Cadences of God

Speaking of martyrs yesterday, I am reminded of the wonderful story of Saint Lawrence. He lived from 225-258 and was one of the seven deacons of the Church in Rome. He was martyred by the Emperor Valerian (his trial before him is pictured below).

Lawrence was burned or “grilled” to death. Legend says that he was so strong-willed that instead of giving in to the Romans and releasing information about the Church, at the point of death he exclaimed “I am done on this side! Turn me over and eat.”

For this reason, Lawrence has been remember as having a good sense of humor while (ahem…) under fire. He is the patron saint of comedians. And it attests further to his good sense of humor that he is also patron of chefs and tanners.

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In the Book of Revelation, when the fifth seal is broken, the martyrs are disvered below the altar of heaven. From their, they cry out to God that their blood may be avenged while they are handed white robes. (Rev. 9:9-11)

Why? Why do martyrs cry out for blood? These are the one people in the whole of the Kingdom of God who should not better than all that blood cannot be quenched by more blood. They are the one people in the Kingdom who should know better than all others than blood does not pay for blood.

In fact, the very idea is a anethema to the God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Son of God gave blood so that blood would not have to be spilled. He sacrificed, so that the rest of us would not have to be sacrificed to eternal death for the sin-debt we had incurred against the Father.

Perhaps this is the root of the response from God through the angels of Heaven. The martyrs are given robes and told to sit down and wait and see.

Perhaps this is a nice reminder that the great martyrs of the faith - Stephen, John the Baptist, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement, and more recently Rev. King or Dietrich Bonhoeffer - were far from perfect and are capable of a vengeful moment once in a while even after their entrance into the music of heaven itself.

Either way, there is some comfort for me in the fact that no one ever tells them that they are right to hope for blood, right to claim it, or right to expect it. Apparently, even in a place of perfection, where the Perfect God resides, we will all still be frail, simple, and small.

And that is the deep truth of this. Christians have at times and in many places been given to a touch of blood lust. Sometimes it have been in the Name of God - such as in the crusades. Even good souls like St. Bernard of Clairvaux were not immune to these spirits. At other times, it has been a blood lust in service to a false god mixed with the true God - such as in various form so patriotism or ideology. In the end, these phases pass and we are left with the collective embarasment for what we have done. Perhaps it is good to know that very much in spite of these faults, we can still hope for a while robe in the end.

Tags: Peace, Heaven, Hell, Discipleship, Kingdom of God by Administrator
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Dobson Squarepants

Last week, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, writing his personal views in an online commentary, WorldNetDaily, declared he will not vote for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a presidential election.

“Many liberal Americans will agree with the social positions espoused by Giuliani. However, I don’t believe conservative voters whose support he seeks will be impressed,” Dobson wrote on WorldNetDaily. “I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran — or if worse comes to worst — not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life.”

This adds a second “will not support” to the front runners in the GOP race. He earlier said he would not support John McCain.

My only question is this: Why does Dobson not consider voting for a Democrat when he does not know who they will run? Why does he refuse to even consider this possibility, writing off an entire slew of candidates without consideration or public declaration? Who would take voting advice from a guy who knows in advance who he will support and who he wont?

If I am looking to become an informed voter, to help me along in a decision which is important, I would not go to someone who refuses to think about the things he does not think about. I’d rather hear what is said by someone who considers every possibility. This is like asking an ant-eater what they think of cabbage and being surprised they either never thought of it or they prefer ants.

If you want voting advice, ask a news junky who actively seeks a good candidate every election and does not vote the same party all the time.

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Last Friday, Rev. Clayton Childers, of the Washington-based United Methodist Board of Church and Society, was quoted by the press sayign, “The presence of a national flag in worship can imply endorsement of national policies which often run counter to the teachings of Jesus Christ and our Christian faith. … One need only recall the way the swastika flag was displayed prominently in German churches during the Nazi era.”

He wrote: “I do not believe in blind loyalty. I cannot affirm the idea of ‘my country, right or wrong.’ There are times when the United States has been very wrong in its actions, even outrageously wrong, and until we are able to own the hard truth of our failures, dare we say ’sins,’ we will never be able to experience the full and abundant life God would have for us as a people and as one member in the world community of nations.”

Let me start my saying that we need a national moratorium on saying something is like the Nazi this or that almost as much as we need a moratorium on the death penalty. Come on, Clay. That only hurts your case. The American flag is no more like the swastika than the flag of Slovenia.

