church

Life Together During a Pandemic

In 2020 we have experienced more disruption, change, suffering and loss than imaginable.  Much of what we have come to depend on has either been put on pause or stopped altogether.  Such large-scale change and disruption can tear at the fabric of social institutions.  The church, however, when at its healthiest, expects these storms to come and is nimble enough to weather them because its hope isn’t found in traditions, status or familiar routine.  Rather, according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian community reflects its assurance in God through its life together based on:

  • Spiritual love for one another rather than emotional love
  • Spiritual practices that keep God in the forefront, not the background
  • Solitude before God rather than noise of self-righteousness  
  • Service to another through listening, active helpfulness and forbearance
  • Confession of sins from one Christian sinner to another 

Bonhoeffer devotes a chapter to each of these in his classic book, Life Together.*  Bonhoeffer knew something about Christian life lived together before God; as a professor at Finkenwalde Seminary he was molding the lives of seminarians in the face of the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich.  Everything that Christians had taken for granted about their lives in enlightened Germany were being challenged.  A devout nation, Germany was also on the cutting edge of art, philosophy and innovation.  But out of such success came collapse after the great war, the worldwide depression and devastating inflation that left Germany weak and uncertain. 

Church leaders in Germany traded influence in Hitler’s Third Reich in exchange for a prophetic witness.

The Covid-19 pandemic, a renewed racial reckoning, partisan political rancor, job loss, school closings and no sports (!!!)  have left our heads spinning and grasping for something certain to hold on to.  How should Christians respond in the face of so much change, so quickly?  Bonhoeffer’s Life Together has helped me address this question.  He was clear that an individual Christian’s faith was tied up in the participation and purpose of the larger Christian community.  He believed a Christian community’s life together can withstand these disruptions because its purpose is founded on honoring God’s work in sinful people despite their brokenness.  Their shared daily practices, selfless love, Bible reading, meditative prayer, service to one another and confession didn’t change when the world around them changed.  Rather, these practices prepared them to face difficulties.  They defined the community.  

The world around the faith communities have been altered for the foreseeable future.  Consequently, we have had to change some of the familiar ways we gather for worship and discipleship.  But, has such changes impacted who we are and why we exist as a faith community?  Where we feel it has, we must look at the practices and expectations that make us feel this way.  Are they from God or from our own emotional reaction?  Where we have held firm in devotion to God, we should celebrate and continue in that path.  

Bonhoeffer is teaching me that while changes will come to society and to our churches that are scary, not only can we find blessed assurance in the core practices of our faith, they can pave the way to new life and vitality for our tomorrow.  Pray for the church and its leaders as we navigate this path.  May we do so with humility, forbearance and grace toward one another, because otherwise, change is so hard.  

*Check out Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.  There are editions available from Harper Collins and Fortress Press.  It is a brief but “meaty” volume that will have you chewing on God’s wisdom for days and weeks to come.       

Unbridled Spirit

Church in the western world has enjoyed an elevated status for many years.  That status, as we are painfully aware, is no more. And so we mourn the loss of what once was.  But how intently do we look for what will be? Like the exiles in Babylon, do we hang our “harps” on our trees, refusing to sing songs of praise to God (Psalm 137)?  Or, like Jeremiah, do we seek the welfare of the city where we find ourselves planted, no matter the circumstances (Jeremiah 29:7)? Perhaps what’s lost on we who have had the fortune of growing up nurtured by Christian culture is the notion that God’s spirit is not absent, even when we feel it is.  When the Holy Spirit finds welcome and space to work, there is still no holding it back. Which means many churches need to do some soul searching. Because culture has shifted away from the institutional church, will we become paralyzed and thus unreceptive to the Holy Spirit? Or, might this be just the time when God is prepared to do something new among those who are looking for God’s Spirit, loosed among the people?  With this in mind, Acts 8 and its surrounding context is instructive.

Throughout the gospels, we see God at work in a new way through Jesus.  Jesus is not against the purpose of the law, the function of the temple, and the role of those who serve it.  Jesus’ growing concern is that the law and the temple have become a means unto themselves rather than something that points participants to someone far greater.  But the Jewish religion had become an institution that conferred power and prestige back on those who served in its system – giving priests, pharisees, sadducees and the ruling class meaning and clout.  Citizens of Israel identified with the Temple, too. It was the most important monument and the most significant national and religious institution for Jews of the first century. Over time, the function of the temple as a place to worship God had morphed from a dynamic, formative act to an institutional checklist.

