"And what does our Good News have to offer them in place of...?" First, the Gospel freely offers its own offense - the offense and outrage of a Holy Other Who lived and died as one of us, sharing "our common lot," and the Good News offers baptism into Jesus' crucifixion and also his resurrection: we are actually united with him in essential death and in new life like his! Beyond that, the Gospel offers not another disposable commodity but the demands and freedom of covenanted community; it offers something most people couldn't ever even imagine they need...we've been talking about abundant life, and abundant life is a large part of what the Gospel offers and gives.
(Please see my earlier post, Jesus and the Church and Jesus...because it relates to the rest of this post. )
As Christians whose heritage not only is that long-ago day of Pentecost Acts 2 speaks about but as Christians who especially claim the heritage of the 16th-century reformers we acknowledge we cannot be fully "Christian" in solitude, as important as those times and places away from the demanding and sometimes insistent crowds are to all of us.
I'll begin by agreeing there's no such thing as a personal savior or personal salvation. I've mentioned the [American] Baptist congregation that was my first church home and being biblically informed no one there ever talked about "personal salvation," so the first time I heard "personal savior" from someone affiliated elsewhere I could not figure out what on earth the "individual" was talking about! I still have no clue; that is so completely unbiblical and I cringe whenever I hear it.
Back to Jesus/Church; here's one of my favorite scriptures, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20:
All this is from God, who reconciled us to Godself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: God was reconciling the world to Godself in Christ, not counting human sin against humanity. And God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Godself...God still is in Christ - now the Church is the body of the risen Christ! No Church, no Christ? Both yes and no on that one: we need to be careful not to posit the Church rather than the Christ as Mediator between God and humanity, as Redeemer and Reconciler of the world. And I agree eventually "That Day" will arrive in which the entire creation has been reconciled to its Creator, and in "That Day" of complete Jubilee, the Church will be out of a job because it's worked itself out of a job. As those Presbyterians insist, the Church is the provisional demonstration of what God intends for humanity so I can't go quite as far as to say, "No Body/No Christ," though I do agree that for here and now the equation No Body=No Christ does hold true.
As Christians in the Reformation tradition we emphasize God's sovereignty supremely revealed in the cross and there is something so drastic and totally inclusive, something so complete, final and all-embracing in the reconciling death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, all of creation dies and rises with him, all creation finally comes under and lives under Jesus' Lordship: again I'll refer to Martin Luther's declaration that the Right Hand of God - the Sovereignty of God in the Risen Christ - is everywhere, actually fills and permeates every aspect of creation.
Earlier I wrote, "each of us as individuals in covenant ... covenanted persons." True I was in a hurry and when I noticed I'd written "individuals in covenant" I thought, no, not - but that is how it begins: the covenant community of the Body of the Risen Christ transforms the individual into a person. But not into someone who then can begin yakking about have a "personal savior!" Seem to me those people technically need to talk about having an "individual savior."
I'm not saying biblically-informed Christianity is anything but relational; rather I'm claiming it's within that gathered commonality of covenanted community each of us previously privatized individuals (BTW, the "individual" is very much a post-Enlightenment phenomenon) is transformed and truly Christianized, and the results are synergistic, as the HS freely creates a reality that's far greater than the sum of its "individual" parts/members I still like "proprietary" to describe that lone and lonely creature gloating over "Jesus died for me and now I even have my very own personal savior all for myself." As Mark observed, "Sometimes it takes awhile ... to see the benefits of fellowship." Though I wasn't raised in the church nor did I even grow up on the margins or in the shadows of Christianity, there remain lots of times I need to do a major remembering of who I am and where God has lead me and taken me to convince myself indeed I do need to stay within the physical confines of ecclesial community, to at least as large an degree as I need to encounter and dialogue with the "out-there" world that's simply not a "Christian" one, however anyone may try to say it is.
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Jesus and the Church and Jesus...
Jesus and the Church and Jesus...yes, yes, amen!!! The HS calls ("gathers and enlightens") the church to be the body of the risen Christ for the world and to the world and the church's proclamation and sacraments testify to that fact! A while ago I quoted from one of the church's new songs: "I, the Lord of font and cup, covenant to lift you up; Splash the water, break the bread, pour out your lives..." The Spirit calls and gathers us into the covenant community (commonality) of the church; through the authority of the Church the Spirit offers the sacraments; within the Christian assembly we baptize and are baptized into Jesus Christ's death and resurrection and into Christ himself, literally taking his name upon us; baptism is a mighty act that God performs within the worshiping community and baptism is lived with that covenanted community and in the world. We recognize the stranger among us as the Christ at the same time we experience the broken bread of heaven and poured-out cup of salvation that is the Eucharist.
As Christians whose heritage not only is that long-ago day of Pentecost Acts 2 speaks about but as Christians who especially claim the heritage of the 16th-century reformers we acknowledge we cannot be fully "Christian" in solitude, as important as those times and places away from the demanding and sometimes insistent crowds are to all of us.
But I confess there have been times I've loved the Church more than I've loved Jesus, and I need to remember the Church points us to Jesus. I need to think and write a lot more about this—thanks for the nudge!
As Christians whose heritage not only is that long-ago day of Pentecost Acts 2 speaks about but as Christians who especially claim the heritage of the 16th-century reformers we acknowledge we cannot be fully "Christian" in solitude, as important as those times and places away from the demanding and sometimes insistent crowds are to all of us.
But I confess there have been times I've loved the Church more than I've loved Jesus, and I need to remember the Church points us to Jesus. I need to think and write a lot more about this—thanks for the nudge!
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Romans 5 notes
Paul Tillich's sermon on this text, "You Are Accepted," was one of my early favorites; before I began reading the Bible seriously, I'd memorized chunks of Tillich sermons from so much reading and re-reading. I'm also partial to Romans 5 because it segues into the marvelous baptismal theology of chapter 6.
• With this chapter I'm referring again to the CEV. Although generally the CEV strikes me as plain and unliterary, 5:9a wonderfully exclaims, "But there is more!" I also like 5:17a with its "Death ruled like a king..."
