theodicy – Salvaged Faith

Cries for Healing

Posted on June 12, 2016Leave a comment

“I alone am left. “

That was what Elijah had started to believe in his heart, as Trevor shared with our congregation last week.

But Elijah was not alone. He was not the last of the faithful prophets.

In fact, right there in that very cave, Elijah hears the name of the one who would succeed him – Elisha.

Elisha was no one special. He was the son of a wealthy land-owner but not immune to labor and work. And so when he is called, he tells his family goodbye and follows Elijah. For seven or eight years, he serves as his apprentice until Elijah is taken up into heaven by a fiery chariot and Elisha takes up his mantle.

And all summer, we will be exploring the everyday people who received an extraordinary calling to serve God in their time and place.

Lest we forget that these are simply every day people, one of the very first “miraculous” acts that Elisha performs is to get revenge on a bunch of kids that call him “Baldy.”

In 2 Kings chapter 2 – Elisha is walking down the road when a group of young people start taunting him for his lack of hair… “Get going, Baldy! Get going Baldy!”

So, he curses them and bears appear out of nowhere and attack the youth.

No one is perfect.

Elisha answers his call to guide the people by warning the kingdom of ambushes, and has a role in the downfall of the house of Ahab. He speaks God’s word about who will be king in both Israel and in Syria.

In the midst of political intrigue and the constant fighting between nations, Elisha’s story is also deeply woven with signs that the power of God was present in the lives of the people. He was a great wonder-worker and filled with the Spirit of God he brings healing and resurrection, he multiplies loaves and creates food in the midst of famine. Water springs forth with a word and a song. And these miracles are for both the leaders and for the overlooked and downtrodden.

I find great comfort in that.

Because in our time and place, like Elisha’s, famines and disaster, war and politicking are an ever present reality. The problems of this world are so big and seem so out of our control.

And sometimes it is hard to even imagine that God would listen to the cries of someone like me… like us.

But in the midst of even our individual pain and brokenness… God is present.

One of the most famous of these miracles of healing done by Elisha was that of the Aramean military commander, Naaman. He was a great warrior and helped to lead raiding parties into Israel to capture and conquer. Yet he lived with leprosy, a skin disease that greatly bothered him.

In our text for this morning, we discover a number of ways in which God works to bring healing to our lives… in spite of our preconceptions, our pride, and our inability to see the providential love of God at work.

First, God brings healing through providential bystanders.

Donald McKim describes God’s providence as “God preserving creation, cooperating with all creatures and guiding or governing all things toward the accomplishment of God’s purposes.” Or, as Carrie Mitchell puts it: “God employs ordinary people to act in extraordinary ways.”

In the story of Naaman, it is the voice of a young Israelite woman, a servant in Naaman’s household that points his way towards healing.

She has no name in this story and she had been captured and taken far from home, against her will. And yet, in spite of her lack of power or agency, she allows God to use her to bless another.

I’ve been thinking a lot about bystanders this week, especially in the wake of the national conversation about the Stanford sexual assault case. Two young men, who happened to be passing by, made a difference in that young woman’s life.

One of the realities of our human story is that we are not immune from pain and violence, tragedy and illness. Our bodies our fragile, our spirits are bent towards sin, and we harm one another through our action and inaction.

But we also have the fantastic capacity to help. In those moments when we become aware of the pain, suffering, and tragedy of another, God is guiding us, directing us, shouting out for us to hear the call to be a difference maker and work towards healing and hope in another’s life.

It is the prompting of the Spirit that causes us to turn around when we would have walked past. It is that tug of the heart that calls us to speak a word of comfort or to reach out with a personal touch.

And that is exactly what the young servant girl did. She knew the power of God was with Elisha and so she used her voice to speak a word of good news to her troubled master.

You may be an ordinary person, but wherever you are, if you are paying attention, God can and will use you to bring healing and hope into another person’s life. Maybe God is calling you to visit someone or to pray for them. Maybe God is inviting you to point someone in a different direction or refer them to someone who can help.

