Righteous?

In the second half of chapter one in the Gospel According to Matthew, the angel appears to Joseph, who is addressed as "Son of David" (see post below on genealogy).  The Angel tells Joseph that his fiance Mary is pregnant, but that this is of the Holy Spirit and the child shall be Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.

Before the angel appeared, Joseph was planning to break off the marriage quietly.  He had thought Mary slept with another man, so he wasn't going to go through with the marriage.  But he didn't want to ruin her life, so he planned to break off the engagement quietly.  For this reason, the text calls Joseph a "righteous man."

To be righteous was linked to observing Torah.  Joseph is called righteous.  Which is interesting because he is called righteous even though wasn't literally following the teaching of Torah.

The Torah stipulated that if an engaged woman has sex with another man, then both she and the other man should be stoned (at least it includes both the woman and the man and not just the woman, cf. Deut 22:22-27).   In this circumstance, Torah stipulates a very public and a very harsh penalty.  Joseph neither inflicts the harm for such offense nor goes public with the accusations.  He goes against Torah, yet is still considered righteous.  How so?

Yes, righteousness was linked to Torah obedience, but it was also linked to justice and ethics.  Another way of saying righteous would be to say "doing right by another person."  Or "acting toward another person in a just way."

Joseph may not have been legalistically righteous.  But he was righteous on a higher level.  He was trying to do right by Mary by not ending her life or ruining her life through public shame (remember at this point Joseph still thought she slept with another man.  I don't care who you are or what culture you live in, that hurts).

Perhaps this early lesson in righteousness by Jesus' earthly father Joseph, Son of David, foreshadows the teaching of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham to come in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

Matthew 5:7 - "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy."

Matthew 5:20 - "For unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." 

Matthew 5:22 - "... but I say to you, do not be angry with a brother or sister..."

Matthew 7:1 - "For the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get back."

Matthew 7:12 - "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."

Indefinite Genealogy

Tree of Jesus Harrad of Landsberg
(12th century)

I'm a transplant to Ohio.  But one thing that is very important to Ohioans is the Ohio State Buckeyes.  It's not "Ohio State."  It's "THE Ohio State."  Not even "the" with a short e, but "THEEEEE" with a long e.  THEEE Ohio State.

It makes a big difference.  The University of Toledo is "a" university in Ohio, but "THEEE" is reserved only for THEEE Ohio State University.

In Matthew chapter one, right off the bat, we come to "an account" of the genealogy of Jesus.  Not "the" account; not "THEEE" account; "an account."

This is important because the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1 and in Luke chapter 3 don't match.  For one, Matthew's genealogy goes back to David and Abraham while Luke's goes all the way back to Adam.  For two, even the parts that do over lap don't match.

This freaks some people out, as if the bible and therefore the entire gospel are somehow compromised.  But it really shouldn't concern us too much.  Remember, this is "an account" not "THEEE account."

This is not meant to be a scientific, ancestry.com approach to Jesus' lineage.  Matthew is telling a story.  And Matthew is speaking to a primarily Jewish audience.  In Matthew's story, the indefinite article "an" is not as important as the definite article that follows...

Jesus is "the" messiah... "the" son of David... "the" son of Abraham.

For Matthew it is more important to help his Jewish audience to see that Jesus not only descends from Abraham and David, but that he is also the fulfillment of God's messiah.  Yes, Jesus is the son of Abraham, but as the Messiah God is calling forth a new family.  Yes, Jesus is the son of David's, but as the Messiah God is establishing a kingdom that will last forever as promised to David.

The articles matter.  Don't turn "an account" into "the account" of Jesus' genealogy.  But at the same time, don't turn Jesus into just another messiah or just another Son of David or Son of Abraham.

Scribing

An image of Baruch
Jeremiah's scribe (Jer 36:4)
by Gustave Doré

"Every scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven

is like the master of a household

who brings out of his treasure

what is old and what is new."

Jesus, Matthew 13:51

I've begun a new discipline of scribing.  Scribing is just a nerdy word to say I've begun the task of writing all four gospels and the book of Acts by hand.  It's also a good excuse to buy well-designed pens, notebooks, and other nerdy paraphernalia.

This discipline was introduced to me by a friend, and it has already been a helpful way to immerse myself in the text, slow down, and get to know scripture better.

