Ravens

This past Saturday evening, I preached at the PazNaz Saturday evening service. Here’s the page of notes I wrote up as a guide.

Made Clean – July 29, 2012

“The Best Thing and the Worst Thing” – Acts 15:36-16:5; Galatians 2:11-13

Our Context: Those of us who have been in churches a while have almost certainly been hurt by being a part of churches.

When there’s clear sin happening, it makes sense, right? People are intentionally moving away from God’s work so of course there is evil. There’s a famous heretic Marcion who lived in the second century. He has this famous quote, “I’m going to tear your church and make a rent in it forever.” He wanted division because he thought the church was wrong and he was right, and he intentionally sought ways to destroy the church and lead a new group in a new direction.

When someone clearly has the church’s worst as a goal, we know where to stand.

It’s like Moses and Korah.

What if there are differing opinions, however, on what direction the church is to go, conflicting opinions on ministry or how things are to work, resources? That’s where, I think, the most church issues come into play because with those we expose fissures, cracks of faith and commitment to each other.

We might say we trust each other but when disagreements come, we want to be right and if we’re right the other person must be wrong and if their wrong we need to do something about it.

So many church problems come from people who are sure they are serving God coming into disagreement with others who are sure they are serving God—each person thinks they’re right and each person thus thinks the other people must be opposing not only them, but also God. How many denominations do we have because people split off into different factions because of often very minor issues of mission or doctrine?

My story—working in a church, young adults, spiritual gifts, getting people involved.
Their goal, mission, door to door evangelism. They thought it had to be one or the other.

We alienate people when we generalize our own calling.

This isn’t new. READ PASSAGE
Some background: Galatians 2; Acts 13:13

3 characters

Paul – Paul’s mission was the churches and the message. He wanted to build churches. He was a missionary and an evangelist who often got in difficult circumstances, so he needed to know who to trust. Life was unsafe, and he needed safe people around him.

Barnabus – Barnabus’s mission was the people. He wanted to raise up new leaders and invest in people. He did this with Paul, remember, using his own reputation to help Paul transition into a trusted role. John story?

John Mark — John Mark wanted to serve Jesus. But he was immature. He had failed and stumbled. Was there grace? He wasn’t trustworthy, that’s true, but he wanted to be. Help my unbelief, Lord.

God’s work –Did I say three characters, I meant 4. We have to have God’s heart.

Discernment
Personal experience – NewSong—God had put something onto my heart, God had put something on other people’s hearts. How do we know which direction to go?

How do we go forward when others want to go left or right or up or down? That might be forward for them, but not for us. Like the universe, however, God’s work is expanding in all directions.

At the heart of this passage is the reality of the stress and strain of learning how to live as a body—if each of us have been given different gifts and passions and callings—which we have—then we’re going to have different priorities and perspectives and goals. How do we learn how to listen in a way that celebrates this diversity instead of erupting into division?

In this text we have forms of redemption: Barnabas and John Mark go to Cyprus.

Paul takes Silas and later Timothy—two helpers who were much more suitable to minister to Gentiles.

We shouldn’t idealize the early church, because we see the problems there that we still experience. What we should do is trust in God, who works all things together for good because at the end of the day it is his mission, and we’re just part of it. We also need to remember that we’re not the only bearers of God’s mission and our part isn’t everyone’s part.

I like the story of Narnia where Aslan won’t tell other people’s stories—we’re not told everyone’s stories, we’re just told our own and called to join with others not as same people but as diverse people with a shared mission and savior. Rather than causing division, we should celebrate that we have different gifts, different places and ways of influence.

Last evening, I had the opportunity to preach at the Saturday evening service over at PazNaz. This year, the church has been going through the book of Mark and so rather than having a traditional Advent passage, the passage I was given to preach on was Mark 13:14-27.

Do you know this passage? On the surface it appears entirely non-Christmasy. But, I quickly realized that it was absolutely an appropriate, if nontraditional, passage to preach on during this time of year. What follows is my sermon outline notes I used last night. They’re not a script, nor a traditional outline, rather they’re more like thoughts I write out that serve as cues as I move along. If my mind blanks I can look down, but for the most part I just glance at the theme of each paragraph and talk. I’m getting better at it, Amy says.

The service began with Amy leading some songs in worship, and then an advent liturgy. I then talked a little bit about Christmas and the usual thoughts of family, peace, joy, life, hope that come during this season. At that point I read the passage.

Mark 13:14-27
14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

20 “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 23 So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

24 “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

Merry Christmas? Doesn’t exactly fit, does it? But this is a great passage for Christmas. Let me finish the passage:

26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Still doesn’t quite seem a Christmas passage? But it is! Let me explain why. Though just as a bit of warning, means I’m going to be doing a lot of history and a bit of reading. God works in history, after all, and we can’t just take a passage out of its context and think we know what it means. Mark assumes that his readers know the history, because the Jewish people and the early Christians were, if nothing else, people who knew the Scriptures and in the Scriptures they were reminded of the workings of God throughout time. As Christians, we tend to ignore history, thinking that it’s not relevant for our future or our faith. That’s troublesome because that’s one of the remnants of liberal Christianity that found its way into conservative circles.

Back in the day, scholars wanted a faith but didn’t really believe in God’s working, they liked the idea of God but thought all the stories and miracles and such were a bit absurd. Nowadays, we might affirm the stories, but we do so in an ahistorical way. That’s how this passage is often read too. This passage and others have so much intriguing imagery that teachers and preachers like to fill it in with their own thoughts and in doing that provoking panic and fear and isolation, encouraging people to succumb to their worries, to look for things to fret about.

They cause people to be wary of this world, to see it as us against them, a competition over meaning or resources. But that’s where Christmas comes into play. Reading this passage wrongly makes us afraid and wary of this world. But Jesus came into this world, being born in a manger, participating in it. Not with an attitude that everything is okay as it is, because it’s not, but with an attitude of love, offering the hope of salvation, the hope that what is experienced is not in fact the defining reality of this world.

Which reality do we want to participate in? The one that competes and is afraid, constantly worried about signs or disasters? Or the reality that Christ brings, that of true hope, true joy, true peace? That’s the message of this passage. And this passage immerses us in the history of God’s work with his people so that by understanding this work we might have confidence in his work in our lives and his continuing work in the future.

An abomination that causes desolation? What is that? Well, throughout the Bible we have these sorts of phrases and prophecies that, for the readers, served as an allusion of sorts, bringing to mind events of the past and pointing how these events are not just in the past but are models of our lives and the future of this world. We have this image of the abomination that causes desolation? What is this?

Well, it’s like what is sounds like. It’s this world shattering event or moment in which that which defines us, which gives us meaning and direction and identity, somehow utterly defiled. Everything we put stock in, that which we thought was the most important thing, that’s ruined and it leaves us in desolation. Sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, sometimes spiritually.

To understand this issue, we have to go back to the beginning, and by beginning I mean the very first story of humanities interaction with God.

Adam and Eve – the abomination of eating the fruit, desolation in being kicked out the garden. How did that work out? God reached into human history to set things right.

