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Archive for the ‘textures’ Category

creator seeks creature: Genesis 3

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on January 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The Bible is unflinching about the human predicament.

But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:4–8 ESV)

How do we become un-lost?

How do we overcome our agnostic doubts, find our way through the morass of what we self-justifyingly call ‘the evidence’ to a defensible conclusion?

How do we assess this abiding sense of guilt against someone we can’t quite see?

How do we decide whether whether we are, finally, alone? Or not?

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ (Genesis 3:9 ESV)

The Bible’s story of human origins has the creator seeking out the first humans in their worst possible moment.

It has ever been so, and we are fortunate for it.

Absent a creator who—so we are told—pursues us and loves us in spite of everything, we are lost. We are on the fence. We cannot know if the aloneness we feel is real, or only the product of minds poorly equipped for the harshness of life.

To be lost out here is more than a feeling, and the jungle is vast.

But, wait! I hear someone …

 

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purpose unstoppable: Matthew 1

Posted in textures, Uncategorized, tagged , on January 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Is it only the hope born so relentlessly in a new year’s first hours?

Or is YHWH’s purpose as unstoppable as it appears this first morning?

… and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel .. (Matthew 1:11–12 ESV)

From the conjunction of a January 1st and the first verses of the New Testament emerges a fresh glimpse of divine purpose, pushing through the bitter-sweets of the year just gone and into the face of all manner of fears about the one taking shape under our feet.

Matthew—grouping a genealogy of the about-to-be-born Jesus into an artifice of fourteen generations here, another fourteen there—molds history’s apparent chaos to make it a bit more ordered and orderly than rapid readers in the twenty-first century might understand it to be.

Between one fourteen and another, he skips over an apparent end-point: deportation, or exile. In the world of Babylonian eminence, a people did not emerge from exile. They either died in its grip or assimilated into the empire’s powerful ways and means so as to become unrecognizable among the flotsam and jetsam of once-proud peoples and nations now subjugated by the empire’s irresistible force. So was Israel’s great crisis short-handed as ‘exile’.

Yet Matthew skips over Babylonian captivity as though it were nothing. Well, not quite nothing, but nothing more than a comma in the long story of YHWH’s purpose.

Exilic calamity brands death into the bodies of less favored nations, who will die sooner or later far from home and be forgotten when they do.

Not to those who serve the divine Father of the about-to-be-born Jesus. They taste the same blood as those who are ground into dust by history. Their hearts race to the same fears. They curse the same mornings. Far from  immunity to history, they have been thrust into its sweaty core.

But, just when all seems lost, a new fourteen appears, a biographical cluster that promises life, progeny, and future.

And now, we are about to be told, a king is born. His name means ‘He rescues’.

And, on top of that, it is January 1st, when all things are possible.

Give us fourteen more, then.

 

 

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the nerve!: Proverbs 30

Posted in textures, tagged , on December 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Grace and gentleness notwithstanding, we do well to cultivate a capacity for indignation that is on its way to revulsion.

Some behaviors are almost too brazen to be countenanced.

There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are pure in their own eyes yet are not cleansed of their filthiness. There are those—how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift! There are those whose teeth are swords, whose teeth are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mortals. (Proverbs 30:11–14 NRSV)

Biblical wisdom knows this.

The Hebrew phrasing wants to speak of a ‘generation’ or ‘category’ of person who is almost too vile to exist. That he does is something of a wonder.

The Jewish Publication Society (JPS) captures the nuance of the curt Hebrew monosyllable דור, which is commonly translated by ‘generation’, ‘kind’, or ‘species’.

There is a breed of men that brings a curse on its fathers And brings no blessing to its mothers, A breed that thinks itself pure, Though it is not washed of its filth; A breed so haughty of bearing, so supercilious; A breed whose teeth are swords, Whose jaws are knives, Ready to devour the poor of the land, The needy among men. (Proverbs 30:11–14 JPS)

JPS’s deployment of the quasi-animalesque ‘breed’ successfully connotes the difficulty of even speaking of such unnatural behavior as a phenomenon of human affairs.

This species of human being defies all created intentionality. It knows nothing of gratitude or the persistent benefit of the doubt which is due one’s elders. It revels ignorantly in its moral hypocrisy. It offends by that core component of human rebellion that consists of lifting oneself up. It repurposes words—created for giving life and sowing blessing—to consume those who can least defend themselves against such articulate evil.

It is, almost literally, a shame to have to speak of such people.

One must, but there is no pleasure in it.

