Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 217: 1 Corinthians 1-2 - Christ Crucified

The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians are about simplifying things.  Paul is peeling back the layers of the divisive Corinthian group, revealing the rotting core of factionalism and competing loyalties.  Paul is saying that they need to simplify and get focused on the same thing. 

Richard Foster describes the power of simplicity: "Have you ever experienced this situation? One person speaks, and even though what he or she is saying may well be true you draw back, sensing the lack of authenticity. Then someone else shares, perhaps even the same truth in the same words, but now you sense an inward resonance, the presence of integrity. What is the difference? One is providing simplistic answers, the other is living in simplicity." (Freedom of Simplicity, 13) 

It's easy to have simplistic answers.  We resort to them when we don't want to get bogged down, or when we just want to make somebody feel better.  It's a lot harder to live a disciplined, committed life of simplicity.  And what is our organizing center, the thing we should simplify around?  This one thing: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (2:2).

There are several things which seem so unpleasant about this.  One is the taint of failure - that we're worshipping a glorified wimpy guy, somebody the old Saturday Night Live duo, Hans and Franz would have made fun of.  The other is the focus on death.  It seems so gloomy, like you've been living in one of those haunted funeral hearses in St. Augustine. 

Paul contends that there is a powerful subversion going on at the cross.  God is turning things upside down. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1:27-29) 

There are two ways God turns things upside down.  First, God chooses it.  We often think of the power of choice in consumeristic terms: the more money you have, the more you can choose.  Not often enough do we see that the choice to simplify - to eat less, to spend less, to watch less TV, to be chaste, to sleep more, to worship more, to pray more - are just as powerful.  God chooses the way of the cross, and it is the "power of God." (1:18)  Nothing wimpy here.  This is the power of God, subverting our usual ideas of power.

Second, these things shame those who think themselves strong.  We hate shame, but there is no denying that it exists.  When we look back over our life, and want to forget that certain days, weeks, years, or decades even happened, when we are downright embarrassed about the trivial things we thought were so important, shame is what we feel.  Paul's point is that we who spend most of our lives steering clear of anything that looks, sounds, or smells of death and stowing money away in every nook and cranny to safeguard ourselves against encroaching death will be ashamed when we see that life is all about dying to ourselves as early as we can - "dying young", in fact - so that our life can belong to God.  We will learn that knowing nothing but Christ crucified is not the same as knowing nothing. 

What we spent a lifetime scorning, we will realize was God's precise way of giving us value.  Shame of Jesus, shame of the cross will give way, as it does for each Christian, to shame of ourselves that we ever scorned an act so beautiful.  In fact, the cross is the very center of God's plans to enrich us; for being crucified with Christ is directly tied to the promise of the Spirit, which Paul describes: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." (2:9)

'Christ crucified' is a simple approach to life.  But it is not simplistic.  It is an approach which trusts that if God really gave his Son on the cross for us, it is something beautiful and it is something serious which demands our attention and which will change us.  God does not coyly play around with us, but has made himself abundantly clear.  He speaks with a deep resonance at the cross of Christ.  And we won't draw back, for he speaks sincerely.  We will listen and find ourselves drawn into the beautiful life of God.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 215: Hosea: 10-14 - It is Enough

I've grown curious about Abraham Lincoln in the last several years.  I've been slowly reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals which chronicles Lincoln's rise to the presidency, through which he eventually welcomed earlier political competitors into cabinet positions.  Out of the furnace of his campaigns, he recognized the gifts of those he defeated and those who defeated him.  It gave him a thick skin for sure, one he would need as he led the nation into civil war for the distant dream of a stronger nation.  It wasn't the best that Lincoln ever would have wanted to give his country.  Torn to shreds by newspapers, mocked by friend and enemy alike, his service took its toll on him and his family, even as it took its toll on the nation.  This is what interests me: the Civil War was violent, bloody, nobody really came out of it with anything even closely resembling total victory.  The costs were just too high.  But the high costs now seem worth it.  It was bad, but we now see it as good. 

