An Early Goodbye on a Sunday Morning

On a Sunday I was called in to the hospital just before six in the morning to be with a family whose loved one had died only a few hours earlier. This was my first on call. On the drive to the hospital I was attempting to do two things: wake up and figure out what on earth to do and say. I arrived at the hospital and went directly to the nurse’s station on the particular floor. The nurses appeared relieved to see me, and I was relieved that they were relieved.

The sister of the deceased was also at the nurse’s station. After making introductions, I invited the sister into the waiting room, and she described to me some of the family’s story. The mother had endured a lot of tragedy and death of loved ones over the past year not least her husband, and she had not processed much of her grief. The sister explained that earlier that morning the mother was visibly angry. The wife and two children were also in the room. The wife was clearly trying to hold herself together. The son meandered in and out of the room, and the daughter sobbed trying to hold back her tears. The deceased man in his forties died of a variety of issues including liver and kidney problems. The sister explained he had a “drinking problem” but continued to drink even when he was warned about his medical condition.

At this point I could not think of the situation becoming any more delicate and complicated. Then the sister said, “I thought maybe a word from you…” She trailed off and assumed that I knew what she wished for me to do. I construed her words and expression to be a request for me to assuage the situation with a few feeble words. Perhaps because I was too tired to be anxious, I felt at ease, and I calmly held the sister’s hand and explained that I was here for them and would remain with them for as long as they wished.

When we entered the patient’s room, the mother was standing over her son’s body, and the wife and two kids sat across from the foot of the bed. The mother looked at me with a blank stare. I introduced myself first to the mother and then to the wife and kids. The room’s silence felt heavy, and words felt like they would be worse than silence; words felt like they would be trivial. After a few moments the mother made a move to sit down, and I helped her to a seat. I held her hand and had my arm around her shoulders, and we sat there for what seemed like a rather long time. Then she looked up at me and began to smile and whispered, “thank you.”

I gathered the family together and offered to say a prayer. It was probably one of the simplest prayers I have ever prayed, though I do not remember the contents of the prayer exactly. With what little and few words they could muster, the family thanked me. The deceased’s daughter’s sobbing turned into weeping, and the deceased’s mother (the daughter’s grandmother) embraced her and said quietly, “Jesus understands.” The mother’s mood seemed to have shifted from anger to beautiful care. I was deeply moved by the mother’s embrace of her young granddaughter. 

The wife of the deceased took her two kids home, and the mother of the deceased returned to the bedside. She began to stroke his face and then kissed his cheek. Tears came to my eyes as I watched her tuck her son into bed one last time.

Through this entire ordeal I was praying, and when I was praying aloud with the family, I was also praying silently for what to say. Questions were roaming through my mind: what could I possibly say to comfort a wife, mother, sister, daughter, and son? I was outside the land where words seemed useful. This relatively young man died only a few hours ago, and he did not die a heroic death. 

It felt like there were probably a hundred right things to do in this situation and ten thousand wrong things to do. I cannot judge how each person understood my presence that morning, and I do not remember everything I said nor could I justify every move I made.

These are occasions when I am reminded that our often-assumed control over life is an illusion. We are vulnerable and fragile creatures. I was also reminded in part why I am becoming a pastor and why I headed into theology in the first place. Our own mortality looms large, and the road leading up to death involves all sorts of joy and heartache and perplexing questions. 

Stories that Shape Us

We have all told a story or two at some point, and so why not share a few jots on an opinion about telling stories.

Writing a story does not begin with a concept or belief or ideology. It begins with a person or two, a place with some dirt, and an event that is just real enough to believe and just fantastic enough to be worthy of telling. Flannery O’Connor claimed that if a writer begins with a person, there is no telling what will happen next.

When he was writing novels, especially The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky was constantly conflicted about who was related and what they would end up doing. His novels are famously ideologically driven, and that is one of the reasons I enjoy his novels so much. But the ideologies are there only so long as people with all their psychological and moral complexity and ambiguity are there.

Where does a person begin? It could begin with a phrase, “Call me Ishmael.” It could begin with a suggestive circumstance. Hazel Motes sat on the train leaning one way and looking another; similarly, Raskolnikov walked down the stairs slowly as if indecisively. A person begins with movement, be it speech or gesture. Oceans and rivers and trains move and define people. Family reunions with all their potential explosiveness can move and define people as much as oceans.

But in any case, why would I be particularly interested in holding an opinion about writing fiction other than wishing to write fiction that is not quite terrible? Telling the stories of the Bible, following the movements of people with all their baggage and strangeness, crafting sermons that follow the contours of the biblical narratives themselves. That’s why. At least part of it.    

Walter Brueggemann has developed the rather interesting description of the preacher as poet, and he explains, “The preacher is called to weave an artistic connection between the text in its elusive, liberated truth, and the congregation in its propensity to hear the text in forms of reductionism” (Finally Comes the Poet). He does not encourage this description of preacher as poet because telling stories is neat. Rather, through narrative the preacher calls the congregation into an alternative reality, a reality that is different than the controlled ideological reality that so often gives shape to our experience. The poet preacher calls the congregation into an alternative reality of God’s promises. God’s promises of restoration involve people and movement, and this movement defines the people.    