Jesus’ challenge to the temple institution, to rediscover and implement true worship, is much of what sends him to the cross.  And the story continues as the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to those who follow the Spirit into places and to people that the temple doesn’t touch or allow.  This movement of the Spirit is acutely evident during pentecost, when the Spirit enters people who are able to see God working in new and even unexpected places. And it doesn’t stop there.  As those among the ranks of Christ followers grow, so does the anxiety of those institutionalized places of power and privilege. In earlier chapters in Acts, we read of the growing power of the apostles who can’t help but continue to proclaim Jesus as Messiah, who call for repentance in order to receive forgiveness, who heal all sorts of sickness and mental illness, and in doing so expose the failings of the current temple culture.  The Sanhedrin’s response to each episode is to react defensively, with fear that this new movement could mean a diminished place of power at best and at worst lead to a change in the people’s traditional view of the temple and God’s unique work in it.

Before completely dismissing the Sanhedrin as selfish men who tried to stand in the way of God’s new Spirit work, can those of us nurtured by the traditions of Christendom try to relate?  In the Temple system, people practiced thousands of years of tradition that, in its best practice, pointed them to the saving work of a God who called them to live committed lives for God’s sake and the sake of the world.  It did have meaning and power. But its meaning and power had shifted over the centuries from an empowering movement to an institutional power that was controlled at all costs. The deliberations of the Sanhedrin in Acts show shrewd planning on how to handle the growing Jesus movement but no active discernment of God.

“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked.  “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it.  But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no linger to anyone in this name” (Acts 4:16-17).

However, what marked the Apostles growing movement was prayer and discernment.  What were the apostles response after the threatening words of the Sanhedrin?

“On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.  When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God… After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:23-31).

So, as we approach our focal scripture in Acts 8, we see tension mounting between the temple tradition and the apostles who demonstrate a new power and authority found outside of the temple.  The apostles continue to gain an audience and larger numbers of followers until things come to a head when Stephen is seized and stoned to death. This, according to Acts 8:1, marks the beginning of a persecution against the Jerusalem church which leads to its scattering throughout Judea and Samaria.  But instead of having a cooling effect on these new believers, it galvanized them more as they continued to preach the word, wherever they went. It is as if the Spirit, not being welcomed in the temple or the holy city, went wherever it was given room and welcome.

This seems to mirror a similar scene in the gospels of Mark 6:8-11, Matthew 10:9-15 and Luke 9:1-6 where Jesus sends his disciples out in pairs with authority to cast out demons and cure diseases and to proclaim the Kingdom of God.  He instructed them to taking nothing with them for the journey but to depend on the hospitality of strangers. Further, he told them if no one is welcoming of them, to shake the dust off their feet as they leave the town. Here, it seems striking that the very city that hosted God’s presence in the temple is the same city that cannot contain the new movements of the Holy Spirit.  And so they scatter to the outcast places, like Samaria, where people receive them and are eager to hear their message.

Enter Philip, one of the deacons chosen in Acts chapter seven.  He makes his way to the place where devout Jews would never want to be found – Samaria.  Yet it is the Samaritans who are enthusiastically responding to the gospel message; who are being healed and cured.  What is most striking is the free way in which the apostles share the Holy Spirit with these new believers. Rightly recognizing that they cannot contain the Holy Spirit, Peter and John pray for the Samaritan believers to receive the Holy Spirit.  The alternative, of course, would be to try to withhold the Spirit from these new converts. What would be the outcome of such a decision other than a repeat of the disaster unfolding in Jerusalem? But the Holy Spirit cannot be bridled. It cannot be controlled.  It moves where God directs it, in unlikely places, among unsuspecting people and in unpredictable ways. Either we get on board with following the Spirit or get out of the way. The apostles chose to follow.

Which makes Philip the perfect candidate to follow the Spirit further, into more unexpected and unchartered waters.  Our focal scripture tells of an angel instructing to Philip to “go south to the road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”  This is a unique set of instructions. So much so, many Bibles footnote it. Check it out. The Greek word is used as both a location (south) and a reference of time (noon).  In this case, the wilderness road between Jerusalem and Gaza is a southward direction. But the timing may also be important. After all, who sets out by foot down a barren road at the noon hour?  Traveling habits of the day incorporated morning and evening travel. In other words, no one travels when the sun is at its highest and hottest. And who else would be out on such a road? Yet, Philip obeys and who does he find but an Ethiopian eunuch on his way back to his home country from Jerusalem.

