Love Incarnate

Fourth Candle:Break Open! Blessed are the ones who have waited.
(from Rev. Mindi)

God always chooses the smallest, the youngest, the weak and the unknown. God chose an unknown unmarried young woman, who said yes to bearing God into this world. God chose her cousin who waited a long time for the fulfilment of promises to bring forth blessings. God chooses us. We are the nobodies, the powerless, the weak of the world, to bring good news for the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim that Christ is here, among us, now, and we wait for the reign of Christ to break forth anew in our world and in our lives.

• Lighting of the fourth Advent candle

Make haste, O God, and break forth something new in us! Bless us and call us to bless one another, to seek those who are pushed to the margins, those whose voice is ignored, and to center them in Your reign on earth as it is in heaven, for this is our Advent story. Amen.

Responsive Reading: Psalm 130

Scripture: John 1:1-18

Intro

As we have today entered the fourth and final week of Advent, there may be value in acknowledging a certain “sameness” to the messages and challenges we have experienced each week. 

• Exploring “Future Incarnate,” we were challenged to live in the present as though God’s future were fully here, exactly as Jesus himself has done.
• Exploring “Hope Incarnate,” we were challenged to live in the present as though God’s hope were already realized, exactly as Jesus himself has done.
• Exploring “Purpose Incarnate,” we were challenged to live in the present as though God’s purposes were the only things that mattered, exactly as Jesus himself has done.

Do you notice the pattern here?

Today, as we turn our attention to “Love Incarnate,” we continue that pattern: being challenged to live in the present as though God’s love was everything to us, exactly as Jesus himself has done.

God’s Nature Is Love

Since Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of Immanuel—God with us—there is great value in reminding ourselves of just who God actually is. 

In 1John chapter 4, we are told—not once but twice!—that “God is love” (v.8b, 16b). Whatever we choose to believe and whatever constitutes our faith, we must reckon with this reality: that God’s core identity/quality/being is love. Whatever our doctrines, whatever our activities, whatever our involvements or commitments—they will either be rooted in that love, or they will not be rooted in God at all.

It really is that simple. 

As Jesus himself proclaimed: 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ [And…] ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:30–31 (NRSV)

Love God; love others. All the rules of life and faith are fulfilled when we live out love.

Psalm 130: Forgiveness

Contrary to some perceptions, this “Rule of Love” is not a new innovation by the New Testament authors. There is no contradiction with God as depicted in the majority of the Old Testament tradition. And today’s Psalm provides as good an example of this as any.

In it, we see that there are three qualities of God…… three aspects of God’s nature…… three things that are “with God” that the Psalmist understands to be the foundation of any faith in God. All three are expressions of love.

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With God “there is forgiveness”—this the psalmist declares in v.4. And importantly, the psalmist recognizes that if this were not so, we would not be able to “revere” God at all. Without forgiveness issuing from God to us, God would not be a being we could or would worship. An unforgiving God could never be revered.

I don’t think that’s terribly different than what we find in our human relationships as well. It is impossible to be in a healthy relationship with someone who is always taking offense and holding on to grudges. We simply cannot respect such a person. We certainly do not experience love in their actions toward us. 

And of course, just because God is a loving and forgiving God does not mean we get everything we want immediately. Alongside God’s love, the Psalmist emphasizes waiting. 

Waiting is part of faith, as is hoping. Simply because God is forgiving and generous and loving does not mean that God is entirely predictable—our forbears of faith unilaterally describe God as an eternal mystery. 

Nor do we find that God a kind of mechanical dispenser of good things—like a gum-ball machine that we put the right kind of prayer or effort into and we then get exactly what we want. 

• God’s love is not the love that spoils, but lifts. 
• It does not stifle our development, but grows it. 
• And the more we experience God’s love, the more we become certain that it is the only thing we truly need.

Psalm 130: Steadfast Love

As I said, the Psalmist identifies three “with God” realities that are all expressions of love. Alongside forgiveness, in the second of these the psalmist declares that “with the LORD there is steadfast love” (Psalm 130:7).

Depending on your translation, what I just read as “steadfast love” may be translated “mercy” (KJV), “unfailing love” (NIV), “lovingkindness” (NASB), or something else similar. 

At its core, this word connotes something of loyalty and faithfulness—a kind of closeness and mutual responsibility for one another that sees you on the same side. 

