The lector is one who ministers to the congregation through the reading of Scripture. At one point in church history, the lector, or reader, was considered one of the minor orders in which persons were formally acknowledged for the exercise of gifts, or charismata, they possessed. Although reading is nowhere explicitly cited as one of the charismata, its exercise is as significant as preaching and teaching; we read in 1 Timothy 4:13: “Give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching.”
Reading the Word of God aloud can bring blessing to the one who reads and to those who hear. How is such blessing brought about? It is first of all a gift of grace. Reading is a charismatic act when done in the context of true worship – that is, when words are read aloud in spirit and truth. A worshipful act of reading is no mere playback of recorded inspiration; prophetic reading breathes again the truth present in the text being read. This representation is a poetic act of mimesis which resounds with the breath of life. The Bible does not speak for itself; God has chosen to speak through the reading of His Word. God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh; so does the Church continue by the Spirit of Christ to be the Body of Christ to the world as each Christian in his or own person presents the Word of God uniquely, whether individually or with other Christians.
The reader becomes the letter of Christ written with the Spirit of the Living God when words of prophetic proclamation are processed through the whole person. The Great Commandment, to love the Lord God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind, and to love others as oneself, is to be applied to reading as much as to all things in life. Anything less than reading with one’s whole person, in loving submission to God and others, strangles the Spirit’s flow.
Competent charismatic reading prophesies life to those ready to hear the Word of the Lord. The Christian reader is a minister of the new covenant, not of letter but of spirit. The Spirit gives life – this then is the criterion by which prophetic reading is judged. Lifeless reading is a mocking impersonation of presenting the Gospel – still born words sound monotonously ineffective and reflect gloomingly off veiled and captive minds of hardened hearers. However, reading full of the Spirit is transformative – the image of God, figured in reading the Word of God, is set in one’s imagination as an example to be followed with others as faithful disciples of Christ.
Faith come from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud words of prophecy and blessed are those who hear.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
BE STILL
Be still,
&
know that I am God;
I will be exalted
…
Psalm 46:10 (see also Psalm 4)
When I call to you, O my righteous God, answer me.
I am still. In your mercy hear my prayer.
You have filled my heart with abounding joy.
I dwell in peace. Let your face, O LORD, now shine upon us.
BE STILL MY SOUL
Words: Katharina A. von Schlegel, in Neue Sammlung Geistlicher Lieder, 1752 (Stille, meine Wille, dein Jesus hilft siegen);
translated from German to English by Jane L. Borthwick in Hymns from the Land of Luther, 1855.
Music: Finlandia, Jean Sibelius, 1899
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.
Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.
Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.
Monday, May 3, 2010
HOW GOD ACTS ON AND IN THIS WORLD
The God-ness of God is beyond our human comprehension. How God acts is Godly and it thus behooves one who wishes to fully understand any act of God to somehow share in that Godliness as well. God, according to His own Counsel, does or does not reveal Himself as the Actor behind the action.
Consider this - Saul/Paul, upon hearing the voice of the Lord on the road to Damascus, had to ask for further revelation beyond whatever he heard initially. God remained sovereign in limiting what sense could be made of the sound Saul and his companions heard - Saul comprehended what his companions could not. The Bible explicitly tells us what God's voice sounds like - thunder. The sound made sense only to whomever God directed what He had to say; others who heard could not make sense of what they heard. You can find it in many places in Scripture, OT and NT; use any Bible concordance to look up examples of this. It seems we must "have ears to hear what the Spirit has to say."
Is this not what Scripture teaches in regard to the Spirit and the flesh? Faith fills in the details where fleshly perception falls short. Holy mystery must be so aggravating for faith-deficient scientists. Then again, the logic of scientific discovery (as Karl Popper puts it) often frustrates those who are more mystically-minded. Theology once was called the Queen of sciences, informing and illuminating all other branches of knowledge. King to this queen is the One whom all knowers yearn to know in each of their particular pursuits of knowledge. To deny God is to divorce logic from any likelihood of leading one to Truth. Science needs God in order for scientific discovery to make any sense; theology is the way such sense is understood and communicated.
God, wholly Other, is fully capable of acting as He wills in the world and freely interacting with those in the world. Each scientist is responsible before this Sovereign God to focus the perception of oneself through spiritual eyes of faith rather than fleshly eyes of folly. Scripture plainly teaches that sin darkens one's understanding. Science done with deficient theology is no better than blind faith.
Consider this - Saul/Paul, upon hearing the voice of the Lord on the road to Damascus, had to ask for further revelation beyond whatever he heard initially. God remained sovereign in limiting what sense could be made of the sound Saul and his companions heard - Saul comprehended what his companions could not. The Bible explicitly tells us what God's voice sounds like - thunder. The sound made sense only to whomever God directed what He had to say; others who heard could not make sense of what they heard. You can find it in many places in Scripture, OT and NT; use any Bible concordance to look up examples of this. It seems we must "have ears to hear what the Spirit has to say."
Is this not what Scripture teaches in regard to the Spirit and the flesh? Faith fills in the details where fleshly perception falls short. Holy mystery must be so aggravating for faith-deficient scientists. Then again, the logic of scientific discovery (as Karl Popper puts it) often frustrates those who are more mystically-minded. Theology once was called the Queen of sciences, informing and illuminating all other branches of knowledge. King to this queen is the One whom all knowers yearn to know in each of their particular pursuits of knowledge. To deny God is to divorce logic from any likelihood of leading one to Truth. Science needs God in order for scientific discovery to make any sense; theology is the way such sense is understood and communicated.
