Meditations on a Carol and Advent Queries

In our church last week, we sang the carol O Holy Night. The first verse is the most commonly known, but the other verses speak to our faith in a much deeper way than most carols.

O Holy Night (thanks to Wikipedia)

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

 

Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born;

O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

 

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,

Here come the wise men from Orient land.

The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friend.

 

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Behold your King, Behold your King.

 

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

 

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

 

This hymn reminds us that Jesus came not only to free us from the power of sin and death, but from the chains of oppression and slavery. The Gnostic leanings of the modern church that isolate our spirits from our bodies are vigorously opposed in traditional carols and hymns. It is interesting to me that this carol affirms the mission that Jesus proclaimed for himself when he started his ministry.

 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4:18-19

 

When Jesus declared this to be his mission, that mission was not only for him, but for those who wished to follow him. He also wasn't speaking spiritually, but was being very literal. The Gnostics were an early heretic group, and the divorce of spiritual from physical was their stock in trade, and what Paul and those who came after him were so angered by. The Gnostics saw the physical as evil and the spiritual as good. Fortunately for us, Jesus did not preach resurrection of the spirit, but resurrection of the body and restoration of creation. What this carol reminds us of is the fact that we are Jesus' partners in bringing that restoration about. We have an opportunity in this holiday season to live into the best traditions of our faith and spend time working on the restoration and reclamation efforts of the kingdom of God. Especially with the fears of an impending depression, we have the chance to carry the light of God into the culture we are in and break the chains of greed that force children to build toys in sweatshops, to release the oppressed and the oppressor both to live healthier lives characterized by concern for each other.

The line in the carol that says "the chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother" is a reminder of the question that Cain asked God "Am I my brother's keeper?" While I think that we know the answer to that question, the question of who our "brother" might be is given a deeper meaning. The slave….. but who is a slave anymore?

We think in terms of our history of slavery, but here in Portland a couple of months ago there was a huge human trafficking bust where many minors were freed. There are children and adults working in unsafe conditions for less than what it takes to survive, let alone thrive all over the third world. That unfortunately is the tip of the iceberg; we aren't even touching on what we call in the US wage slaves.

In our context, especially since I come from a long tradition of opposition to slavery in all its deceptive forms, how do I resist the oppression that I know exists? How do I seek freedom not only for the oppressed, but for the oppressor as well? These are the queries that I am holding in the light in this advent season.

A quick blurb on the "Openness" of God

In my Christian History and Theology Class, we are wrestling with the Theologies of a classic (Augustinian/Calvinist) view of God's sovereignty and an "Open" view that gives room for free will.
I am going to have to say that I am leaning towards the "openness" perspective at this point. My reasons for this are many, but I am going to share my most personal reasons.
My father was diagnosed in March of 1999 with stage 4b esophageal cancer. Over the course of the following year my father slowly and painfully wasted away and died in March of 2000. In July of 1999 my then fiancee's father was diagnosed with cancer who also slowly and painfully wasted away and died in August of 2000. I cannot believe that a good God wanted two of his faithful servants to suffer in that extreme and cause that degree of pain and horror to rule the lives of their families. Such a God would be evil. If Augustine and Calvin were correct, then I am happy that Jesus suffered and died so that God could at least get a taste of the pain He so freely deals out.

The question to me is an essential character of God issue, and to say that "If God does it, it is good." merely sidesteps the issue of the morality revealed to us. While goodness can seem relative at times, there is a progression and direction towards wholeness and well being of all that is the common element. This evasion is not a valid argument if God's actions go against the direction that we see goodness is working towards.

Small Things and Vision

“It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.” Mother Theresa

God has been using the readings for my Missional Leadership class to challenge an assumption I had made about myself. The assumption was that I was not a visionary because I didn’t have huge lofty goals that I aspired to, but was focused on building relationships. What I didn’t realize because of my assumption, was that my vision is for better relationships, and isn’t program focused.

The underlying assumption is one that’s about the nature of vision and what vision can and cannot encompass. I see that my assumption was that vision had to be about large scale actions, and not about the little things. I think that I have primarily heard about vision in the macro context, and had never put it together mentally that vision could be about something on an interpersonal level rather than an organizational level.

Micro-visions, sometimes I wonder at God’s patience with me. It has taken me this long to grasp that meaning from the parable of the mustard seed. As I sit in the light of the Spirit, I am being challenged to let go of my assumption that visions can only be large scale.

The Spirit has used Friedman’s book "A Failure of Nerve" to challenge that assumption, and even in some ways has shown me that the vision to improve interpersonal relationships will foster others’ visions and even prove to have larger effects than is readily apparent.

My worldview has been shifted a bit, and I need a lot more processing to figure out all of the ramifications, but one thing I know is that I must now process this vision, and figure out how to articulate it.

