Pastor Scott's Thoughts

A Lament for a New Liturgical Year: Based on Isaiah 64

My message this morning for the first Sunday of Advent was from Isaiah 64:1-9. The text is part of a lengthy lament as the prophet implores God to tear open the heavens and come down.

The lament eventually turns to confession and a realization that the Jerusalem rubble surrounding the Judeans is a consequence of their disobedience and sin. They have nowhere to turn. No hope for a future.

Translators tend to put an extra space – a gap – between verses seven and eight. On the other side of that gap of despair comes a word of grace that breaks through the darkness… YET

That “yet” (or in the CEB “But now...”) is Judah’s gift of faith to us all. That beautiful “yet” rends the chains of hopelessness. That magnificent “yet” turns the action away from Judah and their sin and moves the action squarely onto God and his presence, God and his action, God and his character.

The “yet” proclaims that we are not:

• Just disobedient slaves in the grip of an offended master.
• Law-breakers in the condemning glare of an unsympathetic judge.
• Products of a cosmic accident living isolated lives with no ultimate meaning or purpose.
• Simply sinners in the hands of an angry God (sorry Jonathan Edwards).

We are instead (v. 8):

• Children of a loyal parent whose love runs too deep to abandon their children to fate.
• Clay in the hands of a magnificent potter, who uses even the worst of our rubble to create masterful works of art.

A lament is an odd way to begin a new year – even a liturgical one.

• The culture begins the New Year with a list of resolutions. The church begins with prayers of confession.
• The culture begins with Dick Clark’s rockin’ hits. The church begins with advent laments in minor keys.
• The culture begins with millions of lights in Time’s Square. The church begins with the simplicity of one candle on a wreath.
• The culture welcomes a New Year with confetti. The church enters in ashes.
• The culture toasts the turning of the calendar with champagne. The church gathers around a cup of suffering.

So in that spirit and in the Spirit of Isaiah 64, I wrote the following Lament for a New Liturgical Year.

 

A LAMENT FOR A NEW LITURGICAL YEAR (2017-18 YEAR B)

O, God if you would only tear open the heavens and come down!

Come and shake us out of our apathy.

Come and unite us with your compassion.

Come and heal us with your presence.

We have had enough of our rubble.

Our rubble is not made of fragmented stones from fallen city walls and a devastated Temple. Our rubble is more subtle, but just as real. It is the rubble of a world turned in upon itself.

We are tired, God.

We are tired of being at war with our neighbor.

We are tired of tyrants who turn citizens into desperate refugees.

We are tired of fearing the stranger.

We are tired of the continual threat of destruction.

We are tired of people misusing their positions of power against others.

We are tired of acts of terror – and tired of our failure to imagine any other way to respond than the creation of terror in return.

We are tired of how our lusts and the distortion of our desires erode every relationship and destroy the lives of our children.

We are tired of greed and the way it forms systems that benefit the few on the backs of the many.

We are tired of our bluster, pride, and arrogance. Our divisive political rhetoric is pushing us to the point of exhaustion.

We are tired of keeping up appearances and expending all our energy for things that will not last.

We are tired of the idols of amusement that sedate us into apathy.

We are tired of drowning in information while starving for wisdom.

We are tired of floods, quakes, and winds. We cannot take any more death, and destruction. And we are tired of that deep inner sense of fear that we are unwittingly awakening those primeval forces of chaos that we cannot control.

With Judah, we begin a new year sitting in the rubble our sinfulness has made… morally, emotionally, spiritually and physically exhausted to the point of despair…

We have fallen into a gap of iniquity that seems to be swallowing all of creation in with it…

YET… YET… You are our Father.

YET… YET… You are the potter… we are your clay.

So we gather around your table reminded that you are present in our suffering.

But more than that, we gather around your table - not in fear of scarcity - but in the abundance of Advent hope that... 

Your light can penetrate the darkness of our despair…

Your goodness can overcome the chaos of our evil…

Your grace can transform the rubble of our sin…

Your life can make all things new.

We come around your table of grace as prisoners of hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who had been given to us.

Merry Subversive Christmas

The Christmas story has never seemed so relevant to me… and so subversive.

Over the weekend people of faith will gather in churches and living rooms – around altars and evergreens – and read the Christ birth narrative from the second chapter of Luke. The story begins with these words: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” (2:1).

I wonder in this year filled with the rhetoric of politics if the church will be able to hear and be disturbed anew by Luke the insurrectionist?

Luke’s story of Christmas is set up in chapter one by two highly revolutionary songs. Mary, the mother of Jesus, sings about how this one she carries not only will but already has, “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (1:52-53). His relative Zechariah sings about how God has, “raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David” (1:69).

With these songs of rebellion still ringing in our ears, Luke begins by naming the days as those belonging to Emperor Augustus. Of course, Emperor (or Caesar) Augustus wasn’t his real name. His given name was Gaius Octavius. Caesar and Augustus are titles of honor and authority given to a great ruler who for forty-one years brought stability, prosperity, and peace to the empire. The adopted son of Julius Caesar, Augustus had become the model of leadership. From his time in glorious power on, all Roman emperors would live in the shadow of Augustus. The days of their reign would always be compared to the majestic “days of Emperor Augustus.”

These were such good days for the average Roman that they bestowed “god” status to Julius Caesar and conferred such titles to Octavius as August, son of a god, savior of the nation, lord of the world, and prince of peace.

As is the case with all empires, their glory days weren’t glorious for everyone. This empire had exiles, an underclass, people who existed at the margins – today we would call them refugees. The Jews of the first century were perceived by the empire as a problematic group of people who practiced an odd and sometimes violent religion. The Hebrew people’s strict monotheism made them appear to be quaint and anachronistic compared to the modern, progressive, and more intellectual forms of polytheism that had led the state to such heights of military power and economic prominence.

Of course the Jews themselves were not unified. Some wanted to tone down the more demanding edges of faith and find ways to thrive within the civil religion of the empire. Some wanted to find secure places in the desert – away from the paganism of the urban centers – in hopes of being left alone to practice holiness in isolation. Some lived openly pious lives – dressing oddly, praying publically, demanding their religious liberty – expecting that God would see their faithfulness and undo the power of Rome. Others took their zealousness to extremes and used any measures and methods available to create terror for the empire.

