Augustine, on God

Augustine of Hippo is the most influential Christian thinker between the apostle Paul and the Reformation (although Thomas Aquinas may be able to give Augustine a run for his money).  This excerpt from the beginnng of Augustine's Confessions is an example why.  It offers more insight for contemplation than you'll find in entire books of theology, or an entire lifetime of a preacher's sermons.  While translators typically present it as prose, I've laid it out in a poetic form to make it easier to reflect upon.  (The translation from the original Latin is by R. S. Pine-Coffin).

You, my God, are

      supreme,

      utmost in goodness,

      mightiest and all-powerful,

      most merciful and most just.

You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us,

the most beautiful and yet the most strong,

ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you.

You are unchangeable and yet you change all things.

You are never new, never old, and yet all things have new life from you.

You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud.

You are ever active, yet always at rest.

You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need.

You support, you fill, and you protect all things.

You create them, nourish them, and bring them to perfection.

You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing.

You love your creatures, but with a gentle love.

You treasure them, but without apprehension.

You grieve for wrong, but suffer no pain.

You can be angry and yet serene.

Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same.

You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them.

You are never in need yet are glad to gain,

never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts.  

We give abundantly to you so that we may deserve a reward;

      yet which of us has anything that does not come from you?

You repay us what we deserve, and yet you owe nothing to any.

You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby.

You are my God,

      my Life,

      my holy Delight.

But is this enough to say of you?

      Can any man say enough when he speaks of you?

Yet woe betide those who are silent about you!

      For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you.

Can I Come to Your Church?

“Can I come to your church? I’m gay.”

No one’s ever asked me that question.  Maybe it’s because churches in general have a reputation for being less than welcoming to homosexuals.  Maybe it’s because they’ve heard comments from congregation members which give the clear message that there’s no place for gays in our church.

Our church prides itself in being a caring, supportive family of faith that welcomes and includes everyone.  As someone once said to me, “We take in strays.”  But are there some “strays” that we turn away?  Are we failing to live up to our calling and identity?

Some people in our congregation believe that homosexuality is a sin, perhaps worse than most other sins.  Others in our church think that sexual orientation doesn’t make any difference.  Whatever you believe, I hope we’d all agree that it’s not easy to be gay in our society.  It’s a burden.  And Scripture tells us to carry each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).  When we turn a cold shoulder to someone who is gay, we block ourselves from being able to accompany them as they seek to be faithful to God in circumstances that those of us who are straight can only imagine.  We force them to carry their burden in secret, afraid of how we might respond to them.  The devil loves secrets; when we keep our struggles in the shadows, he can use them to torture us and block path for us to experience Christ’s grace.

We churches are not doing a very good job of letting gays know that there is a place for them in God’s family.  A recent survey of 910 homosexuals in western Pennsylvania, conducted by Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, reveals that 75% of them have heard negative comments about homosexuals in their congregations.  Only 5% believe that their church would respond positively if they “came out,” while 80% believe they would face a negative reaction.

I’ve heard many well-intentioned people say that we should “hate the sin, not the sinner.”  The words that jump out in that statement are “hate” and “sinner:” certainly not words of welcome and invitation!  While it may not be as catchy, it’s more Christ-like to say, “We love you.  We will work together with you to discover God’s grace.”  During his earthly ministry, Jesus spent a lot of time with the notorious sinners of the day, like tax collectors and prostitutes.  I can’t picture Jesus saying to them, “I hate your sin, not you.”  Rather, I believe he looked at them as individuals, as people he loved deeply.  As he shared his love with them, they were able to discover ways in which he could take their shame and misery, and work a new thing in their lives.  As the church, we are the community of Jesus Christ.  It’s up to us to live up to whom we say that we are.

“Can I come to your church? I’m gay.”  If someone asks you that question, I hope you’ll answer, “You are a child of God, and deeply loved.  Welcome!”

What Is the Retirement Age for Christians?

Retirement is a wonderful reward after years of hard work.  And graduation is the joyful completion of years of study.  They are both blessings, but we run into problems when we think that the retirement or graduation applies to other parts of our lives.  You don’t graduate from parenthood, for example.  Even when your children are full grown adults with children of their own, they still need you to be their mother and father.  You can’t retire from being a loving and faithful husband or wife.  And you better not retire from housekeeping and lawn care!

