Mountains, esoteric questions and 13 year olds

Today my wife, 9 college and post-college aged counselors, and a small flock of high school volunteers finished our first week of our new outdoor ministry. We had around 30 middle schoolers for a week of mountain adventure, camping, and numerous attempts to share the love of Christ and the vision of redemption with these young souls. Middle schoolers are a tough bunch. The week however, was incredible in many ways. I struggled along side the counselors–many of whom were wading into the waters of the 13-year old brain for the first (or second, I suppose) time. Next week, a new group of counselors will take on a new group of teens–this time high schoolers. My temptation is to write off the frustrations of this week and chalk them up to the imminent weirdness of middle school, and move on to high schoolers–a group I feel a little more confident with. But I can’t. These kids demonstrated so starkly the rawness of our culture. Their questions were many, and sometimes more difficult than their ages would have suggested. I remember talking to one of the counselors early in the week who was frustrated and feeling like his group was making progress in their group dynamics and maturity level one day, but completely backslid the next. A friend of mine who is a youth minister gave me some insight into this. He said that the beauty of this week; and of that frustrated counselor was that even though the inquisitive middle schoolers might forget the answer to their respective questions (i.e., moral relativism, drinking, why Catholics believe this or that), what they will remember is that someone–at some point in thier lives–took the time to answer their questions and talk through them with them. And they answered them without saying, “just believe”, or, “because it is”, or some other such phrase–the likes of which plagued so many Catholics in mine and earlier generations.

So many Catholics (particularly the parents of the generation I find myself working with at the moment) have been hurt by the Church in some way. Our common cultural reaction seems to be one of two things: either leaving the Church altogether or even worse, “playing the church game”; in essence, saying, “I don’t really trust you, God, but I’ll keep going to church on Sunday and doing the things I’m supposed to do to keep up my end of the bargin.” These kids deserve better. And that’s what they got, I hope. They got someone–not their parents, incidentally–saying that there is a good reason to believe what that Church suggests; that there is real life–life to the full, in fact–that Jesus came to bring. There is redemption for our relationships with God, within ourselves, with others, and even with the created world, even if it might not look like it most of the time. Hopefully, when the world gets dark, when the questions seem overwhelming, these 11, 12 and 13 year-olds can look back and perhaps say, “I don’t neccesarily remember the exact reason, but I know there was a time when these things made sense, when someone took my concerns seriously , and when redemption really seemed to have something to do with my life.”  

 

Do goats go to heaven?

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine some time ago that has haunted me ever since. He recounted the words of a well-known Catholic apologist who was once asked by a Protestant, whether, if he were to die today, he could be assured that he would go to heaven. The Catholic’s answer was a textbook one. He said “yes”, explaining that if he had recently gone to confession and was unaware of any mortal sin, then indeed, he could be assured of his own salvation. At first, this answer seemed fine to me. It wasn’t until my friend really pushed the question, that I realized how short-sighted the answer actually was. In a sense of course, the Catholic apologist was right, but in another sense, something profound was missing.

The Gospel of Matthew contains a teaching of Jesus that I’ve recently begun to see in a whole new light. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus recounts a pretty shocking tale:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee a drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee? And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Now, here’s the rub. Why was it–ultimately–that the goats were cast off into the eternal fire? Was it because they did not care for a poor, the sick, the naked, and imprisoned? Perhaps. However, was it possible that if those same goats had responded to God by saying, “Lord we didn’t know that was you, please have mercy on us!” that they would have suffered the same fate? I firmly believe that the goats are not cast off merely because of their unjust actions, but because they refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing and ultimately throw themselves on God’s mercy. Instead, they take their cue from Adam and Eve, actually blaming God for hiding himself! The Fundamental question is this: are there sins that we commit daily (possibly even very serious ones) that we have no idea that we’re committing? Frankly, the goats didn’t realize they were sinning; and you and I likely commit far worse sins than these. If this is the case, what have we to fall back on during the day of judgement?

