Jason Micheli's Blog, page 130

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Laying Down the Law (Not the Gospel)

This week White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, before she would agree to evade answer their question, compelled each member of the press corps to cite one reason they were grateful this Thanksgiving holiday. As Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker commented, Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ demand for expressions of gratitude left her feeling not thankful but resentful. She writes:

“My first impulse when someone asks me to share is to not-share. This isn’t because I’m not a sharing person — you can have my cake and eat it, too — but because sharing, like charity, should be voluntary.”

What Kathleen Parker illumines and what Sarah Huckabee Sanders “preached” in the White House briefing room is what the Apostle Paul calls the Law. For St. Paul, the Law names not only the biblical laws given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the Law, which Paul says is inscribed upon every heart and is thus extra-biblical and universal to human experience, is shorthand for an exacting moral standard of human performance.

The Law, as Martin Luther paraphrased Paul from Romans 3, always and only accuses.

Lex semper accusat. That is, the Law can only ever convey to us God’s expectation of perfection (“Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”) and our privation in fulfilling such righteousness. The Law always and only accuses for the Law has no power in itself to create that which it commands; in fact, as Paul unpacks in Romans 7 (“I do what I do not want to do”), the Law very often elicits in us the opposite of its intent. As my new favorite theologian, Gerhard Forde, puts it in On Being a Theologian of the Cross:

“The Law says, “Thou shalt love!” It is right; it is holy, true, and good.’ Yet, it can’t bring about what it demands. It might impel toward the works of law, the motions of love, but in the end they will become irksome and will too often lead to hate. If we go up to someone on the street, grab them by the lapels, and say, “Look here, you’re supposed to love me!” the person may drudgingly admit that we are right, but it won’t work. The results will likely be jus the opposite from what ‘our’ Law demands. Law is indeed right, but it simply cannot realize what it points to. So it works wrath. It can curse, but it can’t bless. In commanding love, Law can only point helplessly to that which it cannot produce.”

Thus, the wisdom of St. Paul and the Protestant Reformers is that Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ imperative to the press corps (“Be more grateful!”) likely provoked the very opposite of anything resembling gratitude.

Christianity teaches what your heart knows to be true: Command- what Christians call Law- cannot create gratitude. Thankfulness, as Kathleen Parker Christianly pointed out in the Post, cannot be willed from wishing or exerted based on another’s expectation. If the Law only and always accuses, then gratitude can only ever be by grace. Gratitude can only ever be a free response not to an imperative but to an indicative.

Gratitude can only be an effect of the Gospel not Law. In Christian terms, gratitude is the response created within us by the no-strings-attached promise that all our sins have been forgiven because of another. I wonder, though, is it possible that gratitude is only intelligible in Christian terms such as these? We don’t call our sacrament the Eucharist, which means gratitude, for nothing. i wonder if gratitude is only intelligible in the Christian terms we call Gospel? John Tierney says Thanksgiving is the most psychologically correct holiday, but I wonder if its the most Christian holiday; specifically, I wonder if Thanksgiving can only be a Christian holiday.

I mean, if Christians only possess a religious flavor of that which is true already for everyone everywhere (gratitude) then we should sleep in on Sundays and fix brunch and bloody marys.

Apart from the story Christians rehearse every week, in Word and Sacrament, of God’s goodness in spite of human failure, what other story contextualizes Thanksgiving such that gratitude is created not compelled? Does the (false) story of happy natives and pilgrims put enough flesh on Thanksgiving to elicit true gratitude?

Is a Thanksgiving table that is not in some sense an extension of the altar table just a hollow holiday?

Gratitude, don’t forget, requires a corollary awareness of our own fault and finitude such that we’re appreciative of others. Can the story of the pilgrims do the heavy lifting or our sentimentality about family and football? Or does the Gospel alone better tell us about what has been done for us that we could not do for ourselves? Does the Gospel do better at teaching us not to trust in our own ability or merit such that appreciation for another arises freely within us?

Apart from the promise of the Gospel, Americans at Thanksgiving are just like the White House Press Corps this week, being told (by the Law) to be grateful but, as a consequence, feeling the opposite of gratitude.

So, before you carve the turkey, remember that at a holiday table Jesus took bread, broke it, and gave thanks…

Follow @cmsvoteup

Episode #123: Adam Clark & Christian Piatt – The Odd Couple

Todd Littleton joined to team for this interview with Adam Clark and Christian Piatt at the Theology Beer Camp in January. While the interview was over 9 months ago, who would’ve thought that the conversation would STILL resonate today as we deal with issues of race and social justice.

Mark you calendars…Saturday, December 16 in Alexandria, Va we’re going to do a live podcast with our friend Tripp Fuller of Home-brewed Christianity. Details to follow.

Give us a rating and review!!!
Help us reach more people: Give us 4 Stars and a good review there in the iTunes store. 

It’ll make it more likely more strangers and pilgrims will happen upon our meager podcast. ‘Like’ our Facebook Page too. You can find it here.

Help support the show!

This ain’t free or easy but it’s cheap to pitch in. Click here to become a patron of the podcasts.

Follow @cmsvoteup

Grateful

Since it’s nearly Thanksgiving, here’s a piece on gratitude I wrote for the United Methodist Church’s Rethink Church website. You know you’re old and have become a company man when the denomination asks you to write for them. 

Two years ago, I woke up from emergency abdominal surgery, which removed a tumor the size of a “Harry Potter” hardback from my innards The doctor told me I had a rare, aggressive and ultimately incurable cancer. After a year of intense, butt-kicking chemo, I’m back as a workaday pastor.

And I’m so freaking grateful for it.

I resonate lately with St. Paul and his letter to the Church at Philippi. Maybe I do so because I know that after he wrote his letter, it was curtains on Paul.

Nonetheless, Paul and I have a lot in common.

Like Paul, I know what it is to be in need (of healing).

Like Paul, I know what it is to have little (little hope).

Like Paul, I know what it is to have plenty (plenty of worries and fear and regrets, plenty of pain and pain-in-the-butt insurance claims).

Like Paul, I know what it is to go hungry (for some good news), and like Paul in Philippians, I’ve got so much for which I am grateful.

To my church

I know, when life sucks it’s novel or “gutsy” to gripe about institutional religion. That feels to me like it’s either too easy a complaint to be true or too depressing to bear if it is true.

The Philippians fed Paul. He was in a Roman prison when he wrote to them. The money the Philippians sent to Paul supplied him with food because the Romans didn’t provide any for their prisoners. You either had benefactors to keep you from going hungry or you didn’t and you went hungry.