There’s one other thing you can’t retire or graduate from: being a disciple of Jesus Christ.  When you claim him as your Lord and Savior, it’s forever.  You never “graduate” from learning about God and his plan for your life: how could we ever know everything about the One who is infinite?  And there’s no retirement from faithful service to God.

It’s not unusual, when I invite someone to take part in an activity or ministry of our church, for them to reply, “Oh, I’ve done that for years already. Let someone else take a turn at it.”  Apparently they believe that they’ve already done their fair share of service to the Lord through the church, and it’s time to “retire.”  Not only does an attitude like this deprive the church of the service of someone’s experienced, but it deprives the person of the joy that comes from partnering with God in his plans for the world.

Plus, it’s just plain un-Biblical.  Nobody in Scripture “retired” from serving God, regardless of how old they were.  For example, Abraham was 75 years old when God called him to begin a new adventure (Genesis 12:4).  To my knowledge, the only person in Scripture who claimed to have completed his work in God’s name is Paul, who wrote to his friend Timothy that he had “fought the good fight” and “finished the race” (2 Timothy 4:7).  But the only reason Paul thought that he was finished was because he knew that his life was about to be over.  And even then, he was still offering instruction and encouragement to others.

To say that we never retire or graduate from serving the Lord does not, however, mean that you have to continue to serve him in the same way.  As Ecclessiastes 3:1 puts it, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”  When one “season” of service has ended, it’s time to look for a new “season.”  Maybe you can’t pick strawberries for the Strawberry Festival anymore.  But can you sing in the choir, or teach Sunday School, or visit the shut-ins?  And you can always do the most powerful, most important thing of all: pray.

Violet Johnston served God through Old Union for many years.  Even when she was wheelchair-bound, she continued to serve any way she could.  Eventually, her disability was so severe that all she could do was tear up day-old bread to make breadcrumbs to feed to the birds.  But she did it up until the time that she finished her own race.  Like Abraham and Paul, she knew there was no retirement from service to our Lord.

Spiritual Muscle Memory

We have the ability to train our bodies to move in precise, exact ways without even thinking about it.  Basketball players spend hours practicing foul shots in order to be able to make the shot during the game.  Violinists have to put their fingers on the exact right places on the neck of the instrument, and trombonists must position the slides on their instruments in the exact right place in order to play the note on pitch.  Jazz legend Jaco Pastorius did the same thing with his bass guitar, which was specially adapted for this purpose.  Good typists know exactly where each letter is on the keyboard without even thinking about it.

This skill is called “muscle memory:” the development of a procedural memory that comes through repetition.  Eventually, it becomes second nature, and you’re able to move your fingers or legs in a precise way without even being aware that you are doing it.

The key to developing muscle memory is repetition.  You do the same thing over and over again until you’re sick of it.  And if what you’re trying to do is play the right note on a violin, everyone within hearing distance might also get sick of it as well!  Eventually, with enough time and practice, “muscle memory” kicks in.  On demand, you can play a D flat on the trombone. Your arms automatically give the ball exactly the right push to make the basket.  You don’t even think about which finger you’re using to press “T” on the keyboard.  It doesn’t happen overnight.  But with enough patience and persistence, you develop muscle memory.

What is true for our physical muscles is also true for our spiritual muscles.  Over time and with practice, our spirits are able to develop seemingly-automatic patterns.  Then, when a particular challenge comes our way, our spirits are properly prepared to turn to the resources that God provides for us at such times.  I have seen people far-gone into dementia spring to spiritual alertness when they heard the words of institution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  A family who recently experienced a devastating loss found great comfort by repeating the Lord’s Prayer.  Many people have told me about the comfort they find during times of need or of loneliness through the old familiar hymns that they sang for years.  These are some people who reaped the benefits of spiritual muscle memory, because their spirits effortlessly found comfort and guidance when they needed it.

Ritual and tradition play an important part in our lives, because they are the ways that we develop spiritual muscle memory, which we can rely upon when we need it.  Our spiritual habits, from the familiar liturgy of Sunday worship to the regular routine of daily personal devotionals, help to train us so that it becomes easier and easier to recognize and respond to God’s leading.