Today is November 1st, and I've started scribing the Gospel According to Matthew.  The plan is to scribe one chapter per sitting, and then blog a main reflection from my time in the text.  These thoughts and reflections will be just that; they will be unrefined, unpolished thought and reflections.
They won't be definitive answers, and they won't even be things I will necessarily preach.

But that's a good thing.  I approach the discipline of scribing in a lectio divina kind of way.  In the prayer of lectio divina the goal isn't to write systematic theology but to allow God to speak through the text guided by the Spirit.  It's a way to deepen one's reflection and love for the biblical scriptures.  Sometimes God Spirit does this through following rabbit holes, asking weird questions, and even pushing the boundaries of what is considered right and acceptable.  \

So for the next 6-8 months, or however long it takes me, I'll be scribing and reflecting.

"Let not Moses nor any of the prophets speak to me:

Speak Thou, rather, O Lord God,

the inspirer and enlightener

of all the prophets.

For thou alone without them can perfectly instruct me.

But they without Thee will avail me nothing."

Thomas a Kempis

Of the Imitation of Christ

Book 3, Chapter 2

What does it take to make mission missional?

Not everything the church does in the name of mission or outreach is missional. A group of friends and I recently brainstormed a top-ten list of things churches think are missional but actually aren't:

10 - Outdoor worship services

9 – Ecumenical worship services

8 – Prayer walks

7 – Serving a meal to the homeless

6 – MCC school kits and relief kits

5 – Community fundraisers

4 - Small groups

3 – Contemporary worship

2 – Handing out tracts

1 – Inviting people to church.

“What!?!,” you may ask. “How is inviting someone to church not missional? And what do you have against small groups?” I in no way mean to suggest these aren't good or important things. I for one love the way our congregation collects school kits for MCC every year. I further agree that many of the things on this list are ways of offering care to those in need. Many of these things represent a service to others. Many of these things show Christ-like love and compassion. Some of these things are even done in public. It doesn't mean they are missional.

To be missional is about recognizing what God is up to in our lives and in our communities, and then responding in faith to the movement of God's Spirit. To be missional requires that in order for our light to shine our hearts and habits must be transformed more and more to be like Jesus. In its very essence, to be missional is to intentionally make disciples of ourselves and our neighbors.

In the book The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, the late Mennonite missiologist and seminary professor Alan Kreider paints a picture of the early church that is virtually the exact opposite of many churches today. Kreider documents how the early church's mission focused on making disciples. New believers attracted to Jesus or to the church went through a lengthy multi-year process of chatechesis and character formation. The goal of this process was for candidates to undergo a transformation that resulted in new habits and dispositions. Only then was a person baptized and admitted into the worship life of the church. The effect of this approach was that it cultivated a culture of discipleship that ensured robust witness to the reign of God in Christ. That's missional.

My, how times have changed. Many churches today are concerned primarily and sometimes solely with how to get more people to attend worship. They think about ways to make their worship services attractional, seeker-sensitive, family friendly, contemporary, relevant, or any other of a host of buzz words. I don't think any of those words could be used to describe the early church, and yet its growth and witness was phenomenal.

Many churches today simply want to get people in the doors, or get more young people to serve on committees, in the hopes that they will develop into mature disciples of Jesus. But as Alan Hirsch warns, “If you start with mission, you get the church. But if you start with the church you don't always get mission.”

It's not that the top ten things I listed at the beginning are bad, or that they can't be missional. But often it requires some important shifts in how we approach them. Are your small groups really deepening discipleship and drawing others in? Or are they a platform for friends to eat and pray together? (again, not a bad thing, just not missional.) Does your volunteering at the local food pantry or homeless shelter result in the spiritual transformation of both served and server? If so, praise God! If not, then we should acknowledge that it is an important act of charity, but not missional. Does your worship form patient, loving, kind, and joyful people in a world of outrage and hostility? Or does your worship merely cater to the consumeristic patterns of empire?

Taking a hard and honest look at those questions is one of the first necessary steps on the road to becoming missional. 

Jesus Fatwa

I often find my head spinning in an era of fake news, alternative facts, and a never-ending stream of media (social and otherwise).  We live in an age of information overload and information manipulation.  My brain just doesn’t have the bandwidth available to process and evaluate all of it.   