Like Paul’s church in Philippi, my parish has done so much for my family and me. They fed us and prayed for us and with us. They helped with medical bills and sat with me in the hospital. They were there to catch me when I passed out in the chemo room. And they didn’t bat an eye when I puked in their cars.

My colleague, the Rev. Dennis Perry, was with us the night I learned I had cancer. He prayed with us the morning of my surgery, and he’s been there for us all during my treatments and he’s held my hand through the new normal.

My church has done more than I could ever repay, and, honestly, that’s been a tougher pill for me to swallow than the vaginal yeast infection pills my doctor forced me to take.

Because the truth is: I’ve always been awful at receiving gifts. I hate feeling like I’m in another’s debt. Before, whenever someone would give me a gift, I would immediately think about what I now had to give them to even the scales between us, to balance out the relationship.

In other words, I was a guy who kept score.

One thing cancer has taught me: When you think of your relationships in that way, in terms of credits and debits, you probably think of God that way, too. And so you worry about the debt of sin you owe God and could never pay back. And you fear that, maybe, you deserve what’s happened to you. Or, you count up all the good you’ve given God and you think, maybe subconsciously, that God owes you, and you get angry that bad things have happened to you.

All my life, I’ve been crazy terrible at receiving generosity, and then I got cancer and the Church responded by giving me so much. And I worried: How can I possibly repay all this?

I physically can’t write that many thank-you notes or cook that many meals. I don’t really want anyone else barfing in my car.

I tried repaying one of my benefactors by driving him to his vasectomy appointment, but since he made me hold his hand during the procedure, I definitely don’t want to do that for anyone else.

So how could I ever give back everything I have been given? Balance the scales?

I can’t ever repay everything that’s been done for me.

And what has been done for me isn’t even the most important thing that’s been done.

Unlike Paul, in this crucible of incurable cancer, I’ve not been able to say (as Paul humble-brags in Philippians), “I can endure all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

When you have cancer, everyone — EVERY SINGLE PERSON —  tells you “to kick cancer’s ass.” But it works the other way around. Cancer kicks yours. The last months and years, I’ve felt exhausted. Spiritually exhausted.

Like Bilbo Baggins, I felt “thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

I didn’t lose my faith; I just didn’t feel my faith And Paul’s “I can endure all things through Christ who strengthens me” sounded to me like an empty cliché.

I may have a few things in common with Paul and the Philippians but not with the “I can endure all things through Christ…” part.

Unless. . .

Unless, when Paul tells the Philippians, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he’s not talking about Christ in heaven, he’s talking about Christ’s Body, the Church: “I can endure all things through you who strengthens me.”

After all, the Christ who declares at the beginning of the gospel, “I am the Light of the World,” looks at his disciples at the end of the gospel and says to them, “You are the Light of the World.”

And when we profess, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” we mean that Jesus isn’t a figure in the past nor is he a promise for the future, but he’s here and now. There is no Christ “up there,” because he’s here. Now.

 I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH HIM WHO STRENGTHENS ME. [PHILIPPIANS 4:13]

So maybe. . .

Maybe when Paul says, “I can endure all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he doesn’t mean, “I can do all things because of my belief in Christ…”

Maybe he doesn’t mean, “I can endure all things through my faith in Christ…” And maybe he doesn’t mean, “I can do anything by the power of my personal prayer…”

Maybe, instead, Paul’s talking about you, the Church. About your prayer. About your faithfulness. About your compassion and care. You. The Body of Christ, who’s strengthened me. I can do all things through you.

If Paul means it that way, then it’s no longer a naive catchphrase; it’s a statement of faith, one I can affirm. And so can my wife. And so would my sons.

We can endure all things because the Church has been with us. More so than all the stuff you’ve done for us, you’ve been with us.

As Sam Wells observes, “with” just might be the most important word. In Scripture, “with” is much more important than “for.”

“In the beginning,” says Scripture, “the Word was with God. He was in the beginning with God and without him not one thing came into being.”

In other words, before anything else, there was a with. The with between God and the Word, the Father and the Son. With, says the bible, is the most fundamental thing about God. So, at the very end of the Bible, when it describes our final destiny, a voice from heaven declares: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God. God himself will be with them.”

According to the Bible, “with” is the word that describes the heart of God and the nature of God’s purposes and the plot of God’s desire for us. God’s whole life, action and purpose are shaped to be with. Us.

And, I know firsthand, being with isn’t doing things for. Being with is about presence. Being with is about participation. It’s about partnership.

Which is why, I think, when Paul finally gets around to thanking the Philippians, it’s not for all the things they’ve done for him. Read it again. Paul never actually thanks them for the money they’ve sent him or the meals they’ve provided for him. No, he thanks them for sharing in his struggle, for being with him: “It was kind of you,” he says, “to share in my distress.”

It was kind of you to share my nightmare. It was kind of you to share in my pain and suffering. It was kind of you to share in my wife’s worry, Church. In my boys’ fears and anxiety, Church. It was kind of you to make my cancer — our cancer — yours, too.

Thank you, for being with me.

Thank you for sharing in my distress.

Follow @cmsvoteup

Glawspel

I continued our fall lectio continua series through Exodus by preaching on God giving the Law to Moses in Exodus 20.

Thou shall have no other gods but me.

Thou shall not make for yourself any idol.

Thou shall not invoke with malice the name of the Lord, your God.

Thou shall not commit murder.

Thou shall not commit adultery.

Thou shall not steal.

Thou shall not strip to thine mighty whities and kiss a 14 year old nor touch her through her…No wait, that’s not in there. It’s not in there!

Nor is it etched in the 5,280 pound granite statue of them that Roy Moore installed in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2001. It’s not in the 10 Commandments so the 10 Commandments Judge (if he’s guilty) must be in the clear.

According to Sean Hannity, if the 10 Commandments are at all relevant to the allegations against Roy Moore then it’s because Leigh Corfman, Wendy Miller, Debbie Gibson, and Gloria Deason are all guilty of breaking the 9th Commandment.

They’re all lying, Hannity promises. They’re bearing false witness.

Here I was in the middle of the week wondering what I would preach this Sunday, knowing that Exodus 20, the giving of the Law to Moses, was our scheduled scripture text. I didn’t know what I would preach. I was wracking my brain. I even prayed, as I always do, sending up on SOS for God to give me something to say.

And then on Thursday afternoon my iPhone chimed with breaking news from the Washington Post about the allegations of sexual assault (or, according to Breitbart News: “Dating”). My iPhone dinged with the allegations against Roy Moore, the self-proclaimed 10 Commandments Judge and now Alabama Senate candidate.

