Author: laurenlarkin

An Intersection of Marx and Jesus

A (very) brief examination of the two through the book of James [by William Brien]

The following was written by a student of mine, William Brien, and I found the content quite insightful. As a caveat, Brien writes “I submit this piece with only a limited understanding of Marxism, therefore if I am panned for misconstruing it I yield my position to the experts.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Also, I’d like to add that these insights are merely those: insights. He is, “giving credit where credit is due.” He’s a true intellectual who does not have to profess allegiance to something in order to see what value it may offer. None of the following determines his religious or political inclinations.

Never in the history of humankind has a doctrine been so viciously contorted as that of Christianity. It has been used as justification for atrocities ranging from the Holocaust, to Apartheid, and even Jim Crow. The symbiotic relationship between Russia’s Orthodox Church and the Tsarist regime served as a bulwark of aristocratic rule amid the mass killing and famines of the early 20th century empire. Yet the egalitarianism promoted in the Christian scripture itself directly contradicts the oppressive status quo it has been used to preserve. The Epistle of James condemns the hypocrisy of elitism, saying,

If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?… Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? (2:2-6).

Perhaps the radical Marx could have found a friend in James. Indeed, the apostle’s contrast between the “dishonored” poor and the “rich who oppress” and “drag [the poor] into court” is very much reminiscent of The Communist Manifesto’s elite bourgeoisie guarding the means of production and subjugating the proletariat. The perpetuation of injustice, in accordance with this passage, is not the fulfillment of God’s plan, but a crude imitation designed to protect tyrannical authorities. Though these distortions led Marx to adopt a vehement opposition towards religion, ironically enough, the greed-filled class struggle which he proves to be the driver of socio-economic development towards socialism runs parallel to the greed and sin which drive the actions and thoughts of human beings as they work to become good Christians. It is the death of self-serving pursuit and the preservation of equality, whether through political and economic revolution or through compassion blind of class, which both doctrines wish to bring about.

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Law, Justice, and Faith

Sancta Colloquia episode 108 ft. Tim Fall

In this episode I come face to face with the law. Seriously. My guest is Tim Fall (Twitter: @tim_fall) and he’s a judge. Now, many of you may think that this might be my first time in front of a judge, but it’s not! I’ll save those stories for later…plus, a little allure never hurt. For now, let me talk about what Tim and I discussed. I’ve known Tim strictly through Twitter and have thoroughly enjoyed his Gospel-centric approach to the way he does theology: oriented toward the comfort for the beleaguered. Now, most of my beloved readers/listeners will know that I’ve a penchant for all things distinguishing Law and Gospel. So, when I found out that my Gospel-peddling friend, Tim, was also a judge my interest was piqued. How does one who is the categorical symbol of the law (a judge) proclaim the gospel so well? How is the distinction between the gospel and the theological function of the law struck when one spends the majority of their time upholding the civic function of the law? What I found out from my conversation with Tim is that it is important to maintain the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. One needs to let the law of the court and of society operate as the law and being detached here is key. Tim told me, wisely, that a judge is not in the role to be judging the personhood of the person, and it’s this that Tim carries with him to the bench. A good judge keeps control and remains open (neutral, as neutral as any human can be). But when Tim is not in the courtroom, he spends all of his time looking for ways to speak of the event of the cross, to proclaim Christ crucified, the judge judged in our place (to borrow from Karl Barth), the longed for rest for those heavy laden.  So come and listen to this conversation with Tim and take away a wealth of good information offered from the perspective of one who upholds the law as well as a word of comfort for your mind and body. 

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (Twitter: @seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (Twitter: @ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (Twitter: @SanctaColloquia).

Tim is a California native who changed his major three times, colleges four times, and took six years to get a Bachelor’s degree in a subject he’s never been called on to use professionally. Married for 30 years with two kids (both graduated, woo-hoo!) his family is constant evidence of God’s abundant blessings in his life. He and his wife live in Northern California.

Tim does not normally talk about himself in the third person.

Recommended Reading/Works Mentioned in the Podcast:

Mere Christianity, CS Lewis
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Beyond Sex Roles, Gilbert Bilezikian
Persuasion, Jane Austen
 
Tim’s blog: https://timfall.com/
 
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Who Do You Say That I am?

The Silence of Holy Saturday

If there was a day to feel the most human, I know not one better than the 24 hour period linking the event of death of Good Friday to the event of life of Resurrection Sunday.  Yet, I believe most of us rush through Saturday, not paying any attention to tension embedded in this day.

We know what happened: Jesus died on Friday and was raised on Sunday. Saturday is just the day I run those last minute errands, color eggs, plan for tomorrow’s dinner celebration, and lay out my “Easter best” outfit. My day to day productivity attempts to eclipse the possibility of eventful reflection. God can break through the clutter and cacophony of a regular day just as God can break through stone hard hearts and closed off minds. But if we are too immersed in the demands of our worlds and lives, we could miss the silence of Saturday; missing this silence and the very pregnant space-time pause, steals from the abundance of tomorrow, Easter Sunday. Might as well just be a celebration of the fertility of the Spring solstice.

In my opinion, Holy Saturday, the divine silence of this 24 hour period, is the center of the chiastic structure of massive event proportions. While everything feels normal here, nothing is actually normal. Everything is different but then none of it is. It’s the entire book of lamentations jammed into a day; it’s the moment between Adam and Eve stepping out of the Garden per divine decree and the settling in of the cherubim and seraphim who will forever prevent return. It’s the between of the walls of water dropping and drowning the Egyptian soldiers and the arrival at Mt. Sinai. It’s the deep dark of transition before Mary pushed Jesus into the world and held him to her breast. It’s the pain of Dinah after her rape and before her brothers find out; it’s the harrowing  moment between the last few breaths of the Levite’s concubine of Judges 19 and the door opening the next morning. This is where we are; it makes sense that we run through it.

There’s nothing easy about Holy Saturday. It’s filled with questions with no answers. It’s filled with crisis and confrontation. It’s filled with darkness no matter how bright the noon day sun shines. The demand of what in the hell just happened? weighs down on human skeletal structures, and there is no reprieve of an answer. This is loss; this is sorrow. Our bodies are forced into a conflict of feeling and thought: he was here, and now he’s not. The longing to touch him still courses through the nerve endings of the skin of my finger tips, but I cannot touch him anymore. The grief of desiring to lay lips on his that are now dead and gone, cold and lifeless. Substance was here and now it is seemingly vanished; the vacuum pulls my body into it: where I could not lie and sit and stand because he was there, I now can and that awareness of absence is crushing.

