Rod White's Blog, page 51

Men Like Dew from the Morning's Womb

The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying,

   "Rule in the midst of your enemies!"

Your troops will be willing

   on your day of battle.

Arrayed in holy splendor,

   your young men will come to you

   like dew from the morning's womb. Psalm 110 (NIV 2010)

Last night a collection of the Broad and Washington men got together for their somewhat random public meeting. I was encouraged to see their sincerity. In many sectors, men have a bad reputation: callow, dominating, selfish, unreliable, even unnecessary. Look at many sitcoms and men are represented in such an unflattering light that one wonders if they have any dignity left at all. But the men gathered last night belied such stereotyping. They had some stuff.

Psalm 110, a "royal" psalm extolling the virtues of King David and all kings that follow in his footsteps, includes characteristics one would hope for every God-lover, woman or man. But today, I feel like building up the men, who are under attack, in some ways, these days, and who need to bring what men bring to their families, their congregations and their friendships. The mission is healthy when the men have faith and share it.

So here are four things I see in this psalm for the men to put on.

Being aware of the enemies. Gwen gave me a little snippet from the research the other day that explained why female babies (like Lulu!) are much more likely to give us eye contact than their brothers. The boys have an instinct for looking at the horizon and scanning the territory for enemies. Or they are looking for antelopes for dinner. I don't know if this is true. But the body of Christ certainly could use some awareness of the territory and some decent hunting.

Putting on holy array. "To be arrayed in holy splendor" probably seems kind of a crazy image to many men. They are arrayed in the same sweatshirt for six years (as I am as I write in my 2004 Eagles NFC champs sweatshirt). Black, drab nondescript, anonymous clothes are what sell year after year. It is almost like we've gone Confucian: "the tallest stalk of grain gets the overseers riding crop." It takes some audacity to aspire to holiness and wear it shamelessly, without being proud, just being real.

Coming from the womb of the dawn. There is never any hint in the Bible that men don't need women, or vice-versa. Coming from a womb is a good thing. The "womb of the dawn" is a beautiful image of creativity and eternity. The workmen are downstairs right now having their version of giving birth in my second floor bathroom (which finally got to the top of the rehab schedule after 15 years of gestation). The plumber was very excited last week to reveal the faucet he had ordered! He loves the restoration he is effecting. When the men are excited to create, holiness breaks out.

Bringing the dew of their youth. In a dry land like Israel, dew is a crucial source of water. In a dry spiritual landscape like the Northeast U.S. the God-generated youthfulness of spiritual awareness is what the men need to bring. When we go to battle against the powers that seek to enslave us, the Holy Spirit undermines their tired old lies and clumsy tactics with the ever-newness of living water. The young in years bring it physically with their courage. The old in years bring it with their character and wisdom. Together they are a transformative tribe.

Psalm 110 is a splendidly uncynical picture of hope in a new king, a picture of God's fecundity in a dangerous world. I pray that all men (and women of course, but today is focused on the guys) would take on their birthright as sons of God, not giving in to the diminution of their dignity that the world is foisting upon them.

Imagine a Clean Floor for MLK

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Matthew 23:25-26 (For a great dramatization, check this out from Jesus of Nazareth)

The "cleaning the inside of the cup" part is on my mind today. One reason for that is that I've done a lot of cleaning lately. I had a moment to continue my ongoing cleaning-out of the Shalom House basement the other day – that man has the best stuff buried in the debris he left!. I have a construction project going on in my house, so it is pretty dirty. And Circle of Hope just hired a new cleaner (thanks, Lord!).

My parents were big on cleaning, so I am kind of picky about it. That's mostly because they were picky with my cleaning abilities, not because I find some moral purpose in having things spotless! One of my specialties in the family housekeeping was floors. My father, the bosun's mate, was a passionate trainer for cleaning floors. For him, the use of mops was a purely preliminary step for swabbing the deck. No floor was clean until one got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed. If brushes (down to toothbrushes) were necessary, they should be at hand. And the big thing, the thing that separated real cleaners from pretenders, was the art of rinsing. Even if one doesn't use soap, the goal is to extract every bit of soapy/dirty water off the floor, into the bucket and out the door. (And don't spill it on the back porch or your mom will slip on it when she gets back from the store). Do not, under threat of unpredictable repercussions, just spread that dirt around into an even layer that makes it look like the floor is clean. If Dad is running around in his socks and undies (which he will be!) the evidence of your sloth will be quickly discovered.

