Jason Micheli's Blog, page 18

Christ's Rabble

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I’ve seen images like this one creep across “Christian” social media since the United States evidently switched to the bad guy’s side this week. Self-professed Christians who parrot talking points from the Kremlin (because that is what their political tribe and its leader now demand) do more than err for the sake of worldly aims.

They are false.

“Although they live with the appearance of piety,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “they are liars.”

I’ve continued to dwell on Bonhoeffer’s treatment of false teachers in his lectures contained in Theological Education at Finkenwalde: 1935-1937. False teachers, Bonhoeffer says, turn away from “sound doctrine” to peddle their own, “self-made ideas, problems, and teaching.” Such false teachers, Bonhoeffer teaches, perform the faith when in reality “they are only moving from sick faith to sick holiness and infecting others in the process.”

We’re getting a lot of sick on us.

The desire to innovate the rather simple gospel promise and to add other worldviews, politics, and ideologies to the faith (e.g., the felt urgency to justify Russia’s causas belli) belies a fundamental error; namely, the presumption that being a Christian is easy and that Christianity can comport neatly with one’s a priori chosen political affiliation.

Friedrich Nietzsche said the fatal problem with Christianity is that there has only been one real Christian in human history.

He died on the cross.

Apparently, he was unfamiliar with the communion of saints, but his point nevertheless stands.

A former teacher of mine, David Bentley Hart, writes that when he finished translating the New Testament, the work left him with a deep sense of melancholy, along with the suspicion that most of us who go by the name Christian ought to give up the pretense of wanting to be Christian. Notice the distinction. He didn't say that we should give up the pretense of being Christian. He said we should give up the pretense of wanting to be Christian.

“Would we ever truly desire to be the kinds of people that the New Testament describes as fitting the pattern of life in Christ?” he asks.

And before you answer, consider the new way of life Christ gave his community to live. Christ gave us a new way to deal with offenders. By loving them. Christ gave us a new way to deal with violence. By suffering. Christ gave us a new way to deal with sinners. By eating with them. Christ gave us a new way to deal with money. By sharing it. Christ gave us a new way to deal with debt. By forgiving it. Christ gave us a new way to deal with enemies. By dying for them. Christ gave us a new way to deal with a corrupt society. By embodying the new age, not smashing the old.

This is why, as St. Luke reports without embarrassment or hedging, after the resurrection, the price to become a Christian was that you sell all your property and possessions, distribute the proceeds to the poor, and then rely on the mutual support of the community for your needs. Barnabas, for example, on becoming a Christian cashed in his 401k and handed over all the money to the body of Christ.

Just imagine the character a community would need to exemplify for the public in order for a stranger to trust it with all of their needs.

And it wasn't just money. Upon conversion and baptism, Roman soldiers and gladiators put away their swords and their uniforms and they found new work. For the earliest generations of Christians, the church was an alternative community with no second generation members. For it grew not through family, but through witness and conversion.

Christians were the alternative Christ had made possible in the world through his death and resurrection.

Thus, they took Christ at his word, loving their enemies and turning the other cheek and forgiving seventy times seven times, all the way to crosses of their own.

Thus, David Hart notes, the first Christians were a company of “extremists, radical in their rejection of the values and priorities of society, not only at its most degenerate, but often at its most reasonable and decent.”

They were rabble, he writes, a disorderly crowd. They lightly cast off all their prior loyalties and attachments, religion and empire and nation, tribe, family and safety. They did so, argues, because one thing that is in remarkably short supply in the New Testament is common sense.

One thing that is in remarkably short supply in the New Testament is common sense.

The Gospels, the Epistles, the Book of Acts, Revelation, all of them are, “relentless torrents of exorbitance and extremism in which there are no comfortable medians, no areas of shade for everything is cast in the harsh and clarifying light of Christ's returning reign.”

In other words, the communities of the New Testament exemplify life lived according to the future. Life lived as citizens of a kingdom not yet here, but near. “To be the kinds of people the New Testament affirms,” David Hart concludes in his Preface to the New Testament, “to be those kinds of people, we would have to become strangers and exiles.” he writes.

Whereas false believers wish to fit their Christianity into their self-selected tribes, the New Testament demands that disciples live as sojourners on the earth, resident aliens in whatever land in which we find ourselves.

According to 1 Peter, this is exactly who God has already made us in Jesus Christ, Sojourners of the son elected by the father from before the foundation of the world. To live as such sojourners is to relinquish the desire for history to come out according to our politics. It is to let go of the need to win.

As biblical scholar Brad East says:

“Christians must be on principle—in imitation of Christ and the apostles and all the martyrs—willing to lose. If we ever see a temporal, political cause as so important that we would be unwilling to accept loss, then we have fundamentally mistaken our calling and mission as disciples of Christ.

Why?

Because we follow someone who LOST.

We follow someone who was arrested, and interrogated, and tortured unjustly, and whose followers suffered the same fate.”

