Tag: Holy Spirit

The Good Fruit

Psalm 22:28-29 28 To Abba God alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; all who go down to the dust fall before Abba God. My soul shall live for God; my descendants shall serve God; they shall be known as Abba God’s for ever.

Introduction

Last week, I ended the sermon with this:

The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[1]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

I didn’t know that this week’s gospel message would take that message and go deeper into the depths of Christian existence that is radically shaped by God’s love, faith in Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Following Christ out of the Jordan is risky business; following Christ out of the tomb is even more risky. Because love—the love of God and the love for the neighbor—makes us vulnerable, as vulnerable as God made God’s self in Christ for the Beloved.

John 15:1-8

I, I am the true vine and my Elder is the vinedresser. All vine-branches in me not bearing fruit [God, God] removes, and all [vine-branches] bearing fruit [God, God] prunes so that they may bear more excellent fruit…Remain in me, and I [remain] in you. Just as the vine-branch is not able to bear fruit from itself if it does not remain in the vine, in this way neither can you, you if you do not remain in me. (John 15:1-2, 4)

Our gospel brings us to Jesus’s announcement that he is the true vine, God (his parent) is the vine-dresser, and those who follow Christ are the vine-branches. This passage falls within the “farewell discourses.” Through these chapters (13-17), Jesus leaves his disciples with exhortation and guidance, warning and prayer, all things necessary for them to persist when he leaves (in chapter 18 he is arrested and is resurrected in chapter 20). So, seen through the larger discourse of the “farewell discourses” a discussion about Jesus being the true vine, God being the vine-dresser, and the disciples being vine-branches makes more sense. Thus, in being the true vine there is no other vine for the disciples to find true life apart from Jesus.[2] This is why the disciples are exhorted by Christ to remain in Christ as they go about the activity of the Spirit in the world through proclamation and prayer.[3] In other words, to isolate this passage may render it more traumatizing and scarier than it ought to be—though, that doesn’t make its message easier to digest.

Christ knows that his disciples, those near and far, will come up against turmoil and tumult in the world either indirectly (because the world is chaotic and a bit happenstance) or directly (because the message of God’s revolutionary love causes things to be right-side-up that have been up-side down for too long). Christ is eager to give his disciples something to cling to while they wander this earth without him, so that when they encounter indirect or direct suffering they know they are not alone but that God, Christ, and the Spirit are with them, walking them through this trial and tribulation.[4] And while the thrust of the passage is on the vine and the vine-branches (and which ones are or are not bearing fruit), God is pictured here in a tender and loving way who faithfully forms and shapes the lives of those who follow the vine, those who follow after Jesus.[5] In this passage we see God use the (indirect and direct) ills of this world for the well-being and benefit of those who follow after God by faith and love.[6] It is this God who is for the disciples whom the disciples have direct access to through Christ.[7]

I need to tread lightly here because I do not want to communicate that either we should be seeking out turmoil and tumult or that God in God’s self is intentionally bringing us pain. Rather, it is in turmoil and tumult where we cling tighter to the word and grip that divine hand of our beloved elder/parent with more fervor as we go through these challenges.[8] And in this we are formed (more and more) to the likeness of Christ, fashioned after God’s own heart, made one with the divine Spirit in us rendering us softer rather than harder.[9]

It is this process of moving from hard to soft, from invulnerable to vulnerable that makes Christian existence in the world painful. The world would deal us strife and encourage us to become hard and closed off; but with Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit and God walking with us, we are exhorted and encouraged to get up when we fall and not put on the world’s emotional armor so we can feel again, identify with the suffering of others again, to be as Christ again to our neighbor and in the world. We have no “human security”; rather we are to trust that even in this God is with us and God will bring comfort to these who are afflicted through our love which is informed/formed by our faith.[10] To be grafted onto the vine that is Christ and pruned as a result is to be grown into Christ and to be Christ’s body in the world searching and seeking the beloved of God, bringing liberation, loving even though its risky, and daring to live and fight for life even when death is all around.[11],[12] This is the good fruit that we bear into the world. [13]

Conclusion

As those daring enough to follow Christ out of the Jordan and then again follow him out of the tomb on Easter Morning, we are called to remain in Christ. We never move on from Christ as the source of our life and love in the world, and the reality of our liberation to participate in divine liberation of the whole world. To remain in Christ is to persist in faith even when things seem to be falling apart, are all on fire, and when everything actual is poised to dismantle anything possible. We are called to be those who represent Christ in the world, those who are from Christ, those who bring Christ close to God’s beloved who are in pain, who suffer, who lack, and to remind them and the world that Christ is not truly gone, but very present in our actions of love informed by faith.[14]

It is this from-ness, this remaining in that informs our prayer life and in this way as we are aligned with the life giving sap of the vine, and we are pruned, and become fruit-bearing vine-branches. In this way, our prayers align informed by our faith in Christ manifesting in loving deeds bringing God glory in the world. [15] Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven… To pray in this way, to remain in Christ, to bear divine fruit in the world aligned with the will of God, to be Christ’s body and to represent God in a world that is convinced God is dead is what it means to be Christ’s disciples. [16]

To quote her text, Suffering, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love does not cause suffering or produce it, though it must necessarily seek confrontation, since its most important concern is not the avoidance of suffering but the liberation of people. Jesus’ suffering was avoidable. He endured it voluntarily. There were other ways out, as is stressed again and again in mythical language: it would have been possible for him to come down from the cross and allow himself to be helped. To put it in political terms, he didn’t need to go to Jerusalem and could have avoided the confrontation. … To reconcile God with misery means precisely avoiding confrontation and, in fear of being formed in the image of Christ, which includes pain, putting off liberating love.”[17]

“The meaning of the cross is not to reconcile God with misery and finish us off in the paradox. The unity of cross and resurrection, failure and victory, weeping and laughing, makes the utopia of a better life possible for the first time. He who does not weep needs no utopia; to him who only weeps God remains mute.”[18]

[1] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

[2] Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. GR Beasley-Murray, gen. ed., RWN Hoare and JK Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 529-530. Originally published as, Das Evangelium des Johannes, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966. “With the words ἐγώ εἰμι the Revealer presents himself again as the object of the world’s desire and longing; if one asks about the ‘true vine’, then the answer is given: ‘The true vine am I’. There is no comparison here, or allegory. Rather, Jesus as the true, authentic ‘vine’ is contrasted with whatever also claims to be the ‘vine’.”

[3] Bultmann, John, 529. “Thus the first part of the discourse, vv. 1-8, is an exhortation to constancy of faith in the language of μείvατε ἐν ἐμοί, …”

[4] Martin Luther, “Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 14-16,” Luther’s Works, vol. 24, ed., Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1961), 194. Here after LW 24. “That is how Christ interprets the suffering which He and His Christians are to endure on earth. This is to be a benefaction and a help rather than affliction and harm. Its purpose is to enable them to bear all the better fruit and all the more, in order that we may learn to impress this on ourselves as He impresses it on Himself.”

[5] LW 24, 199. “This is an especially charming picture. God portrays Himself, not as a tyrant or a jailer but as a pious Vinedresser who tends and works His vineyard with all faithfulness and diligence, and surely does not intend to ruin it by fertilizing, hoeing, pruning, and removing superfluous leaves.”

[6] LW 24, 210. “Thus, as has been stated before, God uses all trials and suffering, not for Christendom’s harm, as the devil and the world intend, but for its welfare, so that it may thereby be purified and improved, and bear much fruit for the Vinedresser. This is what he here calls pruning, so that those who are in Christ may continue to grow and increase in strength.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 531-532. “Before the exhortation is given, the phrase καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν declares that Jesus’ existence for his own is ground in his existence from God, which is an indirect way of saying that as the revealer he makes it possible for his own to approach the Father.”

[8] LW 24, 211. “Therefore your suffering is not the cleanness itself, and you are not declared clean in the sight of God because of it. But it does serve to drive man to grasp and hold the Word with a better and firmer grip, in order that in this way faith may become active. The word is itself the purification of the heart if the heart adheres to it and remains faithful to it.”

[9] LW 24, 212. “Behold, thus Christ shows clearly that the cleanness of Christians does not come from the fruit they bear but that, conversely, their fruit and works spring from the cleanness which they already have from the Word, by which the heart is cleansed.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 532-533. “The relationship with God means the destruction of human security—for the believer as well. It does not provide enjoyment of peace of mind, or a state of contemplation, but demands movement, growth; its law is καρπὸν φέρειν. The nature of the fruit-bearing is not expressly stated; it is every demonstration of vitality of faith, to which, according to bb. 9-17, reciprocal love above all belongs.”

[11] LW 24, 226. “And it is done in this manner: When I am baptized or converted by the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is present. He takes me as clay and makes of me a new creature, which is endowed with a different mind, heart, and thoughts, that is, with a true knowledge of God and sincere trust in His grace. To summarize, the very essence of my heart is rendered and changed. This makes me a new plant, one that is grafted on Christ the vine and grows from Him. My holiness, righteousness, and purity do not stem from me, nor to they depend on me. They come solely from Christ and are based only in Him, in whom I am rooted by faith, just a s the sap flows from the stalk into the branches. Now I am like Him and of His kind. Both He and I are of one nature and essence, and I bear fruit in him and through Him. This fruit is not mine; it is the Vine’s.”

[12] Bultmann, John, 536. “For the Revealer is not the mediator of a doctrine that can be received once for all; his word is not a dogma, nor a view of the world, but the free word of revelation that makes alive and that establishes anew one’s whole existence.”

[13] LW 24, 226. “Thus Christ and the Christians become one loaf and one body, so that the Christian can bear good fruit—not Adam’s or his own, but Christ’s For when a Christian baptizes, preaches, consoles, exhorts, works, and suffers, he does not do this as a man descended from Adam; it is Christ who does this in Him. The lips and tongue with which the proclaims and confesses God’s Word are not his; they are Christ’s lips and tongue. The hands with which heh toils and serves his neighbor are the hands and member of Christ, who, as he says here, is in him; and he is in Christ.”

[14] Bultmann, John, 535-536. “Μέωειν is persistence in the life of faith; it is loyal steadfastness to the cause only in the sense of always allowing oneself to be encompassed, of allowing oneself to receive. The loyalty that is demanded is not primarily a continued being for, but a being from; it is not the holding of a position, but an allowing oneself to be held, corresponding to the relationship of the κλῆμα to the ἄμπελος.”

[15] Bultmann, John, 538-539. “In prayer the believer, so to speak, steps out of the movement of his life, inasmuch as the prayer is not an action that satisfies the claim of the moment—which for the believer is the demand of love. But as he prays the believer also steps out of the context of his life, in that he is certain of the prayer’s being granted, and he no longer has need to fear the future about which he prays, as of something that threatens to destroy him he can be certain that the prayer will be heard, whatever he prays for; for what else could be the content of his petition, whatever form it may take, than the Revealer’s μένειν in him, and his μένειν in the Revealer? The granting of such a prayer, which arises him out of the context of his human life in the world, is itself the documentation of his eschatological existence.”

[16] Bultmann, John, 539. “…the disciples’ union with the separated Revealer is achieved in their discipleship; and after vv. 4-6, the radical meaning of μαθητὴς εἶναι has become clear as a reciprocal μένειν ἐν.”

