It’s a Dark Place

In December 2006 I gave the following sermon. I’d like to share it with you:

Sometimes the world is a dark place where it is easy to get lost. In this dark place there exist things with teeth that can bite you anytime they want. This is not a place where you want to be lost.

Some say, “It’s not so bad”—but we can’t look honestly at the world without acknowledging the presence of serious evil. Go to Sudan, the families and young children in Africa decimated by AIDS, the physical abuse suffered by children and women in America at the hands of husbands, boyfriends and fathers. Evil is here—even during Christmas.

At Christmas it is easy to get caught up in sentimentalism. The nativity scenes, complete with other-worldly representations of Joseph, Mary and the shepherds peer out from church lawns and store-front displays. A cute, cuddly infant in a sanitized blanket on a comfortable straw mattress greets us. And we are tempted to miss the point. We forget the early first century (B.C. and A.D.) world of Palestine was not really a picture of Pax Romana (Roman Peace)—it was populated with rebels, unwanted occupational forces, insurgents, and mad kings. And lest we get caught up in some romantic notion, remember: the slaughter of the Bethlehem children is an integral part of the story. We tend to gloss over that story, don’t we? But it is there to remind us the world is indeed a dark place where there is no shortage of evil ready to sink its teeth into anyone who crosses its path.

But it wasn’t always this way. God called the world out of chaos. He created it whole and beautiful. Mankind was the crowning touch. God looked around and proclaimed it “very good.” God created us to be his image-bearers. That’s what it meant to be human. But we wanted to be God. Our choice, our decision, our action introduced sin into the world: a fatal flaw that has affected not only mankind, but creation itself.

Ever since, we have failed in our calling to be fully God’s image-bearers, to be fully human. We’ve even twisted our identity into an excuse: “Well, I’m only human!” That’s not a rationalization —it is a judgment! In reality, when we embrace evil, we fail in our calling to be human. One word for sin means “to miss the mark.” Sin is to miss our calling to be what God has created us to be: human—the image bearer of God. When we sin, it is not because we are human, but because we have settled for something much less.

While the choice was ours—we were encouraged by evil personified. We were not victims, but we were not alone in our guilt either. Since creation, there has been an Evil One whose sole mission is to mar God’s beauty. To destroy all that God holds dear. He was our seducer and accomplice. And he’s been trying to destroy us ever since.

And so enters the baby. And we want him to stay a cute, cuddly infant. But to focus on the babe is to miss the point. He did not come to be a baby. He came to shine light into the darkness and expose the Evil One who would destroy us.

And he did this so well. The gospel of Mark begins with an adult Jesus bursting on the scene. One of the characteristic actions he takes throughout the gospel is the driving out of demons. Instead of fighting a defensive battle, he hunts the enemy down, as it were. He invades Satan’s territory. With a word he expels confusion. The demons cry out: What do you have to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are: the Holy One of God!

In the gospel of Matthew, he tells his disciples the gates of Hades will not overcome him—he doesn’t say the swords and spears of Hades. He says the gates. Those are defensive structures; not offensive weapons. Jesus is the one on the offense! He confronts those who collude with evil: the powers of the world represented by the religious elite and the government. He reaches out to love on those victimized by evil: the outcasts of society—tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, irreligious. He doesn’t do this to goad the religious. He does it because, as God, he is not willing to give up on anyone. He even defeated evil in his own personal life by living pure and sinless.

But his ultimate victory over evil was witnessed, not in his birth, but in his crucifixion. The very place where he appeared helpless; the very moment he looked like a victim—was the exact time when he defeated evil. He did it in a radically different way than anyone expected. Rather than using violence to defeat violence, he used self-sacrificial love. Not sentimental love. Not some romantic notion of love: but gutsy, tough, sacrificial love. He turned evil’s own momentum against itself. Like some eastern martial artist, rather than striking back, he absorbed the blow and allowed evil to spend itself out on him. And in that moment the darkness was shattered.

Paul describes the moment in Colossians 2:13-15

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

The powers and authorities described here are demonic forces of evil—but also those forces who collude with them, whether they are religious or secular.

And we return to the baby. Not a sentimental figure of innocence; but a paradoxical one. How can the evil of the world be defeated by a baby? How can the violence of the world be overcome by a suffering servant? Don’t our own governments and even our own sense of rightness seem to suggest otherwise? The way to defeat violent evil is to use more violence? But Jesus shines a light in all of this darkness. He points to a different way.

And he calls us to accept that calling: To lead the world back to creation; to demonstrate what it means to be fully human: image bearers of God. He calls us to confront evil the way he confronted evil—to hunt the enemy down by rescuing those entrapped by his demonic influence, by honestly confronting the misuse of power, and by loving on all of those trapped and bitten by evil.

