a sermon on evil and suffering

This Spring 07, I'm taking a class called 'Persevering Hope: The Theology of Evil, Suffering, and the Goodness of God. The first major assignment for this class is due next week. From the title of this entry, you've probably guessed that it's a sermon we had to prepare. Because there's some twenty people in the class, we don't have time to deliver these sermons to the class, as was the original intent. But we had to write a sermon with a particular tragedy that had effected our specific congregation at some point in recent memory.

I was challenged to come up with something; that is, I was challenged to come up with something other than the only real, true evil event that I could recall from my time at my church: the murder/suicide of a divorced couple who had both been members of our congregation. I really didn't want to write a sermon on this. But nothing else came to mind. I didn't want to write it because I realize that deep down, I'm still deeply saddened about it, and I didn't want to go back and revisit that hurt and pain. I also didn't want write on it because I didn't know what I could possibly say, even what I could find within Scripture that could possibly come across as anything but trite.

But I wrote it. Just finished it and printed it out earlier in the hour. I don't know about it. I'll have my wife read it over, and get her input. It might do it. It might not. I don't know. But I do know that if there's anything good about it, anything worthy to it, I give God the glory. As I was writing, wondering what points am I going to be able to make, the Lord led me to John 11, and three points within the story of Lazarus. Praise God for anything good and worthy in it.

If you're at all interested in reading it, drop me a line with your email, and I'll be happy to share it with you. That is, if it floats.

Coram Deo.

Evangelicals for Human Rights

dear friends and family,

I was visiting a fellow Palmer student's blog recently, and was interested by one of his entries to visit the above mentioned site (you can click on the title - it serves as a link to Evangelicals for Human Right's site). I was moved enough to read and sign the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture. Forgive me if I seem on a soap box; I don't mean to preach. Christians live in this land, and we have benefited in many ways over the history of this country. But as Christians, we have a greater loyalty to the Lord, and when the culture and/or government make decisions or policies that go against the Kingdom of God, we as God's people are called upon to be His voice and justly critique that which stands at odds with God.

I'm inviting you to go to the site, and read the Declaration - but please only read it when you have the time to read it from start to finish. Read it, and consider visiting the above linked site in order to learn more and sign the declaration yourself. You'll find the declaration is both grounded in God's Word, and articulates well what I believe is a good and proper Christian response to human rights violations. Each one of us is created in the Divine Image. Whether or not you believe that all people are God's children, or only those who call upon the name of the Lord, we all share His image. To violate that image in anyone, Christian or non-Christian, is to violate the image in all people everywhere.

Consider this, read it, and prayerfully consider signing this declaration, and share it with others. May He who grants us life and breath daily ever lead each of us to choose life always. God's best blessings to you in Christ.

In His Spirit,
David

my favorite Bible passage (right now)

13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

(Matthew 16:13-20, NIV)

This is my favorite passage in Scripture right now. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm trying to answer the question myself: "Who do you say I am?"

We come to "church" every Sunday morning (or afternoon, or even evening for some), and we say something to the effect of "Jesus is Lord!", or "Praise the Lord!", or "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!" (Where?) But who do you, dear reader, say Jesus is? Are we saying Jesus is Lord, when we worry more about having enough money to entertain ourselves than we have concern about how much we're tithing? Who are we saying Jesus is when we buy expensive cars whose monthly payments are more than our two-thirds world brothers and sisters make in a year? And what kind of Lord are we worshiping when we drive these giant SUVs the size of elephants, that wastes the proverbial 30 gallons to the mile, all to transport you and your little one? Who do we say Jesus is when we pray for God to restore the environment and then do nothing ourselves?