We go on from there, and can talk about Joseph in slavery. Tossed into the well. Abomination that caused his desolation. He did everything right… but everything went wrong. With Potiphar’s wife maybe he could have just adapted to his situation, try to make the best of it. He stood close to God, and desolation followed. Then God worked.

Exodus – the abomination of killing the babies, of slavery made harder, of freedom then starvation and thirst. The abomination of the wilderness, the desolation of the journey.

Abomination passage itself is originally found in Daniel

Daniel (1st Temple): Remember Daniel? Daniel 1:1-6.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.

3 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— 4 young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. 5 The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.

6 Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

Daniel was this guy, in every respect gifted in intelligence and good looks. He had everything going for him. Then everything, every part of his life was stolen, he was taken from his destroyed home, and it is quite likely that he was made into a eunuch. He refused for this desolation to give him identity. He clung to the identity of God, as did his friends, even in the face of persecution and isolation and desolation.

Here’s what he writes about the abomination that causes desolation:

9:25-27:

25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

11:31-35:

31 “His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. 32 With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.

33 “Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. 34 When they fall, they will receive a little help, and many who are not sincere will join them. 35 Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.

12:11-13:

“From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.

13 “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”

Do you know the story of Hanukkah? [Here I summarized, but if I had more time I would have read a passage in Josephus and one from 1 Maccabees -- here's a link that summarizes those]

So, Hannukkah celebrates this restoration of the Temple and the restoration of the Kingdom.

Romans (2nd Temple): The people forgot their devotion and things went bad, so bad the corrupt descendents of Judas got into their own corruption and problems. I won’t go into the details, but basically this all led to Rome taking over in Israel. And that leads to the situation we encounter at the time of Jesus’s birth. We know Herod, yeah, but we don’t know how vicious and mean he was. He did all sorts of terrible things to keep the peace, to keep the peace of Rome that was imposed upon the people. He wasn’t the only one. Up in Galilee, where a Roman governor was in charge there was the story of Sepphoris. [I summarized Rome, Herod, Sepphoris abominations]

Herod himself creates abominations, he rebuilt a majestic Temple, one of the grandest buildings of the time, sure. But then he killed all the boy babies in Bethlehem. Echoes of Pharaoh and Egypt? Sure! The people were living in a reality where others were imposing on them what it meant to live in this world. There was rebellions and disasters, and massive amounts of violence, so much so that it would take weeks and weeks to talk about all the stories of suffering and sacrifice.

And it wasn’t over when Herod died.

What did the readers of Mark think about? Maybe all the things I shared. More immediately, to them, though, they thought of the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Scholars think that Mark was written not long after Jerusalem was destroyed, and that destruction involved its own desolation and abomination. Let me read a little bit about that from a passage written by Josephus, that the early church historian Eusebius quotes.

That was, no doubt, in the minds of the earliest readers of the book of Mark. They knew abominations, they experienced desolations.

So, what was Jesus talking about here? Remember the passage in its context!

Prior to this, the whole book, he’s talking about the kingdom, what it’s like, what the people are like who live in this kingdom.

Don’t get distracted. Don’t give into competing claims. What was Jesus talking about earlier in the chapter? The importance of love, the sacrifice of the widow in giving what she had. These are messages of what it means to live in God’s Kingdom, a way of life that won’t be defined by other attempts to define rule and law and identity in this world. More than this, however, in this passage Jesus is telling us that life is absolutely not going to go fine just because we claim Jesus as our savior. The people of God experience suffering, and this story of suffering is throughout the Bible.

We’re told to expect this. But we’re also told not to obsess about it. There’s the hope that comes from God, and there’s a false hope that comes from people trying to use suffering or evil or problems in order to take advantage of those who want, who need, to hear a good word. The trouble is that so often they then point to hope that isn’t God, and because we’re so desperate for hope we look to those other people to give us wisdom and guidance, who to be for and who to be against.

When we follow those false prophets and false messiahs, we’re no longer following Jesus.

So even if they sound like they’re talking about Jesus, or using Christian words, if they’re pointing to a sort of Kingdom that is different than what Jesus talks about, they’re not of God. If they’re pushing us to be afraid, or to worry, or to get caught up in this sign or that sign or obsess about all the details of Christ’s return, then, according to this passage, they’re not from God.

The message here is that we should not, can not, define our suffering as the true reality. Jesus is telling us not to get distracted by the competing claims or those things which seem to destroy our whole sense of meaning and purpose.

As bad as it can get, and it can and will get very bad, we are to stick to being the sorts of people that live in accordance with God’s Kingdom, people of love, of hope, of life and light, not people of fear and worry and constantly fretting about this event or that supposed sign. God is in charge. God wins.

So, what does this have to do with Christmas?

Another image of possible devastation. Isaiah – Isaiah 7

1 When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

2 Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.

3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field. 4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“‘It will not take place,
it will not happen,
8 for the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is only Rezin.
Within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.
9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
If you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.’”

10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”

12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.”

13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.

We make it about competing kingdoms, one winning is the other losing. We’re tempted to pick sides, to make it about competing over the same piece of the pie — the land, the schools, the whatever.

However, God is not competing with the other kingdoms. He defines reality.

They are suggesting one kind of reality, we are participating in another. This is not other worldly, this is true worldly, God the creator re-creates, he does a new thing. A baby is born. Both sides are liberated.

It’s not that we don’t feel it, giving into a religious soaked denial of our circumstances. No, we’re in the midst of the suffering, we feel the desolation at times. We are rightfully enraged by the abomination.

It is in this experience of suffering that we hear a voice crying in the wilderness. A Son is Born. Christ is with us. God is working. We have true hope.

Isaiah 35
Joy of the Redeemed

1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.

3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Here’s the outline/text of the sermon I preached last night on Mark 11:1-11, 15-19. It served more as a guide than as a script, but it’s full enough that I think it’s worth posting here.

The Book of Mark is about what? The Kingdom.

The Kingdom…. But what kind of kingdom? We are told of the Messiah, but what kind of Messiah is this?

The Messiah is the promised bringer of the promised Kingdom.

But so often instead we’re so intent about finding the Messiah that we want, we miss the Messiah that we need. And coming to terms with the Messiah we need is about more than reading the right books, having the right religious statements. It’s even more than about reading our Bible or doing good works. Because the Pharisees did that, did that better than any one of us.

And the disciples did that too, indeed they spent day and night with Jesus, and you know what, up to now, up to our passage, they missed understanding the Messiah they needed because they were so intent on getting the Messiah they wanted, a Messiah who would make them important and put them in places of honor, and help make Israel important again in the world.

They wanted a restoration of the kingdom like David had enacted, and they thought that the Messiah was going to do exactly that. As the earliest followers of Jesus they thought they were in a good place for all the rewards that come with having networked right and early with the key guy.

They had an answer about the kind of Kingdom they wanted and they had an answer about the kind of Messiah who would bring that Kingdom. We have the same answers. We have a kingdom in mind and we have a Messiah in mind. What kind of kingdom? What kind of Messiah?

The whole book is about answering these questions, so we could survey the whole book, but let’s look at the last 2 chapters — 9 and 10 — before we get into our passage.

We have the transfiguration (9:2-13), what does this say about the Kingdom? It’s real and it is cosmic.