To follow someone who lost and suffered in the losing is to raise my teacher’s question once again, “Would we ever truly desire to be the kinds of people that the New Testament describes as fitting the pattern of life in Christ?”

It is much, much easier to be a Democrat or a Republican.

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We are Free to No Longer be Keyboard Warriors

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On Sunday a parishioner, who has been reading Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pressed a question after worship and then followed up with an email to me later that night:

“You mentioned this morning how Bonhoeffer is often used by people on different sides of the political-theological spectrum to justify their own views (or so I understood). For a while I have been thinking the same thing about Christianity in general.

I'm sure this question must come up a lot:

How do we follow Christ if people can invoke Jesus to justify taking pretty much any path?

Even priests in the same denomination can't seem to agree. Take the immigration debate. I read an article on Word on Fire where they seem to agree with the view that we should look at our family and closest neighbors first. But if I go to another Catholic publication, like America magazine, they go in an entirely different direction.

This is just an example. I'm more interested in learning how God wants us to live as Christians, without ideological filters. I realize this might be impossible (and I realize my own biases can get in the way), but I would appreciate any thoughts on how I can at least aim for it.”

In part, I suspect the answer is a matter of where we fix our attention as Christians; that is, are we, out of our Christian convictions— sincere or performative— attempting to achieve something in the world or are we seeking to obey the Lord in our own lives and communities?

The former leads to self-justification, self-delusion, and impatience.

The latter is the long, slow work of following Jesus and discerning the Spirit from the spirits of this age.

For instance—The Christian problem in America is not that ̶D̶o̶n̶a̶l̶d̶ ̶T̶r̶u̶m̶p̶ Elon Musk rules from the White House. The Christian problem in America is that there are so many false teachers in the churches of America.

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Here We Still Stand

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Today is the commemoration of Martin Luther, renewer of the Church. Luther died in his birth city, Eisleben, on February 18, 1546, while on a mission to resolve a political dispute among the dukes of Mansfeld. He’d been in ill health for years (to which some scholars attribute his tendency toward bilious outbursts and scurrilous writings. At one point Luther while on the road wrote home to his beloved wife Katie that he’d tried a recipe she’d sent him for one his ailments. His evaluation: “Your manure cure didn’t work.”

Another time, while suffering kidney stones on a managerial trip far from Wittenberg, his colleagues thought he would die, so they bundled him into a cart to tote him home. They pumped him full of fluid in the hopes that an upstream river would break open his dammed urinary tract. Apparently, the jostling of the cart ride provided enough vibration that the stone broke apart and in the night he “made water” (as they used to say), eliminating copious amounts of urine.

All this is to say that Luther’s death was not unexpected. He’d spent the day in Eisleben in negotiations and preached his final sermon. During the night as his companions followed his basic outline in his “Sermon on Preparing to Die” from 25 years earlier, asking if he still looked only to Christ for his righteousness and preaching God’s promises to him. When he breathed his last, they found a slip of paper in a pocket on which he’d jotted these words: “Wir sind Bettler. Das ist wahr” (We are beggars. That is true.” To the last in his assertion of his own low anthropology and high Christology, Luther consistently pointed to Christ’s promises. (You can see a copy of the death mask they made of Luther’s face and hands here.)

So to commemorate Luther, here is a document that includes his little autobiographical snippet from the Complete Latin Writings (think of it as his greatest hits). It was written in the year before he died and looks back at that axial point when everything broke open for him.

Something for you to consider:

When have you had a similar experience in which the enormity of God’s grace in the person of Jesus has come clear for you?

from Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings (1545)

Meanwhile, I had already during that year returned to interpret the Psalter anew. I had confidence in the fact that I was more skilful, after I had lectured in the university on St. Paul’s epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the one to the Hebrews. I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1[:17], “In it the righteousness of God is revealed,” that had stood in my way. For I hated that word “righteousness of God,” which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ ” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise. Later I read Augustine’s The Spirit and the Letter, where contrary to hope I found that he, too, interpreted God’s righteousness in a similar way, as the righteousness with which God clothes us when he justifies us. Although this was heretofore said imperfectly and he did not explain all things concerning imputation clearly, it nevertheless was pleasing that God’s righteousness with which we are justified was taught. Armed more fully with these thoughts, I began a second time to interpret the Psalter. And the work would have grown into a large commentary, if I had not again been compelled to leave the work begun, because Emperor Charles V in the following year convened the diet at Worms.

I relate these things, good reader, so that, if you are a reader of my puny works, you may keep in mind, that, as I said above, I was all alone and one of those who, as Augustine says of himself, have become proficient by writing and teaching. I was not one of those who from nothing suddenly become the topmost, though they are nothing, neither have labored, nor been tempted, nor become experienced, but have with one look at the Scriptures exhausted their entire spirit.

