Advent: Arrival

The newborn king, heralded by angel armies,
Lay without pomp or ceremony
In a feedbox, surrounded by scents
Of hay and dust and manure,
Cattle and afterbirth and blood.

Israel’s Great Shepherd was greeted
Not by her high and holy ones,
But by a band of literal shepherds,
Smelly and earthy and common,
Full of faith and wonder and praise.

The king’s virginal mother sat nearby,
Grateful to be far from Nazareth
And the vicious whispers of neighbors.
She smiled at the shepherds’ amazement;
She, too, had known angel-awe.

Her husband, discreet and righteous,
Quietly rearranged her bed,
Working to provide more comfort
For the wife who was his
And the child who wasn’t.

Thus the Maker came to live
Among creatures He had formed,
And He shared their form:
Tiny, helpless, humble, poor, weakness born
To shame the things the World prized most.

Cross-Posted at the Mustard Seed Conspiracy

Photo Credit

Fellowship

He found you like He found me:
Empty and hopeless,
At the end of ourselves,
Lost coins hiding in forgotten corners,
Penniless prodigals stealing slop from hogs.

And He breathed life into our dead lungs,
And overwhelmed our darkness with light,
And built us into a body, a temple,
A kingdom where everyone
Is a priest of the Almighty.

My Priorities

This summer, I was challenged to write a statement of my personal priorities. Here's what I came up with. Sticking it here so I'll remember where I left it. :-D

1. Put Christ first in all things.
2. Provide (spiritually, emotionally, materially) for my wife and kids.
3. Follow God's callings for my life:
1. Use my gifts to minister to His people.
2. Work hard so I can provide for my family and give generously.
3. Create beautiful things to bring light into a dark world.
4. Maintain good spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical health. These are vital tools in accomplishing the things listed above.

Discipleship: An Introduction

A disciple is one who follows and learns. The term comes from the Latin word discipulus, meaning student, pupil, or follower. And yet a disciple is more than a mere student. A true disciple must immerse himself in the master's teaching. He must allow it to become a way of life, not just a set of ideas. The deeper he goes, the truer a disciple he becomes.

In John 8:31-32, Jesus tells the Jews who have believed in Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." I think we'd all agree that we'd like to be free. And if we're followers of Christ, we also want to know His truth. So, then, continuing in His word is vital, if we are to attain these goals.

At least three things are required on the path to becoming Christ's true disciples:

1. Know the word. You can't follow a path if you don't know where it is. Similarly, you can't walk in the truth if you don't know what it is. Psalm 119:105 says that God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It shows us the way we ought to go.

2. Remove distractions. You won't get far on a journey if you keep taking side-paths that lead away from your goal. I John 2:15 instructs us not to love the world nor the things in the world. This is because the world around us is caught up in worldly, fleshly things. It isn't concerned about spiritual truths, so being too attached to the world will prevent us from setting our affections on things above, where Christ is (Colossians 3:2).

3. Begin following. You'll never get anywhere if you don't start. An old proverb says that the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, and that's true. Before Joshua's death, he urged the Israelites to "choose for yourselves today whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15). The same choice applies to you and me, every day of our lives. Yes, we have chosen Christ once. But if we want to continue down the path with Him, if we want to grow in Him, we also keep choosing Him, moment by moment and day by day.

My purpose over the next few weeks is to outline how to get from where you are to where you want to be in a relationship with Christ. In other words, I want to help you reach that spot where you can look at your life, evaluate it in light of John 8:31 ("If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine"), and say, "Yes! That's me!"

In my next post, I'll introduce some tools that will help us as we journey together toward discipleship.

Adventures in Hagiography

Hagiographers build the saint's life
Even as they kill the man behind it
Deader than a sinless doornail.

They lose his doubt and fear and foibles,
His bad temper and worse choices,
His lonely nights of dark despair.

They know their audience, to be sure:
Masses eager for a blameless hero,
But one less offensive than Jesus Himself.

