In these rancorous times in which we live, there seems to be a prevailing assumption that "he or she who talks the loudest must surely be Correct." Subscribe to cable TV these days and you can enjoy three dozen channels of talking heads shouting it out about impeachment, Ukraine, Golden Globes, Pro Bowl pics, and hair care secrets. It is striking to me that I can no longer even pump gas into my orange Jeep without enduring a screen in front of me, belting out audio selling this or news-breaking that. So much for 5 minutes dispensing Mid-grade as a quiet chance to collect my thoughts. Although my daddy raised me always to stay informed about this world, I'm starting to wonder if in fact willful avoidance (of so much noise) may in fact be a necessity for discipleship. One can only take so many talking heads. And this ... from a preacher.
Pumping gas while enduring more Opinions makes me appreciate Paul's cultural critique in 1 Corinthians 1:18–31, our lectionary reading for this Sunday. "So what about these wise ones, these scholars, these brilliant debaters of this world’s great affairs? God has made them all look foolish and shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense." According to the apostle, this good news about Jesus is not just one more strand of super-Serious-Opinion in an already tight knot of rancor. Everyone scrambles to be Right in this world, and many assume that the Divine will always take up Their Case ... but meanwhile God is usually up to something different; something so righteous (i.e. according to God's own terms) that it appears ridiculous to its Cultured Despisers. Talking Heads seem to always tighten our spirits; only a resurrecting God can loosen them.
The cross of Jesus is proof to Paul that the living God gets a kick out of flying in under the radar of what everyone assumes to be True and Right and Obvious. The cross turns out to be an open secret in a Loud Landscape; it is a whispering God dealing with a cantankerous world by showing up in God's own way: quietly, sacrificially, passionately, from the inside out ... and as a Fool.
Guess what? For an hour or so this Sunday, we get to turn off MSNBC and Fox and all the Other Ones ... and celebrate the absolute "foolishness" of the gospel. How about we practice being fools for Christ in such a Serious Season? You won't even have to pump.
January 31, 2020
January 24, 2020
United but not Confused
Christian unity is at once both a fact and a calling, an indicative and an imperative, both already-eternally-true and always-humanly-fragile.
It is the blessed indicative of the good news about Jesus that, because the Father and the Son are one (united but never conflated), and because the Son has called us by name, therefore we are now one (united but never conflated) with God and one with each other. Unity is a gift given that precedes our choices. Praise be to God.
But in this Christian confession, most indicatives also come with an imperative. "It is so ... so live like it!" the New Testament often asserts. That's what the Apostle Paul seems to be insisting in our 1 Corinthians passage for this Sunday, chapter 1 verses 10-18. "I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose."
Let us rejoice that the Christian movement is never a cult, wherein one is required to surrender the individual mind and forfeit one's individual will for the sake of some falsely-holy homogeneity. No, we are called the Christian unity, not cultic uniformity. Unity is a choice, because it is a first a gift; such unity never dissolves our differences, it merely softens them so that we no longer have to have our way on everything in order to see the way to God. It is a choice to stand together, to work together, for seek together the word and way of Jesus. Indeed, we are more united as one when each of us, in our own ways and in our own times, commits and recommits to loving our God and loving our neighbor.
Each week begins with the gift of unity; each week ends by our asking, How did we do?
It is the blessed indicative of the good news about Jesus that, because the Father and the Son are one (united but never conflated), and because the Son has called us by name, therefore we are now one (united but never conflated) with God and one with each other. Unity is a gift given that precedes our choices. Praise be to God.
But in this Christian confession, most indicatives also come with an imperative. "It is so ... so live like it!" the New Testament often asserts. That's what the Apostle Paul seems to be insisting in our 1 Corinthians passage for this Sunday, chapter 1 verses 10-18. "I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose."
Let us rejoice that the Christian movement is never a cult, wherein one is required to surrender the individual mind and forfeit one's individual will for the sake of some falsely-holy homogeneity. No, we are called the Christian unity, not cultic uniformity. Unity is a choice, because it is a first a gift; such unity never dissolves our differences, it merely softens them so that we no longer have to have our way on everything in order to see the way to God. It is a choice to stand together, to work together, for seek together the word and way of Jesus. Indeed, we are more united as one when each of us, in our own ways and in our own times, commits and recommits to loving our God and loving our neighbor.
Each week begins with the gift of unity; each week ends by our asking, How did we do?
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