Why Did Jesus Die?

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”

Mark 8:34-37

The most common (most frequent and crudest) explanation of Jesus' death on the cross is that God sent him to die for our sins. Someone had to pay for the sins of humanity. Jesus suffered so that I didn't have to. He was perfectly sinless and it was a perfect sacrifice.

That is a caricature of what is called the theory of "substitutionary atonement." I have deliberately used the caricature to make a larger point. In spite of the fact that it's the theology I grew up with, and it's still the most common theological understanding of the crucifixion, I am convinced it is wrong. It is wrong biblically, historically, morally, and theologically.

On Good Friday, Jesus was tried, and convicted, and tortured, and killed. It was a triumph for the powers of darkness, and there was nothing good about that Friday. Or so it seemed.

But in his death he exposed the moral bankruptcy of the Empire and the shallow religiosity of the chief priests and elders who collaborated with the oppressors. Good Friday is the story of a collision between the goodness of God in Jesus, and the evil of a violent empire.

Before we go any further, we need to clear up two major misunderstandings:

• The Jews did not kill Jesus; the Romans did. 
• He was not executed for blasphemy; he was executed for treason. 

The Jews did not kill Jesus. We know this as an absolute fact because they did not have the authority to carry out capital punishment. We also know this because if he had been sentenced to death by a Jewish court, he would have been stoned to death. The Romans were the only ones with the authority to kill him, and they did.

We know that the Romans executed Jesus for sedition because they crucified him. Crucifixion was a death reserved for those who committed treason against the empire. It was a form of state terrorism designed to torture its victims and terrify the populace. The Romans did it often so that the people were kept constantly aware of the consequences of defying the empire.

So why did Jesus die? And what does it mean?

I don’t believe that God sent Jesus to die. I don’t believe that it was God’s plan.

That’s partly because I think that speaking of God’s plan is too anthropomorphic. It imagines God as some sort of supernatural version of a human being. But it’s also morally suspect. It suggests that somehow God was sending Jesus on a suicide miss

Jesus died because he was completely faithful to God and his faithfulness collided with the sinfulness of humanity in the form of the Roman Empire. He died because he proclaimed the Kingdom of God as an alternative vision of how the world could be. Against the normalcy of violence, he proclaimed nonviolence. Against the normalcy of self-interest, he proclaimed self-sacrifice.

The commandment to love our enemies is about as subversive of what passes for normal as anything could possibly be. And two thousand years later, even those of us who claim to be his followers have a very hard time even imagining what that path looks like, let alone following it.

When he invited his followers to take us the cross, he invited them to follow the path of self-sacrificial love. And he promised that the way of self-sacrifice is also the way that leads to life.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

*An original version of this post was first published on April 5, 2015

Why Did Jesus Die?

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”
Mark 8:34-37

The most common (most frequent and crudest) explanation of Jesus' death on the cross is that God sent him to die for our sins. Someone had to pay for the sins of humanity. Jesus suffered so that you and I don’t have to. He was perfectly sinless and it was a perfect sacrifice.

That is a caricature of what is called the theory of "substitutionary atonement." I have deliberately used the caricature to make a larger point. In spite of the fact that it's the theology I grew up with, and it's still the most common theological understanding of Good Friday, I am convinced it is wrong. 

It is wrong biblically, historically, morally, and theologically.

On Good Friday, Jesus was tried, and convicted, and tortured, and killed. It was a triumph for the powers of darkness, and there was nothing good about that Friday. Or so it seemed. 

But in his death he exposed the moral bankruptcy of the Empire and the shallow religiosity of the chief priests and elders who collaborated with the oppressors. Good Friday is the story of a collision between the goodness of God in Jesus, and the evil of a violent empire.

Before we go any further, we need to clear up two major misunderstandings:

• The Jews did not kill Jesus; the Romans did.
• He was not executed for blasphemy; he was executed for treason.

The Jews did not kill Jesus. 

We know this as an absolute fact because they did not have the authority to carry out capital punishment. We also know this because if he had been sentenced to death by a Jewish court, he would have been stoned to death. The Romans were the only ones with the authority to kill him, and they did.