Yes, the world can be a dark place where it is easy to get lost. But through the power of the babe who came to die, we can bring light to the darkness, expose the evil, and bring the lost to a safe place.

May you celebrate the light of Christ who came into this world. As you look at the babe, may you avoid sentimentality. May you recognize his paradoxical power of suffering. And may you embrace his calling to bring light into the darkness.

Christmas Time

In the last post I mentioned my desire to take my family through a weekly reading of The Story of God, The Story of Us: Getting Lost and Found in the Bible. We’ve not had time to get this far, but I decided it would be OK to skip ahead for one particular reading: chapter 9: Christ (“In which we hear the story of the One who embodies God’s love and fidelity, and who opens the way for a new covenant…”).

We read this chapter out loud on Christmas day as we broke bread and drank the grape juice. I especially appreciated how the story starts off with the description of the triumphal entry and then goes backward to the genealogy and birth story of Jesus. I found the reading to be quite appropriate for our family’s eucharistic observance. To reflect on the reading and then to share how the story of Messiah informs and shapes our life. I shared how this story has been part of the Willis family for generations. While my father and his father and his father may have interpreted the story somewhat differently, the story itself was the consistent thread that ties the generations of my family together. I am who I am, my children are who they are because of this story and how it has shaped us from our earliest memories until the present.

Think about it for just a moment: has this story–the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the one called Jesus, the Messiah shaped your life? In what ways? If it were not for this story, would you know the people you know? Would you live in the place you live? Would you have the ethics and concerns you presently hold? How has this story shaped you?

What do you think?

Tell the story

Anyone who knows me knows that I love stories: telling stories, listening to stories, and reading stories. (In fact, since I have been a local storyteller in our community and school systems most children who see me at a store or walking down the street will say, “Aren’t you the storyteller?”).

I am a firm believer that we are, according to communication expert Walter Fisher, homo narans (story-telling beings). It seems that growing up we have to be taught how to think in terms of logic and mathematics. However, no one has to be taught how to tell stories–storytelling seems to be imbedded into our DNA!

I’ve said before, no little girl tells her father: “Daddy, please give me a three part syllogism explaining the danger of talking with strangers!”She says, “Tell me the story about Little Red Riding Hood!” No high school student comes home and says, “Let me give you a logical formulation explaining why my locker-mate is a moron!” Instead he says, “You won’t believe what my locker mate did today! I was trying to open my locker when…”

We all tell stories. Stories resonate with us.

Recently I picked up a book entitled The Story of God, The Story of Us: Getting Lost and Found in the Bible by Sean Gladding (InterVarsity Press). This is not a how-to book or a book of essays about the Bible. Instead, it is a narrative of the biblical text from beginning to end. It is designed to be read out-loud. I have decided the Willis family is going to spend some time each week reading through this book chapter at a time (there are 12 chapters).

Admittedly, this is not the same as reading the actual Bible. But what this does for you and your family (or your community if you wish to do this with a community gathering) is take you through the story of the Bible in a reader/listener friendly format. Hopefully it will encourage you and others to pick up the Bible and to begin to explore it. The story of the Old Testament is told through the eyes of a fictional Hebrew elder living in Babylon–a Qoholet if you prefer who gathers people together to share a message. Likewise, the story of the New Testament is told through the eyes of a woman who has been a witness to the events of the first century.

This is not a book review, because I haven’t actually read it all of the way through! However, what I have read is intriguing and makes me want to try this out. I am certain there will be some interpretive elements that I may end up disagreeing with (or maybe not…who knows?), but we’re adults and we can deal with differences of opinions as we explore it together.

As our family goes through this, I hope to share my reactions with you on the blog. I would love to hear your thoughts as well. First, what do you think of the idea? How helpful would such a retelling be among families, friends, and even communities? What do you think?

What would you have done?

In his classic meditation on forgiveness, The Sunflower, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal tells the story of how he was forced to hear the deathbed confession of a young SS officer while he was in a concentration camp.

Wiesenthal was assigned a work detail in a hospital. A nurse saw him and motioned for him to follower her. Reluctantly he followed her into the room of a young SS officer who was clearly dying. His eyes were bandaged but he heard them entering the room.

Grabbing Simon’s hand he asked, “Are you a Jew?” He then launches into the story of how he was sent to the Russian front and during one expedition he was ordered to take part in the wholesale slaughter of the entire population of a Jewish village. He operated a machine gun while the men, women, and children were locked inside a two story house that was then set to flame. His job was to shoot all who escaped. He obeyed his orders.

When he finished his horrible tale he turns to Wiesenthal and says, “I needed to tell a Jew this story because I wanted to ask forgiveness. Will you please forgive me?” Wiesenthal was silent for a moment, then he withdrew his hand and walked out of the room without answering the young man’s plea.

