Listening to God: An Advent Reflection

The fundamental statement of belief from ancient Israel’s history is found in Deuteronomy 6:4:  “Hear O’ Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.” This confession begins with a command to hear; a command that Jesus often reiterated through his well known statement, “Let anyone who has ears to hear, listen.” Indeed, we find many references to the act of hearing throughout scripture, implying that God has something to say to God’s people.

But the act of hearing need not be limited to the physiological act of hearing a sound that enters the ear. Rather, the call to listen is a call to give full attention and adherence to the Word of God. When we are commanded in scripture to listen, it is a call to silence the noise of our self-interests and listen intently to the voice of God.

In the opening of Mark’s Gospel, Mark’s Advent narrative, we hear various voices speak. First, we hear the words of Israel‘s prophets echoed as a way of declaring that the coming of Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s age-old promises. Second, we hear the words of John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness, who prepares the Way of the Lord.

We also hear the very voice of God, speaking through the rip of heaven to the Beloved Son; an event through which Jesus understands his mission as God’s envoy. And in the verses that close Mark’s prologue, 1:14-15, we hear that same Beloved Son speak with the authority of God, declaring that God’s rule was near. Indeed, in the very act of reading the narrative over and over, we continue to participate in hearing not only this story, but the various voices that proclaim the gospel to us.

Yet, despite the clear commands to listen, we face various obstacles that deafen our ears to God’s voice. One obstacle we face is the noise of life; noise that can drown out the voice of God to us.  Another challenge to our hearing God is the fear we have that God will call us to be different than we are. Not knowing what God may say to us if we were to enter a time of intense listening keeps us comfortable in our status quo relationship with God. We are safer if we do not hear.

But another significant problem is that we staunchly maintain assumptions about what we think God says. The catch phrase that captures this sentiment goes something like this; “The Bible says it, so that settles it.” The assumption behind this way of thinking is that our way of reading scripture is always correct, and the interpretations we have maintained can never be challenged or altered. 

While we must take scripture seriously in our act of hearing God, and the sacred text of the Bible should form a basis for the church’s faith and life, clinging to our assumptions about what the Bible says can prevent our hearing God and can lead us to continue our cultural and political ideologies that ignore what God may actually be speaking to us.

Jesus himself faced such attitudes and he challenged them by saying, “You have heard it said, but I say to you.” While Jesus was not negating scripture, he was offering new meaning and understanding; a new way of understanding and hearing God in the here and the now. This way of listening embraces the past of God’s revelations, but also looks for what God is saying in the present. 

Thus, we must not treat scripture as a stagnant text that reiterates our culturally transmitted presuppositions about God. Rather, we must reverently approach the text with open hearts and minds, allowing God to challenge our way of thinking; even change our way of understanding scripture itself.

One significant way of allowing God to challenge our way of thinking is to listen to others. Listening to what others say about God and life, particularly those who are of a different faith, can help to test and shape our own way of thinking to the extent that though we may not change many of our ideas, we can at least value how others have heard God speak to them. Allowing the divine in someone else speak to the divine in us can help us hear God more fully.

A personal story may help clarify why I think listening to different people is necessary for our hearing God. A few years ago an African-American gentlemen came to my home asking to do some work around the house. He and I had many conversations. He could not read and he was often in and out of jail. He and I came from completely different worlds, and yet when we talked, I could not help but hear God speaking to me. Indeed, he represented the voice of God to me more than most sermons I have heard.

But this should not surprise me at all. A careful look at the life of Jesus shows us very clearly that he heard God in the voices of those forgotten by the world. While the religious establishment held onto their assumptions about what God had said, Jesus was hearing the new Word of God through the voices of those outside that establishment; those who struggled to live life as God intended. Thus, Jesus was not simply the bearer of God’s truth, he was also the receiver of God’s truth; a truth shaped by his listening to others.

 

In hearing again the story of Advent and Christmas, may we silence the noise of our lives, turn away from our fear of what God has to say to us, and hear God, not through listening to our own assumptions about what the story says and means, but through the voices of pain and suffering that God continues to hear.

Waiting on God: An Advent Reflection

This past Sunday marked the beginning of the Christian calendar with the start of the season of Advent. The word Advent comes from the Latin meaning “coming”, and the season that bears this title consists of the four Sundays before Christmas that look with anticipation to the coming of Christ. While we celebrate this time as a time of looking forward to the celebration of Christ’s birth, the practice of Advent each year is also focused on our faith and hope in what God is preparing for our future: “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)

While traditionally, Christians have focused on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love, important themes as they are, I would like to glean another set of ideas from the opening of the first Gospel to be written, the Gospel of Mark. Although Mark does not say anything about the birth of Jesus, unlike Matthew and Luke, this does not mean that Mark is absent of an Advent theme.

