Where Does This Come From?

Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3.7-8)

An Eternal, God-Like Life

Indulge me as I delight in a bit of pride. The older of my two nephews, Zach, graduated high school this weekend—in typical Zach style, I might add, not making a big deal of his achievements (which are many), but with eyes focused straight ahead. Next autumn Zach will enter college to prepare for a life of ministry. This will be the fourth generation of Wolfes who, in some shape or form, have dedicated their lives to the Gospel. Our family’s joy knows no bounds.

My sister-in-law, Renée (herself a minister’s daughter), and I were talking about Zach and she told me, “When he announced he felt called to ministry, of course we were pleased. But we were also surprised. We’ve never pushed our boys in that direction. They’ve always been free to find their own way. And so, when Zach told us how he was being led, we knew it was real.” (Alex, my younger nephew, will graduate middle school later this month and has already expressed a desire to enter medicine—another ministry, to be sure, and the continuance of another family tradition.) As we discussed the boys’ aspirations, Renée and I wondered where does this compulsion to serve God and others come from. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. Neither do I.

By no means is the question unique to our family. Indeed, each of us witnesses the same desire to honor God’s purpose in ways that benefit those around us. Something inside you and me compels us to follow Jesus—to study His teachings, to emulate His example, to live in ways that fulfill His promises. It’s an inchoate longing whose origins run deeper than upbringing or need for a governing set of life principles. It is something altogether amazing that God imbeds our beings long before they take shape. It springs from precognitive awareness of a new life—a transcendent life—that Christ makes possible in each of us, a seeking life, a richer life, a better life beyond mundane existence. It’s an eternal, God-like life that, as Jesus explains in Sunday’s Gospel (John 3.1-17), is born of God’s Spirit.

A Bold, Completely New Idea

Nicodemus—whose nighttime visit occasions Jesus’s comments—is a seeker. And John wants us to know that he comes to Jesus from a rare place. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, “a leader of the Jews” (v1), meaning that he’s mastered a theological construct that prides itself on having figured everything out. Yet the Pharisaical tradition also puts great value in asking questions, and something down deep in Nicodemus alerts him that he hasn’t found all the answers. Everything he’s seen and heard from Jesus tells him there’s more to know. So Nicodemus calls on this Rabbi Whose preaching radically diverges from the Pharisee tradition in hopes of launching a new period of discovery in his life. At great personal risk (which explains his decision to meet Jesus under cover of night), Nicodemus is compelled to find out where Jesus is coming from. If he can pin Jesus down, perhaps he can identify the origins of his own hunger for something greater than a religiously and morally doctrinaire life.

From the first, Jesus’s message has been this: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1.15) How near? In Luke 17.20-21, Jesus explains: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among [or within] you.” Jesus senses the stirrings of God’s kingdom within Nicodemus and wastes no time telling the Pharisee what he needs to know. In John 3.3, He says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” This revelation throws Nicodemus. First, it tells him that their conversation is not going to go per expectation. Jesus isn’t going to parse Old Testament texts in the grand rabbinical tradition. Here is a bold, completely new idea—something Nicodemus has never encountered before—and the adept theologian can’t quite wrap his head around it. Born from above (or “anew,” or “again”)? What does that mean?


The Very Breath of God

Jesus enlightens Nicodemus. “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” He says. (v6) Mortal birth brings us into the world. But there’s more, much more, to life than biological existence. The Spirit of God gives birth to our spirits—the very breath of God that inspires our beings—and that new life comes out of us, enabling us to gain entrance to God’s kingdom. Jesus tells Nicodemus it’s entirely possible to live in a world that transcends the physical; once we acknowledge the Spirit’s presence within us, we’re transformed. We obtain eternal life—life as lived by God, as God desires, life devoted to building God’s kingdom on earth, a kingdom of love, peace, justice, and harmony. 


Thus, this spiritual birth brings with it a compulsion to live in ways that supersede natural living. Indeed, it’s a peculiarly unnatural way of life that places love for God above all else and love for others on par with love of self. So, while we recognize the deeper, richer, and truer life that results from this compulsion, its beginnings will always remain a mystery. And Jesus appears perfectly comfortable with that. “Don’t be astonished that I said, ‘You must be born from above,’” he stresses to Nicodemus. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (v7-8)

Something Within

We don’t need to fully understand where this comes from. We will never be able to identify what compels us to love God and others, what drives us to seek justice and peace not only for ourselves, but also for anyone who’s denied them. The passage ends with Nicodemus not really getting the answers he came looking for. Instead, Jesus gives him something far more glorious and essential. He assures the Pharisee that what drives his desire for more than mundane existence is a godly gift. His search brings him to the door of God’s kingdom and belief in a Spirit-born life is all that’s required to enter. “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him,” Jesus says. (v16-17) This mysterious compulsion that inspires young people to pursue lives of faithful ministry and all believers to live out Christ’s teachings and example does not—and cannot—end in condemnation. It leads to eternal life.

Understanding new life in Christ has no bearing on our ability to experience it. In fact, we should celebrate the mystery of our faith-ignited compulsion as the first sign of life it creates—a life that defies logical explanation and makes real God’s kingdom in us. And as I ponder the singular beauty of this irrevocably transformed, unnatural lifestyle, I’m reminded of a hymn that Zach’s great-grandfather often sang to his father and me. With my brother, Steve, perched on one side and me on the other, Papa Wolfe would rock us gently in the backyard swing as he sang:

Something within me that holdeth the rein

Something within me that banishes pain

Something within me I cannot explain

All that I know, there is something within

Have you that something, that burning desire?

