It has been an eventful few days in here in Pacific Northwest Christian-land.
First, an activist group identifying itself as “The Angry Queers” vandalized the Portland campus of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church, breaking windows and damaging church property.
And, Dan Savage, the visionary behind the anti-bullying “It Gets Better” campaign, delivered a speech in Seattle to high school students in which he said that the Bible contains “bullshit.” This prompted a handful of Christian students to walk out, which Savage then described as a “pansy-assed move.”
Seriously, WTF, people?
I’ll first dispense with the massive irony that a gay-rights advocate is using the term “pansy” as an insult. Dan Savage apologized for it yesterday, but he simply said it was wrong, which to me is wholly inadequate. There’s a reason why calling someone a pansy is wrong, and that reason is because “pansy” is a derogatory slur for a gay man.
This is a grown man whose magnum opus is a campaign against the bullying of gay and lesbian youths, and the first thing he reaches for when describing the youths who walked out on his speech IS A GAY SLUR. And then he doesn’t even acknowledge that in his apology.
I won’t say that Savage’s words are unforgivable, but they are shocking, and his apology feels a bit disingenuous.
That having been said…I’m still trying to figure out this entirely false dichotomy of either the Bible is “bullshit” or I have to be anti-gay as a Christian, because I still believe in the Bible as the Word of God.
And it isn’t that I deny that Levitical law addresses same-sex relations between two men. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are in Scripture. It's that I much prefer to actually tackle those verses head-on than simply pretend like they aren’t there. There’s responsible exegesis involved in understanding why those verses are phrased the way they are (to say nothing of Paul’s own writings on the topic in Romans 1), and we do ourselves a disservice when we either gloss over them entirely or adopt a “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!” approach. The way we have found around this conundrum, though, I think, is that we each have our own “canon within a canon,” that is, our own favorite verses, stories, passages, and lessons from the Bible (if you think I've sang this song before, it's because I have!).
So, if I agree with one thing in Dan Savage’s apology post, it is that we all do in fact read the Bible selectively. And it’s a valid critique. If we outlaw same-sex marriage, so the critique goes, then we should outlaw the consumption of ostrich, because both same-sex relations and eating ostrich are called abominations in Levitical law, 18:22 and 11:13-16 respectively (yes, we eat ostrich. It is apparently quite tasty). Savage’s critique here centers around Biblical rules regarding slavery and divorce, but still, it is the same basic point.
In other words, we’ve done a pretty good job of making a mountain out of a very small molehill, and in doing so, we commit the sin of the scribes and Pharisees of “neglect(ing) the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” (Matthew 23:23, NRSV)
I am reminded of the recent crackdown that the Vatican announced on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR, the representative organization of American Catholic nuns) for being more concerned with alleviating poverty than with denouncing abortion and gay marriage. Part of this crackdown will involve a five-year effort to reboot the LCWR’s priorities.
Imagine if those five years, the human hours and monetary costs, were used instead on spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and ministering to the poor instead.
Similarly, imagine if the thousands of dollars the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spent on passing Proposition 8 in California instead went to their mission efforts and charitable works.
So hopefully, you can see why I feel like the passion for fighting marriage equality that many Christian churches and organizations exhibit is misplaced.
Which brings us to the vandalism perpetrated against Mars Hill Portland.
Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Mark Driscoll. But vandalizing his church is just as much a form of bullying as anything else he has done towards women or gays and lesbians. Protest him, publicly criticize him, hope that people stop listening to him, whatever. But taking retribution to this level more than just crosses the line, it pole vaults over it.
No matter how hurt the Angry Queers feel by Mark Driscoll, there’s a saying about turning the other cheek that comes to mind. That hurt is just as misplaced as the passion for fighting marriage equality is that I talked about just a few paragraphs above. Both are painful.
In a season two episode of the television series The West Wing, President Josiah Bartlet (played by the venerable Martin Sheen) takes an environmentalist group to task for not condemning instances of eco-terrorism, saying that friends are honest with each other, and that moderates should take responsibility for criticizing extremism. In that vein, these two instances are not representative the greater equality community, and they should not in any way be taken as such.
So…this is me trying as humbly as possible to be honest, as an ally and as a Christian, to the same-sex equality community (GLBTQ folks and allies alike): please, remember your humanity. And remember the humanity of the people on the other side.
Because such words and actions do not alienate simply your opponents (or outright endanger them)—they also alienate people like me, someone who feels called to love and welcome gays and lesbians precisely because I am a Christian, not despite me being a Christian.
Name-calling is not the answer.
Violence is not the answer.
Indeed, fighting fire with more fire seldom is the answer. There is a reason why we fight fire with water instead.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
This Week's Sermon: "Shibboleth"
John 11:17-27
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was a little less than two miles from Jerusalem. 19 Many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary after their brother’s death. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary remained in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She replied, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.” (CEB)
“The Lazarus Mission: In Search of the Meaning of a Miracle,” Week Three
The pair of New York playwrights could not have been more out of place sitting the counter of the Waffle House that sat on the Georgia-Alabama border. In the Deep South to perform research for a play they were writing, Erik and Jessica were drawn to the southern chain by its inexpensive coffee and abundant carbohydrates—both of which are major food groups for me as well. In their book, entitled Living Justice, they wrote about the first time they stepped into a Waffle House, having just arrived from New York City, and are approached by a waitress:
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Nope,” Erik says, “Can’t say that we are.”
