Brokenness

Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 4-6, Psalm 109.

We find connection to God in many different ways. Some find it in nature. Others find it in the comfort of a friend. Each of these is actually found in nearly every religion. So what is unique to Christianity? I think it is in many of the strange ways which we proclaim we encounter God.

Sure it's nice to be set at peace, or to be spiritually or emotionally uplifted at something beautiful or great, but that's not Christian. To be Christian, we proclaim Christ and him crucified. To be tied to the one who died, we speak of the presence of God in our absolute failures. Think of it this way: most short speeches after winning the super bowl or an Emmy starts with "I'd like to thank God." Is that Christ crucified? No, but when God takes the worst of who we are and grows something beautiful, that is.

God did not pick the cream of the crop to proclaim the Good News, God picked a murderer and Christian torturer. God did not pick the top athletes to preach the Gospel, God picked you and me. God did not pick perfection to show what great things can be done, God picked brokenness and ugliness. When we encounter the worst the world has to offer, it is there that we find Christ making all things (not just the best things) new.

The Smell of God

Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 1-3, Psalm 108.

There's a peculiar phrase in today's scripture that I will highlight for you in case you glossed over it in your reading: "and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him." We officially have biblical precedent for "church stink." Many church buildings have the old and musty smell that I'm sure you have encountered. Trinity has a bit of a different smell that is most likely because of the kids that occupy the building most of the week (some parts smell better than others). But what does God smell like?

Roman Catholics (and some Lutherans and others) use something called incense, one of the gifts given to Jesus in Matthew's version of the birth story (frankincense, which is a specific kind of incense). It usually gives cathedrals a completely different smell than other church buildings. Some call this smell holy, but is it what God smells like?

Paul tells us that God puts his smell out through us. So in some way, we smell like God. But the smell of God is not perfume nor cologne. It is not a fancy restaurant or a backyard barbecue. It is a sincerity of one who has encountered God; and I hope that makes you say, "What?"

Since God sees on inner things, God smells inner things too. You may have a fantastic appearance and a beautiful mask, but if on the inside you are decaying that is not a godly odor. When you come in contact with someone who shares a story of the living God, or you yourself share one, you participate in the godly stench of life. It is the divine nose that smells a dirty diaper from a mile away and says that it is a good smell. It is the divine nose that may smell one of the worst prepared soups given away to the starving and says it is a feast for kings. It is the divine smell that inhales the final breaths of one decaying in a hospital bed, and speaks the words of new life.

Everywhere we walk and talk, God is spreading this divine fragrance through us, when we encounter someone and seek the creation that is within them. When we reuinite with Christ's body, it smells like Jesus in here.

Betrayal

Today's Reading: Obadiah, Psalm 107

The more we become aware of our inmost thoughts, the more ugliness we find. It's written all over the life of the saints of the church who drove themselves mad trying to get to a place where they felt good about themselves and what they thought, and yes, dear child of God, the same is true of you. We are quite good at hiding these feelings, but as I watched someone swerve in and out of backed up traffic last night, I hoped in my own head that Dante had missed a level of punishment (Circle of hell for those who missed the reference) for those who have complete disregard of others on the road. That in my heart, I hoped for swift justice from God. I won't judge them now (whoops, I already had) but God will certainly get them.

Obadiah is a very short book about this retribution from the perspective of someone who was wronged. That even those closest (here brotherly tribes) delighted in some perverse sense at the misfortune of others, aka when push came to shove, there was a sense of minute joy at a neighbor's downfall. In this book, there will be delight once again upon looking to the future, this time when the field is leveled.

Am I suggesting you are as messed up as the saints?...umm, yes; as would brother Martin (Luther). There is something very misdirected and dysfunctional at our very core which makes us very thankful that someone else is in charge of making sense of it all and making it right. It is precisely this part of us that is in need of desperate help from Jesus. Keep these moments of self-reflection in your heart, they are brought to the front of my mind each Sunday as we kneel at the foot of the cross in great expectation that we be united with Christ in death and resurrection, being drawn into a completely new being not governed by such thoughts.

Speed Limits

Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 31-33, Psalm 106:24-48.

I don't know why, but this was all I could think of while I read the story of the rediscovery of The Law. To the right, you have the rough estimate of the speed of light. That still stands as a barrier to travel of all kinds, and will probably stand that way for along time, even as people try to push how we think about travel.

