2nd Week of Advent Sermon

The manuscript, in case anyone wants it:

Romans 13:11-14

Did anyone have a long weekend? I know a few of us did…between the trip to Tanglewood, the Battle park cleanup yesterday, the ball game, weekend activities, parties, family get-togethers and such, this time of the year gets tiring! So, most of us take a lot of naps this time of year, right? You know how when you take a nap…after you hit about the hour-mark, its really hard to get up? You’re straining your eyes to open…your arms and legs become dead weight…and an hour-long nap turns into a three hour nap…especially when its cold outside and you’re in your warm little cocoon of covers. And you’re dreaming about finding a bunch of money on the bus, or eating dinner with some really famous person you admire, and you don’t want to wake up…and all of the work you have to do around the house, or the homework that you’ve put off and all of the stress of the world is somewhere outside of your comfy little hideaway that lies in your 1000 thread-count Egyptian Cotton sheets (lucky). Every minute that you lay around napping makes it harder to get up. You don’t want to face the world, you don’t want to be cold, you don’t want to take care of all that unfinished business you left outside of your room…you just want 5 more minutes. You nap people know what I’m talking about. Well, I think Paul knew about nappy time…and I want us to keep that in mind as we read this morning’s Scripture. (Romans 13:11-14) You see…Paul was calling out the Christians in Rome, telling them that nap time was about over…and Paul’s emphasis here is that whether we like it or not, the lights are about to turn on and Jesus is about to open the door and wake us up…so we’d better go ahead, get up and finish up our business.

So, you have to understand that Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Rome, because the Roman Christians had become somewhat smug in their faith. There had been a dispute between Christians and Jews in Rome, and Roman officials kicked a number of Jews out of Rome. The Christians at Rome felt that God was smiling on them because of their favored place in the dispute, and when the Jews returned to Rome, the Christians acted like they were God’s new favorite people. Now, you know Paul considered himself straight-up hardcore Jewish…and so he wanted to remind the Christians in Rome that they didn’t exactly deserve the grace extended to them by God. Paul said, “Back in the day, you guys were a bunch of cavemen. You ran around eating whatever was laying around, you slept with anything that moved, you killed each other for no reason…basically, you were idiots. But God decided to rescue you anyway.” The Roman Christians were taking their faith for granted…they were not taking their faith seriously, because they assumed that they had been rescued and that God’s was done working on them.

But Paul knew that falling asleep at the wheel was dangerous business when it comes to God. I remember when Kelley used to work at Ham’s, she would close the store on weekend nights, which meant that she would get home around 3 a.m. Every weekend, I had great intentions of greeting her as she entered the door, so I would put on a movie in the living room, and sit on the couch with some paper for drawing, or my Gameboy to play. However, I always underestimated how tired it makes a person to wake up 5 days in a row at 4:30 a.m. while working 40 hours in a week. So, inevitably, I would awaken to Kelley poking me in the shoulder as I lay cockeyed on the couch with a Gameboy in my hand (my character would be dead), drool all over my chin and a crick in my neck. No matter how great my intentions, I could never overcome my heavy eyelids to greet my bride with a hug as she entered after a long night at work. Sleep is a great indication of weakness in the human body, because no matter how hard we try to stay awake, our bodies eventually get the best of us. Paul is using the language of waking up because he understands how weak we are as people…that we have such a hard time staying awake, even though Christ is about to come barging through our door at any second. Yet, we cannot stop it from happening…Christ is coming in, and He will flip the light on whether we are awake or still asleep.

I love the language that Paul uses in his letters, because it appeals to things that are fundamental to human experience. Paul talks about the world living at dusk…that nether region of the day just before the sun comes up. It really is a miserable time of day, especially in the winter. Most of the world is asleep…and the things that are awake, you probably don’t want to run into. On top of it all, it’s frigid outside. The cold just keeps coming at you…trust me, it is really hard to warm yourself up at 4 in the morning. And then, all of a sudden, the clouds burst into beautiful shades of purple and orange, and ice starts melting off of tree limbs and birds start chirping and your hands begin to burn as the numbness leaves your fingertips. The sun lights up all of the dark places, and you can see all those things that were making noise in the woods an hour ago. Life begins again. Paul knew that Jesus was coming, and that when He came, He would put an end to all the sketchy stuff that happens in the dark. You see, light uncovers all the things that are hidden at night, in the same way that Christ’ coming will uncover all the things that we don’t want to deal with right now. Those problems that we let persist in our lives…the unresolved issues we have with people in our lives, or situations that have hurt us in our past. Those things we do that we know we shouldn’t be doing…but we keep doing them because they feel good…or we keep doing them for no good reason at all…as much as we ignore these things, when Christ comes, the lights will come on and we’re going to have a huge pile of crap in the middle room to clean up. Paul is saying don’t wait until the last second…because its dusk…its last call, and the lights are coming on…we’d better deal with this stuff as soon as possible.