Since “with the LORD there is steadfast love,” you can know that God is not your enemy. God is not in opposition to you. Rather, God is alongside you, with you, and working for your good. This is such a central part of God’s identity that this word is worked into virtually every description of God in the scriptures. 

It is, quite simply, love in action.

Psalm 130: Power to Redeem

And speaking of action, the third “with God” reality expressed by the psalmist is this: “with [God] is great power to redeem” (Psalm 130:7).

Love, you see, is far different than mere compassion or pity. Love acts. Love without action is not love.

Elsewhere in 1John the author queries:

“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

1John 3:17 (NRSV)

And of course, Jesus himself taught and lived out this truth:

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

John 15:13 (NRSV)

Love lays it all on the line. Love offers what one has for the good of another. Love demands sacrifice of us—not out of obligation but out of genuine care for another and the freedom we find when we live love’s radical revolution.

So it is with God. With God there is great power to redeem. God is able (through love’s power) to bring change to your life…… to bring transformation of circumstances and attitudes…… to bring a resurrection of being and hope…… to grow lifein the dried out and scorched places in your soul.

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And because with God there is forgiveness, steadfast love, and power to redeem—because these expressions of love are observable and provable not just in the bible but in our lives—we are able to be drawn by love into worship and life abundant. 

Shifting to John 1

I think are two primary ways we can know that love and see it “fleshed out”—incarnated. One of these is a perfect embodiment of God’s great love, and the other is an imperfect-though-powerful representation.

The perfect incarnation of love is found in Jesus. Verse 18 of the scripture reading in John 1 says this:

“It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

(NRSV)

This statement by the author of John has its roots in the teachings of Jesus, who declared:

“No one knows… who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”

Luke 10:22 (NRSV)

Building on the same teaching of Jesus, Paul develops the analogy that Jesus is the imprint/icon/image of God (cf. Colossians 1:15).

As the scripture text relates, Jesus is close to God’s heart—closer than any other. And he lives that heart out in the world (that’s incarnation). 

As we are drawn into God’s heart, we do the same, as love becomes incarnate through us.

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We are the imperfect representation of love incarnate in the world. As we are shaped by God’s love…… as we learn to live in the Kingdom of Christ…… as the teachings of Jesus become unconscious expressions within our lives…… God’s love takes on flesh and walks among us. 

This is an important part of the mission of the church and of each one who would follow Jesus. He himself insisted that:

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:35 (NRSV)

And wherever we see the charges to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19), to carry out the “ministry of reconciliation” as “ambassadors for Christ” (2Corinthians 5:18-20), to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17), and to “love one another” (1John 3:11), we see echoes of those same three “with God” expressions of love found in Psalm 130: with God there is forgiveness, with God there is steadfast love, with God there is power to redeem.

Our mission is to become love incarnate—however imperfectly—so that the perfect love of God can be known and overcome the world. As we flesh take on the Word and live among the world—just as Jesus was “in the world”—so we continue the work that was not accepted during Jesus own lifetime.

Caution

But a word of caution: like the Son, Jesus Christ, we can only “make God known” when we too are “close to the Father’s heart” (cf. John 1:18). 

And so an important part of our task—an important element of our shaping into the image and likeness of Jesus—is for us to reach into the endless mystery of God’s love and grow in our desire for it.

One ancient author suggests this is more simple than it sounds, writing: 

“This what you are to do: lift your heart up to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts…”

Cloud of Unknowning, p.40

That’s it. 

I mean, there’s more to it, of course. But anything that comes afterward is simply an instinctive response to the warmth of God’s embrace. 

It may be that our use of simple words such as “love” undermine our ability to appreciate just how incredible all this is. That same author later on says:

“Truly this is the unending miracle of love: that one loving person, through his love, can embrace God, whose being fills and transcends the entire creation.”

Cloud of Unknowning, p.42

A Mysterious Ending

It’s a mystery, right?

How can I—or you—through our imperfect love of God manage to embrace the One “whose being fills and transcends the entire creation”?

How can the One who was “in the beginning with God” “take on flesh and dwell among us”?

How can a baby whose birth was largely unnoticed become King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

How can God love me? You? Us?

How is it that we frequently-failing, crucifying-creations are objects of joy that God greatly desires to draw into deep relationship and abundant life?

