Session 1: Crossing Bridges (Preaching)

 

Crossing Bridges (Preaching)

Barbara Brown Taylor, Paul Scott Wilson, and Luther

 

Scripture: Acts 17:16-34

Paul, being Paul, refuses to lie low, even when he really should. Instead, he finds the busiest place he could, and mixes it up with the philosophers offering up their truths on the open market. There, spitting their philosophy, are Epicureans, who among other things avoid and deride superstition, and Stoics, who speak of the unity of all people and kinship with God. It is worth noting the location of this marketplace, the Hill of Ares. This hill is associated with the first trial, where Ares is acquitted of killing another god’s son, though he was in fact guilty.

In this saturated marketplace of ideas, Paul is misunderstood. Folks hear him describing Jesus’ resurrection, and think he’s telling them about two gods, Jesus and his consort, Resurrection.

I put all of these pieces onto the table, because the author of Acts wants us to see how, after the crowd’s initial misapprehension of Paul’s proclamation (resurrection as a goddess) Paul builds bridges with his listeners.

He quotes two different philosophers and a poet. He shows the Stoics a point of agreement, we are all God’s sons, and relativizes the idols, something that the Epicureans might have approved of. Then, he even uses the geography to point to Christ. Here, the King of War, guilty of murder, is none the less found innocent of killing another god’s son, but what Paul proclaims is something stranger still, God’s son, the Prince of Peace, innocent of all wrongdoings, found guilt and executed.

 

The Bridge:

          There is a space between text and context, the Scriptures and our life in the Year of Our Lord 2024. One of the tasks of the faith is moving the bible into the heart of the reader and the hearer. For example, if I was preaching the above section of scripture from Acts to all of you, I might take some time to consider what a modern-day Epicurean or Stoic looks like, what stories we might tell that are highly charged mirror images of the Christ story. All this to speak the Gospel in idioms that you understand, to prepare the soil for the Spirit to gather the Gospel in your heart. So, today we’ll look at how three thinkers, Barbara Brown Taylor, Paul Scott Wilson, and Luther, conceive of the Bible crossing into our day to day through preaching.

 

From The Preaching Life:

“No other modern public speaker does what the preacher tries to do. The trial attorney has glassy photographs and bagged evidence to hand around; the teacher has blackboards and overhead projectors; the politician has brass bands and media consultants. All the preacher has is words. Climbing into the pulpit without ropes or sound effects, the preacher speaks—for ten or twenty or thirty minutes—to people who are used to being communicated with in very different ways. Most of the messages in our culture are sent and received in thirty seconds or less and no image on a television screen lasts more than twenty, yet a sermon requires sustained and focused attention. If the topic is not appealing, there are no other channels to be tried. If a phrase is missed, there is no replay button to be pressed. The sermon counts on listeners who will stay tuned to a message that takes time to introduce, develop, and bring to a conclusion. Listeners, for their part, count on a sermon that will not waste the time they give to it.”—Barbara Brown Taylor

          Think of the Preacher’s improbable hope, with nothing more than the spoken word, we’ll cross this bridge from scripture to the hearer’s soul!

 

“Most of us would be hard pressed on Sunday morning to say whether we are in church because we believe or because we want to believe. Like the father of the epileptic boy in Mark’s Gospel, we do both: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24) The preacher balances on the round top of the semicolon along with the rest of the world. I cannot preach without belief, but neither can I preach without some experience of unbelief. Both are built into the human experience of the divine, and each tests the strength of the other. The movement of the sermon, like the movement of Christ in the world, is meant to lead from doubt to faith. We may begin by knocking on God’s door, unsure whether anyone is now or has ever been at home, but when the door opens and we are led inside, doubt becomes moot. Our host takes it from us and hangs it in the closet with the dustpan and galoshes.”—Barbara Brown Taylor

          Part of crossing this bridge is a movement from doubt to faith, unbelief to belief. You’ll know you’ve reached the other side because the claims of the Faith are believable, if not forever, if not for everyone, at least in the moment, for the day. We’ve been given belief for the day, our Daily Bread even. This is a continual movement, and that’s okay. Unbelief is not a sign of unfaithfulness, but part of the journey of faith. “I believe; help my unbelief.”

 

“Something happens between the preacher’s lips and the congregation’s ears that is beyond prediction or explanation. The same sermon sounds entirely different at 9:00 and 11:15 A.M. on a Sunday morning. Sermons that make me weep leave my listeners baffled, and sermons that seem cold to me find warm responses. Later in the week, someone quotes part of my sermon back to me, something she has found extremely meaningful—only I never said it.”—Barbara Brown Taylor

          Two things to point out here.

1. Context! Even the different composition of parishioners from 9 and 11:15 worship is enough to make the word hit differently. The hearers have to be considered when preaching—that bridge must be crossed.

2. Ultimately it is God’s doing. Sure the preacher can and must do the hard exegetical work of understanding the text and the context, but the bridging of the two has something ephemeral and mysterious to it. I never said it, but it was heard!

 

What the Word does:

          For Lutherans the Word acts in two ways, as Law and as Gospel. As a caveat, Hebrew Scripture can be experienced as Gospel just as much as the Greek New Testament can be experienced as Law.

For that matter, within worship the Word is administered in the reading of scripture and preaching of it, as well as during the Confession of the Church and in communal prayer as well. This connection between the sermon and confession and prayer tells us something important about the sermon. The sermon is the preacher’s confession at that time and that place, preached on the edge of prayer; this is why preaching someone else’s sermon is not only ineffective, but slaughters the soul.

