the crescendo of God 07/09/2011
at midtown friends community, the ever-so-small quaker church Yahweh used me to start almost three years ago, we try to live life together. to help us do this, we have five words that define how we live together. one is story. this month at our meetings for worship, we're exploring our commitment to story. tomorrow, we're going to survey God's whole story - start to unfinished finish...
that's what we talk about tomorrow. we fly by the story. the next week, we'll talk about what it means to live in the story. we'll talk about where we live in the story. the heart of that is that we live a crescendo. we live in between. we live in between Jesus' death and resurrection that defeated brokenness and the day when brokenness is banished. we live in a time when the song of redemption is getting louder and louder - but can sometimes still be overpowered by the chaotic sounds of sin and death. but life is crescnedoing. it's getting louder. it's getting more powerful. more moving. more enrapturing. more inescapable. this is why i crush on hope. because it's where we live in the story. we live in a place where - if we pay attention - at any moment, the passionate melodies of redemption will snap us out of ignorance, apathy, distance and cynicism and draw us into the new song God is writing - the new song we'll never stop singing along with and dancing to. we live in the crescendo. we live in hope. that's what we get to talk about next week. and i can't wait! aaand...here's an old prose i wrote about how the crescendo draws us in: the beat begins. it is slow. i tap my foot gently on the cheap painted concrete floor of the dirty, rustic venue as the residue of millions of hipster cigarettes from before the two-year-old smoking ban still flood my nose, as though the standard grey cloud of nocitine bi-product still hung just above the crowd. i almost miss the cloud. it seemed appropriate – the grey skies of seattle unresponsive to the barriers of concrete walls followed us into the building and took up carsonogetic residence. but, it’s still there in scent and in spirit. the band continues to play as my mind drifts to the not-so-absent cloud. unattentive to the music, i begin to look around me at all the hipsters. i used to be one. i used to be at every show. i used to spend 50% of my income on all the right clothes – and the other 50% on being at all the right shows. as i look down at myself, i realize i have neither the energy nor the funds for that life any longer. i become ambivilant – self-conscious yet glad to be free of the constant pressure to be cool. still somewhat disinterested in the band, and wondering why i left a meeting early and spent $12 to be there, i examine the poster-clad walls. years and layers and stories and lifetimes of stories are fixed to the walls through the medium of show posters. i remember when slick shoes came. i remember taking some youth to a show and having to leave early and sit in a car with an asthmatic girl who didn’t treasure the grey cloud so much as i did. i remember pedro the lion, and minus the bear, old friends, my first 21 and over show, my first drink at a show, standing outside in line waiting for the doors to open when pedro played their first show here in months. my life seems to be laid out infront of me, as though in some near death experience, through these out-dated concert advertisements. the rhythm continues and i realize it is a waltz. i wonder if i am dancing – 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 – in a circle – 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 – going nowhere, but lost in the music – and i wonder if this is good enough. then, the music begins to build. i find my wandering eyes and thoughts returning to the band. it grows more and more intense and suddenly the music that even the band seemed disintersted in captures everyone. toes that tapped lightly become whole body movements, heads nodding as though in agreement with the growing volume and intensity. Those that know the words sing along. 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 this waltz is no longer going in a circle. it is growing and going somewhere. one band member falls to his knees, nearly destroying his guitar as string after string breaks under the pressure of his intense strumming. he lifts it to the microphone to squeeze out every ounce of volume because his amp goes to eleven and even that is not enough. in the matter of a glorious minute, the audience has gone from apathetic to anticipating every beat and feeling their hearts and blood pulsing with the beat. and this is crescendo. this is the kingdom. are you enraptured? are you tapping your feet? are your eyes wandering the walls? are you waltzing in circles? is it building? can you feel it pulsing through your veins? oh to be lost in it. oh to strain to make it as loud and as intense at it could be – and to let it still be a dance, a song, a work of art and a playful joy. gracious Lord let it be so and let me be forever lost in the eternally growing crescendo – let me sing and never, ever stop singing. a couple of things that happened in the last few weeks have had me thinking about theodicy or the problem of evil or basically, the questions the book of job asks...like, if God's good how do all these terrible things happen.