• 5:6 CEV "at a time" sounds like just any casual random time – but the Greek is about God's fullness of time, kairos time:
• Good pride about sharing God's glory? Yes . . . I love Paul's words in Romans 8 about "the glory of the children of God," but just as we find God's the ultimate manifestation of God's glory in the weakness and vulnerability of the human Jesus dying defenseless on a tree of shame, so too the glory of our living baptized into the cross must be a crucified glory. Yet, as heirs of the Reformation, we sometimes so emphasize the cross we come close to not mentioning the empty grave, though for Paul, that apostle who "determined to preach only Christ crucified," Jesus always is at one and the same time both crucified and risen. Romans is the "purist gospel," the "Gospel According to Paul," and for Paul the Gospel is death and resurrection.
• Pastor Scott's reminder: Christianity – and Christians – have thrived in adversity, in desert experiences. I realize I think and write the same and similar things again and again, and recently I said Yahweh and Israel first encountered each other in the desert, as through experience, revelation and sacramental provision Israel learned Yahweh's nature and their identity as the People of God.
• Adam/Christ: Scott [and Paul!] mentioned their actions affected all humanity. Paul calls Christ Jesus the "new Adam." And in his genealogy, Luke refers to Adam as "Son of God!" ...in one of the multitude of incarnational images in the Old Covenant scriptures, A-dam, "son of the earth," also is son of heaven!
• With this chapter I'm referring again to the CEV. Although generally the CEV strikes me as plain and unliterary, 5:9a wonderfully exclaims, "But there is more!" I also like 5:17a with its "Death ruled like a king..."
• 5:6 CEV "at a time" sounds like just any casual random time – but the Greek is about God's fullness of time, kairos time:
• Good pride about sharing God's glory? Yes . . . I love Paul's words in Romans 8 about "the glory of the children of God," but just as we find God's the ultimate manifestation of God's glory in the weakness and vulnerability of the human Jesus dying defenseless on a tree of shame, so too the glory of our living baptized into the cross must be a crucified glory. Yet, as heirs of the Reformation, we sometimes so emphasize the cross we come close to not mentioning the empty grave, though for Paul, that apostle who "determined to preach only Christ crucified," Jesus always is at one and the same time both crucified and risen. Romans is the "purist gospel," the "Gospel According to Paul," and for Paul the Gospel is death and resurrection.
• Pastor Scott's reminder: Christianity – and Christians – have thrived in adversity, in desert experiences. I realize I think and write the same and similar things again and again, and recently I said Yahweh and Israel first encountered each other in the desert, as through experience, revelation and sacramental provision Israel learned Yahweh's nature and their identity as the People of God.
• Adam/Christ: Scott [and Paul!] mentioned their actions affected all humanity. Paul calls Christ Jesus the "new Adam." And in his genealogy, Luke refers to Adam as "Son of God!" ...in one of the multitude of incarnational images in the Old Covenant scriptures, A-dam, "son of the earth," also is son of heaven!
Friday, February 06, 2004
Romans 3 and 4 notes
Paul still is continuing his explanation and exposition of human depravity and God’s grace. Here are a few thoughts I’ve had regarding this near constant Pauline concern!
The CEV has been interesting, since it’s a version more than a translation, and often the words the committee chose don’t have the incisive impact they do in other translations.
In Romans 3 and 4, where we usually read justified or righteous, the CEV says “accepted,” but that is so too mild! Abraham – and all of us who live in Christ – actually was turned around from being the other – an Ivri, a Hebrew – one from the other side or out-side – to becoming one who belonged on the in-side of the people of God and who God measured and calculated righteous...and righteousness is one of God’s attributes! The Greek Ýëïãßóèç literally is “accounted!” – as in money and finance. Many of our biblical concepts have a decisive economic edge: debt, owe/ought, forgive, justice, free/freed/freedom, reckoned/reckoning.
* Sin is our human condition; because total death is the fair return we get from sinning against a holy God, no one can escape death, no one can cheat death
* Our humanity means mortality and our mortality makes us inevitably and invariably deathbound
* But because of Jesus Christ our mortality itself becomes gracious gift and by grace turns us Godward and finally makes us God-bound!!! But it all begins with God-with-us in Jesus of Nazareth that enables us-with-God. If not for “Adam’s transgression” in which we all sinned (remember “O happy fault?”)...
* With the immense influence Greek philosophy had on Ur-Christianity, it’s important we remember God’s promise to us isn’t immortality but rather something none of those “other” gods could do – resurrection from the dead!
* In American Westerns, the hero comes from outside the community
o Like other people, events and images the Hebrew Bible, Abraham is a Christ figure – in his outsider-ness, stranger-ness and his other-side-ness!
o In Christ Jesus, who entered human history from that very “other side” of heaven to be born as a stranger outside the city and die unknown outside the city gates – outside civilization...
o ...in Christ Jesus, God became the outsider but not a heroic figure in the way most humans imagine “heroic.”
* Since Jesus was born under the law – within the established legal and religious system – a
nd subject to all the law’s demands and structures, he could become sin for us, which he did by becoming a not-like-us.
* To paraphrase the Heidelberg Catechism: we move from Christmas, with the mystery of Spirit in flesh, to the Ascension, with the mystery of flesh in Spirit! And shouldn’t that be what happens to us during our journeys?
* Narnia: the Divine inevitable of death rolling backwards into life rather than the human invariable of life moving toward death!
o 430 years before the Sinai Covenant God accounted Abraham righteous/just[ified]:
Grace and faith – these “New Keys” to heaven really are old keys!
The CEV has been interesting, since it’s a version more than a translation, and often the words the committee chose don’t have the incisive impact they do in other translations.
In Romans 3 and 4, where we usually read justified or righteous, the CEV says “accepted,” but that is so too mild! Abraham – and all of us who live in Christ – actually was turned around from being the other – an Ivri, a Hebrew – one from the other side or out-side – to becoming one who belonged on the in-side of the people of God and who God measured and calculated righteous...and righteousness is one of God’s attributes! The Greek Ýëïãßóèç literally is “accounted!” – as in money and finance. Many of our biblical concepts have a decisive economic edge: debt, owe/ought, forgive, justice, free/freed/freedom, reckoned/reckoning.
