Half-hearted

Last week three of my four children and I took a nostalgic trip to central Vermont. We visited a swimming hole that we had, as a whole family, visited 10 years ago when we first moved to Vermont. On our way back home, we decided to stop for a bite to eat. I suggested Buffalo Wild Wings (the spicier the better in my estimation). My son, who is a vegetarian was less enthusiastic about the idea., since he has noted that big American chain restaurants are meat-obsessed. Even salads, it would seem, require meat in America. We went anyway, but Aidan was half-hearted about it.

Half-heartedness is common to us. There is much that we approach with half a heart. We will sometimes do things but remark that our “heart is not in it.” True for many things in our lives – including God. I read in Psalm 119 today the following verse:

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart. (v.2)

This is not the only exhortation to a whole-hearted devotion to God. Jesus tells us to seek God’s kingdom first, which is another way of saying the same thing.

But what keeps us from being whole-hearted in seeking him? I can think of a couple of things. The first is that we are seeking something else whole-heartedly. This might be a consistent seeking or a fleeting one. I am quickly becoming a passionate road biker. Yesterday, when I was trying, half-heartedly, to focus on my prayers, my mind continually drifted to being out on the road with my bike. This was one of those fleeting examples, but the consistent ones are a-plenty. The Old Testament calls them idols. They range from work and career to body appearance to any number of addictions to even moral perfection. All these things we seek with our whole heart rather than God. My daughter made a brilliant observation about this kind of pursuit in reflecting on someone she knows who is on an avant garde diet – “Doesn’t she know that different food won’t solve her emotional problems?”

Seeking other things with our whole heart will make us half-hearted toward God. But so will seeking nothing at all. We are often half-hearted about everything. Nothing captures our whole heart. There are many reasons why this may be. We may be tired of the effort of seeking God with no evident change in our life our circumstances and have simply given up. We may have succumbed to the sophisticated and detached ennui - common in our overly entertained lives. We are simply bored. “Whatever,” is the mantra of these half-hearted souls.

As I have been reflecting on this today, I am asking that God would remind me again of his glory and splendor, that I would seek nothing before him. And also that he would strip from me any cynical boredom and restore to me a child-like wonder. That I would recover my whole heart.

Aidan was successful in finding a herbivore’s option at Buffalo Wild Wings. But beyond the wings we discovered that Wednesday is trivia night there. The four of us played (badly) but laughed a lot. On our way out Aidan said, “We should come here every week,” wholeheartedly.

Nevertheless

I am fond of words. Especially so of interesting words. We encountered such a word the other day during a family discussion on what qualifies as a yacht. Going to the dictionary (a real bound paper one) to determine the precise meaning we noticed another entry on interest – yclept, meaning called or named. Used in a sentence it might look like this: “On our bike route there was a sharp descent, yclept Shipman’s Hill.” Now I understand that none but the intellectually pretentious would ever ACTUALLY use yclept in a sentence, but it is, regardless, an interesting word. And for the intellectually pretentious out there, yclept is the past participle of the equally unused verb “clepe,” as in “We cannot decide what to clepe our newborn son.” This latter phrase is not recommended to even the intellectually pretentious as it might me misconstrued as some sort of child abuse.

The interesting words are the ones that get our attention, or at least mine. But I think that the words with real power are the common and therefore little noticed ones. Conjunctions, in particular, deserve some attention. Those connecting words that help string thoughts together. The humble “and” can daisy chain a hundred things together if you would like it to. “Therefore” both connects what follows with what precedes but also indicates that what follows is a logical result or conclusion of its precedent. Look out for the “therefores” in St. Paul’s epistles.