Have you that something that never doth tire?

If you have it, that heavenly fire

Let the world know there is something within

There is something within. That’s all that we know. And just knowing that is enough.

Something within us—something we can’t fully understand or source—compels us to lead Spirit-born lives.

Postscript: "Something Within Me"

Here’s Take 6’s jubilant rendition of Papa Wolfe’s hymn, “Something Within Me,” admittedly performed with a bit more (though not much) doo-wop swagger than what my brother and I heard as kids.

Note: S-F will return to its “Sitting with Scripture” series on Monday, and continue on weekdays throughout the month of June.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/06/02/where-does-this-come-from/. 

Destiny vs Destination

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14.5-6)

Finding Oneself

I met a most fascinating woman many years ago—so long ago I don’t recall her name or the occasion that brought us together. But our conversation was unlike any I’ve ever had, because her story was unlike any I’d ever heard. She was near or past 70, and had just sailed around the world on a series of tramp steamers. The instant I heard this, my movie brain kicked in. I envisioned her voyage in black-and-white, with her wandering through one exotic port of call after another. Yet when I asked her what the experience was like, she said, “It was tedious.” I would imagine an adventure on that scale being anything but tedious, I said. “Oh, but it is,” she told me, “because of the scale of it. Most of the time is spent at sea on a working ship, with a crew that more or less puts up with you. I read a lot of books, spent most of my time alone, and stared at nothing but blue sea. And while I did see a lot of the world, the touring became secondary to the rest of it. I learned that traveling the world—flying here and there—is much different than sailing around it. You have no idea how big the planet is until you do that.”

Her appearance hinted that she was a woman of means. So I asked if the adventure ever got so tedious that she considered forgetting the whole thing and flying home. “The first two or three times we put into port I battled that,” she told me. “But I eventually realized I’d bit off something bigger than sailing from point to point. The trip stopped being about any particular destination. It became about me, and what I was learning about myself in the middle of nowhere. I began to understand time and space, thinking and not thinking in new ways. I learned how to wake up every day with no greater goal than letting the day be, and being in the day.” Though she didn’t articulate it as such, her comments rang with a sense of destiny, the process of finding oneself—in her case, of finding her place in the world by discovering how big the world really is.

Letting Each Day Be

In many ways, Lent calls us into a similar adventure. We set out across a vast wilderness that may increase our opportunity to experience new and unusual things. But, for the most part, it’s a solitary, increasingly tedious journey that hones our understanding of time and space, thinking and not thinking, listening for every new sound, and most of all, letting each day be while we learn to be in the day. The longer we traverse Lent’s monotonous expanse, we’re less concerned about its destination than coming to grips with our destiny. Being here, wherever we are now, subsumes our concerns about getting there, wherever that may be—whether it’s the cross and empty tomb, or finding a place in our Christian experience that we’ve never before reached.

The struggle between fixating over destination and finding one’s destiny is as old as the Christian faith. It’s the crux of Jesus’s exchange with Thomas in John 14. Jesus is prepping the disciples for His imminent death and departure, telling them that He’s going away to prepare a place for them. “I will come again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going,” He says in verses 3 and 4. Thomas has no idea where Jesus is going and he panics to think he won’t reach the destination. “How can we know the way?” he asks. (v5) His question triggers one of Jesus’s most frequently quoted statements: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (v6)

Garbled

Regrettably, this is one of those perfect storms where context, translation, and emphasis have got so garbled it’s possible—perhaps even likely—to read the passage and come away with the exact opposite of what Jesus is saying. To sort this out, let’s start by acknowledging concessions we have to make. With the Gospels being written roughly 20-50 years after Christ’s ascension (in John’s case, 50), we accept that Jesus’s statements, much like my recounting the conversation above, are approximations based on memory, not precise quotes. One concedes they’re more apt to be condensations of lengthier talks in which Jesus explained His teachings in greater depth. Then we must also allow for additional fuzz to accumulate by way of translation. Often what began as rhetorical gets transmuted into something more literal, as with this passage.

Jesus starts by comparing God’s kingdom to a “house” with “many dwelling places” (v2)—i.e., a spiritual realm with room for all. But the King James Bible and other versions translate “dwelling places” as “mansions” or “rooms,” suggesting a literal location that sounds more like a final, celesital destination than an ever-present spiritual abode. The emphasis shifts from Jesus leading us into a new way of life—which is how the original texts read—to a foretelling of life after death and the Second Coming. In this context, Thomas’s question makes sense. Who knows how that’s supposed to work? Thus, Jesus’s response is taken as an explanation that contradicts what He’s actually saying. “I am the way, truth, and life; no one comes to the Father except through Me,” sounds a whole lot like, “Unless you’re a Christian, you’re not going to Heaven.”

Jesus expressly is not talking about Heaven and most definitely isn’t putting up guard-rails that deny access to God. He’s talking about a truthful way of life, describing the believer’s destiny in life, not a destination after death. He’s telling us we can access God by following His way, believing His truth, and receiving His life. And here’s the final twist: Jesus is speaking as God, because Jesus is God. To come to Jesus is to come to God. Not only in this passage, but throughout the Gospels—particularly in John—we hear Jesus dispute the idea of exclusion, based on His understanding as God.

