Fallen Into Knowledge

This morning I kicked off a new sermon series in the book of Deuteronomy.  Here is and exerpt from my manuscript:

Moses’ goal is to inculcate obedience in a new generation, in a generation that had not experienced those events.  The key word is remember:” bring to mind again the story that forms you, the story that brought you about as a people.  Any account of Israel’s faithfulness has to be embedded in the story of God’s prior faithfulness.  Not just faithfulness as belief, but I think - and this is critical also for us - faithfulness as obedience.  Moses tells the story of the exodus, and it is from within  that story that he recounts the Law.  I think its really important to keep this in mind, that Moses begins be recounting the story of God’s faithfulness: before he starts in on the law, before he points Israel forward to the promised land, he starts by looking back at the events that shape this people - the events that constituted Israel as a people.
In many respects our place in the world is similar to Israel’s here:  we are called aliens and foreigners in the land, we are called to live faithfully - called to a way of life that is different from our neighbor’s, we are called to live in a way appropriate to a land that we have never experienced.  We have been constituted and are being shaped by events that we did not experience - the death and resurrection of Christ.  Moses’ advise to Israel is to Remember, bring up our story - the story of God’s faithfulness, and even the story of our unfaithfulness.  To retell it, to tell it for the first time to our children.  We usually think of this sort of story telling in Sunday school terms - we are to teach the youngin’s the bible stories.

But Moses does not stop with the story of God’s faithfulness, but also recounts Israel’s sometimes faltering response.  He does not varnish the truth - Israel’s failures as well as successes are told to this new generation.   We could easily lose hope if we try to place our spiritual state in a story of our faithfulness; and in fact, in such a story our unfaithfulness needs to be hidden from our own view as well as from the view of others.  But Moses places the story of Israel’s faithfulness and unfaithfulness in the larger and more secure story of God’s faithfulness.  We see this move also encoded into the Law:  Israel’s calendar is a testimony to God’s history of with the people.  This is how liturgy functions fro us as well:  we are called to find our lives not in the story of national glory, or in the story of self-achievement or any other self-indexed story: rather our day-by-day lives are shaped and carried along as they are found in the yearly and weekly retelling of our common story - the story of the Cross.

The Pearl Church’s “Theology Reading Group” read Bonhoeffer’s Life Together this month.  I was struck, this time though, by the last chapter, on Confession.  This is a practice about which Protestants seems especially afraid.  While even Bonhoeffer sees the possible danger for abuse in practicing confession, his description of its power is compelling:

In confession the break-through to community takes place.  Sin demands to have a man by himself.  It withdraws him from the community.  The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous his isolation.  Sin wants to remain unknown.  It shuns the light.  In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the being of a person.  This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.  In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the  darkness and seclusion of the heart.  The sin must be brought to light…. Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned.  The sinner surrenders; he gives up all his evil.  He gives his heart to God, and he finds forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother.  The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power.  It has been revealed and judged as sin.  It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder.  Now the fellowship bears the sin of the brother.  He is no longer alone with his evil for he has cast off his sin in confession and handed it over to God.  

I haven’t died, although the few people who visit this Internet Outpost might have reason to think I had. Sorry about that. Most of my writing energy has been directed toward churchly duties. We are starting a sermon series on the book of Hebrews, and I have been banging out notes for that. Here are some now(!):

1. The book of Hebrews depends heavily on the Old Testament to make its argument. It is arguing from the Old Testament.
1a. We cannot assume that our audience is similarly familiar with the Old Testament.
1b. We must respect the authors movement in arguing. We cannot preach through Hebrews while ignoring the indebtedness on the Old Testament.
I think that because of this we need to “introduce” hebrews, to situate it.

2. The author frequently offers “applications” in the midst of the argument: these “parenthetical” sections are often exhortative in nature, and seem ripe for the plucking for sermon material. We must be careful not to be focus on these sections (because they are easy to preach on, relatively) to the detriment of the main argument of the book, which by contrast is harder to preach on.

