The Root of All Heresy

For those of us in the church, we have learned to regard the words "heresy" and "heretics" as bad words, of the four letter variety, from which to stay far away. Often these heretics can be demonized and the church has a wicked history of, not just breaking communion with them (which is warranted) but of killing them (which is not warranted). While heretics are rarely killed anymore, they are certainly still demonized, to the point that we assume that someone who is a heretic is an evil person.

History shows us, however, that this is simply not correct. In point of fact, most heretics were holy men and women, just as devout and just as zealous for the truth as those labeled orthodox. Heretics rarely disregard the Word or call into question its inspiration. Where then does heresy come from, if not from the disregard of God's Word? It comes from a misinterpretation of God's Word. Bad interpretation of Scripture is the root of all heresy. As St. Irenaeus in the late second century wrote in the preface to his monumental work against the Gnostic heresies: "They falsify the words of the Lord and make themselves bad interpreters of what was well said."

This is a warning to us to handle the Word with care, lest in our devoutness we are lead astray with some of the heretics of old. As we read, we need to look to our Fathers and Mothers in the faith for clues on how to interpret and to pray that the Spirit be with us as we read. There is power in the Word to change us, if we read it in accord with the boundaries given the church. For the same Spirit that gave the church the Word also gave her the means to interpret it well.

Thoughts on Joining a Church

This morning Julie and I became members of Trinity Pilgrim United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a community about 15 minutes away from our apartment. It is a small, church with two adult Sunday School classes, a men's choir, a handbell choir, a youth group that is trying to get on its feet, and an elderly pianist/organist who has been a member since she was confirmed. It lacks many of the amenities of "modern" churches. The pastor never has a power point with his sermon, in fact the sanctuary lacks the ability for it. He simply stands in front of the congregation without a note in hand and speaks. There is not a professional sounding praise band leading worship, complete with interpretive dancers. This morning we sang Charles' Wesley's classic: "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" with a simple piano background. And there are not a thousand different programs, but they do have several key ongoing service projects which are making a difference in the community. But you may ask, what drew us to this church? For many of the things this church lacks are the very things that our culture (and particularly people of my generation) are convinced grow churches. We were drawn to this church for two specific reasons: 1) the congregation is a family, a true fellowshipping body; and 2) the pastor preaches from the Word of God.

We were immediately embraced by these people, and not in a desperate sort of way, with looks which said: "you young people are our last hope!" They remembered our names, they remembered things we had asked them to pray for, they remembered to shake my left hand. When Julie would miss church for work, they made room at their tables for me. It was in general a warm atmosphere of Christian love which, additionally, witnessed to a large segment of God's kingdom: people of several different races attend as well as people of different socio-economic statuses. Yet all are welcomed at the table of fellowship.

The pastor speaks from the Word. He understands the nature of God as a God of love with a heart for His people and a desire to commune with them. He understands that God cares for the poor and the underprivileged and that the people of God ought too to care. This aspect always is emphasized in his sermons, which are neither fluffy nor full of jokes. He uses his time deliberately and he uses it well. For he tells the story of the people of God in a way that connects to us today.

Furthermore, we saw areas in this church where we felt that our giftings could make a true contribution. I think that Julie and I will be getting involved with the senior high Sunday School class. We ask for your prayers in this endeavor. In short, we are really excited to be at Trinity Pilgrim UMC and believe that God has great things prepared for us there.

As good as professional musicians and power point sermons and thousands of programs are in a church, they are not, in my opinion, what ultimately grows the church. They might attract a lot of people, but attracting a lot of people is quite different than growing a church. To grow a church, people need to hear the Gospel from the pulpit and see it lived out by the people in the pews. We believe we have found a place where this is happening and we pray that we will be able to contribute to its life.

Christ and the American G.I.?

I recently read an email forward with the following claim: "The only people who were willing to die for you were Jesus Christ and the American G.I." Despite the forward's obligatory promises of good fortune if I passed it on and the threats of great calamity if I failed to, I did not pass it on for I find the statement extremely problematic.

In the first place, I just don't think it is true. I would like to think that I have a few friends and family members who would be willing to die for me. I believe that I am willing to die for them should the occasion arise. I do not say this out of pride and sincerely hope it is not taken that way; I say it out of the change wrought in me by Christ. For his definition of love and friendship is nothing short of this: "This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." -John 15:12-13; "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." -1 John 3:16. If it is true that the only people willing to die for me other than Christ are American G.I.s, than only American G.I.s have fully understood the radical love Christ witnesses to. This is hard for me to believe for many reasons, not the least of which is the simple fact that not all American G.I.s are Christians.

The second, and more compelling, reason that I did not send the forward on is that I think the comparison between the work of Jesus and the work of an American soldier is a horrible one which severely misunderstands (at best) or undermines (at worst) the Gospel message. After all, the soldier rushes to war with a gun, killing all those who did not happen to be born in America. The soldier does all he can to stay alive and if it is between he and another guy (particularly the enemy), it is going to be the enemy who dies. These are the brutal facts of war and no one blames the soldier for this type of mentality - this is the job his country has asked him to do.

The work of Jesus was completely different. Jesus came peaceably, preaching a gospel of peace and restoration and freedom (from sin) for all people, not just those who happened to be born in a specific geographical location (and certainly not only for Americans). Jesus preached the turning of the other cheek, the walking of the extra mile, the loving of one's enemies. When he was called upon to fight, he refused and chastised his disciples for defending him with the sword. And he healed the ear of the very man who came to arrest him. He submitted to immense suffering and death, never once striking back. In short, he lived and modeled his gospel of peace and displayed for us the only true means toward restoration. The only comparison which is merited is the Christian martyr who willingly dies for being a follower of Christ (which continues to happen throughout the world), or perhaps the person who dies on behalf of a friend. Which if you remember, Christ expects of us all.

The Relevant Tradition

From the earliest days of the church, two seemingly paradoxical characteristics have marked the Christian faith: 1) an abiding concern for tradition and finding one's identity and story in the community that has gone before; and 2) an abiding concern for spreading the gospel to peoples and cultures who have never heard it before. These characteristics, equally important, have often been the source of tension, for the question always arises: how does one make the faith relevant and understandable to new generations and cultures without sacrificing what is distinctive about that faith?

There have been times when the church has succeeded in the struggle. The New Testament writers are the prime example. Their beloved tradition, the tradition and story out of which Christianity grew, was the story of Israel. And as the pages of the NT reveal, this story was fully embraced and carried on by the first Christians. The church, in struggling to identify herself, looked back into her tradition. Thus, Peter, writing to his church of Gentile converts says this: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession . . ." (1 Pet 2:9). These four images are lifted straight from Israel's Scriptures, former descriptions of Israel now applied to the church.

Yet the NT writers, in looking back to tradition, were not imprisoned by it. After all, the language of Israel's Scriptures was Hebrew, but no common person (least of all the Gentiles) knew how to read Hebrew. Thus, the NT is written in Greek, the language that everyone knew. These tradition filled documents, full of imagery garnered from Israel's story, is presented to the people in a new medium, one which they were able to understand and, as a result, the Gospel spread quickly in those first generations. When Greek fell out of use in the West in the second and third centuries, the Scriptures were translated once again into the common language (Latin).

Unfortunately, there have also been times when the church has failed at this struggle. For centuries in the middle ages, the church kept the Scriptures locked away from the people by refusing to allow it to be translated from Latin (though no common person read or spoke Latin by this time). Church leaders had begun to confuse its tradition (the story of the Scriptures) with the form of that story, the Latin language. And incredibly, it persecuted those first brave souls who dared to translate the Latin Bible into the common language.

In our generation, it is evident that the same struggle goes on. While language might not be the focal point, the question remains vital: how do we make the faith understandable without losing its content. While the church in the middle ages erred on the side of tradition (thus failing to make it understandable to the people), I fear that many in our generation have erred on the other side. There are many examples today of those who would remove everything distinctive about the Christian faith so as to make it more attractive. A few examples:

1) The Old Testament is often hidden away as the dirty little secret. Instead of going to the effort of understanding what actually was happening in those pages, many preachers just skip over it and preach solely from the New Testament, if even that. But the loss of the Old Testament is the loss of a significant part of our story. In fact, the early Christians would have found a Christian faith without the Old Testament unintelligible. If we knew our story better, I suspect we would feel the same way.

2) The names of God are being changed. Instead of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, many are opting for titles like "the Divine" or "Sophia." While the intent behind these name changes is not necessarily bad and often times good (namely the concern for the marginalization of women in a patriarchal faith), I am not sure that changing the names of God revealed in Scripture is the best way to go about this. After all, I believe that Jesus reveals God as primarily a Father and he is best understood in the terms of that Father-Son relationship. To lose this metaphor is to lose a significant part of a traditional understanding of God.

