Below are brief videos about each of my books:
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Sermon: Confession and Forgiveness
Confession and Forgiveness
When
Jesus criticizes the traditions of the elders
When
James waxes eloquent about forgetful hearers and gifts from above
And
when the Israelites Identity is being formed by Statues and Ordinances
I
can’t help but think about Confession and Forgiveness… confession and
forgiveness.
Prayer
What’s
Jesus on about today? Who wouldn’t want people to wash their hands before they
eat? It’s one of the basic things you get taught as a kid, don’t touch the hot
stove, say please and thank you, wash your hands before you eat.
Jesus
is not against this practice because he likes microbes crawling around on his
hands, or because he, like a Chinchilla prefers a dust bath.
No,
he has two reasons for rejecting the practice. First He sees this ritual action
as following an invented tradition, and secondly creating a division between
holy and common things that ought not be created.
The
Pharisees were Popularizers, egalitarians if you will… they took the laws, many
of them intended only for the temple, and brought them into the home—so that
everyone was a priest, everyone was seeking holiness. In this case the people
were told to emulate the priests ritual cleaning before the altar of God at
their dinner table. And Jesus takes this to be a way in which human tradition
has trumped God’s.
Additionally,
this ritual washing was a way in which people would move from their common
every day lives into a holy portion of their life—their table and their home a
separate place from the world outside of it.
And
this is not an uncommon religious impulse. Think of dipping your finger in the
baptismal font to remember your baptism before going up for communion—you are
ritually opening up a holy space as you enter into a holy meal.
Or,
think of the tradition of wearing your Sunday’s best. Putting on a certain
style of clothing, not our work a day clothing, but Church Clothing—Holy
Clothing for a Holy Time.
Again,
this makes sense, we’re opening up a space where we are more fully aware of
God’s presence.
The
danger however, is that in these things we do, the sign of the cross, wearing
our Sunday Best, ritually washing up to our elbows—we end up doing these things
for the wrong reason.
We
end up doing them to hide what’s inside—if we can control the outward then we
can ignore what is inside.
James
might compare this to looking into a mirror, looking away, and forgetting what
we look like… the danger is we’re distracting ourselves from ourselves.
There
was a man who marched into a clinic and told them to run him through a battery
of tests. He said “MRI my whole body, except my left foot.” Then he had them
X-ray all of him… except for his left foot. Then an expert clinician examined
every inch of him, except for his left foot.
By
the end one of the interns had to ask, “Why haven’t we examined your left
foot?”
And
he responded, “Oh, well there’s something wrong with my left foot, but I don’t
want to know about that.
Yes,
the danger is we end up hiding from what is wrong, leaving it’s image in the
mirror, hiding it under our Sunday best, washing with water that which needs to
be dealt with in community and by Christ.
And
that’s why I’m so glad we’re a Church that confesses. It’s almost an
anti-ritual in which we take off our Sunday best and all the rest and appear
naked before God. We confess a whole alphabet of intricate ways we offend both
God and our Neighbor.
We abuse, betray, curse, destroy,
envy, act foolishly and with greed, hate, injure, judge, kill, lie, murder,
notice not our neighbor in need, oppress, profit unjustly, stay quiet when we
should speak up, rig the game in our favor, sin, torment, utter falsity, act
with vanity, will evil, stoke xenophobia, yearn for the good but do the evil, and
lag in zeal.—Do those 26 cover everyone, at least a little bit?
Yes,
confession of sin keeps us from manufactured holiness. It helps us recognize
with James that every act of goodness, ultimately, comes from above—it is a
gracious gift from God. Every good act is from God.
It’s
like when you talk to city and suburban kids…some adults too I would
venture—they think food comes from the grocery store. Perhaps packaged
elsewhere, but it’s connection to earth, to soil and work, agriculture and
irrigation, is lost.
