DOUG EICHER
NOTEBOOK
The Clay Corpse7/31/2021 In the beginning, there was nothing. There was no beauty, no order, and no life. There was only a desolate wasteland; a watery abyss hung on nothing. The world was completely without form and without purpose. The beauty and wonder we take so for granted: the wind in the trees, the sound of the birds, the stars on a velvet sky; all but distant memories of things that had not yet been. Chaos and disorder reigned. A thick darkness hung over the face of the deep.
But there was another in the darkness. It was he whose mind and heart were moving with the most creative of loves. It was he who did not fear the darkness, but saw it only as a canvas on which to paint profound beauty. It was his voice that separated the light from the darkness and brought land from the deep abyss. It was his hand that hung the stars in their places and scattered the seeds of life onto the barren ground of this new world. It was he who brought this beauty from chaos; this life from death. And it was he who formed out of this damp, new earth the crown of his creation. It was his hands that shaped every line and curve of this creature that was to bear his image, and it was his breath, this “ruach”, this wind of heaven, that animated this clay corpse to life. In his letter to church in Galatia, Paul strikes a stark comparison with the way of life these people had taken for granted and this new way of living in light of what God was now doing in the world. He begins by addressing the utter futility of looking to old religious practices and traditions for new life. He explains that to depend on these practices for any sort of character change was actually to invalidate the sacrifice of Jesus and to make it of no value. He tells these believers that they were called to freedom, and then he proceeds to explain exactly what that meant. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Paul explains that this new freedom in “christos” is of a different species entirely than that of which they would have been accustomed. The world around them valued power above all else, especially when it came at the cost of others. For them, to be free meant to be able to use others for your pleasure and your purpose. Paul, however, explains to the believers that their freedom means something entirely different. It is not the freedom to abuse or extort others for their own pleasure; it is, in fact, exactly the opposite. It is the freedom to care for others at the cost of themselves. No doubt, Paul recognizes how ludicrous this idea must seem to his recipients, especially when framed in the context of the Greco-Roman world around them. He knows that this is not a natural inclination, and so he goes on to explain exactly how this was meant to happen. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul anticipates the impending resistance of this idea from his recipients. He acknowledges that this new way of living is not natural and is, in fact, in conflict with all of human DNA. But that’s the entire point: it is not the human heart that is responsible for this resolve. In fact, it is the human heart that will do its best to fight this new life. There is another present in the equation when it comes to the desires of the believer. It is the most profound of cognitive dissonances that exists in the believer: two warring entities housed in the same body. He goes on to list a litany of practices that would have seemed almost common-place in the culture to which his letter is addressed. He initially poses a pretty hopeless scenario: all of the inclinations and desires that come naturally to the human psyche are actually at war with the new tenant that has taken residence in their hearts. But it doesn’t end there. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another. Paul goes on to list the habits and desires that come naturally to this new, Spirit-controlled person that is being birthed within them. In the same way that selfishness and the lust for power come naturally to the old creation, self-sacrifice and humility are the tender of this new creation of God in Christ. Paul tells them that the way to bring peace to this war within their hearts is to “live by the Spirit”. It is to have their passions and desires publicly and shamefully executed and buried, so that this new life can roll away the stone. In Genesis, at the beginning of all things, we see God place his new creation in a beautiful new world and give them just one assignment. He tells them to be “fruitful and multiply.” He tasks them to keep the world that has been placed in their charge and to bring it under their rule. He gives them authority over every aspect of this new creation, and essentially tells them to go have a great time. He never explains every aspect of what this command means or exactly how to carry it out. He simply tells them to enjoy this new role they’ve been given within the wide berth of their responsibility to care for this newborn cosmos. They are free to do whatever they want, but all of their actions are to be filtered through the lens of this assignment. With every action and new initiative of the humans is to come the question: how does this lend to the completion of the task they’ve been given? his letter to the Ephesians, Paul tells the believers that they were dead in their corruption and sin. He tells them that they were slaves to their passions and desires; simply walking corpses preoccupied only with self-pleasure and indulgence. They were without form and without purpose. Chaos and disorder reigned. A great darkness hung over the face of the deep. But then, just as in the narrative of Genesis, we see that there was another in the darkness. Paul goes on to explain that God, who is “rich in mercy”, brought beauty from the disorder and chaos. He brought life from death once again. He called this new humanity, this “new creation”, from the most humble and filthy of origins and animated them by his Spirit to bring this new life to the world. As followers of Jesus, we have been given freedom. We have been resurrected and set free by the sacrifice of Jesus to live within the wide berth of this task we’ve been given. We haven’t been given a long set of religious practices and difficult instructions, we have only been given this one command: to live in light of the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and to tell the whole world about it. As a result, all of our thoughts, actions, and desires are to be framed within the context of this assignment and are to be given or not given space within our lives depending on their usefulness to the finishing of this task. God has created this new humanity from the decaying soil of our own sin and has given us the task to be “fruitful and multiply”; to make disciples and, as NT Wright puts it, to allow what has happened to us to happen through us. We are called to allow his kingdom to come into the world through the doors of our twice-born hearts, and to carry out his will on earth as it is carried out in heaven. We are called to live both in grateful response to this freedom and in anxious anticipation of the day when this vast ocean, of which our resurrected hearts are only the tiniest of drops, spills over to flood the whole world.