[17] Dorothee Sölle, Suffering, trans. Everett R. Kalin (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1975), 164-165. Originally published as: Leiden “Themen der Theologie” ed. Hans Jürgen Schultz, Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag.

[18] Sölle, Suffering, 166.

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Love is Risky

Psalm 23:1-2, 6: Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Abba God for ever.

Introduction

When I was first Christian, I was given the clear idea that being a Christian meant that I would be nice and that people would like me because I was so nice, kind, patient, and happy. I would be compliant and non-obtrusive. I would be meek and mild. I would be all things to all people in a very non-offensive and non-confrontational way. In fact, being offensive and confrontational—being the opposite of any adjective listed above—was synonymous with being “not a Christian.” So, following the logic: happy person = Christian person; grumpy person = Non-Christian person (etc.).

To be honest, I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s not in the bible really. Yes, Paul says to rejoice and rejoice again, Jesus says not to worry, and there are many exhortations to love our neighbor and offer up service to them in the name and to the glory of God. There are even a couple (some Pauline and some pseudo-Pauline) references to being good, complaint, and prayerful citizens. But, in general, the Christian life is not particularly described as nice, happy, kind, compliant, etc. To be even more honest, I’m not sold on the idea that those we are exhorted to imitate were all that nice or happy. For instance, while Paul brought the gospel proclamation—God’s word of comfort and love—to many, he was a force to reckon with and very open about his suffering while bringing glory to God and the God’s beloved. Jesus—the incarnate Word of God who identified with the oppressed and marginalized—was quite the offensive and confrontational force toward many…how else do you think he ended up on the cross, a state instrument of death?

The reality is that the Christian life will bring us into direct conflict with both religious and civil authorities. Following in the steps of Christ as Christ’s disciples means that, like Christ, we will find ourselves confronting the false idols of our age, exposing decrepit and toxic systems, and coming face to face with structural violence meant to do harm to God’s beloved. In other words, no not everyone will like us and think we are so peachy keen and nice. If that is hard to believe, let’s turn to Luke’s story in Acts about Peter in full on confrontation with the authorities…

Acts 4:5-12

Now it happened that the rulers and the elders and the scribes of Israel were convened in Jerusalem—both Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many who were of the kin of the high priest—and after standing [the prisoners] in the middle, they were learning by inquiry, “By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing?” Then Peter—by means of being filled by the Holy Spirit—said to them…” (Acts 4:5-8a)

Our lectionary drops us off with Peter and John as prisoners before the elders and rulers of the people of Israel in Jerusalem. But, how did they get there? Let’s look.

Last week, we saw Peter and John heal a man who needed healing his whole life. In response to this healing, the people of Israel are amazed and in awe of what Peter and John have done for this man. As these people gather around John and Peter, Peter begins to address the crowd with words of exposure and comfort in the proclamation of Christ raised from the dead. As a result, some Sadducees and the captain of the temple approach Peter and John and arrest them for proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to the people.

Now, in our passage, it is the day after the arrest. As Luke tells us, Peter and John are dragged out into the middle of all the leaders (rulers, elders, scribes and the kin of the high priest) of Israel so that they, the rulers and elders, can interrogate John and Peter and find out, By what power or in whose name did you, you do this thing? Peter has a choice here…he could just say something ambiguous about God, but he doesn’t. Instead, Luke tells us, Peter being filled by the Holy Spirit said to them… The Spirit of God inspires and emboldens Peter[1] to speak light to darkness, to expose the errors of judgment and the missed mark. It’s the following speech about divine, liberating action of the oppressed that gets Peter and John in trouble with those who are in power.[2] Regular words about God do not raise eyebrows or provoke to anger; rather, it is the words demonstrating God as against those in power that will. Peter and John knew this would be the case; they’d seen it before with Jesus and it led to his death and this death would come for them, too.[3]

So, Peter, filled with the Spirit, boldly declares to the leaders of Israel and not just to a crowd of bystanders, ‘If we, we are being interrogated about the well-doing of a weak person, by what this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—whom you, you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—this man has stood in your presence healthy.’ Peters words shatter the glass walls separating the religious and the political, what they proclaimed to the people they now proclaim to the leaders; liberation from oppression comes to liberate the oppressed and also the oppressor.[4] As a result, Peter and John are treated as criminals who thwart the law and break the social arrangement; as Willie James Jennings says in his commentary on Acts 4, “Real preaching and authentic teaching is inextricably bound to real criminality.”[5]

But something else is going on here. This scene is meant to demonstrate the power of the judges over the judged. But a reversal is happening. Rather than the judges asking the questions of the judged, Peter, the judged, turns the table and now the rulers and elders of the people of Israel are the ones being questioned. In one swift and divinely inspired word, Peter puts these judges on trial; they are now the guilty ones,[6] they are now exposed, they are now the ones who must justify their power.[7] The rulers must declare in whose name they act. And things become a bit trickier when Peter makes it clear that he and his friend are the representatives of God therefore implying the rulers and the elders are not. In and through Peter’s speech, the world is exposed as upside-down; Peter and John are caught up in the divine activity as they participate in turning it right-side up according to divine love, life, and liberation in the name of God for God’s beloved.[8]

Conclusion

Acts reminds us, from beginning to end, that the life of a Christian and the life of the Christian church is one that is hard and not easy. To follow Christ demands that we, like all his other disciples (i.e. Peter and John) will become caught up in the waterfall of divine justice for the beloved that is life, love, and liberation. And this necessarily means that we will not be nice, we will be confrontational, we may even be offensives especially to those who are benefiting being nestled comfortably in the power of an upside-down world. Willie James Jennings writes,

“The great illusion of followers of Jesus, especially those who imagine themselves leaders, is that they could live a path different from Jesus and his disciples. They believe somehow that they can be loved or at least liked or at least tolerated or even ignored by those with real power in the world.”[9]

Easter tells us that not only is our past tied up with Christ’s death and resurrection but so is our future. And if both our past and our future is so tied up with Christ, it means that our present is as well. To live into the gift of resurrected life means being lead, by the Spirit, to participate in the divine revolution of love in the world on behalf of God’s beloved. Many will be grateful; many more will not. The Christian walk is hard not because we have to be pious and self-righteous or force ourselves to be perfect and better than everyone else; it’s hard because to love your neighbor in the name of God is hard. In her most systematic text, Thinking About God, Dorothee Sölle writes,

“Love has its price. The cross expresses love to the endangered, threatened life of God in our world. It is no longer a question of a biophilic embracing of life which spares itself the cross. The more we love God, the threatened, endangered, crucified God, the nearer we are to [God], the more endangered we are ourselves. The message of Jesus is that the more you grow in love, the more vulnerable you make yourself.”[10]

Beloved to love is hard because it’s risky; God knows because God loves and risked everything for you, the beloved.

[1] Brittany E. Wilson, “Contextualizing. Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases,” in Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, eds., Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 34. “…Luke indicates that Peter’s rhetorical savvy is not of his own doing, but of divine origin.”

[2] Willie James Jennings, “Acts”, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2017), 45. “Speaking holy words has serious consequences. These are not words that simply speak of God. There is nothing inherently serious, holy, or dangerous in God-talk. The holy words that bring consequences are words tied to the concrete liberating actions of God for broken people. Such holy words bring the speakers into direct confrontation with those in power. Jesus not only spoke such words but he was such a word.”

[3] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples know this confrontation was coming. The struggle against those in power that marked the life and death of Jesus was coming for them as well.”

[4] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “The disciples are among common people proclaiming liberation and that violence and death are no longer the ultimate power. Jesus is risen! Therefrom the site of the common, holy words touch two intersecting nerves, the religious and the political.”

[5] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Only criminals touch nerves at this level and receive the consequences [arrest, trial, custody]…”

[6] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47-48. “The judges are in fact builders. This is the great dilemma of the advantaged in this world. They institutionalize life. They are socially ordered and they enact social order. They are inside what they create and they create what they are inside of and from within this circle they often cannot see a divine judgment being brought on them, brought against them. God judges them from the position of the judged.”

[7] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47. “The judged are questioned (the judges are not). The judged must give account of their power and authority to speak, to believe, to suggest a different world order. The judged must show connection to the powerful, to names that are recognized by those in power. Power only sees power. The judged are evaluated (the judges are not). A scale is unleashed against the judged. Their education, social pedigrees, elocution, and baring are all measured against the judges. Now the dividing line is exposed. Now the moment of judgment will begin, but not as the ruling religious and social elite imagine. They misunderstand this moment just like Herod and Pontus Pilate misunderstood it with Jesus.”

[8] Jennings, ”Acts,” 47.

[9] Jennings, ”Acts,” 45. “Peter spoke again…The table is being turned over, an upside down world is being turned right side up in these words of Peter. Peter stands next to the man God has healed not by the power claimed by the elites, by the judges of this world, but only through the Holy Spirit.”

[10] Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1990), 134.

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Go and Live!

Psalm 86:10, 16-17 For you are great; you do wondrous things; and you alone are God. Turn to me and have mercy upon me; give your strength to your servant… Show me a sign of your favor … you, God, have helped me and comforted me.

Introduction

In seminary, when I was given the opportunity to assist a professor with their teaching and grading, I was often struck by how many students were focused on eliminating sin. So many conclusions to systematic and pastoral papers ended with exhortations toward living sinless to the glory of God—exhortation directed at both the author and the audience of the paper. I never commented on these exhortational confessions decorating double-spaced, four-page papers, but I remember being very aware of their presence and their frequency. It struck me as odd because weren’t we exhorted by both Jesus and Paul to live, but this focus on the cessation of sin seemed the opposite of life, it felt like—and I wasn’t even that far into reading Luther at this point—a return to incurvatus in se, being curved in on oneself. In other words, it felt like the antithesis of living and life; it felt like stagnation and death.

I’m not without accusation and guilt. I spent my earliest years as a Christian focused on being sinless so I could be, once and for all, holy and righteous, perfect like my heavenly parent is perfect. The result didn’t make me relate to my neighbor more, but less; it didn’t make me love God for God’s sake, but less and worse: it made God a means to my end of being “sinless”. It didn’t make me freer in Christ, but less; it didn’t make me more dependent on the Spirit but less. It made me less loving and more judgmental. With sinlessness as my focus, I was not liberated from but enslaved to sin.