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"The Church Preaches the Law Only as the Law Fulfilled in Jesus Christ"

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Last Sunday’s lectionary scriptures lured many public proclaimers of the gospel to preach instead the law, skewering ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶s̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶ Elon Musk.

The passages certainly were tempting for such a task:

“Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers.”

— Psalm 1

“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”

— Luke 6

Nevertheless!

Christ Jesus should be more than source material for political hot takes. That is, you don’t get the afflict the comfortable in the way Jesus does in the gospels. After all, there is no sin but forgiven sin, and there is no commandment that has not been fulfilled already in the obedience of Christ. We do not use the law; he uses it as we preach the word.

This coming Sunday’s texts present another daunting challenge for preachers to resist flinching and proclaim a promise from the gospel rather than the threat of the law:

“Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass.”

— Psalm 37

“Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you…”

— Luke 6

Our times, the Times, and the texts all demand that proclaimers discern rightly how the church should preach the law. In 1936, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer— teaching at the underground seminary in Finkenwalde— engaged in a disputation with Gerhard Ebeling on how preachers of the gospel handle God’s first word, the law. The Gestapo closed the seminary a year after Bonhoeffer offered the following theses on preaching the law.

I’ve paraphrased them so:

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Praying with Opened Eyes

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Psalm 23

Gerhard Von Rad was a Lutheran curate and a member of the dissident Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Von Rad was also a biblical scholar who felt called by the LORD to teach the Old Testament, a specialty which put him at odds with the antisemitic ethos that had captured the German academy. One of his many books is a collection of sermons, the introduction of which is an address to seminary students entitled, “About Exegesis and Preaching.”

To future proclaimers at Princeton Theological Seminary, Von Rad posited the following:

“The great discovery which all of you must make in preaching is that the texts themselves actually speak. The prophet Isaiah must have experienced something like a panting and groaning on God’s part when he was silent for a while! The best sermons are those in which one notes the preacher’s own surprise that— and how— the text suddenly began to speak. . . . I give you beginners about ten to twenty sermons during which you will repeat all of what you have learned. Then you will have preached yourselves out. You will have nothing left to preach worth any hearer’s time and attention. Then if you do not make the discovery that every text wants to speak for itself, you are lost. We are dealing with that word that is sharper than a two-edged sword.”

The scriptures wants to speak for themselves.The Word wants to word you.

If the twenty-third psalm wants to have a word of its own, then what does it wish to say? Of all its images, claims, and promises what is the one word it wants to speak? It’s hiding in plain sight at the center. The Lord Jesus hides his promise smack dab in the middle of David’s prayer. There are precisely twenty-six Hebrew words before it and twenty-six Hebrew words after it. It is the numerical heart of the psalm. And it is point at which third person profession gives way to second person address; it is the place where speaking of God turns to speaking to God.

What the Word wants to speak for itself are four little words.

“You are with me.”

You cannot see this in English, but in Hebrew the message is clear. Whether we are in the valley of the shadow of death or surrounded by enemies, the abiding presence of the LORD with you is the beating heart of the poem. Left to talk by itself, this is what this scripture wants to say, “You are with me.”

But how?

In what way is the LORD always nevertheless with us? Herein lies the difficulty in the professor’s prescription to preachers. When we leave the scriptures to speak for themselves, it is not always clear what they mean by what they say. These four little words at the numerical heart of the psalm sound like a basic statement of faith, yet they recur nowhere else in the Bible’s prayerbook.

You are with me.

kî-ʾattâ ʿimmādî

But how?

How is he with you?

The Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, attempts to elide the confusion by rendering verse four, “Your word is my help.” Saint Augustine tried to resolve the question latent in the claim by paraphrasing the verse, “You live in my heart through faith.” But if the LORD is present to me merely inside of me, then it is not clear how he is able to correct my errant ways with his staff or with his rod scare off those who would do me harm. The Shepherd’s crook and stick are comforting precisely because they are physical not spiritual.

The LORD who is with me is with me.

Not in me.

Whyever would you want a god whose presence to you is only spiritual? A spiritual relationship with God could never be an authentic relationship.The LORD who is with me is with me.

But how?

“God is with us,” we say.

“The LORD be with you,” I call.

“And also with you,” you respond.

Where?

How?

We employ this language all the time without stopping to ask what it means. If “you are with me” is what this scripture wants us to hear, what does it mean by what it says?

There is a woman who worships with us online. Susan lives in Colorado. She is a retired seminary professor and pastoral counselor. Often on Sundays or Mondays she will send me a note. Her brave candor and deep faith astonish me.

Earlier this week, Susan responded to the sermon thusly:

“Dear Jason,

First, I want you to know I pray for you. I prayed for you this morning. It is clear to me you are in a dance nobody wants to get asked to dance.

I have written you before about my adult children— suffering with addiction and mental illness. Just when I thought I was catching my breath, last week my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I have wondered why so much of the suffering I am in the midst of has to do with broken brains— altered thinking, anxious thinking, and now Alzheimer's thinking.