But don't worry. Because I'm right up there with you. I didn't initially oppose the war in Iraq. And now I'm not confident that pulling out would do anything but create bigger problems for the Iraqi people, believe it or not. And driving stuff? Well, my one car is pretty economical. But the other is a mini-van - now granted, I have three kids, and I'm the one who drops them off at school every day, and if they don't have enough lebesraum they get, let's say, a little fiesty (okay, that's as much a rationalization as anything). I generally vote Republican - but let's face it, Dems and Reps are merely two sides of the same coin - they're both rotten. I like to eat all sorts of food that's not good for me in the long run.

So you see, we're all struggling to answer this question of who Jesus is. I want Him to be my Lord. I want Him to be my Savior. I want to be His servant. In my tradition, we believe that it is by the grace of God that we can even be Christians. Its not that we don't "believe" in free will; we just tend to believe that God's sovereignty tends to trump free will. All of that's to say that I struggle not only to answer the question, but to believe that God's love for me is absolutely secure. And I struggle to believe that because I struggle to give an honest "my-life-is-consistent-with-my-words" sort of answer to who do I say Jesus is.

In the end, at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, I say Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I believe this because right before Easter some twenty-plus years ago, God revealed Himself to me, and offered me a choice between life and death, because He knew I was ready to choose death, and He wanted me to live (My three kids and my beautiful wife seem to be glad I accepted His offer). Without Jesus, I am dead. Or, I want to die. There is nothing to life without Him. And yet, in some ways, I feel no closer to understanding what it means to say, 'Jesus is the Christ' than when I first professed faith in Him, and accepted His death on my behalf.

I struggle with the question and the implications of the answer, too. I'm no better than you. Okay, maybe I am just a little, but that's beside the point, because in God's eyes, I'm really not. The truth is - always becareful when people tell you the "truth" - that we are not to answer this question in the vacuum of our own space. The answer, I am thinking, is to be given in the very context where we are most likely committing the greatest hypocrisy - our time together at church. Saying Jesus is Lord is a team event, and it requires our being the people of God, yes, the very Body of Christ together to get it right, to keep one another honest, to read and listen to Scripture together, and then lovingly hold one another's feet to its flames (not in a legalistic, mean-spirited way), that is we're all standing in the flames together, and together we are to endure them. I'm talking about the presence of God - it's dangerous to be in the presence of God. And we were never meant to stand in His presence by ourselves.

Okay, this has taken a direction I had not anticipated, nor foresaw. But it is what it is. What do you think? It's not as concise as I had originally thought it would be. My blogs sometimes go "Joycian" on me. But in the end, Jesus is the Christ. I just need God's help through you to be able to live that belief.

maybe it's the weather...

I'm sitting here at my dining room table listening to some 80's hits on itunes, waiting up for my wife to finish her deadline at work. And I've found that I've gone through a wide variety of feelings, from melancholy to joy, from tears to frustration, and feeling up to feeling down. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's that I keep itunes on shuffle. Maybe I'm manic or bi-polar (no, I'm not making fun of anyone).

I've been in seminary for several years - my first four were part-time, and I'm about to finish up my first full-time year. And I have more questions about God than I ever thought possible. That's a good thing; I think. I've read more books in the last few years than the previous ten. I've been exposed to more people's thoughts and theologies about God than most people ever will (sort of a shame). Now itunes has shuffled to U2's Miracle Drug. Oh the irony; I think. I'm wrestling with how one should keep faith integrity in the Triune God of grace when one hears theory after theory and opinion after opinion concerning deconstructing Scripture, which text really came first, or that a passage was written into an earlier book to justify a particular action of violence or condemnation. So I'm wondering - itunes has shuffled again, this time to Michael Tait's Loss for Words - does anyone think that God is real, and that He actually played a part in leading, guiding, and at times kicking Israel's butt?

