Transfiguration Sunday

I love Transfiguration Sunday...

It has so many meanings....

Jesus on the Mountain Top with Moses and Elijah, a clear connection with the OT that Jesus is the Messiah.

Jesus' Transfiguration, a symbol of the glory to come.

Peter's fully human desire to capture the moment, enshrine it and focus on the place and not the Who.

The foreshadowing of the Resurrection to come, a glimpse of glory before the darkest days ahead. A glimmer of hope in the night of Jesus' ministry. Like a cancer victim receiving news the cancer is in remission. Or that the storms are over. Or the report card with a C+ instead of an F. And those times when we feel the real presence of God working in our hearts in worship and prayer.

Moments that can change our day, week, even life. Little Resurrections of hope barging into ordinary life and changing it forever.

More Than We Can Handle

1 Corinthians 10:13 is often misquoted/misused...I've heard it (and probably said it this way myself) "God won't give you more than you can handle." And, while this is true in a sense, it is often pulled out of its context to mean something like "God will not allow stuff to happen in your life that you cannot effectively overcome." This is false.

John Ortberg pointed this out in It All Goes Back in the Box, as he correctly writes,

People twist that statement into saying that God will never give us
more than we can handle. Really? Look around the world:
holocaust, death, martyrdom, cancer, war. Whether it's a special
assignment or just living in a fallen world, people all the time are given
burdens they cannot handle...Paul's point is that we can never worm out of
responsibility for sin by saying it's God's fault.

I'm glad I ran across this. It challenged a reading that I had blindly accepted. I knew people had more than they could handle. I've read that verse and said to myself, "There are things, I'm not sure I could handle." To be honest, I felt a sense of pressure when reading this. Nothing can break me? Really? No...that's just religious platitude.

God gives us an out when it comes to temptation, but there are circumstances in life that will beat people down, sometimes even take their life...literally and/or figuratively.

That is why it is so important for the Church to be involved and missional in its endeavors to the community and world in which it exists. There are evils and oppressions out there that are taking people's lives slowly and painfully. And it's more than any of us could handle...alone.

This is why I believe in the Church: I have seen, felt, and participated in Her Salvific mission given by Christ to redeem the world. The message of God's love and mercy are so vital to give hope, and the active love of the body of Christ through mercy and caring ministries demonstrates what salvation is really all about: wholeness.

Holy Week Thoughts

Today at the Men's Tuesday Morning Breakfast, we talked about Jesus in the Garden of Gathsemane (read Matthew 26:36-46 here). It takes place on Thursday of Holy Week, after the Last Supper, late in the evening.

It is such a fascinating scene. The Divine Word made flesh praying in the Garden that God's Will would be done...Why? Because, the very human Jesus does not want to endure the Cross. "If there's any other way?...But, I will do whatever you will, Father God."

It is the loneliest of scenes in all of Scripture. Yes, Jesus' friends and students all fell asleep instead of staying awake and praying for him, but I think it's more than that. On the eve of arguably Jesus' most important day, he's not so sure. The Cross is closer than ever before. The betrayal is closer than we would expect. The comfortability of the now is more tangible than ever. Today, worship, teaching, and friendship. Tomorrow, suffering, despair, and death.

Too often we dehumanize Jesus. It's actually a long standing idea: Jesus was too good, too perfect, too divine to be like us. "There's no way that Jesus got tired, smelly, irritated, cranky, angry, or even scared." Yet, the Scripture says that he was fully human. Just like us, and so he must have had the same feelings that we have.

Jesus was scared in the Garden. Reluctant to give up all the things we take for granted, I believe he knew what was coming, and he didn't want to do it. But, he did want to do what God called him to do. I think that is what I take away from the Garden: Jesus' love for God was so strong that he would do anything God called him to do...Sounds obvious! Of course Jesus would! Yet...

Often I find myself not wanting to do what I know I'm called to do: To leave the comfort of my bed at 2 a.m. to pray and talk with someone in the mist of a crisis that words cannot fix. To turn the other cheek when people are intentionally hurting me. To apologize for hurting someone else. In these moments, I hear the struggle happening in my heart: You don't want to do this...You don't HAVE to do this...You don't DESERVE this.

I'm positive that Jesus felt the same way, except those things were way more true of him!

