Tag Archives: love

Neighbors are to be Loved, not Defined

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FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Deuteronomy 30:9-14

Psalm 25:1-10

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37

Prayer of the Day: O Lord God, your mercy delights us, and the world longs for your loving care. Hear the cries of everyone in need, and turn our hearts to love our neighbors with the love of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“And who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:29.

In this day and age, the parable hardly needs a sermon. If I were preaching this Sunday, I would be tempted to say following the gospel reading, “You know very well what our government has to say about who your neighbor is. It all depends on nationality, blood, soil and proper documentation. You have just heard Jesus tell you who your neighbor is. Neighborliness knows no limit. It extends to everyone in need of a neighbor. This is not rocket science. As Moses tells us in our lesson from Deuteronomy, “this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” Amen.

“But come on, Pastor! You know it isn’t that simple. Do you want open borders? Should anyone be allowed to come into our country? What about criminals? What about drug dealers? Sex traffickers? How many people can we take without burdening our own people? Where do you draw the line?”

This is precisely the sort of argument into which the lawyer was trying to lure Jesus. It is what lawyers do. As one who practiced law for eighteen years, I understand how lawyer’s minds work. Lawyers do not ask questions in order to learn anything. Good lawyers never ask a question unless they know (or think they know) the answer. The purpose of a lawyer’s question is to elicit an answer that pins down the one being interrogated. It is designed to box one’s opponent into a position that can be attacked and discredited. If only Jesus can be forced to concede that there is a line to be drawn between neighbor and non-neighbor, insider and outsider, then the argument boils down to a simple matter of where you draw that line. Your nation? Your home state? Your neighborhood? Your family? How far can Jesus be pushed?

Jesus, however, will not be drawn into such puerile sophistry. For the duty of neighborliness does not turn on any definition of the noun, “neighbor.” It is not as though I can determine the scope of my responsibility to love my neighbor by crafting a definition of the term conveniently excluding those I dislike. It is quite the other way around. I am called first to be a neighbor without any limits, conditions or qualifications. The scope of my duty is then defined by everyone who needs a neighbor, without exception. The proper question, therefore, is not “Who is my neighbor?” but “Am I a neighbor?” Hence, rather than engaging the lawyer on his own terms and assumptions, Jesus replies with a parable.

Unlike most of Jesus’ parables, this one includes some very specific details. We are told that the victim of the bandits was travelling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Why does that matter anymore than the country of the king in Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast and the ungrateful and unresponsive invitees? One possibility is that the parable was based on an actual event about which the lawyer and the rest of those listening were aware. If so, Jesus’ story would have landed with even greater force. Had Jesus’ parable been only a parable, the lawyer might have responded, “Nice story Jesus. But that would never happen. You don’t know those Samaritans like I do. Rapists, murderers, drug dealers…” But if the parable were based on an actual event, there could be no such off handed dismissal.

Though the robbery victim, presumably a Jew, would surely have qualified definitionally as a neighbor to the priest and the Levite, he would hardly be considered such to the Samaritan. So distasteful is the very idea that the lawyer cannot even bring himself to use the word “Samaritan” in answering Jesus’ query as to who was neighbor to the man who fell among robbers. He will only reply “the one who showed him mercy.” When it came to who actually was neighbor to the man in need, the lawyer could not deny that the Samaritan alone fit the bill.

The refugees seeking asylum in our country are neighbors for no other reason than that they are in need and we have the means to assist them. Martin Luther recognized as much in his commentary on the commandment against murder in the Large Catechism:

“In the second place, this commandment is violated not only when a person actually does evil, but also when he fails to do good to his neighbor, or, though he has the opportunity, fails to prevent, protect, and save him from suffering bodily harm or injury. If you send a person away naked when you could clothe him, you have let him freeze to death. If you see anyone suffer hunger and do not feed him, you have let him starve. Likewise, if you see anyone condemned to death or in similar peril and do not save him although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. It will do no good to plead that you did not contribute to his death by word or deed, for you have withheld your love from him and robbed him of the service by which his life might have been saved.” The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Translated and edited by Theodore G. Tappert (c. 1959 by Fortress Press) pp. 390-391.

My Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and its ecumenical partners have always recognized refugees as siblings and neighbors. For over a century we have been working with, advocating for, sponsoring and resettling refugees from all over the world. We do it quite simply because it is what Jesus commands us to do. We cannot recognize the authority of any civil, religious or military power that would limit the limitless scope of our sacred duty to our neighbors.  

Here is a poem by Adreinna Rich about the boundaries we erect to divide ourselves into nations, tribes and clans, thereby diminishing our common humanity and eroding our capacity for neighborliness.

Boundary

What has happened here will do

To bite the living world in two,

Half for me and half for you.

Here at last I fix a line

Severing the world’s design

Too small to hold both yours and mine.

There’s enormity in a hair

Enough to lead men not to share

Narrow confines of a sphere

But put an ocean or a fence

Between two opposite intents.

A hair would span the difference.