We have this saying in my Twelve Step meeting (we have a lot of sayings): "Our best thinking got us here." Ha! I have always thought I was pretty smart. Straight A's in school. Graduated magna cum laude. I'm an 8 on the Enneagram (I have wondered if you might be also)— The Challenger.

Well, God has bested me with challenges that I can't challenge. He has actually whispered to me, "Will you stop trying to figure things out? I just want you to dance with me." I grew up Baptist. I'd rather debate than dance any day.

But I can't debate anymore. I am pressed right up against the barbed wire and God is asking me to dance. And it is not pretty. I truly no longer know what to do, and that is when (of all times!) I hear Him say, "There she is - she doesn't know what step to take next. This is what I am learning: the only way to face cancer, addiction, mental breakdowns, Alzheimers is to get into Jesus.

— Susan”

Pay attention to her choice of prepositions, “The only way to face cancer, addiction, mental breakdowns, Alzheimers is to get into Jesus.”

After King David defeats the Philistines, he and his army of thirty thousand aim to escort the ark of God to Jerusalem. But for reasons not germane to today David decides otherwise. “David was not willing,” notice the language, “to take the LORD in to the city of David.” David leaves the ark with Obed-edom the Gittite. And for three months— again, notice the language— “The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household.”

You are with me.

The LORD blessed Obed-edom because the LORD was living there!

When David hears the news of Obed-edom’s blessings, he returns to fetch the ark; whereupon, the word of the LORD pledges a covenant with David:

“Would you build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling…Now, therefore…’Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And wherever you went, I have been with you…”

Literally, the LORD was with David.With him not in him.

With him.

Not in some vague, numinous, spiritual way.

But physically, tangibly.

Whether in the in the valley of the shadow of death or surrounded by enemies or content along the quiet waters, David could know the LORD was with him because God had an address.

As the Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod

“Now of course God’s dwelling in the temple does not exclude the truth that he also dwells everywhere else. He also dwells in any part of the universe. There is no place in which God is not present. But this truth must be combined with the insistence that there is a place where God dwells embodied and that place is Jerusalem. He dwells in Number One Har Habayit Street— Number One Temple Mount Street. It is a real dwelling and for every Jew, the sanctity of the land of Israel derives from the sanctity of Jerusalem, and the sanctity of Jerusalem derives from the sanctity of the temple, and the sanctity of the temple derives from the sanctity of the holy of holies where [still] God dwells.”

2 Samuel 6-7 wants to speak for itself, and what it says is that David could know the LORD was with him because God had an address.

God was locatable.He is ever thus.

My friend Adam teaches theology at the University of Nottingham in England. His move overseas has meant a transfer from the Lutheran Church to the Church of England.

Last Sunday he wrote that he had witnessed a miracle at his new church:

“Last night I witnessed a miracle, though nothing that might seem too out of the ordinary from a merely human perspective. Thirty people, all but a few of them adults, were confirmed in the Church of England at a combined service for Nottingham city churches. Twenty-two of the thirty new Christians were Iranians from non-Christian backgrounds. Mohammed (all sorts of spellings) may be the most popular male baby name in the UK, but it was also the most popular name for Anglican confirmands yesterday.

There were three of them.

As part of the rite, I heard a testimony from an Iranian woman who had been married off below even the legal age for marriage in Iran— she was a true child bride— got pregnant extremely young, wasn't cared for by family, and lost the child and her own fertility in an accident on account of that lack of care. Then her husband divorced her, so she was truly alone.

She fled Iran, and she began to encounter Christians. The miracle in her life— it was the joy of Christians, their care and compassion for her, the way men and women could speak honestly to one another about their fears and their sins, their willingness to pray with one another for one another, their ability to listen to each other's voices, and share Jesus.

About Jesus, she testified: ”He set me free."

That's who he really is— or where he is, apparently even in the strange, deeply flawed world of the Church of England.”

Once again—

Take note of Adam’s choice of adverb, “That's where he is.”And pay attention to how he described the miracle that happened in her life, “Their ability to share Jesus.”Not share about Jesus.Share Jesus.As though Jesus lived there and made himself available to them all.

“The only way to face cancer, addiction, mental breakdowns, Alzheimers, hell is to get into Jesus.”

The miracle Adam witnessed is not simply that a community of Christians shepherded a hell-singed woman to faith in Christ.

The miracle Adam witnessed is the mystery that somehow that community of Christians is the body of the Risen and Crucified Christ.

We commit an odd act every Sunday.

In the rule of faith, as one item of our belief— without which one is not a Christian— we confess our faith in the church. Though the creed directs us to profess our belief in God the Creator, the creed does not posit that we should place our faith in the world. But we do place our faith in the church. The church is not a normal community of this world but is herself the content of our belief.

