worse than fire and sulfur

While preparing a Maundy Thursday sermon on Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13, I had an inkling to start writing about what I think the final judgment will be like—a topic that has all but consumed much of North American Christianity (no pun intended). But first I have to justify why I feel bold enough to venture such a speculation.

Especially because, no doubt, the judgment obsessed will find my depiction of the last judgment to be too namby-pamby for their tastes, and will start checking the skies for lightning bolts to see where I am located. No worries. Personally, I find my depiction far more terrifying than the tired old fire and sulfur that they dream up.  And I’ll just respond that, if I’m wrong, and this is too namby-pamby, I’ll face the music when I get there. I’m just not too worried about that. Because, rather than freely speculate, I’ve always looked to Jesus of Nazareth—Jesus the outcast-embracer, Jesus the leper-healer, Jesus the sinner-befriender, Jesus the cross die-er— to figure out what God is like, I’ve just never really been afraid of what he’ll do to me if I’m wrong about stuff like this.

In fact, I’ll be so bold as to say that it’s kind of a catch-22 from God’s end, as well, not because anyone “has anything on” God but because of what he sort of brought on himself by so consistently relating to us as he has. If “Bible believing” Christians are again listening for thunder, at this point, I’ll just gently remind them that biblical characters from Moses to the psalmists be playin’ this card all the time, appealing to God’s mercy and reminding God of his own reputation and standards so as to avoid the lightning bolt. For example, in Psalm 6:1-5 the writer pleads to God “Don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath,” reminding him that he is also a God of “steadfast love” even suggesting that it’s not in God’s best interest to strike him down, anyway, because “in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?” Another instance, when God has finally had it with the Israelites in the desert (Numbers 14) and is ready to “strike them with pestilence an disinherit them” (v. 12), Moses intercedes for the people by reciting a standard litany about who God is (v. 18), then specifically reminds God to “forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love” (notice that in v. 19 he slyly leaves out the part about God also being a God of justice who “by no means clears the guilty”). This is transparently manipulative behavior by a child who is trying to wiggle out of punishment because he ultimately believes that his parent’s mercy will overrule his parent’s sense of justice. What’s really remarkable, is that he’s right (vv. 20-24). In kind of the opposite way, Jonah tellingly recognizes that God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2) but says this with regret, wishing that it were not so because of the wrath and hellfire he wants God to rain down on the heathen Ninevites.  

See, if I’m being completely blasphemous here, then of course God is free to do with me whatever God wills…kind of. The conflict is that God can only strike me down in an outburst of violence at the expense of his entire reputation that he worked and suffered so much to cultivate here on Earth. God can only strike me down for not praising or worshipping properly at the expense of what makes God so worship-able and praiseworthy in the first place (alright, now I’m checking the skies, but I persist nonetheless), unfathomable forbearance and mercy. A god who strikes down dissidents left and right is certainly fear-able and obey-able but can never be loveable—love being the one thing God wants from us more than anything else (Matthew 22:36-39).

In the absence of love, there would be nothing stopping God from sending a lightning bolt right through my presumptuous mouth right now, as we speak. In that sense, God is completely free. The problem, though, is that love forces us to suffer each other and put up with each other in a way that wouldn’t be necessary were we only trying to fulfill a loveless legal standard. Over time, we even begin to trust that those who love us aren’t simply doing it on a whim in those moments when we please them, but rather, their love comes from some place deeper and more sustaining, perhaps even a place tangled up in their character and integrity.

Imagine, if my own mother and father who have consistently loved and nurtured and supported me for 27 years, making huge personal sacrifices to do it, suddenly turned an about-face one day, in full possession of their faculties mind you, and said, “We’ve decided we hate you because you’re a loser. We wish you had never been born. And we’d much prefer to have you shipped off and tortured somewhere else than have to look at your ugly face anymore.” Now take that event, increase its unexpectedness to the nth degree, and I think you have a close approximation to what much of North American Christianity supposes God will be like on the last day. Never mind Jesus who said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) and “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 13:47); never mind that our only model for God is someone who would rather die himself than easily call down 12 legions of angels to slay his enemies (Mt. 26:53); never mind that God gets up super early, before most Starbucks are even open yet (I used to be a barista—trust, it’s ridiculously early), to again lift the sun up into the sky and rain waters from the heavens so that plants can spread and blossom and animals can bask in its glow (see Psalm 104); never mind that when our lungs are able to inhale, God has consistently breathed the breath of life into them (see Genesis 2:7); it seems that many are still dead set and even lustful after the idea that God will be ready for some bloodshed when all is said and done.

But assuming it’s better for Christians to look to Jesus, and not to their own harshest neuroses and projected insecurities, when speculating about the world’s future, here’s how I’m envisioning the final judgment, so help me God.