We have the demon possessed boy (9:14-29) (note how this ends in v.29, and keep that verse in mind). Jesus frees this boy from the possession, taking away the barriers that have blocked him from experiencing true freedom.

On the other hand, those who make it more difficult for others to get it, to find freedom, are judged. Be ruthless about what is required, right? Get rid of that which gets in the way and get rid of those who get in the way. If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out, right? Give someone water to drink and you’re giving Christ water. If someone gives you water, helping you on your way, they are giving it to Jesus, because as we progress in this real Kingdom, we are progressing right along with the Messiah who makes it possible.

In Mark 9:30-35, Jesus talks about his death and resurrection, but the disciples don’t get it. They miss the point, they miss this whole core message of their Lord, and then spend the rest of the trip talking about who was the greatest.

What does Jesus say in response? He sits them down and says the least are the greatest. What?! He picks up a child, whose name we aren’t given, leaving him nameless to us. This nameless child becomes the model of the mission of the Messiah.

Chapter 9 ends with a more conceptual teaching as the disciples sort out what this kingdom is all about. They want to control the power, but Jesus says whoever is following the Kingdom is part of it, equal to the rest. There’s no power play in the Kingdom, after all. Those who get it, are part of it.

And get rid of anything that gets in the way of getting it, and living it out. If the salt is filled with dirt, it’s worthless. Don’t let it get ruined. Get your way into the Kingdom, and let go of anything that causes barriers to you or others.

But, again, what kind of Kingdom is this? What kind of Messiah is initiating this Kingdom? How do we recognize it? What should we look for?

Chapter Ten carries us forward in answering these key questions. Verses 10:1-12 is about divorce and marriage. The emphasis here is on maintaining the bond of unity, not forsaking the old for someone new, not trying to trade up for some supposed better model. Be faithful, that’s part of the Kingdom, we learn. And be faithful to each other, because in a marriage it’s not about one person carrying the burden while the other gets to do whatever he or she wants. Remember what Jesus said about causing someone to trip? Don’t trip your partner by pushing them down or away.

Verses 13-16 are about children again. The least among them, they’re excluded. Jesus says to include these least, because that is what the kingdom is like. It belongs to the least of these, to children and to people whose humility and inclusion is like children. It belongs to the powerless, the excluded. Yeah, that’s a strange Kingdom. But that’s the Kingdom that Jesus tells us about.

That’s not the Kingdom the rich young ruler wanted or expected. We read about his story in the next verses. Jesus told him what was necessary. This young man didn’t want that Kingdom or this Messiah, so he walked away. He wanted the Kingdom he wanted according to his own definitions. Jesus said, “go and sell what you have.” The young man just went.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks. Which is another way of asking “Who do you say that I am?”

With the beginning of chapter 11, Jesus is still asking this question, but more importantly he is also giving us answers. What do you want me to do for you? The people want a triumphant king.

Who do you say that I am? The Messiah, they say, a religious and political leader.

Passage—Read 11:1-15

A bit on Triumphant Entries, Caesar, Alexander, Titus

Jesus showed that he is the Messiah, then he shows what kind of Messiah he is, what kind of Kingdom is declaring.

Some details worth noting.

Followers were not random people. These were people who already believed.

Colt – a gesture of his claim to the throne of Israel. Horses tended to be foreign and exotic. The donkey meant he wouldn’t walk, he would ride. Not as a foreign power copying foreign trends, but as a Jewish King with Jewish habits. The colt, some think, ensures that it had not been ridden before, so Jesus isn’t stepping into anyone’s shoes or following anyone’s pattern. He’s a new King, making his way into the city fresh. Want some confirmation of this? Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Clothes being laid before him and on the donkey – 2 kings 9:13

They quickly took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”

Branches – 2 Maccabees 10:1-8

Judas Maccabeus and his followers, under the leadership of the Lord, recaptured the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. They tore down the altars which foreigners had set up in the marketplace and destroyed the other places of worship that had been built. They purified the Temple and built a new altar. Then, with new fire started by striking flint, they offered sacrifice for the first time in two years, burned incense, lighted the lamps, and set out the sacred loaves.

After they had done all this, they lay face down on the ground and prayed that the Lord would never again let such disasters strike them. They begged him to be merciful when he punished them for future sins and not hand them over any more to barbaric, pagan Gentiles. They rededicated the Temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev, the same day of the same month on which the Temple had been desecrated by the Gentiles.6 The happy celebration lasted eight days, like the Festival of Shelters, and the people remembered how only a short time before, they had spent the Festival of Shelters wandering like wild animals in the mountains and living in caves.But now, carrying green palm branches and sticks decorated with ivy, they paraded around, singing grateful praises to him who had brought about the purification of his own Temple.

Hosanna: means “God save us”
Psalm 118:19-29

Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD
through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.

22 The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
23 the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 The LORD has done it this very day;
let us rejoice today and be glad.

25 LORD, save us!
LORD, grant us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you.
27 The LORD is God,
and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar.

God save us from what? God save us for what? These are key questions.

This wasn’t an expression of humility by Jesus. This was him saying that he had the answers and authority. Jesus embracing, setting this up, being surrounded by his followers was a significantly bold statement of who he was. Jesus is declaring himself to be King, to be Messiah. Not a Roman King. Not a Greek King. A Jewish King following very clear Jewish prophecies about who he was as King.

Jesus then went to the Temple, because at the end of a triumphant entry one gets a triumphant welcome at the place of triumphant power. But it was late, Jesus looked around at the Temple, and the Temple was not ready for him. The Temple was not ready to embrace the kind of Messiah he was nor the kind of Kingdom he was bringing. The Temple, up to the time of Jesus the most visible symbol of God and his reign on earth was expressing a different kind of authority. And apparently he did not like what he saw. So he left, but he came back the next day.

And when he came back the next day, we learn what this Messiah of this Kingdom, thought of the Kingdom as it was being expressed in the Temple.
Read 11:15-19

15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

18 The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

19 When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

Jesus has two aspects in his ministry that we see. He confronts established powers and he includes the excluded, liberating the latter from being oppressed and liberating the former from oppressing.

That’s the kind of Messiah he is. This present passage is a case of him confronting the powers, saying that the established power structures in the Temple are getting in the way of the purpose that God intends.

Note that while we may think of this in terms of being against consumerism, buying and selling, it really isn’t that. The buying and sacrificing of animals is in the Law, in the OT. (Lev 5:7; 12:6-8) People were to bring a lamb or sheep, the poor could bring a dove or pigeon. So if Jesus didn’t come to overturn the Law but fulfill it, what’s this about?

The actions of Jesus go deeper than this, and are attacking the power structures that gain and maintain their power through the use and misuse of religious power, choosing who is in and who is out, who succeeds and who fails. It is a prophetic protest against a broader kind of corruption, one that is declaring its own particular kind of Kingdom, and thus declaring a particular kind of salvation, one that enables Temple leaders to be powerful and wealthy. It’s not the Temple salesmen Jesus is after, it is the Temple power structure, and thus the religious aristocracy. He’s undermining the power of the religious leaders by both attacking a core area of their concern and by focusing the Temple on an area they do not control, that of prayer.

