14. Solomon Among the Postmoderns by Leithart
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Weightier Matters of the Law
I've mentioned this before, but the phenomenon of "converting" from and to various communions in the body of Christ seems to me to be largely a convenience of western civilization along the lines of having the convenience to choose between a myriad of restaurants, various styles of clothing, and having grocery stores that supply us with food from all over the world at very reasonable prices. Many of those choosing to join the Roman and Eastern communions of course do so because of their distress over the seeming rootlessness of protestantism. They are making the change because they object to this choose-your-own-flavor approach to Christian faith.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Celebrating the Humility of Jesus
This meal is called communion, it is a sharing in the body and blood of the Lord. This meal is a celebration of the great humility of Jesus who gave up everything for us men and our salvation. This is why Paul get’s so bothered by the arrogance that some were displaying in the early church during this meal. This is a celebration of the humility of Jesus, a certain mindset that gave up all that was his due, trusting God for a good and glorious outcome. Each time we celebrate this high feast before God, we do it as a memorial. And that doesn’t just mean we think about it really hard for a few minutes. We celebrate this feast as a memorial like Passover, like the rainbow after the flood. This memorial proclaims the death of Christ until he comes, the apostle says. And this means that this meal proclaims the humility of Christ, it proclaims the humble submission of Christ to the will of the Father. And now we are invited to share in it. We are invited to share in the humility of Christ with one another. We are sharing in the humility of Christ in the face of the greatest act of injustice in the history of the world, a righteous man, the only righteous man, crucified with thieves and robbers. And Paul says, do you get it? You’re sharing in that. You’re sharing and communion in that kind of humility. And that doesn’t mean you’ve given up or decided you’re fine with injustice. Actually, it’s just the opposite. It means you trust God for the outcome. It means that you are so utterly confident in the goodness and power of God, that whatever the circumstances, he is willing and able to turn them to good. So whatever it is that haunts you this morning, whatever it is that plagues you, that disturbs you, that bothers you, that annoys you, that gives you grief and heartache this morning. Eat this meal, celebrate this feast, as a memorial, a prayer before the Father. And rejoice in faith, believing that the same God who raised Jesus will raise you up to glory.
Looking Through the Resurrection
We considered this morning the example of Christ who humbled himself even to the point of death on a cross as an act of identifying with his people. Paul exhorts us to pursue the same mind, and ultimately the mind of Christ which is willing to even die. Elsewhere, Paul says in Romans that baptism is baptism into the likeness of the death Christ. In baptism we are united to his death, and we are raised up to new creation life. This means living like that’s true. In the early church it’s sometimes almost humorous to read how quickly and almost haphazardly baptisms occurred. The Roman Centurian was baptized at night with his whole household, the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized on the side of the road, and surely it was a wild baptismal service for the three thousand who were baptized at Pentecost.
Eleventh Sunday in Trinity: Toward a Theology of Other People 3: Philippians 2:1-14
Opening Prayer: Gracious Father, we ask you to give us courage this morning as we consider your word. We are afraid of really submitting to your word, and we are often even more fearful of submitting to other people. Teach us to rejoice in obedience, but even more, teach us to see the glory of unity.
Introduction
We’ve now considered the fact that other people are gifts, and that these gifts have been piling up long before we got here. This tradition, this culture arrives at us in the fathers and mothers that surround us today. And the honor we bestow upon our fathers is ultimately based upon the fact that God is our heavenly father.