This Ethiopian traveled in style, shaded by the heat and sun by a chariot and all that came with such travel.  I take that to mean he had at least a driver. Maybe an attendant, too (8:38). He had to have someone else driving the chariot; after all, he was reading from the Isaiah scroll.  This Ethiopian is a fascinating character study. He was wealthy and in charge of an even larger wealth as the queen’s treasurer. He was a foreigner, and is described as an Ethiopian.  If he had dark skin, he was not looked down upon because of his color. Rather, Ethiopians were idealized in ancient classical writings as people of great piety and beauty. Herodotus extolled the ‘burnt-skinned’ Ethiopians as the tallest and most handsome of all humankind; and Diodorus of Sicily commented that ‘it is generally held that the sacrifices practiced among the Ethiopians are those which are most pleasing to heaven.’” Further, the Jewish scriptures speak highly of Ethiopians for their upper-class status as powerful people economically and militarily.

The Ethiopians high standing, however, does not get in the way of his humbly seeking and accepting the instruction of divinely-directed wisdom from the prophet Isaiah and the interpretation of a fellow traveler on this wilderness road at such a strange hour.  In fact, it is humility that has intrigued the Ethiopian as he reads the scripture of the suffering servant found in Isaiah 53. Perhaps it was not just humility in the positive sense of the word that attracted him to this scripture. Of course, I haven’t mentioned his other descriptive quality that was certainly humiliating; his identity as a eunuch.  It is likely that his role as treasurer to the queen, which brought wealth and prestige, also brought with it the necessity to be castrated in order to serve in her court. For the Jews, whom he had been worshiping among in Jerusalem, his state as a castrated male would have placed him in a position of dishonor and impurity. Deuteronomy 23:1 states that no male in his situation should be admitted into the assembly of the Lord.  Josephus, a first century Jewish historian, regarded eunuchs as unnatural monstrosities who must be shunned on account of their gross effeminacy and impotence. Philo considered eunuchs as ‘worthless persons.’ Whatever economic and political worth he possessed in some circles and whatever value he attached to the Jewish faith, the Ethiopian eunuch was regarded as socially and religiously worthless among leading segments of Israelite society.

Yet, the Jewish prophetic scriptures also offers more hopeful prospects for eunuchs.  Isaiah foresees a day when pious eunuchs and foreigners, which this man was both, would be welcome into the temple and given a permanent place in the household of God (Isaiah 56:1-8).  In fact, one cannot escape the imagery here: eunuchs will be given a monument and name better than sons and daughters (which they cannot have) and a name that cannot be cut off (well, you know how that works for eunuchs).

So the eunuch is certainly intrigued by this suffering servant Isaiah describes.  But there has been no one to help him understand who Isaiah is speaking about. “How can I (understand what I am reading) unless someone guides me?” he asks.  And how could he know? While he was in Jerusalem to worship, his status prevented his acceptance in the temple courts. As he was heading back to his home, there must have been a mix of confusion and frustration as he continued to wrestle with the scripture in front of him.  He identified with the situation of the man described in the scroll. But what became of him? What did it mean? And Philip was there, as directed by the Holy Spirit, to help him understand the scripture in light of Jesus.

The scene ends with the eunuch’s simple question:  “what is to keep me from baptized?” The answer seems so clear to us: nothing!  There is water, there is his confession that Jesus is Lord. But for the Ethiopian eunuch, the question also points to more than function and pragmatism.  What lingers in his question quite possibly is the rejection he has felt among the temple in Jerusalem. There, as the law made clear, he was not allowed such privileges.  Would the Jesus way be any different?  Philip’s response gave a clear indication. And since Philip was directed to this desolate desert road by the Holy Spirit, his purpose was to continue the kingdom building Christ had started in Jerusalem by replying to the eunuch’s question in the affirmative.  Nothing is to keep you from being baptized! Nothing is to keep you from being given a name that cannot be cut off.
The work of Jesus has opened up to the outcast, foreigners and the unclean what once appeared to be off limits.  The early Christians sensitivity to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit provided them the joy of participating in God’s growing mission in the world.  For Christ followers today, What traditions in the current church may keep us from sensing the movement of the Holy Spirit?  What practices can we foster so that we can recognize and be responsive to God’s mission and movement in our culture?

Transforming Grace

The old Peanuts cartoon has Snoopy on top of his doghouse, anxiously waxing philosophical, asking:

“Where am I going?  What am I doing? What is the meaning of life?”

snoopy

Deep questions, certainly.  Trouble is, do we find ourselves asking that question enough?  What is the point of our life – of any life? What am I doing about it?  Does the direction I go make a difference?

