Palm Sunday presents the challenge to the powers of the world - a law of peace and love and suffering over a law of power and might. It's easy for us to constrain it in the ghetto of idealism and ignore it as we tackle the real world. Jesus says love overcomes hate and peace, violence, suffering over power and control. We're down with that until it's too difficult, then we make justifications.
It's called conditional approval - we can do bad things in certain situations because it's for the greater good. We can nuke Japan, but North Korea can't. We can blow up buildings all over Iraq and Syria, but Saddam Hussein and ISIS can't. A police officer or, perhaps, a local vigilante who feels threatened, can shoot unarmed teenagers, but they can't shoot back.
They're cut and dry situations because conditional approval always goes to the powerful over the less so. Why? Because the powerful make the laws. They get to decide. (I guess I should fairly say "we" here, since I benefit from conditional approval far more often than I suffer from it.) We like to say it's just democracy or fairness or good vs evil, but that's really not true. We skew the rules to benefit us. When we do it, it's good; when other people do it, it's wrong.
This is precisely why the radical gospel of Jesus Christ is so dangerous: there's no conditional approval. Killing is wrong, no matter what your justification. Abuse, oppression, selfishness, violence, power - they're all out, regardless of context. What's wrong is wrong, no matter who does it. Without an "us" and "them" the powers that be have no means of coercion or co-option.
The gospel is good news for the poor because the message is literally, "we have nothing to lose." The Empire took over Christianity when it gave the Church something to lose, something worth protecting, something requiring conditional approval. God is an easy excuse to give ourselves cover. "I'm just doing it for your own good," or "I don't make the rules, God decides what's right and wrong."
The problem with conditional approval, though, is when we find ourselves on the other side. We're down with killing our enemies until we become the enemies of a more powerful force.
Jesus marched into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, accompanied by losers, and proclaiming peace to people who'd always been under the heel of conditional approval. Pilate marched into Jerusalem on the very same day, astride a white war horse, accompanied by legions of soldiers proclaiming peace to anyone who fell in line and followed the rules of conditional approval.
Many through the years have been tempted by the power of power. When you've been on the wrong end of justification, it's quite easy to use the same rationale to overthrow the oppressors. Forgiveness doesn't jibe very well with justice. Yes, we can argue that our conditional approval is necessary - that's how it works - those rules don't just protect us, but the people we love, innocents, children. It's not about war, but about self-defense. Surely staying alive is the most important thing?
Jesus didn't think so.
The call of the Christian is the call to Christlikeness. It's not the call to use the weapons of the world for some purportedly righteous end; there's nothing of God in that. The very notion of friends and enemies, good guys and bad, is directly contrary to the gospel of love and grace.
I ran across a quote this week that perfectly sums up the problem of the spirit of empire, of power - the ideas that seem to run the world:
"We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."
You may say that's foolish, but it under-girds just about every dealing with power that exists in every society. Those who fight for righteousness do it to destroy evil. We never both to wonder if perhaps we're just as evil as the ones we try to kill or if they're as good as we think we might be. We really don't stop to wonder if perhaps power just simply can't overpower itself. Maybe violence can't stop violence and war can't end war. We know that deep down, but we keep giving conditional approval, because we don't really believe there's another way.
It's not just about intellectual assent, it's about putting our lives where our minds are and living differently in the world. Do we do it perfectly? By no means; in fact we're downright failures, but I'd rather be failing in the right direction that succeeding on the highway to hell.
...by the way, that quote? It's from Mao Zedong, former Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and one hell of a success.
Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book for the purpose of review. My integrity is not for sale. Those who know me well are aware a free book isn't enough to assuage my cutting honesty. If I've failed to write a bad review, it has nothing to do with the source of the material and only with the material itself.
Randy Frazee is a good pastor. I've read a number of his books and I'd characterize him, above all, as someone who loves and cares for people. He's not an ideologue or someone in search of fame. I've also dedicated most of my theological exploration in recent years to issues of afterlife and scripture. So seeing a book called What Happens After You Die by Randy Frazee was an easy choice for review.
Frazee addresses this looming question in a loving, careful and personal way. It's rooted in the narrative of his mother's death and both her questions and his explorations relating to what happens when we die. He sets the book up as a biblical exploration of the matter and I'm certainly glad to see a popular pastor and author talking about resurrection vs afterlife and new creation vs disembodied heaven. We need more access to such important, foundational scriptural concepts beyond what's available from NT Wright.
However, I was a bit disappointed in the way Frazee goes about structuring the book. Rather than actually present texts dealing with various issues of life, death, afterlife, resurrection, and new creation, he more explains his conclusions on the matter and provides some scriptural support to back them up. In most cases, his interpretation is certainly not the only reliable and orthodox opinion; it would be better to deal with the passages themselves and guide people through possible answers, rather than supplying the answers and ignoring differing opinions. In this way, readers of this book will not really be able to internalize and process the very questions he hopes to answer. A theologically conservative approach that leaves conclusions open to the reader can be found in Steve Gregg's All You Want to Know About Hell.
I disagree with some of the specifics Frazee presents as "biblical" fact, although certainly he nails the basic outline from scripture with great ease. Frazee essentially lays out a traditional, systematic system of answers for the questions he poses from with the framework of penal substitution theory. Essentially he's working under the assumption that "justice" is God's core character trait - specifically a kind of justice that's informed by our treatment of justice in human society today.
While I won't take a ton of time to present alternative interpretations and conclusions in this space - Rob Bell's book Love Wins deals with the same material in a different way. It's not exactly how I'd answer the questions, but I think it's a much better framework.
