Jason Micheli's Blog, page 110

The Alien Word

James 1.18-25

True story— I heard it on NPR:

One warm summer night in DC, eight friends gathered around a backyard supper table. Toasting family and friends, clinking wine glasses, laughing— they were throwing a celebration. 

“It was one of those great evenings,” the celebrant of the party, Michael, told the host of Invisibilia, “lots of awesome food and french wine. It was a magical night.” 

It was getting late, he remembers, maybe around 10:00 PM, when it happened. 

“I was standing beside my wife. And I just saw this arm with a long-barrel gun come between us. It was as if in slow motion…this hand and a gun, and then it just really quiet.” 

The trespasser was a man of medium height in clean, high-end sweats. The trespasser raised the gun and held it first to the head of Michael’s friend, Christina, and then to the head of Michael’s wife and then he said: “Give me your money.” 

And he kept repeating it, louder and louder. 

“The problem was,” Michael said, “none of us had any cash.”

So the celebrants started to grasp for some way to dissaude the instruder out of his trespass, grasping for some way to change his mind. 

But then—

One of the women at the supper table, his friend Christina, piped up and she spoke a strange word, a word that passed from her lips to the trespasser’s ears and cut through all the angry noise and frightened chattering. 

She said: “We’re celebrating here. Why don’t you have a glass of wine?” 

“The words, her invitation…it was like a switch. You could feel the difference it made,” said Michael to Invisibilia. “All of a sudden, the look on the man’s face changed. The words arrested him. It was like the words gave him something he didn’t know he was searching for.” 

According to Michael— 

The trespasser tasted the wine offered to him in spite of his trespass. “That’s really good wine,” the trespasser said to Michael. 

“We had some bread too,” Michael added, “so he reached down for some of it but because he had the wine glass in his other hand…he put the gun in his pocket to free up his hand.”

The trespasser drank his wine. 

And then the trespasser said something surprising: “I think I’ve come to the wrong place.” Everyone stood there in the backyard garden, the trellis walls like a sanctuary and the treetops a steeple, everything silent as a grave save the thrum of summer insects. 

Then the trespasser said something strange: “Can I get a hug?”

First Michael’s wife embraced him. 

Then his friend Christina embraced him. 

Finally, like they had no choice— like they had to celebrate with him— the whole party gathered around and embraced the trespasser. “I’m sorry,” the man said, “I’m sorry I trespassed against you.” And then he walked out into the street, still carrying the wine as though he were savoring still at how he’d been given it. 

In the episode of Invisibilia, Michael’s story is cited as an example of what psychologists call noncomplementary behavior. 

But in the Church, Michael’s story is an example of what scripture calls saving faith. Michael’s story of the word of invitation to the trespasser who trespassed against them— it’s an example of how saving faith works. 

Now, I know that’s not immediately obvious to you so I’m going to say it again. 

Michael’s story is an example of how faith works. 

———————-

Despite the word on the street, the gossip’s got him all wrong. 

St. James in his four page letter— and keep in mind, it’s just four pages— does not contradict the teachings of the Apostle Paul, which, keep in mind, total almost two hundred pages of your New Testament.  And you don’t need to take my word for it. 

According to Luke in the Book of Acts, James, who was Jesus’ half-brother and the leader of the Church in Jerusalem, eventually agreed with the Apostle Paul’s preaching.  In the Book of Acts, Luke records James agreeing with the Apostle Paul that absolutely nothing should be added to the Gospel of Grace. And nothing can substract from your standing in it.

So if you hear James here exhorting you that God’s work of grace in Jesus Christ requires you to respond with good works of your own, then read it again. Read it through the Apostle Paul rather than alongside him because, well, it’s two hundred pages to four pages, and James himself says that’s how you should read him. 

In fact, James here in chapter one is riffing on what St. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans: “Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” And what James tells us here in chapter one echoes what St. Paul tells the Corinthians: “No one can confess Jesus is Lord— no one can have faith— except by God.” In other words, saving faith comes not from within but from without. 

Faith is not your doing— that’s Paul to the Ephesians. 

James makes the same point in today’s text. “In fulfillment of his own purpose,” James writes, “God gave us birth…” God gave us birth as believers. That is, God gave to us faith. How? By “the word of truth,” James says. By the promise— by the Gospel of grace. 

And God gives us faith, James says, “so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” 

Fruit— just like Paul and just like his brother Jesus, the controlling image that James chooses is a passive one. We’re not the Gardener. We’re not even the plant. We’re fruit. God gives us faith not so that we will go do. God gives us faith so that we might become fruit— signs— of what he has done. 

It’s not so much that we are to bear fruit. It’s that faith makes us fruit. A couple of verses down from here, James continues with the metaphor of God as Gardener by calling the Gospel the implanted word.

What James tells you here is no different than what the Apostle Paul preaches in the other two hundred pages of the New Testament. Namely, God uses the Gospel promise to plant faith within us. 

The promise that Christ has died for all our sins, once for all, that everything has already been done, that nothing needs to be done to redeem you or your neighbor, creates faith. 

You see, when scripture speaks of saving faith, it’s not primarily faith in something— you can have faith in all sorts of things, just ask the Golden Calf or Tom Brady fans. When scripture speaks of saving faith, it’s faith from someone. 

———————-

Faith, the Protestant Reformers said, is an alien word. That’s what James means by that phrase “the implanted word.” 

Faith comes extranos, the first Protestants taught. And whenever someone whips out the Latin, you know it’s important, so pay attention: faith comes extra nos, from outside of us. Faith, the Bible says again and again, is a gift. A gift, not like an attribute innate to you. A gift given to you, from outside of you. 