In the baby lisping Ave Maria and Pater Noster,
We see Christ as we would like Him to be,
Rather than the bruised, bloody bondslave He was.

Thanksgiving Eve Communion Meditation

Take a moment to consider what you are thankful for tonight. Is it family? Friends? Food to eat, clothes to wear? A warm place to stay?

You probably didn't say, "The gruesome execution of an innocent man." In fact, though, that is precisely what we are here to remember, to celebrate, and to give thanks for.

Tonight, we remember our abject failure, both individually and collectively, to do things God's way. We remember our willful treachery toward a loving Father. (And let us not deceive ourselves: ours was a betrayal every bit as vile – and every bit as permanent – as Judas Iscariot's.) We remember the dark, despairing night of our sojourn among the hopeless dead.

We remember, too, a blameless man who loved, healed, and forgave as freely as He breathed. He was the obedient son, a perfect foil for Adam’s rebellious race. He gave of himself with an intensity greater even than our self-seeking greed. Everything he did was perfect, since he followed in his heavenly father’s perfect steps.

And this faultless one, this perfect son, was the man who stood in our rightful place under the wrath of a just judge. He bore our iniquities and the punishment for our sins without a word of complaint. He drank the cup of God’s wrath down to the last bitter dregs.

Isaiah wrote this about the suffering servant:

1 Who has believed our message?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

And like a root out of parched ground;

He has no stately form or majesty

That we should look upon Him,

Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

3 He was despised and forsaken of men,

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

And like one from whom men hide their face

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,

And our sorrows He carried;

Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities;

The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,

And by His scourging we are healed.

6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all

To fall on Him.

7 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.

8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;

And as for His generation, who considered

That He was cut off out of the land of the [k]living

For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?

9 His grave was assigned with wicked men,

Yet He was with a rich man in His death,

Because He had done no violence,

Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

10 But the Lord was pleased

To crush Him, putting Him to grief;

If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,

He will see His offspring,

He will prolong His days,

And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

11 As a result of the [p]anguish of His soul,

He will see it and be satisfied;

By His knowledge the Righteous One,

My Servant, will justify the many,

As He will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,

And He will divide the booty with the strong;

Because He poured out Himself to death,

And was numbered with the transgressors;

Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,

And interceded for the transgressors.

So, tonight, we remember this prince who died the ignoble death of a slave on our behalf. We remember the one who willingly braved a dark, deadly path to redeem the lost souls of his straying people. And we are thankful, more than words could express, that he was willing to be utterly broken so we might be made whole again. Only God’s matchless mercy could have achieved this. Let’s thank Him for the provision of such a marvelous savior.

Love, Weakness, and Repentance

Note From the Blogger: I found this in my Drafts folder. I started it in April 2009, and just got around to finishing it today. Sorry and you're welcome.

I've always been uneasy about observing church festivals. This is probably because I am not from a very conservative liturgical tradition.  In the churches of my youth, we were "Bible-believing Evangelicals" who followed the doctrine of sola scriptura to the point of iconoclasm (and sometimes anticlericism).

To my ilk, Ash Wednesday had a dangerously Roman feel. We had read Jack Chick's tracts; we knew Catholicism was a slippery slope. One day you're smearing ashes on your forehead, and the next you're sprinkling water on babies and buying  papal indulgences. Who knows how far you'll go once you take that first step toward idolatry?

So I suppose it's strange that I have been practicing intentional self-deprivation since Ash Wednesday. And that I intend to do so until Easter Sunday. Almost sounds like... Lent.

How did I get here from there? What changed my iconoclastic mind about the spiritual value of ancient liturgical traditions? I attribute it to two main elements.

Firstly, as a history major in college, I became enchanted with monks. I loved the idea of a life devoted to purity, piety, and praise. At one point, I briefly considered trying to live my life by the Rule of St. Benedict. While I didn't take the leap, I am still fascinated with the idea that pious practices can help to mold my mind, heart, and life to be more like Christ.