One With God

In John 10, He proclaims, “I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice.” (v14-16; emphasis added) Jesus’s comments about radical inclusion split His audience. John says many of them say, “He has a demon and is out of His mind;” others, who hear the promise of all-inclusive love and acceptance, protest, “These are not the words of One Who has a demon!” (v20-21) Not long after this, Jesus reengages the religious set and takes up the inclusion topic again. Verses 26-30: “You do not believe, because you do not belong to My sheep. My sheep hear My voice. I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of My hand. What My Father has given Me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are One.” (Emphasis added)

Let’s read this closely. “Sheep that do not belong to this fold” are people outside the strictures of religious law and tradition. Yet they listen to Jesus. Jesus knows them. To them He gives (present tense) eternal life—life now and always—and promises, “they will never perish” (future tense). Destiny, not destination. “What My Father has given Me is greater than all else,” Jesus says. Anything we point to in an attempt to deny Jesus’s message of inclusion is irrelevant. Any doctrine that says anyone who believes will be rejected—whether by creed or creation—is dismantled. “No one will snatch them out of My hand,” Jesus declares. “Nor will the power to include them be snatched from the Father’s hand, because the Father and I are One.” (Those clinging to a masculine God should note Jesus’s word for “One” is gender neutral, confirming God’s inclusive will and nature.)

A Present Calling

This teaching of inclusive unity between God and Jesus, between God, Jesus, and us, climaxes in Gethsemane, where Jesus prays, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one. As You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, may they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given them, so that they may be one as We are One. I in them and You in Me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that those also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17.20-24; emphasis added)

Jesus prays that we access a state of being that witnesses His divinity and God’s love to the world. It’s a present calling to access our destiny in Christ, to be united with God as One. Jesus prays that we who believe the Good News passed down by the Apostles will be with Him where He is, to experience His glory revealed in that moment, when Death hovers and the promise of Life will not tremble—to know that God loves us from the dawn of time and will not relinquish that love for all of eternity.

Heaven sure sounds grand; eons and eons in God’s unfiltered presence, where death and hatred and suffering no longer exist. But—oh my—how much grander is the promise that we can access our destiny in God now, that we accept Christ’s way, truth, and life and know that we belong to God! To come to Christ is to enter Christ, to be received as one with God and to live in the world as sheep of a defiantly loving Shepherd. Wherever Lent takes us, I pray we discover our breathtaking destiny in this life as we go through its process.

Lent’s desert expedition opens us to the realization that coming to Christ is about accepting our destiny in present life, rather than focusing solely on a far-off, future destination.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/06/destiny-vs-destination/.

Postscript: Questions 10 & 11

How does accepting our destiny in this life—rather than focusing our energies on reaching a far-off, future destination—reshape our concept of faith?

What does accepting our destiny in Christ require of us in the here and now?

Seeing is Being

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6.22-23)

Trusting Darkness

It’s Oscar® weekend, and like students cramming for finals, Walt and I are rushing to catch nominees we’ve not yet seen. Thanks to various association memberships, we’ve got most of them on DVD, which saves a lot of time running to theaters. Yet the discs remaining in this year’s to-do stack intimidate us more than any in recent memory, because what’s left are dark—in some instances, very dark—movies: 127 Hours, Winter’s Bone, Blue Valentine, The Rabbit Hole, Animal Kingdom, and Biutiful. We’re not sure we have the fortitude to wade through so much complex emotion, stress, and loss in 48 hours. To a large degree, current events have more than occupied our minds with crises, tragedy, and conflict. After newscasts of tyrants firing on protesters, the egregious ploy to strip Wisconsin workers’ rights, the Christchurch earthquake, and so on, we’ve put off looking at grimmer nominees. “I don’t want to see that” has been the standard answer to suggestions we put one of the unseen discs into the player.

The human spirit abides only so much pessimism and grief before it rebels. A persistent onslaught of negative thoughts, emotions, and experiences rapidly depletes reserves of light and hope it intuitively taps into to counteract darkness and fear. When we’re at wit’s end with no hope in sight and someone shows us grace or causes us to smile, we say, “Thanks, I needed that.” It’s no exaggeration. We really do need it. Our spirits soak up the light to combat darkness. Yet we’re ill advised to rely on another’s grace and optimism for light. We have no guarantee cheer and encouragement will come from an outside source. While waiting for them, we easily become obsessed with darkness. Our sight becomes infected, incapable of detecting light. We begin trusting darkness, acclimating ourselves to its deficits and dangers, and anticipating its deceits. We grow suspect of light and laughter. “Thanks, I really needed that” turns into, “It’s kind of you to try and cheer me up, but…” By then, our spirits have surrendered the will to rebel against darkness. They’re too weak to crave light’s regenerative power. They need resurrection. Before we reach such a dismal stage, however, we should take Jesus’s words in Matthew 6.22-23 to heart.

We Are Cameras

“The eye is the lamp of the body,” Jesus says. “If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” While His message is clear, modern technology provides us a more apt metaphor to impress His teaching in our minds and memory. We are cameras. We automatically record and archive everything we see—not only in the literal sense, but figuratively and emotionally also. Our vision extends beyond natural sight. It’s endowed with perceptive and interpretive capabilities to distort and misjudge what we see. We, in turn, control where we look, what we focus on, our feelings about what we see, how those emotions alter the image, and, finally, meanings we attach to it. Over time, we develop what we might call a visual style much like actual photographers. The parallel places Jesus's concept readily within reach.