What makes faith personal isn’t that you discovered it on your spiritual journey. What makes faith personal is that it was given to you by the person of Jesus Christ himself. We think of faith as our part of the Gospel transaction. God gives sinners like us justification by grace, and we must return the favor by giving God faith, which God needs…why exactly? Grace isn’t amazing if God demands payment in return. No, faith is not what God requires you to give him in order for your justification to be true for you. 

The Good News is better than that!

Faith is what God gives you; so that, you will trust that your justification is fact. Faith is what God gives you to trust that the party-called-salvation has already started and it’s for you— no matter your sins or your second-guessing it. The promise of the Gospel is that you are justified in Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone.

Not by faith alone. 

Through faith alone. 

Faith isn’t the expectation you must meet in order to be invited to the party. 
Faith is the means God gives you to enjoy the party to which your invitation has already been sealed by his blood.

Faith is a gift from outside of you, scripture says. 

Faith comes by what is heard. 

Not inside of you. 

Extra nos.

And notice— our way of thinking about faith, as something we do, it turns faith into another work of the Law, and then you’re left with the same dilemma as riddles all your other good works:  How do you know if the faith you have is enough faith?  How do you know you feel your faith for the right reasons? What if you can’t feel your faith like you felt it when you first felt your faith? What if you don’t feel it like the person in the pew in front of you feels it? What about your doubts and your questions? How many are too many?

Faith understood as something we do— faith as something that comes from within us— is bad news. 

It’s the worst kind of news because it makes your salvation determined not by a savior but by your own inner subjectivity.

Not only is it bad news, it loses the plot of the Good News because according to the plot of the Good News, apart from God giving you faith, you have no capacity to find it on your own.

Go back to James’ birth image in today’s text, saying to someone without faith “Well, you’ve just gotta have faith” is like telling an unborn fetus to deliver itself. 

Faith is not the faculty by which you grasp after God. 
Faith is the bruise left behind by the God who has grasped you and pulled you into newness of life.  

We’re all like that intruder in the garden. We need a word from outside of us to arrest us in our trespasses and get us to join in the celebration that started long before we showed up.

Faith is a gift. 
You can’t give yourself faith anymore than you can take away your sins. 
You need Jesus Christ for both. 

Nor can you give anyone faith. Christ is the Giver and the Preacher.  You can’t give anyone faith. 

But— You can get in the way. You can get in his way.

———————-

“Give me your money,” the trespasser said in Michael’s backyard garden.

“But none of us had any cash,” Michael told Invisibilia. 

So we started grasping for ways to dissaude him, to change his mind. 

Some of the celebrants tried guilt. What would you mother think? they asked him. Other celebrants tried reasoning with the trespasser. This is only going to land you in prison— can’t you see that mister? A couple of celebrants appealed to the trespasser’s emotions and aspirations. Is this who you want to be? How does this make you feel? Still other celebrants got angry at the trespasser. Just who do you think you are? 

All of them, the whole congregation of celebrants, they started talking at him. 

This cacophony of anxious, angry chattering. 

None of it— not their anger or anxiety— made the situation right. 

“I remember thinking,” Michael told Invisibilia, “it was getting so noisy…this is headed towards a bad end. Someone is going to get hurt. If all our noise had drown out Christina— if the trespasser hadn’t heard Christina’s words because we were raising so much other commotion, if he hadn’t heard her words of invitation, because of all the other angry noise we were making— it would’ve ended bad.” 

———————-

Despite the grapevine, James and the Apostle Paul do not contradict one another on the miracle that is the unconditional mercy of God in Jesus Christ for sinners like you. But unlike Paul, James spends a lot more time on the noise that can get in its way. 

Faith comes by what is heard, scripture says— by a promise where Christ is the Preacher. 
But unfaith comes by what else is heard— in the church. 

“…your anger does not produce righteousness” James warns the church today. The New Testament teaches us that righteousness is ours through faith; in other words, your anger frustrates God’s work in the church to give to another faith. 

Whenever I hear someone lament that Christians today need to be more like the early church, I usually respond with “What are you smoking?” I mean, James’ church in Jerusalem makes Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity seem like kissing cousins. James’ church was diverse with believers from different races and religious backgrounds, rich and poor. So the congregation was divided into clicks and factions, insiders and outsiders, and they were consumed by conflict. 

Conflict over politics. 

Conflict over worship traditions. 

Conflict over leadership. 

Conflict over how they allocated their time and their resources. 

I know it’s difficult to imagine such a church— just do your best. Unlike Paul, James spends so much time on behavior because his congregation was a congregation beset by conflict, consumed with anger and apathy, gossip and back-biting, undercutting and second-guessing, hypocrisy. So James warns them here: “…your anger does not produce faith.”

You see— James is not saying that your anger or your gossip or your second-guessing disqualifies you from what God has done for you in Jesus Christ. No, nothing can undo what Christ has done for you. Your anger and all the rest of it— it doesn’t disqualify you. It just disables another from hearing from Christ what he has done for them. 

James’ point is not that gossip or back-biting make you a poor Christian.  His point is that your gossip or back-biting prevent another Christian from being made. We do not have the power to create faith in Christ, but we do, James is saying, have the power to create alumni of the Christian faith. A survey just this week in Christianity Today echoes James’ point— most of the people who leave church do so (any guesses why?) because of people in church. 

Sticks and stones we say but words…but think about it. If God’s work in the world is oral and aural, then any other racket we add it does hurt. ALL YOUR NOISE—stop getting in my brother’s way with your behavior. You see— James would have you think of the whole church as a pulpit or an altar. Just as you expect Chenda or me to have nothing on our lips but Christ and his mercy for sinners, James would have you bear nothing on your lips but grace and mercy. Don’t let anything you say or do get in the way because you never know when the real Preacher will show up. 