Pay attention to where you might be in just the right place at just the right time to bring healing and hope.

Second, God’s healing is bigger than our faith.

One of the fascinating parts of this story is that it is about the healing of an enemy.

That young servant girl is only in Naaman’s household because she was captured on a raid. There is conflict and distrust between Israel and Aram… further evidenced by the way in which the King of Israel tore his clothes when the request for healing came. He thought it must have been a trap, an enticement to war… rather than an opportunity to show the power of his God.

The king’s distrust in this moment put both his enemy AND his God into a box.

When we look upon another person and are not willing to see the possibility of transformation in their life, it is easy to write them off. We do it with enemies, but we also do it with people who have disappoint us, or who are different than us.

And when we are not willing to see God work in the lives of the people we have written off, then we miss the opportunity for transformation in our own lives.

Last fall, I was part of the Right Next Door conference and we explored what it means to really listen to the stories and lives of people who are just down the street. Sometimes, the label we attach to another person: poor, felon, addicted… keep us from sharing the transforming love of God with them… AND keep us from seeing how the transforming love of God is already at work in their lives.

When we read this story of Naaman, what we discover is that the point is not even the healing of Naaman, but the way that Naaman is brought to faith because of the healing he experienced. Elisha offers to heal him, even though he’s not part of the elect of Israel. Even though he is an enemy. Even though he doesn’t believe in Elisha’s God. And as Naaman returns from the river, he declares: “Now I know for certain that there’s no God anywhere on earth except in Israel.”

And if we refuse to see God working in the lives of the other, we miss the opportunity to be transformed ourselves.

Finally, God’s healing doesn’t always look the way we want it to.

This is perhaps the most important lesson of our scripture this morning.

As Naaman finally got the opportunity to meet Elisha, he was greeted by a servant instead of the prophet.

The instructions seemed too simple and Naaman stomped away in anger.

When we pray for healing, we are initiating a conversation with God and the answer we get back is not always the answer that we want.

Healing does not always happen according to our plans and I have no simple answers as to why that is.

Sometimes we get miracles. Sometimes we are invited into a difficult journey that is full of joy and sorrow. Sometimes healing comes in the next life instead of this one.

All that we know is that this scripture, as Haywood Barringer Spangler puts it: “discourages our tendancy to look for God’s work in terms of our own desires or expectations. Naaman’s healing does not occur as he expects, but as God chooses.”

We are not immune from tragedy and we cannot always see God’s picture of this world.

Prayer is not a magic word. Rather, it is a relationship where we both cry out and we must be silent and listen. When we pray for healing we stay in the conversation, in a relationship with our God so that we might be comforted in our suffering and so that we might start to hear and understand God’s will is in the midst of our pain.

Today, we have the opportunity to pray for one another. We have the opportunity to bring our prayers and concerns, our hurts and pains and to place them in God’s hands.

May we be the answer to another’s prayers. May we look for God to work in unexpected people and places. And may we listen as much as we speak so that we can understand God’s healing presence in our own lives.

Amen.

Toby and the Church

Posted on November 29, 2011Leave a comment

I think one of the saddest moments I have witnessed on NBC’s “The Office” is seeing Toby Flenderson stand alone outside of a church.

The whole gang is gathered at a local Presbyterian church for the baptism of Jim and Pam’s daughter Cece. But no Toby is to be found.

That’s not actually that unusual. Toby doesn’t fit in well with the others at the office. Being the HR guy, he has to enforce rules and regulations and it doesn’t help that Michael Scott, the boss, makes him EXTREMELY uncomfortable by always hating on him in front of others. He’s not the most social guy in the world, so you just imagine he might be somewhere else that day.

But then, there is a cut shot to Toby standing outside of the church doors. Overhead, carved in stone, it reads “All are Welcome.” And Toby can’t bring himself to go in.

