Water

I’ve probably spewed the facts here before, but up to 60% of an adult body is made of water, and about 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with it.  It is not scarce.  In fact, it is seemingly the first material used in creation, and God used a lot of it—in nature and in us.  In Genesis… at the beginning… God’s Spirit is hovering over the water.  In John, we learn that Jesus… God in human flesh—the Word… was present at creation.  And then Jesus not only allows himself to be drowned in the very thing from which all things came (by his eclectic cousin in his camel hair clothes with his locust lunch), but Jesus insists that this must be so to fulfill all righteousness. 

It’s overwhelming!

It’s overwhelming to me, sure; but more than that, it’s overwhelming to creation to such an extent that as Jesus comes out of the water, the heavens are torn open as the Spirit descends on him and God’s voice proclaims his sonship—his “beloved-ness!”

This is exciting stuff!  It’s a lot to take in!  And God offers us this same seal of identity…

Grace is a funny thing, and I am so thirsty…

L.

Creeds: It’s Almost Advent

We are so bad at waiting.  And by we, I mean me… but I also mean you.

So, it’s almost Advent.  Every time the liturgical season changes, I find myself saying, “This season is my favorite time of year!”

I say it about Lent and Christmas and Easter and even Ordinary Time.  Advent is no exception, and I’m laughing at myself just a little bit, because even though I claim to be a realist in theory and sometimes measure up closer to a pessimist in practice; as it turns out, I really do love the whole year!  I’m thankful for the changing of liturgical seasons to remind me of this. 

Today, I’ve been working on a sermon for November 26^th, the Sunday before Advent begins.  My local church has opted to extend the Advent season a bit in order to utilize a very beautiful art series, which requires a couple of extra weeks.  It seems we’re not waiting for the waiting!  Ironic.  With this in mind, it made sense for me to move on to the next phrases in the creeds, fully submersed in my own thoughts about how the conception of Christ came to be. 

The Apostles Creed:

“Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,”

The Nicene Creed:

“For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.”

Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, God incarnate, born to a virgin.   

Stop for a minute and think about that.  I mean, really think about it.  Don’t just skim over it, because that’s the temptation for a story so familiar.  This is unbelievable stuff!

Mary is totally perplexed and presumably terrified (the angel says, “Don’t be afraid”), and can we really blame her?  Yet I’m always amazed that she doesn’t say, “No.”

I want to be exceedingly clear that I think she could have.  Who are we to know if others did?  We have Mary’s narrative, because instead of running from what must have, undoubtedly, been the craziest thing she had ever experienced in her short life; she asked a question that seems to seal the deal.  “How can this be?”

Some translations go on to tell of the lack of impossibility with God, and I like those words.  They’re good words.  But there’s something particularly endearing about the NIV when the words are interpreted, instead, “No word from God will ever fail” (Luke 1:37, NIV).

Sometimes I’m not sure we can wrap our minds around impossible things, but I feel fairly confident that we can embrace the tension between failure and success, knowing full well that neither tends to look like anything we ever could have expected.

The word… or perhaps, the Word (Jesus) will not fail.

And with that, Mary offers consent.  “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38, NRSV), and the rest is history… and theology… and salvation… as God and humanity work together to birth redemption into the world.  (But not yet…  pause in the time of waiting that is quickly approaching to remember what it is to anticipate…)

 
L.

Jesus Ranks in the Top Ten...

A Thursday Theology guest post by, Phil Michaels:

“…you thought that I was one just like yourself…”

---Psalm 50:21b (inspired through Asaph)

Maybe there’s no God. Or, if there is a God, maybe that God is nothing at all like I thought.

But…for just a moment, if you will, bear with me, and let me go with the presumption that the Scripture that says, “God created humans in the image of God” is descriptive of a truth about all of us: We are like God. Most Christians, Jews, many Muslims, and a good number of other people ascribe to this as a truth, so I’m not alone here in going with a presumption that as much of 2/3 of the human population believes to be true (and no, that consensus doesn’t make it true (consensus never does)…but, let’s just go with it for a moment…)

This is not the same as saying we are God-like. It is to say, as the Scripture does, that we are made in God’s image (The precise Hebrew is “צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים‎,” or transliterated, “tzelem Elohim” – in Latin that’s “imago dei”; and for those who speak English, “the image of God”). We are “like God” but not “God-like.” There is much in us that bears the stamp, the image, the likeness of God…but there are also some qualities we do not bear. There is a difference, an otherness, between Creator and creation, between God, and us. We are the same, yet different.

