Three, two, one, liftoff
Signals Mission Control. And off they go
To the dark parts of the planets
In their pressurised spacesuits,
Cocooned in technology, the astronauts.

Mission control whispers in someone’s ear.
Yes, she says, I will. And in due time
A different traveller makes a quieter journey,
Arriving hungry, naked, but true to instructions,
Docking on Earth, taking the one small step.

“Christmas traffic” by U. A. Fanthorpe in Consequences
Calstock, Cornwall: Peterloo Poets, 2000.

Image by NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

Sharing with you all tonight about what it means to be Christian & America is something I approach with fear + trembling. There’s a lot of posturing & shouting, many accusations are thrown around when we enter this ground, so much conflict that makes it difficult to even hear clearly. There’s actually a lot of heat and very little light being generated amongst all that friction.

So what are we to do? Should we ignore the topic altogether? Or perhaps we should just stick to one party line or another, and sign over the deeds of our hearts and minds to others completely.

Those paths lead ultimately to faithlessness and madness. If we are to be faithful, we need to have some conversation amongst ourselves humbly, seeking wisdom.

So rather than beginning with “Is America a Christian country?” or “One nation under God” or “separation of church & state,” let’s take a few words from Jesus as our starting point. In this passage, he is having a conversation with Pontius Pilate before his crucifixion. Note how Jesus is deliberately (I think) confusing and challenging, and how Pilate fails to ask the right questions, much less discover answers.

Pilate went back into the palace. He summoned Jesus and asked, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, Do you say this on your own or have others spoken to you about me? Pilate responded, I’m not a Jew, am I? Your nation and its chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done? Jesus replied, My kingdom doesn’t originate from this world. If it did, my guards would fight so that I wouldn’t have been arrested by the Jewish leaders. My kingdom isn’t from here. So you are a king? Pilate said. Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this reason: to testify to the truth. Whoever accepts the truth listens to my voice. What is truth? Pilate asked. (John 18:33-38, CEB)

A few things to observe: When we talk about kingdom, it’s a translation of the Greek word basileia, but another way you could say it is “empire.” And Jesus is quite clear that his stands in opposition to the empires of the world. But it isn’t just that Jesus’ basileia is the kingdom of heaven — from or in a different location. It also operates according to a different dynamic than in Rome or elsewhere.

Power works differently in Jesus’ basileia than in that of Rome or anywhere else. You aren’t blessed or privileged because you come from wealth or have authority, or due to ancestry or class or privilege or country of origin or anything else. They come from being poor in spirit, or from being one who mourns. They come from peacemaking, not aggressive police action. It’s a way of life that blesses those who curse you, that turns the extra cheek, goes the first mile required by imperial soldiers and then volunteers to go a second. It means giving generously of your own when it’s asked for, of giving up your extra clothing if someone takes you to court for the shirt off your back. And in case you think I’m just making any of this up, I encourage you to read Matthew 5 carefully!

And so Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of this kingdom: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Why? Because following Christ is costly discipleship. To enter into the basileia of God requires us to live our lives in the same shape that Jesus lived his: a cross. This cruciform life is foreign to governments and empires, to kingdoms and republics. It goes beyond an equitable burden-sharing and demands self-sacrifice. And it does not require of its members to commit violence; it is the peaceable kingdom.

Stanley Hauerwas: “I do not have a foreign policy. I have something better – a church constituted by people who would rather die than kill.”

The self-sacrifice, the unyielding pursuit of holiness, the entrenched unwillingness to commit violence, and the commitment to God’s preferential option for the poor are all things which governments cannot comprehend nor embrace. Liberty isn’t just to be rid of tyranny & oppression, it’s freedom to be a holy people. freedom for, not only freedom from. It’s to recognize justice exists beyond the laws our courts enact for our citizens: a justice which crosses borders & group boundaries. It’s a peace which beats swords into plowshares & places a divinely-inspired creativity at the center of resolving conflicts, displacing violence & aggression. This is the comprehensive, all-encompassing kingdom which Jesus invites us to enter & enact.

I’m reminded of the story told of Karl Barth visiting the seminary at the University of Chicago. Someone got up to the microphone at the end of the talk and asked him to share what he thought, arguably the finest theological mind of the century, what he understood was at the core of Christian faith. Barth paused for a moment, and then began to sing:

“Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me; yes, Jesus loves me; yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.”

It is only the Christian faith — not the faith of democracy nor empire — that tells us we are weak, you & me, our societies & governments; and it is only the Christian faith that tells us who loves us in our weakness, and not just tells us, but gives us a community in the Church which is a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God, in which all experience life together in righteousness, justice, peace, and joy.

“Jesus loves me, this I know…”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Image of Nave of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo used under Creative Commons license (Attribution, Noncommercial)

#unco11 (as it’s known on Twitter) is a gathering of about 70 adults to build IRL community & learn from one another. About 8 kids (including our 3) will also be present! (One of the reasons we are excited is the family-friendly setting & program.)

Rather than having thousands of passive attendees who merely absorb the words of a big-name, high-priced pastor who jets in & right back out after his (& yes it’s almost exclusively *his*) talk, unco creates a whole conference around the sidebar, hallway discussion atmosphere (where I always learn the most anyway!). A DIY, crowdsourced agenda created from a whiteboard crammed full of options is the structure. I’m stoked to be on our way! It’s exciting to be a part of a dynamic, forward-leaning, silly (check the unicorn references) group of people who for the most part met via social media.

If you want to follow along, check out these links:
Unco website
Unco on Facebook
Or search #unco11 on http://twitter.com
And you can always follow me @expatminister

What do you think? Is this a good model for Christian conferences & retreats? Are you coming to unco?