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There are mysteries to faith—to be sure. And yet these mysteries are certain. 

As God has become love incarnate in Jesus, let us seek to incarnate love in response.

Prayer

God of all time,

Your Word became flesh and walked among us. Receive our gratitude and awe for all that you have done through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Mould us, shape us, change us, renew us, re-birth us in the image of your love, that we may continue its incarnation in the name of our Teacher Jesus.

Amen.

Fair Balance

Responsive Reading: Psalm 130:1-7

Scripture Reading: 2Corinthians 8:7-15

The Spirit Moves

The Holy Spirit is, I find, a wily thing.

She moves in mysterious ways, and yet her agenda has been set since the beginning of time.

She speaks to us and for us.

Through the Spirit we experience what our forebears called: 

• both “desolation” and “consolation”……
• both conviction and encouragement……
• both a dismantling and a building up……
• both crucifixion and resurrection……

Yes, there is something of the Spirit that keeps us on our toes.

How else do you explain the charge to preach on “Fair Balance” during the week of our denomination’s biennial Mission Summit, a week that regularly finds me out-of-balance in most every way imaginable?

Suffice it to say: This has been a challenging sermon to write. And it will also be a difficult one to preach…… in part because it is a difficult one for me myself to hear.

Balance & Enough

Balance is an almost foreign concept to our society.

As a beginning illustration, consider the ever-elusive concept of enough—a concept that is, by its very nature, reliant upon finding a kind of balance—a concept that lives in the liminal space:

• between need and want……
• between income and expense……
• between time required and time to spare……
• between obligation and interest……
• between self-care and care of others……

The list—as you well know yourselves—goes on and on and on.

Income

When it comes to income, our problem with quantifying “enough” is revealed in all its ugly glory.

Studies show that across the entire economic spectrum, “enough” is defined as roughly 30% more. If you’re earning $20k a year, you imagine “enough” will be $26k. For those at $30k—you dream of $39k. 

But remember what I said: according to the research, it continues to scale up. Those earning $100k feel they’ll have “enough” at $130k; those at $200k dream of reaching $260k; those earning $500k are reaching for $650k; and so on.

There is no sense of balance… no sense of sufficiency that is rooted in any kind of reality. 

We are always dissatisfied with the present…… always reaching for more.

News

Consider what “balanced reporting” looks like on your favorite news outlet. There are some who have completely thrown away all pretense of balance. But many—perhaps most—consider their telling of a story “balanced” when there are token representatives from all viewpoints. But is that balanced?

Now, I am a baptist through and through. And for most of our history, we have been seen as a fringe group with radical ideas like everyone having the ability to read the bible and navigate their relationship with God for themselves. We have been raucous and disruptive in our insistence on religious freedom for all—even advocating for the rights of those of other faiths and no faiths way back in the 1600s.

All that to say: It is important to me that minority voices are preserved and heard. That conviction is part of what has lead to the American Baptist Churches-USA into being one of the most diverse denominations in these United States—a reality on full display at our recent Mission Summit. 

But I wonder whether—and I fear—that giving equal time and equal representation to every viewpoint has in fact empowered a radical and unethical fringe to advance unsubstantiated conspiracies and tell wild lies as truth.

It does not feel very balanced to me.

Time & FOMO

Consider “balance” in the context of our time and engagements. And those of you parents are perhaps more aware than most of just how out-of-balance life can be. 

I want the best for my children. And I want them to have opportunities that were not available to me. But increasingly I am aware that what may be best for my children is actually not doing “all the things.” 

• Perhaps what is best for them is not a rigorous and hectic schedule from early morning until late evening as they navigate school, sports, clubs, homework, and so on—every day of the week. 
• Perhaps my own fear of their missing out is causing them to miss out on the personal growth and creativity that comes with boredom, or the familial relationships that just don’t have time to be nurtured, or even the quietness of soul that allows the Spirit to speak loudly.

None of our activities are wrong. None (I am assuming) have that kind of moral import.

But do we feel out of balance in them? Do our children?

Faith Development

As your pastor, I can’t help but draw this reflection on balance towards our lives of faith and our spiritual development. 

