Jesus and the Bomber(s) of Boston

For Christians in the United States and across the world, the morally reprehensible acts at the Boston Marathon on Monday are where the rubber meets the road – Jesus-style.

I’ve already read more comments than I can stomach – they run along the lines of “our vengeance will be swift and will be without mercy” – concerning those who are responsible for the bombings.

I understand if you want to have revenge against the culprit(s), or if you desire our government to take that revenge – as President Obama promised to do.  I don’t question the sincerity or sorrow or anger that bears such thoughts.

Where it troubles me is when these comments are inextricably linked to a Christian identity.  It’s like when Jesus reminded the crowds that you “cannot serve both God and wealth” (Matthew 6:24).  I believe it’s the same here: you can either cry out for a revenge without mercy, or you can follow Jesus.  You cannot do both.

I say this with a hope that those responsible be brought to justice.  But, as usual, once I think I have an easy answer, Jesus comes in and questions it.  He challenges me.  ”Love your enemies, and pray for them,” echoes in my head.

Christianity is constantly at odds with the powers that be – this is most apparent in its infancy, before Constantine adopted this fledgling, outcast religion some 1,700 years ago (or, as some scholars note, before Christianity adopted the agenda of empire).

The United States of America is the most powerful country in the history of history, and you can be sure that it will defend itself against enemies, both foreign and domestic.  And I write as one of its privileged citizens.

But I am Christian first.  And that citizenship challenges me to remember that we are called to be peacemakers, that Jesus responded to the epidemic of violence and vengeance in his society only and always with love.  Exclusively so.

And Christianity doesn’t just challenge me.  It challenges the powers who will decide what happens in the aftermath of the tragedy in Boston.  It challenges the American gospel of redemptive violence.

And it challenges us to see how far our love can go.

Body of Christ, Given for You (or: Why Kids Act Differently in Church, and That’s Okay)

I walk into a Lenten worship on Wednesday night this past month, and I come upon three confirmation kids, looking with interest at a YouTube video on an iPod touch.  

I asked the one in the middle what time it was – he looked up, terrified when he realized it was a pastor, and all three were silent.  They had been caught.

I asked again – what time is it, dude?  Oh.  It’s 5:27, Pj.  A wave of relief cascades over these youth.  Whew.  I walk away.

It’s an interesting world we live in.  Many of these kids, who have been raised with electronics as their first language, often encounter adults who see their heads buried in a screen and either silently judge them – or openly scold them.

It’s difficult, I know, to see this ubiquitous sight, especially in a sanctuary.  It seems as though these future people of the church are not paying attention.  Like they don’t care.

But then, I think about a couple of things:

1. For better or worse, this is the new reality in which we live.  Notice I say for better or worse.  Multitasking isn’t inherently bad; and newer generations are simply better at it than older generations.

2. Anytime a cellphone goes off in church, I can almost guarantee you that it is not someone 20 years-old or younger.  The younger generations might have their electronics as an inseparable extension of them, but they are much more aware of its appropriateness.

And then there’s the other reality that’s tough-to-swallow: for younger generations, what it means to be in church is fundamentally different than their parents and grandparents.

This has always been the case, of course.  There have always been matriarchs like Meryl Streep in the film Doubt who walk up the aisle, smacking kids (or simply wishing they could) who are falling asleep during the pastor’s sermon.  There are always generations who lament the younger generation’s lack of respect, attention, silence…the list goes on. 

Then again, I have walked right past grown adults who are talking during video prayers that are being projected on the screen during worship, oblivious to the carrying power of their (not-so) hushed tones.

It’s a difficult line to walk.  We worship a God who, in Jesus, shows us the abundant love that spills out over rigid piety and time-tested ideas of worship decorum.

I tell you, a smirking Jesus reminded the religious authorities during the procession of palms into Jerusalem a few weeks ago, even if these were silent, the stones would shout out.

When we share in the body of Christ, and hear that it has been given for us, we are formed in that image and become what we eat.  We are the body of Christ in the world.  I don’t know about you, but our communion gets pretty messy, with crumbs spilling out all over the place.