While floor cleaning may be a subject for me and my therapist, thorough spiritual cleaning is a good subject for Jesus and me. It is tempting to just sweep the dirt here and there in our lives and never get it into the dust pan and out the door. Our relationships, our leadership, our societal obligations show even more evidence of random sweeping. Much more is it challenging to get down on our knees and inspect the floor for the layers of waxy build-up and grime that we can't see, it is so far under the nose on our face that is so plain. It is even more challenging to give floor of our hearts a good scrub, dump the bucket far outside our spiritual house and be ready for living water.

I hope my metaphor is doing more than entertaining you. Along with all the personal dirt you should stop sweeping around, we should all get out our dustpans and begins with the mess building up around us. For instance, today should be called "national racism day" in honor of Martin Luther King. The whole country keeps sweeping that sin around. It is not just the sin of being mean and depriving people of their rights. It is the sin of losing sight of what a clean floor looks like. Behind racism is the sin of imagination-deficit. It is the sin makes us blind to what we can do to make a difference, like making a friend with someone who is not immediately likely to be our friend. I know you have heard this before. But I don't know why only Jesus' socks are always dirty.

He Had a Shrine in His Backyard

Pundits are working overtime on the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, and I certainly do not intend to become another one. But as a leader in the church, I think it is important to help people think through what is going on in the world. So often, these days, the church has a "private" sphere of existence to match the privatized faith of its members. Christians in the United States do not generally practice the conviction of Anabaptists and consciously stay separate from the godless ways of the world. They are more likely to be driven into privacy by the unacceptable nature of their "views" and the supposed irrelevance of their faith. That pressure is reinforced by legal and public-school teaching that faith is just a personal choice or preference and has no objective value.

I told the congregation last night that they may be increasingly called upon to have objective value in a society that is increasingly frayed at the edges. When the society is committed to domination by violence — as the U.S. has been for over a decade in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, when the policy of the government is to flood the country with guns in the name of "freedom" and "rights," when the political discourse is about winning and not about the common good, expect the forces of evil to be more bold.

I hope Jared Loughner's attack results in some common sense governance. If the government bans hand guns and stops the revolving door treatment for mental patients that will be great. I am not anticipating the U.S. government to abandon deeply entrenched convictions, however. As for the church, I hope the attack wakes us out of our general acquiescence to the spirit of the age, drives us out of our preoccupation with arguing about human rights and nonessentials, and convicts us to speak the truth in love to a fearful and endangered people.

We followers of Jesus have a lot to say and demonstrate in relation to this attack. Apparently, alongside his other problems, Jared Loughner was religious. He had a shrine to death in his backyard, according to the Daily News. Police investigators had seen the symbols before. Parts of the media and Arizona Republicans are rushing to label Loughner in scientific terms as "unstable" and dampen down his ability to make a rational choice. That is likely to prove true. But along with being influenced by the political maelstrom our leaders have created, he was apparently influenced by evil quite directly.

One of the main benefits I derive from being a Christian is that when I pray, "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil," I can expect a reply. Loughner was apparently praying the opposite. He had already given over to temptation and was assigned to deliver evil. We won't be able to overcome evil with evil, as is the general policy of the government domination system. We won't be able to overcome evil with scientific explanation – especially when the government won't contribute enough to mental healthcare to respond to the explanations. We will have to overcome evil with good, or it will not be overcome.