Making Mud Pies

As a kid I made mud pies. And then I grew up, went to college, moved to a big city, and forgot about the dirt. I studied theological anthropology in a metropolis; I studied about how humans are dirt people. Though I knew it was true, it was easy to forget. After all, civilization is marked by Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, and MacDonald’s. Humans may be from the dirt and headed back to it, but in a city, we tend to forget such things. It can be easy to forget that from compost we came and to compost we shall return.

About a month ago, Esther and I moved to South Carolina, and over the course of the past few weeks we have found ourselves pruning trees, trimming shrubbery, and reorganizing flowerbeds. It’s been really great. After living in Los Angeles for a while, it feels humanizing to work on the land and in the dirt. It’s material. It’s meditative. It takes time; it takes patience: one limb at a time, one flower bud at a time. 

Countless times I have heard the pros and cons of social media. More often I have heard it disparaged by people who use it and by people who refuse to use it. It may very well be the case that it alienates us from one another, though of course it can be a really productive way to stay in contact when other forms of communication would otherwise prove too difficult for some reason or another. Social media is convenient, and I rather like it.

However, the meditative practice of pruning, trimming, and gardening has caused me to think yet again about the role of technology in my life. How does technology reshape the theological narrative of my life in connection to others? It may well be the case that it only encourages the addiction to immediacy; however, MacDonald’s has been doing that for a while; we have been primed for impatience and immediacy for quite some time, and this has influenced the way in which we engage others; it also can shape our expectations in relationships, especially if a person doesn’t respond to our post within an hour. Facebook and Twitter didn’t do that to us over night.

I’m wondering if gardening, rather than just refraining from social media, would be a productive way to cultivate healthier relationships in general. It may be that because we have grown so distant from the dirt we have subsequently grown rather distant from each other.

I’m not climbing onto a soapbox. I like living in a city, and I rather like social media. But it has felt right to work on the land and in the dirt. It has felt good to work with my hands and not to just do somersaults on Facebook or in my brain. It has felt human; it has felt theological. And it has reminded me yet again that mud pies aren’t just for kids. 

Why the Future Isn’t a Lost Cause

Our lodging for the conference

This week Esther and I spent several days in Montreat North Carolina at a Presbyterian small church conference. It was basically a youth camp for pastors. We stayed in what appeared to us to be a stone castle on the side of a mountain overlooking Lake Susan. Our first evening we sang hymns along with about two hundred Presbyterian leaders and pastors, and after singing hymns, we listened to a sermon given by a Ghanaian Presbyterian pastor currently holding a professorship at Columbia Seminary. His booming voice filled every corner of the conference hall. I don’t need hearing aids, and though many of the wise people around me may have been slightly hard of hearing, I doubt that a single ear in the room failed to hear the words of the sermon that night. His passionate call to gather and feed disciples was awe-inspiring.

During the following days we had the opportunity to glean insights from many lay leaders and ordained pastors. I spent some time talking with a novelist and pastor of a small membership church; he reflected on and explained the process he has endured writing nearly thirteen novels, and he said that unless it is burning inside you, unless it is trying to tear its way out of you, it probably isn’t very good. Esther and I met a Bible instructor who just so happens to have a Korean exchange student staying with his family for the year. Throughout the course of the three days, we also had the opportunity to attend three seminars. For the third seminar, we planned to attend a study on clergy health by Duke University; we entered what was a packed classroom. In fact we had to bring in extra chairs for the very back; however, once the speaker began, we realized that we had attended the wrong seminar. The rooms had been switched. We had actually attended a seminar on prayer. What followed was a beautiful and immensely edifying reflection on prayer that overflowed from the speaker’s own deeply personal spirituality. Esther and I were happy and thankful that God had drawn us “accidently” to the wrong seminar.

Inside that Montreat castle, Esther and I were surrounded by wisdom, humor, experience, and the love of Christ.

We met many other wonderful and insightful people, and in fact on our second morning the plenary speaker reflected on some of the cultural changes of the past fifty years and the consequences for church ministry. He recounted the “shift” from modernism to postmodernism – how many times have we heard people speak of such things? He was a compelling storyteller, though much of his cultural commentary was hardly innovative. However, more significant to me than his words was that everyone was so captivated by what he was saying. Why would that be so significant to me?

The institutional church is of little interest and is hardly attractive to many people my age, not least because in our eyes it has lost its credibility for more than one or two reasons. The older generations know this. It is no small piece of irony then that I am being ordained in and by the institutional church. In any case, the plenary speaker of the second morning challenged those present to rethink ministry and to learn the language of a new day. He used ample humor to ease the bullet, but even still I imagine if I were told that my ways are ineffective and need to be replaced with completely different approaches I would be a bit perturbed. But that is not the response to his words that I witnessed. Those present seemed to hang with excited anticipation on his every word.

The future of the church is not a lost cause. Why? Because many people my age (myself included) long for an authentic existence, which in my estimation involves bounds of faith everyday at least tacitly. And because the living generations that have come before us are not disinterested in us. Rather they want to connect with us, but for the most part they do not know our language; they don’t know where to start – it’s like a few weeks ago I realized that I am an old geezer when I asked one of my nephews if he was “having fun” (what sort of question is that when he is playing a video game?!).