Tonight, as the song's title implies, I'm feeling a loss for words. I believe God is real. He is Almighty. Yes, I choose to use the male pronoun instead of a neutered pronoun - No, I don't think God is male, but I do use it because it's consistent with His revelation throughout Scripture. I accept the supernatural dynamics and details of the biblical witness. I believe in a God who loves us so much that He became incarnate - became a human - and lived among us, presented a visible image of the invisible God, and then died to reconcile us to God. And if that wasn't enough, He sent us His Spirit so that we might fully come into fellowship with Him. I believe God is mystery. Mystery. I believe God is good. I believe He came to the earth to save us to be His people, the Church, a living witness to His reality, His love, and call to others. I think that, for the most part, the Church screws up a lot. And there are times that I hate the Church (the local church, too), but I can't hate it for long because the Church is the bride of Christ.

So, I'm writing this more for myself, because either the weather, or some of the music that's played tonight, or some of the more tricky theories from seminary have me on an emotional roller coaster tonight. So I'm wondering what God thinks of all of this? Can't wait to find out.

An Open Letter to American Christians

dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am writing because there are several things that have been ruminating in my heart, things, I believe, that have been placed there by our God Himself. I am writing because this word (these words) are not from me. I believe they have been placed there for a purpose. Now, hear me, please. I am not suggesting these words are on the level of divine revelation, on level with the Word of God. I am, however, suggesting that these "things" are firmly embedded in God's Word. I am writing because I think we have tamed and trained these word, these things so as to reduce the true threat that the gospel, and the God it represents, pose to our American Dream. Therefore, if you have faith in Christ Jesus as true Savior and true God, please, read on.

I start with a quote from Karl Barth's The Word of God and the Word of Man (also known as The Word of God and Theology):

This then is the inner situation in which we come upon the quite pointless question whether God is righteous. The righteousness of God becomes becomes preposterously a problem and a subject for discussion. In the war it has become a "real question" again. There is now hardly a community in all the country round in which, noisily or quietly, roughly or delicately, this question is not mooted; and it is mooted, fundamentally, in us all: If God were righteous, could he then "permit" all that is now happening in the world?

A pointless question? Absolutely so, if it refers to God, the livingGod. For the living God never for a moment manifests himself in our conscience except as a righteous God. When we see him as he is and when he asks us to recognize and accept him as he is, is it not pointless to ask, Art Thou righteous? A very pointed and correct and weighty question it is, however, when we refer it to the god to whom in our pride and despair we have erected the tower of Babel; to the great personal or impersonal, mystical, philosophical, or naive Background and Patron Saint of our human righteousness, morality, state, civilization, or religion. If it is he we mean, we are quite right in asking, Is God righteous? For the answer is soon given. It is our calamity, a calamity from which there is no posibility of rescue or release, that with a thousand arts we have made ourselves a god in our own image and must now own him - a god to whom one must put such comfortless questions and receive such comfortless answers. In the question, Is God righteous? our whole tower of Babel falls to pieces. In this now burning question it becomes evident that we are looking for a righteousness without God, that we are looking, in truth, for a god without God and against God - and that our quest is hopeless. It is clear that such a god is not God. He is not even righteous. He cannot prevent worshipers, all the distinguishedEuropean and American apostles of civilization, welfare, and progress, all zealous citizens and pious Christians, from falling upon one another with fire and sword to the amazement and derision of the poor heathen in India and Africa. This god is really an unrighteous god, and it is high time for us to declare ourselves thorough-going doubters, sceptics, scoffers, and atheists in regard to him. It is high time for us to confess freely and gladly: this god, to whom we have built the tower of Babel, is not God. He is an idol. He is dead.

Karl Barth. The Word of God and The Word of Man. (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith Publisher, Inc.) 1978. 21-22.