3) My brother tells me that there is a church in his town which is considering removing all crosses from their premises in order to make it a more welcoming environment. Here is a church who has forfeited too much of tradition to make the faith more attractive. But if the cross has to be removed to do this, my question is what story are they teaching, what story are they living. A faith without the cross is not Christian. (One wonders if there would have been more resistance to the removing of the American flag from that church.)

This struggle is a necessary one, for as Christians, we are a people who are defined by our story, by our past. And yet we are commissioned to take that story to the world, to the world that does not speak our language. How are we to do it?

The Sword of the Spirit

"Nothing can so banish licentious habits from the soul and restrain memories which disturb and stir up troubling flames in the body as can avid devotion to the love of learning and searching investigation into the meaning of the passages of Scripture."

-St. Isaac of Nineveh

Lion or Lamb? (Part 2)

A somewhat more helpful metaphor involving a lion and a lamb (see Part I) is found in Holy Scripture. Our Savior Jesus Christ is likened to both animals in various places. The ascription "lion" is often modified with "of Judah" and it comes originally from Genesis 49, where the Patriarch Jacob is pronouncing blessings upon his sons prior to his death. He has this to say of his son Judah: "Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah . . ." Judah is the tribe of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Thus, through the kingship of Jesus, the prophecy that the "scepter shall not depart from Judah" is fulfilled. The imagery is first applied to Jesus by the writer of Revelation: "and one of the elders said to me: 'Stop weeping; the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and the seven seals" (5:5). To call Jesus the Lion of Judah is to refer to his kingship, his worthiness to be king, and the protection which he offers his people.

We have an example of this in the lectionary reading for today, Luke 13:31-35: "Just at that time some Pharisees approached, saying to Him, "Go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill You." And He said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal. Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! . . ."

In these verses, Jesus calls Herod a fox, evincing his craftiness and his desire to pick off sheep from the flock. Nevertheless, Jesus with the courage of a lion does not stray from his destination. Rather, he sets his face toward the city for he knows that unless he complete his work, rulers like Herod will forever rule and there will be no salvation for anyone. The Lion of Judah continues on to Jerusalem.

But there are also many places in Scripture where Jesus is referred to as a lamb. John the Baptist is the first to call him this, recorded in John's Gospel: "The next day (John) saw Jesus coming to him and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" (1:29). The Baptist is, of course, drawing on imagery with which his hearers would have been instantly familiar. He is referring to the Jewish sacrificial cultus, the system which prescribed animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. The shed blood of a pure lamb, the Israelites believed, would atone for their sins and thus assuage the wrath of God. The Baptist, before Jesus even begins his ministry, recognizes that Jesus is that pure lamb.

Interestingly enough, the writer of Revelation again picks up this imagery. The seer describes the first time he sees Jesus in his vision: "And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain . . ." (5:6). The English translations miss what I think the Greek portrays; a better translation might be: "a Lamb standing while slain." The point of this vision is that Jesus in heaven is a slain lamb. But that quality, namely that he has been slain, is the very quality that allows him to open the seals, that earns him the title "Lion of Judah."

We see this imagery, again, bear fruit in today's lectionary reading. Jesus heads to Jerusalem, we noted, with the courage of a lion. However, he indicates in the reading the manner in which he will save His people, and it is not an image of a conquering lion. Rather, he says: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." Jesus likens himself to a Mother Hen! But I ask, what good is a Mother Hen in the face of a prowling fox? The only means the Mother has of saving her chicks is to offer herself as the fox's meal in lieu of the chicks. And this is exactly what Jesus does.

John's vision of the slain lamb in heaven forever reminds us that while it was the courage of a lion that led Jesus to Jerusalem, it was the sacrifice of a lamb which redeemed us.

Lion or lamb? (Part I)

We learned in kindergarten that March often comes in like a lion, but then goes out like a lamb. And then there are those great years where March comes in like a lamb and also goes out like a lamb. Unfortunately, there are also some tricky years when March comes in like a lamb but then goes out like a lion. But the real awful years are when March comes in like a lion and then goes out like a lion!

With all due respect to my mother (who was my kindergarten teacher), that whole lion/lamb thing really doesn't help us much.

A Beautiful Story

One of my favorite movies is A Beautiful Mind, a biopic about the renowned mathematician and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Nash. The movie opens with Nash's years in graduate school at Princeton, chronicling his failures and successes, as well as narrating the close relationship which developed between Nash and his roommate Charles Herman. After Princeton, it follows Nash through several years at Wheeler Labs at MIT, as he is married and becomes involved in a highly dangerous task of cracking the codes of Russians who are hiding a portable nuclear bomb. About halfway through the movie, Nash begins to be pursued by Russians and he becomes extremely paranoid. This culminates in his lecture at Harvard where he is forcibly sedated and taken captive by imposing men in dark suits. (If you have not seen the movie, stop reading - spoiler ahead.)

The next scene, Nash awakes to find himself in a mental institution. And through a conversation between Dr. Rosen, the head psychiatrist, and Nash's wife Alicia, the audience learns to their shock that Nash is schizophrenic and the story of the Russian code breaking, which had consumed the better part of the movie, was all a delusion. Moreover, his Princeton roommate Charles Herman, a character the audience had by now grown to love, was also a delusion. The audience is then taken on a journey through Alicia's searching to various places that Nash visited during his delusions. What had been a beautiful old mansion, where he had dropped off his code breaking research, was truly a dilapidated old house. What had been a highly sophisticated entrance system, was truly just a rusted out mailbox. All of Nash's research was still sitting in the drop box, never picked up, never opened. The audience learns with Nash and experiences with him his disbelief of the poignant words of his wife: "It isn't real."

This point in the movie, though midway through its plot line, entirely changes the story. After learning this information, the audience realizes that they are not watching a movie about Russian codes; rather, they are watching a movie about a schizophrenic man. Had a person stopped watching the movie prior to this point, he or she would have had an entirely different interpretation of the first half of the movie.

There is a striking parallel here to the story of Scripture. Imagine a person sitting down to read the Bible for the first time. Imagine further that this person had never heard of anything in its pages before. Not knowing where else to start, she starts at the beginning. As she reads along in the first few books it becomes clear to her what the story is about, a people group who is chosen and redeemed by their Covenant, Creator God. But like A Beautiful Mind, there is a crucial turning point two thirds through the story: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

These words, much like the words of Alicia Nash, change everything. When we go back and read the first part of the story, we see things differently, things we didn't see before are there and things we saw before are no longer there. For instance, if you read the first part of the story, you might be prone to think of the Creator God as one who sanctions war. But after reading the sermon on the mount and seeing the God on the cross, you realize that this is not true. If you read the first part of the story, you might think that the Creator God is an exclusive God, coming for only one group of people. But after you read the letters of Paul, you realize that Christ came for all people.

Whereas the Fathers, starting from the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, inherently understood the truth that the testaments cannot be read apart from one another, most biblical scholars and Christians today do not understand it. You see the misunderstanding every time an OT scholar insists that we must understand the OT as the Jews would have understood it. You see the misunderstanding every time someone argues for the death penalty or for war or for some other controversial point using verses from the OT with no concern for the coming of Christ. These kinds of arguments are the same as if someone argued for the reality of Nash's roommate Charles Herman having only seen the first half of the movie. Herman is, of course, not reality but one has no way of knowing that without watching the entire movie.

Of course metaphors are not exactly the same as that which they portray; therefore, metaphors by nature break down. Where this one breaks down is precisely in the category of truth. Whereas John Nash's turning point showed him that things in his life he had thought were real were actually illusory, the coming of Christ in the flesh shows that the stories of God and the prophecies therein are the only true thing.

Ashes to Ashes . . .

For myself and the hundred or so other worshippers around me, today's noon hour was one dedicated to contrition and repentance as we were led through the corporate prayers of the Ash Wednesday liturgy. After the communal prayers, each of us walked to the front and a cross of ash was marked on our forehead as the following words were spoken over us:

"Remember that from the ashes you came and to the ashes you will return."

The symbolism in this ancient Christian tradition is thick. The cross on the forehead comes from the Hebrew tradition of binding the law on the forehead prescribed in Deuteronomy. To them, this tradition symbolized the law consuming and controlling their minds. To us, the cross consumes and controls our minds - we think, we see, and we live cruciform. The ashes symbolize the dust of the earth from which we were made, and we realize through them that without the breath of God we would not have physical life and without the Spirit of God, we would not have eternal life (the word for Spirit in both Hebrew and Greek can also mean breath and wind).

Ash Wednesday is not a joyous celebration as many of our other feast days are. It is a day for remembering the abyss from where the Lord has taken you, of remembering and confessing your many sins, that they may be covered, and of the beginning of fasting to commemorate and to be conformed to the sacrifice of our Lord.