In reading Psalm 106 I was struck by the power of “nevertheless.” In this psalm that excellent conjunction shifts your attention from what seems to be the point to the real heart of the psalm. The psalm begins with praise to God, which is a clear indication of the psalmist’s intent. Throughout the psalm we do hear of the mighty acts of God, but usually in the context of how Israel ignored them. Starting in verse 6, there begins a long litany of the faults of Israel. How they did not consider his wondrous words (v. 7), or wait for his counsel (v.13). How they were taken by jealousy (v.16) and created the golden calf (v.19). It goes on until verse 43 and by that time you are convinced that the point of the psalm is to underline our wickedness, and I say “our” because as the psalmist says in verse 6, “Both we and our fathers have sinned.”

By verse 43 the psalm really seems to about God’s people and their wickedness. But then comes the “Nevertheless” in verse 44:

Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress,

When he heard their cry.

For their sake he remembered his covenant,

And relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

He caused them to be pitied

By all those who held them captive.

And we realize this psalm is first about God. What appears to be a list of offenses for litigation turns on this one word and the psalm is seen for what it is intended to be – a psalm of praise motivated by the grace and mercy of God, in spite of our faithlessness. “Nevertheless” brings into sharp contrast the distinction between us and God. It doesn’t mean that the wickedness isn’t wicked. Just that his mercy and steadfast love overcomes it.

The psalm ends,

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting!

And let the people say, “Amen!”

Praise the Lord!

Do you have to?

Objections. For some reason I have been reflecting on objections recently – objections to Christianity and its practice. I am distressed by these objections both inside and outside the Church, often because they seem to be based on misunderstandings. This might lead me to an excoriation of the irresponsibly uninformed except that, alas, we have no one but ourselves to blame for it. Confusion outside the Church comes most often from confusion within.

The objection that I have been mulling over most recently is the one that Christian faith is all about following the rules. I can remember that I was reticent to become a Christian at one point in my life because I thought that it meant I would never have any fun again – too busy following the rules and, sadly, tsk-tsking over my glasses at those who were not. This latter part, the tsk-tsking, is what gives us the reputation and promotes the misunderstanding. My fundamental objection in the form of a question was, “do you have to…?” We in the Church, and particularly in the more conservative part, have made a career of trying to enforce moral control over Christians and even non-Christians. The answer is “yes, you have to.”

And now I hear the objection from inside the Church, “Here is another libertine - a liberal who doesn’t think what we do matters.” Not so. Christianity, and Judaism for that matter, proclaim moral order, not moral control. Moral control is an overstepping of authority. If you read the Old and New Testaments carefully, you will find they say nothing about the control of others, but an awful lot about self-control.

I once had a parishioner who had come recently from a moral control kind of church environment. I was a little surprised when he asked my permission to get a tattoo – an appropriately Christian one, to be sure. When I stated my surprise at this, he just said that he would have to have had permission from his pastor at his previous Church. This is moral control - and weird to boot. (For those wondering if you should tell me about any permanent dermal inking, I really don’t need to know.)

Yet there is a moral order to the universe and Christians have always upheld this conviction. Moral order differs from moral control in that it is descriptive rather than prescriptive. In short, “no you don’t have to, but…” Christians understand, hopefully, that we live in a world of moral order – that we are free to do as we choose, but that our choices and actions have consequences. Moses in addressing the people said, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life.” Deuteronomy 30:19.

Here there is an invitation to choose, to act. There is not coercion or control. There is indeed encouragement toward that which is good. But exhortation is not compulsion. The Bible is filled with people who did not do what they were supposed to do, the murderer Moses being but one

It seems to me that we would do better to talk about this moral order than to be trying to exert moral control over people. We as a culture need to hear that we are free but that our choices have consequences. We need look no further than the current national debt crisis to see that we are a people who seem to think we can continue to spend more than we take in and expect that there will be no consequences, such as someone thinking we might not be such a good credit risk anymore. Choices and actions have consequences, both good and bad. That is a summary of the moral order God has made in his universe.

And he sets before us the good and the bad, life and death, blessings and curses. That is moral order. Therefore, choose life.