———————-

“We later found the empty wineglass the trespasser had taken with him. He’d wiped it clean and placed on the sidewalk in front of the house” Michael said. 

But before they found the wineglass, Michael said, they cried. 

In gratitude. 

“We had no idea that words— an invitation to a celebration— could grasp hold of someone and change them. It was like this miracle. It was like a miracle. But it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t heard those words, if we’d gotten in the way of the miracle.” 

Faith in Jesus Christ

Faith in the promise he preaches to you (“Your sins are forgiven”) 

Whether it’s the size of a mustard seed or a mountain, it’s not your own doing. 

Faith in Jesus Christ is never not a miracle. 

And don’t forget—

No one knows that faith in Jesus is always a miracle better than Jesus’ brother. 

Don’t forget—

James thought his brother was crazy. James was not with his mother at his brother’s cross. James did not bury his brother, as was his obligation under the Law. Yet James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Until he was condemned to death. By the very same Sandhedrin who sent his brother to a cross. 

Like Paul, James knew: Jesus Christ is not dead. The one who came preaching the forgiveness of sins preaches still. With his word, with water, with wine and bread. Faith is his work to do. Just don’t get in his way.

Because the wine? It’s really good.

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Grace Gives Us the Right to Be Wrong

The Special General Conference of the United Methodist Church will meet in St. Louis later this month to debate proposals offering paths forward through our impasse over human sexuality. Yours truly and the podcast posse at Crackers and Grape Juice will be there— someone was dumb enough to give us press passes.

To get ready, I’ll be writing about the issue from a biblical and theological point of view, new posts and old posts from over the years. I’ll leave the bureaucractic questions and the headaches they induce to someone else.

My muse and friend, Stanely Hauerwas, says that “whenever United Methodists talk about grace— which is all the time— they know not what they’re talking about.”

I think how we engage this debate is Exhibit A for Stan’s point. In all our arguing about the way forward, I can’t help but wonder if what the Church needs most is to go backward.

St. Paul writes to Timothy about the urgent need for interpreters of scripture to be able to divide rightly the Word of God, and the Protestant movement began 500 years ago largely as a preaching movement that had at its core the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. Echoing the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther said there is no other higher art than making that distinction between the two words with which God has spoken and still speaks to us.

When it comes to the debate about sexuality in the Church, not only do I not hear alot of nuance I don’t hear much distinction being drawn between God’s two words.

Instead, what I hear from both conservative and progressive sides is a lot of Gospel-flavored Law laying the net result of which is a muddled message, Glawspel, rather than the grace-centric proclamation that is our reason d’etre as Protestant Christians. Anything goes in this debate, the stakes are so high, because, as advocates on both sides often insist “the Gospel is at stake.” For conversatives, the Gospel is at stake in the sense that the authority of scripture is up for grabs. For progressives, the Gospel is at stake in that the inclusion of LGBTQ Christians is a justice issue.

The Gospel is at stake, I think.
Just not in the way either side imagines.

Look-

I understand those Christians who advocate for a traditional view of sexuality and marriage. I empathize with those who critique the nihilistic sexual ethics of our culture, worry about its cheapening of sex and the objectification of bodies, and its devaluing of tradition, especially the traditional authority of scripture in the life of the Church. Such traditionalists are correct to insist that the male-female union is the normative relationship espoused by the Church’s scripture and confession. They’re right to remind us that neither scripture nor tradition in any way condones homosexual relationships.

I don’t disagree with them that in a Church which took centuries to codify what we meant by ‘Trinity’ or ‘Jesus as the God-Man,’ it’s a bit narcissistic to insist the Church rush headlong into upending millennia of teaching on sexuality and personhood. I sympathize with their critique that, in many ways and places, the Church has substituted the mantra of inclusivity for the kerygma about Christ and him crucified. And I concur with them that if, as progressives like to say, “God is still speaking…,” then whatever God is saying must conform to what God has already said to us in the One Word of God, Jesus Christ. In the 500th anniversary year of the Reformation, I too want to hold onto sola scriptura and secure the Bible’s role as sole arbiter in matters of belief.

I’m just aware that a growing number of people (read: potential converts to Christ) see such conservatism not as a reverence for scripture but as a rejection of them.

On the other side of the debate, frankly it makes no sense to me to baptize babies if the Church is not prepared for them to exercise their Christian vocation once they’re grown, and ordained ministry and marriage are but two forms that Christian vocation takes. If we’re not prepared for gay Christians to live into their baptism as adutls we shouldn’t be baptizing them as babies, which means we shouldn’t be baptizing any babies.

Nonetheless, I think progressive Christians who insist that their fellow Christians see this as exclusively as a justice issue make the same mistake their conservative counterparts make.

Namely, they tie our righteousness as Christians to being ‘right’ on this issue.

It’s in this sense that I believe the Gospel is at stake in this debate because, thus far, the debate has obscured our core message that our righteousness comes entirely from outside of us by grace alone through faith alone. Put another way:

You would never come to the conclusion from how both sides engage this debate:
Grace gives us the right to be wrong. 
To the extent that is obscured, the Gospel is at stake in this debate.

The good news that Jesus Christ has done for you what you were unable to do for yourself: live a righteous life before a holy God who demands perfection.

In all our arguing about getting it right on this issue-
I worry that we’ve obscured the Gospel good news:
Everything has already been done in Jesus Christ.

I know what scripture (ie, the Law) says about sex; however, the Gospel frees us from the Law.

The Gospel frees us from the burden of living a sinless, perfect-score sex life. Having a “pure” sex life justifies us before God not at all.

The Gospel also frees us, interestingly enough, from finding the perfect interpretation of what scripture says about sexuality.