The language and categories and liturgies of those generations before us are largely alien to us. And this is what everyone was so interested in. As the speaker of the second day described without holding back some well-placed humor, many people my age are speaking a different language. For example, we have not forgone the importance of “truth”; rather we are speaking about truth differently, with different categories as it were. Consequently, presenting “the gospel” in the same dusty, worn out ways that institutional churches have been for the past three hundred years will be less than useless and will at best be a lost cause. But. That everyone there was so transfixed by what the speaker was saying about the changing culture and the consequences for the life of the church indicates to me that the future is not a lost cause. The generations that have come before us are in fact interested, but they aren’t particularly sure what to do. And so they are doing what we would all do in their situation; they are doing what they know. But they appear ready to put their ears to the ground so to speak and hear what is coming, though in their case "what is coming" is already in their midst.

The future is not a lost cause, but both sides, younger and older will need to be open to each other. Easier said than done. We young folks look at the grey and balding heads, and we shake our heads because we naively think they are clueless. They look at us and suppose we have lost our map and compass. Collaboration will take a lot of willingness and effort on both sides. And as difficult as this may be, I was greatly encouraged when I witnessed and encountered the older generation’s interest in my generation. This interest is important because I and the rest of my generation need to be discipled. 

The older generations need to learn our language, and we need to cultivate patience. We need to cultivate patience that we might delve into the rich heritage of faith that has come before us. We younger people who suppose our advances in technology and tolerance set us above those who have come before us need to cultivate patience that we might glean from the immense treasure set before us. If we so disregard the older generations and the riches they have to offer us, it will indeed be as though pearls have been cast before swine.

The future is not a lost cause, but it will take sincere effort and patience on our part. Rather than fleeing tradition as though it is a thoroughly pernicious system of tyrannical authority, embracing it as ourselves without relinquishing any of the things that are in fact essential to us can be a path way not only toward collaboration between generations but also toward greater visible unity in the church universal, something that should be the business of every Christian.

What I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears this week at the conference was not a dead or dying church. It was a church with a future because it is a church that still rests its future with the future of Jesus. And with him there is always hope, even for generations that appear to be like oil and water. 

Faith in the Shadows of Doubt

Francesco Solimena’s “The Personification of Faith”

The first time I saw this painting I was with a group of hospital chaplains during my summer internship. We were meandering through the Norton Simon Art Museum, and then I saw this painting and stopped in my tracks and thought, “Yes, that is what faith in an unseen, transcendent God is like, what faith embodied in a world of travails looks like.”

It may very well be easier to write about the troubling nature of faith when doubting and easier to write about the bleak, cloudy character of doubt when gifted with faith. Or is it the converse? In any case, having personally experienced both for prolonged periods of time, today is a day to speak of both, albeit in a brief blog post I will do justice to neither.

To doubt, to be caught in the throes of unbelief, or even to renounce religious faith altogether, particularly Christian faith, may turn out to be a testament to taking faith seriously and thereby a testament to greater faith than the faith so often jangled about in strands of Christianity that boldly vocalize triumphant Christian life void of struggle and unbelief. The lands of doubt and faith may turn out to be contiguous; they may even overlap. They may even be caught up in one another.

One of my heroes, S. Kierkegaard, expressed the rather paradoxical relationship of faith and doubt when he said, “Whether I have faith can never be ascertained by me with immediate certainty – for faith is precisely this dialectical hovering, which is unceasingly in fear and trembling but never in despair; faith is exactly this never-ending worry about oneself, which keeps one alert and ready to risk everything, this worry about oneself as to whether one truly has faith – and look! precisely this worry about oneself is faith.”

Decades later F. Dostoevsky expressed his own life of faith in the midst of doubt when he said in a letter to a friend, “I will tell you that I am a child of the century, a child of disbelief and doubt, I am that today and (I know it) will remain so until my grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now, which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it.” He goes on to indicate that “God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at these instants that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, and more perfect than Christ.”

Though doubt and unbelief may persist, remembering and treasuring such clear and sacred moments may very well be a way to trek through the valley of the shadow of doubt and then (eventually…) come out the other side.

Like that picture of the personification of faith in the Norton Simon, faith may very well involve all sorts of experiences and reasons to doubt, tenacious tugs in numerous different directions, but indeed it is such experiences that faith entails and will, if perseverant, make faith all the more healthy and strong. The quality of such faith may very well increase with every shadow and quagmire that it endures.

But Christian faith is not merely faith in an unseen, transcendent God; Christian faith is not faith in shifting sands and arbitrary dogmatic formulations; it is faith in the revealed God, in the incarnate God. But where, on days of doubt when we so desperately need to see in order to believe, is God? Where is God today? We might begin pointing at the church and different things the church is doing; after all the church is the body of Christ. However, this may very well leave us feeling more comfortable with unbelief rather than belief, for the church can be a rather messy and horrific place. Looking to the church may leave us hoping “it” isn’t true, for it would be the worst hypocrisy the world has ever seen. Where then do we look to see the incarnate God if not to the body of Christ, the church?