Frazee does not beat people over the head with his opinions, while he takes a perspective on eternal destiny that offends my understanding of God and the world, he does it with great sincerity and utmost care. My disagreements are with the substance and not the style of a well-written book that comes off genuine, positive, and encouraging.
I think his lack of symbolic treatment where the specifics of resurrection and new creation are concerned probably creates more problems than it solves. Issues of the cubic footage of the new Jerusalem of how one might be marked on the forehead are simply unnecessary at best and distracting at worst. It provides an incorrect perception on what is an entirely symbolic book - and one already difficult for Christians to understand.
Similarly, I find his picture of heaven far too indulgent to be reflective of Christ or the Kingdom of God. Frazee did not put in enough effort (or explain that effort well enough) to wrestle with the call of God to sacrifice and selflessness in terms of heaven and resurrection life. To say heaven is where our dreams come true without doing the hard work of examining what our dreams are and whether they might be righteous in the first place, is to leave untouched the most difficult aspects of heaven and hell.
I've written plenty of other places, and would be happy to speak personally at more depth, but I just don't believe a future in which some are forever lost, punished, or destroyed accurately represents the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Similarly, a God who lets us off the hook is also unworthy. But a God who loves us unendingly and allows us to be shaped and formed and transformed by the love of God into the beings we were created to be over whatever time it takes is surely the kind of God to whom I can commit my life.
Frazee takes a decidedly hopeful position on the future and the present, but I think there is even more cause for optimism and celebration to go along with our good struggle to be more like Jesus. For what it is, What Happens After You Die is well-written and compassionate, but I'm not sure it adds much of anything to the conversation besides pointing the cultural searchlight to important topics that need more attention.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
I was struck this week, though, how it seems we may have moved our object of attention from Sunday to Friday and perhaps we need the reminder that as much as we shouldn't rush to Sunday, we also shouldn't rush to Friday.
I know a few communities that celebrate a service of worship every day of Holy Week - Monday through Sunday - it's a good way to keep the pace. I suspect this idea gives a lot of pastors the shivers - not only is that planning and leading a whole bunch more services, there's also the issue of what to focus each one on. When we're in that Friday-Sunday schedule, it's easy: death and life. But I'm pretty sure real life (and death) is a bit more nuanced. It's the same problem we have making Advent into "pre-Christmas;" we're terrified of the in between (you don't see many Holy Saturday services, do you?).
I've been to a number of Maundy Thursday services the last few years in a whole lot of congregations. Most of the time, though, it feels like Friday. They're different, for sure - often foot-washing and/or communion as opposed to the traditional Tennebrae of Friday, but the mood, atmosphere and focus is decidedly sad. This strikes me as the wrong tone.
I get that Good Friday is sad - it's like a funeral. We're mourning the death of God. I wonder if perhaps Maundy Thursday should be a bit more like a wake. It's heavy, yes - you can't dismiss the importance of all that's going on: Jesus serving the disciples, Last Supper, betrayal - the guy sweated blood for God's sake (well, for human sake, but you get it).
At the same time, I feel like it was a livelier gathering and ours should be, too - with an appreciation of the significance, but still a sense of celebration. Passover, which is what they're celebrating, is both somber and celebratory. People died - every firstborn in Egypt - but a people was born. Passover is as much about the formation of God's people as it is the spectre of death. The mood of the Thursday service should reflect this.
I'm thinking of the scene in Braveheart (that may not actually exist anywhere but in my imagination), where the Scots are preparing to fight the next morning; they sit up late around the fire talking and laughing, sharing thoughts and fears. Maybe a more contemporary idea: the night before a wedding. The rehearsal is over and the bride and groom have returned to their separate quarters with attendants, preparing for the big day to follow. There's nothing sad about those moments, but they are deep, meaningful, tender. There's a real importance in the air; this is not a normal service, but in a way it is, just with a little more heft.
Yes, Jesus death is sad, horrific even, but that's Friday. As much as we shouldn't rush past it, we also shouldn't rush to get there. Jesus was still alive on Thursday and it feels like Thursday should still celebrate his life. Jesus' life was about laying his life down for others - that's serious business, but it began well before his arrest. He began laying down his life for others the moment he understood and accepted his call from God - when he gave up whatever were his dreams of life or the expectations of his family to proclaim the gospel to the world.
Thursday is the culmination of all of that, especially for us still alive. Yes, Jesus death and resurrection are of utmost theological and practical importance, but it is his life that speaks most directly to our lives today. We see a group of people, disciples, who mean well, but don't always get it and certainly don't always get along, sitting around the table, eating and talking together. They're committed to each other and to Jesus, even without knowing all that this commitment entails. They know something big is on the horizon, and they might even know something will be demanded of them; choices will have to be made.
They don't eat and drink unknowingly, but in a sense they do. They don't know - not even Judas - what will happen next. It is the ultimate unknown, but they are being shaped and formed as people who can respond to that unknown - not always perfectly (for sure), but with grace and faith and love. This, too, is important.
We're a year away now, so there's time to ponder and think and dream. When celebrating Holy Week, by all means, don't forget Friday, but let's not rush to get there either.
It seems even more silly to me when it feels like (and granted discerning the tone of a meme is somewhat difficult) everyone is really just talking about one thing: killing.
