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. 

A Meditation on Matthew 18:1-5

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, he remains in constant conflict with those who are in some sense currently seeking to keep the rule of Israel for themselves. As soon as Jesus is born, we come across Herod who kills to ensure his own fragile power, and throughout the rest of the gospel those with some degree of power such as the temple leaders plot to kill Jesus because he threatens their power and influence.

It is little surprise then that Jesus’ disciples continually ask him right up until the end who will be the greatest in his kingdom. The Gospel of Luke shows the disciples asking Jesus this questions at the Last Supper (Luke 22:24-27). They, like others in the gospel story, want to know because they are on the cusp of entering Jerusalem with the new king of Israel. They are about to witness Jesus become the newly inaugurated king, and so they want to know and to ensure their place alongside him in his kingdom.

Also, their question comes right after Jesus singled out Peter, James, and John to go with him to a private place. Their question also comes right after Jesus sends Peter to be his representative for paying a temple tax. And so now the disciples are curious: who is the greatest in Jesus’ kingdom? 

Jesus likely knows what and why they are asking. However, he turns their question and assumptions upside down. Jesus is the one who will rule Israel, but he will not rule in the same way as rulers such as Herod who rule by fear and violence. Jesus does not answer their question on its own terms. He reshapes their question by calling a child into their midst.

By calling a child into their midst, Jesus shows that the values and orientation of his kingdom are not what they expected nor are they what we probably expect today. By calling a child into their midst, Jesus shows that the values of our world are turned upside down: in order to enter his kingdom we must enter as children.

Judging by the Gospel of Matthew’s constant theme of who will rule Israel taken together with the disciples’ question and Jesus’ response, it appears that Jesus is not talking about childlike innocence. Jesus is talking about hierarchy; Jesus is talking about social status. Children were not in the 1^st nor are they today the ones with power and authority. In the 1^st century world much like our 21^st century world, children lack what the world values most: power, wealth, and influence. In this sense, children do not have high status. A child is dependant on others. A child is not someone with whom you network in order to climb the social ladder. For example, if you wanted to run for a political office in the United States, you would be wasting your time if you spent all your time lobbying children. In this sense, Jesus’ calling a child in their midst is a refusal to participate in status games so common in the 1^st century and for that matter in our 21^st century. Jesus calls his disciples to be humble, to be low on the social ladder.

Stanley Hauerwas, a professor at Duke, explains, “Children, because they depend on others for their very existence, cannot help but live by humility” (Matthew, BrazosPress 2009, 162). 

However, those of you who are parents will likely tell me, “Sam, I appreciate that you think children are humble, but that’s a naïve picture of children. Children are not humble. They are anything but humble. They do greedy and prideful things all the time.” If that’s what you’re thinking, then you are right.

However, when we see a small child, when we hold a newly born infant in our arms, we know that child is completely dependant on us for his very existence. However prideful that child may act from time to time, we know that child needs us for food and shelter. That child needs us to tie his shoes, and when that child puts his shoes on the wrong feet we help him rearrange his shoes (or we leave them because it’s cute). That child needs us to drop him off and pick him up from school. That child needs us to ensure his safety and his future. In this sense, whether or not that child realizes it, that child is completely humbled by his dependency on us. And this is what Jesus is seeking to show his disciples about themselves, and this is what Jesus is seeking to show us about ourselves. Whether we want to admit it or not, we enter Jesus’ kingdom as children.

Jesus calls his disciples into a life of dependency like children, and so he taught them to pray to their father in heaven as children teaching them to pray, “Give this day our daily bread.” And as children, we pray to our father in heaven, “Deliver us from evil.”

What Jesus is saying here runs against probably most of our cultural values and priorities. We praise self-reliance and the self-made man. We praise people of strength and influence such as athletes and successful businessmen. But Jesus tells us to be like children who are not self-reliant nor are they self-made. 

Jesus, however, does not end by saying that his disciples must be like children. As we follow the Matthew story, we will probably notice that Jesus is constantly gathering people around himself, but he is not gathering people who could bring him high acclaim; they are people on the fringes of society who have no status and could certainly not give him status by association. Instead of linking with key leaders of his day in order to climb the social ladder, Jesus networks with the unconnected on the fringes of society.