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Acts of War3/21/2021 There’s an interesting bit in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, in the eleventh chapter, where he addresses an abuse within the church. He addresses what he calls the “Lord’s Supper”, which is better known today as “communion”, and how the Corinthian church was treating it as a means of exploiting their wealth and social status. After rebuking them for their behavior, he then recaps the institution of the practice itself and reminds the church of what it is meant to symbolize.
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. After repeating the words of Jesus on that last night before his death, Paul then adds in a little phrase of his own at the end; a seeming summary of what he’s trying to convey to the Corinthians. He tells them that as often as they take the bread and the cup, they are “proclaiming” the Messiah’s death until he comes again. What exactly does Paul mean by that? In the church today, we understand and practice communion as a reminder of the atonement, but we don’t often think of it as a proclamation. What does Paul mean by this and to whom are we proclaiming? In the Christian understanding of the world and where it’s going, there’s a distinct recognition that the world as we see it today is not as it was originally meant to be. In the story of the Scriptures, the world was made as a cosmic temple; a place where God’s space and humans’ space overlapped. The creation narrative of Genesis 1 appears to parallel with the narrative of the construction of Solomon’s temple in I Kings 6. In both narratives, we see construction in 7 distinct stages (7 days in Genesis; 7 years in I Kings), the last of which is a stage of rest. Both the Temple and this new world, Eden, are created as spaces in which God moves and works and, ultimately, spaces of which he gives humans charge. The temple appears to be a micro cosmos, a reminder and representation of what the world itself was meant to be. One interesting thing we note in the account in I Kings is that, unlike the pagan temples of that day, Solomon’s temple is not crowned with an image of the god it is intended to house. In Genesis, however, we do see God crowning his temple with an image; an image he calls “Adam”. But then, it all goes horribly wrong. These new creatures, these image-bearers of God, choose their own way and don’t live up to the charge they were given. This new world falls into the chaos of death and despair, and the humans are exiled from God’s temple. This is the part of the story where we’re first introduced to other, much darker entities in God’s good world. In the first few pages of the Bible, we are introduced to some unknown creature, represented as a snake, about whom we aren’t told all that much. The only thing we do know is that he is a being that is in rebellion against God and seeks others to join him. The snake succeeds in leading the humans into rebellion, and they quite literally bring death down on their own heads. From then on, humans begin to take advantage of each other in terrible ways, defacing the image of God they are called to bear. The world, which was intended to be a beautiful space in which God and man could dwell together, instead becomes a dark and desolate wasteland of human selfishness and greed. However, though the humans are the most visible villains in the story, Scripture makes it clear that there are other forces at work, as well. Throughout the Bible, they are hinted at in various ways: the sons of God, the princes of the nations, the hosts of heaven, beasts from the sea, rulers of darkness and, in classic Pauline terminology, principalities and powers. We aren’t given much insight into exactly who or what they are, but we are given just enough of a glimpse to know that they are invisible forces of evil in this world to which we, as humans, when we chose to rebel against our duty as image-bearers, gave ourselves. Scripture seems to indicate that, when we see the most heinous acts of violence and the most senseless tragedies perpetrated by humans upon other humans, we are seeing their fingerprints on our world. That appears to be why, when Jesus shows up on the scene and begins to proclaim who he is, one of his first encounters is with the one Scripture refers to as “the accuser” or, in Hebrew, “the satan”. Though he doesn’t appear to know exactly what Jesus was here to do, the satan knows exactly who he is. The satan tempts Jesus and challenges his authority. In an apparent replaying of the Genesis narrative, humanity once again encounters the serpent, but this time, humanity remains faithful to its charge and truly bears God’s image. As Jesus moves through the Judean countryside, proclaiming the coming kingdom of God and healing the sick, demonic activity seems to follow him wherever he goes. It appears that the powers of this world were beginning to take notice, and they were not happy. It finally culminates toward the end of the gospel accounts, where we’re told that the satan entered into Judas and caused his betrayal. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells us that Jesus, in his death on the cross, disarmed the powers of this world, making a public spectacle of them through his death. He includes, in his list of things that can’t separate us from the love of God in Romans 8, what he simply calls “powers”. He tells us in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against “principalities”, “powers”, and “rulers of the darkness of this world”. It appears that, in Paul’s mind, something incredible happened when Jesus died on Good Friday. Somehow, on the cross, he not only paid the penalty for our sin, but he also drew the powers of this world to one place and then destroyed their power through his death. In Paul’s mind, by sunset on Friday evening, something had happened because of which the world would never be the same. So, coming back to our original spot in I Corinthians, what can this tell us about what Paul is trying to say? Well, I think what Paul is getting at here is that we have a much bigger audience than we know. There are forces behind the darkness in this world that, though they are defeated, still have some semblance of authority. Paul appears to be telling us that, when we take the bread and the cup, we are proclaiming, both to ourselves and to these powers, that death and darkness will not have the final word. We are reminding the darkness that it is no longer in control and that Jesus is really the ruler of the world. However, I don’t think Paul meant to limit this to just communion. As believers, whenever