Jesus is Better than a Band Aid!

The Power of Love versus the Love of Power is the perennial problem of our world, as stated by British Bishop N.T. Wright of the Anglican Church. He is an excellent author whose book Simply Good News just came out. It is amazing. Its message is similar to his book How God became King. Both books are so accessible and add such clarity in a world that sees more gray than black and white. His premise is that Jesus has been made King through the power of love, not the love of power.

He makes salient points about the contrast between the split-world understanding of creation by neo-Deists who want to promote the relegation of a powerless God to the nether regions of some far-off heaven, and the “Sweet Jesus” theocrats who not only want Jesus on the throne of their hearts, but in every sphere of life as well. The former group is so earthly minded that God is left out of all decision-making, while the latter group is so focused on having Jesus in their hearts and getting to heaven that they’re so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good!

Tom Wright wants us to see Jesus and his Kingdom as a present reality that is truly Good News, not just the pabulum most churches offer through “good advice.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ turns the kingdoms of this world on their heads, defeats evil, death, and oppression, and asks all Christ-followers to join this grand project of deliverance in the here and now. Secularists are more than willing to believe in progress even though anyone with good sense knows that we’re heading in the opposite direction.

“Gress” is the Latin word for “step,” so “progress” means to “step forward,” “digress” means to “side step,” or go in at least two directions, “regress” means to step backwards, and, interestingly enough, “congress” means to “step together.” How’s that working for the US Congress? The US congress hardly ever steps together on any one issue. Our red state vs. blue state world pits people against people, along with religions, ideologies, theologies, and about every other divisive matter.

Tom Wright writes in a most pithy way about the bifurcation that we all experience in this world of opposing opinions. Two perspectives are central in our world conflicts. One either claims God has “left the building,” or one is only interested in the things of earth enough so that we’ll get our ticket punched for heaven. Wright splits the difference between these opposites, and proclaims a Jesus who radically alters our current lives for his Kingdom here. Certainly, he doesn’t give up on the Biblical claim of an after-life, but declares that real “Good News,” the kind of Good news that forever changed the course of human history, did so not because of its otherworldly focus but precisely because it lived the real power of Jesus’ love in the mire and muck of humanity’s existence!

Listen to his statement that says it much better than I can attempt, “Part of the good news in our own culture is that this split-level world doesn’t have the last word. There is an integrated world-view, and it’s available right now. The trouble is that both the secularists and fundamentalists are committed to not noticing it. The secularist lives downstairs and has locked the door at the bottom of the stairs (to keep God out). The fundamentalist live upstairs, though he constantly shouts down the stairs to tell people they should be coming up to join him.” Oh, too accurate!

Jesus, the God who has become King, is not dependent on human progress. So-called human progress gave us two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and more efficient ways to communicate our disdain for each other. Videos of beheadings and fiery deaths remind us that we humans cannot solve our own problems. We can make advances in medical science and educational instruction, but one cannot root out our core problem through progress. If we expect the Lord’s Prayer to come true, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” then we need to confess and believe this extraordinary news: His kingdom has come. At least it has been inaugurated until its ultimate and complete fulfillment. In the mean time we cannot think that being civilized people will save us from self-destruction. Using good advice is helpful, but who believes that “playing nice” will bring justice for all and make the world “a better place?” No, we believe that Jesus alone conquered sin and death and that reality redirects, sets right, transforms, and redeems the people and institutions of this world. Through Jesus the whole creation finds an answer for its groans.

The question raised by N.T. Wright’s Simply Good News is whether we will be a church that offers good advice to people on how to live, behave, and get along or whether we will embrace the sheer glory of Jesus Christ, our only Savior, and not only ours but the Savior of the world. If we do the latter we will experience the birth pains of God’s kingdom, the already and not yet, his mighty will done on earth. The church hands out good advice all the time like a band aid on a gaping mortal wound when it is high time for it to proclaim GOOD NEWS: Jesus wins! Not this side, that side, progressive or traditional, red state or blue. Until this planet reflects Isaiah 11:1-10 and trumpets Psalm 96 we will flounder after this and that “solution” to what ails us when the Good News has already dwelt among us. Let him who has an ear, hear! Good news that depends on us and what we do or think is neither good nor news. It has been tried before and found wanting. I think that it’s time to believe and live the statement, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” Jesus is better than a band aid!