I’ll be sitting in a chair, plush but a little too big for me, before an even grander throne. One glance at that glorious face, and I’ll instantly know beyond any doubt that I’m a worm. Illuminated by God’s full, uncontained light, my eyes will wonder down to the floor, then to my feet, then my hands. I’ll see in the starkest contrast the reality of my life, which was always there but to which I was always able to mentally fortify myself before. Aside from the more obvious sins that I already recognized as sins, I’ll see with crystal clarity that my relationship to God’s creation was basically parasitic, that what I considered my greatest acts of kindness and charity really amounted to so much ego scratching,  that the relationships which I called loving were essentially self-serving.

And the Glory of all glories, the Lord of all lords, at whose beckoning stars burst and heavens crumble, will slowly stroll over to me and look me straight in the eye. I’ll want to look away from the white-hot glow of that face, but somehow I won’t be able. Seeing that the verdict is approaching, I’ll hear my dry mouth shout, “Please! Send me to the fire-y furnace. I’ll breathe sulfur! I’ll shovel granite! I swear! It’s all I’m worth! Just please don’t make me gaze on your glory any longer!”

But not uttering a single word, the alpha and omega, the Lord of hosts, the maker of all that is seen and unseen, will wrap a towel around his waist, kneel down, and wash the feet of this self-serving, parasitic, knave. And I’ll have to watch him do it. And I’ll have to deal with the terror and the pain of knowing that all along it should’ve been me washing his.

the cosby show, the chappelle show, and the importance of satire in the church

As a white male from an almost comically white background, I’ll necessarily walk on eggshells through some of this. Understand, though, that this is not a commentary on the intentions of either comedian or their impact on the black community, which I can’t speak to, but is rather about their respective impacts on my own demographic growing up. I believe this is analogous to many questions about cultural communication and generational shift now pressing on the church.

I draw these two comedians into comparison because, in two very different ways, they have both either chosen to participate in or have been enveloped by central roles in the ongoing race dialogue in this country.

Cosby, who was already known as one of the most wholesome and successful comedians of the early 80’s, became a household name with is portrayal of Dr. Huxtable, a family oriented sweater lover, nearly devoid of a rough edge. As a public figure, he has since been an outspoken critic of black entertainers, athletes, and even private families for what he sees as not taking responsibility for the problems facing the African American community and perpetuating negative stereotypes.

Chappelle, on the other hand, made countless well-to-do, suburban mothers squirm by writing and starring in the cultish, marijuana film, “Half Baked,” then sent them into apoplexy with one of the most successful (though shortest lived) sketch comedy shows of all time, “Chappelle Show,” the vast majority of whose sketches directly concerned the issue of race.

It’s very unlikely that the two would ever enjoy a beer together, although I’m aware of one occasion where Chappelle stood up for Cosby when Cosby was taking heat for his commentaries on the black community.

Whether or not this was intentional (again, I can’t comment on the intentions behind the show but only its effect on my community), for the better part of the eighties and well into the nineties, “The Cosby Show” brought the very wholesome, very relatable experiences of an upper middle-class, African American family into the living rooms of white suburbanites. No doubt, there was very little “gimmick” here, the show was mostly reflective of the real life, middle-class experience that Cosby spoke of in his earlier stand-up routines. A lot can be said for the family-friendly warmth of the Huxtables and the show had every right not to openly approach the issue of racial stereotypes (I don’t want to be heard as saying that a show featuring a minority family needs necessarily discuss racism), but the result of this silence in my white-washed suburb was that the show basically posited a family that we could relate to within our own cultural paradigm without having to confront our uglier, if disavowed, images of the other culture. In other words, the show helped me relate to the Huxtables alright but actually did very little to distinguish the real cultural differences that exist between African and Euro-Americans from the pop-culture stereotypes that simply exist in that ethereal space called "the society" (no one every really knows who is responsible for them). To be sure, these stereotypes weren’t given to me by my family or really anyone in particular, and I knew enough to disavow them, but their anonymous origin did nothing to hide their presence in the recesses of my subconscious (and I don’t suspect that I was the only one).

However offended some might be by the show’s over-the-top disregard for boundaries and political correctness (and I’m aware that those still shaking their heads in disgust are unlikely to get this point), I believe that Chappelle did something for me and my generation of white suburbanites, that the Huxtables could never do: rather than constructing an example of a family that is far removed from all the worst racial stereotypes that exist in our culture, Chappelle deconstructed those stereotypes head-on, satirically drawing them out into the open and pushing them to their outlandish conclusion. Whereas the effect of “The Cosby Show” on the national dialogue on race was indirect and constructive, providing an example of a family that didn’t match the stereotypes that the white middle-class had constructed, the effect of “Chappelle Show” was direct and deconstructive,[1] working from within the stereotypes themselves.