After service, I went back into the world conscious that the cross of ash on my forehead was visible to all. I made certain that I smiled a little bigger at people, I held the door open for more people, I was more patient with a slow library worker. All this because I knew that I would be identified with that cross on my forehead. I wonder why I am not always conscious of this identity? I wonder what the world would be like if all of us who identify ourselves with the cross lived as though there were always one of ashes on our foreheads.

Little Theophanies

This is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany and the high point of Christ's ministry on earth, when his true nature is revealed to the disciples on Mt. Tabor. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent marking the forty day mourning period as the church moves toward Holy Week, corresponding to Christ's movement toward Jerusalem in the Gospels. The Gospel lectionary reading for today is Luke 9:28-43:

"Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and James and John, and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white. And hehold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem . . . a cloud came and overshadowed (the disciples); and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 'This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!"

To the ancient reader of Scripture, steeped in the Scriptures of Israel this text screams one word, THEOPHANY, which in parochial terms, simply means: "God showed up!" The ancient reader of Scripture would have thought theophany because Luke's text is laden with references to the first theophany, namely the appearance of God to Moses on Mt. Sinai in Exod 19:

"So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled."

God descended to Mt. Sinai and interacted with humans face to face for the first time since they had been cast out of his presence in Eden. He calls Moses up to the mountain who is enveloped in the cloud, much like the disciples, and gives him the instruction by which the people of God are supposed to live. And when Moses comes off the mountain, he is described thus:

"It came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to go near him."

The truth of the Transfiguration is that when humans commune with God, they experience His light, they are themselves transformed into the light of God. Modern readers of the Transfiguration text will either, at best, assume that Jesus shown because he was God himself or, at worst, dismiss the account as fantasy. But the ancient readers saw here the truth that when we commune with God, we are transformed into him by his light. That is, we become the PLACE of his presence, as Mt. Sinai was in the OT. We become, as it were, little Theophanies. God's light rests in us! And this was often seen to be the case. Consider the following examples:

1. The first martyr Stephen is taken before the elders and the scribes to give an account of the "lies" he has been preaching about Jesus. Soon he will give his final testimony and be stoned to death. He is described directly prior to the account thus: "And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel."

2. In the fourth century, there was an explosion of monastic aesthetics (we might call them hermits) who went off by themselves to the deserts of Egypt to find God. There are short little accounts written about these men. One such account reads as follows: "The Fathers used to say that someone met Abba Silvanus one day and saw his face and body shining like an angel and he fell with his face to the ground. He said that others also had obtained this grace."

3. Another account from the Desert Fathers reads as follows: "A brother came to the cell of Abba Arsenius at Scetis. Waiting outside the door he saw the old man entirely like a flame."

4. Macrina, the elder sister of the fourth century Fathers St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, died in the presence of her young brother. Gregory describes the scene this way: ". . . the cloak was placed over the body. She shone even in the dark mantle; God’s power, I think, added even such a grace to her body that, exactly as in the vision I had while dreaming, rays of light seemed to shine out from her beauty."

These four examples show the truth known by the saints, that God "showed up" in Christ and that Christ now "shows up" in us. And to say that Christ dwells in us is a much more profound truth than I think we ever realize. For he no longer dwells on mountains, or in temples, or even in church buildings. He dwells in his followers, in those who have conformed their lives to his and in so doing, have made their bodies condusive to his presence. May each of us attain to this profound grace.

The Sum of Perfection

"Forget created things,
but their Creator, never;
the core attend forever;
love Him from whom love springs."

-St. John of the Cross

Together

In 115 AD, Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, was in chains on his way to Rome to be fed to lions in the Coliseum. On his way, he wrote several letters to different churches which provide an amazing glimpse into the life and values of the early church. One of those letters was to a fellow bishop named Polycarp. He encouraged Polycarp with the following description of God's church:

"Labor together with one another: struggle together, run together, suffer together, die together, rise together."

Amen. May it yet be so today.

The Importance of Context in Reading Scripture

I believe that in understanding the meaning of a story, context is everything. Nowhere is this insight more crucial than in our understanding of Scripture. Just as one would not be able to pick a paragraph out of a novel such as To Kill a Mockingbird and understand the meaning of the story, its comments on the rapant racism of the South in thr 1930s, so one cannot read a verse in Philippians and understand what Paul is saying in the letter, much less the entirety of Scripture.

This truth might seem self evident. Unfortunately, however, many current practices in reading Scripture encourage just this practice. We often read a verse or two for our quiet times, in no particular sequence, and think we understand without giving any thought to the context in which it is set. The context than becomes whatever we bring to the verse resulting in an interpretation that best fits what we need, but may or may not have anything to do with the actual biblical narrative. Pastors, unfortunately, often model this practice, by reading one or two verses (sometimes even a half of a verse) and then making a 40 minute sermon on some topic that evidences little resemblance to the Scripture. While we may here a nice message, we are nowhere closer to understanding Scripture, which is, afterall, the primary duty of preaching.

The following blog was written by Chuck Gutenson, a former professor of mine at Asbury. It is one of the best pieces I have read on the importance of understanding the context for understanding Scripture: Gutenson's Blog.

Studying the Bible or Reading Scripture?

I just finished reading a rather in depth article about the authorship of II Peter. It seems that we have been duped, that in fact the apostle Peter did not write that letter. But the most profound truth I gleaned from the article was the realization of how thankful I am that I am pursuing historical theology and not biblical studies.

This statement may sound odd to many of my readers. I can just hear it now: "What could be better than studying the bible?" I certainly agree; unfortunately, the manner in which the majority of biblical scholars pursue study of the text, in my opinion, is not what we might call reading Scripture (there are exceptions, many of them at Asbury). Modern biblical scholars are studying an historical document, at best a dubious one in their minds. They are interested in questions of history - did this really happen in this way? Who really wrote this book? When did he write it? Who did he write it too? Did they really cast lots for Jesus' robe, etc. This is an entirely different process than what happens with the reading of Scripture in church, the reading to see God. And this is the only kind of reading in which I am interested.

I stand with the Fathers and the great majority of the church tradition when I say that the purpose of reading Scripture is to be formed into the kind of people God created us to be, Christlike, or if you like the slightly more shocking language, perfect (my apologies to Martin Luther). At the end of the day, I don't believe it much matters whether the apostle Peter truly did write II Peter or whether one of his disciples writing in his name wrote it - what matters is that the church recognized that in this document is contained the authentic message of Christ and it is therefore useful in making us perfect.

Now the first thing that a biblical scholar is likely to say to me is: "Don't you care if all this really happened?" Of course I care! As Paul said, "if Christ didn't truly raise from the dead, let us drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." Or in modern Milwaukee terms, "hand me a PBR because I ain't studying Greek no more!" I believe that these things really happened because of the coherency of the Scriptures and their power to do what they were written to do, as witnessed in the lives of the saints and in my own experiences. But despite Lee Strobel's best intentions, I do not think that we will ever be able to prove these things beyond a shadow of a doubt anymore than we can prove that the Battle of Bull Run was fought twice. Therefore, it seems to me that the historical questions of authorship and setting and the like are not very helpful in forming me into a Christlike person. It is the story of redemption, told ultimately by the Spirit, which matters most.

Thus, I pursue historical theology because I believe that the story of the church is the ongoing story of redemption begun in Scripture. Here we see Scripture lived out by the saints. Here we see Scripture given meaning in community. Here we see mistakes that were made that we might not relive. And here we see the redemption of those mistakes in manners that only Christ can accomplish. In a way, studying historical theology is studying Scripture - but Scripture as it was meant to be studied, Scripture performed in the lives of the people of God.

For 1800 years it was believed that the apostle Peter wrote II Peter. According to the article I just read, 1800 years of Christians got that one wrong. But guess what? The Scriptures still produced an Augustine and a Perpetua. They still produced a Francis and a Teresa. They still produced a Merton and a Therese. And these are all the proofs I need.

"Silent Before Its Shearers"

One of the most damaging, if not the most damaging, bodies to associate themselves with the Church in our time is the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. This church is better known for its, so called, minister Fred Phelps. Phelps has made it his personal agenda to spread the message that God hates homosexuals, though he uses a much more derogatory term. He spreads this message through his website and through organizing pickets against, not only churches who are "pro-homosexual," whatever that means, but against any church who does not preach a message of hate. His website claims, among other things, that "God loves everyone" is the biggest lie ever perpetrated, and he picks and chooses verses from the Bible to support his message. His picketers carry signs with abusive and often graphic hate slangs. Besides the abuse of people who have been created in the image of God, the shame of his work is that, because he speaks the loudest, much of the world sees him as representing, not only the Baptist Church, but the Catholic - meaning universal - Church throughout the ages and throughout the world. Yet as far as I can see, there is no understanding in his message of the truth of the incarnation and the God revealed therein.