Now there are of course some gun advocates who genuinely want to preserve the right to hunt and are worried that new gun laws would make that more difficult. However, I don't see much virulent rhetoric from these people, in fact, most of them are pretty confident we're not headed that direction. The real ire comes from those people who are afraid gun restrictions will prevent them from defending themselves in ways they deem fit - while there aren't too many non-crank-wackos who talk about this in the language of killing, it is ultimately the extension that must be discussed when talking self defense - people want the right to kill in defense of their life or the life of a loved one.
And, there are, of course, some abortion activists enamored with the notion of family planning by abortion, contraception after-the-fact, if you will, who make the debate pretty callous and unfeeling - but these, too, are very few and far between. Most people recognize the physical and emotional toll an abortion plays on a woman (and those who love her, if they know) as well as the moral complications of such a decision - and would rather have as few abortions as necessary. Many people would rather not outlaw abortion simply because they're not comfortable making that decision for another person - likewise, you don't see a lot of rhetorical engagement from these people. Again, the rhetoric rarely gets formed in the language of killing, but it is the extension of the debate - even if one doesn't recognize a fetus as a person, it is certainly living tissue that might potentially be forced to stop living.
Ultimately, these are both discussions about in what circumstances killing is appropriate. In the end, such positions are just value judgments - either this "bad" person has done enough to deserve a self-defensive death (self defense, being itself, a value judgement) or the life into which this child might be born will not provide the kind of love and attention each human being deserves (which is, again, a value judgement in itself) and preventing that birth is the best choice.
There is an argument about someone who's alive and made choices vs someone not yet born who didn't - and that's certainly a valid argument to have - but it skirts the subject. In both cases, the counter argument is simply speculative: you never know how this "bad" person might respond to being treated with love and care as opposed to violence and death; you never know how this child or this mother or the larger community would respond to the love and life of a new baby. These counter arguments are, of course, equally powerful and valid.
Then there are also the arguments of how these decisions affect the larger society. Do we want to be a part of a society where human life is so devalued that virtually anyone can make unilateral decisions about ending it - whether at the end of a gun or of medical instrumentation? Likewise, do we want to be part of a society that stands idly by while people are threatened or killed or while children are raised unloved or under-resourced?
There are consequences to any action.
That is ultimately my response to discussions of this kind. We need to think more. We need to recognize both the value of life and the necessary interconnectedness of all life. There is no individual life on this planet. We all impact each other in ways seen and unseen. We are all in this together. Life is important and the decision to take a life is equally important. It is not a flippant decision. Too often our debates about such things make it an easy answer, "of course I can shoot someone who break into my home," "of course I can choose whether to have a child or not." And there's strong historical precedent for both.
At the same time, there's also a strong historical precedent that people wrestle not only with the decisions themselves, but with the morality of the decision itself. What does it mean to choose life? What does it mean to choose killing? This plays out in a number of other ways as well - military service, police work, capital punishment, euthanasia - even health care and nutrition debates. Life is a pretty big deal. Ending it, even more so. This shouldn't be something we settle easily... especially when it interacts with reality.
As a Christian, it's pretty easy to take a theoretical stance. Killing is wrong. Jesus makes the case pretty clear - "do not resist an evil person," "love your enemies," "turn the other cheek." The Christian stance is always one of self-sacrifice over killing. But those theoretical answers prove far more difficult when we put them up against real life scenarios - usually scenarios that spring upon us unexpectedly. We just can't say what we would do or even what we should do, because living in the midst of that chaos is part of the process. We can follow the words of Jesus, but in the real world, it is rarely without some reservation (not to mention our various competing interpretations of what exactly Jesus meant).
We can use our beliefs to engage in practices that help form us into the kind of people who will respond as we so choose - but in the end, actually experiencing such a decision makes the difference. Listen, I pray for a world where no one will feel the need to get an abortion and no one will feel the need to own a gun, but until that world comes, I live in this one.
There are sensible gun laws out there to be had. There really are. There are sensible abortion regulations that could exist. We constantly get push back on these issues around the notion of freedom. I believe in freedom. I do think, as much as possible, people should be able to make their own decisions. What I don't believe, though, is that this notion of freedom should supersede the consideration of life. Guns may not be the only way to kill a person, but they make that killing much easier - that needs to be part of the discussion. Abortion may be the choice of a woman (because even when abortion is illegal, it still happens a lot), but it is the ending of, at the very least, potential life. The decisions we make around these topics are not and should not be easy.
I've never heard anyone talk more openly and honestly about the realities and potential of guns than police officers, who face those decisions every day. I've never heard anyone talk more openly and honestly and about the realities and potential of abortion than doctors who perform them. You don't often hear casual definitive statements from these people, because they live lives in the midst of the mess. They see the realities of life on both sides of these decisions. They take killing seriously. They understand these issues are about life and have no easy answers. In other words: they're not meme-worthy - and it's our making them so that is the real tragedy.
Why is death such a big deal? I tend to think it's because of evolution. The way life seems to have come about in this world is through a long process of reproduction. It really seems a strain of self-survival has been laid within all of life to the very smallest, simplest organisms. Something inside us wants to live on. At the base, natural level we want to reproduce, as much as possible, giving "us" the best chance of surviving to the next generation.
I know there's this traditional Christian belief that death only existed after humans sinned. But that's not even really in scripture. It's not an issue of literal or non-literal reading. It's just not there. That belief emerged through interpretation, to answer some questions that arose around the text. There's some question about whether death was inevitable for Adam and Eve, say, but no real question about the reality of death for everyone else (with a couple key exceptions that are relatively irrelevant to this post).
I've written elsewhere, something that will be part of a larger post (or series of posts) about evolution and theology that is in the works, that it really seems there is a force of selfishness at work in the world - this is the evolutionary drive to survive and reproduce. Selfishness doesn't necessarily means bad, after all, a selfish baby is one that survives, because it makes enough noise to be properly fed and cared for.