God, wholly Other, is fully capable of acting as He wills in the world and freely interacting with those in the world. Each scientist is responsible before this Sovereign God to focus the perception of oneself through spiritual eyes of faith rather than fleshly eyes of folly. Scripture plainly teaches that sin darkens one's understanding. Science done with deficient theology is no better than blind faith.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Needing the Bible ... Reading the Bible ... Heeding the Bible
It concerns me that the Bible goes unheeded in contemporary society. Is it any wonder when so few actually read the Bible? Perhaps too many have become convinced that they do not need the Bible. If we consider the Bible to be the Word of God, then we must commit ourselves to letting others know their need for the Bible, to teach them to read the Bible, and to come alongside them in helping them heed the Bible
Saturday, April 3, 2010
THE MYSTERY OF HOLY SABBATH DAY
The day between death and resurrection
(after Friday, before Sunday)
God’s great Sabbath rest is revealed
in the mystery of this Holy Sabbath Day.
The mystery of the tomb is stated
in the crucial death of Jesus Christ.
As his body remained lying in the tomb,
Christ himself, between death and life,
having fulfilled our salvation on the cross,
descended into hell, his very death
bringing life to the cosmic whole.
Death met life
in the perfect person of Jesus Christ.
Our own baptism let us be buried with Him.
How has it been that some of us remain entombed,
wandering about in the shades of hell?
Did Christ go down into the depth of death in vain?
Did not the dead all hear the voice of God’s Son?
Would not those who heard then live?
The Author of Life, holding the keys of death,
by dying, destroyed that wicked one who failed
to keep his usurped hold on the power of death!
With death destroyed , we have been delivered,
delighted to live free from lifelong bondage.
Great silence reigns this Holy Sabbath Day,
a sacred stillness signifying our Savior’s sleep.
We wait and pray, listening for Him to speak again.
Set free from sorrow, we see great light,
far from death’s dark shadow,
up from the grave-pit of sin’s captivity.
“Awake, O sleeper!” The call has come!
Would that we have ears to hear God’s Son.
(after Friday, before Sunday)
God’s great Sabbath rest is revealed
in the mystery of this Holy Sabbath Day.
The mystery of the tomb is stated
in the crucial death of Jesus Christ.
As his body remained lying in the tomb,
Christ himself, between death and life,
having fulfilled our salvation on the cross,
descended into hell, his very death
bringing life to the cosmic whole.
Death met life
in the perfect person of Jesus Christ.
Our own baptism let us be buried with Him.
How has it been that some of us remain entombed,
wandering about in the shades of hell?
Did Christ go down into the depth of death in vain?
Did not the dead all hear the voice of God’s Son?
Would not those who heard then live?
The Author of Life, holding the keys of death,
by dying, destroyed that wicked one who failed
to keep his usurped hold on the power of death!
With death destroyed , we have been delivered,
delighted to live free from lifelong bondage.
Great silence reigns this Holy Sabbath Day,
a sacred stillness signifying our Savior’s sleep.
We wait and pray, listening for Him to speak again.
Set free from sorrow, we see great light,
far from death’s dark shadow,
up from the grave-pit of sin’s captivity.
“Awake, O sleeper!” The call has come!
Would that we have ears to hear God’s Son.
MOTHER'S SON
a meditation for Good Friday, 20210
I stood by the cross.
There were others there, but only one with me,
the one my son loved.
I heard my son speak
(how could he even breathe, let alone say a word?)
“Woman, behold, your son.”
And again he spoke,
this time to the one he loved,
“Behold, your mother.”
How may I be another’s mother
when the son who is my very own
will die?
Simeon had blessed me with my husband when he found us in the temple long ago. The words he spoke revealed so much, to hear his words amazed us! He took our son into his arms and, blessing God, spoke aloud with joy, “Now, Master, may you let your servant go in peace, according to your Word, For my eyes have seen salvation that is come from you, a sight prepared to be seen by so many others here in Israel, if only they weren’t blind; even others beyond our borders can be enlightened by the glory of your son.”
My son still in his arms, Simeon turned to me to say one final word of prophecy, “Behold this child,” Simeon stared right at me with my son held high, “his destiny lies with the fall and rise of many in Israel and …” (he then spoke a word to me) “so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,you yourself a sword will pierce” (that word resounded time and time again, up ‘til today as it thunders loudly like the storm I see about to break).
“Son, why have you done this to us?” This I said to him way back when he had seemed to wander off, and made me and his father greatly anxious. When that once we found him among teachers in the temple, my son said simply, “Why were you looking for me?” He asked us why, as though it should have been obvious to us, (even though it never was), “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?”
We did not understand what he said to us, not then, nor do I now, except I have continually kept these things, everything my son has said, and I keep pondering all of them in my sword-pierced heart.
“Do not be afraid,” the angel said, to me and to my husband, and to the shepherds, who were blessed to hear the message of my son. “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” All who heard this message of great joy were greatly amazed, and me as much as them! This message of my son was meant to bring great joy, and all this time I have kept these things, pondering them, reflecting on them in my heart.
Some people demand some proof on which to firmly fix their faith. For me it was the proof that made demands, proof so passionate it could not be denied. My body bore this very proof, now here I am in the process of being proven myself.
My son, my son, my own amazing joy!
What place can ever be home
without you there?
All I have left
is to devote myself to prayer.
Friday, April 2, 2010
CROSS TALK
... the other answered,
LEFTY: What?
DEXTER: Can you see the Garden
LEFTY: I see nothing.
DEXTER: I thought I would be able to see it from here.
LEFTY: If you saw it, how would you know it was the Garden?
DEXTER: I’m sure I would recognize the Tree in the middle.
LEFTY: Which one? There were two, weren’t there?
DEXTER: I don’t know.
LEFTY: In fact, there were more than two.
DEXTER: How many?
LEFTY: I don’t know – many more!
DEXTER: All I care about is the one in the middle.
LEFTY: All I care about is the one on which I hang.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What else is left?
DEXTER: What else?
