What We Have (and don't have)

I’ve not been home in PA much in recent days. Originally I was to be in Arkansas at a Leadership Conference with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. That was preempted by my dad needing to move from his home of 59 years into a retirement home for seniors, so I spent several days in South Carolina helping in this great transition.

This move triggered both thoughts and emotions in me and my dad. Again, this had been his home for 59 years. He and Mom built it together, moved into it in 1950 and I was born in 1951. Wherever I have lived over the past forty years since leaving for college, from Florida to Massachusetts, out to Kansas, but mostly in Pennsylvania, that house in Spartanburg, South Carolina was a constant, abiding “home.” There was a place where I could return that was familiar. There was an address and phone number that connected me to a root that went back to my very beginning. And if I had such an awareness, Dad’s sentiments were far deeper. When I left forty years ago to start out on my own, the home-place was where he and Mom remained. And when she died in 1996, the home they had shared together was one big thing that helped Dad feel connected to the good years he had spent with her.

This past Friday night we spent the last night “at home.” That day we had packed up small things; on Saturday morning a half-dozen men from Dad’s church came in their pick-up trucks, loaded the big things Dad was taking, and in one caravan trip, transported it all to the independent-living apartment that is now Dad’s home. We spent Saturday night at the new place. Transplanted.

On Sunday morning I (and my wife and son, who helped in the big move) went to church with Dad. This is the little country church where Mom and Dad raised me. It was where I surrendered totally to Jesus when I was fifteen years old. This congregation is one big reason why Dad did not move to Pennsylvania to be close to me and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The pastor had given me the privilege of preaching the morning message (as a special treat for Dad, who is a beloved patriarch in the church). I did not prepare it as meticulously as my usual sermons, but the gist was as follows.

I have no such inclination but my daughter loves to tackle 1000 or 1500 small-piece picture puzzles. This image came to me as one way to think of life. Each day is like one piece of the huge picture of our lives. Can you imagine trying to put a huge puzzle together without being able first to see the big picture of what it’s supposed to be? Add to that image the further complication of the picture being, not one focused subject but instead, a collage of various scenarios –– the kinds of things that occur throughout life.

Christians believe God has given us a “big picture” to help us understand the meaning of human life. While none of us has an individual blueprint of life, we do have Jesus Christ as the ultimate paradigm of God’s purpose for human life. We have a context to understand suffering and death; we have a reason to believe the awful things do not have the last word because Jesus is risen and has ascended into heaven.

Many of the daily pieces of our lives do not seem especially significant; they are neither grand nor terrible, but rather serve as the “background” for times that get more attention. Some days are stressful, but we can handle it. Some days are wonderful, so that we may actually say, “I wish all of life was like this.” (Christians should understand these times as God’s encouragements along the way, and as a reminder of what the triumph of goodness will be like.) Other days are truly horrible –– tragic accidents, bad medical reports, financial collapse, emotional breakdown, and.... death. We live in a broken world.

When people do not live in faith they try to “make the best of it.” They focus on the happy things and do everything possible to insulate themselves with security, comfort and pleasure (think here of the advertising industry!). On the other hand, faith in what God has given us in Christ provides a way to understand and to exercise patience and hope.

I have thought of this in the categories of WHAT WE HAVE and WHAT WE DON’T HAVE. Christian faith causes a great reversal here. Living apart from what God has done and promised usually means looking at temporal circumstances and making our judgements from this perspective. Christian faith has a different focus. Paul said it this way in his second letter to the Corinthians: we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal (4:18).

So I began to think about those categories of WHAT WE HAVE and WHAT WE DON’T HAVE as I looked at my life and Dad’s big move. The first thing that came to my mind was something else Paul told the Corinthians (in the first letter): you do not have many fathers (4:15). This was in the context of Paul’s deep love for the Corinthians and how he was a father to them in the faith. Dad has been a “father in the faith” to me. Both he and Mom nurtured me in a godly home. When I sensed a calling to Christian vocation Dad supported me financially through the many years of college, two masters degrees and a doctorate. I have a father who has loved and supported me in the faith.

