Hopelessness

A few weeks ago a friend and I went on a late-season cycle through Smuggler’s Notch.  It was a reasonable nice day when we started out but became cooler and a little damp towards the end of the ride.  As a result I was anxious to get back to where we had parked the car.  I knew approximately how far the whole ride would be and had some idea how far we had gone from the readings on my cycle computer, but it was all approximation.  Towards the end I was looking expectantly around every bend and at the top of every hill hoping to see my car.  I was eventually rewarded.

This is what it is like, I think, to travel in hope, eagerly looking toward the goal. The experience of hope here is an active anticipation.   I was pedaling and looking.  It was not just a passive wishing for my car to be where I was.   Christian hope is the same sort of thing.  I think this is a little of what St. Paul was saying when he said:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14 ESV)

My goal – my car- was there but I had not yet obtained it.   I pedaled in some discomfort, but in hope.

We travel in hope.  Unless, of course, we do not.  Hopelessness is a serious soul-sickness and there are two kinds. The first is despair, the attitude of soul that has decided, “It ain’t gonna happen.”  Translated to my bike ride it is the statement either that I’m not going to make it to my car, or more irrationally, my car isn’t there.

I think that we understand despair and its problems.  It truly feels like hopelessness.

The other flavor of hopelessness is presumption.  St Paul is not presumptuous. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect.”  Presumption says, “I’m already there.  It has already happened.”  Pushing the cycling motif, it is to stop pedaling because we are already arrived.  If I had done that, I would still be cold and wet, and by now, quite hungry as well.

Presumption is hopelessness because it forgets that we are still traveling.  There is no place for hope if we are already at our destination.  I think we can see it in the spiritual life in two ways.  The first is the presumption of the Pharisees,  “I am following the rules and being basically a good person, I have arrived.”  I am not pedaling now because I have pedaled enough. 

The other kind of presumption is that of the Israelites, as we read it in the book of Nehemiah.  There people of Israel and Judah has made the assumption that, since they were God’s chosen people, there was no more pedaling needed.  Speaking of the Israelites who has come our of Egypt, Nehemiah says, “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments.” (Nehemiah 9:16 ESV)

I think that happens to many Christians today.  We have made our decision for Jesus and are assured of our salvation (of the goal at the end) and therefore there is no need to try to change or grow.  We can continue in our broken patterns of relating because, well, we’re saved!  We need not be self-reflective or examine ourselves because we have already made the goal.  Not only is this presumptuous, but it tends to make us jerks.  It was Jesus who reminded us that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven.

“I press on,” says St. Paul, “to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”  If you are still breathing, there is more pedaling to do.

There is only one place where there is no hope.  Dante knew it and in his picture of hell the words, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” are inscribed above its entrance.  It is fair to say that our experience of hopelessness is a hint of the flavor of hell.

But to travel in hope, even when the going is hard or wet or cold, is to anticipate heaven.  And heaven has a way of reaching backwards to meet us.

The wrath of God

I have been thinking about the wrath of God, which is a curious thing.  Curious for a number of reasons.  For example, have you noticed that the sound used for the "a" in wrath and the "o" in God seems to be the same, regardless of which side of the ocean you come from.  There is the very American pronunciation, "wraath of Gaad" and the British "wroth of God."  One wonders whether we might not get along with just four vowels instead of five.

Curious also because one hardly ever thinks seriously about it.  The daily office lectionary has been going through Revelation recently and one cannot evade notions of God's wrath once seals start getting opened, cups poured out and grapes tread upon.  For some, the notion of such an angry God is laughable.  He seems unsophisticated and backward.  Not the sort of person you would want at an elegant dinner party.  Imagine the polite conversation, "So, God - that was your name wasn't it?  What have you been working on lately?"  "I've been inflicting bad people with sores and scorching them with fire."  Awkward pause.  "Joe, tell us about your new building project!"

Our focus as we think about God tends to be his grace, mercy and forgiveness, not his wrath.  And, I would say, rightfully so.  The central message of Jesus and the New Testament is gospel - good or happy news.  Could we not dispense then with God's wrath and be more civilized persons?

Not if we want to maintain justice in any sense.  Most of us have a sense of justice which is offended if justice is not served. Most of us also have a belief, sometimes unarticulated even to ourselves, that there are things which are truly atrocious.  Atrocities - using the noun which has a starker connotation than the adjective.  (Children's behavior might be considered atrocious, but rarely atrocities.)  Obvious examples include the holocaust, but also the other genocides that have plagued various parts of the world in the past century.