LEFTY: Nothing.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: Damn right. [Pause.]
DEXTER: How long will it be?
LEFTY: Too damn long.
DEXTER: Not long enough. [Pause.]
LEFTY: Is anything else going to happen?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: What do you see?
DEXTER: They’re doing something.
LEFTY: What?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: I hate this.
DEXTER: So do I. [Pause.]
LEFTY: What do you care about the Garden?
DEXTER: What do you mean?
LEFTY: Why is the Garden so important?
DEXTER: I don’t remember.
LEFTY: I never listened.
DEXTER: You should have.
LEFTY: All lies.
DEXTER: How do you know?
LEFTY: You live, then you die.
DEXTER: So?
LEFTY: That’s life. That’s it.
DEXTER: Maybe.
LEFTY: That’s the truth.
DEXTER: What do you know?
LEFTY: I know lies.
DEXTER: No argument there.
LEFTY: No tree growing in any Garden gives life.
DEXTER: How do you know?
LEFTY: I can tell the difference.
DEXTER: What?
LEFTY: Shut up.
DEXTER: You shut up.
LEFTY: Idiot!
DEXTER: Fool! [Pause.]
LEFTY: I hate this cursed tree.
DEXTER: Do you not even fear God?
LEFTY: We are being crucified!
DEXTER: We are being crucified with Christ …
LEFTY: Jesus …
DEXTER: Is that not enough?
LEFTY: I no longer live.
DEXTER: But Christ lives …
LEFTY: You fool! Who bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus is being crucified!
DEXTER: Have we suffered for nothing – if it really was for nothing?
LEFTY: It is written, is it not? Whoever hangs on a tree is cursed! [Pause.]
DEXTER: We might have received what was promised.
LEFTY: What was promised?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: This whole world is in prison.
DEXTER: The Law has us all locked up.
LEFTY: The Law led us straight here.
DEXTER: Yes.
LEFTY: To be crucified with Christ.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What is left?
DEXTER: We might be justified.
LEFTY: What? [Pause.]
DEXTER: I am still alive.
LEFTY: You are about to die.
DEXTER: We will die.
LEFTY: He will die.
DEXTER: He lives. [Pause.]
LEFTY: You immerse yourself in what you imagine to be true.
DEXTER: You are blind to what is portrayed before you.
LEFTY: You were locked up like the rest of us and then led here to die.
DEXTER: I see that.
LEFTY: You see nothing.
DEXTER: I see you are blind. I see He is still alive. [Pause.]
LEFTY: You hang there suffering.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: All is lost. All you have left is to die.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What gain is there in sharing in His suffering?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: I consider it all rubbish.
DEXTER: I want to know what is right.
LEFTY: What is wrong with you? Everything is lost!
DEXTER: I want to know …
LEFTY: Rubbish!
DEXTER: Somehow, if I press on …
LEFTY: You have forgotten what is left behind.
DEXTER: I am straining toward what is ahead.
LEFTY: What is ahead? Consider that.
DEXTER: He is here and we are about to die. [Pause.]
LEFTY: He is supposed to be the promised one? HA! It is crazy to think that
this crucified Christ can come down from the cross himself, let alone save us!
DEXTER: If he did, we may see and believe. [Pause.]
LEFTY: Are you not the Christ? [Pause.] Save yourself and us! [Pause.]
DEXTER: We are justly condemned.
LEFTY: We are being punished.
DEXTER: Right. We are just getting what our deeds deserve.
LEFTY: Damn it! Shut up, will you?
DEXTER: But this man …
LEFTY: Shut up!
DEXTER: … this man has done nothing wrong.
LEFTY: I said shut UP!
DEXTER: Jesus …
LEFTY: Shut up!
DEXTER: Jesus …
LEFTY: Do you know what you are doing?
DEXTER: Jesus, when you come into your kingdom …
LEFTY: What kingdom?
DEXTER: Remember me …
LEFTY: Tell the truth – today you will die.
DEXTER: He tells the truth – I believe Him.
LEFTY: I believe you are crazy. [Pause.]
DEXTER: I believe I see the Garden now. [Pause.]
LEFTY: He commits Himself to death.
DEXTER: He gave up His last breath. [Pause.]
LEFTY: I guess this “Son of God” can now find out what His Father’s face looks like!
DEXTER: I see so much more … [Pause.]
LEFTY: I see soldiers standing by to stab us, ready to break our legs …
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What is left is for us to die. [Pause.]
DEXTER: I see the Garden now. [Pause.] I recognize the Tree.
READER 1: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
READER 2: You fools! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
READER 1: Have you suffered for nothing – if it really was for nothing? Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law
by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
READER 2: He redeemed us in order that … by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
READER 1: The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised,
being given by faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
READER 2: Before this faith came, we were held prisoners of the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. To the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified through faith.
READER 1: You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ,
READER 2: for all you being baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
PLAYER A: CROSS TALK explores both the explicit narrative descriptions and the implicit assumptive speculations
regarding the Christ’s crucifixion.
PLAYER B: During the course of playing out this living portrait, traditional prejudiced perspectives are overturned
PLAYER A: (dexterity is not a moral virtue, for example, nor is being on the left sinister).
PLAYER B: Imagine the two criminals who were literally “crucified with Christ” meeting in the middle to find true character revealed in relation to the centrality of the Savior, whose presence overwhelms the petty persona each actor put on prior to participating with one another in presenting the singular story of God reconciling Himself to us
in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
READER 1: Folks, join with others in following my example, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
READER 2: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
READER 1: Folks, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
READER 2: All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.
READER 1: And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
READER 2: Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
PLAYER A: What new perspective might one have if one looks at the Passion of Jesus through the eyes of those two chance companions of Christ’s crucifixion?
PLAYER B: With Jesus at his crucifixion were two men, both criminals, each suffering execution on crosses of their own.