Source: The Fact of a Doorframe, Adrienne Rich (c. 2002 by Adrienne Rich, pub. by W.W. Norton & Co.). Poet and essayist Adrienna Rich (1929-2012) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was a pathologist and professor at Johns Hopkins; her mother a former concert pianist. She graduated from Radcliffe University and married in 1953. She had three children with her husband, but the marriage ended with their separation in the 1960s. Rich’s prose collections are widely-acclaimed for their articulate treatment of politics, feminism, history, racism and many other topics. Her poetry likewise explores issues of identity, sexuality and politics.  Rich’s awards include the National Book Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship and a MacArthur “Genius” Award. You can read more about Adrienna Rich and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

Love as an Act of Resistance

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SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Genesis 43:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Prayer of the Day: O Lord Jesus, make us instruments of your peace, that where there is hatred, we may sow love, where there is injury, pardon, and where there is despair, hope. Grant, O divine master, that we may seek to console, to understand, and to love in your name, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Luke 6:27.

“We are to serve our enemy in all things without hypocrisy and with utter sincerity. No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy. If out of love for our brother we are willing to sacrifice goods, honor and life, we must be prepared to do the same for our enemy. We are not to imagine that this is to condone his evil; such a love proceeds from strength rather than weakness, from truth rather than fear, and therefore it cannot be guilty of the hatred of another. And who is to be the object of such love, if not those whose hearts are stifled with hatred.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (c. 1951 by SCM Press, Ltd.), p. 165.

At age eleven, I hated Keith for good reason. Three years older than me, he and his younger friends made it their mission to make my life as miserable as possible. Twice Keith beat me to a pulp. Once he sneaked into my yard and cut the heads of the garter snakes I kept as pets (Yes, I know. Keeping snakes is pretty weird). He would routinely show up with his crew of followers in the ally in back of my house to hurl insults and rocks at me. He was probably the worst enemy I ever had.

Standing up to Keith on the field of battle was out of the question. But there are other ways to fight back. Keith’s home was a block away, separated from my yard by a vacant lot. From the safety of the underbrush, I could lob rocks, dirt clods and insults at Keith whenever I found him in the front yard. Sometimes he gave chase, but I knew the vacant lot like the back of my hand, every nook, cranny and hiding place. He soon grew tired of my little game of whack-a-mole and retreated home. I remember well the day I found him flirting with a neighbor girl he was obviously trying to impress. From my hiding place I made loud smooching noises that made his love interest laugh-and that only made Keith more livid. Of course, I knew I would pay dearly if Keith ever caught me out in the neighborhood. Consequently, whenever I left my yard, I kept a wary eye out for him.

In retrospect, I think it must have been an unhappy summer for both of us. I longed to be able to go where I wanted without always looking over my shoulder. I have no doubt that Keith longed to be left in peace to work on his dirt bike or chat with his love interest without harassment. But the conflict had gotten bigger than both of us. I think we both wanted it to end, but we didn’t know how. On one of the many occasions on which I was badgering Keith from the shelter of the vacant lot, I made an insulting remark about his mother. Suddenly, Keith exploded with an energy I had never seen before. He raced across the street to the lot as I hunkered down in my hiding place. “F@#k you Cotton Tail (his derogatory name for me)!” he shouted. “You don’t know nothing about my mom. Nothing!!! I swear to God that I’ll kill you the next time I see you!” Keith spent more time than usual hunting me down that day, but to no avail.

I think that was probably the last time I went out to harass Keith. Part of my reluctance was fear. I more than half believed he might kill me or make me wish he had. But there was something deeper. I knew that, somehow, I had inflicted a deeply hurtful blow. I had wounded Keith in way deeper than he had ever hurt me. To say that I now loved him would be a stretch. But for the first time, I saw him as something other than a bully. I saw him as someone who had a mom, someone who could be hurt. Tormenting Keith no longer seemed clever, funny or adventurous. I saw it for what it really was. Just plain mean.

Keith and I never became friends, but our mutual animosity gradually cooled as we both grew older. By the time he was in high school and I was in junior high, we were waving and greeting one another. Keith remained in our hometown after college and medical school where he started his dental practice. If I ever get back there again, perhaps I will pay him a visit. I would like to know what triggered his hostility against me. Was it because he, being short for his age, saw in a younger kid who was nevertheless four inches taller a threat or a challenge to his manhood? Was I just an easy target because I was weird. (You must admit, a kid who keeps garter snakes as pets is clearly on the far side of normal). I would also like to know how my remarks upset him. What was going on with his mother and his family? I am not interested in obtaining an apology or offering one, though one is probably owed on both ends. I only want to understand and, perhaps, be understood.

More than a few insightful people have said that the definition of an enemy is a person whose story we do not know. When threatened by hostility, real or imagined, we have a natural tendency to ascribe the most sinister of motives. In reality, however, there is always a lengthy and complex road that has led all of us to who, what and were we are today. Our lives have been shaped, for better or worse, by family, church, peers and education. We are the products of every life experience, every triumph and trauma, success and failure, friendship and betrayal. If we are to follow Jesus’ commands to love our enemies and “do unto others what we would have done unto us,” then we need to learn our enemies’ story. We need to get ourselves into their skin and view the world through their eyes. Only then does it become possible to love one’s enemies, forgive them and begin to address their needs.

I do not mean to suggest that any amount of trauma, tragedy or abuse one suffers can justify or excuse one’s own acts of cruelty, violence or abuse. But knowing where the enemy’s hostility is coming from can enable us to avoid needlessly triggering it and give us the tools to diffuse it. More importantly, knowing one’s story makes empathy possible. Knowing the pain, fear and loneliness from which hostility springs can help us become more understanding, generous and forgiving. We discover in our enemy’s story common ground and opportunities for building bridges and opening doors for justice to be done, reconciliation achieved and peace made.