That's where we come in as followers of Jesus. The system dominates us and explains us away, too – and who knows when the millions of guns may be turned on us! But we have the response of God to our cries, seen in Jesus and resident in His Spirit, to help us receive good and to offer good. I hope this incident helps wake us up to how necessary we are. Just owning our value as God's co-workers makes a difference. Acting creatively to speak the truth in love in troubling times makes even more of a difference. Whether we have a cogent commentary to offer about current events or not, we can certainly tell our story about Jesus and the reality he has revealed to us. He said: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Bearing the Beams of Love in 2011

And we are put on earth a little space

That we might learn to bear the beams of love. William Blake

"I think William Blake was right about the purpose of humanity; we are here to learn to bear the beams of love. There are three meanings of bearing love: to endure it, to carry it, and to bring it forth. In the first, we are meant to grow in our capacity to endure love's beauty and pain. In the second, we are meant to carry love and spread it around, as children carry laughter and measles. And in the third we are meant to bring new love into the world, to be birthers of love. This is the threefold nature of our longing….

Choosing love will open spaces of immense beauty and joy for you, but you will be hurt. You already know this. You have retreated from love countless times in your life because of it. We all have. We have been and will be hurt by the loss of loved ones, by what they have done to us and we to them. Even in the bliss of love there is a certain exquisite pain: the pain of too much beauty, of overwhelming magnificence. Further, no matter how perfect a love may be, it is never really satisfied. The very fulfillment of a desire sparks our passion for more; sooner or later we discover a deepened yearning within what felt like satisfaction. Even in their beauty, the beams of love can often seem too much to bear." Gerald May in The Awakened Heart

I am signing up for getting hurt again this year. Who's with me?

I have a lot of resolutions on my list, again. Some of them are the same as last year. But at the top, I am putting, "Suffer." I mean, suffer with Jesus, the Son of God who is love.

I don't mean that in some grandiose way, as if I were Jesus. I just want to use the capability I have, born of the capacity the Lord has patiently enlarged in my heart over years of loving me.

Oh yes, I want our network to operate efficiently and productively. I want to meet all the modest goals we have set. I want to make good investments in buildings and business. I want to use our money efficiently and effectively. I don't want to waste a minute. But we can do most of that and just get tired and irritable. We can do a lot of that with further arguments about justice. We can do a lot of that by exercising power and leveraging guilt and fear.

I want to act out of my heart connected to the heart of it all. I want to stay vulnerable to what Gerald May called "our passion for more…a deepened yearning within what felt like satisfaction." That will cost us. But, at the end of 2011, I want to have invested the year in eternity and to have experienced eternity invested in the year. The beams of love are shining. I want to bear them.

Thoughts on St. Stephen's Day

I wanted to have a nice long visit with Stephen, since his day fell on a Sunday this year. But then the snow moved in big and we cancelled the public meetings. So let me offer a variation on what I wanted to deliver this way, on the blog.

If you read my blog, you know that I was mad at Carrie Underwood this week. She and I have a very rocky relationship. We were way in love, not too long ago, when she sang Jesus Take the Wheel

And the car came to a stop

She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat

Sleeping like a rock

And for the first time in a long time

She bowed her head to pray

She said I'm sorry for the way

I've been living my life

I know I've got to change

So from now on tonight

Jesus, take the wheel

Take it from my hands

Cause I can't do this on my own

I'm letting go

So give me one more chance

To save me from this road I'm on

That was nice. And the video brings tears to my eyes, especially when the couple comes back together over their kitchen table after fighting about the bills.. But then Carrie wrote a song herself for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which was almost exactly the Disneyfied thing I was complaining about before Christmas in the PM. She sang that we would all be kings and queens of anything if we just believe (in whatever). It is written in the stars. Faith and love will keep us strong. Exactly who we are is just enough. No mention of Jesus this time.  No crying. No praying. So sorrow for the way she was living. No hint that she couldn't do it on her own.

So Carrie and I are having a hard time. I hope we can work it out, because she is very pretty and I think she is the nicest person to ever win American Idol.

I think I understand her a little bit. Because here we are celebrating St. Stephen's Day right after Christmas. It just seems a little out of place to get all martyr-y right after Christmas when we got all those presents and ate all that food. I don't know why they didn't just get all the martyr days into Lent where they belong! Christmas is totally the feast of lights in the midst of dark; it is very hopeful. Europeans of yore really want to get hunkered into the family bunker and eat a lot of stuff with fat in it so they can survive the blistering cold winter in Germany. Americans want to take the kids to the mall to cash in gift cards on the 26th, not consider the life of the first Christian martyr, who cashed in his life after he saw God revealed in glory! — talk about letting Jesus take the wheel! People usually skip St. Stephen because it is a bit much. If his day wasn't referenced in the song Good King Wenceslas, we probably would never hear about Stephen at all.