My problem with the Catholic apologist’s answer (as was the problem of a well-known Orthodox priest whose name escapes me at the moment) is that it relies solely on what we do. At the end of the day, we can have hope of salvation if we are willing to throw ourselves on God’s mercy. We do as much as we can, of course. We should confess our sins as often as possible. But if stand before the throne of Almighty on the last day and he happens to call to mind severe sins that we were unaware of when we committed them, what will be our response? Will it be, “Well, I went to confession, how was I supposed to know that was a sin?” Or will we simply cry out “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner”?

 

The view from the ivory tower

I had a bit of a shaking experience recently; one which really called into question my intentions to begin a PhD program in New Testament studies next year. I found myself surrounded last Friday by intellectual snobbery, the likes of which I’d never experienced before–and all guns (metaphorically) were pointed right at me. I was giving a talk to a particular group who vehemently refused to accept any of my premises. I had (apparently not understanding my audience) suggested that the Scriptures might actually be legitimate or point toward actual true events. “How could I”, they scoffed, “an educated person, actually believe the Bible to be *gasp* the Word of God. Ha!” “These Bible people”, they further scoffed, “actually believe that they can talk to God–the fools!” “They believe in miracles!” I was so taken off guard by the insinuations that I could barely muster a response in between their criticisms. Needless to say, I never actually finished giving the talk (which was supposed to be about the nature of the early Church in Acts of the Apostles, incidentally).

While I (with my melancholic personality) spent most of the weekend still reeling and feeling, frankly, a bit sorry for myself, I’ve slowly begun to appreciate the experience. As a teacher, I speak to people a lot. And usually, people really enjoy what I have to say. I’ve become quite accustomed to my share of accolades. Worse than that however; although in truth, I’m really just a lowly catechist–a simple Bible teacher–I’ve recently begun to subconsciously fancy myself a lofty academic. I like the image of it. Leather bound books, tweed jackets, perhaps a Volvo someday. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? Nothing, really. Except the intention behind it. I’ve been forced to really search my soul this weekend and reassess why it is I want to follow the path I’m following. Could it be that I want to legitimatize my little place in the world to all of my secular, well-paid friends? Do I find it embarrassing to say that I’m a Bible teacher, rather than “well, I’m a faculty member–nay, a professor –at the St. John Vianney Seminary, ho, ho.”

Why is it–really–that I do what I do? Why is it that I teach the Bible in the first place? Is it for the image, or is it because Jesus Christ changed my life and I want to help show others that he can do the same for them? To many in the secular world, my job probably sounds pointless, even a waste. Am I okay with that? My friend Tim Gray likes to point out just how well-recognized and respected in Jerusalem’s Jewish community St. Paul probably was prior to his conversion. He probably could have had a prestigious teaching chair at the best Yeshiva in town. But what did he do? He threw it all away, packed his bags, and became a traveling preacher. One that was often laughed at, imprisoned and kicked out of the same synagogues which he could have been running, had things gone differently. Why? Because Jesus changed his life and he had to do something about it. That’s the reason I got into this gig in the first place, I reminded myself; and the events of the weekend provided a stark reconing with that.

In the end, I probably will still pursue the PhD. I want to have a voice in this field; one to counter the widely prevailing view that there is nothing supernatural or spiritual about the Bible. That it’s all politics; written by the powerful to keep the weak in check. What a tragic way to view Christianity. What lifelessness. The question I need to continually ask myself however, is, am I prepared to be humiliated, mocked and rejected–just like St. Paul? Are any of us? Why do we do what we do? What does that badge of Christian really mean, and what responsibility unavoidably comes with it?

 

The Particulars of Rapture

I’ve borrowed the title of this post from a book by Torah and Talmud scholar, Avivah Zornberg, who wrote a book on Exodus by the same name. In an radio interview I was recently listening to, Zornberg presented a beautiful reflection on the Israelite’s crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 15.  One of the things she stresses throughout the interview is the need to move beyond what may from the outset seem like something of a children’s story, and into the deeper and vastly complex realities within this pinnacle event which has shaped the life of the Jewish people, as well as Christianity.

As I mentioned, one of my favorite segments came as a meditation on the deeper reality of the crossing of the Red Sea. Zornberg–drawing on ancient midrashic tradition–says that if we read carefully the text of what is called the hymn of Moses–in which the Israelites rejoice in their salvation from Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and riders, who have been buried in the waves of the sea–we see that the people are not merely singing after they have been saved, but while they are still in the midst of the parted waters. She says that,

the song is an expression not just of jubilation, but of the human situation. Of being in the middle; of being full of fear; the sense of life and death in the balance; seeing what can happen to human beings all around them; and that, there but by the grace of God go I. And so the song is not a simple ditty. It’s a song that human beings sing in the face of mortality.