But how does one reason or argue with these people? If you quote them a Bible verse, they will come back with three. If you show them the witness of God's love throughout the great tradition of Christian saints, they will tell you the saints got it wrong. Often these pickets are the occasions of turmoil, as the verbal taunts from the picketers insite anger in those attending the churches and have resulted in some nasty scenes.

Last fall, Phelps' people traveled to Des Moines, Iowa to picket Des Moines Valley High School for putting on a play about Matthew Shepherd. While they were there, the picketed several big area churches, among them Lutheran Church of Hope, which happens to be the church of my parents and my brother and sister-in-law. The response of their church, led by their Pastor Mike Housholder, is a witness to a Christlike and Christ filled response.

The church prepared and served breakfast to the picketers!

At about 9:30, a group of twenty people were led out of the church by their Pastor, who was carrying an eight foot cross. Each of the people had a breakfast item in hand, prepared by other members of the church. Then, in the face of merciless taunting and threats, including: "God is your enemy!" and "Your pastor is lying to you!", this group of saints set up tables and laid out a homecooked breakfast for the picketers. The servers were instructed that, despite what they wished, they were not to say anything to the picketers.

You might ask yourself, as I did at first, why the silence? Why not engage these people and try to talk some sense into them? Why not respond to their message of hate with a message of love? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that to serve in silence was the only true Christlike response. If one were to engage the picketers, despite the best of intentions, it would likely result in an argument, which would degenerate into something unproductive. But to serve in silence is shocking. To take the abuse and the insults without rising up is something different, something other worldly.

My brother was one of these twenty people, and he told me that the looks on the faces of the picketers was one of "surprise" and "confusion." Their jeers lessoned when they realized that they were not going to get a response. He describes the occasion as one of his "spiritual mountaintop experiences." Of course, no one except a Christian can describe an experience of endless verbal abuse as "mountaintop." But to a Christian, the experience of enduring abuse is wonderful because it is a means of being conformed to Christ.

"He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth." -Isaiah 53:7

The suffering of Christ was redemptive because it took away the sins, not only of the world, but of the very ones who nailed him to that cross. And I believe that the suffering of those servers was redemptive in the sense that it might lead some of those picketers to see that they have misunderstood God's revelation. At the very least, they witnessed to the true God of Scripture, a God of love, and in that way gave hope to us all.

A Cross in the Sole

At our fellowship time after church this morning, I sat down next to an elderly man named Tom and we struck up a conversation. He told me that his wife Barbara had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor. I could tell the man wanted to talk about it so I asked him, and the story he preceded to tell was a beautiful reminder to me that our Lord cares for us like a Father.

He told me that on the first day of Barbara's chemotherapy treatment, he distinctly remembers that his right foot began to bother him, something like the feeling of a small rock in his shoe, but for whatever reason, he did not check it out. He spent the morning in the waiting room in prayer and encountered two different people, both of whom offered to pray for him. He interpreted these encounters sacramentally, that is he felt the Lord ministering to him through these strangers.

When he and his wife returned home after her treatment, he sat down to remove his shoes. Only then did he discover the culprit of the pain in his right foot. There, sticking in the sole of his shoe, was a small, gold pin in the shape of a cross, with three words etched in it: "He is risen." Facing the potential death of his wife, these words of the Gospel are the very reminder he needed - for those in Christ, death is not the final word. Eternal life awaits. Tom took the scuffed up pin out of his shoe and placed it on his shirt over his heart, where it has remained ever since.

If you think of it, please pray for a man named Tom and his wife Barbara. Pray that they will continue to experience the closeness and care of our Father.

Merton's Humility

This quotation, from a man who has become one of my heroes, sums up the way that I feel right now:

"But oh! How far I have to go before I find You in Whom I have already arrived!"
-Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

On First Days and Winter Nights

Second semester is upon us my friends, well, upon me anyway. Fairly shortly I expect it to start applying its weight. Additionally, Milwaukee winter has finally shown up and it appears to be making up for lost time. Average high this week has been 23 while the average low is somewhere around 8. Our old fashioned radiators are working overtime to keep our apartment at some level of comfort, which results in loud hissing and clanking noises. The other night, when my wife was away at work and I was sleeping alone, I awoke in the middle of the night to the ominous sounds of breathing at the foot of my bed. Faced with the prospect that someone was in my room, I literally felt my body go cold, which is quite a fete considering how cold I was already. I had the same feeling today in my first class - Advanced Hellenistic Greek - when the prof handed out a page from some obscure Greek document, printed in all capital letters, which looked something like this:

ΑΤΕΝΙΣΑΣ ΔΕ Ο ΠΑΥΛΟΣ ΤΩ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΩ ΕΙΠΕΝ

and told us that we were going to site read: "Mr. Lashier, would you like to start?" Have I mentioned that I have not studied Greek in over two years and that I never learned the capital letters of Greek in the first place? I quickly shot the girl sitting next to me a look that was somewhere in between hatred and panic. After all, she was the one who convinced me to take the class, assuring me that we wouldn't really get into the material for two weeks (she had the same prof last semester), which would allow me plenty of time to retrieve the Greek that I'm sure is somewhere in the cobwebs of my brain. No such luck. But in the words of Judy Garland, I muddled through somehow, or at least I have convinced myself I did, in the same way that I have convinced myself that it was the radiator emitting the wretched hissing sounds the other night and not, in fact, a monster waiting to pounce. Perhaps both are monsters and I'm living on borrowed time, as they say (whoever 'they' are).

In addition to the aforementioned classes, I am also taking French and Apostolic Fathers, which will be the study of the origins of Christianity, what the earliest theologies were like based on the writings directly preceding and following the New Testament. Pardon my French, but I do think I will be a little les miserables than I was last semester. At the start of the second semester, I do not have the overwhelmingly anxious feelings I had at the start of last. I do not sweat profusely at the beginning of each class (the weather is helping with that). I do not have the persistent feeling that I have fooled everyone and that any moment now, they all are going to realize that in fact I do not belong here. This is progress.

I am excited at the prospect of being more wholistic this semester. What I mean by this is a better incorporation of my spiritual life into my studies. Last semester, I felt that the two were very disjointed, and often the intellectual growth would thrive but the spiritual life would be stagnant. This should not be. In all my learning, I don't want to miss God. Please pray for me to that end.

Passing through the Graveyard

On Friday, I spent the hours between 10:00 and 4:00 at Holy Hill Monastery, a Discalced Carmelite monastery, a holy site just a half hour outside of Milwaukee. The Carmelite order started in, I believe, the 12th century when a group of hermits gathered on Mt. Carmel, the famous mountain of 1 Kings where Yahweh holds back the rain through the prophet Elijah to show the prophets of Baal that he has no power. Soon, however, the Carmelites were scattered.

The order was revived in the fifteenth century by St. Teresa of Avila, who, among other things, insisted that those of the order go barefoot or wear sandals in order to identify with the poor. From this point on, they were known as the Discalced (barefoot) Carmelites. Another well known figure of the order was Saint John of the Cross, the mystic who was famous for his book The Dark Night of the Soul. The order emphasizes personal prayer and communion with God, as the monks spend at least two hours a day in silent, individual prayer. This prayer is often modeled after St. Teresa, who liked to imagine that she was in the Garden of Gethsemanie with her suffering Lord as she prayed.

As we drove to the monastery, I was surprised to notice that we passed through an old graveyard, which occurred to me as an odd place for one - we were driving on a busy highway after all. But sure enough, lining both sides of the highway were hundreds of small white gravestones, such that we literally drove directly through. I did not give it much of a thought at the time.

Later, as I was kneeling at my pew in the beautiful sanctuary praying and looking up at Christ on the cross, the Christ who died for me, I was reminded of the graveyard that we passed through. I began to name all of the parts of me that needed to die, that needed to be uprooted, that needed to be left at that altar. I realized that the passing through the graveyard was symbolic of what needed to happen at that monastery, and what needs to happen everyday of my life. So often we use benign language to explain Christianity, that all one needs to do is have faith in Christ. But we also fail to realize that having faith in Christ means dying.

"I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ that lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me." -Galatians 2:20

When we are placed in the waters of baptism, we die; when we come out of the waters of baptism we are raised to new life, a life which is not our own, but Christ in us. Passing through that graveyard yesterday helped me to remember my baptism, and reminded me that I have some catching up to do.

Biography

I did not intend this, but I realized this morning that the last three books I have read for pleasure (including the one I am currently reading) have either been biographies or autobiographies. Last August, I read Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields (Lee wrote the pulitzer prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird). In September, I read The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf by Mark Frost (Bobby Jones is widely considered the greatest golfer who ever lived). Currently I am reading The Seven Storey Mountain, which is the autobiography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk.