The church is not as it should be. Like the world, the church can be a troubling predicament. The church is by no means removed from the world, and as such the church suffers from similar woes. But this is not, in moments of doubt, reason to abandon the church. Much to the contrary. It is reason to plunge into that community that has been called to hope for and participate in the reconciling work of a poor carpenter. It is towards this horizon of healing and peace that the church is to press, plunge, and leap. Through the shadows and quagmires, the church, bruised and bloodied by unbelief and reasons to doubt, is to press toward this horizon always hoping and praying, even (and especially) in times of unbelief, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Faith is Risky Business

One of the many transitions from childhood to adulthood is discovering that life is uncontrollably precarious, albeit life can hardly be described so simply as supposing there are actual stages such as childhood and adulthood. There remains, however, this discovery that even our parents are mortals. Moreover, in some sense, life requires some sort of faith in so far as living requires trust in much that is not seen or known by us, and faith as such is risky business. We will hardly ever know if the next piece of earth on which we place our foot will collapse beneath us.

As we live with faith in the midst of change, our frameworks and stories according to which we experience relationships, events, and statements often change over time. Our paradigms of believing and understanding will likely change with time and experience. As the tides of life cast us to and fro, what we once held as true may change or be nuanced in various ways. This may sound terrible and undesirable, but I think it may not be too dissimilar from a child maturing and learning to use a language. A child learns the alphabet, some words, grammar, and eventually crafts a high school book report. The high school kid writing that book report has changed since learning the alphabet. Writing the letters of the alphabet all in a row is no longer the primary concern; the child has since discovered new paradigms according to which it makes good sense to write the letters all jumbled and out of order with periodic gaps between the letters. Change can be a good thing, though it remains a bit disconcerting.

It is not at all uncommon for churchy high school students to go to college and then drop out of church. This may very well happen for a variety of reasons, and I will not suppose that I can sum up in a few jots the depth and breadth of why this happens. However, it strikes me with little surprise that it does happen. When I went to college and began studying philosophy of religion it was as if I was encountering a different language that seemed to undermine my previously known language. In retrospect I realize that it may have been a bit like suddenly learning to write my name in cursive after knowing only how to print my name. In any case, it felt at times like the piece of earth on which I was placing my foot crumbled, but as it did, it made me all the more curious. I wanted to know why it felt as though the ground seemed to collapse. Ideologically, I began moving from childhood to adulthood. The world appeared more complex and precarious than before. Not only were my parents most assuredly mortal, their teaching was not infallible in the least.

In the midst of all the change, then, I began asking myself, “are my frameworks and stories according to which I live malleable, supple, and robust enough to live through these changes, these newfound languages?”

To live through change, faith, lest we slip into despair, is a crucial ingredient.

As risky as faith may be, faith is immeasurably rewarding. Memories of packing up a trailer and moving from Paso Robles to Pasadena come to mind. Esther and I hadn’t a clue what in the world we were doing, and similarly when we married each other, we had hardly more than a few hints about what we were plunging into. Even now, as Esther and I move from Pasadena, we are stepping into a shadow-filled corridor. To marry, to move, to live in relationship requires rather irrationally large and perhaps even seemingly naïve amounts of faith, but as enormous and risky as faith may be, to be in relationship is deeply rewarding. Moreover, just how rewarding it is cannot be known; it cannot be even imagined until the risk is taken.

I would feel nothing short of cliché if I were to compare such faith to living into the story of Jesus; however, though there may not be worthy analogs between the sorts of risks I have mentioned, nonetheless, living into the story of Jesus involves both risk and reward, though the sorts of risks and rewards involved will likely not be the same as winning the state lottery. Rather, Jesus calls us to risk our very being that we might discover what it means to be.

In a letter to Mme Fonvizina, Dostoevsky exclaimed, “If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.” This may sound like nothing other than a resounding irrational leap of faith; however, I think it is not merely that. Dostoevsky, of all people, knew of the risks and unpredictable turns life can and will take. He knew. There may very well be times when what was previously known with such conviction crumbles beneath our feet, like sand slipping through our fingers. He knew. He also knew that whatever happened he was completely transfixed, taken captive by Christ, and nothing could change that, even a paradigm of judgment that counted Christ outside the truth.

Dostoevsky’s declaration of devotion to Christ is not childish naïveté; this is experience speaking. This is a declaration of tenacious faith in the midst of uncertainty; however, in the midst of whatever degree of darkness and ambiguity, there is a single core trust according to which other steps are taken no matter how brittle and thin the ground may be, no matter how bleak the grayish hue of light makes our circumstances appear. 

War(s) on Terror

College football and the NFL are in full swing, and America is wrapped up in all sorts of war and rumors of war. We hear the name Syria, but it is only the current name among others. There were others before, and unfortunately there will be others after. This is not a statement of cynicism; rather, it is a descriptive statement about America's identity being shaped by the politics of war.

Stanley Hauerwas has often made the rather absurd and presumptuous claim that the church is an alternative to war (e.g. War and the American Difference). But what does being an alternative to war have to do with us Christians other than being kind of sad because some people die in war? If Christianity’s essence pertains to having hope and Jesus in our hearts, then the church hardly has anything to do with war and being alternative to war.

But what if the church entails more than being a collection of persons who just so happen to have similar inward commitment to and experiences of the person named Jesus? What if the church is more than being a morass of individuals seeking introspective enlightenment?

In Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenged the supposition that religion and particularly Christianity pertained only to individual inwardness. He refused to be satisfied with Christianity being relegated to such a small and rather superfluous realm of human experience. Rather, he asserted that God is at the center of life, and Christianity has at its core utmost appreciation for bodily existence.

