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.

8 EZ Steps To A Comfortable Theology

1. Approach the Bible as if it is primarily a book of doctrine because that is God's purpose for it and the basis of any solid theology.

2. It is significantly easier if you begin with a theology already in place... probably what you were taught in the past.

3. Continues to use old terms to communicate old understandings. These are reliable.

4. When you find scripture that doesn't fit your theology either ignore it or use a hammer. Hammers are the best.

5. In a similar manner, never listen to anything that doesn't fit your theology. The Spirit has already confirm that you are right.

6. Try to keep God as far away as possible from your theology. Remember God likes to throw wrenches.

7. Never forget that the Bible is a monologue. Don't talk back to God.

8. Finally, continue to tell yourself, unconsciously if possible...If I am wrong then Christ disappears...if I am wrong then I can't trust Christ...thoughts like these will keep you passionate.

Forgiving Our Enemy

In spite of the claims of pop psychology,  Biblical forgiveness is never predominantly "for me", even though I may be its primary benefactor. If we seek to forgive another person because we want to feel better, then neither is likely to happen. For a Christian, forgiving others is an existential response to the cross of Christ and to our prior forgiveness in him. It is rooted in humility and gratefulness and is born out of the hard earned recognition that the face of my enemy is also my own face.


And by that I don't mean that "I am my own worst enemy", though in many cases that may be true. Rather, I mean that there is no sin that a person commits that is not protentially in us all. Or to put it another way, we must be able to look into the face of a murderer and see our own murderous heart, as well as looking into the face of our unthoughtful neighbor while seeing our own unthoughtful spirit. When we can get to that point, then our self-righteousness falls away and we cry out for God to have mercy on us both.

Tears--Revelation 21:4

Revelation 21:4... He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more for the first things have passed away.

This verse reminds me of an old preacher-theologian that I first heard about in seminary in the mid 1980s. For the life of me I cannot remember his name but I do still remember a thought in one of his books that has stayed with me all these years. He said that the greatest repentance comes not at the beginning of the Christian life but at the end of it. And what I take that to mean is that as we increase in our knowledge and love of God then we will also increase in our awareness of how far we have fallen short of them both. So perhaps our first full vision of the holiness and love of God will shatter us into tears before the beautiful Lamb of God will compassionately wipe them away for ever. Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the tears of the world!

Homecoming

Everyone knows the great story in the Gospel of Luke about the prodigal child and for many it is an all time favorite. A rebellious son leaves home taking all of his money and a lot of his father's money as well to see what life was like in the big city. Like all young people he had high hopes of great adventures and of carving out a name for himself as he took off. He was so excited that he could taste it and his step had that extra bounce of energy and confidence because he was going to be a success. Absolutely.

No one knows for sure how it started... maybe with the loss of a job or a break-up with a girlfriend...then a little too much alcohol here and there...a drug or two to enhance the effects...a midnight visit to a prostitute to ease the pain of loneliness... However it started we know how it ended. He spent all his money and didn't have a penny left and to complicate matters there was a big famine in the land and he began to starve. At that time there was something like a Rent-A-Slave business and he hired himself out so he wouldn't die, but he almost did anyway. Still starving while on the job he wanted to eat the pig slop that he was feeding the pigs but he was not even allowed to do that.

So there he was...alone in a foreign country...with no friends or loved ones to help...skin and bones and a swollen belly when he finally came back to his senses. He was obsessed with one thought only...If I can just get back home again...If I can just see my father and mother one more time...I'll be okay. ..I'll be alright. And so he took off running as fast as his feet would take him.

He had no idea that long before he wanted to return, while there was still some glitter and gloss in his life, his father had never quit looking at the road. And so it was that he saw his son way out on the horizon. The father was old but he could move pretty fast and he scampered along as quickly as his two spindley legs would take him...then throwing himself upon his son he pulled him so close that the boy could hardly breathe.

And then he wept. Not the polite male tears of a grateful father but the long, uncontrollable, outbursts and sobs of a father who sees a dead child raised back to life...a child he never dreamed he would truly see again. Then pulling back just enough he kissed his son messily and one old preacer noted that  "the kiss of forgiveness was given long before the words of repentance were spoken" because that's how love is...It doesn't keep a record of the wrongs done says the Apostle Paul.

Of course the father threw a huge party to celebrate his sons return, a feast actually, down home cooking and music and dancing that probably went on for days. But you get the feeling when reading the story that none of that mattered because all the son really wanted was to be back home again... Not the home that was a location somewhere in Israel, the home where he grew up, but the home that most of us mean when someone says, "Home is where my mother is...home is where my father is"...home is where we all belong.