So
too, when we put our trust in our own actions—whatever equivalent to washing to
our elbows we come up with—we miss God too acting within us. The very struggle
between saint and sinner, which follows us our whole life long, that’s all
churned up by God. When care for Orphan or Widow trumps adultery or
avarice—that’s ultimately from God, we maybe even cultivate the act a
little—but it’s bursting on the scene, the fruit of it all, is from God.
And
recognizing that, these things we do—ritually and morally—become part of our
identity—a badge to point to God. Just as Moses and the Israelites “heeded the
statues and ordinances of God” so that people might look and say, “Wow, the God
of those folks sure is close to them,” we too can wear grace and generosity as a
marker pointing to God—even as we must remember it is not ours alone and comes
from God alone.
It
points to our identity as a freed and forgiven people.
It
points to the reality of our forgiveness.
Just
as confession points to the ABCs of our brokenness, forgiveness points us to
the ABCs of God’s grace.
It
points to a God who:
Affirms,
Bestows life, sent Christ, Destroyed death, Enlivens us all, Forgives
continually, is Generous, Hates not anything He Has made, Invites us in,
Justifies, shows Kindness, Loves us, Made us in His Image, Names us and claims
us as His own, Opens the gates of heaven, Pours out mercy, Quells our doubts, Receives
us as beloved children, Saves us, Turns us around, Ushers in the Kingdom, Values
every one of us, Wills life, is exalted, is the Yes to all the world’s No’s, and
renews our Zeal.
A+A
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Sermon: The End
I missed posting this sermon from a few weeks back, because I went straight from Church to Pinecrest where I taught "Smart People, Wise Faith."
On this, the final Sunday in our summer sermon series “8 Question from the
Pews,” we end with a rather appropriate question… or rather an
appropriate request “Talk about what ‘the end’ means.”
To do this we’ll:
1. Consider two meanings of the word
2. And look at what today’s gospel readings from the Gospel of Mark look
like in light of those two meanings of the word
Let us pray.
The End.
When we talk about it theologically, we often think about the book of
Revelation, Millenialism of various sorts, the Late Great Planet Earth, and the
Left Behind Series.
What all these things have in common is an assumption that the definition of
“The End” we’re using is “The conclusion” or “Termination.” “Ceasing.”
“Stopping.” A period or exclamation mark, as opposed to a comma or semi-colon.
And this is probably what the questioner meant.
They’re likely wondering what it’ll all be like when the earth ceases to exist,
or this particular epoch, this particular time period, stops.
Yet, I would suggest another one of the 7 definitions of “End” is worth
considering when we look at scripture—the end defined as “Goal.” The end
of something is its direction, where it is going.
By way of example, our Episcopal brothers and sisters confess: “The Chief End
of Man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”
So, instead of “The End” being a period, or point ending a line, it’s an arrow
pointing toward a goal.
Let’s consider Mark’s Gospel in light of these two meanings.
A more literal reading of Mark’s Gospel points us toward the first definition
of Endà “The Passing away of heaven and
earth,” the evaporation of the world.
In this reading Jesus is warning us that at some unknown time there will be a
period of cosmic darkness, and the Son of Man—this figure from the book of
Daniel, will arrive and we ought to look for signs and keep awake so we know
when it happens and are not caught unaware.
Some read this as pointing toward the destruction of the temple, or more
commonly, as pointing toward the destruction of the world. In this case, they
say, Jesus is telling us to look around and read everything as a sign, to be
anxious for the coming cosmic thunderclap that will end it all.
But let’s consider option B—the End as an arrow pointing toward a goal.
To do this we can look more particularly at a pattern in Mark’s Gospel—his
dealing with fig trees.
Yes, Fig trees, it might seem a weird place to go into order to talk
about the end—with a plant… but Jesus himself describes the coming of The Son
of Man as being announced like a fig tree announces summer.
So, let’s consider the Fig Tree.
Jesus enters Jerusalem the first time, his humble act of riding a donkey, which
proclaims the kind of Kingdom we are called to, is met with leaves
galore—it at first seems that there is a fruitful acceptance of the Kingdom of
God.