We know that the Romans executed Jesus for sedition because they crucified him. 

Crucifixion was a death reserved for those who committed treason against the empire. It was a form of state terrorism designed to torture its victims and terrify the populace. The Romans did it often so that the people were kept constantly aware of the consequences of defying the empire.

So why did Jesus die? And what does it mean?

I don’t believe that God sent Jesus to die. I don’t believe that it was God’s plan.

That’s partly because I think that speaking of God’s plan is too anthropomorphic. It imagines God as some sort of supernatural version of a human being. But it’s also morally suspect. It suggests that somehow God was sending Jesus on a suicide mission.

Jesus died because he was completely faithful to God and his faithfulness collided with the sinfulness of humanity in the form of the Roman Empire. He died because he proclaimed the Kingdom of God as an alternative vision of how the world could be. Against the normalcy of violence, he proclaimed nonviolence. Against the normalcy of self-interest, he proclaimed self-sacrifice. 

The commandment to love our enemies is about as subversive of what passes for normal as anything could possibly be. And two thousand years later, those of us who claim to be his followers have a very hard time even imagining what that path looks like, let alone following it.

When he invited his followers to take us the cross, he invited them to follow the path of self-sacrificial love. And he promised that the way of self-sacrifice is also the way that leads to a faithful life.


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 


*A version of this post originally appeared on Good Friday in 2015.

Unity and Disunity in the United Methodist Church

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
I Corinthians 10:16-17

According to Saint Paul, unity is a central part of our theology.

We may disagree on many things, but we are still one in Christ because we break the one loaf and share the same cup.

By comparison to the disagreements in Corinth, our disagreements within the United Methodist Church are minor. 

For us, it is about a few short paragraphs in our Book of Discipline.

In a recent post about the question of unity or schism at our coming General Conference, Steve Harper argued that it basically comes down to a simple question of whether or not we value unity. He summarizes it this way:

“If the delegates at General Conference believe unity is a higher value than schism, then we can anticipate some plan for remaining together. If not, we will see some plan for separation. In either case, theological language will be used to justify the ideological and institutional manifestation. But however it is worded, the preference for unity or schism will reflect the deeper and final influence of will.”

Taking the opposite point of view, Drew McIntyre argues that, “We are not faced with a choice between the desire for unity or for schism. The true issue is a conflict between covenant fidelity and celebrated infidelity.”

Seriously, those are the choices?

We are choosing between “covenant fidelity” and “celebrated infidelity.”

Not just infidelity. Celebrated infidelity.

My guess is that most of us are in favor of covenant fidelity, but that’s not the issue. It’s not about the covenant. It’s about whether LGBTQ persons are excluded or included in the life of the church and it comes down to a few sentences in a book that is many hundreds of pages long.

We should be clear that when those in favor of exclusion talk about covenant, they are not talking about the biblical covenants, they are talking about the “clergy covenant” in which United Methodist clergy promise to uphold the Book of Discipline as part of their ordination vows.

So let’s look at the Discipline.

This is what it says under “Qualifications for Ordination:”

“While persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world. The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”

I think the wording is important. It says, that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Not Christian faith, or Christian theology, or Christian ethics.

The statement is descriptive rather than normative. It says that this is what (some) Christians have taught and continue to teach. It is a description of what is rather than a declaration of what ought to be.

The descriptive nature of the statement is clearer in the Social Principles:

“We affirm that all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God. All persons need the ministry of the Church in their struggles for human fulfillment, as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship that enables reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self. The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching. We affirm that God’s grace is available to all. We will seek to live together in Christian community, welcoming, forgiving, and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us.  We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. We commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons.”

It is an offensive statement. It is hurtful and insulting and basically unchristian. But again, it is descriptive rather than normative. This is what we have done. Sadly, it is also what some of us are still doing. But we know that Christian teaching changes and evolves. This is not forever. It is an observation of what is, rather than a declaration of what ought to be.

