Ravens

For the oppressed, to be restored in community with their oppressors means both being lifted out of the oppression and, as Volf rightly reminds us, a process of forgiveness to begin, so that the oppression leaves not only the physical reality but also the internal identity. For the oppressor, the process must come from a different direction, and so a theology of the cross that emphasizes identification with Jesus in his brokenness may actually lead to misapplied formative theology. When the dominant identifies with the dominated without relinquishing the patterns of the domination, they are, in effect, baptizing the domination as part of the formative community, leading often to its inclusion within not only the church, but indeed also in broader Christian theology itself. A baptized domination must find, after all, validation from some direction in order to perpetuate and, indeed, defend itself from critique. This is why, again, that a comprehensive liberation of the oppressor cannot simply be a matter of practical theology—how the church gathers and what it expresses. As patterns of oppression become embedded in the ecclesial traditions, those traditions and leaders that are responsible for conveying Christian theology embed their own self-justifying domination in this theology.

from my dissertation

Some dissertation musings I wrote out, more of a sketch of thoughts than a final product. But it shows a little bit what I’m thinking about these days.

Oppressors don’t feel guilt, and they don’t orient their sin around guilt. The cross as a way of expunging guilt isn’t effective or worthwhile. We put ourselves up on the cross with Jesus, deserving the blame he received as a way of dealing with our existential guilt. Jesus is there instead of us. But that’s not the message of Acts 3. The oppressors do not feel guilt, they attach blame. They are the ones who put Jesus on the cross, each for different reasons.

The oppressor tends to attach blame to the oppressed, foils for discontent. Something is wrong in life, oppressing sin needs a target to blame in order to excuse sinful behavior. The wife who isn’t good enough becomes the excuse a husband needs to cheat. The culture that is economically suffering becomes a target to blame for a society dysfunction. Supposed nefarious plans for domination in one group becomes a source for anger and domination, leading to colonization, racism, sexism.

We find targets to blame to justify our own arrogance and attempts at oppression. The oppressors who do this do not feel guilt because they have rationalized their behavior as being justified by the supposed sins of others, who brought on their suffering due to some present or historical deficiency. The inversion of oppression works the same way. The oppressed blame their oppressors, raging against the causes of suffering. Here is where the cross takes on a new emphasis for established and new oppressors.

The cross becomes a target for our blame because human psychology needs a direction to rage and ruin. Like Cain, we take our frustration on targets other than God. We orient ourselves in a religious posture while re-directing the rage and fear onto other targets, onto those who should be our brothers and our sisters. When, in fact, our existential fears—whether aesthete or pharisaic—really target existence itself, and for that the only acceptable target is God. The cross becomes, not a place for our guilt, but a place for our rage to go against whatever inequality, frustration, or temptation we might feel.

Don’t blame others for deserving what you do to them. Blame Jesus, put him on the cross. He went willingly before all the blame cast upon him, taking the blame for others.

The cross takes our blame, our rage, our racism—all those sin-stained orientations of death that despise others while trying to justify our own position. The oppressors put Jesus on the cross, and it was not because they were feeling guilty. It was because they were not feeling guilty and so had to have targets to blame to redirect their responsibility.

The face of God is the face of the crucified Jesus, who takes our rage and accusations with silence, only saying, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus who takes this rage and accusation is the only one whose identity is wholly secured to absorb it, not only for himself, but for all the victims of phenomenal history and all the victimizers. Those who feel guilt put themselves among the criminals on the cross with Jesus. Those who oppress, however, are represented by Pilate or the Jewish leaders or the mocking, sadistic Roman soldiers.

“Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.” (Acts 3:17-20)

The second question on my third comprehensive exam was familiar territory. Here’s the question and the first part of my answer:

Moltmann’s Spirit of Life is undoubtedly the most important contemporary constructive pneumatology. Engage Moltmann’s view of the Spirit sympathetically and critically

When Moltmann made his turn from writing theology from a single perspective in his books to writing what he called “contributions” to theology, he proposed a number of topics that he would focus on, including the common theological themes of trinity, christology, eschatology and others. Curiously, this earliest discussion of his goals did not include a proposed monograph emphasizing the Holy Spirit. Like his colleague Pannenberg, Moltmann had an interest in a holistic Trinitarian perspective, and seemingly like his colleague, did not see the Spirit as requiring a particular focus. However, as his contributions developed there seemed to be a building momentum in which Moltmann’s broader theological project emphasized the Spirit more and more. Indeed, it might be said that the Spirit burst forth from Moltmann’s developing project in a way that surprised him, and then marveled others.

Although it is not often claimed that Moltmann has a priority for theological coherence, especially in comparison with Pannenberg, with his interests more specifically about discussion what he sees as personally interesting and useful, there really is an underlying coherence to Moltmann’s theology that comes out as one reads through his entire corpus. And it was in the process of writing his contributions that this coherence seemingly demanded a more substantive discussion on the Holy Spirit than had been attempted in Western theology. Indeed, one might also suggest Moltmann’s Spirit of Life was the continuing fulfillment of Moltmann’s role as Barth’s theological successor, not Barthian in being a disciple of Barth, but rather a successor as taking Barth’s theology critically and constructively to the next level of theological thought.

Whereas Barth, later in life, suggested that a robust theology of the third person was a necessary task for theology, he did not attempt this himself. Moltmann, driven more by his theological impulses, took this call up and in doing so provided one of the most important discussions of the Holy Spirit, in our time and maybe among the most important in history.

At the core of Moltmann’s theology is his emphasis on life. He views theology as being directed towards life, reading Scripture and applying his theological musings in ways that always emphasizes the priority of life over death, in both particular historical ways as well as broad, cosmic and eschatological ways. Similar to Pannenberg, Moltmann sees the Spirit as this power of life, the identity of God which is the enlivening presence in creation. That which lives, lives because of the Spirit. This is not a pantheistic suggestion, but rather derives from Moltmann’s prioritizing the enlivening aspects of the Spirit as seen in the Old Testament, especially in Genesis but also beyond. By beginning with the Spirit as the creative force for life, the Spirit is not at all limited to religious discussions or ecclesial contexts, but is instead a pervasive and dynamic force that works throughout the world, throughout time and space, being the particular presence of God with and for this whole creation.

Moltmann holds to a social view of the Trinity, in which each Person is dynamically related to one another throughout eternity, a perichoretic relationship of total mutuality and interpenetration. The Spirit is not merely the bond of love between Father and Son, but is dynamically a unique participant, communicating the divine life within the divine life and communicating the divine life to all that has been made by the always active Triune God.
The Spirit is the presence of God himself in the midst of creation, indeed becoming vulnerable to creation in a relational embrace of love. If God could not be vulnerable to hurt or pain, it would not be love, so Moltmann protests against the traditional concepts of God’s impassibility.

Indeed, he argues that it is the very passion of God that defines the inter-relationality of the Trinity and the relationality of the Trinity with us. The Spirit then, is understood as God in action and God in passion, an active force of love and life. With this in mind, Moltmann protests the filioque clause as limited the freedom and mutuality of the Spirit as an equal participant of the divine life, and in doing this restricting the Spirit to the spheres of more clearly ecclesial influence. However, as pneumatology renews its understanding of the Spirit as full Person, as fully God, the pervasive work of God is then understood as holistic and comprehensive. The Spirit of God acts in comprehensive ways and the Spirit of God is indeed the active love of God, with Moltmann emphasizing love as eros in terms of God’s love.