Secondly, in recent years, I have come to believe that it would be a grave error to ignore two millennia of church tradition. I don't believe that tradition has the same weight as scripture. However, that doesn't mean tradition is worthless. To observe the seasons of the liturgical calendar is to join with billions of other saints, both present and departed, in their faith walk.

In my mind, Lent is one of the most beautiful and valuable observances in the church year. Traditionally, Roman Catholics give up meat during Lent.¹ However, common practice today (especially for vegetarians or those who don't eat much meat anyway) is to simply give up something that matters to you. (In case you want to read more, here is an excellent post about Lent, written by a friend of mine who is an Episcopalian priest.)

So, what do I hope to gain from this commitment to self-denial? Here are a couple of lists I made to clarify for myself why I was (and wasn't!) observing Lent:

Observing Lent Will Not:

• Increase God's love for me. Since before the foundation of the world, He has loved me with an immeasurable love. The person of Jesus Christ is the inarguable earnest of that love.²
• Enhance my worthiness. By myself, I am an unholy, rebellious, sinful person who deserves no more chances. Out of His great love, God chose to call me from death into life. He didn't do this because of anything I have done or could do; He did it because He was pleased to do it.³
• Make me more righteous. My righteousness comes from Jesus Christ's substitutionary atonement for my sins on the cross.⁴

I Pray That Observing Lent Will:

• Increase my love for God. As I focus on Him and what He has done for me, may my gratitude and love overflow in response. 
• Remind me of my weakness. When I fail to keep my commitment, either in letter or in spirit (as I have many times during this season), I am reminded of my frailty and need for a savior. With the crowds in Jerusalem, I cry out to Jesus, "Hosanna - Save me now!" How desperately I need His power to pull me out the terrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock. 
• Make me more repentant. I am surrounded by sin. So often, my concept of Christianity is to avoid sin, rather than actively turning away from it and going the other direction. I have not been called from darkness into nothing; I have been called into the glorious light of God's son. I pray that this Lenten season will help me to wholeheartedly reject my sin and fiercely pursue an active, positive righteousness.

So what about you, dear reader? Are you Lenten, or Un-Lenten? Any thoughts to add to mine? I'd love to hear about liturgy's role in your faith walk.


Notes:

¹Why meat? And why is fish OK? If you're going to make people give up things they don't want to give up, why not make them give up alcohol, for instance? I'm glad you asked. As he so often does, St. Thomas Aquinas has an appropriately hilarious answer for you:

[F]asting was instituted by the Church in order to bridle the concupiscences of the flesh, which regard pleasures of touch in connection with food and sex. Wherefore the Church forbade those who fast to partake of those foods which both afford most pleasure to the palate, and besides are a very great incentive to lust. Such are the flesh of animals that take their rest on the earth, and of those that breathe the air and their products, such as milk from those that walk on the earth, and eggs from birds. For, since such like animals are more like man in body, they afford greater pleasure as food, and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust. Hence the Church has bidden those who fast to abstain especially from these foods ...

Three things concur in the act of procreation, namely, heat, vitalspirit, and humor. Wine and other things that heat the body conduce especially to heat: flatulent foods seemingly cooperate in the production of the vitalspirit: but it is chiefly the use of flesh meat which is most productive of nourishment, that conduces to the production of humor. Now the alteration occasioned by heat, and the increase in vitalspirits are of short duration, whereas the substance of the humor remains a long time. Hence those who fast are forbidden the use of flesh meat rather than of wine or vegetables which are flatulent foods.

² See Rom. 5:6-8.

³ See Rom. 3:10-12.

⁴ See II Cor. 5:21.

Ash Wednesday: Thoughts From a Friend

So this is great.

My Hutch-friend Jen has some great thoughts about Ash Wednesday - the liturgical celebration as well as the poem by T. S. Eliot. Here's a snippet.

