Jason Micheli's Blog, page 114

Election Eve Letter to My Congregation

Here’s a letter I wrote to my congregation reflecting on tomorrow’s election:

Hi Friends,

This Sunday, we celebrated the feast of All Saints’ Day.

All Saints’ Day is an ancient in the church. It was first celebrated around the 4th century in order to commemorate those who were martyred and died clinging to the promise of Jesus’ righteousness gifted to them at baptism as their hope to attain resurrection after death. Not only is God’s grace in Christ alone through faith alone alone sufficient for how God regards us, Paul says in our scripture for November, God’s grace is consequently the great leveler of all distictions we place around ourselves. To add to the Gospel is to anul the Gospel, Paul tells us in Galatians, including— he might caution us— modifiers like progressive and conservative, Republican or Democrat.

Christ has set us free for freedom from any of the obligations by which we might otherwise attempt to impress God or get a leg up on our neighbors. Grace, in other words, sets us free for our neighbor— to engage them simply as a fellow neighbor. 

And grace likewise sets you free to disagree on how best to help and serve your neighbor in the neighborhood we call America. 

 

If you’re like me, you’re getting bombarded from all sides by political messages. I don’t want this note to be counted among those. As your pastor, however, in a hyper divided partisan culture,  I thought it appropriate to help you think Christianly on the day before Election Day.

It’s hard to imagine 1st century Christians caught up in whether Nero or Britannicus was the better successor to the Emperor Claudius. I recognize how many of you have strong opinions about the current administration while others of you have strong opinions on the alternatives— realize Nero was the emperor under whom the first Christians worked out their faith. Nero was so awful a persecutor of the faith he inspired the Book of Revelation.

We may love America, but America’s politics is not the lever that turns the designs God has for this world; the promise of the Gospel of grace (for the ungodly), which scripture calls the power of God at work in the world, is the design God has for the world.

Paul goes in his letter to the Galatians to write about how the doctrine of grace forms the character of Christian community. Diversity of views in our congregation— it turns out according to Paul— is not an obstacle to be overcome but is itself a sign of the Gospel. As Paul tells a congregation every bit as heterogenous as you “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male nor female, and neither is there Republican nor Democrat, for you all are one in Christ Jesus.”

I think it speaks to the power of the Gospel that yesterday in worship immigrants lit candles for saints alongside a Republican campaign manager.

I do not believe this diversity of views is to be lamented, for in a time when our culture is so Balkanized by labels and loyalties we are a community where those worldly distinctions can exist in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

 

If the Gospel creates communities where there is neither Republican nor Democrat, then to say we must be a community of only Republicans or only Democrats is to place party over Christ’s Lordship. Such a move is what the bible calls idolatry. The Gospel instead creates community that is a “fellowship of differents.” The Church is political in that it subverts the politics of the day by refusing the either/or dichotomy so often found in our politics. Indeed in such a partisan, divided culture I believe this is a gift AUMC can offer the wider world.

 

However you vote tomorrow, remember there’s a place for you in this community and a way to practice your faith. Frankly, I believe the mission of the Church is more important and too important to let (non-eternal) elections divide us and thus frustrate our effectiveness for Christ. As I mentioned in a recent sermon, it should give all of us pause in our political pride that the only democratic election in the New Testament is when we choose Barabbas over Christ. The election that truly matters, Paul says, is the one by which we are incorporated into Jesus Christ through baptism.

 

Faithful Christians cannot disagree about the politics of Jesus— care for the poor, vulnerable, and the common good; however, faithful Christians can disagree about the best means to achieve those ends. 

All of us fall short. Not one of us is righteous, which means, on both sides of the issues there will always be scripture that challenges us:

Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, commands us to care for the poor (Matthew 25).

Scripture also commands us “to honor and pray for the emperor” (1 Peter 2.17).

Remember, too, that when Peter issued that command he had in mind Nero–whom Revelation marks with the number 666.

Christians are called not simply to make the world a better place; Christians are called to be the better place God has already made in the world. In our time and place, I believe what it means for AUMC to be that better place is to be a place where all our differences about the kingdom we call America are transcended by the Kingdom to which we’re called in Christ.

I believe we are that better place God has already made in the world when we balance–in tension–those two scriptures, Matthew 25 and 1 Peter 2.

Grace and Peace.

Jason

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Better Than Deserving

We started a new series through Galatians for November. Here’s my sermon for All Saints Sunday on Galatians 1.3-9.

You could call him a saint, hang a halo around his head. 

He’s a hero of the faith— and isn’t that what we mean by that word we celebrate today? Saint, a champ of the faith. 

Maybe you saw the story. A little over 13 months ago, Albuquerque police officer Ryan Hollets responded to a routine call reporting a convenience story robbery.  As Officer Hollets later told journalists, he assumed it was a “mundane assignment I could quickly clear from the call log.” 

Officer Hollets dealt with the dispatch, exited the convenience store, and walked out into the parking lot to his squad car to leave. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw a ragged-looking couple sitting down in the grass, up against a cement wall, near a dumpster. 

As Officer Hollets approached the couple, he noticed they were shooting up. 

Heroin. 

In broad daylight.

And as he crept up closer to them, he saw something that shocked him. The woman who was shooting up herself and her companion— she was about 8 months pregnant. 

The junkie mother-to-be looked up, dazed, at Officer Hollets. A needle in her hand, not yet high, she grew agitated. When prompted, she told Officer Hollets that her name was Chrystal Champ and that she was 35 years old. 

At first, seeing her there pregnant and shooting up, Officer Hollets started to scold her. Or, as St. Paul might put it, Officer Hollets started preaching the Law at her: 

“What are you doing?! You’re going to kill your baby! You shouldn’t do that. Why do you have to be doing that stuff. It’s going to ruin your baby.” 

The Law, as the Apostle Paul says, only (and always) accuses us, and that’s what it did to Chrystal Champ too. Initially she responded to Officer Hollets scolding and lay-lawing by getting defensive and angry: “How dare you judge me. I already know what I should and shouldn’t do. I know what a horrible person I am and what a horrible situation I’m in.”

Officer Hollets had turned his body camera on as he left the convenience store and approached the couple. The video footage shows him scolding Chrystal Champ and interrogating her— preaching the Law at her— for over 10 minutes. 

Until—

Chrystal Champ starts to weep. 

And then she confesses. 

She tells Officer Hollets that she has prayed desperate prayers for someone to come along and adopt her baby. And you can watch it all on the body-cam footage— something about that word adopt triggered a change in Officer Hollet’s countenance. 

