In the Liturgy of the Word the priest reminds us that the Lord Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it:  you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  We respond appropriately:  “Lord, have mercy upon us, and write both these your laws in our hearts.”

Later, in the Liturgy of the Table we are bold to pray, in the words Christ gave us, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The juxtaposition of this command – love your neighbor as yourself – with this petition – thy kingdom come – is a moment of theological dissonance in each service, rendered relatively innocuous only by their separation in the liturgy.  Love your neighbor as yourself; thy kingdom come.  But my neighbor – many of my neighbors in my family, in my community, in my city and state, in the world – have yet to experience, acknowledge, or respond to the love of God in Christ Jesus.  My neighbor – many of my neighbors in my family, in my community, in my city and state, in the world – are ambivalent, or even hostile, to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Knowing this, how can I – at the same time – love them as myself and pray for the coming of the kingdom, if I believe the coming of the kingdom will bring judgment upon them?  I cannot love my neighbor – all my neighbors – and pray for the coming of the kingdom unless I am convinced that the kingdom comes not in final judgment but in blessing upon all my neighbors.

I do not know how this can be – God’s thoughts are higher than my thoughts – but I know that it must be, that in some way beyond my feeble theology, the coming of the kingdom must be joy and peace and blessing for all men and women, indeed for all creation.  When the kingdom comes and God puts the world to rights in Jesus, he must put the world to rights for Hindu and Muslim, for Buddhist and pagan, for saint and sinner, for Christian and atheist – for all the neighbors I struggle to love and for all the neighbors that God loved unto death in Christ.  Only this holds the command and the petition together.  Only this enables me to love and to long for the kingdom.

If this sounds like universalism, it is not.  It is something far better, far beyond my ability to conceive or understand.  I am convinced of this:  that on the great and final day when Christ shall usher in the kingdom of God, I will fall on my knees with all my neighbors in stunned wonder and proclaim, “Who could have imagined!”  On that day, my love and my longing will be one, and God shall truly be all and in all.  On that day, I will know what it is to love my neighbor as myself and for the kingdom of God to come and for the will of God to be done.

Just Wondering: Lift Up Your Hands

Just wondering:  why is it that so many hands are lifted during praise songs and so few during the reading and preaching of the word or during the Eucharist when "Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to command"?

The Gospel According To Steven Tyler

Yes, I watch American Idol. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. And just to prove that God draws straight with crooked lines, amid the judges’ inane comments – “Yo dawg, that was dope. You’re in it to win it.” Or “You gave me the first goosies of the night.” – Steven Tyler, of all people, spoke words like apples of gold in settings of silver, a theological treasure: “In order to get to the other shore, you need to lose sight of this one.”

Steven was talking about artistic risk-taking, about the need to leave a musical comfort zone (or wheelhouse as Randy might say) to reach new levels of artistry. But the spiritual connotations are clear, aren’t they? We are resident aliens on a journey from this realm without a home, from this city without foundations, to the place of our citizenship, to heavenly Jerusalem. We cannot, at the same time, look both forward and backward; we cannot be friends of earth and citizens of heaven. Or, in Steven’s analogy, we cannot find the far shore of our home until we are willing to lose sight of the near shore of our exile. This would be the ultimate in spiritual risk-taking were it not for the faithfulness of Christ who first traveled the way from there to here and back again and prepared the way for us, and if not for the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide. The risk is not in losing sight of the nearer shore, but in not sailing beyond the horizon of our familiarity and comfort. All the saints have known this. For all of them there was that moment when they lost sight of the nearer shore and yet sailed on with holy abandon toward that country which they had not yet glimpsed, but which made their hearts and spirits sing. And just maybe, that is what separates me from their noble ranks.

Steven Tyler as theologian? Yo, dawg, that’s dope.