He’s been through a divorce. And he’s Catholic, so I’m sure there is a layer of frustration and exclusion that he has felt from his own tradition around things like communion. He struggles to have a meaningful relationship with his daughter. No one really sticks up for him when Michael picks on him. He broke a bazillion bones in Costa Rica when he finally got the chance to get away from it all and ended up right back at Dunder Mifflin. The woman he has had a crush on in forever is now inside of that church, baptizing her daughter. Life has not been the best for Toby.

I saw in his eyes as he stood outside of those doors a deep sense of disappointment. He doesn’t feel good enough, worthy enough, loved enough… but at the same time, he knows that he deserves better than what he has recieved.

When he finally walks in the doors, that pain in his heart leads him to the front of the church where he stares at the cross and asks, “Why do you have to be so mean to me?”

There are points in each of our faith journeys where we and the “big man” upstairs have our problems. We look at the situation we have been handed and we think its unfair. We don’t understand why we have to deal with all of this pain and frustration when other people seem to have it easier.

And there are days when we, like Toby, find ourselves at the foot of a cross, or on the corner of a street, or alone in our bedrooms and we cry out, Why?

There are some who would be quick to denounce these cries of doubt and disbelief, but Toby and those of us who cry out find ourselves in good company. The psalms are full of these emotional outbursts and cries:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1-2)

LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Your arrows have pierced me,
and your hand has come down on me.
Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;
there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.
My guilt has overwhelmed me
like a burden too heavy to bear. (Psalm 38: 1-4)

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me? (Psalm 13:1-2)

We are human. And the weight of this world can be heavy upon our shoulders. Especially when all around us we see darkness and not the light.

It is okay for us to cry out. It is perfectly alright for us to scream at God – How long? Why? What is going on here?

But like the Psalmists, we can’t stay there. Each one of those psalms concludes with a reminder that God is good and steadfast and full of mercy and love. With a reminder of the power of our creator God to overcome our darkness and sorrow and pain. Because rain falls on the just and the injust. Sun shines on us all. And mixed in with those cloudy days, we have to remember that there has been sunshine too… If we are going to blame God for everything bad that has ever happened to us, then we need to give him credit for the good, too.

So go ahead, cry out with Toby and ask, “Why?” Express your frustration. But maybe do so with the Psalms in your hands. Use the words to help you let your pain out… and then carry you into praise and thanksgiving for a God that never leaves our side and never forgets us… no matter how far away we think God is.

The Karma Question

Posted on September 13, 2010Leave a comment

On the season six finale of House, a woman is trapped in a building and Dr. House is right there beside her while they try to get her out.

The situation is desperate. We learn a little bit about who she is, her husband waiting back home, her hopes and dreams. But there she is. Stuck. And unable to get out.

At one point, she turns to Dr. House and asks him to pray with her.

Now, anyone who is familiar with the show knows that Dr. House is not a man of faith. He thinks religion is superstitious nonsense that his patients should be rid of. He frequently butts heads with colleagues and those he is supposed to care for. God is the farthest thing from his mind.

So when House is asked to pray, his first response is a resolute, “no.” He follows up with the thought that he doesn’t believe in God. Which leads our stuck woman, Hanna, to reply back – “neither do I.” The two sit for a few moments in silence, presumably joining together in a moment of silent prayer to a God that neither is sure exists.

When the moment has finished, Hanna says that she used to think that if she was a good person, if she tried to do the right thing, that everything would be okay. But here she is, stuck underneath a building. How do these things happen?

It’s a question we all struggle with. Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there anything that we can do to avoid the perils of this world? And if God is so good, why is there so much pain in the world? Well, maybe those are three different questions. But at the root, it’s a question of theodicy. It’s a question about the power of God.

My simple answer to this question is that this is not yet the new creation. This world is fallen. And that is not only a statement about human sin, but about the totality of creation. Natural disasters, accidents, illness – all of these things are signs that the world is not as it should be.

The answer to this fallenness is that God has put into motion a plan to make it all new again. God has already begun to act in the saving work of the creation. Already, signs of the inbreaking of the Reign of God can be seen. The earth quakes in birth pangs… God is redeeming it all.