Some of us believe that in order for the United Methodist Church to become what we ought to be, we need to ignore that one sentence about incompatibility. We believe that in order to fully affirm the rest of that paragraph, and to be faithful to Gospel, we need to ignore the offending sentence. 

My Old Testament Professor, Dr. Harrell Beck, liked to say that “change is inevitable, but growth is possible.” In this case, I would prefer growth, but I will settle for change. And the change is inevitable.

It is sad that on this critical issue the United Methodist Church lags behind the secular culture. But change is coming and we need to hold together as we trust God to lead us into the future. Dr. Beck loved the verse from the Prophet Habakkuk: 

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will say to answer my prayer.
Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:1-3

Jesus Was a Pharisee (Seriously. He Was)

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, 
"Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
Luke 13:31

A few years ago at our New England United Methodist Annual Conference we were debating an issue related to how the church treats LGBTQ persons. One of my colleagues, arguing for inclusion, characterized those on the other side of the debate as “modern day Pharisees.” It was, I thought, an unfair comparison, and I quickly made my way to a microphone to respond.

“That’s unfair,” I said, when the presiding bishop called on me.

“It’s unfair to the Pharisees.”

There was a smattering of laughter, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was serious. I admit it was a snarky comment. And it was unkind. Not what Jesus would have said in that circumstance, although it seems possible he might have said something similar in one of his many discussions and disputations with disciples and others.

Like everyone else in my generation and like almost everyone who went to Sunday School and grew up in the church, I learned early on that the Pharisees were the bad guys. They were self-righteous and hypocritical, obsessed with observing the letter of the Law, yet utterly tone-deaf to its spirit. They were rich and powerful, and they colluded with the Romans in opposing and eventually killing Jesus. They were ritually clean, yet morally corrupt.

And I learned in seminary that they were the perfect foil for preaching. Every narrative needs a good villain, and the Pharisees were the perfect villains for almost any preaching topic. 

It was perfect, with the slight problem that it was wrong.

The Pharisees were reformers.

They had a three-fold belief that God was a loving father, who loved humanity so much that he gave us the Torah, the Law, so that everyone who followed the law would have eternal life (fellowship with God, now and forever).

Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with John 3:16 will see the parallelism of construction. And beyond the similarity of form, the substance of the first and third points is basically identical. Each speaks of God as a loving father and each points toward eternal life. The difference is in the way. The Pharisees believed that following Torah was the way: John’s Gospel sees the way as believing in Jesus as the Christ.

The three-fold belief of the Pharisees gives rise to the animating question of Matthew, Mark and Luke: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” If the way to fellowship with God now and forever is found in following Torah (the way), what does it mean to follow Torah? What specifically must I do? And the answer is the same in each of the three Gospels: love God and love your neighbor.

Every three years on the second Sunday in Lent, the Lectionary has us reading about how some Pharisees came to warn Jesus that Herod was after him. And after cycling through that text a couple of times I began to wonder. Why were the Pharisees warning Jesus? Weren’t they his enemies?

Two possibilities presented themselves in my mind. The first was mildly unsettling, given everything I had learned up until that point. What if the Pharisees and Jesus were not such bitter enemies?

There are many occasions where he judges them harshly. At one point he tells his followers to listen to what the Pharisees say, because “they sit on Moses’ seat,” but be careful not to imitate what they do. On the other hand, there are also instances in which they invite him to dine with them. Some are attracted to Jesus and believe that he is the Messiah, and the Book of Acts records occasions on which the Pharisees protect early Christians.

The second possibility was even more unsettling. What if Jesus himself was a Pharisee?

If you grew up, as I did, with the image of Pharisees as self-righteous hypocrites, it may be hard not to reject that idea out of hand. 

But think about it.

We know that it was Jesus’ custom to go to the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and we know that the Synagogue was a Pharisaic institution. Jesus and the disciples are in the Synagogue a lot.

We know that the Pharisees believed in the two-fold concept of the Law as written and oral. The written law was understood to be eternal, but the oral law had to be reinterpreted for each generation. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus first declares that he has not come “to abolish the law or the prophets.” On the contrary he says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Then he seems to contradict that by launching into a series of teachings in which he says first, “You have heard it said,” followed by a commandment, and then, “but I say to you,” followed by a new teaching. It only makes sense when we recognize that in the first statement he is reciting the written law, and in the second statement he is giving a new oral interpretation.