Oddly, we confess our faith in the church.

The point is theologically elementary and basic to the New Testament. Christ is the LORD’s located presence in the world. To be located in the world, Jesus must have a body. The church, the scriptures reveal, is that body of Christ: “The Father of glory put all things under Christ’s feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

To turn that announcement into a metaphor is to make an interpretative move not warranted by the text— you have to let the text speak for itself!

That the church just is the body Mary’s boy takes after Easter is how Paul— who was not present on Good Friday— can declare to the churches in Galatia, “I have been crucified with Christ.”

That the church is the body of the Risen Jesus is the cornerstone of Paul’s theology of baptism, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” “You have died,” Paul proclaims to the Colossians, "and your life is hidden with Christ.”

Again, let the word speak what it wants to say!

These are not mere metaphors.

God is not nowhere in the world.

When I say “The Lord be with you” and you respond “And also with you,” we are not casting a wish. We are naming reality. Truly, we should let the Great Thanksgiving govern all our corporate prayers. For if we are the body of him who is our head, then we should pray with our eyes open.

When we pray, we should look at one another.We are Jesus.

Again, shirk not from the claims of scripture.

Let the texts speak for themselves!

Which means, if you think sinners like us cannot possibly constitute God’s body, then, quite simply, the god you are worshipping is an idol. And you should repent and turn to the true God.

That we ourselves are how he is with us is at the heart of the central teaching in the Epistle to the Corinthians.

The church father John of Damascus let those passages speak for themselves when he wrote:

“The Eucharist is called “communion” and truly it is. For through it we both commune with Christ and share in his body as well as in his deity, and commune and are united with one another. For as we eat of one loaf we become one body and one blood of Christ and members of one another. Thus we may be called co- embodiments of Christ.”

The church father Irenaeus of Lyons makes the same precise point:

“The God who becomes what we are is the God-man; what he becomes is what we actually are, fallen and passible man, condemned to death; and we become what he is, humans so united with God as to receive and bear God.”

We are not a country club!

We are not the Jesus Memorial Society!

We are not a Christ-flavored political movement!

We are his body!

Incidentally, this is why it is grave mistake to leave the church over political differences or social issues. These are the sinners he’s chosen to constitute his body; therefore, to leave the body is to walk away from Jesus.

To leave the body is to walk away from Jesus.

I understand that sounds offensive.

Just realize, what offends you is the incarnation.

Jesus makes himself available to us in loaf and cup; so that, Jesus can make himself available to the world in this body.

When I pray “For thou art with me,” I should be looking at you.

“There is no other way to know God; there is no other God to know.”

At the end of September, Susan sent me another note after worship.

She wrote:

“Dear Jason,

I'm sorry to hear you're a part of the PTSD club. As a therapist, I can tell you it's no joke. As a mother, I can tell you it's harrowing, unpredictable, and often unearths my mustard seed of faith.

It has been a season of it for me with both of my children— both of them somewhere in the process of addiction and recovery. I've written you before about my beautiful, brilliant son who has been in treatment for alcoholism (more off than on) for the past two and a half years.

And so every time he calls or there's a certain tone in his voice or life throws him a challenge, PTSD whispers: "Be afraid.The other shoe is about to drop. Again."

My son has been sober for the past six weeks. He's gone to church every Sunday. Last week he sent me this quotation from social media: “What made me love Christ wasn't that all of a sudden I started figuring out how to do life. What made me love Christ is that when I was at my worst, when I absolutely could not clean myself up— right at that moment, Christ said, “I'll take that one. That's the one I want.'"

Here I am, Jason, this raggedy mom who so often doesn't know what to say, whose heart is filled with lumpy anxiety, and whose head is filled with enough stories to create PTSD for years. I sorrow with you.

I hope with you. And I pray for you. There have been many dark days this year for me, but God has found ways to make windows. I am praying for windows for you too.

— Susan

These past few months I’ve come to depend on her notes. If you resist imposing your contemporary, pagan prejudices upon the texts, if you let the scriptures speak for themselves, the claim is clear (if incomprehensible). Someone like Susan just is how Jesus has chosen to be Jesus with us.

Jesus doesn’t stop being Immanuel.He just takes a different body.

As Robert Jenson puts the mystery:

“Where does the risen Christ turn to find himself? To believers gathered around loaf and cup. To the question “Who am I?” Jesus answers, “I am this community’s head. I am the one who died to gather them. I am the subject whose objectivity is this community.”

I am the subject whose objectivity is this community.

Shortly after I made it known that my cancer had come back with a vengeance, a friend— one of you— sent me a sympathy card. On the front of the card, a cancer patient kneels on the floor, gripping the sides of a toilet with both hands. A wheeled IV stands vigil next to her. An ink rendition of Jesus holds back the patient’s thinning hair from catching the sick. On the inside, the card offers a memory verse from the New Testament, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Now—

If Christ is with me merely in a metaphorical, spiritual sense, if Jesus is inside me, if he is in my heart by faith, if he is everywhere (unseeable, unhearable, untouchable), then that verse is a terrifically terrible law.