If we look at death in its strictest element, without all of the emotional attachments we've laid on it - say from the perspective of a rabbit or a skunk - there isn't necessarily a reason to fear it. You may desire to avoid it the way you'd also avoid falling in a cold lake, but the fear we attach has nothing to do with death itself, only with what death represents. We'd miss out on more chances to reproduce; it would cut into our inborn ability to be selfish or self-sustaining. We're programmed to live as long as we can - which is why death becomes real scary.
Now there is room for altruism, of course. Human beings have evolved to such a point where our brains can step outside themselves, so to speak. We can analyze the natural inclinations we possess and choose to work against them. We can recognize this inborn desire for survival and put it aside, sacrificing ourselves say, for simple pleasures, or in place of one we love. Even so, death is still feared. I suppose we may find a sense of calm in the notion that we've chosen death as opposed to it sneaking up on us from behind, but it's still scary. Even if we push beyond that inclination to survive, we still possess it. It still makes an impact on us.
In the Christian faith there is a belief in resurrection. This notion is simply that death is not final. We die and then later we come back to life. Christians believe in an eternity, where, at some point, everyone will live in perfect harmony with God, each other, and the world around us. It might take a literal eternity to get there, but it is in the future.
If that's true, then death becomes relative benign. We might be afraid of that which accompanies death - emotional and physical pain, loss, etc - but death itself is not to be feared. Death is not the finality of us - perhaps, in fact, we have no finality at all.
I like the notion (and I'd love some input if there are those of you who know others who've posited this notion - I'm starting to wonder if I'm not the first one) that God represents a force opposed to that of selfishness - we can call it love (because that sounds great), but it's really just a selflessness. As the evolutionary process that brought us about came through a move towards selflessness, so the counterbalance that will lead us into eternity comes from a force of selfless love at work in the world. I guess my idea is that both forces have always and will always be at work, but the person of Christ represents the tipping point at which time that selfless love takes the upper hand from selfishness.
I say all this just to say - perhaps our fear of death is really just a lie. Yes, those things which accompany death are scary - we don't like pain, pain works against the notion of selfishness that lives in all of us - but death itself is a fear reaction to potentially losing the future. If there is no way to lose the future - no end to who we are - then death is just not scary.
I pay special attention to the parts of scripture that talk about fear. As near as I can tell, fear and love are completely incompatible. A perfect love drives out all fear (I think a pretty wise dude once said something like that). If we really do have these forces working within us - a selfish drive towards survival and a loving force pushing us to seek the good of others before our own, at some point they come into conflict (probably at a lot of points) and we have to choose between them. If death is on the horizon, it makes some logical sense to choose fear, but I guess what I'm wondering (recognizing that my faith in the future does not equal knowledge of the future) maybe that choice is the wrong one.
I could go on and on (I'd like to at some point), and it some ways this could be viewed as me saying life isn't precious or valuable. On the contrary - this is where that drive towards selfishness comes in handy (I told you it's not necessarily bad) - those things which accompany death make us treat it with utmost care and respect. The very notion we might lose our life leads us to value it. At the same time, perhaps these serious accompaniments have been given too much power. They must be taken seriously, yes - but perhaps not given control in our lives and decisions.
Ultimately, I suppose, we fear death because we recognize that we've not given to this life or gotten from it all we'd like to. I think that fits within this notion of self-preservation very well. We fear death because we doubt what's on the other side. Maybe it's that notion of feat that needs to change. There is a big difference between taking something seriously and being afraid of it. If you encounter a bear in the woods, both the one who ignores it and the one who responds in fear will likely find themselves with less than desirable outcomes. The best chance of survival is putting away the fear and taking the reality of the bear seriously.
There is no flippant response to death, but, just maybe, there also shouldn't rightly be fear either.
Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book for the purpose of review. My integrity is not for sale. Those who know me well are aware I would relish the chance to give a bad review in exchange for a free book. If I've failed to do so, it has nothing to do with the source of the material and only with the material itself.
This new book by Jon Twitchell is a revelation. A small, humble work of theology and practicality, helps pastors approach funerals, death, and grief from the experience of one who's officiated many hundreds of funerals in a variety of settings. I know Jon. We're friends, but even I was blown away with how well done the book is. Divided into four sections, covering context, theology, practics, and preparation, Presence contains much more than its subtitle suggests.
It is indeed a pastors guide and the audience is clear, but there is enough coverage of grief, mourning, and ministry to those in pain that anyone having to deal with such things could benefit. It is distinctly Christian, but in a way that can be universally applicable to funerals for all kinds of people. The writing style is careful and professional, but clear and mostly concise.
What shocked and impressed me most was the sheer volume of relevant, important information packed into just a few short pages. There are some sections I would have liked to be shorter and others I would have preferred to be longer, but all were useful and thought-provoking. The formatting was easy to use - short chapters, with associated pull-quotes from a variety of sources sprinkled throughout.
Frankly, I expected to provide a calm, quiet review of a mostly useful book. In the end, I am giving a more-than-ringing endorsement for a truly valuable tool. No pastor should go without having and reading this volume - even more so because it will only take an hour or two to read. Presence is not a how-to with lists of liturgies, prayers, and hymns (although there are some helpful appendices along these lines), it is a book of presence, as the title implies, helping pastors to find a place alongside grief as a representative of God.
Get it. Read it. Time well spent.