I don't know if there was a big strategy for when St. Stephen's day should be celebrated, but I would not be surprised if some theologian thought it was very important to get a notable martyr on the calendar right at the beginning of the twelve days of Christmas. While the historical account of the birth of Jesus is definitely important to repeat, I'm sure some theologian would suspect that people might get lost in the angels and babies and warm family feeling of Mary and Joseph camping out in a barn and miss the whole point, so he thought, "We'd better stick something else in here — I've got it! St. Stephen!" Some hard guy like Martin Luther probably thought these verses about the incarnation should go on all true believers Christmas cards, not some sweet picture of a holy family surrounded by air-brushed cattle or something worse. After all, this is the meaning of the incarnation:

Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

   did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

   by taking the very nature of a servant,

   being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

   he humbled himself

   by becoming obedient to death—

      even death on a cross! Philippians 2:5-8

St. Stephen's Day would certainly help us to consider the true goal of incarnation, if we let it actually get in our calendar, much more our consciousness. Stephen is just a regular person, he is not even one of the first apostles. He is just a guy with the mindset of Christ Jesus who gets noticed for having it by people who oppose the influence of his faith. He is a regular person who one day is eating dinner with his family and the next day is making himself nothing — a true servant of Jesus with nothing to tell the authorities but the truth. He is, like Jesus, obedient to death, while Paul is watching it all happen — look at him in the back of this painting dressed in green.

You can read the whole story of Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 Here is the part about how his martyrdom got started:

     "Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.

     Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God."

     So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."

     All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Acts 6:8-13

Stephen went through the whole history of Israel to prove that it was not he but his accusers who were detractors of Moses. He ends up telling it like it is:

     "You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it."

      When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

        At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

        While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.  Acts 7:51-60

Let's do some Bible study on being like Stephen who is like Jesus. Some people, like Stephen have the gift of martyrdom. Some say this is the spiritual gift you only use once! But it is more of an attitude, a mindset, like Jesus had, which gives us the spiritual strength to face our false accusers and hold on to our faith. The gift of martyrdom is the spiritually-born courage to be who we are and to obey the heavenly vision we have seen, even if people would like to hurt us, mock us, or even kill us.

Iraqi Christians need this spiritual capacity right now. Many of them have cancelled much of their usual Christmas celebration this year because Islamic militants have been attacking their church buildings for the past six months, and it is getting worse. The Kurdish government in Northern Iraq has offered Christians sanctuary, but it's not like everyone has the money to get up and move. Since October attacks have escalated and priests and worshippers have been killed. One militant group, the Islamic State of Iraq, has explicitly stated that their fighters will kill Christians "wherever we can find them."

In the United States, our people with the gift of martyrdom, must help us stand up against state-sponsored irreligiosity, against the Disneyfication of spirituality and much more. When I was in Costa Rica, my genial host, an American ex-pat, discovered I was a pastor and immediately said something like, "My family never talked about religion or politics at the table," — giving me notice, in a very nice way, that I should watch what I say. It is a battle every day, just to be a faithful follower of Jesus. Even before you open your mouth, they tell you to shut up!

So here is some encouragement from the Bible to let the movement of God's Spirit in you make you like the self-giving lover and truth-teller Jesus and Stephen were, even if it costs you. And for those of you with the spiritual gift — I hope I encourage you to go ahead and get us ramped up to face what we have to face and not cave in to the pressure to dampen our flame or hide our faith altogether.

In some places in the Bible the idea of being gifted by the Spirit to act in ways the body of Christ needs  is plainly stated. Gifts are particular aspects of God's life in believers that some of us have more than others. We've all got the Spirit of God at work in us through our connection to Jesus, but some of us have a calling to do one thing more than another. The distribution of these gifts is not a science, but it is clearly observable. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says, while he is in the middle of  a lengthy teaching on spiritual gifts that, "If I give all I possess to the poor, and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." 

