The Burden of Choice

As Americans we tend to view more choice in life as an inherent good. The more choices the better. And we believe that about everything from toothpaste to TV channels and from churches to sex, not to mention how much time we spend on deciding what type of food we want to eat. It can all be very time consuming and for some, draining, though not many people mention the dark side of too many choices.

If you're apt to compare things then it is easy to spend countless hours comparing the micro-differences in various products and if you're looking for a better price then days can be spent on the Internet in order to save a little money. Of course if one has more time than money then this may be a nececessity but it can still be a burden nonetheless.

The solution of course is not fewer choices. Nobody wants to go back to four cars to choose from or one grocery store or, God forbid, five flavors of gum, but in spite of the gift of this freedom, choice also has a shadow side.

The old theologian, Martin Luther, used to write about the bondage of the will but I am not sure if he wrote anything about the bondage of choice. Choice, too, can be a slavery.

Paul's Humanity

The Apostle Paul is one of the most colorful Christian leaders in all of church history and he is both loved and hated throughout the Christian world. Some consider him the world's greatest defender and promoter of Christianity while others believe he did not take Christianity far enough and refused to take righteous stands on issues like female equality and slavery. Beyond doubt he was a strong personality and very opinionated.

But in 2nd Timothy a different Paul emerges. He is writing to his young friend and disciple Timothy from a dark and damp Roman dungeon and he was in chains like a common criminal. This was certainly not the first time that Paul was in prison but now he is nearing the end of his life and you can sense his weariness. Did he know the end was near as some people do? He is at least conscious of the possibility and is losing hope 4:6-8.

Then, near the end of the letter, Paul writes to Timothy three little words... "Come before winter". No great spiritually, illumined theological insights this time...no deep Christian thoughts to ponder..only the illumination of human need by a tired man in prison asking for a visit from a beloved friend before it gets too cold...before it is too late. This Paul I love. A moment of vulnerability...a chink in the armor...the tender hope of an old man revealed in a humble request.

Paul apparently died shortly after writing this letter. No one knows if Timothy ever made it to see him.

Jesus--The Divine Joke

There is a divine and perpetual joke that runs throughout the Gospels of the Christian scriptures. Some of us miss it all of the time...and all of us miss it some of the time, namely, that the love of God typically comes from unwanted places and from those we despise.

To see and receive love from those we love in return requires no special feat of the human heart. Everyone does that. But to recognize love from those we hate...or even more so to care about their love at all and to receive it...is beyond mere human power.

(Perhaps) for this very reason God chose to enter the world as a poor, helpless infant who couldn't control his own bowels like an old bum in dark side ally...that's how God came and comes to us all still. No wonder that we don't have the power to love him...We don't even have the power to want to love him...piss-pour fool that he is. Maybe in the end it simply takes one to know one.

Neighbor

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! you always turn everything around.

A scholar of the law, wishing to justify his own behavior once asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor"? He probably wanted to confirm his own righteous practice of helping those that were close to him and thus fulfil the law of loving "your neighbor as yourself". After all, that is the most that can truly be expected of us really. We can't be responsible for those we don't know when it is hard enough to care for those we do know.

So in answer to the man's question Jesus tells one of the most famous stories in all of Scripture which most of us know as The Parable of the Good Samaritan. You remember, a Jewish traveler was robbed and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road and two religious types ignored and avoided him while they went on their merry way. But then a Samaritan, whom all Jews despised as half-breeds, also saw the man and decided to help him. He bound up his wounds, set them up in a nice hotel and promised to check back later. No doubt he was true to his word.

But then Jesus asks the man an unexpected question. "Which of the three, in your opinion, was the neighbor to the robbers' victim"? Instead of identifying our neighbor as anyone in need Jesus implies that the neighbor is anyone who helps. Therefore the more fundamental issue is not, who is my neighbor, but rather who can I be a neighbor to. When we are being neighbors then we are loving our neighbors as our selves and if we have half the heart of the Good Samaritan, we'll be neighbors to those that despise us.

Pain: An Addendum

After talking to a good friend of mine a few moments ago I decided to write a postscript to my last blog on pain. I really did not want it  to be taken as a depressing piece but blogs, like life, can never be perfectly balanced. In other words it is impossible to paint the whole picture every time. Nevertheless, this is my attempt at balance...my attempt to paint a broader picture.

Although my pain depresses me sometimes, even to the point of circling the drain of despair, I do not live my life in depression. I live my life in joy. It is a hard-fought, hard-won joy, while at the same time a complete gift of Grace.
Christianity declares that all grace is of God, neither earned or deserved, so it would never occur to me to try to take credit for it. More than anything I am just a utterly grateful that it is there.