* Sin is our human condition; because total death is the fair return we get from sinning against a holy God, no one can escape death, no one can cheat death
* Our humanity means mortality and our mortality makes us inevitably and invariably deathbound
* But because of Jesus Christ our mortality itself becomes gracious gift and by grace turns us Godward and finally makes us God-bound!!! But it all begins with God-with-us in Jesus of Nazareth that enables us-with-God. If not for “Adam’s transgression” in which we all sinned (remember “O happy fault?”)...
* With the immense influence Greek philosophy had on Ur-Christianity, it’s important we remember God’s promise to us isn’t immortality but rather something none of those “other” gods could do – resurrection from the dead!
* In American Westerns, the hero comes from outside the community
o Like other people, events and images the Hebrew Bible, Abraham is a Christ figure – in his outsider-ness, stranger-ness and his other-side-ness!
o In Christ Jesus, who entered human history from that very “other side” of heaven to be born as a stranger outside the city and die unknown outside the city gates – outside civilization...
o ...in Christ Jesus, God became the outsider but not a heroic figure in the way most humans imagine “heroic.”
* Since Jesus was born under the law – within the established legal and religious system – a
nd subject to all the law’s demands and structures, he could become sin for us, which he did by becoming a not-like-us.
* To paraphrase the Heidelberg Catechism: we move from Christmas, with the mystery of Spirit in flesh, to the Ascension, with the mystery of flesh in Spirit! And shouldn’t that be what happens to us during our journeys?
* Narnia: the Divine inevitable of death rolling backwards into life rather than the human invariable of life moving toward death!
o 430 years before the Sinai Covenant God accounted Abraham righteous/just[ified]:
Grace and faith – these “New Keys” to heaven really are old keys!
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Reading the Gospel of John
Reading and interpreting John’s gospel? Like many persons, I connect far more easily to the Jesus of the synoptics: as trinitarian a feel as we can get from reading John, the synoptics' Jesus relates more to us, relates more to me! To start with what John's gospel doesn’t do, in the synoptics Jesus invites us to journey through life with him, to Jerusalem, the cross, and the empty tomb, and in an immediate and compelling way, as in the words from Graham Kendrick’s song, Knowing You, "Oh, to know the power of Your risen life and to know You in Your sufferings. To become like You in Your death, my Lord, so with You to live and never die." The Jesus of the synoptics calls us to other-centered lives – and selfless deaths – (like NYC firefighter Father Mychal Judge's; for example); John's Jesus lives in a world far removed from ours in language and to some extent, also in effective action. In John signs are prominent; consistent with the Hebrew Bible's witness, the synoptic writers make it plain to us it's not about signs and wonders – even the gods of the Egyptians could do the fireworks!
My Jesus calls me to life in the world, not to existence in some other world. I love that in the book of Acts Luke calls Christians both "believers" and "followers of the Way!" You gotta name Jesus as Lord and you gotta walk that talk! Not long ago one of my neighbors asked me to bear my testimony and that's something all of us need to be able to do easily and with assurance, confidence and conviction, and not just before a candidacy committee or a call committee where it's reasonably safe.
My Jesus calls me to life in the world, not to existence in some other world. I love that in the book of Acts Luke calls Christians both "believers" and "followers of the Way!" You gotta name Jesus as Lord and you gotta walk that talk! Not long ago one of my neighbors asked me to bear my testimony and that's something all of us need to be able to do easily and with assurance, confidence and conviction, and not just before a candidacy committee or a call committee where it's reasonably safe.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
this far by faith
this far by faith
Refrain:
We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord;
trusting in God's holy Word, God's never failed us yet.
Oh, we can't turn back, we've come this far by faith.
We've come this far by faith.
1. Just remember the good things God has done,
things that seemed impossible;
oh, praise God for the victories won.
(Refrain)
2. Don't be discouraged with trouble in your life;
God'll bear your burdens,
and move all the discord and strife.
(Refrain)
text and music: Albert A. Goodson, alt.
Refrain:
We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord;
trusting in God's holy Word, God's never failed us yet.
Oh, we can't turn back, we've come this far by faith.
We've come this far by faith.
1. Just remember the good things God has done,
things that seemed impossible;
oh, praise God for the victories won.
(Refrain)
2. Don't be discouraged with trouble in your life;
God'll bear your burdens,
and move all the discord and strife.
(Refrain)
text and music: Albert A. Goodson, alt.
Friday, December 26, 2003
Christmas in the Desert
Christmas in the Sonoran desert has become one of my most treasured experiences. Needless to say, Salt Lake City is a [cold] desert and San Diego a [coastal] one, but the hot desert with its singular beauty and distinctive glory is something else completely! As I wrote in Voice of the Holy Spirit and Voice of the HS 2, in the Exodus desert and outside of any humanly designated governmental jurisdiction Israel first covenanted with Yahweh, receiving Yahweh’s commandment to have no other gods; after Jesus’ mikvah in the Jordan, the Spirit drove him into the desert. Underneath the crazy beauty of its bleakness, the desert teems with actual and potential life! The desert doesn’t often bloom, but when it does, its flowers are spectacular beyond anything “mere” words can capture. In the desert’s austere splendor we need to search for evidence of God’s sacramental presence, but the very nature of desert is an extremely sacramental hidden yet apparent one. Mary’s and Joseph’s child was born into stranger-ness and desertedness, just as later on Jesus died deserted outside the civilization of the city.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Voice of the Holy Spirit 2
Although I said I'd return to this topic in early 2004, it's still more like late 2003, so continuing with more about how I sense the Holy Spirit's presence and voice. I'll begin with Nate's asking me last Saturday evening in San Diego if attending Harvard Divinity School had made me more spiritual and more faithful. I replied no, it hadn't—though my life experience definitely had made me more faithful and more spiritual! A while ago on one of the UCC forums when someone asked "What tethers you," I answered with the title of Harold Friedell’s hymn, "Draw us in the Spirit's tether!" ...and by the tethering of the HS I've come this far by faith. This morning during the liturgy at Carrie's church in Tucson we publicly proclaimed the Nicene Creed with its, "We believe in the HS, the Lord, the giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father and the son, Who has spoken by the Prophets..." and then "One, holy, catholic and apostolic Church..." the Church – of course – being the work of the HS:
The work, power and passion of the HS in that prototypical Church that began appearing while God's desert people wandered as the books of Exodus and Numbers document, as the people of God's creation and re-creation received manna from the sky, water from the rock, and healing from the snake lifted up as foreshadows of Jesus' breaking bread and offering the cup of life on the night of betrayal and desertion, and then lifted up on the cross of death on the Friday we now call "Good"; the whole congregation of the people of Israel living and worshiping as a gathered assembly; later during Jesus' earthly ministry; then at his crucifixion, on the day of Pentecost, moving outward from Jerusalem unto the ends of the earth, and in the church's 16th century re-formation and its continuing renewal up through this very day. Again in the words of Luther's explanation of the 3rd article of the [Apostle's] Creed:
I believe I cannot by my own effort
Know Jesus my Savior or come to him
But the HS has called me...