Be that as it may, I have long had sympathy for Childers’ position. The Church is not an American institution. In the eyes of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the United States is just another in a long line of nations which will eventually pass away into dust. It is better than many, but lacks the goodness of some. (After all, the Chinese have better food, and the Indians have a deeper public religious life. Neither do we get to wear togas.)

There is place for celebrating nation in the Church. We should be thankful for what we have. If it is right for me to be thankful that I have a job, or money in my account, it is no less right to be thankful for a nation which - all things being eqaul - if I had had a choice I would have chosen without hesitation.

But the concern for nation worship is well met. I asked folks in my church to wear red for this up coming Sunday. When I asked if they remember why, most replied that next weekend was Memorial Day. When I mentioned, no, it was Pentecost, I got blank stares.

Many might call it liberal radicalism, but there is a dangerous convergeance of God and America which is not very healthy for the spiritual life of Christians. America is great. I love this country. My father left Europe and ran here simply because America was a great as it is. I would even say we are blessed by God. The invention of baseball is a clear sign of divine favor.

But when at Sunday worship, the celebration and ritual of the nation surplants the life of the people of God, we have a problem. Anyone who has pastored a church on Fourth of July weekend knows exactly what I am talking about. It is very hard to keep a church a church on the fourth.

Perhaps, for the sake of the church, we should take out the flags, pledges, memorial day prayers, and all the rest of it. Perhaps we should just take a few years to be Church, and only Church. Perhaps it would do us all well to say, “Memorial, what?” So that the celebration of God’s glorious and comforting presence in the Spirit is not surpassed by remembering people who gave their lives for a nation of ashes and dust that shall return to ashes and dust.

Clay and I disagree about the similarity of the stars and stripes and swastikas. But, I agree with him that flags and other signs of patriotism is confusing in a church. And I mean, “in a church”. They are fine outside. But within, the are too close to the altar for people to make the necessary separation.

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For Ascension Sunday, I offer you the true story of Lawnchair Larry and his 1982 flight . . . 

Larry Walters was a truck driver, but his lifelong dream was to fly.  When he graduated from high school, Larry joined the Air Force hoping to become a pilot, but his poor eyesight disqualified him. So when he finally left the service, Larry had to satisfy himself with watching others fly the fighter jets that crisscrossed the skies over his backyard. But even so, as he sat there in his lawn chair, Larry still dreamed about the magic of flying.

Then one day, a brilliant idea dawned on him. Larry went down to the local Army-Navy surplus store and bought forty-five weather balloons, and several tanks of helium.  Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach the balloons to his lawn chair.  He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep, and inflated the balloons with helium.  Then he packed a few sandwiches and drinks, and a loaded BB gun, figuring he could pop a few balloons when it was time to return to earth. His preparations complete, Larry sat in his chair and cut the anchoring cord.  His plan was to lazily float into the sky, and eventually back to earth. But things didn’t quite work out that way.

When Larry cut the cord, he didn’t float lazily up; he shot up as if fired from a cannon!
And he didn’t stop at just a couple of hundred feet either. No, Larry climbed and climbed until he finally leveled off at eleven thousand feet! At that height, he could hardly risk deflating any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really experience flying.

So he stayed up there, sailing around for fourteen hours, totally at a loss about how to get down.
Eventually, Larry drifted into the approach corridor for Los Angeles International Airport.  A Pan Am pilot radioed the tower about passing a guy in a lawn chair at eleven thousand feet, with a gun in his lap, Now that would have been a conversation I would have given anything to have heard! As dusk fell, Larry began drifting out to sea. At that point, the Navy dispatched a helicopter to rescue him, but the rescue team had a hard time getting to him because the wind from their copter blades kept pushing his home-made contraption farther and farther away. Eventually, they were able to hover above him and drop a rescue line, with which they gradually hauled him back to safety.

As soon as Larry got his feet on the ground, he was arrested.  But as he was led away in handcuffs, a television reporter called out, “Sir, why’d you do it?” Larry stopped, eyed the man, then replied nonchalantly, “A man can’t just sit around!”

 A man can’t just sit around . . . and neither can the Church. Get up people! You are give to fly, so fly.

