Category Archives: Christian Life

Sermon: Community of Sinners, Romans 3:9-20

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Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God and without hope for your salvation except in His sovereign mercy?

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:9-20 ESV)
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Faith and Learning

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Faith and Learning

2010 Bethel University Convocation Address

Introduction

It is an honor to speak to you this morning. It is especially an honor to be speaking at a University that maintains a vital connection to the Church. In 2008 I received a gold medal and congratulatory letter from the University of Glasgow announcing that I had won the Cleland and Rae Wilson Prize that year. I searched for information on the award to discover that it originated in 1846 ‘to be awarded in alternate years to a student of Divinity and a student of Physics’. I found this to be a fascinating combination. Would we find a benefactor today who would want to equally endow both of those subjects? Contemporary American society assumes a hostility between faith and scholarship. The relationship between science and theology was described by one famous book as one of warfare. The disengagement of the our institutions of higher learning from their founding Churches has been documented by James Tunstead Burtchaell in his Dying of the Light, and by George Marsden in his Soul of the American University as well as others. The regression can be seen in the fact that in 1881 80% of American colleges were religious or private institution; in 2001 the numbers were reversed, only 20% were connected to a religious tradition. This separation has been to the detriment of both the Church and the academy, and so I would like to invite you to reflect on the necessity of intellectual development and reason to the Christian faith and how, in light of this, we might see education as a Christian vocation.

A Rational Faithlibrary-488690_1280

Christianity is a rational faith. It is no accident that so many of our universities had their origins in our churches. Christianity is a revealed religion, and it is revealed through writing. To believe that God has shown us what we are to believe and how we are to live through literature demands that our cognitive faculties are used to receive the revelation. There is a vocabulary to learn, syntax to understand, and nuances of idioms to discern. Not only does the means of revelation demand the use of our reason, nearly every essential doctrine that is revealed supports an understanding of a God that is approached through rational means: the method of Creation is said to be by speech; the Incarnation is described by St. John as the taking on of flesh by the Logos (a rich word translated as word, but also conveying reason and purpose – the root of our word ‘logic’); and our understanding of Mission is that it is by rational persuasion, never by coercion or force, and for the purpose of making disciples or students. This is not to say that we somehow obtain God through the mere use of our unaided reason, but it is to say that Faith comprises a rational assent to a specific, definable content.
For the most part this understanding has been evident in the life of the Church. Upon his conversion, the Second Century Church Father Justin Martyr continued to the wear his philosopher’s robe as a sign that he had discovered the “true philosophy”. During the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, classical Greek and Roman literature was preserved in the libraries of Christian monasteries, which is to say learning itself, not exclusively religious learning was valued within these communities. The Middle Ages saw the development of our Universities, which grew out of educational institutions of the Church. The rise of Classical Humanism and the Renaissance went hand in hand with the Protestant Reformation. The cry ad fontes was the motto for both movements – the font being the writings of Aristotle or Seneca for one, and the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Scriptures for other. With the Reformation came new academies, plans for public education, and a rise in literacy. The near universal literacy in the West today owes much to a belief in the doctrine of the authority of the Bible. If the scriptures are authoritative, then everyone should have access to them by being taught to read and having the Bible translated into the languages of the people. While popular portrayals often give a simplistic view of the Church repressing scientific discovery, the belief in an ordered universe created by a rational God, and the attempt to ‘think God’s thoughts after him’ gave a foundation for modern science. Isaac Newton for example was as much of scriptural scholar as scientist, the man who formulated the theory of gravity wrote, ‘Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done’. As Church Historian Jaroslav Pelikan has said the Church, while always more than a school, is never less than a school.
But now we find ourselves in time that assumes a necessary division separating faith and reason, science and religion, sacred and secular. This assumption has been evidenced in sermons I have heard warning high-school graduates of the dangers of university professors. On the other hand I have seen the genuine surprise shown by one of my friend’s colleagues upon being introduced to him. My friend is a botanist, the surprise was that a scientist could be such close friends with a member of the clergy. We have gotten to this place of sequestering faith apart the rest of our life by intellectual laziness. In the face of challenges raised by the enlightenment and modernity, the Church has too often retreated from the difficult task of offering a well thought out answer. Instead, many have responded by casting faith as a private experience. It is evident in phrases such as ‘I know Christianity is true because I can just feel it’, ‘I believe the Bible because I tried it and worked for me’, ‘I don’t try to argue with someone about faith I just say look at the difference in my life’ or in the words of one of our Easter hymns, ‘you ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart’. Or even worse, faith for some is no longer an intellectual assent to rational propositions but a blind leap in spite of evidence to the contrary. ‘Don’t think, just believe’. Compare these common statements with the the defense of the faith offered by St. Paul who regularly debated others appealing to eye-witness testimony and the public account of Christ’s life.
This privatizing of faith is a working defense because personal experience is out of the range of attack – no one is a greater authority on your experience than yourself.But precisely because your inner experience is beyond contact with others it demands that faith becomes segregated from the rest of our life. It becomes what we do on Sundays with little connection with the other activities or other people. Only in living this way can we come to expect politicians to make the ridiculous claim that they are deeply religious, but their religion is private and will not affect their decisions. And I fear that for many, you will learn how to think one way in your profession that is completely separate from how you think in Church. ‘Faith’ will remain within the realm of private, inner experience.