In the midst of this flood I am attempting to build an ark to take shelter in.  Rather than just barely treading water trying to make headway into the sea of noise, I have chosen instead to direct my energy by looking backwards to the origins and history of our faith.  I don’t mean or intend to ignore serious issues in our world today, but I need to find a way to rise above and to not be held captive

So I have decided to study church history.  And I have chosen Justo Gonzalez’s Story of Christianity as my guide. 

I’ve only made it through the first 200 years of the church.  But during that time, the experience of the early church was one of being misunderstood, misrepresented, and scapegoated.  The young Christian church, being a minority faith throughout the Roman Empire, was an easy target by those in power.  Christians were misrepresented as…

     atheists - because they didn’t believe in the Roman pantheon of gods; 

     cannibals - because they were said to eat flesh and drink blood when they gather for worship;

     incestuous - because they spoke of love toward “brothers” and “sisters”     

These outlandish rumors were more or less easy to refute.  Harder still were the philosophical misunderstandings that they were haters of human kind and were presumed to have worldviews that were incompatible with Roman civilization. 

At extreme points persecution broke out, Christians were scapegoated for disasters and tragedies, and restrictions were placed on where they could live and/or travel. 

This history of our faith stood out to me even more by attending the recent Jesus Fatwa events held at the Masjid Saad Foundation in Sylvania.  “Jesus Fatwa” means “Jesus Commandment.” Specifically, you shall love your neighbors as yourself (Mark 12:31 and Matthew 22:39).

It wasn’t a dialogue per se, but rather a chance to listen and learn more about the faith and practice and experience of our Muslim neighbors.  We have many Muslim neighbors, after all; Toledo is home to the number two per-capita population of Arab and Muslim Americans in our country.

It is said that one of the greatest gifts that we can give to another is to truly listen to them.  So while the Jesus Fatwa event wasn’t intended to be a true dialogue, it was nonetheless a significant way to practice Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbor. 

As I listened, one of the things that became very clear, is that Muslims in our world today feel compelled to speak up and defend themselves against being misunderstood, misrepresented, and scapegoated.  The reminds me of what I'm reading about the history of the early church.  The persecution may not be as intense or violent, but the underlying social and relational animosity and mistrust towards this religious minority in our country is very real and alive today.  I don’t think I’m saying anything new by naming this. 

There were times during the Jesus Fatwa events that I became frustrated.  Particularly when some people would make comments like “well, we pretty much all believe the same things.”  There are significant differences in our faiths, so I find such simplistic clichés to be unhelpful and also dishonest. 

But that’s not to say there aren’t many significant similarities.  In regards to Christians and Muslims, our shared history of needing to defend ourselves against false stereotypes is one of those significant similarities. 

In an October 2015 speech, Iranian Muslim scholar Navid Kermani gave a speech upon accepting the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade association.  In his acceptance speech, he held up the example of an Orthodox Syrian priest named Father Jacques Mourad.  Father Jacques’ community in Syria was facing persecution by ISIS.  Yet even up unto his point of abduction, Father Jacques continued to stress how ISIS was distorting true Islam.

Navid Kermani expressed his disappointment when other Muslims like himself brush aside the horrors of ISIS by simply saying that violence has nothing to do with Islam.  In his view, for him as a Muslim to simply dismiss it is not enough.  However, when a person of another faith, a Christian Priest, who is currently under threat from ISIS, defends Islam, that kind of defense of one’s enemy displays inner greatness.

Navid Kermani goes on to say, “Love of one’s own – one’s own culture, one’s own country, (one’s own faith), even one’s own person  - proves itself in self-criticism.  The love of the other – of another person, another culture, and even another religion – can be far more effusive and (generous).” 

These words of the Muslim scholar Navid Kermani remind me of something Jesus said about removing the log in one’s own eye before removing the speck in your neighbors eye. 

As I think about what this means for how we love our Muslim neighbors in our city and in our country, I think it leads us to three very practical and basic postures. 

