Snakebit

The people grew impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food and water, and we detest this miserable food.” (Numbers 21.4-5)

The Wee Hours

In John 3, a prominent Pharisee named Nicodemus pays Jesus a late-night visit. It’s painfully obvious why he chooses this time of day to seek out the Rabbi Who’s making waves. Jesus has just outraged the religious establishment by driving profiteers from Jerusalem’s temple. When challenged to explain His actions, His cryptic reply heightens suspicion that He’s big trouble. Still, something about Jesus resonates with Nicodemus. He goes to Him after hours, when neither man is likely to be spotted, looking for answers to questions that trouble him.

While artists traditionally place their meeting in a moonlit courtyard, I like to picture it in a modern setting—an all-night diner, perhaps, where two people who’ve heard about each other finally get to hunker down in a back booth and talk into the wee hours over bottomless coffee cups. Nicodemus jumps right in, assuring Jesus, “We know You’re a teacher come from God, because You couldn’t do what You do if God hadn’t sent You.” His statement of faith enables Jesus to reveal what’s really going on. Since Nicodemus is a noted theologian, Jesus dives into the deep end, using rebirth as a metaphor for spiritual insight, informing the man that he’ll need new eyes to see Jesus is doing the work of God’s kingdom. Nicodemus doesn’t get it. “How can anyone be reborn?” he asks. Jesus explains He’s talking about spiritual rebirth—awakening to a truth that transcends natural law. Nicodemus still doesn’t get it. Somewhat frustrated, Jesus asks, “Aren’t you a teacher? How can this be so hard to understand?” And then, in verse 12, He says, “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”

Here to Die

One imagines Nicodemus staring at his coffee, feeling smaller by the minute. In verse 13, Jesus tactfully apologizes for talking over his head: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man,” He confides. (Translated: “Of course you can’t understand what I’m talking about. We come from different worlds.”) So Jesus reaches into Hebrew Scripture to explain Himself in terms Nicodemus can grasp. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” He says, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” (v14-15)

Nicodemus perks up. It’s all coming together. This Rabbi Who talks in riddles is exactly Who many say He is: Israel’s Savior. He provoked Jerusalem’s temple officials on purpose to fulfill His mission. No doubt, Nicodemus has heard rumblings that Jesus must be got out of the way. Indeed, concern for Jesus’s safety may be what prompted his visit. Now he realizes that Jesus knows what’s going on and why He’s unfazed by the brewing conspiracy to get rid of Him. In effect, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “I’m here to die.”

New Life and Healing

Jesus's allusion to the Old Testament’s infamous snake episode is both tasty and timely. It’s the kind of horror tale that glues teenaged boys to their seats, and it’s probable that Jesus and Nicodemus associate it with their youth. As told in Numbers 21, the story finds the Israelites grumbling once again about roaming the desert. You’d think they’d have adjusted to wilderness life by now, as they’ve been at it for 40 years. What’s more, with God’s help, they’ve just pulled off an amazing coup, destroying a Canaanite tribe that attacked them and took some of their people hostage. Spirits should be very high. But verses 4 and 5 read, “The people grew impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food and water, and we detest this miserable food.’” Their impertinence turns into self-fulfilling prophecy. Venomous snakes infest their camp and many die. That wakes them up. They run to Moses and beg him to beseech God’s mercy. God instructs Moses to craft a facsimile of a snake and hoist it on a pole. “Everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live,” God declares. (v9)

The timeliness of Jesus’s mentioning the story to Nicodemus reveals how finely attuned both men are to scriptural nuance. The story transpires when Israel is on the cusp of major transition. Aaron, their chief priest, died just prior to the victory over their enemies. They’re due for a changing of the guard, as Moses transfers leadership to a new generation that will usher Israel into the Land of Promise. Yet here they are, as impatient, ungrateful, and shortsighted as ever. It’s been four decades since they walked away from Egypt. But they won’t let it go. If anything, they’ve romanticized it to the point of absurdity—to the point that it still enslaves them. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? It’s a dangerous question to put to God and the prophet. Asking it almost kills them off and very well might have, but for one critical factor. God promised Israel a land of its own and God’s promises hold true, whether or not we accept them. Thus, to honor the promise, God raises an improbable symbol of new life and healing in the desert, instructing Israel to look and live.

Toward the Lifting

The subtleties of Jesus’s metaphor aren’t lost on Nicodemus this time. He sees the religious climate of his day is also polluted with impertinence, impatience, ingratitude, and shortsightedness. He senses the world is on the cusp of major transition. Jesus has come to usher in a New Order, to lead us into a new Land of Promise. His gruesome execution will become God’s improbable symbol of new life and healing, an unconditional offering of love to all who look and live.