and, this has reminded me about an article i wrote for the seattle school of theology and psychology several years ago...right after a kid from the church where i was the youth pastor died in a massacre. and, i thought i'd repost it. in case it helps anyone. or maybe in case it helps me. here it is: A Trinitarian Re-Imagination of Theodicy in Ministry The Named God and Massacre on Capitol Hill (this article owes pretty much everything to one of the greatest theologians ever, stanley grenz - who now gets to hang out with Jesus in person!) God exists and this happened. God exists. This happened. Looking at those two sentences, though I oft reconciled them before, lost all of its easy escapism on the morning of Sunday, March 26th, 2006. When I arrived at church, I was met with the news that one of the young people in our church was murdered. What is worse, he was one of six, plus the murderer’s own suicide. The massacre in Seattle’s Capitol Hill had, and still has, no explanation. It appears to be a random act of evil. I thought to myself, “God exists. This happened. These two sentences are at odds.” Is this not the age-old question? It is the question at the heart of the oldest book in the Bible: Job. Often, before this event, when my students would ask me about suffering and the existence of God, I would reply, “We don’t get to know.” Somehow, now drawn into one of the greatest tragedies in Seattle’s history, this was trite. Is that really the best answer we can give “We don’t get to know?” I come to a place where I review every event in my life and even in the history of the world and hear the words “I am” pounding in my head. The holocaust happened; “I am.” My cousin was murdered; “I am.” My family fell apart; “I am.” 911; “I am.” Darfur; “I am.” AIDS pandemic; “I am.” Stanley Grenz died; “I am.” In the present, the Capitol Hill Massacre happened; it happened to someone I know and care for; “I am.” In the face of every evil, the voice booms; “I exist.” At this point, I want to destroy the voice. I don’t care if it is God; it is absent, authoritative, unapologetic, and untrustable. However, the question dawns, what if I have not heard the voice right? What if I have not listened well because of so much background noise? What if the voice does not say, “I exist,” “I am,” but rather “I am with.” What would this mean to me in my suffering and loneliness? What would it mean for my identity as one in the image of God? What would the calling be as a leader in mourning? Same Old Theodicy The problem I found myself tenaciously wrestling with, in the days and weeks following the massacre, was the problem of evil, or the problem of pain. Essentially, this theologically ancient issue asks the question: How do God and evil co-exist? This is the problem pastors often theorize about and plan out our reactions. We write and deliver sermons to prepare and aid our communities through mourning. However, when tragedy strikes, none of these answers, strategies, or sermons holds water. There is no explanation, no words to enable a person to hold the depth of evil in one hand and the existence of a perfect God in the other. “I Am,” indeed, seems to be a taunt rather than an invitation to worship and relationship. The deeper problem of suffering is suffering alone. The bind we end up in is that we want desperately not to be alone in such an evil world or in the depths of such suffering. And, having narrowly defined God as self-existent, omnipotent, and good, we cannot stand for that God to be with us. What is worse, this God feels distant. We laugh at the lyrics, “God is watching us from a distance,” but where else can God be watching from if God is impassible (or unchangeable and essentially incapable of emotion). So, we are at a standstill because of God’s name: I AM. Or, we would be, but for God’s name: I AM with. Theodicy Re-Visioned The answer to these two tragic problems of pain, suffering and suffering alone, comes not through more philosophy, but through stripping away Greek definitions to Hebrew ideals and reclaiming the essence and story God gives us. In short, Stan Grenz’s last work The Named God and the Question of Being invites us to a new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil?, in light of an ancient name I AM with. Through the following journey into both the old question: how do God and evil co-exist, and the new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil, we will explore many faces to these deep questions. As we explore these questions, we will first briefly survey the problem of evil, then transition to the theo-anthropology of relational humanity imaging a perichoretic God. From the vantage point of a relational God and relationally suffering people, we will explore the Greek ontological captivity of God’s name. Here we will fully see the beauty Grenz re-captures in his exploration of God’s self-revealed name and explore the story that fills the vast space of I am, especially regarding tragedy. Finally, with a new understanding of who our relational God is in the face of tragedy, we will explore what it means that God shares God’s name with us. That is, we will begin to ask what it means to become Christ-like – to become human – in tragedy and will re-imagine the role of pastor in the face of suffering, as we learn to say, “I am with” even as our Creator has said to us. The Problem of Suffering We begin with the presenting problem: theodicy. Basically, this question asks, if God is good, why is there suffering in the world? More simply put, theodicy asks, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” There are two aspects to the problem of evil: 1) the question of sin. 2) the problem of suffering. Both of these fit under the heading theodicy (or the problem of evil). Both of these also bear on the types of evil discussed in the opening of our discussion. However, for the sake of this paper, we will focus on the latter: How do we say, “God exists and this tragedy happened?” How can we speak of a good God and good creation when evil enters our lives? More practically, what does the church offer those suffering the effects of evil? Pannenberg summarizes this age-old difficulty: There is apparently senseless suffering of creatures and the entrance and at least temporary success of evil in creation. This fact makes it difficult to postulate of a Creator who is both omnipotent and good. A belief in creation has to assume that the work of creation is good according to the creative will of God. But suffering and evil cast doubt on this conviction. (2) Lewis Smedes speaks of this in more personal