3. Hebrews describes, in a sense, the mechanics of Christ’s work as embedded in Israel’s story. In that sense we can use Hebrews to (re-) build theology for the church from the ground up, as it were.

4. Everything in Hebrews relates back to Jesus either as the high Priest who accomplished the task, or to His death on a cross. These two are close to being the same thing.

Main Idea: Jesus’ role as a Superior High Priest establishes a new covenant, a new law and a new people: all these are results of and shaped by Jesus’ superior sacrifice of himself.

I have begun retiring certain theologically loaded terms from my vocabulary. I am sad to see them sitting on the bench, for they ought to take a central role an any theological discussion. But, it seems, some words lose their power from over-use. People use them without having a clear idea as to what is meant - or signified - by them. Or, alternatively, because these words can be used in different (and sometimes mutually exclusive) ways, people find themselves talking past each other - conversations never quite connect. Of course, since these words are central to any theological conversation, they have to be replaced with something.

Here are a couple words that I have temporarily retired from my speech, and the words I have exchanged for them:

1. Faith: I am using the word “Fidelity,” or word “Allegiance” in the cases where faithfulness to God’s Kingdom is meant.

2. Grace: I am mostly using “generosity,” or the adjective “graciously”

Are there other theological words that need temporary relief?

Here is a synopsis of yesterday’s sermon on Matthew 6:1-18, which was completed at the last minute and at great expense. For the full (audio-ized) monty, check the Pearl Church’s site.

“AMERICAN JESUS.”
Last summer a few of us got together and watched some Jesus movies: we did this as a way to help us think about how Jesus and the church shows up in popular culture. In the American films that we watched, the message Jesus preached was about inward transformation: that was to be the essence of Christianity. How are we to be “set apart?” How are we to be seen as distinctive?
On Easter, Mike preached that we, as a people, as a church, are not only to be characterized by the Cross, but also by the Resurrection. Preaching from 1 Corinthians 15, Mike proclaimed that in light of Jesus’ resurrection, we are to be a People of Resurrection, a people characterized - not by sin - but by life.
That’s all well and good, but…what do we do now? How do we live as those who are “alive in Christ?”

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On Easter Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ Resurrection as both a vindication of his victory over death and as inaugurating the Kingdom which he spent his ministry announcing. The Church is that Kingdom.
So, the next, and logical question is this: How do we then live? What is this people to look like? We seem very clear that the church should be markedly different in form and action than the world out of which it is supposedly called, We aren’t so clear about the details. At least, that is my perception of from the proverbial pews: We have succeeded in convincing people of the first thing, but given no real direction to follow. Call it a failure of imagining.
I know that I am supposed to be living differently, but all of my time is still spent providing shelter for myself and filling that shelter with stuff. We speak of “God’s economy” but give me the details.
Why are the leaders of the church hazy about the details? A couple of thoughts:
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The first in a series of posts during my blitz through the Bible.

I was struck by the way that Abram treats Hagar. Not well. That’s not quite it. Here is the passage that is bothering me:

Sarah saw that Abraham’s son by Hagar the Egyptian was laughing at Isaac. She said to Abraham, “Get rid of this slave and her son, because this slave’s son must never share the inheritance with my son Isaac.” Abraham was upset by this because of his son Ishmael. But God said to Abraham, “Don’t be upset about the boy and your slave. Listen to what Sarah says because through Isaac your descendants will carry on your name. Besides, I will make the slave’s son into a nation also, because he is your child.“ Early the next morning Abraham took bread and a container of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder. He also gave her the boy and sent her on her way. (Genesis 21:9-14)

Abram seems to be troubled with what he is about to do - and from my perspective for good reason. Why does God say that - well, abandoning Hagar - is okay? I really don’t know.