Typically we see signs with 65, 55, etc. directing our cars to ease off their propulsion and settle into a nice cruise around that level; all the while ignoring the fact that the posted speed limit is the maximum allowed for travel in ideal conditions. Which means if you are traveling faster than that, you are breaking the law (and actually if you are travelling exactly that fast and it is unsafe to do so, like in a snowstorm, you are breaking the law as well). Many know this too well by a hefty fine after being lectured by a police officer.

I read a little bit about speed limits and their history, being that I was not around for the great protest to change the national highway limit from 55, only to find that most people are upset by them (big surprise). They are entirely too inconvenient for travclling from A to B quickly, and are thus ignored. But what are they really there for? The wellness of the general public.

What we see as restrictive, the people who crafted them see as life-giving. This is the connection to the Law that was rediscovered. While we're not in the business of slicing open thousands of goats any longer, we are in the practice of hearing what the Law of God has to say about what is good for the people. Sabbath is a big piece of that which comes in at the end of the reading. It's inconvenient, but life giving. In a world that affirms that the faster you go the more you get done, the Law of God commands that it would be wise for you to stand against the world.

Henotheism

Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 31-33, Psalm 106:1-23.

I may have touched on this word before, but I will revisit it now. Did you know that Israelites were not monotheists...at least not at first? They were henotheists, that is, they believed in many gods but that theirs was the most powerful (or the only one who was creator, or the only "true" god, or possibly other things to make their god separate) and that every nation had their own god and that all these gods were fighting and you knew who was the best by who won (this appears quite a bit in today's reading). Many Jews moved away from this tradition, as is indicated elsewhere in scripture*. There are a lot of Christians today who are not monotheists, but still henotheists.

Here is a quick test for you to tell which you are: who do the Muslims worship? If your answer is "God," then you may be a monotheist. If your answer is "Their God Allah," you are a henotheist. There is quite a significant difference there.

Nikki and I entered into this conversation a few weeks ago and she asked about my perspective about Muslims. I stood by the Nicene Creed that we confess frequently in worship: "We believe in ONE God." Now, we are all in the habit of making common things into gods (money, sex, power) but for those who stand in the long tradition of Christianity there can only be ONE God. Why the difference in denominations and religions around the world? My humble (and possibly way off base) assumption is that tricky thing called "revelation." In other words, how God has revealed Godself, and how we have interpreted that. We hold that the greatest of the revelations of God in the person we call Jesus. Muslims do not, hence, we believe very different things, even though almost every one of our Old Testament scriptural stories are in their scripture as well. This does not mean we believe in different Gods.

I will invite you to think about it this way: If we truly believe that God is beyond all comprehension, then how is it that we know everything there is to know about God?




* - this is a very crude and short treatment of monotheism in Judaism, reading through a few chapters in I&II Kings and I&II Chronicles does reveal the people's tendency to gravitate between many gods and one God for worship, which is firmly established during the reign of Josiah.

A Celebration for All Times

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 26-28, Psalm 105.

Just watch that for a few minutes. I caught wind of that this week and was completely awestruck. Sure there are no animals being slaughtered, blood being splattered, etc. but there are tons of fires being lit. This is a fireworks show unlike anything I had ever seen, which prompted my wife to say, "Next year we are going to London for New Years' Day." Yet, there was something even more powerful that I experienced on Sunday.

An aside: pastors are constantly consumed on Sunday mornings with everything from the liturgy to their sermons to what people are thinking or hearing and even piles more. It is enough to most times block out any sort of celebration related to worshiping God.

Last Sunday, I was able to worship with my entire family for the first time in I can't even remember, and just moments into the readings, Grace came up and sat on my lap and I almost started bawling as I heard the words spoken from Paul's letter to the Romans that nothing could separate us from Christ Jesus. Sunday was a time of celebration that I had been looking forward to since Caleb's birthdate. With the Bishop thankful for the opportunity to preside over a baptism, I had the chance to be moved in an even more powerful way than by flaming particles.

Our worship offers the chance to experience God's love like this always, but do we miss it for other thoughts and obligations? What do you most look forward to during our celebration on Sundays? What could you not do without?