As we finish what is another difficult holiday to navigate I've been asking myself why it's so different? If I've worked through a dealt with issues of war and violence, why is the last Monday in May so much different than November 11th?
The answer should probably have been obvious, but, like a lot of things, I was slow to catch on. The difference is death.
Veterans Day often includes ceremonies at cemeteries and stories of long-ago wars, but it's really a day about people who've fought - many of whom are still alive (and too often forgotten). I hope I can separate the value and needs of people with my objection to war.
But death is different.
Memorial Day is about those who've fought and died - not just those soldiers who have died, but those who died in war. I don't like war - and it's not just the typical hatred of something inevitable; I don't believe its inevitable or necessary. I hope the post above and Brian Zahnd's great piece this week explain some of the theological underpinnings of that.
But what I'm realizing more and more, when it comes to Memorial Day, that doesn't really matter. People are dead and they are not coming back (at least not until the resurrection on the last day). With the possible exception of pain-ridden, terminal situation, where the suffering is too much to bear, all death is tragic, all death in painful.
When it comes to losing the people we care about, the why or the how aren't really important. We talk like they are sometimes - we like to think a heroic death (like one in battle) is better than a drug overdose or a car accident - but in the end, a mother or a brother or a daughter have lost someone irreplaceable and it is the loss we feel.
Ironically, this year, I saw many comments from people emphasizing that Memorial Day is not about military service in particular, but about remembering those who died in war - there was a general sense of emphasis on remembering, on loss.
I know it's attached to military service precisely because the cultural assumption is that these are noble deaths - deaths that earned us something: freedom, peace, security, etc - but the more I see comments from soldiers and family, the more it becomes apparent that this is simply a day of mourning.
All death is tragic. Death is an enemy. Death is a terrible thing. I know it's a part of life; I know it's inevitable, but it's not good. There is no such thing as an honorable or dishonorable death. Death sucks. It is universally bad.
I struggle, I do, with the patriotism and the celebration of war that so often goes with Memorial Day. At times it almost feels like we're celebrating certain deaths because of the bravery and sacrifice inherent in them.
Memorial Day is certainly not a day of celebration and I'm not even sure it's a day of remembrance. It's a day of mourning - of recognizing a loss, of naming and standing up to the gaping hole in our lives that death creates, and, by doing so, removing its power.
I have a different perspective on war than many. I have a different perspective on life and death and the future because of my belief in resurrection. I have real difficulty holding up soldiers as examples since I don't believe war is beneficial for anyone. But I do understand loss.
On this day, when a specific group of people are mourned, I mourn. I don't have a close connection to anyone who's died in war; I think I've only ever met one person. I can't claim this day as my own in any particular way. But I do hate death. I hate the memory of losing loved ones; I hate the thought of losing any more. I hate seeing other people experience the sorrow of death - no matter the reason.
On Memorial Day, let's mourn with those who mourn, and let that be enough.
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Yes, they aim to save lives not take them, which makes them different. I'm just not sure life and death are the terms by which we should live our lives.
I have a different perspective, I know. My faith affirms resurrection, that no matter how or when we die, it is not the end. Our bodies will be raised from the ground and remade. Our lives will go on forever, albeit with a little speed bump of death in the middle. Because of this belief, life and death are less important as motivators. I'm not claiming anyone should agree with me or should be forced to risk their lives against their will - what I am saying is that the response to this tragedy and the attempts to catch the bombers is not monolithic.
I'm merely stating a very unpopular opinion I happen to believe in deeply. I'm not attempting to influence anyone or represent anyone - I'm not even making a claim to a "Christian" position, although my thoughts are formed entirely from my Christian faith.
There are a lot of things to fear in life. There are lots of things we have we don't want to lose. There is pain and loss and those things make us feel terrible. We don't like feeling terrible. It makes sense to avoid them - we are evolutionarily hard-wired to avoid them. If I ran into a deranged terrorist on the street, I'd probably run like hell.
That doesn't mean I think it's the right thing to do.
I'd much rather ignore fear than protect my own life. The idea of sitting at home, disrupting my life while the city cowers in fear sickens me. If I were in Boston today, I'd be out walking the streets simply as a refusal to live in fear.
I'm happy the Boston PD announcement said, "if you value your own life" before listing the requests they made on residents. I just don't think my life is worth more than my integrity. I don't know how I could preach and believe what I do and still act out of fear. I suppose that's what grace is all about, because Lord knows I couldn't live up to my beliefs.
I'm not really afraid of death, but I'm terrified of pain, intense pain anyway. I've always chocked that up to being a rich, lazy, spoiled American - and there may be some truth there. Of course it could also be because I've never really experienced intense pain (maybe those are the same thing). Special Ops forces in the military go through training in such things. They endure pain to prove to themselves they can withstand it.
As a Christian, I should be engaging in something similar. Enduring difficult situations to better prepare yourself for them in the future. Practicing non-violence in routine situations, so it's easier to react without violence when things get hectic. Athletes exercise muscles to make them stronger and more capable in difficult situations. We fast from food and other things we don't believe we can live without to prove our resilience and our frailty.
I have to believe facing and ignoring fear is part of that process. As a parent, I'm terrified that my daughter will get hurt, physically and emotionally. But that's going to happen anyway - and I'm just doing her a disservice if I become so protective she never has the opportunity to face pain and learn from it.
Just as there is a fine line between being protective and negligent that parents have to negotiate - I imagine there's a fine line between facing fear and just being stupid.