And so it is that Lent’s desert—where 40 short days can feel like 40 long years—finds us headed toward the lifting of God’s Son on a crude cross. There He will hang as God’s promise of healing and new life. And make no mistake: we are snakebit with venom that flows out of our impatience, ingratitude, and myopia. We cling to Egyptian reveries and wax nostalgic about enslavement. Sentimentality for old regimes blinds us to new opportunities. Major victories evaporate from memory. Yet in the midst of our discontent and impertinence God raises a Savior Who invites us to look and live. May we honor that invitation and find new healing and life at Calvary’s cross.

Look and live.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/25/snakebit/.

Postscript: Question 4

In John 3.3, Jesus tells Nicodemus unless we’re born anew, we can’t see the kingdom of God. And in Numbers, God raises a symbol of pain and death to open Israel’s eyes to new healing and life.

When we look at the cross, what do we see? How does it reveal God’s kingdom to us? I can’t help but think we all see the same thing. Yet given our personal histories and perspectives, we view the cross in marvelously unique ways. I’ve shared some of what I see in the comments. What do you see?

Breaking Down

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51.17)

The Great Artist

An artist friend called me breathless with excitement. “I just leased this great loft near you and you’ve got to come see it right now!” As she’s normally a slow-and-steady type and few things are more disheartening than having no one to share your joy with, I instantly headed over. I walked into a massive raw space that looked as though its tenant had fled in the night. It was a mess. Apparently the previous renter was a potter of some sort, because my friend—who worked in a variety of media—had already swept up three piles of derelict projects and clay shards. I would have been furious that the landlord hadn’t cleaned up before renting it. But she couldn’t have been more thrilled. “Just look at all of this!” she said. “Think of what I can do with it!”

Frankly, I didn’t know what to think. It looked like useless junk to me. When I offered to help, she suggested, “Let’s get it all in one place so I can sort everything out and decide how I’m going to use it.” I picked up a half-finished piece and asked, “You don’t want to keep this kind of stuff, do you? You’re just talking about the smaller bits.” She replied, “Are you kidding? Drop it.” Huh? She repeated her order. I let the piece fall to the ground and shatter. Smiling wryly, she said, “That, my friend, is called ‘breaking down.’ Now I can use it.” A few months later, when she brought me a serving tray inlaid with a magnificent pattern made of its pieces, she asked, “Remember this?”

Unfortunately, I lost the platter (another story for another time). But the memory remains fresh and resurfaces whenever I read scriptures like Psalm 51.17: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” And it especially comes to mind during this time of year, as I envision Lent’s metaphorical desert strewn with shattered pieces that we drop along the way. There they wait, seemingly forgotten and useless, until the Great Artist sweeps them up, sorts through them, and reorders them into something magnificently—serviceably—new.

A Shattering of Self

We tend to imagine broken-hearted people as sufferers. Something has disappointed them. Someone has wounded them. In other words, we see them as passive. Yet the Hebrew word Psalm 51’s poet uses (nisbarah) is neither definitively active nor passive. The breaking can result from another’s cruelty or arbitrary misfortune; but it can also be a sacrificial act—a shattering of self in pursuit of wholeness. We break down the contents of our hearts to inventory what we’ve stored in them—to examine their pieces and allow the Creator Who heals and restores to reassemble them in remarkable ways. We do this in response to God’s call in Joel 2.12-13: “Yet even now, says the LORD, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”

The poet Jan Richardson taps into this sensibility in her Ash Wednesday blessing, “Rend Your Hearts”:

Let your heart break

Let it crack open

Let it fall apart

so that you can see

its secret chambers,

the hidden spaces

where you have hesitated

to go.

She concludes:

And so let this be

a season for wandering

for trusting the breaking

for tracing the tear

that will return you

to the One who waits

who watches

who works within

the rending to make your heart

whole.

The loveliness of Richardson’s poetry raises gnarly questions, though. Once we’ve broken down our hearts, what are we looking at? Which of our pieces glimmer with radiance and beauty? Which of them are deeply scarred with dark doubts and unsightly faults? Which are ready-made for the Great Artist’s use? Which must be reworked to allow God’s vision to come forth in us? Which will fall into place? Which must be reshaped to fit into a new, magnificent, and serviceable whole?