When he returned to his barracks he was deeply troubled. Had he done the right thing? He asked his comrades. Some suggested the man did not deserve forgiveness and in fact by bringing Wiesenthal into his room he had placed Simon in grave danger. Their unofficial rabbi suggested Simon could not forgive the young man because the only people who had the right to forgive him were his victims and they were all dead. Still Simon was unsatisfied.

Wiesenthal closes the first half of the book with one question: “What would you have done in my place?” In the next section of the book are essays written by theologians, philosophers, and even the war criminal Albert Speer attempting to answer the question.

The question is a valid question. And of course we would have to begin the answer with, “There is no way for me to actually understand what you went through…”

The question still remains: What would  you have done? and to that I would add What should be done by a follower of Jesus?

So, what do you think? What are your answers?

What If He Does Not Ask? (Forgiveness, pt 2)

I have been asked before: “What if a person offends me and never asks for forgiveness? How can you forgive someone who refuses to ask?”

Yale professor and theologian Miroslav Volf suggests forgiveness is like giving a gift. You send a gift to a friend, but he refuses to open it. It stays sitting on the table. Perhaps he thinks, “He shouldn’t have given me a gift, he can’t afford it” or “I think there is an ulterior motive, so I won’t open it.” Whatever the reason, your friend refuses to open the gift.

Have you given a gift? Yes, you bought it, wrapped it, and sent it to him. You no longer are in possession of the gift: it is given. But has your friend received the benefit of the gift? Well, no. He can enjoy it anytime he wants, but for some reason he will not accept it.

Forgiveness is like this. As a follower of Jesus I have no option but to forgive. I cannot force someone to accept my forgiveness. Regardless, I must forgive. How can I claim to be a recipient of God’s forgiveness if I refuse to forgive? How does a child of God refuse to act like his gracious father?

Volf is no academic when it comes to forgiveness. He is a Croat and grew up in Soviet Yugoslavia. His five year old brother was killed by the negligence of a Soviet soldier. He was persecuted as a Christian during communism and as a Croat during the Balkan wars he saw his cities plundered, churches burned, and his people raped and killed by the Serbian cetniks. Volf knows the challenges and pain demanded by forgiveness.

Is forgiveness easy? No. It may very well be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life. But until the world is taught forgiveness by those of us who claim to be followers of a forgiving God, it will never know the peace God intends for it.

Those who offend may never ask for forgiveness. But remember Paul’s words in Romans 5:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Forgiveness: the Art of Being Christian

Perhaps one of the most telling marks of a follower of Christ is her ability to forgive others. Jesus and the biblical writers say it often enough: “If you won’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven”, “this is how your heavenly Father will treat you if you do not forgive your brother from the heart,” “forgive as God forgave you, in Christ,” etc.

We have to be careful not to turn this into a new kind of legalism: “You earn your forgiveness by forgiving others.” I think the overall point is that someone who has experienced forgiveness becomes a forgiving person. One’s ability to forgive is a demonstration of how one understands his own standing with God.

But how does one forgive, and more basically: what is forgiveness?

Simply put (and this definition is very simplistic), forgiveness is to release someone from his or her debt. You hurt me, I release you from the payment you deserve: to be hurt in kind. The down side of this is that I experience the pain you deserved to receive. If you hit me, I still suffer the blow but you do not. In this way the one who forgives bears the punishment of the one forgiven.

However, forgiveness is not acting as if the offense was nothing or even a simple thing to release. We may not realize this, but forgiveness is an act of judgment. When I forgive you, I am saying you have done something wrong–otherwise there would be nothing of which to forgive! (If you don’t think this is true, walk up to a stranger and say “I forgive you.” See how he reacts!)

Part of forgiveness is to condemn the wrong that took place. Actually to look it in the face and say: “This was wrong, unjust, evil. It should not have happened.” The wrong should never be glossed over but recognized for what it is. This is not to say one should dump a guilt trip on the offender. But it is important for both offender and forgiver to see the wrong and to recognize the pain it caused.

But then, the one who forgives releases both the offender and herself: the offender from consequence and contempt and the forgiver from the burden of carrying the grudge. This does not mean the offense is totally forgotten. Such might be humanly impossible. But the offense is no longer placed in the front of one’s mind to review and rehash.

So how does one forgive? There is no simple three step formula that makes forgiveness easy. I think though we learn to forgive by pouring our hearts into the mind of Christ. The more we look at his character by reflecting on his life in the gospels, the more we become a people who forgive. This is not an academic study of Jesus. We follow Paul’s dictum in 2 Corinthians 3:18: we contemplate him with unveiled hearts. In other words we seriously meditate on Jesus’ life with an openness and desire to be molded into his image. By placing ourselves in the environment of the life of Jesus and by embracing an attitude of openness, the Spirit transforms us into his image (“from one degree of glory to another”).

This doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a lifetime of practice. As Miroslav Volf suggests, forgiveness takes place in “droplets”. You forgive someone and later that night you stay awake wondering “Why did I do that? I am still angry!” But the next day you meditate on Jesus and you think, “No, this was right. I must forgive.” And you struggle with it until it is integrated into your life. In this way forgiveness becomes more of a journey rather than a punctiliar event.

But one thing we must never do: rationalize or justify our desire to withhold forgiveness. “Of course you should be angry, look what they did!” It may be natural not to want to forgive. The person’s crime may be heinous. But our example is the one who was led to the slaughter and did not open his mouth. Our example is the one who was tortured to death on a cross and yet still said, “Father forgive them, they don’t understand.”

People discuss passages in the Bible and how challenging they are. But when it comes to forgiveness, I tend to agree with Mark Twain. “It isn’t the part of the Bible I don’t understand that bothers me. It’s the part I do understand!”

Forgiveness is not an option for the follower of Jesus.

So what are your thoughts?

The Misembodied Church, pt 2

Last week’s article focused on how the church used metaphors of the dominant culture to view itself. The metaphors turned into organizational structures and models that influenced the nature of the church, its assembly, and outreach.

We concluded with the question: is there a better model to follow? I think there is—but it will not come from studying business models or social structures or psychotherapy groups. When I was growing up I would hear preachers talk about the pattern and the correct model to follow when it came to church. Usually they presented another institutional structure that seemed to miss the point somehow. We still seemed preoccupied with event rather than relationship. We talked about proper structure and titles forgetting what Jesus said about wearing titles of any kind: that is, don’t! We seem to forget Jesus’ hierarchical model was an upside down pyramid: leaders are slaves of the whole. The better model is based on a person: Jesus. In one sense he is the model. Our pattern is Jesus and his life.

So how did he function? When we look at Jesus and his disciples we notice a small group on the move—constantly engaging the community around them. Did they organize? Of course they did. Judas was the treasurer. According to Luke 8:1-3 they received funding and donations from a group of women who traveled with them. Many times the twelve would perform some service function from feeding the 5,000 to organizing the Passover meal for the group. There is also an indication they used some of their funds to care for the poor. But emphasis was not on the organization. Organization tended to be simple, relational, and organic. When the early church grew in Jerusalem the major organizational challenge was to care for the poor—little else. Jesus led this group of disciples as Middle Eastern Shepherd: going before them, loving and caring for them, teaching and serving. He led the way by demonstrating mercy to those in pain and associating with the outcast. His style was merciful, face-to-face, relational, familial. There was no CEO mentality found in Jesus’ model. He wasn’t a leader who used servant-leadership principles: he was a servant!

His outreach and mission was to enter into the worlds of others. He ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners. He didn’t invite them to Synagogue services! He went to where they were. Do we really grasp this? Do we get the implication? He invaded their turf! But he didn’t just preach. He listened, he told his followers to do good deeds: to be salt and light, permeating the culture around them. He was engaged in conversation—read the gospels and see how often he was engaged. When he gathered and assembled with others—it was over a meal. If you read the gospels you might be surprised to see how often Jesus was eating with people of all kinds! Jesus was serious when he said in Matthew 11:18ff:

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.”

In Luke 15 he is criticized for welcoming and eating with tax collectors and sinners. “Now tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” In Mark 2:13-17 the religious people condemn him for being at a party in Levi’s house. In Luke19 he is condemned him for associating and eating with the sinner Zacchaeus. That’s the way he reached out to folks.

Our model for church is Jesus. Our pattern for being the people of God is the Son of God. Our example for organization and outreach is the ministry of Jesus. The book of Acts is merely an extension of Jesus’ ministry through those he left behind.

So what now? How do we appropriate this information? How does a church embody Jesus—how do we follow the pattern of the servant Son of God? What’s the better mousetrap? Perhaps we should start from the beginning. Seek first to embody the spirit and priority of Jesus: people over preferences—organism over organization—mission over method.

Here are a few pragmatic suggestions: band together with a small group of believers on a regular basis for conversation about Jesus and the scriptures. Small home groups are a good place to start. But don’t just be a discussion group—be a ministry group. Organize as Jesus did—go out and serve others. Reach out to those who society has left behind. There are plenty of opportunities wherever you live. Talk it over with your small group—then mobilize. Most importantly: keep your eyes on the character of Jesus. Our identity is rooted in Jesus, not an organizational structure or institutional model.

We don’t need to build a better mousetrap. We just need to use what God has given us. Let’s return to simple church: gathering to encourage each other and to reflect on our Lord Jesus, and then going out to serve.

May you grow into the character of Jesus. May you as the people of God reflect the image of God. May we give up our infatuation with models and institutions and fall in love with Jesus and may his love for the world be expressed through us.