So, you will know that text has met context when it is experienced as Law and Gospel. But what does that look like?

We experience scripture as Law in two ways, as a mirror and as a window. As a Mirror it is a device that shows us ourselves, warts and all. We are stuck by the reality that we have fallen short, that we are in fact sinners. As a Window scripture allows us to look out at the world and notice injustices and ways malice is not being restrained.

          We experience scripture as Gospel when we receive it as a love letter. Just as the Mirror showed us as we are, the Gospel shows God as God is; God is the one who loves us and will never abandon us, who will die for us so that we might live with God.

 

Connecting Word and World:

          Paul Scott Wilson gives an interesting way of constructing a Law/Gospel sermon, to ensure that text meets context. It is a four-part sermon structure.

First, an experience of the text as Law, or Trouble in Wilson’s language. Then, the preacher points to an analogous type of trouble in the world is lifted up for the congregation.

Third, the preacher points to the text speaking a word of love and mercy, Grace in the Text, as Wilson calls it. Then, finally, in a move parallel to the move from Trouble in the Text to Trouble in the World, the preacher proclaims a sighting of Grace in the World.

 

Conclusion:

          So, putting it all together: using the weak medium of words, translating Scripture to a variety of audiences, the faithful are regularly moved from doubt to faith. This is not the preacher’s doing, but the Holy Spirit’s.

          The Word, read, preached, confessed, and prayed, is experienced by the hearer as a Mirror and Window, as well as a Love Letter.

One method of preaching a solid Law/Gospel sermon is to point out where there is trouble and grace in word and world.

Smart People, Wise Faith

              Every year I try to do one bible study that is intentionally challenging for my folk, a bible study that will stretch ‘em. This year I did one I call “Smart People, Wise Faith”. I figured I’d share a long form version of it with my readers, as they might want to be stretched in similar ways.

              At base, Smart People, Wise Faith is a smorgasbord of theologians, giving people a taste of 15 different thinkers. I frame each session with a different way of interacting with a bridge (for example crossing or rebuilding) and connect those actions with a scripture or two.

              The whole project is a little convoluted, but with it I’m able to offer a table full of theological tapas, a varied tasting of Christian thinkers. Below is the menu for each session:

1.      CrossingBridges (Preaching)
-Barbara Brown Taylor, Paul Scott Wilson, and Luther

2.      TheDivide (Existentialism and Neo-Orthodoxy)
-Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Tillich, and Barth

3.      Burning Bridges (Post-Modernity)
-Descartes and John Caputo

4.      Bridgingthe Gap (Race)
-Isaac Asimov, Howard Thurman and Cornel West

5.      RebuildingBridges (Theology of Crisis)
-Augustine, Simone Weil and Chris Halverson

If you found this Bible Study Series helpful in your ministry or faith life, consider tipping me $1 to $5 through Buy Me A Coffee.

Sermon: How Did We Get Here, part 3

            As I’ve been saying for the last two weeks, included among the exiles in Babylon were a group of Holy Historians. Faced with their collective kidnapping, 

they asked the big questions: How did we get here? 
And: What is God up to now?

            They traced their situation back to key transition points:
-The pivot from Judges to Kings, 
-Saul’s reign and its eclipse by the rising sun of King David 
-And then the complex dance that was the Davidic Kingdom, 
which endured in one fashion or another, 
until the capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, 
and eventually these Holy Historian’s own day, exiled in Babylon.

How did we get here? What now?

 

Prayer

            It’s a familiar story, that the Holy Historians are telling. One that has even led to the coining of a phrase: “It was a David and Goliath contest.”

            The giant Goliath outmatches anyone in King Saul’s army. But then, 
young David sneaks to the front, 
bribing his brothers’ CO with cheese along the way, 
to bring them food from their father. 
            And David takes a look at Goliath 
and sees a man no more fearsome than the beasts that stalk the family flock, 
and he says so:

            “I’ve killed lions and tigers and bears, oh my! 
The LORD saved me from them, 
he’ll save me from Goliath of Gath as well.”

 

            It reminds me of that famous line in Star Wars: A New Hope, 
a pilot says hitting the Death Star’s tiny Thermal Exhaust Port is impossible. 
Luke Skywalker responds: 
“I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they’re not much bigger.”

            Or remember the famed Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, 
every time he swims his coach shouts “Play the Tape.” 
You see, he imagines the perfect swim in his head thousands of times, before he actually swims it.

 

            David recites and remembers God’s faithfulness to him
—he tells the story of God’s goodness and salvation, 
and trusts that God will continue to be good, be faithful. 
He plays the tape of God’s Goodness, 
he trusts that God is trustworthy. 
            When you know of God’s salvation 
you are surely more likely to see it again, 
believe that it is possible at all.

            And isn’t that what those Holy Historians are up to? 
Telling of God’s past faithfulness, 
so they can trust in it again, 
even in their awful situation of Exile? 

            By telling God’s story, they are writing themselves out of Babylon! 
-Abraham fled Ur and God was faithful. 
-We were slaves in Egypt, and God sent Moses to bring us out!
-The Philistines oppressed us, and God used David to Deliver us!

            And so too now! 
Let’s look for the new thing that God is up to!
Let’s trust that God is at work now too! Even in Babylon.