Submitting in Faith
The gospel, the good news, is that we have a king who has come and delivered us from all our enemies through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. But if you believe this gospel, and if you believe it is good news for all of life, for the entire world, then your mission is to see this reality impressed upon everything you do and touch. And this is the pattern of death and resurrection. And this means we need to continually go back and study and remember how Christ died. And notice two things: first, when Christ went to the cross, when he willingly suffered the scourging and the beating, the false accusations and the mockery, he did not suddenly begin to agree with his accusers. Dying did not mean that Christ actually decided he wasn’t the Messiah, the King of Israel, and the Savior of the World. In fact it was because he fundamentally disagreed with the proceedings that he endured the shame and excruciating pain of the cross. Second, Hebrews says that Jesus endured the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before him. In other words, Jesus believed unswervingly that God would raise him from the dead. And here is the point, all of you are called to submit in various ways and at various times. You may need to submit to your parents, to your husband, to elders or pastors, or civil authorities. And just so get the picture, Paul says that all Christians must submit to one another. Submission means letting go of whatever it is that you wanted and obeying. It means dying to self, valuing the other person more highly, and following. Now sometimes you will submit and midway through you’ll realize that the other person was right and you were wrong and thank God for that. But it’s very possible that you may be asked to submit to unreasonable demands, what you consider unjust punishment, or just unkind directions. The requirement to submit does not mean that you change your mind, it doesn’t mean that you must suddenly agree with your accuser, Jesus didn’t change his mind. We submit to authorities because we ultimately submit to God the judge of all men. He sees us, he hears our prayers, and we believe that he is the God who vindicates his people. And so the call to submit is the call to trust God, trust the God who sees all and raises the dead. This is the gospel, the good news, that our king has remade this world such that you cannot be finally defeated by any enemy.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Authority, Tradition, and Heroes
So Matt and Brad have asked the question that is lurking behind a good bit of this discussion, and that has to do with the nature of authority.
When must Christians submit to authority? At what point is a Christian justified in fleeing that authority, rejecting authority, etc?
I just want to start the conversation by answering two points from the comments of the Who Do You Trust? post.
First, as to Matt's last assertion that Calvin always had the option of submitting, this is just not the case. The historical circumstances were incredibly topsy-turvy not to mention the fact that he was a wanted man from time to time. When they're killing all your friends and chasing you with swords, that's not exactly an invitation to dialogue. Perhaps you've heard of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre? Christ establishes families and says what God has joined together let no man put asunder, and yet when a husband begins beating his wife and children, the wife has a biblical obligation to run. Authority is not absolute, automatic, or irrevocable, sacrament or no sacrament. And when the family has a long tradition of beating wives and children, the wife has an even greater obligation to break that tradition.
I put up a post a while ago here which covered some of the exact same points focusing on the idea of unity, but the same point holds for the concept of authority as well. It is simply not true that the foundation of ecclesiastical authority is found in people. God certainly bestows authority on particular people as he wishes and normally it should be orderly and predictable, but the foundation of ecclesiastical authority is Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible Triune God. This is why when Paul is speaking about unity and humility he grounds it in the person of the "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Eph. 4:6).
Second, as to Brad's question in the comments regarding the reformers' willingness to reform within, I would again appeal to the analogy of the brow-beaten wife. Of course a wife is biblically required to submit to her husband in the Lord. But when that husband abuses her and her children and for many years, she is not under the obligation to stay and suck it up. And it won't do to tisk-tisk that same wife when she objects to moving home after only a year or two of slightly better behavior. And it is simply not true that this refusal to trust an abusive husband somehow throws Paul's injunctions to Christian wives out the window. It is not a threat to authority to tell an abused wife to run. Neither is it a threat to the church authority to flee the bishop who wants your head on a pike. And when he chuckles and invites you to talk things over a few weeks later, I wouldn't blame anyone for staying far away (in fact I would advise it). Several centuries of high-handed abuse doesn't qualify the abuser for leniency when he calls for a Church Council. At the same time, surely you are aware that there were continuing talks between Geneva and RCC bishops. At least one conference resulted in a united statement on justification. But the Magisterium required those bishops to repudiate their attempted peace. Likewise, there were Protestants at the Council of Trent and a number Protestant-minded Catholics as well. Bucer, for one, is famous (or infamous) for his attempts at reconciliation throughout his life. But for all the progress that the RCC has made, modern day Catholics that do not recognize the gross failings of the established church leading up to the Protestant Reformation are simply blind. This does not mean it was not the church of Jesus Christ, but God is not bound by human tradition. As lovely as an unbroken chain of bishops might be, God was pleased to go beyond that, and it has still pleased him to do so. I'm sure there were a number of Israelites none too pleased with the Reformation of Samson in the era of the Judges either, but it was still the work of the Holy Spirit delivering the people of God from her enemies. The work of Calvin, Luther, Wycliff, Huss, Bucer, and Zwingli was no less heroic.