You always have to ask the question - what is worth dying for? Some people are lauded for defending their home against intruders. The things we own are worth the fight and, sometimes, the life of a criminal. Someone else's life is worth my own - that's more than honorable. Should we also consider than refusing to let someone hold fear over us might be worth our lives, at the very least?
I'm certainly in a minority position - and I'm ok with that - but I object to the people who are supposed to protect us operating on the same fear as those they intend to stop. I'd love to hear things framed not so much in terms of "what you should do," but "if you value your life." It gives people a chance to decide.
We just have to remember that some people put less value on their lives than others.
I'm not willing to kill for anything, but I am willing (I hope) to die for what I believe. "There is no fear in love. A perfect love drives out all fear." 1 John 4:18. I'm not sure I'll ever mine the depths of that truth, but I do believe it.
There is certainly a Jewish argument to be made for capital punishment - there's just not a Christian one. Assuming we can get past the things Jesus said (you have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you love your enemies...), we have to deal with what Jesus did.
This is where, I think, the spiritualization of salvation has some serious problems. Evangelicalism has often reduced the cross to a necessary spiritual transaction. Our souls need saving, thus Jesus has to die. He was a special case, not a normative human experience because only Jesus could do what Jesus did.
Beyond the issues of atonement at play and given the real truth of Christ's uniqueness, there's something deeper at work here.
Salvation is not purely spiritual. As crazy as many of you think I am, there's a reason it always comes back to the resurrection with me. Our faith, Christian faith, is not about going off to heaven to laze around on clouds and play soccer with Jesus. It's not about going somewhere else. It's about God coming here and making all things right.
There's something deeply physical about salvation. Buried deep within the reality of the cross is a visceral change in the make-up of all that exists. When Paul says that those who are in Christ are new creation, he is not speaking metaphorically; it is not a spiritual analogy. He means that those who are in Christ as substantively different - they are participating in a new reality. It may not be fully realized as of yet, but it has begun. The change is made, it is real.
If there is such a physical component to salvation then Christ's sacrifice on the cross is not purely a spiritual act. It is not simply a special case, it is a normative example of the way our physical self must be manifested in the world.
Christ has died. We will die. We must be willing to die.
Belief is only belief when it's backed up by action. So often Christians believe in an afterlife because it's a better alternative to the nothingness they suspect awaits them. We live in a world where science and reason dominate; it's difficult - even for those of us fully steeped in the Church - to imagine that there's some cloudy, harp-filled paradise up there waiting for us.
And so we run from death. We run with all our might because we're just not sure.
The cross presents a different path. The cross, with all of its various spiritual AND physical components, compels us to a different sort of belief, one that requires action. We must prove this belief by truly hating our own life. Hating in the sense that it is worthless to us, not because life has no value - life is indeed precious and wonderful - but because death is nothing but a blip on the radar of eternity.
It would be easy to enter this mindset and emerge with the "kill'em all and let God sort'em out" mentality. Death is just a phase, so who cares? Of course, then we also have to look at Jesus. He refused to throw himself off the temple and prove his greatness. No, this new creation operates differently. It's not about power and control or even reason and practicality. It's about loving your enemies.
I can't get my head around it. I work and try and I discipline myself in the hope I might someday do the right thing in a tough situation. But I'm still running scared. Running scared towards the cross as I am firmly committed to the idea that it's the only hope for the world - and running scared away from the cross because I can't bear the thought of facing pain and death when there's an easier way out.
This is the problem of non-violence, the problem of the cross. It's not a problem to be solved, but a problem to move in with. If you work your way through the jungle-gym of logic and come out on the other side, you've done something wrong. We are creatures of a new and redeemed world, living in the midst of a dying reality. We're not supposed to fit. It's not supposed to make sense. That's why it's called faith.
That being said, I find it more than bit troubling how the world so easily claims this tragedy as it's own. Of course every death is a tragedy and the death of children even moreso because we recognize the loss of what could be. I don't have any problem expressing remorse and voicing the reality of the injustice and evil of an act like the killing of kindergarten students in Connecticut this week. I don't think we should ignore it.
I do think we should have firm and sensible boundaries. A Facebook meme with a lengthy quote attributed to the actor, Morgan Freeman, made the rounds in the wake of the tragedy - it expressed a desire for us to stop focusing so much on these mass killings - making the perpetrators defacto celebrities and perhaps incidently inciting more. I'm not just talking about the media - after all journalism, as tasteless and exhausting as it can be sometimes, is an important service. I don't think we need 24 hour coverage. I don't think we need interviews with little children who just escaped such a terror or a high school classmate of the shooter. They do it for ratings and because we have this inherent desire to know.
I'm not sure it's good for us to have that need satisfied.
I'll just say I don't understand how so many people find a tragedy like this makes them think more about their own children. I saw all the Facebook posts of people hugging their children. I've tried to figure out what mindset brings people to those posts - my only answers are unkind and likely untrue; I won't share them here. I do have a child now, one I love quite a bit - but I don't find myself more in love, more sentimental or more anything in the wake of this tragedy. One thing I do resonate with - I can't even imagine losing her.
I think that's what bothers me most. Those who haven't lost children really can't identify - we'd like to think we can, we'd like to think we have something to offer besides prayers and condolences. We don't. We're helpless and we're disconnected and we don't like it.
I think it's entirely appropriate for the President to stand up and acknowledge the tragedy and loss - to pledge the nation's support. I don't think it's appropriate for him to show up. It's not a national tragedy. It's a very localized tragedy in a small Connecticut town, specifically for 27 families and those who are a part of their lives. It is certainly evidence of a troubling national epidemic, but it shouldn't be treated as part of a larger problem. That's a disservice to those in mourning.