I Will, With God's Help

This day marks the seventh anniversary of my ordination to pastoral ministry. I read again and contemplate the words said, the commitments made, and I ponder my faithfulness -- and sometimes my faithlessness -- to those vows. To each of the charges made those seven years ago, I responded either "I will, with God's help," or "I will, by God's grace." I know better now just how dependent one is on God's help and God's grace. Reading the words again this day humbles me. And, I think now, a better response to each charge is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

As a minister, it will be your task to proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to fashion your life in accordance with its precepts. You are to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for the young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor. You are to lead the people of God to be obedient servants, to preach, to demonstrate concern for love, justice, and freedom, to counsel the troubled in spirit, to teach from the riches of God's grace, to serve the poor, the sick, and the oppressed, and to equip all Christian to be in ministry and in service to the community.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you be diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, and in seeking the knowledge of such things as may make you a stronger and more able minister of God?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you endeavor so to minister the Word of God and the sacraments of the New Covenant, that the reconciling love of Christ may be known and received?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you undertake to be a faithful pastor to all whom you are called to serve, laboring together with them and with your fellow ministers to build up the family of God?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you do your best to pattern your life in accordance with the teacdhings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you be faithful in prayer, both in public and in private, asking God's grace, both for yourself and for others, offering your labors to God, and with the Holy Spirit continually rekindle the gift of God that is in you?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you live so that the power of God may be manifest in your life and ministry, enabling others to become disciples of Christ?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Will you accept the duties that have beenb committed to your care, and will you discharge them faithfully in serving all persons to the glory of God?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

For nearly six years I served in pastoral ministry to a small congregation, weekly proclaiming the Word of God, celebrating the Eucharist, and administering other sacraments as warranted. The ordination and the following ministry changed me in ways I could not have imagined. I now consider ordained ministry as an ontological vocation -- a new way of being in the world -- and not merely as an existential exercise. Though I am no longer in a position to officially exercise many of the functions of pastoral ministry -- I am, in fact, now in a church in which I am not authorized to serve pastorally or sacramentally -- I am no less a pastor than before, and my vows are no less binding. The question can never again be for me, Am I a pastor?, but only, Am I a faithful pastor? And again, I can only say,

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Easter Makes Rebels of Us All

Following is a meditation upon a theme developed by Orthodox theologian David Bently Hart in his exploration of theodicy, Door of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? In speaking of the resurrection and its victory over the powers, he writes:

Easter is an act of “rebellion” against all false necessity and all illegitimate
or misused authority, all cruelty and heartless chance. It liberates us
from servitude to and terror before the “elements.” It emancipates us from
fate. It overcomes the “world.” Easter should make rebels of us all.

Reflection

What have you with which to threaten me, what with which to make me cower, what with which to defeat me?

Loss? I count all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (excerpts, Phil 8:8-11, NKJV).

Fear? The angel has spoken: “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen” (Mt 28:6). Jesus has spoken, “Peace to you. Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself” (Lk 24:36, 38).

Pain? Christ has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:9-10).

Lonliness? For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39). In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Rom 8:37).

Death? Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What have you with which to threaten me, what with which to make me cower, what with which to defeat me? Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life. Easter makes rebel of us all.

Keep Preaching

There was a gap between what he [Henri Nouwen] spoke about and what he was actually able to live, and I found that a bit maddening at times. When I traveled with him, he would give stunning lectures about the spiritual life, then get offstage and collapse from exhaustion or be snarly and irritable. I found that quite difficult to take. Eventually I recognized that my own expectation of Henri being able to live absolutely all of what he talked about so compellingly was quite unfair and unrealistic. Once, when I was preparing to give a reflection on the Gospel, I talked to Henri about my own difficulty in preaching something that I myself could not live very well. Henri encouraged me to do what the Desert Fathers had done, "to keep preaching that I might be converted by my own word." The fact that Henri could not live every moment of life in the spirit of his preaching did not take away from the fundamental truth of his message. And, in the end, his own humanity was part of what made his spirituality so accessible and real (Michael Ford, Wounded Prophet: A Portrait of Henri J. M. Nouwen, Doubleday, 1999).

Ask Me What I Know

Ask me what I know of God and this will I reply:
He is love, He is love, He is love, again --
in the beginning, now, and world without end.