“We figured you were from somewhere else…what’s that tattoo mean?”
Jessica replies, “It’s a tree of life. A religious symbol, you know?”
“Well…that’s…different.”
Then Erik jumps in, “That a John Deere out back?”
“You bet your (behind), son.”
“My grandfather was a farmer, you know; taught me how to fix one of those with a ball-peen hammer and a can of WD-40.”
And the waitress, no longer disturbed, but flirting, says, “Oh, really? Buy you a coffee?”
It is as though Erik had said the magic words that unlocked a stranger and turned them into an acquaintance—the password that brings down a person’s guard, and allows you in--which is what exactly happens in the Scripture passage here today.
This Sunday marks the third installment of this sermon series for us that we have been exploring as a celebration of the church season of Easter, as well during as of the earthly season of spring—which means that for both Christians and non-Christians alike, this is a time of growth and renewal and, most importantly, of new life! Having just heard the most famous resurrection story the Bible has to offer on Easter Sunday, we will be spending four weeks going verse-by-verse through the second-most famous resurrection story—the story of the raising of Jesus’s friend Lazarus, a story that is only found in the Gospel of John. It is not the only resurrection miracle that Jesus performs—there is also, in the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the story of Jairus’s daughter being resurrected by Jesus. But the raising of Lazarus is told in such rich and lavish detail that it has come to occupy a unique place in our collective memory as an exceptionally well-known and well-loved story. The first week, to kick off the story, we began with Jesus first hearing that Lazarus has fallen ill—not that Lazarus has died—but that he is sick. Last week, Jesus pronounces Lazarus dead and finally acts—to return to Judea to raise Lazarus, and this week, He arrives and we see the drama begin to unfold.
And in the midst of this drama, we are given one of the most famous Jesus quotes of all, one that probably ranks right up there with turn the other cheek, do unto others, and love thy neighbor—“I am the Resurrection and the Life, he who believes in me, though he were dead, shall live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” And we do this Jesus quote a profound disservice when we forget that it was never meant to stand on its own—it is Jesus’ reply to Martha’s incorrect statement that she would be reunited with Lazarus at the end of time—Jesus says, “Your brother will rise,” and Martha says, “I know. He will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Now that may sound hopeful to the untrained ear, but it really isn’t—Martha is saying she has no hope of seeing her brother again until the very end of time.
So while we may treat Jesus’ pronouncement here as a standalone sort of statement, it doesn’t quite work like that. Try hearing Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in a total vacuum, devoid of the racism and injustice that he was protesting. Imagine listening to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address without actually knowing about the American Civil War. For a more contemporary example...try watching the television show Family Guy without having ever seen the show it blatantly rips off of, The Simpsons! We cannot afford to do the same to Jesus’ teachings, and so we cannot afford to forget that Jesus is consoling a woman who, for completely understandable reasons, has lost her faith.
Because we have all probably been there at some point in our lives, right? Where our faith was weakened, broken, even shattered completely and had to be carefully and lovingly rebuilt bit by bit, piece by piece. But we are not so lucky as Mary and Martha are in this story, to have their faith in God, and their faith in Christ, restored in one fell swoop with the raising of Lazarus—for a lot of us, it takes time. And Martha thinks it will take time for her as well—enough time to fill eternity until she sees her brother again. And because of that, I think that for the two of them, the reality is that without these two verses, without this simple, fundamental truth, that their faith could not exist as it did. This is the new building block, the new keystone upon which these two women's faiths are being built, that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.
The choice of words is not coincidental, for Martha’s new affirmation of faith, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God,” is almost word for word what the new rock, the foundation of our church, the disciple Peter, says to Jesus in Matthew 16—“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The difference of the word “living,” or of the addition of "who is coming into the world" may seem inconsequential to us in passing, but to me, it actually means a great deal to who Peter was, and who Martha was, as a believer.
We each see and perceive and interpret the world a little bit differently than the person next to us. We each have our own vocabulary and our own dialect, our own ways of expressing ourselves, and that is as true then as it is now—in the book of Judges, there is the story of a rebel faction of Ephraimites, members of one of the tribes, trying to cross over the Jordan into Gilead during the war, and Israel’s judge at the time, Jephthah, he defends Gilead by asking the rogue Ephraimites to say the word, “Shibboleth,” and as the Scripture said, the Ephraimite would say, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly. It distinguished true Israelites from the rebels. And the slight change in wording from Matthew to John distinguishes Martha’s faith from Peter’s.