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Rachel and I both love languages, though neither of us have any real aptitude for learning them. As human beings we swim in a sea of language and we cannot escape that. Knowing lots about your own language and how it works can help you out with any number of issues – legal, professional, communicating clearly with people, appreciating anything you read, and all that. Like I said, I’m not very good at languages, but I’ve thrown my hat into the ring from time to time. I have at different times attempted serious the study of German, Russian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Czech. If I add languages I’ve studied just long enough to know that I never want to study them (which take me about a ½ hour) you can throw in Hindustani and Arabic. One of the neat things about languages I like is that every language can do some things that other languages cannot; even do them better than other languages can. For instance, there is this one Amazonian tribe that has seven different words for the under side of a leaf, depending on it’s color, textures, and the way it is different from the top side of a leaf. I’m not sure English has even one word for the underside of a leaf. Greek has different words for “love”, depending on whether you love your friend, and object, your spouse or lover, or God. I think that is pretty sensible. It seems kind of cheap that in English we use the same word - “love” - for how I feel about the Almighty God who made all that is, and a really great piece of chocolate cake. I may love both, but really not in the same way. In Hungarian, they do not use the pronoun “he” or “she” for God. God is kind of a he. But God is also kind of a she. And truthfully, God is not too much like either. So, Hungarians invented a whole new pronoun just for God (which is neither he, she, or it). It is just God’s pronoun. That seems pretty sensible to me.

Of all the languages I’ve studied, the only one I can claim to come close to speaking for real is Spanish. In Spanish, they also have one of these things were they do something better than we do. Spanish has one word for here. That word is aquí. However, Spanish has two words for “over there”. Now, that may seem a little nuts at first, but it does make sense. When I say, [Ron Jenkins] is over there. I might mean in the back row where he is. Or, I might mean in Cuba, which – if my longitude is right - is also “over there” somewhere.

So, the Spanish have two words for this – allí and allá. Allí means “over there”. You know, kind of where Ron is. But allá, that means way the heck over there. You know, where Cuba is.

Aquí, allí, and allá. Here, there, and way on yonder over there. Three different words.

See, that one observation of Spanish speaks to me of the whole mystery of the feast of All Saints. In Christian life, we tend to think mostly of the aquí, the here. We think about the church. We think about our finance, about the finance of the church, as Ruth prompted us today. We think about our “to do” list for today, while we zone out during the sermon. We think about the people in the pews next to us, their needs and concerns. We think about our families and their needs. We think about ourselves and what we need. We are present here and now. We live in the here and now, in the aquí.

We are reminded at times, here at church that we are also about the allí, the over there. We are reminded about our Christian brothers and sisters in another town, at other churches, and even those in West Africa, India, China, and so forth. Even though we live most of our lives in the aquí, the here and now, we do take time for the allí, the over there. Our apportionments that we pay, about 12% of our church budget, goes to a lot of these projects. Our United Methodist colleges and hospitals in Africa, Drew University, churches in the slums of Camden and Trenton. For some time now, churches have been helping out quite a bit with the flood damage in Louisiana, which is far from taken care of. So, in our spiritual lives, we also live in the allí, the over there.

But, if we are usually living in the here, and sometimes in the over there, we are almost never in the allá, the way the heck over there. That is the value of Church and the communion of saints. See, the communion of saints reminds us that there is more to the body of Christ than just those who are here with us, and those who are over there (be it the next town over or China). There are also those Christians sisters and brothers who are in the allá, the way off over there. Spanish creates a separate word for the way on over yonder, because it knows that the way on over yonder effects us and we effect it. That deserves a word.

Days in the church calendar like All Saints, or the Day of the Death, or liturgical practices like prayers for the dead are about those who are way on over yonder, but are always with us all the same. They are about those who are way on over yonder, but who are effected by us no less, since they watch over us still.

Every religion in the world takes time to step back and reconnect with the alla, those who are way on over yonder. We Christians are not spiritual adventurers going where no man has gone before on this on. Asians and Africans both make a point out of honoring the ancestors regularly. Here is America, people who spend lots of time delving into history or their personal family genealogies do this as well. They are connecting with the way on over yonder that still connects with us.

I’ve always liked the quote by Joseph Cinque, the black slave who in 1841 successfully sued the US Supreme Court for freedom because he was kidnapped illegally. He had former president John Quincy Adams as his lawyer. When asked by Adams before the trial is he was scared, Joseph Cinque said, “No. I will not be alone out there. My ancestors will be there with me. I will call into the past, far into the beginning of time, and beg them to help me at the judgment. I will reach back and draw them into me. And they must come…for at this moment I am the whole reason they have existed at all.”