PLAYER A: The scene is depicted imaginatively on the altar triptych in Hannover’s Marktkirche. Whereas other artistic renderings of the crucifixion have the two visually overwhelmed by strong focus on the deservedly central figure of Jesus Christ, the Marktkirche artist chose to emphasize as well the two who hung alongside Jesus, their positions on their respective crosses portrayed with detailed care:
PLAYER B: While the dying Jesus is shown nailed to his cross in accordance with all the Gospels, the other two hang from each of their crosses merely by their arms draped back over the tau-shaped cross-pieces – the thief on the left looks down contemptuously at all those gathered around the cross, but the one on the right of Jesus, his head tilted toward heaven, directs his attention to Christ himself.
PLAYER A: One gazing at the scene is provoked to creatively reconsider the event as recorded in the words of the four Gospel writers.
PLAYER B: The possibility of exploring the whole event in a dramatic presentation performed during the Paschal season is worth the attempt to do so.
" ...we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds;
but this man has done nothing wrong.
.... Jesus, remember me
when You come in Your kingdom!"
CROSS TALK
(by Craig Tavani, copyright 2007)
[Two players, enter, cross UC, and stand facing cross hanging on back wall of stage. After 5 beats, both cross downstage to their respective places, one on the right of the cross. the other on the left.
(see EPILOGUE below)]
DEXTER: Can you see the Garden from here? [Pause.]LEFTY: What?
DEXTER: Can you see the Garden
LEFTY: I see nothing.
DEXTER: I thought I would be able to see it from here.
LEFTY: If you saw it, how would you know it was the Garden?
DEXTER: I’m sure I would recognize the Tree in the middle.
LEFTY: Which one? There were two, weren’t there?
DEXTER: I don’t know.
LEFTY: In fact, there were more than two.
DEXTER: How many?
LEFTY: I don’t know – many more!
DEXTER: All I care about is the one in the middle.
LEFTY: All I care about is the one on which I hang.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What else is left?
DEXTER: What else?
LEFTY: Nothing.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: Damn right. [Pause.]
DEXTER: How long will it be?
LEFTY: Too damn long.
DEXTER: Not long enough. [Pause.]
LEFTY: Is anything else going to happen?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: What do you see?
DEXTER: They’re doing something.
LEFTY: What?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: I hate this.
DEXTER: So do I. [Pause.]
LEFTY: What do you care about the Garden?
DEXTER: What do you mean?
LEFTY: Why is the Garden so important?
DEXTER: I don’t remember.
LEFTY: I never listened.
DEXTER: You should have.
LEFTY: All lies.
DEXTER: How do you know?
LEFTY: You live, then you die.
DEXTER: So?
LEFTY: That’s life. That’s it.
DEXTER: Maybe.
LEFTY: That’s the truth.
DEXTER: What do you know?
LEFTY: I know lies.
DEXTER: No argument there.
LEFTY: No tree growing in any Garden gives life.
DEXTER: How do you know?
LEFTY: I can tell the difference.
DEXTER: What?
LEFTY: Shut up.
DEXTER: You shut up.
LEFTY: Idiot!
DEXTER: Fool! [Pause.]
LEFTY: I hate this cursed tree.
DEXTER: Do you not even fear God?
LEFTY: We are being crucified!
DEXTER: We are being crucified with Christ …
LEFTY: Jesus …
DEXTER: Is that not enough?
LEFTY: I no longer live.
DEXTER: But Christ lives …
LEFTY: You fool! Who bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus is being crucified!
DEXTER: Have we suffered for nothing – if it really was for nothing?
LEFTY: It is written, is it not? Whoever hangs on a tree is cursed! [Pause.]
DEXTER: We might have received what was promised.
LEFTY: What was promised?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: This whole world is in prison.
DEXTER: The Law has us all locked up.
LEFTY: The Law led us straight here.
DEXTER: Yes.
LEFTY: To be crucified with Christ.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What is left?
DEXTER: We might be justified.
LEFTY: What? [Pause.]
DEXTER: I am still alive.
LEFTY: You are about to die.
DEXTER: We will die.
LEFTY: He will die.
DEXTER: He lives. [Pause.]
LEFTY: You immerse yourself in what you imagine to be true.
DEXTER: You are blind to what is portrayed before you.
LEFTY: You were locked up like the rest of us and then led here to die.
DEXTER: I see that.
LEFTY: You see nothing.
DEXTER: I see you are blind. I see He is still alive. [Pause.]
LEFTY: You hang there suffering.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: All is lost. All you have left is to die.
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What gain is there in sharing in His suffering?
DEXTER: I don’t know. [Pause.]
LEFTY: I consider it all rubbish.
DEXTER: I want to know what is right.
LEFTY: What is wrong with you? Everything is lost!
DEXTER: I want to know …
LEFTY: Rubbish!
DEXTER: Somehow, if I press on …
LEFTY: You have forgotten what is left behind.
DEXTER: I am straining toward what is ahead.
LEFTY: What is ahead? Consider that.
DEXTER: He is here and we are about to die. [Pause.]
LEFTY: He is supposed to be the promised one? HA! It is crazy to think that
this crucified Christ can come down from the cross himself, let alone save us!
DEXTER: If he did, we may see and believe. [Pause.]
LEFTY: Are you not the Christ? [Pause.] Save yourself and us! [Pause.]
DEXTER: We are justly condemned.
LEFTY: We are being punished.
DEXTER: Right. We are just getting what our deeds deserve.
LEFTY: Damn it! Shut up, will you?
DEXTER: But this man …
LEFTY: Shut up!
DEXTER: … this man has done nothing wrong.
LEFTY: I said shut UP!
DEXTER: Jesus …
LEFTY: Shut up!
DEXTER: Jesus …
LEFTY: Do you know what you are doing?