In the midst of this palpable heaviness that feels like divine silence, God isn’t actually speechless. The kerygma floats on the warm breeze: who do you say that I am? On Good Friday humanity answered with a conviction and judgment that ended in death. On Sunday, God will do the same but it will bring about life. But even if answers have been given, the question spoken long ago still demands an answer today; we aren’t off the hook because we’re being addressed today. And today, Saturday, the question haunts us as faith goes searching for her desire: what we knew and believed is being met with a radical upheaval of the unknowability of the future.

Today, law failed. Today, religion failed. Today, piety means nothing. Today, faith feels like a farce. Today, bodies long and hearts faint. Today, prophets only sigh. Today, love mourns. Today, grace feels beyond reach. Today, we are naked. Today, we are forced to be human, to reckon with what was and confront what will be. Today, we must wrestle with the demand of the eternal question in the divine address: who do you say that I am?

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Judge and Be Judged

Luke 6:37-42 (Homily)

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

He also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher.Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

We are commanded not to judge; but yet we do. How do we refrain from participating in the very part of our intellect that seems to make us most human? That we judge things as good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust. Our ability to judge and think, to be rational and reasonable, to think freely and equitably is the fabric of what makes human societies politically, economically, and socially great. Free, responsible, and reasonable human beings forming and maintaining a just society…yes, please!

But this beautiful gift to judge goes beyond its domain when it attempts to determine the personhood of another.[1] When we use our judgment to determine who gets and does not get our affection, our love, our mercy, our forgiveness based on some self-imposed system of acceptable, this is judgment overstepping it’s limits. When we segregate based off of external factors, making distinct groups equating to “us v. them,” thus good and bad respectively, this is judgment overstepping its limits. Using my activity as the basis and foundation of your quality and substance is judgment overstepping its limits. When I fall to the temptation to religious totalitarianism[2] and legal piety[3] grounded too much in actuality and forget and forsake possibility, I’ve made it impossible for you to be good enough in my eyes; you’ll always fall short.

What our judgment of others exposes is actually not where the other person is falling short, but where we are. That we use our judgment in this way indicates that we are desperate to find a way to self-validate ourselves (in both thought and deed). And the way we judge others will reveal our lack of character and our lack of commitment and expose our hypocrisy.[4] Our judgment of others, our eagerness to remove the speck in their eye while ignoring the log in our own, is the action that exposes the fundamental problem of a hardened heart. The posture of our heart will orient the posture of our bodies; “People, like trees, are known through what they produce.”[5]

Jesus’s admonitions here in Luke 6 are a call to a full-bodied devotion to a major reversal of inner and outer person. It is not the actions of a person that determine a person, but their heart. As we judge, so are we judged because the judgment we deliver judges us: we follow the devices and desires of our own hearts rather than God’s purpose.[6] Thus to be good disciples of Christ, to actually be the believers we like to think we are, we need to be reoriented to the one who is the real and rightful Judge.[7] We need to be oriented to the one who ushers in the Reign of God and renders to dust the kingdom of humanity. We need to have our feet set in alignment with the Judge judged in our place; the one who takes the judgment of God and the plight of the world unto himself and makes it impossible for any of us to judge anyone else because we are all guilty.[8]

Christ poses a conflict for us: will you trust your own judgment of the world and of others, or will you trust Christ’s? Will you continue to follow the devices and desires of your own heart and mind, or will you follow Christ? [9] Jesus is the plumb line; will you measure up? Will you heed the call to hear so deeply that you obey the call of Christ to live differently in the world? Will you allow your values to be redefined? Will you see as to become more like your teacher? [10] Will you become a person of character and constancy of heart and action? [11] Will you let yourself confess? Or, will you stubbornly persist in your own ways?

In the story here, articulated by Luke, you and I must contend with these questions, even if you don’t believe Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God. There’s no escape route to take or secrete hatch from which we can drop to evade the demand of the questions. Especially, we must come face to face with the ultimate question being posed to us: Will I be the one who judges others thus is judged and indicted? Or will I be like the one who had every right to judge, but didn’t? Will I choose to follow the law of the spirit thus receive life? Or will I choose to stay the course of the rest of the world thus confirm death?

In Christ we have received grace upon grace, and life upon life. Where we should have been exposed and condemned, we weren’t. Where we fell short of the plumb-line, the plumb-line was destroyed. When we were determined to be dirty, we were declared clean. When we were yet dead, we were given life. And as we receive, we give.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:7-12

 

[1] Green 275, Joel Green The Gospel of Luke TNICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997). “Just as the merciful God does not predetermine who will or will not be the recipients of his kindness, so Jesus’ followers must refuse to ‘judge’—that is to prejudge to predetermine who might be the recipients of their graciousness. This is nothing but the command to love one’s enemies restated negatively. In an important sense, Jesus’ instructions are to refuse to act as those scribes and Pharisees had done in 5:27-32, as they calculated beforehand the status of those toll collectors and sinners and thereby excluded them from circles of social interaction.”

[2] Friedrich Gogarten, Christ the Crisis. “Religious Totalitarianism” “…in which it tolerates absolutely no and nothing within itself which does not belong to it, and which does not serve it, by receiving from it its life and its meaning.” 127.

[3] Friedrich Gogarten. Christ the Crisis. The legal piety of the world is impacted by Christ, the foundations of this legal piety come under doom. “But criticism is aimed at the essence of this piety For however it practiced, whether with fanatical seriousness or with conventional casualness, its essential basis is that it claims to serve God and the life which men have to receive from God through its practice. But, in fact it serves the world that is constituted by it, and the regard that one receives through it in the eyes of the world. It is this that Jesus calls its hypocrisy.”

[4] Green 277, “Even here where ‘doing’ is accorded such privilege, fundamental to Jesus’ closing remarks is the contrast between two sorts of people whose hearts are revealed in their actions. The issue is one of character and commitments issuing forth in action. The two, character and action, are inseparable for Jesus, and those who attempt to sunder them are guilty of hypocrisy (w 4142 46).”