Barth goes onto say that only the true and living God is the only answer. Have we not confused the establishment of a Christian culture, either leaning one political direction or another, with the true Kingdom? What has this gotten for us, orto use more biblical language, what is the fruit? I will, in a manner that I admit is way too simplistic for you, dear reader, provide the following examples: on one side, with regard to a Christian who says they are against war, the death penalty, and are for governmental policies that consider the welfare of the poor, we throw them in the "Liberal" category, as in, s/he is a "Liberal" Christian; on the other side, the Christian who votes republican, is against abortion, opposes "Gay" marriage, and likes George Bush, we throw them in the "Conservative" category (by the way, I use parentheses for "Gay" because I don't find anything happy about or in the lifestyle - oh, have I played my hand? do you think you know which way I lean? guess again, dear reader!). All that's to say is that Christians of all persuasions have bought into a system of evaluation and judgment that is not to be found in the pages of Holy Writ, let alone in the Mind of Christ.

While I don't necessarily think Jesus was a pacifist, I do believe He was a peace-maker (wait, didn't He give high value to those who worked for peace?). I don't think Jesus would have necessarily favored welfare programs, but He wouldn't have devalued the people who are in great need by categorizing them as lazy, either. And in the gospels,Jesus doesn't make mention once about abortion, or homosexual's rights (let alone dating). But maybe that's because the Bible Jesus read, that is what we Christians call the Old Testament, stipulates quite well that such things like child sacrifice (which is ultimately what abortion is), and same sex relations are not acceptable to God, let alone healthy in an holistic way to the community.All of that's to say that we, as Christians, are divided. And we are divided because we put a higher value on politics and culture than we do the Kingdom of God, and serving the Lord of that Kingdom, Jesus Christ. Barth's words might well have been written today. But they weren't. The year was 1919, and the war he was referring to was World War 1, or then known as 'The Great War'. He was in Safenswil, Switzerland, I believe, serving a small, economically mixed congregation. And he was speaking into a culture that in as much as it understood itself was firmly rooted in a commitment to Enlightenment principles and religiously oriented to what we now know as Liberal Protestant Theology.

And I think Barth is speaking to us as well. Have we not, and I say we Christians, created a god in our own image? And have we not created a tower of Babel to reach it? Have we not confused Christian culture with God's kingdom? Have we notsought to follow the "righteousness" of this god, the god who encourages us to be constantly working for upward economic mobility, bigger homes, and faster cars?Does this god not asuage our guilt so that it is more "righteous" to plan our next vacation rather than wrestling whether or not we may find more to give to the local church for mission or assistance? Why is the name of Christ so misunderstood in our own country and the world over? Yes, the apostle Paul makes it clear that the cross of Christ is a stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness to the Gentile. But I think we are hiding behind the proverbial "Sunday School" answer if we shout this answer out. Yes, this is true. But remember dear brothers and sisters, God will not be mocked; we reap what we sow. My answer goes to Jesus' own words, that the world will know we are His disciples by His love. And Jesus prayed this be so. But in this, the greatest of all nations, the Church is sorely divided. Yes, one might throw into this discussion the parable of the wheat and the tares. And ironically, you might be right. But are you one of the tares? Are you working for division? Are you pointlessly slinging mud? all to the detriment of the Kingdom and the name of Christ? It is one thing to oppose a leader in the Church because s/he is clearly apostate. It is quite another thing to oppose brothers or sisters in Christ because they don't fit or submit to our self-righteous "litmus" tests.Dear brothers and sisters, I have no easy answers. But I will say that the answer is not to go run and hide in some Christian ghetto, nor is it to get out theRepublican vote in the next round of elections. It is to let your light so shine that it may be seen by all; to let our righteous acts (that is, those actions of ours that are rooted in the God) be seen so that even unbelievers praise our Father who is in heaven. It means that when we pray the Lord's prayer, and when we get to the part where we say 'Your kingdom come, Your will be done', we actually stop and think about it: what does this mean today? what should it look like in my life? And then we actually seek to live it out faithfully in the power of God the Holy Spirit.

Without the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, we are, to remember Barth'swords, in a calamity from which there is no possibility of rescue or release. God, the one, true, living God, must be our righteousness; and only Him alone. Anything else is idolatry. Anything else is far less than God. It is what we now see.

What do you think?