Give over my body to hardship could also be translated, and is translated as, "give my body to be burned." That's a clear reference to being martyred. The root of the word of "martyr" is about giving witness. One is burned because he or she is expressing their faith. The Apostle Paul is certainly into this. He tells the Philippians after they have contacted him in Rome, while he is under house arrest: "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life — or by death."  Philippians 1:20

To "deliver oneself up" is the gift of grace God gives members of the body of Christ by which they undergo suffering for the faith even to the point of death, while consistently being a witness of the truth and love in Christ. Jesus clearly taught that this would happen. He told us that all believers will suffer persecution at some level. (Merry Christmas!) — " If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: 'Servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also." John 15:18-20

Some believers burn with a fearless witness that often puts them in danger  Paul was like this. He told the church in Corinth" "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many." 2 Cor. 1:8-11

The one with the gift of martyrdom will be forgiving , like we saw Stephen ask God not to hold his murderers sins against them. Peter counsels people to be patient when they are persecuted, trusting in God, not vengeful, even  joyful, full of praise: "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name." 1 Peter 4:12-16

The gift encourages others to passionate mission and prayer. The gifted ones keep us out on the front lines of our purpose The Apostle Paul was chained up in his house for being a Christian when he went to Rome and this is what he said about it: "Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear." Philippians 1:12-14 When persecutions arise, there are those gifted to glorify God through them. This could be a gift given to meet the ongoing, daily persecution, or for the crisis situation.

We all need the Holy Spirit with us to face the inevitable opposition we will face because we follow Jesus. You who are gifted martyrs, please don't hold back, even when you think we don't want you around. We need your courage; we need you to keep us on the frontlines, lest we not be like Jesus at all –  Jesus, who is ready to be born into trouble and to die with it on his shoulders, Jesus, who is confident that resurrection is in his future.

A Bit on Dawn Treader Lite

It is the most wonderful time of the year for movies. I enjoyed "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" last night. It was very beautiful. Reepicheep was the best actor among all the stilted children wielding swords. The voice of Liam Neeson was nice to hear, speaking as Aslan, who Edmund names as "the son of the Emperor over the Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia." At least Edmund named Aslan that in the book.

For marketing reasons, I guess, producers find it necessary to go light on the religious nature of the Chronicles of Narnia when they film them. I was just complaining last week in our public meeting about how Disney feeds us watered-down, Disneyfied myths to compete with the story of Jesus, as if Santa were not bad enough. This installment of the Narnia series was distributed by 20th Century Fox, Disney's twin, owned by NewsCorp, which is lead by possibly the devil incarnate, Rupert Murdoch.

The movie plainly says it is based on the Chronicles of Narnia, so as not to offend the heaven-based C.S. Lewis, no doubt. It is not totally denuded of Christianity, but it is striking what they choose to water down and reinterpret. The freeing of Eustace from his dragon skin was the most disappointing moment of all. It was so disappointing I have actually typed out the passage in the book for you, so you can remember what really happened. The account in the book is one of the most pleasant renditions of how God frees us from sin and draws us through baptism into the healing process of our new life. It bears repeating. Read this to you children, don't just let them see the movie version. If you just take them to the movie, they'll get too much Murdoch, not enough Lewis, and very little Jesus.

             "Then the lion said—but I don't know if it spoke—You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty near  desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it.

             "The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt more than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.'

             "I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

             "Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I had done  myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker and darker and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. …

            After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me—

            "Dressed you. With his paws?"

            "Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes—the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

            "No it wasn't a dream," said Edmund. "I think you've seen Aslan."…

            "But who is Aslan. Do you know him?"

            "Well—he knows me," said Edmund.          

             The second most disappointing thing was Carrie Underwood. She wrote the song that will probably be competing for the Academy Award for best song. I was watching the credits for once because I wanted to see where they filmed the movie (New Zealand, of course). So I could not miss Carrie singing one of those songs that is religious without any Jesus in it. I think it is probably exactly the kind of song Lewis would have had Wormwood producing in the Screwtape Letters to make sure humans are fed light faith that doesn't even need to be tempted.

Here is the most delusion-inducing stanza:

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.