Each of you has your own shibboleth—your own pronouncement of faith that will always likely vary just a little bit from the person sitting next to you. Cast about your own mind, think about what Scripture verse you have built the entirety of your faith upon. I know for many of you, that verse is John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. For still others of you, it may be Romans 10:9, all who confess with their lips that Jesus Christ is Lord shall be saved, or perhaps Deuteronomy 6:5, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Just as Martha and Peter word their shibboleths differently, so too do each of you have those slight differences that make your faith--that make it unique, like your own spiritual fingerprint. And so, I imagine for some of you out there, it may well be here, that whoever lives and believes in Jesus shall never die. And when you hear the faith of another believer proclaimed, and know in your soul that without that faith, that fundamental truth that belief in Jesus means you shall live, that you could not be a Christian, without that piece of knowledge you could not live out your religion, it reminds you that sometimes, you too are as Martha with only that piece of faith to cling to in a sea of death and loss and grief and despair.
Jesus has found Martha’s own Shibboleth, and after beginning this story in a state of hurt and anger towards her Messiah, she is now prepared to let him in to heal her family once and for all. What an amazing reversal for her! May that be the place we find ourselves, the place we allow Jesus to find us, having just placed our trust and faith in Him to make our wounded selves whole.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
April 29, 2012
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was a little less than two miles from Jerusalem. 19 Many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary after their brother’s death. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary remained in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She replied, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.” (CEB)
“The Lazarus Mission: In Search of the Meaning of a Miracle,” Week Three
The pair of New York playwrights could not have been more out of place sitting the counter of the Waffle House that sat on the Georgia-Alabama border. In the Deep South to perform research for a play they were writing, Erik and Jessica were drawn to the southern chain by its inexpensive coffee and abundant carbohydrates—both of which are major food groups for me as well. In their book, entitled Living Justice, they wrote about the first time they stepped into a Waffle House, having just arrived from New York City, and are approached by a waitress:
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Nope,” Erik says, “Can’t say that we are.”
“We figured you were from somewhere else…what’s that tattoo mean?”
Jessica replies, “It’s a tree of life. A religious symbol, you know?”
“Well…that’s…different.”
Then Erik jumps in, “That a John Deere out back?”
“You bet your (behind), son.”
“My grandfather was a farmer, you know; taught me how to fix one of those with a ball-peen hammer and a can of WD-40.”
And the waitress, no longer disturbed, but flirting, says, “Oh, really? Buy you a coffee?”
It is as though Erik had said the magic words that unlocked a stranger and turned them into an acquaintance—the password that brings down a person’s guard, and allows you in--which is what exactly happens in the Scripture passage here today.
This Sunday marks the third installment of this sermon series for us that we have been exploring as a celebration of the church season of Easter, as well during as of the earthly season of spring—which means that for both Christians and non-Christians alike, this is a time of growth and renewal and, most importantly, of new life! Having just heard the most famous resurrection story the Bible has to offer on Easter Sunday, we will be spending four weeks going verse-by-verse through the second-most famous resurrection story—the story of the raising of Jesus’s friend Lazarus, a story that is only found in the Gospel of John. It is not the only resurrection miracle that Jesus performs—there is also, in the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the story of Jairus’s daughter being resurrected by Jesus. But the raising of Lazarus is told in such rich and lavish detail that it has come to occupy a unique place in our collective memory as an exceptionally well-known and well-loved story. The first week, to kick off the story, we began with Jesus first hearing that Lazarus has fallen ill—not that Lazarus has died—but that he is sick. Last week, Jesus pronounces Lazarus dead and finally acts—to return to Judea to raise Lazarus, and this week, He arrives and we see the drama begin to unfold.
And in the midst of this drama, we are given one of the most famous Jesus quotes of all, one that probably ranks right up there with turn the other cheek, do unto others, and love thy neighbor—“I am the Resurrection and the Life, he who believes in me, though he were dead, shall live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” And we do this Jesus quote a profound disservice when we forget that it was never meant to stand on its own—it is Jesus’ reply to Martha’s incorrect statement that she would be reunited with Lazarus at the end of time—Jesus says, “Your brother will rise,” and Martha says, “I know. He will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Now that may sound hopeful to the untrained ear, but it really isn’t—Martha is saying she has no hope of seeing her brother again until the very end of time.
So while we may treat Jesus’ pronouncement here as a standalone sort of statement, it doesn’t quite work like that. Try hearing Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in a total vacuum, devoid of the racism and injustice that he was protesting. Imagine listening to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address without actually knowing about the American Civil War. For a more contemporary example...try watching the television show Family Guy without having ever seen the show it blatantly rips off of, The Simpsons! We cannot afford to do the same to Jesus’ teachings, and so we cannot afford to forget that Jesus is consoling a woman who, for completely understandable reasons, has lost her faith.
Because we have all probably been there at some point in our lives, right? Where our faith was weakened, broken, even shattered completely and had to be carefully and lovingly rebuilt bit by bit, piece by piece. But we are not so lucky as Mary and Martha are in this story, to have their faith in God, and their faith in Christ, restored in one fell swoop with the raising of Lazarus—for a lot of us, it takes time. And Martha thinks it will take time for her as well—enough time to fill eternity until she sees her brother again. And because of that, I think that for the two of them, the reality is that without these two verses, without this simple, fundamental truth, that their faith could not exist as it did. This is the new building block, the new keystone upon which these two women's faiths are being built, that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.