Love is less a matter of feeling than of action. You don’t have to like your enemies to love them. You don’t have to respect their opinions, ideologies and bigotry. And under no circumstances must their abusive behavior be enabled by reluctance to provoke them. While Jesus absolutely enjoins his disciples from taking revenge against their enemies, employing violence against them or usurping the prerogative of God alone by executing judgment upon them, he does not advocate acquiescing in the face of their aggression. There are numerous manners by which hostility can be resisted nonviolently and constructively. Jesus’ entire life was one of resisting the forces of oppression, violence and cruelty with the power of love. He employed parables that deconstructed his opponents’ prejudices and opened their minds to a deeper and richer reality. He exercised radical hospitality embracing all who sought his help, begged for healing and came posing questions. He could be found in the banqueting halls of religious and civic leaders and in places where notorious sinners and outcasts gathered. He embraced even his torturers with a prayer for their forgiveness. In essence, love is the most potent act of resistance to evil. It is a refusal to be drawn into the vortex of retribution that knows no end. It is a refusal to allow the enemy to dominate space in our minds and hearts. It robs our enemies of the power to transform us by their malice into a mirror image of their hatred. Love breaks the cycle of tit for tat, leaving the enemy powerless.

Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies requires that we be truthful with them. Truthful speech is the deepest expression of love. It is no act of love to allow a bigot to continue in his bigotry. It is no act of love toward your congregation to smooth over or ignore abusive and bullying behavior by some members against others. It is no act of love for one’s nation to remain silent in the face of injustice. Love does not always inspire love in return. Sometimes it sparks hostility and resentment. But disciples of Jesus know that the truth, painful as it can sometimes be, sets one free. Disciples know that they have been saved from self destructive behavior by the Truth that is Jesus. How can they withhold that lifegiving Truth from those they are called to love?

Here is a poem by Frank Chipasula love for country that reflects the sort of clear eyed love that is truthful, passionate and hopeful.

A Love Poem for My Country

I have nothing to give you, but my anger

And the filaments of my hatred reach across the border

You, you have sold many and me to exile.

Now shorn of precious minds, you rely only on

What hands can grow to build your crumbling image.

Your streets are littered with handcuffed men

And the drums are thuds of the wardens’ spiked boots.

You wriggle with agony as the terrible twins, law and order,

Call out the tune through the thick tunnel of barbed wire.

Here, week after week, the walls dissolve and are slim

The mist is clearing and we see you naked like

A body that is straining to find itself, but cannot

And our hearts thumping with pulses of desire or fear

And our dreams are charred chapters of your history.

My country, remember I neither blinked nor went to sleep

My country, I never let your life slide downhill

And passively watched you, like a recklessly driven car,

Hurrying to your crash while the driver leapt out.

The days have lost their song and salt

We feel bored without our free laughter and voice

Every day thinking the same and discarding our hopes.

Your days are loud with clanking cuffs

On men’s arms as they are led away to decay.

I know a day will come and wash away my pain

And I will emerge from the night breaking into song

Like the sun, blowing out these evil stars.

Source: O Earth, Wait for Me. (c. 1984 by Frank Chipasula; pub by Ravan Press). Frank Mkalawile Chipasula (b. 1949) is a Malawian writer, editor and university professor. He earned his B.A. from the University of Zambia, Lusaka and, following graduation, worked as a freelance broadcaster for the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation while studying English and French. In 1978 Chipasula went into exile in the United States and studied for his M.A. in Creative Writing at Brown University. He earned a second M.A. in African American Studies at Yale University and earned his Ph.D. in English literature from Brown University in 1987. His first book, Visions and Reflections, published in 1972 was the first published poetry volume in English by a Malawian writer. You can read more about Frank Chipalusa and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

Sunday, September 8th

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Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Deuteronomy 30:15–20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1:1–21
Luke 14:25–33

Prayer of the Day: Direct us, O Lord God, in all our doings with your continual help, that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name; and finally, by your mercy, bring us to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

I was one of the many students at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota to have been under the instruction of Professor Sheldon Tostengard. Professor Tostengard taught “homiletics” which is a fancy theological term for preaching. He took the task of preaching seriously and had very little patience for anyone who didn’t. Professor Tostengard never tired of reminding us that preaching should proclaim the biblical text-good, bad or ugly. “Never apologize for the Bible,” he used to tell us. “You didn’t write it. It isn’t your job to edit it, soften it or protect people from it. Your job is to say it and let the chips fall where they will.” Nothing made Professor Tostengard more livid than efforts to “domesticate” Jesus. “Don’t you dare ever preach a sermon in this class about what Jesus really meant,” he used to tell us. “Jesus meant what Jesus said. If you don’t have the stomach for it, then get out of the pulpit and make way for someone who does!”

I wish Professor Tostengard were still among the quick, because I would love to know how he would have handled this Sunday’s gospel. Jesus tells us that no one who does not “hate” parents, spouse and children can follow after him. That is mighty hard to stomach. I could deal with being told that I must love God above all other loves-though that is no small feat either. But does discipleship entail hating the people nearest and dearest to you? I consulted the Greek text of the New Testament and my lexicon in hopes of finding a loophole. The word Luke uses for “hate” is the Greek word “miseo” from which we get our word “misanthropic” meaning “hatred of humanity.” Clearly, there is no kinder, gentler meaning for Jesus’ words that somehow got lost in translation. So what do we make of what Jesus is telling us?