It's written in the stars that shine above,

a world where you and I belong, where faith and love will keep us strong,

exactly who we are is just enough

there's a place for us, there's a place for us.

I'm sure Carrie means well. And if one listens to the whole lyric with Jesus in mind, it is easy to supply the truth that is not stated. But she could have least said, "If Aslan rips your skin off you have a chance to live." She might have said, like the movie even said, "If you meet the Aslan of our world, who goes by another name you can enter that place for you." Instead, she ended the watered-down tale by watering it down even more. I tuned to Gwen and said, "What is this b.s. song doing here?" (That's my problem, of course.) Love you Carrie, but shame on you. You should have let Jesus take the wheel on that one.

I hope you enjoy The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It is fun. There are moments that are moving and mysterious. It does not miss all the Christian underpinning it should have. It is a good tale. If you unmuzzle Jesus while you are there, it will actually be a growth experience, too: receiving what is given and lamenting what is not.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Many students of the Bible say that the fourth "gospel," written by John, is the last one written. It sounds like that to me, too. It sounds like it is written by an old man who has been through a lot. John did go through a lot: a lot of miracle, then crucifixion, then resurrection, then persecution, then evangelism, then church development and leadership, then church conflict, then a final persecution that lead to his exile on the island of Patmos where he had his amazing vision, and where he might have also written his account of Jesus' work.

When John begins his brief, but poetic and profound, summary of the birth of Jesus, he strikes a mournful note in the middle of it. To me, he sounds like an old man who has suffered to bring the good news of Jesus to people who have rejected it and abused it. That bothers him.

"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." (John 1)

He is pondering light coming into darkness. He knows the darkness well. It is a darkness that does not recognize God coming onto it. It is a darkness as deep as being rejected by your own family — you come home and they leave you out in the dark!

But John does not dwell there too long. He wants to tell the truth about what happened to Jesus and to himself as a result of meeting Jesus. But he almost breathlessly gets to the secret he wants to reveal: In the midst of this dark world where the light is not recognized as light, and family is not loved as family, the life of God is born into the world and born in people who receive it, who recognize God in Jesus and trust him for renewed life.

I'm feeling with John this Advent. Last night, we spent our monthly Coordinators meeting celebrating our deep love for each other and the great successes of our work in 2010. It felt like an island of light, and spiritual depth in the middle of deep darkness. On one occasion during my 35th-anniversary trip to Costa Rica, my host asked me what I did for a living. When I said, "I am the pastor of our church," he immediately said, "In my family, we never talk about religion or money." The darkness wouldn't even let me be recognized for who I am. I got a gag order! (Didn't work that well, but I got it).  Another time I asked my local guide, who had been so helpful in every way, when the festival in Nicoya was scheduled. I had read something about a Christmas procession in a guide book. She said something like, "Oh, people in the church do things. I'm not sure." The church has a parade and a person can manage to be totally ignorant! (Putting Mary on a sedan chair and clogging traffic may not be the best advertisement, but it is pretty adroit ignorance to channel the input to some cranial "junk mail" folder!).

I have such wonderful Advents! Jesus is coming and I recognize and receive him. I am and feel born of God. It is amazing. It was amazing to sit among my close colleagues and witness how the light came into their personal darkness. But that miracle happens in a world that seems to be turning its back on God-with-us even more deliberately, even among people who should know better,  I hear a mournful tone that I have decided to hold on to. My carol has become "In the Bleak Midwinter." John wants to rush to the joy of new birth, But he has enough discipline to let the whole truth be told. Self-giving love does not come to the world without suffering. In a dark, maybe darkening, world, the light continues to meet resistance.

Anti-adaptation for Advent

After a week, here in Costa Rica, I am acclimating. It did not frustrate me, this morning, when a chorus of howler monkeys and roosters woke me up at the crack of dawn. Yesterday I described the variations I wanted on my pizza with some forcefulness, in Spanish. We are an adaptable species.