Tolerance is not here a core value, post-modern self-congratulation be damned.

The nerve of these people!, biblical wisdom subtly exclaims.

It expects us to turn away, to swallow hard, and to feel an indignant flush on our cheeks. There is a moment when not to revile is folly, a self-condemning abdication of proper honor and shame.

 

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celestial censorship: 1 Peter 1

Posted in textures, Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

For the New Testament writers, the ‘good news’ is in reality amazing news.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:10–12 ESV)

These same writers consider that the long story of intrusive grace has opened a new chapter in their time. The trajectory of this tale—whence it comes, the mysteries it transmits, the grace it continues to reveal—is only in the smallest sense know-able ahead of time. The early daughters and sons of the Jesus movement lived with a continual sense of surprise.

Yet each surprise ‘lined up’ with what had gone before.

The letter we call 1 Peter punctures any assumption that greater beings than we are understand these things comprehensively. Apparently, there is mystery even in the heavenlies.

Indeed, it would seem that human beings—as the special concern of YHWH’s redemptive tenacity—are poised to understand that redemption in a way that greater creatures cannot. Some things are barred even from the gaze of angel eyes.

Or, perhaps it is that the angels are as surprised as we are and along with us as the story unfolds, for they—with their presumed proximity to heavenly counsel—had not known that YHWH would do this … would burnish his glory in just this way … would prove himself this creative, this good, this worthy of praise.

The verb is a strong one: … ‘things into which angels long to look.’

They’ve had enough clues, these angels, to expect the outlandish, the lavish, the most laudable.  They lean forward, expectantly, awaiting the turn of a cosmic page.

But this! This glory, crafted of these sufferings!

Who ever would have thought!

 

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maranatha: James 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Is it just me, or does it feel as though our world is falling down around us?

Full disclosure: I am not an alarmist, a conspiracy theorist, or an eschatological-narrative binge-er. In fact, I have no stomach for such talk—which always strikes me as historically naive—and am enough of a coward that I generally seek to avoid conversation with … well … alarmists, conspiracy theorists, and eschatological-narrative binge-ers.

This is probably not a virtue.

Still, recent massacres perpetrated to the echo of ‘Allahu Akbar!’, the desperation of Syrian refugees on their self-described ‘Journey of Death’ towards Europe, the reflexive move of otherwise steady state governors in my country to bar these bedraggled people from entry into our states and cities …

Addiction stomping all over family and friends.

My rudderless people shuffling toward electing the loudest shouter in the field.

Well, I could go on, but the news and the palpably frightened look in the eyes of people whom I’m not accustomed to seeing afraid make me doubly aware in these days that our world is badly broken. And, therefore, in need of radical repair.

Soon, please.

Then, there’s the Book of James.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5:7–8 ESV)

The incrementalist side of my heart—which prevails in most arguments—hopes that healing for our bleeding world does not require the radical solution abbreviated by the New Testament’s ἡ παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου (the coming/appearance of the Lord). If history’s course were up to me, I’d prefer a steady permeation of human experience with the leavening power of Jesus’ love, a smooth entrance ramp to an even better highway if you please.

Reunion with our Lord would be the slightest tweak of an upward trending. Most would see it coming. Most would welcome him.

Alas, I fear things may not be up to me.

Maranatha! (μαράνα θά: ‘Our Lord, come!’) became a familiar phrase on early Christian lips, both in jubilation and in trembling, when martyrdom’s harsh whip made it a more complex matter to jubilate. This cry of early Syriac Christians must have resonated with deep poignance, for it finds its way untranslated into the New Testament’s Greek record. It is not the only time in the New Testament record that a profoundly moving moment was remembered in the language in which human beings first heard it articulated (Aramaic/Syriac), even though the language of record was Greek. Some of Jesus’ most signature moments were remembered in just this way, as they were experienced.

The times were neither convenient nor abstract then.

Nor, it feels to me, are they convenient or abstract this morning.

So does this morning’s reading from the New Testament book of James find its path without friction into my heart.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient.

The farmer’s fruit is, oh, so welcome, when it finally comes to harvest.

But the waiting, the doubting, the patience, the inscrutable mysteries of germination and maturation, of rains early and late. These things are a holy torture, in a farmer’s field and in a weeping world where evil swarms like locusts and confusion suffocates like a leaden sky.

It comes to one as something like gentle rain, this realization that our earliest sisters and brothers needed both the urging toward patience and the permission to cry ‘Our Lord, come!’