As much as a God of wrath who punishes real evil might make us uncomfortable, a God who turns a blind eye to real atrocities, who overlooks the horrific things humans do to each other, is simply a disappointment.  We live with imperfect justice today - like an episode of Law and Order where there is an obviously guilty perpetrator who is convicted on a lesser charge because the greater one won't "stick." But is there no final justice for these things?

God's wrath is the final and unchangeable end he makes to evil.  That is an end, I think, we all long to see.

But there is one other thing I find curious as I consider the wrath of God.  It is always reserved for others. I am very good a minimizing the seriousness of my own evil but maximizing the seriousness of others'.  I wonder if the perpetrators of atrocities think the same thing.  Wrath is reserved for really bad people.  It makes one wonder where the line of "really bad" begins.  I am forced to ask the question, "When is my behavior truly atrocious?" Perhaps I should worry first about the evil in me, before I get upset by the evil in others.  Jesus suggested this approach when he advised removing the log from our own eye before we remove the speck from our brother's.

O God of wrath and mercy, bring a final and unchangeable end to evil, beginning with me.

Does God buy lattes?

I had the unique pleasure of visiting an ancient Mayan ruin this week.  It was a little difficult, at least initially, to distinguish this archeological site from a bazaar in Marrakesh as all the paths were lined with hawkers of various goods.  (Note picture at the left.  This is typical of the "official" pictures which do not display the colorful vendor stalls which are obviously central to the ruin experience.) But eventually one comes to the structures of crumbling stone and is relieved that this is not just a shopping expedition.

Beyond the usual reaction of awe at the size and scale of the structures and the engineering marvels they are, I was also struck by some cross-cultural similarities between Mayans and what I know of ancient near eastern religion.   Although the names differ, central to both cultures were deities and rituals that seemed very similar.  Sky gods and earth goddesses, those associated with the sun and with the moon, again gods and goddesses respectively.  Ancient Canaanite religion was, at its essence, a fertility cult as was that of the ancient Mayans. The practice of cutting oneself with the thought that the blood will induce the god to action was known by the ancient Mayans, and apparently by the ancient Canaanites. (see I Kings 18:28)  This must have been a very messy and unsanitary practice, not to mention noisy, and puts into perspective our usual modern worship concerns about sermons being too long or music too loud. But I digress...

Common, as well, was the notion of sacrifice - the shedding of blood of animals and, in some cases, humans.  The practice of sacrifice was also part of ancient Israel's temple worship (the human part excepted.)

But what is sacrifice?  I have not looked up the word in a dictionary (online or paper), but when we use the word generally we mean the giving up of something valuable for some good purpose.  In the case of ritual sacrifice this is certainly true.  The sacrifice of the animals was done to appease the gods, or induce them to send rain and increase the fertility of the earth.  Even taken out of the context of religious cult, we speak of making financial sacrifices to achieve some other good end, or even of sacrificing our lives to spare the lives of others.

In the case of ritual sacrifice, however, the notion seems to be that the god or goddess consumes the things sacrificed.  Or at least that appears to be a common understanding.  But an understanding which, for the people of Israel, was corrected.  In Psalm 50 we read:

If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fulness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?

This is, perhaps, a little confusing if one looks back a few books of the Bible to Leviticus where there are clear instructions to sacrifice bulls and goats as well as grain and wine.  There's nothing more frustrating than a deity who changes the rules on you part way through the game.

But are the rules indeed changed, or have we missed the point of sacrifice?  The Levitical code always instructs the people to sacrifice the best - the unblemished cattle, the first fruits.  That's the "valuable" part of the sacrifice.  Sacrifice always costs us something, or else it is not sacrifice.  But I am not sure that the point, even in Leviticus, is that God is hungry.  The fact that the best is asked is, maybe, an indicator of the real point of sacrifice.  To give the best bull is to trust that there will be more good bulls.  To yield the first fruits is to trust that there will be second and third fruits for us.   Sacrifice for us, then, is a reminder not to trust in our stuff - our goods and chattel - for security.  In yielding this to God we are saying that we trust him to provide - not ourselves.