With Exodus 20 on the preaching calendar, Roy Moore fell into my lap like icky manna from heaven.

I know, it’s not funny.

It’s NOT.

But, if there’s anything funny at all about the sad, sordid story it’s the irony that Roy Moore, the 10 Commandments Judge, doesn’t appear to have read what Jesus and the Apostle Paul say about the fundamental function of the Law of Moses.

Turns out, finger-wagging fundamentalists like Roy Moore would do well to spend less time defending the bible and more time reading the bible because, according to Jesus and St. Paul, the commandments are not meant to elicit positive, public morality.

That’s not their purpose.

I’m going to say that again so you hear me: according to Jesus and the Apostle Paul, the commandments are not rules to regulate our behavior. They’re not a code of conduct.

The primary function of the Law, as Jesus says in the Gospel of John chapter 5 and Paul says in the Book of Romans chapter 3, is to do to us what it did to Roy Moore this week.

To accuse us.

The mistake Judge Roy Moore makes, in wanting to post the 10 Commandments in public spaces, is that the primary function of the Law is not civil.

The primary function of the Law is theological.

It’s primary purpose is to reveal the complete and total righteousness we require to acquire the Kingdom of Heaven and meet a holy God, blameless and justified.

But because we’re self-deceiving sinners, we delude ourselves.

And we rationalize- that because we keep 6 out of the 10 without trying and because we’ve got a little bit of faith and because we sing in the choir or because we took a casserole to the sick lady down the street – we deceive ourselves. And we tell ourselves that we’re good, that we’re righteous, that we’re in the right with God, that we didn’t do what Louis CK did. We’re not like Roy Moore at all.

To keep us from deceiving ourselves, to keep us from measuring our virtue relative to Roy Moore’s alleged vice, in his sermon on the mount, Jesus recapitulates the 10 Commandments and he cranks them up a notch.

To the 6th Commandment, “Do not commit murder,” Jesus adds: “If you’ve even had an angry thought toward your brother, then you’re guilty. Of murder.”

To the 7th Commandment, “Do not commit adultery,” Jesus attaches: “If you’ve even thought dirty about that Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Supermodel, then you’ve cheated on your wife.”

He didn’t say it exactly like that. I have a friend who put it that way.

And Jesus takes the Greatest Commandment, the Golden Rule- our favorite: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself,” and Jesus makes it less great by trading out neighbor for enemy.

“You have heard it said: ‘You shall love your neighbor.’ But I say to you, you shall love your enemies.”

Whoever breaks even one of these commandments of the Law, Jesus warns, will be called least in my Kingdom. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will never enter Heaven.

     Jesus exposes the Law’s true function by moving the Law and its demands from our actions to our intentions. The righteousness required to acquire heaven, says Jesus, is more than being able to check off the boxes on the code of conduct.

Do not commit murder, check. Do not steal, check. Do not covet, check.

I didn’t sleep with her, I must be Kingdom material.

No.

The righteousness required to acquire the Kingdom is more than what you do or do not do. It’s more than posting the 10 Commandments in courtrooms; it’s more than obeying the 10 Commandments.

It’s who you are behind closed doors. It’s who you are backstage in the dressing room. It’s not who you are when you’re shaking hands and popping tic-tacs; it’s who you are on the Access Hollywood bus when you think the mic is turned off. It’s what’s in your head and in your heart, your intentions not just your actions.

That’s what counts to come in to the Kingdom. That’s the necessary measure of righteousness, Jesus says.

And then, Jesus closes his recapitulation of the Decalogue by telling his hearers exactly what God tells Moses at the end of the giving of the Law in Deuteronomy:

     “You must be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

When it comes to the Law, Christ’s point is that we should not measure ourselves according to those around us. I’m no Kevin Spacey.

No, when it comes to the Law and our righteousness, Christ’s point is that we must measure ourselves according to God. There’s no cutting corners. There’s no A for effort. “I tried my best” will not open the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven for you.

It doesn’t matter that you’re “better” than Harvey Weinstein. It doesn’t matter that you never did what Mark Halperin did.

     “Nobody’s perfect” isn’t an excuse because perfection is actually the obligation.

     Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will NOT enter heaven. 

You see, Jesus takes the Law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai and on a different mount Jesus exposes the theological function of the Law: You must be perfect. You must be as perfect as God. You must be perfect across the board, on all counts- perfect in your head and perfect in your heart and perfect in your life.

How’s that going for you?

Jesus takes the Law and he ratchets the degree of difficulty all the way up to perfection- it’s not just your public self; an A+ score for your secret self is a Kingdom prerequisite too.

Jesus takes the Law and he cranks its demands all the way up to absolute in order to suck all the self-righteousness out of you.

Jesus leaves no leniency in the Law; so that, you and I will understand that before a holy and righteous God, we stand in the dock shoulder-to-shoulder with creeps like Louis CK and, as much as them, we should tremble.

You see, that’s the mistake Judge Roy Moore makes in wanting to post the Law of Moses in courtrooms and public spaces.

     The primary purpose of the Law isn’t so much what the Law says. 
     The primary purpose of the Law is what the Law does to us.

The Law are not principles by which you live an upright life.

The Law is the means by which God brings you down to your knees.

In his statement to the NY Times on Friday, comedian Louis CK said of his own aberrant and sinful behavior toward women:

“…I wielded my power irresponsibility. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And I’ve tried to run away from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of my actions.”

Louis CK’s apology leaves a lot to be desired.

As Stephen Colbert tweeted, it leaves him with the desire for a time machine to go back and tell Louis CK NOT TO DO THAT TO WOMEN.

His statement is wanting in a lot of ways; nonetheless, what he describes (deceiving himself, then running away from the truth about himself, then being made to see what he had done) is the Law.

The theological function of the Law is stop us in our scrambling tracks and to hold a mirror up to our self-deceiving eyes; so that, we’re forced to reckon with who we are and with what we’ve done and what we’ve left undone.

     The theological function of the Law is to get you to see yourself with enough clarity that you will ask the question:
“How could God love someone like me?”

     When the Law brings you to ask that question, you’re close to breaking through to the Gospel.

Martin Luther taught that God has spoken to us and God still speaks to us in two different words:

Law and Gospel.

And Luther said the necessary art for every Christian to learn is how to distinguish properly between the first word God speaks, Law, and the second word God speaks, Gospel.

Learning how to distinguish properly between the Law and the Gospel is what St. Paul describes to Timothy as “rightly dividing the word of truth.” 