Remember the passage from Maccabees, about their cleaning the Temple from impurities and idolatry. Remember that when we think of what Jesus did. He’s saying to the Temple, you’re getting it wrong and I’m going to clean you out.

He quotes Scripture while doing so. Let me read those phrases in their context.
Isaiah 56:7-8

These [the outsiders] I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”
8 The Sovereign LORD declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”

And Jeremiah 7:8-11

But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.

The Kingdom is not about transaction, it is about freedom. But, the starting point of freedom does not begin with us getting what we want and doing whatever we want. The starting point of freedom begins with us being freed, first of all, from ourselves, from our attempts to dominate, to compete, to compartmentalize our spiritual and social lives in a nicely wrapped transaction approach to life.

We too often make transaction the substance of our identity: do this, get that. We want a Messiah that fits into this model. Life makes sense to us when he does.

Jesus pushes back against that. Gouge out the eye, cut off the hand, turn over the tables.

And those of us who are claiming this Messiah as our Messiah and this Kingdom as our Kingdom, sometimes experience Jesus as the Messiah who overturns the tables in our own life. Because the Temple, this Temple [point to self], is now the Temple of the Holy Spirit, in us, and we are not to be part of the transactional, power seeking, dominating Kingdom. This house [point to chest], this house [point around to others and repeat], is to be a house of prayer. Are we seeking power and dominance and influence? Do we operate with the assumption of transaction to get what we want? Or do we humble ourselves and listen and follow the Spirit?

Are we trying to assert a different Messiah of a different kind of Kingdom? Sometimes, like with the temple, we may even look very religious and good.

Or are we people of humility and people of prayer who will let go of anything that binds or confuses or prevents us from seeing Jesus as he reveals himself to be? Throwing out the spirits of the world, those false ways of trying to secure meaning or purpose or identity, like with the demon-possessed boy, are driving out through prayer. That’s why the Temple, [point to self] temple, has to be a house of prayer.

When I was at Wheaton, I got my tables overturned. It’s a much longer story, but basically comes down to the fact that life was really falling apart for me in most every way. I became pretty severely depressed my junior year and found light by discovering some deeper truths in Scripture, church history. I really started readding Wesley, fasting, praying, studying at a good college. I thought I was on my way, thinking I needed to sharpen my spiritual life? But the more I did the more went wrong. Why I asked, and I didn’t get it. Because even though I said I was for Christ and His Kingdom, in my heart, in my deepest self, what I wanted was answers to my frustrations, dating, money, success. I was, basically, trying to make a transaction with God. And I got my tables overturned. I had a crisis of faith for a long time because I thought I was doing everything right but everything kept getting worse and worse. Only now I realize that I had a crisis of faith because my faith wasn’t in the Messiah who was and is, but the Messiah who I thought I wanted.

Jesus overturned my tables so that I could realized the Messiah I needed, and become the person, finally, he created me to be. This didn’t just happen at Wheaton. This happened for most of the ten years after Wheaton. I was a mixed bag, doing and thinking a lot of right ways, but mixing in far too much transactional theology. Not intentionally, but it was there. I thought if I did the right things I would get the right things. But I did so much of what was right, but everything kept going wrong. I realize now that much of this was Jesus overturning my tables. I was mixed, because it wasn’t that I was malicious or deceptive. All along I would have said I want Christ to be all and all in me. But, underlying those statements were some wrong assumptions. I had a crisis of faith because my faith was in the wrong kind of Messiah.

This isn’t to say, not at all, that all our problems are caused by Jesus trying to put us right, of overturning the tables. That’s the brilliance of these various passages put together. Sometimes we are sick and need to be healed, sometimes we are being attacked by evil and need to be freed from that, sometimes we are thirsty and need a glass of water, sometimes we are among the excluded, like the little children, and need to be included. The Kingdom is about real freedom, and freedom for some, for so many, means being encouraged and empowered and renewed for this participation.

But others, and the disciples and the religious leaders and the Temple patterns are a model of this, are arguing who is the greatest, and maneuvering for positions of power or going through transactions to trade their wealth or influence for more power. These are the sorts of people who get their tables overturned. Not because the tables are themselves inherently wrong, but because they are in the way of understanding the truth of the Kingdom for what it is. Those people, so many of us, get our tables overturned precisely because we’re trying to do what we think are the right things, in all the right ways, to get noticed and get involved, but in doing so we’re pursuing—often unconsciously—the wrong Messiah and thus the wrong Kingdom.

Sometimes we are in need of both healing and getting our tables overturned.

We like to think of ourselves as the people along the street waving our branches at the Messiah, but so many of us, and I include myself in this, are also the people in the Temple, selling our wares, trying out our sacrifices.

And to us Jesus says, “Stop. I want you, not your performance. I want you, not your transactions. I want you to pray, to listen, to be transformed. I want you to see, see the Messiah for who he is and see the Kingdom for what it is.”

One way or another we will see the Kingdom for what it is, if we are blind in our eyes, Jesus will heal us.

If we are blind in our understanding, Jesus will teach us. If we are blind in our actions, Jesus will stop us and point us the right direction, the direction of real freedom.

If we are seeking the Kingdom, truly open to the Messiah for who he is, we might be healed from our suffering or we might get our tables overturned.

It’s the same work of the same Messiah for the same purpose, to lead us all, however and wherever we’re coming from, into the presence of the King, to be the kind of people who really get, who really live out, this reality of the Kingdom in ways that help others live it out. We are freed and in this freedom we can help others find freedom in Christ.

Who asks, “What do you want me to do for you? Who do you say that I am? We answer this in our actions, with our whole life. Jesus shows us his answer. Are we ready to let go and serve this kind of Messiah? In this kind of Kingdom?

Who do you say Jesus is? What do you want of him?

Be careful, because Jesus will answer you. Because he is the Messiah.

And he may lift you up or he may turn over your tables.

Either way, keep holding on because Christ and his Kingdom is the way of peace and hope and life.

Last night I had the privilege of teaching on the topic of the spiritual discipline of confession. I’m slowly making my transition from depending on a complete written out manuscript (such an academic thing to do) to speaking more freely. I’m currently somewhere in the middle of this process, so I have a kind of expanded outline that I didn’t read from, but which did help me stay on track, and gave me something to look at when my mind blanked a little bit. In case you’re interested in what I think about confession, here’s that expanded outline, with some parts filled out for this post.

Intro to Confession: The discipline we don’t want to brag about. We honor the people who are great at prayer, we respect those who fast, we want to be people who serve more, or study better. So many of the spiritual disciplines are habits we respect in others and might feel proud about as we do them. Not confession. Someone who confesses a lot sounds a bit suspect, right?

Growing up in the church, confession wasn’t really at all a part of my experiences. Almost just the opposite. People didn’t confess their sins, they hid them. They weren’t open about their weaknesses, they promoted their strengths. Everyone has walls up, staying hidden, showing only their best, most holy-like, self. Which creates, I think, a culture of competitiveness and secrecy, two immensely damaging traits for any community.

When I initially thought about the topic of confession a few images immediately sprang to mind.