Lurking beneath questions of ecclesiastical authority is the question of what Jesus actually commanded his apostles and therefore what we are required to follow, and this gets at Brad's assertion that Presbyterianism was/is an historically novel notion. But again, that's simply not the case. The early church was a gloriously messy place, and it is simply not true that all the orders of bishops, presbyters, and deacons had shiny little job descriptions. The way Christian authority works and has always worked is through the way of service. If you want to be great in the Kingdom of God you must become like a little child and a slave of all. Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, Tertullian, Origen, and even Cyprian in the middle of the third century are not working with fully developed Episcopal forms of church government. It does not prove anything to quote them saying they have bishops. We do too even if we don't call our pastors by that name. Ambrose of Milan (376) and even Augustine later on refer to the fact that their customs of church government where not the law of the church by divine fiat but rather rested on the wisdom of the church to build unity and order. And this does not mean that I don't think we have anything to learn from the fact that through most of the church's history it has been organized in an Episcopalian fashion. Nor am I defending every last thing the reformers did or said. I am saying they are/were heroes of the faith, judges like Samson and Gideon who delivered God's people from hirelings that had broken into the sheepfold. And it doesn't matter if hands were laid on their head, they spoke in tongues at their ordination, or they were dressed exactly like shepherds. You can always tell a tree by its fruit, and you can always tell a hireling by his way with the sheep.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Deep Smit: Learning to Kiss Real Icons
Josh Gibbs has a new post up covering our most recent conversation. I have deep respect for a man who takes the counsel of his friends and elders seriously, and since I had responded to some of his recent posts here, I wanted to thank him for that here as well.
But a few other thoughts on the general theme: First, it is very striking that these "conversions" often happen quickly after a number of months of quiet festering. What I mean is that all of the times I have seen something like this, it has been the sort of thing where a guy is first converted in spirit fairly isolated from friends and family, makes the announcement public and proceeds to be confirmed in the new church of his choice. But it's this very process that I object to so strenuously. It utterly ignores the friends, family, and church that God has given previously. Of course there are situations where it's happened differently, of course there have been reformed pastors and elders that should have been more faithful and loving and more willing to talk and discuss issues. But it has occurred to me that there is a very similar sort of scenario that occurs from time to time with fathers and daughters.
Imagine: A girl comes home to her dad one day and says, "I met the man of my dreams, and we would like your blessing to get married next week." This is the first time he's heard about it, and maybe to make matters more complicated, the dad has some significant concerns about the guy. Let's say maybe the daughter even came to her dad at one point previously and asked about the guy, and the dad said, "Yeah maybe there are a few redeeming qualities about this guy, but I've got some serious concerns about this, that, and the other." And the daughter said, "Well if you think it's a bad idea, I trust you. I won't pursue it." But, as it turns out, the daughter has been seeing this guy on the sly, they're madly in love, and now they're planning to get married. It's the dad's duty in one sense to tell the daughter "no," and give his reasons. But the more fundamental question has everything to do with trust and loyalty and love. Why haven't we been together on this? Why didn't you come back and ask more questions? Why have we not been discussing these issues for the last number of months? And so on. It will not do for the daughter to insist that by marrying this man she will actually be getting closer to her dad.
Which is again why I would appeal to questions of loyalty, trust, and honor. Who do you trust? Who has God given you as your fathers in the faith? Of course they are not perfect, of course they have failed in various ways, but they are your family, your people, give them the love and honor God calls you to give them.
And this is not at all a refusal to tackle the difficult questions. Of course not everyone has the time, inclination, or ability to do tons of study, but it would be far more helpful for people pondering these issues to go to their pastor, father, elders, and friends and say, "I've been wondering about icons, what do you think?" I for one would want to say, "Hey, that's a long, complicated story. But let's start meeting together, reading some books, and discussing the issues." But it's a little more difficult to have that conversation when someone has already made up their mind after having read little to nothing on the subject.
And actually this has everything to do with icons. The question is not whether but which. There will always be icons, but the question is which icons are most suitable for representing God to his people. God is not anti-icons. It is clear from the very beginning that he has always intended to have images of himself and lots of them. But he objects to being portrayed in ways that significantly distort the kind of God he is. Chiefly, he wants to picture himself, and he wants his pictures to be alive. He wants his images to have hands and feet, mouths and ears that work. He wants his images to speak words of comfort to the downcast; he wants his images to rebuke the foolish. He wants his images to have hands that can be used to heal and touch and embrace. He wants his images to have eyes that see the needs of others and have ears to hear their cries and respond. In short he wants images and icons that are truly like Him, full of mercy and compassion. There is absolutely no problem with venerating images of Christ in worship so long as they are alive, so long as they are the images that God has authorized, the descendants of Adam and Eve that have been remade and renewed according to the image of God found in Christ. And this is precisely what we do when we say, "The Lord be with you/And with your spirit." This is what we do when we Pass the Peace and greet one another with a Holy Kiss. Kissing icons? You bet, so long as they are living, breathing icons of our Lord Jesus.