Having the right reading of scripture on sex doesn’t improve our standing before God nor does having the wrong reading jeopardize our justification. Almost by definition then, it’s a stupid issue with which to obsess. The Gospel, as Jesus freaking says, is good news. It’s for sinners not saints. It’s for the sick not the show-offs. As with any family on the brink of divorce, I worry that the family’s core story has gotten muddled in the midst of our fighting.

As much as I worry with my conservative friends about the status of sola scriptura in the Church and as much as I concur with them that any culture that produces Snapchat and Tinder, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, shouldn’t be trusted in matters of sex, I worry more that in fighting so much over the “right” position on sexuality we’ve turned having the right position (either on the issue or in the bedroom) into a work of righteousness by which (we think) we merit God’s favor.

In fighting over who has the righteous position, I worry our positions about sexuality have become the very sort of works righteousness that prompted Luther’s protest 500 years ago.

I care about the proclamation of the Gospel more than I do protecting the Law. And let’s be clear, all those stipulations in scripture- they’re the Law. The Law, which the Apostle Paul says, was given by God as a placeholder for Jesus Christ, who is the End of the Law. The point of the Law, for St. Paul, is to convict of us our sin, making us realize how far we ALL fall short such that we throw ourselves on God’s mercy in Christ.

I don’t get the sense that’s how the Law functions for us in these sex debates. Instead the Law functions for us to do the pointing out of how far the other has fallen short.

I care about scripture and tradition, sure.
But I care more about ordinary sin-sick people, gay and straight, knowing that God loves them so much as to die for them.

I care more about them knowing the only access they require to this eternal get of jail free card is not their pretense of ‘righteousness’ but their trust in his perfect righteousness.

I care more about them knowing that any of us measuring our vice and virtue relative to each other is to miss the freaking huge point that our collective situation is such that God had to get down from his throne, throw off his robe, put on skin, and come down to rescue us on a cursed tree.

Every last one of us.

More than the ‘right’ position on sex, I care more about people knowing that God gave himself for them in spite of them; therefore, God literally doesn’t give a @#$ about the content or the character of their lives. God’s grace, as Robert Capon said, isn’t cheap. It isn’t even expensive. It’s free.

I fear our fighting over sexuality conveys the same message the sale of indulgences did on the eve of the Reformation: that God’s grace isn’t costly. It’s expensive, paid in the tender of your right-living and right-believing. Maybe the way forward is the backward.

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Episode #190 – Martin Doblemeier: Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story

“We are at a place in our culture where everything needs to be rethought and reimagined.”

This week the award-winning director and founder of Journey Films, Martin Doblemeier is back on the podcast to talk about his newest film, Backs Against The Wall: The Howard Thurman Story. Listen as he talks about how the life of theologian, philosopher and civil rights activist. Howard Thurman is relevant and important for today’s culture.

If you’re getting this post by email, you can find the audio here.

But wait! This goodness isn’t easy nor is it cheap. Before you listen, help us out:

Go to iTunes, look up Crackers and Grape Juice and give us a rating— it helps others find out about the podcast.

Like our Facebook Page— how easy is that?

Go to www.crackersandgrapejuice.com and click on “Support the Show.”

There you can sign up to be a monthly or one-time donor for PEANUTS.

 

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(Her)Men*You*tics: Episode #39 – Sign

Jesus doesn’t do miracles in John’s Gospel. He does “SIGNS.” And his first sign is an abundance of choice wine for a bunch of party-goers who are on a three-day bender, probably yakking in the outhouse. And as an aside, do you think the disciples thought Mary was a drag 3rd-wheeling with them to the hoe-down in Cana?

This week Jason and Johanna talk about the importance and significance of Signs. Listen in as we work our way through the alphabet one stained glass word at a time.

If you’re getting this post by email, you can find the audio here.

But wait! This goodness isn’t easy nor is it cheap. Before you listen, help us out:

Go to iTunes, look up Crackers and Grape Juice and give us a rating— it helps others find out about the podcast.

Like our Facebook Page— how easy is that?

Go to www.crackersandgrapejuice.com and click on “Support the Show.”

There you can sign up to be a monthly or one-time donor for PEANUTS.

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Cancer is (Still) Funny: Notes from My Doctor

Cancer is Funny comes out in paperback this week. Get a copy!

Here’s a fun piece I wrote during the bad old days. I eventually reworked it for the book’s introduction. It’s funnier here:

 

Since my diagnosis in the winter, I’ve spent these past months frequently posting reflections about my disease, my treatment and my doctors. 

It’s only fair, I reasoned, to offer my caregivers a voice. Here then, with his permission, are some recent notes from my oncologist, taken from a recent email thread between us. 

Dear Rev. Micheli, 

Having received your recent email requesting further literature regarding stem cell transplants, I clicked on the link to your blog (www.tamedcynic.org) displayed beneath your signature line. I must have missed it in your previous correspondence. Once I clicked over, I discovered your cancer posts from the past six months. You can appreciate, I imagine, how a blog about your cancer is also, viewed from another light, a blog about your caregivers. 

In particular, I wish to take umbrage with your post ‘Pastors Make Bad Patients’ dated 3/10/2015. While I’m certainly not going to argue with your central thesis, I do contest your suggestion that healthcare workers have no sense of humor. 

Look at it from our side. 

Your treatment, for instance, is many months long and you’re here almost daily, yet nearly every day. when the nurse tech grabs your index finger in order to place the pulse-reading oximeter on it, you pass gas. A gag I previously thought was known only to my late Uncle Jerry. 

Now that I’ve read your comments about ‘sharting’ in your post ‘Eternity’s the Wrong Number’ dated 2/27/15, I think such a joke is as unwise as it is immature. 