When empires don't understand a people they tend to paint them with a broad brush and simply deal with them generically. Usually the best way for an empire to handle religiously odd refugees is to make decrees and laws that register them, destabilize them (keep them moving), control their population growth, violently make an example of zealous rebels, and reap whatever benefits you can from them through labor and taxation.

It is into this marginalized camp of refugees that a child is born. It is to this distrusted conglomeration of religious misfits that a Son is given.

Don’t miss all the seeds of insurrection in Luke’s story: a miraculous birth, messengers brining divine validation, politically stirred up peasants (shepherds), and all kinds of seditious language – a savior, a messiah, a Lord, the world’s true instrument of peace.

For Luke, in Bethlehem a cosmic battle has begun. Unlike Matthew, who makes the birth narrative of Jesus a fight for kingship and lordship among the Jews with Herod as the antagonist, Luke places the significance of the Christ child in the context of “all the world” and makes the antagonist not just a regional governor but he pits king Jesus against the greatest emperor in the history of the civilized world.

Of course, Luke’s Gospel will not only undermine allegiance to the empire, but as the story goes on, Jesus will also subvert the subverters.

Jesus will never shy away from the language of “kingdom.” It is a mistake to say the gospel is not political. Augustus cannot be the emperor of our bodies and Jesus the king of our soul. The world and our lives within it (body, soul, and spirit) can have only one true ruler.

But the way of Christ’s kingdom is unfamiliar and peculiar. Augustus redeems through conquest. Jesus redeems through sacrifice. Augustus enacts swift retribution on Rome’s enemies. Jesus invites disciples to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. Augustus remakes the world through power. Christ brings a new creation through love. Augustus makes peace through the threat of the sword. Jesus brings through embrace of the cross.

This is hard news for refugees and exiles to hear. Not just hard but perhaps even unfair. After watching a special report on the indiscriminate bombings taking place in Aleppo and the intentional targeting of civil relief workers who come in to try and find those trapped in the remaining rubble, I found myself physically sick and emotionally enraged. I even found myself partially sympathetic to the young Turkish assassin who killed the Russian ambassador in an act of futile revenge for the thousands of children who have died in the devastated Syrian city. Overcoming evil with good is not in our nature. It is something that only the Spirit of God can empower a people to do. As Luke will go on to tell the story, it requires a people to make their hero Stephen and not Samson.

My fear for those like myself, who are more closely connected to the empire than to its refugees, is not that the subversive message of Christmas is difficult or hard to hear, but that it is impossible to hear. It’s not that we who dwell in places of relative privilege don’t want to hear it. It’s that we simply are unable to hear it.

I fear that my imagination has been so immersed in and shaped by words like “bigly” that I don't know how to imagine a savior who emerges from Bethlehem. The subversiveness of Christmas is hard to grasp when you live in a nation led by millionaires and billionaires on both the left and right (not because they take power but because they are given power – which by the way says more about us than it does about them).

There is for me, however, a slight glimmer of hope.

Most scholars date the writing of Luke between 80 and 90 CE (some as early as 60-65). If that is the case, then the original readers no longer had Augustus as their emperor. The readers at the end of the first century had not experienced the glory days of Augustus. Instead they had lived through the reigns of such legends of insanity as Caligula (37-41 CE) and Nero (54-68 CE); and they were now living in fear of the narcissistic persecuting zeal of either Titus (79-81 CE) or Domitian (81-96 CE). In other words, whatever hopes the first readers of Luke had placed in the emperor as a global savior and prince of eternal peace certainly had to be severely cracked if not utterly destroyed by then.

Maybe in a strange way at the close of 2016 that’s our hope also. Perhaps at the end of this year of divisive politics and ugly political rhetoric, even those of us who have been more formed by empire than by marginalization are exhausted and ready to place our hopes in an unexpected Lord with a revolutionary political agenda. Perhaps we are so worn-out from the inability of war to bring peace that we might be ready to embrace the cross. Perhaps we are so burned out from the divisiveness of Babel that we are ready to pursue the unity of Pentecost.

I am not optimistic. But I am a prisoner of hope.

As we prepare to gather around altars and evergreens, may the Spirit of God break through our holiday trivialities and give us the ability to hear anew the familiar revolutionary birth story that overturns us all.

Merry subversive Christmas!

Before You Quote Romans 13 One More Time…

Several people, during this tumultuous week, have asked me how they should read and understand Romans 13. I have been glad that they asked because in just these handful of days I’ve heard Paul’s instructions on obedience to civil authorities misused three or four times. So how should Christians read and understand these words from the 13^th chapter of Romans?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good…

It seems to me that there are two or three things that Christians ought to clearly affirm from this text.

First, God ordains authority. My favorite two Hebrew words are tohu and bohu. They are those two twin words found in Genesis chapter one that are often translated “formless” and “void.” (In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was tohu and bohu). However, they can also be thought of as the embodiment of chaos. In the Hebrew imagination God has from the beginning been opposed to the forces of chaos. Order is always preferable to anarchy.

For that reason, the existence of positions of authority (including civil authority) is a very good thing. From a biblical perspective it is good that children have parents, students have teachers, churches have pastors, cities have magistrates, nations have kings… etc.

Second, God can bring about his purposes through leaders of various kinds – whether or not they worship or honor him. It is true that the Scripture often interprets God’s working his will through sometimes unwitting vessels. The most significant example is the way the people of God interpreted Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar as an instrument of God in reforming Judah through the experience of exile. Without question the Scripture often interprets the painful experience of living under the bumbling, arrogant, and idolatrous king Nebuchadnezzar as something God redeemed for the sake of his mission through is people. So just because a leader isn’t expressly Christian doesn’t mean that God can’t be using he or she for his purposes.

Third, Paul’s discussion throughout Romans regarding freedom in Christ from the “law” does not mean that Christians are exempt from the civil law. It would be easy to imagine folk hearing “freedom from the law” and thinking that means all law. Paul wants to be clear that although Christ has set believers free… it might be a good idea to keep paying your taxes.

That being said, the popular interpretation of Romans 13 as somehow commanding Christians to follow the civil authorities as though directly obeying God or exempting Christians from the possibility of civil disobedience and resistance against evil authorities lacks historical and exegetical support. Here are a handful of things to think about when preaching or teaching Romans 13.