Reading Hosea 13, I'm struck by this line about Israel's kingdom: "Where now is your king that he may save you?  Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, "Give me a king and rulers"?  I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath."  What strikes me is this: that God gave Israel a king in anger.  God's anger is brought on by Israel's rejection of his authority. (1 Samuel 8:7)  Choosing their own king means they are choosing against God.  Yet, in this anger, God gives it to them.  Over time, as one bad king led to another (see 1 and 2 Kings), the day comes when God's wrath falls on Israel, leading them into exile, taking their kingdom away.  This is all summed up neatly in God's phrase in Hosea 13: "I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." 

I like the Civil War narrative better: it was bad, but we now see it as good, it was costly, but it was worth it.  I don't like the narrative of Israel's kingdom as much: it was bad when I gave it to you, and it was worse when I took it away.  That just can't be all there is to it!  And of course, this is the way we tend to look at the whole Old Testament narrative: "God created the world, the world fell into sin, God created Israel, and then things got worse...and worse...and worse...........and worse...until God himself said, "That's it!  I'm coming down there."  What's this narrative missing?

It's missing the same sense of cost that we all understand about the Civil War.  Lincoln suffered.  Union soldiers suffered.  Confederates suffered.  African-Americans suffered.  Out of all the enmity and strife and fighting of that time, and the loss of life in the war being as stunning as it was, we all stand back and say, "it is enough."  The cost has been paid.  Who bears the cost of all this in the Old Testament?  God does.  God's children kill each other.  God's children give their worship to false gods.  God's children are known more for disobeying their God, than for being a light shining the righteous, holy, merciful character of their God.  God bears the cost of all this.  God suffers.

"They have rejected me," he says in 1 Samuel.  They did, but God didn't reject them.  God's kingdom moves in unseen, hidden ways while the corrupt kingdom degenerates more and more.  Even the death of Jesus, as climactic and central and new as it is, has much more in common with the sacrificial, abiding, weak, suffering way of God's love as depicted in Hosea than we typically acknowledge.  God's role in the Old Testament is not as the idle, distant, "get your act together" God.  He is the God as portrayed in Hosea, the wounded, unyieldingly faithful lover, whose only Son will pay the ultimate cost.  And all those who see with the eyes of faith will say, "it is enough."       

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 212: Hosea 1-9 - A Deeper Memory

It starts with the second verse of the book.

Hosea captures all the goodness and beauty God has for us - "take for yourself a wife..."  In chapter two, Hosea describes a marriage "in righteousness, justice, love, mercy, and in faithfulness."  And then this beautiful phrase: "On that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; and I will sow him for myself in the land.  And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, "you are my people"; and he shall say, "You are my God."  Marriage of heavens and earth, marriage of listening, speaking and responding, marriage of man and woman, and marriage of God and his people.  You are mine.  I am yours.

("Man, maybe I'd better look through the good ol' wedding photo album again.  It was worth all that money.")

But that's not all that begins with the second verse.  Hosea captures all the tragedy of sin in that same verse: "take for yourself a wife of whoredom."  This is not really about torturing poor Hosea.  Remarkably, it is about journeying alongside God.  What is it like to love someone like God loves Israel?

Through this journey, what really stands out is the chiding, wooing, scoffing voice of God.  He sees the backroom deals, he hears the whispers of betrayal in the bedroom, he walks with Israel through the alleyways after she's gotten her scandalous paycheck.  He observes, prophecies, and quips with proverbs, ironies, and mournful dirges.  He could almost walk away from the whole mess and yet he can't.

("Yeah, come to think of it, maybe I won't look at the wedding pictures.  I was way too happy, trim, and optimistic back then.")

God's redeeming love cuts so deep in Hosea's work.  When Paul says that God died for sinners in Romans 5:6, we can accept it as a fact.  When Hosea talks about God's love for sinners, it burrows deep into our bones.  In 9:9, God has had it.  Israel's sin is so repulsive, so incomprehensible that it can't be undone or forgotten: "he will remember their iniquity."  In 9:10, we find a deeper memory: "Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel.  Like the first fruit on a fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors."  However clearly God sees our dark hiding places and diagnoses our illnesses, he has a deeper memory.  He has total childlike delight over real love and justice, like a weary traveler finding sweet grapes in the middle of the desert.

