thoughts, prayers & songs:

The Coming Shalom of God

The coming of Christ we await at Advent is the coming of God’s peace. The establishment of Christ’s reign—the coming Kin-dom of God— is the Shalom God promises. And thus far, our Sunday readings from Isaiah, have given us some pretty vivid pictures of this coming peace (Isaiah 2:1-5, Isaiah 11:1-10). But what is it we mean when we talk about peace?

A lot of times, when we talk about peace, we mean simply the absence of war or conflict. In the world that Jesus was born into, the pax Ramana (the peace of Rome) was an era of relative stability because Rome was so good at conquering people. It was the ancient equivalent of Teddy Roosevelt’s “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Rome was really good at enforcing peace on people whose freedom they took. Sometimes when we talk about peace, we mean the absence of anxiety. The Buddhist monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh, regards inner peace as a a mindful awareness of all of life, and awareness that we are connected with everything around us.

Like our own multivalent understandings of peace, the bibilical concept of peace, rooted in the Hebrew word, Shalom, is supple. It has the idea of absence of conflict, but also welfare, wellbeing, wholeness, healing, belonging. It is a state where all the broken things are mended, everything is as it should be, and anything that shouldn’t be, is not.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, observes, “Shalom is the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relationships: with God, with self, with fellows, with nature.”[1] Wolterstorf explains shalom in relationship with God:

Shalom in the first place incorporates right, harmonious relationships to God and delight in his service. When the prophets speak of shalom, they speak of the day when human beings will no longer flee God down the corridors of time, a day when they will no longer turn in those corridors to defy their divine pursuer. Shalom is perfected when humanity acknowledges that in its service to God is true delight.[2]

Part of the peace of God is peace with God. When the Messiah comes we will live at peace with our Creator. But we will also be at peace with one another. Here is Wolterstorff again:

Secondly, shalom incorporates right harmonious relationships to other human beings and delights in human community. Shalom is absent when a society is a collection of individuals all out to make their own way in the world. And of course their can only be delight in human community, when justice reigns, only when human beings no longer oppress one another.[3]

When riots and demonstrations break out, following an unjust shooting (such as the unjust shooting of a African American by law enforcement) or a killer is acquitted on a technicality, we may hear the crowds chant, “No justice, no peace.” But in another way, we only know peace, when we know justice. The Shalom of God envisions a totally just society where we live at peace with another, without oppression, classism, sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, or other forms of hatred. We will finally be at peace wit hour neighbor. As Walter Bruggemann says, “when Yahweh’s righteousness (Yahweh’s governance) is fully established in the world, the results are fruitfulness, prosperity, freedom, justice, peace, security, and well-being (shalôm).”^[4]

Thirdly, Wolterstoff, argues:

Shalom incorporates right harmonious relationship to nature and delight in the physical surroundings. Shalom comes when we, bodily creatures and not disembodied souls, shape the world with our labor and find fulfillment in so doing and delight with the results.[5]

This aspect of Shalom, means a right relationship with nature, and a taking up our Creation mandate as caretakers of the physical world (Genesis 2). Too often, unworldly escapist versions of Christian eschatology have denigrated the physical realm (“who cares, it’s all going to burn anyway?”). But the shalom of the coming Christ, means a new heaven, a new earth, and a new humanity (of which Christ is the head), all living at peace with one another.

The peace that God has promised us in Christ, the peace that Christ brings, is a revolution of all our relationships. We will be made new, and whole, and complete in love for God, in our just care for others, and our just care of God’s creation.

Anything less, is just a piece of peace. Not the wholeness and wellbeing God offers.

[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice & Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans, 1983), 69

[2] Wolterstorff, 70

[3] Ibid

^[4] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), 303.

[5] Wolterstorff, 70.

This Dissonant, Disorienting Season of Advent

The chorus of the Rich Mullins’s song, Hold Me Jesus, goes:

So hold me Jesus,
Cause I’m shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace

Maybe these lines do nothing for you, but in anxious times, these line find me and become a prayer: You have been King of my glory, Won’t You be my Prince of Peace?

Those of us who have grown up singing hymns and songs about God’s grandeur and goodness, if we have lived long enough, have bumped up against hard things—a disheartening diagnosis, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one. We’ve felt the dissonance between our belief in the transcendent and omnipotent God and our longing to feel God’s comfort and presence with us in places of profound struggle.

As we enter the second week of Advent the theme is peace, and honestly isn’t this so much of what we long for through the whole season? And the rest of year too? That Jesus would come to us and the peace of God would reign? That violence would end, that God would comfort our anxious thoughts and worries that keep us up at night? You have been King of my glory, Won’t You be my Prince of Peace?