As Professor Tostengard is no longer around to be consulted, I sought help from Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Yes, he is dead too, but he left behind a treasure trove of his theological reflections. As I have said many times before, I don’t believe the church has seen a teacher and preacher as gifted as St. Augustine. For Augustine, the greatest evil was not hatred. Hatred is only the symptom of a deeper problem, namely, disordered love. Human love is designed to bring about human happiness through guiding the self to love its Creator. Love for non-divine, creaturely things is also appropriate, but “In all such things, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all things, but let it not cleave too close in love to them through the senses of the body. For they go their way and are no more; and they rend the soul with desires that can destroy it, for it longs to be one with the things it loves and to repose in them. But in them is no place of repose, because they do not abide.” Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 4, Chapter 10, Paragraph 15. Unless love is firmly grounded in the Creator, it latches on to its fellow creatures. Ultimately, these creatures cannot satisfy the restless heart that can find peace only in God. Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 1, Paragraph 1.

The problem here is idolatry or what St. Paul calls worshiping the creature in place of the Creator. Romans 1:25. Such misdirected love turns into hate when our idol, the object of our love, cannot meet the demands of godhood we place on it. The woman of my dreams turns out to be a human being with flaws, shortcomings and needs of her own. She can never live up to my romance novel fantasies. When that becomes evident I feel hurt, disappointed and perhaps even deceived. The job I thought would give me the sense of purpose, the assurance of accomplishment and the status among my peers I believed could make me happy turns out to be, well, just a job. So I start hating every day I have to show up for work. I go from idol to idol seeking the peace only God can give me. When the idol inevitably disappoints me, I angrily kick it off its pedestal and look for another. Even love that is directed toward the Creator can be idolatrous. Worship designed to meet my own needs rather than to glorify God, prayer that seeks to manipulate God into doing my will instead of conforming my will to God’s and preaching about God that uses religious language to further a thinly veiled political agenda are all examples of idolatry. The idolater seeks to have God on his or her own terms rather than living life on God’s terms. When it becomes clear that God cannot be possessed and controlled, he or she becomes angry and disappointed with God as well.

Hatred, then, is quite simply our natural response to seeing through an idol. We hate the idol because it is not the god we thought it was. Augustine would not be at all surprised to learn of our epidemic of spouse and child abuse, skyrocketing rates of debilitating depression and ever increasing incidents of teen suicide. After all, what can you expect when you worship the creature instead of the Creator? What can you expect when you push God to the margins of family life, somewhere down on the order of priorities below band practice, Disney World, the Sunday Times and thousands of other diversions? When hearts created to love God fall in love with something less than God, they are bound to get broken.

Finally, after having been disappointed by a long line of idols, each of which has failed to give the idolater the peace s/he seeks, the idolater begins hating life itself. That might sound like a hopeless place to be, but it is precisely there, where all the idols have failed us and all hope for salvation from them has faded, that Jesus meets us. Once we discover that we have been “looking for love in all the wrong places,” we are finally ready to discover it in the right place. Hating the life of misdirected love and misplaced hope is the first step toward new life where love is properly grounded first and foremost in the Creator. That is the first step toward learning to love the world, its creatures and our families rightly; not as gods, but as fellow creatures and gifts of the Creator.

So as hard and offensive as Jesus’ words from our gospel lessen sound to us, I believe they are precisely the words we most need to hear. We need to see the destructiveness of our selfish and misdirected love and hate what it is doing to us. We need to be reminded that Jesus will not settle for second place in our lives, and that when we relegate him to some lower priority we are only hurting ourselves as well as the ones we most love. If we are ever going to love our families, our communities, our nation and the world in a proper and life giving way, we need to learn daily to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

Deuteronomy 30:15–20

The Book of Deuteronomy places us with Moses and the people of Israel at the frontiers of the promised land of Canaan. Moses’ career is drawing to a close. He will not enter with Israel into Canaan. Instead, the torch of leadership will pass to Joshua. So we are to understand that Moses is giving to Israel his final instructions. That the composition of this book likely took place in the latter years of the Davidic monarchy with additions during and after the Babylonian Exile only serves to illustrate how the stark choice between “life and good, death and evil” is ever before God’s people. In every age, in every individual life, at each moment God urges us to “choose life.”

That injunction to “choose life” is loaded with many political overtones. The phrase “culture of life” was popularized by Pope John Paul II. As used by the Pope, it describes a societal existence based upon the theological premise that human life at all stages from conception through natural death is sacred. Social conservatives in the United States, citing the Pope as their ally, frequently invoke his teachings on the “culture of life” in their opposition to abortion, destruction of human embryonic stem cells and contraception. I cannot help but notice, however, their roaring silence when it comes to the Pope’s opposition to capital punishment, his criticisms of free market capitalism and his repeated calls for governments to come to the aid of the poor. I guess that for these social conservatives, the culture of life extends only from conception to birth. After that, you are on your own.

In reading and interpreting this text, the first question to ask is: who is being addressed? Without doubt, Moses is speaking to Israel as God’s covenant partner. We can also say that he is addressing the church, but only because we gentiles “who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ.” Ephesians 2:13. Can we use this text, however, as a platform for promoting a “culture of life” in the United States? Is that an appropriate use of the book of Deuteronomy? If you have been following me more or less regularly, you know that my answer is “no.” The biblical injunction to choose life arises out of the covenant relationship between Israel and her God. The covenant gives shape to God’s call for Israel to be a unique people in the midst of the nations. It is precisely for this reason that Israel is commanded to ensure that there are no poor in her midst, that the orphan, widow and resident alien are treated with justice and compassion. Israel is to be a light to the nations and a witness to God’s intent for creation. Apart from Israel’s election and her covenant with God, the command to choose life is a pale, insipid and vacuous moral indicative waiting to be filled with practically anyone’s political agenda.