Education as Christian Vocation

microscope-275984_1280Clifford Stoll, an astronomer, formerly at Berkeley, tells the story of trying to escape the mayhem of student riot in the ‘60s as an undergraduate at the University of Buffalo. He ducked into Hayes Hall and climbed the bell tower, as the police and students clashed on the campus below he read these words inscribed on the bell: ‘All truth is one in this light: may science and religion endeavor here for the steady evolution of mankind from darkness to light, from narrowness to broadmindedness, from prejudice to tolerance. It is the voice of life which calls us to come and learn’.
I encourage you to heed that invitation from the voice of life. Seek to ‘Love the Lord your God with all of your mind’. If you understand that pursuing education is a way to glorify God it will transform what you are doing here. We have made the mistake of telling young people to go to school to get a degree so that you can get a better job and buy more toys. How utterly selfish. If your time here is merely to get a piece of paper that will help you get a better job then most of it will be wasted. But if you see it as answering a call ‘to move from darkness to light’ you will ask more than ‘Is this going to be on the final exam?’. If you see understand how your lecture attendance, hours of research, and struggles with precisely how to state a concept can help you progress ‘from narrowness to broadmindedness’ then there is certainly more motivation to persevere in the hard work than if you are driven by what might lookgood on a resume. Would you rather return home for winter break and tell your family and former teachers that you are trying to get a piece of paper to increase your earning potential, or that you are developing every aspect of your being in pursuit of a divine calling to lead people ‘from prejudice to tolerance’?
Seeing education as a spiritual calling is for each one of you. Some of you might ask how can the study of computer systems or sociology or music glorify God or be Christian. One of the symptoms of the way the Church has been disengaged from the ‘secular’ is that we think for something to be Christian means it has to be stamped with a fish symbol like HIS CPA, a ‘Christian CPA Firm’ of Duluth, Georgia which promises to bring ‘Christian Values to Accounting and Tax Preparation in Metro Atlanta’. (I think your deduction would be the same regardless of the preparer’s faith.) We think, a ‘Christian’ writer is one whose books talk about God a lot and are sold in Lifeway instead of Barnes and Noble. Christian music becomes separated with distinct labels, stations and bands that sound sort of like top 40 bands but singing ‘Oh Jesus’ instead of ‘Oh Baby’. The result being that, to quote Hank Hill, it ‘doesn’t make Christianity better it only makes Rock and Roll worse’. But all truth is one, therefore, every field of learning finds its place within a scriptural worldview. We are given the Revelation within various genres of literature, narrating a redemption that takes place in history: among particular people, in specific nations, within a defined location. The Revelation points us to creation itself as ‘declaring the glory of God’ and claims that humanity was created and placed in the garden with the charge to cultivate it. Therefore no branch of learning is alien to God: we serve him by pursuing the study of language, history, geography, political science, botany, or astrophysics. To write well and honestly is glorifying the God who gave us language whether the work is published in the McKenzie Banner or in Christianity Today. To pursue genetic research with the best tools available points us to the one and same Source of truth sought by the Biblical scholar working with textual criticism.Whatever develops culture; whatever is good, true, or beautiful is of God and is life enhancing and God exalting.

Continue your Spiritual Development

rp_tumblr_m0sztnqd0y1rrdedwo1_500.jpgGrowing up in a small Church I wasn’t in a group with a paid youth minister. An older member, Lenford Nabors, served as the youth teacher. He was in his seventies, a retired combustion engineer. We learned complicated math concepts as much as Bible stories. (I remember conformal mapping being a particularly favorite topic of his.) Lenford modeled as well as anyone an well-integrated mind. One of the best pieces of advice he ever gave us was to continue to develop our spiritual understanding. He explained that as we continued in our education, the difficulty would come not in encountering new ideas. The difficulty would be if we encountered new ideas without having continued to grow in our spiritual understanding and maturity. In other words, an understanding of the faith that hasn’t developed since 8th Grade Sunday School will appear childish compared to the sort of material covered in a college philosophy course. Questions raised by graduate level chemistry studies will probably not find adequate answers in Bible studies that have not gone deeper than Veggie Tales. But if you continue to study and mature spiritually your faith is strong enough to be engaged with a deeper understanding of the world. So continue your spiritual maturity. Take advantage of the resources and opportunities available here at a University committed the growth the whole person to develop a robust faith. Continue to grow in your understanding of God so that you are not tempted to separate how you think in Church from how you think in the office, or lab, or studio. Both the Church and our society desperately need Christians whose intellectual life is so integrated that they can enter into business, art and science completely engaged and completely faithful.