All three were/are wonderful reads, particularly if you are a Harper Lee fan (which I am) or a golf fan (which I am). With all due respect to Harper Lee and Bobby Jones, however, it occurs to me how different Merton's story is than the other two. While Harper Lee spent her life, or at least her early life, obsessed with writing a great novel and Bobby Jones spent his life, or early life, obsessed with becoming the greatest golfer who ever lived, Thomas Merton, from age 23 on, transfixed all of his energies in experiencing God through spiritual exercises and mystical experience. While Lee's and Jones' biographies focus on their stories and ultimately bring glory to them, Merton's is clearly God's story and merely how he fits into it.

A sobering question I have been pondering: if someone were to write my biography at this stage of my life, would it focus on my pursuits at being a writer or a scholar or some other pursuit? Or would it focus on God and my consuming desire to commune with him. Unfortunately I think the former because those pursuits have truly consumed me, while often I have asked God to fit in their somehow.

I long to think and act like Merton. Like him, I do not want to care whether or not I become a writer or scholar (and for those who have played with me, certainly not a golfer). The only thing I wish is to live for is God and to have all other pursuits fall under that communion.

A Glimpse of the Church Year

As I have been doing a lot of blogging on the church calendar lately, I thought that it might be helpful to provide a visual aid of the year and the different seasons and celebrations. This picture was sketched by Rev. J.D. Walt, the dean of the chapel at Asbury Theological Seminary. He also writes a blog, which I would highly encourage any of my readers to check out, if you don't already: www.farmstrong.blogspot.com. Thanks for the sketch JD!

The Need for Epiphany

The more that I study the church calendar, the more I am amazed at the providence at work in its shaping. For the sacred time we celebrate is always structured in such a way to help the church fully experience and understand her story.

Today is the first Sunday after Epiphany, which is the feast celebrating the visitation of the magi. It is a particularly important feast to our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox church because it is the celebration of the light of Christ dawning on the Gentiles of the East. The word "Epiphany" means awakening.

Early in the theological reflection of the church, the Feast of Epiphany came to be associated with the Transfiguration, the point in the Gospel narrative where the divine light of Christ is revealed to Peter, James and John on Mt. Tabor, not by any alteration of Christ himself, but by the opening of the disciple's eyes to see Christ's true nature. I am unaware of the reasons for this association, but I suspect it has to do with Epiphany's placement in the calendar relative to Lent. For it mirrors the narrative placement of the Transfiguration in relation to Christ's last week.

The Feast of Epiphany is the anticipation of the Feast of the Resurrection. Between the two celebrations, the church moves through the Lenten season, which is a season of mourning. Similarly, the narrative placement of the Transfiguration in the Gospel anticipates the Resurrection, where Jesus will again appear in light. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus and his disciples move fairly quickly from Tabor to Jerusalem, where the cross looms. Neither the narrative structure of the Gospel or the timing of the calendar are coincidental however, for the people of God are in need of a reminder of who Christ truly is in order to get them through the mourning period to Easter. We, like the disciples, are in need of an Epiphany.

It is curious, then, that in Luke the Transfiguration is closer to the beginning of the Gospel; and much occurs between Tabor and Jerusalem. However, Luke is not ignorant of the need for epiphany prior to mourning. For in Luke's Gospel, Jesus' encounter with a blind man takes the narrative place of the Transfiguration:

"As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging . . .Those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet; but he kept crying out all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me!' And Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to Him; and when he came near, He questioned him, 'What do you want me to do for you?' And he said, 'Lord, I want to regain my sight!' And Jesus said to him, 'Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.' Immediately he regained his sight . . ." (Luke 18:35, 39-43).

May our eyes be opened this Epiphany, that we might be sustained through to Easter.

Wisdom from the Pope

It goes without saying to most who know me and my theological persuasions that I am, shall we say, less than enamoured with the ministry of Joel Osteen. Perhaps in another blog I will delineate the many problems that I have with him. In the current installment, I am reminded of a sermon of his I caught on a late night televised service of his mega church Lakewood. As he preached, I was unclear of whether I was listening to a sermon or to the State of the Union address for it seemed that at every other sentence, the huge auditorium of people would burst forth in applause. With the acknowledgement that I can tend to be a little critical, it did seem to me that he reacted to the applause as any stage actor might.

Perhaps we might learn from the wisdom of Pope Benedict, who wrote somewhere: "Whenever applause enters the liturgy, something has gone horribly awry."

An overstatement? Maybe. But I think his point is valid. For I believe that those who are fond of applause in church must always ask themselves, "For whom am I clapping?"

Journey Friends

As Christians, we often emphasize the truth that through Christ, we are called sons and daughters of God. I think that it is a truly amazing truth, not enough emphasized, that God calls us His friends. And one of the greatest blessings we have as his friends is to have other friends in Christ. In my many travels, I have been blessed with a handful of friends who have each changed me and completed me. Their friendship has been a crucial part of my formation in Christ - and life in Christ would not be as exciting or as fruitful without them. Unfortunately, in the Kingdom of God, we are often together only for a time. The Lord's call leads us to different places, and we go because we know that time together is not as important as spreading the Gospel, that more might enter this communion.

My friend Matthew Eubanks, who will one day be a famous writer (though he has yet to grasp this truth himself) has written a beautiful poem expressing this somewhat paradoxical truth of friends in Christ. I urge you all read it at http://www.tenderhumiliations.blogspot.com/.

Rounding the First Bend

Greetings Bloggers-

Once again, please forgive my extended absence from the Blog. My reasons are, of course, school related. But after several weeks of a fairly insane schedule, including many pages both written and read, many sentences of Latin translated, and much crippling self doubt, I'm happy to report that I made it through the first semester relatively unscaithed. And it was a success. The best news is that my work earned me a three credit scholarship for next semester, which is a blessing and will be much help to us this coming year. But beyond the papers, the grades, and the scholarship, the best feeling about finishing a semester is the sheer realization that I have finished, and that I was not conquered. To be sure, there were many points in this semester that felt like I would not finish - several were reported here and several were just shared between my wife and me, and of course the Lord in prayer. But that first hurdle is over, the first leg of the mile, and I find myself in a healthy place in the pack.

Another highlight of these past few weeks include traveling to The Woodlands, Texas to attend the Christmas Conference of the John Wesley Fellows. The John Wesley Fellowship is a scholarship that I was fortunate enough to receive last spring, and it is one of the main reasons that I am able to pursue the PhD. The express purpose of the Fellowship is to be a source of renewal for the United Methodist Church by funding scholars with a heart for the church that they might be placed in colleges and seminaries to train pastors who can go into churches and form Christians. At the conference, I was introduced to a number of fellow students who have a similar mind and heart as myself. Additionally, I was introduced to several world class scholars who are currently in the work of church renewal. I was privileged to hear a presentation from and talk to a man who was a student of the latre Henri Nouwen, an amazing Catholic theologian whose writings evidence a deep and abiding communion with God. I was able to reconnect with my friend, teacher, and mentor from Asbury, Rich Cornell, who is also pursuing a PhD. I found out at the conference that the Fellowship is a good deal more than a scholarship - it is a chance to be a part of a great community of scholars, the hearts of whom are all for the church.

And now I am on a month long break! My wife is rather jealous, though I think she enjoys that I am not cooped up in my office every evening. And despite my success in the PhD program, I cannot for the life of me beat her at a simple game of Backgammon. Needless to say, my grandfather would be proud of her.

For those of my readers who are still with me, expect more on a regular basis - I'll try to get in some blogging between Playtstation games and Christmas movies!

From a Distance?

The Christmas season is upon us Bloggers!

Please forgive my absence. Alas, school work is bearing down and the days grow frighteningly short for the amount of work left. However, I felt the following deserved a brief comment.

There are countless examples these days of how a majority of people (Christians even?) while celebrating Christmas completely miss the significance of it. This hit me tonight as I was studying and listening to Jewel's Christmas album. one of the few Christmas CDs that my wife added to our immense collection (have I mentioned that I love Christmas music?) Unfortunately, in an otherwise fine album, she includes the song: "God is Watching Us From a Distance" (made famous by Bette Midler a few years ago). While it is certainly a nice sentiment, it does not belong on a Christmas album because the one truth of Christmas is that God came near! The incarnation is the story of the once distant God taking flesh to walk among us. And with the coming of the Spirit, the remaining truth of Christmas is that he never leaves! Even death does not separate him from us. Thus, to put "God is watching us from a distance" on a Christmas CD profoundly misses the point.