Let's have generations of this kind of icon veneration; let's have a rich tradition of honoring fathers and mothers and wives and husbands and children and grandchildren according to God's word, a legacy of caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and along the way we can talk about the proper use of Christian art in worship (which I am not opposed to at all). But a refusal to honor and listen to the living icons all around you is iconoclasm at its worst.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Who Do You Trust?
A good friend of mine, Josh Gibbs, has posted a couple of recent entries on his blog that I wanted to respond to.
First, in his Joe Versus the Volcano post from July 17th, he suggests that perhaps one of the ways of looking at the cross-migration of folks to and from various traditions of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy is in the way that God determines to grow particular individuals up. He cites friends of ours in particular who have "blossomed" in their new surroundings and recognizes that there are just as many folks coming the other way into Protestantism from one of those two branches of the church that have grown in ways never conceivable in their old cathedral digs. Now, I certainly appreciate Josh's sensibility to recognize that this is going both ways, (although I would suggest it is FAR more common that cradle catholics and orthodox are blossoming when they "get saved" in college through some hip and trendy evangelical ministry than the other way around – but that's not really what I want to talk about). My first objection to Josh's logic is how myopic this description appears to be. It seems fairly near-sighted to evaluate one's transition based on six months or two years of experience. Yes, I know that we can all name certain (in)famous characters who have done the transition to Rome or Constantinople and lo, there they are 20 or 50 years later and appear to still love Jesus with all the fervor of a spirit-filled charismatic. And thank God for that. But what about their children and their grandchildren? Jesus warns about certain people who get their houses exorcised, all swept and clean and organized so that after a while seven more demons can take up residence. Which is all to say that judging "ugly" in one tradition and "lovely" in another seems far too superficial. I know that Josh means things like simple, sacrificial obedience and love for neighbors and family, but again, how can we judge the trajectory of that kind of transition after a few years? Which is to say that this kind of evaluation is always secondary to the question, 'who do you trust?' This is the most important question, I believe. Do you trust the pastors and teachers who have faithfully taught you, prayed for you, counseled you, and given themselves up for you over the last number of years, or do you trust the guy who you met a few months ago who chants prayers to icons? And this is not a question about whether you may like or respect people in other traditions. The question is, who do you trust more? Who will you submit to?
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Living Icons
Throughout the history of the Church there have been numerous controversies surrounding pictures and images of Christ and the saints, but most Christians, including the Reformers, have insisted that this meal is an authorized image of Christ. But it is not bread and wine by themselves which consists of this picture, and that is why they rightly objected to the veneration of the elements as we would as well. The body of Christ is not found in the existence of bread in a sanctuary or wine in a chalice. The apostle says that we are to discern Christ in the communion, in the thankful sharing of the bread and wine. As we celebrate with thanksgiving together and hand one another the bread and the wine and tell one another the gospel of forgiveness, that is the body of Christ. That is the image of Christ we are supposed to see and discern. This is a much different sort of icon than the ones commonly honored in other traditions, and we do this because God told is in the very beginning how he wanted to be pictured. He pictured himself in humanity when he created them. He composed his own icons in Adam and Eve, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God created humans to be his images in the world. He re-created us in his grace to be conformed to the image of Christ, the perfect picture of the invisible God. This image and picture is one that is not static. It is not lifeless like stone, paper, or precious metals. It is alive. It moves, it breathes, it acts, and it creates just like God. This is what the Triune God looks like. As nice as pictures of dead saints may be, they are lifeless; they have hands but they cannot hand you the bread of life. As beautiful as an ancient icon may be, it is lifeless; it has a mouth, but it cannot tell you that your sins are forgiven through the blood of Christ. Do not imagine some Jesus picture in your head. You don’t need to do that. God reveals himself to us here and now, week after week. He says, do you want to know what I am like? Do you want to see what the Trinity is like? Then open your eyes, open your mouths, and rejoice together. You are surrounded by true images of God, images with hands and feet and mouths and ears. Our God is alive and well and acts and breathes and speaks and hears, and we are the living icon of that God; we are the image of the invisible God as we make up the body of Christ, animated as we are by His Spirit. So as we celebrate this feast together honor the images of Christ around you: honor your mothers, honor your fathers, honor your brothers and sisters and roommates and neighbors and honor your children.