Naming Parts

The process involves more than falling apart so God can reassemble us. After we do the breaking, it asks us to name our parts—to call the components of our hearts for what they are. This is by far the most challenging aspect of Lent’s work, because we are all exceptionally gifted at turning blind eyes to our weaknesses. When we speak their names, however, we force their recognition. Here are my misgivings. Here are my resentments. Here are my vanities. Here are my prejudices. Thankfully, there are other parts we’re honored to claim. Here are my certainties… my mercies… my humility… my openness.

When we look at our pieces, we don’t know what to make of them. Suddenly the beauty of breaking down rises before of us, because the making—actually, the remaking—of our broken hearts belongs to a God Who, by Self-admission, is gracious, merciful, patient, unfailing in love, and fiercely forgiving. Like my artist friend, our Maker surveys the heap of shards we’ve created and exclaims, “Just look at all of this! Think of what I can do with it!”

We do the breaking; God does the remaking.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/24/breaking-down/

Postscript: Question 3

Predictably, most commentators on Psalm 51.17 immediately link its brokenness and contrition with guilt for past sins. And, to be sure, harmful thoughts and actions produce shattering consequences in our lives. Yet, more appropriate to Lent’s purpose, I’d like us to think of broken-heartedness as a self-induced, sacrificial act. And this raises a huge question I believe we must ponder while we undertake the breaking: what is faith’s role in our sacrifice?

I’m not sure there’s a definitive answer to that. In fact, each of our responses may be very different. I’ve added my thoughts to the comments and invite you do the same. This breaking business isn’t easy by any stretch and sharing our perspectives will no doubt encourage all of us to rend our hearts.

Focus Forward

Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1.14-15)

Between Here and There

I happened on a “Dr. Phil” show the other day that filled me with sorrow and angst. A woman who’d been repeatedly abused by her lover brought him to the good doctor, looking for help in her desire to change him. The man—who was shackled with a lifelong history of violence against schoolmates, strangers, his parents, and a previous wife—admitted he was helpless to control his rage. Still, the woman, like many battered spouses, couldn’t accept that she was powerless to heal his sickness. Dr. Phil all but begged her to let him go, stressing that she was in over her head and predicting if she stayed with him, the violence would worsen until one of them was dead. “You can’t keep living like this,” the doctor said. By program’s end, she seemed to wake up. Yet I wasn’t as convinced as I wanted to be. Her decision to move on lacked the conviction she voiced in her confidence she could mend her lover and undo their past. It saddened me think the dream of changing him held her with such force she’d never turn her back on it or him.

The woman’s distorted sense of reality—and real consequences—reminded me of a popular gospel tune from my youth. It was all about Heaven. Yet whether or not its composer realized it, the song belied a mournful existence that drove him to place his entire hope in a bright dream. “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop,” the song said, “in that bright land where we’ll never grow old. Some day yonder we’ll never more wander, but walk on streets paved of purest gold.” The sorrowful and frustrating side of the song was—to me, at least—how it ignored the long road and hard climb the writer would undertake to reach his home beyond the hill. Between here and there, he will grow old, he will wander, and his road will be tedious and sometimes rough. That’s how life goes and that’s why life is what we make of it. What went missing from his picture were the joys of aging, discovery, and overcoming hardship. He’d adopted a victim mentality that crippled him. It’s sad that the dream of everlasting bliss had so captivated him he couldn’t turn his back on dismal influences shaping his concept of present life.

A New Narrative

In essence, Dr. Phil urged his guest to repent—to turn her sights from undoing the past and focus forward to a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future. It’s arguable that the song’s composer should have done the same. Most of all, however, I would entreat all of us to pause in these early days of Lent, during which the call to repent rings loudest, to ponder what repentance truly is. Too often repentance gets mixed up with penitence—i.e., profound regret for our shortcomings and failures. And that’s not what it is. To repent means turning around, looking in a new direction, going a different way. When we repent we drop the curtain on our old dramas and enter a new narrative that propels us toward a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future. It’s not about dragging past guilt and doubts into our current, renewed life. Nor is it about wandering through life on a wing and a prayer that we’ll find a better one in the Great Beyond. Repentance focuses us forward into the Great Big Messy and Marvelous Now, where what calls us ahead changes us so we can change what’s ahead.

Mark, the first Gospel written—hence, the one presumably closest in time to the actual events—reports that Jesus exits His wilderness experience declaring a new message that casts repentance in a brilliant new light. “The time is fulfilled,” He says, “and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Jesus preaches a Here and Now Gospel, not one about There and Then, the gospel of a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future, not one of mansions tucked behind hills, eternal youth, and strolling golden boulevards.