When Paul declares, “In this way also you, you consider yourselves to be dead truly to sin/missing the mark, and [truly] living to God in Christ Jesus” we must put the emphasis on the right syllable. Keeping in mind what we’ve covered so far, we must proceed with these two things in mind: 1. The Christian is justified by faith clinging to the promise of God and not by works of the law because the law cannot be satiated and will not grant the reward unless done perfectly; and 2. Because the Christian is justified by faith (alone) they have peace with God, with their neighbor, and with themselves because they are no longer trying to serve the law as the mediator. This then leads us to what Paul says in in Romans 6…

Romans 6:1b-11

Shall we persist in sin so that grace might abound? May it not come to be! Whoever died to sin, how can we still live in [sin]? Or do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?…For [the death] he died, he died to sin once for all; now [the life] he lives, he lives to God. In this way also you, you consider yourselves to be dead truly to sin/missing the mark, and [truly] living to God in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 6:1b-3, 10-11)[1]

About this passage, Martin Luther writes, “We are in sin until the end of our life.”[2] Christians will continue to sin and miss the mark their entire lives; you cannot avoid that fact, no matter how much missing the mark brings pain and suffering. So, when Paul exhorts his audience not to persist in sin, it is not with the intention of not having sin, but not intentionally seeking it out with the goal to demonstrate how far being justified by faith and grace will go. Because, for Paul, such a mindset is not liberation from sin, but the very return to being controlled by it, being controlled by your actions, thus ultimately still giving the law too much power and authority over you. It’s less about the deeds of sin and more about the orientation of the believer in relationship to sin thus to the law. If it’s all about not sinning, about not missing the mark (ever), then we are all back at square one: consumed with our deeds and our actions and, thus, the law. If you focus on your sins—your individual actions and deeds that break the law (either God’s or your own)—you are still being controlled by the law and are not free. Μὴ γένοιτο!

Paul is telling us here in Romans 6 that we are truly! liberated from sin unto life. So, returning to a singular focus on sins, on our deeds and actions, is a return to the tyranny of the law—something the law is not supposed to have. So, what does it mean that we should not persist in sin or that we are dead to sin? It means that we are dead to sin, as in liberated from the controlling accusation and condemnation of sin because it’s been dealt with in Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Because, as Paul has already told us in Romans 4, “[Jesus] was handed over on account of our trespasses and was raised up for the sake of our justification” (v.25). This then is the foundation of our life and liberation from death and from sin/trespasses; if we have been baptized into Christ’s death, then we are resurrected into his life (our justification). Said another way, “the death he died, he died to sin once for all; now [the life] he lives, he lives to God.” To focus our energy on our sin is to deny Christ this once-for-all-ness and to declare his sacrifice as deficient or, even, non-existent because it still depends on the law and on us. If this is so, then even as we live, we are dead because sin’s power and control live on, commanding all our energy and attention. [3] We are dead in our trespasses.

Rather, says Paul, it’s all on Christ, so…Go! Live! Go and live neither by pressing into sin, because that is still sin controlling you and thus is still death, nor by ignoring it and pretending you don’t have sin or you don’t miss the mark, for that is also not a living liberated but living controlled by sin thus death. Rather, go and live knowing you are going to miss the mark; and (good news!) when you do be sure to admit you’re fault and error, seek forgiveness, but just keep moving, keep loving, keep living, keep liberating. Go and live, live like those who are liberated from the oppression of the wrath of the law, of sin, of being curved in on yourself; live like those who are justified by faith and those who have peace with God thus with their neighbor and thus with themselves. Just live. Do you not know that you are alive in Christ and dead to sin?[4]You have died to sin because you have died with Christ; you have been raised unto life because you have been given life in Christ to live; why are you still consumed with death, with sin?[5] Why are you acting like the dead (controlled by sin) when you have been recreated to be the living (controlled by the loving, living, liberating Spirit of God)?[6]  As Paul writes later in Romans, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to again return to fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption, by which we cry, ‘Abba Father’” (8:15).

Conclusion

Two comments by way of closing.

First: You will miss the mark (sin). This knowledge that you are going to miss the mark (sin) is not an excuse to trample about without care for your neighbor. Just because you are justified by faith (fully and truly) does not mean you get to isolate yourself off from your neighbor, treating them as inferior to you and your needs. Too often people have used their faith to prop themselves up and above their neighbor, making themselves more important than their neighbor, and using their neighbor as a means to an end. But this isn’t liberation; this is as much enslavement to sin as is being obsessed with it. Liberation always includes the neighbor; it is never for you alone. For the one who can see and serve the neighbor without losing themselves in that action is the one who truly is free and liberated.

Second (is like the first): You will miss the mark (sin). You are not above it or below it. But if this fact becomes our focus, it will become a big stumbling block hindering both our ability to love God and to love our neighbor. We will never love perfectly because we can’t; plus, what even is perfect love? Isn’t the most perfect love the love that just wants to love for no other reason than just because (without a why or wherefore)? But if we become consumed with loving perfectly, living perfectly, acting perfectly we will slowly close ourselves into our cages, the same ones we’ve been liberated from. So, we live as messy and odd and weird and awkward and clunky as we can; but the goal is to live as loved and liberated human beings in the world, oriented toward bringing God’s love, life, and liberation to all people.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] LW 25, 308.

[3] LW 25, 311. I’m applying the following quote with a bit of demythologizing, “The other kind of death is eternal and very terrible. It is the death of the damned, where sin and the sinner are not the ones to die, while man is saved, but man dies, while sin lives on and continues forever.”

[4] LW 25, 311. “Because for death to be killed means that death will not return, and ‘to take captivity captive means that captivity will never return, a concept which cannot be expressed through an affirmative assertion.”

[5] LW 25, 314. “The meaning is that we must undergo this spiritual death only once. For whoever dies thus lives for all eternity. Therefore we must not return to our sin in order to die to sin again.”

[6] LW 25, 315. “He has Christ, who dies no more; therefore he himself dies no more, but rather he lives with Christ forever. Hence also we are baptized only once, by which we gain the life of Christ, even though we often fall and rise again.”

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Peace be with You

Psalm 116: 10-12 How shall I repay God for all the good things God has done for me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of God. I will fulfill my vows to God in the presence of all God’s people.

Introduction

Last week I talked about the law and that, according to Paul in Romans, the law brings wrath. The law is felt (principally) in its discipline and rarely in its reward because to get the reward one must keep the law perfectly forever. According to Paul, in Romans 4, the law is not the medium through which Abraham was the father of many nations; this was done through faith, specifically faith and trust in the promise of God that God will do what God said God will do. If access to the promise of God is by the law, then the promise ceases to be a promise and becomes a threat because no one can keep the law all the time and perfectly. Thus, Paul told us, to be justified requires faith first and not law obedience first because faith clings to the promise of God while our deeds and works cling to the law.

Is the law bad? No, not at all. The law has its place but not as the mediator between God and people; it is secondary to the promise and is to serve the promise because the promise existed before the law. This means that the promise is this mediator—or the one who fulfills the promise. This means, for Paul, that faith—trust that God will do what God says God will do—justifies believers with God, bringing them into divine righteousness. Further, for Christians, justification is defined by faith in Christ as the divine fulfilment of the divine promise uttered all those years ago to Abraham. It is by faith solely in Christ alone by the power of the Holy Spirit the believer is justified before God. In this way, the law cannot be a means of justification. According to Paul, it is by faith or nothing because no one can become perfect by the law because of the law’s incessant hunger and demand for obedience. Thus, that the believer is justified by faith alone, the law is rendered powerless to condemn and judge the believer as wanting. Here the law is returned to its role in serving the believer in her pursuit of loving God by loving the neighbor—the reversal of the believer serving the law, which becomes self-serving and at the expense of both God and the neighbor.

But there’s even more to this concept Paul cultivates here in Romans. By faith, the believer is justified and declared righteous, but also the believer has peace, divine peace, with God, with their neighbor, with themselves because of the love of God that is now resident in the believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 5:1-8

Therefore, since being declared righteous out of faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord through whom we also have obtained access by faith to this grace in which we have stood and we boast on the basis of the hope of the glory of God…Now hope does not disgrace because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given to us. (Rom. 5:1-2, 5)[1]

Paul extends his conception of justification into the divine love of God that brings with it God’s peace surpassing understanding. The peace that Paul speaks about here is the peace of God and peace with God.[2] This peace is not dependent on obedience to the law; in law obedience there is no peace because you must always do the law, and here assurance and rest are (at best) momentary. Thus, what Paul is speaking of here is the peace that comes with trust in God that God is faithful, and God will do and has done what God has promised God will do (this is the soothed conscience).[3] And herein the believer has rest and assurance because she is at peace with God by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

What is interesting here is that we’re declared righteous before we have peace; we have faith before we have peace.[4] Why? Because being told you are loved right here, right now, as you are and wherever you are solicits a request for faith, of trust and confidence in the lover proving the lover to be truthful; in this proof there is peace because you realize you do not have to perform to be accepted and loved. If the lover proves themselves to love without condition—apart from the law and despite it—then the lover is worth trusting, worth believing, worth having faith in. Thus, Paul explains, Christ died on our behalf while we were still stuck and missing the mark (sinners). God not only said that God will bless all the nations through Abraham, but God has also now, through Christ’s death and resurrection and by the power of the Holy Spirit, blessed all the nations. The lover is worthy to be trusted because the lover went into the deepest parts of human existence in solidarity with humanity, identifying with humanity and, by divine love, overcame humanity’s inability to judge rightly. Thus, God is—100%—for us, in the good, bad, and ugly.

This is why at a Christian church it is crucial to talk about Jesus the Christ. It is not biblicism or literalism, it is all geared toward reminding the beloved they are the beloved and pointing to the representative event declaring to the entire cosmos that God loves the beloved (truly) no matter where they find themselves. To sidestep around Christ and the proclamation of Christ crucified and raised, is to demand that people trust and believe in an abstract conception of God who has not demonstrated and does not demonstrate love and trustworthiness.[5] It is also crucial to speak of Christ because the beloved is prone to defaulting back to their own habits of works righteousness and obedience to the law to assure themselves that they are okay with God.[6] But this is to seek peace before being justified by faith, it is to fabricate peace from one’s own works and not receive it as a gift of God by faith, by the pouring forth of love into our heart by the power of the Holy Spirit who resides with us, among us, and in us, confirming to us that God is truly and utterly for us, provoking us to love God for God’s own sake just as we have been so loved by God.[7]

Conclusion

Beloved, Paul tells us that the peace of God comes as a result of faith in God. This means that as we’re lovingly brought to the full exposure of who we are as we are we see God there with us, not far off as if God cannot be near but close, with us, even in the worst. And in seeing God with us as we know we’re loved and, in this knowing and being loved as we are, we have peace with God because there is no mediator between God and humanity but God’s self: Jesus the Christ and the Holy Spirit. Here, you are given yourself back to yourself: you are liberated to be you, fully, quirky or run of the mill, too much or too little, intense or laid back, energetic or lethargic, even absolutely positive or completely negative. And as you know—deep down in your hearts—you are you and you are loved by God, you love yourself, and as you love yourself you can give yourself to your neighbor willingly and securely, without recourse to the law and works to justify yourself to God, to your neighbor, or to yourself. And isn’t this stabilization of self, this presence of self, this confidence of self the fruit of peace? Isn’t peace being completely present without a why or wherefore (sunder warumbe[8]) with yourself, with your neighbor, and with God?

This divine peace gifted to us has an eternal quality that will not wear out or fade away because you always have access to it: in the proclamation of Christ and in the event of faith in a space dedicated to the encounter with God. And because this peace is from God, riding on the coattails of faith, given to you by the resident power of the Holy Spirit in your heart, no one can take it from you, no trial or tribulation, says Paul. It is yours, over and over again, day in and day out, it is yours because God is always for you, over and over again, day in and day out, God is for you.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2]LW 25 (Luther’s Works “Lectures on Romans: Glosses and Scholia (1515/1516)” Ed. Hilton C. Oswald. Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1972. 285. “This is the spiritual peace of which all the prophets sing. And because this is the case, he adds the words with God. And this peace is prefigured in every peace which the children of Israel enjoyed in the days of old.”

