Monthly Archives: April 2014

A Witness to Biblical Literalism

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Growing up, I sensed a lot of fear at school and at church when people asked questions about whether the Bible was “literally” true.  Whether Adam and Eve existed was a litmus test for salvation, I thought, and people who didn’t use the exact numbers in the Old Testament to calculate that the world was 6,000-10,000 years old weren’t Christians at all.

Then I went to Duke University, where lots and lots of smart people studied and taught, and almost no one believed that Moses had parted the Red Sea, or that David had anything to do with the psalms that bear his name.  Having been raised with a very strong sense of God giving people unique gifts to use for his glory, all these very smart people confused me.  I could tell that knowledge wasn’t a curse, or something to be afraid of–I knew that they had been given a great gift in their intellect.  Their questioning had somehow led them away from God–“beyond” God, some might say of themselves–and I had trouble holding together the inquiring mind I’d been given and the mystical Christian faith I’d known and practiced for almost two decades.

Duke’s motto is “eruditio et religio”–knowledge and religion.  I wrote extensively while an undergraduate about the relationship between these two forces as they interacted on Duke’s campus.  When I graduated, the then-Dean of the Chapel, Sam Wells, inscribed the Bible given to me upon graduation from this “secular” university (each student is offered a leatherbound NKJV as they graduate), “May you always find knowledge and religion united in your heart.”

Now a few years out from my Master of Divinity at Duke and more than a year out from my ordination to the priesthood, I had a flashback of the fear I knew well from my formative years in Ohio.  The surprise was that it came from the other “side” of the tracks, this time.  Defensiveness surfaced when it was suggested that Jesus came back to life in a physical, literal way after he died on Good Friday.  Such a supernatural, inexplicable occurence was tamped down by explaining, “the myths are still true in the deepest way.”

The church is happening here, folks.  We’re talking about what’s “literally” “true” and what’s myth and what “myth” means.  We’re not agreeing, but we’re staying in the room together and we’re smiling at each other and looking each other in the eye (and praying together).

I see fear on both “sides” of this Biblical Literalism debate, and I think there’s hope on both sides, too.  Everyone’s got a dog in the fight, because the fight is about the basis of our faith.  Everyone’s been wounded in this fight by ignorance, impatience, and hard-heartedness from others.  Knowing that everyone’s a little bit afraid and nervous and sincere, I wonder if we can find a way forward together by putting down some of our armor and some of our weapons.

(I’m no N.T. Wright, but it’s my goal during the 50 days of Easter to read Surprised by Hope; join me, if you’d like!)

my view in Easter

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just over a year ago, a clergy colleague said to me, “You’ve got to go through Good Friday in order to get to Easter Sunday.”

I’ve known since last April that this year’s Holy Week and Easter would be a turning point for me; last April, I had a very painful ending to a job and place I had started to love very much, and this last year has been a trudging road toward a new, good normal.  It’s not that I’ve necessarily arrived somewhere now here in Easter week, but that Lent and Holy Week were a big looming hill that I’ve crested–April 2014, and though I’m aware enough of God’s work to keep me dependent on Him, I feel like I can see beyond for a little ways, and oh my goodness, is the view lovely.  I want to share a bit of my view.

Last June, I showed up on Trinity’s doorstep bedraggled, emotionally and spiritually.  I’ve spent a lot of my first year trying to “balance” self-protection (having suffered deep burns in my formative first year of full-time ministry) and priestly vocation.  Parishioners did not take offense, but patiently loved me, offered themselves, gave encouragement–they showed up.  On Sunday, as I walked in procession through these dear people, I realized how I’d fallen in love with them; how their love had given me balm to heal.  They showed me that even in the midst of pain, the best way to be is honest and real and unprotected–“balance” as such doesn’t exist, and ought not be sought.