But it’s not done yet. It’s not whole yet. We are still living in a fallen, broken, messed up creation. And so in this world, even when we do everything right – that doesn’t mean we get a happy ending.

what to do when your faith is shaken

Posted on August 14, 2010Leave a comment

On a television show like “Bones,” faith and reason, science and religion, seem to be inevitably at odds. That is part of the beauty of the chemistry between Booth and Brennan – this dynamic interplay reminds me that just because something appears to be contrary doesn’t mean it has nothing in common.

While there could be many places to start with an episode called, The Devil in the Details, an episode about a body found lit on fire in the middle of a Roman Catholic sanctuary, it was the last few minutes that caught my eye.

Brennan asks Booth a simple question – how is your faith not shaken after a case like this one? And his simple answer is, it is. He’s going to lie awake tonight and toss and turn and question and doubt. But he trusts that his faith will come back as much as he trusts the sun will rise the next morning.

My mind immediately went to the philosopher Hume, who took empiricism to its farthest limits when he posited that just because the sun has come up every other morning is no guarantee that it will come up on the next morning. Cause and effect is not something that we can see or touch or taste.

Brennan’s response lies somewhere between Hume and faith. She is concerned with causes and effects and when she sees an effect, like a dead person, and cannot determine the cause – her ability to trust in the basics of science and reason is tested. But throughout it all – even when she can’t see what she is looking for, she can trust that 2+2 = 4. “There are mysteries that I will never understand, but everywhere I look I see proof that for every effect there is a corresponding cause… even if I can’t see it. I find that reassuring.”

I was once told that our faith needs to be strong enough so that if one of the pillars of that faith is shaken, the whole thing won’t come tumbling down. The question always seemed to me – what are the pillars that are okay to be shaken? And what are the immovable and unshakable tenants of our faith?

For Booth and Brennan – it was the simple things that provided the grounding. The sun coming up. A simple mathematical equation. Something that we can see with our eyes, something that will never possibly be untrue. We may not know why… but we simply know.

Despite all of the questions of theodicy and good and evil and causes and effects… what are the things that we KNOW? what are the things that never go away – no matter how much our faith is shaken and how we are tossed about? what is your grounding, your anchor in the midst of a storm?

Whether it is rational or not – or biblical or not – I always go back to the simple premise that God is love. No matter the tragedies in the world, I trust that God is love and that God is present with those who are hurting. I trust that whatever evil has befallen us, that God is love and that love will conquer all. It is as true for me as the sun rising in the morning or a mathematical equation. Throw in all of the clouds and variables that you want… the earth will keep spinning and God will still be love.

the potential demise of “the beast” and whether or not God cares.

Posted on February 10, 2010Leave a comment

Those of you who know me on facebook or twitter will be aware by now that I was in a car accident on Monday. “The Beast,” as many affectionately call my dad’s car is in a ditch somewhere. While I’ve had my share of bumps and taps in a car while driving (I have both bumped a car in front of me at a stop sign and been bumped from behind at a light… and then there was the whole hitting of the cement pole thing that is a very long story) – and even was in another accident when we hit a deer on the interstate, this accident was very scary.

As I have had to recount the incident dozens of times – both in my own head and to insurance adjustors and to family and friends, I’m not necessarily going to do that again here. In part, because it all happened so quickly… or so slowly… I can’t tell if time was speeding by or slowed down and everything took place in half a second or half a minute. All I know is that I had changed lanes to avoid/give room to a vehicle that lost control and as that vehicle came back into my new lane, I hit the brakes and prayed that we wouldn’t collide.

We did.

As a pastor, I’ve thought about where God has been in all of this. It’s easy to both be absolutely grateful and absolutely pissed off. On the one hand, no one was really hurt in the accident and I am utterly thankful for that. It could have been worse – much worse. On the other hand, it could appear that all of those prayers for safe travel fell on deaf ears. I not only was in an accident, but I also couldn’t make it to my ordination interview. Really, God? Was that a part of your plan?