Rote and Repetition

The criticism often leveled at liturgical tradition and worship is that it is all rote, repetitive ritual that becomes meaningless words to people. Now this is undoubtedly true for many. One can say these things over and over again and eventually stop listening to them. I find myself guilty of this. As I say Morning Prayer daily (well, almost), I have found that I can say the familiar canticles aloud while daydreaming about something else, literally at the same time. I know the Venite* so well that I can plan my day in my head even while I am saying, “Today, O that ye would hear his voice.” The irony is not lost on me.

And therein lies the problem – not in the practice itself but, as is often the case, in the heart of the practicer. That particular exhortation to hear his voice, from Psalm 95, is to attentiveness to God and his Word – a reminder to listen. And the truth is that this blight is not on only the liturgists but on all of us. Who among us has not found himself reading the scriptures and realizing he has no idea what he has just read. Our eyes may have been perusing the parables of Jesus or the wisdom of Solomon, but our head just isn’t in the game. Our head is focused on the stress of the day or the shiny new whatever we saw while shopping online. Indeed our head may be even focused on some particular good and joyful thing, but not on what is in front of us.

I would really like it if the whole of the Christian life was just spontaneous love toward and engagement with God. That’s better isn’t it? Spontaneous, extemporaneous and free. Sadly the reality of my own fallen nature interferes with this beautiful picture. I need to make a choice toward attentiveness to God, to hear his voice today. And I find that the regular rhythm and the familiar words help in that. I am arrested by the Venite’s exhortation to hear his voice today. It catches me amid my daydream and brings me back to the issue at hand – the moral effort of attending to God.

And it is not only this exhortation but other things of which I am regularly reminded. Even this morning, saying the Apostle’s Creed I came to the line “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” I considered all the times when I am tempted not to believe this: when shame cripples me and I don’t “feel” forgiven (as if my feelings are any effective measure of that) or when someone has so angered me that forgiveness of sins is far from my heart and mind. Then I came back to the solid and simple assertion - that I do believe in the forgiveness of sins (and the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting for that matter).

Yep, it is all rote and repetitive. And rich.

Today, O that ye would hear his voice.

*Psalm 95 – it opens with the invitation, “O come, let us sing unto the Lord.” Venite is Latin for “O come”

Just you wait

In reading Psalm 58 this morning I was reminded of My Fair Lady. Now don’t rush off and read the psalm expecting to be similarly reminded. The connection is not obvious and will need some dot-connecting. The specific memory was of Eliza Doolittle’s both melodic and vitriolic diatribe, “Just you wait.” If you read the psalm now, the connection should be clearer.

Eliza in her anger and frustration at ‘enry ‘iggins, brilliantly and infuriatingly played by Rex Harrison, sings the song:

Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!
You'll be sorry, but your tears'll be to late!
You'll be broke, and I'll have money;
Will I help you? Don't be funny!
Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!

And it continues on. I am particularly fond of this number because it gives voice to my longing to hit Henry Higgins with a big stick.

The psalmist, like Eliza, wishes calamity on the wicked, indeed even more graphically so:

O God, break their teeth in their mouths;
pull the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.
Let them vanish like water that runs off;
let them wither like the trodden grass.

Psalm 58 is imprecatory (from the Latin to pray towards). The prayer here is a negative one and might be better described as a curse. While I might empathize or even sympathize with the sentiments and want to join Eliza in chorus, I remain a little uncomfortable. Jesus did tell us to love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us. It is hard to reconcile this to the imprecations of the 58^th psalm.

There is some value, however, in the words of the psalmist. First they remind us that he is not a pious fraud. Many believers spend a lot of energy lying to themselves and to others with phrases like “I don’t get angry, I just leave it with the Lord.” Or who refuse to even use words like angry and prefer the safer, more acceptable words like “frustrated.” Lying about how we really feel is not helpful. The scriptures do not say “do not be angry”, but rather, “in your anger, do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26) The psalmist is angry and despises the wicked. That is very clear and it is clearly articulated before God. The problem with the pious fraud is that the anger comes out somewhere. Better it come out in prayer before God than in harsh words or behaviours towards others (including our enemies).