This is one reason why our giving, charity, tithing should always be first, rather than out of what we have left over at the end.  It is an act of trust toward a God who will provide.  Does God need our stuff?  Does he eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?  Does he buy lattes at Starbucks or need a new coat for winter?  He needs nothing and provides everything.

Sacrifice to God is not about appeasing, but about trusting the one who provides.

Paving Stones

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  A quick google search also says that originally the thought was perhaps from St. Bernard of Clairvaux who, in the 12th century said something along the lines of "hell is full of good intentions and desires."  It being well past the height of the Roman empire and long before the modern period, it is safe to assume that "pave" and "road" did not go together in St. Bernard's mind.  Paved courtyards, perhaps, but "the courtyards to hell are paved with good intentions" hasn't the same cachet.   It lacks the image of a steady progress in the wrong direction.

The intent of the saying is to underline the need for execution - to exhort people to go beyond just intending or desiring a good thing, but actually acting on it.  James in his epistle similarly presses his readers to be doers and not merely hearers of the word.  Or to quote a less saintly source, "Do or do not.  There is no try."

I have experienced the frustration with myself and with others who repeatedly start out in a new and noble direction only to get distracted or lose steam.

But are good intentions therefore worthless?  I don't think so.  There is another road that is paved with them.  Psalm 38 is, essentially, a psalm of repentance. The psalmist finds himself in great distress, both physically - there is no health in my flesh (v.3) - and spiritually - for my iniquities overwhelm me (v.4).  In the psalm there is a cry to God to help, to rescue. And with that call a confidence and assurance that he will:
For in you, O Lord, I have fixed my hope;
you will answer me, O Lord my God. (v. 15)

The psalmist frankly acknowledges two sources for his distress - his own actions and sins and those who gloat over him in that distress.  Through the psalm we hear the confession of iniquity, sin, foolishness and then this interesting verse:
Those who repay evil for good slander me
because I follow the course that is right. (v.20)

You'll have to excuse me if I find this a little counter-intuitive.  He says, "I am full of iniquity, sin, and foolishness" and also "I follow the course that is right."  What is that right course?

The right course is turning to God.  In you, I have fixed my hope.  Another word for this is repentance - which is a reversal of direction - a turning from one path to another.  And repentance is at its first  a good intention.  It is a decision to turn to God.  It is, as such, not just a good intention but the best one.  Without this intention, there is no further action on the road.

The invitation to confession at communion in the Book of Common Prayer (the older editions) goes like this:
Ye that do earnestly repent you of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead the new life, following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith... (emphasis mine)

We begin always with intention.  Our wills turn first and then our actions.

The road to hell may well be paved with good intentions, but the road to God begins with them as well.

Happy Misunderstandings

Yesterday I was meeting some friends for coffee, one of whom came significantly later than the others.  Long enough later, in fact, for the rich brown elixir to have had its usual effects.  As my friend arrived, apologizing for his tardiness, I was rising from the table to respond to the call of nature.  My friend interpreted my action as a move to a welcoming embrace.  The said embrace being completed I announced my intention to go to the bathroom.  He felt a little awkward at misunderstanding my rising from the table. But, I say, a happy misunderstanding between good friends.

Reading the collect from the Book of Common Prayer on Sunday reminded me of another happy misunderstanding.  The collect, in its revised and modern form (USA 1979) reads like this:

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

As it stands the picture of God both before me and behind me delights and encourages me.  But in earlier editions (in this case Canada 1962) the older 16th century language is preserved and it reads a little differently:

Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Laying aside the 16th century lisp resulting from the thees and thous, the word that is really different is prevent in the place of precede.  Five hundred years ago, prevent meant to go before, to precede -  as the modern editors were aware in updating the text.  But my first time reading the older version, being the child of a different century, I understood the modern connotation of prevent - to keep someone from doing something.  Another happy misunderstanding.

There are many things that I would ask God to prevent me from doing.  Most of them involve words that too easily flow cynically or sarcastically from my tongue.  But that is only one example.  I do want the grace of God to go before me, to precede me, but I freely invite him also, where necessary, to prevent me as I am still in the process of learning to prevent myself.  Still my tongue when its words would hurt.  Withdraw my hand when it would act precipitously.

Kathy Mattea sings a song with this "prevent" theme.  The song is called, "Till I Turn to You."  Here is the chorus:

Won't you blind my eyes when all I see is temptation

Break my stride when I'm running from the truth

And tie my hands when I reach out with desire

Go on and do what you must do

Whatever you must put me through, till I turn to you

Prevent me, O Lord. Go before me, and where necessary, stop me, that I may be continually given to good works.