It’s a necessary art for every Christian to learn, Luther said, because if you don’t know how to rightly divide the word, if you don’t know how to distinguish properly between the Law and the Gospel, then you distort the purpose of these two words.

And distorting them- it muddles the Christian message.

Distinguishing properly between these two words God speaks is necessary because without learning this art you will end up emphasizing one of these words at the expense of the other.

You’ll focus only on the Law: Be perfect. Forgive 70 x 7. Love your enemy. Don’t commit adultery. Give away all your possessions. Feed the hungry.

But to focus only on the first word God speaks, Law, takes the flesh off of Christ and wraps him in judge’s robe.

Focus on Law alone yields a God of commands and oppressive expectations.

The Law always accuses- that’s it’s God-given purpose.

So Law alone religion produces religious people who are accusatory and angry, stern and self-righteous and judgmental.

And because the Law demands perfection, the Law when it’s not properly distinguished, the Law alone without the Gospel, it cannot produce Christians.

It can only produce hypocrites.

That’s why none of us should be surprised to discover that the 10 Commandments Judge may in fact be a white-washed tomb. A hypocrite.

On the other hand, a lot of Christians and churches avoid the first word, Law, altogether and preach only the second word, Gospel, which vacates it of its depth and meaning.

Without the first word, Law, God’s second word evaporates into sentimentality.

“God loves you” becomes a shallow cliche apart from the Law and its accusation that the world is a dark, dark place and the human heart is dimmer still.

Of course, most of the time, in most churches, from most preachers (and I’m as guilty as the next), you don’t hear one of these words preached to the exclusion of the other.

Nor do you hear them rightly divided.

Most of the time, you instead hear them mashed together into a kind of Glawspel where, yes, Jesus died for you unconditionally but now he’s got so many expectations for you- if you’re honest- it feels like its killing you.

     Glawspel takes amazing grace and makes it exhausting.
Jesus loves you but here’s what you must do now to show him how much you appreciate his “free” gift. 

Compared to the Law-alone and Gospel-alone distortions of these two words, Glawspel is the worst because it inoculates you against the message.

Glawspel is like Joe Cocker, fooling you into thinking that you can get by under the Law with a little bit of help from your friend Jesus.

Glawspel is like an infomercial product- that with a dash of grace and a splash of spiritual transformation added to awesome you, Shazaam, you too can forgive 70 x 7.

No.

The point of a Law like “Forgive 70 x 7” is to convince you that you achieve that much forgiveness; so that, you will no other place to turn but the wounded feet of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness God offers in him.

The point of overwhelming Law like “Love your enemies” is to push you to the grace of him who died for them, his enemies.

The reason it’s necessary to learn how to distinguish properly between these two words God speaks, Law and Gospel, is because the point of the first word is to push you to the second word.

The first word, Law, says “Turn the other cheek” so that you will see just how much you fail to do so and, seeing, hear the promise provided by the second word, Gospel.

The promise of the one who turned the other cheek all the way to a cross.

For you.

The reason it’s so necessary to learn how to divide rightly these words that God speaks is because the point of the Law is to produce not frustration or exhaustion but recognition.

The Law is what God uses to provoke repentance in you. The Law is how God drives self-deceiving you to the Gospel.

And the Gospel is not Glawspel.

The Gospel is not an invitation with strings attached.

The Gospel is not a gift with a To Do list written underneath the wrapping paper.

If it’s exhausting instead of amazing, it’s not the Gospel of grace.

If it asks WWJD?, it’s not the Gospel.

The Gospel simply repeats the question:
WDJD?
    What DID Jesus do?

———————-

     He did what you cannot do for yourself.

Because the whole point of the Law is that, on our own, we can’t fulfill even a fraction of it.

Because behind closed doors

When we think the mic is off

In the backstage dressing room of our minds

And in the secret thoughts of our hearts-

Each and every one of us is different in degree but not in kind from Roy Moore and Louis CK and the avalanche of all the others.

Each and every one of us is more like them than we are like him, like Jesus Christ.

The point of the Law is to drive you to Jesus Christ not as your teacher and not as your example.

     If Christ is just your teacher or example, it would’ve been better had he stayed in heaven.
Because the whole point of what Jesus did is that he did what you cannot ever hope to do for yourself.

Be perfect. He took that burden off of you.

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He took that fear from you.

He did what you cannot do for yourself. He alone was obedient to the Law. He alone fulfilled its absolute demands. He alone was perfect as his Father in Heaven is perfect.

His righteousness not only exceeds that of the Pharisees, it overflows to you; so that, now you and I can stand before God justified not by our charity or our character or our contributions to the Kingdom but by the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.

His perfection, despite your imperfections, is reckoned to you as your own- no matter what you’ve done or left undone, no matter the bombs that voice inside your head throws down, no matter the dark secrets in your heart- that’s what’s more true about you now.

Don’t you see- Roy Moore is right about one thing.

Christianity is an exclusive religion.

It excludes all your sin because all your sin is in him and it stayed stuck in the cross when he was nailed to a tree.

Christianity is an exclusive religion.

It excludes all your goodness because in the Gospel you’re free to admit what the Law accuses: you’re not that good.

Christianity is an exclusive religion.

It excludes all your works of righteousness because they’ll never be enough and they’re not necessary.

Christianity is an exclusive religion.

It is inclusive of nothing else but his perfect work.

And you in it.

Follow @cmsvoteup

Listening to the Transgender Canary: A Modest Proposal for the Way Forward

On Tuesday a 30-something journalist from Redskins country, Danica Roem, defeated, soon-to-be-octogenarian, Robert Marshall for a seat in the Virginia General Assembly. Marshall has served as a Delegate for decades and has done so, in his own self-indicting words, as “Virginia’s Chief Homophobe.”

As with male pattern baldness- apparently there’s a club of which he’s not only a member but it’s president.

Marshall represents a district of the Northern Virginia exurbs sufficiently conservative as to make the Ayatollah seem middle of the road; nonetheless, on Tuesday they handed Marshall an embarrassing drubbing at the hands of Danica Roem who, it’s not incidental, is transgender.

Take it from me, Gainesville, Va is not San Francisco.

Turns out, regardless of their views on sexuality and identity most ordinary voters don’t care all that much about issues of sexuality and identity. They care more about the concrete, literally; as in, tolls and transportation.

Caveat Ecclesia 

As Gainesville, Virginia goes likely so will go the Church of Jesus Christ in all but the flyover states.