[5] Green 277, “…Jesus is concerned with the nature of a person the heart but such a concern does not lead to what today we might call psychological evaluation. In Luke’s (pre-Freudian) world, a person’s ‘inside’ is accessible not through his or her psychology but through or her social interactions.”

[6] Green 277, “Clearly then, the following Jesus seeks is a full-orbed one; his is a message that calls for total transformation, with a consistency of goodness between the inside and outside of a person. Even if the language of repentance is absent, the idea of change of heart and life, of a thorough reorientation around God’s purpose is very much present.”

[7] Karl Bart CD V.I.449. “That He is the Judge, and that He makes judgment impossible for us…is the indicative which stands behind the evangelical command not to take top seats but the lower (Lk. 148), not to exalt but to abase ourselves (Mt. 2312), and especially the prohibition in v. 37 (Mt. 71f). The One forbids men to judge who restrains and dispenses them from it, is the One who has come as the real Judge. He makes clear what is true and actual in His existence among men as such: that the one who exalts himself as judge will be abased, that he can only fall into the judgment himself. The evangelical prohibition frees us from the necessity of this movement in a vicious circle.”

[8] Friedrich Gogarten. Christ the Crisis. “He has only two choices: either to despair, or to submit to the sentence of doom. Jesus chose the second alternative. He was able to choose it only because he recognized that this sentence of doom was the judgment exercised by the righteousness and truth of God upon the world, which endures by the very fact that in it the righteousness and truth of God are perverted into its own supposed righteousness and truth, and therefore into its unrighteousness and untruth. Thus for Jesus to submit to the sentence of doom meant that he subjected himself, as one who belonged to this world, to God’s judgment which is carried out through this sentence of doom It is this that Jesus did by turning towards those who like him lived in this world and became their neighbor. And thus the responsibility for the way the world as such which was laid upon him when he became aware of the sentence of doom, also became a responsibility for the men who lived in it.” 209.

[9] Green 278, Blind, refers “…those who lack faith or those who lack insight. The saying about the relationship is also proverbial, and, when read together, these verses underscore the necessity of seeking trustworthy, insightful guidance.” Whom will you follow?

[10] Green 278, “Throughout this sermon, as in his earlier ministry of healing and instruction, Jesus has been renegotiating norms; will these gathered masses accept this reversal of values? Will they hear and internalize this unconventional worldview? How will they become like their teacher?”

[11] Green 279, “Central to Jesus’ admonition is his own rebuke of those who see the faults of others but not of themselves. He calls them ‘hypocrites.’ In general usage today the negative connotations of this label are incontrovertible, but in Greco-Roman antiquity a more nuanced understanding is required. In parlance contemporary with Luke, a “hypocrite” might refer to someone whose behaviors were not determined by God (LXX) or someone who is playing a role acting a part (Roman theater). In this case a decision between these two is difficult and probably unnecessary. Jesus indicts persons who attempt to substantiate their own piety through censuring the shortcomings of others as acting inconsistently. Their hearts and actions are inconsistent. While they themselves posture for public adulation, their behavior is not determined by God.”

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Christ our Crisis

Luke 4:1-12 (Sermon)

I remember my first existential crisis. I was five and staring out of a window at a massive cornfield on the other side of the road from our house in Minnesota. My eyes focused on the window screen. As the cornfield blurred, I examined the screen. Then my eyes refocused again, but this time their focus was my nose. This broke my five-year-old brain. For the first time I was aware of what I considered to be a distinction between mind and body, and I felt my disembodiment. Lauren was in this particular body…but maybe I could’ve been in another body? Born to a different family? Living in a different house?

Cue the crisis.

I’m not alone here in existential crises. I’m happy assuming that many of you have had one or two or one once a week. An existential crisis occurs because something external has radically altered the way we see our existence, which challenges us and causes us to doubt the permanence of our existence. The crisis is the bright light that shines into the dark recesses of our existence and exposes the truth of who and what we are: dead person walking with no way to escape the things that plague sleep, that cause fear, that wake regret. No matter how much make-up we wear or what suite we put on, we are that person and that person we are.

Lent is a that which points us to our crisis. Lent is not a feel-good-about-yourself-because-you-gave-up-sugar-for-40-days event. To borrow and expand the apt imagery Rev. Montgomery employed on Ash Wednesday: Lent is cleaning house. It’s not merely straightening up the rooms that will be seen by your guest, but going under the bed, to the back of your closet, even into the attic and basement and dragging out those boxes where you keep the stuff you’d never want exposed by the light of day. Lent is to be a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of yourself, to quote the 4th step of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Without the crisis of the self in death, we have not the self in life; without Good Friday, there’s no Easter.

Cue the crisis.

Then Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was lead by the Spirit into the desert, in order to be tempted forty days by the Slanderer (devil). 4:1-2a

Our gospel reading from Luke forms a bridge between Jesus being baptized in the Jordan and the beginning of his ministry.[1] Thus, I’m picking up where I left you: in the Jordan with Jesus, with the one who stands in solidarity with God and with Humanity and who answers the divine question posed to humanity: whom will you follow and with whom will you stand?

Being filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus exits the Jordan and is ushered into the desert (the wilderness[2]), thus, steps into the solitude of a desolate wasteland. The focus is solely on him; this then becomes the locus of our eyes and the orientation of our ears. We are to look and listen, being quiet visitors because it’s not (primarily) about us, it’s (primarily) about Jesus, the assumed son of Joseph who is (and has been equipped to be) Jesus the Christ.[3] We watch as the battle wages in a realm that is cosmic in proportions[4] as the Slanderer takes on the Christ.[5] And this battle will establish in concrete terms what Jesus proclaimed in his baptism in the Jordan: I am for God; I stand with God.[6]

As in the Jordan and in this battle with the Slanderer in the wilderness, Jesus is not only Christ standing in solidarity with God but Jesus the Christ standing in solidarity with humanity—the overlap with Israel is no accident.[7] Where Israel failed, Jesus triumphs. Where Israel grieved the spirit after their baptismal event (crossing the ground of the Red Sea between two walls of water); Jesus follows the leading of the Spirit after his baptism event in the Jordan. Where Israel clamored and complained about hunger, Jesus resists the temptation to feed himself; where Israel spent 40 years, Jesus spends 40 nights; where Israel was God’s son disobedient, Jesus is God’s son obedient.[8]

The first generation of Israel, liberated from the captivity and bondage of Egypt’s oppression and enslavement, was sentenced to death for their disobedience, never to enter into the Promised Land. Jesus will enter the Promised Land, the presence of God, and establishes that he is the Promised Land: he is the Son with whom God is well pleased. And where this Son goes so too does the presence of God, for where he stands there established is holy ground. And as the presence of God does, so too will Jesus: illuminate and expose the people for who and what they are.