Don't Look Away

I was in the bathroom the other morning - it really doesn't matter which morning - going through some semi-morning ritual that gets me ready for said day when I saw it. I was shaving, brushing my teeth, smiling in the mirror at myself, washing my hands after taking a crap - I don't know but it was one of those things - but I was doing something when I looked down. Maybe I was throwing something into the trash can - that might be more like it - when I saw that behind the trash can (it's one of those small, bathroom-sized ones), on the floor, was a piece of gum. More than likely, a casualty of war, suffered from the likes of one of my daughters - I don't know which, and since I'm not looking to assign guilt, the identity of the culprit matters not - just spewed out, probably hoping that it would land square in the can.

But it didn't. It might've hit the rim at just the wrong angle so as to end up bumping off, hit the wall, and end up on the floor, safely nestled behind the trash can. It ended up on the floor. It didn't make it into the trash can. And I saw it sitting there on the floor.

And then I went back to doing something, shaving, brushing my teeth, smiling. And I forgot about the gum. And then I looked back on the floor today, and and it was gone. As in disappeared, vanished, or beamed on up to the mother ship. Gone.

And it struck me. Don't look away. I could've stopped my morning routine, bent over, and picked it up. But I didn't. And life is like that.

The moral struck me again. Life is like that, isn't. We see something out of place, broken, hurt, and it's far easier to just look away, go about what we were doing, and then forget. Forget so we can feel good, get stuff done, or just not feel guilty.

Don't look away. Don't be afraid to pick up the gum, or whatever else it is that God has allowed to catch your attention. Don't look away. You might miss an opportunity to serve, to pick up, clean up, or mop up. You might miss an opportunity to serve. Like I did.

I thought I had an idea, but ...

an hour ago, I logged onto to blogger because there was something on my mind to share with all of you wonderful people. But after an hour of messing around with the "new" blogger, I have all but forgotten what I was going to say. So that's kind of frustrating. But in any event, I thought I would at least put something mundane and meaningless down.

knock, knock. who's there?

okay, I've been keeping this blog for over two years now, and gotten bits and pieces of comments in that time, but little in the way of sustained dialog or conversation. I know people read these thoughts intermittently - I get emails here and there, or even passing comments from the people who are local. And I appreciate each and every one.

When I first started this blog, I had two ideas at the forefront. The first was that I wanted a new way to "jot" down my thoughts, my struggles, my joys, and my growing and ever-evolving thoughts on God - in essence, I saw (and still see) the way I was living as an on-going commentary on my theology of God - who He is, what He has said, and what He is calling the world, and specifically the people He continues to call to be part of the Church to be doing. Life is theology.

Secondly, I wanted to create some space for people to consider my thoughts, and offer their own (yes, I realize that there are many such forums, and who am I to expect that this particular stop on the blogosphere would be any more enticing than any of the others available).

All of that's to say, that if you're reading this, please feel free to interact. Leave a message. I blog as I feel personally (and perhaps divinely) inspired. I don't do it every day; nor even every week. The fact that I am blogging today has little to nothing to do with the fact that I blogged yesterday. There is no system to my blogging. I'm not trying so much to convince people that I'm "right", as much as just tell people what I have come to believe, and am struggling to believe. Faith is like that, I think. I'm not entirely interested if someone is "liberal" or "conservative". In point of fact, I consider those categories, those labels to be misleading. I'm seeking to be Biblical in the context where God has placed me. I want to explore the strange new world of the Bible in the context of the strange new world in which we live.

Are you out there? Are you offended? Are you bored? Are you put off? Are you willing to think? Or are you so full of blind faith, or perhaps oppositely atheistic, that you have a box so small there's no room to by which to grab hold and crawl out into the light? That's not an insult, but it is a call to wake up, to see that God is bigger than we often allow Him to be. He's dangerous. He's threatening. And most of all, He loves us.

Join this conversation. I'm holding the door for you. Come on in...