It is burdensome and accusatory; it is lethal to faith.

Because— trust me— I know what it feels like to think, “I can’t do all this.” And if I so think and Jesus is only inside me, then the problem is me.

But if you let the scripture speak for itself, Paul’s meaning is clear and incontrovertible, “I can do all things through [the body of] Christ who strengthens me.”

I can do it— through you and you and you and you and you. And you can do whatever gives you lumps of anxiety. You can do it through them. And as the communion prayer reminds us, the them that constitutes the church is a whole lot larger than just the living.

This is how Jesus is Jesus with us.

And that is no law.

Quite the opposite, it is a promise not a one of us deserves.

Some come to the table.

And as you come with hands held out, let your eyes follow suit.

Keep them open.

You thought you were coming to church today.

Though nothing might seem too out of the ordinary from a merely human perspective, today you got into Jesus. There is no other way to know God. There is no other God to know.

Just so—

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

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"You should cancel some OnlyFans subscriptions and buy a Bible."

If you appreciate the work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Seriously, do it!

After a cancer-caused hiatus, I resumed my weekly conversation with Rabbi Joseph. This week we discussed the Decalogue— this week’s Torah portion for Jews, sparking an idea for the two of us to begin discussing one another’s assigned lectionary readings moving forward.

Here is the article we discussed:

Did God Give Moses Ten Sayings, Ten Commandments, Or Just Ten Things? » Mosaic909KB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownloadShow Notes

Summary

In this conversation,

Jason Micheli and Rabbi Prof. Joseph Edelheit explore the intersection of personal challenges, faith, and moral responsibility. They discuss the significance of the Decalogue, the nature of law, and the importance of community and family in spiritual life. The dialogue also touches on contemporary issues, accountability, and the role of witnessing in today's society, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding of commandments and their implications in modern contexts. In this conversation, Rabbi Prof. Joseph Edelheit and Jason Micheli explore the ethical implications of media representation in conflict, the human cost of war, and the public's response to political rhetoric. They discuss the moral responsibilities of communities and the impact of social media on personal agency and intimacy. The dialogue emphasizes the need for critical engagement with digital culture and the importance of understanding the complexities of human relationships in the context of modern challenges.

Takeaways

The importance of friendship during personal challenges.

Redemption from slavery carries a moral responsibility.

Understanding the silent letters in God's commandments.

Laws serve to advance moral relationships.

Family is a cornerstone of civilization.

Modern distractions can lead us away from spiritual truths.

Witnessing requires accountability and presence.

The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood in translation.

Leadership involves raising others to share responsibilities.

Current events challenge our understanding of faith and morality. Media's role in conflict raises ethical questions.

Witnessing indecency in war challenges our moral compass.

Public outrage can be inconsistent and unpredictable.

Communities must cultivate virtues to combat moral decay.

Social media influences perceptions of reality and agency.

Intimacy and agency are complex in the digital age.

The impact of propaganda on public perception is profound.

Moral responsibility extends to all victims of conflict.

Understanding the discourse is crucial for engagement.

Navigating personal desires in a digital world is challenging.

Sound Bites

"I miss just having access to my friend."

"We have credit cards. We have algorithms."

"The issue is not merely perjury."

"What should a media site do?"

"It's a vulgarity."

"Are we bearing false witness?"

"Communities do not live by avoiding crimes."

"It's why those second five are called mores."

"You're not entitled to any of it."

"You should cancel some OnlyFans subscriptions."

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Hitmen and Midwives: Thesis #9

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I am the Preacher-in-Residence for the Iowa Preachers Project, an initiative led by my friend Ken Sundet Jones. You can find out more about it here.

In part, the project is the fruit of a series of conversations Ken and I began two years ago. We called them “Hitmen and Midwives: 9.5 Theses on Preaching,” taking the idea both from Luther’s 95 Theses and from scripture’s self-description of the word, “I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal.”

Our friend and IPP staff person, Joshua Retterer joined us to discuss Thesis #9:

Faithful preaching assesses its effectiveness not by worldly results but recognizes the preached word as a planting of God’s promise that will grow unseen in those in whom it is planted.