1. Listen.  Listen to our Muslim neighbors as they defend themselves against misrepresentation.  And listen to our Muslim neighbors as human beings full of hopes, fears, and daily concerns just like everyone else.  
2. Let Muslims interpret their own faith to us.  Much as we Christians have ways of understanding the violence of the Old Testament in light of the fuller revelation of God in Christ, many Muslims like Navid Kermani, and those who presented at the Jesus Fatwa, have resources within their own faith understanding to self-correct and self-interpret.  I don’t like when non-Christians, Atheists, or other faiths presume to tell me the true meaning of Christianity.  And we are called to treat others as we want to be treated – another one of Jesus’ fatwas. 
3. Finally, we love our Muslim neighbors by sharing our faith openly and honestly with them.  It does no good to lie or ignore serious differences.  And why would we not want to share the ways that Jesus has transformed our lives by the grace and truth of God?  For true dialogue to take place, we must not only listen but also speak.  But we must keep in mind that this takes time.  This is not just a matter of listening once or twice and then concluding that we’ve gotten that over with, so now we can get on to the business of speaking and arguing.  With centuries of tension, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation in both directions, this takes time.  But perhaps, if we do steps one and two regularly, and over time, God will open up doors to move into this third step. 

Much like with the early church, people who are willing, wise, and mature, can easily distinguish ridiculous rumors from truth if they just take the time to do so.  Deeper philosophical and theological differences will naturally require more serious engagement with respect and honesty.

My take-away from this learning event is this: 

Let us as Christians take Jesus’ words seriously.  Let us love our neighbors as ourselves.   The early church faced gross exaggerations and mischaracterizations.  Let’s not do that to our Muslim neighbors.  Let us hold ourselves accountable to refute and resist the ridiculous rumors of our Muslim neighbors that circulate within our own churches, families, and friendships. 

And if we do that, and do that well, consistently, and with conviction, then I believe we will then get on to more mature matters of engagement and dialogue.

Spiritual Resistance: Flipping the holiday script

Twenty to thirty years ago when I was growing up in the Mennonite church, we rarely observed Lent or Advent.  As a child I asked my mom why all my Catholic friends give up something for Lent but we didn’t.  She said, “Well, we try to live our whole lives in Lent.” 

Certainly there is much to ponder in that statement in terms of simple living, but the underlying reality was that Lent (and to a lesser degree Advent) where things that other Christians do but we Mennonites (and Evangelicals) don’t.

That’s no longer the case today.  Over the past generation more and more Mennonites (and Evangelicals) are recovering the traditions of Lent and Advent as periods of prayer, preparation, and spiritual renewal leading up to the two biggest Christian holy days. 

I believe that one reason for this recovery is that we are far enough removed from historical animosities to realize that there are good things in those “high church” traditions.  We are now able to admit that we’ve discarded too much over the centuries. 

But I also believe that another reason for this recovery is because we intuitively know that we need fully-formed religious practices to withstand the forces of commercialization and consumerism that continue to co-opt our holy days.

Our somewhat-Christian but secular and consumeristic culture lacks patience.  Therefore, a typical lead-up to and celebration of Easter goes like this:

Spring sales, candy, flowers, egg hunts, pictures with the Easter bunny, then off to church on Easter Sunday, followed by dinner at grandma’s, then it’s all over. 

This sequence is even worse for Christmas:

Thanksgiving, black Friday, cyber Saturday, more shopping, office parties, school plays, lights, more shopping, hot mocha peppermint lattes, shopping and finally some more shopping, then Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then it’s all over.

Our society celebrates too early and ends too abruptly.  As a result, we suffer from post-holiday let-down.  The end result of the holiday is more disappointment and emptiness than lasting joy and fulfillment. 

The church needs disciplines of spiritual resistance to come out from this pagan rhythm and flip the cultural holiday script.  We can do this in two steps.

First, we resist the temptation to celebrate too early by observing the seasons of Lent and Advent.  Our worship and discipleship should mine these spiritual seasons for depth in order to curb our appetites and focus our hearts. 

Then, we resist the let-down of ending to abruptly by prolonging the celebration.  Easter should not just be one day of worship but a season of basking in the resurrection.  Sing Easter songs for weeks after Easter Sunday.  Don’t buy or use any Easter decorations or candy until after Easter (you’ll even save money by getting everything on clearance).  Have people over for dinner the Sunday after Easter Sunday.    