Of course, I rather like Hauerwas and Bonhoeffer. I tend to read them quite a bit. However, it is not simply that I have acquiesced to their ideologies. Their theologies have captivated my imagination only because I was first captivated by the Jesus I encountered in the Gospel of Matthew. The Jesus I encountered there is not meek and mild. Rather, he is tenacious, unrelenting, hurtling directly into precarious territory not with a spear but with forgiveness even, and especially, for perceived enemies. And he called people, particularly the people of “Israel”, to join him, to be such a people of peacemakers in a violent world, in a land occupied by foreign powers, in a region riddled with conflict. In such a landscape, Jesus calls us to do the daring, costly, and shockingly bold thing of being peacemakers.

A few weeks ago, I got caught up in a conversation about violence and praying for our enemies, and my conversation partner said in passing, “But maybe it was easier back then.” She was, of course, referring to the social-historical context of Jesus’ first century listeners. I must say that it most assuredly could not have been easier for people back then, especially the people to whom Jesus was speaking. He was not speaking peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation to theologians in their armchairs. He was speaking to people living in a war-ridden world with rebellion and execution frequently on the airwaves.    

The world we hear reported on the news today is also constantly ruptured by violence and tragedy, and similarly in the late 1930’s Bonhoeffer knew all too well the cost of forgiveness and the dire need for it. When he was thirty-two years old, he gave a sermon in the little village of Gross-Schlönwitz. His sermon was entitled “Loving Our Enemies,” and in it he said,

“This is what Christ did for us. He did not become confused by our evil; he did not let himself be overcome by it. He overcame our evil with good. Let’s repeat how this happens: not by feeding the other person’s evil with our evil, the hatred of the other person with our hatred. Rather, it happens when the evil hits emptiness and finds nothing on which it can ignite. How do we overcome evil? By forgiving without end. How does that happen? By seeing the enemy as he or she truly is, the one for whom Christ died, the one whom Christ loved. How will the church-community win victory over its enemies? By letting the love of Christ win victory over our enemies.”

Until we learn that war does not vanquish evil but leads to sin and death, we will be forever caught up in the false story that war is necessary for peace. War, however, is not the road to peace. Forgiveness is, and peace is a road of righteousness. But in a world of war, righteousness is a road that may very well lead to death; however, there are some things worth dying for. Moreover, until the church learns that its life involves more than individualistic inwardness, it will continue to stand by quietly and do nothing; or even worse, it will misuse its voice by condoning war as it has often done.

To say that the church is an alternative to war may sound a bit idealistic. Peace rather than war is nice; it’s desired, but it sounds hardly more than cute. “War is the real world.” However, what if it were the case that war was easier to wage than forgiveness but that the future made by forgiveness and reconciliation was the only future worth hoping and working for?

Journey to the Center of Middle-earth

I began seminary by parsing Greek verbs, and I concluded seminary by visiting the sick and dying. I began seminary by reading, reading, reading. I concluded seminary by being, being, being. For me seminary began with the comforts of home, namely books and essays, and it concluded with much unknown to me, namely the living texts of people’s lives filled with joy and tragedy. It began with studiously working in the library, and it concluded with being present and available for people in unspeakable circumstances completely out of my control in the hospital.

I have not yet found the words to sufficiently express my gratitude for making it from one point to the other, from the comforts of home to the dark corridors of the unknown. But I am indeed grateful for those wizards and lords involved in taking me from one point to the other. In the coming weeks, I will no doubt spend more time reflecting on what in the world happened this summer, but what I can say for now is that this hobbit shall not return home the same.  

Near the beginning of my CPE (clinical pastoral education) experience, the image in Ezekiel thirty-seven of dry bones receiving life proved to be a helpful image for encapsulating what CPE had begun doing for me as a budding pastor and theologian, and this image remained with me throughout the rest of my CPE experience. I was around death and grieving more in those early weeks than ever before. CPE cast me into a host of variegated experiences that opened my eyes to sides of life I had never encountered before, and consequently it added experiential dimensions to my theology and in some sense gave life to the dry bones of my rather academic theology.

In his sermon, ‘A Divine and Supernatural Light’, Jonathan Edwards asserted, “there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness.” CPE has given me invaluable experiences that I will carry with me, that have changed me, and it has added dimensions to my theology moving me from opinions and rational judgments to having a sense of God’s paradoxical holiness, tenacious grace, and immeasurable love known to us in the Incarnate Son of God.

CPE has begun giving me this sense by drawing me into the world and rooting me in the soil of the earth, the soil of particular human lives, however broken those lives may be. Indeed, it is in the brokenness and tragedy of people’s lives that my theology has become all the more incarnational, and as my theology has become more embodied than before, I have begun to see that my theology has at its heart the deep love of God pulsating and embracing the feeble human lives in that valley in such need of resurrection, that valley where my once skeletal theology has encountered drug addicts, alcoholics, terminal patients, loving wives, grieving daughters, immeasurably strong mothers, and courageous medical staff. As I have encountered their lives, God has breathed life into mine and has revealed to me what I would stake my life on, namely that nothing can separate us from the love of God known to us in Christ.  