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

-T S Eliot, “East Coker,” Four Quartets

Image of St Michael’s Church, East Coker, © copyright Mike Searle and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Image of Lychgate East Coker Cemetery © copyright Sarah Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Nicodemus seems to have the same problem we do: what is Jesus talking about? The Greek word anothen carries a double meaning: “from above” and “again.” Nicodemus only considers the the latter meaning, and Jesus (none too gently) challenges him to expand his thinking about what is possible with God. Crawl back into the womb again? No.

But a physical birth must lead to a spiritual one.

The first birth leads to a second one, from above. The water that carried you out in birth is followed by the Spirit that ushers in our regeneration from God.

And that brings us to the second play on words in this passage. Nicodemus struggles to grasp that the Spirit which births us a new life is like the wind … both meanings for pneuma (Greek) or ruach (Hebrew).

How often do we force God’s intention into one register and ignore the beautiful harmonization they evoke?

We trample the rich treasury of faith beneath our feet, intending only one or the other, but never both. We are like Nicodemus, regarding it as impossible that God might mean more than one thing at a time, compressing salvation to fit into our narrow parameters. “How can it be…?” we ask, proving that we understand God’s ways only as well as Nicodemus did; which is to say, not at all.

We reveal the shallowness of our faith’s vocabulary by our lack of imagination. A new language and a new creativity are called for in God’s Kingdom. Are we willing to let go of our flat and narrow preconceptions, so that we too may be born anothen?

Image of John Frontispiece: The Word Made Flesh by Donald Jackson from The Saint John’s Bible.

The seventy-two returned joyously, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit themselves to us in your name.”

Jesus replied, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look, I have given you authority to crush snakes and scorpions underfoot. I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, don’t rejoice because the spirits submit to you. Rejoice instead that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:17-20, CEB)

When I read this particular passage, and think about it’s impact on my understanding of Satan and evil, I wonder how much it might have influenced the epic tales of J R R Tolkien. In fact, I think this pericope has a lot to do with Sauron and his power in Middle-earth:

Other evils there are that may yet come; for Sauron himself is but a servant or emissary. (The Return of the King, chapter 9)

If we read beyond the popular Lord of the Rings by venturing into The Silmarillion, we come to realize that Sauron serves the Dark Lord Morgoth, who used to be Melkor: a powerful, god-like being created by the One Creator, Eru Illuvatar. But Melkor loved music of his own devising, power, and all that comes with it, and refused to take part in Eru’s symphony of creation. He delights in corrupting life into misshapen minions, and then attempts to rule the world on his own terms.

So Melkor is not unlike Milton’s Lucifer. And by the time that Sauron comes on the scene, Melkor has been cast into the outer darkness. Sauron, the ringleader of all the evil that remains, was one of his lowly lieutenants (though he certainly is more menace than the Fellowship & free peoples can handle).

What has this to do with our Scripture? Both suggest that Satan is finished. The “spiritual forces of wickedness” — whether natural, social, or personal evil — might seem woefully overpowering to us, yet the source of their power has already been defeated and cast out. In the person of Christ, and in the establishment of God’s Church, evil has been defeated.

I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

Or, as someone else has said: Love wins.

This is a question, asked outright or left implied, with which I am confronted on a daily basis. Many things which my students encounter might go by the name “faith,” but are actually not. This passage jumped out at me, for it too asks the same question: what is faith?

Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon [the Pharisee], “Do you see this woman? When I entered your home, you didn’t give me water for my feet, but she wet my feet with tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet since I came in. You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has poured perfumed oil on my feet. This is why I tell you that her many sins have been forgiven; so she has shown great love. The one who is forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The other table guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this person that even forgives sins?”

Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” (Luke 7:44-50, CEB)

Did I miss it? No confession can be heard from the lips of this unnamed woman. So, what is faith…saving faith?

I’m not sure. But by many understandings of faith today, this woman would be definitionally excluded from salvation.

I fear we’ve forced “confession of faith” into such a narrow straitjacket that doesn’t have anything to do with following Jesus on The Way. Our ideas about whether or not someone has spoken a magic sentence or prayed the sinners’ prayer leave out the vibrant living intimate relationship which Jesus modeled with his Father. It replaces the trust and artistic gracefulness of an unnamed woman while insisting on a purely intellectual apprehension of who God is.

What do you think?

As [Jesus] taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’ (Mark 12:38-13:2, NRSV)

The thrust of the “Widow’s Mite” or offering story in context stands in stark contrast to its standard usage as a text for Stewardship Sunday. In fact, reading it in context illuminates just how far our “church culture” is from the Kingdom of God. We’re captive to the same impulses of safety & security. Beauty and art are important, of course! Even beautiful architecture. But we aren’t in the business of building beautiful facilities as a church–we’re in God’s salvation business. And too often we do devour the assets and livelihoods of our members and communities in our obsession with facilities, programs, and self-glorification.

So how do we avoid the greater condemnation?

He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. (Mark 6:7-13)

Relentless restlessness of Jesus really hits home in Mark. If in Matthew, Jesus moved at a deliberate pace, he’s almost manic in Matthew. He’s ducking into people’s houses to hide from crowds, and spending an awful lot of time crossing the water.

So here Jesus starts sending out his disciples on the same mission of teaching, healing, and exorcism he has been on. Their instructions? Travel light.

I wonder what we can learn from these instructions. Don’t take food or extra clothes, just a good pair of walking shoes & a hiking staff. Nothing except what you need for the road.

But our faith communities too often take more than this when we go out on God’s mission of salvation. Or we don’t go at all because we’re too enamored with our beautiful facilities & extensive campuses.

What would it look like if our congregations & assemblies were outfitted for travel…and nothing more?