Stopping the Shut-down: Me and U.S.

Reading my devotional this morning I found myself in John 5. It is chock full of the value of intimacy to God over the rote traditions of the religious, but what caught my eye and heart was Jesus’ question to the guy who’s been paralyzed for 38 years. The man has been lying there next to the Pool of Bethesda waiting and hoping for an angelic stirring of the waters, and perhaps the bigger miracle that someone would help him get into the water first. I guess the most desperate or the ones with the most friends beat him out every time.

For 38 years this guy has been waiting, wanting his life to change, to be healed. Jesus seemingly asks him the dumbest question ever in John 5:6, “Do you want to get well?” The question almost seems mean-spirited, as if Jesus is making light of the man’s condition. At best, it appears insensitive. Of course, we know Jesus is never that callous, especially to those who are suffering. So what’s Jesus getting at?

Then I think about the government shut-down in Washington, D.C., or me with some of my afflictions and foibles. Sometimes we enjoy the status quo more than the risk of real change. Think about it. When Jesus asked the man if he wanted to get well, he didn’t answer. He just made excuses about not having anyone to help him get into the healing waters. So as usual something else is going on here. Do our political parties really want things to get better, or does their very existence dictate intractable conflict. Without some kind of fight going on they don’t have a reason to be. It’s that simple.

I don’t know about you but I’m ready for real change, and not just the appearance of wanting change by sitting by the healing waters of the Pool or the Potomac. What does Jesus say to the man and perhaps to our laissez-faire government that gets more PAC money the longer the partisan bickering and stalemates last? Jesus says, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Jesus says, “Get over yourself and your excuses. Tell the powers that be who want to keep you paralyzed and shut-down to get over themselves. It’s a new day. If we’re going to be about the Father’s business, it going to be about healing and not hurting. The nuts hung up on process have taken over and it’s time to let them go so that the real prisoners can be set free. It’s time – Do you want to get well?”

Do I want to get well? You? Aren’t we a lot like the invalid? We want our prayers answered, but are afraid we might miss the sympathetic attention if they are. We would love freedom, but are comfortable captives. We want to change, but we don’t want to change too much. Instead of answering Jesus’ question about getting well, we make excuses. Good Lord, we’re as divided in our souls as Congress is. Apparently, we prefer a woe-is-me existence over change and risk.

Today, this day, we need to take a chance and take up our mats, leave what paralyzes us behind and walk into a new day as individuals, as a people, as a country. We must be willing to leave old ways behind. To know Jesus is to know that nothing will ever be the same again. And it’s worth it for those who dare to do what Jesus says. It’s time for Congress and us to make changes! We may look foolish if we try to make a difference in a jaded world, but the real fools are the ones still sitting on their hands and doing nothing. Take up you mat and walk! Today!

Carrie Underwood’s “Change” is a good reminder to us and our government that we can set the prisoners free. Sometimes the prisoner is me – locked into my own personal status quo of inertia, perhaps enjoying the stalemate in my heart a little too much. It’s time to be a fool for Christ and embrace change, use change, and move literally off the stuck dimes of our lives.

UMC In Exile

As I continue to process GC2012 and look forward to God’s preferred future, I am struck that where we are is a good place in spite of the predominant reaction of despair over the state of our church.  It’s a painful place, a scary one, but also a hopeful one. We are not people who want to go back to the good old days of the status quo or Garden of Eden. We are people who long for the New Jerusalem and want to be used by God to help usher in the Kingdom. We are a people who desire to put legs on our prayer, “Thy kingdom come…” If author Scott Peck is right then our pseudocommunity has given way to chaos, and if we let it do its work then we shall find ourselves embracing a Jesus-like emptiness that will lead us into a bright God-blessed future. But first we have to mourn our chaos: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh…Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep (Luke 6:21,25).”