My United Methodist tradition stands at a clenched-teeth, fingers-crossed, butt-cheeks-tight- and-nervous impasse over the issue of sexuality, awaiting a recommendation from a special 30-person commission on a “way forward” that will inaugurate what may be the United Methodist Church’s final debate over the issue. The result will either be peace amidst difference, agreeing to unity generally amidst our disunity particularly on this topic, or the result will be for us to contribute (at least) two new denominations to the carnage created by the Reformation’s rupture with Rome (40K+ denominations since Martin Luther’s 95 Theses).

The election of Danica Roem, I suspect and fear, reveals how the very fact we’re even having this all-consuming argument is evidence that we’ve already wandered too far down the mineshaft holding hands with the likes of Robert Marshall.

Look- I get it.

I really do.

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.

On the 500th Anniversary 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- and if I wasn’t already, the election of Danica Roem grabbed me by the collar and shook me awake- 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.

Like those NOVA voters who cared more about public works than Danica Roem’s privates, as much as I empathize with my friends on the “traditional” side of the debate, I find other issues more urgent.

Namely, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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 sex.

Having the right reading of scripture on sex doesn’t improve our standing before God nor does having the wrong reading jeopardize our justification. 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 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.

Like those voters this Tuesday who cared more about the tolls and transportation of their daily lives than transgenderism, 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 that God’s grace isn’t costly. It’s expensive, paid in the tender of your right-living and right-believing.

If our ongoing, intractable fights over sexuality convey to even one person that God condescended in Christ for someone unlike them, then the fighting isn’t worth it.

If our leveraged-future brinkmanship over sexuality implies to even one person that our having the right position on sexuality in any way effects our justification, then the debate isn’t worth it.

And if the election of Danica Roem is any indication, to say nothing of the confused look on my 15 year old son’s face that I’m even writing this post, then the risk to the Gospel grows every day we waste with this debate.

Like it or not, Will and Grace first aired 20 years ago. Daphne was TV’s first lesbian 50 years ago. The culture has moved on whether we like it or not. This isn’t a hill the Apostle Paul would die on- especially not a hill on which he’d euthanize the Gospel.

So, given the missional context of the culture in which we find ourselves, I offer this modest proposal for the Way Forward. 

I’ve read reports that the UMC’s Special Worldwide Sex Conference (my name for it) in 2019 will cost the UMC approximately $11 million dollars. 

Given that this issue of sexuality was already settled for most potential converts to Jesus Christ  back in 1996 when Robin Williams starred in the Bird Cage, I propose:

We, the United Methodist Church, instead invest that $11 MILLION DOLLARS until the day, say, when my son is my age, 2050.
On that day, sex will be even less the issue for his children as it is for his peers, but- I’m betting, broken world as this is- they’ll still be hungry for grace.

And- unless the Donald or Skynet screws things up-

At 3% interest that $11,000,000 will be worth close to $24 MILLION DOLLARS.

I know, like Solomon and the baby, it’s an incredibly difficult choice to weigh.

Do we spend $11M now for the same people who couldn’t reach a decision 2 years ago to argue it again and hope for different results?

Or, do we invest for the future so that we have 24 million dollars to proclaim the good news that God in Jesus Christ is for sinners?

Follow @cmsvoteup

Thoughts and Prayers as Counter-Terrorism

Reflections after the Las Vegas Sutherland Springs shooting.

The supposition that policy change according to Caesar’s politics is somehow more powerful or effective than the Church’s politics of prayer and worship of the Crucified Christ, I believe, is exactly what’s wrong with the Church and it’s witness to the wider culture:

We live in a time when tragedies are often remembered by the simple name of a place, like Columbine, Ft. Hood, or Virginia Tech. We mention them in conversation like, “After Columbine, we needed metal detectors at schools;” or “We used to be able to ignore some behaviors; but that was before Virginia Tech.”

Other traumatic events are either less institution-specific or more widespread, so we refer to them by the name of the town in which they took place: Charlottesville, Charleston, Houston, Barcelona, Brussels, and now “Las Vegas.” This is not something reserved to the modern era… remember The Alamo? And for a long time, wars have been memorialized simply by the names of the nations in which they were fought: Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. But, the depressingly high rate of new place-name-memorials has felt historic to many of us.

Regularly, the news reports casualties of gunfire, war, or natural disasters which can be counted in the dozens, the hundreds, and even, God help us, the thousands. And I’m met with the one-two punch of, on the one hand, shock and grief; and, on the other, numbness and avoidance as I sip my morning coffee calculating how today’s casualties will stack up to yesterday’s.

Was this hurricane bad enough to warrant a benefit concert or telethon?

Were today’s IED casualties enough to warrant a press conference?

Will we find out the motivation of the gunman?

Will legislators feel called (or tempted) to turn this into actionable legislation that will change the tide of disaster response, military engagement, international aid, or gun policy in America? How long until they use it to solidify their re-election)?

How long until writers, bloggers, and pastors come out with their commentaries, and retorts, and soap boxes? (In my case, the answer is about a day, 2 cups of coffee, and 1 beer, then a week of prayer and editing)

Tragedy, trauma, and indescribable suffering are becoming ordinary. Perhaps because more tragedy is being reported more quickly. And, perhaps that is because the 24-hour shit-stream of news and information has us hooked on sensationalism.

Whatever the cause, the effect is that I found the sheer violence of the past month (Harvey-Irma-Maria-Las Vegas) both exhausting and routine.

Of course it’s depressing and sad… but I’m kind of too tired to lament, or think critically. And, it all comes so frequently now, I feel like you and I don’t have time to fully react. So, we take short cuts. We fall back on the modern liturgies of tragedy.

News strikes of tragedy.

We listen to hear just how bad it is, to figure out which part comes next.

If it’s bad enough (and the victims are like us enough) we say/post/tweet something about our thoughts and prayers.

If we don’t want to do that, we say/post/tweet something about how thoughts and prayers aren’t enough, and we want people to act.

If we ourselves want to (appear as if we want to) act, we say what “someone” ought to do:

Often the someone is Trump.

Otherwise, it’s a call for more gun-control.

Or less gun control.

For mental health services.

Or better home training.

For more from FEMA.

For more from Trump.

For a local way to help.

For an organization to which we should donate.

Basically, we virtue signal.

Because, in many cases, we have and/or want virtue! In almost all cases, though, regardless of actual virtue, we do this because it makes us feel better.

The liturgy of tragedy makes us feel better.

And it’s not over.

Next:

If we haven’t already, we blame someone.

Usually Trump.

Or blacks in Chicago.

Or Global Warming.

Or “the gays.”

Sometimes we tell someone we want to do something about this, even after the news-cycle moves on. And sometimes we actually do.