The choice of words is not coincidental, for Martha’s new affirmation of faith, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God,” is almost word for word what the new rock, the foundation of our church, the disciple Peter, says to Jesus in Matthew 16—“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The difference of the word “living,” or of the addition of "who is coming into the world" may seem inconsequential to us in passing, but to me, it actually means a great deal to who Peter was, and who Martha was, as a believer.
We each see and perceive and interpret the world a little bit differently than the person next to us. We each have our own vocabulary and our own dialect, our own ways of expressing ourselves, and that is as true then as it is now—in the book of Judges, there is the story of a rebel faction of Ephraimites, members of one of the tribes, trying to cross over the Jordan into Gilead during the war, and Israel’s judge at the time, Jephthah, he defends Gilead by asking the rogue Ephraimites to say the word, “Shibboleth,” and as the Scripture said, the Ephraimite would say, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly. It distinguished true Israelites from the rebels. And the slight change in wording from Matthew to John distinguishes Martha’s faith from Peter’s.
Each of you has your own shibboleth—your own pronouncement of faith that will always likely vary just a little bit from the person sitting next to you. Cast about your own mind, think about what Scripture verse you have built the entirety of your faith upon. I know for many of you, that verse is John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. For still others of you, it may be Romans 10:9, all who confess with their lips that Jesus Christ is Lord shall be saved, or perhaps Deuteronomy 6:5, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Just as Martha and Peter word their shibboleths differently, so too do each of you have those slight differences that make your faith--that make it unique, like your own spiritual fingerprint. And so, I imagine for some of you out there, it may well be here, that whoever lives and believes in Jesus shall never die. And when you hear the faith of another believer proclaimed, and know in your soul that without that faith, that fundamental truth that belief in Jesus means you shall live, that you could not be a Christian, without that piece of knowledge you could not live out your religion, it reminds you that sometimes, you too are as Martha with only that piece of faith to cling to in a sea of death and loss and grief and despair.
Jesus has found Martha’s own Shibboleth, and after beginning this story in a state of hurt and anger towards her Messiah, she is now prepared to let him in to heal her family once and for all. What an amazing reversal for her! May that be the place we find ourselves, the place we allow Jesus to find us, having just placed our trust and faith in Him to make our wounded selves whole.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
April 29, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Behold the Man
On Easter Sunday, I borrowed from him heavily in my message that Easter was not really just about life conquering death, or love conquering hate, but of reconciliation and right relationship conquering estrangement and revenge. That message was as much for the benefit of my own ears as for the benefit of my audience’s—I still, even sixteen years after being baptized, struggle to comprehend the reality that I cannot work my way into salvation, and that it is only by reconciling myself with God that I can find peace.
Because (and especially now, as a pastor), I worry that my relationship with God was and is oftentimes like one with a demanding, love-withholding parent—if I only raise another X amount of dollars or aid for the Emergency Support Shelter, or for Kessler Elementary School, God will finally approve of me. If only I bring another household to Christ and into the church, God will love me more.
Taken to its logical extreme, this mentality is one of the most powerful drawbacks to my own theology that good works are an essential ingredient to creating right relationship with God. It can cause me to doubt the saving power of God’s grace, and of my own capacity to seek the reconciliation with God that I long for. I rely on pastors like Bonhoeffer to talk me down from that extreme.
My daily devotional book since midway through my time in seminary has been I Want to Live These Days With You, a book which separates some of Bonhoeffer’s writings into 365 short reflections. Reading it this morning, the one for today, April 26, is one that I feel needs to be shared:
“Those who look at Jesus Christ in actuality see God and the world in one. From now on, they can no longer see God without seeing the world, nor the world without seeing God. Ecce homo—see what a human being! In him the reconciliation of the world with God took place. The world is conquered not through smashing it but through reconciliation…It is not a general idea of love, but the love of God really lived in Jesus Christ that accomplishes that. This love of God for the world does not withdraw from reality back into noble souls transported away from the world, but rather experiences and suffers the reality of the world in the severest way. The world amuses itself with the body of Jesus Christ, but the martyred One forgives the world this sin. This is how reconciliation takes place. Ecce homo, indeed.”
"Ecce homo" is Latin for “behold the man,” the exclamation of the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate to the crowd in the Gospel of John, just before Pilate passes sentence upon Jesus. It is a simple but profound statement that is fundamental to my own theology because the ironic thing about Pilate is that as much as he tries to deride Jesus—by mockingly referring to him as either man or king—he still ends up speaking the truth about who Jesus is.
Pilate commands us to behold the broken and shattered man about to be killed by a broken and shattered world.
Grace so powerful that it could reconcile us to one another, and to Heaven, after a tragedy such as this could only come from God.
Even if on some level I know this, it is good to be reminded of it.
Yours in Christ, Eric
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Armenia Remembered
I am Armenian-American from my mother’s side of the family—my great-grandparents immigrated here from the Ottoman Empire during the First World War as refugees from the Armenian Holocaust that began in 1915. My grandmother was full-blooded Armenian, and I am proud to be a third-generation American from her.