Tenth Sunday of Trinity Season: Toward a Theology of Other People 2: Ex. 20, Pr. 27:9-10
Opening Prayer: Gracious Father, you are our Father, and you have given us life by our Mother, the Christian Church. We ask that you would teach us to honor our fathers and mothers. Give us grace that we might see where we have failed in this, and even greater grace to make it right. Through Christ our elder brother, Amen!
Introduction
Last week we established the biblical norm that other people are God’s gift to us. And the particular people that God has given us and given us to is significant. Space and time contribute to prioritizing the neighbors that we love. Another name for this prioritizing is loyalty. This is a fairly radical sentiment in the modern, transient world.
Love Covers Sins
Scripture says that “love covers a multitude of sins”. It does not say that it might or that it could. It says that it does. This means that if we are not regularly covering sins, then whatever we have, it certainly is not love. Our love for our brothers and sisters must be so great that we will do everything in our power to forgive, forget and cover over the blemishes of others. This begins with our attitudes: A firm commitment to this means that we must think the best of everyone. Paul says that love “hopes all things”. And one of the things this means is that it is a Christian duty to tell the story, remember the event, recall what he/she said, shedding the best possible light on all people involved. Your mission as a Christian is to make everyone else’s reputation as good as possible. And this is our mission even when we think someone has snubbed us, ignored us, and perhaps shown some level of disregard for us. You mission as a follower of Jesus is to bless that person and think and speak about them in the best possible light. This is at least one meaning of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Remember the words of Christ: But if you do not forgive, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses. You will be judged by the standard with which you judge. And if you are picky and critical, then God will be picky and critical of you. And God knows that on even on one of our very best days, he’d have more than enough to condemn us all. But God in His great love has covered our sins. Therefore go and do likewise.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Grace to One Another
“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Cor. 10:16-17)
We’ve considered this morning the fact that God has saved us and is saving us through other people, chiefly Jesus Christ, our neighbor, our Good Samaritan who came to our rescue when we were left for dead on the side of the road. But this salvation is lived out here and during the week as communion, community, koinonia. This means that you need one another. One of the ways that we picture that mutual dependence is in the way that we partake of the bread and the wine. We give thanks here together, and then the bread and the wine go out from here, down the rows, and out to the back of the congregation. We picture in this what the gospel is doing in the world. It is a river that flows out of the temple and floods the earth. It is yeast that leavens the entire loaf until it is fully risen. The Church is the body of Christ, and therefore his blood flows through us. We have just exchanged Peace with one another, and now we are enacting that peace. But notice how we are doing it. We are doing it with the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. This is the only way to have peace. This is the only way relationships work. This is the only way you can deal with other people, through the blood of Christ. But by the grace of God this meal makes you all grace to one another. You are images of God, instruments of blessing to one another. So come eat, drink, and rejoice in the kindness of God.
Ninth Sunday of Trinity Season: Toward a Theology of Other People 1: Eccl. 4:9-12 and Lk. 10:25-37
Opening Prayer: Gracious Father, we ask that you would empower your word now. Cut us up that we might be living sacrifices holy and blameless. Separate the thoughts and intents of our hearts that we might be reconciled to our parents, to our children, to our siblings, and to all of our neighbors. Through Christ our Lord, Amen!
Introduction
We begin a new chapter in the story of Trinity Reformed Church this morning. It is fitting for us to consider who we are and what we are called to as a body of believers. The great summary statement of our calling is the two great commandments which summarize all the law and the prophets: Love God and love your neighbor (Lk. 10:27). Pastor Leithart and I will be sharing the preaching duties over the next number of months, and while he continues to work through Matthew, I will be doing a topical series on a hodgepodge of issues related to family, community, and culture: toward a theology of other people.
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