Officer Hollets later said it was like something compelled him: all of a sudden he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and pulled a picture out of his wallet and showed Chrystal Champ a photograph of his wife and his 4 kids, including a 10 month old baby. 

And crouching down in front of her, he said to her, to this helpless junkie mother-to-be: “I’ll adopt your baby.”

You can see it in the footage. 

Chrystal Champ looks up at Officer Hollets, absolutely stunned at his risky, gratuitous gesture to rescue her and her baby. 

I’ll adopt your baby. 

Officer Hollets forgot to shut off his body camera. 

The rest of the footage shows him driving frantically to find his wife, who was at a party, walking up to her and telling her: “I just met a pregnant woman shooting up heroin, and I offered to adopt her baby.”

And, on camera, without hesitation— as though compelled by something— his wife said: “Okay.”

Chrystal Champ gave birth to a baby girl last October 12. 

Officer Hollets and his wife Rebecca— they named her Hope. 

Today— All Saints Sunday— seems as good a day as any to tell you his story, right?

Surely he’s the sort of Christian we’re talking about when we talk about saints. He’s got everything but the stained glass. He’s a modern day icon. What he did for Chrystal makes him a champ. 

Of the faith.  

He’s a saint. 

———————-

The problem though:

Singular stained-glass heroes— that’s not how the New Testament understands that word saint. 

We think of saints as persons of exceptional piety. We think of saints as examples of extraordinary virtue. We think of saints as role models of righteousness. And in medieval Catholic paintings artists always gilded the saints with bigger halos. But in the New Testament, saints are not examples of godly living. They’re not honor roll students in the school of holier than thou. 

That’s why, beginning 501 years ago this week, Martin Luther and the Protestant reformers tore down all that artwork from church altars. 

If saints were role models for right living and righteous doing, then you can be damn sure St. Paul never would’ve called the Christians in Corinth saints. 

Saints would be the last word you’d use to describe the Corinthians— that would be like calling Chrystal Champ instead of Ryan Hollets a saint. 

But that’s exactly how the Apostle Paul addresses his letters to the Corinthians: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those saints in Christ Jesus…”

Read the rest of those letters. 

The church at Corinth was more messed up (in a bible-bad kind of way) than a Bill Clinton-Donald Trump sponsored bachelor party in Vegas.

And yet Paul calls them saints. 

Congregants at Corinth— these supposed saints— were having sex with their mothers-in-law. These so-called saints were getting drunk at the communion table, and they were mean drunks too because they kept the poor from sitting at the communion table with them. 

Saints?

There’s a reason Paul had to lecture them that love is patient and kind. They weren’t any kind of either. 

Yet Paul calls them saints, holy ones. 

And not just the Corinthians:

The Ephesians— despite being one Body in Christ, they persisted in treating strangers and immigrants as strangers and immigrants,. And yet, even though they did not practice what he preached, Paul calls them saints too. 

And the Christians in Rome— Paul didn’t even know them; he only knew they had a serious problem with making distinctions between good people and bad people, but despite their behavior Paul calls them saints. 

Same goes for the Philippians— Paul calls them saints from his jail cell, all of them. 

No remainder. 

And the Galatian Christians, Paul calls them— no.

Nada. 

Not a one.

———————-

When it comes to the Galatians, Paul is all piss and vinegar. Have you read it? Galatians reads more like an angry election-season Facebook rant than an epistle. 

Not only does Paul refuse to call them saints, he completely skips past the customary salutations. He grabs them by the collar and gets right down to reminding them of the Gospel in verse 4: 

…the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to set us free according to the will of God our Father.

By the time you get to verse 7, Paul’s calling them perverts, cussing at them and cursing them and calling down God’s judgement upon them. Why is Paul so torqued off at them? 

Why aren’t they saints?

The Galatians weren’t sleeping with their in-laws. None of them were turning the eucharist in to a keg stand. They weren’t neglecting the poor among them. They weren’t treating strangers and aliens with suspicion. As far as behavior goes, the Galatians were better than all the rest. 

The Galatians were role models of right living and righteous doing. They were singular stained glass do-gooders. The Galatians were so hard core about being Christ’s hands and feet to the world for the sake of the least, the lost, and the left behind that they exhorted one another to be super-disciples. 

How can super-disciples not be reckoned saints? 

If anyone should get gilded with bigger halos it should be the Galatians. 

Yet somehow holy scripture does not call them saints. 

Why?

———————-

The Letter to the Galatians is proof that deep-down, despite what we sing and say on Sundays, we’re addicted to bad news not the Good News. 

Like a lot of Christians today, the Galatians assumed they had advanced beyond needing to hear the Gospel of Christ and him crucified every week. 

Everyone knows that Jesus died for their sins, right? We don’t need to hear that Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. Let’s hear about what we’re supposed to do now? 

The Galatians insisted. 

The Galatians took the Gospel for granted. 

They turned to another gospel, which is no gospel at all, Paul says, for it nullifies the Gospel. This other gospel, said that it isn’t enough for Christians to trust that Christ’s faithfulness alone saves us. 

God’s wiped our slate clean in Christ, this other gospel said, but God will one day judge us based on what we’ve done with that new slate. 

This other gospel in Galatia, said that God had done his part, forgiving our sins in Christ, but now we have to do our part, faithfully following his commands.

     In other words, in taking the Gospel for granted, they’d reverted back to the Law. 

As Paul goes on to say in chapter 2: If God in any way regards us based on our obedience to his teachings and commands, then Jesus Christ came and died and was raised for absolutely nothing. 

This is why Paul is so amped up over the Galatians’ other gospel. 

There can be no middle ground at all between: “Christ has done everything for you” and “This is what you must do.” There’s no reconciliation between those two. 

Scripture doesn’t say: While were yet sinners, Christ died for us, on the condition that eventually we would become the kind of people no one would ever have had to die for in the first place. Otherwise the whole deal is off.

No.

Jesus Christ came and Jesus Christ yet comes— in word and water and wine and bread— not to repair the repairable, correct the correctable, or improve the improvable. 

Christ came and Christ comes still to raise you who are dead in your trespasses. 

And— I do more funerals than you all, I can testify firsthand— corpses don’t contribute anything to their resurrection. 

Thus Paul’s emphatic point in Galatians: 

There are irreconcilable differences between “Christ has done everything necessary for you” and “This is what you must do.” 

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians in 6 words is this: 

Christ plus anything else is nothing.