There is also a difference the psalmist’s cry and Eliza’s. Unlike the flower girl of Covent Garden, the psalmist is not making a plan, but rather a prayer. He is praying to God, who is the source of all justice. The psalmist is not planning to DO anything, but is pouring out his desire for justice before God. And we all long for justice. Where we see things amiss. Where there is unfairness or injustice we, quite rightly, long to see it changed. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

The imprecatory psalms are gritty, frank prayers to God ultimately for his justice and order in the world. The psalm concludes:

They (the righteous) will say,
Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who rules the world.

How much farther?

I am a compulsive measurer. This came home to me on a recent bike trip from my home in Vermont to Acadia National Park in Maine. My road bike has a cycle computer which calculates distance, speed and records maximum speed. Knowing the distance we needed to travel each day and the approximate distance to the state park which was our nightly goal. Looking at the small screen I would be noting to myself or to the friend who was cycling with me, "One third of the way!"

Measuring has its benefits and its pitfalls. Besides being careful to measure everything, I am also rather goal-oriented. Here's the benefit to these two things together. At the end of each day when we were within 15 miles of our goal (and fortifying meal) I would get a second wind. Knowing both how far was remaining and that the goal was close gave me a boost. Without having something that measured our progress, I wouldn't really know how close we were and, therefore, no goal-fixated boost.

But trying to measure everything has its dangers. Some things cannot be measured, at least not easily. The Kingdom of God and its grow is notable among these. There are easy things we might measure and indicators: church attendance, turnout to certain events. But how does one measure growth in character, in obedience, in love? These might be observed but cannot be measured. Indeed measuring the growth of the Kingdom in numbers alone can be deceiving - a mile wide and an inch deep. Jesus said the Kingdom is like a mustard seed - tiny, but when it does grow, it becomes a haven for the bird of the air.

The other warning against compulsive measuring is that it tends to fix our attention on what we can do and what we can accomplish. My cycle computer tells me how fast I can go, what I can do. David fell to this temptation in taking a census (2 Samuel 24). At first glance, what is the big deal about measuring the people? Why not try to find out how many there are? But David's census was really to determine what his military might was. He was measuring to see what he could accomplish from a military perspective. David sin here was his trust in his own power and resources rather than God's.

It is a good and helpful thing to know the progress you are making. But neither progress nor our own capacities are gods. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in any son of man" (Psalm 146:3)

Get your own tools

David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.“I cannot go in these, ” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. -1 Samuel 17:39 (NIV)

I have the privilege of working with a group of lay preachers who share the preaching ministry in our church with me. One or two of them have had teaching and preaching experience before but to most of them (there are six), this has been a new enterprise. The privileges are many, but chiefly the Joy of working with people who want to learn and grow both in the craft of proclamation and in their own lives before God.

When I was still in seminary training, to be a good preacher was a great desire of mine (it still is) and to that end, I was trying hard to imitate the content and style of hood preachers I had heard. I followed, to little success, the advice of my homiletics professor and created a card index of sermon illustrations. It was all very disciplined and orderly and the right things to do - imitate those you wish to emulate and follow the best practices of those who know what they are doing. And it drove me mad.

Enter a pastoral supervisor I had in my last year of seminary. Merv understood that the proclamation of the word is not the following of a formula or set of practices. While talking about sermon preparation, he one day asked me, "How do you usually communicate in conversation?". "I like to tell stories and anecdotes." was my response. He then encouraged me to do just that in my preaching. What is at the heart of preaching is allowing the Word of God to be reflected through the prism of one's unique gifts and person. There is value in imitation and emulation, but I cannot be someone else in the pulpit.

David could not use Saul's armor and weapons. They were not his and he was not used to them. David was successful against Goliath because he had confidence in God (also central in preaching) and because he used the tools he was familiar with, a sling and some stones. Not the things recommended by the experts, but David's preferred and familiar weapons.

As I work with these lay preachers, my goal is not for them to use my tools as they preach the Gospel, but rather that they would discover the power and efficacy of their own.