Cue the crisis.

And he ate nothing during those days and when they had completed he was hungry. The slanderer said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone so that it may become bread. And Jesus answered him, “It is written that humanity will not live by bread alone. 4:2b-4

The first temptation is rather basic: the Slanderer plays off of Jesus’s hunger. Jesus, you need food, so, being the Son of God, just turn this stone into bread.[9] The Devil here is addressing a very basic human need: hunger. In his hunger, Jesus stands in solidarity with humanity in his flesh. He is hungry. Jesus’s answer doesn’t create a dichotomy between flesh and spirit; it’s not as if Jesus has suddenly become an airatarian or that he thinks that the flesh is bad and only needs spiritual food. He doesn’t. The picture is larger than that. Jesus’s hunger is a real and present need; however, it’s not only by bread that humanity is nourished, but primarily by the word of God. For forty days and forty nights Jesus existed in the wilderness with nothing but the word of God. [10] There was no manna this time; there was just the word of God.

Also, it’s the word of God that sustains the entire cosmos,[11] from the wheat that grows and is turned into the bread we eat to the heartbeat of the one whose hands made that bread. Everything is sustained by the all-powerful, creatio ex nihilo, word of God. This is Jesus’s claim. Drawing some sort of hierarchy between spirit and flesh would do disservice to the incarnation as a whole and negate the depth of the temptation.

Being hungry reminds us of our humanity and our utter and total dependence on something outside of ourselves to live. We don’t actually “earn” our own food; for without the one who prepares the food, we are up a creek without a paddle. We think we are “self-made,” and when God withdraws his sustaining word, we drop to the ground like flies mid flight. If the earth stops turning, you can neither run fast enough to budge it nor will you have the air to fill your lungs to do so. We believe the illusion that we’re autonomously functioning particles. And the dastardly thing is we perpetuate the illusion by repeatedly demanding others (less fortunate than ourselves) to function as such. We do not and cannot go it alone; how dare we ask others to do so.

Cue the crisis.

And the Slanderer lead Jesus and in a moment of time pointed out to him all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth, and he said to Jesus, “I will give to you the authority of all of this and the glory of these, for it has been handed over to me and to whom I wish I give it; therefore if you might worship in my presence, it will all be yours. And answering, Jesus said to him, “It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and you will serve only him.” 4:5-8

In his letter to Theophilus, Luke already mentioned, in 2:1 and 3:1, that the “emperor” is the authority of the kingdoms of earth. Now, it’s the Slanderer who actually has authority.[12] Luke pulls back the veil: the kingdoms of humanity are under the authority of the Devil. On top of that, the Devil can offer these kingdoms to Jesus all he wants, but they’re only the Devil’s as a higher authority (God) delegates them to him.[13] Comically tragical.

Jesus’s answer is short and sweet: I worship God alone, and him only do I serve. And considering Jesus’s divine standing as the Son of God, these kingdoms are already his. But God does not work within Devil run systems and structures that work against God’s plan.[14] Just because these kingdoms will be and already are Jesus’s kingdoms does not mean that they are as they should be or that they’ll stay standing. In Christ, a new reign is being ushered in and it will look vastly different. What has been considered blessed (wealth, power, strength, popularity) will be flipped on its head.

‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.

‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. 6:20-26

Cue the crisis.

Then he brought Jesus into Jerusalem and placed him upon the edge of the temple and he, the Slanderer, said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written that he will command his angels concerning you in order to protect you and that by their hands they will carry you, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” And answering, Jesus said to him, “It is said and written that you will not put the Lord your God to the test.” 4:9-12

Jesus is brought to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and then is told, by the Slanderer, to test God. The Slanderer uses the “It is written” formula for himself. He uses Psalm 91 to try to recruit Jesus to his plan to test God. Here’s the portion of Psalm 91 in play,

Because you have made the Lord your refuge,
the Most High your dwelling place,
no evil shall befall you,
no scourge come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. 91:9-12

Psalm 91 is not about testing God to see if God is faithful to God’s word. Rather, it’s about those who find their allegiance to God and are in God’s presence. It’s about obedience to God.[15] While Israel was courted by infidelity and succumbed to the temptation, Jesus won’t.[16]

But there’s more to the Psalm. Here are the next two verses:

You will tread on the lion and the adder,
the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name. 91:13-14

There’s divine rescue through suffering mentioned here and not merely from it.[17] Jesus calls the Slanderer out because it’s not about protecting his foot from striking a rock, but that that very foot will crush the head of the serpent prophesied long ago in Genesis 3:15. The Psalm the Devil uses is the Psalm of his demise. Jesus’s “Don’t put the Lord your God to the test” may as well be, “Check mate.” The Offspring of the Woman has been born and that Offspring is Jesus the Christ. Devil best run. And he does.

And when all the temptations finished, the Slanderer kept away from him until a point in time. 4:13

As the Slanderer flees until his next appointed time of engagement with the Christ, keep this in mind: Jesus will now go forth and begin his ministry by calling those who shouldn’t be called according to our standards, and engaging with those who are relegated to the fringes and margins of society. The world is about to be turned upside down.[18] Christ’s foot will step and strike the cornerstone of the kingdom of humanity, rendering it to dust because of dust it was made, and he will establish himself as the new cornerstone of the Reign of God—through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.[19] Those in charge, those wielding power and authority for their own gain, those turning a blind eye to the poor and hungry, naked and homeless…they best run.

Cue the crisis.