terms as he recalls interacting with God after the death of his son: Everything good, everything bad, everything triumph, everything tragedy, from the fall of every sparrow, to the ascent of every rocket, was under God’s silent, strange, and secretive control. But I could not believe that God was in control of our child’s dying. (3) In response to this, many arguments can be made. Pannenberg suggests that Christian theology does not necessitate an original state of perfection but an eventual one (4). Job tells us evil happens without reason. Whatever the answer, philosophical postulations to a hurting heart are like spitting on a bleeding wound, believing there is some healing to be had through bacteria-ridden saliva, but ultimately only adding infection to hurt. It is here, in response to this wound, as we genuinely seek healing, that The Named God and the Question of Being takes on new importance and we begin to ask the new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil. Trinitarian Theology of Imago Dei & Relationality As we examine relational beings, caught in the problems of evil and pain, we need to understand who we are. Primarily this question is answered as God answers it: we are in God’s image and likeness. This can be interpreted many different ways. In his previous book, Grenz suggests a deep integration of relationship and imago dei or personhood; “Triune life becomes the final touchstone for speaking about personhood.”(5) Barth similarly sees Imago Dei as capacity for relationship: The relationship between the summoning I and in God’s being and the summoned divine Thou is reflected in the relationship of God to the [humanity] whom [God] has created, and also the relationship between the I and the Thou, between male and female in human existence itself. (6) Looking at Grenz’s posthumous work, our main text, The Named God and the Question of Being, we see a forming philosophical dichotomy in the understanding of being. As Grenz explores this dichotomy in the first chapter of our text, he summarizes Plato’s theory of the world of being and ofbecoming. Everything in the world of being reflects something intangible in the world of becoming. Within this framework, a thing is good in so much as it reflects that which it represents. Grenz connects Plato’s understanding of being to his understanding of good and wisely applies it to the human condition: Plato’s thesis that everything in the world of becoming exemplifies its corresponding form also leads naturally to his understanding of good. ‘Good’ means simply ‘exemplifying the corresponding form.’ Hence a particular tree is ‘good’ if it exemplifies the form of Tree or Treeness. A good chair is one that exemplifies Chairness. Similarly, the good human consists of exemplifying the human form or Humanness. (7) If, as thought at the time and often since, humanity is intellect and God’s logos - God’s intellect - is theimage we are in, then the sharper the mind, the more developed the philosophy, the more human and the more good we become. However, if God is primarily relational, eternally co-existing with God’s triune self, then we, as image bearers are not good in so much as we are intelligent, but are good, in so much as we are relational. Can this engrained desire and hardwiring for relationship be diminished in suffering? No! It can be heightened no more than when evil and the depth of relational disharmony and separation from our relational God is made inescapably clear through the depths of evil. In these times, we long for the two relationships mandated by the two great commandments – the two relationships given at the dawn of time: relationship with God and relationship with humanity. So, the nature of the God whose image we bear and to whom we cry out in times of suffering, is the relational God who created us to be relational. In this understanding, of God theodicy is re-invented. In this view of ourselves, we begin to re-vision our response to evil. Ontology’s Captivity of I AM Our assumed and to-be-developed understanding of a relational God is not historically - or even currently - a theological given. As our subtitle suggests, ontology has held God’s name captive, changing our perception of an intimate and self-named God. Grenz begins his discourse on the topic of God’s being by exploring the Greek captivity of God’s name. Ontology - or the philosophy of being (or existence) - was birthed as an alternative to a superstitious understanding of life at the whim of multiple Gods. Grenz explains, “Being was the product of the reflections of those thinkers who sought to shift the task of making sense of life away from the commonly followed method of attributing faith to the decisions and antics of a multitude of whimsical deities.”(9) As the importance of being - of ego, of the statement: I am - grew, the connection to God’s self-given name, I AM, became clear. Here was a natural bridge to join Greek philosophy to Christian theology. Grenz astutely bears witness to this phenomenon: From Augustine to Aquinas, theologians have connected the God of the Bible with the Greek conception of Being. Moreover, in their estimation, the link between Christian theology and Greek philosophy was forged by the biblical assertion that the God of the Bible is the great I AM. (10) Grenz continues, naming some of the conceptual implications this has brought to Christian theology: Under the influence of Greek philosophical thinking, theologians understood this designation as indicating that the biblical God is characterized first and foremost by philosophical traits such as self-existence, eternity, unchangeability, and, consequently absolute being. (11) Further, Grenz cites George Rowlinson and John J. Davis who both - in contemporary times - highlight the ontological implications of God’s eternal existence in the name, I AM. Here, the import of God’s name is God’s independence (as dramatically opposed to our thesis of God’s relationality or inter-dependence). So it is that the God, self-named I AM, became distant and unchangeable. So it is that we can sing, “God is watching us from a distance.” So is created the God who the mourning soul questions and shrinks from relationship with. I AM With What, though, if this is a misinterpretation of I AM? What if we have missed something in God’s self-given name? The voices explored above paint an ontological God. Other voices, Grenz included, stand against this strictly ontological and inherently Greek understanding of this Hebrew theological term: I AM. Noth, Von Rad, and Hyatt see a dramatically different interpretation of I AM. It does not mean I exist, instead, its implication is I AM with. As Grenz states, “the heart of the divine name disclosed to Moses points to Yahweh’s be-ing present with Israel.”