Jesus heals lepers and women neither of whom were highly regarded in the 1^st century and neither of whom could have imagined giving Jesus high status. Jesus also heals the lame and the blind. Jesus gathers people to himself who are like children because they are vulnerable and cannot extend to Jesus higher status. Jesus gives to them and to us what we cannot give him in return.

Jesus explains that not only do people enter his kingdom by being as humble as children, but we are also to welcome those who are like children, who are not high in status, not self-reliant, and not exactly the sort of people who could get us a raise. And all this requires that we are to be people of patience who tirelessly welcome those who need help and cannot help themselves. It should probably be said in passing that the Bible does not say, “God helps those who themselves.” But it does say we are to be like children who cannot help themselves, and we are to welcome people like children who cannot help themselves.

As we follow the Matthew story, we will likely notice that Jesus is constantly gathering people around himself. Jesus is forming a community, and so when we hear Jesus calling his disciples to be like children, he is not merely calling isolated individuals to be like children. He is calling and forming a community to be as humble as children, a community that does not seek higher status, a community that does not welcome people according to achievement but welcomes people in need.

A few days ago, I watched the new musical Les Miserables. Invariably, I was reminded of Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables. Near the beginning of Hugo’s novel, there is an ex-convict named Jean Valjean, and he had been released from prison only a few days before. When he comes to a town at night, he cannot find lodging anywhere. As soon as people find out he is an ex-convict, they cast him out. He is completely unconnected socially. Then finally he arrives at a little old house where a little old bishop lives. Jean Valjean knocks, and the door swings open. Instead of going through the labor of the old bishop finding out who he is, Jean Valjean tells the old bishop to begin with that he is an ex-convict. Then the old bishop says something unexpected. The old bishop says, “You did not have to tell me who you were. This is not my house. It’s the house of Jesus Christ. The door does not ask who enters whether he has a name but whether he has any pain. You are suffering. You are hungry. You are welcome.”

I recently heard a story about a young lady who is a mother of three children. The father is no longer in the picture. She has two jobs, a fulltime and part-time job, totaling roughly sixty hours per week. She works that much because that’s what it takes for her to put food on the table and a roof over her children’s heads. Not long ago, she found out she is pregnant, but as I just mentioned, the father is longer in the picture. She is contemplating abortion not because she wants to exercise her free choice but because she feels she doesn’t have a choice. (I am sure stories like this one could be enumerated ten thousand times over).

Jesus is forming a community that lives by childlike humility recognizing that its life is dependant on God, a community that thereby extends its hospitality to those who are most vulnerable. Jesus calls us to network with the unconnected. 

As we follow Jesus’ footsteps as children, we will most likely do a lot of stumbling along the way like toddlers first learning to walk. And as we do, let us remember that we are to be a community as humble as children; we are to be a community that welcomes children and where children are safe. This will be difficult, and the trouble about being a hospitable community is that it doesn’t get any easier by saying it a bunch of times. Like toddlers learning to walk, we have to try it. We will likely take a few steps and then take a tumble. Fortunately, our father in heaven will pick us up so we can try again. We need each other in this process, and because we are like children we are called to forgive each other inexhaustibly. 

From beginning to end, the Gospel of Matthew is about who will rule Israel, and it is about how that ruler will rule Israel. The Gospel of Matthew is about Jesus. However, by the end of the story, we do not have a king on a throne with hosts of armies to conquer the world thereby establishing his empire. That is not Jesus’ kingdom. Instead, we see a king who has been crucified and who sends humble children into a dangerous world. That is Jesus’ kingdom. And for this reason the apostle Paul says that this kingdom with a crucified king and childlike subjects is foolishness to pagans (1 Cor. 1:23). And perhaps it seems like foolishness to us also. This is a topsy-turvy kingdom. Jesus’ kingdom turns our assumptions upside down by placing a child in our midst, and Jesus tells us this is how we enter his kingdom and this is whom we are to welcome into his kingdom.   