William Gurnall on “Spiritual Pride”

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I’m working my way through William Gurnall’s,  “The Christian in Complete Armour“.  While I’m not a new to Puritan writings, I haven’t read extensively either, so I continue to be surprised at how unlike the stereotype puritans the real men actually were.  The self-righteous, quick to condemn killjoys of popular thought simply hasn’t emerged from the pages of Richard Baxter, John Owen, Thomas Watson, or William Gurnall.  In fact quite the opposite.
Take for example the following passage on spiritual pride from The Christian in Complete Armour:

O how uncheerfully, yea, joylessly do many precious souls pass their days!  If you inquire what is the cause, you shall find [that] all their joy runs out at the crannies of their imperfect duties and weak graces.  They cannot pray as they would, and walk as they desire, with evenness and constancy;  they see how short they fall of the holy rule in the Word, and the pattern which others more eminent in grace do set before them; and this, though it does not make them throw the promises away, and quite renounce all hope in Christ, yet it begets many sad fears and suspicions, yea, makes them sit at the feast of Christ hath provided, and not know whether they may eat or not.  In a word, as it robs them of their joy, so [it robs] Christ of that glory which he should receive from their rejoicing in him.

In other words, it is sinful spiritual pride to base your joy on your own performance.  Here is a masterful surgeon of the soul at work.  It might appear very humble and devout to mourn failings in your piety, and Gurnall acknowledges that we should “mourn for those defects thou findest in thy grace and duties”, but to do so without also rejoicing in the Christ who redeemed you in spite of your failures is to look to your own righteousness instead of his.  To focus on our failures in this way is to believe that our personal holiness, rather than Christ, is the source of our joy.

O, if thou couldst pray without wandering, walk without limping, believe without wavering, then thou couldst rejoice and walk cheerfully.  It seems, soul, thou stayest to bring the ground of thy comfort with thee, and not to receive it purely from Christ.

If our chief end is “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever”, we fail to do so by seeking our joy in ourselves, even our desired righteous and holy selves, instead of Christ.  We rob Christ of glory when our hope is in our perfection instead of his.
In thinking about the spirituality characteristic of many churches I have realized many are based on a cycle of guilt and redoubled effort.  Too often I hear comments from people that reveal that their spiritual feelings are based on messages or experiences that stir emotions of guilt, most often expressed as “stepping on toes”.  Too often I’ve been in worship services where I feel like my will had been absolutely battered and bruised.  And all too often the solution is not “rest in Christ”, “trust in His work”, “look at the cross”, but “try harder”, “recommit”, “decide today”.  The so called gospel I hear from many pulpits is: Jesus loves you, you’ve failed, return to the Law with stronger effort.
Brother, Sister – If you feel inadequate as a disciple, that you could be a more committed and devoted follower of Christ, you’re right  – we all could.  Repent, and as Gurnall says, “Christian, even while the tears are in thy eyes for they imperfect graces … thou should rejoice, yea, triumph over all these thy defects by faith in Christ, in whom thou art complete…”

Life is short.

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All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field...The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:6-8 ESV)

All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field…The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:6, 8 ESV)

I recently heard about Ashley Madison, a twenty-one million member strong website that charges husbands and wives who want to break their marriage vows to meet others who also want to commit adultery. The site apparently gets a lot of publicity for not being allowed to pay for publicity. What especially caught my attention was the companies slogan, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

We have a premise about the brevity of human life followed by the conclusion.

Premise 1: Life is short

Conclusion: Therefore it is reasonable to pay someone to help me break my vow of faithfulness, deeply hurt someone I claim to love, and risk breaking up my family for the chance of a few moments of pleasure using someone who is also untrustworthy.

If you are familiar with logical syllogisms you’ll notice something is missing. We are expected to fill in the the second premise.

Ashley Madison, and their twenty-one million members, assumes that between “Life is short.” and “Have an affair.” there is another thesis along the lines of “There is no accountability afterwards.”

Everything changes if you disagree with the unstated second premise. If you believe that there is a God who made this world and everything in it and therefore rightly has established a moral law to which each soul will be held accountable, reflecting on the brevity of life will lead to a different conclusion. When I think of how short life is I don’t think how I need to betray those I love the most or how I need to make seeking pleasure and entertainment my overruling priority. I think how much I need to pour what’s left of my years into serving those I love and I regret how much time I have wasted seeking trivia that promised pleasure. I regret my sins.

Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”  Which means if life is short, then I am facing judgement soon. The last thing I would want to do is rack up as many offenses as possible before meeting the judge.

Life is short, but meditating on the brevity of life should lead to wisdom and deeper trust in God, not to folly and sin.

 “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:10-12 ESV)

 

What’s Your Excuse?

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There’s a story that a man was once asked by his neighbor to borrow his ax. The man responded that he couldn’t loan him the ax because he was about to have soup for supper. The stunned neighbor thought for a moment and asked what eating soup for supper could possibly have to do with borrowing his ax.  The reply was, “When you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another.”  How true.

Baseball

Most of us are quite skilled at coming up with excuses, I can’t count the times I’ve not started watching what I eat because I wanted a fresh start Monday morning.  Any deviation in the weather can be an excuse to not exercise.  We can come up with all sorts of excuses to not do things we know will draw us closer to God, the ordinary means of God’s grace: scripture reading, attending public worship, and prayer.  In A Heart Like His, Mike and Amy Nappa give a list of excuses we use for not going to worship, but “church” was replaced with “ballgame”.  For example:

  1. Whenever I go to a game, they ask for money.
  2. The other fans don’t care about me.
  3. The seats are too hard.
  4. The referee makes calls I don’t agree with.
  5. Some of the games go into overtime and make me late for dinner.
  6. The band plays songs I don’t know.
  7. I can be just as good a fan at the lake.
  8. I won’t take my kids to a game either. They must choose for themselves which teams to follow.

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? The truth is that if something is important enough to us we make time and we make an effort. If it isn’t we make excuses.

The Road to Emmaus

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That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:13-35 ESV)

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The narrative of Jesus meeting the disciples on the road to serves as a wonderful image of the church in microcosm.  Yesterday evening I taught on the passage and wanted to share in brief some of the connections I see Luke pointing to in the event.

  1. ‘That very day’ – that is the Lord’s Day, the day Jesus had risen.  The Church gathers on the day of resurrection to meet the risen Lord.
  2. ‘two of them’ – “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20)
  3. ‘were going to a village name Emmaus‘ – that is to a small village not mentioned before.  True worship  is no longer in Jerusalem, but ‘in Spirit and in truth’ and everywhere.  The Church is not marked by a specific location, but gathers in Jerusalem, Emmaus, Glasgow, New York, secret house meetings in China and in Allsboro.
  4. They were ‘on the Road’ – Road (Greek: ὁδός) also means “way” the term used for followers of Christ in Acts which was also written by Luke. See for example Acts 9:2; Acts 19:9 and Acts 22:4.
  5. The disciples were Cleopas and an unamed disciple – that is, it was not Peter, James or John or even another of the Apostles.  It was ordinary followers that the Risen Lord met with, Cleopas and someone not named who could have been any other of the 500 regular men and women who saw Jesus before his ascension.  The implication Luke has is that it could easily have been any of his readers.
  6. ‘Jesus himself drew near’ – the Trimphant Christ meets his disciples on the Way on the Lord’s day.  This what happens every Sunday.  In many villages, cities and towns around the world as we gather he draws nears.  Moreover, they didn’t recognize him.  First, Jesus is truly present regardless of what they understand or feel.  Had Jesus never revealed himself he still would have been there, it his presence not our experience that makes it real.  Second, consider how often we gather to meet the Risen Lord without recognizing his presence.
  7. Worship is defined by and the Church is recognized in Word and Sacrament – “he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures” and ” he was known to them in the breaking of the bread”
  8. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” – All scripture”Moses and the Prophets” point to Jesus.  Jesus uses scripture as a means of revelation, and it is Jesus who is the true Teacher through his Spirit.
  9. “When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.” – The four verbs took, blessed, broke, and gave are the words used to describe the actions of the Lord’s Supper. See Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:23 and Luke 22:19 (blessing and giving thanks are almost synonymous in mealtime prayers which is why we alternatively ask someone “Say the Blessing” or to “Give Thanks” before eating)
  10. Then they told what had happened on the road – From being nourished by the Lord in Word and Sacrament they leave to tell about the what had happened and how he was made known to them.  They go on a mission of bearing witness to what had happened.

This passage from Luke reminds us of who we are and the ordinary means God has given through which we disciples on the Way, wherever we are, experience the true presence of the Risen Lord.  He draws near to us through Word and Sacrament in the community of Faith every Lord’s Day.

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day
is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and
awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in
Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake
of your love. Amen. (A Collect for the Presence of Christ from The Book of Common Prayer)