My own quick adaptation to this splendid environment for my pilgrimage this winter, reminded me of Nikos Kazantzakis musing about how God was invited to adapt to being human when he came for us in Jesus. In The Last Temptation of Christ, he adds a further temptation to the ones listed in Matthew 4. He imagines that it was tempting not to go to the cross because Jesus might have wanted to fully adapt to being human – be a carpenter, to have a wife and children, to receive the days as they came and die without any larger interest in the life of the Spirit or in restoring creation.

It is true that most of us are adapted to sin. It can be as obvious as deciding, "The ten extra, unhealthy pounds I carry are normal for me," or deciding that, "Since I like smoking I can adapt to the long-term destruction it is creating." Or it can be as mysterious as not pondering, "Why I don't feel like I know God?" or "Why I can't let go of my guilt and shame?" or "Why does my childhood trauma make more difference to my development than my salvation?" Or it can just be about going with the herd: "If all the other monkeys are howling for IPods, so do I."  Or "If they all work seventy hours a week, so do I." We are an adaptable species.

Maybe one of the good things about Advent is that it is a season that refuses to adapt. It is an old discipline that keeps the heart of the incarnation accessible, even when "Christmas" adapts to all sorts of perverse influences. If you observe Advent, you are going against the flow. The local Costa Ricans down the street from the palace in which I am vacationing have some pretty basic accommodations; but they have a Coca-Colaesque Santa decorations, and their bodega plays "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" translated into Spanish (uh, it is going to be 84 today). "Christmas" has acclimated to what the world thinks is important. Even the world knows that and goes with it, anyway – sometimes people focus more on "family" as an antidote, but they go with it. To focus on the coming of Jesus and his refusal to adapt, even as he becomes one with us is quite a challenge.

We've got ten days left. Why not be unadaptable in the ways we are usually acclimated as a way to honor God coming to be one with us and fitting us for heaven? I think the season of Advent will call us to be in our bodies, but not letting them drive us, to be in our environments but not think they are our end, to appreciate our appetites but not just feed them, to see the sin around us and not be entangled, to have open, loving eyes for a world without God and not miss Jesus coming to it.

Be the Manger

I guess I did kind of a mean thing at the Advent Day Retreat yesterday. I usually avoid coercing people to do anything, but I made the retreaters turn to a couple of other people and answer this question: "What makes you a good place for Jesus to be born?" Be the manger; be the bed. It is not so shocking that God should be born in us if God is born in a stable! What makes you a good place for Jesus to be born?

Their reactions made me feel a bit like Paul writing to the Galatians: "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!" (Gal. 4:19-20) Quite a few people seemed to be having a problem admitting, much less saying, that they were a suitable place for Jesus to be born! They could easily go with how gracious God is to have come to a disintegrating, rebellious creation, to humbly be born in a stable and to act as a servant. But it was much harder for some to get their minds around the suggestion that the stable was quite good enough for God and that servanthood is a splendid means to express self-giving love. God is delighted to live in us. Be the manger.

"But," the immediate protest begins, "won't I end up being a prideful fool who is unaware of my sin if I start feeling good enough to receive Jesus?" There are many prideful fools around, after all.

But isn't it also prideful to tell God that it is absurd for him to feel OK about filling you with his Spirit? Isn't it foolish to keep an iron grip on your unworthiness instead of letting saved-by-the-grace-of-God be your new self-image? Isn't it a bit audacious, in a bad way, to tell God he is crazy to love you so much, to want to snuggle in next to you like he supposedly does?

It is perplexing. Is Jesus so unformed in us that we would easily revert to being fearful slaves to whatever monstrous thing that used to run us – so much so that we would leave Jesus perpetually knocking on the door of it? As soon as people were given a chance to claim their right to be children of God, yesterday — to be the earthen jar in which glory is carried, to be the chosen friend in whom the secrets are confided, to be the sent one in whom the campaign for world redemption is entrusted, many were kind of tongue-tied. Maybe you, too. I watched a couple of groups just sit there staring at each other, waiting, until that got too awkward and they had to say something. But even when they started talking, it was not like they were as appreciative of God's home as God was happy to be there! They did not have a ready list of what made them a decent house.

Being self-critical is useless unless Christ lives in us! Otherwise we are like a dog in the manger – not saving ourselves and not letting the baby get in there!