Lent begins again this week. I’m going to give something up. I’m probably going to fail too. And yet, I still want to come, ash marked, to lay my own tiny sacrifice on the altar of grace. 

This is the tension. Teach me to care and not to care.

Read more over at Greener Trees.

Real-Life Heroes

These people are very dear friends, and also some of the most heroic Jesus-followers I know.

Check out the first post on their blog: http://schummexplosion.blogspot.com/2013/01/2-411-1-1-1-5-schumm-family.html.

That is all.

What's the Best Way to Be Married?

I see a lot to agree with in this sermon by an old childhood friend: The Abundant Life of the Church « Gracious Jots

Here is one of my favorite parts:

Let me be very clear. I do think God wants us to be content. I do think God wants us to have enough food to eat so that we do not go to bed hungry.  I do think God wants us to experience healing and wholeness. However, I do not think that the prosperity gospel is actually good news nor do I think it brings contentment, healing, or even wholeness.

There is abundant life found in the life of the church.  And this abundant life can be experienced by each participating member of the church, regardless of financial situation.

This is a message the American church needs very badly. Too often, we conflate plenty with blessing and lack with tribulation. The New Testament, however, teaches that circumstance should never constrain our contentment or our joy.

As much as I appreciate this sermon's main argument, I do have some concerns with its discussion of Ephesians 5:21-33:

This passage is used in weddings all the time and is used to subjugate women to men.  Let’s acknowledge that this passage has been used for more harm than good.

Abundant life does not flow from harmful hierarchy or even patriarchy within relationships. This model essentially argues for the marriage to be about one person’s needs while another just meets all those needs.  This practice is really unhealthy in marriage.

Furthermore, This passage isn’t intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage in the 21^st century.   No, this passage is talking about the unity and intimacy between Christ and Christ’s beloved- the church.

This passage on marriage is the author using what he had to work with (an understanding of a 1^st century marriage) to explain how much Christ loves the church, and how the church is supposed to love Christ.

I agree that this passage has been used to justify many ungodly actions. However, that doesn't mean we can completely throw out the model of marriage that it describes.

It is true that this passage is, most importantly, a description of the loving relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. But to say it isn't also God's blueprint for healthy marriages is to miss a significant part of the passage's power.

If willing submission to the authority of another is subjugation, then the Father has been subjugating the Son since before the foundation of the world. Christ has been subjugating His beloved Bride for the past two millennia. Church leaders all over the world subjugate the flocks that their Savior entrusts them to protect and feed.

Would anyone argue that Christ's suffering on the cross was centered on His own needs? Or that God the Father's plan to heal His broken people was a self-centered one? Or that genuinely caring elders in a church weep, pray, and minister to their people out of selfish ambition?

Those examples are within the same model Paul advocates for marriage. In this model, there is danger of marriage being all about one person's needs. That person, however, is the wife. (The one "lower" in the hierarchy is always served by the one "above.")


The sermon claims that this passage "isn't intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage in the 21st century."

That's true. It is, however, intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage. Period.

God's standards for life and godliness don't change from age to age, and He says the best way to have a marriage is when a husband loves his wife more than himself and the wife submits to and respects her husband. This doesn't mean life will be perfect -- but it does mean it will be a lot less painful.

I wrote a lot more about inspiration and metaphor and postmodernism, but it seemed like more heat than light, so I deleted it. I think for me, the important thing is that this is how God wants me to live, so I'm going to choose to do it, no matter what others think (or even what I think).

And I guess that's submission, too.