Might I suggest to Jewel "O Come O Come Emmanuel" instead. For as Matthew tells us, Emmanuel means "God with us." And, in my mind, nothing grasps the true meaning of Christmas better than those three words.

The Holy Calendar

At church this morning, our pastor addressed the upcoming events in the church's calendar, namely Advent, or as he put it, "the church's new year." His short discussion reminded me of how radically different than church's calendar is as compared to, for lack of a better term, our secular calendar. Here are a few of the poignant differences.

The church's calendar begins with Advent. The preparation for the birth of our Lord marks the chance for the church to be reborn and to begin anew walking with Christ to the cross. Christmas is of course the end of the year in the secular calendar, and I doubt that many non Christians understand what Advent is really about. New Year's is a time to make "resolutions" that everyone knows will not last more than a week.

In January, the church celebrates Epiphany, marking the time when the wisemen visited Jesus. Epiphany is also marked by the Mount of Transfiguration, where it is revealed to the disciples who Christ really is. The Orthodox Church views Epiphany as their high holiday (like our Christmas) for it marks the point when Christ is introduced to the East. January is a horrible month in the secular calendar, one to merely get through.

In March, the church begins a season of preparation called Lent. It is a time of sacrifice, of renting the body that we might be conformed to Christ as he makes his way to the cross. For the church knows that there is no Easter without Good Friday. In the secular calendar, March is typically the time of Spring Break, when the headonistic fantasies of college students are played out. If you don't believe me, tune into MTV this March. Its troubling to say the least.

In early April, the church celebrates the high point of her year, Easter. The celebration of when her Lord has risen and has given true meaning to our lives. The celebration of the beating down of death. And we sing the wonderful hymn of faith: "Lives again our glorious King; where, oh death, is now thy sting? Dying once, he all doth save; where thy victory, oh grave?" Easter in the secular calendar is a time to look for eggs.

50 days after Easter, the church celebrates Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit when we are given the first fruits of the Kingdom, when we are assured that even though Christ has ascended, God is with us. He is in our hearts. Roughly the same time in the secular calendar is the beginning of summer, which is truly the high point of the secular year.

Interestingly though, after Pentecost, the church enters into what I believe is called "Common Time." We rest in the knowledge during those days that Christ has risen and that God is with us in his Spirit. The next celebration of the church comes on the Sunday before Advent, Christ the King Sunday, where Christ is celebrated as the true King.

If you notice, the church's calendar is stark opposite of the secular calendar. When the secular calendar ends, the church's begins. When the secular calendar reaches its high point, the church is in rest. To me it is a beautiful reminder of how God, by coming into this world as a human, has sanctified time and made it his own. All those who follow Christ are a part of this holy time. Ours is a different calendar because ours is a different reality.

As my friend and pastor JD Walt said to me once, it ought to give us pause that we are much more familiar with the secular holidays - New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, etc. - than we are with the church's holidays.

As Advent nears, I encourage everyone to set aside some time to truly prepare to be reborn with Christ. And spend this next year walking with Christ in His time. You might find yourself at a cross while the rest of the world indulges. But then you might find yourself walking out of a tomb. In the words of that same Easter hymn: "Soar we now where Christ hath led; following our exalted head. Made like him, like him we rise; ours the cross, the grave, the skies."

The Dreaded Retake, Part Three

To all my faithful bloggers and prayers:

I am happy to announce that the results are in and I passed my retake! (And I didn't even have to retype any answers!) This means that I can finally check the entrance exam requirement off my to do list. Thanks to all who prayed and continue to pray for me. This Phd process is certainly a difficult one, the biggest challenge I have ever faced. Some days I think that I am not cut out for it and honestly wonder if I have the ability to finish. These snippets of good news help me keep going, as do your faithful prayers.

Unpopular Theology

In an age of the church when popular theology, fed by numerous best selling Christian books and consistent messages from various pulpits, holds that God wants to bless us beyond our wildest imagination, and that he is the "Wish Fulfiller" and the "Dream Giver", the message of the martyrs still stands in stark contrast. The martyrs remind us that God's blessings are not always in this world. The following quotation is from the seventh century Father Maximus Confessor who, for all of his faith, piety, and devotion to God, had his tongue cut out and his right hand cut off:

"Pray through the Lord that God might perfect his mercy with our lowliness, and that He might teach us that those who sail along with Him experience a savage sea, like a ship which is driven about by winds and waves but stands firm and unshakable."

I also keep a quotation from Francis Asbury near my desk that challenges me on a daily basis:

"The more troubles I meet, the more convinced I am that I do the will of God."

I don't imagine that this kind of theology will ever be popular or will ever make the best seller list, but I do believe that it is true.

Servant Leadership

In my Byzantine Theology class, we have been studying the writings of the rather enigmatic figure Dionysius the Areopagite, which had a major influence on theologians of the ensuing generations, both east and west. The mystery surrounding this small corpus is that, for all of their influence, no one is quite sure who the author is. He claims to be the first century figure mentioned in Acts 17, one of the only people to respond to the Apostle's Paul preaching. From historical clues in the writings, however, it is quite certain that the writer could not have been Paul's disciple. More likely these works came from the late fifth to early sixth century. Because of his pseudonym (and other arguably questionable material in his works), Dionysius has come under much criticism. Unfortunately, I think that these criticisms have obscured the amazing spirituality he represents.

Take for example his thoughts on the ecclesiastical hierarchy of leaders (Bishop - priests - deacons - monks - lay people). Of course, Protestants criticize this hierarchy because it seems to imply that some are closer to God or have more access to God or something. But when he explains the ordination process of each of these ministers, you catch a glimpse of the beautiful and if you can see through the symbols, you catch a glimpse of Christ. To summarize his discussion of the ordination ceremony:

1. Monks stand before the altar and are anointed by the Bishop.
2. Deacons kneel on one knee before the altar and are anointed by the Bishop.
3. Priests kneel on both knees before the altar and are anointed by the Bishop.
4. The Bishop kneels on both knees and literally places the Scriptures on his head, and is anointed by a fellow Bishop.

What amazes me about this seemingly straightforward ceremony is the symbolism in the posture. Notice that the "higher" one gets in the hierarchy of power, the "lower" they are prostrated. This displays in physical form the calling of Christ upon every human's life, but particularly upon those who would answer the call to shepherd others. This is a call to follow in the footsteps of Christ, "who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing taking the very form of a slave."

This beautiful account of a sixth century ordination service reminds us that leaders in the church are not called to greater stature and greater power (as leaders in the world are); rather, leaders in the church are called to be the servant of others, as Christ was the servant of all. This is a message, I think, that many of today's church leaders need desperately to hear and desperately to grasp. It is likewise a message that I, as I prepare to be a "Doctor", whatever that means, need to hear and grasp.

Update on the Dreaded Retake

To all my faithful bloggers and prayers-

Thank you for your prayers this morning. I know that some say "I felt your prayers today," and while I cannot say that I felt anything supernatural this morning, I did feel the test went well. The question I had hoped would be on there was - I wrote three pages this morning on the differences between Catholicism and Martin Luther's doctrine of justification by faith. And I think that it went well. I did the best that I could do. It is hard to be overly optimistic as I felt that I did great on this section the first time around, but I will dwell on it. For now I will just return to studying my normal material and wait on the examiners to make out my scrawly handwriting. Let us hope that they experience something supernatural so that they can make out what apparently is the worst handwriting to ever come out of Marshalltown Iowa. :)

Today at 3:30 I present a paper and after that I believe that I am done until my final two papers and my final Latin exam. Which means I should start studying for them, oh I don't know, yesterday!

The Dreaded Retake

I know that many of my readers are faithful and consistent prayers - in fact I consider many of you role models in an area that I, quite frankly, struggle in. Therefore, I use this short blog for an update and a prayer request.

Marquette has an exam that all incoming PhD students have to take. It is a "pre-boards" of sort testing students on the knowledge that they have, or should have, acquired from their masters program. There are six different areas: Old Testament, New Testament, History 1 (early church to the medieval period), History 2 (late medieval period to modern), Theology and Ethics (Catholic Social Teaching). They offer such a daunting exam in order to make sure that all of their students are in the same place as they begin the PhD program. A seemingly adequate reason, however, it doesn't make it any easier for us rubes who never had Catholic Social Teaching (and I know of no other school who requires such an exam). But hey, I've never been one to complain.

I spent my entire summer studying for the exam (except for the two weeks we moved). Those in my family will remember the numerous boatrides that I missed to stay at the house reading obscure figures like Rahner and Tavard. Then, to add a little salt in the exposed wound, I had to take the blessed thing (an all day exam) on my second wedding anniversary.