S_________, the nurse tech, who saw you 4 times this week, enduring your finger-pull fart joke each time, would like you to know she already takes care of 2 juvenile boys at home and does not care to babysit another one at work. 

Quite simply, it’s not professional. You’d never make fart jokes as part of your ministry or preaching career would you? Certainly not, I think. 

I hope you’ll see that it’s not the case that we lack a sense of humor; rather you need to view your behavior from our perspective. 

For example, it’s true chemotherapy dervies from Nazi era mustard gas; however, your habit of singing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles’ while receiving your infusions unsettles many of our patients. Not to mention, the nurses tell me that some of our obese patients think you’re insulting them when you sing ‘Uber Alles.’ 

Speaking of unsettling patients, I ask that you no longer blow in to the tubes of your chest port and pretend you’re inflating an airplane life preserver. Perhaps it was funny the first time, but you’ve noticed, I assume, how many of our patients are elderly and yesterday you upset quite a few of them who failed to realize that they were not, in fact, on an airplane and were in only minimal danger of crash-landing. 

My office manager reports it will cost several hundred dollars to repair the damage incurred when those confused seniors clawed and pushed each other out of the way, vainly searching out parachutes and oxygen masks, before- bravely, I must admit- hurling themselves over the counter and through the nurses’ station beveled glass window. 

They’re not called the Greatest Generation for nothing. 

I think this proves that some ocassions and places are not suitable for humor, cancer being one obvious example. Oncology is serious, sometimes melancholy, work, much like ministry I’d wager. 

As you yourself must know, being an expert with scripture, the gospels do not ever note that Jesus laughed. Not once. Not at anything. 

I also recall from the Sunday School of my youth how St. Paul in several places admonishes the faithful against silliness, joking and laughter. 

You need only walk into any church on a Sunday morning to find Christians earnestly  abiding these very scriptural precedents. It’s in this sense that I encourage you ‘to practice your faith’ in our offices. 

Sincerely, 

Dr _____________________

PS: 

I consulted with my colleagues, per your request, and while we do not enjoy Ellen either we have chosen not to show Breaking Bad on the infusion center telesvison screens. We agree Breaking Bad offers an instructive portrait of a patient with cancer, but we feel the content might otherwise be in poor taste. 

We’ve also decided, per your earlier query, not to show Joel Osteen either in the infusion center. Apparently, some patients took offense at what they sensed was your mock sincerity whenever you asked the nurses to ‘turn the channel to Pontius Osteen.’

Dear Rev. Micheli, 

Your blog has become quite popular around the offices. 

Dr A____________ recently read your post titled ‘Chemo Sissy’ dated 2/24/2015 in which you describe him as ‘Serbian scary’ and comment that it’s ‘easy to picture him wearing a drab, olive uniform, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and standing behind one-way glass while a lieutenant conducts an ‘interrogation.’ 

Dr A__________ would like me to point out that, contrary to your characterization, he hails from Milwaukee by way of Mumbai and that he is not a veteran of the Bosnian-Serbian conflic- though he does think Owen Wilson’s work in Behind Enemy Lines is criminally underrated. 

Thank you for bringing that term, Docetism, to my attention. Despite all of my schooling, I confess it was new to me, and I admit that if the the Christian creed teaches that God became fully human in Jesus then it follows logically that Jesus laughed and most likely ‘farted, stank and picked his nose’ as you so eruditely put it. 

I will concede that it’s true Jesus must’ve laughed and possibly even that St Paul, as you phrased it, ‘…had a hyssop stuck up his a@#.’ Nonetheless, it’s also true that not every ocassion is one for joking. 

Think of Mark Twain’s maxim: 

Comedy = Tragedy + Time 

Most of our patients do not have enough time removed from cancer to laugh at it. Indeed many fear, as you know yourself, that they don’t have the time left they’d always thought they did. 

And, without time, it’s hard to laugh. 

I didn’t study as much philosophy as you in school but I do recall how Aristotle says that someone who laughs at the wrong thing reveals not a bad sense of humor but a bad character. 

I’m not implying you have bad character, I’m merely suggesting that Aristotle is helpful in pointing out how there are right times and wrong times for attempts at humor. 

For example: 

When you unbutton your shirt to give our nuses access to your chest catheter, it’s probably not a good idea to sway your hips seductively and go ‘Da, da, da, da, dummmmm….’ 

Not only does this give our staff the wrong impression, we’ve since received several complaint calls from elderly women who were disappointed, ‘after being misled,’ to be informed that they would not receive a special screening of Magic Mike during their chemo infusions. 

Along those same lines, it’s true we put lollipops in the bowls at the front desk just as it’s true I recommended you wear a straw fedora in the summer after you lost your hair; nevertheless, I would recommend you no longer say ‘Who loves you, baby?’ to the nursing staff. 

Kojack has been off the air since 1978 and Tully Sevalas died 22 years ago, and I fear your innocent celluloid allusion could be misconstrued. I would not want sexual harassment claims to pile up alongside your medical insurance claims. 

Almost forgot- 

I mentioned your blog and our exchange to J________, one of our receptionists. She attends one of those megachurches where the music sounds like Richard Marx and the pastors all look like extras from Portlandia. She asked me to pass along this quote to you: 

“Tears bind us to God not laughter.” – John Chrysostum, 373 AD

Sincerely, 

Dr________________

PS: 

Nurse K_______ requests you stop asking if every bag of your chemo ‘contains bits of real panther in it.’ 

It does not. 

Dear Rev. Micheli, 

To answer your question, yes, itching is to be expected after receiving multiple blood transfusions- especially when one palms the prophylactic Benadryl rather than ingest it so as to continue playing Star Wars Angry Birds unburdened by drowsiness, as the nurse tells me she saw you do yesterday. 