For Moltmann, “The Person of God the Holy Spirit is the loving, out-fanning, outpouring presence of the eternal divine life of the Triune God.” This is how he defines the Person of the Spirit near the end of his text, however, it is clear this is a driving understanding from the very beginning. Because the Spirit is so closely intertwined with both the inner Trinitarian life as well as all life in this world, Moltmann proposes the concept of the Spirit in terms of immanent transcendence. The Spirit brings the life of God to humanity, and to all of creation, while at the same time raising humanity to a renewed relationship with God, God among us who brings us, and all of creation, to its eternal hope, a hope that is defined by a complete restoration of creation in relational celebration, diversity and unity comprehensively bound together by the energies of the divine life.

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
(2 Corinthians 3:17-18, NLT)

The Trinity is hard to understand. It’s far too complex to have been made up, and no where do we have it explained to us with any kind of absolute understanding. We’re faced with the fact there’s one God, and yet there is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They’re all different. But there’s only one God. Unity and Diversity. Three in One. How does this work? Well, there have been a lot of suggestions over the centuries. The latest prevailing attitude has been to see the Trinity as a hierarchy. The Father, then the Son, then the Spirit. But that’s not quite right, because there’s a lot of discussion in Scripture that doesn’t make it all that neat. The Father gives all his authority to the Son, who sends the Spirit, who had already sent the Son. It’s unusual.

Add to this the fact it’s not the kind of relationship we’re used to dealing with in organizations. They love each other. It’s the love and the relationship that is the bond. God is love. There’s no intimidation or manipulation or ambition or dissension. There’s just relationship. And this kind of relationship has been given a name. Perichoresis. Basically this is a big word to say something not that hard to understand, but almost impossible to live. Instead of being a hierarchy, the persons in the Trinity are continually circling around each other, interwoven, interdependent, interpenetrating. Or to put it more simply… the relationship is kinda like a dance.

When the idea of hierarchy really was getting attention it was thought that churches should be modeled on this. So, churches became about authority. From Father to Jesus to Apostles to Pope to Bishops to Priests to the People. Some churches are still like this either explicitly or implicitly.

Notice who is left out: The Holy Spirit. Paul tells us the Holy Spirit works in all of us, and makes a very interesting metaphor. We’re not a hierarchy. We’re a body. Yes, Jesus is the head. But we, the Church, are to be a body. Gathered together in unity, expressing the diversity of the Spirit who works through all of us in different ways. We too are a unity and diversity. However, we still aren’t comfortable with that.

The Trinity doesn’t have sin or ambition. We do. In our gathered communities we still tend to manipulate or seek authority or otherwise intimidate others and try to prove we’re somehow better. We all use the tools at our disposal to gain an advantage, stand out, and sometimes push others down and aside. We use the tools at our disposal to force order upon chaos, bring meaning out of confusion, give law to a supposed spiritual wild west. We’re not comfortable with the freedom that the Spirit brings. Because freedom sounds good in theory, but there’s all sorts of problems when faced with other people’s freedoms. And when we are faced with our own.
We intimidate and we manipulate, afraid of freedom. This leads to communities with wonderful vision statements and earnest beginnings hitting walls and breaking people down. We begin to tell others how they have to approach God and how they are allowed to dress, and learn, and communicate.

There is tension in life and we succumb to it, becoming slaves to an artificial standard. We seek to bring order to our own messy journeys by conforming to our chosen gurus and giving them demi-god status, raising them up as the very voices of God in our lives. We attach theology to such actions, capitalizing concepts in order to ward off challenge. All while moving farther and farther from the simple pleasure of dancing with God. Because we replace the Spirit with something more palpable. More immediate. More in keeping with what we feel we need and what we are used to. The Spirit doesn’t work in our timing or in our sense of propriety. So we hand Aaron our gold. He makes us a golden calf and calls it a church. We worship there and insist everyone worship there, dulled of light and inspiration.

Holding to a form of godliness but denying its power; with an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but without value in checking self-indulgence. Which is why there is so much bondage inside and out within those places we so eagerly seek the new life. We have been freed by Jesus only to then embrace a new slavery, plodding and heavy and constraining, for ourselves and for all those around us.