The easiest way to annul the Gospel is to add to it. The way to annul the unconditional promise of the Gospel is to add obligation to it:

This is what you must do now— as a Christian. This is who you must be now. This is the lifestyle you must have now. This is how you should spend your money now.  This is who you’re not allowed to love now. This is how you must vote now. This is the issue you must advocate now. This is the candidate you must resist now. 

The easiest way to annul the Gospel is to add extras to it, modify it:

progressive Christian, conservative Christian, social justice Christian, family values Christian, inclusive Christian, traditional Christian.

No.

The Gospel message is not the Army’s message. It’s not Be All You Can Be. You don’t need to die to self or do anything because the promise of the Gospel is that you have already died with Christ.  You have been crucified with him for all your sins.  And by your baptism, all of you, warts and all, is in him. You don’t need to become anyone else.

The easiest way to erase the Gospel is to add to it. Be better, do better, build a better world. 

The Gospel message is something else entirely. The Gospel message is not Here is what you must do. The Gospel is Everything has already been done. By another. For you.

That’s the point behind Paul’s PO’d passion because any other gospel, it’s worse than no gospel at all. In fact, it’s our condemnation. That’s why Paul invokes God’s curse in today’s text. 

     He’s referencing the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy 27.26 where God warns those who are his people by circumcision that if they are to abide by his Law then they must obey the Law perfectly. When it comes to the Law— the teachings and commands of God— you can’t pick and choose.

You can’t say I’ll advocate for the poor and oppressed but protecting the unborn—- really not my issue. 

Likewise, you can’t say I’m for protecting the vulnerable in the womb but when it comes to the vulnerable at the border— not my problem.

I’m not trying to be political; I’m trying to point out how when it comes to our obedience under God’s Law there is no distinction between any of us. 

All of us fall short. Not one of us is righteous, not one. 

When it comes to the teachings and commands of God, there’s no A for effort. 

It’s all or nothing, God says.  

And if you don’t obey it all, then you will be accursed. Paul’s amped up because the stakes are so high. This other gospel in Galatia, this God does his part and we must do our part gospel- it will be their undoing because the demand of the Law that they have added to the Gospel is that it be fulfilled perfectly. 

But Christ already fulfilled the Law perfectly.  

He was perfect as his Father in Heaven is perfect. 

For you.

His perfect record— it’s your inheritance, scripture promises. 

Notice, scripture doesn’t call it your wage. Something you earn. Something you deserve. Scripture says it’s your inheritance. 

Something gifted to you freely by way of another’s death. 

Something better than deserving. 

Something you need only receive in trust.

Trust— faith, alone— that’s why Paul doesn’t call them saints. 

———————-

The word saint, sanctus, simply means “holy.” 

As the theologian Robert Jenson says, what makes the God of the Old and New Testaments holy, in distinction from us, is God’s ability to make and keep unconditional promises. Only God can make and keep unconditional promises because only God is not bounded by death. 

What makes God holy is God’s ability to make and keep an unconditional promise.

Therefore, what constitutes God’s People as holy is not decency, cleanliness, propriety, temperance, civility, or sobriety. The God who comes to us in Jesus Christ, eating and drinking and befriending scoundrels and sinners, was in no wise “holy” and Jesus had harsh words for those begrudgers who presumed to be so “holy.”

If what makes God holy is God’s ability to make and keep an unconditional promise, then what makes us holy is how we relate to God’s unconditional promise. 

Holiness is not about behavior.. Holiness is about belief— trust— in the promise of God.

Holiness is not about being good or doing good. Holiness is about trusting the good work God has done for you in Jesus Christ.

The unconditional promise we call the Gospel.

If holiness is about trust— faith— then:

The opposite of vice is not virtue. 

The opposite of sin is not sinlessness. 

The opposite of vice and sin is faith. 

Which means:

Saints are not those who’ve managed to live their lives carrying around their necks bigger and heavier millstones than the average rest of us. 

Saints are just sinners who know— by faith— that they’ve been rescued. 

Adopted undeservedly into Christ.

They’re not so much champs of faith like Officer Ryan Hollets. 

They’re more like…well, they’re more like Chrystal Champ.

———————-

Chrystal Champ had been homeless for over 2 years when Officer Hollets encountered her. She’d been battling a heroin and crystal meth addition since she was a teenager, scraping up $50 a day to score hits. She’d tried before, multiple times, to get clean. 

She told the press: “I’d tried before to do good, to be good, to change. Every time, I failed. It had me captive. Every time I tried to save myself it just kept coming back to ruin my life.”

Not incidentally, Chrystal Champ has been clean and sober nearly a year this week. When asked what made this time different than all the others up and down the wagon, Chrystal Champ chalked it up to her rescue.

She chalked it up to the nature of her rescue.

Remembering the change in Officer Hollet’s countenance, how he’d crouched down and condescended to her with his offer (I’ll adopt your baby), Chrystal Champ said recently: 

“It was like, all of a sudden, he became one of us. A human being. Not high and mighty, a police officer, but one of us…The way he rescued me…I didn’t deserve it…I guess it’s just changed me.”

The good news— 

If super-disciples like the Galatians are not saints, then saints are not sinless stained-glass heroes. 

Which is how on All Saints Sunday, you all get to light so many candles today for so many imperfect Christians. 

We can light those candles for them without lying about them. 

The crazy fun and folly of the Gospel is that when it comes to holiness— 

Thanks to the cross, the bar ain’t that high. 

Saints are just sinners without a trust problem.

     

 

     

 

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Episode #177 – Austin Fischer: Faith in the Shadows

Alright, alright, alright— The intersection of faith and doubt is viewed either as a badge of honor for some Christians but for others, doubt has no place.

In his new book, Faith in the Shadows: Finding Christ in the Midst of Doubt, pastor and author— and fellow DBH Fanboy— Austin Fischer (who sounds exactly like Matthew MaconnaHEY) explores this intersection, drawing on his own experience as a doubting pastor.

Check it out here

https://www.ivpress.com/faith-in-the-...

Austin Fischer is the Teaching Pastor at Vista Community Church. His first book – ‘Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed’ – was published by Wipf & Stock in January 2014. He writes and speaks and you can follow him on Twitter @austintfischer or check out his website: www.http://austinfischer.com

But wait! Before you listen, help us out. This goodness is free but it ain’t cheap— help us out:

Go to Amazon and buy a paperback or e-book of Crackers and Grape Juice’s new book,
I Like Big Buts: Reflections on Paul’s Letter to the Roman. 