This passage of Scripture reminds me of one of my favorite video games from my childhood…a game called Castlevania 2. In this game, you run around in towns, graveyards and castles trying to find and defeat Dracula, and as you go from town to town, it turns from day to night. At night, the monsters in the game become much stronger, more dangerous, and much harder to kill. It’s all you can do to survive the night, and make it to the daytime. And yet, the fact that morning is coming gives you hope that you can survive. I feel that this is a message of hope in the midst of Paul’s warning to the Christians in Rome: if you can just struggle a little longer, the morning of Christ will dawn and you will gain new strength. As you all know by now, we are in the advent season, and this is an advent Scripture, because it points both to the birth of Christ, and the eventual return of Christ. In both cases, the dawn of Christ brings new strength…this is good news.

And yet, its also potentially devastating news. Especially for those who take advantage of being in the dark…because once the lights flip on, some of us are likely to be embarrassed. Paul talks about putting on Christ, using the same language as putting on clothes. This was a standard way of talking about trading virtues for vices…the students know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in college…I would wear a shirt, throw it on my chair, wear it the next day…wear it again for a few more days. Sleep in it. Well, at least the guys know what I’m talking about. Then I got married. Kelley had to live with my smell, so I learned to do laundry. Paul is saying its time to change your shirt…the light’s coming on, and people will be able to see that huge ketchup stain. And the sweat stains…and you smell nasty. Change your clothes. Quit being lazy…do you really want to look like that when Christ comes over? Well…He’s coming, so you’d better start doing your laundry.

And thus, we see the beauty of this passage. Paul uses many different examples that resonate with people…but he essentially says the same thing throughout: Christ is on His way, and you need to quit dilly-dallying. Its inevitable…you can’t stop it. But before he uses all of these metaphors…Paul says something very curious. Paul says that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Obviously, Paul is talking about Christ’ coming…but I think it is significant to note that Paul does not focus on that moment that we first believed as the most important moment of our salvation. Rather, salvation is something that is coming at us all the time…it’s a journey that consists of the first moment that we believed, Christ’ future return, and every moment in between. Salvation is as important now as it was weeks, or months, or years ago when we first became believers. We cannot rest on our laurels…we cannot become comfortable…we must live in the moment, because the future is hurtling towards us at lightening speeds, and we cannot slow it down.

I love Francis Chan, because most of the stories he tells challenge me to stop living a mediocre life. He loves to talk about his mother-in-law, because she challenges his in the same way. Chan talks about how his mother-in-law attended his daughter’s dance recital, and throughout the performance, she looked uncomfortable. He asked her if she felt okay, and she responded that she was all right…but that if Jesus returned right now, she would rather be praying than watching a dance recital. I know that response sounds harsh…but it comes from someone who understands urgency. This is someone of wisdom…who likely understands the imminence of her final meeting with Christ, and the value of her time left on earth. Paul understood this urgency, that regardless of what Christians had done or what they had left undone…regardless of what the world wanted or didn’t want…that Christ will return and that we will all have to deal with His return when it happens, whether we like it or not.

I want to end by telling a story…it is a story of an old Viking King…and as I tell the story, I will pass around this artwork done by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke which, in my opinion, beautifully illustrates the tale. The King’s name was Cnut, and all of the people of the land had great fear and respect of Cnut…so much so that King Cnut grew angry that people gave him undue praise. So, King Cnut had his royal court drag his throne to the seashore, and he sat upon his throne as the ocean tide rolled in. King Cnut commanded the waves, “Stop rolling in,” but the waves continued to roll in. He said again to the tide, “Do not rise any higher,” but the tide continued to rise above his feet. And thus, he told his court to recognize true power, and returned to his palace. This is Paul’s advent message…recognize. People couldn’t stop Him when He first came…death couldn’t even stop Him. And He’s coming again…so as Christmas approaches, remember that something else is approaching as well, and we can do no more to stop it than we can stop the waves of the ocean from beating upon the shore. All we can do is prepare the way. Because the Lord is coming soon.

Divorce: an Addendum

I feel the need to further explain my answer to the question: what about divorce in abusive relationships?