We march.

We protest.

We give.

We read a book.

We recommend a book.

We write blogs.

We engage in hard conversations.

Many of these actions are genuinely good, or at least come from a place of genuine desire for good. And, they probably should not be mocked.

But, here’s my main thesis…

The thing I hate most about the liturgy of tragedy, is that it eclipses the liturgy of life.

The latest tragedy–Las Vegas–the shooting of hundreds of people resulting in a rising death-toll of 50 or more–I learned about it from a Facebook post that said “Take your thoughts and your prayers and shove them up your ass. It’s time for gun control.”

I’m not upset about the call for gun control. I’m not upset that someone used the word ass.

Honestly, I’m upset at the devaluing of thoughts and prayers.

And I can’t believe how ridiculous writing that makes me feel.

But truly, I think this is something that may actually be worth saying. I am convinced of the power of thought and prayer.

I’m not saying I think thoughts and prayers are going to make this all better, or all go away. And I’m not–I mean very much so not– the kind of Christian who typically says, “I believe in the power of prayer,” where they might as well be talking about the power of a rabbit’s foot to ward off evil spirits, or an amber necklace to make their infant less irritating–I mean irritable.

No, I’m not tritely saying, “Prayer will get us through this.”

I’m saying that I think thought and prayer protects us from tragedy every damned day.

Not all of us. Not enough of us. But most of us.

Thought and prayer, particularly in the form of religious life, and even more particularly (in my case) in Christian worship of and devotion to the Way of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, is the most profound form of anti-terrorism, anti-violence, anti-hate, anti-poverty, anti-death, anti-tragedy, and down-right-anti-evil that humanity has at its disposal. I say this because, when I really think about it, I’m more than confident that, were it not for the church, there would be more gunmen, terrorists, hate groups, homeless, and dead.

In the age of social media and protest encouraging us to #resist and #persist, I don’t want it to be lost on us that the routine liturgy of life which Christians repeat week in and week out in prayer, study, sacrament, and service is resistance and persistence!

Our thoughts and our prayers are what stop us from killing each other!

And, depending on who is reading this, our thoughts and prayers may be what stop us from killing you! The prayer of confession which we pray gives us the gift of forgiveness for little things like lying and cursing which empower us to resist bigger things like cheating on our spouses, burning down our office building, or staging a violent coup.

The story of a garden, and a snake, a flood, and a holy family; of slavery and freedom, of power, and abuse of power, of injustice and righteousness, of God-with-us even in death, and Love raised to Life, it gives us a courage to admit when we are wrong and to find a common bond of humanity even with our most dire enemy.

The sacrament of baptism gives us a community. No, a family, to guide us when we’re out of line, and notice when we’re gone. To call us on our bullshit, and teach us not to be assholes. The sacrament of Eucharist fills even our bodies with grace that was won through non-violent resistance resulting in the death of an innocent victim. It forms us as people, and as a community, centered on a story of a death that ultimately ends all death. And the life of service to which we are sent from that table–it teaches us that care for the other is truer and more important than competition with or even safety from the other.

The church is many things. Including, often, an utter failure.

But the church is also, at some level, holy. And, even in its holiness, it may be that the sum of the church’s holiness is lived out in little more than a long-standing, never-ending liturgy of thoughts and prayers.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone no longer owns guns.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone is no longer a member of the KKK

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone has friends outside their race.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone who voted for Hillary invited a Trump supporter to coffee.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why a real estate developer refused to construct in a flood zone.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why a real estate developer built affordable housing in the same neighborhood they themselves would be willing to live.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone has a roof over their head when their family kicked them out of the house.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why a child of abuse is not destined to become abusive.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone was forgiven, and not killed.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why someone was imprisoned, and not killed.

Somewhere tonight, the church is why, in the moment just before someone died from a gunshot wound, they were unafraid.

In a world where the liturgy of tragedy has become all too familiar, still…

Thoughts and Prayers are the liturgy of life.

Thoughts and Prayers are resistance to the liturgy of tragedy.

Thoughts and Prayers are the persistent heartbeat of the church.

Thoughts and Prayers are the church exchanging the way of this world for the mind of Christ.

So, if you want to do something to mourn, to heal, to help, or to avoid becoming the terrorist you and I are all too easily capable of becoming, try some thoughts and prayers. Come to church. We will try it with you.

Because, in the end, the church is not actually why any of those good things happen. Those things happen through the church because of Christ. Because in Christ, Existence and Love took on flesh in Bethlehem and then Galilee happened and then Capernaum. And then Ganesaret. Then Samaria. Then Bethany. Then Jerusalem. Then Golgatha. Then the Garden. Then Emmaus. Then Jerusalem again. Then Galilee again. Then Damascus and Antioch. Then Corinth, and Thesalonica, and Ephesus. Then Jerusalem again. Then Patmos. Then Chalcedon. Then Rome. Then Nicea. Then Syria. Then Avila. Then Asisi. Then England. Then Norwich. Then Wittenberg. Then Oxford. Then Aldersgate. Then Baltimore. Then Birmingham. Then, eventually, in my life, Norfolk, and Richmond, and Williamsburg, and Winchester, and Upperville, and Alexandria, and Springfield, and St. Stephen’s.

Every event, in every place, in every time, is where tragedy has struck, is striking, or will strike. The only thing more definitive than that fact is that in Christ tragedy will not win. And it is to this truth, in honor of the victims of sin and death, that I devote my thoughts and prayers tonight.

– Drew Colby

Follow @cmsvoteup

All Saints: Angels with Dirty Wings

For All Saints Sunday I continued our lectio continua through the Book of Exodus with chapter 17.

“Renew our communion with all your saints, especially those whom we name before you…” 

Wait just a minute, are we sure this is the right list?

I don’t want to talk smack on the dead, but do these folks really qualify to be called saints?

Isn’t that a little like giving participation trophies to everyone?

I mean, Chuck Kincannon- a great Dad and a moderate poker player but a saint? Chuck sang country songs in a soprano voice just to embarrass his teenage daughter on dates.

Chuck never slayed a dragon like St. George or drove off a plague of snakes like St. Patrick.

And Bud Jordan- this is a guy who got drunk- I mean, over served- with his shipmates in Italy and stole a village fishing boat after they’d missed their ferry back to board their ship.

In 13 years, I don’t think I ever saw Bud wearing a shirt anywhere else but here at church, and in those 13 years I don’t think a Sunday went by that Bud didn’t shamelessly hit on Heather Shue, who compared to him was young enough to be his protozoa.

I loved Bud, but isn’t it a bit much to call him a saint?