Despite idolatrous claims of American exceptionalism, the United States is not God’s chosen people and there is no covenant between God and the United States. For that reason one cannot apply the terms of Israel’s covenant with Yahweh to American society. That would be very much like trying to enforce a contract against a person who never signed it. The application of covenant obligations can be made only against the people of Israel with whom the covenant was made and the people of God brought into that covenant by baptism into Jesus Christ. We are the ones God calls upon to “choose life.”

The implication is clear. Whether you are advocating for tougher legal restrictions on abortion or food assistance for poor children in the United States, you cannot do so from the platform of Deuteronomy or any other covenantal scripture. Or I should say you cannot do that unless you are convinced that somewhere along the line God made the United States a party to Yahweh’s covenant with Israel. The only place where these covenant obligations (and the promises which are even more numerous) can be given effect is within the covenant communities of Israel and the church.

Mark Twain is credited with saying, “To be good is noble. To teach someone else to be good is more noble still-and a lot less trouble.” I believe the church goes far astray when, instead of internalizing the scriptures, we use them as a platform for lecturing the rest of the world on “culture of life,” justice, peace and other abstract nouns. What if instead of issuing a never ending stream of preachy screechy social statements in which we wag our moralistic fingers at society at large, we turned our criticism inward? What if the new bishop of the ELCA issued a call to all of our congregations to ensure that all members of our churches receive adequate medical insurance coverage? What if instead of merely joining the chorus of voices calling for stiffer gun legislation, our bishop were to call upon members of all ELCA congregations to dispose of their fire arms-or at least those designed for human combat? I believe that the best way for the church to “choose life” would be for the church to become “a culture of life.” Let’s be the change we want to see in the rest of the world.

Psalm 1

Scholars disagree as to whether or not this psalm was specifically composed as an introduction to the Psalter. In either case, it serves that purpose well. Teachings such as the blessedness of the godly life, the futility of wickedness, the faithfulness of God to all who trust in him and the joy of meditating on the scriptures reflected in the first Psalm find further expression and amplification throughout the rest of the Psalter. This psalm is classified as a “wisdom psalm” and as such makes the bold assertion that both righteousness and wickedness find their proper reward within the parameters of a human lifetime. The assertion is as problematic as it is bold and requires numerous qualifications, explanations and, above all, faith in the goodness of God when God seems altogether absent from the scene. For now, though, you stand at the beginning “with a faith to suit you well.” “Borning Cry,” Evangelical Lutheran Worship, # 732. As life becomes more complex, nuanced and layered, so will God’s faithful presence in the next one hundred forty-nine psalms.

Beatitude begins with answering God’s call to come out from among the wicked. The call to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 is echoed in this opening verse of Psalm 1. The implication, then, is that Israel’s call to be separate from the nations is precisely for the purpose of being a light to the nations. Rather than taking her cues from the wicked, the righteous person’s delight is in the Torah. Meditation on the covenant guides her life course and, as a result, she is firmly grounded and well cared for as a tree planted next to a river. Rooted as it is near a perpetual source of water, this tree symbolizing the righteous person is unaffected by drought.

By contrast, the wicked are characterized as “chaff,” empty husks that are blown away by the wind in the threshing process. They are of no value and their works have no permanence. They cannot stand “in the judgment.” Though the original author of the psalm may only have understood “judgment” in a purely temporal, “this worldly” sense, later Judaism and the early church began to see in this assertion a reference to God’s final judgment. Though God is always judging, purifying and sanctifying “the congregation of the righteous” (vs. 5), there must finally be a day when that congregation is fully cleansed from all wickedness. That day will come, however, in God’s own good time. For now, the righteous must be content to live among if not in the counsel of the wicked. As Jesus points out, one ought not to become impatient and exercise judgment before the appointed day. Matthew 13:24-30.

Philemon 1:1–21

This brief letter from St. Paul to a disciple of Jesus named Philemon is a fascinating window into the life of the New Testament church. It was evidently written when Paul was imprisoned. Though some scholars have suggested that Paul was writing from Rome, it is also possible that the letter was composed while Paul was imprisoned at Ephesus. Philemon was a convert of Paul and the leader of a house church in Colossae. Evidently, Philemon’s slave, Onesimus escaped from him and made his way to where Paul was imprisoned. There he became a companion and helper to the apostle during his imprisonment. At some point, Onesimus also became a disciple of Jesus, though whether he was such when he deserted Philemon or received baptism under the influence of Paul is not altogether clear. In any event, Paul is sending Onesimus back to his master, Philemon, with the letter bearing his name.

In the pre-Civil War south this letter was invoked to defend the institution of slavery. After all, Paul does not say anything critical about slavery in his letter. Moreover, he returns Onesimus to his master and even acknowledges his master’s right of ownership. From this we conclude that slavery is not evil per se and that a slave owner’s rights over his slave should be honored. Paul has come under a good deal of modern criticism on that score. Should not Paul have championed the human rights of Onesimus rather than honoring the property rights of Philemon? For the reasons below, I would reject this anachronistic argument.