Do similar things for Christmas too.  Christmas is not just one day of presents but a time of resting in Christ’s presence.  Don’t sing Christmas carols until Christmas, but then keep singing them through January.  Recover the 12 days of Christmas and give one present each day for 12 days starting on Christmas. 

Flipping these holiday scripts would remind us as the church that though we are in the world, we are not of the world.  We may not be able to totally buck the system of consumerism around us, but we can set up spaces of sanctuary from the chaos around us through worship, prayer, and spiritual discipline. 

Easter Message

It is not the goal of the church to say anything new on Easter.  Rather it is the goal of the church to say something faithful to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. 

The church gathers for worship on Easter to keep the memory and hope of resurrection alive. 

This is a vital act of faith; to proclaim the suffering love of God and God’s redemptive victory within the world of death.    

Jesus stresses three times throughout his ministry that it is necessary for the Son of Man to suffer, be rejected and crucified, and to rise again on the third day.  Jesus warned and told his disciples about this, but they were slow to download this message into their hearts and lives.  How could they?  This was complete and utter newness beyond their wildest hopes and dreams. 

Our society and culture worship at the altar of the new and the novel.  The world competes after hot takes and first scoops and innovative technologies.  Trendy is the currency of the day.  Something that is old is assumed to be obsolete. 

The gods of mammon and consumption, whether of things or ideas, and the systems of market production and technological progress have invaded imaginations.  And let us be humble enough to admit that these gods have infected our faith at times as well. 

The wisdom of scripture proclaims that there is nothing new under the sun. All this competition for the newest and latest is really the age-old human quest for power.  It is really just the age-old race to the top; the top of politics, the top of the market, the top of the academy, the top of the family, the top of our friendship circles, etc.    

All this has been done before, and so it is, in fact, all so very old.  This obsession, this race for the new and the novel has left a wake of disaster and will leave you stretched thin, tired, anxiety-ridden, and driven toward despair and nihilism.

It will, in the end, kill you. 

On Easter (as we should every Sunday) the church steps out of this very old race for the illusion of the new and the novel.  Instead of saying anything particularly new today, the church aims to say something specifically faithful. 

The church proclaims Christ crucified, Christ executed, Christ assassinated, like a common criminal, like a disturber of the peace. 

The scripture makes clear that he was executed by a perversion of justice between religious and political powers; a collusion of church and state.   

What was his crime?  He healed the sick and spoke good news to the poor.  He welcomed the outcasts and ate with sinners.  He spoke against sacred institutions, preached openly about the coming Kingdom of God, and called all to change their hearts and lives. 

           

But on that first day of the week as recorded in the gospels, something changed.  For the first time something new actually happened. 

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared, but they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.  Suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  The women were terrified, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). 

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

It’s not there.  You won’t find it there.

The body of Christ is not to be found in that which is dying and decaying and fading away.  Rather the living of Christ is to be found out beyond the tomb, out beyond the places of death.

           

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! 

So why look for the living among the dead?

That is the Easter question.  That is the Easter question that summons us to true newness. 

           

So often in our human quest for power we look for newness and significance among the tombs.  We settle for a mere resuscitation of what has already been tried before, but is merely repackaged and re-branded as something novel.

But Easter is not just one more go-round with resuscitated, old ideas.

Easter is about resurrection! 

John of Patmos recounts the words of Christ in the concluding witness of all of scripture, “See, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

This is Easter: Complete and total newness.  Not a resuscitation of old ideas.  Not a recycling of old and tired games into new and fancy packaging.   

Easter is about resurrection.  Easter is about Jesus, the son of God, entering into creation, suffering and dying at the hands of that very creation, but being raised up again to redeem, ransom, and transform all of creation into something completely new. 

Each of us must consider the burdens and sorrows that we carry.  Each of us must examine the sin that weighs on our conscience.  Each of us must name and lament the miscarriages of justices that are heavy on our hearts.  It is on account of these that Christ died.  But it is in spite of these that Christ now lives and calls us to follow him in newness of life. 

Because the resurrection is God’s answer and God’s solution to all our personal, social, and yes, even our political problems. 

It is only the hope by which our lives and our world are transformed. 

This is the resurrection.

And I believe in the resurrection.

And I have hope in the resurrection.

Both for this life, and in the life to come. 

Thanks be to God

Christ is Risen!  

AMEN