Ironically, rather than simply constructing characters that break certain stereotypes, Chappelle used Clayton Bigsby, the blind, black, white-supremacist and the self-portrayed, Wayne Brady, the black guy whom white people love (so long as they’re ignorant of his seamy night life), to reveal the stereotypes for what they were. Stupid. And though it became a little too common for frat boys everywhere to quote even the worst lines with presumed impunity, we white kids always sensed (right or wrong) that we were "in" on the joke and that the joke was on us. The running joke, underlying almost every sketch was that any group would ever be stupid enough to hold, however intellectually disavowed, such an absurd image of another group.

Clearly, many in the black community found Chappelle’s humor to be a step backward, not forward, but I believe the overwhelming result of the show in the white community was to ever-distance African Americans from the stereotypes portrayed. Such is the nature of satire (and this is why there have always been those that “don’t get it”) that the joke is never on the stereotyped but is rather on anyone who would give those stereotypes credence. The more outlandish Tyrone Biggums or Leonard Washington, the more the stereotypes were “shown up” for the foolishness that they were. I obviously can’t speak to whether it was appropriate or inappropriate for some in the African American community to still find these sketches deeply hurtful. As is always the case with satire, the healing power of pushing a certain hurtful experience to the limit of palatability can be quickly lost with just a step beyond that limit. It’s a risk. One could also argue that, with racism, we’re speaking of something so stupid that it ought to deconstruct itself with no need for offensive comedy. But sadly it never does. From Voltaire to Chappelle, history has shown that silence does not deconstruct bigotries. What does deconstruct bigotries is voicing them out loud and bringing them to their absurd conclusion and doing it in such a way that those responsible for constructing them in the first place are not put on the defensive but can anonymously “get in on the joke.”  

Now for what I’m actually qualified to speak on. I believe that the church is in need of a similarly deconstructive dialogue when dealing with Gen X and Millenials (far and away the most underrepresented demographics). There is a reason that Chappelle Show won an audience with 16-30 year olds but was essentially lost on their parents. Irony, sarcasm and satire are primary language forms in this generational culture. If you’re unsure of what I mean, do a quick survey of the Facebook memes posted by all your friends in this demographic.

I believe this is not unrelated to the fact that this age group is having to adapt to a pluralistic world in a way that their parents did not. Many of the latter spent their formative years in either a culturally homogeneous small town or a self-contained urban/suburban environment. Sure, they had all heard rumors and stories about these people called Buddhists and Muslims in some far off land, but so long as they were still far off, because beliefs are always communally constructed, we could learn about their different worldviews but still be fairly confident that “ours” was the “official one.” The situation is very different for later generations for whom Muslims and Buddhists are flesh and blood human beings sitting next to them in the lecture hall. Being face to face with someone forces us to grapple with their innate dignity as human persons in a way we never have to so long as their existence is primarily mythological. Similarly, not so long ago, “we,” the heterosexual majority, had heard rumors and stories that there were gays and lesbians somewhere out there, but so long as those in “our” neighborhoods and households remained in the closet, “we” could all be satisfied that “our” sexuality was the “official one.” Anything else was a lifestyle choice of sheer deviance. It’s a different story for the generations of the heterosexual majority who know many out-of-the-closet gay and lesbian people whom they have to grapple with as real persons.

Earnest speech can only come from within the cultural paradigm that I earnestly occupy. What the language forms of sarcasm, irony, and satire do for us, which earnest speech never can, is they allow us to distance ourselves from those cultural paradigms, themselves, and critique them.

My point is that, where whole generations have left the church because they could find no resonance in its theological paradigms, the church cannot simply posit new paradigms without having an honest discussion about what was inadequate with the former ones. Here is what this looks like in practice. When I’m having a conversation over coffee with a Millenial who has left his or her Southern Baptist upbringing, it’s one thing for me to construct a picture of a nonviolent God who is present in Jesus on the cross, in solidarity with the suffering world, rather than a “divine child abuser” who put him there in the first place to vicariously punish some human sinfulness. But where I’m really going to earn a hearing with this Millenial is where I explicitly call out the divine child abuser for what he is rather than trying to skirt around him like he never existed. To win a hearing with someone deeply scarred by that pseudo-theology, I actually need to say, out loud, “You can’t worship a divine child abuser? I can’t worship a divine child abuser either.” If I don’t satirize that pseudo-god, and only posit other positive images of God, how can this person ever be sure that the tyrant of their youth isn’t still lurking somewhere in the background? Even accepting my new content for the word, “God,” they’ll be forever waiting for the other theological boot to drop. And what’s true of our need for strictly theological deconstruction is perhaps even more true of our need for socio-political deconstruction. “You can’t worship the Jesus of corporate capitalism? Neither can I. And here’s why.”