And I think our theology should recognize that chaotic messiness, and realize that this sacred meal isn’t meant to be shut up in silent drones who are quiet and obedient.  It’s a wild feast beyond our limited imaginations.

Back to that YouTube video on the iPod touch.  The younger generations often know precisely what’s going on, and what’s being said, even whilst their faces are being illuminated by their digital handheld devices.  

And here’s the deal.  If they don’t know, or aren’t paying attention, it’s sometimes because what’s being done or said isn’t compelling enough to require that attention.

And that might be an opportunity for us to look at how the ancient tradition, as well as the future Jesus is leading us into, needs to speak to newer and newer generations – instead of just scolding them.

“Good Old Days” – Or, Really Bad Church Slogans

That’s the title of this magazine I found – “The Good Old Days.”  And see the subtitle?  ”The Magazine that Remembers the Best.”

This magazine was sitting in a building across the street from a church.

If you’ve stepped foot in a church building in the 21st century, you’ve probably heard or seen an illustration of this notion: the good old days.

In our churches, the words, “In the good old days…” normally precede one of these statements.  ”Remember when?” is another common one.

Here’s the thing: the church of the 1950s, or the 60s, or the 1890s, or even the 1990s was not the absolute pinnacle of Christ’s Church on earth (and neither, by the way, is the church of 2013).  Exclusively harking back to a lovely bygone era is not a helpful or life-giving model for the community of faith in the here and now.

The church has always been changing, moving, growing, struggling, even dying.  It’s the nature of the Christian story – it’s still going.  And if we’re serious about being “made new” through the death and resurrection of Jesus, then we can’t keep trying to model our churches in the image of what they used to be.

If we, like this magazine, keep looking for “the best” in the past, and live as though it might not be coming in the future, we’re not only going to be perennially disappointed – we’re being theologically immature.

Riffing on Dr. King’s words, the arc of the Christian story is long, but it always bends towards the future.  

Okay, I feel like I need to put a disclaimer – our tradition is very meaningful, and we need to know and appreciate where we’ve been.  This is most certainly true.

But if we put half as much energy into imagining the future of the Christian movement as we do focusing on its past, I think it would be an amazing thing to see.

The Bible is the Word of God, as one of my mentors reminds me, but it’s not the only thing God ever said.  We need to be paying attention to what God is saying to us now, and not staring longingly into a past that is…past.

Otherwise, we might miss it.

Please Stop Praying

I know it’s a blunt title, but I’m fed up with this shallow idea of what prayer means largely going unchallenged by Christians and Christianity.

And by “shallow,” I mean the way we look at prayer as an opportunity to ask for things (and often stupid things – for our team to win a game, for example).  When we do this, we set up prayer as a meaningless spiritual exercise that deals with a wishy-washy God whose actions depend solely on our prayers.

First off, prayer is a conversation, a chance to listen as much as talk.  The earliest Christians – and their Jewish ancestors in the faith – understood prayer as a discipline; a deep, almost primordial way to see that our story is caught up with God’s epic story.

Notice that it’s not to “make sure” that our story is caught up in God’s story – it’s to see that this is already the case.

I know it’s said in jest, but if I hear one more time how much I must be “praying for the 49ers” to win Super Bowl XLVII tomorrow, I think I’m going to pray for God to smite something.  (That was a joke, PS.)

Prayer is not asking a divine Santa Claus for what we want.  And the sooner we stop treating it that way – even as a joke – the sooner we can grow into a more understanding, accepting, and mature understanding of prayer.

When we talk about prayer exclusively as an asking exercise (regardless of what we’re asking for), we are implicitly saying that some people get what they want through prayer, while others don’t (and take your pick as to why - not enough faith, God doesn’t like you, etc…).  And that’s just sad.  And theologically embarrassing.

What happens when I pray for the 49ers to win, and the Ravens do?  What happens when I pray to have a better day, and I, you know, don’t?