Calls, gathers and enlightens the church...
Those Reformers has it so right: on our own we can do nothing much except become experts at sin and alienation; real living? It's all about the HS; and real life often is about the cleansing, refining and renewing of the desert!
The work, power and passion of the HS in that prototypical Church that began appearing while God's desert people wandered as the books of Exodus and Numbers document, as the people of God's creation and re-creation received manna from the sky, water from the rock, and healing from the snake lifted up as foreshadows of Jesus' breaking bread and offering the cup of life on the night of betrayal and desertion, and then lifted up on the cross of death on the Friday we now call "Good"; the whole congregation of the people of Israel living and worshiping as a gathered assembly; later during Jesus' earthly ministry; then at his crucifixion, on the day of Pentecost, moving outward from Jerusalem unto the ends of the earth, and in the church's 16th century re-formation and its continuing renewal up through this very day. Again in the words of Luther's explanation of the 3rd article of the [Apostle's] Creed:
I believe I cannot by my own effort
Know Jesus my Savior or come to him
But the HS has called me...
Calls, gathers and enlightens the church...
Those Reformers has it so right: on our own we can do nothing much except become experts at sin and alienation; real living? It's all about the HS; and real life often is about the cleansing, refining and renewing of the desert!
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Voice of the Holy Spirit
Anita Van Ingen emailed me,
“I write a blog called Moving Godward: The Desert Blogs
"and I’m doing some research on what the voice of the holy spirit sounds like to different people."
I'm going to expand "sounds like" and include feels like, sounds like, tastes like and smells like! It’s striking the Westminster Catechism says a sacrament is a sensible and outward sign – rather than simply a visible one, so I’m thinking about sensible (sensory) manifestations of the reality of the presence and activity of the HS in our lives. And since you asked me, it’s probably most appropriate for me to respond in terms of my own experience, and not even in terms of what other people have told me – you’ve probably asked quite a few people to answer this question, right?
I’ll begin by mentioning the help the HS gives us in interpreting scripture – a witness to God’s activity in the world that from the beginning was Spirit-breathed – a witness whose canonization also was Spirit-ed. Although that can be problematic, since different people claim various and sometimes conflicting interpretations of the same text.
In everyday life we intensely can sense the Spirit’s presence in conversation, in many kinds of human and animal interaction and – traditionally – in worship (but not always in worship). I’d love to say I sense the HS’s presence within the ecclesial community, but too often church settings, like committees, etc., are so charged with conflict, overt and covert hostilities and general irreconciliation or at least non-conciliation it’s almost impossible to breathe.
But since this question’s supposed to relate to “desert blogs,” I want to go off onto something like a tangent from what I just wrote, though definitely not a tangent in the least as this relates to the work, witness – and presence – of the HS in our lives, most particularly in our experiences of seeming desertion. In the desert Israel first rendezvoused with Yahweh; in the desert – driven out by the Spirit – Jesus first met the Spirit; possibly our first meeting with the real presence of the HS happens in the desert, too...not the presence we imagine we need but the Presence God knows we need.
Scripture’s multitude of promises includes God’s assurance of life lived eternally in the presence of God. How many times have I said the real miracles aren’t the spectacular signs and wonders, but rather Yahweh’s enduring specialness is the passion of presence with the people?! What’s been going on in almost any particular scriptural passage? Lots of things, but in particular the extraordinary fact of God with the people!
“I write a blog called Moving Godward: The Desert Blogs
"and I’m doing some research on what the voice of the holy spirit sounds like to different people."
I'm going to expand "sounds like" and include feels like, sounds like, tastes like and smells like! It’s striking the Westminster Catechism says a sacrament is a sensible and outward sign – rather than simply a visible one, so I’m thinking about sensible (sensory) manifestations of the reality of the presence and activity of the HS in our lives. And since you asked me, it’s probably most appropriate for me to respond in terms of my own experience, and not even in terms of what other people have told me – you’ve probably asked quite a few people to answer this question, right?
I’ll begin by mentioning the help the HS gives us in interpreting scripture – a witness to God’s activity in the world that from the beginning was Spirit-breathed – a witness whose canonization also was Spirit-ed. Although that can be problematic, since different people claim various and sometimes conflicting interpretations of the same text.
In everyday life we intensely can sense the Spirit’s presence in conversation, in many kinds of human and animal interaction and – traditionally – in worship (but not always in worship). I’d love to say I sense the HS’s presence within the ecclesial community, but too often church settings, like committees, etc., are so charged with conflict, overt and covert hostilities and general irreconciliation or at least non-conciliation it’s almost impossible to breathe.
But since this question’s supposed to relate to “desert blogs,” I want to go off onto something like a tangent from what I just wrote, though definitely not a tangent in the least as this relates to the work, witness – and presence – of the HS in our lives, most particularly in our experiences of seeming desertion. In the desert Israel first rendezvoused with Yahweh; in the desert – driven out by the Spirit – Jesus first met the Spirit; possibly our first meeting with the real presence of the HS happens in the desert, too...not the presence we imagine we need but the Presence God knows we need.