A Real and Present Kingdom

My Hutch-buddy Travis (who is, incidentally, one of the world's foremost Harry Potter nerds) posted this fantastic sermon:

There are those who believe that the world is getting worse and worse, and our ultimate goal is to escape it before it all gets destroyed. People pine for the good old days when everyone went to church and believed in God, and lament the tragic state of today. There are others who believe the world is progressing toward goodness, getting better and better as time runs on. People lament the old days of darkness and injustice and celebrate how enlightened we’ve become. Neither the traditionalist nor the progressive view is accurate, because it takes a lot more than progress or magical escape routes to fix the fallen world we live in. It takes the world’s Creator, its King, Jesus. And the way he’s chosen to bring this redeeming, reconciling, healing kingdom to the world is through the cross, and through a group of humble cross-bearers known as the church.

Do I march in lockstep with Travis's theology? Clearly not. I am not Episcopalian, after all.

Do I think he has some very powerful points? Absolutely.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing here.

God's Polity

The other day, I posted a link to Sara's thoughts about election night.  Here are some more ideas that I respect regarding our election outcome. I guess what they have in common is that each one exemplifies a genuinely Christian way of thinking about power and politics.  

• One unabashed theocrat on U.S. Election Day 2012 and the Crown Rights of King Jesus « Morning at the Brown Brink
• The Election is Over: Long Live the King! « The Colossian Forum
• On This Dying Land « The Little Boots Liturgies

I can't add much to these thoughts, except for a few basic points that I'm sure you've heard before:

• No matter who is in charge, God wants me to:
• Submit to them (Rom. 13:1-5)
• Respect them (Ibid.)
• Pray for them (I Tim. 2: 1-4)
• Pay my taxes (Rom. 13:6-7, Mk. 12:13-17)
• Obey human law, as long as it isn't in direct conflict with God's (Rom. 13:1-5, Acts 5:27-29)
• Live quietly, work hard, and mind my own business (I Thes. 4:10-12)
• God's kingdom is not of this world (Jn. 6:14-15, 18:36)
• For believers in Christ, He is the only ruler we need (Php. 2:5-11, Rev. 19:16)

I vote not because I think legislation will change the sinful hearts of Americans, but because doing so is part of giving Caesar the things that are Caesar's. As Sara said the other day, "our salvation does not reside on Capitol Hill." Praise God for that! Can you imagine entrusting all your hope to the inefficient bureaucratic morass that is the United States Federal Government?

Our hope and our citizenship reside in the person of Christ, who is enthroned at the right hand of God. Because of this, we put aside the dark deeds of the flesh and follow the light that emanates from our great leader. We do not (and cannot!) legislate righteousness; it comes only from utter dependence on Christ. (See Col. 3 for more on this.)

One more quote before I stop rambling. This one is from Brave Saint Saturn (one of my favorite bands of all time): 

Real change doesn’t come from a mandate

Real love you cannot legislate

Amen, amen, and pass the IRS Form 1040.

Poems Inspired by John's Gospel

My Hutch-friend Rebecca has written some really good poems about the Gospel of John. I have been meaning to link to them for a while.

Here are some lines from her latest one (The Little Boots Liturgies: John 20):

They sat in blanked silence,
retracing the death of all known belief,
yielding to every aftershock,
as it rolled through the dry earth of their bodies.

“It is finished!” 
They had heard it with their own ears.
They had watched
while each last hope pulled shut

like a bolted door,

through which
Hope passed (even yet)
and stood among them.

“Peace, be with you.”

See Him there,
transposing physics.

OK, so I wanted to go on quoting, but pretty soon I would have posted the whole poem, and then you would have no reason to click on the link to her site.

Don't just sit here; there's poetry to be read! What are you doing still reading this?!

Hutchmoot 2012 (Part 1: The Spiritual Stuff)

If you know what a Hutchmoot is, you won't be surprised to hear that Hutchmoot 2012 was an occasion of breaking (the good kind), challenge (also the good kind), and immense blessing (I don't think there's a bad kind) for me.

That's the short version of how this event affected me. To explain why, we're going to have to take a scenic drive through the ugliness of my festering, not-quite-dead-yet flesh. Feel free to exit the vehicle at any time if you find yourself growing ill.