Moreover, a careful look at Mark’s prologue produces some very important themes for our renewal during this season of Advent. These themes are: waiting, hearing, repenting, and believing. I’ll address the themes of hearing, repenting and believing in the coming days, and thus I’ll begin this series of reflections with the theme of waiting.

The opening of Mark’s narrative situates the story of Jesus in the context of the past, Israel’s history of exile, and God’s promise of redemption and liberation. Although all the statements that Mark attributes to the prophet Isaiah cannot be found in Isaiah, the intention of the Gospel’s narrator is to pick up God’s promises of the past spoken through Isaiah in order to frame the new work that God was doing in the present as the fulfillment of those promises. In the thought of the Gospel’s author, the theme of a New Exodus, which was prevalent in Isaiah’s prophecies, was now being realized in the coming of God in the incarnation of Jesus.

But the fulfillment of this promise was only possible through the faithful waiting of God’s people. This does not mean that the actions of God’s people brought about the fulfillment of God’s promises. God is the only one who acts to accomplish God’s promises. But the waiting of God’s people was an act of faith and hope that held onto the promises of God and looked with anticipation for God to accomplish that which they had not yet experienced, but which God had surely promised.

In our nanosecond oriented world, we find it difficult to wait. We are extremely uncomfortable with delayed satisfaction, and we make every effort to achieve and obtain quick, but often fleeting ways of gratifying our lives. We realize we hunger, but we fail to realize that our deepest hunger cannot be satisfied by those momentary pleasures. Our deepest longings will only be satisfied by the renewal of God, who is continually making things new, but perhaps not at the speed we would desire. And, thus we must wait.

Yet, waiting on God is not like waiting in line at the store or waiting for an appointment. Waiting on God is like a child waiting to open presents on Christmas morning. There is hope and expectation, along with the assurance that though she may not know what is wrapped in the Christmas paper, she does know the one who gives the gift and she knows that the gift is the expression of the giver’s love. We do not wait in fear and anxiety of what might come in the future; we wait with faith and hope in the God who holds the future.

In our waiting, however, we do not enter into state of being and living by which we separate ourselves from the reality of a creation under chaos. Rather, we wait with creation, and we suffer with those who suffer; serving, healing, and praying for God’s final redemption. In doing so, we do not deny the reality of suffering and injustice, but we work as we wait for God’s promised hope. Indeed, we cling to that hope as a means of confronting the suffering and injustice of our world with the realization that they hold no eternal reign over us. And thus, we wait as we are being continually reoriented toward God’s future hope.

A Christian Response to Immigration Reform

In light of President Obama's speech last night on why he is taking action regarding immigration, here's a post I wrote last year on how Christians should respond to immigration reform.

Perhaps the most beloved story in the Gospels, and indeed maybe the favorite story for many from the entire Bible, is the story of Jesus’ birth. Even when it is not the time for Christmas, the familiar nativity story lives on in our hearts and minds, narrating for us the incarnation of God into the world in the person of Jesus. Yet, while we celebrate and retell the story with feelings of warmth and comfort, from its beginning to its end the story is a narrative about the rejection of Jesus as a stranger and alien in a foreign land.

Luke tells us that when Jesus was born, Mary laid him in a feeding trough because there was no room for him in the inn. Matthew narrates a story about a young family having to live a nomadic life because of the threat of governing authorities. While these stories may not be entirely historical, both birth narratives reflect what Jesus knew to be true about his own life, “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Throughout his life, while Jesus did gather a small following, in most cases, he was rejected. The story of the incarnation, then, is a story about how the God of creation had entered into that creation as a rejected alien and stranger. Can this story shed biblical light on the question concerning our current immigration policies?

I am ill-equipped to answer questions about immigration from a legal stand point, and I see the strengths and weaknesses of various positions on the issue. But as Christians who follow a Savior who himself lived as an alien rejected by his own, I am troubled that many folks are not concerned about developing a compassionate response to the immigration issue.

Since the horror of 9/11, xenophobia has been prevalent in our country. This fear of foreigners has grown out of a return to an entrenched and zealous patriotism that has gone too far in its understanding of America as the only culturally pure society. Yet, some blame must also be placed on our fear of not feeling secure and the perception that American culture is under threat. Such xenophobic tendencies may overtly or implicitly influence our feelings about immigrants and our political positions on the issue of immigration.