The good news is that I passed five out of the six sections, failing only in history 2 (a bit problematic since I am emphasizing in historical theology). This means that I have to retake the part I failed (which was only one question), and that retake is Wednesday. I started studying fairly hard for it yesterday and will do so all day today and tomorrow (except for short breaks to attend classes). I'm feeling fairly good about it, as I remember much of what I studied this summer and I've acquired more notes in my short time here. Wednesday morning I will answer one question and be done with it. If I pass, no more will be said of it. If I fail, I will have to take a masters level class in the area, which will be quite expensive and will slow my program down a bit.

Hence the post. Please pray for me! Pray that I might remember this stuff and that I might be able to think clearly and (more importantly) write clearly on Wednesday morning - I had to retype a few questions the first time around. Pray also for my handwriting teacher who apparently didn't teach me a lick about good penmenship. That is all.

This is My Story

Julie, my wife, will celebrate her birthday this Saturday. The other day I was at a card shop looking for that perfect card, which would express my love to her. I came upon a "Wedding" card that had these words written in it: "We live two lives, the second one starts when we are married." Nice sentimentality to be sure - in fact, I almost bought it. But as I reflected on it, I realized that it is profoundly mistaken. The truth is that we live two lives, and the second one starts when you are baptized, or in the words of my favorite theologian, when you "catch up to your baptism." That is, your second life truly begins when you come to saving faith in Christ.

When Julie and I were married, we both were walking with God; therefore, our marriage did not begin a new life, but rather was a glorious continuation (and one of the finest expressions) of our life with God. This truth was our reasoning for choosing Fanny Crosby's hymn "Blessed Assurance" for Julie to walk down the aisle. An odd choice in the eyes of many, but the words beautifully expressed our sentiments that day:

"This is my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long."

We felt our marriage was part of God's greater story, not only in our lives, but in the Kingdom of God. We felt that God would continue and multiply the good works he had started in each of our lives as we joined together. We wanted the day to be about him, and only about us in so far as our marriage was an expression of his faithfulness. And that is how we have tried to live as a married couple, failing often, but keeping that as our goal.

"This my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long."

As people, our lives change often. We are taken to new places, we start new jobs, we are children, we have children, and the list goes on. But if you are baptized into the community of faith, then these events are all seen as merely parts of the continuous story of God's work in his kingdom. And the story will reach its climax when we depart from this world and are, together with all the saints, married to the lamb. This is why I want "Blessed Assurance" played at my funeral. But this time I will be walking down the aisle, with my wife and others beside me, as we approach Christ, our blessed bridegroom.

Parents and Friends

Please pardon my brief absence from these pages, and thanks to those who were kind enough to remind me of said absence by email (Randy ;)). My excuse is not so much busyness in my studies, though I cannot say I haven't been busy, as it is that my parents (known affectionately here as MMK and Jackie) were in town this weekend for a visit. If you will further pardon a bit of self indulgence, I'd like to relay the wonderful weekend we enjoyed together.

Lots of sight seeing (they saw Marquette's campus and Julie's hospital) in beautiful rainy Milwaukee. They also experienced winter a bit earlier than even they are used to in Iowa. My mother made the interesting comment one chilly night that she wouldn't think there would be many homeless people in Milwaukee in the winter. "Wouldn't you think," she pondered, "that they would make there way to some place warmer . . . like Kansas?" A good obervation Mom, though Kansas might not be the optium locale either, what with the wind storms and Kansas State sports. We also shared a lovely dinner at a fancy seafood restaraunt right on the river. (I promise Dad, we did not know the ridiculous prices before choosing the place.) I relate these anecdotes to share what occurred to me more than ever before this weekend, namely that one's relationship with one's parents changes over time.

When you are a baby, you depend on your parents for everything. Without their constant care, the fact is that you would die of any number of things, including starvation for food or love. When you get a little older, you depend on them less, but though you don't always like to admit it, the truth remains that without them, you would still be in trouble to care for yourself. Many children start distancing themselves in high school, spending less and less time at home and more and more time with friends. This prepares you for college when you truly are on your own, for the first time. But let's be honest, how many college kids can make it through those first few years without frequent visits and phone calls, advances on money, and the occassional load of laundry brought home? The truth is that it is not until you have graduated and are out in the real world that you can say you no longer fully depend on your parents.

I believe I am truly fortunate that I have two parents whom I never wanted to rebel against, with whom I didn't mind spending weekends in high school (though an occassional date would have been nice), and whom I loved to have visit me in college. My dad used to stop by my house every Wednesday and take me to Fazolis. He's the first one I told about my calling to ministry. My mom used to take me out to coffee every Thursday, where we would talk long and hard about how I had no clue what I wanted to do. After I graduated, I worked as a youth pastor at my local church and lived at home for six months. Though I feigned that it was "to save money," the truth is that I enjoyed it (and the occassional date would have still been nice).

It wasn't until I lit off for Kentucky that I felt that I was truly on my own. Not that they did not continue to support me with many phone calls, visits, money and prayers, but the fact was that I could no longer see them on a regular basis - and that was very hard. What I noticed then when I would go home for breaks, and what I realize now more than ever, is that the nature of our relationship had changed. But this was not a bad thing.

Instead of being the kid who slept in and who was taken care of all the time, I now interact with them as adults. This weekend, as always, we had the best conversations about life, theology, family, old friends, etc. My parents told me old stories about their lives that they never would have told me as a child. I notice my parents now looking to me for advice. I notice my parents allowing me to pay for dinner (occassionally). I notice my parents being our guests in our home (my dad even slept in). And it makes me proud that for all they have done for me, I can do small things for them.

It is true that it is hard to grow up (or as my dad once said: "It's old to get hard!"). You miss being a kid, having no responsibilities and having no worries, knowing that no matter what, your parents will be there to bail you out (in some cases literally). But it is so rewarding to experience an adult relationship with the people who raised you. To call them, not just your dad and mom, but your friends. My parents are my best friends, and I have truly enjoyed every stage of life we've been through together. I might even say that the current stage is the best - and maybe they all continue to get better.

But it remains true that, even with the changed relationship and the increased responsibilities, I know my parents will always be there to take care of me, and, if necessary, to bail me out. The only difference is that now I can be the same for them (and judging from some of their old stories, I might be called upon to do just that). And I would be more than willing to because, after all, they are my parents. And they are my friends.

Dad, next time the crab's on me!

A 50 Cent Gem

You can find an amazing wealth of materials in church library book sales. This is rather unfortunate in one sense because the sale of 'old, unread books' is likely occurring to make room for the newest fads and trends of the Christian living genre. In my opinion, these new trends don't hold a candle to the classics - the Henri Nouwens and the Thomas Mertons of the world. What was it someone once said: "If its right, its not new; if its new, its not right." It is fortunate, however because for those who are willing to take the time to wade through the piles, you can find some gems.

Our church was having one of these sales today so Julie and I stopped in after service. We found 9 books for the grand total of $4.50! One that I am especially excited about is called: Meditations with Meister Eckhart. Meister Eckhart was a thirteenth century mystic and theologian who wrote profound mediatations on creation, its fall and its redemption. I plan to read it with my quiet times, so this blog might feature a Meister Eckhart quotation from time to time. You have been forewarned. I'll leave you with one today:

"All hiding places reveal God. If you want to escape God, He runs into your lap. For, God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk."

The True Image of God

Much is made these days, in both Christian and theist (those who believe in a higher being but not necessarily the Christian God) circles about human beings created in the image of God. I think that what is normally meant by people who say this is that we are created with a soul or perhaps intelligence, thus distinguishing us from animals or other parts of creation. However, as I read the Fathers of the church, and particularly a group of fourth century Fathers known as the Cappadocians, it is becoming clear that the early Christians had a different definition of the image of God, one that was rooted in the question of what it means to be a person. (What follows is a bit theological and philosophical, but I will try to put it into understandable terms for both my readers and myself.)

The Greek philosophers did not have a clearly defined notion of a person. The closest they came was a "unique collection of properties." Thus, I am a person - the specific person Jackson Lashier - because I am a male, white, have freckles, have a right leg that is a bit shorter than the left, and the like. Though there may be other white males with freckles, there is no one else who has the exact same set of properties or characteristics that I do. While Christians incorporated this definition into their work, they expanded upon it, developing, as it were, a new vocabulary and a new definition of person.

So, the divine persons can also be defined as unique collections of properties. The Father is the Father because he is uncreated, he is the creator, etc. The Son is the Son because he is the one through whom all is created and he is the one who came to earth. The Spirit is the Spirit because he proceeds from the Father and he gives spiritual gifts etc. Thus, they are distinguished one from another, just as I am distinguished from my wife because, among other things, I am a male and she is a female.