“New Creation” and the Problem of Hope

In the wake of the many atrocities of the twentieth century and the ones continuing to happen as we speak, how can Christians speak about “new creation” with any integrity without merely relegating what Paul says is “here” to some futuristic individualized pie in the sky?

As many scholars such as Richard Hays and N.T. Wright have emphasized, this new creation is descriptive of a cosmic reality; it is seizing the old and breaking into it. But how can this be? This may seem quite simple to talk about in the context of affluent American churches that associate suffering with undesirable levels of stress. However, such contexts do not take seriously the stark reality of the world’s situation nor do they take seriously the cosmic hope, which Paul seems to be describing.

In the wake of the Holocaust and in the midst of the social rubble of Haiti and the moral cacophony of America and Europe, how can we speak of “new creation” with integrity? In his own day, how could Paul have the audacity to say, “The new has been created”?

This is not only a problem of evil. This is a problem of hope. Many folks who have an ounce or two of theological education may then parrot the cliché, “We live in the ‘now-and-not-yet.’” In other words, we live in between the first fruit – Jesus’ resurrection – and the consummation – the resurrection of the saints and the renewal of all things. However, how can we say that the new is “here” when it seems rather strikingly apparent that it is not “here” nor does there seem to be much hope that it will ever get here unless we are willing to subscribe to nothing more than a fool’s hope. We may very well say we are in between, but it seems as though the vine from which the first fruit sprang has since withered. In other words, where is the resurrection power of God today?

We are all in the business of perceiving the world, and perception seems to be crucial to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 about “new creation.” That is not to say that we must simply block bad things from our vision, but it is to say that some how our vision must make sense of the world while professing the belief that new creation has begun and is continuing to happen and will finally come to its fullness by the mercy of God. Some how our vision must be informed by the resurrection in order that whether or not we see “new creation” breaking in, somehow we trust it is. This is the problem of hope. While in the midst of impenetrable darkness and with only a foggy pair of spectacles, we do the foolish thing and continue to hope. 

But is this a flimsy hope like hope that Santa Clause will fill my stocking this Christmas?

Can we point to Christian communities that are an alternative to communities and systems of war, self-indulgent violence, money laundering, hatred based on difference, and power mongering? If we can, then this is a recollection of the empty tomb and a foretaste of a day when there will be no more sorrow.

Can we point to communities where “new creation,” where the resurrection power of God, where reconciliation happens? Can we use our fingers to point to Christian communities where immigrants have a voice? Can we point to communities where abused children are unequivocally protected and nurtured? Can we use our fingers to point to communities where women are not objectified? Can we point to communities where ethnic differences are not muted but are celebrated? Can we point to communities where the concerns of the elderly are heard? Albeit these things may be but a foretaste of things to come when there will be no more death, can we point to communities where these things are fostered in the name of the crucified messiah, Jesus? If not, then “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

What then can we say about where all this is headed?

We may echo the few but sturdy words of Brueggemann and say, “God keeps the future.” 

"For All have Sinned"?

This is not merely some cute theological abstraction nor is it merely some sort of mystical, metaphysical guilt that inscrutably pertains to the isolated individual. This pertains to our social complicity. We share complicity in our society’s sins, and we continue to do so. It is precisely for that reason that we must find forgiveness at the foot of the cross and live a life of perpetual repentance.

When I was a kid, my mom gave me piece of profound theological and sociological instruction: “when you point your index finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing back at you.” (By the way, at whom is the thumb pointing?)

I have frequently asked the question, “But where does complicity begin and end? Where or how do we or can we draw a line between when we do and when we do not share complicity in particular sins of a corporation for example?” I have frequently wished that we could draw lines and thereby assuage some guilt, relieve some of the burden. However, I am slowly realizing that I am asking the wrong questions. I am trying to distance myself from any sort of societal culpability. This is probably what many of us want. We want to separate ourselves from those pernicious culprits “over there.” However, (perhaps much to our chagrin) we are woven into the thick fabric of society, and we cannot neatly separate ourselves from other threads that have become noticeably stained. We are connected.

This emphasis is not to evade personal culpability but is to punctuate it and to give it a context.