How might Scripture inform us as we struggle to formulate common sense and faithful Christian responses to the issue of immigration? First, we need to recall God’s commands to Israel regarding aliens in their midst. The Mosaic Law states that God is one “who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.” Moses goes on to command Israel to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:17-19).

When we turn to the New Testament, we find that followers of Christ are called citizens of the kingdom of God, and alien and strangers to the world. The Christian movement negated ethnic differences and crossed boundaries of ethnic separation to welcome all into the kingdom of God. Jesus consistently reaches out to the outcasts of society, even the Gentile, who were viewed as ethnically inferior by the Jewish religious leaders. Paul reaffirms the breaking down of ethnic divisions by stating that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, as both have been joined together into one new humanity (see Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14-22).

One thing we must keep in mind is that most immigrants we see and meet in our communities are not undocumented immigrants. They are law abiding citizens who desire a better economic and political life for themselves and their families. We should remember that at some point in history our ancestors were immigrants to this country seeking exactly what immigrants to the U.S. seek today. Moreover, we cannot simply blame immigrants for problems such as crime, loss of jobs, or other social programs. These problems would exist even if there were no immigrants.

And, while there may be as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., many of these are hard working people who are seeking a better life for themselves and for their families. The majority contribute to the economy of this nation, including doing many jobs that Americans will not perform, as well as starting small businesses in the entrepreneurial spirit of America, as a report on NBC indicated.

As people of faith, we should be informed about this important issue and voice our religious conscience. But if we claim to follow Jesus, we need to make sure our views are more informed by the compassion of our faith than the fear our culture feeds us. Our positions on the issues surrounding immigration must not only model the teachings of Jesus on welcoming the strangers and outcasts, they should also be views that see the person of Jesus in every human being. If they do not, we may find ourselves asking Jesus, “When did we see you as a stranger?” only to hear, “Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matt. 25:31-46).

The Disciples in Mark: Human Failure and Human Possibility Before God

The role of the disciples in Mark has received a great deal of attention in Markan scholarship over the years. Scholars have debated the seemingly unanswerable question of who the disciples are in Mark, and what their role is in the hearing of Mark’s audience. Several have essentially argued for their negative portrayal, while others have viewed the presentation of the disciples along more positive lines. 

Some have suggested that the portrayal of the disciples has been for polemical purposes, to address an alleged false Christology rampant in the Markan community. Still others have viewed Mark’s treatment of the disciples as more pastoral, representing the reality of discipleship dependent on Mark’s Jesus. Yet most would agree that the role played by the disciples of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel is certainly ambiguous. 

The question remains, however. What are we to make of the portrayal of the disciples in Mark’s gospel? Why does Mark present the disciples sometimes in a positive ways, but in other places in negative ways?

While I am cautious to avoid simplistic answers to these questions, it seems to me that the most valid, and I think most defensible answer, is that the ambiguous portrayal of the disciples in Mark is for the purpose of demonstrating to the Markan audience the reality of human existence before God. 

From reading the Gospel narrative, one can see the great dichotomy that exists within the narrative between “the things of God and the things of humans” (8:33). The negative and positive portrayals of the disciples then are both for purposes of plot and to demonstrate human failure and human possibility before God that occur in the lives of real people. 

In this way the Markan audience is confronted by their own reality as followers of Jesus on the way. They are called to faith and discipleship, which is defined not only in following Jesus, but also in their dependence on God.

Jesus is clearly seen as the true model of discipleship who thinks the things of God and is dependent on the Spirit of God to carry out God’s will. The disciples are presented as often weak followers of Jesus, whose relationship to God comes through Jesus.

Thus, the Markan audience is presented with a choice of two models to follow. Either they can follow the examples of the disciples, which will lead to misunderstanding and failure, or they can follow the example of Jesus that will lead to understanding and faithfulness before God.

Given this awareness of the narrative presentation of both Jesus and the disciples, it seems very plausible to me that the audience of the Markan narrative is supposed to view Jesus as the paradigmatic disciple, who not only makes the way possible for them to be in relationship to God, but sets for them an example of how one truly lives faithfully before God.

It is Mark’s Jesus that faces temptation with success (1:12-13). It is Mark’s Jesus that expresses faith in God; faith enough to cast out evil spirits when the disciples cannot (9:14-29). It is Mark’s Jesus who goes the “way of the Lord”, even when that entails his death (8:31-32; Mark 9:30-32; Mark 10:32-34). It is Mark’s Jesus that follows his own command to “take up your cross” (8:34).  It is Mark’s Jesus that serves while the disciples try to “lord over one another” (10:35-45) It is Mark’s Jesus who declares the rule of God and acts out the rule of God as God’s own Son. And, it is Mark’s Jesus that God not only affirms at the baptism of Jesus, but is the one God commands the disciples to listen to (1:11; 9:7).