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

 

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Yes, Protestants Can Pray to the Saints

In the Church, the aftermath of Halloween is known as All Saints Day. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, famously said that All Saints’ Day was his favorite holy day on the liturgical calendar. Methinks Wesley must’ve have suffered through some dreadful Christmas services to make such a claim tenable. Nonetheless, All Saints’ is a powerful reminder of two primary claims of our faith, that of Ash Wednesday and that of Hebrews:

To dust we came and to dust we shall return.

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (i.e., those who’ve returned to the dust ahead of us) who themselves surround our Great High Priest who has sat down from his once-for-all finished work of redemption.

The ancient script for dearly departed says thusly for all of us. Draping a white pall over his casket, the pastor proclaims:

Dying, Christ destroyed our death.

Rising, Christ restored our life.

As in baptism ___________ put on Christ, so now is he/she in Christ and clothed with glory.

Then facing the standing-room only sanctuary, the pastor holds out her hands and voices Jesus’ promise:

I am the resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

Likewise at the end of our every funeral, after the preaching and the sharing and the crying, the pastor lays her hands on the dead guy’s casket and prays the commendation:

As first you gave _____  to us, now we give ________ back to you.

Receive ________  into the arms of your mercy.

Receive ________ into the fellowship of your departed saints.

When we baptize someone, we baptize them into Christ and we declare that he or she will forever be a son or daughter in heaven. And so in death we never cease to be in Christ. The Christian community is one that blurs the line between this world and the next. That’s why Christians use the word ‘veil’ to describe death, something so thin you can nearly see through it.

It’s a fellowship that cannot be broken by time or death because it’s a communion in the Living Christ. What we name by the word ‘Church’ is a single communion of living and departed saints.

Therefore, the Church, rightly understood, is one People in heaven and on Earth.

The dead don’t disappear into the ether. They don’t walk around as vaporous ghosts. They don’t dissolve into the fibers and cells of the natural world. They’re gathered around the throne, worshipping God. They’re in Christ, the very same communion they were baptized into. The same communion to which we belong.

And so:

Death does not destroy or fundamentally change our relationship to the dead.

We pray and, according to the Book of Revelation, so do they. We praise God and, according to the Great Thanksgiving-our communion prayer, so do they. We try to love God and one another and, according to the Book of Hebrews, they do so completely. Our fellowship with the departed saints is not altogether different from our fellowship with one another.

That’s what we mean when we say in the Creed ‘I believe in the communion of saints…’ We’re saying: ‘I believe in the fellowship of the living and the dead in Christ.’ 

So it seems to me we can pray and ask the saints to pray for us. Not in the sense of praying to them. Not in the sense of giving them our worship and devotion.

But if we believe in the communion of saints, living and dead, then asking the departed saints for their prayers is no different than Trish, Julie and David- in my congregation- asking for my prayers for them this week.

It’s not, as Protestants so often caricature, that the saints are our way or our mediators to Jesus Christ.
Rather, because we (living and dead) are all friends in Jesus Christ we can talk to and pray for one another.

Indeed I do so every time I stand behind a loaf of bread and poured out wine and declare:

‘…and so with your people here on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join their ending hymn…’

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Where is Your Brother?

Given the partisan fueled domestic terror in the news and the synogogue massacre in Pittsburgh, Sunday was an appropriate day for my friend and former teacher, Dr. Ruben Rosario Rodriguez, to preach from the first murder in Genesis 4.

Ruben closed out our fall sermon series, Questions that God Asks Us, by looking at God’s question to Cain (us): “Where is your brother?”

Here’s his sermon:

 

 

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The Manger Called Marriage

John 13 – Manrique and Tricia

 

Manrique, here it is— the big day.

After all the planning, after all the anticipation, after all the anxiety and chagrin that maybe this day would never come for you and you’d be left, alone, to be a canine version of a crazy cat person— after everything— the big day is finally here. And I only have one last pre-marital question for you.

Manrique, here it is: What are you thinking!?

What in the world are you thinking? How can Serendipity be your favorite romantic comedy? It’s bad enough that rom-coms are your favorite genre, but Serendipity isn’t even in the Top 3 John Cusack romantic comedies. Someone who prefers a soapy rom-com like Serendipity might not be able to appreciate a scripture text like tonight’s, but surely an english major like Tricia can discern the paradox in the passage— the paradox that we see the most high God by looking down. Maybe it takes an english major to savor the irony that the most high Lord reveals himself to us as the most low.

Like Manrique taking off his tool belt, this son of a carpenter takes off his outer robe. He stoops down on his knees. The fingers that crafted the universe bear callouses like Manrique’s, and, no longer content to paint the cosmos, they wash our feet painted with dirty and stink and sweat.

And when Jesus stands up, a bowl of brown water beside him, he says he’s just given us an example.

Of love.

Jesus tells us in Matthew’s Gospel that the two greatest commandments in the Law are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The problem though—

The Bible also says that Christ is the end of the Law and its commands, including that bit about loving God and neighbor like we love us.

It’s not that love isn’t important in the New Testament. The apostle Paul tells the Romans that all of the ten commandments are summed up by loving others while St. Peter writes in his own letter that loving others covers a multitude of our sins.

But if Christ is the end of the Law, then is the love commended by Peter and prescribed by Paul the love commanded by the Law? Is it the same love like we love ourselves love?

Notice what Jesus says here, notice exactly how he puts it: “A new command I give you (this is something different). Love one another as I have loved you.”

NOT as you love yourself.

Love one another as I have loved you.

Christ is the end of the commandments, even the greatest commandment.

Christ is the end of a love that need not go further than self-love as the standard.

The old commandments are over and done. Christ has given us a new command, and it’s no wonder Peter didn’t want God washing his feet. The way he has loved us is nothing like the way we love even ourselves. Jesus broke bread with those he knew would betray him with a kiss. Three times he forgave Peter who cheated him on thrice. He gave his life not for the good but for the ungodly.

The golden rule and all the rest are bygones from a covenant Christ has closed with his cross.

The good news is that Jesus isn’t a liar. He really does give us a burden that is lighter of obligations. The bad news is that the only obligation attached to Jesus’ yoke is what Christians call grace, which is a lot less amazing when you’ve got to give it.

Because, by definition, everyone to whom you give it is undeserving.

Love like this, Jesus says.

The apostle Paul summarizes that sort of love by saying that in Christ God was in the world not counting our trespasses against us. The new command isn’t to remember to love another as we love ourselves; the command of Christ is to love that remembers to forget the sins sinned against us.