In several of Walter Brueggemann’s books on the Psalms, he employs the typology of “Orientation, Disorientation and New Orientation on the Psalms”. When you read through the Psalms there certain ones that burst forth in praise to God, confident in his sure rescue, his glory. These are confident songs, which believe fully in a King of Glory. These are psalms of orientation

Then comes psalms of disorientation. The psalmists encounter war, sickness, oppression, exile. They cry out to God. They lament. They long for God, and ache at God’s absence.

Lastly there are psalms of New Orientation. These are songs for those who have gone through difficult times, and emerged with a new confidence that God has brought them through.

Brueggemann’s typology is useful, not only for categorizing Psalms, it also names stages of faith (akin to Ricoeur’s movement from a first naïveté to a second naïveté), and I think it is makes sense of our liturgical seasons. It has only been two Sundays ago that the liturgy proclaimed “Christ is King” before we entered this disorienting land of Advent. And it is now we lament, and we long, and we sigh, “how long?” When Christmas comes (because ‘a baby changes everything’), we occupy a space of ‘new orientation,’ sensing that God is with us, here, in the struggle of everyday life.

Certainly we may feel each of these to varying degrees. But in Advent I always feel the disorienting dissonance and the weight of absence of Christ’s already-not-yet reign. I feel the angst of wanting to know the peace of God more fully.

Somewhere in the communion of saints, Rich prays over us, ” You have been our King of my glory, Won’t You be our Prince of Peace?” as we long for swords to be beat into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4) and predators to give up their predatory ways (Isaiah 11:6-9).

A Wild Peace.

78 years ago today, at 7:48 AM, the Japanese Imperial Navy conducted a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack was meant to cripple the U.S. Navy, and it nearly did, sinking The USS Arizona, capsizing the USS Okalahoma and damaging the six other battleships in the U.S. Pacific fleet. 21 ships in total were lost or damaged. 2,335 military personnel were killed, and 68 civilians. Another 1,143 military personnel and 103 civilians were wounded. Japan declared war against the US later that day. President Roosevelt called it “a date that would live in infamy.” It was the worst attack on the U.S. until September 11, 2001, nearly 60 years later.

These attacks defined generations. Pearl Harbor shook the US out of its neutrality, and plunged them into World War II. Since 9-11, the U.S. has been in a state of perpetual war. This past spring the class of 2019 graduated from high school in a nation that has known no peace. And despite our efforts, terrorism and war are not on the decline.

Of course, this doesn’t affect most of us, most of the time. These days, our military takes out enemy targets in relative comfort with a precision drone strike. And civilians. Donald Trump said on the campaign trail, “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.” The war on terror has transformed to a war on children. And earlier this year, Trump revoked the Drone Strike Civilian Casualty Report. Once a tragic outcome of war, civilian casualties is increasingly our strategy, with little, or no accountability.

Isaiah’s Messianic oracle in Isaiah 11 gave a vivid depiction of eschatological peace—a peace which passes comprehension:

⁶ The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
¹⁰On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
Isaiah 11:6-10, NRSV

This is quite the menagerie! A wolf lying down with a lamb, a leopard with a goat kid, a lion with a calf and fatling. A bear forgoes a nice ribeye to graze with the cattle and a little child plays with his hand in a snake hole.

Lets be clear, if you put wolves together with lambs, leopards with goats, lions and bears with cattle, I’m reporting you for animal abuse. If your child is left unsupervised in a snake pit, I’m calling child protective services. Predators kill. It is their natural instinct. If we allow that these images are metaphors for oppressors and their victims, this imagery is equally discomforting. In a #metoo and #churchtoo era, can you imagine women and child victims, cheerfully hanging out with their victimizer? It strains our morality. We want the predator to be destroyed!

But Isaiah’s hopeful vision describes a world where the victimizers are victimizers no more. The vulnerable, the beatdown, the down-and-out, the oppressed, the manipulated, the young and easily dominated, will be with the powerful, and they will not fear for their lives. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. No more war, no more fear, no more destruction.

And no more victims. The timid lamb and the young goat kid stumbling on skinny legs will be transformed into confident creatures, standing shoulder to shoulder with wolves, and lions, leopards and bears. The fatling, and calf will roar, the ox will bear its teeth. The weak will be made strong and the strong will not misuse their strength .