The audience of Mark’s story would view themselves as the discipleship community, the new community of God, and Jesus as the one whom they follow and with whom they participate in doing the will of God.

Thus, the presentation of the successes and failures of the disciples in Mark is for the purpose of presenting human reality before God, and to show Jesus as the exemplary Human One, who is the faithful disciple. The negative presentation of the disciples is meant to remind Mark’s audience that they are also susceptible to failure and sin, to denying and deserting Jesus, and to becoming those that represent Satan (8:33).

The discipleship community of Mark is to hope in the God of Jesus, who was faithful to Jesus, and will indeed be faithful to all who imitate and participate with Jesus in doing the will of God. 

Although discipleship is about the disciples’ relationship to Jesus, it is also, and perhaps more, about their relationship to God, for disciples hope not in the power of Jesus to raise them from the dead and give them salvation, but in the God who raised Jesus, and through whom all things are possible (10:27).

Houston’s Subpoenas, Driscoll’s Resignation, and Preaching Authority and Accountability

Two religious stories hit social media like a firestorm this week. The first was the report that the City of Houston had subpoenaed the sermons of some pastors who were fighting for repeal of an ordinance known as Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which gives protection to members of the LGBT community.

The second was the resignation of Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church, a church he founded. Driscoll’s resignation comes after allegations of plagiarism, but also concerns over his leadership style, which even many of his church members called arrogant and authoritative.

Both of these stories raise the question concerning preaching and the authority of preachers in the pulpit. Yet, they also raise the issue of accountability preachers must be held to be effective leaders to their congregations.

I have written before on the importance of the separation of church and state from both a theological as well as a constitutional position. Our constitution demands this separation, but from a theological perspective, the church must remain separate from the state so that the church can speak prophetically to the state.

The report about Houston subpoenaing sermons from pastors is troubling in this regard. I am sure the full story is yet to be known, and some reports coming out today suggest a backing away from this action by Houston’s mayor, but let’s assume that the facts are true concerning the initial requests. If so, then this not only infringes on the First Amendment rights of these pastors, it also places constraints on preaching as a prophetic practice that has always been important to this country, particularly at crucial moments in our history.

Let me be clear, preaching is and always has been a political exercise. Mark 1:14-15 says, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” John had been arrested by the state for his preaching, and Jesus comes preaching the coming of the rule of God. How much more political can one get?

Pastors have a right, and perhaps even a responsibility, to speak politically. This does not mean, however, that particular political candidates or parties can be endorsed from the pulpit, for they should not be. The law is clear on this. But it does mean that pastors have the right to speak on any political issue they deem worthy of a sermon, and they have the right to take a stand on that issue, even if the state does not agree.

Barring the endorsement of a candidate or a political party, the preacher has the right to exercise free speech, even if such speech is disliked by the state or challenges a particular law. Indeed, and I am to the point of physical illness as I write this sentence, but the preacher has the right to say anything he or she wants from the pulpit, without fear of being sanctioned by the state, so long as the preacher does not promote violence or harm of others. What I have heard from some preachers disgusts me, but the state should not interfere with the preacher’s right to preach.

That being said, pastoral authority must be held accountable. Such accountability lies with the congregations and to some extent with the denominations, depending on the type of church governance a church is under. Pastors and preachers who stand before their congregations each week to bring a sermon must understand that they do not speak the word of God.

Sermons are interpretations of scripture and applications of those interpretations, and preachers who make these interpretations and applications in the sermon are fallible human beings. Neither their training nor their authority gives them carte blanche from the pulpit when it comes to their proclamations on social, political, or theological issues.

This means that parishioners who gather to hear Sunday morning sermons should come with critical minds to engage with what is being said by the preacher and they should feel free and safe with calling out the preacher for speech that is not worthy of the gospel.

While the state has no business censoring a sermon, those who hear the sermon have every right to confront a preacher whose comments in a sermon verge on bigotry and hate or that limit the rights of others regardless of the preacher’s disagreement with those rights. While preachers may feel strongly about an issue, they must not take the position that their view is equated with God’s view, and they should not force their views onto a congregation. That is the abuse of pastoral authority.

Pastors and preachers who consider their words to be infallible and their authority unquestionable should not be held accountable by the state for what they say from their pulpits so long as their words are within current laws regarding political endorsements and tax exempt status, and so long as they do not encourage harming others. However, the congregations that they lead and to whom they preach must keep pastoral egos in check by always questioning what is said in a sermon.