[3] LW 25, 285. “And this is the real peace of conscience and trust in God. Just as on the contrary a spiritual disturbance is the lack of a quiet conscience and a mistrust of God.”

[4] LW 25, 285.

[5] LW 25, 286. “In the first place, the statement is directed against those who are so presumptuous as to believe that they can approach God without Christ, as if it were sufficient for them to have believed, as if thus by faith alone, but not through Christ, but beside Christ, as if beyond Christ they no longer needed Him after accepting the grace of justification. And now there are many people who from the works of faith make for themselves works of the Law and of the letter, when having received faith by Baptism and penitence, they now think that they are personally pleasing to God even without Christ, when actually both are necessary, namely, to have faith and also always to possess Christ as our Mediator in this faith.”

[6] LW 25, 287. “So at sunset the rays of the sun and the light of the sun go down together. But he who is needs the sun, rather he wants to have both the sun and the light needs the sun, rather he wants to have both the sun and the light at the same time. Therefore those who approach God through faith and not at the same time through Christ actually depart from Him. Second, the apostle is speaking against those who rely too heavily on Christ and not enough on faith, as if they were to be saved through Christ in such a way that they themselves had to do nothing and show no evidence of faith. These people have too much faith, or actually none at all. For this reason it is necessary to emphasize both points: ‘through faith’ and ‘through Christ,’ so that we do and suffer everything which we possibly can in faith in Christ.”

[7] LW 25, 294. “Thus the apostle asserts that this sublime power which is in us is not from ourselves, but must be sought from God. Thus it follows that it is poured into us, not born in us or originated in us. And this takes place through the Holy Spirit; it is not acquired by moral effort and practice, as our moral virtues are. Into our hearts, that is, into the depths and the midst and center of our hearts, not on the surface of the hart, as foam lies on water. This is the kind of love that the hypocrites have, who imagine and pretend that they have love. But a period of testing only proves the pride and impatience which lies deep within them.”

[8] Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry.

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Holy Spirit and Pentecostal Fire

Psalm 104:34-35, 37 I will sing to God as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being. May these words of mine please God; I will rejoice in God. Bless God, O my soul. Hallelujah!

Introduction

God does not leave God’s beloved. God, from the very beginning, sent out God’s Spirit to be with and among the beloved, from the beginning of light to the unendedness of dark, from the tiniest of mites to the largest of beasts, form the highest of mountains to the deepest of ocean floors, God is with God’s beloved. This is what our ancient creation myths of Genesis 1 and 2 tell us. Genesis 3 tells a tale of fracture and disruption of harmony and communion among God, humanity, creation, and one existing within each person. Yet, even in the ricochets of the fractures, God never left the beloved. Even when the beloved left the garden, God went with them. God’s Spirit suspended before and with God’s people: calling Abraham and Sarah, sustaining Isaac and Ishmael, leading Jacob, sending Moses, manifesting as fire in bushes, pillars of flame at night, in clouds during the day, in the pulling apart the waters of the Red Sea like the pulling apart the light from the dark at the beginning of creation, in tabernacles, tents, and temples. Not to mention Israel’s prophetic line speaking as God’s representatives; being filled with divine passion, they summoned and heralded to Israel the good news of God and God’s presence, exhorting them to see God not only in their own midst in their strength and power, but more importantly in the weakest of them: in the widow and orphan, in the hungry and thirsty, in the houseless and unclothed.

God does not leave the beloved because love needs the beloved. The lover who loves needs an other to love, the beloved; the beloved needs the lover to be the beloved. And the very spirit of God—the one that hovered over the face of the deep so long ago and the same one that inspired the prophets to proclaim God’s passion for God’s people—is the substance of love. As much as we are all made of start-dust, we are in equal part made of love. Love has set this whole crazy cosmic experiment in motion, and love sustains it. God is so serious about love that we declare that God’s love took on flesh. Jesus the Christ was formed in the womb of Mary and born into her love, not only to experience the power of love in his own flesh, but to love others as God. Jesus demonstrated in word and deed to the beloved that God really does love them, is really for them, really does see and know their pain and suffering (Ex. 2), really does get angry over injustice and weeps over death, and really does walk in solidarity with humanity even in death. And as you know, death cannot sever the bonds and ties of love because love remembers, love recalls. And even more than that, love resurrects, calls forth the beloved from the tomb, and sends the beloved onward and forward in love.

John 20:19-23

Therefore when it was evening on that day—the first [day] of the week—and when the door having been shut where the disciples were because of the fear of the children of Israel, Jesus came and stood in their midst and he said to them, “Peace to you.”… Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you; just as the father/elder/ancestor has sent me, so also I send you.” And after saying this, he breathed [on them] and he said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit… “[1]

John 20:19, 21-22

The disciples are locked away for agitation and fear. And what does God do? Shows up. None of these men had their act together, were stalwart emissaries of unflagging faith, or superheroes braving the persecutions. They were terrified and confused human beings, desperate for something, for anything. And, as God has done since the conception of the inception of creation, God shows up behind that locked door and brings peace to them. Why? Because God knows their fear and panic, their terror and anxiety, their desperate desire to live and when God knows these things, God feels these things, and God acts to ameliorate these things. The ascended Christ does not leave the disciples alone to figure it out or muster up their own strength; Jesus shows up and brings it to them where they are because that’s what God does.[2]

Prior to this moment, Jesus has already promised giving peace, his peace that surpasses any peace that the world can offer. It’s not that the world is bad or should be shunned, rather the world is the playground of divine love and liberation seeking and desiring the beloved. However, the systems made by humans can only provide a certain and temporary form of peace; no material possession can secure your peace—none. However, in chapter 14 of John’s gospel, Jesus’s gave these same men peace: peace I let go to you, my peace I give to you; I give to you not as the world gives. Let your heart be neither agitated nor fearful (v. 27). It doesn’t mean that this gift of peace failed. Rather, at the time they were not able to receive it because Jesus was with them, but now that he is ascended and gone from them and they are agitated and fearful, he appears to them and calls them to awareness that they have his peace.[3]

But he doesn’t merely reiterate that they have his peace, he gives them the Holy Spirit to be with them from this day on, the same Spirit existing before the cosmos and the one that called Jesus forth from the tomb. This Spirit is the Spirit of God and fulfills the promise from old that God’s Spirit would dwell in the hearts of God’s people, the beloved (ref. Ez. 36:26). The peace of God is no longer a wish or a prayer but is with the disciples of Christ…literally, because they have the Spirit of God. Easter finds its fullest expression in Pentecost, for now true life is accessible to the disciples; they are (once again) being summoned from their tomb and exhorted to walk forward into the light of day, proclaiming and heralding God’s love to all.[4] Not only do the disciples have the peace of Christ with them, they have the authority of the Spirit of God to be the witnesses of Christ, they are sent not by any other person than God of very God. They are sent into the world as Christ to carry forward the mission of God: seeking and desiring the beloved, bringing life, love and liberation to the captives.

Conclusion

Pentecost secures—forever—God’s liberation and liberating of the captives. It is as powerful as Christmas and Easter; it ranks with the major feasts of the Christian tradition. It is the power of God transcending all the boundaries we create, breaking down the barriers we build, rewriting the narratives we write about ourselves, each other, creation, and God. It is the descent of the Spirit that is echoed in creation coming into recreation. It is the sound of doors being unlocked, cells sliding open, and those previously curved inward standing upright for the first time in a long time. It is the sound of bodies dancing, voices singing, and communities experiencing the liberation of God.

My dear friend and colleague, The Rev. Dr. Kate Hanch, recently published a book, Storied Witness: The Theology of Black Women Preachers in the 19th-Century America. In this text she tells the stories of three black women preachers: Zilpha Elaw, Julia Foote, and Sojourner Truth. In sharing about the religious and theological influences of Truth, she mentions that Truth’s mother, Mau Mau Bett (Elizabeth), was her first spiritual teacher, combining “her African heritage with the Dutch culture of her enslavers.”[5] It was this that opened the door, writes Kate, to Truth’s broad and deep view of God’s presence with her.[6] In addition to this, Sojourner Truth’s theology was influenced by the Dutch holiday of Pinkster…otherwise known as Pentecost.[7] The celebration of Pinkster created a space in time where liberation from oppression made its truth known in the material realm, where baptismal regeneration and the essence of the sacramental meal of thanksgiving were cultivated into a bodied celebration of the descent of the Spirit that knows no boundaries of skin color, wealth, sex, gender, age, etc.[8] Here Love descended and imparted itself to everyone; here the enslaved walked and danced free in the fullness of the glory of God, “These erotic dances enabled her to love her own body and also reminded her of the Holy Spirit who dwells with and in all bodies, Black and white, enslaved and freed.”[9]

Let us follow Truth’s lead and witness and live like God is truly present with us, rejoice like the disciples seeing Christ, and exist liberated and loved like the Spirit of God within us. And may the life-giving breath of the church, the Holy Spirit burning with Pentecostal fire, ignite the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation as we go forth into the world.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Rudolf Bultmann The Gospel of John: A Commentary Trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed; RWN Hoare and JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971. German: Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). 691. “Suddenly he appears in their midst, and he greets them with the customary prayer for blessing. That Jesus in the meantime had ascended to the Father, as he had said to Mary that he would (v. 17), and has now again returned to earth would be a false reflection—not only in the meaning of the source, but also in that of the Evangelist. Rather the sense is that he has ascended, and even as such he appears to the disciples; as such he is able to bestow the Spirit (v. 22)…”

[3] Bultmann, John, 691-692. “In harmony with this the εἰρήνη—and the Solemn repetition of the greeting hints that we have to understand εἰρήνη in the full sense of 14:27—which Jesus offers the disciples has in truth already been given to them in the hour of the departure (14.27). Easter is precisely the hour when their eyes are opened for that which they already possess; and vv. 19-23 are no more than the depiction of this event.”

[4] Bultmann, John, 692-693. “The fact that the narrative depicts the fulfilment of the promise in the farewell discourses is shown finally in that the Risen Jesus bestows the Spirit on the disciples through his breath (v. 22); Easter and Pentecost therefore fall together. If in 16.8-11 the task of the Spirit was described as an ἐλέγχειν, so here correspondingly the bestowal of the Spirit is accompanied by the giving of authority to the disciples (v. 23). Thus the judgment that took place in the coming of Jesus (3.19; 5.27; 9.39) is further achieved in the activity of the disciples. It is self-evident that it is not a special apostolic authority that is imparted here, but that the community as such is equipped with this authority; for as in chs. 13-16 the μαθηταί represent the community.”

[5] Kate Hanch, Storied Witness: The Theology of Black Women Preachers in the 19th-Century America (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2022). Pp. 112-113.

[6] Hanch, Storied Witness, 113.

[7] Hanch, Storied Witness, 113.

[8] Hanch, Storied Witness, 114-115.

[9] Hanch, Storied Witness, 115.

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Why Do You Stand Looking Up?