Here are some thoughts - not right thoughts, but possible implications of this passage:

Our (moral) responsibility to those in the “family” are different from our responsibility to those outside the “family.” Or, to but it more bluntly, we may treat “foreigners” in ways we can not treat those in the community. This troubles my sense of “equality” and “fairness,” although I recognize that such values are not likely derived from the Bible.

Perhaps we are to read God’s words as releasing Abram from his “paternal” (sic) responsibility toward Hagar and Ishmael. As in, God was taking over care of them (which he does.) This would be more likely if God’s “blessing” of Ishmael was not so harsh. On the other hand, there are many such “harsh” blessings in Genesis.

It still troubles me. I suspect my sense of “morality” is derived from sources other than the bible - like, say - american mythology. This sort of passage seems to provide an entry point into evaluating my ethical system, precisely because it conflicts with it.

Thoughts?

After taking a test of Bible Knowledge pointed out by Halden I said:

At 55% I feel a bit ashamed. Part of me wants to justify myself by saying that the questions asked don’t evaluate comprehension as much as they do retention. But, it seems that clear comprehension and good theology depends absolutely on retention.
A good lenten project indeed.

I have decided to do just that: Read through the Bible during the 40 days of Lent. It will mean giving up a significant chunk of “free time,” I figure on about 2 hours of reading a day. But, this will be my first intential Lenten Project.
If you want to join me, feel free to download the Schedule (right click, save as…)
(Really, the test was ridiculously hard…really, take it yourself)

Its true, in addition to all the other things I lack, I also lack “Christmas Spirit.”  There are at least three reasons for this lacking:

1.  My Family.  For as long as I remember my parents never really got into Christmas.  Even when I was the age to want to be out of bed long before dawn on Christmas morning, even then I knew that my mother, especially, didn’t particularly enjoy the season.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold it against her:  I didn’t really care then - as long as I got the presents I wanted, and I don’t hold it against them now because I understand why they aren’t that thrilled.  I’m not either. Still, if I grew up in a family that put up decorations and made a big deal of it, my attitude might have started out differently.

2.  Starbucks.  I worked at Starbucks for many years - and worked through many Christmas seasons.  More specifically, I worked through many Christmas seasons at the Starbucks (pl.) in Pioneer Place Mall.  The masses of people.  The lines.  The Shopper’s Tempers.  The imperative to buy, buy, buy (and, for us: sell, sell, sell).  The imperative for the employees to “be happy!!!” despite all of this.  And the noise.  Oh, and listening to the same 30 Christmas songs for a solid month.  Because of this, while I worked there, I dreaded the season ’s approaching.  That dread seemed to linger on long after I had left Starbucks

3.  BUY, BUY, BUY.  Between the commercials on the radio, the newspaper ads, and the ever-present billboards, it is hard for me to miss that I am supposed to express any Christmas Spirit with my credit card.  Consumerism isn’t really all that attractive the rest of the year, but in December I can’t shake the suspicion that it is covering something that might be worth celebrating, after all.

so Bah, Humbug.  Several years ago my family started a tradition of leaving for Christmas.  We’d get a place out, away from town, and check out of all of the above.  I really enjoyed that.  We’re not leaving this year, but that’s okay.  This year I don’t feel the need to leave.

This is the first year I have spent away from the city.  Out here there are no billboards, few people have Christmas lights, and NPR doesn’t play Christmas music non stop from Thanksgiving on.  As a consequence my experience of this season as a holiday has been experienced at church.  Advent.  Here we are, just a few days out, and I have this to look forward to:  a weekend hanging out at church and with my family.  This is worth celebrating.  This is Worth some Christmas Spirit

Frankly, X-mas is more Honest,

don’t believe me? read this.

Frankly after many years of working at Starbucks (including four “xmas” seasons at Pioneer Place mall), I have had more than a lifetime’s worth of christmas spirit.  In fact, for the time being, the season has been soured for me.
I am proud to be part of a family that leaves for christmas - we get outa town.  Away from the tinsel and the music and the malls and the sales, away from any schedules and plans.  We leave and hang out for a week.  I recommend it heartily.