When we frame prayer in this way, it raises some serious questions when the prayers are seriously important.  What happens when we pray for the tumor to be benign, and it’s not?  What happens when we pray for starving people, and the next day, they still die all around the world because they don’t have enough food?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t pray about those things.  But it’s high time we name prayer for what it is: a way to connect with the holy; not a way to “cover our bases.”  Prayer is a challenge for us to join in the justice and mercy of God, and not sit back and sanctimoniously wait to see what happens.  Prayer doesn’t get us off the hook.

And how we see prayer says more about us than about God.

What are we saying when we treat prayer as a sacred temper tantrum that tells God, “Please!  Gimme!  Now!”?  What does that look like to people inside and outside the church?

Prayer is so much more than that.  And God is so much more than an all-knowing giver-of-stuff.  How lame if the Creator of the universe was just another genie in a bottle?

Sometimes things don’t work out.  Sometimes our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears (see: the Biblical book of Lamentations).

But we need to remember that our God isn’t “making a list and checking it twice” to figure out who gets their prayers answered – and who gets coal in their spiritual stocking.

God is there with us, in the crap with us, crying with us, frustrated with us.

Our prayers help us to realize this.  And that is a powerful thing.

Gospel Unchained

Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino’s latest opus, a three-hour-long film that tracks the journey of Django, a slave in 1858 America who gains his freedom – and then tries to do the same for his wife.

What really hit me, however, was a side-note to the movie.  It was the reaction that virtually everyone (both black and white) had to the sight of Django riding a horse.  They stood there, dumbfounded, in the presence of this event.  They simply couldn’t fathom that such a thing could actually happen – for them, it defied a fundamental law of reality.

It hit me because while watching this movie, in 2013, I simply couldn’t fathom that most of what happens in Django Unchained could actually…happen.  To my 21st century eyes and ears, I was as startled by this movie as were the people who looked upon a well-dressed black man sitting on a horse (not to mention the amount of times the “n” word is used; it has to be a cinematic record).

It’s a piece of our American history, this enslavement of another group of human beings.  It was so ingrained into peoples’ minds, psyches, and worldview that it surrounded them completely.  Seeing a (freed) slave atop a horse was the ultimate dissonance – either it was real, or, more likely, they must be losing their minds.

Too often, we do the exact same thing to our Christian Gospel – it’s ingrained so deeply into our reality as a divine rulebook; an outdated example of piety; or maybe a ticket that, if we believe hard enough, will get us into heaven…no questions asked.

And then we see this Gospel break down walls of hatred, or plead for forgiveness to all those who’ve been hurt by the church throughout the millennia, or show us once again that the essence of power is in weakness, or even offend us by speaking words of grace to both the parents of Sandy Hook children and the parents of the shooter – we see all this, and it’s the ultimate dissonance.  We can’t fathom the Gospel actually doing this.  It defies the fundamental laws of reality.

The unchained Gospel is as scary to us as an unchained Django was to virtually everyone he came across.  And yet, we can watch this movie in 2013, be transported back to 1858, wonder how people could be that blown away by a black man on a horse…and then re-enter 2013, and see it all over again.

Slavery still exists – literally and metaphorically – around the world.  In our cities.  In our churches.  In our own hearts.

Bob Marley told us to “emancipate yourselves from mental slavery / none but ourselves can free our minds.”

I think that the Gospel can be a way Christians can (start to) do this.  But first we have to break its chains, and see it for the wildly expansive, radically offensive, beautifully free good news that it is.

Otherwise, we’ll keep standing dumbfounded, and assume we must be going crazy.

Visibly (Not Forcibly) Christian

It took a long time to get down to United Lutheran Church in Rockford, across the state line.  What’s more, I could only stay for about ten minutes, total.  But what was taking place outside in the chilly December night air was worth it.

People were holding candles.  Sometimes there was silence; sometimes there was singing.  Words were read from psalms written thousands of years ago – psalms that asked questions we still have today, questions like, “Where is God?”

It was a prayer vigil for peace in the wake of the horrors in Connecticut that have shook our nation to its core.  It was simple, and yet simply powerful.