Restarting

I have been very insane recently. Between work, Pastoring preparing for the birth of our daughter and my wife being put on bed rest, I had some higher priorities then blogging. I will be starting to go to George Fox Seminary in the Fall to get a MA in Ministry Leadership with a focus on Spiritual Direction.

Looking at some discussions that are going on around me, I wanted to post my sermon notes for Easter Sunday this year, in which I share an insight that Jesus' nonresistance, death, and resurrection show us the triumph of peace over violence.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us on this day that we celebrate our victory. Today I would like to share with you the good news that the prince of peace overcame the brutality and violence of death on the cross and rose again. This example that He gave us shows the power of trusting God to work things out, and not relying on our might to get the job done. Jesus had every opportunity to lead a successful rebellion. He had the support of the people as evidenced by his huge following, and the king’s welcome to Jerusalem. The week of the Triumphal Entry, the leaders of the Jews and the Romans were shaking in their shoes.

Because the powerful leaders felt threatened by the crowds, they sent out to arrest Jesus. When Jesus was arrested in the garden, He did not resist with violence, and rebuked his disciple for doing so. Matt 26:50-56 tells us that when Judas came and Judas gave him the kiss of betrayal “Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for." Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" At that time Jesus said to the crowd, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled." Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.”

Jesus’ choice was either to rely on the strength of the crowd and their weapons or to rely on God. The peaceful choice Jesus made was one of obedience to God. Even though this choice leads to true victory, isn’t popular. People don’t want to love their enemies or do good to those who persecute them. Forgiveness is hard work, and doesn’t make sense, at least not to the world’s way of looking at things. The world tells us that we need to defend ourselves and that we can’t trust anyone else to do it for us. The world tells us that trusting God is foolish, and there are even some in the church whose faith is not strong enough to believe that God will protect them, their families or the faith.

Missionaries like my brother and sister in-law defy what the world says is safe. Their willingness to go where God leads them with their children is a statement of trust in God that we need to remember as an example. We should be thanking our missionaries for reminding us that God is in charge, and that His way, even though it leads through the valley of the shadow of death, will not only see us to the other side of that valley, but see us triumphant on the other side.

As I said the way of peace will not win Christians any popularity contests. When Pilate gave the crowd the choice of the Prince of Peace or the murderous rebel, who was as apt to kill Jews as Romans, to be released they chose the murderous rebel. Violent rebellion made sense to the Jews who were suffering under the yoke of brutal Roman oppression. They wanted to strike back and overthrow the Romans. That is a natural response. Jesus’ way didn’t make sense to them. Our way as Friends who follow Jesus doesn’t make sense to the world either. Our choice to work peacefully for change doesn’t make sense. Our choice to not use the weapons of this world doesn’t make sense, unless you are coming from the perspective of faith. If you come from the perspective of faith, then you know that “ALL things work together for the good of those who serve the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” You know that “If God is for me then no one can stand against me.” If you come from the perspective of faith, then obedience to the teachings of Jesus leads to victory, even if those teachings don’t seem to make sense right now from our human perspective.

Jesus’ perspective was that of God. He saw that violence would not bring about God’s kingdom, or God’s way of being and doing what is right. He saw that everyone, even soldiers sent to arrest Him, bore the image of God, and could be reconciled to God. Jesus taught His disciples to accept and live in the forgiveness of God and to extend that forgiveness even in the face of the worst man could do. Jesus could face rejection and humiliation and brutal torture while being able to say “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” because he knew that faith in and obedience to God always leads to victory. Let me repeat that: Faith in and obedience to God always leads to victory. Jesus’ command to “love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us” will always lead to victory. If Jesus was willing to die rather than justly lash out at the Romans, how could it be right for us to lash out with violence, no matter what the justification?

Jesus is our example, an example that each one of us desires to live into, and fails miserably at. I long to live in peace, and to have people wonder if I am crazy to believe that I don’t need to own a gun, and that I do not need to use violence in any form be it verbal, emotional or physical to protect myself or my family. Well, let me be frankly honest …I am not there yet. While the violence from me tends to be more of the sarcastic kind, that doesn’t make it any less damaging. The hard thing for us is that Jesus set the bar so high. Jesus example is one that we can’t live into without the active living presence of the Holy Spirit. That same Spirit is active in the lives of every human being we encounter, no matter what they choose to believe or how they choose to act. The Holy Spirit can still use our different actions to jar others into listening to Him. If we are no different than the world around us, what conscience would the world have?

The world will tell us that we are failures and cowards for not participating in violence. The world will tell us that peace, mercy, love and forgiveness don’t make sense. Well, let me read to you what the outcome of love, peace, mercy and forgiveness is John 20:10-23 Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Peace is with us, and that peace will withstand all of the brutality and violence and pettiness and mean-spiritedness thrown at it. The ways of evil may seem to work for a short time, but evil’s victories will always be short-lived and in hindsight those “victories” will be known as the very things that led to its downfall.