DEXTER: Jesus, when you come into your kingdom …
LEFTY: What kingdom?
DEXTER: Remember me …
LEFTY: Tell the truth – today you will die.
DEXTER: He tells the truth – I believe Him.
LEFTY: I believe you are crazy. [Pause.]
DEXTER: I believe I see the Garden now. [Pause.]
LEFTY: He commits Himself to death.
DEXTER: He gave up His last breath. [Pause.]
LEFTY: I guess this “Son of God” can now find out what His Father’s face looks like!
DEXTER: I see so much more … [Pause.]
LEFTY: I see soldiers standing by to stab us, ready to break our legs …
DEXTER: Right.
LEFTY: What is left is for us to die. [Pause.]
DEXTER: I see the Garden now. [Pause.] I recognize the Tree.
CURTAIN.
READER 1: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
READER 2: You fools! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
READER 1: Have you suffered for nothing – if it really was for nothing? Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law
by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
READER 2: He redeemed us in order that … by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
READER 1: The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised,
being given by faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
READER 2: Before this faith came, we were held prisoners of the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. To the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified through faith.
READER 1: You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ,
READER 2: for all you being baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
PLAYER A: CROSS TALK explores both the explicit narrative descriptions and the implicit assumptive speculations
regarding the Christ’s crucifixion.
PLAYER B: During the course of playing out this living portrait, traditional prejudiced perspectives are overturned
PLAYER A: (dexterity is not a moral virtue, for example, nor is being on the left sinister).
PLAYER B: Imagine the two criminals who were literally “crucified with Christ” meeting in the middle to find true character revealed in relation to the centrality of the Savior, whose presence overwhelms the petty persona each actor put on prior to participating with one another in presenting the singular story of God reconciling Himself to us
in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
READER 1: Folks, join with others in following my example, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
READER 2: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
READER 1: Folks, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
READER 2: All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.
READER 1: And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
READER 2: Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
EPILOGUE
READER 1: There they crucified Him. And with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.PLAYER A: What new perspective might one have if one looks at the Passion of Jesus through the eyes of those two chance companions of Christ’s crucifixion?
PLAYER B: With Jesus at his crucifixion were two men, both criminals, each suffering execution on crosses of their own.
PLAYER A: The scene is depicted imaginatively on the altar triptych in Hannover’s Marktkirche. Whereas other artistic renderings of the crucifixion have the two visually overwhelmed by strong focus on the deservedly central figure of Jesus Christ, the Marktkirche artist chose to emphasize as well the two who hung alongside Jesus, their positions on their respective crosses portrayed with detailed care:
PLAYER B: While the dying Jesus is shown nailed to his cross in accordance with all the Gospels, the other two hang from each of their crosses merely by their arms draped back over the tau-shaped cross-pieces – the thief on the left looks down contemptuously at all those gathered around the cross, but the one on the right of Jesus, his head tilted toward heaven, directs his attention to Christ himself.
PLAYER A: One gazing at the scene is provoked to creatively reconsider the event as recorded in the words of the four Gospel writers.
PLAYER B: The possibility of exploring the whole event in a dramatic presentation performed during the Paschal season is worth the attempt to do so.
[Players exit.]
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Fool of Wisdom
MOROSOPHIA
(foolosophy: foolish wisdom of God)
This fellow's wise enough
to play the fool.
TWELFTH NIGHT, IIIi:61
I turned my mind to understand,
to investigate,
to search out
wisdom
and the scheme of things.
I turned my mind to understand
the stupidity of wickedness and
the madness of folly.
Applying myself to the understanding of wisdom
the stupidity of wickedness and
the madness of folly.
Applying myself to the understanding of wisdom
as well as of madness and folly,
I learned that
this is a chasing after the wind.
this is a chasing after the wind.
My mind still guiding me with "wisdom,"
I tried cheering myself with wine,
and embracing folly.
Loose laughter, however, is foolish.
What does such pleasure accomplish?
I tried cheering myself with wine,
and embracing folly.
Loose laughter, however, is foolish.
What does such pleasure accomplish?
wisdom.
OUTWEIGHS
A little folly Was ever one wiser than one's own weak wit?
Why would one ever dare to think, "Try it?"When one's world is found empty,
God's word proves itself full.
Was one ever so wise to not fail as a fool?
There is more hope for a fool
than one wise in one's own eyes.
A proverb in the mouth of a fool
hangs limp.
Answer not a fool according to his folly
lest you become
like a fool yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly
lest, in his own eyes,
he become wise.
Wisdom reposes in the heart of the discerning
and
even among fools
she lets herself be known.
Folly is loud
undisciplined
without knowledge.
Sitting at the highest point in the city,
Folly calls out to those who pass by:
"Let all who are simple come here! "
To all who lack judgment,
Folly says,
"Stolen water is sweet;
food eaten in secret is delicious!"
But little do they know
that the dead are there;
the guests of Folly
are in the depths of the grave.
The wise in heart accept commands,
but a chattering fool
comes to ruin.
The wise store up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool
invites ruin.
Whoever conceals one's hatred
has lying lips,
and whoever spreads slander
is a fool.
The lips of the righteous nourish many,
but fools die for lack of judgment.
The one who brings trouble on one's family
will inherit the wind,
and the fool will be servant to the wise.
The way of a fool
seems right to him,
but a wise man listens to advice.
A fool shows his annoyance at once,
but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself,
but the hearts of fools blurt out folly.
Every prudent man acts out of knowledge,
but a fool exposes his folly.
A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul,
but fools detest turning from evil.
He who walks with the wise grows wise,
but a companion of fools suffers harm.
The wise woman builds her house,
but with her own hands
the foolish one tears her house down.
A fool's talk brings a rod to his back,
but the lips of the wise protect them.