we act in Jesus’ name, whether that’s leading in worship on stage, studying Scripture together, or simply fixing our elderly neighbor’s leaky faucet, we are going into battle. We are encroaching on the authority of the darkness that once held this world in its grip, and we are taking back ground. All that is done in Jesus’ name is an act of worship, and every act of worship is also an act of war. It is both a celebration and a proclamation of the fact that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. And so, we as believers are called to love, serve, and give ourselves as living sacrifices. We are called to live as people who believe the unbelievable: that Jesus is truly the ruler of this world, though we may not seem to see it now. By our faith, our love, and our obedience, we remember and proclaim the victory of God on the cross in light of the day when that victory will be made visible and our faith will become our sight. Resurgam2/20/2021 I grew up on just shy of 40 acres nestled in the country, about a mile or so outside the middle of nowhere. It was northern Indiana’s version of paradise: acres and acres of fields edged neatly by lines of thick forest; a patchwork pattern of green and brown set against a backdrop of open sky. I used to take almost daily walks out there, wandering my way slowly through the reverent hush of the wildflowers and oak trees, serenaded by the gentle cadence of the wind as she found her way through the leaves. It was my retreat; a cathedral nestled beneath a canopy of emerald stained glass. I would spend hours out there, sometimes reading or just simply sitting, caressed gently by the presence of the One I was coming to love. The slow, steady change of the scents and colors was almost a comfort to me; a reminder that nothing is truly static and that even the longest of seasons will eventually be the oldest of tales. I was always struck with a feeling of sadness, however, as the deep reds and umbers of autumn slipped into the whites and greys of winter. There was something about it that was so inevitable; so predictable, and yet, still carried so much grief. It was almost as if the emerald dreams of summer were only that: dreams that could only hold out for a few months before finally succumbing to winter’s slow march of death. And yet, even in the silence of the barren branches, there was an almost palpable sense of anticipation; a thin strand of hope threaded through the bleak fabric of midwinter. It was the memory of those brighter days, buried deep in the hearts of the trees as they slept; a quiet resolution that the cold winds and barren white fields of winter would not have the final word. The undoing of this deathly spell that now held the world captive would come, slipping quietly into the slumbering forest as the first hint of green pushed its way through the melting snow.
I think sometimes we, as followers of Jesus, are guilty of completely missing the point. We spend so much time in our books, prayers, and worship songs praising Jesus for setting us free, as we should. However, I think we often forget that to be set free is only a means to an end; not the end itself. Even as we celebrate our redemption in Jesus, we should be asking ourselves the question: why have we been set free? What is the whole point of freedom in Jesus? Well, if we take our lives as the answer, it might often look like it’s simply to get married, have a good job and a nice house, and go to church on Sundays. It seems like we often incorporate the Gospel into our lives in the same way that we might our cultural heritage. We have nice traditions, some family recipes, and maybe a few words we picked up from the language, but it really doesn’t affect our lives beyond that. We love to be associated with that culture, but it really doesn’t change what we wear, the things we buy, or how we work. It makes us feel warm and fuzzy to own it, but we never really stop to think what it might mean if it were to own us. In Paul’s letter to the Jesus-followers of Colossae, he sketches out this beautiful portrait of who Jesus really is and how what he has done has completely changed reality. He reminds them that Jesus defeated the dark, mysterious beings that have held us captive ever since we took morality into our own hands and that he is the progenitor, sustainer, and rightful ruler of all things. He uses what his readers would have considered to be nearly blasphemous language, mirroring that which was reserved only for the emperor. He shifts between the heaviness of rich theology and the supple beauty of poetic metaphor in a way we songwriters can only envy. And yet, Paul wasn’t simply trying to see how many bumper stickers or refrigerator magnets he could pack into one letter. No, his concerns were much more deeply practical. In the third chapter, he suddenly seems to shift and begins to address what seems to be the heart of this letter. If Jesus really has defeated the darkness and is now the true ruler of the world, what does that mean for me? “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Paul begins by raising a challenge. If we truly have been raised with Christ, and if death has really been undone, our entire focus needs to change. Our old life, and all of the things we couldn’t live without, were buried with Christ. When someone truly meets Jesus, it’s not meant to be a heartwarming experience; it’s a fatal one. Paul knows that the proof is in the pudding, and he challenges his readers: if you truly have been raised with Jesus, your heart will make its living arrangements accordingly. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” Paul goes on to list out, in vivid detail, just what it looks like for our hearts to bear the scars of this death and resurrection. He sketches out a distinctly Christian ethic that looks radically different from the culture around it. Paul recognizes that nonconformity is not an end in itself; it is simply a natural consequence of our death and reanimation. That which is dead and that which is alive are separated only by the fundamental nature of what it means to be one or the other. To be one is, by necessity, to be not the other. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Paul now shifts from that which defines death to that which defines life. He seems to be echoing back his original challenge: if you really are what you say you are, then what you do and what you value will line up accordingly. He recognizes that love is the distinctive hallmark of this resurrected human. It is the first hint of green that separates life from death; the “genetic code” of this new humanity that God has authored in Christ. He challenges us to remember that, if death really is in reverse, then the ways we’ve learned to live as humans are of no use to us anymore. He reminds us that the message of Christ is a living, active force that should be allowed to live and move within us. Paul recognizes that, if Jesus is really enthroned as the ruler of all, then everything we say and do should be done with gratitude in his name. Every part of our lives must now be viewed in light of death’s demise. As believers, we are not called to live as if the story were true; we are called to live in light of precisely the fact that it is true. To be a follower of Jesus is to be a living question: what does it look like when God takes up residence in a resurrected human? How does that new life, by shear necessity of its nature, need to be different from what it was before? This must be the question that drives everything we do, every word we say, and every decision we make. It is the question that defines who we are and separates us from the person we used to be. It is the question that must be always held in tension until the day we see what has happened in our hearts be done to all of creation. Toilet Paper & the Empty Tomb3/18/2020 Fear is a funny thing. It's one of the most versatile of human emotions; able to immobilize or move to action, sharpen or cloud judgement, and build up or tear down. It's been called many things: a thief, a liar, and an enemy. We all despise it and do our absolute best to avoid getting entangled in its writhing tentacles. And so, we lock our doors, close our shades, and cross our fingers, hoping that, if we ignore it, maybe it will just go away. You could say it gets a bad rap, to put it simply. But there's one thing for which you need to give it credit: it's really good at bringing out who we really are.
With the news of a global pandemic flooding our newspapers, social media feeds, and break room conversations, a veritable dread has seemed to worm its way into everything. People ravage supermarkets and convenience stores, restaurants and bars sit strangely empty, and masks and gloves are quickly becoming unexpected fashion standards. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone expresses that opinion with equal vehemence. Reactions range from complete indifference to shear panic, with a virtual no-man's-land between these two outposts. Most people either view it as a mild inconvenience or the end of all things, and they choose to act on the basis of that view. Even a lot of Jesus-followers seem to get swept away in the brisk current of information that floods our iPhones and TV screens every waking moment. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and the question kept coming to my mind: what is a Jesus-follower's response to all of this supposed to be? When it comes to Jesus-followers and fear, you'll find a lot of pat answers. A good portion of well-meaning folks will cite passages like Revelation 21:8, I John 4:18, or II Timothy 1:7 as reasons that Jesus-followers should never be afraid. They assume that fear should simply melt away like snow on a hot day in July if you just have enough faith. In the fear of fear itself, genuine human emotion is exchanged for a cheap outline of the ideal; an outline whose effectiveness hinges solely on personal ability and shear willpower. In our effort to "trust", we further rely on ourselves and our own ability to perform. The story of grace is fashioned in our own image; to be no longer about grace but about us once again. So what are we to do? How are followers of Jesus supposed to respond when the world seems to be falling apart? Well, I think we need to go back to the foundation; the linchpin of the Jesus movement. If we really believe that Jesus walked out of that tomb on Easter morning, then our hope has a certain tangible, intensely physical aspect to it. It is no longer about some distant future in some otherworldly paradise with harps and clouds; it is about life, renewal, and resurrection. In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul explains that Jesus is the "first fruits" or "firstborn" from the dead, and that his resurrection has endemic consequences for us that are similar to, though entirely the reversal of, the resultants of our first parents' choice. He goes on to tell of a kingdom in which the death and chaos of this world are simply fleeting memories of another time. He tells that, because of Easter Sunday, our hope has a heartbeat. The author of Hebrews similarly describes Jesus in Herculean terms; as the hero of the story who defeats the darkness of this world, not simply by clubbing it to death, but by absorbing it and allowing it to destroy him. He explains that, in so doing, Jesus annihilated the annihilator and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death and its power. This means that, for those of us who are followers of Jesus, the ultimate enemy stands completely powerless and humiliated, desperately holding on to its last vestiges of perceived power. Because of the empty tomb, death is no longer a finality; it is simply a formality. As followers of Jesus, those for whom death is now in reverse, we are called not simply to revel in our freedom, but to act; to redeem the world in the same way Jesus is redeeming us. If our hope is an intensely physical one, then our transmission of that hope should be in the same vein. We are called to interact with the world in genuine honesty, not shying away from its decrepitude, but facing it directly and entering into it in the same way Jesus did. And so we are called to act, not out of fear or indifference, but out of love for those around us. We are called to be part of the solution, part of the way that God interacts with the world. So what does that look like during the midst of a global pandemic? I can't say that I fully know, but I believe it means being honest; not simply denying or shying away from what's going on in the world, but embracing it in light of the resurrection. It means looking beyond myself to the suffering of others and sharing in their pain; being cognizant of how my actions may affect them. It means being willing to lay aside my personal convenience for the sake of others and their well-being. To put it simply, it means to love the world as Jesus does, living each moment and making each choice in light of the living hope that was born on Easter morning and that will one day overflow to flood the whole world. All Things New2/15/2020 I’ve been reading through the Gospel of John recently, and there’s an odd little exchange in chapter 4 that caught my attention. It’s one that I’ve read and heard countless times, but there were a couple of things I noticed that seemed worth exploring. It’s a transcript of a conversation that Jesus had with a Samaritan woman as he passed through her town on his way back to Galilee. Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Notice what Jesus is doing here. He meets this woman, going about her routine, doing what she’s done hundreds of times, and he immediately shifts the conversation. He says something so provocative and strange that she can’t help but notice. However, her initial reaction is not particularly positive. At first, she’s incredulous. “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” The woman is confused about what claim Jesus is trying to make. She tries to frame it in terms of her worldview; in terms with which she is familiar. But Jesus doesn’t seem to notice; he simply proceeds to say something even more strange. Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman is not impressed. You can almost hear the sarcasm in her voice as she replies. The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” This point in the conversation is a pivotal one. The woman’s attitude about who Jesus is has completely changed. She realizes that there’s something more to him than what she initially perceived, and she’s not happy about it. The conversation has shifted from an intriguing exchange with a socially inept Jewish man to something entirely too personal. “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” The woman responds by posing a theological question to Jesus, desperately trying to steer the conversation away from herself. But Jesus isn’t having any of it. He responds by taking her question and again making it personal. “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Jesus cuts to the heart of what the woman was trying to avoid. He tells her that what God is really seeking is not those who practice religion correctly; it is those who worship “in the Spirit and in truth”, as he puts it. He explains to her that God is not seeking those who adhere to some form of pious discipline, he is seeking those who have experienced radical transformation in the deepest parts of who they are. He makes it clear that what God is concerned with is not the aesthetically pleasing exterior she presents to him; it is the darkest and broken parts of who she is. He doesn’t want platitudes; he wants her. I heard someone say the other day, “It’s hard to tell the truth when I’m at church.” If you’re a follower of Jesus (and maybe especially if you’re not), you’ll know exactly what that means. It seems so ironic that the one place where we should be able to be open up about our brokenness is the place where we feel the need to cling to it most tightly, but we do, and usually with good reason. Through our presentations of plastic piety and self-aggrandizing platitudes, we have fostered a culture in which we only feel welcome on our best days. We have decided that following Jesus is all about doing less “bad” things and doing more “good” things. We’ve convinced ourselves that we’re really not all that bad, and so we treat following Jesus as a glorified self-help program; a way to “tweak” what we perceive to be our minimal character flaws. But there’s a problem with this, and it’s evident in the way Jesus responds to this Samaritan woman. God doesn’t want our upgraded performance; in fact, he finds it nauseating. He wants us. He wants all of us. He’s not looking for the person we are at church, or at work, or even at home. He wants the darkest parts of us; the filthy, vile, broken parts that make up our deepest selves and contribute to the screwed-up way humans have been relating to each other ever since we decided to take morality into our own hands. You see, there will never be transformation without confrontation. Before the Gospel can be good news, it must first level us. Tearing off a few pieces of siding or blowing in a few windows won’t do; Jesus will not be satisfied until every last piece of our excuses and our pathetic attempts at self-righteousness lies in ruins at our feet. He has a way of getting up in our business; of exposing exactly how vile we are, but he does this because he knows that this is exactly why we’re broken in the first place. All of this pain, injustice, and evil is our fault. We have caused this. We are the reason the world is the way it is, and the gut-wrenching thing about the Gospel is that it forces us to confront this head-on. It shreds the rags we’ve convinced ourselves are designer jeans and leaves us completely naked and utterly ashamed in the presence of the one whose good world we have ruined. Then, and only then, can we see just why the Gospel is good news. God is a on a mission to renew his world. The story of the Bible ends in much the same way as it began, with God and his people living together in a restored version of this world in which shame and injustice are nothing more than distant memories of another time. The beautiful thing about the Gospel is not that God is making humans better; it is that he is making an entirely new humanity. It is a new type of human, of which the resurrected Jesus we see in the Gospel accounts is the first, but most certainly not the last. Paul describes it as being a “new creation” born out of the broken shards of what we used to consider to be normal. As a part of this new humanity, we are called to be bringers of new creation; channels through which this new life can trickle into a broken world. As a collective group of believers, we are called to foster a culture in which love and grace are perpetuated to others in the same way pride and injustice are perpetuated in the one around it. We are called to live out this new creation; to bring “heaven” to this world, living in eager anticipation of the day when the transformation that has begun in our hearts will spill over to flood the whole world. Shepherds on Superior Street12/25/2019 I plugged in my guitar and stepped up to the microphone, trying to shift my mind into gear. It had been one of those mornings. It seemed as if everything had just taken longer than it should have, and I was running behind. I got there with 10 minutes to spare; just enough time to lug in everything from the car and set it up in front of the rows of blue plastic chairs that were waiting to be filled by the line of winter coats and overalls forming at the door. Finally, I plugged in the last cable just as the seats were being filled. My mind was still moving down the mental checklist of tasks as I picked up my guitar and stepped toward the microphone.