How’s your spiritual muscle memory?

The Benefits of Faith

We Christians believe that faith in Christ will lead to unimaginable blessings in eternity.  But did you know that your faith enriches your life in this world as well?  Maybe you already knew this.  But now psychologists can verify the positive role that faith can play in your life. 

Just take a look at some of the following findings:

·         According to the American Psychological Association, a recent study found that “higher levels of religious faith and spirituality were associated with several positive mental health outcomes, including more optimism about life and higher resilience to stress.”

·         According to the National Association of School Psychologists, ““Children reared in a system of faith often find great solace in formal ceremonial practices during times of stress and uncertainty.”

·         Dr. Lisa Berkman, an epidemiologist at the Yale University School of Medicine, writes that “‘having a strong faith and being embedded in a web of relationships like churchgoing have definite health benefits.”

There are some who claim that committing your life to Christ will bring blessings in this life, but they focus on things such as wealth, popularity, health, and success in business or education.  That’s a great way to pack people into your church: join us and your life will be a bed of roses.  But I wonder how they explain why nearly everyone in Scripture who followed God encountered difficulties and struggles.  As 2 Timothy 3:12 puts it, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

The benefits of a life of faith have nothing to do with fancy houses, big cars, and Ivy League educations.  They have a lot more to do with discovering resources beyond yourself when the house burns down, the car is totaled, and you flunk out of school.  The God who loves us and lives within us provides a sense of meaning and purpose, so that we know we aren’t just muddling through life on our own.  And we have an assurance that there is a greater plan at work beyond what we are able to recognize on our own.

Yes, our Christian faith is a celebration of a life beyond this one, in which all pain, suffering, confusion, and loneliness are wiped away.  Particularly as we celebrate Easter, we know that when we join Christ in our own resurrection, we will experience unimaginable joy, glory, and peace.  Otherwise, as Paul wrote, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19).  Our expectation of the glory to come vindicates our present sufferings and struggles.

But I’m not a Christian simply for the benefits of the afterlife.  I’m a Christian because it’s the best, most satisfying way to live this life.  I’m glad to hear that the psychologists agree.

More Than a Building

When you say “church” to most people, the image that pops into their mind is a building, often with a steeple on top.  We don’t have a steeple at Old Union, but “church” often means “church building” for us, just like everyone else.

It wasn’t always that way at Old Union.  For the first sixteen years of our church’s life we had no building at all.  Each Sunday the congregation met in a grove of trees beside a creek.  In bad weather they put a tarp over their makeshift pulpit.  That was it.  For the next nineteen years we worshiped in a log chapel at “Covenanter Woods” beside Fetzer Road before moving to our present location.  When that building burnt to the ground in 1905 our forebears built what is now the main part of our sanctuary; an addition in 1958 and our expansion in 2009 gave us the building we have today.

It’s ironic that the building has become such a major focus of our church’s identity, considering the fact that we had no building at all during those first years, and that the oldest part of our current building is only half as old as the congregation.  We focus a lot of attention on our building, whether it’s fund-raisers to pay off the mortgage, policies to make sure it’s being used correctly, or comments about its care and upkeep.

I have news for you: the building does not define our congregation.  Old Union didn’t become a different church when they moved from Straight Run to Covenanter Woods.  We didn’t change when the building burnt down, or when the additions were put on.  Brick and mortar, wood and glass do not make us who we are.

Over the last couple years a number of churches have left our denomination because of policy changes.  In virtually every case, issues over who gets the church property are the focus of the debate and final decision.  I’ve heard of some churches, and presbyteries, engaging in blatantly un-Christian activity to get or keep the church property.  That’s the kind of thing you do when your building is the most important thing about your church.

We can learn a few other things from Old Union’s founding generations about what matters in a church.  It wasn’t the building, but it also wasn’t the pastor: they had to share Rev. Williams with five other congregations in a time when travel was difficult.  It also wasn’t the music: they only sang the psalms, without an organ or any other musical instrument, in a style that by all accounts was far from inspiring.