Thank you for sharing your, ahem, abundance of opinions on John Chyrsostum with me in your last email. At your request I’ll pass along to J_______ at the front desk that John Chrysostum ‘was a loathesome anti-Semite’ though, considering the genre of church she’s chosen, such news is unlikely to prove an obstacle. 

To answer your other question, no, I cannot give you ‘the digits’ of those elderly patients who confused you for Channing Tatum nor do I have a clue as to whether they have any daughters about your age. However, I do empathize with you when you say that laughter reminds you you’re still alive. While I don’t have the experience to know whether or not you’re correct in saying ‘that Christians tend to take themselves more seriously than God,’ I believe I do understand what you mean when you say that being deadly serious lately makes you feel like you’re already ‘(seriously)’ dead.

I must admit I prefer the quote you forwarded from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (‘Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.’) to the John Chrysostum quotation, and I will concede that if God is best characterized by joy and if suffering leads people closer to God, then suffering should lead also to laughter. I won’t go as far as you, however, and concur that ‘de Chardin’s logic proves Twain was a dumb@#$’ 

I’d never heard of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin before. I had to look him up on Wikipedia! You’re definitely a learned man. Incidentally, it’s been 6 months since we started treating you. I think you can now stop bringing your framed Princeton diploma with you to your appointments, transfusions, infusions, and blood draws. It may violate appendix 3.2a of the Hippocratic Oath but my colleagues and I have decided that we’re willing to cede that you’re the smartest person in the room. 

Even the smartest people, it seems, make mistakes. Just to clarify for you, that’s a lower case ‘d’ prescribed on your chemo schedule for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 

It’s not a lowercase ’s.’ It says ‘dex.’ 

It’s short for dexamethasone. 

You’re right, it is difficult to read when we write it by hand and then Xerox it. Please apologize to your wife for any misunderstanding and inform her that I would never prescribe such a thing without first consulting her. 

Sincerely, 

Dr_____________

PS: 

To answer your postscripted question about your penis. Yes, it’s completely normal and about 4-8 weeks. 

Dear Rev. Micheli, 

While cancer, not religion, is my area expertise, I daresay you’re correct when you suggest that Christians too often fetishize suffering, thinking all suffering must offer a teachable moment simply because Jesus suffered. 

The quote you forwarded from Simone Weil provides, I think, a helpful corrective. I think she’s right that before one can have a spiritually significant experience of suffering one must have a prior (spiritually significant) experience of joy. 

I’m out of my depth here, but isn’t this what the gospels mean to convey by telling their narratives from the point of view not of the cross but of the resurrection? 

I’d never heard of the ‘Disappearing Dove’ trick you say was once popular among comic magicians though I bet it was funny when the handerchief (after being ‘released’)  just lay there on the ground, not moving, not flying away, not disappearing. Not a dove at all. 

Your point’s well taken- sometimes what makes something funny, painfully funny, isn’t the punchline that’s provided but what’s missing- the absence of something we’ve grown to count on and expect. 

And certainly I can understand, Jason, that so much of what you’re experiencing now is just this sort of absence: an absence of health and maybe hope, the missing reflection in the mirror, the now absent plans replaced by a future I’m sure feels as certain as a handkerchief ready to fly. 

I have enough experience to know as well that, usually, those who find such absence funny are the ones feel most what’s missing. In other words, if it’s possible for cancer to be funny, then its because of you called the ‘comedy of absence.’ 

Sincerely, 

Dr. _____________

PS: 

Speaking of absence, one of the elderly patients who hurled thrust themselves through the nurses’ station glass, thinking the office was headed towards a crash-landing,  asked me to pass this joke along to you: 

‘What’s the best part of Alzheimers?’ 

‘You get to hide your own Easter eggs.’ 

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The Love Song and the Law

I noticed this coming Sunday’s lectionary epistle reading is the almost hackneyed love song from 1 Corinthians 13.

I think Paul’s ode to love is best approached from the vantage point of another love song, “The Pina Colada Song.”

Have you ever paid attention to those lyrics? I never did until I took my two boys to see Guardians of the Galaxy and “The Pina Colada” song, from Star Lord’s Awesome Mix Volume I, started to play while Rocket and company escaped from their galactic prison.

“The Pina Colada Song,” it’s original title is “Escape.”

Escape. As in, from Marriage.

“If you like pina coladas and walks in the rain…” Have you listened to this supposed love song?

The man and wife of Rupert Holmes’ 1979 #1 hit sound flip about forsaking everything brides and grooms vow one another. Each of them, unsuspecting of the other, takes out a Want Ad, searching for someone who is perfect for them, a companion who likes the feel of the ocean and the taste of champagne.

I guarantee that if your average wife stumbled across her man on Tinder the ensuing dialogue would not be FCC friendly.  And I’m pretty sure if the husband ever reacted to having been found out by calling his wife his “lovely old lady” a parole hearing would soon follow.

It’s a song about two imperfect people on the precipice.

And if you pay attention to the lyrics there’s an ironic twist on what we mean by the term ‘soul mate,’ for when the imperfect spouses meet each other through the want ads, what do they do?

They laugh.

They say: “I never knew you liked getting caught in the rain…”

And then they laugh.

Each of them laughs at the imperfect other.

On the one hand, Rupert Holmes’ “Escape” is an awful love song, a ballad about betrayal narrowly averted.

But on the other hand, Rupert Holmes’ hit single- maybe it’s a better marriage song than love song. After all, “Escape” is a pop song about being found out and being known in weakness is the very essence of marriage.

Like Jesus on the cross, the crucible of marriage strips you of all your defenses and disguises so that all your imperfections and insecurities are laid bare for the other to see.

Marriage is a risk that requires vows precisely because marriage makes you vulnerable.