Believing in the Good News

As Rob Bell writes in Love Wins, “[In] Jesus’s first-century, Jewish world, they didn’t talk about a future life somewhere else, because they anticipated a coming day when the world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth.” When Jesus calls us to repentance, He urges us to get away from deadly ideas, far-sighted fantasies, and misguided belief that we should endure abuse and violence—not just physical harm, but also spiritual, emotional, and psychological trauma that seeks our destruction and undermines peace. Jesus says the time is now. The kingdom of God is within reach.

Believing in that irrevocably alters our understanding of repentance, and with it, how we regard Lent’s mission. We are walking into an immediate future—a soon-to-be present—that we shape in obedience to Christ’s teaching and example. We turn our backs on the dismal past to focus forward, believing in the Good News Jesus delivered and made available to all through boundless love splayed on a hateful cross. Lent’s repentance is guilt and grief-free. It’s a pilgrim’s progress that opens our eyes to greater health and truer hope every step of the way. That’s Good News we can believe in.

Lent’s call to repentance asks us to turn around and walk into a healthier, more hopeful, immediate future.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/23/focus-forward/

Postscript: Question 2

What makes us so reluctant to turn around? I’ve put a few of my ideas in the comments and look forward to hearing yours.

De-luxing

I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish. (Philippians 3.8)

Defining Essentials

Today is Ash Wednesday, and with it comes many questions we must ponder if we’re to make a good start on our Lenten journey. Questions like, “Whom and what do I love?” “Which, if any, of those loves strengthen my love for God and others; which, if any, do not?” “What do I love immodestly and what do I love inadequately?” “What do I truly need and what do I merely want?” “What can’t I live with and what can’t I live without?” The variations are endless. Yet they all boil down to the same dilemma: defining essentials. And the reason why we begin Lent’s expedition by taking stock is pretty simple. It’s a long and demanding trip from Ash Wednesday’s altar to Easter’s empty tomb. Getting from here to there will go much better for us if we can let go what we don’t need.

The wilderness metaphor associated with Lent has stuck all these centuries because it works. Yet for those of us who aren’t back-to-nature aficionados, an example from my own life may help. Several times a year my work requires me to spend weeklong stretches away from home. When I first began taking these trips, I packed everything I thought I might need: outfits for every conceivable occasion, all sorts of sundries, a stack of books and magazines, music and videos—a ridiculous assortment of goods I hoped would replicate the comforts of home. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t at home. I was at work. And when I’m working out-of-town, that’s pretty much all I do. I don’t take time to change clothes. I don’t read at leisure. I live on basics because luxuries of home get in the way of the work. They distract. They encumber. They serve no purpose.

So Much Better with So Much Less

Although I realized this quickly, over-packing was imbedded in my just-in-case nature. What if clients invited me to dinner and I didn’t have proper clothes? What if a chunk of free time opened up and I could spend it with a good book? What if I caught cold or got a toothache? Anything was possible and I crammed my cases full of options and remedies just in case. It took years to figure out I simply didn’t need this stuff. No one cared what I wore. Any extra sundries could be had at the hotel shop. I returned from my trips with most of what I packed untouched. Instead of helping, it just slowed me down and added to the fatigue of getting the real work done. Not until I tired of dragging pointless junk around did I accept that I could manage so much better with so much less.

And so the kinds of questions I alluded to above come to assist us with what I call “de-luxing”—letting go burdensome luxuries, comforts, and contingencies that slow us down. What’s essential to our journey? Once we define that, that’s all we need. Paul, the consummate traveler, got so good at de-luxing he was able to write, “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish.” (Philippians 3.8) Over time, he learned how to empty himself out completely—and thus to open himself totally to his journey’s ups and downs, the rewards and rigors of knowing Christ. I’m not there yet. I doubt few of us are. But if we make a practice of de-luxing we’ll get there.

Traveling with too much leaves us too burdened to experience the fresh discoveries that await us in Lent's wilderness.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/22/de-luxing/

Postscript: 40 Questions

In contemplating how to approach Lent’s journey at Straight-Friendly, I'm led to encourage more than usual interaction. Each day’s post will revolve around a question that I hope we'll find a moment to contemplate and comment on. None of us travels this road alone. In fact, the beauty of the wilderness is that we find our own way in the company of other pilgrims. While we are in conversation with God, we also converse with one another, encouraging and enlightening each other along the way. Being in community as we travel will bring us to the cross united in strength and purpose.

Let’s begin our journey with this question: when you consider the concept of de-luxing, what comes to mind? What should you leave at the desert’s edge? What should you not forget to bring with you?