I mentioned the need for Christians to celebrate, but I don't think I focused my aim in this answer. We do not need to celebrate divorce itself, as divorce is a tearing apart. Divorce comes with painful consequences. However, I felt that the nature of the question, as well as the common reaction to divorce in the Evangelical church, warrants a redirection of emphasis. I find that reactions to divorce (especially from Evangelicals) can center on mistakes made prior to marriage and the divorce itself. Of course, nobody should celebrate bad decisions made in the past, nor should they forget them. Divorce itself takes a toll on the couple, aside from any prior pain experienced in the relationship. For this reason, I concluded my answer by urging young people to be extremely cautious in entering covenant with a person; women especially, as women tend to have extra societal pressure to marry for the sake of marriage. The consequences of marriage, both positive and negative, are amplified by the serious nature of its covenant, and thus, one must make the decision with magnified discretion.

However, I intended to redirect focus to celebration, because I feel that the road to recovery from fleeing an abusive relationship mirrors our experience with the gospel. We do not celebrate the divorce, but we celebrate that God has freed someone to recover. Following this new direction, the divorcee will experience pain and struggle learning to love and trust, and the Church should be present to embrace, heal and support. We can also teach. Lessons can be learned. However, instead of focusing our attention on the death of a relationship, I feel it is closer to our nature to celebrate the return of a brother or sister's life, as this reflects the gospel. I hope this clears up my point. If not, please let me know!

Singleness: the Manuscript

Who grew up on Disney movies? Can anyone tell me the theme that runs throughout nearly EVERY Disney animated film ever made? Think about Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Lady and the Tramp, Simba, Wall-E…what do all of these movies have in common? The characters, especially women, have roles assuming that they will end up betrothed. Its like the story cannot finish until characters have found their soulmate and can have a wedding, or the equivalent for dogs and robots. Disney is not the only culprit…Sleepless in Seattle, Beyonce, AT&T commercials, Twilight…ladies and gentlemen, and I emphasize, ESPECIALLY LADIES, you have been indoctrinated your entire life that marriage is your destiny to look forward to…that somehow, living a single life would mean that something is wrong with your story. I want to tell you the true story this morning…and I want to assure a few of you…I am not here to patronize you who are single. I am not going to throw a pity party this morning. I genuinely believe that there is great value in being single. Stop conforming to the world’s stories and let your mind be transformed and renewed. Listen to the age-old story about the God who knelt down into humanity and grasped in marriage for the hand of His creation…and this morning I say, if you tune your ears to this story being told, you will live a transformed life of fullness, power and authenticity, because you will be able to discern God’s will for your life.

Paul says that it is a gift to be unmarried, as much as it is a gift to be married. Both gifts are on equal ground…and the only difference is that God has given each gift to different people. Who here has read the Chronicles of Narnia? One of my favorite parts of the story is when Father Christmas bestows gifts to each of the children…but he does not do so for them to trade the gifts around, or throw the gifts away. They are to be used in order to carry out the story…they help the characters fulfill their roles in the story. Each gift plays an important role…the sword and shield for defense…the horn for intercession and announcement…the potion for healing…and each of the characters need to embrace and utilize their own gift in order to play their own part in saving Narnia. When Paul says that each one has their own gift from God, Paul is also saying that God has given singleness to some as a gift so that they can play out their role in the great story that has been told since the beginning of time. This is a life of fullness…when we accept our gift, and use it to live out God’s story. Once our minds are rid of being brainwashed by the world’s story, we will be able to hear the voice of our Shepherd clearly and be transformed by His great story…and we can discern what gift God wills for us to have individually.

So, we can see in Scripture that God values some being single. Now, how can we find value in being single? I think (as usual) Augustine says it best: “It is by chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity. Because anyone who loves something else along with You, but does not love it for Your sake, loves You less” (Conf. X.29.40) I’m going to say that last part again…(repeat). The more we are attached to, the easier it is to be pulled in a thousand directions…to bust like a vase into a thousand pieces…and forget the One who defines all of our love stories. However, if one can courageously pursue the single life, she also finds the power of focusing all of her amorous intentions upon God. I like Tyler Durden’s analogy in the book “Fight Club”: “All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction.” This is power. Think about it…without that focus, the force of the blast goes out in a thousand directions…but with focus, it becomes a powerful force traveling at high rates in a specific direction. I believe that Augustine is saying chastity is a way of focusing our desire and our love…we are not constantly consumed in shopping for a spouse…we are not pulled apart by the rollercoaster of human emotion…we do not waste time fretting over gifts that God has not given us…like a candle in a dark room, God’s love draws our attention and centers us in Christ, so that we become a powerful force for Him.