• Most of us are terrible at self-care, though God cares deeply for us. 
• Most of us try to fit our faith practices in the gaps of our schedule, though God has made us the #1 priority in all of creation.
• Most of us are too busy with our exterior life to care for our interior one, even though the exterior one will inevitably fail if we allow the interior one to falter.

There is indeed a great imbalance in our priorities and activities that sabotages our ability to walk and live like Jesus.

Unexpected Balance

Maybe this decided lack of balance in our lives is part of why we find it so intriguing when we unexpectedly encounter balance in nature and the world at large. Just imagine things you have seen in person or in photographs:

• seemingly impossibly stacked stones
• natural rock arches that boggle the mind
• the incredible buttressed ceilings of gothic cathedrals
• and every permutation of visual juxtaposition: size and mass, shape and perspective, light and dark, monochrome and technicolor.

Imagine—just imagine!!—the visual interest of the unexpected balance discovered by Moses that day in the wilderness of Midian:

A bush
on fire, but not consumed
balanced inconceivably
between fire and ash
between life and death
between heavens and earth

“I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” (Exodus 3:3 NRSV)

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Balance [my friends]…… Balance can be hard to find, but is infinitely intriguing…… always attractive.

But to whom?

Economics

It is impossible for us to spend any time with this passage in 2Corinthians 8 without recognizing that the primary area of balance of which Paul writes is economic in nature. 

• There are those with more, and those with less.
• There are those with need, and those with abundance.

And in a sense, this is in part a fundraising letter. Paul wants them to contribute out of their resources and wealth for the good of those with less. He wants them to build the kind of world foreshadowed by that wilderness season in the life of the ancient Israelites…… that time after liberation from Egypt:

• as they were led by God-Incarnate in cloud and fire, 
• as they were fed every day with God’s daily bread of manna, 
• as the thread of their clothes and the soles of their shoes were inconceivably preserved,
• and as God embedded God’s priorities and Ways in their minds, hearts, and bodies. 

Paul—to the Corinthians—invokes all of this when he quotes from Exodus to remind them that in the Kingdom Way of Jesus, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.” (2Corinthians 8:15 NRSV; cf. Exodus 16:18)

Yes, this text is undeniably economic in nature. And in approaching it, we may find we have to throw away our cultural expectations and biases, and enter into the world of the text. 

Or rather: enter into the world of the Kingdom of Christ, which is where Paul is inviting the Corinthians to live right now.

Acts

In the book of Acts, we read repeatedly of the life and practices of the early church. We encounter them gathering for prayer, learning humbly of Jesus from the apostles’ teaching, and breaking bread together in theological and relational communion.

But there is another dimension that is always present…… always underscored. And it is, I’m afraid to say, economic in nature.

As one example, Luke describes the early community of Jesus in this way in Acts 2:

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”

Acts 2:44–47a (NRSV)

Indeed, they were living into the vision proclaimed so many years before: “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.”

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But notice the result of embodying this Divine Generosity (as we read the rest of verse 47):

“And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

Acts 2:47b (NRSV)

Yes, friends, there are those who yearn so desperately for balance…… those who desire so deeply for it…… that they will be irrevocably drawn to 

• a community that embodies God’s justice…… 
• a community where there is no greatest or least, no rich or poor, no care for who we were but who we are becoming in our journey of God……. 
• a place where our past is balanced not against our future but against the Cross on which Christ bore all.

There will be those who will tear the roots out of their own life in order to transplant themselves by the fount of living water that is Jesus. 

“Day by day the Lord added to their number.”

1John

Later on in the scriptures—in 1John 3:17—we are challenged by the question:

“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”

(NRSV)

How can this be?

• It is inconceivable to the early church that such a situation can exist. 
• It is incongruous for a follower of Jesus to not give of their own resources when they encounter someone in need.

This orientation towards generosity and communal responsibility and interdependence is an essential hallmark of those being transformed into likeness with Jesus.

As Paul says in v.13 of the scripture lesson, this does not take responsibility off of others and put it all on a few; but (again as he says) “it is a question of fair balance between your present abundance and their need.” (vv.13-14)

The straight talk from the Spirit to all of us is that we hide our selfishness behind accusations of irresponsibility. We demean the one in need to dodge our own duty. And in doing so, we not only cheat them… but God. For as John says: if we see a person in need and if we have the ability to help and if we yet refuse to meet that need (that we can meet!), we are devoid of God’s love.