So when I taste that moment, I know that I have tasted just a tiny speck of Jesus' night in the Garden. This helps me to understand just how unobvious the temptation really was for Jesus, how human he really was, and, ultimately, how much the Father loves you and me: He loves us enough to put Jesus through this. Enough that when Jesus begged for something different, God stuck to the plan.

In the Gardens of our lives, my prayer is that we might find the strength in our hearts to love God and follow Him...wherever the Spirit may lead.

Carl Jung & the Bible

I was looking for a quote attributed to Joseph Campbell. In reality, it was Campbell quoting Carl Jung, famous psychoanalyst. It comes from Campbell's The Power of Myth. It is so very wonderful: "Religion is a defense against religious experience."

If nothing else, that is the nugget for the day; however, in reading this article regarding an analysis of Answering Job by Jung, it dawned on me a very important point that I've always felt, but never heard articulated: The Bible must stay together, lest we turn God into a horrid beast, sub-human, something less than worthy of our worship.

Jung argues that the God of the book of Job is amazingly self-serving. God allows ha-satan, the adversary in Hebrew...something akin to " the prosecutor," to set a wager of Job's response. Jung uses the word "bamboozles." All in all, Jung, a believer in God (not necessarily the God of orthodox Christianity...but shaped by the Church and Scripture), makes some blasphemous statements...

But, I had a hard time arguing with him...I wanted to, but there are some really crazy things in that book. That got me started on the book of Joshua....more crazy things. Yet, each of these books have some beautiful things, too.

I think perhaps what Jung is pointing to is the incarnational nature of Scripture. Job was never meant to stand alone. It is a book of a community talking about suffering. Joshua was book of national identity and power. The book of Judges is about survival. The Gospels are books of hope and salvation. The Epistles are about community conduct (ironically so are Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy).

Taking a glimpse of God given to us by these inspired men and women allows us only to see in part...as St. Paul says, "We see through the mirror dimly..."

Looking at the Bible as such takes some faith because it's not neat, pretty, and concise. It takes work, hope, and faith to see the God of the Universe behind the pages, behind the stories.

It takes courage to sit through the argumentation of having a book like Ezra in the same Bible as Ruth....or the Epistle of James alongside St. Paul's writings.

Jung and Campbell are men I love to converse with (through their writings...they're both dead), and I often leave conversations with them provoked, disturbed, and questioning...

And for that I thank God for them, for their minds, and for their courage to write uncomfortable questions and thoughts...I also thank God for the Spirit giving me the courage to cling to faith and question at the same time.

Enjoying the Sermon Series

I hope it doesn't sound too pretentious to say that I'm enjoying the sermon series we're doing on the book of Revelation. It's been a while since I've dug into the book very deeply, and as theology and learning increase/change, it's fun to see it afresh!

I am in particular enjoying the book's fresh impact on my understanding of the Christian and government. It's been very challenging, scary, and confusing all at the same time.

I am not enjoying how confusing it is putting together a preterite understanding of Revelation with the idea of a Day of the LORD event. If anyone knows good books on this, let me know!

My Unembarrassed Ad for Disciple Bible Study

First, to clarify my last post, I do read my Bible...religiously. How ironic is that?

But, it got me thinking, I've read Dune at least 18 times, so how many times have I read the Bible, cover-to-cover? My first time through was in college. Did it in a month. I did it once in seminary, too. Since then, I've done it 3 times, and each time it's taken me 34 weeks...

Why 34 weeks? Disciple Bible study! It's a great Bible Study program, and if you've never done it, well you really need to! The approach is very good. It comes with a book that outlines the readings. There are 5 days of reading, 1 day of answering questions in the booklet, and a day of rest. Then once a week you meet with your Disciple class where you watch a video done by professors who study each part of the Bible you're reading that week. After watching the video, the class discusses the readings, shares their thoughts, and answers some questions.

In a nutshell, here's why Disciple I is AWESOME!:

1. You have accountability friends to help you read all through the Bible...even the slow, hard parts where Hallugoaboah begat Yaojodeeoho who begat Bill...yeah, those parts, too!


2. You get great insight from the video, the booklet info, and the class discussions.


3. The aim of the study is to help us apply Scripture to our lives...not just study it.

All, in all, I highly recommend it, and if you're in Winchester on Thursdays, we start at 7 p.m.