But, at the gates of Jerusalem, just
outside the city limits, back in Bethany,
Jesus sees the truth, writ large on that small Fig Tree, there are leaves but
no fruit, and so he curses it. As in Jerusalem,
so too the fig tree, both unfruitful.
Then he again passes the threshold between Bethany
and Jerusalem and enters to see the Temple, and attacks it,
turning tables expelling sellers, and mightily kicking out moneychangers.
And again he returns to Bethany, just outside of
Jerusalem, he
sees this fig tree again, this time withered.
Then, a third time, Jesus, in Jerusalem,
declares that there will be a time of darkness in which the Son of Man will be
reveled, he will be at the very gate of Jerusalem—at
the threshold and his presence will be announced like a fig tree announces
summer.
Then Jesus encourages us to stay awake for the Son of Man, for he might show up
at:
evening,
midnight
cockcrow
or
at dawn.
Again, lots of people see this as Jesus explaining what it will be like when
the earth ceases to exist… but, what if this is a goal he is describing? What
if it describes his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and is telling us where
we might find our Master?
After all, on two previous occasions the events in Jerusalem paralleled the sign of the Fig
Tree.
The Son of Man is coming Jesus tells the high Priest—and then Jesus adds that,
he, Jesus, is the Son of Man.
We must keep alert, stay awake, to see him—look at the Disciples at Gethsemane, who fail to do so.
That evening, the Last Supper, they meet the Son of Man in the breaking
of the bread and the drinking of the wine.
At midnight those in power are judged by the Son of Man, even as they
put him on trial.
When the cock crows, Peter makes a fateful choice and denies the Son of
Man.
At dawn, the women meet the resurrected Lord.
What if the point of talking about the end is not some deathwatch for the
world, or a waiting for everything to be over… what if instead the end is a
goal, to stay awake that we might experience again the saving story of Jesus
Christ’s Life, Death, and Resurrection…
that we might
trust in his resurrection,
recognize when
we deny our Lord,
eschew the
powers of this world that judge falsely,
meet our Lord
in the Holy Meal of Communion,
be awake in
prayer,
and confess
to all that Jesus is our Lord.
A+A.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Sermon: Christmas in August
You
may remember back a month or so South Plainfield held it’s 3rd
annual “Christmas in July.” Paintings of Olaf the Snowman from Frozen adorned
shop windows, good old St. Nick made a surprise appearance… in general we as a
town came together to celebrate some parts of Christmas in July instead of December.
Well,
today we have a similar opportunity. Today’s readings all point us to the
basic, blood and guts point of Christmas,
that God has been born to us,
Emmanuel, God with us…
Christmas is about the scandal of particularity!
God made flesh, in a particular man, in a particular time, in a particular place.
Yes, today we read about the scandal
of particularity—and in so doing we are celebrating Christmas again. Just as
there was Christmas in July, today there is Christmas in August.
Let us pray.
In
order to frame the scandalous particularity we proclaim this day, let’s think
briefly back to Christmas…
The stories we tell—Joseph and Mary and Angels and all the rest… and for that matter the
stories about Rudolf and Red Rider BB Guns, and the time Uncle Hank embarrassed
the whole family but made it up to everyone with a soulful ballad from the old
country.
The songs we sing—the Christmas carols, the Choir gathered at the Old Danish home around
Tom’s homemade wine, the hymn sing the Sunday after.
The Decorations—Advent
Candles, Wreaths, Poinsettias, Trees with Tinsel, maybe torn down by little
terroristic cats.
The meals—Turkey
and stuffing, yams and pie and Figgie Pudding, Seven fishes the night before…
Yes,
the particularity of Christmas: Stories, Songs, Decorations, and Meals… So too
the particularity we find before us today.
The
specific story of Joshua,
remembering how God has acted, brought God’s people out of Egypt, protected
them along their sojourn to freedom, defended them and brought them to a land
that became there own.
This
is not some universal story of a god doing good things in general, but Our God
acting against oppression and bondage, a special story for a special people—a
particular people chosen by a particular God.