Let's try an imaginary exercise. We'll look at three pictures and name the photographer. The first is a low-contrast, black-and-white image of a sheer cliff with a narrow margin of clouded sky above. The second—also black-and-white, but starkly so—is an expressly homoerotic close-up of two muscular arms clasping a lily in powerful hands. The third, shot in saturated color, portrays a famous actress as Marie Antoinette surrounded by adoring courtiers. Who are the photographers? In order: Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Annie Leibovitz. Each of their styles is famously recognizable. But what defines them? Subject matter is most obvious. Their images are born from personal passions and interests. Yet ultimately their perspectives and opinions determine how they view what they see. Adams regards nature as vast and overwhelming, yet reassuring; its permanence comforts him. Mapplethorpe finds paradoxes in gay sensibilities—strong and tender, visceral and refined, convoluted and simple. Leibovitz expresses fascination with celebrity by mocking celebrities in endearing ways; outlandish art direction and perfectionism mask a joke (and indictment) about taking stardom too seriously.

If Jesus proctored our little exercise, one imagines Him asking us, “How do images you create and views you express in what you see define you? What captivates your eye, and why? What perceptions and opinions impose themselves on your sight? Is your visual style healthy, affirming, and illuminating? Or is it fraught with anxiety, negativity, and unhealthy darkness?”

Reinventing Our Style

Since we view the world as we choose, seeing surpasses believing. Seeing is being. Where we look, what we focus on, and how we manipulate sight to reflect our attitudes decide our character and the way we live. If our eyes are consistently drawn to darkness—to deadly ideas, looming shadows, and harmful impulses—we become living archives of defeat, fear, and sinful desires. This is what Jesus means by, “If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” If that’s our struggle, reinventing our style—investing the effort to discipline where we look, what we focus on, and how we perceive and interpret what we see—provides vital light for our spirits to grow and endure. “If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light,” Jesus promises. Vision is a selective process.

The original Greek for “healthy” means “generous,” while “unhealthy” means “stingy.” Each situation we face is an opportunity to give or take, comfort or curse. All circumstances are circumstantial. Personalities are merely perceived. They can’t define us if we define them. How we view them determines their meaning, influence, and importance in our lives. Healthy, generous sight opens our eyes to light’s presence in darkness. Unhealthy, stingy sight obscures light. What we choose to see is what we choose to be.

Where we choose to look, what we decide to see, and how we manipulate our vision determines our character and how we live.

The Prayers of God's People

The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. (Revelation 8.4)

Our Prayers Are Timeless

When I’m privileged to worship in “high churches” (Roman, Eastern, along with some Anglican and Lutheran congregations), their use of incense always moves me. Beyond its aesthetic beauty, watching the incense rise and disperse fills me with reassurance. More than anything, the lingering speaks to me—the sense that what has been offered up remains perceptibly present in fragrance lacing the air, even though the smoke can no longer be seen. Incense, in many ways, is the most fitting metaphor for prayer, as both represent transformation from natural limitation to eternal possibilities. Like incense, our prayers begin as concretely shaped requests. When we ignite them with faith, it’s unnecessary that they be visibly or audibly evident to be perceived. After we pray, all we have to know is now that our prayers have been delivered, God knows our needs.

Incense in worship brings to mind the vision John of Patmos describes in Revelation. He’s transported into a supernal throne room, where the redeemed gather to pay homage to their Creator. After everyone is assembled, they wait in silence for “about half an hour.” (Revelation 8.1) Trumpets are given to seven angels, who will herald judgment against the unrighteous. Before the fireworks commence, however, John writes: “Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.” (v3-4) The ethereal imagery may cause us to miss what John’s trying to show us. Our prayers are timeless. They carry no expiration date. They can’t be forgot. They won’t be ignored. The prayers of all God’s people—from every era, location, and walk of life—rise up before God, where they linger.

Our Breath Is Eternal

Our prayers are timeless because they rise on our breath, and our breath is eternal. Genesis 2.7 tells us, “God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Two distinctions separate humanity, male and female, from the rest of nature: we are handcrafted to reflect God’s image on Earth and God’s presence in us is manifested in our breath. Every other life form is spoken into existence and brought to life by God’s command. But He breathes His life into us, and we become living beings. Every breath we take expresses God’s divinity. Since human speech is articulated by divine breath, our words and prayers become living things that cannot die. That’s why extreme caution is required in everything we say; once we speak, our words can never be taken back. That’s also why we pray with confidence, knowing our prayers remain forever alive because they’re spoken with the breath of life.

Once we understand this, our faith comes alive. We realize prayer functions exclusively in the realm of the divine, where natural limitations serve no purpose and what appears impossible can be done. We see this exemplified in a rather odd incident reported in Matthew 21. It’s the last week of Jesus’s natural life. He’s under tremendous pressure and divides His time between suburban Bethany, where He stays with friends, and Jerusalem, where His enemies wait to destroy Him. The morning after His triumphal entry, Jesus returns to Jerusalem before breakfast. He spots a fig tree and finding no fruit on it, He curses the tree: “May you never bear fruit again!” (v19) The disciples are flummoxed when the tree shrivels up. “How did that happen?” they ask. Jesus tells them, “If you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (v21-22)

The passage ends there, without the disciples asking the obvious follow-up question: “If we believe what? We can curse barren trees when we’re hungry? We can topple mountains that impede our progress?” But if we listen carefully to Christ’s statement, we realize He’s stressing belief in the power of our words and the breath that enables them. He speaks to the tree. He tells us, “You can say to this mountain.” And He sums it up: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Faith that ignites prayer is belief in the eternal breath that lifts our prayers. It’s not essential to visualize disappointments withering or obstacles vanishing in front of us. How such things can—and will—happen exceeds imagination. Faith is simply trusting in the power of our prayers to reach God despite all natural evidence opposing what we ask of Him. Because we speak our prayers with His breath, our requests will be heard and answered. That’s what we must believe. Anything beyond that—how He’ll answer, when the answer will come, what it will mean, and so on—is no more than conjecture on our part, and therefore unreliable. Faith in prayer precludes prediction.