First, it is important to understand that slavery in antiquity, though a lamentable condition, was far different from the slavery that existed in the United States in the nineteenth century. Slavery in the first century Roman Empire was not race based. Racial and ethnic groups were not singled out as inferior or “natural slaves” as was the case for African Americans. If you were a slave in the Roman Empire, it was likely because your parents sold you to satisfy a debt or you were on the losing side of some military conflict. Though few and far between, there were opportunities for slaves to win their freedom and achieve high office in the Roman bureaucracy as the philosopher, Seneca attests. Seneca the Younger, Letter 47. It is impossible to imagine anything like that ever happening in the pre-Civil War south. Thus, there can be no meaningful comparison between slavery in antiquity and that which existed in the southern states prior to the Civil War.

Second, Paul had no interest in creating a more just society. He was concerned only with witnessing faithfully to the new creation of which the resurrected Body of Christ was the first fruits. Anyone who asserts that Paul’s returning Onesimus to his master constituted recognition of Philemon’s rights as a slaveholder would do well to read carefully the rest of Paul’s writings. This is not a matter Philemon’s rights, but the healing of Christ’s Body. Whatever rights may be involved here is irrelevant. The governing reality is that Onesimus and Philemon are now brothers in Christ Jesus and must be reconciled as such. Moreover, Paul makes clear that henceforth they are to live as brothers, regardless of their legal status in the outside world. The Body of Christ is to be a microcosm of God’s new creation in the midst of the old. Paul was more interested in witnessing to the new creation than patching up the old one.

Luke 14:25–33

As indicated in my opening remarks, this is a tough text. Jesus insists that whoever would come after him must “hate” his or her family members. In an effort to soften the effect of this saying, one commentator suggests that the Semitic understanding of this Greek word which would be “to love less” is intended. Marshall, Howard I., Commentary on Luke, New International Greek Testament Commentary, (c. 1978 Paternoster Press, Ltd.) p. 592. Nice try Howard, but as Luke has proved himself quite fluent in literary Greek and shows no inclination to favor Semitic meanings, I don’t find that line of argument persuasive. I think we need to take Jesus at his disturbing word here. For my take on that, see the introductory remarks.

The parables about the unfinished tower and the king outflanked by his enemy reinforce the theme we have seen since Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem in Luke 9:51. Discipleship is a costly business and is not to be undertaken lightly. Just as you would not begin building a tower unless you were sure you had the resources to finish it or embark upon a military campaign without the troops and munitions required to prevail, so one should not come after Jesus unless s/he is prepared to pay the price. That price is the cross. Understand that we are to take this literally. As John Howard Yoder would remind us: “The cross of Calvary was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt or a nagging in-law; it was the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling his society.” Yoder, John Howard, The Politics of Jesus, (c 1972 William B. Eerdmans Co.).  Thus, to follow Jesus is to enter into the struggle upon which he embarked when he set his face to go to Jerusalem. It is becoming evident to the disciples and perhaps the crowd as well that this encounter at Jerusalem may end in Jesus’ death. What they cannot yet anticipate is the “Exodus” Jesus will accomplish there. They cannot yet understand the “necessity” of Jesus’ suffering dictated by his faithfulness to his heavenly Father and his determination save his people. That will become clear only after Jesus is raised and “opens their minds” to understand the scriptures. Luke 24:45.

“Whoever of you does not renounce all that s/he has cannot be my disciple.” Vs. 33. By now we should know better than to dismiss this declaration as hyperbole or attempt to spiritualize it. Jesus means what Jesus says. To receive the gift of the kingdom, you need empty hands. Harkening back to our friend Augustine, not until the whole heart is given to God with all other loves being renounced can these lesser loves be received and loved properly.

Sunday, May 26th

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The Holy Trinity

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

Prayer of the Day:  Almighty Creator and ever-living God: we worship your glory, eternal Three-in-One, and we praise your power, majestic One-in-Three. Keep us steadfast in this faith, defend us in all adversity, and bring us at last into your presence, where you live in endless joy and love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Trinity is the way disciples of Jesus think about God and the way we think about God matters. If you don’t think it matters how one thinks about God, then you should probably have a chat with the survivors of the 9/11 attacks or loved ones of Dr. George Tiller gunned down in the narthex of his church by an antiabortion activist or the parents of the 77 children murdered by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway two years ago in his campaign to preserve Christian culture in Europe. Wrongheaded thinking about God is lethal. So I think it is probably a good idea that we take a Sunday out of the church year to reflect on what we mean when we begin our worship in the name of the “Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Let’s start with dispelling some misunderstandings about the Holy Trinity.

God is not a committee. As child, I pictured the Trinity as an old man, a young man and a bird. I understood vaguely that these three were somehow the same and yet different, though I never quite knew how. (I can’t honestly say that the question interested me very much back then.) I can also recall a diagram like the one below from my Sunday School days.

While this diagram lets us know what cannot be said about the Holy Trinity, it doesn’t help us much in puzzling through what we should be saying. There are many extremely poor analogies that well meaning Sunday School instructors have used to help small children “get” the Trinity. I fear that by repeating them, I will only make myself complicit in perpetuating the misunderstandings they spawn. Suffice to say that I think it is perfectly acceptable to respond to questions children might raise about the Trinity by explaining that some things require years of thinking and growing to understand. When it comes to God, there is always more to learn. That is another reason why going to church must be a lifelong practice rather than one you leave behind along with middle school.