Not to quash the mood— a life lived with another exposes the worst in us. Marriage would be hard enough if the love we talk about when we talk about love was the love of the Law, love with self-love as the standard. Unfortunately, it’s even harder. It’s a love that leaves the ledger book behind and— take it from any married person here— those ledgers would have plenty of ink spilt in them if we could hold on to them.

By your “I do” you’re pledging “I won’t” when it comes to the tit-for-tat score-keeping by which we game the rest of our lives.

Forgive but don’t forget goes the cliche, but for Christians, especially in Christians caught up in a marriage, there’s no distinction between the two, for forgiveness just is forgetting— forgetting to count the slights and sins suffered by way of the other.

This is the new law of love Jesus commands.

This is the love you pledge one another in his name.

Bride and groom not only forsake all others from their hearts, they forsake also the calculators we all carry around with us— the ones we covet in order to balance the credits and debits we’ve accrued between us.

Without a calculator, you’ve no recourse but to take each other at your word that all will be forgiven and forgotten.

In other words—

As it is with the Beloved’s unconditional promise called the Gospel so it is with your beloved’s unconditional promise called Marriage. There’s nothing for you to do in response to it but trust it.

And just as in the preached word of the Gospel, from this day forward, God is present on the lips of your every “I do.”

Today your marriage becomes a manger for the Word of God.

Therefore, there is no other clearer way of imitating the love revealed to us in Jesus Christ than in the divine amnesia you promise to practice on each other everyday.

This new command of Christ— a love that forgets how to count— henceforth it makes your marriage more of a ministry than any soup kitchen or service project. And it means you will never have any holier vocation than the grace you bestow with your daily “I do” to the (often) undeserving other.

This new command—

This way of grace-giving is in no way a guarantee for happily.

But it is the way the two of you together become a parable of the One who is Ever After for all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Episode #176 – Ruben Rosario Rodriguez: Dogmatics After Babel

Back on the podast is our friend, my former teacher, Dr. Ruben Rosario Rodriguez. He’s got a new book out called Dogmatics After Babel.

Rubén Rosario Rodríguez addresses the long-standing division between Christian theologies that take revelation as their starting point and focus and those that take human culture as theirs. After introducing these two theological streams that originate with Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, respectively, Rosario asserts that they both seek to respond to the Enlightenment’s critique and rejection of Christianity. In so doing, they have bought into Enlightenment understandings of human reality and the transcendent.

Rosario argues that in order to get beyond the impasse between theologies of the Word and culture, we need a different starting point. He discovers that starting point in two sources: (1) through the work of liberation and contextual theologians on the role of the Holy Spirit, and (2) through a comparative analysis of the teachings on the hiddenness of God from the three “Abrahamic” religions —Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Rosario offers a strong argument for why this third theological starting point represents not just a marginal or niche position but a genuine alternative to the two traditional theological streams. His work will shift readers’ understanding of the options in theological discourse beyond the false alternatives of theologies of the Word and culture.

But wait! Before you listen, help us out. This goodness is free but it ain’t cheap— help us out:

Go to Amazon and buy a paperback or e-book of Crackers and Grape Juice’s new book,
I Like Big Buts: Reflections on Paul’s Letter to the Roman. 

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

 

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Freedom from the Tithe

Sunday coming we’re kicking off the annual pledge campaign in my new parish. 

The church suffered an exodus of pledgers prior to my arrival. Approximately 53 giving “units” (lack of incarnational lingo, noted) left the church last year for various sundry reasons, totalling over $200K in giving. The church’s revenue through the 3rd quarter of this year is off by over $100K against an average of the past three years. 

If ever there was a time to double-down on the Bible’s talk of dollars and cents, it would now, right? I should whip out the good book and leverage Deuteronomy’s commands about first fruits and prescribe some portioning. I ought to lay down some lawI know from my church-planting days, for example, that the tithe is one of the benchmarks by which funders at the denominational level asses a new congregation’s vitality— by which they mean viability. Church planters therefore experience pressure to produce not only butts in the seats but people committing 10% of their income to the brand new endeavor.

Because a tithe, offering 10% from the top, is what the Bible commands.

Grace may not be cheap— it’s free, in fact— but running God’s grace-giving business is expensive.
Not only do you have to pay for your local forgiveness person, she’s pensioned too. 

Thus, God’s church is transactional even if his grace is something else entirely.

I suspect so many pastors avoid the subject of money is because they assume 10% is the scriptural obligation, yet they do not pastor a congregation that takes the Bible with enough seriousness even to warrant mention of something called a tithe. In my experience, it’s the IRS code not the mosaic code that most often provokes financial gifts nearing double-digit percentages.

And maybe it’s a function of not having taken the Bible seriously enough— at least, not taking the Gospel seriously enough— that we seldom ask if the tithe has been crossed off the list of God’s commands by the cross of Christ.

Just as a refresher:

The Lord commands the 11 tribes of Israel to give out of their first fruits an offering of 10% (in addition to all the other offerings prescribed to them) for the care of tribe number twelve, the Levites. As the priestly caste in Israel, from which the high priest was conscripted, the Levites were forbidden from possessing personal belongings of their own. God mandated the tithe as the means by which Israel would support those who mediating the atoning work for them before God. In other words, the purpose of the tithe was to fund the high priest who mediated atonement, year in and year out. If that doesn’t immediately ping your Gospel radar, you’re likely in the aforementioned group of folks who need to read their Bibles more. 

In particular, it would help if you read the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament. 

In exhorting church members to give the “biblically-mandated” tithe, preachers effectively draw an analogy between the tribe of Levi and their atoning office of the high priest and the work of the church.

But— and here’s where Hebrews is a help— scripture insists that the office of the high priest is closed for Christ is our Great High Priest.

Interestingly enough, Jesus, being from the tribe of Judah wasn’t even qualified to be any kind of priest much less the ultimate and final one, which not so subtly implies the whole religion business the tithe funded in the first place was designed from our end not God’s. 

The original justification for the command about tithing is gone because Jesus Christ is our Great High Priest and, what’s more, his office has closed sign hanging on the shop door. Our priest, the Book of Hebrews says so plainly it’s a wonder we persist in not believing it, has finished forever his mediating work of atonement. The Great High Priest made an offering of himself and in his body born by a tree he made a perfect sacrifice, once-for-all. 

The purpose of the tithe has been perfectly fulfilled by our completely unqualified priest, Jesus Christ.