First, there are a couple of contexts to consider – cultural and biblical.

Paul’s cultural context was one of constant political resistance and rebellion. It is clear that many of the early Jewish followers of Jesus had started out as zealots. These were people more than willing to commit violence against the civil authorities in an attempt to secure political freedom. Of course, the problem is eventually the Romans tired of the rebels and would stomp out the rebellion as happened with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. So Romans 13 could and probably should be read in part as Paul saying to the potential Christian extremists of his day, “Stop creating unnecessary trouble for us with the authorities. It is damaging to the church’s reputation and relationship with them and it is getting people killed needlessly.”

Which leads me to the Scriptural context. I have often considered it unfortunate that a chapter break was placed between the end of chapter 12 and the beginning of chapter 13. Here is the end of Romans 12:

Love should be shown without pretending. Hate evil, and hold on to what is good… Bless people who harass you – bless and don’t curse them… Don’t pay back anyone for their evil actions with evil actions, but show respect for what everyone else believes is good. If possible, to the best of your ability, live at peace with all people. Don’t try to get revenge for yourselves, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. It is written, Revenge belongs to me; I will pay it back says the Lord. Instead if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. By doing this, you will pile burning coals of fire upon his head. Don’t be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good. Let every person be subject…

It seems clear to me that Paul’s words about obedience to civil authority are set in the context of moving away from violence as the means through which not only resistance but transformation happens. It doesn’t exclude resistance to authority but it redefines what resistance looks like in the light of the cross.

Second, it seems clear in the broader witness of the Scripture and to some degree even in Romans 13 that a distinction needs to be made between God’s establishment of authority and God’s ordaining of particular authorities. Because God has established the role of authority it is critical that particular leaders or authorities themselves operate in ways that reflect God’s life-giving care or it is right that they are resisted.

Think of all the examples in the bible (beginning with Pharaoh in Exodus and ending with “the Beast” in Revelation) of God’s people recognizing that their primary call is to obey God rather than a particular ruler. Don’t forget, the same apostle who wrote Romans 13 spent an awful lot of time in prison for resisting and disobeying the authorities.

When particular people who become rulers or authorities act in ways that God has ordained authority to operate then they rightly should be honored and obeyed. But when those same rulers cease to use their God-granted authority for his creation ordering purposes it is not only okay to call them to repentance but they should be disobeyed because the believer’s highest obedience is to God and not to any person. Romans 13 should always be read in the light of Revelation 13 - sometimes powers become beastly.

Third, Christians should be careful to distinguish when the bible is dealing with leaders inside God’s people and those on the outside. This is a challenging hermeneutical point, but there is often a difference between the way the Scripture imagines God’s interaction with Israel’s kings on the one hand and his dealings with the rulers of “the nations” on the other. It’s not that God pays no attention to the rulers of other nations, but the majority of the Scripture thinks about the unique responsibilities of those who lead and represent God’s people.

In the light of my last blog on God’s action and human freedom, I’ve had lots of people quoting passages from the Old Testament to me about God raising up and taking down kings. Thanks for all the proof-texts, but I would argue two things about those passages. On the one hand, those texts are primarily warnings to the leaders of God’s people that they had better align their purposes with God’s purposes because they are accountable to him. Those texts are the biblical equivalent of the old comedy line about parenting: “I brought you into this world and I can take you out…” God is saying, “I gave you this authority. I can take it away.”

On the other hand, those texts are specifically directed to the leaders of God’s people. Today I would be much more apt to read them and apply them to God’s interaction with the leaders of the global Body of Christ than with the leaders of any other particular secular nation. There is a lot of what I call “we confusion” in the use of the Scripture. When the kings of Israel are addressed the “we” is God’s people – which today aligns with the “we” of the church and not with the “we” of America. Getting the right “we” may change the way some of those texts are preached and taught.

Finally, Christian history does not support a simplistic reading of Romans 13. Significant theological voices including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Bonhoeffer have read and interpreted Paul’s instructions about obeying civil authorities with important interpretive caveats. They each recognized that, in the wrong hands, Romans 13 could be used to validate oppression and sanctify evil. The German Church unfortunately misused Romans 13 in ways that Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church had to correct.

Many of the people in the last few days who have tried to offer me a simplistic and de-contextualized reading of Romans 13 are from more Reformed Christian traditions where a great deal of theological weight is placed on God’s sovereignty. For that reason I would offer John Calvin’s interpretation of Romans 13. Calvin concluded his commentary on Paul’s great passage this way:

But in that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to Him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their scepters must bow. And, indeed, how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offense of Him for whose sake you obey men!

The Lord, therefore, is king of kings. When He opens His sacred mouth, He alone is to be heard, instead of all and above all. We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity which they possess as magistrates – a dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God.

It would appear to me that some of my Calvinist friends are more Calvinist than Calvin.

I’ll conclude with this final thought. Because I have heard Romans 13 quoted so frequently these last few days I would ask those who are quoting it to examine their motives. I could be wrong, but it is my sense that many Christians are running to that text today as a way of validating their own political position. Again, my memory could be faulty, but I don’t remember a whole lot of American evangelicals offering devotionals and sermons from Romans 13 in 2008 or 2012. (Few of the people whom I’ve heard use the text lately would be willing to admit that their use of the text invalidates the legitimacy of the American Revolution).

When the Scripture is proof-texted to fit our own agenda then it’s not God’s voice we are trying to hear but it is our own voice that we are making divine.

In the days to come all Christians in America (and elsewhere) will continue to have to wrestle with the honor due to the authority that God ordains for the sake of order and peace. But that does not exempt Christians from reminding those authorities that they are servants of the one who has granted all authority. And it does not exempt believers from the commitment to obey God rather than any person.

Proclaiming “Christ is Lord” is NOT Declaring “God is in Control”

As a pastor I am keenly aware that what I think I preach is not always what the congregations hears. I’m sure the Spirit of God has at times used this for good. But I have been uttering a phrase a lot lately that I want to make sure is being heard rightly.

Several times in the months leading up the presidential election – and dozens of times in the last two days since – I have found myself saying, “No matter what the results of America’s presidential election. The Church proclaims that Christ is Lord.” Usually that declaration is met with a resounding “amen” or even applause. When friends post that affirmation on social media it is rightly given dozens of “likes” - which I suppose is a cyber-amen.