And isn’t it telling that John did not think to offer any qualifications here? No pre-existing conditions which invalidate the terms of the contract?

No, we followers of Jesus do not get out of it, no matter how hard we wriggle about.

God is working to bring about “fair balance” in creation.
We are either working with God on this, or we are working against God.

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May “the ones with ears” hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Too Far Gone?

This sermon is the fifth in a series simply titled “Resurrection.” Like the previous series, “Resurrection” was born out of the resources provided by my attendance at this year’s McAfee Preaching Consultation, hosted by my alma mater. One of the speakers at that event, and the originator of this series, was colleague and fellow McAfee School of Theology alumnus, Shaun King. The sermons of my series are largely inspired by and at times follow his own, sometimes roughly and other times more closely. For anyone interested, here is the link to the website of Shaun’s church, which archives his video-taped sermons. A warning: You will no doubt find him to be the superior preacher.

Responsive Reading: Psalm 130

Scripture Reading: John 11:1-44

Intro to Series

The last few weeks we have been talking about resurrection. 

We have been trying to listen intently to what Jesus says about himself in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly“…… to have life to the fullest. 

We’ve been trying to believe that this abundant, full life—the life of the Kingdom—is (as Jesus puts it) “at hand”—immediately available to those of us who learn from Jesus how to reach out and grab it.

It may seem incredible to us—and incredibly radical—but God believes that this abundant life is in fact possible for us right here right now. And God is at work—in a thousand small and large ways—to bring this kind of resurrection into your life every single day. 

After all, that’s what resurrection is really about…… that’s what faith is really about: it is about responding to this divine invitation to a way of living. Remember: resurrection is not just a one-time event, but an all-the-time invitation to a way of life.

Stinky Lazarus

The story of our gospel reading today is one of the most important stories of Jesus. It is the centerpiece of John’s gospel, second in importance only to the resurrection of Jesus himself. In this story of Lazarus and his family, we find incredible richness: a deep appreciation for Jesus’ humanity, a unique insight into the heart of God, a realistic view of the devastation death can bring, and a grounding for the hope of life that even death cannot conquer.

For today, I want to invite you to focus your imagination and contemplation on the words of warning issued by Martha in John 11:39. She is merely the last in a long line of people trying to dissuade Jesus from seeing Lazarus’ corpse (we’ll come back to that in a bit). 

And perhaps because of Jesus’ persistence, perhaps because of the intimacy of their relationship, perhaps because of the raw edge of Martha’s grief, she is considerably more blunt about the realities of death than anyone else in the story. 

Already, Lazarus has been dead four days, as Martha reminds Jesus. And in the words of the King James Version, she says: “by this time he stinketh.”

He stinketh. Lazarus is too far gone. He stinks.

Death Is Messy

It is all to easy to forget that death is a messy affair. 

We have had far too many in our family of faith who have been learning that of late. The “business of death” (as I usually put it) is both complicated and taxing—there are so many people to notify, so many procedures to follow, so many connections to be made, so many things to purchase…… 

• How many death certificates do you need?
• How do you buy a cemetery plot?
• How do you plan a memorial service?
• Who notifies whom when it comes to Social Security or retirement? 
• What about bills? What about the house? What about the car?

The business of death can be so busy that it can be hard to find time for grief.

But then there is also the matter of…… well, matter, which doesn’t exactly break down cleanly. Things start to happen at the moment of death—the body starts its inevitable decay towards returning to dust. This isn’t pretty or pleasant, and most of us in this present era manage to avoid dealing with this side of the messiness of death.

But in the New Testament era, there was no refrigeration to slow these natural processes. There was no embalming available to the average person to preserve the tissues of the body. Those glorious bodies of beloved friends and family members became essentially large pieces of decaying meat. That is why (for example) we find Mary Magdalene returning to the tomb of Jesus with air freshener and potpourri. In the first century, if you wanted to go to the grave of your loved one to grieve, you needed more than a couple carnations to cut through the smell.

I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I think considering the repulsiveness of death is all more important than we might first think—especially as we begin to think about the death and resurrection of our daily lives…… as we learn to think of resurrection as an all-the-time invitation to a way of life.

That death is so messy means that resurrection is too, for resurrection takes root in those places in us that stink the worst. 