April 24 marks the 97th anniversary of the arrest and deportation of the Armenians in Istanbul that began the Armenian Holocaust, and it today serves for us as Genocide Remembrance Day (or, “Genocide Memorial Day” in Armenian).
As of this writing, 20 different countries and 42 different American states have officially recognized the Armenian Holocaust as genocide, per the recommendations of most genocide historians and scholars.
The Republic of Turkey—the country established from the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the end of WWI—and the United States of America are not among those 20 countries.
Indeed, figures who have argued that the Armenian Holocaust was genocide have been prosecuted as criminals in Turkey under Article 301 of their penal code.
The US Congress has had resolutions made to recognize the Armenian Holocaust as genocide, and they have never made it to the floor for a full vote.
Yet, chronologically, from the Armenian Holocaust we arrive at the Jewish Holocaust (as well as the many non-Jewish victims), and the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur, and ethnic cleansing in places like Kosovo. We say "Never again," but have never followed through with that resolve.
In past years, I have written poetry or told stories to commemorate this day.
But today, I would simply say that memory is one of the most powerful abilities we have—and one of the most fragile. It can inspire and be warped; it can fuel reconciliation as well as animosity; it can create a person’s identity and erase it.
Not many other things can claim to be that powerful.
Love is one.
But they are also dependent on another. Love must be remembered in order to maintain its power. So...remember your love for one another. Remember the power that it has.
May that love one day finally overrule whatever need we feel to inflict violence upon one another.
In memory of the 1.5 million men, women, and children murdered in the Armenian Holocaust.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
“Do you know what still causes so much pain? It’s not the people we lost, or the land. It’s to know that we could be so hated.” –Charles Aznavour, in the film Ararat
Sunday, April 22, 2012
This Week's Sermon: "Liviu"
John 11:11-16
11 He continued, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping, but I am going in order to wake him up.”
12 The disciples said, “Lord, if he’s sleeping, he will get well.” 13 They thought Jesus meant that Lazarus was in a deep sleep, but Jesus had spoken about Lazarus’ death.
14 Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 For your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there so that you can believe. Let’s go to him.”
16 Then Thomas (the one called Didymus) said to the other disciples, “Let us go too so that we may die with Jesus.” (CEB)
“The Lazarus Mission: In Search of the Meaning of a Miracle,” Week Two
Five years ago, I was spending a beautiful spring morning on the beautiful campus of Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon, and its bells were ringing.
I checked my watch—it was not yet an hour, or even half past.
I hurried onward—I was there to chaperone five of my students at the state high school speech and debate championships, and I wanted to check in on them.
But bells kept ringing.
Re-checking my watch, I realized exactly what time it was—it was the same time in the morning when, just a few days earlier, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho, entered Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus, armed with a .22-caliber Walther pistol and a 9mm Glock 19.
The bells rang out 32 times—one chime for every victim. I finally stopped what I was doing, and recalling what had happened on that morning, of all the news stories I read about it afterwards, the most heart-rendering story in a day absolutely overflowing with them came from a room in Norris Hall where Tech professor Liviu Librescu’s solid mechanics class was convening on the second floor. As Cho made repeated attempts to enter the classroom, Liviu blockaded the door with his 76-year-old body as he beckoned his students to escape through the windows. He was shot five times through the door and died there, but all of his students save one survived. Had this been his life’s greatest work, it would be enough, but this was also a man who had survived the Holocaust and defected to Israel after refusing to swear allegiance to the Communist regime in his native Romania. And it was this tragedy, not another, that killed him. What I came to realize, listening to the memory of the bells, was that sacrifice is not merely inspirational, it is ironic. Because of one simple reality—it did not have to be this way!
This Sunday marks the second installment of a new sermon series for us that we are beginning as a celebration of the church season of Easter, as well as of the earthly season of spring—which means that for both Christians and non-Christians alike, this is a time of growth and renewal and, most importantly, of new life! Having just heard the most famous resurrection story the Bible has to offer on Easter Sunday, we will be spending four weeks going verse-by-verse through the second-most famous resurrection story—the story of the raising of Jesus’s friend Lazarus, a story that is only found in the Gospel of John. It is not the only resurrection miracle that Jesus performs—there is also, in the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the story of Jairus’s daughter being resurrected by Jesus. But the raising of Lazarus is told in such rich and lavish detail that it has come to occupy a unique place in our collective memory as an exceptionally well-known and well-loved story.
Last week, to kick off the story, we began with Jesus first hearing that Lazarus has fallen ill—not that Lazarus has died—but that he is sick. This week, Jesus pronounces Lazarus dead and finally acts—to return to Judea to raise Lazarus—even though doing so would put Him in grave danger, because unlike in the other three Gospels, in John, Jesus’s opponents are onto Him from the beginning. The cleansing of the Temple comes at the very beginning of John's Gospel, in chapter 2, not towards the end like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and for it, the Temple authorities in John hunt Jesus down throughout His entire ministry--and He knows it!