Stay away from a foolish man,
for you will not find knowledge
on his lips.
The wisdom of the prudent
is to give thought to their ways,
but the folly of fools is deception.
Fools mock at making amends for sin,
but good will is found among the upright.
Even in laughter the heart may ache
and joy may end in grief.
A wise man fears the LORD and shuns evil,
but a fool is hotheaded and reckless.
The simple inherit folly,
but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.
The wealth of the wise is their crown,
but
the folly of fools yields folly.
A patient man has great understanding,
but a quick-tempered man displays folly.
A fool spurns his father's discipline,
but whoever heeds correction shows prudence.
The lips of the wise spread knowledge;
not so the hearts of fools.
Death and Destruction lie open to the LORD
- how much more the hearts of men!
The discerning heart seeks knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.
Folly delights one who lacks judgment,
but a man of understanding keeps a straight course.
Understanding is a fountain of life
to those who have it,
but folly brings punishment to fools.
For a fool
HONOR
is unfitting.
A longing fulfilled
is sweet to the soul,
yet the fool is determined
to return to his folly.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
DEEP DESIRE RIGHTLY ORDERED TO GOD
Disordered desire becomes the seed of sin. It is when by one’s own deep desire [epithumia] one is carried away and enticed, that one is then tempted (see James 1:14-15). The deep desire is not the sin; even Jesus had such desire. We read in Luke 22:14-20, "With desire I have desired [epithumia epithumāsa] to eat this Passover with you before I suffer ..." Jesus was not, however, driven by such desire; he, the ever-obedient Son, rather ordered his desire toward doing the will of God the Father.
This right ordering of desire is put in particular perspective in Luke 22:39-46, where we read:
Jesus …proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him.
When He arrived at the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation."
And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done."
...And being in agony He was praying very fervently ... .
When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow,and said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation."
Jesus gives us the perfect example of "One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). We read in Hebrews 5:7-8, "In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered."
Fervent Prayer was the life-long practice of piety by which Jesus became able to suffer temptation without yielding to temptation. Essentially what Jesus simply said was this, "Father in Heaven, not my will, but Yours be done."
This right ordering of desire is put in particular perspective in Luke 22:39-46, where we read:
Jesus …proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him.
When He arrived at the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation."
And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done."
...And being in agony He was praying very fervently ... .
When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow,and said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation."
Jesus gives us the perfect example of "One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). We read in Hebrews 5:7-8, "In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered."
Fervent Prayer was the life-long practice of piety by which Jesus became able to suffer temptation without yielding to temptation. Essentially what Jesus simply said was this, "Father in Heaven, not my will, but Yours be done."
Monday, February 15, 2010
CONFORMED TO THE PATTERN
“Be not conformed to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
The main character in the movie, A BEAUTIFUL MIND, was obsessive in how his mind found patterns. One wonders how this may be like any of us cope with the world as we find it - patterns emerge or are imposed in such a way as to mediate our encounter with reality. Some patterns are merely ideal with little or no correspondence with the real. Others correspond so well that we ascribe to them TRUTH.
Conscience keeps us connected to what is real - or should do so if it is well-formed and clear. Conscience that has poor correspondence between the ideal and real can make folly seem to be wise. Thus have many become fools.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
COVENANTAL CREATION
Covenant is relationship between Creator & creation: the Creator proves responsibility by promising to sustain all creation and enabling creatures with the freedom to respond as well; the creature is free to respond by doing that which is consistent with the purposes of the Creator .
The man and woman looked upon their nakedness without shame; they did not turn their faces away at first. Then came the command of God regarding one of two trees planted in the middle of the Garden where they lived. The fruit of this particular tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad, was forbidden to the man & woman. Then came the clever serpent, by way of devious word, to distract the woman from attending to God’s command: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”
Rather than recognizing the devilish doubt darkening the glorious truth of God’s own Word, the woman considered the contradiction without alarm, poorly remembering what God actually said. The serpent, hearing how she deviated from God’s Word, drove deeper his wicked wedge and said, “ You will not surely die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The Forbidden Fruit then took on an appearance devilishly different than the other trees in one devious way: Like the other trees, the tree on which the woman found the Forbidden Fruit was good for food and a delight to the eyes, but it was as well desirable to make one wise. Not only did the woman take and eat from the fruit of this Forbidden Tree, but she also gave some to her husband.
While this was happening, the man whom God created had been with the woman whom God created for him. Not only did he fail to recognize the deception, he deliberately chose to eat as well what God had forbidden him to eat. The consequence of contradicting God’s command came immediately. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened …” They now knew that they were naked, a new kind of knowing that caused them shame. Now knowing this new thing, this bad thing, so different from knowing only what is good, they covered themselves, or at least attempted to do so by making loin covering with sewn-together fig leaves.
The LORD God found them just like that, shivering shamefully in the crazy costumes they had made themselves. The sound of God’s coming caused the two to try to hide from the presence of the LORD God. However, their hiding place, among the trees of the Garden where God walked in the cool of the day, hideously failed to keep them from having face the LORD.
The human creature found himself fallen out of favor with his own Creator. For the first time ever, Creator God turned his face away from His creation. Hope remained in the covenantal promise of God to overcome the curse Himself someday in the woman’s seed.
- God initiated the relationship by creating all that is, forming the earth itself in such a way as to support life.
- God created mankind in his own image; each human is created to carry the character of the Creator’s image.
- God planted a garden as the place where the creature carrying God’s character could live.
- God lay on this human creature the responsibility to care for the well-being of all other created things.
- God lightened life for the lone man by creating as well a woman to be a help meet for him.
- God created man and woman with the command to continue creation through their mutual physical relations.
- God, being a Divine Community in Himself, commanded humans to create community as well.