Good and Bad Smells

I’ve long been intrigued by the language of sacrifice in the Old Testament—particularly those sacrifices involving meat of some sort. When (for instance) Noah offers a sacrifice upon exiting the ark, we are told that “the LORD smelled the pleasing odor” (Genesis 8:21 NRSV). We see this sort of thing prescribed later on in various places in Leviticus, where instructions are given for sacrifices intended to create “an aroma pleasing to the LORD” (e.g. Leviticus 1:9). As a professor of mine from Texas was fond of saying, even God loves the smell of good barbecue. 

While this imagery may seem strange to us, the notion the “smell” of our lives runs throughout the biblical story and beyond. When we do things pleasing to God, our lives “smell good”; when we live contrary to God’s priorities, we “stinketh.” There’s a line from an ancient prayer that goes “Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.”

What kind of smell is your life emitting? Is it more BBQ brisket, or roadkill possum? 

For most of us, it is probably a bit of both. So it is worth asking further: what specific patterns of behavior and activity in your life just plain stink to God?

You Don’t Want to Do That, Jesus…

Those are the places in ourselves most in need of resurrection. But the good news is that Jesus has never been offended by the places we stink…… never been afraid to go to the places in ourselves that we are repulsed by and afraid to go.

One of the pieces of the Lazarus story that stands out to me is how persistent Jesus has to be about going to the tomb. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this or not, but most of what we read today—most of this story!—involved Jesus’ friends trying to talk him out of going to that stinky grave.

• First it was the disciples with him, who thought the trip to Bethany was an unnecessary risk for Jesus to take at a particularly volatile time. It ends up being Thomas, the disciple often maligned for a lack of faith, who demonstrates the greatest faith in and commitment to Jesus.
• Then it is Martha, meeting him on the road, and insisting that he is too late. Lazarus is dead and there is no longer any point in Jesus coming.
• Then it is Mary, making many of the same arguments to dissuade Jesus’ journey.
• And finally, after getting directions to the tomb not from his friends but from the others who gathered, Jesus hears from Martha yet another plea for Jesus to just let it go. It has been too long. Lazarus is too stinky; he is too far gone. Surely Jesus doesn’t need to see…… and smell…… that.

You see, they all misunderstand the nature of resurrection, thinking it to be something sanitary and neat—a germ-free raising up at the end of time. But Jesus knows the truth: for resurrection to be had, Jesus must enter into the most stinky, messy, ugly, dead places and situations. Not every seed that falls to the ground and dies will germinate. But death must precede life. And resurrection is how that death is transformed and redeemed. It is how new life germinates and grows.

The Atlanta Shooting

Church…… friends…… The places where resurrection is needed today… are stinky too.

This last week, we saw again the graphic outcome of the stink of sin as it infects society and individuals. A young man, described as a deeply religious Southern Baptist, sought out and killed Asian women he did not know but blamed for his own struggles. 

Already, less than a week later, many are trying to dismiss him as an unexplainable anomaly rather than the natural result of unjust systems (which is what he is). 

A former professor of mine from seminary (Loyd Allen) identified five dominant cultural realities in the shooter’s religious life which, when aligned, seem to perfectly explain his actions. These are:

“1. A “sexual purity” subculture of shaming and condemnation rather than education regarding sexual desire as well as sexual acts.

2. A religious subculture that casts suspicion and shame upon all psychological help that is not—[quote]—”Bible-based.”

3. A religious tradition that views women since Eve as temptresses responsible to dress and act to suppress male sexuality, except after marriage, when objectification is encouraged.

4. A white nationalistic religious subculture that has silently accepted or even encouraged the verbal and physical abuse of immigrants and non-white minorities, including a rise in hate attacks against Asians (AAPI) since the pandemic—[blamed for the so-called] Chinese virus. 

5. A religious culture that is committed to gun violence as the solution to peace and security. 

Connect those [five] dots [my professor writes] and clarity may increase about how a committed church boy might decide, after considering suicide, to instead buy a gun and, as he told investigators, try to eliminate temptation by killing sexualized Asian women in spas for the glory of God. As a recovering Southern Baptist, I call for confession and repentance.”