Images of Confession:

A. Religious 1: Catholic, confessional and priest, solved by acts of penance
B. Religious 2: Martin Luther, couldn’t confess enough. Penance wasn’t enough. This sort of penance goes to a quality of religious guilt before God. We confess so that we let go of the burden.
C. Legal: Detective Show interrogation
Courtroom drama, Matlock or Perry Mason. Confess guilt to hope for mercy or lesser sentence.

Those didn’t feel all that scriptural, to be honest, so I thought it would be good to think about confession in Scripture. And King David immediately sprang to mind.

D. The confession of David: Psalm 51

David was a great sinner and David was a great confessor of his sins. It’s the second part that is a big part of why God continued to bless him and his family. Saul, after all, wasn’t nearly as big of a sinner, but he would refuse to confess. Remember 1 Samuel 15:17-26?

A bit on Sin and Holiness

When we talk about confession as a discipline, we are by nature talking about sin. What is sin? That’s a much bigger topic but basically it involves going against God’s call in our life. We tend to think of sin in terms of do’s and don’ts, in terms of rules, but sin is much more than that. Sin isn’t as much violating a rule as much as it is resisting God. We are going against who God calls us to be and oftentimes in doing that we are resisting his work or his goodness or trying to make our way in this world without him. The template for sin is that original sin in the Garden. Adam and Eve ate the fruit that God told them not to eat, they did so because they were tempted by the serpent to get wisdom without God, to get this freedom to live as they wanted to live without having to depend on God. But, there’s no life without God. God is the giver and sustainer of life, and so sin, in its essence is us fighting against life itself, causing chaos or frustration or disharmony. No wonder sin is tied to death.

What is holiness? Holiness is walking in a way that’s in tune with God, with his harmony and purposes. It’s not equivalent to following the rules, it is equivalent with us following God however and whenever he leads. That’s why rules are sometimes bad indicators, as they may or may not match up with what God is actually calling us to do. Think about the Pharisees, for instance, who had all sorts of rules and laws, but Jesus saw much of these as a hindrance to real holiness.

And so confession is this way of acknowledging how we’ve left God’s path, in big and small ways, not so that we can fix it ourselves or beat ourselves up over it, but mostly so that we acknowledge that we are indeed off the path, once more, and need God’s grace in helping us get back on it. It’s when we’re off God’s path and don’t know it, or don’t admit it that we get into trouble.

Which makes me think of the story of the pharisee and tax collector in Luke 18:9-14

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Confession is a way of humility for us, leading us away from assuming our attempts at holiness are really sufficient.

Which makes a lot of sense before we know Christ, right? When we are lost in our sins, and need a clear savior, confessing our sins and believing in the salvation that only comes through faith in the Risen Lord is so apparent.

These fits those confessions I mentioned before, for the most part. Jesus paid the penance, something Luther learned so clearly.

Confessing our sins is the beginning of the Christian life. But what about as a continued discipline? If sins are forgiven by Christ, what is the role of continued confession?

E. One more image: Doctor: Medical confession. Tell me your symptoms.

We don’t think of confession as being something that happens when we go to the doctor, but that’s precisely what happens. We tell the doctor everything. We tell the doctor all our symptoms, all the ways our body isn’t quite working right. We’re probably never more open than when we’re in a doctor’s office. Why? So he can say that our symptoms don’t matter anymore, that we can feel good about ourselves because we told him our bodily failings? No, we confess all our symptoms because we want to be healed from them, and confessing everything is how the doctor knows what steps to take next. We confess because we want healing.

Confession of sin as a continued discipline isn’t equivalent to us confessing a crime and getting a reduced penalty, or penance, or getting our guilt taken away. We rightly continue to confess that by believing Jesus our sins are already forgiven.

Confession of sin as a continued discipline is much more like confessing symptoms to a doctor. Sitting in a doctor’s office is by its very nature humbling, not to mention all the poking and prodding and such that might take place.

And it’s certainly not about feeling guilty, even if sometimes we have contributed to particular health problems. We confess our symptoms to our doctors because we need help getting better, and only by confessing our symptoms does the doctor understand what might be wrong and what might be the cure.

Now, this isn’t to say that God waits for us to confess in order to find out we did something wrong. It’s like after Cain killed Abel, God asked Cain to confess, but knew exactly what Cain did. Confession is our way of being open about the symptoms God already knows about. And by being open to our symptoms we become open about addressing them.

And can I say this is one of the areas in which I’m so glad to be in a tradition that believes in, and indeed pursues, sanctification, a reality in which we know that God is calling us to be more, be holy, be more who we were created to be, and indeed empowers us to make steps towards this every day of our life.

And so confession is a discipline which is particularly suited for those of us in the holiness tradition. We confess our symptoms that are our sins, so that we become more aware of where we are still incomplete and in need of further growth.

James 5:16: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

Note the wording at the end, it’s not about forgiveness like we are confessing a crime. It is about finding healing, because we are, at our core, sick and sins are our symptoms. So, there’s no place for posing or trying to put on a show of holiness and moral health, that delays the healing we truly need.

Like Jesus said to the blind man, “Do you want to be healed?”

You know this passage: John 5:1-6

1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

Do we want to be healed from our sins? Do we really? Or do we want to hold onto them, find our identity in them, letting them define us? Or do we actually want to get well?

If we want to be holy, truly holy, we confess our sins so that we may find healing. Do we want to get well? Getting well means being vulnerable about where and how we are broken.

This is why confession was at the core of Wesley’s own pattern for disciplines in the Methodist Bands. In 1738 or so, he wrote up some rules for the Methodist ‘bands’, something we now would call small groups. At the end he writes,

“Any of the preceding questions may be asked as often as occasion others; the four following at every meeting.

1. What known sins have you committed since our last meeting.

2. What temptations have you met with.

3. How were you delivered.

4. What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not.

He knew that confessing sins was a starting point to being open to others, understanding ourselves, and relating rightly to God.

Sin as symptoms: As we confess our sins, we don’t only look at the sins themselves. We are pushed by ourselves, by the Spirit, or by others to go deeper and see what our sins are illustrating in our own life. For instance, I realized that my own sins were so often tied to a loss of faith. Confronting my wrong attitudes or actions was something I need to do in my life, but along the way I confront the deeper issue of faith by growing in my participation with God in various ways. Confession becomes a tool for me to examine my present state so that I can see my tendencies and ways I try to maneuver away from God.

Confession is also something that confronts me as I interact with others. That’s what is so brilliant about the confession aspect in the Lord’s prayer. We all know it, right? Forgive my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.
“‘Father,
hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’”

I confess to God my sins while at the same time opening myself up to those who confess to me, with me. How can I be stay closed off to them without incurring the wrath of God? I can’t.

So confession has these three aspects.
Confession Before God: humility, opening ourselves up to listening to the Spirit, to being restored by God.

Confession Before Ourselves: Admitting our weaknesses helps us have a right perspective about our place in this world, both our strengths and our weaknesses, we find healing when we acknowledge our sicknesses.

Confession Before Others: by confessing to others we open ourselves up to honest interaction in which there is no place for posing or intimidation. Holiness is not about looking like we are better than others, that’s the image of the Pharisee and the publican. Holiness is being wholly healed so that we are renewed in how we live our own lives and how we love others. We give them space to find healing for their faults and find a shared unity in seeking together healing from God that helps transforms us individuality and as a community.