Scripture’s multitude of promises includes God’s assurance of life lived eternally in the presence of God. How many times have I said the real miracles aren’t the spectacular signs and wonders, but rather Yahweh’s enduring specialness is the passion of presence with the people?! What’s been going on in almost any particular scriptural passage? Lots of things, but in particular the extraordinary fact of God with the people!
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Peacemaker of the World
Micah 5:2-4
2 But you, Bethlehem, David's country, the runt of the litter—
From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel.
He'll be no upstart, no pretender. His family tree is ancient and distinguished.
3 Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes until the birth pangs are over and the child is born,
And the scattered brothers come back home to the family of Israel.
4 He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by GOD's strength, centered in the majesty of GOD-Revealed.
And the people will have a good and safe home, for the whole world will hold him in respect—
Peacemaker of the world!
Luke 1:39-55
39 Mary didn't waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, 40 straight to Zachariah's house, and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and sang out exuberantly,
You're so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed!
43 And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me?
44 The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears,
The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy.
45 Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!
46 And Mary said,
I'm bursting with God-news;
47 I'm dancing the song of my Savior God.
48 God took one good look at me, and look what happened— I'm the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
49 the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
50 His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
51 He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
52 He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.
53 The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
54 He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
55 It's exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
Dear Friends in Christ: grace, mercy and peace to you from our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier God!
Three more shopping days—three days away from Christmas. Now…everyone who has everything done, stand up! Stand up and sum up what you felt when you made your last purchase, put up the last strand of Christmas lights the last ornament on the tree and the final yard decoration of the season. I'll give you a hint…the word I have in mind is right over there on that banner: JOY! Okay, now you can sit back down… Let's all take a quick moment and just relax: close your eyes, and remember your best Christmas ever. Recapture the surroundings, the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the sights; ask yourself what it was about that memorable Christmas that made it the best; look for one defining moment; keep that image in your mind and feel the emotions you felt back then; let your body and your spirit let go of any anxiety, stress, fears, or doubts you may have about this year's Christmas.
Christmas is known as a time for hope, peace, love, and joy; it is a time to be with family, to feel the warmth of a fire on a cold snowy night, a time to share a warm eggnog latté or triple peppermint mocha with a friend, a time to join in song and celebrate the joys of the entire season, and a time to be at peace with one another. However, for many folks, Christmas also is one of the most horrifically stressful seasons of the year. It begins the day after Thanksgiving, when at least half the local population rushes in to Wal-Mart or wherever to get a new DVD player or more Christmas decorations or just to buy whatever's there on the shelves or intrusively waiting in the aisles to be bought; in the pre-buying frenzy when a woman—maybe even your neighbor or my friend—gets trampled by the swarming mass of people waiting at the door in the early hours of the morning, Wal-Mart gracefully offers to put the loss-leader DVD player on hold for her...how generous!? Our secular society insists Christmas is a time for shopping malls, 16-hour sales, clicking and double-clicking at online auction sites and consumption venues; for too many new and improved gadgets you can't live without, or that would make the perfect gift so you don't need to let guilt consume you because you've been buying so much for your family and yourself. Everyone here has dealt with the retail world in some way at this time of year; every year we hear not only in church but from the media, too, "shopping and buying is not what Christmas is all about."
Consumerism is the attitude of what we often refer to as the secular society, but what does secular mean? Here are some suggestions: a secular society can be one in which religion has become a self-consciously separate institution; or, in a secular society religion and spirituality are totally integrated with everyday life so there is no self-conscious religion per se. Our English secular comes from the Lain saeculum, meaning this present age.
Beyond this, in many ways biblical living is not "religious," since religion typically has more in common with cult, ideology or philosophy than with a lifestyle based on a free response in time to the actions of a gracious God in history, so at least in these terms, Christianity is not religious. But is it secular? As Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann insists, "We are indeed made in the image of some God." Most pre-rational societies made their gods in the image of their society, which then conveniently continued to reflect the gods. Although folks in those cultures probably did not realize their gods were made by humans, as we look back to theirs and then try looking inward at our culture and society, we realize just maybe we have made our own gods—those gods we first form and then keep reshaping into our own image of consumerism, greed, acquisition and possibly above all restlessness and discontent.
Briefly, if in a secular society religion is a self-conscious institution, probably this post-modern USA culture is secular, carrying all of us along with its tide; but then as the people of God in Christ Jesus, to an extent we qualify to be called "secular" in terms of the second definition of secular, since for us who live in Christ the Way of the Cross is supposed to be seamlessly integrated into every aspect of our lives.
But back to our talk about Christmas giving and Christmas mania! It took me until too recently to realize all the gifts in the world couldn't bring me what I have come to know as "joy," but I will come to that a little later.
A few years ago on my neighbor's dad's birthday my neighbor's family received a surprise: instead of the family giving gifts to their dad, their dad gave gifts to them, telling them the best birthday present was seeing their faces and reactions when he gave gifts to them. What he gave to each person wasn't the important part—it was the gracious act of giving, in and of itself. I'm not sure the younger kids in the family have come to realize the importance of what he gave them that day, but the teenagers and the adults most definitely have! While I'll admit I am not immune to the intense consumer attitude that fills our every day lives, I desire less every year. Christmas time has become a much more spiritual and Christ-centered time for me and in more recent years I keep experiencing more and more of the hope, peace, love and joy of Advent and then Christmas; I partly thank my neighbor's experience for that.
Now for a little change of pace: I know the sermon title sounds as if I'd planned to talk about Peace, but that was so two weeks ago. I took the title from the passage in Micah we read this morning, which tells of the coming of one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is from old, ancient days. One of the best parts of the scripture reads:
The scripture readings keep bringing Christmas day closer and closer, focusing our attention focus more on Mary and the baby's birth; life in the world around us is reaching a peak of anticipation. The big day is almost here! Yet do all the gifts, the ornaments, the lights, the decorations and everything else Christmas has become really fill us with true Joy? How can there be any room for the true joy during this season if we fill it with all this stuff? I don't mean to be cynical, because I too find some sort of fulfillment all of it brings, but it's only second best to what we can truly get out of it all. To experience joy is to experience an intimate connection; joy is truly a spiritual experience. Christmas joy, Christ's joy is being 700 miles from your family on Christmas day, but still feel like you're part of a family here. Christmas joy, Christ-filled joy can be found in the moment a parent first sees their newborn child's eyes or at a moment in the forest when you begin growing deep roots like the tree you are leaning against and you realize you are the same as the tree, connected to the earth and to all that is in the earth. Joy could be some dark summer night when the stars seem to reach into your body and fill you with their light, or a moment when you look across the room and catch your lover's glance and know you belong. Or here in church, today, on the last Sunday of Advent: in the silence; in the music; in the laughter; joy is in everything and everybody.