And Dwight Newman, good doctor with a good ear for music, but I don’t think Dwight ever walked out of worship without a cranky word about Dennis, which, let’s be fair, is true for half of you.

Often the paraments on All Saints are red to remind us of the blood of the martyrs.

If a saint is a champion of the faith, a person of exceptional piety, do these guys and gals really make the cut?

Their halos aren’t any bigger than yours, and- let’s be honest, I’ve known you for over a dozen years- on your best days, your halo is dinged up and dirty.

Claudia Debus, a wonderful and warm woman, she died having never forgiven her parents. They weren’t much of saints either.

Diane Brooks, when her husband’s death from cancer was followed immediately by her own cancer diagnosis, her daughter just in the 6th grade, she confessed to me she’d lost her faith.

She confided to me over coffee “my faith has been wrung out of me.”

And today we call her a saint, a champion of faith?

Walt Wilson- a few years ago I had to take out a restraining order on him after he became abusive to members of our staff.

One of the other people on our list today took his own life. He so did not believe in the sanctity of his life that he counted it loss, but today we count him a saint.

Really- if saints are exemplars of righteousness, then are these the names we should be reading?

Of course, in a way, they’re in good company.

If you wipe away the stained glass sheen we apply to the saints of the church catholic, then you discover that they’re no different than the saints we name here today.

St. Thomas Aquinas spent his whole life writing volume after volume of theology, but before he died he declared all our God-talk as no better than straw. Worthless.

St. Augustine was a horn-dog in his pagan youth and when he converted to Christianity he completely abandoned his common-law wife and their son. In the days before indoor plumbing and cold showers, St. Francis of Assisi rolled naked in the snow to stave off his dirty, lusty thoughts- just imagine that as a statue in your garden.

St. Mary of Egypt was a prostitute for 17 years. St. Bernard led the 2nd Crusade, which makes the Terminus episodes of the Walking Dead seem Christian by comparison. One of my heroes, Karl Barth, had a live-in mistress his whole life- in addition to his wife. Twenty years into her mission, Mother Theresa of Calcutta wrote in her diary:

“Where is my Faith- even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness- My God- how painful is this unknown pain- I have no Faith- I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart.”

That’s pretty depressing.

Still, Mother Theresa is better than Moses. He murdered a man and buried him in the desert. And Moses is better still than the saints he helped rescue.

They’re worse than you complaining about guitars vs. organs- in our passage today, they’re 24 hours out of Egypt and already they’re complaining to God about the accommodations.

Saints?

500 years ago this week, Martin Luther, who had a mouth dirtier than mine and a prejudice against Jews that would make Richard Spencer applaud, nailed 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, provoking the Protestant Reformation.

1 of Luther’s 95 theses was a protest against the medieval Catholic Church’s teaching on how a saint was made, a protest against who the Church said qualified to be called one.

If you look at church art from the era- and the reason that Luther and the Protestants tore it all down- saints were always painted as having larger halos than everyone else. The bigger halos reflected the Catholic teaching that saints are those heroes who can stand before a holy God based on the merit of their own righteousness.

Saints got the bigger halos because they were the champions of faith, persons of exceptional piety, examples of extraordinary virtue.

Nonsense.

Martin Luther said that whenever you start evaluating yourself, measuring your vice and virtue relative to another, you’re in the territory of the Law not the Gospel.

According to the Gospel-

Saints are not those people who’ve earned bigger halos.
Saints are not those people who can stand before God better than us because of what they did.

Saints are not examples of godly living. They’re not role models of righteousness. They’re not people who are good or do good; in fact, according to the Bible our goodness is usually an obstacle to God’s grace not evidence of it.

Are some of the saints examples of godly living and models of righteousness? Are some of them good people who’ve done good with their lives?

Sure.

Of course.

Obviously.

But that’s not what makes them saints.

Saints are not people running after God; they’re people that God in Jesus Christ has mowed down, killing them and making them alive again with his word, with water, with wine and bread.

Saints are saints because God has sainted them, sanctified them, declared them something they are not apart from Jesus Christ: holy and righteous.

That’s what the word sanctus means, from which we get the word saint. It means holy.

Saints are not role models of righteousness. Saints are those who know they are not righteous

Saints are those who know they are not righteous in themselves but trust-
pay attention-
they have been declared righteous by God.

That’s how the Apostle Paul can address his letter thus: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus…”  Read the rest of the letter. The Church at Corinth was more messed up (in a bible-bad kind of way) than an Anthony Scaramucci family chapel.

     And yet Paul calls them saints.

Saints are not sinless role models of righteousness. Saints are sinners who know they are the latter and not the former, who know that, on their own, they don’t deserve any sized halo. Saints are sinners who know we’re no better than rocks that God’s got to crack open himself if anything life-giving is going to come out.

Saints are not those who champion the faith. They’re those who know that Christ is the friend of sinners.

Saints are sinners who know they are not righteous but trust that by the blood of the cross God credits Christ’s righteousness to them.

Which is the Apostle Paul’s way of saying what the Apostle Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys said on the Pet Sounds album (himself a pretty spectacular sinner). 

The Apostle Brian Wilson sang: “God only knows what I’d be without you…”

That kind of credit to whom credit is due, that’s All Saints.

Luther tore down all the icons with the outsized halos because it grates against the Gospel.

Saints do not become saints by their faith or their merit.
     They are made saints by the merit of Christ’s faithfulness alone.

Christians do not become saints. Really, saint is but another word for Christian. Christ makes saints by becoming our sin so that his righteousness might be reckoned to us. We do not become righteous; his righteousness is credited to us.

It’s called All Saints Sunday for a reason. All of us, we’re all sinners that God calls saints. All of us who trust this promise.

Whether you feel or seem or act like one or not.

     Because God forbid that the truth of the Gospel would hinge on how you feel or seem or act or on the strength of what you believe.

Mary Karr, the Catholic poet, writes:

“After years of being a Christian I realized one day I only wanted to kill some of the people on the subway in the morning; whereas, before I was a Christian I wanted to kill every single one of them.”

Even though she’s a Catholic, what Mary Karr expresses there in her lessened inclination to murder is the Reformation doctrine simul iustus et peccator, which is a fancy Latin catchphrase meaning “at once justified and a sinner.”

That is, we are always simultaneously sinful and justified by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. We do not ever advance beyond the Ying/Yang of that simultaneity. We are all always and at once saints and sinners. They’re not at all mutually exclusive terms.

Like that guy tells McCauley Culkin in Home Alone said, we’re never no better than angels with dirty wings.