Albert Einstein once told a group of secondary school math students “Don’t worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I assure you mine are still greater.” In the same way, I often tell those on the fringes or completely outside the church, “Don’t worry about your critiques of the Christian Church. I assure you mine are still greater.” Deconstruction is essentially a truth-telling event. The old testament prophets could not paint a picture of a better future on God’s holy mountain without first deconstructing the idolatries in the valley of the present (See Micah 3-4 or Isaiah 1-2). From the perspective of the idolater, idol-busting is nothing other than confession. Only when we in the church can openly confess all the idolatries of which we are guilty, can we introduce others to the real God of Jesus Christ.

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[1] ‘Deconstructive’, in this philosophical sense, means a good and necessary process by which any hierarchy that is less than ideal (anything that has no permanent value) that would pose as the ideal (something that has permanent value) is called out and stripped away for being an imposter. In this sense, abolition and women’s suffrage were essentially deconstructive events. This term should not be confused with “destruction,” which in popular usage is always a bad thing. 

the nature of new wineskins

I share the quote below for the encouragement of that small, strange, and senseless demographic of people, both frocked and unfrocked, inflicted with this mad condition called "preaching the Gospel"–a condition that presents most perceptibly in the pulpit but perhaps more powerfully in the pub or the prison.
 I guess that as, for lack of a better distinction, a "professional" preacher, I'm still coming to terms with the fact that there is no gradual transition, no step-down program, by which old wineskins can become new. As the adjectives "old" and then "new" (in that order) suggest, that transition can only be a death and resurrection thing, not something to be tackled in stages.

I know this both intellectually and autobiographically, but that doesn't always make it less frustrating as a discipler when my conventional wisdom tells me to look for those "baby steps" that, like the watery oasis on a Nevada highway, always and only seem to be forthcoming. I'm coming to terms with the fact that there is no gentle way to do this. To proclaim the Gospel is to spew killing and resurrecting salt. And unfortunately, salt can quickly dissolve into the lukewarm waters of the status quo. More than anything else, it's grappling with this reality that is the cause of this entire blog.

So I'm probably not the only disciple to note this oddity that all responses to a successful proclamation seem to fall into one of two camps:

the "I've been waiting my whole life to hear someone say that" camp or
the "it seems like you're trying unnecessarily to rock the boat" camp (to which the proper response would be, "'Rock the boat', yes, but not 'unnecessarily'").

Only after a decided failure of a sermon is the response anywhere in between. For those who have experienced something similar, I've taken great courage from the insights of Douglas John Hall (pardon the length):

“The dissatisfied, the disenchanted, the restless searchers after meaning have always been those in whom the Spirit of this faith has been especially interested—not because it would redeem them alone (that is elitism), but because it regards them as the salt and yeast and light through whom the food may be prevented from insipidity, the loaf from flatness, and the soul of humanity from its captivation by mediocrity (Matt. 5:13-16; 13:31-33). That is what this tradition means by election.

“It would be salutary if Christianity in North America today were to regard as the sign of divine election precisely such dissatisfaction and disenchantment, such determination to demand of life something better than comfort. So long as the churches make their appeal to those who desire security, calm, and consolation, they will have little room for the kind of intellectual, ethical, and spiritual rigor that is required of any resolute attempt at professing the faith. We have seen that one of the chief reasons why the North American Protestant churches have been so inconstant in their theological work is that their dominant ‘clientele’ has consisted of persons who are seeking peace of mind, and a thinking faith disturbs the mind! There will no doubt always be a market for peace-of-mind religion, but it will be inimical to a faith that demands extraordinary exertions of both mind and heart if it is to be professed by anyone.”[1]

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[1] Hall, Douglas John. Professing the Faith. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 23-4.

jesus responds to violence by dying

As if the event itself weren't painful enough, little bits of theological lunacy always seem to cling to days like that of the Sandy Hook Massacre. I'm thinking of two right now, though there are always more. 

The first should be easily dispelled by any thinking person of faith. The second seems more difficult to shed.

Following a similarly dark day years ago, I can remember the date and time that I rejected this nonsense that “everything is part of God’s plan.” This blasphemy images God like some sort of callous puppet-master who manipulates the course of these horrific events in order to “teach a lesson” to some sinners whose lives are, apparently, more valuable than those sacrificed in order to teach them. The strength of this theological worldview is its convenience. Its weakness is its god. Any god for whom this constitutes a “plan” is not a god worth worshipping.

If you haven’t already done so, please dismiss any thought of this calculating, puppet-master god quickly and unceremoniously.  But when you do so make sure you have access to another image of God to fill the void. I fear that much of our culture has rightly shed the puppet-master god but at the expense of any thought of God whatsoever. It’s much easier to unthink God than to rethink God.