Loyd Allen

I want to echo that call as well, recognizing that these elements are not unique to our Southern Baptist cousins. This constellation of the infection of sin is present in the ABC too, as it is (I suspect) in every American church tradition. We cannot pretend otherwise and take some high-and-mighty high road to condemn the viruses of which we believe ourselves immune. We have to own what is stinky and awful and un-Christlike about our own lives and religious systems or else more people will die. That is an uncomfortable fact, as this past week has yet again shown.

Doing the Right Thing

I do not pretend that this work of death and resurrection will be easy or comfortable. But friends—Church!—there will always be people trying to talk you out of doing the right thing, especially when “the right thing” is stinky or dirty or might damage your reputation (and they fear by association, theirs). 

Just as those closest to Jesus try to talk him out of going to Lazarus where he intends to bring resurrection, so there will be those in our lives who will try to talk us out of going into dark places with the hope of bringing about resurrection and transformation.

But God does not believe us too far gone. God does not believe the church of Jesus Christ is too far gone. God persists in the hope and in the work of the redemption of all things, “reconciling the world to Godself,” as we read in 2Corinthians 5:19.

Beyond Redemption?

And if you are someone who looks into your own heart and you worry that you are beyond redemption…… that you are too far gone…… that your life is so stinky even God won’t approach you—-YOU COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG. You don’t know it yet, and you may not be feeling it yet, but God has been with you already for a long time. God has been working in you and through you. You can never be so far gone that God gives up on you. That’s what the bible means when it talks about God’s steadfast love.

But I also want to say something to those of you who are hearing all this and are feeling a pull into this redemptive work of resurrection in the systems of culture and society—including and especially our religious systems. 

It is, perhaps unfortunately, a warning: This is not happy, feel good work. This is not pat-yourself-on-the-back-you-did-a-good-thing work. Doing the labor of exposing these viruses in our religious and cultural life will expose every place they are present in you. Just like with Jesus, those closest to you will try to talk you out of it. The stink will be overwhelming. But with God there is resurrection to be had. 

Responding

If you are in either of those places—or even if you are feeling the pull of the Spirit and are having trouble understanding what it means—I want to encourage you to pray something like this:

God, I am sorry.

I have sinned in ways I know
and in ways I do not know.
I have welcomed privilege
that harms those Jesus calls my neighbor.
I have called evil “good” and good “evil.
I have divided my allegiance
between your Kingdom and this world,
and the world more often wins out.

Forgive me; help me repent and repent truly.

God, my heart breaks for these victims of violence,
but I do not sully their deaths
by calling them senseless.
This violence makes all too much sense;
as it is the inevitable result
of the systems we have built.

May their deaths be redeemed
through a growing resolve to your work,
expanding and sacrificing of myself
as I learn to work to root out the viruses
of racism and sexism and xenophobia and misogyny
and the unholy marriage of religion and power;
to build a more just and peaceful world for all.

Amen—may it be so.

If any of that prayer resonated with you—if you hear your heart beating in sympathetic vibration to the heart of God—then you’ve gained an important awareness of the resurrection life that is possible for you to begin right now. I encourage you to commit to it—to find God at the end of yourself.

Whether this is your first such commitment to God or your thousandth, do not expect dramatic changes right away—the shaping of one’s soul by God takes time, after all. But I want to encourage you to reach out to me and let me know what you felt—what you are hearing and feeling from God about all this. Send me a text message or email, join me on Thursday night for our zoom time, or something! We are stronger together than we are apart, and to engage in this difficult work we will need each other and all the strength God will give us.

Let us pray.

Prayer

Thank you, God, that you do not believe we are too far gone for resurrection to take.

But we do confess that there is some death in us. There is some dying we need to do.
We need to grow ear that are capable of hearing
the voices of those on the margins of our world.

Grow in us a willingness to go to the stinky places
that need to die in our lives and religious cultures
in order for the resurrection of Jesus to do its thing.

We pray for the mending
of the human brokenness that caused this shooting,
for the disruption of unjust systems,
for the exposure of all hidden things,
and for comfort for the grieving.

Help us believe as you do that no one is too far gone,
that all can be redeemed
through the impossible resurrection work of God,
and that our life and that of our neighbor are intrinsically intertwined.

May your kingdom come
May your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.

Amen.

Be Watchful

Scripture: Psalm 130

Waiting for the Morning

Finally, the sun began to rise.

I hadn’t really slept for hours, often staring out the window in anticipation for this…very…moment.