Previously, I asked the questions about sharing complicity precisely because in practice we separate guilty persons from non-guilty persons, and so I was asking a rather intuitive question.

The righteous one who died for all did precisely what we do not and will not do: he refrained from complicity and thereby accentuated ours. When reading the gospel of Matthew, we may ask, “Who is responsible for the death of Jesus?” It would be easy and quite erroneous to say, “the Jews.” We might then point a finger at the temple regime. We might also point a finger at the crowd, and then we might point a finger at Pilate. But what about those who stood by and did nothing? What about those, like Peter and co, who distanced themselves in order to remain unscathed? It might then be noted that complicity seems to go in all directions.

The good news of forgiveness at the foot of the cross: forgiveness is extended to us even when we are clueless about our complicity.

Don Quixote and the Gospel of Christ

What can possibly be said about that knight errant extraordinaire Don Quixote that has not already been said? He is that great knight who took his bidding from the brilliant books of chivalry. After having cleaned his long-forgotten lance, shield, and metal cap he mounted his steed to seek adventure. Don Quixote is that knight who with great determination sought to right wrongs, correct injustices, and rectify abuses. He also just so happens to have been that mad knight who mistook an inn for a castle and who was subsequently humored by a disgruntled innkeeper. Our magnificent Don Quixote read too many adventure books, which consequently so consumed his mind that it left him totally mad, and thus he rode into the sunset of absurdum charging at windmills with his lance mistaking the windmills for monstrous giants. And I suppose every lunatic needs a follower or two, and hence Sancho, a completely inane donkey-rider, followed Don Quixote into every contrivable misadventure imaginable.

Proclaiming and embodying the gospel of Christ in our culture of pop psychology, preemptive-war, and self-obsession may seem as absurd as charging at windmills with a lance, though we might say that the person who charges at windmills is an intriguing case study.

Jesus looks like Don Quixote to our eyes. We, like the innkeeper, seek merely to appease Jesus. We go along with his fanciful babbling until it proves unprofitable and disruptive. We, like the innkeeper, wish for Jesus to leave us alone as soon as possible, and when he finally leaves, we are relieved to see him leave our peaceful town without further ado.

We seek to ensure safety and stability. Jesus did not make those things a priority for himself nor did he for his followers. It is easy to say the gospel is counter-cultural. However, I am beginning to feel the gospel’s foreignness. I am beginning to feel it in my bones. It seems so foreign to us that we don’t know what to do with it, so we make it into something else that we may continue augmenting our own priorities in our own way and according to our own rationality. We continue talking about “carrying our crosses,” but we make it compatible with our wish for safety, which is far more absurd than charging at windmills with a dilapidated lance.   

I imagine if Jesus were to walk down Wall Street or for that matter “Main Street,” he would appear to us to be a ludicrous dreamer, an absent-minded vagabond who has read Isaiah too many times and who knows nothing of honest pragmatism, for he is an alleged king who thinks victory comes through crucifixion. We wouldn’t vote for him; his health plan is too costly.  We do not want to carry a cross and walk a road that leads to bloody crucifixion. We, like Jesus’ disciples, duck for cover.

After spending several weeks eating, sleeping, and breathing the Gospel of Matthew, it struck me as foreign, foreign from the world we have constructed for ourselves. This feeling was accentuated when I watched the latest Batman movie. We simply do not want a king who is killed by his antagonists; we want a hero who protects us and who survives in the process. We want heroes who will keep us safe. None of us want a murdered king as our king. None of us believe that a war can be won without weapons, for believing that a war can be won without weapons would be like mistaking dangerous giants for harmless windmills.

We say it is “just” to kill rather than be killed. And so we kill our enemies and even celebrate their deaths. We murder for “liberty” and call it “justice.” If a person is a domestic murderer, then that person deserves the death penalty. However, this rationality knows nothing of the gospel of Christ, but we prefer doling out death because it is more conducive to our self-obsessed schedule and budget than the dangerous business of peace and restoration. At the foot of the cross, we divide and conquer instead of seeking forgiveness.