As a two-clergy family, we have to work hard to find non-“work” friends.  It’s a good thing that most of our community comes from our churches, but it’s also comforting, on the road to healing, to have a few friends who you know truly only put up with you because they really do like you for you (this is my own trust issue, not a commentary on the faithful friends I’ve been given through Trinity).  The first time one of these now-friends said, “Hey lady, you’re looking different today; you doing okay?”  I almost cried & hugged her.  Someone who had no social contract to notice me decided to notice anyway (it happened to be Ash Wednesday, so yes, I was a little tired).

Less than a week has passed, and already I’ve been shaken to the realization that it’s not a storm that I’ve come through and left on the other side, but a shift into a new way of being.  In doggedly pursuing healing in the last year, I’ve been learning to notice things–notice and relish the faces in the Easter Day crowd who you’d last seen pained and in hospital; notice and celebrate the tears welling up while you process through the middle of this loving crowd who has shown you Jesus; notice and be curious about the super-tight feeling in your stomach that won’t go away–don’t try to figure everything out, or to label every passing experience, just notice it, be present to it, say “Hello, you’re here right now, and I’m here, too.”

This is a more vivid, larger, and more painful way to live, being present.  But that’s what God is about.  God is so determined to be present with us that he came to sit with humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, and he continues to be present with us through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Comforter comforts us in all our troubles so that we may comfort those with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (something like 2 Cor. 1:4).

 

Jesus stays, Jesus stays.

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“Crucify him!  Crucify him!”

Last Sunday, we played our part, joining in the dramatic reading of the events leading up to Jesus’ death.  We yelled “Let him be crucified!” along with the jealous crowd (Matthew 27).  Someone told me afterward that she always waffles about whether or not to say those words out loud with the rest of the congregation; it makes her uncomfortable, and it just sounds so horrible.  I knew what she meant–I closed my eyes this year when I joined in the shout; I just couldn’t bear seeing the angry crowd in front of me, it felt so real.

The horror is that it is real.  In dozens of ways, we shout “Crucify him!” every day.  When we respond in anger, when we deceive and rationalize, choosing the easy way out instead of the truth, we turn our backs on the reality that God offers us.  It’s like throwing God’s playbook into the trash and letting the door slam as we walk away.  We insist on our own way and our own wisdom, just like Adam and Eve in the garden, just like Jesus’ disciples who were scattered in Gethsemane’s garden–just like every human throughout time; except for Jesus himself.

What a strange God we worship.  What kind of God leaves his abode to come down to this broken place called earth?  Once arrived, what kind of God takes on the limitations and stresses of human life, living inside the confines of a human being?  As a human, what kind of God endures a fraudulent trial leading to trumped-up death charges and a humiliating spectacle of an execution? What kind of life is that? What is he revealing to us about the truth of love?

As Jesus hangs on the cross (as he did at this very hour), people mock him; someone asks, “If you saved others, why can’t you save yourself?”  Another says, “If you’re really God, the way you say you are, why don’t you come down?  If you did, we’d surely believe you then!”  Can you imagine the temptation Jesus might have faced?  Indeed, in the garden with his disciples the night before, he has already laid his cards out with his Father, begging that he not actually have to go through with the whole thing, desperate to find another way out.

Abandoned and hanging on a cross, Jesus, the Son of God, stayed.  While he was spit on, ridiculed, beaten, and nailed, he refused to turn his back on the people who were torturing him.  Jesus never pulled the release valve, Jesus never left us.  He was committed to showing humanity what love means by never turning his back on us even if that meant that he would have to die.  There was finally nothing else left for Evil to try except to force God’s hand by threatening him with death if he didn’t give up on people.  Jesus stayed.

The same crowds who had shouted a few days earlier that he was their hero turned quickly into the angry, jealous crowds who pushed at him to crack and then turned their backs to let him die. How often do we experience the same swift change in our lives?  Our best friend suddenly becomes our most effective attacker; our well-ordered life is shaken into a disaster; the most reliable part of our day is ripped out from under us, leaving a gaping hole.  We all suffer abandonment that leaves us wondering which way is up.