The text itself says that even while the waters crash down upon the armies of Pharaoh, the Israelites have not reached the end yet. They are, Exodus tells us, walking “on dry ground in the midst of the sea” even as they cry out, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:19, 21).  Zornberg says that,

If one imagines it as people still in that rather menacing corridor, which they know can collapse, because it just has behind them, then the song becomes a different song; and it’s a song of human beings at the edge, between death and life; celebrating life…but at the edge.

In many ways, this is the situation we live in today. Death, sin, violence is all around us. War, corruption, Christians at one anothers’ throats. We know that at any moment we might be overtaken, but in this moment, God’s grace is present. Do we believe that God is actively in the process of saving us even though we are not yet out of the woods? This, I think, is what true Christian hope consists in: knowing that while death seems to have the final word over the present world, Christ has conquered this world and is actively creatinga new one–made, no less, out of the material of this fallen world! As the Christian fathers suggest, the same waters which silenced Pharaoh’s armies were the waters in which Israel received a sort of baptism into God’s covenant. God is calling Christians to trudge on through the intimidating waters. We, if anyone, should know that there is light at the other end of the tunnel, that there is hope in the midst of darkness. Jesus proved this, showing us that even crucifixion–the most brutal form of death the world had to offer–could not defeat him. If we cannot carry this hope–the hope that suffering really can lead to life–and carry it like an emblem within ourselves as we struggle through the darkness of our times, who is the rest of an increasingly hopeless world supposed to look to?

 

How does the rest of the world see us?

I first read the following words a number of years ago. They were written in the second century by the Roman lawyer Aristides, who was attempting to explain to the Emperor Hadrian what this new “Christian” community was all about. Who were they? What set them apart? The words have stuck with me ever since.

“Christians love one another.  They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them.  If a man has something, he gives freely to the man who has nothing.  If they see a stranger, Christians take him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother.  They don’t consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God.  And if they hear that one of them is in jail, or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they all give him what he needs — if it is possible, they bail him out.  If one of them is poor and there isn’t enough food to go around, they fast several days to give him the food he needs…  This is really a new kind of person.  There is something divine in them.”

Is this how the world views Christians today? Do we live this way? Do we even believe that it’s important to live this way? Or are we perhaps, too occupied about fighting over doctrine? Not that I mean doctrine is unimportant–it certainly is important, crucial at times–but it is not the ultimate end which we seek as Christians. One of the major means to get there perhaps, but not the end.

In St. Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, he battles against what he calls false (or “different”, literally “hetero”) teachings which are cropping up in the churches. This is a reference to teachers who were preaching doctrine which was “different” from the teaching of the apostles; who, of course, received their authority from Jesus himself. You’d expect Paul to counter the idea of ”hetero” teaching, which he says causes confusion, speculation and leads the faithful in circles (1 Tim 1:3-4) with “orthodox” teaching, or “correct” teaching. He does not. What he counters false teaching with, is–in the Greek–”healthy” teaching (Titus 1:9). Why healthy? Why not “correct” or “orthodox”? Because at the end of the day, for Paul, the Church is not a mere institution of organization. It is a body.  When is a human body at its healthiest? When it’s not fighting a sickness or disease. When we have the flu, our body is occupied battling against germs, thereby hindering it from operating at its full potential. As long as our body is fighting within itself, it can never truly do the things it’s supposed to do. It is weakened with battle.  In this way, Paul tells the Church that we need to try to resolve our family bickering, because until we do, we cannot truly love one another–the ultimate call of the Church. As Paul says,

“…avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile” (Titus 3:9).

When Aristides looked at the early Church back in the second century, what did he see? Was it the same thing that the secular world sees when they look at us? At the end of the day, the Church is a family, headed by God. Families will always bicker; families will always get annoyed with one another. Certain family members may even be wrong in their assessment of the family from time to time. This is merely a reality. The question however is, do we treat one another like family, or do we see each other as mere deadbeat roommates? Christians need to ask themselves, do we really believe that the Church is God’s family? If we look at the Church and simply see a mess, are we willing to concede that perhaps this is God’s mess; that he’s okay with acknowledging that those who lead and occupy his family are steeped in sin? Could it be that that’s why we need to be in the family in the first place?