I say I fear this not because I’m silly enough to think that the “secularization” of our culture is the problem (whatever that means, exactly) or that all human brokenness could be fixed if we’d just “allow God in schools” by posting the ten-commandments in the hallway or some other nonsense. Such a sentiment assumes, in the most theologically naïve way, that the human heart can be changed by what, in Lutheran theology, we call Law. Most of the Bible’s thickness is devoted to the fact that this doesn’t work. The Law would be great if it truly cured what is ailing humanity, but it doesn’t. Something else is needed, namely Gospel…namely Jesus, God’s rash and irresponsible message of unconditional love to the world.

It’s because of Jesus that I’m only still learning, myself, to shed another common explanation for the perversity of human evil, one that is equally false but even more convenient and, for that reason, even more difficult to shed. A succinct version of it was given to me by a trusted elder at a time when I was younger and much more naïve. He said, “You know, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who litter and those who clean it up.”

I was quite attracted to this worldview. Who wouldn’t be? I, of course, must be one of the litter cleaner uppers, if not on a global average, then certainly when compared to some of the worst litterers that come to mind. Right?

And that’s why this explanation isn’t going away anytime soon, because it’s just so darned convenient. Bad things happen because that other half of humanity is bad. If I’m feeling optimistic, maybe the bad portion is just a small fraction of humanity and most of us are basically good. If pessimistic, maybe just me, “my church,” and a few of my closest family and friends are good while most of humanity is going to hell in a handbasket. The size of the groups doesn’t really matter. It only matters that this clever aphorism allows one group, mine, to distance itself from the other and avoid any implication in the darkness and violence that so obviously plagues the world.

It’s convenient to think that only the one or two most immediate culprits are to blame for such horrific days as we experienced last week—that, for instance, this event is completely disconnected from my support of an entertainment industry and media culture that cheapens life and glamorizes violence, or the laughable fraction of the money I earn that goes to the mental health system as compared with weapons development, or that I personally have spent a lifetime not reaching out and showing Christ’s love to individuals who are at risk for violent behavior.  

Of course, I can think through all of this in my head…but in my gut…before long, a few images from the last week flash before me once again, and here comes that visceral response I know so well. My face gets hot, my own blood-thirst wells up inside of me. Forgiveness is a nice thought. But this is real life. Forgiveness? Not for this. Not for this. For this, the only solution is the oldest law known to humanity, the rudiment of all Law. One eye for one eye. One tooth for one tooth. Show me the sicko. I’ll do it myself.

…And there it is. That darkness that has plagued humanity for millennia has crept into my very own soul. Of course, like Saul the murderer before he became Paul the preacher, I’ll try to confuse the issue. I’ll justify myself and continue to distance myself and will even convince many that my own inner violence is of a completely different kind, perhaps even an admirable kind. “Well, that monster is a cold blooded killer. I’m simply executing the wrath of God.”  

What eye for eye logic has going for it is at least the semblance of perfect justice. What could be more equitable than identical recompense for any violence committed? And, theoretically, it seems quite possible that the threat of equal and opposite retribution should deter future violence, right? What it has going against it is that it has never worked, and it never will. 

…

Jesus tried another option, one that is so stupid and so naïve that it wouldn’t even be worth trying except that the other thing we’ve tried hasn’t ever worked either. He abdicated the sensible solution that we all expected of a Messiah, using violence (judiciously and sensibly applied, of course) in order to make for less violence.

Instead, he died. Peter took out a sword and tried the “stand your ground” method. But not Jesus. He responded to our world’s violence by dying, dying by our very own hand…and, at the same time, dying with us like a husband who, sick of seeing his bride suffer from a chronic disease, would gladly take the disease onto himself. The shorthand for his ridiculous alternative to the sensible and just application of law is “the way of the cross.”

Of course, our societies reflexively feel threatened by “the way of the cross.” Predictably, someone will stand up at this point and say, “Here in the real world (apparently, not the one in which Jesus lived) having no means of punishing or retaliating will give criminals free reign. Just forgiving and turning the other cheek willy-nilly will cause whole societies to spin out uncontrollably into a violent chaos.”

On the other hand, the innocent one hanging there on the cross confronts us with the fact that perhaps we had already spun out uncontrollably into a violent chaos under our law. In fact, it was our law that crucified him.

Jesus was put to death because he had the audacity to claim that the deeper hitch in our otherwise reasonable logic—that if they, out there, are littering, then we, over here, have to clean it up—had little to do with the litter and had everything to do with the “we” and the “they.”

We were expecting a messiah who would come down hard on that bad half of humanity. Instead we got one who died. Free grace is a grossly unpopular idea. It always has been. People have been crucified for even suggesting it. The world can be a horrific place. We want eyes and teeth, dammit!

Once we realized what had happened, the sun went black. We bawled and mourned and, that following Saturday, we began looking for someone to blame. “They crucified him. They’re the litterers. The chaos won. Now let us take to arms and try no more naïve experiments with love.”