As I played the first song about a brave little boy from another world, I looked out over the faces staring back at me. There was an assortment of people: men and women, young and old, black and white. Each face told a story; a story of people they loved and who loved them; a story of younger days and better times; a story of hopes and dreams now lying in a thousand crystalline pieces on the floor. On the last chorus of “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful”, I stopped playing and we all joined in, acapella, on the invitation to “come let us adore him”. I watched tears form at the edges of their eyes as we lifted up our voices together. We were all different; we had different stories, different families, different experiences, different hurts, and different joys. And yet, as we sang together, we were joined by one common thread: the hope of God come screaming and squirming into the world as a helpless little infant; this funny thing we call “Incarnation”. And so, we stood there around the manger, with shepherds from Bethlehem and astrologers from the east, none of us deserving, but all of us grateful; joined by the love of a baby who came to make us one. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Cheap Perfume7/14/2019 Sailors of the ancient Greek world used to tell stories of a darkness that was said to lurk on the islands off the coast of Italy. Beautiful creatures, known as "sirens", often taking the form of birds mixed with the bodies of beautiful women, were said to inhabit these islands. They were best known for their music, which they would employ to lure passing sailors to shipwreck on their rocky shores. While the men sat dazed by the beauty of their melodies, they would take them off their caves where they would dismember them and devour their bodies. They were considered to be highly dangerous creatures, mostly because they didn't employ force to capture their prey, but were able to lure them, willingly, to their deaths.
As followers of Christ, we sometimes have a bad habit of being deeply dishonest, especially when it comes to stuff like sexual addiction. We either don't talk about it, or else we simply refer to things like "every man's battle" or "sexual struggles" or the Christian catch-all: "lust". We shake our heads at what the world does in bedrooms and brothels, and we recoil in disgust at the way they mutilate their bodies to try to "find themselves". And yet, if we're honest, we're often guilty of the same kinds of perversions to which we hold them accountable. We love to pass judgments, but we find our pointing fingers are strangely weak when they begin to swing around in our direction. We condemn the dead for decaying, while we, the living, sip the sweet poison that killed them. We have books and seminars and workshops about everything from marriage to credit cards, and, yet, we're often strangely silent when it comes to sexuality. This begs the question: why? Why are we so afraid to talk about sexual sin, especially when we claim to personally know the Truth? I think it might be because we don't really know what to do with it. Marriages can be restored, debts can be paid off, and families can be reconciled, but we're not quite sure how to fit sexual addiction into a life that's supposed to be resurrected. When we look into Scripture, however, it's interesting to note that God does not share our silence. In the book of Proverbs, the author describes the seduction of a young man passing by the house of a married woman. She flatters him by describing how she has prepared herself for him and has made her bed with beautiful sheets from Egypt and scented it with spices. "Come," she invites him. "Let's drink deeply of love till morning; let's enjoy ourselves with love." She appeals to his vanity by making him feel special and reassures him that no one will find out. "My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey." She slowly and carefully breaks down his defenses, and eventually he accepts her invitation. The account ends with these sobering words: "All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life." I have to admit that these words are mostly written to me. You see, I've been this young man so many times. I've listened to the voice of those sweet lies and I'm ashamed to say I've believed them more times than I would like to admit. I've convinced myself that it would be okay; that no one would find out, and, worst of all, that I deserved it. I've tried desperately to soothe my cracked and dry lips with cheap wine, only for it to turn to sand as it slips over my tongue. I've vowed to God and myself that I would never pour a drink from that bottle again, only to find my lips stained with its deadly sweetness soon after. The funny thing is, though, that I used to think I was the only one. I used to envision everyone else, living in their perceived spotless purity, while I silently tried to claw my way out of the gutter, muted by the thought of what people would say if they knew who I really was. But, when I finally did start to be honest with others about where I was, to my surprise, I found that their hands bore the same cuts and bruises of desperation I had tried so hard to hide. I found in them the same brokenness and shame I thought was exclusive to me. I suppose this is the part where I'm supposed to share with you the story of how I reached a point of desperation, and how I finally read the one book, or heard the one message, or joined the one men's group that brought me to overwhelming victory. In fact, I would love to share that story with you, but I can't. The truth is that I still find myself lured in by the siren's song. I still look for satisfaction in wells that at first sip seem so sweet, yet turn so bitter after the cup is empty. So what is the answer? I'm not sure that I know, but I can tell you what I've learned. For me, the victory that I have found has come only through honesty; both with God and with others. Because, you see, if there's anything that God