The true identity of our church doesn’t come from its building, its pastor, or many of the other things that we think are so important.  Our church is defined by the quality of the fellowship its people share and by the mission that Christ has put before us.

Spend some time this month asking yourself: what makes Old Union the church that it is?  And what can I do to build it up?

Peter

Grabbing the Bible with Both Hands

In about eighth or ninth grade, I began a spiritual discipline of regular Scripture reading.  Throughout high school and college, it was a powerful mainstay for my faith as it developed and grew.  I didn’t discover powerful insights every day, but spending time daily (or almost daily) in God’s word helped me learn about and explore God’s place in my life and my place in his will.

Then I went to seminary.

Suddenly, the Bible was no longer a resource for my devotional life; it was an object of analysis and study.  I was taught to read the Bible in an entirely different way.  It was no longer simply God’s message to my heart; now I explored its historical setting, the literary forms that it contains, and a whole host of other “critical” skills.  Things that I had taken for granted were called into question.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other patriarchs were “eponymous folk heroes” who very possibly weren’t actual historical people.  The Pentateuch wasn’t written by Moses, but by a nameless committee called “the redactors” who pieced it together from at least four different sources.  Two or three different people wrote Isaiah.  Daniel didn’t write Daniel, John didn’t write John, and Paul didn’t write Ephesians.  I was taught not simply to read what the text said, but to explore the historical, literary, and social issues that underlie it.  I learned that the “unique word of God” was surprisingly similar to tales from other cultures of the time and region that we call myths.  I was getting to know the Bible in a new way and on a different level from how I had ever read it before.

In the process, something troubling began to happen with my daily devotional times.   When I picked up the Bible to discover God’s message for me, it had become an object for analysis instead of a resource for spiritual development.  Instead of hearing what the Spirit had to say to me, I could only hear the voices of my professors and seminary textbooks, pointing out the underlying tradition streams and historical nuances of the text.  My time with Scripture was no longer a spiritual retreat; it was a time for analysis and criticism.

It took me years to find my way out of this quandary, but it’s a struggle that many seminarians, and college students who take religion courses, encounter.  As my student pastor put it, “When I pick up the Bible with one hand to read it devotionally, my other hand knocks it away.”  Our devotional “hand” and our critical-thinking “hand” are at odds with each other.  One wants to pull the Bible into myself and identify fully with it.  The other holds it at arm’s length to examine like a rare fossil or exotic gem.

I suspect that many people who find themselves in this situation choose one hand or the other with which to hold the Bible, and ignore or cut off the other hand.  One choice is to repudiate everything we pick up from our academic study of the Bible.  We may write it off as an irrelevant distraction or react against it as an attack on our faith.  Those professors and egg-head scholars are just trying to tear the Bible apart!  We can seek to reclaim the simplicity and innocence with which I read the Bible in high school and college.  Another choice is to embrace critical insights and dismiss our earlier encounters with Scripture as foolish ignorance.  Maybe that was helpful when I was a youth, but now that I’m wiser and more mature I can put such childish things behind me.  In other words, we can either be intellectually dishonest, or we can turn our back on our spiritual heritage.  I can tie up one of my hands (either the devotional one or the critical one) and hold the Bible with the other.  But this is our challenge: how can we grab the Bible with both hands?

Before ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) took away much of his manual dexterity, my brother was a highly skilled head and neck cancer surgeon.  Part of why he was so skilled was because he had taught himself to be ambidextrous.  He grew up right-handed, but discovered that some surgical procedures are very difficult to execute with the right hand.  After he learned to be adept with both hands, he could approach situations and be able to use the hand that made the most sense for what was in front of him.  In the same way, when we are able to grab the Bible with both hands, we are more adept at understanding it and what it has to say to us.

When my brother faced a particular situation in the operating room, he would decide which hand it made the most sense to use in order to accomplish whatever it was he wanted to do.  Because he could use either hand, he could efficiently and effectively do wonderful things for his patients.  In the same way, if we are skilled at using both of our “hands” when reading the Bible, we will be much more effective and successful at whatever we seek to gain from that time.