(12) What is more, this name invites story and development, “Consequently, the story of the burning bush anticipates that the yet-to-be-disclosed content of the divine name will be closely tied to the ongoing presence of I AM WHO I AM in the journey with the people of covenant.” (13) Further, Grenz expands I AM to “I am [I will be] there (for you).” This, as Grenz proposes, suggests God’s covenant and faithful presence. In our suffering, then, as much as we appreciate the warm embrace of a friend who says, “In this, I will be there for you.” So much more, the very voice of God supports our shaking hearts as God speaks, “I AM there for you.” Somehow, in God’s embrace, theodicy fades to the pale background of relationship. What’s in a Name? Were God’s name, in itself, not relational, the mere act of God’s self-naming would yet reveal God’s relationality. This begs the question: What’s in a name? Grenz asks this obvious question and answers it with Ernst Pulgrum’s words: The name of a man is like his shadow. It is not of his substance and not of his soul, but it lives with him and by him. It’s presence is not vital, not its absence fatal. If a man were to move in perennial darkness, he would have no shadow, and if her were content to dwell in solitude, he would need no name. (14) Names are used for reference. They are, therefore, relational. God’s self-naming is God’s moving toward us. As Pulgrum suggests, the need of a name revokes a solitary existence and reaches out for something different: for relationship. Thus, as Grenz suggests, the weight is in God’s self-naming act; “The import of biblical witness is not that the God of the Bible is unnamed, but that God is self-named." (15) As we enter into our suffering, then, the God who speaks I AM is not the distant God who watches from a distance. This God is the God who took a name for the sake of relationship, and who, in that name, covenanted to be with as our journey unfolds. The God whose name is I AM with waits in our suffering to say I am with you. The Saga of the Weeping God Grenz’s text takes the reader through three sagas. The first is the saga of being, or the story of the ontology and its heavy-handed union with theology. The second saga is the Saga of the I AM. Here Grenz interprets the name and moves further to interpret the story of this name. In this section of our discussion, we will trace this named God’s presence in the saga of suffering. First, we know that God is relationally grieved. We know that Jesus weeps. In Job, the theodicy of scripture, God weeps for the troubled. Perhaps the most tender and explicit interaction between God and a mourning soul comes in John 11, when Jesus comes to raise Lazarus. Jesus knows that Lazarus will rise. Still, as he sees Mary’s grief, the God-Man is moved and troubled. It is here that Jesus weeps. (16, 17) This same God, who says I am there for you, is also the God of tragic abandonment in the darkest time of suffering in the history of the world: on the cross. (18) As Jesus, God and God’s Son, hung, punished for our sins, he cried out the saddest words ever uttered, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Greek word translated forsaken is egkataleipo (eng-kat-al-i’-po). This means to abandon or desert. It connotes that Jesus is left helpless and totally abandoned; he is left in straights. This term is unseen until this moment. After this, it is used to describe what I AM with will not do. Previously, we examined how God’s act of self-naming was a movement toward relationship. Here, the God whose nature is bound up in being with abandons God’s own Son – even God’s own self – in order that because of this desperately dark moment of abandonment in suffering, God might be united to us. So it is that, in our suffering, we look to the cross and know that. It is because of this scandalously exquisite abandonment that we are not alone in our suffering. While we find no clear answers to the question of theodicy in scripture, we do find that God sacrifices all in order that God might be with us. This, then, is how we re-vision theodicy. Conclusion: Becoming Human in Tragedy So it is that we enter into the world where “this happened” and “God exists.” We do not have an answer to the problem of evil. We have not, in anyway, engaged theodicy. Then again, if the height of being human is Jesus – the relational I AM, then work becoming human is becoming with – with God and with humanity. Where the Greek understanding of humanity was based on intellect and the problem of evil requires intellectual engagement, we have chosen a different path. We have, instead, sought out a relational God to be with in suffering. We have sought to share a name, and therefore a calling, with the Jesus who is with both God and humanity. To become human, then, is to enter into that eternal being present of the sovereign God. We are human as we inhabit our suffering and do so relationally, sorrowfully and gladly sharing that divine name – the glorious I AM. My story revisited From this vantage point, let’s revisit that dark day. Let’s return to the moment I found out about the murders and began to ask how God and evil can co-exist and what my calling might be as a minister in this dark time. In the midst of the tragedy that faced my church, I began to wonder how to lead in mourning. I struggled, as our discussion has revealed, with God’s goodness and existence. I searched for God’s words in this time of suffering. When I let go of debate and propositional definitions of God, when I stopped searching for God’s words and began to long for God’s presence, I remembered Grenz’s work and opened my heart to the God named: I am with. When I gave up piety and the pastor’s role in order to be and to be in search of God’s communal presence, I was met as I was: a little girl, lost and fearful in an evil world: I see myself like a little girl in her father’s arms. She is angry and pounding his large, sturdy chest with her small, weak fists. “I hate you! Don’t hug me. Leave me alone. You did this. Why didn’t you stop him?” My fists slow and the intense embrace of my father grows tighter. I continue as the intensity of my voice dies. “Why didn’t you stop it? Why didn’t you protect him? Why didn’t you protect me? You didn’t protect me. I’m scared because you didn’t protect me. My fists come to a stop, nestled in his chest as his arms clamp even tighter around me. Yelling turns