Such is the wisdom of Holy Saturday.

But the story doesn’t end there.

holidays ad absurdum

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”    – Luke 1:78-79.

This won’t surprise most of you who know me, but I’ve never really been the type of Christian to get all bent out of shape when people wish me ‘Happy Holidays’ around Christmas season. My feathers don’t go up at that phrase. People trampling each other in department stores in an orgy of greed? Yes. Spending stupid amounts of money on colorful crap in a world where Kwashiorkor’s Disease is a real thing? Yes. But the phrase, ‘happy holidays’? I let that one slide.

It’s not that this season isn’t sacred to me as a Christian. It’s not that I don’t value this time to anticipate and celebrate Christ’s coming. Actually, it’s because I do, that I’ve just never really measured the Christiness of Christmas by the sheer number of times that we can jam the word “Christ” into our interactions with one another. If it were only a matter of sheer volume, I’d think it impious to stop at “Merry Christmas.” While at “Frosty’s Boutique” the other day—an open bazaar of handcrafted doodads and trinkets held at a local middle school every year—I suggested to my wife that it should be called “Christ’s Boutique” and perhaps the nearby ATM, “Christ’s money-changing station”--you know, to keep Christ in Christmas, after all. But there’s the rub. Christ had one encounter with boutiques and moneychangers that we know about. It didn’t go well.

So I’m left to question whether simply saying something is of Christ really makes it so. Wouldn’t it make more sense, then, to call baseball Christball? You know, just to cover our bases? But then, “ball” is such a secular term, isn’t it? Maybe instead of Christball, we should go with Christchrist, just to be safe.  Does repeating Christ’s name as many times as possible really invoke his presence? If so, where’s the tipping point? If I say the word Christmas 10 times on my trip to the mall, will that be sufficient? What about 50? 100 times, maybe? Will it be a sufficiently Christian trip to the shopping mall, then? Either I’ve failed miserably at this Christian duty and the MLB has been perpetrating a 100 year war on Christball, or such things would be stupid because more of the word ‘Christ’ does not necessarily result in something more Christ-like. In fact, were I to join the crusade to follow this commandment that doesn't exist, "thou shalt constantly impose the words 'Merry Christmas' on thy unchurched brethren," I'd be in danger of breaking one that does, "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain."

In the 1950’s, European playwrights started the genre now known as “theater of the absurd.” As I understand it, what these plays all had in common was they sought to portray life as tragically meaninglessness and did so through devolving language—clichés used several times too many, words repeated, distorted, turned into their opposite and a smattering of illogic and general nonsense. That is to say, once words lost meaning, so too did the plays and with them the lives they portrayed.  

Isn’t this what we do when we seek endlessly to give the Christ name more airtime, tagging it to anything and everything no matter what the association? Is that not the conventional wisdom of every good marketer, flood the TV networks and billboards and internet news feeds with your brand name? Put it at the front of every consciousness so that the masses flock to you not so much by desire but by default, for lack of a more conscious choice. Need a used car? Come to CarMax. Looking for a religious celebration? Have you tried Christmas?

This insistence that everyone say “Merry Christmas” has nothing to do with Christ and everything to do with our culture of market-driven competition. Rather than celebrate the Christ who “brings the powerful from their thrones, and lifts up the lowly” (Lk. 1.52), today’s Christians have, I guess, decided to simply try to out compete the evil secularizers for cultural supremacy.

I’m astounded that there are still some who would equate piety with the sheer quantity of things with which they can associate Christ’s name, saying nothing of the quality. Did you watch to evening news on Black Friday? Shouldn't Christians want to dissociate our Lord from this annual theater of the absurd?

One of the things that the writers of the original, French theater of the absurd actually got right, was that after the communication breakdown, after words were twisted to mean their opposite or broke down or could only be repeated ironically, the play would end in silence.

That’s what I’m hoping for more of this Holiday season. Silence.

I’m fine with both the “Merry Christmas”-ers and the “Happy Holidays”-ers. I’m even alright with the too-cool-for-school “Happy Exotic Festival that I don’t actually observe, myself”-ers.  

But what I’m really interested in this Advent season, is silence. Silence without news pundits, silence without TV ads, silence without any internal voice that might otherwise gnaw at me to flood the airwaves with my Lord’s name because the gossamer thread of faith that links me to his birth feels so tenuous that it needs to be reinforced and validated by the whole society around me.

Just absolute silence. Well, maybe some Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby duets lightly filling the background as my beautiful wife and I set up our Christmas Tree and pray around the candles of our advent wreath in the warmth of the apartment that God has blessed us with. Silence, then, as we pray for those who are in the cold.