God is amazing.  He is truly the best part of this whole world, being that he is creator.  Hosea reminds us of the wedding album we have with God, not because the ceremony has already happened, but because it will happen.  Through Christ's sacrifice, he has put heavenly life into us, making us a bride in righteousness, love, mercy, and faithfulness fit for the love of our life - God, the greatest lover of all.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 208: 1 Chronicles 23-29 - Valley of Vision

The end of 1 Chronicles builds to prayer.  From chapter 23, we see priests given their various duties.  In chapter 25, it is the musicians.  In chapter 26, gatekeepers and treasurers, officers, and judges, and in chapter 27, the military.  And all these folks gather for an assembly of worship, concluding in 29:10 with David's prayer to God.

Think of the established order of local government.  The mayor's office, the chief of police, the district attorney, the zoning commissions, the accountants, and don't forget social workers!  Imagine them all being gathered.  In theory, it would be for a purpose relevant to all of them.

For the court of David's kingdom, it is worship.  From military commanders who need order in the ranks and victory at war, to the treasurer who needs money coming in to make up for money going out, what is needed is God.

But of course, things are different now.  Whether in local government, business, a wing of a hospital, a classroom - we aren't quite allowed to do this today.  So we aim to get as much of our worship in on Sunday, because good luck finding the space - or the time - to do it otherwise.

It is chapter 29:14-15 that unites us beyond the centuries and sociological changes to our ancestors in the faith: "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering?  For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.  For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors."

It is strange to think of our deeper heritage as being 'aliens and transients.'  Don't the foreigners and immigrants only travel and work as they do so that their kids don't have to say "we are aliens and transients."  It is a strange idea in our world for people to have no home except in God, no identity except in God, no business or job or money except what God gave them.  But it should not be strange to God's people.

A Puritan prayer describes our home as a valley of vision: "Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights."  As musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers, and warriors gather together for worship, they can see that God has made them great.  But David's prayer brings them to the valley of vision: they are aliens and transients who need God.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 193: 1 Chronicles 1-8 - Counting Blessings

I recently finished Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  At an intimidating 800 pages, it took a little over a year of stolen moments and early mornings, thanks in large parts to the short chapters.  Otherwise, Tolstoy tends to include so many names and places that it is easy to lose track of the basic story.

Reading the genealogies in Scripture, such as the long one found in the first 8 chapters of 1 Chronicles, can feel like an exercise in triviality.  Rarely do we feel that the writer is spending less energy trying to reel us in.  After all, how exciting and relevant can a list of dozens of names be?

But then what else did God promise Abraham but people...and lots of them?  "Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Gen. 12:1-2)  So Abram will become a nation.  The one will become many.  As this nation grew, they experienced many ups and downs.  Disoriented, they would lose the trajectory of what God was doing.  Remembering God's words to Abram, they could remember all the people, the great nation God had promised.  They count their blessings.

Imagine the author of 1 Chronicles actually knew a story about everyone who gets listed here.  Each name is a story in itself.  So the list of names is not as trivial as it seems.  The little stories tell the big story of the God who made the promise to Abram.  Obviously, not all the people lived as though they were part of this big story.  Though they are still included in the list, some of these folks were villains.  One suspects they would have found genealogies especially useless.  What use is a family if I live only for myself?

But for those of us who love family, family vacations, being part of a tradition, a heritage, being built up by God's promises, there is a lot here in the first eight chapters of 1 Chronicles to at least appreciate if not enjoy.  Through Jesus' blood, we are part of God's family.  We shouldn't lose the narrative on account of all these names because ultimately these names are the narrative.  We are the narrative.  Our lives, our choices, our relationships with God and others are the story.  "I will make of you a great nation."