 

 

The Parade of the Cross

This Easter season, I’ve been trying to meditate on just what it was that Jesus accomplished when he was nailed to the cross that Friday so many years ago. Paul’s letter to the Colossians gives us an interesting insight–and one we probably don’t often think about. In Colossians 2:15, while speaking about the reality of Christ nailed to the cross, he says that Jesus “disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.” In the original Greek, the term Paul uses for “public example” is actually the word ”parade”. So literally, he says that Christ paraded the principalities and powers of Satan when he was on the cross.

Interestingly, it was the Romans who invented the concept of parades. For them, parades primarily served the purpose of showing off their military victories to other residents of the empire. One of the major features of the Roman parades entailed marching members of the defeated party through the city stripped naked in order to publicly shame them. Indeed, crucifixion itself was a sort of mini parade in which Rome was able to publicly shame any who dared cross her.

But here, Paul says that when Jesus hung on the cross, naked and shamed, he was, in fact, making a “parade” out of the principalities and powers of Satan. This is completely counter-intuitive! Although it seemed as though Jesus himself was being shamed, what the Romans could not see, and what we often miss as well, is that Jesus was actually parading the defeat of the powers of death by his own death on the cross. Death itself was hung on the cross and displayed powerless for all to see. This, I think, is a profound meditation, and one that I certainly have to spend some more time chewing and praying over.  If this is the reality of Jesus when he accepts his suffering in love, what might God be able to accomplish when we embrace our own crosses?

 

Creation, Gardening and the New World

Over the last several weeks, I have been heavily engaged in a writing project aimed at getting to the bottom of the Biblical notion of the “new creation” and what that has to do with the way Christians ought to interact with the created world today. Unfortunately, many Christians see environmentalism and Christianity as disparate realities. Likewise, many environmentalists see the same opposition but for different reasons. This is tremendously problematic. What do the Scriptures have to say about this? Indeed for the Bible, man is not a foreign invader into the natural world, as many secular streams of thought seem to suggest. Neither ought man be a domineering slavemaster over creation, free to use it and abuse it according to his whim, as many Christians have tended to suggest. Rather, mankind–from the beginning–was called to be a gardener. This was Adam’s primordial vocation in the garden; to tend, keep, guard and care for creation. Fundamentally, it did not belong to him. Creation is Gods’; we are but caretakers. For the Bible, this has eschatalogical consequences. Just as Jesus came to redeem humanity, and by doing so, redeemed the human body which will be raised on the last day (just as Jesus’ was), so too, he also came to redeem all of creation which will also be raised, restored and glorified on the last day. In Revelation, the prophets, St. Paul, and even in the words of Jesus himself, we are led to the reality that when he comes again, God will not obliterate the created world, leaving all of us to float off to some disembodied heaven, but rather, a new creation; a new heavens and new earth; a new heavenly Jerusalem will come down from heaven. Indeed, in the end, it will not fundamentally be us going up to God, but rather, God coming down to us.

The following is a brief passage from my project (more of which, I imagine, will follow in the coming days and weeks) explaining how Paul seems to allude to this idea in his letters.

If our assessment is correct, it is safe to say that most Christians need to change their view of the created world. The Church has long recognized that the body ought to be respected and treated with a profound honor and dignity because it is in fact the material “stuff” that the resurrected body will be composed of. Just as Jesus himself took on a human body, with all of its shortcomings and weaknesses, and then transformed that same body it when he arose on Easter Sunday, Christians are to understand that God will do the same for the rest of mankind. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he calls Jesus the “image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation,” saying that “in him all things were created…He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first born from the dead.”[1]  Paul is suggesting that just as he rose from the dead as “first-born”, so will all the rest of creation follow.  Likewise, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he assures the church there that,…in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”[2]  

This leads to a very logical reality. If our physical bodies will be raised on the last day, they ought to have a physical dwelling place as well. Enter Scripture’s theology of a “new heavens” and “new earth.”            