Where the Spirit is, there is freedom. The Spirit is like water and roots, digging deep, breaking us apart, moving and flowing into and through, no respecter of mere human traditions. The Spirit opens us up in new ways. Yet, these aren’t ways disconnected from a center. That’s the worry, isn’t it? That if we embrace freedom we will embrace chaos. Only, the Spirit’s dance isn’t about chaos, it’s about life and hope, constant growth and constant transformation. The Spirit’s dance isn’t about rules or about laws, but about holiness and depth. It is in the freedom we discover ourselves and in discovering ourselves we become so open to other people, embracing them rather than managing them. We begin to share with people rather than talk at them, revealing more and more of ourselves as we see more and more of those around us, no longer having to put on a show.

We dance. We sing. We fly. We hope. We live. Live in a freedom so profound that until we taste it we think it impossible.

Only it’s not.

It’s the very possibility of eternity awaiting us even in this moment.

It is Christ himself offering us his hand and asking, “Will you dance with me?”

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.

The first section of the letter that Roger Williams sent to his wife discusses ten ‘trials’ which we endure as we find the beginning of a true devotion to Christ developing in our life. Williams discusses ten points, each of which follows the typical pattern in his writings of making an assertion, then following it with objections, which he then answers. In this section, the chief objection for each of the particular points has to do with hypocrisy. Williams is aware that there can be a false appearance of religious zeal that does not have at its heart true devotion to Christ. He is careful, then, to point out ways of discerning the true from the false. In these, we can see the echoes of his broader theology and his ecclesial battles. He begins by noting that spiritual maturity is begun by crying to God as Father. “Because you are sons,” Williams writes, “he hath sent forth the spirit of his Son crying in your Hearts Abba Father: Father pardon me, Father help me, Father give me, Etc.”[1] Hypocrites, Williams notes, may cry out “Lord, Lord” as well, but they falter in two respects. One they may call God Father, but they have many Fathers, mixing their religious devotion with other drives. Or, they may call God Father, but not fully submit to him, speaking the words of devotion but then serving their own desires.[2]

Secondly, “there is always a professed willingness to get more and more knowledge of this heavenly father, of his name, of his works, of his word, of his Christ, of his Spirit, his Saints, and Ordinances.”[3] True disciples seek to know more and more, deepening their understanding in ways which is not about adding facts, but about adding deeper devotion. “Hence his Disciples or Scholars petition to Christ Jesus, Lord teach us to pray: Lord increase our Faith, Etc.”[4] Williams is fully aware that education and knowledge do not make someone a true Christian. He notes that hypocrites will also seek knowledge, but rather than pursuing a holistic knowledge that they then apply to their whole life, hypocrites try to “make use of so much of God, and of Christ, as may serve his own ends.”[5] As such, they may know a great deal in certain areas, but they “pick and choose as Saul did,” leaving aside teachings which interfere in their particular interests.

In all his writings, from the very beginning, Williams is attuned to self-interest in the pursuit of religious ends. Indeed, this was a key area which marked him as dangerous and unsuitable to stay in Massachusetts. One of the principle reasons for his banishment was his increasing opposition to the legality of land grants from the King.[6] It was, he knew, the Indian’s land, not England’s. The ministers of Boston, in contrast, felt they had the right and indeed duty to take the Land from heathens so as to pursue their greater good of reflecting Christ’s kingdom in this world. This self-interest also sparked his increasing opposition to “hireling” ministers, who he felt were mercenaries rather than acting as true children of God.[7]

As I’m studying for my comprehensive exams, I’m getting back into reading my major research from the last few years on topics of church history.  My first major study focused on Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and George Fox, trying to explore their basic contributions in light of a developing understanding of the Spirit and a desire for true religious freedom. This search for religious toleration wasn’t about them wanting to live more loose or godless lifestyles, they sought to be more Christian, embracing the fullness of the Christian life in increasing ways.  In doing this they often ran up against the barriers of the established church in their context, who were also supporters of a good Christian life, but wanted that life to make a lot more orderly sense.  The three I studied wouldn’t accept that version of faith, so pushed back, often to their own detriment. But they leave a very interesting model for us today in how they lived, what they said, and what they wrote.