 

            And we Christians, when we testify about God’s goodness
—Have God conversation, 
the mutual up-building of believers, 
whatever term we want to use
—we are conversing ourselves out of peril, 
“rubbing God’s promises in God’s ears.”—Luther

            -I was at my lowest low, 
and God found me there!

            -I was in need of prayer, 
and someone prayed for me!

            -I was lost and alone, 
and then I went to Church and was part of something, 
the Body of Christ.

 

            And we do this as community too! 
When it feels like the Church is on its last legs, 
unfaithful or broken or in need of renewal and reformation…

            We can tell the story of God’s faithfulness! 
            -When the Church was beat down, 
God turned Paul around and, as he affirms in 2^nd Corinthians, he could take a punch,
 and did so frequently for the sake of the Gospel.

            -When the Church wedded itself to Imperial Power, and couldn’t tell if they were citizens of Rome or citizens of Heaven, 
God sent Augustine, 
and he unraveled that mess.

            -When the Church grew obsessed with money God sent Francis,
He rebuilt the church, sometimes literally, 
taking the bloated Church of his era out into the world.

            -When the Church was sorely afraid of the Bubonic Plague and wondered if there would be a future at all, 
God sent Julian of Norwich and she affirmed, 
All shall be well, all shall be well, and in all manner of things, all shall be well.”

- When the Church became blind to racial injustice, 
God sent Dr. King and Bishop Tutu to call out evil 
and call in repentant siblings.

 

            And so, Saul sends eager David out. 
Saul puts his kingly armor on David, his armor bearer
—helmet and mail and sword
—and the poor guy can’t walk
(remember Saul is a big guy, David, not so much.)

            And David can’t walk, or move. 
It’s too big for him, 
he’s not familiar with Kingly Armor… 
the trappings of Kingship are unhelpful for saving his people. 
Instead he goes out as he did against the Lions and Tigers and Bears. 
He embraces simplicity and humility, 
instead of pomp and circumstance.

 

            These Holy Historians are trying to figure out where they went wrong… 
How did we get here?

            We put on that kingly armor! 
We shunned simplicity and humility.
Power ought to be held loosely, if at all.

            But we put on heavy armor, 
a bronze helmet that hurts our neck, 
a sword that trips us up. 
We’ve become immobilized, here in Babylon, 
            Because we embraced kingship, power, control… 
now we’re under a different King—the King of Babylon
—when you choose to play the game, you better not lose!

 

            I think of my time in England, when I was trying to figure out where to worship. It felt like there were some strange dynamics going on that I, as an American wasn’t quite… getting…

            Eventually a colleague spelled it out to me
—the Anglican congregations were part of a State Church, 
and that was sort of a good deal for the State, 
-one more connection point with its citizens, 
-the monarchy made holy, 
-the government baptized
            It was a good deal for the State, but disastrous for the Church
—at extremes congregations became nothing more than places to celebrate Englishness, 
instead of worshipping Jesus Christ. 
Confusing Nation and Faith slaughters more souls than you’d ever imagine.

 

            These Holy Historians named the immobilizing evil inherent in the trappings of power, even as they told the story of David’s triumph… 
David, as we know, 
who too will eventually succumb to the seduction of Kingly power. 
(After all, Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely)

            But at least for today, 
David, is also the one who slays Goliath
—the humble triumphant over the braggart, 
the frightening oppressor defeated by the little guy.

 

            To tie these three week all up in a bow, here’s the bottom line,
These stories about the transition from Judgeship to Kingship 
ask a lot of the Holy Historians 
and a lot from us too, 
big questions: 
            -How did we get here? What now?

            -These stories point to Holiness and Trust in God, 
as more important than embracing a sure thing.

            -They insist that God is a God of second chances, 
and that we ought to look at the world with the Eyes of Faith.

            -They recite God’s goodness, 
and call us to simplicity and humility.

Amen.

An Attempt at a Hymn/Prayer: Give us eyes to see the Holy

 

When I ended my review of "Hunting Magic Eels" I wondered aloud if there might be a way to square Luther's explanation of the Lord's Prayer with Beck's insights about perception. Here is a first try, a hymn/prayer.

Hymn: Give us eyes to see the Holy

 

Refrain:

Amazing God, give us eyes to see the Holy.

Fill us with your awe; teach us to trust.

Keep us steadfast and

Let us perceive your providence.

 

1.

Marked by your name,

Holy God, may we encounter

Your strangeness in scripture;

May our disciple life, lead to awe.

 

2.

Teach us, Lord God,

To trust you,

That we might notice

When you reign!

 

3.

Thwart, O God,

All powers and principalities

That hijack our very selves;

Keep us steadfast in your will.

 

4.

Father, give us thankful eyes

To see your providence,

That it is good and very good.

In the Triune name. Amen.

Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: What is sensible, and where he loses me

 A Strong Response to Peterson

                When I told people that I was going to read Jordon Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life I received a lot of strong responses.  One group of people were convinced I was about to have a near transcendent experience; reading the book would forever mark my life as before Jordan Peterson and after, this book is enlightenment itself. Another group of people were convinced merely putting my eyes to the page would damn me. Some recommended only looking at secondary sources about the book, it was so dangerous. People treated this book like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, filled with a strong, wicked, overwhelming and corrupting power.

There was usually a caveat by the second group; if you are going to read it, please write something up about it so we don’t have to read it ourselves. So, consider me your Samwise; I’ll do the heavy lifting and take you to Mount Doom, where you can cast the Ring into the fire.