Certainly there are things we can do to help - but its a general help, not a specific one. There's absolutely nothing we can do for these families but allow them time and space to mourn. We can have those discussions of gun safety and the mental health process - we can work to shape our society into one where things like this occur less.
I also think we can leave the grieving to grieve. I am not saying we abandon the families of the dead - not at all. But we can't mourn with those who mourn when we have no connection to them. Ninety-nine percent of us don't have any connection to these deaths - allow those who do to represent us in comfort.
We want to express outrage - to feel like we have some power over the evil in our world. These are good honest responses, but sometimes focusing on a problem from which we're disconnected keeps us from addressing similar problems in our own communities. In 2011, more than 14 children were killed by guns every day of the year, just in the US. The number rises precipitously when the age goes to 18. 40,000 children die of starvation in the world every year. Nearly a dozen kids are killed by their own parents every day as a result of abuse or neglect.
I suspect, more than better gun laws or improved mental health services, we're most likely to prevent things like this from happening by being present and available to suffering in our own neighborhoods and communities.
If you need to hug your children extra, please do so. If you need conversation in your workplace or congregation or around the dinner table to help deal with the trauma, by all means have it. I am not trying to diminish your response or the tragedy that has happened, I just hope to remember, for myself if no one else, that pain and tragedy exist all around us. Our society has gotten pretty good at hiding it, which is why these times it smashes out into the open trouble us so deeply.
I'm not upset, necessarily, with what's being done. The desire and urge to help those far away from us is righteous and positive. At the same time, it's difficult to stomach in a culture where everyone and everything seems kept at arms length.
We have grandiose ambitions and we live in a super-sized world. We want massive solutions to massive problems - when likely the most effective course of action is, once again, to love your neighbor.
That's when things get messy. That's exactly what the people of Newtown, Connecticut are discovering in the wake of this terrible event. For me, at least, it seems disrespectful to assume I can have some part in that from far away. As much as I desire to comfort and solve. I just can't - not as a stranger hundred of miles away.
I'd like to hope (I am an optimist beneath all these contrarian ideas) that the legacy of this disaster could be a renewed sense of community around the country and perhaps the world. That we could find, on the other side of this loss, pain, and confusion, a sense of community and connection - some small piece of the relational world in which God created us to live.
I have to embrace my place, my town, my people - to own my pain and the pain around me. This just doesn't work from a distance.
There have been a lot of comments about the newly dead "being with Jesus" or "meeting relatives in heaven," and the like. Sentiments, which can be very comforting, but which I don't believe are quite supported by scripture - at least not as definitively as everyone seems to believe.
One of those phrases has gotten be thinking - someone said, "I envy her being able to see Jesus face to face." It struck me strange. Obviously I admire Jesus quite a bit and I am certainly grateful for everything that he has done for us - at the same time I wonder if I would be starstruck meeting Jesus. What's more, I wonder if Jesus would ever have wanted me to be?
There's a lot made of Christ downplaying himself while on earth. He was always deferring to the Father and pointing people to God. There's little overt reference from Jesus concerning himself - so little, in fact, that there were hundreds of years of doctrinal controversies about whether Jesus Christ was God at all.
Perhaps because of those problems, we seem, today, to have relegated Jesus' humanity to the back-burner. Yes, Jesus is human, but he is God! The life, ministry, teaching, and gospels of Jesus Christ seem to do the opposite. There's a casual reference to his divinity, but mostly they are about the ways in which human beings can live in the way God created us to live.
We are not fascinated by Jesus because of his power, but because of his humility, because of his embrace of human frailty.
Jesus never asked to be worshiped. He never expected it. Most times when people tried, he rebuked them or asked them to wait for his death and resurrection. I'm not arguing that we should not worship Christ, but simply that it doesn't seem like something he wants us to do with him present in the room.
When I look forward to the consummation of all things, I look forward to a world of justice - where the wolf and the lamb lay together, where enemies embrace, and love reigns in the absence of fear and loneliness. I don't really look forward to spending time with Jesus, I look forward to living in the world he has created and redeemed.
I'm sure Jesus will spend plenty of time in eternity with each of his creatures. We are all beloved and important - from the most dedicated saint, to the lowliest plants and animals. I don't want to condemn our looking forward to any of that. I'm just not sure we're going to want to spend more time with Jesus than with anyone else.
If we really believe the words we speak and the power of the Holy Spirit - eternity begins now. While we await the fulfillment of the promise, the new Kingdom has already begun. We are already living into the future we'll live for eternity. Perhaps our worship of Jesus Christ is less about awe for the savior and more about loving those he loves.
In a world remade in love, in a word absent selfishness and sin, sure, Jesus is the reason we are here, but he's not any more important than anyone else - and I think that's precisely the way he wants it to be.
For most of history and in many cultures still today age is respected, and the signs of age are coveted. Here in the US we tend to worship youth and avoid anything that reminds us we're growing older. I saw a Dick Clark retrospective and the man looked older in 1980 than he did before his stroke in 2004. America's Oldest Teenager aged for a while, then seemed to reverse the process.
Like just about everything else, this is a complex issue - I think there's probably something to be said about how our cultural fear of death fits in - but today I want to focus on this obsession with youth and appearance.
We've built up a culture where youth, beauty, and sexuality are valued above all else (except maybe money). We associate the value of a person with how young they look. I imagine there's some biological component to this - the idea that the people most likely to propagate the species are more attractive to us - but human beings do also possess the ability to understand, evaluate, and ignore those natural impulses.