In your encounter with God in the event of faith you become aware you are grafted into the story of Israel: the story of failure upon failure upon failure. This narrative moment in the gospel of Luke is hardwired to transcend time and space, confronting all whose eyes are turned and ears perked by the scene before them: Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, being tempted by the Slanderer and winning.

Witnessing this event, we are brought to the reality that we would not have won, that we would have succumbed to each and every one of those temptations, and would have given far more for far less. We are exposed for wanting. We would have conjured the bread from stone, we would’ve sought our own power and fame no matter the cost, we would’ve tested the Lord our God. And we do these things. Everyday.

Cue the crisis but don’t fear the crisis. According to this story: Christ is the crisis. And if Christ is the crisis, then he’s in the crisis—he’s with you in the thick of it. It’s the crisis that brings you to the fullness of your humanity—body, mind, and soul—because it’s in this crisis where you realize you need an other. Christ is the incarnate Word of God who sustains your very life, who is very God of very God worthy of your worship and obedience, who surpasses all testing because he’s the fulfillment of all promises. God dwells in your crisis as God dwells in the gallows, with the dry bones, with those who are dead in their trespasses because God’s righteousness is that which calls to life what is dead.

“A miracle happens, the miracle of miracles, that this impure being, impure in the midst of the pure creation, that this impure being is permitted to live. The annihilating encounter with God become for him a life-giving encounter…Death is taken away, the death which I bear in myself because of my contradiction, my impurity is covered by the encircling life-giving love to him who was the prey of death.”[20]

Cue the crisis because crisis is the heart of Lent, the heart of the Great Litany. Cue the crisis and throw yourself at the feet of God whose property is to always have mercy, and find life.

 

 

 

[1] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke TNICNT Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. 191. “Luke 4:1-13 presents a number of key elements linking it, some almost subliminally, to surrounding material, helping to ensure its interpretation as a bridge scene moving Jesus from his endowment with the Spirit to his public ministry.”

[2] Karl Barth CD IV.1.59.260, “On the old view the wilderness was a place which, like the sea, had a close affinity with the underworld, a place which belonged in a particular sense to demons. It was to encounter there that He was led there and kept His fast there. For Him as the Son, the One in whom God was well pleased, this had to be the case. …His way will never be at a safe distance from the kingdom of darkness but will always be along its frontier and finally within that kingdom. But already at the outset it brings Him into confrontation and encounter with it.”

[3] Green 191, “He was baptized, the Spirit descended upon him he was the assumed son of Joseph-these all portray him in a passive mode. Now he becomes the deixic center, the one around whom the narrative and its actants are oriented, the one preparing to take the initiative (4:14-15) for which he has been equipped.”

[4] Green 192, Pericope is a clash of “cosmic proportions” the devil takes on Jesus, God’s son, who is full of the Holy Spirit, “This account thus exhibits the basic antithesis between the divine and the diabolic that will continue throughout Luke-Acts.”

[5] Green 191, Luke’s narrative emphasis lies on the presence of the Holy Spirit in Jesus, thus, “Empowered by the Spirit, Jesus is full of the Spirit, and inspired by the Spirit. His central, active role is therefore fundamentally as God’s agent, and it is this special relationship and its implications that lie at the root of Jesus’ identity in Luke-Acts. Not surprisingly then it is this that will be tested in the encounter between Jesus and the devil.”

[6] Green 191-2, “Luke 3:21-38 was in its own way integral to the demonstration of his competence indicating his possession of the requisite credentials, power, and authority to set forth on his mission. But these are not enough. They must be matched with Jesus’ positive response to God’s purpose. Hence here Jesus will signal his alignment with God’s will in a way that surpasses the evidence already provided by his display of submission to God at his baptism. In the OT and in subsequent Jewish tradition fidelity to God was proven in the midst of testing whether direct activity of the devil. In the present scene, the testing conducted by the devil seeks specifically to controvert Jesus’ role as Son of God either by disallowing the constraints of that relationship or by rejecting it outright.”

[7] Green 193, “The similarities are sufficient in scope and quantity to show that the narrator has drawn attention deliberately to Jesus in his representative role as Israel, God’s son.”

[8] Green 192, “Correlation to Israel’s testing in the wilderness:

  1. divine leading in the wilderness (Deut 8:2- cf. Luke 4:1);
  2. “forty” (Exod 16:35; Num 14:34; Deut 8:2, 4; cf. Luke 4:2);
  3. Israel as God’s son (e.g., Exod 4:22-23; cf. Luke 4:3, 9);
  4. the testing of Jesus is analogous to that experienced by Israel and the scriptural texts he cites derive from those events in which Israel was tested by God (Deuteronomy 6-8); and
  5. though Jesus was full of the Spirit and followed the Spirit’s guidance, Israel ‘rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit’ (Isa. 63:10)”

[9] Green 193, “These ingredients of ‘setting’ are in fact integral to the first test. Jesus’ fasting has resulted in his near starvation and this foregrounds an immediate need, the provision of food.”

[10] Karl Barth CD III.2.44.67, “It is only apparently the case that the Matthean text says less and is more reserved, as though in the phrase ‘not by bread alone’ Jesus had recognised that man does indeed live by bread too, but that he also needs the words proceeding from the mouth of God. For in this case the trite application that man has not only bodily but also spiritual needs is so obvious that the explication is a priori brought under suspicion. The fact is that during the forty days in the wilderness Jesus did not live by bread at all, but according to Mt. 42 He was an hungred, and yet in spite of His hunger He was still alive. Again, His answer to the tempter is a quotation from Deut. 83. But in this passage ‘living by bread’ is not one necessity to which ‘living by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ is added as a second. On the contrary, the reference is to the miracle effected by the World of the Lord, which consisted in the fact that for forty years God led Israel through the desert, and that where there was no bread, and the people seemed likely to die of hunger, He nevertheless sustained them, namely, by the manna which neither they nor their fathers knew. It was in exactly the same way (except that now there was no question even of manna) that God sustained the hungering Jesus in the desert.”