Psalm 68:3, 5-6a: But let the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; let them also be merry and joyful. Parent of orphans, defender of the widowed, God is in God’s holy habitation! God gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners into freedom…

Introduction

I had hamsters as a little girl; two: Peanut Butter and Jelly. Having hamsters as a kid taught me two very valuable lessons. The first was practical: hamsters and cats don’t mix; no matter how high up you store that hamster habitat, the cat—like a stealthy ninja thief—will break into it. The second was existential: humans and hamsters hold the tendency of running and running in circles in common. To be honest, as tragic as the first lesson was to learn as a young girl, the second lesson was even more tragic. While it’s not great to come home from school to catpocalypse having descended upon our humble home, it’s worse to find out for yourself you can be moving and moving and not going anywhere.

Sometimes we spend a lot of energy running in place, going back (again) to the same thing—behavior, thought, framework, tendency—to find help and yet those things leave us wanting again and again. We can feel a lack and purchase something only to be left (again) with feeling the lack. We can return to old habits to find that the same consequences still manifest. We can keep thinking we can beat the system by playing the system, only to find out that once again the system is way better at this game than we are. If you’ve ever thought, uttered, mumbled the words, “This is just how the world is…”, listen closely for the squeak, squeak, squeak of that hamster wheel. All in all, the comfort of our hamster wheel and the feeling of moving perpetuate the false notion that we are getting somewhere. We are running and running and all we are doing is standing still.

So, what if we stopped running? Maybe we need someone to throw a stick in the gear to force us out of our little round, squeaky comfort zones. But it’s always good to remember that we aren’t—in fact—hamsters; we can get off our wheels. We can leave our tube-errific habitats and fight back catpocalypse with our own armadoggon, walking as liberated beings with in the world bringing life and love to other captives so stuck in place.

Acts 1:6-14

“…but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses: in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and until the end of the earth.” And after saying these things while they were watching [Jesus] was lifted up and a cloud received him from their eyes. And as they were gazing into the heaven while he was going, behold! two men stood by them in bright robes, and they said, “Men of Galilee, why have you stood looking into the heaven?…”

Acts 1:8-11a (Translation Mine)

Luke tells us that those who were gathered around Jesus came and asked him if he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Jesus, according to Luke, uses this question to navigate towards a discussion of something else than kingdom restoration: the reign of God extending beyond humanmade boundaries defining this or that kingdom; this is the advent of the new order, not a return to the old one.[1] The disciples are still stuck in thinking in terms of people groups and kingdoms; but God, in Christ, is thinking about the cosmos, the people of God, the entire world. In fact, this is the point of the book of Acts. We think it’s about the disciples and what they did, but it’s more of a testament to the power and action of the divine Spirit and what the Spirit will do by moving the disciples to spread the message of Christ—the message of divine love, life, and liberation—to the ends of the earth.

God isn’t interested in Israel standing still because God doesn’t stand still.[2] See, as a people who partake in the divine image, as God self-discloses so too do believers participate in that self-disclosure. God moves and is on the move: creation speaks to this, the history of Israel speaks to this, the incarnation speaks to this, the resurrection speaks to this, the ascension will speak to this, and so to the coming fulfillment of the promised descent of the Holy Spirit. So, as God moves so, too, do those who have new life in God by faith. While humans like to think God stands still causing us to have to go “back” to find God, the reality is something else: God is always a couple steps ahead of us, and in being ahead of us is able to be with us guiding us toward something new of God.[3] Thus, believers do not stand still, rather they are to be witnesses, moving, proclaiming witnesses of God’s power over death.

This is the point of Jesus’s promise that the Holy (Divine) Spirit will descend and come upon the disciples; herein the likeness to God takes on more distinctive features. Like Jesus’s life was a message of divine love, life, and liberation to people held captive and pressed and pushed to the margins, so, too, will the disciples become these very story books or divine love letters to more and more people.[4] They—by their bodies in word and deed—will announce not the establishment of human empires but the divine revolution of God’s love in the world seeking and searching for the beloved.[5] Here the ends of the earth are brought together at one point: as the disciples move by the power of the divine spirit, God’s love eclipses the notion of the villainy of otherness and the tyranny of us v. them. For where there is life-giving and love-sharing there is liberation from the captivity of death and hate (here, otherness is refused and the battle between us and them rent asunder). This isn’t about going out and making converts to a singular way of thinking—believer or die! Rather, it’s about spreading divine gifts of love, life, and liberation to all people, incorporating all people into the family of God’s life and love.

Then we get to my favorite moment in this story. As Jesus ascends—not to abandon the disciples but to be with them in a more personal and intimate way[6]—two men appear dressed in bright-like-light clothing. These two men find the disciples staring up into the sky, still, stuck, and motionless. Then they ask the most perfect question, My Dudes, why in the world are you just standing there staring up into the sky? Granted, and to be fair, the disciples have a lot going on at that moment, but the point is made: it’s time to move, move forward. It isn’t about looking up or looking back, but looking ahead; it’s about interrupting what’s grown old even if comfortable and embarking on something new. As Willie James Jennings says,

“We must never discount the next step that must be taken at the sight of Jesus’ leaving. Such a step is understandably a labored step, unsure and unclear. Nevertheless it must be taken because faith always leans forward to Jerusalem, toward the place where God waits to meet us. We are always drawn on by God to our future.”[7]

Conclusion

“People of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into the heaven?” Or, People of God, why do you keep running on that hamster wheel? Our life of faith is dynamic and active. It’s not about sitting and reverencing and standing far off. It’s about standing up, and acting, and coming up close and personal—to God and to others. Our life of faith is not about just accepting things as they are, shrugging, and just rolling over; it’s about saying something new, doing something different, taking a risk, and living liberated and responsible in the world to the benefit of God’s beloved who is your neighbor.

Jesus’s ascent into heaven does not limit the spreading of the proclamation of God’s love for the entire cosmos, but, in fact, ensures that it can (and will) spread. As Christ was and is embodied, Christ can only do so much with a body—as we know. But with the promised divine Spirit that will come to the disciples to anchor and yoke them to God, this message of Christ—the incarnated proclamation of God’s love for all people—can now very much and very literally travel to the furthest reaches of the earth. It is a message that is now unrestricted by culture and context, unbound by dogma and doctrine, and unleashed from time and tense.

As the beloved of God you, by faith, are liberated by love and given new life. This is part of our Easter story. But it doesn’t end with Easter; it doesn’t end with Ascension…it is just beginning. So, again, let me ask, People of God, why do you stand looking up into the heaven? As those who have been encountered by God in the event of faith in the proclamation of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit: Go. Go forth into the world carrying and sharing the grace and mercy of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing God’s love to all…

[1] Willie James Jennings Acts Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2017. 16. “He will seal this new order, this revolution over death and the power of violence through the Holy Spirit. The Sprit is the promise of the Father to the Son and those joined to him. Indeed Acts narrates the journey of the Spirit even more deeply into the way of Jesus and the journey of Jesus more deeply into the way of the Spirit. The Spirit, companion with Jesus and his disciples, will soon spread the body of Jesus over space and time opening his life as a new home for the faith of Israel.”

[2] Jennings, Acts, 16. “Geography matters. Place matters to God. From a specific place the disciples will move forward into the world. To go from place to place is to go from people to people and to go from an old identity to a new one. Jesus prepares them for the journey of their lives by holding them in a place where the Spirit will be given to them in that place, and from that place they will be changed.”

[3] Jennings, Acts, 19. “Jesus ascends not only to establish presence through absence, but he also draws his body into the real journeys of his disciples into the world. He goes to heaven for us, ahead of us. He goes with and ahead of his disciples into the real places of this world. He is Lord of time (past, present, and future) yet walking in our time, and he is Lord of space (here and there) yet taking our spaces and places with utmost seriousness.”

[4] Jennings, Acts, 18. “They will be an irrefutable presence. They will also be witnesses of divine presence. They will give room to the witness, making their lives a stage on which the resurrected Jesus will appear and claim each creature as his own, as a site of love and desire.”

[5] Jennings, Acts, 18. “The disciples will be formed by the Spirit as witnesses. They will be turned out to the world not as representatives of empires but those who will announce a revolution, the revolution of the intimate, God calling to the world. They will enter new places to become new people by joining themselves to those in Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. As Jesus announces this divine desire, he ascends.”

[6] Jennings, Acts, 19. “Jesus’ ascension is in fact God claiming our space as the sites for visitation, announcing God’s desire to come to us. Gods desire will be seen in the pouring out of the Spirit in a specific place in order to enter specific places and specific lives. He ascends for our sake, not to turn away from us but to more intensely focus in on us.”

[7] Jennings, Acts, 19-20.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 1

Jesus is Better than Santa

Psalm 66:14-15, 17-18 Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what God has done for me. I called out to God with my mouth, and God’s praise was on my tongue. But in truth God has heard me; God has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, nor withheld God’s love from me.

Introduction

I think there are times when people get Santa and God confused. When we lived in Pittsburgh, my neighbor said something to my boys about Santa one December. They either didn’t hear her or didn’t know what she was talking about; either way they looked at her with rather vapid expressions. Being one who dislikes very awkward silences, I chimed in, “Oh, we don’t do the Santa thing.” As soon as I spoke that line rather casually, I regretted it. She confronted me. I did my best to cogently explain that it made sense to me to minimize my kids’ exposure to the cornucopia of mythology shared and celebrated around that time of year—I mean, virgin births aren’t necessarily not myth; she was still rather unimpressed with my decision. She closed the conversation with one final statement, one I’ve never forgotten, “Lauren, don’t you know that Santa lives in all our hearts?” I was now the one without words and the vapid expression. Literally, speechless. I thanked her for the reminder once I got my wits about me and then shuffled the boys into the house like wrangling cats or balloons.

The comment stuck with me because I was rather terrified of the idea of someone like Santa living in my heart. I mean, the man literally keeps a record of my good and bad, right and wrong, and then that north-pole based, magical voyeur checks that darned list twice! For no other reason than to make sure I’ve rightly earned my gifts. But then thinking upon it some more, it dawned on me that there’s a tendency in our culture to ascribe to Santa the grace that is God’s and ascribe to God the judgment that is Santa’s. Truth be told… that tendency is well justified when the church and its leaders have rendered the simplicity of loving God and obeying God’s commandments the spiritual equivalent of competing in American Ninja Warrior. If God has set some sort of sadistic, masochistic, gauntlet of an obstacle course, then yes, please give me Santa; God’s terrifying.

But what if God hasn’t set such a course and it’s rather easy to love God and obey God’s commandments? What if God’s law has very little to do with you achieving your own perfection and, rather, recognizing your deep and desperate need for divine love, life, and liberation? What if it’s as uncomplicated as faith and as simple as being loved?