I’m pretty caught up in my studying and in my teaching an online course on theological studies.  So, my blogging has fallen off. Hopefully this post and those that follow give a good insight into what I’m studying, how I’m going about this education process myself, and what is inspiring me these days:

Roger Williams is primarily now known for his contribution to the idea of separation of church and state in American history, yet it is fairly clear Williams was not primarily a political philosopher, nor was he, it seems, even primarily driven by the relationship between the state and the church.[1]  Rather, this was an ancillary topic to his significantly stronger drive. Even as he did not continue on in active ministry, nor does it seem he ever found a settled place in any particular religious community, Williams was a man who was driven by his quest for a deeper relationship with God, one that could not be separated from any part of his life, and one which insisted on an increasingly sophisticated coherence of doctrine.

It is in the context of Williams’s continued theological drive that we should place his various contributions. This includes his largest writings, which relate to religious persecution and religious freedom. Rather than being religiously open to whatever wind was blowing, Williams was, on the contrary, very particular in what he thought was acceptable religious doctrine. Indeed, he was so exact in his theological demands that one of the major causes of his earliest separation with the churches in Boston was his assertion they should be entirely separate from the Church of England, separating not only in geography but also in affiliation. Toleration, for him, meant something very different than it does in contemporary culture.[2]

Although, most of his major writings were written in a defensive posture, arguing against civil persecution and maintaining a strong call to respect freedom of conscience, in his Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health, and their Preservatives, we are given insight into his positive spirituality, which almost certainly was more of a constant pursuit of his rather than his occasional, combative and controversial writings.[3] While away on a trading trip, Williams received word his wife had been very sick and almost died.  In Williams’s consistently intellectual response to crisis, he penned a theological, indeed pastoral, encouragement to her to aid in her recovery. More than merely pastoral, however, it is likely that here, in the time of his wife’s crisis, Williams exposed a great deal of his own self.

He could not visit her in person, but he could send her what he thought was his best self, his best contribution to his family and to the broader society. He writes, “I send thee (though in Winter) an handfull of flowers made up in a little Posey, for thy dear selfe, and our dear children, to look and smell on, when I as the grasse of the field shall be gone and withered.”[4] This “handfull of flowers” consists of three main sections, which indicate the progression of the spiritual life through being drawn by God into his presence, into confidence and spiritual health, ending with practices of preservation of a strong spiritual state.

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.

Scott Cormode writes:

We have all met new parents who vow that they will not make the same mistakes their own parents made. They will not raise their voices or indulge their children or succumb to whatever excess they saw in their own upbringing. And many of us greet those idealistic pronouncements with a wry smile. For it is a difficult thing to escape one’s initial formation. These new parents lack models for imagining different behavior.

They may not want to replicate their parents’ behavior but they often do not have any other behavior to offer in its place. When angry, they do not know what to do besides shout. So, in the end, they fall into old patterns and replicate their parents’ now discredited ways. When we seek to change only the minds of our students (without giving them opportunities to invent and practice new patterns of action), we cast them as those idealistic young parents.

They can critique the methods that formed them. But, in the end, they end up replicating those mistakes in their ministering contexts because they have no other models for action. They have not been taught how to put their new thinking into action and eventually they revert to old habits.

We have to spend as much time helping our students reflectively construct faithful action as we spend helping them critique the actions that people have taken in the past.

He’s writing about seminary education in this essay, but I think it’s true also for church. Which is why I have a lot of frustration about sermon prioritizing churches. Even when the preacher is very, very good there’s a disconnect between being convinced and transforming behavior. People can nod their heads and agree and be inspired all they want, but they have to also be given a forum for exploring new ways of acting and being and responding that helps them own the teaching and express it in their own lives to others.