And this is not a disappointment or a deficiency, it’s the Gospel.

It’s the good news:
 you never will be more perfect than you already are in Jesus Christ.

Sure, you’re a sinner- no need to lie or pretend you’re someone you’re not. Sure, you’re a sinner, but simultaneously you have all of Christ’s righteousness already.

Just as bread and wine can convey God’s grace without God’s grace destroying the creatures of bread and wine, so too, Christ’s righteousness can convey to you without destroying you.

So that-

Simultaneous to your poverty- your doubts and your unbelief, your mistakes and your bad character, your apathy and your infidelity- simultaneous to your impoverishment, you already possess the full riches of Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther said the gift of Christ’s righteousness to sinners- it’s like two people who each possess 100 gold coins.

The one may carry them in a dirty paper sack, the other may keep them in a gilded fortress.

But for all that, no matter the condition of the vessel, each of them possess the same entire treasure.

One may look rich, the other like a pauper, but they both possess everything.

The gift we’ve been given, Christ’s righteousness, it’s ours, all of it ours, whether your doubts are like mustard seeds or as mighty as a mountain, whether the faith you carry it in is like a castle or a crappy sack, whether you’re a lot more sinner than you feel a saint- it’s yours, Christ’s righteousness, all of it.

Already and for always.

What makes All Saints a celebration of the Gospel, isn’t the message: Do better, be better, believe better.

The message of All Saints isn’t:
Shape up, God’s disappointed in you.
Be like those guys with the big halos.

The All Saints tagline isn’t the Army’s- we’re not exhorting you to be all you can be.

That’s the Law speaking not the Gospel.

No, what makes All Saints a celebration of the Gospel isn’t even the message: Become what you already are. There’s no becoming necessary.

What makes All Saints Gospel is the message: You are.

Now. Already and forever. You are: Holy and righteous.

You are: a saint.

You are now the Bride of Christ betrothed by his blood- whether you feel like it or not.

Such that as Steven Paulson says, you might as well shave your legs and put on lipstick because he’s already made you his beloved.

All Saints is about the objective comfort of the Gospel.

All Saints is about what the 39 Articles of John Wesley’s Church calls the “sweet comfort” that the truth and measure of God’s righteousness given to you in Jesus Christ is not determined by the strength of your faith or the severity of your failures.

It’s true about you whether you feel it’s true or feel it’s false, no matter how much you sin, no matter what your sin- God calls you a saint.

The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians that that is your “inheritance.”

Notice, he doesn’t say it’s your wage or your reward.

That you have to earn.

Paul says it’s your inheritance.

An inheritance is earned by another and, my wife is an estate lawyer- she’ll tell you- inheritances are given.

Freely given.

And once they’re given- they’re the last and final word. It is finished.

An inheritance is given away.

And Ali will tell you, they’re given to all sorts of motley people who manifestly do not deserve them.

Speaking of Ali-

A couple of weeks ago, Ali and I both were talking about my book and my cancer at a church in Los Angeles.

And at one point, the pastor asked Ali: “Now that you’ve had this brush with death and grown so much closer to God and each other, how has Jason changed?”

And Ali thought a bit and offered a couple of answers of how she’s seen my faith deepened.

But then she paused, and smiled shyly just a little, and she said:

     “Of course, in a lot of ways, Jason is still the same asshole he was before.”

A couple of weeks ago, in that church, everyone laughed.

Today, on All Saints Sunday, imperfect people like me and Bud and Chuck and Diane and Claudia and Walt and whoever you lost this year whose name will be read in a different church, and, don’t kid yourself, you- we should say “Amen.”

Because…God only knows what we’d be…but in Christ he’s called us…saints.

 

 

 

Follow @cmsvoteup

Episode 122: Mike McCurry – From West Wing to Wesley

Just in time for Election Day ~
I had the opportunity to have Mike McCurry as a guest in my office late this summer for a conversation about faith and politics and Christian witness in the public square. And, of course, because my friend Johanna begged me to ask: CJ Cregg.

Mike McCurry was the White House Press Secretary during the Clinton administration and now teaches at Wesley Theological Seminary. The conversation covers a range of topics including Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing, the cynicism that comes with working for the government, fighting Newt Gingrich, the absence of faith in politics, and thoughts on A Way Forward through the sexuality impasse for the United Methodist Church.


A special thanks to my friend Scott Warner for hooking me up with the interview.

Mark you calendars…Saturday, December 16 in Alexandria, Va we’re going to do a live podcast with our friend Tripp Fuller of Home-brewed Christianity. Details to follow.

Give us a rating and review!!!
Help us reach more people: Give us 4 Stars and a good review there in the iTunes store. 

It’ll make it more likely more strangers and pilgrims will happen upon our meager podcast. ‘Like’ our Facebook Page too. You can find it here.

Help support the show!

This ain’t free or easy but it’s cheap to pitch in. Click here to become a patron of the podcasts.

Follow @cmsvoteup

(her)men*you*tics: epiclesis

“Pour out your Holy Spirit on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the Body and Blood of Christ…”




The epiclesis is when we invoke at table the coming down of the condescending God. Moving into the E’s, Dr. Johanna defines ‘epiclesis’  and Teer and I attempt to tell you why you should care about it.

And mark you calendars…Saturday, December 16 in Alexandria, Va we’re going to do a live podcast with our friend Tripp Fuller of Home-brewed Christianity. Details to follow.

Give us a rating and review!!!
Help us reach more people: Give us 4 Stars and a good review there in the iTunes store. 

It’ll make it more likely more strangers and pilgrims will happen upon our meager podcast. ‘Like’ our Facebook Page too. You can find it here.

Help support the show!

This ain’t free or easy but it’s cheap to pitch in. Click here to become a patron of the podcasts.

Follow @cmsvoteup

Episode 121: Reformation Day Bonus with Fleming Rutledge

On the 500th Anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses, Jason, Teer, and Johanna talk with the Beyonce of Anglicanism, Fleming Rutledge, about ongoing relevance of Protestantism’s primary message of grace and God’s agency, the bad theology behind “leaning into” our baptisms, and how the Feast of Pelagius is an every Sunday celebration in the mainline church.




Give us a rating and review!!!

Help us reach more people:  Give us 4 Stars and a good review there in the iTunes store. 

It’ll make it more likely more strangers and pilgrims will happen upon our meager podcast. ‘Like’ our Facebook Page too. You can find it here.

Help support the show!

This ain’t free or easy but it’s cheap to pitch in. Click here to become a patron of the podcasts.

 
Follow @cmsvoteup