The
specific song of Psalm 34—a weird
one, about God’s body parts—a God with eyes and ears, a face and an astonishing
closeness. A God embodied in the world—yes Metaphorically, but a face that
points to God’s closeness with us, eyes and ears that can hear our cries and
see our lives!
Not
some God that steps away or does not care, but a God intimately involved and
concerned with God’s people. God for us and with us!
The
odd decorations we wear upon ourselves—the
very actions and attributes of God, putting on God’s truth and righteousness,
his peace and faith, his salvation and spirit, holding tight to the very Word
of God!
Not
some far away and far out deity acting in theory but not in fact… When God
acts, those actions become so real that we can wrap them around us, the
character of God so solid that it is our sure defense.
That
meal Jesus tells us about! The
bodily-ness of it all, the icky intimacy of eating Christ’s flesh and drinking
his blood. A call to abide with him, to reside with him, to follow him all the
way to the end.
Not
some Gnostic escape from the flesh, from the world in which we live, not a pie
in the sky savior—but one you can sink your teeth into—literally… one who isn’t
about escape, but instead about staying put where you are and finding life
there with Him!
So
yes, in stories of specificity, songs sung about the face of God, decorations
made from God’s actions, and a holy Meal of the flesh and blood of Christ, we
are confronted with Christmas in August.
And
this means so much. God is with us in one particular human being, Jesus—and
since then He’s been entering into our personal
peculiar particularities every since.
God’s
story sanctifying our story.
God’s
song the tempo our life.
God’s
reality wrapping us tighter than swaddling clothe.
God’s banquet in Christ Jesus’ flesh making us
Holy and his blood making us drunk on his divinity!
God
in the newborn baby’s cry, the mother’s joy and the father’s worry.
God
with a toddler clinging to her uncle’s neck as they wonder at the meteor
shower.
God
lazing in the sun, back to an old sad poplar, just taking in the goodness of
the day.
God
with us hungry by a restaurant dumpster, waiting for the day-old-bread and
bagels to be deposited.
God
in the hospital with a man quarantined and questioning the meaning of life.
God
joyfully smiling at the wedding banquet and clapping at the family reunion.
God
a solemn sentinel in the nursing home and a mourner when things fall apart.
God
entering into the thin places between heaven and earth, making holy the
particulars of our lives.
God,
on this particular day, celebrating
Christmas in August. A+A
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
All The Books
Greetings
faithful readers, I just wanted to update you all on my latest book, Seeing with the Mind, Hearing with the Heart, make sure you all know the wide variety
of books I’ve written that are available for purchase, and let you know the
directions I’m hoping to go with future books.
Seeingwith the Mind, Hearing with the Heart: A Thematic Bible Study on Luke by aYoung Pastor and a Not So Young Parishioner is a collaboration with one of
my parishioners, Linda Nietman. I taught a 7-week bible study on the portions
of Luke only found in the Gospel of Luke, and she suggested I turn it into a
book. I agreed, on one condition, that she become my co-author. Linda and I
alternate chapters, mine focus on what the text says, the bible study end of
things, and Linda’s chapters focus on what the texts mean for you, a more
devotional reading. In seven chapters we tackle a variety of themes, including
Women, Wealth, Samaritans, Social Status, Persistent Prayer, and Repentance.
Previous to
this I published Silicon Soul, which is a Dystopian Sci-Fi novel set in
a future where AI is out of control, Ayn Rand and her ideas are in ascendancy,
and the Gospel must be read with its back against the wall (to borrow a phrase
from Thurman). It was my contribution to National Novel Writing Month.
Additionally,
I gathered sermons from my Seminary classmates and stuck them into a little
book titled Nine Sermons from the Lutheran Theological Seminary atPhiladelphia Class of 2011.
Previous to
that I compiled a Minister’s Prayer Book-esque Prayer Book entitled Read,Reflect, Pray: A Lutheran Prayer Book that focused on the seven central
things of worship. I wrote it in response to my experience of becoming an
Ordained person, you no longer get to lose yourself in worship.