As I do, this unsettled morning.

μαράνα θά.

 

 

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hurry up and wait: James 1

Posted in textures, Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Our organs of perception and expression are not meant to function at the same speed.

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:19–20 ESV)

Biblical wisdom trains the senses to calibrate their velocities both with reality and with the opportunity to construct community.

Hearing is meant to spring purposefully towards opportunity. Quick out of the blocks, sustaining a sprint, rounding the corner for a lap even faster than the last one.

Listen quickly, listen long, listen often, wisdom would tell us. Be quick about it. Time’s a’wastin’.

Yet speech ought to take its time. Talk needs to meander slowly down the street, pause often to distract itself with the goings on, creep towards its moment. If it never gets to the end of the block, little is lost. If our power of speech feels unappreciated, well, let it learn to enjoy the occasional time-out.

And then there’s anger. Not exactly an expressive capacity, it is the fast-acting venom the poisons in direct proportion to its velocity. Let it stall, stumble, stand idly in self-forgetfulness. The less that is seen of anger, the better.

Critically, the anger of man does not produce the righteous of God.

Anger gets itself up into a bother, comes quickly to feel righteously indignant, makes all sorts of unnecessary speeches. Enough already. Slow the thing down before it hurts somebody. God is rarely in the anger. He lives elsewhere, with rare exceptions.

Hurry up to hear. Slow down the tongue-wagging. Make anger a tortoise.

Know your speeds.

 

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game face: 2 Timothy 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Nothing ever happens when it should. Things don’t go down for convenience. Life is a series of interruptions.

Deal with it, the Universe seems to snarl.

So does Paul lay on his protégé Timothy the warning that you’ve just got to be ready to respond. No whining. No evasion. When important things happen, you’re never off the clock.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:1–2 ESV)

The professionalism of Christian service threatens the appropriate always-on nature of genuinely sacrificial service. We self-protect and, more often than not, end up over-protecting. We insist upon our selfish rigidity and dress it up in the language of ‘self-care’.

Without doubt, it’s a jungle out there and it will wear you down if you don’t find your way to appropriate boundaries.

But stuff happens when it’s going to happen. Only a healthy capacity for surfing the waves as they come at you and a deep conviction that Providence knows and sends the waves sets you up to endure the storm and shake off the squalls.

Have your game face ready in season and out of season, Paul tenderly but firmly tells his Timothy. We just deal with it.

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ambition: 1 Timothy 3

Posted in textures, tagged , , on October 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Ambition is not intrinsically unholy.

One may grant that human motivations are ever and always complex. Still, the apostle Paul recognizes that those who aspire to the task of shepherding and governing a community of Jesus-followers turns his ambition towards a worthy objective.

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. (1 Timothy 3:1 ESV)

Immediately, he launches into a formidable list of qualifications that would intimidate any eyes-open aspirant.

The bar is set high, because the life and health of the community is in play.

Yet Paul will not discourage ambition that is holy or even—given the aforementioned complexity—mostly holy.

He simply insists that the aspirant prove his credentials.

We do well in our time to pursue this same delicate balance. We rightly require that the community of Jesus be tended and shaped by people in whom the presence of Christ’s Spirit is without much trouble detectable. We immerse such folks in a realistic view of what will be required of them if they are to begin, and what discouragement and tears will fall upon them before they have finished.

Then we unleash them to the task, wishing for them that their assigned path had been a more level one, and quietly breathing our prayer that theirs will be remembered as lives in which love and faithfulness met together, righteousness and peace enjoyed a decades-long kiss.

For when fields are white unto harvest, workers are much sought after. The best of them are precious and few.

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before and after: Philippians 2

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The person whose life has become saturated by grace notices that God has gone before every good thing. And from after every good moment, the grace-saturated Christian credits only God.

Paul is accustomed to the sweat-soaked believer. To be a follower of Jesus it to work one’s fingers to the bone, to collapse happily weary after a long day of beating back the jungles of one’s own soul and serving those who surround. The implicit commitment to a story much bigger than one’s own short path draws out of the disciple of Jesus exertions of which she would not have considered herself capable. (more…)

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the hard-won garden: Ephesians 4

Posted in textures, tagged , , on September 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Human personality is a garden to be tended.

It requires persistent weeding, seeding and overseeing, all the mundane and patient labors that stand unseen behind a riot of color.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31–32 NIV)

For most of us, there is no easy path to the temperament and conduct that reflect a Creator’s and Savior’s presence within and make us worth remembering. (more…)

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