to sobbing as my tears pound him with the same smallness and weakness of my fists. “I’m scared. I’m scared Daddy. It’s so dark. It’s so evil. I’m scared. I’m alone and scared.” My fists release their grip and I gently push my father away enough to see his face. He is crying. His tears intertwine with the residue of mine. His large, powerful hands grip my small arms as he pulls me close again. My arms rap around him and his encircle me. Together we cry. He says to me: “It is dark out there. It is evil. They shot him in the face. They shot my son who deeply love. You are scared. You are not alone. Hope is here. Redemption will come…but today, let’s cry together. He rests his weighty head gently on mine as his tears anoint my head like a calling, like a balm, like cleansing water. I am baptized in his grief. He holds my hand – so small in his that I hold only his index finger, like a baby learning to walk. Together, we sob and walk into the lives of others, so desperate not to be alone in the darkness, the evil, the fear. So, I was met, not only as a little girl longing for her Father, but also as one with a calling to be withGod and with humanity, drawing them into the intimate union of the God whose name is I AM with. And so is our calling – to lead as children – to grieve and wail and to invite all God’s children to be bathed in God’s tears and clothed in God’s embrace. If we believe I AM means so much more than I exist, if we hold that we are in the image of the God who is named I AM with, then we become humanas we share Christ’s name. Our answer, in the face of suffering, is to be with the God who is with. We share our tears with God. Then we wear God’s tears as our glorious crown as we are with our brothers and sisters in humanity, inviting them also to mourn with the God who is with. sources: (the foot notes got messed up when i copied and pasted this...and i don't have time to fix it...sorry)
2 Comments so, father's day was hard. harder than i expected. several difficult things teamed up to make it about as bad as i could imagine it to be. and hope became too annoying and too painful and too much like a cruel and taunting abuser. my relationship with hope, over the last two years, has increasingly - crescendoingly - felt like a relationship that just doesn't work. (like the vast majority of relationships i've had with men) i've felt more alone with hope than without it. i've felt more cynical every time i've fought for some quality time with hope. and when hope finally decides to hang out with me, i have't been able to hold hope's attention. video games seem more interesting. other girls seem more interesting. anything seems to be more interesting to hope than really being with me, supporting me, holding me when all i want to do is give up. hope seems evasive and adulterous. never there when i need it. constantly ignoring the days that i especially need someone or something or some God or some. small. amount. of hope...days like father's day. when i've most needed hope, it's sent a cheap and harmful substitute: fear. another trial i'm not ready for. my dad leaving. friends' marriages struggling. my church not getting enough tithes or enough people to be sustainable. people not caring about slavery. a broken heart. a friend who lets me down. a planned distraction to make it through a hard day getting cancelled at the last minute. hope has been difficult to love. over the last two years, i have struggled deeply and regularly to stay with hope. like in a lot of relationships i've had, i've fought with little encouragement. i've fought despite the fact that fighting is breaking me. and i was broken to start with. so...father's day. hope was a no show. and i broke up with hope. what followed was one of the oddest weeks of my life. on sunday i broke up with hope. on monday i woke up like the guy from office space: numb. apathetic. sarcastic (more than usual). cynical (more than usual). not interested in trying anymore. like in a lot of relationships, breaking up with hope meant losing something of myself. except this felt more like actually losing all of myself. not just a part. all of me. i was gone. had not idea what to do. was exceedingly glad i didn't have to write a sermon this week. we read psalms. Yahweh had already written the teaching. so...i could be lost for a few days. and i was. i was lost. gone. it was weird. as far as i could tell, there was no end in sight to this callous cynicism and complete detachment from hope - which had been everything to me - as painful as living with hope can be. dan allender says you can't hope unless you can grieve. such a ridiculous thing to say. terrible. mean. true. far too true. so, thursday, i'm walking. thinking. pondering hope. pondering how hard i fought for it. pondering everything that's happened since i made the huge sacrifice to leave seattle and come to sacramento. pondering all the things i've given up to seek God's Kingdom of love and justice...because of hope. and i got angry. and angry turned to sad. and sad turned to crying...ever so slightly...in public. and crying ever so slightly in public turned into weeping at home. and weeping at home was grief. and i cried myself to sleep. and...when i woke up, hope was there. and as hope followed grief and nestled back into my heart...i wasn't lost anymore. the truth is, what i broke up with was grief. grief comes when things aren't what they should be. when dads don't love us. when they leave us. when people learn about children abused and beaten so they can have cheap chocolate and then go but a hershey bar because...well, it's been a bad day and what difference does it make anyway? when marriages fall apart and children get hurt in the mix. grief comes when something inside us - something Yahweh made and placed so deeply in our hearts that we can't possibly shake it...only try to ignore it...maybe...something unshakable in us says this isn't right. and knowing it isn't right is the scant beginning of hope. and grief has to come for hope to be there. because hope follows grief. hope says, these things are broken. but Yahweh's about redemption. so...tomorrow may be better. or if tomorrow's not better, some day will be better. and in the mean time, we'll pray and work and wait for redemption of those things we're grieving. so, on father's day, i was done with grief. spent. and the only way to get rid of grief was to let go of hope. but hope is buoyant. it's written in us. in our dna. and re-written in us as Yahweh's Spirit of faith, hope, and love makes us Her home. the only way to escape grief is to escape hope. the