The absurdity of the gospel of Christ remains absurd without the vindication of Christ and those who follow him. It remains absurd without resurrection. We wish to make the cross and safety compatible because we have forgotten the last sentence of the Nicene Creed, the Apostle’s Creed, and the last act of the gospels. We have forgotten (or perhaps disbelieved) resurrection. And so the gospel of Christ remains absurd to our eyes. We then content ourselves with mythologizing Jesus, which is conducive to our attempts to live as long as possible at the expense of others. 

Korean Drama and Jesus

This title makes me chuckle. Last night Esther and I finished watching a Korean love story. First of all I should admit, I was slow in being drawn into the story. I missed most of the first few episodes because it seemed terribly uninteresting. However, somewhere along the line, I found myself transfixed and unequivocally invested in the story.

I would very much like to recap the entire story here. However, that would take a series of blogs, and in that case you might as well just watch the show. Let me suffice it to say: two friends, a young girl and a boy grow up together in meager circumstances in rural Korea. She needs heart surgery, if she has any chance of living. The boy’s father is a scoundrel and steals the money for her surgery. The mother of the girl then searches for the boy’s father in Seoul that she might recover the money for her daughter’s surgery. In the process, the mother is hit by a car and dies. To make matters worse, the boy’s father abandons him. The young boy cares dearly for the young girl, but he doesn’t know what to do because they are penniless. He attempts to steal a lady’s purse, but he is immediately caught. As it turns out, he looks strikingly similar to a wealthy couple’s recently deceased son. The wife is suicidal after losing her son, so the husband tells the young boy that he will pay for the young girl’s surgery if he, the young boy, agrees to become their son. The young boy agrees, but they take him away before he is able to find out if the surgery was a success. They tell him the young girl died during the surgery. However, fifteen years later, he discovers that she didn’t die at all. The story continues with a feeble seed of hope.

I do not want to diminish the magnitude of laying down one’s life for another – “no one demonstrates greater love than this.” Dickens captures this notion well in A Tale of Two Cities. In fact, I imagine that there are many stories that have utilized the notion of dying for the sake of another. However, I think there is something to be said about living a whole life of sacrifice, and I do not mean merely being subservient in rhetoric and disposition. I mean trading in one’s own life and identity that another might live, like the young boy trading in all that he was that the young girl might have a chance at life. For me this was the most striking aspect of the story: that the young boy would give his whole life over to strangers that the young girl might have some hope of life.

Before I go a step further, let it be said that I do not go about baptizing movies and TV shows, and I do not like pretending that this and that movie have biblical analogs (many people have done that with The Lord of the Rings, which to my understanding is in direct conflict with Tolkien).

That said, after finishing the show last night, I found myself naturally wandering into the land of the Gospels. The Son came and dwelt among us as Jesus of Nazareth. I am fully aware of the many Christological heresies that would ensnare me, if I were to draw direct parallels between the young boy in the Korean drama and Jesus. I have no intention of attempting to draw consistent parallels between the Gospels and the Korean drama as a whole. But in a sense, the Son sacrificially traded in his identity that humanity might be drawn into life, perhaps similar to the young boy allowing himself to be essentially kidnapped that the young girl might have the life-saving surgery. When we think of the Son’s sacrifice, we often think of Jesus’ death, but I think we would do well to take heed of Jesus’ earthly life as a whole that we might then be drawn into the Son’s overwhelming and rather incomprehensible life-long sacrifice.

I wonder if this might also shed light on Christian life.

Surprised by Hope: a Review of N.T. Wright’s book

There are innumerable book reviews on the Internet, so forgive me for adding to the mass. I would like merely to highlight a few points in N.T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, which especially struck me as either rather wise or helpful. It should be said also that this particular book is not one of his scholarly works and should be judged accordingly. It seems to be largely pastoral, which I appreciate immensely.