The acceptance of Enlightenment era certitude created a centuries-old illusionary humanistic optimism that has fueled two opposing sides of hardliners. This has been evident in the halls of Congress and at GC2012. It is time for us to move away from the  literal and liberal fundamentalism of old world empirical stances and follow God’s directives which often find voice in mysterious ways.  As much as I would like to put funnels in people’s heads so that they know the difference between unchanging doctrine and ever-changing theology, it doesn’t work that way. Sure, I’m going to teach the truth of our Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith, but I want to do it in ways that allow God to speak more than me. I have to be quiet. We all do. We have to let God do the talking in contemporary ways. Then we can move forward and stop the status quo entrenchment of extremist polarities that are holding us back.

I’m not saying that we need to check our understanding of good theology at the door, but we do need to open ourselves to a new word from God.  Not a new Word of God, but a new epiphany so that we have a personal theophany with the Living God. Of course, this is where chaos reigns in our discussions. Who decides what is God’s W/word for today, this generation? What does this kind of thinking do to the unique salvific person and work of Christ? How do we objectify the Immortal, Invisible God that we see face-to-face in Jesus? Is there a way for us to hold in tension the apparent paradox and oxymoron of a God bigger than all, that created ex nihilo, yet is made incarnate  and truly human while remaining very God of very God? “Whew!” is about the best response I can make because I can’t answer all of these questions adequately. However, I will not yield on who Jesus is and what Jesus does or what Jesus says. He is the Logos! But, until I give up a great measure of what I think that I know, I know that I won’t know the God of the Apocalypse. There can be no revelation (apocalypsis) if everything is already revealed. Isn’t this the essence of our dilemma? Is God dynamic or static? Is God immutable only in God’s loving nature? Is God ever-changing in nano-second immediacy in response to God’s loving relationship to creation? If not, then why pray? The questions continue, leading from one to another, and yet we need a clarion call, a sure pronouncement from God. I contend that we will not and cannot hear such a pronouncement until we give up our human machinations that put words into God’s mouth. Where we are is between chaos and emptiness and this is where the Old Testament’s prophets found themselves. They, like Jesus after them, were strangers among their own people. They spoke God’s truth of judgment on a wicked and idol-worshipping people. They spoke also of a God eager to love. They were the voice of exile, and out of the Hebrew Exile came the most profound renewal: Dedicated care for the poor and oppressed, overwhelming revitalization of worship practices, and absolute dedication to community.

We, too, can find hope in our time of chaos and emptiness, our sense of exile from our glory days of yesteryear. Our hope is found in our hopelessness. Our salvation isn’t found in empirical data mining called metrics for the Spirit blows in unseen ways before there is fruit even imagined. Just ask Nicodemus. Our Gospel is a saga of exile to hope, death to resurrection, crying in the night before joy in the morning. To bypass chaos and death diminishes the cross’ victory! Now, that’s a paradox – “the cross’ victory!” But this is our Gospel after all. God redeems! Jesus died and rose again. We are not stuck between Good Friday and Easter. We are post-Pentecost Christians that supremely worship a Living Lord who can make all things new! Think about Jesus and the wineskins analogy or I Corinthians 5:17. Something’s got to give if we are to move past our semi-idolatrous harkening back to the supposed “good old days.” Polarities are keeping us from admitting the failure that is ours in reaching a confused generation. Revival can come only if we repent. If we will repent then we are able to have hope. If we focus overly on what was or is then we miss what can be and will be. We absolutely must give up all hankering for going back to the Garden of Eden and press on toward the New Jerusalem – a place described, interestingly enough, a lot like post-exilic Judaism: care for the least, last, lowest, lost; fantastic worship; blessed community.