There are plenty of important ways to spend the season of Advent.

Maybe you are so full of yourself you need to empty out so Jesus can get a toe-hold.

Maybe you should stop being so preoccupied with whether Jesus is alive in you enough and go be an incarnation of the life you already have.

Maybe you need to wrestle with your disbelief and try to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

God knows what we should do; let's ask him.

But I stumbled on one important way many people need to spend the season. Be the bed. God wants to be born in you. Come on, you've got to be at least as good as a stable! Are you really going to tell him there is no room? tell him he shouldn't even want to stay in you in the first place? he's dumb to even knock? he should come back when you're tidy? Don't do that. If you have to do something other than enjoying your undeserved favor, fluff the hay a bit.

Can We Do Without the House, the Body, the Incarnation?

We have been looking all over the region and all over the country for the people God is nudging into the proactive peacemaking work of Shalom House. I'm not sure we are the best lookers, but we are manifestly not the most successful finders. The fact that we are not successful recruiters raises the question, "Can we do the work of Shalom House without the house? Do we need an intentional community to incarnate our hopes?"

We could probably do the work without the house. I, for one, will have to keep working even if we can't sustain it. But the work would not be nearly as brilliant. Enough of us in the church would shine the light, but it would probably be a dimmer light. One of the great things about Shalom House is that it gathers the radicals in one place and calls them to live in peace, not just talk about it. They get practical about peacemaking every day, not just write blogs about it. They get up each morning and conflict stares them in the face in the dining room, not only because it is on their bulletin board but because it is on their to-do list and it is sometimes staring at them across the breakfast table! The church needs intentional communities at the heart of us to remind us that community is possible, much more, maybe, do we need a community devoted to peacemaking.

Finding the next people to join in with Shalom House is a specific case of our larger everyday search. We are scouring the region looking for the people God is nudging into Circle of Hope.  Being "in" Circle of Hope is a relative concept, of course. A man who lives in Brooklyn most of the time was at the PM last night and considers himself a part of BW. People who aren't part of a cell and who attend a PM randomly consider themselves part of "Circle." Their slight attachment brings up the question, "Can we do the work of Jesus without all the trappings of church – all the meetings, common bank accounts and obligations?" Do we need an organization to be our organism?"

People certainly think they can do without the Church. On the one hand, it is good that they feel like they carry their faith in their heart on their own and don't require a lot of handling or support. On the other hand, it is so common that people lose their faith by swimming alone in the sea of opposition that it is a wonder that jumping overboard is so popular. We Christians in the U.S. are kind of a strange species; our strongest swimmers are often the ones who jump ship. They are busy with a brilliant, individual life that is conceptually attached to the body of Christ, but practically, is not much of an incarnation. Sometimes they parachute into "missionary" places looking for more individuals, such as themselves, who will leave their community to live an individualistic Christian life and find themselves having a tough time connected to their own neighborhood (unlike the people they meet), because they don't do that.

I suppose it comes down to the big question, "Could someone do the work of Jesus without Jesus?" No one reading this is likely to answer, "Sure!" But I am not so sure a lot of us aren't trying it. The great challenge of turning from our godless way of life to a God-filled way of life is following the living Lord in the day to day, being an incarnation of Jesus as a member of his incarnation, the body of Christ, the church. The past 100 years of Christianity, in particular, seems to have allowed the faith to be one among many religions, a personal decision about meaning, a private experience that can't be transferred, a "spiritual" matter, not a practical, legal, political, genetic or sociological matter, a collage of concepts, not a relationship with God.

Advent is the season when we are reminded that we can't do the work of God without God-with-us. I suppose the fact that the season of Advent seems kind of weird to many Christians reflects our desertion of the doctrine of the incarnation —  so many of us are mainly concerned about right thinking or the heat of our personal feelings and less concerned with right living. But, as Paul says, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." (Gal 5:6) and "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision [or any other argument] means anything; what counts is a new creation." (Gal. 6:15) Advent calls us to express our faith in God expressing his love — in a body, in time, in creation by birthing a new creation. We might prefer a more convenient "salvation," one more personalized to our needs and desires. But we can't do without the one we've been given.