 

What He’s up to Intellectually

Peterson’s overriding concern is totalitarian violence. He is exploring the question: How can we be human after the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge? He regularly points to the book The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a cautionary tale of the type of people and society we wish to avoid, and Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning as a way out.

When giving his 12 pieces of advice, Peterson turns to several thinkers and ideas on a consistent basis.

He is a Jungian psychologist, and as such he relies heavily on Carl Jung, and with that, he describes human experience using mythical archetypes, and when he interprets Christian scripture, he does so in a Gnostic-like manner.

 He also leans heavily on the idea that our hind/reptilian brain is the main driver of human actions. For example, in the opening chapter he traces most human behaviors to lobsters sorting themselves out as winners and losers.

Finally, he has a propensity to cite Nietzsche to diagnose a problem and Dostoyevsky to fix the problem. For Peterson The Brother’s Karamazov can fix most of what ails the human soul.

So, just to name what a typical chapter feels like. 1. Here’s a self-help proposition along with a folksy example from rural Canada or a description of a problem of one of Peterson’s patients. 2. Here’s a reductionist description of human behavior, ignoring that we are more complex than lizards. 3. Here is a Jungian archetype illustrated with Disney or Marvel, and the Bible or Egyptian myth. 4. Here is a larger social critique with a quote from Archipelago followed by Meaning. 5. Nietzsche problematizes things and Dostoyevsky fixes it. 6. Finally, he ends with an expanded riff on the self-help proposition.

 

The Juicy Bits

                I know, some of you just want to read about Peterson being weird. So here you go.

I was not ready for how Woo-Woo he is. I mean, I went to the University of Oregon and have seen a thing or two… Dead Heads protesting while silent and naked, their only form of communication grunting, and shamen at the Country Fair, regularly commanding crowds to look into the eyes of your neighbor and ask, “What gives you bliss?” until you fall in love. But if Peterson started talking about his ideas to folk there, he would be taken to a time-out tent. It’s the Jungian stuff, I get how it can be moving, but not everything is part of our hero’s journey. If you want a feel of the Woo-Woo aspect of Peterson’s writing, just read the “Coda” of the book, where he reflects on what to write with his pen of light.

                He hates Elmo, with a passion.

                He’s delt with some mental health challenges. 1. He had a period where he disassociated from himself and had an internal and external voice, one that told the truth and the other that manipulated people for fun and profit. 2. He was plagued with terrible violent and antisocial impulses at one point in his life and had to learn to control them.

                Peterson is a Gnostic and some sort of Marcion (Marcion was a heretical Christian who believed in two gods, a good God who sent Jesus and an evil God who created the world and was faithful to the Jewish people)—ultimately it is the whole Jungian project of shoehorning the Christian story into an archetype system.

He believes Christianity as currently practiced is a pale shadow of an unrealized true form of the faith. True Christianity, as he expresses it in at least one place, is a Christianity that acknowledges that God is the Cruel Father but embraces Jesus, whose genius is that he pretends God is the Kind Father, even while knowing God is not. Peterson sums up the totality of Christianity in these words: “The Word that produces order from chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God.”

To be clear, the God who was faithful to the Jews and the God found in Jesus are one in the same God. For that matter, God is not a cruel father; we call God Father because it gives us boldness and confidence that God loves us. The good news of Jesus Christ is not wishful thinking or gaslighting. Peterson’s false description of God should be a big deal to at least some of his readers!

 

The 12 rules

ONE: Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Sensible:

Embody self-confidence. Know that conflict can be necessary. Get enough sleep and eat a nutritious breakfast.

He lost me:

Hierarchy is fused to our being on a DNA/biological level. Any attempt at creating equality is unhinged and dangerous. Whatever system exists there will be winners and losers, so embody being a winner.

 

TWO: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

Sensible:

Care for yourself. As a parent you should want your child to grow up. Recognize that everyone struggles. Be aware of your worst impulses and aim yourself elsewhere.

He lost me:

“Heaven is built, immortality is earned.” I know this is a self-help book, so doing things is of primary importance, and this phrase sounds uplifting, but it is worth stating that in the Christian tradition immortality is unearned and heaven comes about on its own without our building of it (in fact, that is kinda the point of Genesis chapter 11). Jordan Peterson’s way of viewing the world leaves no room for grace.

 

THREE: Make friends with people who want the best for you

Sensible:

Friends should want what is good for you. Find people who support you.

Codependency is a thing! Don’t try to rescue people who don’t want to be rescued.

Groups are often shaped by their weakest link.

He lost me:

“Not everyone who is failing is a victim.” Only those who really are in need should be helped.

 

FOUR: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today

Sensible:

                Winning at everything is impossible, so try out multiple activities. Know that winning isn’t what’s going to make you happy, but aiming for the goal of winning, that is what makes you happy.

Our goals determine what we notice in life. Sometimes, if you are unhappy, just changing your goals can make a big difference. Even a goal of “I want things to be better” can be a good goal; it is the start of a journey and may help you perceive a way out of unhappiness.

He lost me:

                The odd Marcionism I described above. Jesus pretends God is good, but actually God isn’t, and it is our actions that are good. Describing God as evil should be a big deal.

 

FIVE: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

Sensible:

                Saying no to children gives them boundaries within which they can explore. Addressing issues, even small ones, is worth it, after all they can take up a lot of your time. A parent’s goal should not be to be their child’s friend.