However, I have also noticed in the wake of Tuesday’s stunning election results lots of Christian friends posting or stating publically various versions of the phrase, “God is in control.” I would like to be clear that declaring, “Christ is Lord” is not the same thing as proclaiming, “God is in control.” (At least it isn’t what I intend to say).

I would even be so bold as to argue that saying, “God is in control” is not only bad theology but it is a morally dangerous thing for the Church to believe.

I think it is bad theology because it fails to acknowledge the gift and responsibility God has granted to humankind by giving them freewill. Most Christians rightly believe that God has given to all people freewill. That creational gift from God is not only the reason people can and often do act in all kinds of evil ways (and are thus held accountable), but it is also the only way people can truly love God and one another.

But more than being theologically questionable, I think it is a morally dangerous thing to believe. Those Christians in the evangelical community who decided to vote for Donald Trump and help him take up residence in the White House have permission to take credit if over the next four years choosing a former casino owner for a president turns out to be an unusually prescient act inspired by divine wisdom. But if frequently – or even only occasionally – that decision turns out to be a moral and national disaster, those same people don’t have the freedom to throw up their hands and say, “Well, God’s in control.”

I hate it when people throw Hitler into a conversation… But having recently read a history of the German church entitled Arian Jesus, I am reminded that it was that same kind of bad theological rhetoric of God’s deterministic sovereignty that aided otherwise godly people to not only fail to stand up to the Reich’s atrocities but too often to also validate them.

On a side note: I also find the “God is in control” rhetoric really offensive politically and spiritually – no matter which political perspective uses it. One prominent evangelical leader, who over the last several months has been encouraging Christians to support Trump, has been frequently quoted over the last two days declaring things like, “Remember… According to Daniel chapter 2, God chooses the leader.” I don't have space to unpack all that is hermeneutically wrong with that statement, (although it makes me laugh to think of Trump as the new Nebuchadnezzar) but even so, I do find it unbelievably offensive. Because what this person is really saying is, “Hey, you Christians out there who think this was a bad decision… Get over it… Get in line… God has chosen Trump.” (I would by the way be saying the same things to people who would be using the same language to celebrate if Hillary Clinton had won and wanted all the disappointed folk on the right to get with the program).

First of all, it is still really bad theology. But second of all, that same Christian leader has said quite contrary things for the last eight years. For two presidential terms that same pastor has gotten angry at and has encouraged their congregation to resist those on the other side politically who were saying, “God chose Obama.” Apparently, when my team wins God is in control. However, when my team loses, it is due to the wiles of the evil one and all of the world’s principalities and powers.

“God is in control” has the potential to be a theologically manipulative thing people whose party, cause, or perspective happens to be “winning” in the moment say to the disgruntled to try and get them in line. Or it is what believers say when they are unwilling to take responsibility for their part in bad decisions and want to absolve themselves of any negative consequences.

That’s why the church should declare instead: Christ is Lord!

Proclaiming Christ Lord is very different than saying he controlling all the events happening in the world. Here are some of things the Church means when she declares the continued Lordship of Christ:

• No matter what good or bad decisions leaders or nations make, the Church believes that Christ will not stop working until all creation has been redeemed. (For my friends Stephen and Todd: it is in this sense that we can say "God is in control." God will not quit until he has brought all things to his glorious conclusion. But that is different than saying, "God is controlling all things.")
• All earthly leaders have penultimate power and are subject to the judgment and authority of creation’s one true Lord.
• The global Body of Christ exists within many nations. Thus Christians have citizenship responsibilities and obligations wherever they may be located. But their ultimate allegiance has been pledged to Christ and to his kingdom.
• A nation and its leader may place a ban on refugees entering a country, but the Church will always welcome the stranger and believe hospitality is what divides the sheep nations from the goat nations (Matt 25).
• A nation and its leader may work to create various systems of health care and welfare, but the Church will always feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and bring healing to the wounded.
• A nation and its leader may declare war on opposing countries and forces, but the Church will always love enemies and work at overcoming evil with good.
• A nation and its leader may work at protecting and solidifying the somewhat historically arbitrary boundaries drawn between countries, but the Church will always live as though we are all one in Christ Jesus.
• A nation and its leader may legislate various practices pertaining to birth, death, and judgment, but the Church will always value and honor life in its beginning and in its end as a sacred gift. And it will view the goal of justice as reconciliation and not just retribution.

I could go on and on… But the point my is, to declare that Christ is Lord is not saying that God is in control of every decision – good or bad – that nations and their people make. That is (I believe) simply bad theology and morally dangerous because it has the potential to absolve each of us of our responsibility as people created in God’s image and given a divine mandate to have dominion.

To proclaim the Lordship of Christ means that no matter who lives in the White House or which political party controls the Congress, the Church’s allegiance, worship, and obedience belongs to the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb.

Why the Last Week of December is Destroying the Church

As a pastor, I hate the pressure associated with year-end giving.

These last few Sundays of the calendar year are like the climactic ending of a mystery novel for pastors. No one knows what’s going to happen next. Every pastor (including me) will know at the end of the next three days whether or not the ministries of their church can continue as normal (or expand) as they had hoped and prayed; or if they are going to have a very challenging board meeting in January and have to start cutting personnel and programming.

I am pastoring a church that is in the midst of sweeping generational and cultural changes. The changes are exciting and nearly killing me at the same time. At PazNaz we are constantly talking about being intergenerational and multi-cultural. For decades First Church has worked hard at being a place where people of different economic standing discover that they are brother and sister. And I think this flagship Nazarene church is learning to love its denominational connection and heritage without making that identity an impediment to people seeking first the kingdom of God.

I also think the church is in the midst of sweeping theological change. In particular, I hope our ecclesiology is changing. I hope that people at PazNaz are beginning to not think of the church as some place that they go but as something that they are.

But this is why year-end giving is killing the church. Let me try to explain…

There are lots of books that have come out over the last few years trying to help pastors and churches deal with the “new normal” of giving. One of the most popular and helpful is Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate: A New Vision for Financial Stewardship by J. Clif Christopher.

Christopher is a former pastor who has now set up a ministry to help churches with fund raising and stewardship. His book is very helpful and I have been given copies of it at several pastor’s meetings.