Wastefully Compassionate

For the past several years, I have often found myself asking, “What is the church?” Or put differently, “What is this messy mob we call ‘the church’?” In order to answer such questions, it is rather appropriate to ask various other questions including, “Who is Jesus?” This question finds its relatedness in the fact that the very existence of the church is organically linked to Jesus. The church then must be understood by looking to Jesus. However, in looking to Jesus, we may very well find how unlike him we are, and especially in the past weeks as a chaplain at a hospital, I have realized in a new way how like him we need to become. With that in mind, Matthew 20:29-34 accentuates a particular characteristic of Jesus’ life.

In Matthew 20:29-34, Jesus and his followers were nearing the end of their journey to Jerusalem, but they were not the only ones on their way to Jerusalem. Many other Galileans were on their way to Jerusalem also. You can may imagine the clamor of the crowd trotting to Jerusalem as they were making their way for Passover. Jericho would be their last stop before they would began the long climb up to Jerusalem.

As the crowd leaves Jericho, just outside Jericho are two men on the side of the road. These two men are not precisely in Jericho nor are they part of the crowd trekking to Jerusalem. These two men are in between, and they are going nowhere fast. They are on the side of the road, and it seems that they are sitting with little intention of joining the crowd making its way to Jerusalem. These two men are in between cities and outside the crowd. However, not only are they in between and outside, they are blind, and in part this is probably why they are excluded from the journey to Jerusalem. They are not part of the community. They are on the margins.

We have seen these two blind men before. Perhaps in Pasadena but certainly in south central Los Angeles. Their skin is sun beaten and leathery; their gnarled fingernails have weeks of dirt underneath. Their hair is a mangled mess that hasn’t known soap in months, and their clothes are in worse shape. They look hideous, but they smell worse. We have seen them before on the street corner with their empty soup bowl sitting in front of them hoping to catch the loose change of passers by. Perhaps we have dropped a few unwanted coins in their bowl. We have seen these two men before.

Above the clamor of the crowd these two men shouted. They called out above the bustling feet and buzzing voices of the crowd. These two men shouted into the passing mass of people, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” After they shouted, the eyes of the crowd turn on these two men, and the crowd tries to stop them; the crowd attempts to silence them. But again the two men shout; this time louder than before. “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 

These two blind men recognize Jesus for who he is, and he does not deny that they have rightly identified him. Somewhat ironically, we seminarians who have spent so much money cramming the heavens into our heads would learn who Jesus is from these to blind men. These two blind men tell us that Jesus is the Son of David. And what Jesus does next shows us a glimpse of what it means for Jesus to be the Son of David.

In contrast with rulers such as the tyrannical Herod who augments his own power by using fear and violence killing multitudes of children, in contrast with rulers such as Herod, Jesus calls children to himself. And in contrast with this crowd leaving Jericho that would silence these men’s loud pleading, in contrast with this crowd, Jesus stops and listens; he draws near to these two men blind going nowhere. Jesus draws near to these two men who have nothing to offer. Jesus comes alongside these two men on the margins, and he draws them to himself. This is the sort of ruler he is.

Moreover, Jürgen Moltmann explains, “[Jesus] ‘compassion’ is not charitable condescension. It is the form which the divine justice takes in an unjust world…Jesus does not merely go to the people in the name of God…he is one of theirs, and they are the least of his brothers and sisters…he is the brother of the poor, the comrade of the people, the friend of the forsaken, the sympathizer with the sick. He heals through solidarity, and communicates his liberty and his healing power through his fellowship.” 

Jesus is the Son of David, and this is what it means for Jesus to be the Son of David. This is what it means for Jesus to be the ruler of Israel. Jesus draws near to them and asks them what they would have him do. They ask to be healed, and he heals them. Jesus rules not with self-obsession but with an ear for the margins. Jesus rules not with power hungry ambition but with a tender heart. Jesus rules not with an iron fist but with a healing hand.

In addition to Jesus’ compassionate action, the timing is also significant. Jesus heals these two men only a short while before what would be a triumphant entry for Jesus into Jerusalem. Multitudes of people would welcome him into Jerusalem, and yet what does he do here? He does what he has been doing all along. He makes time for those outside, for those on the margins. This is the sort of ruler he is.

If we use our imaginations and develop a weak analogy, it could go something like this. Imagine you are the president-elect and you are on your way to give your inaugural address, you don’t need to help these two beggars. The votes are in. It would be entirely superfluous; it would be immensely unnecessary to help these to beggars. And yet that is precisely what Jesus does. Jesus is wastefully compassionate. This is the sort of ruler he is.

By healing these to men of their blindness, by removing the blemish that would exclude them from full membership in the people of God, Jesus enables them to make the trek to Jerusalem. They need not remain on the side of the road, on the margins. By healing them, Jesus includes them in the membership of God’s people. This is what it means for Jesus to be the Son of David. He gathers the broken pieces of Israel; he frees those stuck on the fringes; he extends membership and fellowship even to those well outside the normal boundaries. And he does this at a moment in his ministry when it would seem completely unneeded.

From beginning to end, the Gospel of Matthew is about who will rule Israel, and it is about how that ruler will rule Israel. In this sense, the Gospel of Matthew is about Jesus. As Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, we see the sort of ruler he will be; we see the sort of ruler he is. Moved by compassion, he draws people from the roadside, from the margins to himself. Moved by compassion, he draws near and restores the blemished to the community. Those on the margins enjoy fellowship with him, and they continue alongside him. He is one of them. Just as they have been on the outside of Jericho, Jesus was born and dies on the margins, in Bethlehem and outside Jerusalem. This is the sort of ruler he is. He is one of them. But not only is one of them; he listens, and he heals. This is the sort of ruler he is.