We are in violent times, and I fear that being an American puts us more in the predator column than the prey column, though clearly these are semipermeable categories. We hurt and are hurt, we kill and are killed. Our Advent Hope is that we are ever closer to the day when we shall be transformed. We will no longer be victims. We will no longer victimize. We will no longer be killed and no longer will we kill. We will all be gathered together by our King of peace.

The Politics of Advent

These days, if you here the term evangelical in the public sphere, it likely is a reference to a certain type of Right wing, religious conservative voters (speaking specifically of the U.S. American context here). Evidently, 81% of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and that support has not diminished.

But while evangelical has become synonymous with a certain type of political expression, Evangelical theology in general is self-consciously apolitical. Evangelicals describe the gospel as salvation for our sin-sick souls. At the recent Together For the Gospel conference, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, Al Mohler declared, “Justification by faith alone is not merely a way of describing the gospel, it is the gospel.” Belief in Jesus saves us at the end of life, and it guarantees our place with God in eternity. It is all about what happens after you die with no concern for the current social order. Progressive Christians for their part, are similarly committed to progressive politics, while holding a privatized faith.

But despite our enmeshment in our chosen politics, or our apolitical envisioning of eternity, Advent is inherently political.

When Isaiah spoke of Messianic expectation, he envisioned a political leader— a king in the line of David. You don’t hope for a king unless you are hoping for a change to the political order:

Isaiah 11:1–6 (NRSV)
¹A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.²The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.³His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;⁴but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.⁵Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

Isaiah hoped for a king that God’s spirit would rest upon. A ruler who was full of wisdom, good counsel and knowledge. One who feared the Lord. A leader with righteous discernment who would not judge by what he saw and heard, but in ways that championed justice for the poor and equity for the downtrodden. One who would stamp out injustice. Righteousness and faithfulness would be the belt around his waist (he wouldn’t be caught with his pants down).

When Mary sang her Magnificat centuries later, she believed the Son growing in her womb was the answer to Israel’s suffering at the hands of Empire, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.” (Luke 1: 52). When John appeared in the wilderness declaring that “the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand”(Matt 3:2), it was a hope which directly challenged the politics of usual in Ancient Palestine. When the early church declared emphatically that Jesus was Lord, it implied that Caesar was not. When John of Patmos saw a vision of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, he hoped for the end of Roman persecution. Advent hope is hope for the coming Messiah, and that hope is political hope.

And here we are 2019, on the cusp of an election year and feeling jaded. It has been another year of corruption and partisan politicking. We have a president who lies reflexively, who mocks mercilessly, who petitions foreign governments for political dirt on his opponents, and promotes policies that fall short of God’s justice. Some hope for impeachment, or a new election cycle, while others of us wonder if the Democrats offer any real alternative. After all, Trump has dedicated his first term to undoing Obama, except in the case of Obama’s militarism (lets increase that!), or border security (let’s amp that up!). People on the margins have been hurt by the politics of both Right and Left.

The time is ripe for Advent politics. What does it mean for the reign of Christ to break into our world a little more? What would it look likefor leaders to lead others with a commitment to care for the poor, the oppressed and marginalized? What would it look like to not pad the pockets of the powerful but to rule with justice? To listen to counsel, and to care for the poor?

Our politics is not what it should be. The American dream has fallen short of the Kin-dom of God. Advent is hope for a new kind of political order. When the messiah reigns, politics as usual will be no more. Justice, equity and peace will flourish. The military industrial complex will be brought to an end. A new world order is coming. Whatever happens in Congress, or in the Primaries, Jesus is our political hope. Come King Jesus!

A Green Shoot in the Midst of Struggle

I am a preacher. Currently my Sunday morning gig is to supply a small United Methodist church with sermons, and to help lead their worship service. I also do some visitation ministry for the congregation. I am functionally their pastor, but that’s not my job title. While I’ve been a pastor, I am not licensed by the UMC, and the church isn’t big enough to pay a pastor (the denomination and the conference has some guidelines for what their pastors should be paid). It is a small community church, and the membership is aging out. We are lucky if there is 17 or so of us gathered on a Sunday morning and the congregation has no idea what tomorrow holds. In the meantime, I hope to speak a hopeful word for them.

My passage this Sunday comes from Isaiah 11. There is some evocative imagery there about a wolf and a lamb, a leopard & a goat, a calf, a lion a yearling, a cow and a bear, a child leader, and an infant playing in a snake pit. But the passage begins with familiar words we quote while awaiting the Christ child this season, ” A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1).

I know something about stumps (I am not an arborist, but I play one on tree-vee). Stumps are dead.