At first glance, the sacrifice involved appeared to be one of Lazarus himself—when we recall last week’s verses, we know, as it does with any senseless death, that it did not have to be this way. Jesus did not have to wait two days to return to Judea, He could have left immediately, heck, He could have healed Lazarus at a distance, which we know he can do because of the story of the centurion’s servant in John 4, where He heals the servant sight unseen. And the pain that Martha and Mary feel isn’t simply the pain of loss, it is the pain of “it didn’t have to be this way,” because as we’ll see next week, they know that Jesus could have acted—Martha will even say to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
But a remarkable thing happens in today’s passage, though—the onus of sacrifice shifts from Lazarus to Jesus, and the “it doesn’t have to be this way” sentiment comes not from Mary and Martha—that will come later—but from the disciples themselves. But, because they are the disciples after all, and thus are none too bright, they don’t quite get it until the very end of this passage—they are instead the comically inept foils to Jesus’ knowing brilliance, until when Thomas steps up and says, “Let us go too so that we may die with Him.”
Of all the candidates to demonstrate this kind of loyalty and courage, Thomas would not be at the top of probably anyone’s list. Simon Peter, maybe, because He is Jesus’ right-hand man. Or James and John—after all, they are nicknamed the Sons of Thunder by Jesus for their own zealousness and intensity. But Thomas? Doubting Thomas? That’s rich. But also poetically amazing and reassuring. See, I think that we have come to expect extraordinary things only from people who we consider to be extraordinary. We expect life-saving expertise from our nurses and doctors, but when an ordinary citizen steps in to save a life, it makes the news. We expect life-saving protection from our cops and firefighters, but when the Liviu Librescus of the world offer their own lives as shields for our own, it is the stuff of memorials and tributes. These stories move us because we have been customized not to expect them. And so too, then, should Thomas’s declaration move us, not simply for what he says, but because it is him saying it.
Because at this very moment, Thomas is each of us. In the Lazarus story, the job of acting as proxy for the audience jumps from character to character—at first, it is arguably Jesus Himself, and next week, it is Mary and Martha, but this week, it is all about Thomas. Because for once, and just a few verses after he and the other disciples painfully demonstrate how unaware they are of Jesus’ true capacity, Thomas gets it. He realizes that it did not have to be this way, it did not have to result in Jesus endangering His own life, and meets that sacrifice with his own willingness to sacrifice himself. He, more than anyone in this story aside from Jesus Himself, has chosen to do what is right, rather than what is easy or convenient.
Because that is what sacrifice ultimately is—it is doing what is right rather than what is easy, it is deviating from the path of least resistance to achieve a far better result than what otherwise could have ever happened. Sometimes those sacrifices are dramatic, and life-taking. Other times, they are nearly invisible to everyone but God. I worry that we have strayed from utilizing the church’s full ability to inspire right action, rather than easy action, because we want church to be easy today. We want being Christian to be easy--get baptized, say a Sinner's Prayer, and it's home free. But it isn’t. It’s work. It's a decision that you make every morning when you wake up deciding to be a good person, a Godly person, or not. From the moment God calls you to the moment you return to Him in Heaven, serving the world, your friends and family and community, as a Christian is work. Just like being a disciple was!
So where has God placed you in the life of someone else where you can be as Thomas to them? To be the person who is willing enough to step up and walk with them, to encourage them, to be there for them even at your own expense? We live in a time and place where self-interest, where respect for the individual is supreme, but where is God asking you to abandon your own self-interest to actually make someone else’s life better, even if it makes your life harder, even if that person never sees it, if nobody ever sees it but you? Would that be enough for you? My hope and prayer is that it would, because even those seemingly small decisions are where we are at our most powerful, with the ability to create for good or for bad in a fellow person’s life. Sometimes, we abuse that power, but in this story, Thomas could not. At Virginia Tech, Liviu Librescu could not.
We may ask ourselves, who are we, to measure up to heroes such as them? But to ask that would be to deny our own goodness.
So, instead, God asks us, who are you not to measure up? You are His children. Imagine what you can do!
By the grace of God, may it be so. Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
April 22, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The Word of the Lord: Now in 31 Flavors!
If Martin Luther could see us now.
The strongest catalyst for Scriptural and ecclesiastical reform, Luther (with the help of Gutenburg’s mildly useful invention, the printing press) popularized the idea that the people in the pews could and should be allowed to read the Bible in their own native languages. Luther himself walked the walk by eagerly translating the Latin Vulgate Bible into his native German some 75 or so years before the English church produced the immortal King James Version.
Leave it to us Americans, though, to take English translations of Scripture and cause them to multiply like proverbial rabbits. There are, to my knowledge, at least 36 English translations of the Bible produced during the 20th century, and already in the 12-year-old 21st century, at least 13 more English translations have been undertaken.
We can now add The Voice as the 14th translation to that list—a new, dynamic equivalence (meaning it tries to approximate the tone and feel of Scripture rather than create an exact, word-for-word translation) translation that is being released this month. While I do not know very much about the academics who worked on the translation, I am a fan of a number of folks on their creative team, from Brian McLaren to Phyllis Tickle and from Kristin Swenson to Matthew Paul Turner.