Judas and I

Traditionally Judas has never received much sympathy in the Christian tradition. He gets a bad wrap most of the time and I am not saying that much of it is not deserved but neither am I quite certain that he is simply the devil in disguise. After all, Jesus saw something human enough and worthy enough to choose him as a personal disciple. I also have a feeling that today he would make a very shrewd businessman.

I have been thinking about him for the past several days and I don't think he is that different from me really, probably not much different than any of us. Anyone who was raised with little money or with an eye towards saving can see why he was critical of the woman who spent a year's salary on perfume and then lavishly and extravagantly poured it on Jesus' feet. Judas was a pragmatist like many of those who build multi-functional church facilities these days instead of beautiful and hallowed places of worship. There is nothing wrong with being pragmatic and I learned a long time ago that we all have ways that we splurge and we all have ways that we save so I'm probably better off suspending my judgement.

Of course that is not why we find Judas so unforgivable. The reason is that he betrayed Jesus, not just with his actions or with his words but with the intimacy of a kiss. And even though he regretted it so much that he gave back the money and killed himself over it yet, still, it doesn't seem quite enough.

One of my professors in seminary used to say that "sin is wishing God were dead", and if he is even close to the truth, then Judas simply did what all of us wish we could have done. So in the end, it was not just the Jews or the Romans or Pontius Pilate or Peter or Judas who betrayed and killed Jesus... No... In the end it was me... And many times I did it with a kiss.

The Repugnancy of the Cross

The scandal of the cross is not that some will be saved while others lost, that the righteous will be with God while the unrighteous will not...Islam and many Chritians believes that. Nor is it that the oppressed will be vindicated while the oppressors judged...Judaism and many Christians believe that. And it is certainly not the belief that the good will be rewarded while the bad will be punished...Hindus, Buddhists and the world in general accept that.

Finally, It is not even the belief that everyone on earth will, in the end, be with God though that is scandalous to many. No...the utter repugnancy of the cross is that the entire world is judged and found wanting but the grace of God redeems both, the righteous and the unrighteous, the victims and the victimizers, the oppressed and the oppressors, the Christians and the non-Christians and THAT is an intolerable message for all.

Rehumanizing With Words

Sometimes the most politically radical act and noblest expression of faith occur when we simply speak a few kind words to an invisible person. Usually the people we see but never see... The person who cleans the bathrooms at work... The guy that sells newspapers on the side of the road... The old lady who comes out every day to get her mail... Look a bit harder and you will see them. And if you really want to be transformative-- have a complete conversation. Thoughtful words spoken from the heart have the power to  rehumanize dehumanized indivuduals. I know this from being on the receiving end.

How AA Taught Me To Pray

When I first started my AA odessey,  about 23 years ago, I was a broken human being and so was my Christian faith. It took me a while before I could let "those people" teach me anything about God...I should be teaching them. But that is not what happened.

The teacher had to become a student. These people found the way to quit drinking and drugging but I could not. So there God was doing something for them that mine could not or would not do. That was my thinking at the time. Of course I believe there is only one God but that's a different story entirely.

So after enough pain I finally broke down and got a sponsor (an AA mentor) and we started working the 12 steps of AA. After a while I went to him with a problem that I was having with someone and this is what he told me that transformed the way I pray for others.

He said Larry...everything you want for yourself you have to pray for them...you have to pray that they will find peace and that their lives will prosper and their souls will prosper.

He might have said a little more but what he said was enough for me...it was more than enough at the time...I took the ball and ran with it. I looked at my life and I prayed and pleaded that they would have everything I needed... A peaceful heart... Deep healing of old wounds... A greater ability to give love and to receive love... A large spirit and a builder of hope in others... Strength to get through this journey... And unimaginable grace to forgive themselves and the mistakes of others. I could go on of course...I could go on and on and on and I often do while praying for those who hurt me the most. Because in praying that way for them I find healing.

But what I no longer do after that day is to pray for others what I think they need, because I think they need to quit being stupid! I think they need to humble themselves and get off their throne and stop being so completely self-centered in their life. What they need is to come to God and get their life right and it would solve all their problems... Most of them anyway. What they really need is... Once again I could go on and on and on...

In praying the way that my sponsor taught me I learned and am learning still to keep ego out of my prayers... To try and keep self-will out of my prayers... And finally to pray that "Thy will not mine be done"... At least in my prayers for others.