And so you don’t have to go looking through Substack, here are the previous conversations:

Thesis #8:

Tamed Cynic Hitmen and MidwivesIf you appreciate the work, consider becoming a paid subscriber… Listen now3 months ago · 4 likes · 5 comments · Jason Micheli

Thesis #7:

Tamed CynicHitmen and MidwivesTamed Cynic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and all content, consider becoming a paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 1 like · Jason Micheli

Thesis #6:

Tamed CynicHitmen and MidwivesTamed Cynic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and all content, consider becoming a paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 1 like · Jason Micheli

Thesis #5:

Tamed CynicHitmen and MidwivesTamed Cynic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and all content, consider becoming a paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Jason Micheli

Thesis #4:

Tamed CynicHitmen and MidwivesTamed Cynic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and all content, consider becoming a paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 2 likes · Jason Micheli

Thesis #3:

Tamed CynicHitmen and MidwivesI’ve started a new series talking about preaching with preachers and those who suffer preachers. My friend Dr. Ken Jones have kicked off the project by discussing what we’re calling the 9.5 Theses on Preaching…Read more2 years ago · 4 likes · Jason Micheli

Thesis #2:

Tamed CynicHitmen and Midwives: Talking Preaching with PreachersJason Micheli is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 5 likes · Jason Micheli

Thesis #1:

Tamed CynicHitmen and Midwives: Talking Preaching with PreachersJason Micheli is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 7 likes · 4 comments · Jason Micheli

And here’s a bonus conversation with Father Paul Nesta:

Tamed CynicHitmen and MidwivesJason Micheli is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…Read more2 years ago · 3 likes · Jason Micheli

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Hope Not Hortatory is Our Responsibility to the World

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As I wrote earlier this week in light of Sunday’s lectionary readings, the correlative to the hope of resurrection is an understanding of sin as despair. Nihilism is the necessary predicate to tread boldly the path of the wicked and sit in league with scoffers. It is remarkable to me— and surely an indication of our predicament— that few observers have made the connections between American society’s rapid decline in religious belief and its concurrent increase in deaths of despair, cultural antagonism, vice-signaling, political grift, and rank bullshit.

That the zone is flooded with shit, in other words, is due to our collective nihilism.

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Forgiveness is a Political Matter

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Here are a few choice quotes from Capon’s Mystery of Christ:

“The truth that makes us free is always ticking away like a time bomb in the basement of everybody’s church. And that truth isn’t a bunch of ideas. It’s Jesus. Sooner or later, if we just sit still and listen, he’ll blow the lid off any prison we’ve built.”

“Forgiveness, therefore, is not a psychological matter, or a religious matter, or a “spiritual” matter: it’s a political matter.”

“Consider the scene in church on a Sunday. Here are a bunch of people, more or less dressed to the nines, in an expensive building, with maybe very spectacular music and even a paid choir, deliberately celebrating the worst thing the human race — which includes them — has ever done: the murder of God Incarnate. “Do you see the point? They’ve taken the rottenest thing that ever happened and reinstalled it in their lives as a joyful remembrance. They haven’t run away from the evil; they’ve actually made it the centerpiece of their celebration. They’ve taken what should have caused only alienation, and, by the pardon that flows from it to them, they’ve turned it into a festival of reconciliation.” “But I don’t know if I believe that. The reconciliation, I mean.” “You could decide to. We’re back at faith again, you see. In the long run, it’s the only product I’ve got in the store.””

Show Notes

Summary

This conversation delves into the themes of grief, loss, and forgiveness through the lens of Mabel's journey. The speakers explore personal experiences of grief, the role of faith in healing, and the importance of community support. They discuss the political dimensions of forgiveness and the nature of God's grace, emphasizing the need for rituals in processing grief. The conversation concludes with reflections on the communal aspects of healing and the ongoing journey of faith.

Takeaways

Grief is a common experience that can be isolating.

Forgiveness is essential for healing but can be complex.

Personal experiences of loss shape our understanding of grief.

Faith plays a crucial role in navigating grief and loss.

Community support is vital in the healing process.

Rituals help us remember and process our grief.

The nature of God is rooted in love and grace.

Understanding our role in the community can aid healing.

The political dimensions of forgiveness impact our relationships.

Grief can lead to deeper connections with others and with God.

Sound Bites

"I think she was well insulated."

"Grief was not the dominant motif."

"Don't let my death be yours."

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This Hope is No Bastard, Cheat, or Tease

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My friend Ken Sundet Jones preaches the chapel sermon today at Grand View University.

Here is the text:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

My wife Mary has always believed that, in spite of it having 28-ish days, February is without a doubt the longest month of the year. It’s when you really start getting fed up with the cold, the wind, the snow, and those teeny steps you have to take to avoid slipping on ice. You begin to long for bright winter sun to turn to late spring car-windows-down-and-music-blaring sunshine and heat, blessed heat. Just one little sign would help you get through February.

For about a dozen years my faculty office was in the basement of Jenson Hall, that old former Danish nursing home next door that itself nowadays qualifies as elderly. At the end of a February day I’d bundle up and head out to my car in the lot behind Viking House. I learned through the years that toward the end of the month I ought to keep my eyes open for the sign that late-winter’s interminable-seeming winter might be done.

Usually around the last week of February little bits of green would peek out of the unlandscaped grass and weeds at the back of Viking House. Over a few days they’d develop into distinct blades, and one glorious day I’d find pink and purple crocus blossoms. I’d always snap a pic and text it to my wife, saying, “Our long, dark season will have an end. The crocuses have sprung up!”