I’ve put my answer in the comments. I look forward to finding yours there, too!

Mountaineers

Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to Him!” (Mark 9.7)

Transition Takes Center Stage

This Sunday, in keeping with many liturgical traditions, churches around the world will revisit the Transfiguration of Jesus—that mysterious episode in which Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to a mountain, where they witness a supernatural display of the Lord’s divinity. It’s a milestone event in Jesus’s life, one of the big dots that connect everything, from the prophecies to the Resurrection and beyond. It’s a major event in our lives, too, as Transfiguration Sunday falls annually before Ash Wednesday, when millions of believers set out together on a virtual pilgrimage to the cross.

Thus, transition takes center stage as we contemplate the Transfiguration. Something happens on this mountain that reroutes the course of Jesus, the three disciples, and us. Collectively, we go up one way and come down another. The change is most dramatic in Jesus. He is visibly altered. The extent and nature of His transformation is not clear; Matthew and Mark use the word metamorphosis to describe it, while Luke settles for a term that means “something different.” Jesus’s physical appearance suddenly becomes radiant with bright light and His clothes become “dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” (Mark 9.3) In other words, the manifestation enrobes Him in priestly gowns, while divine glory emanates from His being.

Since this occurs on the heels of Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ (Mark 8.29), it would seem that He has taken Peter—and Peter’s two competitors, James and John, a.k.a. “the Sons of Thunder”—up this hill to confirm Peter’s belief. (In Matthew’s version, Peter’s recognition of Jesus’s true identity ends with him being given charge of the Church, which will become a bone of contention for the Thunder Boys. So it’s essential that they see this transformation, too.) But evidence of Christ’s divinity goes beyond Jesus’s transformation. Two Old Testament icons, Moses and Elijah, appear beside Jesus to verify He is indeed the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, after which a cloud overshadows them and God’s voice declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to Him!” With that, the episode ends and Jesus entreats the disciples not to say anything about what they’ve seen “until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (v9)

Time to Look Ahead

It’s a fearsome sight to behold—so much so the three men aren’t sure what do with this revelation. Peter, ever eager to act, suggests they build three shrines right there on the mountain: one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. His impulses aren’t half bad, as all three are immortally linked with mountaintop events that rewrite history. Moses is remembered for receiving God’s covenant on Mt. Sinai, Elijah for definitely demonstrating God’s supremacy on Mt. Carmel, and Jesus for delivering a new covenant on Mt. Calvary. Together, they comprise Scripture’s three towering mountaineers who scale its highest peaks. And, given that Jesus is about to make good on Sinai and Carmel’s promises, the extraordinary wrinkle in time that brings the three of them together couldn’t be more fitting.

Yet, through no fault of his own, Peter lacks to the foresight to perceive the Transfiguration’s implications. Despite his prescient faith and the luminosity of this unearthly experience, he’s not privy to the plan, which must unfold on ground level. It calls Jesus down from the mountain, to move and work among the lowly and self-exalted, to travel a treacherous path that leads to His final ascent up a different hill, where divine love will be raised on a commoner’s cross and God’s infinite grace and mercy will flow down like water into our valleys of despair. This isn’t the time to build shrines. It’s time to go to work. The presence of past icons at the Transfiguration redoubles Jesus’s conviction that it’s time to look ahead.

Stumbling Toward Calvary

Verse 10 informs us Peter, James, and John honor Jesus’s confidentiality request, while also underscoring their consternation about the event and why it mustn’t be discussed. “So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” Holding onto the secret must be difficult. Surely the other disciples are curious about why Jesus singled them out and what transpired during their time with Him. No doubt the experience confuses and concerns them. The hint that the phenomenon they witnessed is tied to Jesus’s death—which He talks about with alarming frequency of late—must frighten them, while the promise of resurrection baffles them. Inevitably what they’ve seen and heard informs everything they see and hear thereafter. They know nothing is what it seems. Yet what it is is far from clear to them. In effect, the Transfiguration and its revelation hobble them to the point that they find themselves stumbling toward Calvary, relying completely on faith in Christ to offset the profound uncertainties the event stirs within them.

Coming off the Mount of Transfiguration alongside Peter, James, and John, it is right, I believe, to step into their shoes—to enter Lent’s passage honestly admitting that the Christ revealed to us, and in us, hands us much we don’t yet understand. And so we return to ground level, moving and working our way through everyday life, confronting its inexplicabilities and contradictions, relying completely on faith in the One Whom we follow. When others ask what’s going on, we can’t really say. Nor should we, because this is not a time for talking. When others press us to prove what we’ve seen, we have nothing to show. Nor should we, as this is not a time for building shrines and practicing rituals.