Anyhow, I doubt my own capacity to invoke Christ into being with the sheer volume of my words. I figure he pretty much does what he wants. What I would rather model is a quiet soul that “magnifies the Lord” and unclouded eyes, that we may see “the dawn from on high break upon us.” I encourage quiet tongues that Christ might “guide our feet into the way of peace.”

For an inspiring way to participate in what Christ’s birth actually means for the world, “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” go to http://www.htflive.org/ and consider giving to the Haitian Timoun Foundation’s “It’s Not Your Birthday” campaign.

nudity, nakedness, nuts and bolts

It’s often pointed out, with considerable solemnity and an air of subtlety, that the Adam and Eve story has one character that’s a male and one that’s a female. The clever interpreters who stumble onto this fact will often go further and point out, with equal gravitas, which anatomical features one should look for in identifying such a distinction.  In this reading, the story’s sole purpose is to prove the rather mundane fact that some people are boys and some are girls. Its primary emphasis is that Adam and Eve were different from one another.

But examined a little more closely, a somewhat obvious lesson on the different sexes really doesn’t seem to be where the story wants to take us.

The story is set in motion by God’s statement (A): “It’s not good that the human should be alone” and wraps up with the summary (B): “And they were both naked and were not ashamed.” Point A sets up the problem, loneliness; part B sets up the solution, naked togetherness. Everything else must get us from point A to point B, and we’re going to need to follow whatever trajectory the story has chosen to get us there.

Now, Adam’s name is a play on the Hebrew word adamah, meaning “earth” or “ground” or “land.” God has brought Adam up from the adamah. But, at once, God recognizes that something is missing, a partner. So God starts forming other creatures from the adamah in an effort to find a suitable partner or helper for Adam. Don’t get caught up on implausibility of this exercise or God’s seeming incompetence, thinking that these animals will fulfill Adam’s need for companionship (in fairness, hindsight is 20/20). The point is that none of them are enough like the man to make a suitable partner (v. 20).

Finally, and this is key, God gets the idea to take a rib from the man’s side, a part of his own being, and forms the woman. Ironically, given how this story has been appropriated in recent history, the man exclaims, “This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” He’s not impressed with how different the woman is from himself, there were plenty of creatures that were different and none of them made for suitable partners. He’s impressed with how she’s the same! Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. Only because she’s enough like him to be a companion does she fulfill God’s initial concern, “it’s not good that the man should be alone.”

This story is boring and adds nothing to simple observation if all it’s about is the nuts and bolts of the different sexes. It becomes very profound, though, if its point is that humans will now forever be incomplete when they’re alone.

One continental philosopher called humanity a “being toward death” and what he meant by this was that we’re creatures whose primary occupation in life is death. We come preprogrammed with death on the horizon. That’s not really the biblical view. In scripture death is an accidental result of sin, not something fundamental to the creation. It would be more biblical to call us a “being toward relationship.” We come preprogrammed for relationship and we are incomplete, not whole persons, without it. 

The level of intimacy that exists between these two is shown in the last line that says, “They were both naked and were not ashamed.”   

If this is the ideal for human relationship, it seems also to point to what God yearns for in God’s relationship with us. That we be naked. That we be wholly vulnerable and intimate with nothing to hide.

Now, nudity is not the same thing as nakedness. There is some crossover (thankfully), but you can be nude without being naked (not sure if the reverse is true).

Nudity is fairly common in our society. The problem with nudity, in my opinion, is not its lack of clothes. God didn’t make our bodies so shamefully that they absolutely need to be covered up. The problem with nudity is that it’s too simple a thing. At its most vulgar, it substitutes voyeurism for intimacy. It reduces the incalculable value of a person’s soul, the gestalt of their mind, body, and spirit, to just their body. It reduces Adam to simple adamah. Voyeurism is the relational equivalent of philosophical materialism. To the voyeur the human being is no more valuable than the dust and earth from which it came.

Nakedness is very different than that. Nakedness means more than just lacking any clothes (probably, not less). The ability to be naked in the biblical sense is our ability to lay our souls bare before God and before each other. Biblically, that’s all that God really wants from us.  This is why repentance is so important. Repentance is how we become transparent, we become open books so that true intimacy can exist.

There is a clever play on words in the next part of the Adam and Eve story. The Hebrew word for naked, arum in v. 25 is contrasted with the word arom, “shrewd” or “conniving,” which describes the serpent in Gen. 3.1. I think we all know this from our everyday interactions with other people, the opposite of being naked is being guarded, wily, conniving, manipulative.

The serpent shows the humans how to be conniving, how to hide secrets, how to have backdoor conversations, how to make underhanded business dealings, how to present themselves publicly to make it look as if they have nothing but benevolent motives, then manipulate the rest of their community, exercising their own need to be in control. Worse, some of them will get so good at guarding and hiding that they themselves won’t even recognize that they’re doing it. They’ll “deceive [themselves] and the truth won’t be in [them].”