John 14:15-21

‘If you love me, you will observe my commandments. I, I too will ask the father/the ancestor/the elder to give you another Paraclete, so that [the Paraclete] might be with you into the ages, the spirit of truth. … The one who has my commandments and observes them that one is my beloved. And the one who loves me will be loved by my father/ancestor/elder, and I, I too will love [them] and I will appear to [them] myself.’ [1]

Jn 14:15-16, 21

What does it take to love God? Observe God’s commandments—this is discipleship; what are the commandments? To love God—this is discipleship.[2] No joke. This is exactly what Jesus is saying in this passage according to John. Even if we take a step back and look at the Big Ten from the First Testament, they can be easily broken into two commandments that are alike to each other: Love God (first tablet) and love your neighbor (second tablet). The neat thing about the gospel is the proclamation that Jesus is God’s love incarnate, thus to love Jesus is to love your neighbor because in Christ’s incarnate form he is your neighbor and he identifies with the neighbor.[3] Thus when you love Jesus you love God and your neighbor; and, according to the gospels, you can check your arithmetic: if you love God then you love Jesus and the neighbor; if you love the neighbor then you love God and Jesus. It’s all embedded in this trifold reality that God is in Jesus and Jesus identifies with the neighbor.[4] In that the gospels proclaim Jesus as divine love incarnate and this love incarnate proclaims love, life, and liberation to the captives—like all the great prophets before him caught up in the same “Spirit of Truth”—then to identify with those with whom God in Christ identified, to love those whom God in Christ loves is to love Christ thus God since God is in Christ.[5]

What John is doing in this passage is highlighting that what the world does not understand is that it’s not about me and private pursuit of righteousness and justification; to be self-righteous and to try to self-justify is to go against God because it causes the believer to be wrapped up in themselves at the expense of the neighbor and to sidestep that hunger for God. Pursuing your self-righteousness and self-justification tells God and your neighbor you do not need them; it’s the opposite of how the gospels define what it means to be holy. The encounter with God by faith,[6] on the other hand, liberates the one so encountered and releases them into the world to love like God which is like Jesus and the Spirit of truth. The one so encountered is actually liberated: from the prison of themselves; from the threat that if they don’t get it just right, they will burn; from the violence of self-chastisement over privatized sins; and, from the suffocating sensation that God is against you unless…. Here meritocracy is dashed to the ground; it’s not about you and your personal and privatized so-called-holiness, it’s about loving God and loving others and being loved by God and by others. This is what the world doesn’t get, according to John’s Jesus. The world runs on merit; but God doesn’t.[7] When the church forgot this message and made God and the spiritual realm all about merit, it abandoned the Spirit of Truth for a few pieces of silver.

Conclusion

The conclusion here is this—and this is a tough one so listen close:

Santa is not Jesus, God, or the Holy Spirit.

And the second is like unto it:

Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are way better than Santa.

When all is said and done, the very thing that liberates human beings from the threat of the pursuit and demand of self-righteousness and self-justification, that liberates human beings into life and love is never achieved by merit. A prisoner can be absolutely perfect and still denied parole because grace and mercy are absent. You can strive to perform every day and still be denied that raise or promotion because someone else was younger or had the right pedigree. You can do it all correctly according to the world and still end up at the end of days destitute and desolate. Merit cannot ever be the means of liberation because you must wake up and do it all again tomorrow and all the while pray you are always able to do so.

But with God, God’s love liberates because it just loves and allows to live, God’s love creates a place in space and time for the beloved to exist as they are for who they are in whatever form they are. God’s love releases the captives from their captivity because they are liberated from the demand of merit for self-worth and self-approval, they are released from the rat-race of meritocracy, they are free to stop thinking of only themselves (because they can’t afford not to) and can start thinking of someone else. Freedom and liberation are most emphasized in the presence of others and God and not in absentia of both. The freest person I’ve ever heard of was the one who was so free he literally concerned himself with others to the point that he would even endure death to identify with God’s beloved, you.

You are loved; be loved. You are the beloved, rest. And then spread that love everywhere, bringing God’s love to God’s beloved who doubt they are or ever could be God’s beloved.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Rudolf Bultmann The Gospel of John: A Commentary Trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed; RWN Hoare and JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971. German: Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). 614. “V. 15: the answer to the question how a relationship of love can be established with the departed Revealer is this: it consists in the disciple fulfilling his commands.”

[3] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 557. “I: ’Yes, he is love incarnate, he himself is the new commandment; to love his message of love is to love one another.’ ‘You can also say the reverse to love people is to love him.’”

[4] Cardenal, Solentiname, 557. “I: ‘He and the Father are the same thing, the Father, who is love, sent us Jesus, love incarnate, and now he’s going to send us the spirit of love, that is, the spirit of the teachings of Jesus, which is also himself.’”

[5] Cardenal, Solentiname, 558. “I: ‘In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Yahweh, same as saying the spirit of justice and liberation. He’s the one who spoke through the prophets proclaiming the truth.’”

[6] Bultmann, John, 614. “To love him means to be obedient to his demands, and this obedience is faith.”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 559. “I: ‘In the Gospel of Saint John the world’ is the same as the system, unjust society, the status quo. Those who belong to the system, says Christ, cannot receive that spirit.’”

Posted on by laurenlarkin 2

“Nothing Seems to Satisfy”: Craving Relationality

(for part 1 click here, for part 2 click here, for part 3 click here)

Psalm 95:6-7 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, and kneel before God our Creator. For God is our God, and we are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand. Oh, that today you would hearken to God’s voice!

Introduction

Have you gotten out of the habit of communing with other people? I think I have. Well, to be honest, being social is very low on my list of things I regularly think about. When we first lived in Grand Junction in 2014, it took about ten months before I realized that the looming feeling I had was something called “loneliness.” Have you heard of it? I don’t get lonely; I can go for a very long time without any social interaction. A. Very. Long. Time. So, when I had this weird sensation and finally realized that there’s a term for it and that it there’s no drug to take to eliminate it, I struck out to make a friend. Just one. And I did! Lyuda and I have been friends since late 2015.

But this story feels like a distant memory of eras long gone. I’m reminded it’s been awhile since I’ve done something like that: gone out and made a new friend. I think it’s something to do with what we’ve suffered over the past few years. Now, as I said, it takes me a long to get “lonely”, but three years in? It feels especially tangible right now, right on the surface. Do you feel lonely? If you do, you are not alone. We’re all lonely. We’re just now starting to pull together and peek heads out of our shells…three years later. For three years, we’ve been bombarded with the fear of a virus that is very contagious, making it impossible to share place and space with others. Not to mention the caustic socio-political environment, tearing friendships apart, families asunder, and drawing thick lines in the sand. So, we’ve became pros at shutting down and closing off because our lives depended on it; we’ve become experts at speaking vapidly to stave off emotional outbursts, or worse? So, the coming back is hard… at times, too hard; isn’t it just easier to stay in, stay closed, stay distant, stay safe? I’m fine on my own, …right?

I fear we’re losing our relationality and nothing seems to satisfy.

Romans 5:1-11

For if while being hostile to God we were reconciled to God by means of the death of God’s son, much more since being reconciled we will be saved by his life. But not only [that] but even boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we now received reconciliation. (Rom. 5:10-11)[1]

At the core of what Paul is saying here in Romans, is that by virtue of the believer’s relationship with God through Christ, they are given space and time with God and with each other. Paul begins by explaining that in being justified we have peace with God and not only with God but with the world even in the midst of not having peace with other people.[2] During Advent I mentioned, “Peace exists because God is and God is within us.”[3] Herein is the foundation of that peace, according to Paul: God reconciles us to God through God’s son, Jesus. If this peace is done by works, we do not have a guarantee that peace with God exists. However, if it is by God’s doing, it’s secured and constant because it’s promised and God fulfills God’s promises. Every day we are justified and made right with God, every day we have union with God by faith because it’s by God’s mercy and not our own actions and even in spite of them.

By faith in Christ we have peace with God because by clinging to the promises of God we declare God to be truthful and true, rendering to God the things belonging to God: honor, delight, and trustworthiness (this is what it means that we “boast on the basis of hope of the glory of God”). In this way our relationship with God is aligned by our union with God; and if the relationship with God is aligned so, too, is our relationship with the world. In this new alignment with the world born from being children of God by faith,[4] we have peace with the world, because reconciliation with God allows us to interact with the world and with other people in a liberated way unencumbered from the burden of using the world and other people as means to an end (i.e. to secure a good relationship with God).

Paul anchors suffering and endurance in this union with God that we have by faith in Christ. Because we stand (“we are established”) in the grace of God, we have hope because we receive the love of God having been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit having been given to us. According to Paul, our union with God is the means by which we endure tribulations, for where we are God is, so, too is God’s love for us and the world. Therefore, our hope does not disgrace or shame because God promises to be present in our afflictions and sufferings and God is trustworthy and honest, because by Christ we have seen God suffer on our behalf.[5]   

Paul reminds his audience that if they received all of this while they were hostile (ἐχθρὰ ὄντες) to God and still missing the mark (ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν), then how much more will they receive in their reconciliation and union with God. Now God establishes God’s love for us, yet while we still missing the mark, Christ died on behalf of us. It is our missing the mark that brings Christ to the cross, for our ability to determine good from evil runs askew, as promised back in Genesis 3. Yet, even though we put Christ to death, God resurrects him meeting our demand for death with God’s gift of life.[6] This is love, this is grace: not giving someone what they deserve but giving them that which they do not deserve. Where we had the right to be judged and condemned for Christ’s death, we are given life, love and liberation.[7]

Now, receiving this divine grace and love while we were still hostile to God, how much more do we receive as those reconciled? We receive God, we receive the whole world, we receive ourselves in right relation with God and the World, thus with others.

Conclusion

We are rightly timid to derive our relationality from our own strength, trying desperately to reduplicate past experiences. We are right to be nervous to venture outside and commune with others, putting ourselves in physically vulnerable situations beyond our control. We are far from being out of the woods of the pandemic, and there are new bugs around, putting precious lives at risk. It is right to be cautious with whom you share your dreams and wishes for the world; the caustic socio-political climate that started back in 2016 is still percolating—for many people things are continuing to go backwards, away from what they had, or thought they had. Relationality right now is intimidating: with neighbors, with friends, with family, maybe even with ourselves.

So, if nothing seems to satisfy, how do we reverse this trend of losing relationality, this threat of loneliness? We must look beyond ourselves and our deeds. We must be awakened to our deep-seated need and hunger for relationality.

As those who have been encountered by God in the event of faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are those who have been given life, love, and liberation. We are given union with God, we are given solid ground to endure the hardest tribulations with the most amount of hope. We are not given hope founded on false expectations for the future; rather, we are given hope that is present tense, that calls to mind what God has done, thus remembering what God said God will do. This type of hope is here, it is now, it is in spite of the world, transcends the world, and is for the world.[8] In our union with God we do not need to run away from chaos of multiple relational fractures or cling to what is behind denying the disordered relationality at hand. Rather, we can stand here, where we are, in the chaos and tumult, in the trial and tribulation, and know we are not alone for God resides with those whom God loves, with those who suffer, with those who have the audacity to experience their awakened hunger for God.

In this way, beloved, we are not alone; through God’s love for us we are not alone for we are with God. And if we are with God then we are with each other. It’s here where we’re brought further out of ourselves and our desperate attempts to keep ourselves from the difficulties of this life, from the anxiety of what lies outside the security of our homes, and from fear of the other. It is here, in the midst of the divine hope and love where I find relationality with you, because you are the beloved of God and God is where you are; God is where we are in the hunger.