I want to close with one final image. This one isn’t an analogy but something I experienced.
Confession Image: Wheaton Confession.

Confession is vulnerable, maybe the most vulnerable discipline, but necessary.

Psalm 139:23-24:

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Okay, I know. Way, way too academicy recently. So, here’s where I take all that preparatory stuff and finally–finally–get to the point.

Singleness is not a higher calling than marriage. That’s not really a dramatic thing to say anymore. There’s very few people who celebrate that supposed “gift of singleness” after all.

At the same time, and what needs to be said a whole lot more, is that marriage is not a higher calling than singleness.

Neither is better. However, both can be worse. They’re equal callings but they’re different callings. Callings is a terribly religious/Christianese sort of word, isn’t it? I’m not going to use that anymore.

Marriage and singleness each offer their own expression of identity. They are about who we are as individuals and who we are among others and who we are before and with God.

Both suffer if we make either way all about us. If I make marriage all about satisfying my own interests and needs, I’m in trouble with God first of all. If I make singleness all about satisfying my own needs and interests, I’m in trouble with God first of all. We’re not allowed to be selfish either in marriage or in singleness.

This is where these states of calling are the same.

Here’s where they are different:

If you’re married, your identity with God is bound up in your contribution to the life of your spouse, and your family.

If you’re single, your identity with God is bound up in your contribution to others.

This is a tricky bit. Because I’m not saying your identity comes from your spouse, or that your identity comes from others. Rather, our identity can only be grounded in God. But, our identity with God includes contributing to the lives of others. Love God, love your neighbor, thems the rules.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that married people shouldn’t pay attention to others. I am saying, however, that if they pay attention to others more than or in exclusion to their spouse and family, they’re sinning. They’re not right with God.

That’s what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 7.

If you feel your calling is to serve others more broadly, don’t get married. If you can’t focus on others, and spend all your life trying to get married, just get married. Because if you’re single and you’re spending your energy and efforts to find a spouse, and pouring yourself wholly or most fully into the life of a single other person, then you’re not right with God.

So, if you want to be married, great! There’s a way of life God has for us in this path. Your primary contribution is to the emotional and spiritual well-being of this other person. This doesn’t mean you’re to be co-dependent, finding your identity in this other. It means that you’re to help this other person most fully find their identity in and with God, and that person is to help you most fully find your identity in and with God.

If you are single, great! That means you can devote yourself to contributing to the lives of others, free from having to pay attention to the needs of one particular other. Your time is your own, and you are free to go and do all sorts of tasks in all sorts of places. Like Paul did. And because that was his calling (to evangelize and serve others) he saw his state of singleness as a gift. The gift, after all, isn’t being alone, it’s being able to contribute in all kinds of ways to all sorts of people. A single person hsa the gift of time and space, able to use their time for others, and able to spend their time in other places.

Unfortunately for so much of the Protestant churches, and especially in Evangelicalism, these two paths got mixed up. And all sorts of hell, literally, breaks loose.

More on that in the next post, including examples of people who have done each right and examples of people who have done it wrong.

Here’s a summary of what I’ve tried to say so far, and if I didn’t say it, here’s what is at the root of what I am planning to say:

• Sin is about identity, not about the law or rules.

• Christian conversations about singleness and marriage have tended to emphasize the role and place of sex, with a longtime assumption that the body is lesser or even evil defining what theology has said about these topics.

• Singleness was seen as a higher calling, when the body is seen as lesser or evil. Because a single person is not, presumably, caving into their physical weaknesses and is pursuing a supposedly higher calling.

• With the Protestant reformation, all things Catholic were opposed, and this included monasticism. So, marriage was seen as a higher calling, almost from the very beginning, because it contrasted with the Catholic position. This did not necessarily, however, bring with it any new or profound reflections on the role of marriage. Being married was enough of a statement it seems.

• This means that while Protestants certainly emphasize the place of marriage, they keep up the tradition of not having a lot of depth to what it means to Christian spirituality to be married.

• Having rejected the spiritual priority of singleness in the Catholic Church, Protestants have, as far as I can tell, absolutely no theology about the role of singleness. It’s not quite a sin, but to be single is, in essence, to be lesser. Something singles know even if they’re not explicitly told this. That’s why the goal of so many singles, and singles groups, is to find someone to marry.

• The role of theology is to reflect on the practices and on the received teachings in order to find a more coherent understanding of God’s call in our life and to learn how to integrate this call into our lives.

• In my mind, on the topic of singleness and marriage, theology has almost entirely failed at the above task. There is, really, no coherent theology about marriage and singleness, that I feel reflects what we are supposed to think about this topic. It’s not coherent.

• Because it’s not coherent, when we try to apply fixes to perceived problems of marriage, singleness, or sex, we run into a huge problem. We only see the symptoms of the deeper problem, but have nothing to really address the underlying issues. When we only see the symptoms, we almost always revert to a very law based position. Marry because its right and God’s plan. Singleness is a curse, a social barrenness which is silently judged. Sex is only allowed in marriage. Thems are the rules.

• The trouble with the law is that the law has limitations. It either runs out of things to say when new challenges arise. Or, it tries to say too much when new challenges arise. The best, Biblical, example is in the Gospels, where Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath because he healed someone. They built a hedge around the Law, and made all sorts of added rules about what is and what is not specifically allowed within the stated Law. Jesus disputed them. He told them that they didn’t get the underlying goal of the Law, they just cared about the rules. Jesus was right.

• Marriage was discounted by the Catholic Church, and not allowed to clergy, because it was seen as a lesser state, essentially if not explicitly. The emphasis here is on the sin of the body, the weakness that the flesh demands, something that truly spiritual people are able to overcome. This is wrong.

• Singleness is discounted in the Protestant Church because it is understood as a lesser state of life–following society’s embrace of status as an indicator of reality. This attitude of prioritizing marriage is, in essence, at the root of consumerism in the church. Don’t let anyone fool you. There’s all kinds of signs that are assumed to be indicators that God loves you more and that having more, doing more, of these things, means you’re more in tune with God. Being married is high on this list. Single people are also suspect because it is assumed they are much more susceptible to sinning–especially sexual sins. The temptations of the flesh are once again a defining part of the theology on marriage.

• Sin isn’t about the law. That’s missing the point. Marriage and singleness are not issues of sin or holiness. That’s also missing the point. Instead, the Biblical teachings on singleness in the passage from Paul I quoted below, makes singleness and marriage an issue of calling and priorities.

• In other words, it’s all about identity. It’s finding our identity in ways and thoughts and perspectives that are not grounded in God’s call for our lives. Sin is that which is not God. Sin is an expression of finding meaning in that which is not God. Sin is, in other words, misplaced identity.

• What is our identity in God? That’s a huge question, but one that does have a distinction when it comes to marriage and singleness.

• What are the other ways we can establish our identity? We can seek to establish our identity through violence, trying to dominate others forcefully. We can try to establish our identity sexually, by absorbing the identity of others into ourselves or by giving ourselves over to the identity of others. We can find our identity through possessions, money being a tool to give us meaning.