hates more than the sickening sweetness of the siren's cheap perfume on my skin, it's the putrid stench of my excuses and my pathetic attempts at self-righteousness. So many times, I try to assuage my shame by passing responsibility, or clutching my perceived goodness like a dirty, tattered beach towel around my naked soul. But though I may be able to fool others, there is One who knows who I truly am, and He alone is able to heal me. And that is where I have found freedom and healing; not in my own willpower or my performance, but in coming to Him and acknowledging my desperate need of His grace and His power in my life. Because, you see, the power of the Gospel can only begin to heal us when we acknowledge that we need it; when we recognize that the fulfillment we so desperately seek can only be found in Jesus. But this won't happen in isolation. Just as shame and addiction are born and fed in darkness, so they are poisoned in the presence of honest community. Only in the company of fellow Jesus-seekers can we find the intimacy and the authenticity we need to begin to live the way we were always meant to live. But it can only happen if we're honest; not in self-aggrandizing generalities that tell people just enough to preserve a few shreds of our filthy self-righteousness, but in the brutal honesty through which the Gospel first came to us. Apart from that, we are left to suffer in silence in the siren's cave as she casts her spell, slowly tearing us apart, one muscle and sinew at a time, while all the while we beg her for just one more song. There's one more thing I want to leave with you; something I have been finding to be more true in my life with each passing day. As potent and deadly as the siren's poison may be, there is an antidote. The blood of Jesus, poured out for dirty, broken sinners like us, has the power to make us new. It alone can heal the scars left by the siren's fangs. It alone is our hope; our righteousness. Because, you see, even when I do fail, and I feel filthy and unworthy, I can recognize that this is really who I've been all along, and yet, not who God sees when He looks at me. We are all twisted and broken; we are all filthy and depraved before God, and yet the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse us and, best of all, to make us new. The Gospel is good news, not just because it accepts us as we are, but because it cannot leave us that way. The Gospel was never intended to be a Band-Aid; it was intended to be a transplant. When Jesus took that first breath in the tomb on Easter morning, not only was the power of sin and death destroyed; it was thrown into reverse. The very brokenness that was intended to destroy has become the door through which God's life can come into the world. If you or someone you know struggles with sexual addiction, take heart; there is hope. As the Apostle Paul so triumphantly put it, "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." It may take time; maybe even years, but, just as He promised, He will finish the work He started in you if you let Him. And that, my friend; that is good news. "This is all my hope and peace: nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness: nothing but the blood of Jesus." Prologue4/21/2019 The air of death is a heavy one. There's one last surge of stimulation that races through the neurons; one last gasp at hope, and then nothing. Even the very cells themselves, deprived of their source of life, begin to die. The eyes close and the breath fades. The skin starts to shrink as it cools, taking on the jaded hues of death. The muscles contract, relax, and then slowly turn to stone. The air grows heavy with the putrid stench of death as the body begins its journey back to the dirt from which it came. Darkness fell. The Earth itself seemed to moan from within its shroud of shadows. The bitterness; the anger; the regret; the heavy scent of decay. The rain continued to fall; deep, black drops under a broken sky. The words he wished could be unspoken; the innocence she wished could be taken back; the dream that shattered into a thousand crystal shards in the cruel hands of circumstance. The war-torn fields, soaked with the blood of innocence; the empty bunks in Auschwitz; the smoke on the New York City skyline. The air of death is a heavy one. It was early morning. The Earth was asleep, its red-rimmed eyes still stained with the crimson tears of yesterday. It was quiet; deathly quiet. Even the wind seemed to tiptoe as it slipped through emerald hands and wound its way around the cold stone, searching for an entrance. The sky glowed with a soft, amber hue, like dying embers, as the pale, perforated dome gave way to the gentle cadence of dawn. In the darkness, the heavy air stirred. Above the cacophony of silence, there was a sound. It was barely audible; just a whisper, and yet the very stone itself seemed to vibrate with the rhythm of it. It was the sound that haunted the dreams of Pilate's wife and stirred Herod in his sleep. It was the sound that stole Mary's breath and drove Peter on like a madman to the tomb. It was the sound that surprised Thomas and rang in Stephen's ears. It was the sound that steadied the knees of the martyrs and lit up the torch-lit tunnels of the Catacombs with hope. It was the sound we never expected, and yet we had been waiting for all along. It was the sound of death being flung into reverse. It was the sound of a heartbeat. Younger Days2/8/2019 You’d almost miss it if you weren’t looking for it; A simple monument to antiquation, A peaceful respite, Out of place amidst the rippling waves of endless corn fields. Its tall, white steeple rises to snip a piece from the ribbon of deep blue sky and clouds. The peeling, patchwork pattern of the old wooden siding a quiet memorial to days now gone. Rows of granite memories, spread out like chess pieces under the liquid shade of the silent sentinels, Just beyond the sun-stained hues of the Good Shepherd searching for His sheep. The winding trails in the sagging