naturally and often quite correctly: dreams start out small. Which is to say, their fulfillment does. The folks who won Academy Awards tonight got them for deeds small (e.g., the musical duo that won the “Best Song” award) and great (e.g., Robert Boyle’s “Lifetime Achievement” award), all done well. Doing a job well is what earns you respect and professional trust. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as I draw nearer my graduation. I have a few phrases from the Bible posted in my office; the main one is simply a printout of Psalm 103 (which I read a meditation about some years ago at a time that made it particularly touching):

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
…
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

These are reminders I need daily.

But lately there’s been a quote from a parable of Jesus that I’ve thought about adding to the wall (almost certainly the thinking is more important than the putting up the words):

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?

To be honest, I had remembered this in my head as a paraphrase: “If you cannot be trusted with small things, how can you be trusted with great things?” This question is simple and direct, and very useful for a struggling grad student. Jesus’ question is more complex, particularly given the context. This, too, I had slightly misremembered, thinking it came from the story of the talents, which instead has the exchange:

And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

And later:

‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’

Already this is a bit puzzling, but it is at least clear that we will be accountable for what we have done—how we have “invested”—the gifts and resources God has given us.

The actual story from which the quote I had in mind is taken is even more confusing:

There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Here is a man who has been lazy and careless, yet when he finds himself at risk, through “shrewdness” (which seems like even more mismanagement and cheating) he gains his employer’s approval (although it’s not clear whether he gets to keep his job). This story seems to pick up thematically where the other left off (despite appearing earlier in Luke’s gospel than the parable of the talents). What it seems to be telling is that we should prove ourselves trustworthy of the worldly goods we are charged with, and that we should learn to be cunning (while remaining honest).

My work is time given to me, entrusted to me by God, but more directly by my university. If that’s not encouragement to use it well, I don’t know what is. What it leads to is how you can be trusted with greater things—higher posts, more prestige, better tasks—once you’ve shown how you handle the lesser ones.

There are other aspects to the phrase ”small things,” as well, such as in understanding. One grasps the greater things only upon a firm foundation of more elementary matters. Sometimes the genius of a master’s work is in making what seemed far off and distant more immediately accessible. But my devotion for today and for always in my work is to try to live up to the potential of what God have given me. Goodness knows I find it hard, and I feel inadequate plenty. But let me at least turn back some interest to my earthly and heavenly investors.

my lord is near me all the time

Inspired by my previous post on the moon, I’m going to use it as the focus of my Lenten meditation this evening, too. It appears pretty early in the Bible, by any reckoning:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

(That passage still reminds me of one of my favorite sections from Copland’s “In the Beginning”, which we sang in the Chorale last spring.) The Israelites were not, I think, very good astronomers. That phrase—“the lesser light to rule the night”—echoes through dozens of conversations I’ve had with people who don’t understand how the solar system works and think the moon is only/always out at night. Even in Guinea, which is the closest situation I’ve been in to ancient Israel, and where people’s schedules depend immensely on the phase of the moon, most people had no idea that when the moon isn’t out at night, it can be visible in the day. I don’t blame Moses, or whoever authored Genesis, for not saying something more precise about the nature of the moon; they had much more important things to discuss, like the fact that God is an amazing creator.

Once you do know something about the moon, though, it becomes a wonderful metaphor. It’s like the mirror Robert Fulghum wrote about in It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It: not producing any light of its own, it takes the light of the greater light and shares it when the sun is inaccessible. It’s a physical manifestation of grace in the darkness.

This light is also genuinely the most peaceful place I’ve ever found to be. The expanse of stars is terrifying. But the moon is a neighbor, and it feels that way. While the Guineans would dance during the full moon, because it allowed them to stay up all night without fear of darkness, I would stand in awe. Moonlight feels like forgiveness. Debussy’s “Clair de lune” is gorgeous and almost captures it, but walking in moonlight gives an immense feeling of calm and starkness and security.