It’s a season of watching and listening. We have been overshadowed by a cloud—“overshadowed” in the same sense that Mary is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to conceive the Christ Child—and, like her, what has been revealed to us will one day be revealed in what is born through us. “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to Him!” God says. And so we leave the Transfiguration as seasoned mountaineers, listening intently to the Christ Who calls us apart and preparing ourselves for the next climb, when faith in a God made flesh will lead us to history’s highest peak, where we too will be transformed as we observe the mysteries of death give way to the miracle of resurrection.

May Lent’s season of change find all of us stumbling toward Calvary, confused, uncertain, and solely reliant on faith in Christ to bring clarity and understanding to all that we’ve seen and heard. Amen.

We descend the Mount of Transfiguration as seasoned mountaineers, mystified by what we’ve seen as we return to life at ground level and stumble toward faith’s highest peak, Mt. Calvary.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/19/mountaineers/

Let God Grow

You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images or pillars, and you shall not place figured stones in your land, to worship at them; for I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 26.1)

Changing God

Listening to his podcast about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, I was bowled over when Shane Hipps, of Mars Hill Bible Church, offered this passing observation:

In the Bible itself, we have the story of a God Who begins with a narrower covenant and then constantly helps [us] widen and expand and evolve and unfold that covenant until it’s bigger and wider and wider and wider, and includes more and more and more people.

The message’s central theme, of course, is inclusion. Citing manifold laws and precedents that God overturns when sending Philip to the Ethiopian, Pastor Hipps makes an airtight case that radical inclusion is God’s will. This isn’t a new idea at Straight-Friendly; from the first post, it’s been the blog’s driving belief. What seized my attention was the premise that God’s story portrays a Creator perpetually revising the covenant with humanity, widening its reach so no one is excluded, a God Who keeps getting bigger and more open-minded, and One Who implicitly expects us to keep pace. While mulling this over, I recalled a similar thought my own pastor expressed recently. Our relationship with God is two-way, she said, “mutual and reciprocated and a joint venture.” In this context, she described a dynamic that “might be a little out-there for some of us to consider”: as we are changed, we are also changing God.

For many, belief in a persistently changing God constitutes heresy. The very idea is too terrifying to contemplate. And we have to ask why that frightens so many of us. Why must God be locked in position—frozen in time—so that every decision and move God makes in Scripture is regarded as final and irreversible? It seems our need for a changeless God is born of desire for God to live the way we live: routinely, predictably, safely. Yet saddling God with the past ultimately limits divine abilities we hope in and rely on—power to create and recreate, to renew and act anew, to interrupt inevitabilities and rewrite our stories, to respond fearlessly to our concerns. As we are changed, we are also changing God. As we obtain wholeness, our understanding and expectations of God expand. It’s a joint venture that won’t succeed if we don’t keep pace with God, or permit God to keep pace with us. We simply cannot grow if we don’t let God grow.

A Rebellious God

Suppose we take a fresh look at the terms of God’s covenant, initially laid out in the Ten Commandments. The first three clauses define how we should regard God: “place no gods before Me” (Exodus 20.3); “make no idols” (v4-6); “do not misuse My name” (v7). We conflate these edicts to mean, “I alone am God, and no other god is worthy of worship.” While that’s the gist of it, it’s not the whole. If it were, the first law would suffice. The interdictions against idolatry and misuse of God’s name are called out to reinforce our awareness that we can’t approach God like other gods because God is fundamentally not like them. The ban on images is meant to prevent God from becoming an idol—a static being whose traits and abilities are carved in stone. The misuse of God’s name is restricted to avoid limiting God to certain roles, realms, and responsibilities. God is the God of all, a living, evolving Entity that refuses to serve our purposes, but instead invites us to serve God’s purpose.

The covenant’s revolutionary nature is so staggering it baffles the Israelites. Even as God is dictating its terms on Mt. Sinai, they’re molding a fixed idea of God at the foot of the hill. It’s impossible for us to conceive their befuddlement when God breaks the mold. God won’t sit still long enough to be sculpted, propped on an altar, hung on a wall, or enshrined in a temple. This is a rebellious God Who ultimately refuses to be nailed down with such ferocity that Death itself comes off its hinges. The idea of a fluid, growing God intent on changing us, and changing with us, is so foreign to Israel that, like us, it keeps trying to bring God into conformity with what it imagines a god should be. That’s why God repeats the anti-idolatry edict again and again. In Leviticus, the worship manual for God’s people, we read, “You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images or pillars, and you shall not place figured stones in your land, to worship at them; for I am the LORD your God.” (26.1) It’s not only about Baal and other pagan deities. It’s about God, too. “Don’t carve Me in stone,” God says. “I am the LORD your God.”