Why do we not just encourage, but assume that anyone under the age of 60 who has a few gray hairs will, obviously, dye them? Because it's easy? Why do we only make, sell, and buy little girl clothes that make them all look like grown up women? Because we don't want to be left out? Perhaps we just want everyone to have as much time as possible at their peak?
Why is it a peak? Life is diverse and ever-changing. Each and every stage of life is important and valuable. We're not who we were and we're not who we will be. I don't think there's anything wrong with being nostalgic for previous times - or anything wrong with looking forward to what lies ahead. However, we can't get so caught up in the past, or the future, that we neglect today.
Of course, we also have to work hard to encourage and affirm others to embrace who they are and not buy into the cultural conditioning that drives us to live in the past, the future, or to be someone else. We have to combat the notion that our ability to make ourselves someone else is freeing and empowering. You are valuable because you're valuable - not because of what you look like or the color of your hair.
When the President said, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon" what he said was correct, but the truth is, if any of us had a son, he would look like Trayvon. Ironically, crazy Newt Gingrich was the only person of note to bring this up. And while I disagree with his charges of race-baiting (and nearly every other things that comes out of his mouth), I do agree this statement highlights race and should be given additional notice.
I believe the quote, and others like it, is meant to draw attention to the very real possibility that being black in the United States (and nearly anywhere else), in and of itself, is more dangerous than being white. As obvious as this realization is to millions of black parents, it may have taken an event like this for it to really sink in for Barack Obama (and for many other parents).
I want to be careful here and not ignore the reality of racism and our collective denial of the real effects of slavery and segregation in this country. Even if race had nothing to do with the death of Trayvon Martin, it's certainly reminiscent of many other deaths in which race played a pivotal role.
In the President's statement, Trayvon was not just a child, but a black child - which, inadvertently, pushes those of us who will likely never have a black child into a second class of relatability. Of course, my righteous indignation does precisely the same thing - why does Trayvon's age make his death, under these circumstances, any more tragic?
As a Christian, I believe that life is precious, that the taking of life is always tragic - even if, on occasion, we find it regrettably necessary. I believe that when a human being takes life there is an incongruity with our own created nature - something damaged that requires divine intervention to be healed. I wonder if we assign these levels of tragedy to killings as an attempt to buffer ourselves from the very real effects of those others we deem justified?
I think we create these levels of tragedy specifically to correspond with ourselves. The more innocent, the more well-intentioned, the more responsible for others, the more physically similar to me, the more tragic the death. Is this ultimately a way of calling our own lives more worthy of continuing than others? This becomes vitally important if we're ever in a situation where our life is threatened. We have a built in excuse to "kill or be killed" - our death would be more tragic than their's.
It all leads me to ponder what sort of actions and thought patterns I should be practicing to enforce and instill the idea that my life is not more important than any other? If indeed there exists a situation in which "kill or be killed" are the only two options, the more tragic is to choose killing - after all, the victim doesn't have to live with the consequences.
My first response to the news was awe that it actually happened. I, like a lot of people, felt bin Laden was going to die of old age. My second response was nervousness.
This death does indeed bring some closure to an unsettling experience that began with a terrible tragedy almost a decade ago. I am one of those whose life perspective has been shaped by dealing with 9/11 and its repercussions.
I was beginning my Junior year of college at ENC, just south of Boston. The planes took off from Boston. There were guys on my floor who, for a while, were worried their father was on one of them. A fellow student lost a father as he responded from his fire house to help evacuate the buildings. I was not disconnected from this tragedy. It was real. It felt personal.
Two years later God changed my life. The result was a shift, from preparation for a career in politics to enrolling in seminary and the process of preparing for ministry. My encounter with scripture profoundly changed my perspective on life. I found a gospel that demanded my full allegiance. It meant a departure from the story my culture was writing for me to participation in a story God has been writing since the beginning of time.
News I would have cheered in 2001 brings sorrow in 2011.
I say this with no affinity for Osama bin Laden. He dedicated his life and his considerable wealth to increasing fear in our world. Fear, which is directly counter to a gospel of love. In this case, I cannot think of a more appropriate word to describe his legacy than: evil.
That being said, Osama bin Laden was a beloved creation of God's and every death is tragic. We do not have the right to kill anyone, no matter how evil. Judgement belongs to the Lord.
There has been much talk of justice, when people really mean revenge. Justice would have been for bin Laden to express real remorse and for the victims of his aggression to express real forgiveness; justice would have been for us to create a society in which George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden could live in peace.
I am not so deluded as to think this is possible, short of a miraculous work of God. Yet that miraculous work is the vision of the future laid out in scripture. What else do the wolf and the lamb, the bear and calf, the child and the serpent represent than sworn enemies living in harmony?
The real issue today is not how we handle death and killing (you can read my previous blog entry for that), but how we respond to them. I take Jesus seriously when he says an "eye for an eye" no longer applies, but instead we're called to love our enemies. Even if one feels that killing is necessary at some point, it should be done with repentance and regret - never celebration.
I am sorrowful because I believe that celebrating death is destructive to people. We cannot control the emotions life brings out in us, but we must control our responses. Revenge feels good; we've made someone suffer in the way we've suffered. But revenge can never bring healing. It can never bring restoration. That comes from loving those who don't deserve to be loved. It comes from remembering that we are all, simultaneously, undeserving of the love we're shown and profoundly deserving of love.
God weeps for Osama bin Laden. I'm not sure I can muster that response, but I do weep for people who rejoice in death and I apologize for any arrogance that may communicate.