Someone Somewhere

By breathing His life into us, God literally inspired us. Our breath is His Spirit. When we believe our requests rise on eternal breath, we pray in the Spirit. This opens a life-changing view not only of prayers we say on our own behalf, but also those we say for others—and those said for us. And it’s essential we uphold one another in prayer, presenting each other’s needs to God. In Ephesians 6.18, Paul says, “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

I need your prayers always. You need mine always. There will be times when my faith in prayer weakens—when I run out of breath, as it were. There will be times when you do the same. But in our times of struggle we find strength in knowing someone somewhere is praying for us. Someone is breathing eternal life into our requests. Someone is offering up timeless prayers for us that rise before God like incense. Someone is mustering the faith to see that God knows our needs. Paul nailed it. With this in mind, let us be alert and always keep on praying in the Spirit for all the Lord’s people.

We pray for one another, believing the eternal breath that lifts our requests to God transforms them into timeless prayers that linger before Him.

Boldly

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4.16; KJV)

Trying to Hide

As Sunday night’s Oscar hoopla fades, one film clip inexplicably sticks with me. It came during the tribute to John Hughes, whose films I never found very memorable. From what I could gather, Molly Ringwald’s date can’t figure out why she won’t let him drive her home. Evidently a lot of questions precede the clip: Are you worried I’ll embarrass you? Do you think your parents won’t like me? Etc. She bursts into tears and confesses, “I don’t want you to see where I live!” Unlike most of the teen angst that became Hughes’s calling card, this felt like the sort of kick to the gut we associate with great dramatists like Tennessee Williams—the moment when stereotypes and quirks get shaved away and an archetypal realization emerges.

Thankfully, I’ve never been ashamed of where I live. But many, many times in my life I’ve prevented people from seeing parts of me I’m unsure of. I’ve invented all kinds of ruses and excuses to keep them away, fearing what they found would drive them away. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about; no doubt you’ve done it, too. Any time people get too close to discovering our weaknesses and self-doubts, our reflexes take over and shields go up. But trying to hide what we’re uncertain of in ourselves isn’t something we only do with people. We do it with God as well. And, especially during Lent’s season of consecration, it’s time we rethink this.

Uncovered and Laid Bare

It’s futile to conceal anything from God. Hebrews 4.13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” God knows everything about us: our progress, our thoughts, our actions, our whereabouts—even our physiology and lifespan. Jesus tells us “The very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10.30), and Job submits, “Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” (Job 14.5)

These statements baffle me. How can God possibly keep up with so much information about me, let alone 300 billion other humans and innumerable creatures, plants, stars, and planets? I imagine celestial accounting and surveillance facilities lined with endless rows of whirring mainframes, and they’re still not enough to process what’s happening across the universe this very second. Then it occurs to me: it’s less a matter of tracking and watching than knowing. God’s awareness of us is part of Who He is. It’s as instinctive to Him as breathing is to us. We need to know this as surely and thoroughly as God knows us. Once we let this sink into the very marrow of our beings, we can toss off heinous burdens of shame, guilt, and self-doubt we’ve been told we must carry. We can stop hiding things we don’t like about ourselves, as well as things others aren’t happy with.

While our burdens come in every shape and size, a good number of them are inextricably linked with the three basics of our God-given identity: gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. It’s no accident the Evil One has chosen these traits as his tools for planting self-destruction and hatred, because they’re immutable and inescapable. He’s constructed an alternative morality and society in which we’re encouraged to view sex, color, and orientation as insurmountable hurdles. This is a myth. If we’re unsure of this, we should consider the source. Here’s Jesus’s description of the Enemy: “There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8.44) It’s a lie that we have any cause for shame, guilt, or self-doubt about who we are, because God made us as we are and He knows us as we are. He sees where we live.

“It’s Just Me”

Three verses after telling us there’s nothing we can hide from Him, the Hebrews writer states: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Knowing there’s nothing He should not see enables us to approach Him without pause or trepidation, saying, “Here I am—all of me.” Leaving parts of us behind when we come to God constitutes an unfortunate mistake. Actually, it’s two mistakes in one. First, we stand incomplete before Him. We’re not the beings He created, the people He knows. But, second, when we hold back pieces of us that have been corrupted by evil lies, we deprive them of the light of God’s presence and purity. That’s where their beauty unfolds and their fragrance bursts forth. Only when we bring ourselves wholly to God can we find wholeness in life.

Current translations soften Hebrews 4.16 a bit. For example, the NIV renders it, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence…” As a gay believer, though, I find the King James Version’s “boldly” more inspiring—not in the sense of arrogance or presumption, but in its urgency to meet God without reticence or apology. “It’s just me,” I say as I enter, “the white, gay son You know all about.” And in my mind, I see countless multitudes comprising the entire spectrum of human gender, race, and sexuality—all of them free of the Liar’s burdens, all walking boldly toward God and announcing themselves the same way. “It’s just me, the child You know all about.” As we continue our Lenten journey, I pray we will leave all of the Liar’s burdens behind and bring all of who we are to God.

When we walk boldly toward God, we leave the lies of shame, guilt, and self-doubt behind. We enter His light, where we see who we truly are.