A profitable personal Bible study might focus on the phrase “we (do not) have,” Here is a sample from the verses surrounding the 2 Corinthians verse I quoted earlier:
we have a hope (3:12)
we have this ministry (4:1)
we have this treasure (4:7)
we have a building from God (5:1)

This last one was a bridge to another verse, in another letter, I’d had on my mind. In the angst of leaving the “building” he’d lived in for 59 years (and the one consistent home I’ve known), I was reminded of the “building from God” that is promised us. Of course the context here is our physical body. Someday when we die and lay aside this “tent” of clay, we will ultimately find that God has prepared a resurrection body for us in continuity with Jesus, who has gone ahead of us through His bodily resurrection.

Yet a larger issue comes into focus. This is what the writer to the Hebrews says: For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come (13:14). And in a similar context, describing people who live in biblical faith: They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them (11:13b-16).

This is the larger picture from God that gives us hope and peace when the temporal things around us change. A house of 59 years can be a wonderful thing. It has been for Dad and me, but that is not our ultimate joy. We are looking for the city that is yet to come.

It has not escaped me that this has happened so close to July 4th, a big national holiday. We are blessed in this country. Our temporal advantages are indisputable. And yet, for Christians, we desire a better country. Whether it is our family house or our country, here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

WHAT WE HAVE.... WHAT WE DON’T HAVE

God has given us a way of looking at this –– seeing the pieces of the puzzle according to His design, and I’ve been reminded in a new and fresh way.

No Final Conflict

Last night I concluded teaching a class at our Diocesan Institute on Saint Paul's Letter to the Ephesians.  One challenge I always face (and try to extend to my hearers) is understanding Scripture through some of the particular insights I've gained from my Evangelical background, yet as I've come to understand them within the broader context of Catholicism.

I am quite aware that Jesus started His good work of salvation in me within the Evangelical tradition, and I had good, strong years of development and transformation there.  I am also very aware that some of the "best" Christians I know are still Evangelicals.

At the same time, I am even more acutely aware of the things which brought me to the place of seeing that, even with all the good things in my Christian life up to that point, there was an incompleteness which could only be fulfilled in the Catholic Church.  Many of my dear Evangelical friends struggle to understand this, and some remain distressed over my path (as if my decision is a rejection of the Christian identity I once shared with them).  I have in no way repudiated my faith in Jesus Christ as I understood it when I was an Evangelical pastor; I have just "added" to my faith in ways that help my relationship with Jesus to grow.

As the class ended last evening, one of the students asked me what Catholics could learn from Evangelicals.  I answered that by also offering the other side of the question:  what Evangelicals need to learn from Catholics.

I only offered one answer from each perspective (although whole books can be, and have been, written which address quite a few issues).  I think many Catholic people could benefit from the emphasis on personal commitment and crisis spiritual experience which is so common in Evangelicalism.  I also believe that Evangelicals would do well to understand better the importance of corporate identity and, especially, the Sacraments.

As a starting point to that end, I wish people in both traditions could grasp the idea that crisis experience and sacramentalism are not mutually exclusive (so that the most critical in each camp would quit trying to prove the other "wrong"), but are dimensions of a common Faith. It's not "either-or," but instead "both-and."  There is no final conflict.

Sobering Words

A selection from St. Ignatius In the Office of Readings (a letter to the Romans) has a sentence that should have more prominence in a time when "evangelism" is attempted by marketing techniques and other cultural accommodations: "Our task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda; Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world."

TRINITY SUNDAY

Today is Trinity Sunday. Many Christians confess this orthodox dogma but give almost no thought to any practical implications. Fewer still think about the process that established the doctrine of the Trinity as essential to Christian Faith (but it speaks volumes about the authority of the Church).

“Bible Christians” will quote Matthew 28 where Jesus gave the Great Commission and the “baptistic formula” of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This, they think, fits the mantra, The Bible says it and I believe it. But the Gospels were written later than most of the letters of the NT, and even granting the conservative conviction that this is a preserved and exact quote from Jesus, there is still no denying that the doctrine of the Trinity was a process in the Church and not as simple as “Jesus said it and that settles it.”

There are good articles and books written in recent years that focus on the Trinity. They not only speak to the dogma itself but also to practical implications for Christians in such ways as relationship and the essence of love. To say it quite simply, God has created us and calls us to be like him. The relational love of the Trinity, which is the essence of God’s being, is the context for understanding human nature and purpose.