My prayer list is not terribly exciting.  It is a list of names.  If I showed you my list, chances are you might know one or two people, but you probably wouldn't know everybody.  Sometimes, I don't even know everybody on my list.  People who pray at some point become more or less comfortable lifting up names they don't know and praying for people they've never met before.  United by the one who created us all, we learn to live this way, in this family.

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 151: Ephesians - Going Deep and Growing Up

“Go deep!”  “Grow up!”  The first sounds like something you would hear from a quarterback wanting to practice his ‘Hail Mary’.  The second sounds like classic advice from an older sibling to a younger (or even from a parent to a child.)

I also think they summarize two passages which together capture the heart of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  The first is Paul’s prayer in 3:18-19.  “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Paul is saying, “Consider the love of Christ…and really consider it.”  Linger with it.  Look at it from one angle, then from another.  Walk around it.  “Walk about Zion, go all around it, count its towers, consider well its ramparts; go through its citadels, that you may tell the next generation that this is God…” (Psalm 48:12-14)

There is a praise song from the Australian Christian fellowship called Hillsong.  The song is called, “Oceans”.  The second part of the bridge goes like this, “take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith would be made stronger in the presence of my Savior.”

There is an ocean depth to the love of Christ which should make explorers of all of us.  In the same way that scuba-divers strap on their suits and oxygen tanks and go fathoms deep to explore the coral and the ocean floors, we should take our tools of Scripture, silence, imagination, deep longings, and prayer, and explore the height, depth, and length of God’s love in Christ.

What does it mean to go deep?  Jessica’s parents visited recently.  We were considering driving to Cape Canaveral to see the Kennedy Space Center.  I was sitting at home reading online reports about the Space Center to see if it was worth the money.  The Atlantic space shuttle exhibit came up everywhere – “go see it!”  “Don’t miss it!”  “Leave yourself many hours for this!”  I could confirm this once we’d gone: it gave us different experiences of what goes into space travel.  There were films that showed the initial dream: a paper airplane space shuttle that could land itself.  The actual shuttle was there – hanging in the exhibit with all its glory.  Astronauts were there to share a handshake, a personal story, or a photo.  A launch simulator led us through the shaking, rattling, and rolling of going up into space.  Hubble satellite pictures displayed the great invitations of vast galaxies and stars from the great beyond.  Little kids wandered in and out of interactive cockpits.

When I sat down to read Ephesians, I thought about the breadth, length, height, and depth.  And I thought about the folks at the Kennedy Space Center.  They wanted folks to understand the breadth, length, height, and depth of the excitement, will, energy, drive, innovation, teamwork, and discovery of space travel.  The Atlantis exhibit is what they developed to accomplish it.  To go deep is to know and experience something on multiple levels and in multiple ways.

Which leads me to ask: how does God intend to initiate us into the breadth, length, height, and depth experience of Christ’s love?

The answer brings us to our second passage: by growing up.  Consider Ephesians 4:14-16: “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”

Have we considered how much about good, righteous living we have learned from just being around other people who are living this way?  This is how we learn everything, from our infancy onwards.  We learn so much from being around other people – talking to them, listening to them, thinking about them, being surprised by them, being moved by them, getting angry at them, apologizing to them, experiencing forgiveness, grace, humor, singing with them, and endless more.

Paul is saying that this is how it works.  The church is a gathering of people who build one another up in Christ from day one.  All that is required for the Atlantis exhibit of the Christian faith is speaking the truth in love.  Christ’s love, to be specific.  We need it.  Christ is the source.  In Ephesians 2, he is the foundation stone for a building being built.  In Ephesians 4, he is the head which cares for, and builds up the rest of the body.  In John 15:5, Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  We need to be rooted and grounded in him.

We also need truth.  “Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up…”  Think of it this way.  You can spend time with Christ.  You can also spend time with other believers.  But if you don’t tell the truth about yourself to Christ or to other believers, what are you left with?  This was the predicament of Judas Iscariot.  He had spent so much time with Jesus and other followers who had left everything.  Yet in the end he had nothing to show.  He had a hidden life with hidden motives. 