But it is still hard for me, a self-confessed Bible geek, to get especially excited this time around because I am still exploring and wrestling with my newest Bible version, the Common English Bible, which was just released last year (and before that, I was working with the Today's New International Version (TNIV) translation). The translations are coming too quickly for me to do justice to in my treatments of them. I like being able to return to passages and see something new in them, and that sort of exegesis is dependent upon lots of time—which necessarily limits my ability to digest new, cutting-edge translations.
And if it is too much for a pastor—someone who is bizarre enough to want to live and breathe Scripture for a living—I can so relate to the sense of being overwhelmed that other folks may feel at the sheer amount of choice there now is in picking a Bible. How do you keep up with it?
I honestly feel a little bit the same about one of the same things that Martin Luther helped give us—church affiliation. It used to be there were the Reformed churches begun by Luther, Calvin, et al, plus Henry VIII’s Church of England, plus the Roman Catholic Church itself. Then along from the Church of England came the Methodists, and along from the Presbyterians came us (the Disciples of Christ), to say nothing of the many Baptist movements, the United Church of Christ, or the various strands of Lutheranism, Pentecostalism, Mormonism, the Quakers, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And this list is by no means exhaustive.
But all of those choices were not enough, so American churches began ministering as denominations unto themselves—non-denominational churches thrived and flourished, and with each one marching to the beat of its own drummer, there are still more choices for the American consumer of Christianity (for, when we commonly throw around terms like “church shopping,” what else could the American Christian be to us as pastors except a consumer? Le sigh).
The funny thing is—Luther did not originally set out to split off from the Catholic Church—he tried to reform it! Similarly, I don’t think he translated Scripture for the sake of it; he did so for a specific purpose—so that people not fluent in Latin could read the Word of God for themselves.
I can only wonder what Luther would think of all the choices that abound today…when it seems like every week another church says, “All my predecessors haven’t gotten it right, but I have!” and splits off, it seems like every year another Bible translation also says, “All my predecessors haven’t gotten it right, but I have!” (I realize that, given that my own church was founded by leaders who felt the Presbyterians hadn’t gotten it right, this criticism is perhaps hypocritical.)
Don’t get me wrong—diversity, choice, these are all good things in Christianity. Necessary things, even. And this is certainly not me trying to be lazy or anti-intellectual, either. And it isn’t The Voice’s fault—I’ll be picking up a copy of The Voice for myself in the not-too-distant future, and I expect it to have a lot of strengths as a translation. But I worry that by the time I am able to get around to it and do The Voice justice, it will have already been rendered obsolete--witness the discontinuation of the TNIV, which was announced in 2009, only four years after it was first released. Oof.
Really, after a certain point, aren’t we all on the same team? Eventually, don’t you reach a level of diminishing returns on the differences between denominations or translations? There are definitely times when a new church, a new translation--a new way of approaching God--is absolutely called for. But are we doing this so frequently that we're overextending ourselves and missing the forest for the trees?
In other words…at what point does, say, choosing between Bible translations basically become the same as choosing between French fries and onion rings?
Yours in Christ,
Eric
PS: Speaking of Luther...if you want a good chuckle or two, try having him insult you at your whim here!
The strongest catalyst for Scriptural and ecclesiastical reform, Luther (with the help of Gutenburg’s mildly useful invention, the printing press) popularized the idea that the people in the pews could and should be allowed to read the Bible in their own native languages. Luther himself walked the walk by eagerly translating the Latin Vulgate Bible into his native German some 75 or so years before the English church produced the immortal King James Version.
Leave it to us Americans, though, to take English translations of Scripture and cause them to multiply like proverbial rabbits. There are, to my knowledge, at least 36 English translations of the Bible produced during the 20th century, and already in the 12-year-old 21st century, at least 13 more English translations have been undertaken.
We can now add The Voice as the 14th translation to that list—a new, dynamic equivalence (meaning it tries to approximate the tone and feel of Scripture rather than create an exact, word-for-word translation) translation that is being released this month. While I do not know very much about the academics who worked on the translation, I am a fan of a number of folks on their creative team, from Brian McLaren to Phyllis Tickle and from Kristin Swenson to Matthew Paul Turner.
But it is still hard for me, a self-confessed Bible geek, to get especially excited this time around because I am still exploring and wrestling with my newest Bible version, the Common English Bible, which was just released last year (and before that, I was working with the Today's New International Version (TNIV) translation). The translations are coming too quickly for me to do justice to in my treatments of them. I like being able to return to passages and see something new in them, and that sort of exegesis is dependent upon lots of time—which necessarily limits my ability to digest new, cutting-edge translations.
And if it is too much for a pastor—someone who is bizarre enough to want to live and breathe Scripture for a living—I can so relate to the sense of being overwhelmed that other folks may feel at the sheer amount of choice there now is in picking a Bible. How do you keep up with it?