Parents should give children a limited set of rules and enforce them using the least amount of force that will get the desired result. Also, it is good to parent with at least one another adult, as parents can get tired and frustrated, which can lead to bad parenting. There should be a second responsible person who can step in when fatigue sets in.

He lost me:

                Social harm experienced by minorities are really just private troubles. As such, altering society for the sake of difference is detestable, as it can lead to revolution, which is the gravest of dangers.

 

SIX: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world

Sensible:

                Before you criticize others, fix yourself.

When your conscience tells you that something you are doing is wrong, stop doing it. That might even set you on a trajectory toward doing good things.

He lost me:

                If you really think about it, manifestos by school shooters and those of environmental activists are both anti-human. In some ways, the shooters follow through more logically than the environmentalists.

 

SEVEN: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)

Sensible:

                Perhaps sacrifices to gods are really enacting delayed gratification, the idea that fate can be bargained with.

He lost me:

                The future is a Judgmental Father and Socrates “took his poison like a man.”

Experiencing vulnerability will lead to a desire to torment other people.

 

EIGHT: Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie

Sensible:

                Having boundaries can be healthy. It is important to know yourself well and live authentically. Lies build upon one another, and are unmasked during a crisis, usually making the crisis worse.

He lost me:

                Tailoring a message for an audience is always a manipulative and political act.

 

NINE: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t

Sensible:

                Learn how to listen. Develop active listening skills. The best way to ensure that you’ve listened to someone else is to summarize what they’ve said and make sure you got it right.

There are a variety of types of conversations you’ll run into, they have different purposes.

He lost me:

                Peterson’s example of listening well is listening to a patient who thinks she’s been raped multiple times and deciding that she’s just such a nothing person that she hardly has a self with which to consenting to sex.

 

TEN: Be precise in your speech

Sensible:

                Notice and name an issue as early as possible, so it doesn’t get out of control and becomes the proverbial elephant in the room.

He lost me:

                You get the impression that Peterson takes this advice much further than a reasonable person would.

 

ELEVEN: Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

Sensible:

                When confronted with an undesirable behavior, it is a good idea to start with the assumption that the person is acting that way out of ignorance not malevolence.

When mastering a skill, the goal shouldn’t always be safety, but competence; competency can lead to safety.

A well-run society should offer multiple ways to win, as there are multiple types of people.

We should seek to make our children independent adults.

He lost me:

                This chapter! Oh my gosh, Peterson just goes off into irrational frothing mode!

On the Left:

Labor activists don’t care about justice, they just hate the rich. Universities are political operations that advocate the demolition of the culture that supports them.

Derrida is a Marxist, he just critiqued power instead of capital. The Khmer Rouge is Marxist. The Khmer Rouge committed mass murder. Therefore, Derrida is responsible for mass murder.

Peterson offers an alternative theory to Marx and Derrida about how society works. He does not think capital or power shape hierarchy. Instead, competency shapes hierarchy. So, all the winners in society are highly competent people, it doesn’t have to do with inherited wealth or finding an unjust role from which they can exert power. They’re just more competent people than the losers.

On Women:

Girls like winners. Women do not want a spouse who would be dependent on them. Instead, women want someone to struggle against them. Educated women will be alone and ultimately will yearn for bad boys.

On Men:

                Man-code can be summed up using one famous phrase, “Don’t be a girlie man.” No matter what, don’t be dependent on anyone else.

If society makes men compassionate, they will seek reciprocity, which inevitably leads to resentment. Ultimately, such men will be either naïve or whiny. Trump and fascist movements in Europe arise because society has made a virtue of being soft and harmless. Men demand toughness.

 

TWELVE: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Sensible:

Limitation is what allows each of us to be who we are and gives us our story. We ought to be thankful and observant, noticing the unique good in our life in the face of fragility and a limited world.

 

Conclusions:

                I imagine the folk who expected me to have a revelation reading this book will feel I didn’t express Peterson’s thoughts with enough nuance, while those who blanch at the book’s existence will be shocked that he does, in fact, engage with some deep thinkers and draws from a particular intellectual tradition.

                Peterson’s formulaic fusion of Jung, Frankl, Dostoyevsky and all the rest is compelling. It kept making me think about one of the unnamed big questions of junior high and high school humanities curricula for my generation—how do you read poetry/interpret history/live, after Auschwitz? Instead of leaving young people with a question mark, Peterson gives them a bold exclamation mark. For some, I bet, it feels like a capstone to that rather disturbing question.

                I can imagine myself in junior high, or again my freshman year of college, or maybe even the first three years of ministry, those alienating years with more questions than answers, grasping onto this book as a lifeline. Not because it was right, but because it offered clarity.

                I also have to name the elephant in the room, Rule 10. Peterson’s own mental health challenges very clearly color his rules. He struggled with self-control: control of his violence and control of the stories he tells others. Even as he gives general rules for everyone, the advice that gets repeated no matter the particular rule he’s focused on, tends to be about corralling violence and encouraging truth telling.

                A good bit of Peterson’s advice are life skills that should be shared with people: Self-care, goal setting, delayed gratification, making friends, the art of conversation, and how to listen… and yet, that last one sours the whole batch—his example of active listening was pathologizing a potential rape victim, it just makes the whole thing untenable.

                And that kind of thing is weaved through every chapter: lauding the status quo, essentializing hierarchy, subtly and then not so subtly transforming responsibility into self-aggrandizement, and a screech of grievance that feels simultaneously primal and petty.