  We can try to establish our identity through food, or drink, or accomplishments, or even through depression or lack. If we use any of these to give us meaning and identity, we fall into sin. Married or not, rich or poor, whatever we are, if these things serve as the basis of our identity, we’re outside the calling of God.

So, what should Christian theology think about marriage or singleness and all the other associated issues? What could serve as the basis of a coherent theology of sexuality, singleness, marriage? I think 1 Corinthians 7 is a good place to start, so I’ll be talking more about that in the next post, and finally–finally!–getting to what I’ve been hoping to say all along.

I’m still thinking about that woman at the well. I feel bad we don’t know her name. Because it’d be a lot easier to gossip about how bad her past was if we knew her name. We could join in with all the other supposed moral standouts of the city in besmirching her reputation, all so that we could be besmirched along with her. But then I think, maybe her name just was not the point of the story. Just like a lot of the things that are emphasized every time we hear this story.

Why was she at the well at the sixth hour? When was, exactly, the sixth hour anyhow? We should get out books and ask experts to help us with that. Then, what was the cultural situation when women usually went to get water at the well? A whole sociological discussion could be developed that helps us to better understand the context in which this woman was at the well.

But this leads us to ask about how the Samaritans and Jews interacted (answer: poorly), and then what’s up with this question about the Samaritans worshiping on “this” mountain while the Jews worshiped in Jerusalem. There’s lots of questions in this text needing answers in order to most fully get at the root of it all!

Only, there’s not really. The point of this narrative can get so easily lost in the midst of a clamor to understand it more fully. And other important aspects can also get lost in the midst of trying to wrestle with issues the passage doesn’t seem to worry about.

I think we’re a lot like this Samaritan woman at the well, not that we all have terrible pasts which have left us outsiders, but that we like to bring up questions that help us miss the point of what Jesus was doing.

Jesus answers the woman’s questions by basically not answering the woman’s questions. I don’t think he is particularly interested in answering a lot of our questions either. Which is irritating. Indeed, I think a big part of how churches have been set up throughout history, and how theology has developed, has been basically about avoiding being confronted by the fact most of us are really annoyed by Jesus and his lack of answering our questions clearly. God has annoyed his people for generations upon generations, and we all don’t want admit we’re annoyed but instead make ourselves a golden calf that can become a much more agreeable to our sensibilities about what a God should be and how we should interact with it.

I think the point of the passage is pretty clear, though. Jesus is dodging the questions we want answered, going to the heart of the matter by saying how he knows who the woman really is, and then saying that living water isn’t about the religious arguments people like to set up, but about worshiping God in Spirit and truth. That’s a bit of a tricky phrase, to be sure, which is why the lady asked, “Well, the Messiah is coming, and he’ll answer my question.” Only Jesus replied, “I’m he.” “Then why don’t you answer my question?!” the woman probably thought.

Jesus kept the subject where it needed to be. The woman wasn’t allowed to distract herself and then was left with what Jesus did in fact say. She put down her jar and told her whole village.

Wait a second. Now this is an interesting bit. She went and told those in her town about Jesus.

The scandal here isn’t that she’s a scandalous woman. The real scandal is that she’s a woman. That’s what the disciples were surprised about. Jesus was talking to her. What is surprising to so many, so surprising they won’t bring it up, is that this woman becomes one of the very earliest Christian preachers.

Good thing she didn’t wait to ask questions later on and good thing she didn’t keep quiet. Jesus interacted with her, and she was given the privilege of being one of the very earliest evangelists.

This made me curious to see who came before her in the Gospel of John. We have John the Baptist, who started his career as a prenatal Pentecostal, leaping in the presence of Christ. The disciples are mentioned, but they’re only followers by chapter four. In Chapter two, we have Mary telling the master of the feast to do whatever Jesus asks. Well, that’s kind of like evangelism. So, John and Mary, then comes the nameless woman at the well. Of the three preachers so far in the Gospel of John, two are women and one is a man. This woman at the well, in fact, isn’t just a preacher but a revivalist, leading a whole town to Jesus. Interesting.

That’s not the point of the story either, but it is something I haven’t heard discussed.

I also noticed that not once in this story of the woman at the well did Jesus mention hell.

Jesus avoided the topic of hell in a key moment of evangelizing and then he ordained a woman to be a preacher. That sort of stuff would get you kicked out of a lot of churches these days.

Farewell, Jesus, they might even say to him. It seems Jesus just wasn’t a very good Christian. He just wouldn’t answer questions plainly and he just didn’t have a lot of patience for the golden calves that everyone insisted were the very identity of God, which here and in our era are the seemingly key questions that define a person as being in or out, good or bad, on the same or on a different team.

Being God, though, I guess he probably knew what he was up to.

This week there is a conversation going on about the idea of a “Big-Tent Christianity”. I’ve decided to add my two or three cents not because I have some fully formed thoughts or have some kind of overarching motive.

More because this really is something I think about a lot and something I think that may be a defining topic in contemporary Christianity. I’ve not yet read any other contributions and so I’m coming into this with only my own musings.

I don’t have a polished essay nor a even a settled understanding. I’m not ready to throw oils or watercolors onto the canvas. I’m not ready to prepare the plaster for some grand theological or ecclesial fresco that others can gaze upon.

I’m still at the point of sketching. I’m exploring shapes and boundaries and colors and themes. And that’s what this post is going to be. Sketches of my thoughts on the theme of Big Tent Christianity.

What is a big tent Christianity?

My basic understanding is that a “big tent Christianity” gives space for wide theological borders, an inclusive ecclesiology that not only allows for disagreements, but expects and values the expanded perspective that disagreements can bring. Not that disagreements are at the center of this tent. Rather, a big tent Christianity to be really Christian has to have Christ at the center, and with this being the center our focus becomes less on our distinctions and disagreements and more on our hope we share in Christ.

I support this reality not because it is necessarily the case that I think everyone is equally close to the fullness of Christ in their thought or their life, nor because I think that anything goes in the church, or theology.

Even a big tent has boundaries, or it’s not a tent at all.

But, a big tent has space in it for all kinds of people, with all kinds of priorities, from all kinds of places.

My place in the tent.

I come at this from the perspective of a theology PhD student, with a strong passion for contributing to a more interactive relationship between the church and the academy. I think theology matters, and I think experience matters, and I think a deep spirituality matters, and I think history matters. So, I have lots of opinions on lots of topics, and no doubt I think there are a lot of people in the church and in theology who are wrong on lots of issues.

Indeed, I realize that the concept of a big tent Christianity is one that seems to be especially represented by those who would call themselves “progressive” theologians. For those not in the know, this might be considered somewhat similar to the old term “liberal”, though there are distinctions in our contemporary age that make the old “liberal” and “conservative” labels no longer helpful and certainly no longer interesting.

I am not a progressive, either in politics or in theology. At least not how that word is commonly used. I come from a family of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, and in many ways I continue to embrace the core values of these traditions. I graduated from Wheaton College, and I am pretty sure I could easily, and with integrity, still sign their statement of faith. My quibbles with such ideas like inerrancy vs. infallibility have very little to do with how much I value the authority of the Bible, and are more to do with how I see the doctrine of inerrancy almost always abused to imply that particular Biblical/Theological opinions are themselves inerrant. A particular leader or thinker is seen as the infallible, inerrant interpreter. And this occurs as much in conservative Protestant churches as it does, more officially, in the Catholic church.