Being human, we all make mistakes, and sometimes the mistake we make is the same one Asaph speaks of in Psalm 50: We think that God is just like us.

God is not just like us. God is not just like you. God is not just like me.

But oh, how often we wish that God was, even if we don’t realize it.

God is not in the image of a pastor.

God is not in the image of a professional athlete.

God is not in the image of a political leader.

God is not in the image of a published book.

God is not in the image of Phil.

So…what is God’s image?

One Word: Jesus.

I could be wrong about this. Perhaps no human can show God’s image. Perhaps no thing can show what God is like. Perhaps there is no God, at all.

But…if we can point to any human who has lived as being God’s image, I cannot imagine any clearer picture than that of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

And if I am honest, Jesus is not anything at all like me. Jesus is not a reflection of who I am. I know who I am. I know who Jesus is. And Jesus, quite decidedly, is not me! I am not God-like.

And yet…somehow…just maybe…in spite of this, it is possible for me to become like Jesus. To become like God. I’ll never be God (we should all be thankful…I can’t imagine how badly I would mess that up…wait, maybe I can…). But maybe there is a possibility that I could be like God? Like…Jesus? More like Jesus than I was when I was born? Or when I was a child? Or an extended adolescent? Or…today?

Most days it seems I cannot even live up the very minimal requirements of the roles I have and the person I should be as a human. How could I expect myself to ever be like…of all people…Jesus?

I think it has to start with acknowledging, not only with my mind, but with my heart and soul, that Jesus is not like me. Jesus is not “one just like myself.” I am not the starting point. Jesus is. I am also not the ending point. Jesus is. This is probably why Scripture says that Jesus is “the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.”

Again, Jesus may or may not be your ‘#1’, but on any list of “Top 10 Best People of All Time,” Jesus Christ of Nazareth is going to be right up there, right? I mean, from all that we know of him, it’s pretty difficult to find fault with the guy!

For me, I think I need to acknowledge that Jesus is, indeed, ‘#1’. And I am not. If this all sounds pretty generically evangelical at this point, I apologize…sort of…but, not really. Maybe it is time to stop getting hung up on what things sound like, or what labels people (myself included!) might put on things, and simply acknowledge what is true:

Jesus is God-like.

I am not God-like.

But…thanks be to God…Jesus is transforming me and making me more like…Jesus…

Creeds: And, Jesus…

The Apostles Creed:

“And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,”

The Nicene Creed:

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.”

There is no Christianity without him.  The creeds will go on to speak of the things Jesus did, but the introduction to Jesus is quite beautifully stated (simply in the Apostles Creed, and more descriptively in the Nicene Creed) as a reminder to us that we believe in Jesus, first because of who Jesus is.

I cannot help but think of John 1:1-5, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (NIV).

Jesus is the Word.  As much as I love Scripture, it is only the written communication we have from God.  Jesus is God incarnate, the living, breathing Word, sent to us… to show us what it is to be human, to be loved, to be birthed, and also to be surrendered to creator, as Lord.

Lord is an interesting word, an interesting concept.  To be lord (lowercase l) is to have legitimate power based in heredity or preeminence.  To be Lord (capital L) can only be defined as to be God or Jesus.  It’s intriguing how this echoes, “I am.”  Surely, the Lordship of Jesus carries with it the authority of every other lord, yet there is something different here, however subtle it may be.  Rather than command unquestioning obedience, this Lord brings light and life and then persuades us to follow by the power of prevenient grace.

L.

And Then He Walked On My Roof...

My sermon from 9/24/17 at Asbury United Methodist Church, Portland, IN:

God Who Tastes

There’s a reason I saved this one for last.  I have never, ever heard anyone preach, teach, or even speak about the God who tastes.  In some way, I think it’s too difficult around which to wrap our minds.  We can wax metaphorical about sight, sound, and touch.  Admittedly, smell was a little more difficult.  But taste is so completely human.  It’s hard to create a sense of spirituality around something so common…

Interestingly, though, if we’re going to embrace the trinity, where Jesus is certainly one of the three; we might have more evidence of a tasting God than any other sense.  How often do we find Jesus around the table?  A lot…

Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners (see Mark 2).

Jesus presumably eats with his good friends: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (see Luke 10) and a random guy he finds in a tree (see Luke 19).

Jesus feeds hoards of people with almost nothing… twice… (see Matthew 14 and 15).