We had a giant maple tree in the backyard of the property we rent in Medford. It wasn’t a healthy tree, but it seemed stable enough. It was wide and tall and still had signs of life. But in early autumn a branch fell off onto our shed. I went in the backyard to inspect the tree and discovered that parts of the trunk were rotten. I could stick the handle of my garden hoe right through the trunk. I called our landlord and over the next several days, he had cut the tree down and only a stump remains.

Evidently the previous owner, had decided to make a raised garden bed around an existing tree, and covered the maple tree roots with soil, stressing the tree. While the tree looked alive enough for awhile, it was dying a long slow death. Now there is just a stump, left for dead.

When Isaiah had his vision, the northern Kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity by Assyria (circa 722 BCE), and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (where Isaiah was) was forced to pay tribute. While Judah maintained their independence, the golden age of David and Solomon was behind them. Judah found itself dominated by powerful nations all around. They had a noble past, but their roots were distressed under a layer of dirt. Life had ebbed from the tree.

Isaiah has a vision of the dead stump of Jesse—the Davidic monarchy at its end (Jesse was David’s father). Lifeless. I am sure Jesse’s stump wasn’t from a maple tree. I picture one of those mighty Lebanon ceders the Old Testament keeps mentioning, only dead. Just a stump, until a green shoot grows from its center. It was a renewal of hope in a Messiah—an anointed King in the line of David—a green shoot from the stump of Jesse. And with this shoot, hope grows.

Joan Chittister, in Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope (Eerdmans, 2003) writes ” Everywhere I looked, hope existed—but only as some kind of green shoot in the midst of struggle. (preface, ix).” With hindsight and a high Christology, we read of the green shoot in Jesse’s stump and wax eloquent about the Coming of Christ. I am not sure how comforting this was for Isaiah’s hearers, who remembered that stump and the grandeur of yesteryear. But as Chittister says, “Hope, I began to realize was not a state of life. It was at best a gift of life” (ibid).

Advent hope, then and now, is a gift of life. It is a green shoot in the midst of struggle. A green shoot in a stump of a failing monarchy doesn’t sound much like hope. But it became the hope of salvation for the whole earth. Christ’s return sounds to us like pie-in-the-sky escapism, but it is our hope for the renewal of all things, here. A green shoot in the midst of struggle.

I don’t know what you are going through and what it means for you to hold out hope. I don’t know what it means for our world threatened by violence. Or our a country with ever-deepening divisions. I don’t know what it means for the church I pastor that I’m not the pastor of. But each of us, are more than the stump of what was. Hope grows. A green shoot—life where we least expect to find it.

Run the Mile You are In.

I’m training for a marathon. Well . . . nearer on the horizon, I’m training for a half marathon. For the past 11 weeks I’ve been doing a half-marathon training program with Katie Barrett I discovered on Audible (with some minor tweaks). Next week Saturday, I am headed to Eugene, Oregon for the Eugene Holiday Half. This will be the longest race I’ve run to date. I’m not in the best shape of my life, but I still expect to finish this in 2 and a half hours. And I hope it will be fun.

I start each Advent by reflecting on the meaning of the season, that we are waiting, and what we are waiting for isn’t here yet. The way Israel waited through their long exile, we wait for the return of the reigning Christ, when war, predation, suffering and grief will cease and we shall experience the renewal of all things. I believe practicing Advent means being dissatisfied with where we are, and being shaped by hope of what’s to come.

But guess what? Our world is not at peace. We are at war, there are mass-shooters that attack public spaces. Racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, homophobia are thriving, affecting vulnerable people in our society and in the world. And then there are broken relationships and betrayals, financial worries, discomforting diagnoses, and painful losses. The Advent of Christ feels a long way off.

When I started training for my half marathon, I committed to running four times a week, stretching, fueling my body appropriately and building in time for recovery. Twelve weeks later, I’m in better shape and better prepared to run. Because I’ve been training with an audible program, I’ve had a constant voice in my ear during my runs, reminding me to work on my form and stretch out my stride. I am coached when to push and when to run easy. At different times in my training program, I am coached to picture myself in my last mile, pushing as hard as I can. And at other times the exhortation is simpler: run the mile I am in.