Earlier I asked the question, “Who is Jesus?” And the two blind men tell us: Jesus is the Son of David; Jesus is the ruler of Israel. And Jesus shows us what this means: he has an ear for those on the roadside, and he rules with unmeasured compassion. I asked, “Who is Jesus?” in order to answer, “What is this messy mob we call the church?”

In response, we may say: amidst the clamor of a culture that speaks loudly and with little concern for those on the margins, in contrast with a consumer culture that encourages self-centered amassing of wealth, in contrast with such a culture, the church stops and listens; the church draws near to those on the fringes of society. Moved by compassion, the church draws people from the roadside, from the margins into fellowship. In contrast with a culture of materialistic individualism, the church listens and heals. Moved by compassion, the church draws near and restores the wounded into community. Those on the margins enjoy fellowship as full members of the church. The church is one of them. Just as they have been on the outside, the church was born on the margins and continues to live on the margins. That is the sort of community the church is to be. The church is one of them because they are part of the church. This is who we are.

The question remains, are we listening? Without making arrogant presumptions that we know what others need, are we listening with sensitive hearts? Are we moved with compassion? If we are attuned to the margins, then we must ask other questions including, Who are on the margins? Who are the voices that our culture so readily silences? Or perhaps we should ask, who are those voices that our culture fails to hear? Children in abusive homes. The severely disabled. Immigrants with the wrong color skin. As we think about the character of the church, we must ask ourselves, Do we have ears to hear the voices of these people? Do we have ears to hear the voices of those afraid to speak? Are we listening to the margins? Are we wastefully compassionate? We are the church. This is who we are. 

Theological Horizons: the church in the world

Discerning the situation of the church in her contemporary contexts is no little or uncommon task. Is the church a beacon of light in a terribly dark and lost world? Are there glimmers of light in the world that might illuminate the dark corners and cobwebs of the church? Is such a dichotomy between church and world problematic in the first place? Where might the ‘borders’ of the church begin and end? These are all questions that may be asked on various occasions with differing agendas. There may be, however, other ways of discerning the church's situation in the world.  

In Church Dogmatics Karl Barth develops a concept that he deems ‘secular parables.’ He explains them to be words outside Scripture and church teaching that are in ‘material agreement with [Scripture], illumine, accentuate or explain the biblical witness in a particular time and situation’ (Church Dogmatics, IV.3.1 § 69). Barth goes on to say that such secular parables must lead the church more truly than ever before to Scripture; however, his discussion here points to the fact that the church’s ears should not be deaf to the happenings outside. Moreover, the church can even learn from the outside that the church might better understand Scripture itself. In other words, it would seem that the world outside potentially has many things to teach the church about Scripture, for Barth continues his discussion of secular parables by explaining, ‘The community is not Atlas bearing the burden of the whole world on its shoulders. For all its dedication to the cause which it represents in the world, the cause is not its own, nor does the triumph of this cause depend upon it…even within the world which opposes it, [God] will ensure, as there are always acts of His rule in general, so, too, there will be raised up witnesses to its cause, which is really His.’ The church can learn from others outside because God is working in the world through others even outside the church. This is rather striking indeed and explodes any notion of the visible church alone being a beacon of light in an impenetrably dark world. Because the cause of reconciliation is God’s cause, the church cannot monopolize reconciliation; the church would do well to listen and observe and participate in secular parables taking shape in the world outside the church precisely because in doing so the church may very well encounter and better understand God’s broad cause of reconciliation. In the process, many in the visible church may find the borders of the church seeming less clear than before.

And here, I think, Jürgen Moltmann provides some insight regarding the far reaching character of reconciliation when he explains, ‘The liberation of the believer from the prison of sin, law and death is brought about by God, not by politics, but this liberation calls for something to correspond to it in political life, so that liberations from prisons…must be understood as the parables of the freedom of faith’ (Crucified God, 320). Here Moltmann suggests that there can be not only material agreement between words of Scripture and words in the world (because they are God’s as Barth indicates) but also that there can and should be overlap between liberation from sin and liberation from political oppression. “The real presences of God acquire the character of a ‘praesentia explosiva’” (338). God’s multidimensional cause of reconciliation overflows the church into the world and overflows the world into the church. This can be the case precisely because reconciliation is God's, and consequently we may find the horizon of reconciliation and thereby the church to be broad indeed. 

Theological Horizons: identity and relevance

Imagine the Church had one of those sticker nametags that says, “Hello My Name is…” Rather than putting a proper name in the blank space, a simple description was written. What would it be?

In The Crucified God, Jürgen Moltmann describes the church in crisis in terms of relevance and identity, and he describes the ways in which different wings of the church have approached the issue of relevance and identity. The first wing of the church seeks to maintain its identity by defending orthodox doctrine. The second wing of the church seeks relevance by being politically and socially active. The first wing accuses the second wing of assimilation, and the second wing accuses the first of sectarianism. Relevance and identity appear to ram heads.