One tempting but inadequate way of overcoming the “committee misnomer” is the “modalist” explanation for the Trinity. Quite simply, God is one, but reveals himself in three different modes: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This solves the problem of the three by denying their separate existence. You may be familiar with the example of the woman who is a mother, a doctor and a wife. Though she is a caregiver, a healer and a lover, she is one single person. In the same way, God creates as the Father, redeems as the Son and sanctifies through the Spirit while remaining one God. Though it has a surface logic to it and a humanizing appeal, this analogy is fatally flawed. First, though the woman in the analogy retains her personhood throughout her daily life, her roles dictate that she must relate differently to the people she deals with throughout her day. Clearly, moral and professional boundaries stand in the way of her expressing the kind of love she has for her husband to her patients.  Furthermore, if her husband or children were in need of medical care, she might well lack the objectivity required to provide that care despite her obvious competence. In a sense, this woman is required by her different roles to be a different person to each of the different groups of people in her life. I don’t believe we want to say the same about our God.

Another problem with this modalist outlook is that it obscures rather than reveals the true identity of God. After all, if the Father, Son and Spirit are nothing more than modes of the one God, they don’t really name God. If they are just modes through which God acts, we still do not know who God is. What is to stop us from supposing that there might be other modes of God? Furthermore, if the Triune invocation is merely descriptive of God’s functions, we could just as easily dispense with it altogether and replace it with more descriptive verbal nouns, such as creator, redeemer and sanctifier as some liturgies have in fact done. Clearly, the modalist path is not the one we want to follow. So forget the above analogy of the woman/doctor and delete it permanently from your memory drive.

In my own view, the most helpful expression of Trinitarian thought comes to us from St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. Augustine argued mainly against the notion that the Son, as begotten by the Father, was somehow inferior to the Father and so less than God. One of Augustine’s most potent counter arguments went as follows: God is eternal and God is love. For love always to have existed there must always have been a lover and a beloved. Therefore, the Trinity exists eternally as the Father (lover) who loves the son (beloved) and the Spirit (mutual love between lover and beloved).  On the Trinity, Book 8, ch. 10. The distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit lies not in their external acts, but in their dynamic relationship within God’s self. On the Trinity, Book 1 ch. 4. Augustine therefore also rejected the modalist notion that the persons of the Trinity can be differentiated on the basis of what they do. Indeed, we cannot speak of the Father, Son or Holy Spirit being solely responsible for any single external divine act. All of God’s acts are unitary acts of the whole Trinity. Even when the Scriptures attribute certain activities to one of the Trinitarian persons, the others are always present and equally involved. Jesus acts solely on the authority of the Father; the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus and comes from the Father; the Father is known only through the Son who is in the bosom of the Father.

If you are still reading at this point, you must be wondering why any of this matters. It matters because the church has some definite things to say about God. God is not a question mark. While it is true to say that God is unknowable, God is not unknown. That is because God has revealed himself to us in the person of his Son to whom the scriptures bear witness. There is plenty about our God that remains a mystery to us, but the heart and character of God have been revealed. We are not blind men feeling up an elephant with no idea what we are encountering. (I am alluding, of course, to that perfectly ghastly poem, The Blind Men and the Elephant, by John Godfrey Saxe.)

Trinity matters because disciples of Jesus confess that self giving love for the other, loyalty, faithfulness and hospitality are not merely social conventions, evolved behaviors or even scriptural norms. They are virtues grounded in the very being and character of God where they are expressed perfectly within God’s Triune self. To be created in God’s image is to be capable of embodying the character of God, and this is no mere spiritual aspiration. It is concretely grounded in the reality of the incarnation-the Word of God made flesh in Jesus.

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

I am not at all sure why this reading is included among the Holy Trinity lessons. It just happens to be one of the texts that the Arian heretics cited in support of their claim that the Son was a creature (albeit an exalted one) and in no sense true God. In this particular text, wisdom is not a pre-existent divine being distinct from God, but an aspect or characteristic of God who is poetically endowed with speech. Thus, it is largely irrelevant to the dispute between the Arians and the Orthodox Trinitarian believers. Still, it is a wonderful text testifying to the beauty and order of creation and the glory of its Creator.

The Book of Proverbs is a collection of poems and short sayings dating from as early as the tenth century B.C.E. to as late as the fourth century B.C.E. Unlike the Psalms which are for the most part expressions of prayer, praise, and lament within the context of worship, Proverbs is concerned with universal and pragmatic “wisdom” and the means by which it is acquired. Though clearly influenced by Egyptian and Mesopotamian wisdom literature, Israel’s understanding of wisdom has its own unique flavor. Though it shares with these foreign sources a humanistic focus on reasoned inquiry into the natural world, Israelite wisdom identifies the divine will and purpose as the ultimate human good wisdom reveals. Truth acquired through reason is open to the whole of humanity. Still, for Israel wisdom is subordinate to Israel’s God. It functions within the context of Israel’s covenants and the Torah.

In view of all this, it is not surprising that the particular poem in this week’s lesson affirms that wisdom, as wonderful as she is and though accessible to all willing to submit to her instruction, is nevertheless God’s creation. The human mind can do no more than appropriate what already exists by virtue of God’s creative activity at the dawn of time. Wisdom therefore necessarily takes the shape of Torah. It is not that Israel forsakes reasoned inquiry for blind adherence to law. Nor can it be said that Israel’s keen spirit of inquiry runs contrary to Torah obedience. Rather, Torah both shaped Israel’s questions of the natural world and informed her conclusions. Perhaps the clearest case of incorporation of wisdom into Torah is found in the very lengthy Psalm 119. Though the psalmist praises Torah as the source of all wisdom, it is obvious his/her own wisdom has been forged in the furnace of experience where Torah meets the challenges of every day life.