Wright remarks on the rather apparent confusion about Christian hope for the future. We are all going to die, so what is the Christian hope? Christians describe death in all sorts of ways and with wide degrees of reactions. No doubt many Christians consider their hope to be in zipping off to heaven after they die, residing in perpetual bliss for eternity. Wright contends that this belief is due in part to Platonic philosophy infiltrating Christian theology. Furthermore, Wright notes that immaterial immortality was not the early Christians’ hope and that actually early Christians hoped for future resurrection based on Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection adumbrates and is the foundation for the future resurrection of the saints. Physical resurrection is the Christian hope (for as Wright notes in one of his longer works, there is no other kind of resurrection). The Christian hope is not to escape a condemned world but is to resurrect and become part of a redeemed world, a new heaven and a new earth. The future resurrection of the saints is what Wright deems life after life after death. Basically, a loose chronology based on various New Testament texts: people die, people go to be with Christ (life after death), people resurrect (life after life after death). He speaks briefly of hell and arrives to a similar conclusion as C.S. Lewis.

I would suggest that any critique of Wright’s view regarding the physicality and centrality of resurrection should first consider Wright’s longer scholarly work, The Resurrection of the Son of God (a great book by the way!).

New creation began with Jesus’ resurrection, but the present day is riddled with trouble; evil is a reality, but “Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of new life, the fresh grass growing through the concrete of corruption and decay in the old world” (123). The culmination of new creation will be the marriage of heaven and earth (again, the hope is not to ascend into an immaterial heaven but is for a new heaven and a new earth). With this there will be an eradication of evil, and in the present day Christians may work for the kingdom. Wright aptly distinguishes between Christians building a kingdom themselves and God’s reign in which Christians may participate. He subscribes to the latter, and I think rightly so.

Christians may participate in God’s reign, and what Christians do in the present day has implications for the future. What we do today matters a great deal. All we do now God can use for the future in the new heaven and new earth, a future that is not static but is teeming with new projects and possibilities. “Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness…every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk…every act of care and nurture…every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church…all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation God will one day make” (208). As we stand in an aching world and look to a future filled with hope, there is work to be done with Jesus at the helm. Working for justice in the present is a crucial element of participating in God’s reign today and contributing to the future life after life after death.

I have not, of course, done an adequate job of tying together the elements of Wright’s book, nor have I done an adequate job of reviewing all the major points. But perhaps this will suffice as a start. I highly recommend Wright’s book as a desirable and biblically founded alternative to escapist theologies that are so prevalent in today’s churches.

Squiggles on a Page

Historical events are similar to jots on a page. We can look at them. But if we do not know their meaning or significance, then it’s pointless to spend hours looking at them. Historical events are similar to untranslated letters on a page. When a historian writes a history, she translates those events, and with every translation interpretation is implicit. Actually, this seems to happen when any of us experience life. We translate experiences into languages we can understand, and in the process we do a large degree of interpretation. It goes without saying that there can be poor translations, poor interpretations of life. How then might we discern between an excellent and a weak translation? Continual scrutiny, dialogue, and argument within a community: tradition.

It’s often the case regarding history that we want to know what “actually happened.” We say we want snapshots or perhaps videos of particular historical events. However, that’s likely not what we always really need. It’s sometimes contested that the gospels, for example, are filtered events of some conjurers. The chronology is mashed and inconsistent, events are conflicting, and discourses involve an array of variability etc. Thus, we wish to know what “actually happened” regarding Jesus. However, I doubt we would be satisfied if we saw the pictures from what “actually happened,” just as I would be dissatisfied with my confusion if I looked down at some pages of Arabic not knowing what to make of it, not knowing the significance of the seemingly haphazard squiggles. I need more than those seemingly haphazard squiggles. I need to know their significance.

It’s an ironic thing that with the gospels we have what we need – i.e. an explanation of the significance of Jesus, yet we are dissatisfied because we say we actually don’t want the translated letters; we have grown accustom to saying that we want the untranslated letters that we can’t read. Personally, I would prefer to read those Arabic letters translated into a language I can understand; similarly, I would prefer for historical events to be translated by people who are aware of the significance of those events. But again, even if I were to have walked around with Jesus all those many years ago, I likely would not have understood what on earth I was witnessing (perhaps, see Philosophical Fragments).

Interpretation and the proper lenses to interpret historical events are needed. This, at least in part, seems to be the job of tradition, for it is within tradition that we consider those lenses with scrutiny, dialogue, and even argument. It is thereby within tradition that significance is discerned, and it was the traditions that gave shape to the gospels we have today that provide us with the significance of Jesus. Without those traditions, we would be staring cluelessly at squiggles on a page.