My understanding of the doctrine of the church is probably the most progressive aspect of my theology, but it comes out of my very serious commitment to Scripture rather than any spirit of this age. So, even in the ways I am radical, I am radical for very conservative reasons. I’ve said to people in the past that I’m more Fundamentalist than most Fundamentalists, because I am willing to go the direction I see Scripture and the Spirit lead, not simply the direction my traditions or pastors or theologians have insisted on.

Far too much of the church and theology over the last centuries have been reactions against “salvation by works”. But, instead of embracing a holistic gospel, there has been instead a radical turn towards an intellectualized faith.

Far too much of the church has set aside “salvation by works” only to replace it with a “salvation by words.” Whether this is the over-emphasis on a weekly sermon or an exclusive dependence on having the exact approved answers to a slew of increasingly detailed questions, the conservative side of the church has set aside so much of Scriptural insistence on living right, on serving, on holiness in practice, on community. Instead, it has based judgments on salvation on holding to the right opinions on doctrines which Scripture itself either is not clear on, or does not even seem to care about.

But, at the same time, frustration against the conservative church have continued to push men and women towards reactionary stances on questions of theology or ethics. Yet, we are told in Scripture that what we do with our bodies matters. We are told that the actual working of God in this world, in history, is a reality upon which our faith depends. I cannot dismiss key aspects of core teachings simply because it makes me uncomfortable or challenges how I wish the world could be or how I wish God would deal with people.

My conservative stances on a whole lot of theological and political issues put me at odds with a lot of people who are pushing for a big tent Christianity and at odds with a lot of people who are very much against a big tent Christianity.

That’s my location in this overall conversation.

Here’s why I am still a strong believer in a big tent Christianity.

First of all, because as a Christian I am a witness to the Good News of Christ. I am not a bouncer or a gatekeeper. I am a witness to the story that God tells me.

This may not be the exact same story God tells other people.

We see this in Scripture itself. We have the one story of Christ, but we have four Gospels, each of which has unique aspects, priorities, and details. I don’t think the Gospels were ever intended as writings which match our contemporary academic biographies, so I’m not entirely concerned if there are apparent contradictions or disagreements. They are, at their core, telling the story of God’s work, and doing so through four different lenses. We have the story of Christ documented in four forms.

In the Gospels we see that Jesus chose twelve disciples, and of these we can see there were likely conservatives and liberals, as expressed in the politics of the time. We can also see that Jesus knew there was at least one who would actively betray him, and many others who would stumble at the time of great persecution.

He kept them as his disciples, knowing they were coming from different directions, with different pasts and different futures. Each had a different contribution and seemingly a different story to tell. Each also had different ways in which they would fail the Christ they served. They were still his disciples.

And so, I can expect that the story of Christ is still being told in many forms, with different details and priorities and contexts.

This idea of contexts is another reason I value the idea of a big tent Christianity. Even if I attend the same church as another person, we might be coming from different contexts.

We all have gifts, given by the Spirit, and it is the diversity of gifts that allows us to celebrate together as the body. More than rhetorical suggestion that each person has a different way of contributing to a pre-established church service, this is a really radical suggestion that when we participate in the Spirit we do so with very different roles, ideas, suggestions, priorities and opinions.

One of the key issues that I saw when I was last working in a church was how easy, and common, it is for church leaders to generalize their own passions and callings. Everyone is an evangelist or a teacher or… whatever. Everyone is called to door to door ministry or academic study or going to volunteer at a food pantry or… whatever. Whole churches, whole denominations, become formed not by celebration of the wide diversity of the body as a whole, but as conglomerations of many versions of the same kind of part.

And so I am a firm believer in a big tent Christianity because it is only by embracing those who are different in all kinds of different ways that I really even begin seeing the broad work of the Spirit in the church and in this world.

This is the story of Cornelius in the book of Acts. No one thought a Gentile could be part of the church, as a Gentile. He had to become Jewish first, it was assumed, with all the package of beliefs and practices this implied. Only the Spirit disagreed, and Peter’s vision confirmed. Cornelius was part of the church. Peter was not called to make a judgment but to offer an embrace. Even Peter, this first pope, had no authority to say where the Spirit could or could not work. If Peter refused to accept Cornelius, it would have been Peter who was judged–and in that judgment maybe even himself removed from the church.

It is the Spirit who gathers the church, and it is the Spirit who gives gifts for the church. Christ is the head and the Spirit is the breath of the body of Christ. And so in light of this I not only value, but must embrace, the idea of a big tent Christianity that goes well beyond what I think the church should emphasize and includes a fair number of people who I do not particularly agree with and oftentimes may not even like.

Finally–in this sketch at least–I am a believer in a big tent Christianity because I believe the Bible is serious when it talks about unity.

The church has, historically, become so concerned with some forms of heresy that it loses sight of what I think are quite Scriptural priorities. We emphasize theological doctrines on imprecise issues and often times anathematize those who disagree.

Again, a “salvation by words” replaces a salvation by faith alone.

The biggest example of this, for me, has to do with the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. We are called to share this meal as part of our worship of Christ. But the church has used this event to shatter itself and attack others. Paul brings up the topic in 1 Corinthians to clarify what is being celebrated, not in order to emphasize specific interpretations of what happens when the bread and wine are served, but to emphasize that all who are gathered must see each other as equals, called by Christ, to celebrate Christ, and to celebrate Christ as a gathered, meal-sharing community. If we do not discern the body correctly we are liable to judgment.

That’s why I am a firm believer in a big tent Christianity. Because Paul wasn’t really talking about the piece of bread that represents the body of Christ. He was talking about the body of Christ of the church, that is itself represented in the bread and in the wine.

Who am I to reject or dismiss someone who Christ has called and the Spirit cherishes, simply because I give different answers to what exactly happened when Christ died on the cross or because I think there are different kinds of songs we can sing on a particular day of the week?

So, I echo something that Moltmann has said in various places on a different topic.

I’m not really a believer in big tent Christianity.

But I think God is.

I’m much safer sticking to what God is doing. Certainly much safer than depending that a salvation by words is really what Christ was about in his death and resurrection, or what the Spirit finds important in this era, or in any era.

That’s not to say words aren’t interesting or important. They are. Very much so.

Actions are also important. We are not saved by our words or our works, but our words and our works are part of our testimony, part of our witness of the work of God in and for this world.

We speak and we act because Christ came with proclamation and with power. We have been given the Spirit who gives us words and empowers our actions, so as to be faithful servants to God, in his mission in this world.

I think God calls us to be true disciples, learning about him, discovering his work in this world, participating with the Spirit in many ways as we discover more and more who God is and what God is doing. As we discover these realities we will come to many opinions and in our various contexts we’ll have many different priorities about how to apply these opinions. But, at the same time, I know that God is God and God has his own opinions and priorities about what really matters.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Psalm 13:

How long , O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Some thoughts from Hebrews 10:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting.

Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.

For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

For yet “”in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.”

But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.