Psalm 8

This psalm is one that biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann classifies a song of orientation. As such, it expresses “a confident, serene settlement of faith issues.” Brueggemann, Walter, The Message of the Psalms, Augsburg Publishing House (c. 1984) p. 25. It is further classified by the majority of Old Testament scholars as a “creation” psalm glorifying God for making and sustaining an orderly and reliable world in which season follows upon season, harvest upon harvest and the cycles of birth, maturation, old age and death are blessed with the gracious presence of the Lord.

The psalm points specifically to the place of human beings in the created order. Though the psalmist does not focus on human frailty and mortality, s/he is clearly aware it when asking “what are human beings and their descendents that you care for them?” vs. 4. In comparison with God’s other works, the sun, the moon and the stars which are for all practical purposes immortal, human beings with their moribund existence and their short, fragile lives hardly seem to register. Yet the psalmist recognizes that God is uniquely concerned with human beings, that they are little lower than the angels in his estimation and that they have been appointed to rule over the earth and its creatures.

It is important to understand that “dominion” over the earth given human beings is to be exercised as an extension of God’s reign over creation. Thus, the words of last week’s psalm should be ringing in our ears: “All of [the creatures of the earth]look to you to give them their food in due season. You give it to them; they gather it; you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.” Psalm 104:27-29. Dominion is not given to human beings for exploitation of the earth and its resources. Human beings rule as stewards who must give account for the care they have exercised in managing God’s good earth. Ecology is very much a biblical value!

Stylistically, the psalm is carefully crafted to reflect in its composition the same good order manifest throughout God’s creation. It begins and ends with the same refrain: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!” The psalm begins with people, even infants, glorifying God for the majesty of the heavens. Then the psalm turns to God’s glorification of human beings, small though they may be, in making them rulers over the earth and sea.

Romans 5:1-5

For Paul, the Holy Spirit is the animating force for the church which he regards as the Body of the resurrected Christ. As such, the Spirit’s primary concern is the health of that Body. Gifts of the Spirit given individually to members of the church are intended to “build up” the Body of Christ. Thus, it matters not at all which particular gift one has, but how one uses his or her gift. Whether one speaks in other tongues, prophesies, works miracles or exercises leadership, the net result must be that the church is strengthened. If leadership divides and alienates rather than unites or if miracles draw attention to the miracle worker rather than to the mercy of God in Christ, then these gifts become tools of Satan to break down the Body. Paul lays out all of this very succinctly in I Corinthians 12. Put differently, spiritual gifts must be exercised under the gentle reign of love. Of all the manifestations of the Spirit within the church, “the greatest of these is love” I Corinthians 13:13. That should help us understand what Paul is saying here in Romans.

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” Vs. 5. Recall Augustine’s assertion that the Trinitarian character of God is revealed in the love between the Father and the Son which is the Holy Spirit. Genuine love, however, is not exclusive. It “overflows” the bounds of the relationships that give rise to it. Perhaps that is what we mean when we confess in the Nicene Creed that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the Son. Love is ever seeking new objects. One of our more modern Trinitarian hymns contains the following line: “The universe of space and time did not arise by chance, but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.” Evangelical Lutheran Worship, #412.  It is precisely because the one God is also three and because the relationship between the three is characterized by their mutual love and because love by its very nature makes room for the other, the Spirit of God, which is love, broods over the waters at the dawn of time seeking that other. The Word beckons the other into being and the Father blesses what comes to be. Again, this is not to say that the universe was the work of a committee. Rather, creation is a singular act of the Triune God which bears the stamp of that God’s innermost Trinitarian being.

It is perhaps clearer now why Jesus could say that the two greatest commandments are first to love God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and next to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Such love is grounded in the innermost being of God.

John 16:12-15

In this tightly packed paragraph from John, Jesus speaks of the interaction between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of truth will be given to the disciples and will lead them into “all the truth.” Yet the Spirit speaks not on its own authority, but on the authority of the Father. However, the Spirit imparts “truth” to the disciples by “taking what is mine [Jesus’) and declaring it to you.” The disciples are recipients of the Spirit who comes from the Father and whose sole job is to impart Jesus to them. Once again, the sending of the Spirit is a unitary act of the one Triune God by which the disciples are drawn into the heart of God’s Trinitarian life of mutual love. Not surprisingly, this section of John was a favorite of our friend Augustine on whom I have perhaps gone a little heavier than I should have.

Augustine’s Trinitarian arguments have often been criticized as mere word games. Yet I believe that there is a substantive basis for his insistence on the necessity of God’s being Triune. If God were merely one, could it still be said that God’s nature and character is love? Love needs an object. Consequently, if God were one and not Triune, love could not have preexisted creation as it would have had no object. The essence of God would then have to have been something other than love. Rather than being essential to God’s being, love would be only an acquired attribute.

While the above argument may not be fully air tight as a “proof” for the Trinity, it illustrates why a Trinitarian understanding of God is so critical to what we confess about God. God so loved the world precisely because God created the world out of an outpouring of love. God gave his only Son to save the world because that is what one does for a loved one. God poured out his Holy Spirit upon the disciples enabling them to preach the good news of Jesus to the world because love always overflows its channels. What God does flows from who God is.