Light at the end of the tunnel: If we make it through my old self's rotting corpse in one piece, I'll tell you why Hutchmoot was one of the most beautiful things to happen to it in a long time.

So here are three things you need to know about me:

1. I'm insecure. Debilitatingly so. I crave validation and acceptance and live in constant fear of not being good enough to receive them. I thrive on praise and cringe at the slightest hint of criticism. I use other people as benchmarks, caring more that I can compare myself to them than that they are made in the very image of God.
2. I'm selfish. I seek my own pleasure, my own goals, my own way, with every wretched breath. I march, jackbooted, over the needs and desires of others. (The exception is when their needs or desires coincide with mine, in which case I tolerate them for a while, as Hitler tolerated Stalin before Operation Barbarossa.)
3. The first two things about me are lies. Well, they're starting to become lies. Chapters 4 - 6 of Paul's Letter to the Romans tell me this is true. Like Abraham, I have believed the impossible, and my faith in Christ has been credited to me as righteousness (4:19-25). God has restored my relationship with Himself and given me a glorious hope (5:1-5). In large part, this hope springs from the fact that my old self is dead. When I came to Christ, I died, just as surely as if a divine executioner had stood me up against a brick wall and used an expertly aimed hollow-point round to turn my brains into soup (6:1-7). In my old man's place lives the new man, the image of Christ in me.

Still with me? Good. So how did Hutchmoot 2012 change me? How did it make Thing #3 truer while making Things #1 and #2 falser? (And is "falser" even a word?)

God used my sweet communion with Hutchfriends, my tummy full of Hutchfood, and the megadoses of truth in the Hutchsessions to clear up my cloudy vision a little bit. And, quite frankly, I didn't really like what I saw. I realized that my flesh was still much too alive. Rather than giving wholeheartedly and unstintingly to others, my old self wanted to measure my skills, talent, experiences, and accomplishments against theirs. It wanted to use these precious friends to my advantage. Perhaps talking with certain people would give me the appearance of being important, of being worthy of spending time with. Vicarious power and prestige? Yes, please.

I saw these natural tendencies and found them utterly disgusting.

Here's the really beautiful part: This clarity of vision was accompanied by encouraging words of truth from Scripture. Russ Ramsey gave a devotion on I Corinthians 4:3-4, reminding me that I am not my own judge, and that no other human is, either. My worth and value are judged by the One who thought I was important enough to sacrifice His Son for. Sally Lloyd-Jones followed this up with a two-word sermon that I needed badly: "Never compare."

So what do I take away from Hutchmoot? Three things, conveniently enough.

1. The remembrance that God loves me and that He alone judges me. This means I don't need to try so hard to be lovable or admirable. He sees me with all my faults and still gave His Son's life for mine. This frees me up to love others in the same way rather than seeing them as competitors.
2. God made me in His image, and He made me to share my creativity with others. I suffer from a sort of creative attention deficit disorder -- it is very difficult for me to finish things I have started. I realized this week that if God is going to use my work to encourage others, I need to complete what I start. I will do this not out of obligation or guilt, but because I believe God has given me resources so I will use them. This means I am going to make a concerted effort to first finish all the half-done things sitting around my mind, and then diligently let new things flow out as often -- and as completely -- as I can.
3. I need to keep dying. I've been dying for two and a half decades so far, and sometimes it seems like the flesh is stronger than ever. The good news is that one day, I will finally attain death, and then I will be more alive than I ever dreamed was possible. In the meantime, I will keep seeking out other believers to encourage me along to greater depths of love and sacrifice, as I do the same for them.

I am planning to post at least one more time on my favorite Hutchmoot 2012 moments, so you can look forward to that later this week (if the Lord wills). For now, I'll end by saying I'm extremely humbled by and grateful for this experience. You can check out other responses to it at the Rabbit Room.

And, oh, yes: "falser" is apparently a real word. In Scrabble, anyway.