The Storm Has Passed Over

As many of you saw on the news last night, we had quite a storm in Atlanta (Mayor Franklin confirmed this morning that it was indeed a tornado). Downtown took the worst of it, with office buildings, cars, and sporting arenas alike all taking a good bit of damage. A loft complex in Cabbagetown collapsed, but thankfully everyone has been accounted for. Fortunately, I have checked with my friends who live in the most dangerous area and everyone seems to be fine.
I didn't completely avoid the storm, however. I went out to eat in Grant Park last night with two friends and the storm swept through at just about the time we were leaving. Almost immediately after we left Six Feet Under, the restaurant's power went out. The lights also went out on most of Memorial Drive, which it made it particularly difficult to see.
Unfortunately, the darkness, the wind, and the rain prevented me from seeing a downed street sign with twisted metal lying in the middle of Memorial. I hit the sign, but fortunately didn't do too much damage to my car, just a dent and some scraping on the right side. I did manage to dodge another sign on my way home.
My few hundred dollar scratch isn't too bad, but the experience was definitely scary. A man who was already on the sidewalk came and checked to make sure we were OK. I told him we were, and he asked if we could call 911 with his address, and we did. I was so rattled by my own accident, that I didn't even ask if he was OK. I assume he was since he was out checking on us, but I wish I would have been more aware of him to ask a simple question.
It is unfortunately the case that most of the time we are preoccupied with our own crises and situations that we too easily can ignore those of other people, even if they are right in our face. Next time, I pray that I will stop, look, and see.

How Not to Speak of God

Peter Rollins in his book, How Not to Speak of God, reminds us that it is just as important to avoid saying the wrong things about God as it is figuring out how to say the right ones. This is of course a huge challenge, and one that few, if any, of us have figured out.

Nonetheless, I couldn't help thinking about Rollins' book after dinner on Friday night. I was at a dinner for a Christian organization when a lady blurted out, "I don't know why God made poor people, maybe it was so we could know him better." In sum: God made people poor in order to reveal himself to rich Christians.

After I fainted and had to be taken to the emergency room, I regained enough composure to reflect on the event. This woman is a dedicated Christian who clearly does not mean what she said. The way she is living her life and her dedication to helping those in poverty repudiate her spoken theology that poor people exist for rich people. That being said, speaking in this way about God is problematic for countless reasons. But before I cast this woman out of the kingdom, I think we must also admit that we have all been in her shoes, speaking about God in ways that if we actually thought about it would repulse us at one time or another. I certainly know I have.

One of the many benefits of theological education is that it forces you, at least sometimes, to think about how we speak of God. We are reading and talking and singing and reflecting about God so much in such a concentrated experience that how we speak of God is always near the front of our minds. Although we still put our feet in our mouths (me more than most), the tendency is decreased because of our constant reflection on God.

It seems to me that one of the great thrusts of Christian education in our churches and in our communities should focus on providing our people a vocabulary with which to speak and think about God. Not only the words, but the grammar in order to speak with confidence and credibility in the world. A non-Christian at dinner Friday night would (and should) have been repulsed at hearing this discussion of God. For a God who creates poor people to suffer for the purpose of bringing rich people closer to this God is not a God worth worshiping.

We know that this is not the character of God, for the character of God is one who gives to all of us in our poverty and who promises to give to us the riches of the kingdom, which are not always material, just in case you are reading Creflo. How can we teach one another how to speak credibly of God? How have we learned to speak of God and what would help us? I know I need help in my God-talk. Do any of my three readers have any ideas?

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

Mama said there’d be days like this. There’d be days like this, mama said, mama said. But what Mama didn’t say was that there would be texts like this.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it seems like there are always passages of Scripture that apply so much better to other people than they do to me. Like when I’m driving down Ponce de Leon and a rich person in their Mercedes or Hummer with a don’t worry about the car my treasure’s in heaven bumper sticker, it takes all I have to not ask if I can tell them a little story about a Rich Young Ruler. Or when another believer wears their Jesus on their sleeve, all I want to do is tell them a little something about praying in secret. And I could be wrong, but I imagine that there are some of you here today who can think of a passage or two of that you might like me to pay more careful attention to. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.

The difficult part about this story that we know so well is that it is not pointed at other people. Quite the opposite actually – this is tale that is pointed straight at us, at you and at me. I stand before you as a proud member of this community of scholarship. We are students and teachers and support personnel who are dedicated to becoming a community of excellence. Among us are students and teachers who excel at connecting theology with life. Our community is littered with artists of all kinds – preachers and poets, hip-hop and high church, musicians and mimes. In short, we are smart. We are talented. Our faculty is among the best in the world. We are the best and the brightest. There is very little that we can’t do. Don’t believe us? Just ask us, we’ll tell you.

The problem, my dear friends, is that in our text this morning, gifts and graces, are not what is held up as important. It is neither talent nor ability, acumen or expertise that qualifies David to be king. It seems that people like us are exactly the ones Samuel was looking for when he was sent to find the new king. He was impressed with the size and good looks of Eliad. This one has the makings of someone who could lead us. Surely this is the one. Next! Six more brothers made the walk and six more brothers went by without being anointed as the new king; six more times the answer was the same. Next!