Postscript: All I Ever Have to Be

I mentioned this song in a comment on another blog a few weeks ago, and it feels particularly apt for today’s post. Listen closely to its lyrics. I believe you’ll find robust boldness beneath its gentle affect. Amy Grant’s “All I Ever Have to Be.”

Gender Bias

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

                        Genesis 1.27

A Slight Departure

We’re taking a slight departure today to discuss a particularly nagging problem for modern believers: God's gender. As a result, the post is less an exploration of Scripture than a look at a factor that often hinders our comprehension of God and His Word—a series of observations about Him and us, and language's influence on our perceptions of both. This will take a while, but I pray you’ll stick with me, as I firmly believe the discussion merits consideration and hope you’ll find it worthwhile. 

Inequities forged by centuries of gender bias are, gratefully, becoming less common and far less commonly embraced. With each generation, children are growing more adept at the art of seeing others as different but equal. While we’ve got a long way to go in stamping out sex discrimination (and with it, bigotry against non-heterosexuals), we can’t ignore how far we’ve come. In a matter of a half-century we’ve gone from accepting “a woman’s place is in the home” to “stay-at-home dads.” Equal pay for equal work is the law of the land in most Western nations. And sex-based occupational boundaries are fading fast. When I was a kid in the Sixties, the idea of male nurses or female construction workers, for example, was downright laughable. No longer. This is a huge leap we shouldn’t resist taking credit for and finding much satisfaction in.

A Delicate Matter

The final frontier in excising gender bias from our vocabulary and mindset rests in the faith arena. It’s a delicate matter. It challenges us to think of God in a consciously fresh—what some consider “unorthodox”—way. But it ultimately has no impact on God’s identity or our relationship to, with, and in the Divine. It basically amounts to lifting a centuries-old language lens that obscures the totality of God by limiting how we describe and discuss Him. (This sentence proves its own point.) We who speak Germanic and Latinate tongues have no all-encompassing, gender-free pronoun for the Divine. Consequently, when referring to God, the pronoun defaults to the masculine. In service to this, Biblical translators and writers inadvertently saddle God with male identity.

Half-Truths

It’s possible many recognize this usage restricts their terminology to half-truth. (As an informally trained amateur, I most certainly do.) In being neither male nor female, God is male and female—He/Him and She/Her. Opting for the feminine pronoun for God over the male (as happened in English with nations and ships) merely exchanges one half-truth for another. But this inescapable inadequacy also presents the inescapable fact that arbitrary gender-assignation to God creates tremendous social, political, personal, and spiritual fall-out, setting off new struggles to correct a highly charged deficiency without adequate means.

At its most benign, the dilemma poses an intellectual problem, a conundrum to solve or a superstition to debunk. At its most harmful, it undermines equality and justice Christianity and “Christian” societies stand upon. In Galatians 3.28, Paul insists, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Yet entrenchment in the preferred-masculine can be seen in Paul’s lead-in to this glorious, gender-free doctrine. He starts with “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” (v26) Even with the neutral “children” at his disposal, Paul finds no contradiction in using a masculine noun for both genders. Verse 28 tells the true story. Verse 26 tells the sad one.

Liberating God

Our relatively recent concern with social equality makes the idea of liberating God from gender bias a welcome dilemma. It offers us the chance to undo centuries of linguistic paralysis with creative options. No doubt over time one of them will be universally adopted. But, for every believer participating in the Body of Christ, it’s essential to accept we’re dealing with options, not solutions. Each of us currently chooses how he/she thinks and talks about God’s gender. More often than not, our choices are driven less by trying to correct His/Her half-truthful depiction than which gender most closely reflects His/Her expression in us. (Hence no one goes for the most obvious alternative: It.)

This is altogether understandable and justifiable, even advisable and admirable. Yet in the interest of Christian unity, it’s equally incumbent on us to respect and validate every believer’s right to choose how he/she refers to God. Many (myself included) retain the preferred-masculine to avoid disrupting the thought at hand with grammatical ambition. Use of “He/Him” doesn’t nor should connote inability to perceive a sexless God, however. On the other hand, others adopt alternative gender specifications to intensify personal identification with the Divine and/or free It from unjust assumptions men are “naturally” superior to women because God is a “He.” This option is no less viable or indicative of a gender-neutral concept of the Creator. The irony of a more inclusive vocabulary for God potentially polarizing His/Her worshipers cannot escape us.

In the end, that’s what all this comes down to: worshipping God. Whether I worship “Him,” you worship “Her,” someone else adores a “Father/Mother,” another fellowships with “God,” or yet another communes with the feminized “Godde” alters nothing in the Divine or Its worthiness of praise. The sole purpose for liberating God from gender bias is to liberate us to worship our Creator and reaffirm our reflection of God’s image and likeness.

In Truth

A careful reading of Genesis 1.27 could have rendered this masculine-centric image of God useless long ago. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” God creates “man”—i.e., gender-neutral humanity—in His image. Instantly, the writer realizes he/she is tangled up in grammar. The phrase’s antecedent for “his” is “man,” implying God shapes humanity in its image, the opposite of what it means. Rather than strike that and start over (as one sorely wishes he/she had), the writer adds a clarifier: “in the image of God he created him.” This settles the image issue, but the preferred-masculine (“him,” referring to “man”) screws everything up to suggest God creates “a man.” So the writer tries to fix that with one more—and by far the most salient—point: “male and female created he them.”