Because we’re justified in Christ alone by grace alone, the apostle Paul proclaims, we are now and forever free from the Law, including it would follow from the law which commands us to give 10%. Indeed, Paul insists, were we not free from the Law then Christ died for absolutely nothing. Likely, this is why there is 0% of the New Testament that instructs Christians to offer a 10% tithe. Jesus himself refers to the tithe 3 times in the Gospels and in 100% of those situations he doesn’t mention it in a good way, condemning the prideful hypocrisy of the Pharisees whose giving masks their begruding another mercy. Instead, the New Testament more often commends giving generated by gratitude and joy (2 Corinthians 9.7). Ironically, by Paul’s foolish Gospel logic, the message that you have been set free by grace from the demands of the commands, including the command to give a tenth, generates generosity. 

Neglect of the Gospel of grace and the freedom it has given, then, produces exactly the sorts of people who require an exhortation like the tithe.  

Certainly a 10% gift remains a command to which a believer can aspire but, just like love of enemy, the way towards it is in trusting that it’s all already been fulfilled for you by Jesus Christ.

Given the shape of my church’s budget, I realize how this little exegetical detour could prove bad for business (I don’t have to give that much!? Woohoo!). Then again, the product we’re selling is free. Business will always be a bad way to frame it.

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A Graveside Wedding

Graveside services are tricky. Families expect more than a drive-by dirt throwing, but invariably it’s cold or hot or rainy or windy and there’s never enough seats. I admire Catholic priests— its more difficult to preach clearly with concision. Here’s my best, thrown together 20 mins before the service, effort:

Psalm 121

John 14

I can’t speak for you, but I can say that Jesus of Nazareth was only one of tens of thousands crucified by Rome, all of whose names are unknown to us, and the Jewish people to which Jesus belonged did not have as a central part of their scripture a belief in life after death.

Take those together and I am convinced that had God not raised him from the dead we never would have heard of Jesus Christ. But you’re here to bury your beloved, earth to earth and ashes to ashes.

Except the language of earth-to-earth and ashes-to-ashes won’t quite do today because you’ve chosen to pay your respects by reading Jesus’ promise in John 14.

“I go to prepare a place for you…”

“I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

As often as we hear that line read on days like today, it’s actually an allusion to a bretrothal not a burial. Before a Jewish wedding, the Bridgeroom would go and build an addition to his father’s house where the newlyweds would live once they were wed. Once the addition on the father’s house was finished, the Bridegroom would return to wed his wife and take her to his home. 

This line we associate with death is actually an allusion to a wedding, which maybe isn’t as surprising as it sounds given the fact that the most common analogy Jesus draws to the Kingdom of God is that of a wedding feast a wedding party. 

And St. Paul, for his part continues mixing the funeral and wedding metaphors, when he writes that our baptism in to Christ’s death and resurrection is the means by which Jesus Christ betrothes us to himself. 

Unconditionally.

Irrevocably. 

That’s a better deal for your Alice then than even the Psalmist can put it in Psalm 121– the Lord doesn’t just watch our coming and going forevermore. By his bleeding and dying and our baptism into it, God in Jesus Christ has wed us to himself and, by his resurrection, that is a betrothal that not even death can tear asunder. 

And as it is at any wedding, every bride brings with her into her marriage every memory that has made her who she is until she says “I do” to her groom.

In other words— 

Just as the Risen Jesus still bears the scars life gave, just as nothing of Jesus’ life is lost in his death and resurrection

Neither is any part of your Alice lost in the love we call the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. 

God doesn’t forget anything about us but our sins; so that, we will celebrate at the wedding feast with one another minus nothing but the sins still between us.

When Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a wedding feast, he says that people will come from east and west and north and south to gather at the banquet table. 

The wedding party Christians call the resurrection, therefore, will be like any wedding party worth the expense and the hassle— it will be a reunion of friends, family, and loved ones, drunk uncles and prick elder brothers, scoundrels and saints all served the same feast-going fare because the Bridegroom’s Father has not spared any expense.

Indeed he’s saved the very best vino for us for last.

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The Right to be Wrong

I continued our fall series on the Questions God Asks Us by looking at Mark 12 and Jesus’ question to our question about money and politics.

This question about taxes to Caesar and the Law of God itself violates the Law of God, Jesus implies.

Jesus responds to their question about the commandments with another commandment, a commandment given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai: “Do not put the Lord your God to test,” the same commandment Jesus recites when tempted by the devil in the desert. In other words, our question to Jesus about Caesar’s claim on our stuff makes us sound like satan.

“Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

“But knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them: ‘Why are you putting me to the test?’”

“Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Should we or shouldn’t we, Jesus? Yes or no?”

The Gospel story begins by telling you about a tax levied by Caesar Augustus to make the Jews pay for their own subjugation. And the Gospel story ends with Pontius Pilate killing Jesus— on what charges? On the charges of claiming to be a rival king and telling his followers not to pay the tax to Caesar.

The tax in question was the Roman head tax, levied for the privilege of being a Roman citizen.

Incidentally, this same tax where we get the word gospel from in the first place.

In ancient Rome, that word gospel referred to the announcement that Caesar had conquered you and now he was not just your salad he was your god and now you had the awesome privilege of paying taxes to cover the cost of his having colonized you.

The Roman head tax could only be paid with the silver denarius from the imperial mint. The denarius was the equivalent of a quarter— just a quarter, less than a cup of coffee. So it’s not that the tax was onerous. It was offensive.

One side of the coin bore the image of the emperor, Caesar Tiberius, and on the other side was the inscription: “Caesar Tiberius, Son of God, our Great, High Priest.”

Carrying the coin broke the first and most fundamental Law: “You shall have no other gods before me.”

And because it broke the Law of God, the coin rendered anyone who carried it under God’s wrath.

The coin made anyone who carried it ritually unclean; therefore, it couldn’t be carried into the Temple, which is why money changers set up shop on the Temple grounds to profit off the Jews who needed to exchange currency before they worshipped. You see how the system works?

“Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

You see— what they’re really asking here is about a whole lot more than taxes. But to see that— in order to see what they’re really asking— you’ve got to dig deeper in to the passage. Today’s passage takes place during Holy Week, on the Tuesday before the Friday Jesus dies. On the Sunday before this passage, Jesus rides into Jerusalem to a king’s welcome.

On Monday, the day before this passage, Jesus ‘cleanses’ the Temple. Jesus pitches a temple tantrum, crashing over all the cash registers of the money changers and animal sellers and driving them from the Temple grounds with a whip.

And that’s when they decide to kill Jesus.

Why?

To answer that question, you need to know a little history. 200 years before today’s passage, Israel suffered under a different empire, a Greek one. And during that time, there was a guerrilla leader named Judas Maccabeus. He was known as the Sledgehammer. The Sledgehammer’s father had commissioned him to “avenge the wrong done by our enemies and to (pay attention) pay back to the Gentiles what they deserve.”