The orange-and-rose streaked sky shone across my face as I glanced across the room at the man in the hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of tubes and monitors. “We made it,” I thought—or was it a prayer?

It had been a long night, the darkness punctuated by alarms beeping and nurses running to assist. There had been several close calls.

I smiled weakly at the man’s spouse as our eyes met. I imagine her head was also echoing with the surgeon’s words—words we had heard just hours ago—was it only hours? It seemed like days.

I smiled again at the sunrise as the surgeon’s words echoed a second time in my head: “If he makes it through the night, he should be OK.”

“Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord…
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning”
(vv.1, 5).

I know the joy of the morning after the darkest night. And I have smiled at every sunrise since.

Waiting

Last week (Psalm 23), I spoke of the power of presence—a power beyond words. The Psalm this week continues that theme of presence, focusing it under particular circumstance: that of waiting.

Waiting is not popular; it is not chic. We want what we want, and we want it now. If we cannot have our purchase at the moment we pay for it, we will take our business elsewhere. Or even better, we get our purchase before we pay for it, using credit and borrowing against our future.

We may not like waiting, but waiting is life. We wait in lines. We wait in traffic. We wait for that movie to be released. We wait for our kids to get out of school. We wait for our plane to take off, or land.

People who study these things—God only knows why—they tell us that the average person spends two weeks or more of their lifetime simply waiting at stop lights. Waiting in general may total five years or more of one’s lifespan.

Waiting is life, but that doesn’t mean we are good at it. It may (in fact) be our least-developed life skill. But that just means it is even more significant when we wait with one another.

The reason why is obvious. Time is truly the most valuable thing we possess. It cannot be traded or sold. We never know how much we have. And we cannot acquire more.

The Gift of Time

But time can be gifted. Maybe this is why the presence of another person impacts us so profoundly—Even if we do not acknowledge it consciously, we somehow recognize that they have given up a part of their very life to be with us.

And when that gift of time comes during a time of waiting—especially when we join another in the “depths” of life—it is truly the greatest gift we can give: To join another person in the mundane, soul-wrenching task of waiting. In the surgical waiting room at the hospital. In line at the DMV. By the phone expecting news of a relative in the military.

When we wait with another person, we gift them a part of our life—quite literally: these seconds, these minutes, these hours of my life, I offer up on the alter of my love for you. Why? Because you are that important to me.

That is love. That is, quite literally, the greatest love even Jesus can imagine. In John 15:13, Jesus tells us: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” When we wait with someone—especially in the dark, uncomfortable depths of tragedy and unknowing—then we lay down our life for our friend, and we embody the greatest love we can show.

Be Watchful

Because of all of this, I believe this psalm’s instruction to us this Lenten season is “Be watchful,” which of course involves attentive waiting.

On some level that means “Pay attention!” because God is at work and we need to see that.

On another level that means “Be patient!” because we have to wrestle with the night in order to really know the joy of the sunrise.

But it also means “Be present!” because we love and serve others most like God does when we give up the most valuable thing in life: time. And this involves being watchful not just of what God is doing in the lives of others, but also being watchful of where we can be present in the lives of those we love, of what their needs are, and of what we can do to give as God has so graciously given to us.

 

Communion Connection

Now, as I am wrapping up this morning, I cannot help but make a connection between the lessons of Psalm 130 and the Table before me.

Much as we do in preparing to take Communion, this psalm—this prayer, this song—confesses our sins, and it admits that we can never stand before God on our own merit: “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?” (v.3).

The psalm then goes on to to assure us of forgiveness: “But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered” (v.4).

The Psalm then, like the Lord’s Table, reminds us to wait expectantly for God. In the psalm, the singer awaits deliverance (and maybe even forgiveness) with a hungry hope. At the Table, we remember that we await the return of our savior, Jesus Christ, in that day-of-days that will end all days, the time when our salvation and our transformation will be made complete, and we will be fully with God and like God.

The psalmist, like the Communion service, reminds us that there is redemption with this God, there is resurrection with this God. The day will come, when we will climb (with our God) out of the dark depths of this life and into the sunrise of an eternal tomorrow, to know fully and experience eternally the steadfast love of our God.

Be watchful, and wait with me. God is on mission. God is present with us. And God is building that tomorrow for us, today.

Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ is coming again.
Amen.