But then as a person of faith who wrestles with God quite often, I also find myself not wanting to do either of those things. I find myself not really wanting to place God in the situation at all. I chose to drive that day. The other driver also chose to drive. The wind changed directions, the road got icy, stuff happens and we collided. No where in that entire scenario does God have to intervene. There were choices made and actions taken and then there were appropriate consequences.

I guess it’s the battle between free will and determinism that is wrestling inside of me. I read the scriptures that says God knows the number of hairs on my head and that God won’t leave me or forsake me. But does that also mean that I think God will protect me from bad things happening my entire life? Not at all. Do I think that all actions have consequences – good and bad? Sure. Does that mean that God intentionally sends things into our lives to teach us lessons or to punish us? Not really.

I know that my little “adventure” on the interstate nowhere near compares to disasters and tragedies and heartache that others have felt in their lives and that we all will continue to experience in this life. At the root, however, I guess what I’m wrestling with here is a question of theodicy.

And the only answer I can come up with is that God was present in how we chose to respond to the situation. The woman who was in the other car and I sat down at a Perkins Restaurant over a pot of coffee and some pie and we talked. We got to know one another a little better and talked about our families and why we were both on the road that day. We cried together over what had happened. And we knew that despite it all, in spite of being far from home and not knowing what to do next, that we were not alone. We experienced table fellowship and allowed this yucky thing that happened to bring us closer together. We felt hope in the midst of despair.

If that’s not God… then I don’t know what is.

Doctrine of God… or something.

Posted on January 9, 20102 Comments

When I submitted my candidacy papers, I had just finished Constructive Theology. I was in a totally heady space, although I also had a lot of practical application involved.

In my first round of papers, here is how I talked about God:

We have come to know and trust in God primarily through scripture – which holds the accounts of faithful witnesses to God’s work in history. There we learn that the God we worship is not a passive entity, but jealous, powerful, and always seeking relationship with creation. While some theologians begin with the via positiva or via negativa to describe God, Wesleyan theology begins with the scriptures and from that place, redefines the “natural characteristics” of God. We come to know God’s nature through the covenant made with the Hebrew people and the new covenant of Jesus Christ, as well as the continuing witness of the Holy Spirit. Above all, these actions tell us that God works in ways that invite human response and gives us the power to respond in faith. This is particularly true in regards to God’s power – which Randy Maddox argues must “not be defined or defended in any way that undercuts human responsibility.” God seeks to work in co-operative ways; ways that build, rather than destroy, relationship…

In his own time, Wesley was familiar with not only the Western notions of the divine, but also explored Eastern conceptions as well, which Maddox claims influenced his theology in subtle, though profound ways. Though he never directly claimed the Eastern Orthodox understanding of perichoresis as a description of the Trinity, it is not disconsonant with other of his claims, and in fact helps us to comprehend the relational nature of God. If our sources and the ways in which God is revealed are diverse (the economic Trinity) and yet always in need of one another, it would make sense to assume that God’s internal relations (the immanent Trinity) are likewise diverse and in need of a constant dance.

I still remember one of my Board of Ministry team members saying: I was a little worried about you after I read the answers to your first question… but then you got more practical.

Note to that team member: I actually did teach perichoresis… in a children’s sermon, nonetheless… we got up and danced in a circle and it was fabulous.

The ordination papers as I understand them are meant to be more practical and experiential. So here is my answer to the question:

How has the practice of ministry affected your experience and understanding of God?

I have always firmly believed that God is relational and so it will come as no surprise that I have found and experienced God in the midst of the congregation. The lives of my parishioners carry on the story of God that was begun with the Hebrew people and we weave together our experience of God with the scriptures that have been passed on to us for future generations.

That understanding of God, however, has been most directly challenged and stretched in the practice of ministry through encountering over and over again the via positiva. So many in my congregation experience God as omnipotent, omni-present and omniscient and therefore see every minute detail of their lives as having been directly set into motion by the God of the universe. On the one hand, it gives me pause as I think about how various pieces of my own life have fallen into place by the grace of God. On the other hand, as a Wesleyan theologian, I also want to fight against determinism. I still hold firmly an understanding of God derived from scriptures – that God works in ways that invite human response and gives us the power to respond in faith, a god that allows it to rain on the just and unjust alike. I recoil when I hear a congregation member talk about how God caused something to happen in their life in order to bring them to faith. While it may be the result of such a time of tragedy that brought about their faith, I refuse to believe God causes pain and suffering in one person in order to reach another.