[11] Karl Barth CD III.2.44.67, “This divine communication brings it about that He lives and is sustained, nourishing and quickening Him. Even the bread which, if He were not in the wilderness, He might sow, reap, grind and bake, or even purchase or steal, could not give him life as [humanity]. This is given Him by the almighty Word of God, whether he has bread or hungers in the wilderness.”; see also CD III.4.55.347

[12] Green 194, “At the outset it is worth noting two sources of irony present in Luke’s description of this setting. First we have been led to believe that ‘all the world’ was under the charge of the Roman emperor (2:1; 3-1)- Now however, in a way clearly parallel to the scenario painted in Revelation 13, we discover that the world of humanity actually ruled by the devil.”

[13] Green 195, “Whatever rule the devil exercises is that allowed him by God; he can only delegate to Jesus what has already been delegated to him. What Jesus is offered, then, is a shabby substitute for the divine sonship that is his by birth.”

[14] Green 194, “The perspective he thus outlines is fully at home with the language of reversal and portrayal of hostility characteristic of Luke 1-3, even if it goes beyond them in identifying the activity of those human and systemic agents that oppose God’s plan and God’s people as manifestations of diabolic rule.”

[15] Green 195, “Fundamentally the issue here is akin to that in the first test. Jesus is radically committed to one aim, God’s eschatological agenda; the devil has an alternative aim a competing agenda. He wants to recruit Jesus to participate in a test of the divine promises of Psalm 91. In doing so, the devil overlooks the critical reality that the psalm is addressed to those who through their fidelity to God reside in God’s presence; even in the psalm faithful obedience to God is the controlling need.

[16] Green 196, “Jesus does not the deny the promises of God the devil quotes at him but he “…does deny the suitability of their appropriation in this context. He recognizes the devil’s strategy as an attempt to deflect him from his single-minded commitment to loyalty and obedience in God’s service, and interprets the devil’s invitation as an encouragement to question God’s faithfulness. Israel had manifested its doubts by testing God. But Jesus refuses to do so (cf. Deut 6:16).”

[17] Green 196, “Moreover the devil fails to recognize an even deeper mystery known already to the believing community of which Luke is a part, that divine rescue may come through suffering and not only before (and from) them.”

[18] Of note, from W. Travis McMaken’s Our God Loves Justice (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2017). “Appendix 1: Must a Christian Be A Socialist (Helmut Gollwitzer 1972)” trans WTM. “The goal of the disciples’ service is a society that gives equality to their unequally endowed members and gives each member the chance for a cull unfolding of life: where the strong help the weak, where production stands in the service of all, where the social product is not siphoned off by a privileged minority so that only the modes t remainder is at the disposal of the others, a society that ensures appropriate regulation of freedom and of social co-determination for all, the development of social life for the common task and for rich purpose in life for all members of society.”

[19] Karl Barth IV.1.59.264, “We cannot ignore the negative form in which the righteousness of God appears in the event handed down in these passages. This is unavoidable, because we have to do with it in the wilderness, in the kingdom of demons, in the world unreconciled with God, and in conflict with that world. It is unavoidable because what we have here is a prefiguring of the passion. But in the passion, and in this prefiguring of it, the No of God is only the hard shell of the divine Yes, which in both cases is spoken in the righteous act of this one man. That this is the case is revealed at the conclusion of the accounts in Mark and Matthew by the mention of the angels who, when Satan had left Him, came and ministered unto Him. The great and glorious complement to this at the conclusion of the passion is the story of the resurrection.”

[20] Helmut Gollwitzer “Forgiveness are One” The Way to Life: Sermons in a Time of World Crisis (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981). 43.

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Interruptions as Invitations into Life

Sancta Colloquia episode 107 ft. Susan Vincent

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I had the honor of listening to Susan Vincent (@susanv) tell me her story. All of our stories are rather remarkable and the remarkable aspect of Susan’s story (for me) was that she was raised in an evangelical, conservative, charismatic environment, home-schooled by evangelical academics. And here she is now working to defend the voiceless, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised, working to dismantle systems of injustice and systemic oppression. I believe the Lord works in mysterious ways and Susan’s story encourages that belief: out of a conservative evangelical environment is born a woman who asks the important questions and thinks critically about her faith and how faith and life and social and political ethics work together. Susan explains in beautiful terms that the events that challenge and interrupt us and our status-quo are better conceived as invitations to experience God and others anew, to experience life anew. Rather than defensive reactions and clinging dogmatically to things as we once knew them, we should ask, “Can I make my response one of curiosity?” Essentially, according to Susan, when events encounter us that challenge and interrupt our way of seeing things, we are encouraged to take up the invitation to open ourselves and broaden our conceptions. I don’t know about you, but this is death into new life; and I’m all about dying to the old and finding life in the new. And not once but daily. I am grateful to Susan for her willingness to sit with me and chat on a Saturday afternoon. I learned so much from her and am very excited to share this sacred conversation with you. To quote Susan, “Faith allows us to open ourselves to the unknown.” Damn straight it does.

And, as a heads up, I took copious notes as she was talking. So, I’d recommend getting a pen and some paper and feel free to pause the track if you need you…and you may need to.

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (Twitter: @seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (Twitter: @ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (Twitter: @SanctaColloquia).

Here’s the video I referenced by Liam Miller featuring The Rev. Dr. John Flett:

Susan grew up in Huntsville, Alabama (aka Rocket City USA). She was homeschooled K-12 with her three younger sisters. During that time learned to play several instruments and developed a love of reading. Growing up she attended a non-denominational church with her family, where she learned to speak the language of Christianity with an evangelical/charismatic accent.

Susan received her Bachelor of Science in Mass Media Communication from Oral Roberts University. At ORU she participated in the MultiMedia Institute, the Honors Program, and the Missions & Community Outreach Department. She traveled with ORU Outreach to Poland, Ukraine, India, China, Japan, and Kenya. 

Not yet ready to give up travel or higher education, Susan went on to earn her Juris Doctor and Master of Dispute Resolution degrees from Pepperdine School of Law. While in law school she assisted in developing negotiation trainings at the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution in London, volunteered as a mediator in small claims court, advised the Supreme Court of Rwanda on case management and alternative dispute resolution, and interned with a trial judge in the Family Court division of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

After taking the bar, Susan spent a year in Kampala, Uganda through the Nootbaar Legal Fellowship. While there, she served as a court-appointed mediator in the Commercial Court and managed plea bargaining initiatives in the juvenile and criminal courts. She also earned a Certificate in Development Project Management, helped develop remand and diversion programs with the Children Justice Initiative, and learned to love African tea.