Tonight I just thank God for the moon, for all the dreams it has inspired and joys it has supported, for its beauty, and for the challenges it poses. May we treat it well, and may it always be a firm stepping stone to the rest of the cosmos.

lift me up and let me stand

I have heard that non-Christians may complain the Christian faith is overly simplistic. It gives too many glib answers without taking into account the way the world really is, they say. Yet as I read the Bible and talk with pastors and other believers, it keeps coming up that the record we have of Christianity considers all aspects of human life. Take the Psalms: not only do you find devotion, trust, and piety, you also find fear, hatred, and accusations. The heroes of the Bible are sometimes the most fantastic sinners—proving that God really can work his will through dire circumstances, and that we have hope he can work in us, unworthy though we are. Questions are raised, such as in Job or Ecclesiastes or Romans, and left unanswered. What is constant, and miraculous, is the assurance that God loves us and wants to bless us. If we don’t wrestle with the questions of how God’s love is revealed, how we should share it with those around us, and why God doesn’t operate the way we expect him to, then that is our own shortcoming, not the religion’s. Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” says the writer of Hebrews. It is not a blindfold. We can trust and still inquire. We can pray and still not understand. The benefit in this life of being a Christian is that we gain, sometimes slowly but always in increasing measure, the “fruit of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; as Paul points out, “against such things there is no law.” And we have the story and the promise of a God who is carefully involved in our history and our lives. There’s nothing simple about that.

because he lives

Somehow, things seem to keep coming back to Romans…

In our Bible study tonight, we began reading parts of Job. We’ve been discussing creation this semester, and the claim from Romans 1 that “what can be known about God is plain … his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” led into a proposal that we discuss the final chapters of Job, in which God speaks to Job in response to Job’s desire to face God with an accusation of injustice. If you haven’t read those chapters recently, I recommend them as an exceptionally rich depiction of God’s hand in creation and his continued work in the natural world. It is good fodder for discussion, too, as God’s rhetoric is tinged with sarcasm and indignation, while still revealing his great care for the world and the majesty of which he wants Job to be aware. Job has been asking for a chance to accuse God; God reveals that there are so many things in the world that Job can’t understand, he can’t begin to grasp the place and the justice of God.

After the study, I asked about another passage from Job, related more to the theme of justice than to creation. In one of his earlier discourses, Job complains that he has been abandoned (he has friends there with him, but at this point in the book he is finding less and less comfort in their words, which weren’t terribly comforting to begin with) by everyone in his family and household. Then he makes the declaration, using the words Handel chose to open the third part of the Messiah: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” Who is he talking about? I asked. Who is it, when he has been abandoned by everyone who should defend him, that will come and save him, will stand with him before God? The standard Christological interpretation (the one used by Handel) is, of course, that the Redeemer is Jesus. But even if you don’t assume that from the outset, it’s hard to interpret the text as indicating anything other than that Job knows he needs God to intercede with God. He must be asserting someone supernatural, or at least not an ordinary human, will come and rescue Job from his suffering, and take him so that he can “see God.”

Which brings me back to Romans. Because, if the good man Job (and he was emphatically good, no question about it, not at a single point is it even hinted that he did anything wrong, except perhaps to question God’s wisdom and justice) was left by all he loved and cared about, what shall become of us, who are so much less good? Paul answers: “one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This must be the Redeemer that Job looked forward to. The one who gave Job hope can give us hope, too, even when we feel worthless or abandoned.

Coda: if you’ve made it this far, then as a reward let me lead you to the MySpace page of a musical based on Job. You can hear selections from the musical on the site.

wait

I could use some running and not being wearing about now…

Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:30–31)

I know what it is to be exhausted. I have faced that in my life, primarily in my college and Peace Corps years. I am not now exhausted. I am tired. I am productively busy. I am keeping up with most things, and falling behind on others. I am, in these aspects, leading a normal life, as far as I can tell. I go to church, and I yawn a bit from not sleeping in, but I focus on the sermon and I pray. Except that these meditations have been making me more thoughtful during the day, I may not seriously pray much by myself during the week. I want that strength Isaiah spoke about. How do I get it? By waiting? What does that mean?

In fact, this whole chapter of Isaiah, despite being beloved and well-known, is perplexing in its logic. It begins with comfort and the proclamation that God will even out the ground, making rough places plain, and his glory will be known throughout the earth. Then it talks about how fleeting human life is, no more enduring than the grass of the field. Next, a return to good news: the shepherd of Israel is returning! He is coming with strength and compassion! There follows an extended discussion of how no other god or creature is worth comparing to the Lord, the God who is. And because of that, we are nothing before him. Nothing we do can be hidden from him. He is all-powerful and inscrutable. Yet that means he knows us intimately, and he can and will uplift those who are struggling. This already is good news and a promise: that God saves his people from their struggles; later he will save them from their guilt.

So can we wait for the fulfillment of our hope? That we will know God and his immense power? I guess that big picture can lift us from any dreariness we might find in daily living. I want that promise. I have it. I will wait, and hope, and maybe with that I’ll find my feet moving more lightly in the present. I can tell that I barely even understand the promise, because my faith is so small. I’m glad God is more patient than I am, and that he will continue to pursue me to give me blessings.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.