As I work with congregational members as their pastor and teacher, being able to talk about our Triune God, is immensely powerful. I can share with them my firm belief that in all situations, the Father of us all has always desired a relationship with each one of us. I can talk with them about the sacrificial love of Christ Jesus who died so that we might live… who died to bring us faith so that others do not have to die or suffer for that reason. I can talk about the Holy Comforter walking with each and every single one of us through the valley of the shadow of death. Our encounter with God in the scriptures is so much richer and deeper than any attribute we might postulate about our creator and redeemer and sanctifier.

Photo by: William Vermeulen

Moltmann Conversation – Session 3 Crucified God

Posted on September 10, 2009Leave a comment

• Soteriology didn’t make sense until I read this book – Shroyer

• Don and ann from a pastoral perspective, other speaker coming from a personal working through pain and changing ideas of God – three years since his 4 mo. Son died. Questions of where God is in the midst of that. Moltmann is helpful in remembering the pathos of God – the passability of God. Asking the Why? The why questions is not helpful, because there is no answer we would accept. The why question Jesus answered was the resurrection, but not an explanation. We ask for what will not satisfy us – we don’t want to have an answer – there is no answer that can bring us to peace with the suffering. If we feel the presence of the suffering Christ next to us, in us, that he shares our suffering and we his, then we have consolation. The other question is whether there is a process after death ,to bring the destiny of a life that was cut short – I believe there is. God will bring to a good end what he had begun with a human person

• Dismissal of the question of theodicy, and yet the question is so ubiquitous – I affirm that this is the wrong question, Caputo talks about weak forces in the world from physics (like gravity) – yet people constantly critique God – is this only a philosophical thing: it comes from the stoic philosophy… if God is omnipotent and good, how can ____. So there is no understanding of love, suffering, compassion because it starts from those two qualifications of God from greek philosophy and not from the scriptures. The more I thought about it, I not only felt the compassion and sympathy of Jesus in his passion, as our suffering, but also the bereavement of the Father. If Jesus really was true in saying “why hast thou forsaken me” then the father is also forsaken by his son and we then have two sides of the triune one which suffer bereavement as we do, and the other who suffers forsakenness. For me at least, this was a consolation.

• Challenge in pastoral care – people want a god that is very powerful and want concrete answers – that God is vulnerable, how do we communicate that to our churches? By preaching the presence of Jesus Christ instead of talking about a God apart from the life and the destiny of Jesus Christ. When in my younger years talked about this morning had problems with God, Jesus came and solved these problems I had with God. This is a problem people have with God, but they won’t have them with Christ – without Christ, I would certainly be an atheist as the other members of my family because looking into a human mystery I am not convinced there is a God that has everything under control. Can’t look in the face of a tsunami and see God’s love…. I don’t like general talk about a god – there are so many gods good and evil

• Theologians listening to people, when I speak to people as a pastor and talk about God suffering with them, they feel disappointed b/c they want someone to pull them out. How does the suffering God give us hope? The suffering God is a compassionate God – the god who is there in your distress and situation, he is not far away from you b/c he is compassionate and suffering with you. Other hand – outcome of crucifixion = resurrection, new life, eternal life. We trust the same God that is with us will raise us and bring us into that new life. Suffering God is only the one side. Other side is the God of life. We have a hard time looking at both side. The joy of God and the joy with God at the end is greater than the suffering and grief we experience.