[1] Translation mine.

[2] Martin Luther Lectures on Romans: Glosses and Scholia (1515/1516) LW 25 Ed. Hilton C. Oswald. Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1972. 43. “Since we are justified through God’s imputation, therefore by faith, not by works, we have peace the world and with God, although not yet with men and the flesh ….”

[3] https://laurenrelarkin.com/2022/12/04/peace-even-now/

[4] LW 25, 43-44. “Through whom , as our Mediator, we have obtained access, to God by loving and knowing and delighting in Him, by faith, because there will be no salvation through Christ without faith, to this grace, of peace, remission of sins, and justification, in which we stand, through the firm confession of faith, and we rejoice, not in a present thing before men but in our hope of sharing the glory, the exaltation, that is, the glorification in the future life of the sons of God, those who are of God.”

[5] LW 25, 44. “And endurance produces trial that we might be proved by God and found without deceit and guile and hypocrisy, and trial hope, that is, of ‘the glory of God,’ as has been said (v. 2). 5. And hope does not disappoint us, because it neither deserts nor fails us. All these things, I say, happen because the love, etc.,’ because the love, which creates an insuperable attachment, of God, that is, from God, has been poured, freely poured out, not received by merit, into our hearts, because love performs its works voluntarily; for works done unwillingly and by force do not endure, by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, through Christ from God the Father”

[6] LW 25, 44-45. “For hardly, it is extraordinary, I say, to die for the ungodly, for what is righteous, that is, for the sake of righteousness and truth, will one die—though perhaps, it is customary to die, for what is good, for its usefulness and desired features, one will dare even to die. 8. But God, the Father, shows, He makes it more commendable and worthy of love than all these things, His love, with which He loves us, for us, that is, the love which has been given to us, because on His part, in that while we were yet sinners, which he earlier (v. 6) expressed with ‘while we were still weak,’ at the right time (an expression which is not in the Greek at this point but only above) Christ died for us, the ungodly, so that we might not die in all eternity.”

[7] LW 25, 45. “For if, while were enemies, because of our sins, we were reconciled, so that we were not deserving of perdition, to God, not by our own merits or those of anyone else, except by the death of His Son; much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we, as His own, be saved by His life, in his resurrection to eternal life. 11. And not only  so, do we rejoice in tribulations, but we also rejoice in God, that is, because we have a God and He is our own God, because He has given Himself to us, through our Lord Jesus Christ, our Mediator, through whom we have now received our reconciliation, the remission of sins, so that we may receive God Himself, through One. I say. Christ.”

[8] I’m reminded here of similar tones in this post by J. Scott Jackson, http://derevth.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-peace-that-disturbs-berrigans.html

Posted on by laurenlarkin 4

The Peace of Justice

Sermon on Romans 5:1-5

Psalm 8:1-2 O God our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world! Out of the mouths of infants and children your majesty is praised above the heavens.

Introduction

I bet we confuse control for peace. I think we’re dead set on thinking security and protection will grant peace. I believe we’re gullible believing that calm and tranquil are synonymous with peace.

When I can control my environment, others, things, objects, I feel like things around me are calm. This feels like peace. But it’s not. Calm doesn’t mean peace. Control doesn’t mean peace. Things are just calm; I have control. But, again, that’s not peace. The kids aren’t fighting anymore because I exerted my authority and silenced them and now there’s calm. Yet, if you asked the rabble, I bet they’d narrate a different story. I can eliminate people from my life who cause me strife, I can go out into the woods, I can seclude myself from society and its ills, but that’s only control thus calm and not peace. Even if we say: ahhhh, how peaceful…. Doesn’t mean it’s the substance of peace; it only means we’ve forgotten what peace is.

Correlated to seeking peace by control, is our unhealthy desire for “security” and “protection.” Security and protection make us feel safe from external intrusions and threats. Safety produced this way brings the illusion of peace. This is true at the individual, state, and national levels. If I, the state, or the nation can ensure safety from the external threats by stock piling and threatening to use _________ (money, guns and other weapons, walls, fences, oppressive legal restraint, force, etc.), then it might feel “secure” and “protected” and “safe.” But, again, this sense is confused. If a person, a house, or a state uses mechanisms of fear and intimidation through power and authority, it might get some calm and even have control, but peace? Nope.

In fact, heavy-handed authority always foments anger and resentment; fear and intimidation always create oppression and isolation; anger and resentment blended with oppression and isolation is a deadly recipe for chaos and violence. The very thing security and protection aim for is missed. Always. You may have control, and you may have (momentary) calm, but peace? Nope.

The problem with confusing calm, control, security, and protection for peace is that calm, control, security, and protection are things created externally, thus always. If peace is never having any bad feelings or conflict, then you must always cut people and situations off as soon as they manifest unhappy feelings. If peace comes because you feel secure from outside threats, then you must always be alert, your security systems need to be updated frequently to handle increasing amounts of threats. If your peace comes from protection, then your guard can never be down. If your peace comes from being in control, then you must always be in control. If your peace comes from being threatening and intimidating, then you always have to threaten and intimidate. It becomes an endless cycle of more and more; the last I checked the relentless pursuit of more and more is not the definition of what it means to have peace.

“Peace” that’s patched together and fabricated from artificial means of control isn’t peace; it’s an illusion, it’s false, it’s a sham. Peace isn’t about controlling externals (through force or elimination), it isn’t about trying to bring bodies, houses, states, and nations into obedience by forcing them to conform to your will and control. Peace must reside first in the heart and mind and then radiates outward into the environment, carrying with it peace for others.

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, being justified by means of faith we have peace in company with God by means of our Lord Jesus Christ and through whom we have obtained approach for faith in the grace into which we have stood and still stand and we boast on the basis of the hope of the glory of God…But, hope does not shame, because the love of God has been bestowed liberally in our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit being given to us.[1]

(Rom 5:1-2, 5)

It’s not surprising to see this short but profound statement about peace from Romans 5 on Trinity Sunday. For Paul, there is no peace, no shalom, that side-steps around God. Knowing the Hebrew scriptures like the back of his hand and knowing the divine commands, Paul is well acquainted with the peace of God which surpasses all worldly and human understanding.[2] To be sure, this isn’t peace that’s caused because God’s wrath has been appeased, or because you are now safe from hellfire and brimstone; that’s calm, not peace. When Paul declares that we have peace with God through our justification by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit apart from works, it means that we’ve been made right with God, and this means we stand in and with God without disturbance.[3]

If your inner world is chaotic and disturbed,[4] it’ll never matter how secure your doors are and perimeter is, how tall and firm your walls and how barbed your fence, how big the figures in your checking and savings account, or how many weapons you have: there’s no peace because there will never be enough to be sure.

But if you’re sure on the inside, that’s a different story.

Peace is getting to be you, loved as you are, and exhorted to love as you’ve been loved. When God is encountered and this reality in Christ is believed, then your inner world aligns by the presence of the Spirit: no longer do you need to run to make yourself invincible, no longer do you need to deny to remain innocent, no longer do you need to be afraid of being wrong for fear of being bad, no longer do you need to withhold mercy and forgiveness so as not to lose yourself. You don’t need to do these things because you know who you are: a beloved child of God.

We are loved by God who is love, this is made known to us in the proclamation of Christ Jesus who causes us come face to face with the reality of God’s love incarnate and also shows us how to love like God, and then the Spirit takes over our hearts and minds yoking us forever to God’s love, causing us to love that which and those whom God loves. [5] This is the triune mystery that is our reality. [6] This Triune affair is why no one and no thing can ever sever you from God and God’s love; this triune affair is why we get to participate in the perpetual illumination of the world with God’s divine revolution of love and peace.

Conclusion

Prof. Ada Maria Isazi-Diaz says that the embodiment of God’s message of no greater love “…is not a matter of dying for someone else but a matter of not allowing someone else to die…For [the Madres Cristianas] ‘no greater love’ is nothing but the justice-demand that is a constitutive element of the gospel message.” [7] God’s love is oriented toward justice; thus, so is God’s peace. It is only through justice for all, we’ll have real peace, shalom.

Peace always starts with us, with our hearts and minds, with our bodies and presence. Peace is not that which I fabricate by excessive control of other people or my space. Rather, peace, like love, is that which I bring with me (to others) being at peace with God and with myself. If I’m consumed with fear, I cannot bring peace to others. If I’m consumed with threats, I cannot bring peace to others. If I’m desperate to protect myself and feel secure, to be calm and comfortable then I cannot bring peace to others; I will always see others as a threat to my safety, security, protection, calm, and comfort.

Our world is in a desperate state; discourse reveals an intense desire to protect and secure ourselves and those whom we love from the very present threats of death, from the storms of violence and chaos, from the sinkhole of despair. I promise you that more “protection” and “security”, more “control” of others and spaces isn’t the answer. If it is our answer, we’ll head into more chaos and violence, more death and despair. We can’t put our hope in various forms of metal, wood, and stone.

I can tell you that I truly believe the peace, shalom, of God’s love embodied by Jesus and given by the Holy Spirit with and within us is the better answer, the better way to life. God’s love and peace bring justice, because God’s love and peace are merciful, forgiving, steadfast and patient, slow to anger and quick to love, eager to liberate, bring equality, bestow life, and create fertile ground encouraging people to grow and thrive. God’s love and peace never bring deprivation and intimidation, exclusion and isolation, fear and threats; rather God’s love and peace turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (Jn 14:27, NRSVUE). Beloved, never forget God’s Spirit of love and peace lives in you, is with you, and goes before you; you’re never alone, never forsaken, never without hope. And be at peace with God, with yourselves, and with each other, and spread peace and love wherever you go and to all whom you meet.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Martin Luther Lectures on Romans: Glosses and Scholia (1515/1516) LW 25 Ed. Hilton C. Oswald. Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1972. “THIS is the spiritual peace of which all the prophets sing. And because this is the case, he adds the words with God.”

[3] Luther Romans LW 25, 285. “And this is the real peace of conscience and trust in God. Just as on the contrary a spiritual disturbance is the lack of a quiet conscience and a mistrust of God.”

[4] Luther Romans LW 25, 285-286. “But note how the apostle places this spiritual peace only after righteousness has preceded it. For first he says, ‘since we are justified (iustificati) by faith,’ and then, ‘we have peace…’ And here the perversity of men seeks peace before righteousness, for this reason they do not find peace. Thus the apostle creates a very fine antithesis in these words…”

[5] Luther Romans LW 25, 294. “It is called ‘God’s love’ because by it we love god alone, where nothing is visible, nothing experiential, either inwardly or outwardly, in which we can trust or which is to be loved or feared; but it is carried away beyond all things into the invisible God, who cannot be experienced, who cannot be comprehended, that is, in to the midst of the shadows, not knowing what it loves, only knowing what it does not love; turning away from everything which it has known and experienced, and desiring only that which it has not yet known…”

[6] Luther Romans LW 25, 296. love through the HS “For it is not enough to have the gift unless the giver also be present…”

[7] Ada Maria Isazi-Diaz Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996. 106.

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Divine Maternal Yawp

Psalm 104:34-35, 37 I will sing to [God] as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being. May these words of mine please [God]; I will rejoice in [God]. Bless [God], O my soul. Hallelujah!