Like every book of this nature I have read, Christopher quickly addresses the challenge and change that every pastor is experiencing:

In 2006, for the first time in recorded history, gifts to religion fell below 33 percent of charitable giving. Just twenty years ago, gifts to religion amounted to nearly 60 percent of all charitable giving. Not so any longer. Every year, religion continues to get a smaller piece of the charitable pie because church leaders simply do not know how to compete for the charitable dollar.

Christopher is absolutely right. More and more great and worthy organizations are competing for the charitable giving of parishioners and while those agencies and organizations have “stepped up their game” in getting those dollars, the church has lagged behind. He rightly and helpfully suggests that pastors and churches begin to operate differently. Here are some of his suggestions:

• Invite the executive director of one of your community’s first-rate nonprofits to come by and talk about your stewardship committee about how they do fund-raising and how they relate to donors.
• Recognize that donors are different and give and different levels… So send different messages to different levels of givers.
• Spend more time with major donors.
• Think like a college president or the director of advancement for a Christian university: promote the mission, plan for estate giving, and craft compelling capital campaigns.
• Preach directly on money at least four times a year.
• Pay close attention to the giving records and write personal notes of gratitude to faithful givers.

At the bottom-line, his argument can be summed up this way:

• Giving patterns have (and are continuing) to change radically for people in the church.
• People are giving to organizations that match their own missional and transformational concerns and interests.
• The church had better learn quickly from those organizations and copy their practices (and hopefully do them even better) or they will find themselves without any financial support.

Again, I think Christopher on so many levels is really correct and resisting his advice may be like howling at the moon. There are many things that churches need to learn from these kinds of books – especially about expressing gratitude to faithful supporters. I am sure he so absolutely right that if the church doesn’t figure out how to compete for the finances of the faithful that ministry will continue to suffer.

But I am also convinced that putting in the practices (even the “best practices”) of the most Christian, missional, and transformational non-profit organizations may destroy the church.

Here’s the problem: You are what you practice to be. If you spend the day dribbling and shooting a ball you will be a basketball player. If you run around kicking a ball into a goal you will become a soccer player. If you chase a little white ball around, hitting it with funny shaped sticks and trying to get it into a small round hole, you will be a golfer. And If the church starts practicing like it is another in a long list of non-profit organizations, it will become another in a long list of non-profit organizations.

The church is not another charitable organization; it is the Body of Christ.

The church is not just a 501(c)(3) devoted to a common social cause; it is a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation witnessing in its life together to God’s new creation.

The church is not some place we go; it is something that we are. 

Here is what I am convinced is true theologically:

• The church is not one more charitable organization but a distinct new creation people in the world.
• Giving for the Christian is a spiritual practice (a spiritual discipline) that is simply one expression (of many) of being part of that new creation people.
• Practicing giving as a discipline within the church helps to form the identity that we are the church. We give to the church as part of the church not because we have been persuaded that it is a good mission investment but because it expresses who we are and reflects that where our treasure is our heart is also.

I know that is idealistic. And I know fewer and fewer people think that way. But maybe they don’t think that way, in part, because the church stopped practicing that way. Perhaps we have become what we have practiced to become. 

So this is why I think the last week of December is destroying the church. It’s not that some people give much of their tithe at the end of the year. I know that the complexity of the economic life of some in the congregation makes year-end giving a necessary habit.

But our practices reflect what we believe. And our current practices - that include having to compete with all of the other great and worthy non-profit organizations for year-end dollars - make the church just one more non-profit organization. I know that as a pastor I will have to heed much of the advice of experts like Christopher (primarily because I feel the tremendous weight of keeping the pastoral staff employed). But I fear it could be part of the church’s undoing.

Mutated Forms of the 23rd Psalm

Yesterday morning - August 10 - I preached on the Good Shepherd text from John 10:11-21. The point of the message was to connect the "I Am" statements from John's Gospel to the Great I AM text of Exodus 3. In other words when Jesus said, "I Am the Good Shepherd" he was also saying something very important about the nature of the Father as well.

Clark Pinnock would often say that our view of God the Father is critical because we inevitably come to look like the God we believe in.

That got me to thinking about the way Psalm 23 would really sound if we were honest about the kind of God we believe in. So I wrote a few mutated versions of this beloved shepherd psalm. Several people asked for copies - so here they are...

Here is Psalm 23 for those of us convinced that God is the angry judge:

The Lord is my judge and taskmaster. He watches everything I do.

He keeps list after list of all my sin; he keeps track of my stray thoughts; he can’t wait to pour out his wrath on me.


He puts obstacles in my path just to see if I’ll be good or not.

Sometimes when things are going too good, he will place me in the darkest valley, it terrifies me to think of what he might do to me.
His wrath and his fury are my likely destiny.

If you think he’s angry with me, you should see the way he’s going to treat my enemies. He will reign fire on their heads. I get giddy just thinking about it.

Yes, legalism, fear, and doing the right thing purely out of obligation
will pursue me all the days of my life, and if I’m just good enough I will barely make it into the Lord’s house... maybe… I hope.

Here is Psalm 23 for those who see God as the great clock-maker who set everything up but has largely left us to our own devices:

The Lord is the great clock-maker and absentee landlord. For the rest, I’m pretty much on my own.

He gave me a good head on my shoulders; he handed me a book of rules; he expects me to make something decent out of my life.

He has hidden some tips and rules in the Bible that make my life seem to work better.

My goal is to avoid as much as possible dark valleys, but I fear no danger because I can probably handle it. My wits, my talent, and my clear understanding of God’s principles —
they will protect me.

It is my purpose to live in complete safety and avoid my enemies.
You wound up your clock, God;
I’m still making it day-by-day.

Yes, I will grab all the gusto I can without risking too much all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the rules of the Lord as long as I live.

Here is the 23rd Psalm for a generation of "Moralistic Therapeutic Deists":

The Lord is my grand parent in the sky. He shows up when I need him.

He lets me pursue my dreams; he is a great addition to my life; wants me to be happy.

I pretty much do what I want, and try my best to be a good person. I don’t really need to throw his name around.

I’m trying life on my own. Now, if for some reason I walk through the darkest valley, I will show up to church and beg him to show up.
His last minute help – it bails me out.