only way to escape hope is to escape our own hearts. and then we're lost. hope isn't an abusive or absent lover. hope wasn't a no show on father's day. i was. because i was done with grief. hope comes part and parcel with grief. and it was me - not hope - that ran away. because i didn't want what comes with a relationship with hope. but...in the end, hope's worth it. sooo....all this to say, hope and i are back together. but it's complicated. one of my married friends, despite a wonderful and fully-functional marriage, recently changed his relationship status on fb to: it's complicated. he did this because all beautiful and worthwhile and transformative relationships are complicated and heart breaking and hopeful. and if they are hopeful, they involve grief. so...it's complicated. and i hope your relationship with hope is complicated too. meaning, i hope it's beautiful and worthwhile and transformative. if it is, it will regularly break your heart. regularly leave you in tears. regularly leave you seeking and praying for and working toward and waiting for Yahweh's redemption of every nook and broken cranny of our world. may your heart be broken. may you grieve. may your relationship with hope be relentlessly complicated. and in that complication, may you witness true joy and long awaited redemption. today is father's day. i am fatherless. a lot of us are. sort of a tragedy. lots of theories for why there is such an epic global pandemic of fatherlessness. the theories don't matter. the numbers don't matter. at least not today. today's just hard. so i - and a lot of my friends - find today to be a hard day. it's a day for suffering. it's a day for feeling alone. abandoned. abandon-able. i'm emo today. a little unapologetically so. today is a day of suffering for the fatherless. and, facing the suffering of others is hard. it's a sacrifice. it's beautiful. but it is hard. a lot of people can't handle it. and, as people who either believe or heart or crush on the Bible, most of us have adapted it as this awesome tool for keeping the suffering of others at bay. it has platitudes. tons of them! it is filthy with them if you rip them out of context and apply liberally as bandaids. if you use them, you can quickly become a miracle worker like the missionaries in the tony award winning musical "book of mormon." it's like telling AIDS patients that if they have sex with a magic frog, they'll be cured. you can tell the fatherless that God is all the father we could possibly need. you can feel warm. some of the fatherless will feel ashamed enough that God doesn't feel like enough that we'll fake a smile. hide our pain. sing a song about God as father and ignore that deep ache for a physical dad to hold us. to care for us. to protect us. to be there. physically. but...frogs don't cure AIDS. and platitudes don't ease suffering. God is a Father. but God never - NEVER - intended to be all the father any of us need. God very intentionally gave us fathers. physical fathers with arms to hold, audible words to speak, present love to share, the ability to protect - and simple presence to comfort and anchor us. God gave us those people. and when they somehow failed or left us - they failed God as well. God does not want to be all the father you need. this is one of the most beautiful things about Yahweh. Yahweh is certainly capable of being all we need. but when Yahweh created us, He confidently and lovingly created in us a need for someone other that Yahweh. Yahweh has no desire to be enough. this is beautiful. and...when the people God's given us to be enough fail or leave...this beauty is painful. deeply painful. recently, i even had one friend who got married right out of highschool suggest to me that God can even be all the spouse a person could need. seriously? really? not biblical. not honoring of the Bible. not honoring of the God who beautifully, courageously, audaciously created us in a way where God would never be all we need. not honoring of Yahweh. at all. simply cheap. and hurtful. God does not intend to be enough father. God certainly does not intend to be enough husband/wife. God absolutely does not intend to be a trite bandaid applied to the suffering of abandoned people. so...all this to say, if you are fatherless and God does not feel like enough, it is not because you are unspiritual. it is not because you don't spend enough time alone with God. it is not because you don't believe enough. it is not because you ask too much. it is because God - Yahweh - designed you to need more. do not feel shame that God as Father doesn't fill that void. and do not allow others who fear your suffering to silence it with God as a platitude - when God loves you far far too much to be a bandaid-like platitude in your life. God wants to be your Comfort - like a balm to an aching wound. not a pretend cure like a frog to AIDS. and, if you have friends who are fatherless and hurting today, please stop. sit. listen. be with them. let them hurt. maybe even hurt with them. or, if their hurt is too much to hold...try being honest about it. it hurts to hear my suffering is too much for another. but it hurts more to hear that God should be father enough - when God has no intention of being father enough. God, actually, intends to stop. sit. listen. be with me in my hurt. let me hurt. and even hurt with me. and that's much more healing than a platitude. loving presence and suffering with is a cocktail of life-sustaining drugs to an AIDS patient where platitudes and judgment are a magic frog. loving presence and suffering with is beautiful and life giving. platitudes and judgment are cheap. dirty. harmful. and only pretend to help. i am feeling entirely cynical today. cynicism is the prophet's sin. God gifts us with a sense that something is dreadfully wrong with our world and rather than choosing the hope that God will do something about it, we smirk in cynicism, make a sarcastic joke, and possibly quit whatever group or mission or whatever it is that we know has somehow gone awry. we leave early. it's a failure of hope. it's terribly prideful. and it's willfully selfish. God gives us a deep knowing that something is wrong and rather than speaking it or dreaming of a new way, we shrink away to the safest place we know: our own cynicism. we smirk. cross our arms. lean back. check out. violently judge the brokenness God revealed and revel in our own superiority. we leave early. and i am entirely cynical today. i spent the last two days at a pastors conference. jokes were made about the women back home and pastors wives. assumptions were made about