Susan returned to California to work at Christian Legal Aid of Los Angeles, where she supervised legal clinics, developed partnerships with organizations like Homeboy Industries and local senior centers, coordinated pro bono services and volunteers, administered the internship program, and generally nerded out managing tech & systems issues. She also provided counsel and advice to low-income clients on legal matters such as post-conviction relief, immigration, housing, consumer law, and estate planning.

While acclimating to life in Los Angeles, Susan had the chance to re-examine many of the theological and political frameworks that she had grown up with in light of the people and real-life challenges she saw on a daily basis. Through friendships, books, and online conversations, she developed a new vocabulary of justice. These words and perspectives would serve her well during the initial process of coming out and navigating its complex relational & theological effects.

Susan currently works as a Managing Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, where she leads a diverse team of legal and service professionals to connect community members with the Foundation’s many programs and offices. She also attends The Loft LA at Westwood United Methodist Church, spends (wastes? invests?) a remarkable amount of time on Twitter, and is perpetually finding new things to add to her reading list.

Recommended Reading/Works Mentioned in the Podcast:

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Conversion, Encounter, and Politics of Communion

Sancta Colloquia episode 106 ft. Nic Don Stanton-Roark

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I had the incredible privilege of interviewing my Twitter friend: Nic Don Stanton-Roark (@ExilePolitics). Through our conversation, Nic Don shares the journey he’s been on from Atheism to Theism to Christianity. We get the details of how this journey worked itself out: from the comical episodes to the serious engagements with the dark side of life with suffering. The beauty of (or some of the beauty of) Nic Don’s story is that God is wholly other, one whom we encounter in ways that are external to us: God is made known in the event-encounter of faith. We are drawn out of ourselves towards God and towards others. And Nic Don makes the point that it’s not merely some private encounter, isolated from others people. Rather, not only are other people present to draw us into the story of Christ through faith, but even our ecclesiastical movements in church (the Sacraments, worship, liturgy, etc) are meant to draw us into encounter with God and with others. We never go it alone and it’s an illusion and lie if we think we can. I’m grateful to what Nic Don shared with me thus with you. These stories of God’s movement in our lives encourages us: maybe it’s not as quiet as it feels; God still moves.

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/screamingpods/SanctaColloquia/sanctacolloquia-06.mp3

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (Twitter: @seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (Twitter: @ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (Twitter: @SanctaColloquia).

Nic Don Stanton-Roark is the archivist for the Church of God (Anderson), a Wesleyan holiness movement that emerged in Northern Indiana in the late 19th century. He has written curriculum for and pastored in the Church of God and attained a master of theological studies from the main seminary of the Church of God, Anderson School of Theology, in 2015, with a focus on political theology.

Books mentioned and recommended:

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation
Amos Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome
Thomas Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Didn’t name the book but referred to it)
William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist (didn’t name but referred to) 
Katie Grimes, Christ Divided: Antiblackness as Corporate Vice

I would also list Stanley J. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church for info on how reform movements will begin egalitarian and then shift toward exclusion of women

Both my twitter and instagram are exilepolitics. My blog is theopolitical.wordpress.com.

 

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Into the Abyss

Poem by William Brien

The following poetry was sent to me by someone I know to be very in touch with the underbelly of human existence, the crisis of self, the pull of the darkness that threatens. These things in their rich darkness are beautiful, for it’s here, paradoxically, where we experience life, the vibrancy of our heart’s beat, the reality of existence. Threatened by the gulf of unknown and lured to release into that which calls to us but of that which we cannot see the bottom, here is life abundant. But he says it better than I do. I give you Albert Warner and his poem: Into the Abyss. Enjoy.

Into the Abyss

To be, or not to be, that is the question [1]

I stare at a sharp corner
With precise blind vision,
Tracing the broad rigid line
Then the two U-shaped humps
Which ride along the letter’s origin.
Magnificent tsunamis reach an eerie calm.
Distant shapes become blurred puddles,
Then swallow each other,
Part into a dark cone of vision,
Hiding their insignificance behind black shadows,
Leaving only pointy corners and laborious curves in perception.

The world evades us because it becomes itself again [2]

Comforting words pass through me as a hand swipes through air,
Compassionate embraces as a knife through warm butter.
Laughter no different than breath,
Smiles the same as frowns.
Red veins creep like vines
In already tired eyes.
Names appear not as old comrades,
But bundles of sharp-sided letters
With exhausting round lumps.

When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you [3]

I hold not hope,
I feel not passion,
I see not reason.
I am not dead,
I am not alive.
I am naught.

 

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A Unique Draw

Luke 6:20-23 (Homily)

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
    for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
(Luke 6:20-23)

I remember clearly the evening we had to break it to our boys that we were leaving Colorado to move here, to Louisiana, for me to take this job. The news of the move swung like a wrecking ball into their lives: everything they had previously known to be regular and normal was now flying through their atmosphere in scattered pieces and shards of what was.

As the news sunk in and the pieces and shards started to hit their ground, their eyes told us we were in for a full blown verbal assault: YOU’RE STUPID! I WISH I WAS NEVER BORN! I HATE YOU SO MUCH! I WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN! And so on. Doors slammed, immense pain and hatred vented, tears shed, plea bargains offered, more doors slammed.

The pain of our boys hit us hard. Their words seemed endless; their physical anger appeared nearly unrestrainable. But what broke us most was neither their verbal attacks nor the physical tantrums, but that their hearts were broken. They fired their verbal shots, and we only nodded in agreement, “I know. I know, buddy….I know.” Silent nods.

And even though we knew we had to be the strong and steady ones in the equation, we couldn’t help but cry with them. I wiped away the warm tears that broke through to the surface and rolled down my cheeks. I cried because these human being, the ones that my body spent months growing and nourishing, these human beings were in pain and I couldn’t have any other response than to cry with them.

Their pain was my pain; their grief was my grief; their sorrow and mourning was my sorrow and mourning. The only thing I could do then, in that moment, was stand as close as possible and be present, creating space for them to let out the depths of their emotions and take as much of it as I could.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” How are those who weep to laugh? How are those who weep, blessed? Because in the thick of their pain and sorrow and grief, God is with them. Blessedness comes from the presence of God. And the radical aspect of God’s blessedness is that it comes to us not as we are clean, and tidy, and happy, but when we are at the bottom, in the lowness of life, when everything hurts emotionally, mentally, physically because life has dealt us its blows one more time.