Finally, I
published an expanded version of my M. Phil. Thesis about re-tellings of
Genesis 22. Its title is An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope and Other Essays onthe Binding of Isaac.
So, those
are all the books I currently have out. Keep tabs on my Author’s Page.
Now that my
big summer projects are behind me, teaching a theology course for young people Smart People, Wise Faith, a Bible course
Hidden Books and Heresies, and
thinking through my sermon series 8 question from the pews, I’m starting to
think through my next writing projects. (Drumroll please).
Christopher’s Medium
Catechism—Every now and again I do an Ember Day like Luther did, where I
preach on Luther’s Small and Large Catechism. What results is a medium length
re-reading of those documents. So, once I’ve preached on the whole Catechism perhaps
I’ll work them into a more formal thing in book or blog form.
The Bible We Don’t
Read—A while back I defaced one of my bibles, cutting out all the pieces
that are in the lectionary to see what’s left… there is a lot. So, I intend to
carefully read through all the portions of scripture left out of the Revised
Common Lectionary and write about the kind of faith found in those portions of
the Bible.
A Project on
Revelation—I’ve often thought, what did the book of Revelation sound like
to its original readers? Did it sound like a 5th Gospel or a horror show? This will
be a work that covers similar ground as The Rapture Exposed and Joy
in Our Weakness but with more of a creative eye. So, perhaps a mainline
response to the Left Behind series.
A Speculative
Fiction Trilogy—Back in college I outlined a Speculative
Fiction trilogy that covered some of the same ground as Silicon Soul. My
plan is to write one of these for each of the next 3 National Novel Writing
Months.
Sunday, August 02, 2015
Sermon: “What can Lutherans say about our complicity in the Holocaust?”
Part
of me would simply like to respond with a time of silence.
But,
I think, today calls for confession and understanding.
What
can we say?
1.That the Lutheran tradition has within
it a strain of submission to people in authority
2. a strain of anti-Judaism in it
Both of which make us complicit in
the horror of the Holocaust.
3. Additionally,
there was also a portion of the faith that resisted Nazism, but it wasn’t
enough and didn’t go far enough.
Let
us pray.
One
aspect of the faith going all the way back to our beginnings is that common
question “How do we relate to the state and the society in which we live?”
One
tact is to take Jesus’ words “my kingdom is not of this world” to move all our
concern in an otherworldly direction—to assume those things shaping day to day
life here and now, are none of our business as Christians.
Similarly,
and this is more the norm for us Lutherans, is to follow Paul’s advice to the
Romans—those in authority are there because God is the God of History, and
therefore we ought to be good citizens of our country and not question
authority.
(Augustine)
Lutheranism’s
tendency to side with the powers that be, fits Luther’s life experience—when
there were death threats by the Pope and other Catholic officials it was the secular
princes who kept him from trial and death. The state kept him alive and the
reformation afloat, and he rightly thanked God for that
—not knowing the kind of murderous
totalitarianism that was to come.
(larger society)
Now,
Anti-Judaism is perhaps the original sin of Christianity. It was birthed out of
that strange back and forth that lead to the cleaving of Judaism and
Christianity.
Rome called on Jews to denounce
Christianity as a new cult—an innovation and therefore not exempt from Emperor
worship,
and the Roman Empire called upon the
early Christian movement to denounce Jews as rebels to be expelled from Rome
and Jerusalem.
The debates and stories Jesus told within
the Judaism of his time and Paul’s description of “The Law” sounded much
different coming from Gentile lips. It switched from being an inter-Jewish
discussion to an antagonism from the outside.
Eventually Marcion, a Roman
Christian, declared a separation between the “Jewish God” and the God revealed
in Christ—and while he was condemned as a heretic, that did little to repair the
widening breach between the two faiths.
Supersessionalism—the
idea that the Church replaced Israel and the New Testament replaced the 10
commandments—still haunts the Christian heart to this very day.
In
Nazi Germany this original sin was in full blossom—with wrongheaded arguments
that Jesus was not a Jew and with renewed Marcionism—calling for the
de-Judaizing of scripture.