concrete tell of younger days they have seen when worshipers came in carriages with bowler hats and sunbonnets; on sunny, summer Sundays in July just before the world went to war. The gently-sloping shingles recount the days when money was tighter than the strings in the old piano; where “make do” became the only thing you did and, somewhere in Indiana, my grandmother opened her eyes. The dark, yawning doorways of the outhouse out back sketch portraits of a frozen war, as the last of the bunks in Auschwitz were emptied and, somewhere in Alabama, A woman refused to give up her seat. The swirling patterns on the brass knob of the weather-stained door eulogize the days when cars ran on water and MLK had a dream; When walls went up in Germany and there were footprints in the Sea. Of funerals and weddings, Potlucks, and Sunday School; The best and the worst of times. When the old piano sang a bit out of tune with the choir and impatient hands put used chewing gum under the pews. Where folks were buried and born under the water; where young ears heard the Story of Grace for the very first time; Where love was planted with the seeds of tears and laughter, Just like the corn beyond the stained-glass panes. Where the only worshipers now are the red-crested songbirds and the chattering squirrels that dance above the gravestones; Where the only hymns are those whispered on the silver breath of the wind. Where maybe in death, just as in life, This hollow shell of hope is a quiet reminder that where He has been is never really abandoned. The Loneliers1/1/2019 It’s hard to describe unless you’ve felt it, but it’s even harder to forget once you have. It’s that dark heaviness; that dull, throbbing ache that settles in like a cloud of monarch butterflies on an oyamel fir tree in Mexico. You can usually distract it for a while, but it seems that you can never truly outrun it, and, when it settles in to roost, it gets all over everything. It’s quiet enough to sneak up on you, but strong enough to knock the wind of out you once it does. It can be the worst of enemies, but it becomes familiar enough to almost seem like a friend. I’m talking, of course, about one of the ficklest and most peculiar of human emotions: loneliness.
By definition, loneliness is basically the desire for people, especially in their absence. The weird part, though, is the fact that it actually seems to have very little to do with the presence of others. In fact, it often plays its doleful clarinet the loudest in a crowded room. I suppose, if we’re honest, a better definition would not be a desire for the presence of others, but for their comprehension of ours. Because, you see, everybody wants to be known; from the poorest third-grader in a trailer park to the wealthiest executive in New York City. We all want that sense of belonging; that sense of being known and understood by someone else. We want to be known fully; not just the parts of our hearts that we keep bright and well-swept and stocked with champagne, but the darker parts, too; the parts where we’re afraid to go; the parts stacked full of dusty boxes that were nailed shut for a reason, where we could almost swear we can hear something breathing in the dark. But, it goes even deeper than just being known. After all that, we desperately want to be told that we are accepted and loved; not just in spite of all that stuff, but, at least partially, because of it. I’m sure we’ve all felt it from time to time, but, when it needs a place to crash for the night, it seems like it has a few of our numbers on speed-dial. I’ll call us the “loneliers”. We’re the ones that tend to be a bit more prone to it, that have trouble just turning off the lights and hiding behind the couch when it knocks. No matter how busy we get or how well things are going in our lives, it follows us like a shadow just below the water that comes to the surface when we’re alone on a long drive or trying to drift off to sleep. Ironically, it actually tends to make it a bit difficult for us to interact with the one thing we desperately need to send it packing because it tries to convince us that we’re probably not really worth their time. If you’re a lonelier, I’m afraid I don’t have a cut-and-dry answer for you, mostly because I haven’t really figured it out myself just yet. One thing I have found, though, is that loneliness seems to be quite intimidated by gratitude. Unfortunately, though, gratitude is the one thing that is probably the hardest to do when your lonelier name tag is showing. I suppose, though, that’s probably because gratitude and loneliness are so similar and yet, so different; a bit like the opposite poles of a magnet. For one thing, they’re both more than just passing emotions; they’re ways of life. For another, while the one involves almost an obsession with our problems and our situation, the other is basically a fascination with what we’ve been given; specifically, the people we’ve been given. Because, you see, that’s really what it all comes down to: loneliers need people, too. We might tend to forget that when our dastardly friend pays one its dark visits and we might even try to avoid them when we feel it most, but that’s when we really need them; maybe not just to whisper truth to us, but to give us a chance to invest in someone other than the one we’re so inclined to pity. If you love a lonelier, don’t give up. I know it might seem a bit intimidating as to where to start, but, as in crocheting and moon landings, the simplest of things are usually the most important. Despite the fact that we might seem like we’re avoiding you, we really do need you. We might need you, however, in a different way than you would think: not just to pity us or to invite us to your birthday party, but just to crack open that basement door and let us know that you’re there. It may seem too simple but, after all, that’s sometimes all it takes for us to begin to recognize that those stories we can’t seem to stop telling ourselves are nothing short of tall tales. |