God on our side

A friend showed me a photo he had taken in a parking lot of a slogan emblazoned in vinyl letters on the window of an SUV: Faith Family Firearms. The magical and musical alliteration of this phrase is not lost on me.  Nor is it lost on me that it was not on the window of a Prius.  But it does evoke a number of vivid images - family at table with shotguns along with napkins and side plates – or perhaps the favorite Christmas Oratorio, Handel’s Hallelujah and Handguns Chorus.

I realize that this slogan is a political one  - one of many in the highly polarized public square here in the United States.

What interests me though, beyond knowing when I can buy tickets to the oratorio, is the “faith” part that ultimately seeks to connect God with this political cause.   There is an assumption, or better articulated a presumption, that God is on the side of the gun lobby.  God is above all of these things and does not take sides, since he is God of all.  Right?  I’m not so sure – gun lobby aside.

It would seem in reading the scriptures that God is partial, he does have favorites.  His choosing of Abraham and his seed is a rather significant indication.  All through the Old Testament we are face to face with a God who takes sides.  Despite his partiality, however, he does not always give the upper hand to his chosen people.  If you read through the history of the kings of Israel, you will see that they often consult the Lord before going to battle and discern that their enemies will or will not be given into their hand.  And at times they don’t bother to consult, usually with disastrous results.

It is a good thing to live in the conviction that the favor of God is upon us.  It is a bad thing to then assume that means he supports our every action or cause, political or personal.  The Israelites knew they were God’s chosen people, but did not fall into presumption that they were always right or would always be successful.  This is evidenced by the fact that they actually consulted the Lord.  They did not presume his support but sought it first.

We see also that God shows favor in the psalms.  Psalm 124 begins:

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say
if it had not been the Lord who was on our side

when people rose up against us,

then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
then the flood would have swept  us away,

the torrent would have gone over us;
then over us would have gone the raging waters.

There is humility, not presumption here, underlined by the fact that the psalmist sees God’s favor in retrospect.  Nice use of past tense here:  “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side.”  In looking back, I see the favor of God as he acts on my behalf, not before.  We see in retrospect, that God has been for us.

Jesus, as always, is our model in this, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. “ (Philippians 2:6-7)  

Presumption creates in us an arrogance or entitlement.  The retrospective observation that the Lord was on our side creates only thankfulness, as we see in Psalm 124:

Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

Buy local

I had friends in Montreal who came to our church.  They were on a quest.  They understood their lives were incomplete and wanted to find something more.  One day at their home we were talking and they asked about spiritual and religious traditions other than Christianity because they had the impression that there seemed to be more spiritual experience in those traditions.  My response was that there is and has always been a deep mystical thread in Christian faith.  “Then why does not one ever talk about it?” they asked.  Why indeed.

Christianity, popularly understood, is about morality (and judging others who don’t live up) and about trying harder to be good people – more loving, less angry, more concerned about the poor, less selfish.  All good things to be sure.  But where is the actual spiritual part?  I can be an atheist and try harder to be a good person, more loving, less angry, etc., etc.

Jesus died to bring us into relationship with God.  And by relationship I mean mystical union.  That’s the spiritual part. How did Jesus say it in his prayer to the Father? – “I in them and you in me.” (John 17:23)  God in Jesus and Jesus in us.  That is the union - God, who is Spirit, in us.  That’s big spirituality.  Infinite, in fact.  Through the work of Christ on the cross, we are ushered into a mystical unity with God himself.  That is the point.  And if God dwells within us, if we will permit him, we cannot help but become better people – holy people, to be more accurate.

Why should we as Christians need to turn to other spiritualities to find what we are looking for?  Why do we seek for spiritual peace in yoga when the mystical union with God in Christ is our inheritance?  God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is in us, one with us.  That is a mystical reality and a mystical experience.  We shop elsewhere thinking that we can only find spiritual experience in other places.  What do I say Christians looking for this?  Buy local.

This hymn, whose words date back to at least the 16^th century and possibly earlier talk about this sense of God in us.  And it is not intended as a metaphor but a reality – God in us.

God be in my head

And in my understanding

God be in mine eyes

And in my looking

God be in mouth

And in my speaking

God be in my heart

And in my thinking

God be at mine end

And at my departing.