me, as a young(ish) tattooed, hipster looking (looking! i'm not a hipster ok!) woman who claims to pastor a church that integrates art into worship. per usual, people who don't know me wanted to fix me. per usual, the conference touted some formulaic way of reading the Bible and being with people that would solve all of your church's problems if you just invested time (and money) in their two-year-long formula. gimmicks were grasped at while people were ignored. and when i brought up, in good Quaker fashion, the concept of listening and waiting quietly on God's Spirit, the leader glossed over that and said "yes, you see 'discernment' is already a step in our six step process. you should really buy our book..." so...i left early. and i am entirely cynical. and i feel like quitting church in general. but can one body part just decide to quit the rest of the body because of it's insanity and propensity to cause pain? my hands right now are terribly cut up. i work too hard. i ignore pain when i'm working. my hands are terribly cut up. but they can't quit my body because it stupidly puts them in harms way and leaves them there to get battered and bruised. in fact, the only thing they can do is tenderly communicate the pain to the rest of my ignorant, self-seeking body and hope there might be some rest, restoration, and healing for them. because, here's the heart of the truth: the pain i'm feeling isn't mine. it's God's gift to the church. and, as a part of that body, the pain isn't for keeping, building impermeable calluses, or running from. it's for sharing to the glory of God and the growth of the church. so...i left early. but i'm going to try not to leave the conversation early. i feel entirely cynical, but i'm going to struggle toward tender hope. and i feel like quitting church in general, but i'm going to find a way to tenderly share my wounds with the body that so regularly seems to put me in harms way. and maybe the world will be better for it. i certainly can trust that i will be better for it. God doesn't call prophets so we can be beaten and bruised. God doesn't call us so we can sinfully shut down in a cocoon of cynicism. God calls us so God can prosper us. (jeremiah 29.11) preaching, acts 2, and hope 05/14/2011
tomorrow i preach on acts 2.42-47. i imagine many people around the world share in this frightful fate. tomorrow i preach. and i preach something i have no skill in practicing. i preach self-sacrifice. i preach receiving the sacrifices of others gladly rather than sheepishly. i preach having enough faith to believe that if Jesus can rise from the dead, he can knit a crew of broken, selfish, independent people into one body. i preach that this kingdom - this way of being - this holy ecosystem - is worth giving everything up for. i preach that if Jesus rose from the dead, everything about our world and our way of being must change. tomorrow i preach. and i preach something i have no skill in practicing. but i hope. i hope that God is powerful enough to overcome my independence. i hope that God can use the broken messy people of midtown friends community to weave a story of interdependence, love, community, prayer and growth. i hope that God can use a scared, broken, hurting leader to open up closed down imaginations to dream of what life could be like if we believed that Jesus rose from the dead and if, in response to this, we changed everything. i hope. and i hope that, as i preach with my mouth, God takes the humble and broken words i speak and begins to weave them into a life so that in three years, when this passage comes around again, my life might do more preaching than my words and that my hope is a little less imagination than reality. i hope that in three years my life preaches on acts 2.42-47. and, i hope that many people around the world share in that hopeful fate. mother's day 05/06/2011
in preparing for our service this sunday, a friend sent me this. it turns out that this holiday of cheap cards, carnations, and breakfast in bed began as a movement toward peace through the strength of the tenderness God has given us as women. pretty impressive. i hope you enjoy reading it and that it can shape some of how you celebrate this sunday: Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace. we all have shallow relationships. we all, in fact, are often simply shallow people. possibly, most of our relationships are not shallow. possibly, most of the time we are not shallow people. but we have them. and we are sometimes shallow. i gave up shopping for lent. and by "shopping" i mean for anything...movie tickets, food, gas, eating out, gifts...and....clothes. there are moments in my life, where the eternal presses in and i want to run. there are moments in my life when my soul is speaking to me about her condition and i want to run. the easiest place to run? urban outfitters sale rack. i bought a dress there for $5 one time. it looks good on me. wearing it makes me feel better. i need different earrings for it - but mostly, it is wonderful. and most deeply, i can run away to the sweet appearance of being lovely and avoid whatever it is that my God or my soul is trying to tell me about myself and my world. i am often a simply shallow person. i feel this deep tugging and it scares me so i stay away from the deep and tread water at the still surface of the urban out fitter's sales rack. i don't know where you run, but my guess is that God and your soul often invite you into the deep. my guess is that sometimes you go and it is all at once amazing and difficult and a new kind of restful. and, my guess is that sometimes you run. to food? video games? friends? alcohol? work? plans for the future? ...theology? i'm considering giving up talking about theology next lent. this weekend, i had a conversation with two of my closest friends in california - who know my soul best - who i've been brave enough to show it to from time to time and even when i am at my weakest and most unlovely. when i saw them this week, several soul-wrenching events were on the horizon for me - and for them too. soooo, we talked exhaustively about the theology of a mysterious God. we talked and talked and talked about how we can't know everything about God. you would assume there isn't much to say about that. but apparently, if you're willing to circle back like a simple and over-produced drum loop, there is plenty to say. what happened is that there were moments when the eternal pressed in and i wanted to run. the easiest place to run to? talking about but not to our eternal God. what do you think of the rob bell controversy? are his