The mystery of pain is that sometimes it can lead us to joy as well because it has the potential to make us compassionate, or at least to open the door to it. Com-passion means with suffering or to suffer with another and if we are lucky then we will both give it and recieve it.

The moment you wince at another person's pain it is beginning. And the moment that you wince a little deeper still because you understand their particular type of pain, it is working even deeper. Then sometimes you may catch yourself aching at the mention of someone else's suffering, even across the world...the Indians and Pakistanis dying in flood waters...the sonless and daughterless mothers and fathers whose children have fled to the U.S. for safety...and compassion is taking hold.

Compassion is not in and of itself joy of course, but it is rooted in gratefulness, which in turn, is grounded in joy and I can honestly I have never met an ungrateful person who was compassionate. Joy and compassion feed on one another.

So that is my broader context. My pain has led me, though sometimes against my will, into greater compassion and thus, much greater joy and it has connected me again to the entire world.

Pain: A Confession Of Faith

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us and our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a death world.

C.S.Lewis


In the moment that I am writing this I am hurting. I hurt every hour of every day except for the grace of sleep. Doctors, specialists and non-specialists, alternative doctors and alternative therapies alike have never been able to uncover the cause, consequently, relief of any kind is minimal. It has gone on longer than most people would believe if I told them and I can hardly believe it either as I count back the years.

As I continue to be taught by my physical pain, I am also continuing to learn what it means that through the cross of Christ God suffered in the world and with the world. Our God is a suffering God or as A. N. Whitehead put it, God is "the fellow-sufferer who understands". I am not alone--the world is not alone--in its suffering. God is truly with us and for us.
Therefore the cross of Jesus Christ reveals that Christians do not worship the God of the ancient Greeks, who is above the world and is immune to her afflictions, but rather a God who is radically involved in the world through voluntary, vulnerable love. Because of this and in more ways than one, Christians can honestly say that God hurts when we hurt.

Of course, I ask myself sometimes, what good is a fellow-sufferer if God is unable to liberate either one of us from this pit of pain, because in my blackest moments I want more--I need more--than a simple fellow companion on this journey? I agree with the cry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that "only the suffering God can help", but if that is all that God is good for then, forgive me, but that is not enough. Until I remember the resurrection.

If the cross of Christ tells us that God suffers with this world then the resurrection tells us that God also liberates and transforms this world...and that gives me a flicker of hope. Just enough sometimes, to allow me to put one foot in front of the other, for one more day and sometimes, for one more hour. I have come to realize over the years that my pain runs straight through me into the heart of every other broken person on this planet even down to the core of the broken earth herself.

Romans chapter 8 tells us that the "whole creation groans" for healing and freedom and liberation, so I know...in my better moments...that I am in good company. Having said that, I am still gripped sometimes by existential moments of despair when death seems a faster salvation and a more humane one than living. Such is life. Telling the truth helps. Maybe hearing it will help you too.

The Pharisees

The Pharisees actually started out as a group of committed and very well intentioned followers of the Judaic Law. Apparently they were both lovers of God and lovers of scripture. You might say that they were passionate about being obedient to Yahweh which is not a very bad place to begin.

Many scholars believe that they developed around the time of the Babylonian Captivity of Israel when Israel was displaced from their land and taken abroad. In the minds of the people Yahweh was gone because Yahweh had always been the God of a certain location, Israel, and the God of a certain place, the Temple in Jerusalem. When the Babylonians destroyed the Temple in 586 BCE then Yahweh was also destroyed with it. Truly God was dead.

But to distinguish themselves from the surrounding foreign culture a few were left who nobly and tenaciously still held on to the ancient Jewish laws. They became so zealous in fact they began to build what was called a "hedge around the law" in order to protect it...like Eve telling Adam that they were not even allowed to "touch" the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This wasn't true of course. God never said not to touch it. Presumably they could have picked it, played ball with it, and rubbed it all over their bodies for all that God was concerned and that would not have posed a problem. All God said was don't eat it. But caution often gets the better of us and so it was with those lovers of the law...the Pharisees.

Over time, the hedge that was meant to protect the Law became synonymous with the Law itself and before anyone consciously realized it, the violation of the hedge became a violation of God... or so it was thought. By New Testament times hardly anyone knew the difference, the leaders or the followers. C

hristianity is a lot like that today. We all too often confuse cultural mores and Biblical morality. The old preachers used to say that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" but it doesn't pay to be holier than God.