Is singleness without its dangers? Of course not…we run the risk of becoming self-centered with our gift…using singleness as an excuse to live out our story without commitment to anyone but ourselves. We run the risk of isolating ourselves from any and all relationships because it is comfortable…or because we resent our gift. We run the risk of betraying our gift of being single and distorting love by feeding our desires with bad decisions and wrong relationships. There are plenty of risks to being single…and this is why I say, with sincerity, that just as marriage is a road only for the courageous, so too is being single only for the courageous. When we discern our gift, we must be thankful and commit to the gift that God has given us. Be bold…this is authenticity. When the jazz-giant Thelonious Monk began playing jazz in clubs in the early 40’s, he broke the standard method of covering the music of other jazz artists and committed to only playing only his own music. After nearly 20 years of underappreciation, Monk was recognized as one of the greatest composers of the 20^th century…he was true to himself and his gift. He was authentically Monk, and remained that way to his grave. In the same way, the path of the single person can only be undertaken by the courageous…because she will have to defy the stories constantly being told that a life fulfilled always includes marriage. On this note, I will end by reading a Scripture which I feel is important for us to recognize as we seek to betray the stories of this world and seek our own role in the greatest story ever told…Psalm 139:1-16, 23-24

Interesting mix...

Not sure what to say about this other than...its music, and it sounds beautiful to me.

His Banner Over Me Is Love

I have fallen in love with this band...they are called Danielson Famile(y). And then there's Danielson. And Brother Danielson. Trust me, each name has a point. Anyhow, I felt inclined to post a video of the Danielson Famile that has encouraged me over the last few days. I love Daniel Smith's frequent use of the Song of Songs in many of his songs (here quoting Song of Songs 2:4)...of course a musician would quote a book named "Song of Songs". Hopefully, it will bury Scripture in your subconscious as it has done to me this week. Enjoy!

(if you cannot understand Daniel Smith's squeaky falsetto...this is the chorus:)

"His banner over me is love
A certain day has been set
And it's called Today
Today with a capital T"

I might be wrong...

As many who know me know (and those who don't might notice by my moniker), I am a Radiohead fanboy, so I present you with one of my favorite songs from the uber-experimental period...I might be wrong.

Although Radiohead refuse to reveal any single meaning to a song (and I truly believe that single meanings don't exist for Radiohead songs), this is one of the few songs from this period that expresses a clear direction. While not necessarily an apology for a certain faith, this song sounds an awful lot like Thom Yorke's leap of faith in a higher being.

"I might be wrong...but I could have sworn I saw a light coming on...I used to think there was no future left at all..."

As Yorke dabbled in heavy vocal editing at this point in Radiohead's tenure, he decided to douse his voice in reverb on this particular track. In doing so, his sometimes whiny (e.g. You and Whose Army?), sometimes overbearing (e.g. Electioneering) voice is humbled into introspection. Note that his revelation does not assert itself in a demand, but whispers to him in obscurity. He is left with hope...and doubt.

"Open up...let me in...lets go down the waterfall...have ourselves a good time, its nothing at all...cry, then begin again"

I admit, during this period (and in the midst of his writer's block) Yorke followed Ed Burrough's occasional method of writing, which involved writing choppy statements on bits of paper and drawing them randomly from a hat. However, these statements still seem to express a new found faith coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism. If anything, I appreciate that Yorke does not sensationalize, or oversimplify faith by assigning to it a wholly positive result. While hope lingers, faith seems a complicated thing to bear. The feeling of free fall...letting yourself go...a moment of pain before inception...and yet, even after his moment of revelation, there is still the doubt that it is "nothing at all". As the guitar lick breaks for the electronic interlude, we hear a distorted wave resolve, followed by Yorke's ethereal falsetto, and then the return of the guitar lick. As soon as we feel resolution, tension reenters the scene. Is this not an accurate picture of faith?

Jimmy Eat World...circumstances

Kelley and I recently attended a Jimmy Eat World concert in Asheville, and I was reminded of how much I enjoy this band's lyrics. Take the bridge from the song Futures:

Hey now, the past is told by those who win
My darling, what matters is what hasn't been
Hey now, we're wide awake and we're thinking
My darling, believe your voice can mean something

The lyrics here are straightforward in their message: even though we can't control our current circumstances, we can control the choices we make in light of our current circumstances. Rather than dwell in the world of the powerless, we should make choices in our present before it slips away. This is a great album if you have the chance to check it out!