Not only is being known in our weakness the essence of marriage, it just so happens to be the experience that sinners (i.e., humans) most loath. Like Adam and Eve hiding in shame, we spend most of our lives hoping to avoid being found out as the frauds we all are. Adam and Eve covered their shame with fig leaves. We do it by filtering our lives through a social media sheen, or by saying “I’m okay.”

The passion- as in, the suffering- of intimacy isn’t that I get to know someone as they really, truly are; it’s that I am known by someone as I really am. Marriage, therefore, holds a mirror up to you and reveals to you the stranger that you call you.

And one of the things marriage constantly reflects back to us is how far we fall short of the sort of love Paul commends in 1 Corinthians 13.

——————-

No doubt we’d all like a partner who is patient and kind and slow to anger and humble- I know my wife likes having such a partner. But, if you think Paul’s love song is saying that you should be patient and kind, you should never be boastful or arrogant or rude, then it’s just a matter of time before what’s advice to you becomes an expectation on your spouse.

Your partner should be patient with you. Your partner should be kind to you. 

     As St. Paul says elsewhere:
expectation always elicits the opposite of its intent.
Thou shalt provokes I shalt not.

And so, in short order, your expectation produces resentment in your partner because love that is always patient and always kind is an impossible obligation to meet.

And it produces frustration in you.

You soon wonder why sometimes she’s quick to anger or envy.

You wonder why she’s not always patient like she should be; until, you start to see only what she is not and you stop seeing her altogether, such that you don’t even know whether she likes getting caught in the rain or the taste of champagne.

That way of listening to Paul’s love song (your love should be patient, you ought to be un-envious) is to hear it according to what Paul calls the Law.

     The Law is shorthand for an accusing standard of performance.

In the Bible, the Law is all those thou shalt and shalt nots. Be perfect as God is perfect, Jesus says. That’s the Law. And the Law, Paul says, is inscribed in every human heart (Romans 2.15).

So even if you don’t believe in God or follow Jesus or read the Bible, the capital-L Law manifests itself in all the little-l laws in your life, all the shoulds and musts and oughts you hear constantly in the back of your mind, all those expectations and demands and obligations you feel bearing down on you from our culture.

There’s the Law of Social Media where you must crop out all your unhappiness and imperfection. There’s the Law of Beauty where you’re measured against the standard of an ever-shrinking waist line you must attain. There’s the Law of Parenting where your kids bento-boxed lunches should contain gluten-free, free-range, organic crustless goodness or you may as well be a slumlord in a Dickens novel. There’s the Law of Weddings. And there’s the Law of Marriage- The Law of Marriage which tells you that you and your partner ought to pretend your life is like the picture that comes with the frame, perfect, unabated bliss, and if you’re not happy all the time, there must be something wrong with the two of you.

Martin Luther said that the Law always accuses; that is, it points out our shortcomings. And when we hear Paul’s love song according to the Law that’s just what it does.

When we hear 1 Corinthians 13 as advice or suggestions or, worse, commands, it just accuses us for how impatient and unkind and rude and conceited and quick to anger we know ourselves to be a whole lot of the time.

But Paul’s love song isn’t meant to be Law; it’s meant to be the opposite of the Law. It’s meant to be Gospel.

     It’s the Law that says “Be loving.”
     But it’s the Gospel that says “You are loved.”

And Paul’s song is the Gospel not the Law because the love Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13 isn’t married love. It’s Christ’s love. ‘Faith, hope and love abide, but love never ends…’ For Paul, only Jesus, who was before creation and who was raised from the dead, is without beginning and end. He’s talking about Jesus.

“Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, Jesus is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

Jesus does not insist on his own way.”

This love song…he’s talking about Jesus.

Jesus bore all things, bearing in his body our shame.

Jesus believed all things. He did what we could not do, though forsaken he never lost faith.

Jesus endured all things, in our place, while we were yet his enemies.

The love Paul sings about in 1 Corinthians 13 is the love of Jesus, the love whose arms were stretched upon a cross so that your hearts, whether you believe in him or not, might be crucified by love.

     This love song isn’t the Law.
     It’s the Gospel because it’s not commanding you to love this way.
     It’s announcing to you that you have been loved this way.

You have been loved with a love that is patient and kind and slow to anger. This prior love of God- it makes the present-tense love between partners possible. This prior love of God, made perfect in Jesus Christ- it makes the imperfect love of husbands and wives permissible. The Gospel makes the imperfect love of marriage not only permissible but a kind of sacrament, a sign pointing to the perfect, prior love of God.

The Gospel frees you from the Law.

It frees you from all those shoulds, musts, and oughts that pop into your head. It frees you from adhering to anyone else’s standards for what your marriage must be. Because of the Gospel, you’re free to be patient and kind with one another, and you’re free to give grace when you’re neither patient nor kind. You’re free for your marriage to be nothing more and nothing less than who you are and what, together, you become. You’re free, in other words, to be ordinary because the most extraordinary thing about you has nothing to do with you.

Which means, the Gospel frees you from fear.

In marriage, you can be known in your weakness, unafraid, because the Gospel tells you that God knows the very worst about you and God loves you anyway and God has already forgiven you.

Which means, this love song, the Gospel, it frees you to forgive.

It makes it easier for you to forgive your spouse.

Because when you know the person you’re PO’d at has already been forgiven by God unconditionally, it feels more than a little stingy to keep holding your ledger in the red.

As unlikely as it sounds, I think Rupert Holmes’ “Pina Colada” single is a wonderful song to marriage.

Because, after all, the rings married folk exchange, what are they if not outward, visible signs of what no one else can see:

How flawed and imperfect we all are

And yet how God in Christ has answered the Want Ad posted in our souls

Has met us in our loneliness

Has found us out in our deepest failures

And by the happy joke we call Cross and Resurrection, laughed.