For Paul, these were the big questions.  They were the questions he gave the rest of his life to understand and to give an answer for on behalf of everyone he encountered.  His own life was his biggest and best answer. He had been living the life of the upward and respected. He knew “what was what” and he worked hard to maintain his place in Jewish and Roman life.  But, one day, on the road to put those pesky Christians in their place, he met Jesus. And life as he knew it changed. What was up became down. And he understood love, mercy and grace for the first time.  For the first time, Paul didn’t and couldn’t earn his way. It was freely given. Which made him want to do a whole lot.  Not for himself but for everyone else. Because he now possessed a grateful heart.  Everything now was gift and the gift needed to be shared, not hoarded.

This is what led Paul to write all those letters, as difficult as they are to understand, sometimes.  Like Christ was transformed on the other side of the resurrection, so too was Paul on the other side of Damascus and so too are each of us every time the Spirit shows us just how out of control we really are, left on our own, yet how very blessed we have become to be called children of God.

So transformation is the heart of the matter of the lesson for this Sunday as it is also at the heart of the letter to the Ephesians.  God’s grace has transformed us to understand our whole existence, our direction, our whole purpose in a different light. We are fundamentally different creatures with a different purpose after our baptism.  The tension that remains is we live in a hostile world that either is looking in the dark while asking the same questions as snoopy or has completely ordered their lives around a purpose that amounts to little more than “me.”

For those of us who are new creations in Christ, Paul wants us to remember where, like himself, we have all come from.  And for those who haven’t yet discovered their potential newness, the household of God is to be a clear signpost for the hope they can have in a new life and purpose in Christ, and a firm direction for getting there.

The best I can do to help you guide your class in encountering Paul’s message is offer my own visual summation of Paul’s message in Ephesians 2 and to offer two perspectives from theologians much better versed in communicating just what transformation is.

First, I offer you Eugene Peterson’s overview of Ephesians.  To understand Paul’s overarching goals in his letter is to better understand his reasoning in chapter two.

What we know about God and what we do for God have a way of getting broken apart in our lives.  The moment the organic unity of belief and behavior is damaged in any way, we are incapable of living out the full humanity for which we were created.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians joins together what has been torn apart in our sin-wrecked world.  He begins with an exuberant exploration of what Christians believe about God, and then, like a surgeon skillfully setting a compound fracture, “sets” this belief in God into our behavior before God so that the bones – belief and behavior – knit together and heal.

Once our attention is called to it, we notice these fractures all over the place.  There is hardly a bone in our bodies that has escaped injury, hardly a relationship in city or job, school or church, family or country, that isn’t out of joint or limping in pain.  There is much work to be done.

And so Paul goes to work.  He ranges widely, from heaven to earth and back again, showing how Jesus, the Messiah, is eternally and tirelessly bringing everything and everyone together.  He also shows us that in addition to having this work done in and for us, we are participants in this most urgent work. Now that we know what is going on, that the energy of reconciliation is the dynamo at the heart of the universe, it is imperative that we join in vigorously and perserveringly, convinced that every detail in our lives contributes (or not) to what Paul describes as God’s plan worked out by Christ, “a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.  -Eugene Peterson’s introduction to Ephesians, The Message.

Our goal as teachers is much the same as Paul’s. To help Christ-followers understand that to celebrate the gift of God’s grace without any sign of real transformation is to miss the point entirely.  To be a new creation in Christ is just that – we are changed people; transformed, with a new way of seeing, understanding and relating to the world around us.  We have the answers Snoopy is looking for. Yet transformation most of the time isn’t the flash of blinding light Paul experienced. Rather, it is a gradual change that requires the prayers and the practice of a people, together.  It takes work. The church encourages this change in one another, but not for the sake of the church or ourselves. Instead, this transformation, though meaningful and deep, is for the sake of the world.

To better compare and contrast what Paul is describing in Ephesians 2, I’ve drawn a little diagram: image002

Lastly, one of the most creative storytellers and theologians in our recent history is Frederick Buechner.  Follow this link to read a moving description of Paul’s transformation and the different and purposeful work that came out of Paul’s conversion.  It is worth the read and paints a beautiful picture of the transformation found in embracing God’s grace. Good work doesn’t earn us a place in God’s good grace but God’s good grace motivates us to work to reflect a good and loving God.

Questions:

  • How do you know when someone has changed (transformed)?
  • Is all change good?
  • What makes for good change?
  • Is change easy?
  • In a system that elevates the individual above a community, what will be the sacred cows that stand in the way of transformation to Christ-likeness?