God crafts male and female humans because neither wholly reflects His/Her unified nature. For reasons unrevealed, He/She follows the template for most other organisms and fashions two human genders that must unite to create life. But the decision doesn’t preempt understanding divine reality encompasses the entire spectrum of gender and, for that matter, humanity itself. God has no gender, ethnic, or sexual identity. As none of these things, God is all of them. Our diversity expresses the fullness of God to confirm His/Her complete absence of human traits.

“God is spirit,” Jesus tells us in John 4.24, “and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” The truth of God transcends every form of human bias. With each person who walks the planet as His handcrafted facsimile, the sum of the Divine exists in each and all of us simultaneously. This compels us to worship, conceive, and discuss God in the truth of who we are. “In him we live and move and have our being,” Acts 17.28 tells us. Perhaps the divine gender bias will never be resolved. Perhaps it shouldn’t. Perhaps language does us a great favor by forcing us to overcome gender-based hurdles and reach the God in each of us. In the final analysis, our unique images of God matter only so far as helping us find ourselves in the infinite spectrum of the Divine.

God is spirit without gender, ethnicity, or orientation. Liberating the Divine from bias enables us to find our place in Its infinite spectrum.

(Tomorrow: Prospering in Parallel) 

Hallelu Yah!

Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.

                        Psalm 149.1

Party Praise

In Hebrew, Psalm 149 begins with hallelu Yah, a phrase that operates on three levels—as poetic praise, a call to worship, and a quasi-musical direction. It sets the tone for the lyrics following it. Hallelu Yah has been accepted “as is” in dozens of languages and is generally interpreted as a catch phrase for “Praise the Lord.” In English, “hallelujah” is marvelously scalable, from the grandeur of Handel’s chorus to the reverence of quiet hymns to a passing exhalation of gratitude. (Who hasn’t breathed a quick “hallelujah” for a green light when running late?) Strictly speaking, we’re taking wide liberties with hallelu Yah when we apply it to any and all occasions for praise. Yet the intent and instruction imbedded in the phrase encourages freedom to praise God with gusto. Any time we rejoice by saying or singing “hallelujah” we’re doing as it directs.

Hallelu Yah is a compound combining hallel (“joyous praise”) with Yah (“Creator”). In Judaism, “The Hallel” refers to a song cycle in Psalms 113-118, which is chanted joyfully at morning prayers during high festivals. Psalm 113.3-4 declares, “From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the LORD is to be praised. The LORD is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens.” In other words, everywhere we look—from the heights of victory to the depths of despair—we find reasons to rejoice. While English translators cast hallelu Yah as “Praise the LORD,” using the all-caps setting to indicate Yahweh (“the One True God”) Yah is actually a derivative channeling praise specifically to our Maker. Hallelu Yah celebrates God as our Source. It springs from our honor to be created in His image. Thus, when the psalmist opens with hallelu Yah, he/she indicates the song should be sung without restraint—boisterously, even, as we boast in God. Hallelu Yah is party praise, the cacophony of a family that dearly loves its Father.

Improvised Praise

The composer of Psalm 149 follows the injunction for buoyant praise with this: “Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.” The spirit of hallelu Yah inspires improvised praise—extemporaneous expressions of gratitude and glory for who we are, being made as we are, and Who made us as we are. The next verse reads, “Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King.” Hallelu Yah bursts with pride, not in anything we’ve done or for how we’re seen by others, but because we belong to God. We take pride in Him as our Maker and King. Take a moment to think about that. See yourself standing with millions of other brothers and sisters, rejoicing together in the light and strength of your Creator. Let everything else fall away—the struggles, disappointments, misunderstandings, and misperceptions—so all that’s left is the pure, innocent being He fashioned by hand and breathed to life. Now, tell God how it feels to be His and His alone. That’s what hallelu Yah is.

“Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp,” verse 3 says, with the next saying, “For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.” The Christian praise spectrum is astonishingly vast, from silently contemplative to raucously demonstrative. Yet variances in outward behavior don’t reflect the commonly held exuberance that hallelu Yah enjoins. Whether we shout it impulsively, join worshipers in choral response, or whisper it silently, our reasons for saying it—and the intensity with which we feel it—are uniquely our own. Our hearts dance to music we create in a spontaneous flow of emotion. It delights us and it delights God.

A New Song

By its nature, every time we sing hallelu Yah we sing a new song. God is forever creating novel things in and through us. As a dear friend constantly reminds me, “He’s the God of the new and the now.” Who we were when we sang hallelu Yah yesterday is not who we are when we sing it today. We awoke this morning to fresh mercies. We opened our eyes to untapped possibilities. We walked further in our faith, grew deeper in our understanding, and acquired greater confidence from our experiences since we last rejoiced. The strength we gained from yesterday’s trials lifts our spirits in praise for today’s tests.

Our Maker never stops making us, shaping us, refining us to more clearly reflect His likeness. Because nothing ever gets old and stagnant in His hands, our praise never grows old. Today, as we join the assembly of the saints, we may have sung the same hymns a hundred times. We may have heard the same readings all our lives. We may have participated in the same worship rituals for years. But we’re not the same. Because we’re new, every hallelu Yah is new. In 2 Corinthians 5.17 we read: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This is not, as many presume, a one-time transformation. It’s a constant process, often as painful as it is glorious. But through our changes, we’re reborn into more perfect and pleasing reflections of our Maker. What was new yesterday is old today. It’s gone and the new has come. Hallelu Yah! Sing to the Lord a new song! Enjoy this Lord’s Day!

Every time we say or sing hallelu Yah, it’s a new song rising from our triumphs and sufferings. K.D. Lang splendidly taps the joy and pain of Leonard Cohen’s magnificent “Hallelujah.”