So first things first. We can’t get to the New Jerusalem without going through real chaos and emptiness. Therefore, it behooves us to lament, to cry out, to express our anguish. GC2012 and Election Year 2012 have me convinced that theological and political gridlock on top of economic disaster is real.  We cannot dare to be priests or prophets who say, “Peace, Peace – when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11), in a divided world or church. We cannot put a useless band-aid of denial on our situation and strike a passive stance of do-nothingism on our dismal condition. If we want to have hope in the God who sends exiles home and resurrects the dead, then, like the Hebrew prophets of the Exile, we must declare our utter failure at trying to manipulate and manage God. By accepting our emptiness and expressing our grief we acknowledge that God has judged us. Listen to the prophet in Jeremiah 30:12: “This is what the Lord says: “Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing.”  We are judged by God who then enters our grief and surprises us. When all hope is seemingly lost by virtue of self-caused and God-judged chaos and emptiness we are surprised by God; i.e., Jeremiah 30:16-17: “Therefore, all who devour you will be devoured; all your enemies will go into exile. Those who plunder you will be plundered; all who make spoil of you I will despoil. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds.” Only grief allows newness and only newness can come from God entering the judgment we have brought upon ourselves. Jesus saves, not this group or that one. Only Jesus saves! That is the essence of my report about General Conference 2012, and it is my message to everyone about the state of our world: “We’re broken and we’ve tried everything we can to fix things on our own, and it hasn’t worked. God help us! And God does help. There is our only hope. God is our only hope!”

By the way, you need to know that this hopeful comparison of the Hebrew Exile to today is thanks to the gentle prodding of retired Bishop Ken Carder to reread Brueggemann. His book, Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile is a must read. The book’s premise of Hebrew Exile as a means of renewal is more than a timely word for us. It was published in 1986 yet its words speak as if written today (pp. 45-47) (Hint: When you read “city” think Jerusalem, Church, Enlightenment, or Culture, etc.):

“I believe that we are in a season of transition, when we are watching the collapse of the world as we have known it. The political forms and economic modes of the past are increasingly ineffective. The value system and the shapes of knowledge through which we have controlled life are now in great jeopardy. One can paint the picture in very large scope, but the issues do not present themselves to pastors as global issues. They appear as local, even personal issues, but they are nonetheless pieces of a very large picture. When the fear and anger are immediate and acute, we do not stop to notice how much our own crisis is a part of the larger one, but it is.

When such a massive threat is under way, so comprehensive in scope, so acute in personal hurt, frenzied, dangerous activity takes place. Such activity runs from arms stockpiling to frantic self-fulfillment to oppressive conformity. All of these are attempts to hold the world together enough to maintain our dignity, our worth, our sanity, and probably our advantage. I believe these attempts can be identified among conservatives (including theological conservatives) who want to stop the change by formulae of authority and conformity. I believe these attempts can be identified among liberals (including theological liberals) who want to keep power in place because liberals have had a good season and still trust the worldly knowledge of the social sciences to keep us human and to keep us safe. The voices of newly revived conservatism and responsible liberalism are important. Both voices have something to tell us.

Neither voice, however, touches the issue of the death of the beloved city that must be grieved. Indeed, one can argue that the polarities in our society are a game on which we have agreed in order to keep us busy, so that we do not notice. Powerful vested interests are at work, perhaps mostly unwittingly, to keep the grief from notice. In one way or another, we believe the ideology of our party, our caucus, our nation, our class, because ideology serves as a hedge against a serious diagnosis. If one denies serious illness, then there is no need for the diagnosis. There is then no cause to weep over the city. There is no call for such poignant poetry. But if the city is dying, if the old order is failing, if the poet has diagnosed rightly, then the grief is urgent. It is a personal grief. It is a quite public grief. It is facing our true situation, in which living waters have been rejected and we are left with broken cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13), in which all our lovers despise us (Jeremiah 30:14), in which we are like restive camels in heat (Jeremiah 2:23-34). All the metaphors mediate our broken, beaten fickleness. The news is that God enters the broken, beaten fickleness.

In God’s attentive pain, healing happens. Newness comes. Possibilities are presented. But it all depends on being present with God in the hurt, which is incurable until God’s hint of healing is offered. We wait, along with the poet, to see what the tone of the next ‘therefore’ (Jeremiah 30:16) will be.”

This post is long, but long overdue. Where is our hope? The answer is found in our hopelessness. We can only find hope in Jesus! Exile is hard! Life is hard! The alternative is deadly! Let us give ourselves to Christ, the Only One who raises the dead back to life!