I honestly feel a little bit the same about one of the same things that Martin Luther helped give us—church affiliation. It used to be there were the Reformed churches begun by Luther, Calvin, et al, plus Henry VIII’s Church of England, plus the Roman Catholic Church itself. Then along from the Church of England came the Methodists, and along from the Presbyterians came us (the Disciples of Christ), to say nothing of the many Baptist movements, the United Church of Christ, or the various strands of Lutheranism, Pentecostalism, Mormonism, the Quakers, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And this list is by no means exhaustive.
But all of those choices were not enough, so American churches began ministering as denominations unto themselves—non-denominational churches thrived and flourished, and with each one marching to the beat of its own drummer, there are still more choices for the American consumer of Christianity (for, when we commonly throw around terms like “church shopping,” what else could the American Christian be to us as pastors except a consumer? Le sigh).
The funny thing is—Luther did not originally set out to split off from the Catholic Church—he tried to reform it! Similarly, I don’t think he translated Scripture for the sake of it; he did so for a specific purpose—so that people not fluent in Latin could read the Word of God for themselves.
I can only wonder what Luther would think of all the choices that abound today…when it seems like every week another church says, “All my predecessors haven’t gotten it right, but I have!” and splits off, it seems like every year another Bible translation also says, “All my predecessors haven’t gotten it right, but I have!” (I realize that, given that my own church was founded by leaders who felt the Presbyterians hadn’t gotten it right, this criticism is perhaps hypocritical.)
Don’t get me wrong—diversity, choice, these are all good things in Christianity. Necessary things, even. And this is certainly not me trying to be lazy or anti-intellectual, either. And it isn’t The Voice’s fault—I’ll be picking up a copy of The Voice for myself in the not-too-distant future, and I expect it to have a lot of strengths as a translation. But I worry that by the time I am able to get around to it and do The Voice justice, it will have already been rendered obsolete--witness the discontinuation of the TNIV, which was announced in 2009, only four years after it was first released. Oof.
Really, after a certain point, aren’t we all on the same team? Eventually, don’t you reach a level of diminishing returns on the differences between denominations or translations? There are definitely times when a new church, a new translation--a new way of approaching God--is absolutely called for. But are we doing this so frequently that we're overextending ourselves and missing the forest for the trees?
In other words…at what point does, say, choosing between Bible translations basically become the same as choosing between French fries and onion rings?
Yours in Christ,
Eric
PS: Speaking of Luther...if you want a good chuckle or two, try having him insult you at your whim here!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Render Unto Caesar: The DIY Edition
Today is everybody’s favorite day: our tax forms are due! Since April 15 fell on a Sunday this year, and April 16 is a holiday in D.C., it means we got a two-day reprieve in 2012.
Because I am an enterprising, vaguely intelligent person (but also because I’m thrifty), I decided to do my own taxes for this year. So in January, I gave myself a birthday present and ordered a clergy tax guidebook to help me create my own do-it-yourself clergy taxes kung fu.
See, not to toot my own horn, but I’m one of those (apparently rare) clergy who is NOT comically inept at math. I actually got pretty good grades in math until high school, by which point I had stopped caring entirely about what x equals if y is equal to 47 bajillion over 6z.
But…I told myself that doing my own taxes would be NOTHING like algebra. I told myself, “Eric! You exercise the verbal parts of your brain every day for work, but you only do heavy mathematical lifting during budget season! It’ll be a good stretch of your mental muscles!” And perhaps most importantly, I told myself that I simply did not want to shell out the money to hire an accountant (see also: I’m thrifty).
Now, I alluded to this reality in a previous entry a few months ago, but…it turns out that clergy taxes are really, really, complicated. As in, algebra-on-steroids complicated.
There are parsonage allowances and costs of ministry, but the biggest tax complication for clergy is that we’re considered employees for income taxes, but self-employed for Social Security and Medicare taxes (why are we considered self-employed when the name portion of the remitter on my paychecks says, “First Christian Church?” I don’t know. I’m just the pastor). Functionally, this means that it is illegal for my parish to withhold taxes from my paycheck for Social Security and Medicare AND for them to pay the 7.65% employer portion of those taxes. Instead, I make quarterly tax payments to the IRS which cover the entire 15.3% myself, using the 1040-ES form.
But I didn’t realize that when I started here back in September—that I was supposed to file a 1040-ES. So, I was thrilled when I saw that my SS/Medicare taxes were due on January 15 of this year and I hadn’t had any paperwork—W-2’s, anything—attesting to my earnings.
Oops.
And that’s how I spent the first two weeks of 2012 frantically ensuring I didn’t owe any back taxes/wondering if I would get pinched for tax evasion in my first year as a senior pastor.
The funny thing is, now that I have done it all once, and feel like I have some semblance of an idea of what I am doing, it makes me even less willing to pay for an accountant to do my taxes.
Because I’m thrifty. And possibly masochistic.
Please feel free to draw your own conclusions about my mental faculties and my ability to objectively evaluate the limits of said mental faculties based on this story.
Happy Tax Day to all my fellow rendering-unto-Caesar worker bees out there!
Yours in Christ,
Eric
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