The faithful people on this corner were being visibly (instead of forcibly) Christian.  They were especially visible to the heavy traffic that passed along that particularly busy intersection.  They carried no pamphlets, and shouted no slogans.  Just simple candles, lit against the enveloping night sky.

As much as Christians might talk about the importance of witnessing, oftentimes we prefer to talk about such things inside the holy walls of our church fortresses (err…buildings).  We might get up the gumption to talk to a neighbor about the story of Jesus, but, usually, we reserve a spot for the practice of “witnessing” near the back of our sanctuaries.  Alone, preferably.  In the corner.

Being visible, however, is an important distinction, and one that is, I believe, a prominent aspect in the church of the 21st century (as we continue to figure out what that is shaping up to be).  The candlelights on the corner of Rockton and Riverside invited me in – ironically, from the warmth of my car out into the biting cold – and encouraged me to take part in this visible spiritual discipline, amidst the rumble of car engines and the sounds of honking.

It was a glimpse into a church that welcomes people as much as it challenges them.  As far as I’m concerned, the most sincere welcome in the world – from inside a closed building – will usually fall short of a visible practice, however challenging, from a place without any actual barriers.

In a sense, the people outside United Lutheran Church were exposing their vulnerability for the sake of a God who does the same for a world she so desperately and wildly loves.  They were being visible.  And I wanted to join.

Christianity: It’s Not For Everyone

Come and see.

Come and see.

So said Jesus to two disciples of John the baptizer, who were curious where he was going (John 1:39).  Later, a guy named Philip says the same thing to his hesitant friend Nathaniel, who was wondering aloud (i.e. he blurts out, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth??!?”) what on God’s green earth Jesus’ movement was about.  I say movement, not ministry, because I’m struck by the fact that Jesus began a powerful, intriguing, and downright unbelievable momentum that captured people who, naturally, got caught up in it.  They couldn’t help themselves.  Come and see.

In the words of Shane Claiborne, they were encountering a Christianity (or, in the words of the first Jesus-followers, The Way) that was gaining traction by fascination instead of force.

And as fascinating as it was, Jesus reminded the people gathered around that this movement wasn’t for everyone.  It might be a difficult thing to hear in a time of a nice, pious, sentimental Christianity that we often see on display across our country.  (Or, as a gentle reminder to us from a church leader in the Holy Land, as told to Shane Claiborne, “Americans didn’t invent Christianity; they just domesticated it.”)

It might be hard to hear in a culture of “getting my kid done (i.e. baptized)” for the sake of easing grandparents’ minds…
It might be hard to hear in a culture of membership in churches being secured by participating in both Holy Communion and offering gifts to God a whopping one time/year…
It might be hard to hear in a culture of Sunday mornings being a time to hear a divine 5-step program to being happy instead of a literal life-altering gospel of new life in the midst of business-as-usual…

Yet, here is Jesus, inviting absolutely everyone to follow him, while at the same time reminding them that it wasn’t going to be easy – reminding them that his movement, paradoxically, wasn’t for everyone.

There’s a fantastic gin that’s distilled and bottled by the company Hendrick’s in Scotland.  Their tagline is most unusual among for-profit entities: “It is not for everyone.”

I’m no marketing major, but I’d imagine this is a rather ingenious strategy – in a way, it’s provoking people to size themselves up for the challenge of being a person who can handle Hendrick’s “most unusual” (their words) gin.

I’m not meaning to compare gin to Jesus (although that would’ve been a great title to this post), but I do think his movement is “most unusual,” and it is “not for everyone.”

It’s most unusual in that it calls for a radical shift in how we understand our us-versus-them foreign policy, since we actively pray to a God of ALL nations, not just America and its allies.

It’s not for everyone in that it asks for radical discipleship, in the words of German Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  To follow Jesus isn’t like joining a club that gets together and has communion every once in a while.

So, what do we do with this enigmatic journey called Christianity?  I think we come back to Jesus’ words: Come and see.  Do we have the courage to go?