Everybody is King!

Human autonomy is a parody of God’s sovereignty.

“I am going to live my life.” This is a common statement that often leads to disappointment or dissatisfaction.

Have churches taken a ride on this leech? Perhaps. Acting as the parasite that it is, it has taken a ride on the church, infiltrating and sucking life out of the church. Has it done so largely unnoticed? Churches even seem to encourage this mentality. “Live your life to the fullest!” I don’t recall when Abraham was called to such a life. I don’t recall when David was called to such a life. And I don’t recall when Jesus called disciples to such a life. Abraham was called to obedience. David was called to obedience – Saul was dispensed for his disobedience. And Jesus calls people to obedience; they do not call him.

We have made crowns by the thousands, even millions, and have crowned ourselves. Like printing our own money, we are killing ourselves with inflation. We have traded in the King for paper crowns from the local Burger King. Yet, we lack to notice that pretending to be our own kings in the back yard does not annul the fact that the King is still the King and we are playing in the King’s backyard.

We parade our autonomy as if it is real and not a mere paper crown. Our declared autonomy makes of us not kings but clowns riding unicycles. We print more crowns and paint our faces all in the spirit of autonomy. After all, “it’s my life.”

Jesus does not call disciples to their best life now. He calls them to the most dangerous life now, which is not their life, albeit it is the best life. He calls them to relinquish autonomy and to pick up crosses in order to form a cruciform community. He calls his family people who obey the will of the Father. He then commissions them to be dependent on the generosity and mercy of others. Paper crowns seem not to be among the options.

I am reminded of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or volume 2. An old judge speaks of faithfulness, commitment, and duty. In the first volume, however, a young man speaks of the need for amusement. Arbitrariness and brief relationships are among the catalysts for amusement lest boredom ensue. With our alleged autonomy, it seems we have become more like the young man who would rather not speak of things such as duty, responsibility, commitment, faithfulness, and surely not obedience. Such things are for people without crowns. But we have crowned ourselves and need not childish notions such as obedience! It comes as little surprise then that following Jesus is something that “I might do for a little while until something else more interesting and spiritually enriching comes around.”

We wish to supplant God, and yet all we seem able to do is to trade God’s sovereignty for paper hats and face paint, pretending that this changes everything.

An Incomplete Reflection for the Church’s Consideration

Changes have taken place in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Many have nodded with approval, while others have been horrified and have leapt overboard. In the following I shall speak as an evangelical who holds the biblical text to be an authoritative text for the church. And I am speaking primarily to evangelicals in this denomination. This is unequivocally an incomplete reflection, for there are many sides to the goings on in the Presbyterian Church on which I shall not touch.

Christians are often hypocrites in many areas. We evangelicals, in particular, have an abysmal track record with tithing, among other things. That needs to change. Before an evangelical opens his or her mouth with any sort of rebuke towards anyone, the evangelical tithing trend needs to change. Currently, it’s embarrassing and shameful. Spirituality is a wisp of air without generosity and self-giving, and yet we evangelicals continue the scandal of wispy spirituality and self-indulgence. In this regard, we evangelicals need to stop mincing doctrinal words and need to add some oomph to our game.

The Christian life is one of perpetual confession and repentance – marriage is teaching me this. Messy situations do not call for escape. They call for grace, mercy, patience, repentance, reconciliation, and cleanup, among other things. We Americans prefer escapism to repentance and reconciliation. In this regard, we evangelicals should try being a little less American.

How many stones were cast in John 8? I suggest, instead of picking up stones, we pick up our crosses. Instead of taking the dust out of the other’s eye, we practice self-examination. Instead of condemnation, we live in faithful obedience striving for righteousness.

Over the years, I have admired most those who continue to do what they believe is right, though everyone around them seems to be adding to the moral cacophony. These sorts of people are analogous to lighthouses. A lighthouse is not needed in the daytime, but at night when the seas rage and threaten life itself, a lighthouse needs to shine as bright as it possibly can. This means not avoiding the darkness and the storms but shining through them and in spite of them.