To return to the Lord of the Rings metaphor, as Samwise, it is my duty to warn you that Peterson is Smeagol/Gollum. The tension within his character is palpable and infuses his rules with irredeemable elements. As such, it is, ultimately, Smeagol himself who causes the Ring to be destroyed.

Sermon: How did we get here?

            Our scriptures did not fall from heaven, 

pristine things untouched by the world in which they were written. 
Quite the contrary, 
Scripture is always compiled in a context. 

            The early Christian scriptures, the Greek New Testament, 
were written in large part in response to the destruction of the 2^nd temple in 70 at the hands of the Romans and the dispersion of the faithful out across the empire.
Out of distress—Gospel.

 

            Similarly, the Hebrew Scriptures were formed during the Exile some 650 years before the New Testament
—the time after Jerusalem was burnt,
the temple sacked, 
the King and his sons all killed, 
everyone who could read or write in Judean Society 
kidnapped and taken away to Babylon.

            Off in Babylon these people tried to write themselves into freedom… 
the priests codified the Torah, 
the Prophets collected their writings that stood the test of time, 
the Court Wisemen penned Proverbs 
and the Musicians scored the Psalms in a final form. 

 

            And the Historians… 
(these historians we’ll be looking at for the next 3 weeks)
They compiled a series of Holy Histories 
looking back at the way of life the Babylonians had eradicated
—The King and his Prophets, the Priests and their Temple.

            And they grasped at some profound questions:

-How did we get here?

-What were things like before our system exploded? 
-What was it like before that system existed?

-What was it like to live at a hinge of history—between one way of life and another? 
Because what we’re doing here in Babylon seems just as important!

            With the hindsight of history, what should we be looking for, now?

 

Prayer

How did we get here?

            There was a strange way of being a people, before the monarchy. 
12 tribes loosely allied with one another
from Dan and Asher in the North, 
and Judah and Simeon in the South.

            They had a pattern (which you can find reading the book of Judges) 
of struggling as small separate tribes in a crisis, 
God calling forth a Judge: 
A charismatic leader, 
who united the tribes, 
and then when the crisis was dealt with, 
they all returned to a decentralized, Tribal, norm. 
Some people describe this as a Kin-dom instead of a Kingdom.

            By no means was this a good system of government
—just read Judges
—but it was a system that trusted on God for deliverance.

 

            Then along came a Judge named Eli, 
who had corrupt sons;
sons who tried to take over his Judgeship from him, 
as if they were princes inheriting a Kingdom… 
and God thwarted their plan by sending Samuel as Judge, in place of them.

            And then, as we read today,
Samuel’s sons too were corrupt, 
accepting bribes and embracing injustice, 
seeming to inherit Samuel’s position, as if they were princes.

 

            And to this, the people say, “Give us a King!”

            You can hear the logic of it, 
if Judgeship is already an inherited position akin to Kingship
—they let’s do it right, 
let’s be a people in the same way as our neighbors!
It’ll be stable, 
we’ll know who governs us,

we’ll know who is going to ride out to fight our battles for us.

 

            In their fear, 
or valid attempt to keep Samuel’s sons from the throne, 
the elders of Israel break with their decentralized, tribal, way of life. 

            Instead of waiting for God to topple Samuel’s sons, 
trusting that God would act as he did with Eli’s sons before them… 
            They instead embrace a centralized powerful figure as their sovereign. 
A decision with lasting consequences
—conscription of sons, 
taking of daughters, 
requisitioning of property and people
—all that. 

            But more importantly, 
the one who governs them, 
the one who fights their battles
—will no longer be God.

            God will no longer be the one who travels with them through the desert, 
but will be confined to a temple in Jerusalem.

            God’s prophets will no longer wander the highways and byways of the land whimsically popping up as unexpected and powerful ways, 
but will serve at court.

            Never again shall God call forth a Judge for the people.

            “How did we get here?”
Wonders the Holy Historians. 
            “Was it rotten from the beginning? 
Were we chosen kidnapped few, 
the elites sequestered in Babylon, 
supposed to ever exist? 
Or are we an appendage of an institution God that never wanted our people to embrace?

            With the hindsight of history, what should we be looking for now? 
How can we be faithful in a strange land, off in Babylon?” 
Asked those Holy Historians.

            Our ancestors were looking for surety and sameness, 
instead of the uncomfortable strangeness of the Holy.

            Their fear overcame their ability to trust in God.

            Perhaps we ought to trust God goes with us, 
even now, 
even here.

            Perhaps we ought to make peace with being different, 
embrace the plain truth that holiness means sticking out, 
being a little weird.

 

            That holy wrestling with the past, 
naming more clearly how we got here, 
even when it stings, or uncovers where we’ve fallen short. 
That is not a task for holy historians alone.

            How did we get here? 
What was there before the loss, before everything exploded? 
In hindsight what should we be looking for now? 
How is God at work in our midst now?

            These are questions worthy of any nation, or denomination, or congregation, or family, or individual.

Amen.

 

The Task of the Church in a 4D World

As any longtime reader of this blog knows I believe Christians need to do ministry in a way that takes into account the 3Ds: Disestablishment, Decentralization, and Demographic Shift.  I’ve been pointing to this reality now for about 10 years, and recently pointed to this dynamic in my Lenten Devotional.