I live indistinctively enough to not have many enemies.
You are a great addition to my life;
my life works so well with you added in!

Yes, lukewarmness and spiritual apathy
will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will show up in the Lord’s house whenever I need him.

May our prayer always be instead:

The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.

He lets me rest in grassy meadows; he leads me to restful waters; he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths for the sake of his good name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff—
they protect me.

You set a table for me
right in front of my enemies.
You bathe my head in oil;
my cup is so full it spills over!

Yes, goodness and faithful love
will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the Lord’s house as long as I live.

The Peril and Promise of Images: Reflecting on History Channel's The Bible Miniseries - Part 1

If Twitter is any indication, like many of the faithful I stayed up late and watched the first installment of The Bible Ministeries produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett which began airing last night on the History Channel. In case you missed it, part one began with Noah and the flood and ended with Joshua preparing to take Jericho. I was aware that the series was coming out, but having not seen any of it I have been apprehensive about recommending it. On the whole I thought it was very well done. I'm hooked enough to be committed for the entire 66 book - or 10 hour - ride.

This is obviously not the first visual take on this material. The stories in the Scripture have been inspiring artists of all varieties for two-thousand years. But it is always interesting to observe the artist's interpretation on the Word.

One problem of course is that there is no way to tell all of the biblical stories in 10 hours (probably 7 if you take the commercials out). Because the video version of the Bible can't help but becomin a "Canon within the Canon," I'm always interested then in what gets left in and what gets taken out. Those who know of my fascination with tohu bohu (chaos) and water in the creation story will understand how cool I thought it was that they started with Noah battling the chaos of the waters while retelling his children the creation story and the story of Cain's violence against Abel. 

The story of Abraham was clearly the centerpiece. I thought it was an astute decision to not add God's voice into the production. I thought it helped those watching have to wrestle with the reality that Abraham was making life and death decisions based upon a voice that only he heard. 

My sons were watching it with me and they latched on to the three visitors who came to tell Abraham and Sarah that they would have Isaac. They caught immediately the intended connections to the Trinity. 

It is unfortunate that the narrative skipped from Genesis 22 to the opening of Exodus. There is obviously much that Jacob and Joseph add to the trajectory of the narrative of promise, but if you only have ten hours... somebody gets left on the cutting room floor.

I would really have liked the burning bush to have included God giving to Moses his sacred name YHWH. It seems theologically critical to me that God names himself as the one who hears the cries of his people. But overall, for a story that has been produced in big budget live action and animated movies, I thought the Exodus was well imagined.

There are a lot of things to nitpick. Why do all biblical movies have stars with British accents? How in the world did those ancient people find such good dentists? Did one of the messengers - especially since they seemed to infer that he was one of the Trinity - have to be such a ninja? (Especially given that he was the one who looked to be of asian descent). Don't some of those weapons not come in until the iron age? I know the Bible is violent, but with only 10 hours of film do we have to have every battle scene?

My favorite part was that I was able to watch it with my sons and that it forced us to talk about the Bible, how we see and interpret it, and what we think is most important.

My main critique, however, is one that I picked up from reading Jacques Ellul - in particular his great work The Humiliation of the Word. Ellul probably overdoes it, but he argues that the reason God gave us his revelation primarily in words and not images is because literacy forces us to make abstractions. In other words, when we hear the stories of the Scripture, we have to imagine them. We have to work at interpreting them. We have to make them our own.

Once the story is formed in images it is more fixed in our imaginations that it was before. It's no longer the story as I see it or imagine it. It is the story as the film has formed me to see it. For example, how many of us as we read the Gospels see in our mind Robert Powell's mystic, blue-eyed Jesus from 1977 mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. Or more recent generations can't help but see Jim Caviezel's bloody and beaten Jesus from The Passion of the Christ. Now that I've seen this mini-series when I read Genesis 22 I will see that Abraham on that mountain sacrificing that Isaac (with that Sarah running to try and stop them).

For Ellul this is the catch-22 of images. The "word" invites us to have to abstract the setting, to make it our own, and to continually wrestle with the "word" in sermons, conversations, and lessons. But once the word becomes image it loses some of that abstraction.

Nevertheless, it was fun to watch. As long as we keep remembering that even The Bible in images has an interpreter behind it.

Rob Bell and a New American Christianity by James Wellman

I just got home from the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion. Nothing like 14,000 theologians and biblical scholars to make a weekend wild. The best part of going each year (other than connecting with great friends) is the massive book fair. Every religious publisher in the universe is there rolling out their latest books.

I bought several. (I usually take an extra suitcase to bring books home in). But the first one I read was an interesting little book by James Wellman on the ministry, life, and impact of Rob Bell on American Christianity. It was honestly very hard for me to put down and I had it finished by the time my plane landed this afternoon. Wellman does a great job of being fair but critical. The beauty of the book is that he not only researches Rob and his ministry but thoughtfully reflects on what the resonance his ministry has had with so many says about the nature of American Christianity.

Rob is a spiritual hero for many and a major source of contention for many others. (So much so, that I considered not writing this review. I am trusting the graciousness and maturity of most of my readers). But whether you love Rob or hate him, I think Wellman's book will give you important insight into the way he thinks and the vision of ministry he carries with him passionately.

There is a lot that could be reflected on, but let me just mention the thing that I treasure (and honestly envy) most about Rob, and then the thing that troubles me most.

I love and frankly covet the artistic side of Rob Bell. What has made his ministry both unique and powerful is that he is an artist and not just a preacher. He thinks of preaching as a form of art. I love, as Wellman points out in several places, that his vision of the kingdom does not begin as just an answer to the sin problem of Genesis 3 but as the way to reconnect people with the image of God they were created to be in Genesis 1. Wellman points out that what transformed Rob's preaching ministry was when he connected with the deeply Jewish aspects of the gospel. Traditionally Judaism is okay living in tension with questions that go unanswered (just read Job). Judaism doesn't usually invite believers simply into adherance to particular doctrines, but like Jacob (Israel) it invites people to wrestle with God in places they did not expect and in ways they never dreamed.

I am jealous of Rob's ability to paint with words. I envy his ability to invite people into the mystery of a God who exceeds all of our formulas about him. And I love that his primary desire is to reach people who have no interest in the gospel - but to do so in ways that don't coerce them with fear but draw them into the depth and breath of God's love. 