The Way and the American Way

I am a naïve seminarian who lacks wisdom and experience. However, I have two eyes and a heart, two eyes that see and a heart that feels. I wanted to write this blog before I accrued too much American common sense and ingenuity.

While reflecting before actually writing this blog, I nearly wept thinking about these things. We in America have done the very thing the prophets warned about. We have built temples for ourselves declaring them to be in worship of God (Yahweh). Helping ourselves get away with murder, we have conveniently spiritualized Yahweh’s wishes for justice and peace. Instead of seeking to be a community of tangible justice, we have sought to be a well-ordered corporation with peaceful “souls.” The community of saints has devolved into a pseudo-saintly institution – this sentence is pregnant with sorrow. Jesus’ teachings have been spiritualized, and consequently righteousness is understood as something intangible, something “spiritual.” Since being made intangible, righteousness need not be enacted by the Christian community, for “righteousness is nothing more than what Jesus transfuses to us.” Jesus may have done such a thing, but is not the community to live righteously? And what does this mean? Is it righteous for the Christian community to spend millions of dollars on its temples and to give fifty cents to those in need? Is it righteous for our American dreams to trample the marginalized? This seems more akin to worship of mammon than of Yahweh.

Things must change in American churches, if American churches wish not to slip into irrelevance and hypocrisy, which it seems already to have done. This change will not happen overnight. It will take the extreme effort of many people over a period of time. But change must happen nonetheless. This change must be theological and practical.

American churches must do the truly “spiritual” thing and seek righteousness, living according to the Way. American churches might takes notes from some of the early Christians and some of our contemporary Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. Perhaps, some might say that we have evolved since the early church. To that, I must say that, though the early churches were not free of problems, we seemed to have devolved and shame on us.

American churches must be what the church was called to be, and with a prophetic voice, the church must speak out against the injustices so common in our society, so common that we have grown accustom to them and render them as simply “part of the ways things are.” But we are not called to be a community that walks along the path of the way things are. We are called to be a cruciform community that revolts against the way things are.

Shall we continue to be a corporation that walks down the path of the American way or shall we be a resurrection community that walks up the path of our master, Jesus the righteous?

Artistry and Theology

I write this blog as a novice in almost every sense of the word, as one who is traveling through an M.Div. Nearing the end of my first year of three, it strikes me as quite peculiar that we in the arcane field of theology are not taught artistry. Any artistry we might have been taught is apparently supplanted by priority for truth. But I daresay, is not truth creative? And should we not consequently be taught to articulate truth creatively? Should not the spheres of the theologian and poet collide?

And that brings me to a particular person, who posed a particular question and who received a particular response.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

…

“And who is my neighbor?”

In response, Jesus proceeded to tell a parable. Why is it that Jesus told a parable in response? I don’t know. But I’d wager a guess that perhaps Jesus opted to tell a parable because he did not want to spend the next hundred years writing an arid discourse in response (he allowed for the next two thousand years’ worth of theologians with multiple PhD’s to do that). Of course, I am being facetious, but not entirely.

Theologians ill trained?

And so what have we with these ill trained theologians? Uninteresting dullards preaching from the pulpits to uninterested congregations in the pews. It’s a charade.

Are we to boil down truth to its “essence”? Are we to boil down truth until nothing is left? We are boiling down truth so that it evaporates into thin air in search of someone more interesting. And yet theologians boil down the truth so that it may be rearticulated “in more precise form.” Precise? Perhaps, empty and insipid. I do not contend that theologians have ill gotten goods but ungotten goods!

It thus seems to me that if an M.Div., and just about any theological education for that matter, is to carry any weight, then it must involve more of life. It must involve artistry. It must involve the poetic. Is not creation itself poetic? And if that is the case, then true theology is inherently poetic.

Here are our thoughts, voyagers’ thoughts.

Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by

Them be said,

The sky o’erarches, we feel the undulating deck beneath

Our feet,

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,

The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of

The briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,

The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,

The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,

And this is ocean’s poem.

Will the rocks shout out? They already are.