Trinity Sunday is a day set aside to focus in our corporate worship on something of what it means to confess the Trinity as core truth. Every Sunday, of course, is rooted in the Trinity; we always worship the Triune God –– the mystery of Three in One –– but it is good to go beyond foundations and abstractions.

One way to do that is to delve into the Scriptures assigned for this day. This year they are Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Romans 8:14-17; and Matthew 28:16-20.

Matthew’s Gospel has little to say about the forty days between the resurrection and ascension. Left only with Matthew’s account one might think Jesus rose from the dead and told some women to tell His disciples to meet him in Galilee. He then meets them there, gives them the Great Commission and (implicitly) disappears into heaven even as He promises to be with them “to the close of the age.”

As I read this passage today I noticed two things in a fresh way. First, Matthew says that when the disciples saw Jesus they worshiped, but they doubted. And I thought, how like us today! Even though we believe (somewhat) and worship, it is easy to doubt. There is an ongoing conflict with the seen and unseen world. The world of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) has little respect for the spiritual and the invisible. The world will accommodate to the “spiritual” to a degree (especially if such a thing can be worked to the world’s advantage), but the world is always demanding that the greater accommodation be made to it. The disciples had to face the very struggles we ourselves fight.

Then I noticed something else, and at first it could seem to imply there should be no doubt. Jesus said, All power in heaven and in earth has been given to me. So the age-old question comes again into focus: If Jesus has the power to make everything right, then why is there still so much wrong in this world?

This takes us to a practical understanding of the Trinity. Even as the Godhead is in such a perfect loving relationship that the three persons are One God, God created us to love Him and to love each other. The nature of love is that it cannot be coerced; “forced” love is not love at all. God wants us to love Him and that means not overpowering us.

Sometimes God shows His power –– just enough to show us there is something beyond what we consider the Natural Order. There is something more powerful than “power.” There is a reason to hope when everything in the world says “hopeless.” That is the point of the Deuteronomy reading where Moses recounts some of the incredible things God did for His people in the Exodus. God can move in ways the world understands as power, but He is quite selective. (Consider how many years the subjected Israelites in Egypt waited.)

Each week we proclaim the Mystery of Faith: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. That is a testimony to the ultimate meaning of what Jesus said to his disciples: All power in heaven and in earth has been given to me, and so I am with you always, until the end of the age.

How do these things come together? The short answer is the Trinity. The God who did mighty things in the Exodus is the God who did a mighty thing in the ultimate death and resurrection of Jesus, and the God who was at work in these great acts of redemption is the God who comes to live in His people through the Holy Spirit. And so we have the second reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans (8:14-17):

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Where is the power that Jesus claimed? How can we be assured of His presence? It is found in the change that comes in the person in whom the Spirit lives. If Jesus used His power to make life comfortable and convenient, everyone would “love” God, only it would not be love of God but self-absorption. It would be God “bribing” us to Himself though our addiction to self-serving.

What God offers is a power –– a love –– that is proven in suffering. This is a head-on confrontation with the reality of sin. This is a salvation that calls us to the purity of the relational love of the Trinity. And so Paul says, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

The disciples went into the world in the power of the Spirit. It was the same power of God that did the signs and wonders in the Exodus. It was the same power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. It was the power of God that so changed the disciples that they would follow their Lord in suffering in order to love. And it was the love of Christ –– the Triune Love of God –– that turned the Roman world upside down.

That is the love of God’s salvation. That is the love that calls us today. It is the love of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the love that burns in all who belong to Jesus Christ.

Holidays and Holy Days

We've just gone through a national holiday (Memorial Day) and we are between two significant days of the Church Year, Ascension and Pentecost. This has caused me to reflect on some of the differences between holidays (popularly understood) and holy days (which are hardly recognized and understood at all (culturally speaking).

Some holidays have their true origin in holy days, but the former has mostly choked out the latter, the prime example being Christmas. The "world" is through with Christmas just as the Church truly welcomes it (which could be a boon for the Church if used strategically).