I bring all this up because I think there is a fourth D, Disenchantment. The book that recently convinced me of this is Hunting Magic Eels by Richard Beck. This book essentially popularizes Andrew Root’s work on the Church and Secularism, which is an application of Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” to the life of the Church. What follows are some of Beck’s big ideas:

 Perception:

             Citing the famous Selective Attention Test in which most people will literally miss the gorilla in the room if you tell them to focus on a moving ball, Beck affirms that what we seek is what we see. In this context, most folk don’t see God at work in the world, because we’re not looking for it. The narratives and habits of our secular society focus our attention elsewhere. And this makes belief unbelievable. Belief needs to be connected to some sort of experience, it needs to correspond to actual reality, otherwise it is a series of unproven propositions.

              Beck proposes that “Enchantment thrives when it is made visible.” That religious beauty captures the attention. Icons, crosses, sacraments, are all visual nudges that allow us to notice the gorilla in the room. These types of things that retrain our perception Beck calls Enchantments.

 

The Reformation & the Enlightenment:

               Beck argues that the present disenchanted way of looking at the world, the secular focus, comes from two sources, the Enlightenment and the Reformation.

              The Reformation was in some ways a religious parallel to the Renaissance, a return to classical sources, including original languages, to determine meaning of texts, namely the Bible, over and against relying on traditions and authority. Out of this impulse, multiple reforms to the Roman Catholic Church were attempted, and gave birth to a variety of Protestant Churches. Beck argues that the Protestant Reformation shifted the focus of Christianity from the mystical to the moral. Religion is now about one’s individual conscience (for example Luther’s famed “I can not go against my conscience; here I stand, I can do no other”) and being a good person, instead of continually engaging with enchantment.

              The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement and period of time where European thinkers responded to the religious wars in Europe by turning from religion towards rationalism and observation. The important thing Beck takes from this is that we still have an enlightenment era fixation of that which can be scientifically measured, to the detriment of our ability to focus on sacred meaning. Consequently, goals and values are now seen as subjective things, instead of objective ones.

              As a student of the Enlightenment (My History degree focused on Voltaire and Rousseau, two founding thinkers of the Enlightenment) and formed within one of the traditions of the Reformation (I am Lutheran and have a Master of Divinity from a Lutheran Seminary) I think Beck gave a fairly flat, not to mention a little warped, reading of both eras, but he wasn’t looking to give a history report, instead he was nodding at the origin of relevant things in the present.

A few things to tease out from his assessment:

The Reformation shift from the mystical to the moral means that if Christianity isn’t producing good people, or if there is a better way to produce good people, it isn’t true.

Also, if the only things that matter are measurable and we’ve determined that goals and values are subjective, then the stuff of faith are simply matters of taste and determined by whim.

Absent enchantment, all religion boils down to a battery to power other things, be it a justification for a moral vision or shibboleths for a political movement or the glue that holds an ethnic group together. Humans become the only actors on the stage of life, God is at best an object.

The best we can hope for, for people living in a disenchanter world, Beck says, is that they notice the absence of God and ache for God. “Notice the ache for God; if you can’t believe in God, at least desire God.”

 

Enchantment:

              Beck laments the loss of enchanted:
time—namely sabbath and feast days,
space—places for pilgrimage, Churches that are religiously beautiful as well as function as places to preach the word, sacraments, and thin places,
people—saints.
If we have no models of holiness, no place to experience the strangeness of God, and we don’t have time to contemplate the goodness of the world around us, no wonder we have a hard time believing holiness exists! A disenchanted church can offer nothing more than abstract ideas.

              As an analogy for what disenchantment has been doing to western society Beck points to the experience of retirement; retirement often leads to a deep loss of identity and meaning. People often drift after retirement. Retirement is a radical reordering of time (when do you have to get up for work, weekends have a different meaning), space (work is no longer a place you go), and people (a bunch of people are no longer your fellow employees, that relationship I gone). The disenchantment of the world feels like a collective retirement from God.

 

4 Styles of Enchantment:

              As a way to re-invest our attention, so that we can again see the sacred, Beck offers four examples of Enchanted Christianity.

Liturgical Enchantment: Much of this style of enchantment comes from Beck’s experience of Roman Catholicism (he was the lone protestant in his Catholic grade school). Marking time with a liturgical calendar re-enchants time, the sacraments make matter matter, and there is an artistic beauty to Catholic Churches that reaches beyond the glorified auditorium that Beck experienced as Protestant sanctuaries.

Contemplative Enchantment: Contemplative Christianity tries to live ordinary life, but aware of the presence of God, or to say it another way, it seeks to find the presence of God in the world as it is. Habits can either enchant or disenchant the world, so contemplatives practice the later. For example, using the Ignatian Examine, or naming “Roses and Thorns” from the day, to reflect on where God was at work that day; another holy habit is to pray before taking an action, be it small or large.

Charismatic Enchantment: The third type of enchantment Beck points to is found in the Charismatic and/or Pentecostal movement of Christianity. The focus of this type of enchantment understands faith as a romance, refusing to amputate the heart during worship. There is an assumption that God is going to act. When God is the main actor it leaves humans in a posture of receptivity—waiting for God, encourages a hermeneutic of gratitude—wow, God continually is doing good things in my life, and leads practitioners to testify—hey everyone, this is what God has done for me!

Celtic Enchantment: The final place Beck goes for enchantment is the sort of Christianity that flourished in the British Isles from 430-870CE, Celtic Christianity. He points to reverence toward “Thin Places”—where heaven and earth seem to be closer to one another, the practice of Holy Poetry, a particular fusion of fasting and hard work, and an emphasis on Sacred Friendships, as all unique enchantments offered by Celtic Christianity.