But here is where it gets good. The Fathers believed that these unique sets of properties, though adequate for distinguishing the different members of the Trinity, were inadequate for making them persons. They took another step. What makes the Father, Son and Holy Spirit persons is that they exist in eternal communion with one another. To quote a Father: "There is apprehended among these three a certain ineffable and inconceivable communion." This communion is what moves them from the abstract notion of a "unique set of properties" to a person, and what distinguishes a Christian from a non Christian view of person.

What this means, I think, for the truth that we are created in the image of God is that we too are created to be in communion with others! The image of God in us is not simply our mind or soul, because people with minds and souls can be profoundly isolated. It means that we are created for relationship, the same kind that the Trinity has experienced for eternity. This is not to say that if someone is isolated that they are therefore not a person, but it is to say that, apart from vital communion, the fullness of our personhood and the image of God in us is not fully realized. This isolated person is in need of salvation. This is why the church is so important, and why the Christian life can never be simply "just God and me." The church puts us in communion with others and with the Trinity. Therefore, a crucial part of the salvation process is not simply "asking Jesus into one's heart," it's getting truly connected with others (Is it any wonder that the central act of the church is communion?)

This is the profound truth embedded in the words of Genesis 1:26, the key image of God text, which reads: "The God said, 'Let US make man in OUR image, according to OUR likeness.'" And when he creates, what does he create, but a communion: "male and female He created them" (Gen 1:27).

I hope that I have somewhat articulated the profound truth that I am currently working through. If you want a much better discussion of the same idea, check out Dennis Kinlaw's book, Let's Start With Jesus. Besides being profound, it is extremely readable and accessible. I believe chapter 3 targets this issue.

Insights on Psalm 51

In the previous post, I discussed the positives and potential negatives of Scripture memorization. I received some excellent comments on each side of the issue, particularly from those indicating what incredible insights can come from Scripture memorization. As I have started memorizing Psalm 51, I have experienced some of these new insights of which many of you spoke, and I thought I would share them.

1. Psalm 51:1: "Be gracious to me, O God, according to your lovingkindness." This word lovingkindness is very prominent in the Old Testament and it is used to translate the Hebrew word which indicated God's covenant faithfulness. And if we see anything from the story of Israel, we see that God is faithful to his covenant even when his people are not. We call on God, here, to be gracious to us, not according to the good we have done, but according to HIS faithfulness. I don't deserve it, but I know that God will be gracious to me because he is faithful despite what I do.

2. Psalm 51:5-6: "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold you desire truth in the innermost being and in the hidden part you will make me know wisdom." This verse indicates the predicament that we are all in, that we have been born into original sin, that we are sinners from birth. Many times, and I speak for myself here, I like to hide behind this. To justify my sin, in other words, because I can't help it. But notice how the Psalmist David does not stop at the truth of original sin, but continues on to where God is wanting to bring us - into truth and wisdom. Sin is our problem but it doesn't have to be our reality, for God desires us to know truth and to know wisdom. What is interesting about this "wisdom" is that the Fathers universally saw Wisdom as a name for Christ. So John's Gospel starts: "In the beginning was the Word." This Word (logos) is actually the Greek masculine form of sophia (the word translated from the Greek Psalm 51 as wisdom). Psalm 51 is saying that God desires us to know Christ in the innermost part. Wow!

3. Psalm 51:14: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation." I believe that as I read this Psalm in the past, I always thought or assumed that the "your" in this verse was actually "my" - restore to me the joy of my salvation. There might even be a praise chorus of this song which uses my. What is interesting to me is that David is asking God to give him joy of the Lord's salvation. The emphasis, in other words, is not on David's salvation, but on the Lord's salvation of all of creation, and David is a part of that. How often we reduce things to individual truths (God and me), when the biblical perspective is communal truths (God and us).

These are just a few of the insights that have come to me while memorizing this Psalm. It has been quite an exercise and what I like most about it is that I find Scripture reverberating in my head as I walk around, instead of the normal Seinfeld, baseball, One Crazy Summer junk that is often not productive. My prayer is that the development of this discipline in my life will be used by God to help me to know Wisdom in the hidden part.

An Overlooked Discipline

I have a confession to make. I've never been a big fan of Scripture memorization. I've done my fair share of it - though, truth be told, I've likely forgotten about as much as I've 'memorized' - but something always seemed wrong about it to me. I've heard the case for it, Scripture says to "hide the Word in your heart" and such, but to me, memorizing one verse out of Deuteronomy did not equate to hiding the Word in your heart.

When I got to Seminary, I found a concept for my anxst. It's called "prooftexting." Simply defined, this is the process of yanking one verse out of Scripture to back up some argument. More often than not, however, the verse is pulled out of context and used to defend something that has nothing to do with the actual verse. Prooftexting is fairly rampant among Christians these days, lay people and clergy alike. You hear people using "the Bible says" as a trump card for anything they like. I heard it all the time in my classroom at Lexington Christian Academy - often it was the boys quoting a verse out of 1 Timothy or Ephesians to tell a girl to be quiet. I've heard preachers quote verses to argue a point that is actually the exact opposite of what the verse is saying in its context. I'm almost convinced that if we tried hard enough, we could use the Bible to prove that Rumsfeld was in fact the second shooter on the grassy knoll. Such practices cheapen the richness of the Word, make it a punchline for jokes, and usually enforce some of the Christian stereotypes that I have spent the past few years trying to dispell.

For several years, I felt that the practice of memorizing Scripture actually encouraged this sort of flippant use of Scripture. After all, no one ever memorizes an entire book, and frequently, those who memorize small verses actually have no clue of where that verse falls in the larger story. I grew so skeptical of it that, last year at LCA, I downgraded Scripture memorization from crucial part of the grade to extra credit (that is until I was politely informed of the policies).

At the same time that my disgust was high, I continued to have great admiration for people who prayed or spoke in Scripture; people who would not use Scripture as a licence to hurt or a trump card, but who knew Scripture so well that their speech was literally peppered with it. JD Walt, my pastor at Asbury, was one of these people. In our visits, he would frequently recite a Psalm in answer to a question or dilemna I was having. And I was always comforted by the words. This was one person who truly had hidden the Word in his heart and it showed in his life.

I have been ruminating on this question for some time now and have decided that Scripture memorization can be a wonderful discipline and an excellent way to grow in holiness, so long as the dangers of "prooftexting" are avoided. I have decided that the way to avoid prooftexting, in my own developing discipline of memorization, is to focus on the Psalms. The Psalms are short, relatively easy to memorize in whole, and they were written for any situation. The fact is that you don't have to worry about placing Psalms in context because they all revolve around praise - and praise can and should be done in any situation.

I've started with Psalm 51 because it is one that I already know fairly well. Julie is starting with me and it has led to some poignant moments of reciting Scripture out loud together. I'm excited to see where this journey of "hiding the Word in our hearts" will take us. More details to come. I'd also be interested in hearing any of my reader's thoughts or stories on this discipline.

The Holy Heretics

One of the curious details of church history is how surprisingly nasty some of our Fathers got in arguing against and denouncing those who later came to be known as "heretics" (those whose theological beliefs are inconsistent with Scripture and Tradition). A short example, the fifth century Father Cyril of Alexandria arguing against his nemesis Nestorius says of him: "What a servile mentality from a crazed brain that knows how to do nothing else but gabble." The scholarly euphemism for this style of writing is "polemics." Most of us might just say, "well that's pretty rude."

Of course the outcome of these "polemics" for the heretic is the dreaded "anathema," which means "let them be cursed." In other words, if you don't believe what we believe, you are cursed. A surprising amount of anathemas find there way into our creeds. We don't speak them on Sunday mornings, but historically they are there.

I am a firm believer that the Holy Spirit was present in the shaping of tradition, and the forming of the creeds, and that the Spirit indeed led the church into the right beliefs. I do believe, for example, that Cyril got it right and Nestorius got it wrong. The problem I am having is that, as I read some of these "heretics," I realize that they seem to have achieved a level of holiness that, at this point in my life, I could only hope for some distant day. Take the following quote from our old friend Jacob of Serug - denounced by the church as a heretic in the fifth century:

"O! hidden Word, which came down to the earth openly, give me of your wealth, that I may impart it amongst the poor. Lord most high, my mouth is insufficient for your praise: make a new mouth for me that it may proclaim your songs."

And this is just a sample . . . yet, the church has lost these writings because he has officially been declared "anathema." So the question is, what happened to Jacob? Because he got one thing wrong, was he malformed? Can you be mistaken in belief and yet still be formed after the character of Christ? Do you have to get every detail right to have the blood of Jesus cover you? And if you say no, where do we draw the line? Do those who don't believe Jesus is divine, for example, pass?

These are just thoughts that I am pondering as I am introduced to those outside the official walls of orthodoxy who seem to have figured out holiness in a way I - being on the inside of those walls - have not yet.