suggestions more or less viable than brian mclaren's? as always, what wound nt wright say? ...oh, and how are our evangelical brothers and sisters embarrassing us at the moment? like a $5 dress from urban out fitters, wearing theology looks good on us. it makes us feel better. we may need a couple more authors to make us shine on certain topics - but mostly, talking theology is wonderful. and most deeply, we can run away to the sweet appearance of being lovely and avoid whatever it is that our God or our friends are trying to tell us about themselves, ourselves, and our world. we all have shallow relationships. there is a deep tugging that scares us so we stay away from the deep and tread water at the still surface of talking about but not to Yahweh - the God who is with us and who breathed our cowering souls into existence. this weekend, about a half hour before i had to leave, i remembered the words a professor once rocked my world with: "becky, you are f#$%ing smart," the theologian cussed at me, "but i don't care about that" (this felt more like cursing than the cussing did) "i care about becky." so, this weekend, about half an hour before i had to leave, i felt the deep tugging, took off the life-jacket of theological discourse, took a deep breath, and went to deep places with deep and beloved friends. all of us were made for deep relationships and all of us, at our core, are deep and deeply-lovely people. God is inviting us to the deep. and to be in the deep together. where we can be changed. where we can be seen. where we can be not only lovely - but loved. i hope we all forget how or where to run and learn to dwell in the deep. the community i pastor is called "midtown friends community." we're named for our neighborhood. our neighborhood marks us in many ways. our neighborhood is part of how we worship together. we ask what Gospel stories mean for our neighborhood. one of our reflection stations is a map of our neighborhood. midtown marks us. one of the ways we've incorporated our neighborhood into our worship is by taking pictures of walls and other surfaces around midtown and using these photos as backgrounds for the ppt slides that guide us through corporate worship. so...when i am out walking, i always have an eye out for walls that would be good for lyrics. today i found myself sitting down on the sidewalk trying to get the perfect angle of a concrete wall next to a drain with my iphone. when i finished taking the picture, i realized i looked terribly silly sitting on the sidewalk aiming my phone at a drain and scooting off to the side trying to keep my shadow out of the picture. then it hit me how perfect that was. i was walking around our neighborhood with eyes open to see opportunities for worship and willing to look strange in order to facilitate worship in our neighborhood. i think that corporate worship of Yahweh is meant to be a rehearsal of life with Yahweh. (this is why it is so important for worship to be in community and grounded in a place/neighborhood). but, maybe even preparing for and gathering resources to worship Yahweh in community can be a rehearsal of living life with Yahweh: grounded in a neighborhood, eyes wide open, willing to stop to take in the little things, and almost too willing to look strange in the process??? a (dis)similar story... 02/25/2011
after my last post, i feel it would be wrong not to share this story with you: i am from seattle. i would say i am of seattle. it is in me. you can take me out of seattle, but i'll carry it with me. yesterday was a seattle day in sacramento. it was raining. but not hard. just constantly. naggingly. seattle-ly. so, naturally, i went for a walk. growing up, one of my favorite things in the world was when i'd walk in the rain and my face would get so saturated by the nagging aspersion baptism from the seattle sky that little droplets would form on the tip of my nose and slowly. drip. off. one. by. one. i have no idea why, but i loved and often coveted this experience. so, yesterday i'm walking under the seattle clouds that had gathered over sacramento to remind me they still love me. i listened to death cab for cutie as i walked in the rain. i've been doing that for over a decade. there was a deep feeling of rest and home as the droplets fell from the tip of my ice-cold nose in rhythm with Jason McGerr's drumming. i have to admit that, as i waited for walk signals to change i may have been dancing ever so slightly - unable to remain still or somber as we usually do when waiting. and then...a man about my dad's age walked up behind me. he had a look on his face as though he was enjoying me. it made the cold on the tip of my nose spread to my heart. in preparation for another disheartening encounter - similar to the one i last wrote about - i grew stiff. "you're enjoying yourself," said the man with a wide grin that felt utterly intrusive. "i love it." he added. i was cold in every sense of the world. "yep," i said, not trusting what his next words would be and wanting him to leave well enough alone. "it's raining and you don't mind at all." he observed with just enough curiosity to soften my rigid stance. "just dancing on the street corner. that's wonderful." "yeah." i said with lessening fear and growing curiosity at where this conversation might go. "want to share my umbrella?" he asked i wasn't curious enough for that. "no. i'm from seattle. we don't use umbrellas." i said. he asked if i was sure. he seemed sincere, so i entrusted him with the story of the droplets on my nose. i told him it makes me less homesick. he rattled off a bit of what he knew about seattle. he asked some more questions. i told him i moved here to plant a church. he told me that made total sense - said could sense the gratitude and calm in my spirit. he told me that i'm doing good work, that he's sure it's hard, but that he has full confidence it will work out. he told me that hope was written all over me as i ever-so-slightly danced in the rain. he reassured me that my work is in love and not in vain. and then we parted ways. i left feeling a little less homesick, a lot less heart-sick, and much more hopeful. even in our broken world, we can be curious about one another. even on a rainy day. even with broken hearts. even in a culture where everyone and every thing is an object to be possessed, a stranger can be curious and care and speak words of life amid a cacophony of death. hope is simple. hope is alive. and it will take you by surprise if you're willing to be taken...and sometimes even if you're not :) |
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