Our God doesn’t shy away from the radical pain and hurt and suffering and sorrow and grief of the human life. Just the opposite.  “For [God] knows how we were made,” writes the Psalmist. “[God] remembers that we are dust.” Our God is a God “whose property is always have mercy,” to have mercy especially when and where all hope seems lost. And God’s mercy is expressed in that God entered into our humanity and suffered under that weight by being born, living, sorrowing, and suffering pain even death on the cross.

Our suffering and grief and mourning has a unique way of drawing us to this God who is love, who is not far off when we are at our saddest, our angriest, but who has come close—Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us!  Suffering has a unique way of drawing us to the Suffering God who suffered for us on the cross, who was raised from the dead, and who has declared that the suffering of this life will not last forever, that the suffering of this life does not have the final word, because God has conquered it. 

Your suffering, your sorrow, your grief, and your pain are not indicative that God has turned his face from you; He hasn’t, you have not been abandoned. It’s just the opposite: He loves you so very, very, very much; so much so he has laid down His life for you because he hears your cries, because God knows. And God’s not mad if you are ticked and angry, sad and grieved.

Any notion that you would bear any sort of curse for being upset with the trauma life can bring, is a lie. If I could bear the anger of my sons, how much more can God—the one whole loves the beloved fully and completely, better than any earthly mother and father—how much more can this God bear your pain and suffering and anger and grief?

Blessed are you who mourn because the God of the universe is with you, has taken on your plight. Blessed are you because there is no dark night of the soul that is too dark to cloak you from God’s eye; there is no pain so great that would cause Christ to just shrug his shoulders and yawn; there is no sorrow so deep that would cause your pain to be outside of God’s knowledge.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:34-39).

Blessed are you who mourn, grief, sorrow, who are angry and upset, for God is present with you.

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Called

Luke 5:27-32 (Homily)

“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up, left everything, and followed him.

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:27-32).

There’s something about having your name called and such an event comes with a myriad of potential responses: total excitement or complete fear. I remember in high school, in college, and even in seminary, I would sit in the back of the class, quiet, listening and praying and hoping that the teacher would never, ever, ever, ever call on me. (I know, the irony that I’m not a teacher, in the front of the class, incessantly yammering on about ancient texts and dead theologians.)  I remember the panic when a professor in seminary decided he was going to start calling on people to answer his questions rather than wait for volunteers (a means to ensure everyone was doing the reading). I remember my heart stopping as his eyes met mine and I had yet to fully slip all the way under my desk. “Ms. Ellis, please explain to the class Calvin’s view of the response of the believer to God in faith…” Me: blank stare. I literally just stared at him. After an awkward silent stand off, he moved on to someone else.    

And then there’s the good moments when someone calls your name like when your best friend mentions your name or when that person, you know, that someone who you like says it, the person you like “like like,” like a lot. There are people who call your name and you feel warm and your head turns and you move toward them; and there are people who call your name and you shudder and you feel exposed and you want to hide.

Luke 5 is an interesting chapter because it’s primarily about Jesus calling to himself the people who will become his disciples. And when he calls them, the come. What’s really interesting to me is that Jesus doesn’t technically know these people he calls. When he gets into the boat with Simon Peter and tells him what to do with his net at the beginning of chapter 5, there’s no, “Hey, Pete, let’s go fishing…” There’s just: do this, do that, now, come follow me.” And Peter follows. In our text, there’s no, “Hey, Levi, what’s up…how are you? How’s mom?” There’s just: “‘Follow me.’” And, as Luke tells us, Levi “…got up, left everything, and followed him” (v. 28). It’s pretty amazing; just try getting someone to follow you who does not know you by only saying, “Follow me.” Chances are, the person you address will think you are flat out not quite right.

You turn and move immediately because the voice that has called your name loves you. When these people heard Jesus call their name, they heard the voice of love calling them; they heard the voice of God and their heads turned, and they moved toward God.

What’s really, really interesting to me is this: back in Genesis 3, there’s a moment after the fateful eating of the fruit when all things go to heck in a hand-basket, Adam and Eve realize they are naked and feel shame and humiliation, and they hide. Here’s the story,

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen 3:7-10).

In their newfound ability to determine what was good and evil for on their own, they decided that God’s voice; God’s call was not good. They hid when they heard God approach. Hoping and praying that God would not notice them, they ducked behind some trees. There’s a fear and trembling here when God calls the man and the woman out from behind the tree. They’re reluctant to step out into the open.

But when Jesus calls it seems this previous moment of Genesis 3 is being undone. Jesus calls the people, and the people come, they don’t hide, they don’t run, they turn and follow.  Jesus fulfilled the great promise of God to his people: I will be your God and you will be my people. They will be the people who turn and follow God when God calls, not the ones that hide and turn away.

But why this change? Why are the people dropping everything and following Jesus when Jesus calls? Because Jesus is the word made flesh, the love of God incarnate, the loving voice that sounded at the beginning of creation and called everything into existence: the stars, the sun and the moon, the land and the sea, and all of the animals, you and me. This is the voice that is calling these people in this moment, and don’t we know when love calls?

John tells us in his gospel, that Jesus says, “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’” (3:16-17). Where before Adam and Eve assumed that God’s presence and God’s call was going to expose unto condemnation and death, Jesus reveals that this divine presence, call, and exposure leads unto comfort and life. Jesus is the word of God that goes forth into the world causing what it desires: “Come and follow me” and the people do.

The one who called Simon Peter the fisherman and Levi the tax collector calls you. You are grafted into this story because Jesus’s call goes forth by the power of the Holy Spirit today: calling, beckoning, you into comfort, into love, into life. The one who spoke the cosmos into existence calls you, lovingly calls you who are the beloved of God. Hear the God of love call you, Beloved, and turn and follow and experience life beyond measure.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away;
for now the winter is past,
    the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
    the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
    is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
    and the vines are in blossom;
    they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away. (Song of Songs 2:10-13)

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