 

How might we Reenchant our world?:

              Richard Beck’s book planted many seeds in my soul and mind. Here are a few things that have started to sprout.

1.      When engaging with the secular world we need to be careful never to offer the faith as a battery for this cause or that.

2.       We ought to be bolder in naming the ache, both for ourselves and when we are sharing our faith with others.

3.      Holy time can capture the imagination. Sabbath is a time good for nothing, celebrating particular saints opens up past ways of being faithful, and marking time with the Christian calendar places our life in the rhythm of the story of God we confess with our lips.

4.      Closing a day reflecting on highs and lows (roses and thorns) and reflection on what God might have been up to is surely a wholesome practice.

5.      Breaking down some of the charismatic ways of being Christian to their essence: Pathos and sharing the faith, feels a lot more faithful and accessible than the essentials many practicing Charismatic Christians I’ve met focus on.

6.      There was something especially beautiful about the Celtic idea of Holy Friendship. In a society with an epidemic of loneliness, truly this is good news!

 

A Lutheran Enchantment?:

One final thought, in Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer he describes the first four petitions, parts of the prayer, as being about our perception of God’s work in the world.

-God’s name is Holy, we pray so that it may be holy in and among us.

-God’s kingdom comes, we pray that it comes to us.

-God’s will is done, we ask that it comes to and among us.

-Everyone receives daily bread, we ask that we might recognize it.

              Luther too, in a way, is teaching us to notice: notice Holiness in our engagement with scripture and the way we live our life, notice God’s kingdom in our way of trusting, notice God’s will when we are kept steadfast in the faith in the face of other powers, notice all that makes this world good and very good and giving thanks for it.

              I think there is something more to this last point, maybe a uniquely Lutheran contemplative prayer, a new framing of Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer?

112 God Conversations

 

I bragged on my congregation in the above video; that in a 20-month period we had 112 God Conversations. Friends, colleagues and people on the internet wanted to know more, particularly what we did and how.

First off, I need to acknowledge this wasn’t my idea; when the ELCA announced our goal to “Share the story of Jesus and the ELCA by engaging with 1 million new people as we grow the church together” there was a webinar for pastors that offered this marble exercise as a way to do this.

 

Materials

112 Marbles—We used yellow marbles to mirror with our yellow “God’s Work, Our Hands” T-shirts. There were 112 marbles because, if every ELCA congregation had 112 God conversations, that would make an even million God Conversations!

Two clear pretty containers—Make sure the containers can hold all 112 marbles. Place them in a noticeable place in the sanctuary. During the week congregants tell the Pastor or worship leader when they have a God conversation. Then on a Sunday (in our case as part of the Children’s Message) the marbles are moved from one container to the other. Seeing that progress is really exciting! It points to the faith we practice in worship being lived out in the world.

 

The Challenge

I have to admit I was pretty open ended with how I challenged my congregation, perhaps even too much so.

At based, I encouraged my congregation to notice and have God conversations with their neighbors and tell me about them—or at least that they had them. Then as a part of the Children’s Sermon I reported any God conversations in the last week to my people by counting together the number of marbles moved into the second container.

My challenge included the word notice, because folk are often having God conversations with their neighbors, but they don’t realize it, and by not realizing it they miss out that the Holy Spirit was at work. So much of the God Conversation Challenge was really an exercise in noticing, seeing how we speak and listen in Christ for our neighbors. We regularly have conversations with people about their values and goals, their fears and hopes—those are God conversations!

On one hand, I did strongly encourage folk to talk about God, tell their stories, testifying to God’s work in Jesus Christ, confess their faith. After all, “Lutheran Laryngitis” the observation that the average Lutherans shares something about their faith once every 23 years, is a tragedy. We’re ceding the Gospel to folk who are more outspoken about their faith, and often times misrepresent Christianity in ways that are anti-evangelical; instead of Christ’s message being good news, they offer bad news! The Lutheran understanding of the Gospel is freeing, why wouldn’t we share it?

On the other hand, I took a cue from Bonhoeffer:

“Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too.”

We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Part of this exercise was to listen, really listen, to what folk are saying about God’s work in the world, about, as I said above, their fears and goals, their hopes and what they value most.

Additionally, we were listening to language, learning to speak in the vernacular of our neighborhood. What does God talk look like in the 08826 zip code?

Finally, we listened because the Book of Acts continually attests to something amazing; the Spirit goes out ahead of the Church. God is already at work among our neighbors, and sometimes the best thing we can do as a congregation and a Church is pitch in, catch up to God’s actions. Perhaps, because of what we know about the God revealed in Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection, we can be helpful discerners and interpreters; we can point and say to folk already experiencing the Spirit, “Wow! Did you see it? God is doing something here!”

 

Results

It took 20 months.

Early on having God Conversations felt inauthentic, or at least uncomfortable.

There were worrying dry spells when marbles didn’t move for months at a time.

Several people were shocked by how prevalent neo-Paganism is in our area.

Folk had the opportunity to listen to what extended family members thought about forgiveness.

People helped friends wrestle questions about healing and hospice and what ought to be prayed for.

By the end, people were noticing these deeper conversations when they occurred; we began to come to worship anticipating that at least one person would report a God Conversation each week.

When the last marble moved, there was a sense of accomplishment, also some people worried that their God Conversations wouldn’t “count” going forward.

There are a lot of places to put your energy at in ministry, I would say having 112 God Conversations and marking them with marble movement is a worthwhile investment.