Introduction

In his poem “Song of myself”, Walt Whitman describes sounding his barbaric yawp. He desires to seize his own liberty, to physically and verbally make his presence known as he is without all the confinements of society. Think naked, think boundless, think unrestricted. Think: the noise and sound of frustration and anger in the quest for liberation from condemnation and death—a sound so mighty it feels as if it reached down to the deepest recesses of being.

There’s only one time in my life where I felt the force of my barbaric yawp. It was less about myself and more about the one I wished to save: my daughter Liza (about 2 ½). A beautiful Mother’s Day solicited us out for a hike. Our family and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law decided to visit Potato Rock—a little hike and a picnic. When we got to the mysterious rock, we took a moment to look around and admire the sights. The boys did their thing, I was with my sister-in-law, and Liza was with Daniel and his brother. And then out of the corner of my eye, like a bolt of lightning, Liza sprinted away from Daniel—she’s always been very active and very nimble. She moved fast, and calling her name didn’t work. She kept running. We began to move toward her while calling her name. Still, she didn’t stop. She was heading for the edge and was so far out of our reach by this point I knew we couldn’t physically catch up to her and wouldn’t she just think it was a game?

In a moment of complete desperation, I did the only thing that came to mind. I waved Daniel off and then—with everything inside of me, summoning the strength of every fiber of my being—I hollered: LIZA STOP! The sound was so forceful it forced me to step back; Liza, mid-stride, collapsed in a ball of tears feet away from the edge. She was safe; Daniel made it to her and scooped her up to comfort her, I followed to do the same. Later my sister-in-law looked at me, eyes the size of quarters, where did that sound come from? She asked. I was in shock and filled with adrenalin; I didn’t know, it just came up and out of me.

I refer to that hollering, now, as the maternal yawp sounding from a desperate mom interceding between her beloved child and sure death. This is what love does when it needs to: it hollers so loud everything (even time) stops and space splits; love intercedes with all her force to protect the beloved. For all intents and purposes the maternal yawp is the breath of love breathing the fire of life, like a dragon aiming to save her own, like the roar of a mama lion protecting her young babes, like a mama bear chasing away a threat: do not mess with my cubs.

John 14:8-17

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And as I will ask [Abba God] and [God] will give to you another Intercessor, so that they will be with you into eternity. The spirit of truth, whom the cosmos is not able to receive because it does not experience them and does not know them. You, you know them, they abide with you and will be within you. [1]

(Jn. 14:15-17)

The story opens on Philip requesting from Jesus: show us Abba God and it will help us. Jesus’s responds—which, I can only imagine, carried justified exasperation[2]–and says: muh dude, you’ve been with me this long and you, you don’t see the family resemblance? Jesus then lovingly explains the intimate connection between Abba God and himself: God is in me and I am in God; I speak and do not my own things but what God wants to speak and do. In other words: Philip, you’ve been with God the entire time; God is with you. Jesus exhorts Philip to look at the works and words of Jesus and believe in God’s real presence with him[3] because God is with him, that’s a promise.[4] That promise extends beyond Jesus’s temporal presence with Philip and the disciples.

Referring to his own works and words, Jesus explains that the disciples will do even greater ones. This explanation doesn’t mean the disciples will eclipse the cross and resurrections; it doesn’t mean they’ll do more and better miracles. It means they’ll continue in and with the words and work of Abba God as Jesus did,[5] spreading the work and words of Christ wherever they go.[6] The question remains: How will this be the case?

According to Jesus, it’s simple as asking Jesus for things in Jesus’s name. Jesus promised: I’ll do these things you ask for in order to bring glory to Abba God. The future tense of this moment creates a bit of tension: how will the disciples ask Jesus for things in Jesus’s name if he’s not here? Enter the Intercessor, The Paraclete.[7]

Jesus moves from promising to do whatever the disciples ask in his name to dropping the qualifier of qualifiers. Before the disciples think Jesus and God are their genie in a bottle,[8] Jesus defines love: if you love me you will keep my commandments. This then tempers the idea of “anything” and illuminates “in my name”. In other words: good luck loving me and abiding in my love and then trying to yoke me and Abba God to your selfish and self-centered desires, myths, and systems of death.[9] To ask something of Christ in Christ’s name is to confess a love for and faith in Christ; to love Christ and believe in him is to do his commandments. Thus, the disciples are exhorted to love God and love one another; but, not of their own power and force, but through faith[10] and by the presence of The Intercessor who will come and abide with and within them forever. By faith and love the disciples are anchored to God.

If anchored to God by the presence of The Intercessor (The Paraclete, The Holy Spirit) then also anchored in truth[11] and divine revolutionary love[12] for the entire cosmos. Those who follow in the love of God by the presence of the interceding spirit of divine love[13] will be those who proclaim the words and do the deeds manifesting the liberation of and justice for the people trapped in suffering and oppression. [14] In other words, the disciples are exhorted to participate in the divine maternal yawp by the power of The Intercessor. Disciples are to use their voices and their bodies to intercede (beyond thoughts and prayers) on behalf of those who are trapped by the myths and lies and the threat of death from human violence and systemic oppression.

Conclusion

In a moment we’ll recite the affirmation of faith. The last portion of the affirmation reflects on the reality and presence of the Spirit, God within us. Some of those lines are: We believe in God within us, the Holy Spirit burning with Pentecostal fire, life giving breath of the Church[15]…The past few weeks make these lines feel distant if not like bold lies. How do we utter these words—packed with vibrant and rich, living and active imagery—and then remain silent as God’s beloved children die? If being a Christian means I’m only saved from some mythical conception of hell, then I am most to be pitied because it means that the Spirit of God is incapacitated and limp. It means that word “intercession” only has one passive definition and not also a very active one. Does the Paraclete only comfort me like a lullaby wooing me to sleep? Or is the Spirit of God alive, breathing, burning with Pentecostal fire, exhorting me to be bold and defend life?

As a mom, I can’t sit by; as a Christian, I can’t send my kids and your kids or any kid into the hellscape that is our world without first sounding my maternal divine yawp: STOP! THIS MUST END! I need to either stop praying the third part of the affirmation of faith or I must double down, diving head first into the reality that God charged the church and every Christian to be those who illuminate the darkness, who holler at and silence deadly storms, and who are the live-giving tongues of the Pentecostal fire in this tundra of death.

Today we remember the arrival of God’s Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Intercessor, the one who resided with and within the disciples. This is the same Spirit who resides with and within us. Today we must ask: are we dead or are we alive? If we are dead, then let us confirm the confession that God is dead, too. But if we—those resurrected by God’s life-giving breath into the consuming fire of God’s love—if we are alive then so is God. If so, then let us be alive as the church, let us be a force to be reckoned with interceding for God’s beloved, let us be the church so inspired by God’s passion for the world that we can do no other than sound our divine maternal yawp so loud that terra firma shakes with God’s presence.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Rudolf Bultmann The Gospel of John: A Commentary Trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed; RWN Hoare and JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971. German: Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). 608-609. “The implication behind the reproachful question: τοσοῦτον χρόνον κτλ. is that all fellowship with Jesus loses its significance unless he is recognized as the one whose sole intention is to reveal God, and not to be anything for himself; but it also implies that the possibility of seeing God is inherent in the fellowship with Jesus: ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα. What need is there for anything further (πῶς σὺ λέγεις κτλ.)?”

[3] Bultmann, John, 609-610. “The man, for whom Jesus has not already become authoritative, so that he could believe his word without question, should look at what his word effects: i.e. he should look at himself. Jesus’ word does not communicate mysteries or dogmas, but discloses a man’s reality. If he tries to understand himself by subjecting his existence to this word, then he will experience the work of the Father on him. The nature of the experience is stated in v. 12: the Father’s work will continue to come to fruition in those who believe in Jesus…”

[4] Bultmann John, 609. “This question is posed by Jesus’ words in v. 10: οὐ πιστεύεις ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοί ἐστιν; The faith at issue is the faith that man really encounters God in his encounter with Jesus, that Jesus and the Father are one. The formula of reciprocity is again used to describe this unity, but what follows makes it clear that it must be understood in terms of the idea of revelation. In Jesus’ word, the work of the Father is brought to fruition; on his own, and for himself, Jesus is nothing: he is simply and without exception the revelation of the Father, and the words ὁ δὲ (ὁ) ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων give added emphasis to the fact.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 611. “To speak of the disciples’μεἰζονα ἔργα is of course to speak paradoxically; for they are in fact the works of him without whom the disciples can do nothing (15.5). And the juxtaposition of that promise with the promise that their prayer will be heard, which makes what they do appear as something given (v. 13), reminds us at once that all the disciples’ work is rooted in his work, and is in fact his work.”

[6] Bultmann, John, 610-611. “Jesus’ word is word of revelation in continual newness on every occasion when it is present. Only when is effective in this way in the community does Jesus’ work come to its fruition. Thus there is no question here of supplementing or surpassing Jesus’ work in any quantitive way.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 610. “[The promise] also corresponds to the promise of the Paraclete, who is to continue what Jesus had done, and whose work is carried through in the community’s proclamation of the word (15.26f.; 16.4b ff.). The disciples are to regard the taking up of their task—and this is the point here—as the Father’s work. What further need have they then to ask: δεῖξον ἡμῖν τὸν πατἐρα? Indeed, the Father’s work, which began with what Jesus did, is to prove its power more and more in what they do: καὶ μεἰζονα τοὐτων ποιἠσει.”

[8] Cardenal Solentiname 554 “OLIVA: “To ask in his name isn’t to say prayers mentioning his name, like so many who pray and are rich and exploiters. Specifically, here in Nicaragua I think that to ask in his name is not to pray but to act.’”

[9] Bultmann, John, 614. “V. 15: the answer to the question how a relationship of love can be established with the departed Revealer is this: it consists in the disciple fulfilling his commands.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 614. “It is of course natural, following 13.34; 15.12, 17, to think of the command of love, and this is certainly included in the summons to faith, just as 15.9-17 make it equally certain that faith as an abiding in love cannot be a reality without the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν. However, this side of the matter is not stressed in this context. It is faith that is demanded, demanded of course in the fulness of its significance as existential living.”

[11] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 558. “FELIPE: “Because Christians often have a love that’s just talk, and those who aren’t Christians are the ones that make love a reality they are acting the truth; because even though they don’t talk about love or Christianity or theories of that sort, they’re really the ones that are following the truth, practicing the truth.”

[12] Cardenal Solentiname 558. “GUSTAVO, the Colombian: “I think that truth, the whole truth, is always revolutionary. Then the spirit of truth is something that moves things to change, to cast down the oppressor’s lie, to impose the truth of the oppressed.’”

[13] Bultmann, John, 615. “Thus there is a peculiar paradox inherent in the promise; the word of revelation, which the community is always encountering, is the very word which the community itself utters. It is responsible for the proclamation, and only when it grasps this responsibility does it experience the power of the word as the word of revelation.”

[14] Cardenal Solentiname 558. “I: “In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Yahweh, which is the same as saying the spirit of justice and liberation. He’s the one who spoke through the prophets proclaiming the truth.’”

[15] We use the Ionian Creed

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