(Tomorrow: After They Leave)

Inspiration

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

                        Genesis 2.7

 

And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

                        John 20.22

Vacancy

Last week The Sundance Channel ran an enthralling documentary with the abstract-expressionist painter, Agnes Martin (1912-2004). At the tender age of 86 when it was shot, she quickly dispenses with questions about her technique to discuss inspiration’s role in her work. While Martin offers no Christian claim—one senses a heavy leaning toward New Age mysticism in her parlance—it’s evident she associates inspiration with unnatural faith, which she positions as the polar opposite of intellectualism, or what we call “natural logic.” Her opinions of why an inspired life is superior to intellectual existence can’t be argued, as they’re always backed by sage pragmatism. Martin admits she paints with her “back to the world,” ignoring its notions of achieving success to receive inspiration as it comes. In a comment (also featured in the clip below), she says: “I don’t have any ideas myself. I have a vacant mind in order to do exactly what the inspiration calls for… And after I have it, I make up my mind that I’m not going to interfere.”

Martin’s endorsement of vacancy stunned me into a deeper understanding of why modern believers find it so challenging to “live by faith, not by sight,” as Paul defines Christian discipleship in 2 Corinthians 5.7. From the moment we enter the world, our human intellect declares war on the divine inspiration—the very breath of God—that gives us life. Beings He creates to obey His will join battle with personalities we create to will earthly survival. Genesis 3.7 explains once Adam and Eve ate the Knowledge Tree’s fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.” Immediately after our first breath replicates the miracle of creation, the tragedy of transgression repeats itself. We open our eyes and realize we’re vulnerable. We start learning, filling our heads with facts and concepts. Inspiration loses ground to intellect. Trust gives way to doubt. But we weren’t created to see. God made us to be. As Martin so beautifully puts it, we vacate our minds to be what He inspires us to be, and we discipline our thoughts not to interfere. We live by faith, not by sight.

Peace and Purpose

Catching the Martin film over Pentecost weekend jogged my memory of the Bible’s second instance of divine inspiration. In John 20, despite Mary Magdalene’s news of Jesus’s resurrection, the disciples stay hunkered down behind locked doors, still trembling in fear of the hostile crowd that crucified their Master. It’s evening, hours after Mary’s tomb-side encounter, yet nothing has inspired faith in her report or courage to venture out and find Jesus. On the plus side, however, the disciples haven’t the slightest idea about what to do next. Their vacancy provides the perfect opportunity for inspiration. Jesus comes to them, unhindered by their padlocks. “Peace be with you!” He says, repeating it after He shows them His wounded hands and side and adding, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Then, John writes, Jesus breathes on them, commanding them to “receive the Holy Spirit.” He literally inspires them.

Combining the Genesis story of God’s breath of life with John’s account of Jesus’s breath of the Holy Spirit opens a fascinating insight about inspiration. God’s breath inspires us to be and live; Jesus’s breath inspires us to believe. Circumstances beyond their control force the disciples to turn their backs to the world, disabling their natural logic and priming their unnatural faith. Prior to breathing on them, Jesus does one final sweep, as it were, to clear any lingering intellectual anxiety and indecisiveness. He speaks peace and purpose to their minds. “Stop worrying,” He says, “and start believing. If you believe the Father sent Me, believe I am sending you.” Knowing they’ll never drive back the onslaught of natural logic unaided, Jesus’s breath presages the filling of the Holy Spirit. It occupies the disciples, leaving no room for interference.

The Inspired Life

We experience, enjoy, and reap the benefits of the inspired life by shifting our focus from survival to being, trusting rather than seeing. We turn our backs to the world, rejecting its fears and logic in favor of embracing God’s peace and purpose. In 2 Timothy 1.7, we read: “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” The inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives us power to evict fear, replace it with love, and discipline ourselves against negative reasoning that interferes with what God inspires us to do.

Following our minds limits us to what we visibly perceive; it feeds a survival mentality keyed to view everything as a potential threat. It’s a lousy way to go, though, because it hangs us up trying to figure out what’s really happening and leads nowhere God created us to be. Although Agnes Martin brilliantly clarifies “inspiration” in the abstract, she echoes concrete wisdom Solomon captured thousands of years ago: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3.5-6) God’s breath inspires us to acknowledge Him in every way. The breath of Christ inspires us to trust Him in lieu of understanding. God’s direction always looks hard and often turns out harder than it looks. But after Jesus speaks peace and purpose to our minds, we press on by faith, knowing if He sends us we’ll never go wrong.

Listen carefully to Agnes Martin’s approach to painting and you’ll hear an inspiring metaphor for faith. (Apologies for the poor sound/image synchronization—it’s the best clip I could find.)

(Tomorrow: Above All Else)

Postscript: Online Bible Study

Well, as they say, the people have spoken and the votes for when best to hold an online Bible study are (as they also say) too close to call. Thus, it makes the most sense to accommodate both sides. While I finalize the details of the host site, mark your calendars for either—or both—of these dates: Thursday, June 11, at 8 PM CDT and Saturday, June 13, at 11 AM CDT. Within the week, I’ll publish the site location and other pertinent information. By next week I hope to complete a brief study guide for those interested in thinking about the topic, reading the selected texts, etc., in advance.

Thanks to everyone who either voted or emailed their preferences. Your enthusiasm ensures this will be an exciting venture we’re sure to enjoy together.

Finally, of course, you’re all welcome to participate, whether or not you voted in the poll. The more the merrier! (As they say…)