That is the communion of saints. We Christians should take a breath to remember the ancestors, to call them into us from the very beginning of time, and from only a short while ago. We call them into ourselves because they have paved a pathway for us and us alone. As every parent lives for their children, they have lived for us. We reach back and draw them into us. And they must come. For at this moment in time, we are the whole reason they have existed at all.

There is a mystical connection tied by a cord that never breaks between the dead and the living. The prayers we say, the hymns we sing, the faith we confess with it’s creeds and confessions are all the hard labor of Christians who have gone before us to the undiscovered country. Many of them we do not even know their names, except we know that someone was there to do many of these great and small jobs. 

When I think about the congregation where I worship on Sunday, about the building, about all of it, I cannot help but remember that is has been a work in progress since 1789. It has been deeded over to us by those who have lived and worked hard in the fields of the Lord and are no longer with us. 1789. Think about that! George Washington was only just inaugurated President. They had just elected the first Congress. Our church has moved locations three times and each of those locations saw significant changes in the time we inhabited it. And all those moves and changes were done by people just like us, singing hymns a lot like ours, and reading bibles that sounded very similar to ours. Everything we enjoy as a church is just as much the fruit of their labor as it is ours.

I am sure that every person who counts themselves a Christian, can say that they are probably a Christian because of someone else, someone who might not be here with us anymore, someone who inspired you and had you want to tap into just a little bit of what they had – be it power, or peace, or depth, or whatever.

Almost everything we are is the gift of the saints now in heaven and their continuing watchful eye over our work in life. They have never left us, whether they effects us still in memory alone or by more direct and spiritual ways. They are always with us, for here and now, we are the only reason those who are alla, those who are way on over yonder, have ever lived.

In deed, there is a mystical connection tied by a cord that never breaks between the dead and the living. And it goes both ways. One day, when we have passed, we too will watch upon our children and their children and children not yet dreamed of. And we will watch over them as they lead churches which look unlike any we can imagine. For then, they will be the whole reason that we have ever existed.

We also need to head the responsibilities of the saints, because we will one day be among their number. We need to be about our Father’s business so that, when we ourselves will be way on over yonder, that there be a church at all in 30 years, 100 years, a 1000 years.

In the Christian faith we take very little time for the alla, for the way on over yonder. So, let us take hold of those moments and suck them dry for all they are worth. Let us revel in the saints who have departed from us in body and form, but never in spirit. Let us thank them. Let us conjure them unto ourselves once more and sit at their feet in learning. Let us build ourselves in holiness and faith that we too can be accounted among their number when our time has come. Let us live – not just in the aqui and alli, but in the alla as well.

Tags: Death, Heaven, Hell, Kingdom of God by Administrator
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Pope Benedict said this in Latin America a few days ago:

“You believe in the God who is Love: this is your strength, which overcomes the world, the joy that nothing and no one can ever take from you, the peace that Christ won for you by his Cross! This is the faith that has made America the “Continent of Hope.” Not a political ideology, not a social movement, not an economic system: faith in the God who is Love—who took flesh, died and rose in Jesus Christ—is the authentic basis for this hope…”

A little conviction now and again is good for the soul.

Benedict is on a soap box I have inhabited for years. Too often, the church is filled with Democrats and Republicans, not Christians. Christians can share many hopes, dreams, and convictions as Democrats and Republicans. Christians can join these parties and share their goals. (I have.)

However, it is a disaster for a Christian to forget they are “in” such a party, but not “of it”.

No Christian should be a Republican because they are conservative. They should be a Republican because they believe the sanctity of unborn life, the value of frugality and industry, and protecting the freedom God gives the individual. They should be a Republican because they believe in defending Christian values in the public sphere and the in utilizing our witness to assist the communal moral vision.

No Christian should be a Democrat because they are a liberal. They should be a Democrat because they believe in defending the widow and the orphan, the “least of these” and the outcast. They should be a Democrat because they value have God’s concern for the poor and God’s vision for an inclusive kingdom without end.

In short, Christians should be Democrats or Republicans because they are Christian first.

When asked what my political stand is – whether I am liberal or conservative; Democrat or Republican – my first response is usually, “I’m Methodist”.

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