The rings-

They’re signs of the Gospel promise that bride and groom are imperfect people who are free to laugh with each other over those imperfections knowing that every mistake they make has already been mended by the crucified love of God.

And knowing that- it leads not to happiness but to joy.

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Cancer is (Still) Funny

It’s been two years since Cancer is Funny came out. It’s been a humbling experience to hear all the positive feedback. I’ve received countless photos from people of their loved ones reading it in a hospital bed or chemo chair. Ministry is one of those elusive things where it can be hard oftentimes to gauge whether your work has had any real or lasting impact. Having this book out in the world has been encouraging.

And apparently it doesn’t suck enough that they’re releasing it in paperback!
With a new yet somehow equally offensive cover.

It comes next week, 2/1.

Do me a solid and order a copy (or 500) for someone!

You can get it here.
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Episode #189 – Christy Thomas: I Do Believe the Gospel Will Survive

“Teer, there’s no future for you in the UMC.”

It ended on a such a dour, heavy, foreboding note we didn’t even ask her the Ten Questions.

This one is a great episode even if it’s a little Methodist-centric. In advance of the Special Sex Conference in St. Louis, Teer and I talk with journalist, blogger (The Thoughtful Christian), and former UMC pastor Christy Thomas. Christy breaks down the various proposals before the UMC regarding sexuality, why the Traditionalist Plan is the Mean Girl Plan, and why there’s no future for Teer in the UMC.

If you’re getting this post by email, you can find the audio here.

But wait! This goodness isn’t easy nor is it cheap. Before you listen, help us out:

Go to iTunes, look up Crackers and Grape Juice and give us a rating— it helps others find out about the podcast.

Like our Facebook Page— how easy is that?

Go to www.crackersandgrapejuice.com and click on “Support the Show.”

There you can sign up to be a monthly or one-time donor for PEANUTS.

 

 

 

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Stealing from Jesus

The lectionary Gospel reading this coming Sunday is from Jesus’ rookie sermon in Nazareth. Jesus chooses a text from Isaiah in his hometown church. Jesus quotes the prophet, saying: 

“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

And then Jesus slams shut his Bible and declares: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Did you notice what he did there? 

Jesus says: 

“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives ….to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ 

And then Jesus says: “Check. I’ve fulfilled this one.”

Did you catch it?

Jesus cut it. Go back and look at the source material. Jesus cut out Isaiah’s other line. Jesus doesn’t say: 

“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…to let the oppressed go free…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…and the day of vengeance of our God.” 

     Jesus takes out Isaiah’s prophesy about God’s vengeance.

He cuts it. Why? Was the prophet Isaiah incorrect? Does Jesus edit out Isaiah because Isaiah was wrong about who God is or how sinful we are? When Jesus declares “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing…” does Jesus mean “You’ve heard it said that God is a God of love and wrath, favor and vengeance, but I say to you, nonsense, God is just as nice as Oprah swears by?” 

No, when Jesus takes out Isaiah’s words about God’s vengeance and then says that he’s the fulfillment of those words, Jesus is saying that he is the promised one who brings God’s favor to us by bearing God’s vengeance against us.

     Isaiah’s line about God’s vengeance- he cuts it out because it’s in him. 

It’s in his body, where he’ll carry it to a cross. 

The prophet Isaiah was right. The salvation brought by the Messiah goes through wrath not around it. The salvation brought by the Messiah does not avoid God’s wrath; the Messiah saves us by assuming God’s wrath. 

  Christ doesn’t cancel out God’s wrath; he bears it on our behalf.  

     You see, it’s not just that Christ’s faithfulness is reckoned to you as your own; it’s that your sin- all of it, your every sin- is reckoned to him as his own. His righteousness is imputed to you, and your every sin is ex-puted to him. In his faithfulness he has fulfilled all righteousness. And in his suffering he he has fulfilled all judgement. 

His Mother Mary wasn’t wrong. The coming of Christ does mean God’s judgement on the unjust. The coming of Christ does mean the comeuppance for the rich and the proud and the powerful but that comeuppance comes on the cross. 

As the the Apostle Paul says in Colossians, God in Christ disarmed the powerful and the rich, ruling authorities by making a public spectacle of them and triumphing over them by the cross. His Mother Mary wasn’t wrong because neither was his cousin John the Baptist wrong: Mother Mary’s son is the Father’s Lamb who bears the sins of the world. 

And if he bore the sins of unjust us, then when he died our sins died with him. 

     Once. 

     For all. 

Once for all our sins: past, present, future. There is no sin you have committed and, more importantly, there is no sin you have yet to commit that is not already covered by the blood of the lamb

His righteousness has been gifted to you. It’s yours and it’s free by faith. 

And your sin, it belongs to him now. Such that to worry about your sins, to hold onto the sins done to you- Martin Luther says it’s like stealing from Jesus Christ. They don’t belong to you anymore. They’re his possessions. And when he comes again we can greet him, naked and unafraid, because we know that whatever sin he finds in us has already been born by his body. 

As Christ preaches to us in the funeral liturgy:

He alone holds the keys of Hell and Death.

    

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(Her)Men*You*tics: Episode 38 – Sermon

‘The sermon is the means by which the Holy Spirit, through a preacher, speaks a Word of the Lord into a hearer’s earballs, killing them in order to make them alive.”

– Rolf Jacobson

“The preaching of the word of God IS the Word of God.”

– The Heidelberg Catechism

After a long Christmas hiatus (ie, Johanna is lazy), the gang is back, working our way through the alphabet one stained glass word at a time. Up next: ‘Sermon.’

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