- God, in His Divine Community as Father and Son and Spirit,
- created man so that he could become father to sons and daughters through the woman
- and created woman so that she could become mother of those daughters and sons,
- making the family foundational for community
- God’s face/favor
- God found all that He created to be good and called His creation, “Good.” This favor God showed His creation continued especially in the creation of the man and woman, created in God’s own image. To see the face of one another was to see the face of God.
The man and woman looked upon their nakedness without shame; they did not turn their faces away at first. Then came the command of God regarding one of two trees planted in the middle of the Garden where they lived. The fruit of this particular tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad, was forbidden to the man & woman. Then came the clever serpent, by way of devious word, to distract the woman from attending to God’s command: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”
Rather than recognizing the devilish doubt darkening the glorious truth of God’s own Word, the woman considered the contradiction without alarm, poorly remembering what God actually said. The serpent, hearing how she deviated from God’s Word, drove deeper his wicked wedge and said, “ You will not surely die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The Forbidden Fruit then took on an appearance devilishly different than the other trees in one devious way: Like the other trees, the tree on which the woman found the Forbidden Fruit was good for food and a delight to the eyes, but it was as well desirable to make one wise. Not only did the woman take and eat from the fruit of this Forbidden Tree, but she also gave some to her husband.
While this was happening, the man whom God created had been with the woman whom God created for him. Not only did he fail to recognize the deception, he deliberately chose to eat as well what God had forbidden him to eat. The consequence of contradicting God’s command came immediately. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened …” They now knew that they were naked, a new kind of knowing that caused them shame. Now knowing this new thing, this bad thing, so different from knowing only what is good, they covered themselves, or at least attempted to do so by making loin covering with sewn-together fig leaves.
The LORD God found them just like that, shivering shamefully in the crazy costumes they had made themselves. The sound of God’s coming caused the two to try to hide from the presence of the LORD God. However, their hiding place, among the trees of the Garden where God walked in the cool of the day, hideously failed to keep them from having face the LORD.
The human creature found himself fallen out of favor with his own Creator. For the first time ever, Creator God turned his face away from His creation. Hope remained in the covenantal promise of God to overcome the curse Himself someday in the woman’s seed.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
BELIEVE GOD IS
Believe God is – this first,
faith then will become operative
in assuring one of what follows from that.
The first responsibility of any person
is to believe in God,
that is, be faithful to God
– faith, by definition, is believing what is true;
if what one believes is not true, one is unfaithful.
To not believe God is
will mar anything else a person may believe:
"without faith it is impossible to please Him,
for he who comes to God must believe that He is
and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him"
(Hebrews 11:6).
Belief functions in humans before reason does.
This priority of belief is a matter of maturity
– "when I was a child, I reasoned as a child ...."
What is childish reasoning like?
It is thinking one's beliefs
rightly describes reality as it appears to be.
Reason accepts the possibility that
what is apparent may be other than what is real.
This is what I like
about the philosophical approach of phenomenology
– it takes seriously the appearance of things
but is willing to put that appearance to question.
There is no such person as a "non-believer."
Every person believes something.
A reasonable person will desire
to believe what is true
– to believe otherwise is not reasonable.
Grace and truth are realized through Jesus Christ.
I believe that God graciously takes responsibility
for revealing the truth He wants us to know.
We must pattern what we believe
after that which God has revealed
– God is perfectly revealed in Christ Jesus.
Born in sin, our belief system begins out of whack.
We begin our lives
capable of believing only one thing properly
(this is how I understand what Romans 12:3 describes
as each person's "measure of faith" )
– that we need God to reveal how we ought to believe.
Responsible belief is continually on the lookout
for whatever God reveals.
Humans are born
ready to respond to what God reveals
– sin works to distort that revelation
and alter our response.
It is the grace of God that works
against the distorting influence of sin;
by grace we are able to respond rightly to God's revelation,
if we are willing,
that is, if we believe.
Belief is what we are willing to do.
Belief always takes place in the context of relationship.
That is why witnessing is more than mere reasoned presentation
of the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ
– it is a reasoning together:
this often involves a challenge to beliefs,
iron sharpening iron, as it were.
Let this conversation take place
in love, grace and truth in action.
When one of the persons reasoning together is God Himself,
the other discovers a cleansing transformation taking place
– sin, that source of bad belief,
no longer separates oneself from God.
God is right there to be worshipped
– confession, repentance, praise, intercessory prayer,
proclamation of his mighty works, and on and on.
All praise be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
who has opened the way for us,
through the power of the Holy Spirit,
to faithfully believe what pleases our Father in Heaven,
the LORD God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
faith then will become operative
in assuring one of what follows from that.
The first responsibility of any person
is to believe in God,
that is, be faithful to God
– faith, by definition, is believing what is true;
if what one believes is not true, one is unfaithful.
To not believe God is
will mar anything else a person may believe:
"without faith it is impossible to please Him,
for he who comes to God must believe that He is
and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him"
(Hebrews 11:6).
Belief functions in humans before reason does.
This priority of belief is a matter of maturity
– "when I was a child, I reasoned as a child ...."
What is childish reasoning like?
It is thinking one's beliefs
rightly describes reality as it appears to be.
Reason accepts the possibility that
what is apparent may be other than what is real.
This is what I like
about the philosophical approach of phenomenology
– it takes seriously the appearance of things
but is willing to put that appearance to question.
There is no such person as a "non-believer."
Every person believes something.
A reasonable person will desire
to believe what is true
– to believe otherwise is not reasonable.
Grace and truth are realized through Jesus Christ.
I believe that God graciously takes responsibility
for revealing the truth He wants us to know.
We must pattern what we believe
after that which God has revealed
– God is perfectly revealed in Christ Jesus.
Born in sin, our belief system begins out of whack.