So Judas the Sledgehammer rode into Jerusalem with an army of followers to a king’s welcome. He promised to bring a new kingdom. He symbolically cleansed the Temple of Gentiles, and he told his followers not to pay taxes to their oppressors.

Judas Maccabeus, the Sledgehammer, got rid of the Greek Kingdom only to turn around and sign a treaty with Rome. The Sledgehammer traded one kingdom for another just like it.

But not before he becomes the prototype for the kind of Messiah Israel expected.

That was 200 years before today’s passage.

About 25 years before today’s passage, when Jesus was just a kindergartner, another Judas, this one named after that first Sledgehammer, Judas the Galilean— he called on Jews to refuse paying the Roman head tax. With an armed band Judas the Galilean rode into Jerusalem to shouts of what? Hosanna. Judas the Galilean cleansed the Temple. And then he declared that he was going to bring a new kingdom with God as their King.

Judas the Galilean was executed by Rome.

You see what’s going on?

Jesus the Galilean has been teaching about the Kingdom for 3 years just like. He’s ridden into Jerusalem to a Messiah’s welcome. He’s just cleansed the Temple and driven out the money changers. The only thing left for Jesus the Sledgehammer to do is to declare a revolution, to stand up to injustice, to deliver the oppressed, to cast down the principalities and powers from their thrones.

To take up the sword.

That’s why the Pharisees and Herodians trap Jesus with a question about this tax: Jesus, do you want a revolution or not? That’s the real question.

Come down off the fence, Jesus. Which side are you on, Jesus? And Jesus responds, “Why are you putting me [the Lord your God] to the test?”

Politics makes for strange bedfellows.

For the Pharisees and the Herodians to cooperate on anything is like the Republicans nominating a lifelong Democrat to be their president. Wait, bad analogy. For the Pharisees and the Herodians to cooperate on anything is like Ted Cruz asking Donald Trump to stump for him. Wait, that doesn’t work either.

You get the picture— the Pharisees and the Herodians were the two political parties of Jesus’ day.

The Sadducees were theological opponents of Jesus. But the Pharisees and the Herodians were first century political parties. This is important. If you don’t get this, you don’t get it. The Pharisees and the Herodians were the Left and the Right political options. And instead of Donkeys and Pachyderms, you can think Swords and Sledgehammers.

The Herodians were the party that supported the current administration. They thought the adminstration was making Israel great again. Rome, after all, had brought roads, clean water, sanitation, and— even if it took a sword— Rome had brought stability to the tinderbox called Israel.

The last thing the Herodians wanted was a revolution, and if Jesus says that’s what he’s bringing, they’ll march straight off to Pilate and turn him in.

On the other hand, the Pharisees were the party that despised the current administration. They were the resistance movement. The Pharisees were bible- believing observers of God’s commandments. They believed a coin with Caesar’s image and Son of God printed on it was just one example of how the administration forced people of faith to compromise their convictions.

The Pharisees wanted regime change. They wanted another Sledgehammer. They wanted a grass-roots, righteous revolution. They just didn’t want it being brought by a 3rd Party like Jesus, who’d made a habit of pushing their polls numbers down.

And so, if Jesus says he’s not bringing a revolution, the Pharisees will get what they want: because all of Jesus’ followers will think Jesus wasn’t really serious about this Kingdom of God stuff. They’ll write him off and walk away.

That’s the trap.

“Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Is it or isn’t it?’

If Jesus says no, it will mean his death.

If Jesus says yes, it will mean the death of his movement.

Taxes to Caesar or not, Jesus?

Which is it going to be?

The Sword or the Sledgehammer?

Which party do you belong to?

You’ve got to choose one or the other.

Check the box, Jesus.

What are your politics Jesus?

Jesus asks for the coin.

And then he asks the two political parties: ‘Whose image is on this?’

And the Greek word Jesus uses for image is eikon, the same word from the very beginning of the bible when it says that you and I were created to be eikons of God.

Eikons of Caesar.

Eikons of God.

Jesus looks at the coin and he says “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s but give to God what is God’s.”

But even then it’s not that simple or clear because the word Jesus uses for give isn’t the same word the two parties used when they asked their question.

When the Pharisees and Herodians asked their question, they’d used a word that means give, as in “to present a gift.”

But when Jesus replies to their question, he changes the word.

Instead Jesus uses the very same word Judas the Sledgehammer had used 200 years earlier.

Jesus says:

“Pay back to Caesar what he deserves and pay back to God what God deserves.”

You see how ambivalent Jesus’ answer is? What does a tyrant deserve? His money? Sure, it’s got his picture on it. He paid for it. Give it back to him. But what else does Caesar deserve? Resistance? You bet.

And what does God deserve from you?

Everything.

Everything.

Jesus is saying is: “You can give to Caesar what bears his image, but you can’t let Caesar stamp his image on you because you bear God’s image.”

Jesus is saying you can give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.

But you can’t give to Caesar, you can’t give to the Nation, you can’t give to your Politics, you can’t give to your Ideology, you can’t give to your Party Affiliation, you mustn’t give to your Tribe—

You mustn’t give to those things, what they ask of you:

ultimate allegiance.

You see, like a good press secretary, Jesus refuses the premise of their question.

The Pharisees and the Herodians assume a 2-Party System.

They assume it’s a choice between the kingdom they have now. Or another kingdom not too different just of a different hue. They assume the only choice is between the Sledgehammer or the Sword.

But like a good politician, Jesus refuses their either/or premise. He won’t be put in one their boxes. He won’t choose sides.

Jesus refuses to accept their premise.

His movement was about defeating his opponents by dying for them.

His movement was about overcoming their sin by suffering it in their stead.

That while we were yet his enemies, Jesus the Galilean took up not a sword or a sledgehammer but a cross.

And that qualifies all our politics.

If you’re like me, then every election season social media proves to be a good and uplifting use of your time.

The Bible has a word for the red and blue rhetoric post and tweet and like and share this week; the Bible has a word for how we scream at each other with our signs and fence ourselves off with hashtags and draw lines always with ourselves on the faithful side of the righteousness equation.

Idolatry— that’s the Bible’s word.

And for some, left and right, this is a serious spiritual problem.

So here’s my one, simple bipartisan election season prescription. It’s one I think we can all agree upon and I think it’s one that might actually do some public good:

Don’t do to Jesus what Jesus wouldn’t do to himself.