Exasperated and ready to be done with it, Samuel asked Jesse if there was another brother, somewhere else. There was, Jesse said, but he was with the sheep. They sent for the child, and waited for him. Well, you know the story. David, the unlikely one with beautiful eyes but more importantly the heart that God was looking for, is anointed as king. The ultimate outsider becomes the insider, a lesson for all of us in Christian leadership. It is what is inside, the heart, that matters. What distinguishes David from the previous king, Saul, is his willingness to obey God, hence obedience is essence of the divinely approved heart. It is through the least among us that the Gospel comes in power.

These are all nice conclusions, but I don’t think any of them lead us to the heart of the story, actually. These words are all fine and good, but they miss the primary word within the story. They don’t get just who is in charge.

That’s because the primary actor in this scene is not Samuel. His choice would have been Eliab, but that choice didn’t get made. The primary actor isn’t David, even though he is the one who has the heart that meets the divine standard. Really, David doesn’t do anything besides go where he is told and passively receive an anointing. The primary actor, the one who is in charge in this story and all the stories, from start to finish, is God. It is God who tells Samuel to go to Bethlehem. It is God who tells Samuel to go pick a king. It is God who tells Samuel to pick David as king. It is not David who snatches God’s spirit for himself, but it is God who bestows his Spirit on the little boy.

As we follow David’s story from this point on, it becomes clear that it is not David’s gifts or skill that are the cause of his success. The military skill of a small boy is certainly not equal to a giant Philistine warrior with a proven track record. The political cunning of the new king should not equal the expertise of an experienced king. The source of David’s success is none other than the living God. When God declares his covenant with David, God reminds us how David has risen to power and whose work it really has been – God took David from the pasture, God removed David’s enemies from his path and it will be God who will make his name great and who will establish an eternal kingdom through David. It is not David who has made the covenant, but is the covenant making God who has made David.
This is not just the story of David. This is how God works. God transformed Moses from a stammering idiot into a leader who threw off the yoke of the most powerful empire in the world. It wasn’t the word of the people that brought down that wall in Jericho, it was the word of God. Time would fail me to mention all accomplished by Jesus, God with us. And the Apostle Paul put it this way: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, coining the ultimate Christian motivational phrase.

It has been with much excitement and a little bit of obsession that I have been following the presidential nominating process. (My first two clicks in the morning are politico.com, and realclearpolitics.com.) One of our great messianic temptations as Americans is the picking of a president in which every four years we choose a new savior. But more than two hundred years of elections have taught us, that in terms of American salvation, the promises are always much grander than the broken government that follows. And while we all can and should get excited over our respective candidates, salvation is not coming to our towns wrapped in American flags and under political banners - whether they are accompanied by a Straight Talk Express, Thirty Five Years of Experience or Change We Can Believe In. That’s because despite the many talents of the politicians, and they are many, the problems and pitfalls are always much greater than gifts of our new leaders. Despite their abilities, human power and potential just aren’t quite enough.

The problems of David’s day were just as large. The disappointment of Saul’s kingship had resulted in a fractured Israel and a disloyal king who was taking on the one who was the source of his power. It is not an indictment of God that the God of Israel intervened. That God picked a leader was merely a divine recognition of the severity of the situation. Because only God would do. We see in David that left on his own that this boy king just as often got in his own way as he worked for good. If you have any doubt, read a little story about Uriah and his wife. The difficulties presented by a divided people and a disloyal king couldn’t be fixed by even the best personal skills and human abilities. It took a God willing to work with and through a chosen human to bring about an eternal kingdom and a household of God.

This old story with its ancient rituals has plenty to say to those of us called in a technological age. Despite all our gifts and all our talents, the prospect of doing ministry in God’s service is daunting, and I don’t know about you, but I think it has become even more so in the last three years. The problems that confront men and women of faith are just as difficult as those that stared at David in his first appointment. Conservative and liberals do battle over every possible issue, self-righteousness reigns, justice seems anywhere but immanent and idols of all stripes seem to be winning the fight.

As I reflect on the ministry that I have done over the years, I am simply amazed at the work God has done in spite of me. My career is filled with incoherent sermons, inadequate answers to tough questions, and patterns of pastoral care that would make Karen Scheib cringe. How I could be a leader in a church called to work for justice, to reconcile and make new, to make disciples of Jesus Christ and further the mission of God is beyond me. Actually in spite of our gifts, we can’t help but hear the voices. Your sin is too great; you’ll never be good enough. You don’t have enough faith yourself, how could you ever nurture anyone else’s? But those aren’t the voices of truth. No my friends, those words smell of smoke.

To borrow the words of John Newton: I am a great sinner, but oh Christ is a great savior. I don’t know what Bible you’ve been reading, but the one I read tells of a God who overcomes our inadequacies to make us co-workers and co-heirs in bringing forth the kingdom. It tells me about how God calls a young man from the womb and appoints him a prophet to the nations. About how God appoints prophets and truth-tellers, disguised as wives and mothers, tricksters and hookers, to do God’s bidding. Isaiah reveals a servant who has been commissioned to make universal justice the way of the whole wide world. We are the recipients of the grace which comes when God joins flesh in Jesus that makes all of our ministry possible. And through the power of the Spirit, disciples and deviants, miscreants and martyrs left us more than a Creed; but a living witness that whispers our names and calls us forward.

The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.’ ²Samuel said, ‘How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.’ And the Lord said, ‘Take a heifer with you, and say, “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.” ³Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.’ ⁴Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, ‘Do you come peaceably?’ ⁵He said, ‘Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.’ And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.’^{* 7}But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ ⁸Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ ⁹Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ ¹⁰Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen any of these.’ ¹¹Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ ¹²He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ ¹³Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.