Grabbing the Bible with both hands is different from being a switch-hitter: gauging your approach the Bible according to the situation and then using the suitable “hand” to do it well.  It means that you use both hands, both your critical and your devotional self, when you engage with the text.  My brother used both hands to operate.  In a particular situation, it may make more sense to make the incision with his left hand, but he would still use his right hand during the procedure, to do things like set a clamp (or whatever else surgeons do during an operation).  When he stopped doing surgery because of the effects of ALS, he still had full use of his left hand.  But he was too wise of a surgeon to think that he could get the job done with only one hand.  In the same way, we who approach the Bible with both devotional and critical skills are able to “get the job done” better than if we did it with only one “hand” or the other.  But we need to keep in mind what “job” we are trying to “get done,” and make the decision about which hand should be primary.

It takes time to become ambidextrous and be able to grab the Bible with both hands.  At first, our two hands aren’t able to work well together.  One hand tries to pick up the Bible, and the other one slaps it away.  Our devotional attitude and our critical skills work at cross purposes with each other, and we are clumsier with the Bible than we were when we only held it with one hand.  But, as in most situations, time and practice help.  We learn how to read the Bible devotionally, with our critical insights helping us to discern more of God’s message for our lives.  We learn how our devotional relationship with the Bible enhances our critical analysis.  It takes time, and it takes patience.  But if we are hasty and impulsive, we end up being one-handed Bible-readers.

Hermeneutics is a philosophical discipline that explores how we can gain understanding from things that we read.  My two favorite hermeneutics philosophers both offer insights into how we can grab the Bible with both hands.

Hans-Georg Gadamer explained that when you  read a book, it’s like making a decision to play by the rules of a particular game.  You “enter into the world” of the text, just like a basketball player enters into the world of basketball when she decides to play the game.  Basketball creates its own little world with its rules, and you’re only playing basketball if you play by those rules.  You can’t tackle someone from the other who has the ball (that’s the world of football) and you can’t kick the ball down the court (that would be soccer).  When we held soccer practices in our church gym, the ball would occasionally go through one of the basketball hoops on either side of the gym.  It was a source of amusement when that happened, but it had nothing to do with the game-world of soccer.  When the basketball players got the ball through hoop, however, that was the point of the whole game.

Gadamer compared reading a text to playing a game because it only makes sense if you enter the world of the text you’re reading.  You can only appreciate the book it you set aside your objections to things that you think are silly or false about it; if you suspend your judgment about that world.  To pick a much less profound example than the Bible, the “Twilight” book series creates a world in which vampires sparkle in the sunlight, make treaties with werewolves, and fall in love with teenage girls.  In order to appreciate and enjoy these books, you can’t keep complaining that vampires, if they exist, would never act like that.  It’s like watching an action movie in which the hero should probably be dead or critically injured after what he goes through, but keeps going full speed without even a limp.  You can complain that “this could never happen!” but you can only enjoy the movie if you suspend judgment.  In the same way, we can enter the world of the Bible, a world that we understand more completely because of our critical analysis of it, by making the decision to “play by its rules.”

Paul Ricoeur described the process of understanding a text as the process of moving from a “first naiveté” to a “second naiveté.”  The “first naiveté” is the initial innocence we have about the book we’re reading.  This is how I read the Bible in high school and college.  I accepted at face value the world that it presented.  I entered its world, as Gadamer  would put it, without really understanding it or grasping the nuances of it.  To use another analogy, I was like an audience member at the magic show who believed that the volunteer from the audience actually was sawn in half and that the pretty lady really was changed into a tiger.  What Ricoeur calls “explanation” is the pursuit of discovering what’s really going on.  This is where academic-style critical study of the Bible comes in.  We become more savvy about what is being presented to it.  We question it, we dig deeply into it, and we learn more about the situation.  We learn more about the magician and know that somehow he’s tricking us.  We may even learn some of the secrets of the magician’s craft.  But then we can enter into Ricoeur’s “second naiveté.”  We can use the insights we’ve gained from “explanation” to have a richer, more informed appreciation of what the text is presenting to us.  Even if you know that there’s some trick to the magician appearing to make a freight train float in mid-air, you can still marvel at what he’s done.  Even when you know the historical-literary-social factors that underlie the composition of the Bible, you can still hear God speak to you through it.  And in fact, your awareness of these factors will help you hear God more clearly.