So we celebrate Advent in the strong hope of God’s coming to us in Christ. But just as the Isaiah passage from Sunday exhorted Israel, “Come, descendants of Jacob,let us walk in the light of the Lord”(Isaiah 2:5). Isaiah shared a vision of the coming of God when swords are beat into plowshares and all the peoples of the world come to learn the ways of YHWH (Isaiah 2:1-4) and then exhorts his hearers to walk in the light of the Lord. The grand goal of worldwide shalom and communion with God, and the exhortation: run the mile you are in. Walk now in light of the things to come

How do we practice Advent in a way that both keeps our eye on the finish line, and with awareness of where we are, run the mile we are in? What are the practices which help us prepare well for the coming of Christ?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Light candles. A lot of our churches have Advent wreaths which count down the Sundays before Christmas. Our family also has a home wreath, which I haven’t unearthed yet. This is great mindful way to practice advent. The warmth and light of the Advent candles are a visceral and visual reminder of the way light dispels darkness. Just lighting the candles is a ritual of hope.

2. Sing songs. Some cranky liturgists and young preachers will tell you that this is not the time for Christmas carols. We are in a season of waiting and longing, and the joy of Christmas is coming. This is bosh. Mary sang (Luke 1:46-55). Yes there is pain, and longing and dissatisfaction. Yes, there is the ache of the already but not quite yet. But there is also wonder and awe, and joyful anticipation. If singing ignites and keeps hope alive. Sing. Sing loud, off key and exuberantly. Sing of the things to come. When people smile when they are running, they can run farther.

3.Do Justice. Part of our Advent hope in the coming of Christ, is that justice and peace will reign when he comes. Part of running the mile we are in, is find ways to press into God’s peace and justice now. Is there an issue facing your community which you can address? Are ways we can promote peace now? Who, of your neighbors is facing injustice? Can we do something about it? This is walking in the light of what’s to come. This is running the mile we are in.

4. Welcome. When Jesus comes everyone is welcome. We are talking kings and shepherds, women and men, Jews and Gentiles, young children and old saints—people of every tongue, tribe and nation. The radical inclusivity of God’s kingdom is coming! What are ways we can practice inclusion and welcome now? Who can you show hospitality to? Is there someone you can invite over for dinner? Is there someone you know, who feels alone and excluded that you can invite along with you where you are going? Do you know someone who needs you to run along aside them for a while?

Jesus came, Jesus comes, Jesus is coming. Our Advent hope is sure, and in our hearts we can picture the finish line. These are just a few suggestions of how we can run now, the mile we are in, as we prepare for the Day ahead. How do you practice Advent?

Shaped by the Thing to Come

When I was in seminary (10 years ago), I took an ethics seminar where we read a number of articles each week from Bible scholars and theologians on various issues. We read a good cross-section of confessional and critical scholars, both theological conservatives and liberals. One of my classmates standing critique of our readings was the use various theologians made of the beginning and the end of the biblical story.

He’d say something like, “At creation, no one was there to see it, so we don’t know what it is really like. The end of the story hasn’t happened yet, so we can’t speak of what it is like. So we can’t base our ethical claims in either Creation, or the consummation of things.”

Spoiler alert: he was wrong.

His idea, capitulates to a metaphysical realism, where all we can do is make do with the way things are. We may have some resources from tradition to draw on and we may cling to some commands or ethical principles, but essentially all we can do is limp along the best we can. We just have to make the best of it.

The beginning and the end of our story is integral to our spiritual formation. The Hebrew Bible opens with a description of God’s creation of heaven and earth (Gen 1:1):

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ

Our Christian Bible closes with a vision of a new heaven, a new earth, a heavenly Jerusalem descending and Christ’s promise, “Surely, I am coming soon” (Rev 21-22).

The beginning of the story is significant because it tells us what kind of story we are in. The end of the story is essential because it tells us our telos—the future God in Christ has envisioned for his Creation. Without the beginning and the end of the story, we are muddled in a middle, from nowhere and going nowhere. We can say with the culture around us, it is what it is. If we allow the bookends of history, the biblical narrative widens our vision: The good that was, may be again; what is wrong will be made right; the dying and decay of our enthropic environs will be restored; God’s peace will reign.

We may be fond of the idiom, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” There is some truth in that, and we can’t be so future oriented that we aren’t aware of what’s right here, right now. But even the metaphor of journey, implies we want to go somewhere. There is somewhere we want to end up. We don’t want to wander aimlessly forever in the dark.

The Advent story (both the first Advent and the final Advent) tell of God breaking into our wanderings and bringing about a whole new reality. Jesus came, Jesus comes, Jesus returns and everything old is new again. Injustice the degradation of nature, wars, and sickness, and the heavy feeling of grief which haunts and stalks us, even in our seasons of joy, will meet their end. Creation will be renewed and all that is broken will be mended. Everything will be as it should be. In words Dame Julian, ““All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

This is the end we are moving toward, or better, this is the end that God and Christ is moving toward us. May we all be prepared to see the reign of God break into our lives a little more. Come Lord Jesus, Come.

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