The Sameness Burden

So what are we saying? Is it possible that belief in a changeless God can lapse into idolatry? Absolutely—if it inhibits God’s growth and movement in our lives. Who God is doesn’t change. But how God works, what God thinks, and the way God moves are constantly in flux. We see this spelled out in Lamentations 3.22-23. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end,” it says. Now watch this, “They are new every morning.” God’s love doesn’t change. How God loves us, however, is new every day, because we’re new every day. The writer ties a bow on the idea of a steadfast God Who is full of surprises by declaring, “Great is Your faithfulness.” Faithfulness—constancy, engagement, and presence—is the marker of a growing Creator, Who’s worshiped and trusted. Sameness—predictability, rigidity, and intimidation—is symptomatic of a stunted God, Who’s idolized and feared. God-with-Us grows alongside us, keeping pace with us and expecting us to keep pace with God; God-with-or-without-Us does not. Every morning brings the new mercy of letting God grow, as well as a fresh opportunity to grow with God.

We’re one week from the start of a new Lenten journey that leads us into a desert of discovery, where we seek new insight and experience with this God Who won’t sit still. Millions of believers will travel with us—some of them open to surprises and new mercies sprinkled across 40 mornings, others trudging along, doing the same old thing and looking for the same old God. The latter group views the desert as a place without beauty, where little besides monotony and routine flourish. But if we enter this season determined to let God grow, new life will spring up at every turn, as God gets bigger and God’s covenant expands and God’s presence becomes more vividly known in our lives. In Isaiah 43.18-19 God tells us, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” As we prepare to enter Lent’s wilderness, let’s relieve God of the sameness burden—the former things, the same-old same-old. Let’s heighten our awareness of new things springing forth. Let’s ready our hearts and minds to let God grow.

O God, we confess to burdening You with sameness that stymies Your growth in our lives and the world around us. We’ve placed our need for predictability, routine, and safety above Your desire to grow. Teach us to prize Your faithfulness. Enable us to see newness with each morning. Give us courage to let You grow at will, to welcome changes in You as we are changed. Amen.

We simply cannot grow if we don’t allow God to grow.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/15/let-god-grow/

Choose to Touch

A leper came to Him begging Him, and kneeling he said to Him, “If You choose, You can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose.” (Mark 1.40-41)

A Very Big Deal

Some time back, while putting away laundry, my partner Walt called, “Honey, come look at this.” He pointed to a nasty stain that filled a corner in our linen closet and crept across the ceiling. “Mold,” I gasped. Walt asked, “How can that be?” And that really was the question, as the spot, in our apartment’s driest corner, was the least likely place for mold to sprout. We started running scenarios that might account for a sudden outbreak of fungal growth. Where had we gone wrong, we wondered. What had—or hadn’t—we done? How could we clean it up and prevent it from returning? What if it we couldn’t stop it? It was no big deal. Yet it was a very big deal, because mold is unsightly. It signals uncleanliness. Soon we were scrubbing down the closet as if prepping it for delicate surgery. (We never solved the mystery of the mold’s origins.)

How embarrassing for a guest to spot the mold before we did! Yet, as terrible as that prospect seemed, it was nothing compared to what we’d face in ancient times. Hebrew Law considered mold and mildew in one’s home or clothing as types of leprosy—evidence of sickness that might infect the community. Anyone who saw our mold would have been religiously obligated to report us as “unclean.” Until we were ritually cleansed and our house put right, we’d be labeled lepers. And there are other telltale physical symptoms unrelated to mold and mildew that presented the same fate. If winter air chapped our lips or sunburn caused our skin to flake, we’d be lepers. If we had psoriasis, eczema, or any kind of rash, we’d be lepers. If inflamed nerves surfaced as hives or shingles, we’d be lepers.

Leprosy in Scripture isn’t just the ailment now known as Hansen’s disease—a neurologic malady that dries up one’s flesh and often scars limbs. It’s a catchall for many conditions (some infectious, some not) that alarm primitive people. Lepers may be called unclean. But they’re viewed as unsafe. You don’t hang around them, touch them, eat with them, speak to them—you don’t get close enough to breathe their air. Thus, when we open Sunday’s texts to find Elisha helping Naaman, a pagan military leader afflicted with leprosy, and Jesus cleansing a leper, we note these encounters are a big deal, a very big deal.