Wellman's exploration of Rob's creative impulse is fascinating. It is his amazing creative ability that in large part drew people to Mars Hill so quickly and it is that impulse that has moved him to explore new avenues of creativity and art in LA. I wish I had more of that.

Although I have points of difference theologically with Rob, my primary point of concern is not so much theological as ecclesiological. According to Wellman, Rob has a beautiful Spirit-led, mission-centric, movment oriented view of the Church (with a capital "C"). In fact, Rob deeply resists thinking of the Church as an institution. For example, Mars Hill does not have a church sign nor does it do any advertising. If you come to the church it is because the Church (the people that are the Church) invited you to come and join in.

There is something beautiful about that view, and it is obviously a view that resonnates well with instituition-phobic postmoderns. My concern is not about his desire to keep the Church from becoming overly institutionalized in the future, but his disconnection with the church as an historic tradition. It isn't that he is not connected with or profoundly aware of the tradition of biblical interpretation or theological development - he is. It is that he rarely acknowledges that he is. I could be wrong, but it is my sense that in the constant attempt to be the innovator and creator he sometimes (maybe often) has failed to recognize the shoulders of saints that he is standing on.

If you made a list of the theological ideas that have caused people to dismiss him as a heretic - a non-foundationalist epistemology, a post-liberal reading of Scripture, a Spirit-ecclesiology, a questioning of substitutionary atonement as the only way to think about salvation, God's redemption of all of creation, the affirmation of the goodness of embodied life through creation and the resurrection of the dead, and even wrestling with questions of the nature of heaven, hell, and judgment - NONE of those questions are unique to him. In fact he is picking them up from folk as far back as the Eastern Orthodox Fathers, and as recent as Nancey Murphy, Miroslav Volf, Jurgen Moltmann, NT Wright, George Lindbeck, Rene Girard, and a whole host of others dead and living. Even the questions he raises in Love Wins - questions for which he received the most negative attention - were far from new. As one colleague of mine said after reading Love Wins, "Apparently all these people who are fired up about Love Wins either didn't read C.S. Lewis' the Great Divorce or they didn't understand it."

My point being, in books like Velvet Elvis or Love Wins he rarely if ever references some of the saints and scholars who stand with him in both his many questions and his few conclusions. But because he tends to stand alone as the artist and prophet, he also gets dismissed as a rogue in blogs, tweets, and books. I am fine if people want to take on a book like Love Wins. But when they do it they ought to know that they are taking on a few of the heavy-weights of Christian history also and not just a forty-something celebrity preacher from MIchigan.

(Parenthetically, I kept thinking while I read the book about Rob that it's too bad he wasn't Wesleyan instead of Reformed. He mainly gets ripped by Reformed folk like Piper and Driscoll for not supporting a Reformed theological agenda. I'm not sure Rob's questions would cause much of a ripple at the Wesleyan Theological Society. It would be interesting to know if he would have planted a Methodist church - like Adam Hamilton - in Leawood, Kansas rather than a Reformed church in Grand Rapids if he would have received the level of criticism he has gotten. There would certainly still be a few Wesleyan, Holiness, and Charismatic folk that would diagree with various points of his teaching, - and who would be jealous of his success - but we may have had tent big enough to hold him). 

My point is that Rob doesn't really care that many evangelicals have demonized him. He pays very little mind to the criticism from the institution. I admire that a bit, but it also concerns me. I love the (big "C") Church not just as a movement but as a people with a history. I love it enough to take bruises from it and still stay inside of it. I love it enough to want to move it forward at a pace it can hear and respond to. I am not there yet, but I also want to love it enough to be willing to die at its hands if necessary in order to speak truth to it.

Tony Jones calls Rob the "Jason Bourne of evangelicalism." I am a little envious of his strength of conviction to go it alone if necessary. I am too tied to this thing called the historic body of Christ to know how to be that independent. Somewhere there is probably a happier medium to reach between the Church as Spirit movement and Church as institution. 

Whatever else Rob is or has done, he helps the church try to reawaken the reality of God's redemptive work going on in every one of us are Christ's disciples. Again, whether you think Rob is a saint or heretic, you will find the book a fascinating read. Here is my favorite quote from Rob's farewell letter to Mars Hill:

i write this to you because of how many of you have been challenged about your participation in the life of this church, often with the accusation: but what do they believe over there at mars hill?

as if belief, getting the words right, is the highest form of faith.

Jesus came to give us life.

a living, breathing, throbbing, pulsating blow your hair back tingle your spine roll the windows down and drive fast experience of God right here, right now.

work taking on flesh and blood.

and so you've found yourself defending and explaining and trying to find the words for your experience that is fundamentally about a reality that is beyond and more than words.

so when you find yourselves tied up in knots, having long discussions about who believes what, a bit like dogs doing that sniff circle when they meet on the sidewalk, do this:

take out a cup and some bread and put it in the middle of the table,

and say a prayer and examine yourselves and then make sure everybody's rent is paid and there's food in their fridge and clothes on their backs

and then invite everybody to say 'yes' to the resurrected Christ with whatever 'yes' they can muster in the moment and then you take that bread and dip it in that cup in the ancient/future hope and trust that there is a new creation bursting forth right here right now and

then together taste that new life and liberation and forgiveness and as you look those people in the eyes gathered around that table from all walks of life and you see the new humanity, sinners saved by grace, beggars who have found bread showing other beggars where they found it

remind yourselves that this is what you believe.

remember, the movement is word to flesh.

beware of those who will take the flesh and want to turn it back into words.

Prayer of Blessing for APU Convocation

I was asked to speak for Senior Convocation yesterday at APU. I used Luke 19 to speak on the tension that I feel between the Parables of the Talents and the Pounds (see previous blog). As we send graduates from Chrsitian colleges out into the world I always feel conflcted about whether the world should want them or reject them, whether they should fit well into the systems of power in the world or live prophetically in contrast to them.

I won't repeat the whole message here, but I've had several requests for the prayer of blessing that I wrote for the class of 2012. Here it is:

Blessing of the Talents and Pounds

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May he make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.

May you discover the mystery of living in the world but not being of it.