Sure enough, on a casual stroll through the Garden to check up on the humans, God is surprised and hurt to find out that the humans have covered themselves up. They’re ashamed to be seen naked.

Our world is filled with people who are bent on exposing someone else’s nudity but know next to nothing about nakedness. An all too common example is the religious or political loud mouth, who, like so many used cars, has traded in his or her spouse for a newer model, not once or twice but multiple times, and then wants to pontificate to the rest of us about the sanctity of marriage. But so few of us, in this world, have the courage to really confess our own brokenness, the ways we’ve breached and abused and neglected our own relationships. So few of us can really be naked to give ourselves over and experience true unguarded intimacy with another human being.   

I certainly struggle with nakedness. So for my part, it would be nice if we could reduce Jesus’ demanding teaching on divorce (Mark 10.1-12) to a simplistic statement on pomp and ceremony or nuts and bolts. It would be nice if the only relational issues that Jesus intended to comment on here were those that didn’t apply to me (a once-married, heterosexual).

The problem is that Jesus doesn’t know when to stop. He makes this broad sweeping statement about the brokenness of our human relationships that hits close to home for pretty much all of us. It’s all fun and games when Jesus comments on the relationships of people whose personal lives I happen to disapprove of. But if he’s going to go and equate divorce with adultery and adultery with simple lust, then, frankly, he’s starting to pry a little bit too much for this privatistic, North American.

Jesus, you would have the nerve to comment on our marriages of all things?

Jesus, you mean all the toxic words and the character assassination that go along with a divorce…you don’t want God’s children to suffer any of that?

Jesus, you mean you care about our relationships sometimes even more than we do?

Jesus, you mean you equate lust with adultery so that I can’t just point the finger at everyone else’s sexual immorality but have to point first to my own lustful, adulterous eyes?

Jesus, you mean that in all our attempts to guard and hide our flesh and our shame from one another, you would lay yourself bare and exposed on the cross and give dignity to nakedness?

The Pharisees, both past and present, are absolutely crazy if they really want to use this teaching, THIS TEACHING, on marriage and divorce and adultery, to point their finger and cast a judgment on someone else’s relationships. Really, this teaching? You want to hold to the letter of the law on this teaching? I guess if you’ve never even lusted after another human being, good job, you’re off the hook (though, I’d question how much you’ve really lived). The rest of us are indicted here.

But remember that in Mark 10.1-12, Jesus isn’t addressing a room full of public sinners, and lusters, and adulterers, and divorcees. They already know how messy their lives are. At no point in any of our Gospel’s, does Jesus ever take that group and rub their noses in their own stuff like this.

Actually, Jesus is talking to Pharisees, the hypocrites, the pious who made a big show of their purity, claiming always to have looked to the side when a pretty girl walked by on the sidewalk, implicitly casting the stone at everyone’s impurity but their own.

At the root of it all, Pharisees are people who try to solve the difficulties that come with human intimacy by cutting themselves off from it entirely.

Kind of missing the forest for the trees then, aren’t we? Intimacy isn’t the problem. Intimacy is the goal, God’s whole purpose in creating us.

Still, the Pharisees would likely be thrilled if Jesus’ hard teaching on divorce and adultery were the end of the story. It’s not.

The larger story is about the God who yearned for love, for real, intimate relationship with the creatures…the creatures that became ashamed of their own earthiness, the imperfections and eccentricities of their own flesh…the creatures who then became wily and duplicitous trying to hide their true selves from each other and from their God…the creatures that learned to point their fingers and expose another’s nakedness to make themselves feel better about their own…the one and only Son, who, instead of pointing his finger at another’s nakedness, laid himself bare on a cross, and through the glory of humiliation and the dignity of his own bareness, put an end to the shame and finger pointing…This is the story of the one and only Son who made it okay to be human.

the secret to getting rich...quick

When I asked the CEO how he came to own so much wealth, he told me, “Unlike some other overpaid exec, I had the idea and took the risk that made wealth possible.” When I asked the overpaid exec, she told me, “Unlike the yes-man in middle management, I create wealth through my vision and forecasting.” When I asked the yes-man in middle management, he told me, “Unlike the whiny foreman, I earn my living through cheerful dedication to the company.” When I asked the whiny foreman, he told me, “Unlike the lazy union worker, I don’t expect something for nothing.” When I asked the lazy union worker, she told me, “Unlike the welfare queen on food stamps, I have a job.” When I asked the welfare queen on food stamps, she told me, “Unlike the good-for-nothing homeless person, I go legitimately through the system and only take what I need to support my family.” When I asked the good-for-nothing beggar, he told me this:

“I own nothing. Everything I have is but a gift that God has entrusted me to use for the sake of the world. Please, give up everything that you own, and come experience my wealth.”