Leviathan, Body of Christ. Body of Christ, Leviathan.

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 25-27, Psalm 104.

  Allow me to introduce you to a character in the Bible I can all but guarantee you haven't heard a sermon or devotion about. He goes by the name Leviathan, and has a brief cameo here, but is described in some detail in Job 41. There are extra-biblical writings that speak of some of the features of this beast as well, and it was predicted that upon the coming of the messiah, the Leviathan would be killed and it's meat would be served to all the faithful and it would be the best meat ever.

  When we took a trip to the creation museum last year, in a move that seems rather silly but I guess it's important for protecting their biblical viewpoint, this and another beast in the Bible named the Behemoth were actually dinosaurs, living with people. For this reason, people were right to be afraid of this massive serpent living in the ocean. Aside from the number of issues present in the two preceding sentences, we shall move ahead with that notion of fear.

  There is an awful lot of fear of the unknown. Most have, in recent times at least, given up the idea of the Loch Ness Monster, but I bet that there are still quite a few who wouldn't swim in that lake...just in case, you know. And serpents do have a well established place in the Bible for being evil, crafty, and against God; all the more reason to be wary of a giant one living in the ocean.

  And yet we encounter in Psalm 104 this massive and fearful creature whom God made just "for the sport of it." Now mind you, elsewhere in writings, there are two leviathans originally created but God already destroyed one so that they would not reproduce and destroy humanity. While there are no doubt people who would still believe such a creature is swimming out there now, I feel pretty confident saying a search would turn up empty.

  That is not to say there aren't leviathans. There are; they just don't happen to be gigantic serpents swimming around in the ocean. They are the challenges we face and the doubts we place on God's ability to work great things in us. They are the fear of the unknown. They are the chains which keep us from sharing our salvation story with others. There are leviathans everywhere, to which God says, "They are nothing."

  The God from whom all things are created squashes these fears like a kid stomping on a scurrying ant. Fear not, brothers and sisters, for even our greatest fears cannot measure up to the cross.

Wandering from the Path

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 22-24, Psalm 103

   The history of Israel bounces back and forth between trusting in the Lord, and trusting in other gods, or Baals. It is never in the times of despair that the people find themselves wandering, but in the times of plenty. Today, we read that it comes after the restoration of God's house, and after the prophet dies. Just so we know, prophets are those people who are charged with speaking the messages of God.

   Great times tend to make us lean on those things that deliver blessings to us, a prime example being money, which is referenced often in the Bible. We begin to trust in those things that are not God as if they are. This week we begin the season of Lent, and it might be helpful to think of each day in Lent as a retelling of the story that makes us humble, and causes us to return with shuffling feet to the source of life.

   Hear again the story of Jesus this day and be drawn back to the world being created.

The Work of God.

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 19-21, Psalm 102

What do we mean when we say "God did this" or "God did that?" I think there might be a few differing perspectives when answering that question. Rather than debate about what is wrong or right, I will tell you what I believe.

When I sat down for chaplaincy at Children's Hospital in Columbus, I noticed a book on the Chaplain's Office which had a bunch of 3d images from the Bible (you know the ones where you have to squint your eyes or blur your focus to see the 3d picture). And I was browsing through and smiling when I came to the image of the 10th plague. There was an angel flying over a house with a sword in hand, and a baby in two pieces on the ground (this posted image was probably the closest I could find to recreate the idea). For some people, this is absolute truth and you should have to deal with it. Not for me.

When I say "God did this," I mean it in the cosmic sense of the phrase, that is, when someone is healed by the work of a doctor and I say "God did this" I mean that God crafted and catered the skills and gifts of the people responsible for helping make this doctor become a deliverer of healing for us now. I actually mean more than this, but a blog post is insufficient for starting with "In the beginning." When the author of 2 Chronicles tells us that God sent an ambush, I do not imagine a huge figure with a robe stomping down upon people, I imagine a military crafted with gifts to lift those who were in great danger of being overrun into survival.

Try and place yourself into that loooooooooooooooong story of Jesus and his love today.

Prayer and/or Medicine

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 16-18, Psalm 101.

King Asa gets badmouthed here, for even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord but sought physicians (2 Chr 16:12), as if there were only one choice or the other. There have been a number of cases in recent years that ring of that same argument, a family refusing care for their loved one because they believe that through prayer they are able to make any disease disappear. Sometimes this works out well, other times it ends in a preventable tragedy.