Similarly,
the unfortunate words attributed to the crowd in Matthew’s telling of the passion,
“His blood be on us and on our children,” has been used to justify all kinds of
horrible things done to the Jews—Pogroms in Poland, the Inquisition in Spain
—the charge of “Christ-Killer” comes
from these words.
In fact, so powerful a motivator were
these words in past decades and centuries, that the panel on Lutheran-Jewish
relations insisted, that “the New Testament … must not be used as justification
for hostility towards present-day Jews", and that "blame for the
death of Jesus should not be attributed to Judaism or the Jewish people.”—that
is why on Good Friday you hear me talk a lot about Judeans and Religious
Officials when I read the Passion account instead of the traditional translation
“the Jews.”
But,
let’s get a little more particular—what of Luther?
At the age of 40 he wrote a tract
against Dominican abuses of the Jewish populous entitled, “That Jesus Christ
Was Born a Jew,” in which he writes:
“Our fools, the popes, bishops,
sophists, and monks—the crude asses—have treated the Jews in such a way that
anyone who is truly a good Christian ought to become a Jew. If I was a Jew and
heard such dolts and blockheads teach the Christian faith I would as soon be a
wild boar as be a Christian.”
If
only he’d stopped there, but he did not. When he was 60, a few years before his
death, he wrote “On the Jews and Their Lies” a tract so vile that even his
closest friend Melanchthon said it “reeked of the Inquisition.”
In
it he maps out a “solution” for what he calls the “Jewish problem” in Germany—that
Synagogues and Jewish houses ought to be burnt, Talmuds taken, Rabbis forbidden
to speak, safe passage on highways removed, Jewish property confiscated, and
Jews made to be serfs on German farms until they choose to self-deport.
If
this sounds similar to the Nazi “final solution,” minus the gas chambers—there
is a good reason for it—Luther’s anti-Semitic writings were picked up quite
whole-cloth by the National Socialists.
There
were however some Lutherans who heard the pseudo-Theological claims of the
Nazis such as:
“The New Word of God is found in the
History of the German People.”
“Jesus is not Savior but a
Hero-Prophet for the Church just as Hitler is the Hero-Prophet of Germany.”
And “You may only believe in the
resurrection if you believe in the resurrection of Germany.”
They heard these claims and took the
entire Nazi program as an attack on the Church.
When
most German Church-folk were asking the question, “Should the Nazi controlled
Church be more Calvinist or Lutheran?” There was a movement called the
Confessing Church, who believed the Nazis should not control the Church and
responded with the Barman Declaration, which we will confess together in place
of the Apostle’s Creed in today’s service.
One
of those members of the Confessing Church, Reverend Doctor Dietrich Bonheoffer,
responded to the situation in Nazi Germany by entering into a conspiracy to
kill Hitler and smuggle German Jews to Switzerland. In fact one of the last
orders of the Nazi High Command before they lost the control of German was
“Bonheoffer must die.” And indeed he was executed in the Flossenburg
concentration camp on April 9th 1945
I
bring up these heroes not to absolve us, but to challenge us to hear God in the
midst of societal noise and historical half-truths. Challenge us to hear the
Gospel above the clangor of Culture, to hear always the cries of our common
humanity.
So,
“What can Lutherans say about our complicity in the Holocaust?”
Christianity’s
original sin Anti-Judaism, and Luther’s tract “On the Jews and Their Lies” are
part of a train of thought that leads to Auschwitz.
The
Lutheran hesitancy to challenge secular authorities ensured that resistance to,
or even questioning of, “The Final Solution” was limited.
Finally,
I thank God that there were some who tapped other veins of our tradition—Theology
of the Cross and Scripture Alone—and in so doing resisted Nazism and the
Holocaust.
We
mourn the majority’s inaction and wrong actions,
we remember the martyrs who died
doing what was right,
and we continue to pledge to the 20
million victims of the Nazi regime, especially the 6 million Jews, never again.
Amen.
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