Today's reading is a passage about Jesus‘ crucifixion that rarely gets read in worship in church. Preachers, including this one, have a curious aversion to this version of the story of our Lord‘s self-sacrifice. The good news is there in all four gospels, and Paul sums it all up in his letter to the believers in Rome: “For God proves his love for us in that, while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.”

That’s clear in Matthew, but right in the middle of telling us about that holy, last, desperate breath on the cross and the first moment of divine silence, he tosses in these details about the earthquake, the curtain temple being torn in two, and tombs being cracked open like a neglected textbook the night before an exam. What are we to make of these curious details?

If Matthew had been writing today, when he got to the part about holy people who had died being raised up, he probably would have added a “Spoiler alert!” in big bold letters. He’s stealing the thunder from the end of his own story when the seal on Jesus’ tomb is broken open and the corpse of the carpenter who became what his executioners named him, the King of the Jews, gets raised with a new body.

Anyone who’s stood next to a loved one’s coffin and gazed with heartache at their loved one's lifeless body knows how unnatural and impossible it seems that this person whom they knew as alive and breathing is so stiff, cold, and unmoveable. But it seems just as impossible that anything different could come of death. Sure, we’ve heard rumors like what Matthew reports, but they’re only something we might nod at. For us, a corpse opening her eyes and stepping out of an opened coffin is only possible as a jump scare in Nosferatu and countless other cool horror movies for teens. But when an actual death has gut punched us? It’s a mere hope on the far horizon that we dare not let in, lest we add the salt of disappointment to the injury of death.

Fifteen years ago the quirky musician Ben Folds teamed up with the equally quirky novelist Nick Hornby to write an album of songs. One of them, “Picture Window,” is about that fear of opening up yourself to the possibility of an unlikely future. The song is sung by the mother whose cancer-stricken boy lies in a British hospital on New Year’s Eve. She looks out the hospital room’s picture window at the fireworks exploding with the hope of new starts on a new calendar year. Ben Folds sings, “You know what hope is / Hope is a bastard / Hope is a liar, a cheat and a tease/ Hope comes near you, kick its backside / Got no place in days like these.” How can we hope against hope for the unlikeliest end of our most dreaded stories?

And yet, there it is in Matthew: even before Jesus’ own resurrection, the divine power present in him from the beginning of the creation does something. It starts with the sound of a few threads at the top of a thick thirty-foot tall curtain that veiled the holiest room in Jerusalem’s ancient temple. Snip. Snap. And maybe even a twang. And it gathers force until the ripping joins with the rumbling of the earth. I experienced a 5.3 earthquake last summer in Tokyo, and I can you tell that these things are really loud. Matthew says the earthquake at the death of God was so loud and powerful that the little rip extended the thirty feet of the curtain down into the bowels of the earth, so that the stones sealing tombs were like mere eggshells and the closed eyelids of corpses opened and sealed mouths gasped open to breathe again. The long, dark season is over. The crocuses have sprung up!

The implications may be too great to hope for, like some fireworks seen from a pediatric cancer unit. But there is a smaller tomb that this announcement has even greater bearing on. It’s the one buried inside me and inside you. It’s the empty tomb buried in the deepest recesses of my very being that I fear can never actually be filled with anything resembling life and goodness, a grave full of shame and sorrow where I lie powerless to fix my messes and mend the stupid irreparable history I have behind me.

You know that tomb inside yourself. It’s the grave that is a close cousin to the Jerusalem tombs of the holy ones. What happens to Jesus on Good Friday and Easter isn’t just a story from history. It’s the very power of God breaking in from the future Last Day, a power so great and uncontainable and uncontrollable that a curtain is torn, a ripping is begun backward in time to first-century Jerusalem and to your own life this day.

The rift is aimed at opening your own grave that you’re powerless to unseal. It’s the promise that the God who once was sequestered behind a curtain is loose and looking for a grave like yours whose seeming solidity he laughs at and flings wide open. You think you have stuff inside you that can’t bear the light of day? Get ready, because Jesus has his sights set on you. This hope is no bastard, cheat or tease. The evidence lies in Matthew’s holy ones who are its first recipients. If the foundations of the earth tremble at his death and resurrection, your flimsy excuses and the cheap tin lock on your heart can’t keep him out. He’s set on opening you, too. And when he says, “Wake up, sleeper! Rise up from the dead!” I suggest you open your eyes, put forth your arms, and reach for the sun — or better yet, the s-o-n Son and his new dawn. He’s already named you holy, and the benefits of his death and resurrection are yours today. Your green blade arises right along with Good Friday’s risen ones, you human crocuses. And you are the sign, the blessing to the sin-sick world and to all beleaguered souls that their own long, dark season is at an end. Amen.

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