It has always been my belief that God has done amazing things through the gifts of those in the medical community. Whenever I gather at a bedside before a surgery I pray for the Spirit to draw out the gifts that are present in the people who will be performing care that day. There is no opposing choice for me; these messengers (angels) are the ones God has sent and has raised up with their gifts to serve the body of Christ in this way.

I offer today the image of the Nehushtan. You say, "The What?" I say, "Yeah." This image probably looks familiar to you at least in some form. It is similar to the emblem on the Blue Shield logo. The story in Numbers goes that the people complained and God sent poisonous serpents to kill them. When the people repented, God had Moses construct a staff with a snake, and people would look at the staff and live. It has become a modern symbol for healing. There is a great interwoven narrative between the work of doctors and our own faith. Rather than divide up the world into secular and religious, I invite you to discover the work of God in the things we don't usually think of as religious. May you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Fighting

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 12-15, Psalm 100.

It seems as though fighting and war are going to be themes this week, as I can't seem to escape them no matter where I turn. I have a sort of e-newspaper delivered to me every day, one part of which includes comics. Yesterday's Calvin & Hobbes comic was:

We all seem to have a bit of fighting built into us, whether it be family feuds or, well, (if you believe it when we call each other sister and brother) bigger family feuds. On Sunday, we discussed during the sermon time about making peace the norm by praying for our enemies; this is with keeping in mind that probably every U.S. American under the age of 16 has never known a country out of war.

In further reflection after Sunday's worship I thought, we have already had one generation that was ultimately defined by war (also the Depression) and we are shaping up for another, as the lingering effects of these wars will no doubt weigh heavily into the future. The healing words of Azariah stand out today, after generations of battle between the people of God. What we have given to us is a peace based on forgiveness both of ourselves and of our neighbors; it is at the heart of our gathering time on Sunday mornings.

Go this day and forgive as you have been forgiven.

The Zoo

Today's Reading: 2 Chronicles 8-11, Psalm 99

In a short list, a number of extravagant gifts are listed: gold, silver, ivory, and then something that caught my attention: apes and peacocks. The first three are obviously still treasures and gifts today, but at least as far as my preferences go, if someone shows up with a peacock I am going to have a few questions; not least of which is why do you just have peacocks around that you can give away?

But just look at the bird, it is majestic, it is a treasure. If I did have one of those strutting around my yard, you better believe it would be the topic of conversation for miles around. But since life is not just about me, lets look at this another way.

There are still those things which we know of as great gifts, and if you aren't sure what those are, flip on a television around any major holiday. Alas gold will tarnish, peacocks will die, and all will fade. Gifts that endure, however, are not usually glamorous but involve the simple act of helping someone in a wheelchair get through the door, or actually meaning it and paying attention when you ask someone if they are feeling ok, or noticing that someone did not act quite like themselves and writing them a quick note. These gifts we do not offer because they make people turn their heads, we offer them because we are the light of the world, it's in our DNA. Today, may you find a way to offer those humble gifts which God gave first to you to those you come in contact with.

War and Peace

Today's Readings: 2 Chronicles 5-7, Psalm 98 .

If you haven't heard my bit about the early Jewish community being "henotheists" and not "monothesists" you really are missing out on an important but snore-inducing segment of biblical interpretation. I offer, in short, that way back when the Israelites believed that there were many gods but that theirs was the most powerful. The way you knew your God was the most powerful was determined many ways, but referenced perhaps most often in scripture by military strength.

Theology obviously has changed a little bit since then, but a remnant of this thought remains. One need only think back a few weeks to the Super Bowl, wherein the victors claim that they would like to thank God for making this happen. Certainly one would not critique thanking God for things, but what do we say about the losers? Was their god not powerful enough?

I should hope we evaluate and give thanks to God differently today. There is no god but God, and rather than give thanks for where God enters and triumphs in war, we give thanks for where God brings about peace. We pray for conflict everywhere to end, whether in ongoing wars that will have impact long into our futures that happen in Iraq and Afghanistan; or whether it be for the rifts that happen within the boundary lines of our own household. May God make us agents of peace this day. Amen.