Don’t put Jesus in a box.

Don’t make Jesus choose sides.

Don’t put a sword or a sledgehammer, an elephant or a donkey, in Jesus’ hands.

Don’t say Jesus is for this Party.

Or against that Party,

Don’t say this is the Christian position on this issue.

Don’t say faithful Jesus followers must back this agenda, should support this issue.

Don’t insist that this or that Christian value ought to have only a one-party solution.

Don’t demonize those with whom you disagree.

I mean, it should chasten all of us in our political pride that the only scene resembling anything like a democratic election in the Bible is when we shout crucify him, casting our vote on Good Friday for Barabbas rather than Jesus Christ.

So that’s my election season exhortation to you:

Don’t do to Jesus what Jesus wouldn’t do to himself.

You’ve been stamped with a different image.

Don’t do to Jesus what Jesus wouldn’t do to himself— that’s my prescription for you.

Considering the supposed stakes this election season, I realize how that probably sounds like a modest prescription. But maybe modesty is the best policy. Given what the Gospel reveals about us and what was required for us— for our redemption— maybe modesty is the best policy.

Don’t do to Jesus what he wouldn’t do to himself.

Of course, as much as you might like me to do so, I can’t conclude there.

If I left it there, if I ended only on Do or Don’t Do, I’d leave you having just given you moralism pimped out in theological drag. The fact is— what I’ve given you thus far doesn’t even qualify as preaching because— modest or not— prescription is not proclamation. Exhortation about what you need to do for God is not the same thing as the announcement of the news of what God has done for you.

The Law, as the Apostle Paul says, is not the Gospel, and the Gospel message points always to God’s work in Jesus Christ for us not to our work for God.

The Gospel message points always to God’s work in Jesus Christ; therefore, the Gospel stories are not primarily collections of teachings Jesus taught about this or that topic.

They’re stories about Jesus, about his work for us. Indeed the entire Bible— it’s not an encyclopedia of the universe; it’s about Jesus, from first to last.  The center and circumference of all of scripture is Christ and his grace given to you freely by his bleeding and dying and rising.

Which means— our passage today ultimately is not about us or what we should do or not do this election season. It’s about Jesus Christ and what he has done to elect us for himself.

To turn today’s text into nothing more than a teaching on how we should regard our money or our politics or our relationship to the state, as Gerhard Forde says, it’s to misuse the very best thing in the worst manner.

It’s to turn the Gospel back into the Law.

Because notice— notice the Gospel promise in this passage:

‘“Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denariuus and let me see it.””

And they all reach into their pockets to produce one.

But notice— Jesus had to ask for one.

The coin that condemns us under the Law— Christ isn’t carrying one.
His pockets are empty.
He alone among us is fully faithful.

He alone among us is obedient.

He alone is blameless.

He alone is righteous.

Just as Jesus tells his cousin John the Baptist at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel: Jesus says that he’s come in the flesh— not to judge and condemn sinners, not to turn sinners into non-sinners, not to set sinners straight so they’ll fly right— in order to fulfill all righteousness.

For us.

In our place.

Jesus is our substitute not only on the cross but in his faithfulness.

He comes in order to fulfill all the righteousness required by the Law.

And that righteousness— Christ’s permanent perfect score, the Bible promises— it’s gifted to you, gratis and forever, at your baptism.

The currency exchange that matters in Mark’s Gospel isn’t what happens with the moneychangers outside the Temple; it’s what the ancient church fathers and mothers called the Great Exchange wherein our unrighteousness is imputed to Christ, as though our sin was his own, and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as though it were our own.

Christ isn’t carrying the coin that condemns. His pockts are empty. He alone among us is righteous. But in taking the unclean coin from our hands, Christ takes our sin into his own hands. And then two days later takes our sin in his body to a tree.

The baptism of his death and resurrection is a refining fire that has rendered all of you purer than silver and more precious than gold no matter what you render to Caesar.

You see, it’s a snapshot of what St. Paul says to the Corinthians: “God made him to be sin who knew no sin; so that, sinners like us might become the righteousness of God.”

That’s the Gospel promise hidden in this Gospel story, like a seed sown in a field.

What is yours is his now, your sin.

And what belongs to him is yours always, his righteousness.

Where we worship idols at the altar of politics, he loved God with all of his heart and all of mind and all of his soul and all of his strength— and all of his faithfulness is as good as yours by grace through your baptism.

Where our pocketbooks prove that we have no King but Caesar, he brought down the mighty from their thrones by being lifted up on his cross— his victory, by grace through your baptism, it’s as though you had won it by your own obedience.

Where we fail to render to God the everything that belongs to God and give a lot more heartburn and bother to the Rome we call America, by grace through your baptism you are credited as blameless as Jesus Christ himself.

You bet your ass that’s too good and too prodigal (and too offensive maybe) to believe.
Of course it is— that’s why you need a preacher.
That’s why you need the church, that’s why you need water and wine and bread.

You need tangible, audible reminders of the Gospel promise that you need not worry— ever— because your ledger will never run red because you’ve been washed in his blood.

Maybe that’s why Jesus implies we sound like satan when we ask him our questions about what we should do.

With our money.

With our politics.

Because ultimately it doesn’t matter what’s in your wallet or what you do with it— for that matter, it doesn’t matter what skeletons are in your closet; for that matter, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the closet— or out of the closet— because by your baptism you’ve been clothed irrevocably with Christ’s own righteousness.

To get hung up on another’s unfaithfulness or sin— to get hung up on your own sin— it’s like stealing from Jesus.

All of it belongs to Christ now.

Cling instead to what Christ has given you.

What justifies you before God is Christ’s faithfulness and death not your faith in his death, and your not faithful doings in response to his death.

By grace, through your baptism— your credit score is always now Christ himself.

His permanent perfect record is yours, and there’s no take-backs or do-overs.

God is not an Indian Giver.

There is therefore now no undoing it.

So there—

There’s the Gospel promise attached to the modest prescription I gave you.

Don’t do to Jesus what Jesus wouldn’t do to himself.

Don’t insist that Jesus fit into your red or blue box.

You don’t need to.

Because you’ve been gifted Christ’s own righteousness, you have the right to be wrong.

When it comes to politics or your marriage or anything else— there’s no pressure, no stakes, no score-keeping.

You’re free to fail.

You’re free to make foolish choices.

You’re free to make sinful ones.

You have the right to be wrong.

Because you already have Christ’s perfect righteousness, you have the right to be wrong.

And here’s the rub:

So does your neighbor. They have the right to be wrong too.

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