Though we may not know which way is up, or how to keep moving through the mess of life, or how to withstand the attacks of someone we love, Jesus has shown that God will stay right next to us.  Staying meant death, but Jesus chose not to use his power as God to get him out of the mess humanity had made around him; he only ever called upon the power of God to help others, never himself.

Jesus still calls upon the power of God to help us, even though we’re just as fickle and cowardly and arrogant and skeptical as the crowds who surrounded him at his death.  Jesus never left them alone, even when the price to stay was death.  Even though we turn our backs on God, he will never leave us alone. Jesus stays, Jesus stays.

trust fall – #mymessybeautiful

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I have a new friend named Glennon.

This week, I’ve been reading her book, Carry On, Warrior.  I don’t quite agree with everything she says in it, but I don’t quite agree with all my husband’s convictions either, so it doesn’t bother me much.

She talks an awful lot about truth-telling.  She invited anyone who wanted to tell some truth on the internets to link it up with her site, momastery.com, all to coordinate with the release of the paperback of her book.  I’ve felt sort of ambiguous about this, because I feel a little bit like Anne Shirley when Rolling’s Reliable takes over her novel, but a big enough part of me wondered if I might just not want to say something too truthy that I’m here.

So, here is my trust fall:

I struggle to believe that God loves me (and I’m a priest).

We live in an accomplishment-oriented society; our culture tells us that we have to achieve to be accepted and loved.  Popular interpretations of the parable of the talents don’t help–“If you don’t do your very best with all the ‘talents’ you’ve been given, you’ll be called lazy by God and thrown into the outer darkness!”  (Matthew 25)  This leads us to despair when we don’t think we’ve done enough, and it leads us to toxic amounts of achievement (perhaps especially at elite institutions *kicking hornets nest* *still wearin’ my duke blue devil horns headband*).

My broken understanding of love often leads me to over-function for others–thinking, hoping, desperate-to-believe that if I do enough for someone, she will give me love.  This is a dangerous belief for a priest to have–there’s always plenty to do for your congregation to try to earn their love, and even more so, there’s always more you could do for God.  The voice of fear in my head accuses me, “You’re lazy to not stay until the very last parishioner goes home.”  “A truly devoted priest would do ALL THE THINGS before leaving for the night.”  Of course this tempts me into thinking that everything depends on me (when really, everything depends on GOD).

Earning love isn’t a thing.  If we’re motivated to do good deeds or to go to church or to work hard because we think that it will help God will love us if we do them, then we’re missing the whole point of Christianity, and the whole point of love.

Love cannot be earned.  Love cannot be lost.  Love is a choice.

Doing bad things doesn’t ever make us unlovable (to God).  Making “wrong” choices doesn’t set us back on God’s love-o-meter.  Because the love that we show each other is always broken and imperfect, our understanding of who we are in God’s eyes can get messed up.

Even when we doubt God, or ridicule him, or turn away from God all together, he doesn’t leave and he doesn’t stop loving.

Today is Maundy Thursday. At the Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus gave his followers a mandate – to love one another (John 13). Tonight, in churches around the globe, people will gather to remember this event again. Throughout the following hours, Jesus showed his disciples, and the whole world, what it means to love.

As people mocked him, 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matthew 27:42-43)  Jesus stayed on the cross.  Even when his companions abandoned him, he stayed there, bleeding and hanging.  Jesus stayed.

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Jesus, the Son of God, God himself, stayed with humanity.  God came, and God stayed, no matter what people did to him.  God still comes, and God still stays with each of us.

My calling as a priest isn’t to be the perfect example of love any more than it is the call of every person to love.  We’re all witnesses to God’s love by the very fact and miracle that each of us exists.  My calling as a priest is to listen with other curious people, to sit and stay with suffering people, and to offer Jesus as healing for our brokenness.

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This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

original artwork by Roger Hutchison