Holidays are quite transitory. They give brief interruptions of the daily grind, usually offering an excuse (as if our culture needs one) to eat and drink to excess. And while a break in the routine is indeed beneficial for people who are too busy, there is a self-centeredness (at least to me as I look on) to the way our culture uses holidays.

National holidays, when kept with their true focus, can quickly degenerate into self-centeredness through the kind of nationalism that condones a sought-after superiority which essentially dismisses the needs and feelings of much of the world. Yet even national holidays are essentially ignored by a large number of the population and become, I repeat, an indulgent excuse to eat and drink and purchase and "recreate" in excess.

It amazes me the way nationalism invades churches. In my previous free-church tradition, Memorial Weekend would draw specific attention while Pentecost (which often falls on the Sunday of Memorial Weekend) would not even be mentioned! For years I have wondered what an international visitor might think on the Sunday close to July 4 when songs glorifying America are brought into the Church (which is a transnational community of members whose allegiances supposedly transcend the citizenships of this world). Do some people seriously believe that America is the ultimate tangible example of Christian Faith?

I found great delight this year in the celebration of Ascension. How wonderful it is that Jesus has taken His humanity into heaven and thus prepared the way for all who follow Him. There is a tangible reason to seek the things that are above. It is because that is where Christ is, and Christians are "in Him" (see Colossians 3).

Pentecost ranks along with Christmas and Easter. The purpose and meaning of the birth and resurrection of Christ are found in the birth of the Church and the indwelling of the Spirit in each person who belongs to Christ (see Romans 8:9-11).

Holidays (as such) come and go. Holy days draw us into and help prepare us for what will not pass away. Rejoice in the Lord always.... but especially on holy days.

Vanity Fair

From the Morning Office:

See how the wicked prowl on every side,
while the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men. (Psalm 12)

As I read these words my mind's eye saw the magazine covers on display at the supermarket check-out and the TV tabloid shows, so much of which "prize highly the worthless." We are surrounded by the vanity of the City of Man.

Morning Prayer then offers:

Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who shall stand in his holy place?
The [one] ....who desires not worthless things. (Psalm 24)

What do we "prize?" Our Lord says, For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Lu 12:34).

Contra Babylon, cont.

What does it mean to choose the City of God over the City of Man? Volumes have been, and could continue to be, written about this. There is no short, simple answer.

One facet of the total answer does not appear to get respectful attention in the broad discussions of contemporary Christianity: Separation from the world— what Niebuhr called “Christ against culture” — seems to be disdained as some reactionary fundamentalism.

My early discipleship was formed by a faith community that seriously understood “worldliness” as sinful. Continuing to think about the implications of Revelation 18 and the reality of “Babylon,” I am reflecting on the implications of what the Spirit of Jesus gives John as a message to the Church: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues (18:4).

I know this has been used to justify all kinds of self-righteous actions and schism in the Church. There is tension between unity and purity. We do not need proscriptions that tell people exactly what they can and cannot do, but to go from that stance to saying nothing is tragic. When people in the Church go after the same kinds of things that our pagan neighbors are going after, with the same intensity, something is wrong. It doesn't matter what the particular "thing" might be.

There is a hard truth here. Throughout the Scriptures, in this adversarial relationship between the City of Man and the City of God, there is an issue of “separation.” We can see it in the call of Abraham. God said, "Abram, I want to do a great thing through you, but if it's going to happen, you have to get away. If you stay in your hometown with the relatives and their pagan ways, I will not be able to do through you what I need to do. I will take you to a land that you know nothing of — where you don't know the customs and where the people do not know you, and where your dependence will be on me." It is out of that kind of attitude and relationship with God that we learn what separation is — that our dependence is on God.

One reason God put Israel into Egypt and then brought them out of Egypt all over again was to give His people a unique identity. From that point there is a concern for Israel to be separate. When they moved back to the land after the Exodus, God told them: "You are to be my people. I am going to move you among people whose ways are not my ways. You are not to inter-marry with them. You are to be my chosen people — my separate people." The truth of the theme has not changed. Isaiah continues the theme: Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord (52:11). The same concern follows in Jeremiah: Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the fierce anger of the Lord (51:45). He is talking about Babylon, so there is a direct analogy here.