We need to tell the truth.  And we need to tell the truth about ourselves.  It can’t just be telling other people the truth about themselves.  Sometimes when people use this phrase, “speaking the truth in love,” they basically mean this, “I’m going to tell the painful truth about other people.  They’ll probably get mad.  But they shouldn’t.  Why?  Because they should trust that I don’t mean any harm.”  This very well could be all truth and no love.  It makes a lot more sense if you make your heart and vulnerability known to others, drawing the strength to trust other people from your experience of the love of Christ.  In other words, speak the truth about you, your sins, your falsehood, your idolatry, your reliance on Christ for acceptance and grace.  Speak that truth in love.

This is how we grow up.  This is also how the church grows up.  Speaking the truth in love to one another allows us to tap into our amazing gifts to learn to live rightly merely by being around each other.  Normal life, normal gatherings, normal friendships gathered around normal meals together become powerful experiences of the risen Lord Jesus.  The rest of chapter 4 and then chapters 5 and 6 provide wonderful practical guidance on what this life of speaking the truth in love looks like.

There is a lot more to Ephesians, obviously.  But these two passages paint the big picture of God’s will for the Ephesians, and also God’s will for us: going deep and growing up.  

Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 149: Romans 12-16 - Gratitude

It seems strange at first to write about gratitude with these last few chapters of Romans.  Strange, because Paul refers explicitly to gratitude or thankfulness only one time in this section.  After guilt and grace, is this just a shameless attempt to shoehorn one more ‘g’ word into the series?

No, it isn’t.  While the word ‘gratitude’ is not used much, it is hard to deny that the humor and temper of the Christian life which Paul describes is aptly characterized by the word gratitude.

Consider this request, which comes from an 18^th century Christian hymn: “In this posture, let me live, and hosannas daily give; in this temper let me die, and hosannas ever cry.” 

Which posture?  Which temper?

Consider also this verse from Romans 15:18: “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.”

What strikes me first about this passage is this: Paul is satisfied.  It is enough.  How surprising to consider what strikes me next: the restless, dissatisfaction with staying still.  Winning obedience, proclaiming – working – spreading the good news of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum – modern day Croatia and Bosnia: this is what Paul’s life is about.

What a strange brew of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, of restfulness and restlessness!  The activity is fueled by a deep rest in the love of Jesus.  Jesus describes it in the Gospel of John, the night before his death: “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy…So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.  On that day you will ask nothing of me.” (John 16:20-23)

Many pleasures of life cost a lot of money.  When we enjoy them, we can’t entirely escape pangs of guilt: “I don’t deserve this.  A lot of people can’t afford this.”  The joy of new life is much sweeter.  We deserved death.  Christ’s sacrifice and new life brings joy to the deepest darkness of our lives.  Every room of our sin-sick hearts is fumigated.

Observe the many marks of the restless restfulness of gratitude in Romans 12-16: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (12:14-15)  “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.” (12:19)  “Welcome those who are weak in faith…” (14:1)  “We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” (15:1)  “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (15:7)  And finally this line – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Have you ever been too full from a big lunch?  You don’t exactly abound, do you?  But in God’s logic, to be full is to abound, to overflow.  That’s exactly what the Holy Spirit does within us.

Each of these lines (and many more) suggests Paul has cast aside whatever ambitions he had before.  In Christ, the only ambition that remains is love: love for God, and as we can see in chapter 16, love for people.  I count 17 uses of the word ‘greet’ in Romans 16:1-16.  17 greetings in 16 verses – now that’s a life of gratitude.  Paul knows people.  He’s comfortable with them.  He gets to know them.  But he yearns for them.  He prays for them.  He thinks about them when they’re apart.  He burns in his heart for them to grow in the Lord.

“For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles.”

In the end, it is right to come back to this word – gratitude.  Jesus had said, “On that day, you will ask nothing of me.”  We know why this is.  This is the vivid sense of all God has done, that God has given us far more in Christ crucified than we ever would have dared to ask.  What more could we ask?  In such moments, our laziness and complacency burn away.  Our gratitude overflows – abounds – into the life of love God meant for us – the life of love Paul describes in these last chapters of Romans.