Like Daniel, may the leaders of nations want you in their inner circle of authority because of your divinely-given wisdom and insight.

But like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, may the leaders of nations hold you in furnace-building suspicion because you claim a higher citizenship than any nation can offer and you will always obey God rather than rulers.

Like Joseph, may your integrity and determination lead the prominent and mighty corporations of the world to place you in seats of power and influence.

But like the apostle Paul in Ephesus, may your prophetic life so call into question the idolatry on which our lives are built that the unjust economic systems of our world conspire to run you out of town before you undo their mythology.

May the great graduate schools and universities fight over you because they long to have students who committedly give their minds back to God as a an act of worship.

But may they not know what to do with brilliant people who rather than identifying themselves with the cultured elites, keep finding their identity with the poor and the marginalized.

Like Enoch, may you live long productive lives so connected with God that your transition to the next life will be like taking an unbroken stroll into the next life surrounded by the presence of the Spirit.

But like Stephen, may you lay down your life, in the prime of life, as a peaceful witness to a kingdom the world cannot see.

Like our Lord, may the world love you, and despise you.

May you be embraced, and rejected.

May you be given all things, but keep nothing.

May multitudes follow you, but may you take up your cross daily.

May you become first by being last, and may you become great by being the servant of all.

May you daily give your talents to the Lord prepared to one day be held accountable for how you have used the gift of life he has given you.

But, like Zacchaeus, - refusing to be conformed to this present age - may you wrap up and give back the pound the principalities and powers will offer to you, willing to pay the cost of discipleship.

May your life be lived in the tension between the talents and pounds.

God has called you to help him heal the broken world. May the world be both excited and terrified that you are on the way.

And may he who began a good work in you, may he carry it completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Amen.

 

Caught Between Talents and Pounds

I spent last Thursday and Friday on retreat with scholars from theology, business, and communication mixed together with Christian leaders in business, film, and various other fields. The APU School of Theology has been given a grant from the Kern Family Foundation to explore how to better prepare ministers to think and teach Christianly about the areas of work and economics and the retreat was set up to help kick off the project.

One of the interesting things about the conversation surrounding work and faith is the inherent tension concerning whether or not the system of wealth and capitalism in which most of us are embedded is good or bad. The conversation is actually quite complicated because the problems and blessings of our economic systems are varied. The conversation at the retreat was certainly lively.

One of the things I wanted to do was to give the group permission to be comfortable with the tension that we often feel as Christians when we think, speak, and write about faith and economics. Not just as a scholar but more especially as a pastor I find myself caught in the tension between the importance of our material nature (especially as it pertains to the importance of our bodies and our work) and materialism (the worship or improper use and valuing of material things).

I shared with the group that I often describe the tension as a conflict between the parable of the talents and the parable of the pounds. Matthew gives us the parable of the talents (Matthew 25) and Luke gives us the parable of the pounds (Luke 19).

The parables are nearly identical and very likely were used by Matthew and Luke from the same or at least similar original sources. In each version the beginning of the parable is almost identical. Matthew and Luke tell their readers (through Jesus) the parable as a story about a master who goes away and leaves three servants or stewards in charge of their resources. To the first he gives five talents or ten pounds. To the second he gives two talents or five pounds. And to the last he gives one talent or one pound.

In both versions of the parable the endings are nearly identical. When the master returns he rewards the fist two servants because they have doubled their resources. But the last servant is punished for having hidden rather than having used his talent or pound. What he has received is taken away and given to the first servant.

Most of the time when this parable is preached it is Matthew's version - the parable of the talents - that is used. I think the preference for Matthew's version of the parable, at least in part, has to do with the ease with which the monetary unit called a "talent" can be translated to include not just our wealth, but our gifts, strengths, and "talents" for the purposes of God and his kingdom.

Matthew places the parable of the talents in chapter 25 among other instructions from Jesus about being ready for judgment. It is found in between the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the sheep and the goats. All three parables have the theme of taking seriously the responsibility that we have to use the gifts, strengths, and resources that God has given us for his purposes in the world and that we will all be held accountable for how we have "invested" those gifts.

So on one side is the responsibility that all humans have as those created in God's image and sharing what some theologians call co-creation powers with God. God has formed as as people with creative bodies and minds and expects us to use those in ways that share in the goodness of his creative purposes. In that way all work can be seen as an act of worship back to the Creator. Our work inevitably forms larger structures of communities, cultures, and economies. So we can't help but be economic beings finding ways to work together for the good of all and for the glory of the God who not only creates us but holds us accountable for our work.

But on the other side is the parable of the pounds. Scholars like Kenneth Bailey and William Herzog have helped me read Luke's version of the parable in what I think are better ways. They argue - and I think the are correct - that Luke uses the parable differently than Matthew.

In Luke the parable is placed in chapter 19 between the story of Zacchaeus' conversion and Jesus' cleansing of the Temple. In both of those stories the emphasis is not on being ready but on the ways that the surrounding economic systems were corrupting the life and worship of God's people.

Therefore, in the parable of the pounds, rather than the third servant being the "bad guy" he may actually be the "good guy." It is possible, given the context, that the third servant recognizes that the world's economic systems are often ruthless (like the power gathering master). And he sees that the ways of gathering more power are unjust (gathering where they did not sow). And the parable also seems to recognize that in the system the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So he cannot find a way to participate in this ruthless system. What happens? Like many of the early believers, the servant who is unwilling to work for the building up of the "empire" he dragged before the people and slain.

Maybe we can think of the parable this way... Have you ever wondered what happened to Zacchaeus after his confession to Christ when he went back to work on Monday (or Sunday) and told his tax bosses that he could no longer participate in the system of exploitation that he had so cleverly led up until this point? Do you think his boss shared in his conversion?

When Jesus cleansed the Temple he ended up getting crucified. My guess is that Zacchaeus' end was not a whole lot more successful than his Lord's.

And so here we are. Christians called to use their gifts everyday in ways that add value to others and to God's creation. We are accountable to work as unto the Lord. But we are also stuck in systems of injustice and brokenness in which we are called to live prophetically. And as we live prophetically we are called to count the cost of that discipleship.

This is a tension that the earliest disciples of Jesus felt everyday as they took up their cross. Two-thousand years later we are still caught in the tension between the talents and the pounds.