Like Mary, we each carry Christ in us; each of us carries an image of the divine, but we can't look only to ourselves to find joy. We can't look to who we are, or what we can do, or what we can get. It is in what Mary and Elizabeth are celebrating. Both Elizabeth and Mary rejoice, but they are not celebrating anything of their own doing; they don't celebrate because of what they have accomplished, or because of what they deserve; they celebrate because they have been given Joy to share with the world. So again I ask, is it all worth it? Are all the things you bought going to help you to experience Joy? Maybe. It is possible if there weren't all the commercial hype surrounding Christmas, and all of it simply was a sacred celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ—if that were the case, it might get old, and we might get weary of celebrating it. Maybe the commercialization adds that variety we need to continue to feel moved by it year after year. But I ask one thing: please, never, ever forget to look for the joy of God-with-us and God-among-us in the vulnerability of the baby in the Bethlehem manger outside of all of that! Thank you!
To God be the Glory!
Amen!
2 But you, Bethlehem, David's country, the runt of the litter—
From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel.
He'll be no upstart, no pretender. His family tree is ancient and distinguished.
3 Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes until the birth pangs are over and the child is born,
And the scattered brothers come back home to the family of Israel.
4 He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by GOD's strength, centered in the majesty of GOD-Revealed.
And the people will have a good and safe home, for the whole world will hold him in respect—
Peacemaker of the world!
Luke 1:39-55
39 Mary didn't waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, 40 straight to Zachariah's house, and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and sang out exuberantly,
You're so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed!
43 And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me?
44 The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears,
The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy.
45 Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!
46 And Mary said,
I'm bursting with God-news;
47 I'm dancing the song of my Savior God.
48 God took one good look at me, and look what happened— I'm the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
49 the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
50 His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
51 He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
52 He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.
53 The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
54 He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
55 It's exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
Dear Friends in Christ: grace, mercy and peace to you from our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier God!
Three more shopping days—three days away from Christmas. Now…everyone who has everything done, stand up! Stand up and sum up what you felt when you made your last purchase, put up the last strand of Christmas lights the last ornament on the tree and the final yard decoration of the season. I'll give you a hint…the word I have in mind is right over there on that banner: JOY! Okay, now you can sit back down… Let's all take a quick moment and just relax: close your eyes, and remember your best Christmas ever. Recapture the surroundings, the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the sights; ask yourself what it was about that memorable Christmas that made it the best; look for one defining moment; keep that image in your mind and feel the emotions you felt back then; let your body and your spirit let go of any anxiety, stress, fears, or doubts you may have about this year's Christmas.
Christmas is known as a time for hope, peace, love, and joy; it is a time to be with family, to feel the warmth of a fire on a cold snowy night, a time to share a warm eggnog latté or triple peppermint mocha with a friend, a time to join in song and celebrate the joys of the entire season, and a time to be at peace with one another. However, for many folks, Christmas also is one of the most horrifically stressful seasons of the year. It begins the day after Thanksgiving, when at least half the local population rushes in to Wal-Mart or wherever to get a new DVD player or more Christmas decorations or just to buy whatever's there on the shelves or intrusively waiting in the aisles to be bought; in the pre-buying frenzy when a woman—maybe even your neighbor or my friend—gets trampled by the swarming mass of people waiting at the door in the early hours of the morning, Wal-Mart gracefully offers to put the loss-leader DVD player on hold for her...how generous!? Our secular society insists Christmas is a time for shopping malls, 16-hour sales, clicking and double-clicking at online auction sites and consumption venues; for too many new and improved gadgets you can't live without, or that would make the perfect gift so you don't need to let guilt consume you because you've been buying so much for your family and yourself. Everyone here has dealt with the retail world in some way at this time of year; every year we hear not only in church but from the media, too, "shopping and buying is not what Christmas is all about."
Consumerism is the attitude of what we often refer to as the secular society, but what does secular mean? Here are some suggestions: a secular society can be one in which religion has become a self-consciously separate institution; or, in a secular society religion and spirituality are totally integrated with everyday life so there is no self-conscious religion per se. Our English secular comes from the Lain saeculum, meaning this present age.
Beyond this, in many ways biblical living is not "religious," since religion typically has more in common with cult, ideology or philosophy than with a lifestyle based on a free response in time to the actions of a gracious God in history, so at least in these terms, Christianity is not religious. But is it secular? As Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann insists, "We are indeed made in the image of some God." Most pre-rational societies made their gods in the image of their society, which then conveniently continued to reflect the gods. Although folks in those cultures probably did not realize their gods were made by humans, as we look back to theirs and then try looking inward at our culture and society, we realize just maybe we have made our own gods—those gods we first form and then keep reshaping into our own image of consumerism, greed, acquisition and possibly above all restlessness and discontent.
Briefly, if in a secular society religion is a self-conscious institution, probably this post-modern USA culture is secular, carrying all of us along with its tide; but then as the people of God in Christ Jesus, to an extent we qualify to be called "secular" in terms of the second definition of secular, since for us who live in Christ the Way of the Cross is supposed to be seamlessly integrated into every aspect of our lives.
But back to our talk about Christmas giving and Christmas mania! It took me until too recently to realize all the gifts in the world couldn't bring me what I have come to know as "joy," but I will come to that a little later.