The last thing Jesus does with his twelve disciples is to share the first Eucharistic meal (see Matthew 26), and then he becomes the Eucharistic meal… which is fascinating, since he also teaches that we are something of a food additive… salt of the earth (see Matthew 5).

Peter writes that we can actually taste the goodness of the Lord (see I Peter 2).

Jeremiah suggests that we can eat God’s words (see Jeremiah 15), and the author of Hebrews backs it up (see Hebrews 6).  Ezekiel takes it literally (see Ezekiel 3).

Why don’t we ever speak plainly about the God who tastes and… related… the God we can eat?  I’m not sure.  Maybe it’s because we’re afraid of the same repercussions that Jesus faced in John 6 or that the Catholic Church faced in light of a misunderstanding regarding cannibalism!  Seriously… I have no idea!

But clearly, in this search for holistic spirituality that encompasses physical sense as well as mind and spirit, taste is not to be excluded.

Gathering to eat together is one of the most vulnerable, intimate things we can do.  This past week, I learned that there has been a recent study regarding the impact that eating the same foods, with others, has on our relationship and interactions.  One observation from this study was, “Food is about bringing something into the body. And to eat the same food suggests that we are both willing to bring the same thing into our bodies. People just feel closer to people who are eating the same food as they do. And then trust, cooperation, these are just consequences of feeling close to someone” (read the whole article, here).  It’s incredible!  I wonder how we might cooperate more quickly, efficiently, and effectively if we were all eating Jesus!

L.

Love: Reflections for Advent, Week 4

"We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for others."
-St. Clare of Assisi

One candle for hope… another for peace… a third for joy… and then, as is so often the case, a fourth candle shines brightly, bringing this advent season full circle… back to the beginning, back to the foundation of all things… love.

God has always had so much hope for humanity—so much faith that we might join in the work of redemption.  In a letter, Paul describes the gospel of God as:

“The gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures…” (Romans 1:2, NIV).

There is great risk involved, because God enters into covenant with a people who may not uphold their end of the deal.  God asks impossible things of God’s people.  We don’t need to look much further than, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son” (Isaiah 7:14, NIV), to know this is true. 

Impossible… and yet it happens…

Love, on the whole, is so impossible, beginning with the very way we define it.  We don’t have enough words.

I love my kids… and pizza… and Walt Disney World… and my husband… and books… and a good bubble bath… 

I love coffee… and my friends… and drinking coffee with my friends…

I love God.  God is love.  So, I love love.

Do you remember that part when you were in middle school and love was confusing, but you knew it would get easier when you grew up?  Yeah… it doesn’t actually work that way.

I have a great appreciation for the Greek language, which at least gives us something more to work with.

I agape and storge my kids.  As they get older, I philia them, as well.  I eros my husband.  I philia my friends.  The more I consider the definitions available for all of these kinds of love, the more I wonder if we can truly love things, at all.

I think I may need to alter my thinking, because the truth is I probably only like chocolate and the ocean and glitter.  Wow.  Mind blown.

But which love is God?

The temptation is to raise our hands, shouting, “Pick me!  Pick me!  God is agape!”

God is unconditional love.  God is a love of well wishing and benevolence and even a love that remains constant when unrequited.  Yes.  Certainly.  But perhaps we do not give God enough credit for being love in all its various forms.

In the advent story, Jesus, coming as the Messiah in the form of a vulnerable baby, might best embody what it is to love—what it is to be love.  God, as Jesus, is the ultimate example of what it means to love without control, from the first breath.  Newborn babies can’t do anything for themselves!  They are completely dependent on the mercy, grace, and love of others.  Completely.  If Mary says no…  If Joseph says no… If the innkeeper or, later, the magi say no…  we have a completely different outcome, friends.      

Love is risky.

Because it’s just like God to do things this way.  God calls to God’s people, “Who will participate in the redemption of the world?  Who will join me in bringing the fulfillment of the covenant?”

Matthew 1:22-24, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ^‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).  When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him…” (NIV).

Sigh of relief…

May we also wake up.

Do this.  Say yes.  Join the circle of lights shining brightly, bringing close to the world the promised redemption that is so near we might reach out and touch it, if only we will commit to being a part of the salvation narrative. 

John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (NIV).

Jesus was vulnerable.

Be vulnerable.

Jesus is love.

Be love.

As God’s people, this is the greatest thing to which we are called.  It’s not hard to find people who need love.  They are all around us.  By completing the advent cycle, bringing to fruition the love that is so desperately sought by all, we may envelop the hurting world with the light and life that comes as we await the arrival of Christ just a little longer.   

L.