In this discussion, Moltmann has raised some important issues for me, namely that maintaining identity should not mean seclusion and that solidarity should not entail assimilation. In addressing these issues, Moltmann builds upon Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prison theology in which Bonhoeffer asserts, “The church is only the church when it exists for others” (Letters and Papers from Prison, 382). Moltmann explains that in order to exist for others it cannot mean that the church must then become like the other, e.g. like society, for that would merely entail residing in the company of those like yourself.

Moltmann exclaims, “Bonhoeffer’s ‘existence for others’, to which so much appeal has been made, becomes meaningless if one is no longer any different from others, but merely a hanger on. Only someone who finds the courage to be different from others can ultimately ‘exist for others’, for otherwise he exists only with those who are like him” (The Crucified God, 16).

Existing for the other must then entail being different from the other. Existing for the other necessarily excludes assimilation. However, existing for the other also excludes sectarianism, retreating into the ghettoes of marginalization, for this too is a sort of assimilation in so far as it passively accepts the marginalization of institutionalized religion in secular society. “Christians, churches and theologians who passionately defend true belief, pure doctrine and distinctive Christian morality are at the present day in danger of lapsing into pusillanimous faith…they build a defensive wall around their own little group,” and they risk losing their identity by accepting “the increasing isolation of the church as an insignificant sect on the margin of society, and encourage it by their sectarian withdrawal” (The Crucified God, 20).

Rather than falling victim to either form of assimilation – sameness or sectarianism, existing for the other entails plunging into society as a reality distinct from society.

If the church in America is to have a future (which I remain quite hopeful about), then its nametag must surely entail a description that is both relevant and faithful to its identity. It can do so by naming its identity to be in the crucified one whose identity is revealed in his relevance. As Moltmann says, “[Jesus] revealed his identity amongst those who had lost their identity, amongst lepers, sick, rejected, and despised, and was recognized the Son of Man amongst those who had been deprived of their humanity” (Crucified God, 27). Moltmann seems to suggest that the church reveals and maintains its identity and relevance by its difference and solidarity.  

Last Things Last (?): destiny illuminating the present

This month I finished classes for an M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary, and I must say that I have had a very stimulating few years at Fuller. Faculty, staff, and peers have made the whole experience immeasurably rewarding. I could not have asked for a better seminary experience.

When I was mapping out seminary classes, I had not intentionally planned to study eschatology at the end of my time at Fuller – roughly speaking eschatology is a fancy word for talk about stuff at the end or destiny. I suppose that it was a bit fitting for me to study eschatology at the end of my seminary education, and for my last assignment, I wrote a paper briefly outlining my reflections on the consummation of creation. Last things last. However, in the past few months and weeks, I have begun to wonder whether or not eschatology belongs at the end. Maybe it belongs near the beginning.

Over the past several years, I have studied various aspects of Jürgen Moltmann’s theology, a Reformed post-Barthian theologian. A little more than a year ago, I studied a few dimensions of Moltmann’s Christology in The Way of Jesus Christ, and this week I have begun reading Moltmann’s Theology of Hope in which he puts eschatology at the beginning of the theological task rather than at the end – in contrast Barth places eschatology on the circumference of the theological task and atonement at the center (Dogmatics, IV.1). Moltmann explains, “A proper theology would…have to be constructed in the light of its future goal” (Fortress Press, 1993, Theology of Hope, 16). Thus, Moltmann begins with eschatology.

Moltmann explains that eschatology is not merely about stuff at the end but is about hope, and he claims that eschatology is the torch that illumines the path into the future; eschatology tells the future about the present. “Hope’s statements of promise…must stand in contradiction to the reality which can at present be experienced…they do not seek to bear the train of reality, but to carry the torch before it” (18). 

Moreover, drawing Barth’s beginning and end together, Moltmann places revelation and eschatology together indicating that God does not simply reveal God’s self but reveals God’s self as the God of promise. God’s promises fuel hope for the future, and God’s promises for the future are grounded in Jesus, particularly in the resurrection of Jesus. Consequently, Moltmann places priority on hope for precisely the same earth on which and for which Christ died and was raised. Christian hope, Moltmann exclaims, “sees in the resurrection of Christ not the eternity of heaven, but the future of the very earth on which his cross stands” (21).

The future of the earth is pledged and established on the resurrection of Jesus, and this hope based on the resurrection of Jesus has implications for the present. The fulfilled future invigorates action in the unfulfilled present. Moltmann explains, “As long as hope does not embrace and transform the thought and action of men, it remains topsy-turvy and ineffective. Hence Christian eschatology must make the attempt to introduce hope into worldly thinking, and thought into believing hope” (33). Hope for the future stimulates social action and reform.

Rather than supposing eschatology to be something that belongs exclusively to the distant future attached to the rest of theology like an appendix, it may very well be the case that eschatology is the opening to theology. Talk about destiny belongs near the beginning. Telos shapes the present. Hope fuels faith and life, and more particularly hope based on the resurrection of Jesus provides concrete specificity to the sort of hope for which the church hopes. As the Nicene Creed concludes, we look forward to the resurrection of the body and the world to come. For Moltmann, however, this profession about the future belongs at the beginning, and the world for which the church hopes is the earth on which Jesus' cross stood. It may just be the case that theology is possible only because there is hope.