A few years ago on my neighbor's dad's birthday my neighbor's family received a surprise: instead of the family giving gifts to their dad, their dad gave gifts to them, telling them the best birthday present was seeing their faces and reactions when he gave gifts to them. What he gave to each person wasn't the important part—it was the gracious act of giving, in and of itself. I'm not sure the younger kids in the family have come to realize the importance of what he gave them that day, but the teenagers and the adults most definitely have! While I'll admit I am not immune to the intense consumer attitude that fills our every day lives, I desire less every year. Christmas time has become a much more spiritual and Christ-centered time for me and in more recent years I keep experiencing more and more of the hope, peace, love and joy of Advent and then Christmas; I partly thank my neighbor's experience for that.
Now for a little change of pace: I know the sermon title sounds as if I'd planned to talk about Peace, but that was so two weeks ago. I took the title from the passage in Micah we read this morning, which tells of the coming of one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is from old, ancient days. One of the best parts of the scripture reads:
Micah also foretells the one who is to come will be from the people: to hear this in that particular time had to be some pretty great news, since in those days God was a high, lofty, faraway figure; God was an eternal immortal Wholly Other and Holy Other looking down upon the earth and zapping the people who refused to believe in him and follow him; therefore, most people feared God, not as in the fear of awe-filled but in the fear of afraid. And as Mary tells her story to Elizabeth, she says, "His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him." But that's not the important part! The good news is he who is coming, the one God is sending is a mortal, a human, one from the people and one of the people: a friend, a neighbor, a human being, a person exactly like each of us, but without sin, to share our common lot and to live a life like ours, including being born of a woman and dying and being buried. As the infant in the Bethlehem manger, to this world of the earth, our God descends, willing to live among us in the image of our humanity so we might take part in his divinity!
Micah 5:4
"He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by GOD's strength,
centered in the majesty of GOD-Revealed.
And the people will have a good and safe home,
for the whole world will hold him in respect—
Peacemaker of the world!"
The scripture readings keep bringing Christmas day closer and closer, focusing our attention focus more on Mary and the baby's birth; life in the world around us is reaching a peak of anticipation. The big day is almost here! Yet do all the gifts, the ornaments, the lights, the decorations and everything else Christmas has become really fill us with true Joy? How can there be any room for the true joy during this season if we fill it with all this stuff? I don't mean to be cynical, because I too find some sort of fulfillment all of it brings, but it's only second best to what we can truly get out of it all. To experience joy is to experience an intimate connection; joy is truly a spiritual experience. Christmas joy, Christ's joy is being 700 miles from your family on Christmas day, but still feel like you're part of a family here. Christmas joy, Christ-filled joy can be found in the moment a parent first sees their newborn child's eyes or at a moment in the forest when you begin growing deep roots like the tree you are leaning against and you realize you are the same as the tree, connected to the earth and to all that is in the earth. Joy could be some dark summer night when the stars seem to reach into your body and fill you with their light, or a moment when you look across the room and catch your lover's glance and know you belong. Or here in church, today, on the last Sunday of Advent: in the silence; in the music; in the laughter; joy is in everything and everybody.
Like Mary, we each carry Christ in us; each of us carries an image of the divine, but we can't look only to ourselves to find joy. We can't look to who we are, or what we can do, or what we can get. It is in what Mary and Elizabeth are celebrating. Both Elizabeth and Mary rejoice, but they are not celebrating anything of their own doing; they don't celebrate because of what they have accomplished, or because of what they deserve; they celebrate because they have been given Joy to share with the world. So again I ask, is it all worth it? Are all the things you bought going to help you to experience Joy? Maybe. It is possible if there weren't all the commercial hype surrounding Christmas, and all of it simply was a sacred celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ—if that were the case, it might get old, and we might get weary of celebrating it. Maybe the commercialization adds that variety we need to continue to feel moved by it year after year. But I ask one thing: please, never, ever forget to look for the joy of God-with-us and God-among-us in the vulnerability of the baby in the Bethlehem manger outside of all of that! Thank you!
To God be the Glory!
Amen!
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Advent 2, 2003
- The Spirit and the Church cry – Come, Lord Jesus!
- And all who yearn for his appearing say – Come, Lord Jesus!
- All creation pleads – Come, Lord Jesus!
- Maranatha!
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Sanctuary
“Why did we ever retreat into the sanctuary in the first place?”
Without delving into a lot of history and in this short space necessarily leaving out the multitude of vital functions the cathedral church assumed earlier on, especially in Europe, that whole sanctuary development has a lot to do with the rationalization and bureaucratization of Christianity ...and, as Max Weber pointed out, when religion becomes rationalized – and maybe denominationalized! – with a dichotomy between professional and non-professional (“lay?”) practitioners, that’s when the division between sacred and secular begins really big-time, and often assumes horrendous proportions, as in the Jerusalem Temple. And “horrendous proportions” as in the late Medieval church, as well, though always there have been faithful and even re-forming individuals and movements.
But modulating into a different key, I also love thinking of the church sanctuary as a place of safety, of prayer and worship, and a place where God and the people of God meet in a unique and focused way, preparing the people to recognize God’s presence wherever God and people encounter each other. In this context I need to refer to the sacraments again, since not only does God come to us with specific and special grace in the sacraments, as well as helping us remember Whose we are, but the Eucharist particularly forms one of the ways God enters our world in common, routine and everyday things and ordinary, day-by-day actions – like breaking bread and sharing a meal!
“ ...it’s important to remember we’re “marketing” the gospel, not the church! I think there’s a big danger in confusing the two. Don’t you?
Marian, yes, oh wow – thanks for the reminder this is about the gospel and about the church as one of the various vehicles that can convey the gospel...however, we also need to remember the Church is the Body of the Risen Christ!
“...maybe that should be return the church to the marketplace! Remember Luke 5:1-11?”
Called from where we are right now to go where the Spirit leads! I’ve heard that called “the mark of the stable” – begin where God says! :)
Without delving into a lot of history and in this short space necessarily leaving out the multitude of vital functions the cathedral church assumed earlier on, especially in Europe, that whole sanctuary development has a lot to do with the rationalization and bureaucratization of Christianity ...and, as Max Weber pointed out, when religion becomes rationalized – and maybe denominationalized! – with a dichotomy between professional and non-professional (“lay?”) practitioners, that’s when the division between sacred and secular begins really big-time, and often assumes horrendous proportions, as in the Jerusalem Temple. And “horrendous proportions” as in the late Medieval church, as well, though always there have been faithful and even re-forming individuals and movements.