• Validity of the theodicy question? Volf said that atheists are closer to God than theists b/c they are arguing with God constantly… someone said it’s like Moltmann experienced Christ and then fell into the trinity: Looking at Christ, I see God, his God is my God. Theism is a general understanding of transcendence and that there is a higher power somewhere. Atheism is difficult because we had this type of protest – atheism. The best story about it is in the brothers karimozov – Ivan protests because of the suffering of an innocent child – I have nothing against God in heaven, but this earth as God’s kingdom I reject b/c there is not justice on earth. We had that kind of protest atheism after the war that the German Catholic poet said, I don’t like these atheists – they always talk about God! But another time of atheism which is just banality – just talk. In 19th c. the theodicy question is: If God, why evil? Best answer = no God, so the question collapses.

• The god the atheists are debunking is not the God we experience – how so: They have no use for God in their life, neither negative nor positive – you can live without using, but you miss a lot of your life – the liveliness of your life. There are two lands in Europe where atheism is wide spread, perhaps because of a long tradition of suffering under religious persecutions

• Protest atheism – protest hope… as people of God in the world, we live as protesters for hope, holding onto it in the face of suffering and reality: when one has seen the God of Hope (1 Peter 3) we wait and hasten the coming day of the Lord… we wait expectantly for someone that we have been promised is coming – we don’t adjust to unjust conditions in the present because we know that it can and will be changed and therefore you resist conformity and silence to injustice and violence in your surrounding. To wait in this sense means to resist.

• How do we actively resist and be in dialogue and resistance as the church? Follow the Sermon on the Mount – resist capital punishment…. In all the churches we pray, but the NT calling is not only to pray but to pray and watch so open your eyes if you pray to God and see what is a contradiction to God and what is an analogy to the coming of God – watch and don’t close your eyes and transcend to the other world.

• ?:– we have turned this instrument of painful dying into something of gold and silver – we should be reminded of the cross of God again and again and those who followed the crucified one – the early Christians who were called in their surrounding atheists because they refused to serve the political demons of the Roman Empire and they suffered the same fate of Jesus. Only changed after Constatnine – HCE = two crosses… the real Cross of Golgatha, the other is the dream cross of Constantine – on this sign we will win and they painted it on their shields and they won the battle… since that time we have these two crosses. The german, Victoria, st. george cross… they all go back to emperor Constantine and this makes a lot of confusion! All Christian nations have a cross on their flag – only the Americans don’t have it and that’s good (but we have turned our flag into a cross!!!!) On God, One Cross, One Empire – this was emperialistic because of the oneness of God and the oneness of Caesar – St. George = dragon killer saved the church, changed from a Martyr to a dragon killer… St Michael = archangel killing the dragon in heaven, symbolism of Holy Christian Empire that worked until the present day. I agree with the Anabaptists that we must go back to the origin to find a new future for Xty in the world – apart from this time of Xian imperialism

• Atonement theory – Penal Substitutionary, Christus Victor – Jones calls it the Indentification theory, that God identifies with the forsaken part of humanity and the atonement…? We identify with Christ on the cross – so it’s a double identification… is that right? Is that theologically, economically a transaction that takes place in the atonement. It’s very appealing that God suffered, was really tempted, really walked in our shoes, and when we identify with his suffering on the cross, that’s atonement.. How does itwork? We can call it 1) Christology of solidarity, he suffers with us, 2) he suffers for us, the guilty… both sides belong together. He suffers for us is a reconciling suffering – but we must see both sides together. He was given up for our sins and raised for our justification, so the whole process is called justification, on the other hand forgiveness of sin, the crucified one, on the other resurrection – has to bring you to a new life, a new righteous life. There is another point – I had tried to convince Catholics and Lutherans about it, but couldn’t get through. 1) justification of the sinner – but what about victims of sin? Must we not speak about justification of victims of violence and injustice – God is righteous because he gives right to those who suffer. The victims are important and the justification of the victims is the first act – in practical terms, the sinners who have become guilty of their victims have a very short memory, if they remember at all – but those who suffer have a very long memory. For those on the side of the guilty want to enter into life, you have to listen to victims because they tell you who you really are – there is no justification of sinners w/o justification of victims first!!! After the war, we listened to the stories of survivors of concentration camps- because we didn’t know what happened in the death camps. We listened to their stories and looked into the eyes of the survivors and became aware of who we the Germans really were. Same took place in the truth commissions in Africa – the victims must tell the stories, perpetrators must listen to the stories, or they can’t become aware of their guilt. Sacrament of repentance! Confess the truth, change your mind, make good what you have done evil as you can… but there is no ritual/sacrament for the justification of the victims – they have to overcome depression, weakened, degraded – we need to help them get out of this, so that they can overcome feelings of revenge to overcome evil by the good – so they can be alleviated, can raise their harts to God – can find a new self-confidence.
(Resources from Missy Meyers – Andrew Sung Park – rituals for victims… Ruth Duck has some communion liturgies and resources that are helpful here)