Messiaen: the art of experience

I wanted to post an innovative modern classical composer whose faith profoundly influenced his work. Briefly, Olivier Messiaen wrote on themes of joy and hope, as well as what he called the "marvelous aspects of the faith" (he was a devout Roman Catholic). His music depicted theological ideas such as death, resurrection, time and the afterlife. He also composed one of his more profound works, "The Quartet for the End of Time", while in a POW camp after the fall of France to the Nazi's in 1940. Finally, and my favorite tidbit about this composer...he created a musical notation, a code, embedded within his late works, which cited texts from Thomas Aquinas. Awesome! He has influenced artists both classical and contemporary, from Karlheinz Stockhausen to Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood. This is a video of one of his later pieces written for an early electronic instrument, the ondes martenot. Enjoy!

History vs. Memory: A reaction to Troy's "Woman with the Alabaster Jar" sermon

I greatly appreciate Troy's sermon this morning, because unknowingly, he brought up one of my pet thought-projects...which also intersects with some of Kierkegaard's thought. Troy is a Kierkegaardian, and he doesn't know it! Namely, I appreciate that Troy pointed to Christ' immediate presence in our everyday world through our experience. I believe that Troy was hitting on something which acknowledges the reality of God amongst us in our everyday lives as opposed to a God buried in the distance of history.

Allow me to wax philosophical for a second on the topic of history. I would argue that most modern Christians, especially those of us labeled "Evangelicals", place a great importance on the science of history in determining the value of scripture. Think about it for a second. Normally, when I ask an Evangelical Christian "What does it mean that Scripture is true (or authoritative)," she likely answers that Scripture is reliable and actually happened. These two criterion sound awfully familiar to criterion in the field of historical science when judging the validity of documents. There are even current books which try to argue the validity of biblical documents within the (very limited) boundaries of historical science. Now, I generally deter such assumptions on the basis that the Scriptures were not written with the historical sciences in mind, but rather, were written as theological documents describing the relationship between God and the world, and should be read as such.

However, in light of Troy's sermon, I would like to shed light on the origins of historical science and a man named G.W.F. Hegel...lovers of philosophy might know this name. Some know Hegel as the father of modern history, but others such as myself know Hegel as Kierkegaard's locus of frustration. Assuming that you will afford me a very general gloss of Hegel in a short statement (for sake of space and time), Hegel introduced the idea of historical relativity into modern thinking. Historical relativity is a technical way of saying that people's culture in the past was different than the culture of the present, or, in other words, that culture has changed and progressed throughout history. Upon encountering Hegel's teaching, Kierkegaard soon realized the danger of seeing the world through the eyes of historical relativity. According to Kierkegaard, if Hegel is correct, then Christ becomes buried in the past as a man who said and did some things, but is not present with us now.

As an Evangelical, I believe that the burying of Christ in history becomes all the more evident in the celebration of one of our most intimate moments with God: the Lord's Supper. We as Evangelicals tend to overemphasize the word "remember" in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Yet, in doing so, are we simply relegating the sacrifice of Christ to a past event which has no place amongst us now? As Kierkegaard writes, "We dare not wash our hands-at least we cannot do it, except as Pilate did; we are not spectators and beholders of a past event, we are in fact accomplices in a contemporary event." (Kierkegaard, Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, "The Night In Which He Was Betrayed") When we remember Christ in the Lord's Supper, we are not dragging up memories from distant history that are irrelevant to the present. The reality of what Christ did does not rest in historical facts, but it rests within what each one of us embody as human beings.

Thus, to "remember" Christ means to seek Christ in the present. As Troy said, many of us have experienced Christ in our lives, which means that we have had contact with the living God within our present circumstances. Accordingly, I believe that memory hearkens a better understanding of God's reality than what is offered up by the historical sciences. Many of us involved in academia rely upon the sciences to help us explain God, and yet, in doing so, we allow our scientific methods to edge Christ out from our immediate present. To be a human means to have a story and stories are collected into our memory (for deeper insight into this topic, see Augustine's discussion of memory in the Confessions). In light of what Troy shared this morning, I want to encourage you to celebrate your memory. Seek God in your past and present, and see how Scripture comes alive in the memory of your stories. Scripture is not true just because it happened in the past, but especially that it happens now. The truth of the Lord's Supper is not that we know of a man who died once, but that we know of a man who dies for us this very instant, and that He calls us to die with Him this very instant. If we believe that Christ is raised from the dead, then we believe that He is with us in our memory and is living in our stories this very instant. Yet, if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless, and so is your faith (1 Corinthians 15:14).

Thank you Troy for yet another challenging and thought-provoking message.