But modulating into a different key, I also love thinking of the church sanctuary as a place of safety, of prayer and worship, and a place where God and the people of God meet in a unique and focused way, preparing the people to recognize God’s presence wherever God and people encounter each other. In this context I need to refer to the sacraments again, since not only does God come to us with specific and special grace in the sacraments, as well as helping us remember Whose we are, but the Eucharist particularly forms one of the ways God enters our world in common, routine and everyday things and ordinary, day-by-day actions – like breaking bread and sharing a meal!
“ ...it’s important to remember we’re “marketing” the gospel, not the church! I think there’s a big danger in confusing the two. Don’t you?
Marian, yes, oh wow – thanks for the reminder this is about the gospel and about the church as one of the various vehicles that can convey the gospel...however, we also need to remember the Church is the Body of the Risen Christ!
“...maybe that should be return the church to the marketplace! Remember Luke 5:1-11?”
Called from where we are right now to go where the Spirit leads! I’ve heard that called “the mark of the stable” – begin where God says! :)
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Some thoughts on evangelism
William Brandes wrote:
“This is dying-and-rising, transformational stuff we're talking about!”
Actually, that is what marketing is about. Very important that you don't mix-up marketing and promotion. Folks do it all the time and give the focus and inventiveness, the transformational ability of marketing a bad gloss. No matter the organization. No matter your journey, marketing is a very valuable tool. Saddle Back understands it. Willow Creek does too. And, so do any number of organizations and congregations willing to focus on what business they are in.
My response:
Yes, transformational dying-and-rising! As I've previously pointed out, even the gods of the Egyptians could do the fireworks, but there were a couple of things those other gods didn't do: unconditional, unevoked and gracious presence with their people, and - resurrection from the dead!
During the 2001-2002 academic year, as I was listening in my marketing classes for the Community Economic Development program at San Diego State, I kept thinking (really!) about how I could apply some of the concepts we were learning about to the church and specifically to evangelism, though since then I'd hardly given it a thought until we began considering Willow Creek and Purpose-Drivenness on this forum. We're always cautious to admit it's not about sheer numbers, but without at least some of those numbers how far can our evangelism reach?
And we emphasize that for Jesus, since it wasn't about the signs and wonders but rather about the Sign of Jonah: death - and resurrection - and about God-with-us, God-among-us, we're not supposed to shout from the rooftops about all of those visibly spectacular miracles. I cannot get beyond the fact that, for me, the sacraments remain both the most hidden and understated as well as the most transparent evidence of the way God prefers to work among and within the people and those megachurches, despite emphasizing the Word, for the most part neglect the sacraments (aside from insisting on so-called believer's baptism). I'm still thinking that in order to say anything fair about Purpose-Drivenness I really need to read what the movement is saying about itself, instead of extrapolating my own imaginings on what they're doing.
“This is dying-and-rising, transformational stuff we're talking about!”
Actually, that is what marketing is about. Very important that you don't mix-up marketing and promotion. Folks do it all the time and give the focus and inventiveness, the transformational ability of marketing a bad gloss. No matter the organization. No matter your journey, marketing is a very valuable tool. Saddle Back understands it. Willow Creek does too. And, so do any number of organizations and congregations willing to focus on what business they are in.
My response:
Yes, transformational dying-and-rising! As I've previously pointed out, even the gods of the Egyptians could do the fireworks, but there were a couple of things those other gods didn't do: unconditional, unevoked and gracious presence with their people, and - resurrection from the dead!
During the 2001-2002 academic year, as I was listening in my marketing classes for the Community Economic Development program at San Diego State, I kept thinking (really!) about how I could apply some of the concepts we were learning about to the church and specifically to evangelism, though since then I'd hardly given it a thought until we began considering Willow Creek and Purpose-Drivenness on this forum. We're always cautious to admit it's not about sheer numbers, but without at least some of those numbers how far can our evangelism reach?
And we emphasize that for Jesus, since it wasn't about the signs and wonders but rather about the Sign of Jonah: death - and resurrection - and about God-with-us, God-among-us, we're not supposed to shout from the rooftops about all of those visibly spectacular miracles. I cannot get beyond the fact that, for me, the sacraments remain both the most hidden and understated as well as the most transparent evidence of the way God prefers to work among and within the people and those megachurches, despite emphasizing the Word, for the most part neglect the sacraments (aside from insisting on so-called believer's baptism). I'm still thinking that in order to say anything fair about Purpose-Drivenness I really need to read what the movement is saying about itself, instead of extrapolating my own imaginings on what they're doing.
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Creativity and Creation
Let’s begin with both Genesis creation accounts: Genesis 1, the human created in God’s image: creative, will-full, and above all, created for community, for covenantal relationship. And Genesis 2, the human who carries the Spirit-ed breath of the Divine. In the creation hymn of John 1: the pre-existent Word, the Word that eternally dwelt in interrelationship, becomes “flesh” (visible, touchable, audible, scent-able, smell-able, savor-able – taste-able: in other words, humanly “experience-able” and actually HUMAN – “very human of very human!”) and lives with us. Life lived in the Word; John tells us “that life was the light of humans.” Of us! The Word through Whom creation was formed; in the Word was life . . . is relationship not the essence of that “life?” As Christians we know the Word transforms by freely calling us and drawing us into relationship. So creation/relationship is necessity, essence and passion. So true since 325 we’ve affirmed the “Godhead” or “Trinity,” but was that interrelationship truly sufficient? Was it sufficient for the Trinity’s expressive essence to be “alone” and only with itself? Think about it! Since God’s essence and attributes include love, creativity, passion, grace, giving, glory (Moses Maimonides said God is identical with God’s attributes) . . . the Trinity/Godhead was necessary from the beginning but ultimately so was physical creation itself. Creativity is God’s essence, and because Godself is un-created that creativity needs expressing somehow and somewhere. A lot of this has to do with the nature of the covenant/s into which God calls us and also enables us.
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