• Talk about love. What is so helpful about your work is it reframes so much for us – “anyone who enters into love and suffering enters into God – his forsakenness is lifted in the forsakenness of Christ – need not look away from the negative and death” I think you are expressing a whole new understanding of love that we get from God that helps us experience pain and suffering: The greatest challenge when suffering comes is to become apathetic, to not love anymore because it will cause only pain. If you love no one, you will feel no suffering – if you don’t love yourself you will not feel your own death b/c you don’t care. I saw soldiers who became so apathetic that they don’t care about death b/c they were completely resigned and no logner in service of life, but in service of death. We have similar development with terrorists today – once said – Your young people love life, our young people love death – if you love death, you cannot be threatened with punishment! You cannot feel any deterrent. This is a real danger. If you love life again, you risk disappointment, you must be ready to suffer on behalf of your compassion for another person and you must be ready to feel their dying. (I wonder how this relates to the health care conversation – we don’t want to see/feel other people’s pain and are only worried about our own)

• Personal salvation, Personal cross? All of creation has the space for redemption I nthe cross: In Western tradition we lost the cosmic traditions of Christology that we find in Ephesians and Colossians – that Christ died for the redemption of the universe – it is also corrupted and there are conflicting powers in the world so that even the universe needs reconciliation… not that only humans will be saved, but the universe will be saved – it is a deification of the cosmos! Christ became human so that the whole cosmos will become the place where God makes God’s home

• Universalism? Not a Universalist because there are some people I don’t want to see again – but God created them and would certainly like to see them again. Universalism is not only to speak about all human beings, but to speak about the universe, the stars and the moon and the sun and the whole cosmos. This is always misunderstood by fundamentalists that want a dual end or to have the other go to hell, this is anti-creation! I don’t want to go to heaven, the angels have their home in heave – I want to be reaised on earth and to live on the new earth in which justice lives. God in the end will be all in all – so where then is heaven? Christ ascent to heaven has an eye opening effect on us to those we wish to go to heaven. Luther once said in treatise on preparing for dying – don’t look at hell in the destiny of others – don’t look at heaven in your own destiny – look at hell in the wounds of Christ, there the hell is overcome, because Christ suffered.

Theologically Worrisome

Posted on June 22, 20081 Comment

I’m procrastinating on my sermom fine-tuning by posting here, but it is something that has been troubling me. If people in my congregation are having thoughts that I feel are theologically worrisome, do I let them continue in them, or just keep telling them my own over and over?

Specifically, this is about interpreting the string of natural disasters that have hit our world as warnings from God. There is a strong sense that we are getting ever closer to the end times and these tragic events are reminders to straighten up and fly right. And everything within my cries “no.” In the local UM pastors meeting, we talked about not judgment, not warning, but about God leading us throught the stormy waters, about the promise that the waters would not overcome, about Christ being the rock we cling to in these times…

it’s really a question of theodicy and God’s soverign power. Is God behind natural disasters, or not? Can God stop them? And if God can and doesn’t, what does it mean? I reside much more in the mysteriousness of God’s power and the reminder of God’s promises… whereas, my congregation holds fast to God’s power over all and unending desire to get us to obey… so we come out in different places. I’m gently urging them not to consider another person’s disaster as an intentional means of God speaking to the world… especially when so much life has been destroyed – to me, that seems so counter to the God I know and love and follow. But I still struggle.