“If You Choose”

To be fair, Elisha treats Naaman with extreme caution. The commander’s king refers him to Elisha, who’s said to have power to cleanse lepers, and his arrival in Israel creates a lot of anxiety for its monarch. First, he’s not happy about a highly esteemed foreign leper traipsing the countryside, where he’s sure to be shunned by common folks—for good reason. But more than that, Israel’s king worries that failure to remedy Naaman’s condition will stir up trouble with the referring king. Once Elisha catches wind of the problem, he assures his king there’s no need to worry. “Send him to me,” he says. But when Naaman lands at Elisha’s door, the prophet doesn’t risk his health to greet him personally. He forwards a most unusual—and simple—protocol via his servant. He directs Naaman to wash in the Jordan seven times and his skin will clear up. The rude reception and silly advice initially outrage Naaman, whose servants rush to point out if the prophet had asked him to do something difficult, he would have complied. So Naaman does as told and, as promised, the seventh bath restores his flesh “like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” (2 Kings 5.14)

In contrast, Jesus responds to a leper’s plea for help with flagrant compassion bordering on recklessness. The leper kneels before Him and says, “If You choose, You can make me clean.” (Mark 1.40) The text goes on: “Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’” Jesus touches the man. Jesus chooses to touch him. Jesus cleanses him. Straightaway, He sends the man to a priest to verify his leprosy has been cleansed, warning him not to tell anyone what happened. But the man can’t keep his secret. “He went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to Him from every quarter,” verse 45 reports.

Lepers and Prophets

The two accounts are just similar enough to reveal striking differences. Both Elisha and Jesus possess curative powers and confidently respond to the lepers in unconventional ways. Yet Elisha’s curious decision to treat Naaman at arm’s length also reveals self-concern we don’t find in Jesus. Elisha obeys the Law prohibiting contact with lepers and thus protects his health. Meanwhile, Jesus defies the Law—as well as social taboos and nature itself—by touching the leper. In doing so he debunks the myth that lepers are unsafe, untouchable. The man’s cleansing will not only clear his complexion; it will restore his acceptance into community. After being pushed aside for reasons he can’t control, he will once again belong. And his belonging is more important to Jesus than any criticism or exposure to infection that may result from choosing to touch the man. Mark suggests Jesus’s warning not to divulge how he’s cleansed is a precautionary measure to ensure He can move freely without being inundated with requests for healing. Yet the man’s excitement and gratitude demonstrate what happens when those isolated by affliction and prejudice are restored. Their witness inspires others to find Christ.

So where are we in these stories? Well, basically, we’re everywhere. We’re lepers and we’re prophets. On one hand, we’re afflicted with infectiously toxic ideas and habits that cause us to dry up, marring our appearance and vexing us with discomfort. We’re beset by moldy attitudes that permeate our lives. And we can respond to our situations like Naaman, whose pride almost stops him from humbling himself in obedience to the prophet. Or we can emulate the leper who boldly kneels at Christ’s feet and prays, “If You choose, You can make me clean.” As prophets, we’re also endowed with gifts to restore others who’ve been unjustly denied because of superstitions, ignorance, and fear. In relationship to them, we can be like Elisha, and treat so-called pariahs at arm’s length, telling them what to do without actively engaging in their restoration. Or we can follow Christ’s example by defying taboos and fears with a cleansing touch.

Leprosy comes in many forms. It grows in closets. It seeps into the fabric of life. It discolors skin and disfigures limbs. It infects surroundings and cripples many. Yet it need not destroy us. There is cleansing in Christ’s touch—the defiant power to rejuvenate and replenish our sense of belonging. And once restored, the cleansing power we receive is ours to share with those suffering similar conditions. It’s a secret we can’t keep. It inspires us to move toward them. It changes how we view people who’ve been religiously and socially labeled “unclean.” It humbles us so we no longer distance ourselves from victims of isolation and prejudice. It’s a secret that empowers us to reach for them—to say, “I do choose to touch you. Be made clean!”

Gentle Savior, revitalize our sense of Your cleansing touch. Restore our awareness of the power that You display when we choose to touch others who suffer from isolation and prejudice. Rid us of fear and reluctance so that Your story may continue to be told through us. Amen.

We are all lepers cleansed by Christ’s touch. And we are all prophets who know the power of choosing to touch others plagued by taboos and prejudices.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/12/choose-to-touch/.