The same concern is in the Epistles: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with a unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and an idol? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

Therefore come out from them and be separate,"
says the Lord.
"Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
"I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty" (2Cor. 6:14,15).

I know there are periods in church history where there have been excesses and abuses with this theme. An obsession with it leads to legalism and abuse. On the other hand, there is today both ignorance and dismissal of an important issue. Many Christians invite the "unclean thing" into their homes through television and computer connections. We need to know there is a principle of separation to which God calls His people. We are called to be different and distinctive, not because we're “Pharisees” — legalists — but because we are sensitive to the truth that Jesus really does live in His people and calls them to be holy.

In Jesus' prayer (John 17) He says, Father I do not pray that you would take them out of the world. So when I say "separation" I don't mean withdrawing from all contact with the "world." Some Christian communities try that, either overtly (like the Amish) or in attitude (like radical fundamentalists). Jesus is saying that in the way we interact with the world, we are not to be like the world. But Jesus does, in fact, say, I leave them in the world. Why? So we can be salt and light. How can we be salt and light if we are not distinctive?

John Bunyan wrote a book that almost everyone just a few generations ago would have read as part of standard education. I think it would be a good thing for present-day believers to read The Pilgrim's Progress. In one part of his journey, Pilgrim comes to a place called "Vanity Fair" (which is the City of Man). We live in Vanity Fair.

God's people are either being persecuted or seduced. When the Church is really faithful, it is persecuted. Seduction is a call for the Church to compromise with worldliness to ease the tension of living in a hostile environment: "Lord, what's the least I can do and still be okay? I don't want to be too weird." But the message of Jesus is that separation is the order of the day. Sometimes it will be physical separation; we will do some physical things that mark us off from the world. But it will always be ideological — we will always think differently than the world thinks. Paul told the Romans, Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold (12:2, J. B. Phillips).

It can seem to us that everyone else is going with the flow and enjoying it. It is like a cartoon I once saw in The New Yorker. It shows two guys standing in hell with the flames leaping up. One man is talking to the other one, and he says, "You know, I always thought ‘Go with the flow,' but I never thought the flow would end up here."

It's easy to go with the flow when things are comfortable, and especially when things are luxuriant. The Rome of John's time was notorious for excessive luxury, but Rome doesn't have everything on us. I get catalogs that can only be described as ridiculous. They often have the "harlot" right on the cover. One boldly invites, "Take control of your leisure time." Inside is a blurb for a chair you can order: "Explore the outer limits of your personal serenity zone with this get-away chair." Pictured is a nice leather chair for $2,500.00. It has a vibrator in it, and a built in stereo. You can shake, rattle and roll right there in one chair. Some outdoor catalogs advertise fishing rods from $500.00 to $1000.00. And of course with a rod like that a person cannot go to K-Mart to buy a tackle box. What you want is "the world's finest tackle bag — hand crafted and appointed in latigo leather," at a price of $495.00.

Rich people who lie in leather chairs, fish and shoot, play golf and tennis (or polo, or whatever) are presented to our society as some ultimate leisure lifestyle. That is the goal of our culture today, and there is a price range for every person who will be seduced. A man can sell his soul at Walmart. The issue is pride and indulgence. Our tendency, if we are going to err on one side or the other, is always to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. That spirit is part of a system that is sitting under the judgment of God. That is John’s warning to the Church.

As this scene in Revelation concludes, the kings, the merchants and the shipmen begin to weep and wail and mourn (vs9,11,15,19). They look at what is going on, and their hearts are broken. It is good for to me to ask myself the question, and to ask you, "What makes us weep?" If we answer honestly, we may have a good clue to our values.

As I said last time, people committed to the City of Man selfishly weep over their own losses. In Jesus, we see the heart of the Son of God broken for people who are perishing. In order to save us, He Himself went up on a hill outside of the city that rejected him and gave His life. I know of no greater contrast in the world. You can get the cover of Cosmopolitan, the cover of Better Homes and Gardens, and the cover of all the catalogs that junk our mailboxes, and put them all on one side of a wall. On the other side of the wall, place a crucifix — Jesus hanging on the cross. That is our choice.

Someday, everything this world offers us will come to an end. The one thing that will remain is that which we cannot see right now with our natural eyes. Let's be people who fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2Cor. 4:18).