We begin our lives
capable of believing only one thing properly
(this is how I understand what Romans 12:3 describes
as each person's "measure of faith" )
– that we need God to reveal how we ought to believe.
Responsible belief is continually on the lookout
for whatever God reveals.
Humans are born
ready to respond to what God reveals
– sin works to distort that revelation
and alter our response.
It is the grace of God that works
against the distorting influence of sin;
by grace we are able to respond rightly to God's revelation,
if we are willing,
that is, if we believe.
Belief is what we are willing to do.
Belief always takes place in the context of relationship.
That is why witnessing is more than mere reasoned presentation
of the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ
– it is a reasoning together:
this often involves a challenge to beliefs,
iron sharpening iron, as it were.
Let this conversation take place
in love, grace and truth in action.
When one of the persons reasoning together is God Himself,
the other discovers a cleansing transformation taking place
– sin, that source of bad belief,
no longer separates oneself from God.
God is right there to be worshipped
– confession, repentance, praise, intercessory prayer,
proclamation of his mighty works, and on and on.
All praise be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
who has opened the way for us,
through the power of the Holy Spirit,
to faithfully believe what pleases our Father in Heaven,
the LORD God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
THE YOKE OF CHRIST, NOT "CHRISTIANITY"
Christianity is too much identified by way of institutions
then I will become obedient to that servant,
rather than the person of Jesus Christ.
Although I may be "a man under authority,"that authority is not an institution but a person!
I will not serve an institution- I serve only God and serve with servants of God.
If my service to God puts me in submission to some servant of God,then I will become obedient to that servant,
remaining always responsible for my own obedience to God,
trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me in choosing well whom to obey.
If I discern some abuse of authority,I am free to reject the authority of the abuser,
even if doing so mars the reputation of institutionalized Christianity.
In doing so, however, I remain responsible for being obedient to Christ,
for I bear the yoke of Christ, not Christianity.
THE CALL TO THEOLOGY
I find very interesting the following excerpt from DONUM VERITATIS :
Among the vocations awakened
... by the Spirit in the Church
is that of the theologian.
His role is to pursue in a particular way
an ever deeper understanding of the Word of God
found in the inspired Scriptures
and handed on by the living Tradition of the Church.
The theologian must … be attentive
to the epistemological requirements of his discipline,
to the demands of rigorous critical standards,
and thus
to a rational verification of each stage of his research.
The obligation to be critical, however,
should not be identified with the critical spirit
which is born of feeling or prejudice.
The theologian must discern in himself
the origin of and motivation for his critical attitude
and allow his gaze to be purified by faith.
The commitment to theology requires a spiritual effort
to grow in virtue and holiness.
FORMED BY FORGIVENESS
God gives life, forming each person in the womb of one's mother. Each person, however, is born in sin, deformed from the failure of our first father, Adam. Reformed by baptism in the name of the crucified Christ who rose to live again, we can begin to become mature as Christ is formed in us by faithfully following his Way of Truth through life. Moving on in maturity from the experienced love of eros on to the shared love of philos and the learned love of storgos, we die to self to become alive in Christ so that we can love like Christ Himself loved us, fully expressing the love of God in his ultimate act of agape, death on the cross. Secure now in being loved oneself by God, we live by the resurrection power of Christ to love others as we have been loved ourselves. Always intending to act justly, we continually love mercy in imitating the forgiveness of God before whom we humbly walk. Doing the truth in love, we find justice fulfilled in forgiveness.
Each choice we make follows from this absolute commitment to being like Christ, ordering all we do towards God. Every relationship with every person we encounter is an opportunity to make manifest the love of God. Being bound by the bodily reality of concupiscence, we find we fail in our following, our conscience standing as witness to such failure.
Yet God's grace does not fail, being given freely as we repent, renewing our baptismal commitment to be faithful followers of the Way. No longer in hiding because of our failure, we are ready to reveal who we are to others, unashamed of what our lives may show. By God's grace, every aspect of our lives makes known to others the loving truth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Each choice we make follows from this absolute commitment to being like Christ, ordering all we do towards God. Every relationship with every person we encounter is an opportunity to make manifest the love of God. Being bound by the bodily reality of concupiscence, we find we fail in our following, our conscience standing as witness to such failure.
Yet God's grace does not fail, being given freely as we repent, renewing our baptismal commitment to be faithful followers of the Way. No longer in hiding because of our failure, we are ready to reveal who we are to others, unashamed of what our lives may show. By God's grace, every aspect of our lives makes known to others the loving truth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
CREATING CULTURE
Creating culture is what human beings do. Cultivation is what we have been called to do since the beginning: "The LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it" (Genesis 2:15, NASB). The Church of Christ cannot not be confined by the deforming norms of worldly culture. As a community of committed Christians each becoming conformed to the character of Christ Jesus by the renewal of the Holy Spirit, we can create culture anew through our loving fellowship with one another and our reasonable worship of God that motivates us to move beyond the cultural boundaries of Christian community and become witnesses of God's glory in the chaotic cultures of the world at large. Apologetics is the way we witness to how Logos overcomes Chaos, the Lordship of Jesus Christ wisely dominating the weakness of the flesh.
Let our Church be like the Garden of Eden where we can cultivate what God has planted there and graciously grows for our good (Amen to Pastor Nestor's comment regarding how not to "grow the church" through our own efforts). Let the Tree of Life sustain us in the Body and Blood of the One crucified on another tree. Let our knowledge of Good and Evil come from our wise obedience to the Desire of all cultures (Hosea 2:7) rather than be a consequence of desiring the wicked wisdom proposed in the deceitful scheming of the Ancient Enemy of God's people, "the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan." Let the culture of our community be good, pleasing and perfectly conformed to the will of God. Let us live in true hope that through the Spirit of Christ, we really can change the culture in which we live as we await the soon coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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