In St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, he comforted a worried group of apparently newly converted Christians who were concerned over what exactly would happen to their loved ones who have died. Clearly, the resurrection of the dead was still a shaky concept for them. In 4:13f, Paul tells them,…

“we would not have you ignorant brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him all those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who have fallen asleep (emphasis mine).”  

He goes on to tell them that when Jesus returns at the time of the second coming, …

“the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.”  

In Greek, the word for coming is parousia. The city of Thessalonica was the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia, and thereby a very politically important city. As such, the emperor cult, or worship of the Roman emperor, was also very important. By using the term parousia, Paul was employing a technical term used to describe the visit of a political dignitary. N.T. Wright notes that this language, which would have been well known in the ancient world, speaks of

“an emperor or other dignitary making a state visit to a city or province—or even, when the emperor had been elsewhere, his return to Rome. In fact, the Greek word parousia, which has become a technical term for the literalistic construct of an early Christian hope involving the end of the space-time world, with Jesus “coming down” in a “second coming” and believers flying upwards to meet him, is drawn, not from the Bible at all, but from the world of pagan usage, where it was almost a technical term for this kind of imperial “visitation.”[3]  

Here, Wright notes that this passage has often been misconstrued to speak of what is known in some modern protestant circles as the “rapture”, in which believers will all be swept up into a sort of non-material heaven and the world as we know it will pass away. Wright clarifies the confusion:…

“the point here is that the “meeting”—another almost technical term in the Greek—refers, not to a meeting after which all the participants stay in the meeting place, but to a meeting outside the city, after which the civic leaders escort the dignitary back to the city itself.”[4] 

In other words, when Jesus comes again, Paul says that we will all be caught up in the sky to meet him as he descends on the clouds–a clear reference to the coming of the Son of Man in Daniel 7–and then we will escort him back to earth where he will come to lay claim on all of creation. The world we will return to then, will not be the earth that we know now, but rather the “new earth” which has been transformed by grace, analogous to our own resurrected bodies.  

---

[1] Col 1:15; 18.

[2] 1 Cor 15:20-23

[3] N.T. Wright. The Resurrection of the Son of God. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) 217.

[4] Ibid, 217-218

 

What human love is there for them?

Thinking on the previous post, I recently had the chance to listen to a fascinating interview with Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary in California, speaking about the issue of gay marriage. I will post the link below. What I so appreciated about Mouw’s take on the matter was how painfully honest he was. Namely, he said that we Christians need to reflect on our own brokenness and that of humanity first. Only then can we begin to interact with the homosexual community not on an “us and them” level, but on a level where we are able to better minister to persons–struggles, crosses, inadequacies and all–and not merely the buzzwords and buzzideas that the media bombards us with. Indeed, I was particularly struck by one issue brought up during the conversation; that despite the arguments against gay marriage from most Christians, the fact remains that heterosexual marriage faces a skyrocketing divorce rate. What are we to say about this to homosexuals; many of whom are embodying the very virtues of self giving, devotion, and longevity that marriage is supposed to espouse (pardon the pun)? Personally, I don’t know. It certainly needs to give us pause though. Perhaps our focus needs to shift from constitutional ammendments and changing laws to people themselves; people–many of whom–are carrying a tremendous amount of pain and hurt. What is it the Church has to say to them? What is the life Christ is offering them, and how can we be stewards of it?

One interesting note here. It seems to me that there are few things made fun of as much as homosexuality. Looking back on growing up–particularly my time in Christian schools–I can’t think of more commonly used slanders than those usually reserved for homosexuals. The way we treat them, why should they want anything to do with us anyway? Imagine carrying a terrible and excruciatingly heavy cross, and having that very fact used against you as a way to make fun of you–and by the very people who are supposed to be the ones helping you carry it no less!

If there is one thing that Mouw recognizes, it’s that every time he has to tell a homosexual person that they should either remain celibate or change, he still gets to go home to his wife that night. This certainly doesn’t change the Church’s stance on homosexuality, but it should certainly make us more humble and caring in the way which we are to convey that teaching. What if some homosexuals really are genetically wired that way from birth? What place is there for them in the Church? What human love is there for them?

 http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/gaymarriage/index.shtml