Finally, we know that Jesus was called rabbi. And we know that rabbinic Judaism grew out of the Pharisaic movement. As one of my rabbi friends said, “If he was a rabbi, then he was a Pharisee.”

The Pharisees gave birth to two great religions, Christianity and rabbinic Judaism, the only form of Judaism to emerge from the ancient world. They gave us the animating question for the synoptic gospels and the belief structure for the fourth gospel. They also gave us a model for Bible study and for the focus on scripture as part of the worship service.

Clearly, Jesus did have many arguments with the Pharisees as individuals or in groups. And he criticized the movement as a whole. But those disputes and disagreements should be understood as internal to the Pharisaic movement itself, just as Christians disagree with other Christians and sometimes criticize Christianity as a whole.

And Jesus was not the only Pharisee looking critically at the movement. His scathing criticism in Matthew 23 are mirrored almost exactly in a passage in the Talmud which records a description of seven different types of Pharisaic behavior, only the last of which is an example of the high standards of belief and practice to which they were called.

1. The “Shoulder Pharisee,” who wore his good deeds on his shoulder.
2. The “Wait a Little Pharisee,” who always put off doing good deeds until a later time.
3. The “Bruised Pharisee,” who shut his eyes to avoid seeing a woman and was bruised from stumbling and falling.
4. The “Humpbacked Pharisee,” bent double by false humility.
5. The “Ever Reckoning Pharisee,” who was always counting up his good deeds.
6. The “Fearful Pharisee,” always quaking in fear of God’s wrath.
7. And finally, the “God-loving Pharisee,” who lived with faith and charity, whose deeds matched his professed beliefs.

Whether or not one believes that Jesus was a Pharisee, how we view the Pharisees is very important for modern Christians. 

Apart from the basic idea that historical accuracy matters, a reassessment of our attitude toward the Pharisees is critical for two reasons.

First, when we can see more clearly the Jewish context of Jesus’ life and ministry, we can better understand his teachings. We can see him as a rabbi advocating for his people against an occupying empire, rather than as a religious iconoclast rebelling against religious traditionalists. His religious and political views both come into sharper focus when can see him in his Jewish context.

The second point is also of great practical importance. Many Christians do not understand that modern Judaism, across the spectrum from the Orthodox to Reform and even Reconstructionist, all have their roots in the Pharisaic movement. When Christians slander the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, they are also implicitly criticizing modern Judaism. This is oddly ironic, since both Christianity and modern Judaism share a common beginning in the Pharisaic movement. Although the irony may be amusing, the practical result is that the historic Christian slander of the Pharisees has contributed to anti-Semitism.

A more accurate historical appreciation of the Pharisees can give us a clearer understanding of Jesus’ life and ministry and open the way to a more helpful relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

Lent Is a Time to Reflect on What Matters Most

Jesus in the Wilderness

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 

Luke 4:1-2

If Lent were a candidate running for President of the United States or President of the ninth grade class, it would come in last. As the pollsters say, it has really high “unfavorables.” Nobody likes Lent. Some of us pretend to like it because we think we ought to, but no one really likes it. 

The observance of Lent among Christians is complicated at best and dysfunctional at worst. In Lent we tend to confirm the worst stereotypes of Christian behavior. We focus on small and petty things. Lent does not bring out the best in Christianity.

The Gospel reading for the First Sunday in Lent is always the temptation story. We read it from different Gospels depending on the Lectionary cycle, but the story is always the same. After Jesus is baptized by John, he is led into the wilderness for a time of reflection and contemplation. It is one of those rare occasions when the accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke are nearly identical. 

There are two places where we tend to get stuck. The first is with “the devil.” We picture a mythical creature with horns and a tale. And some of us wonder how this can be “real.” Which totally misses the point. Temptation is about what happens inside of us and this was no different for Jesus. In his commentary, legendary scholar William Barclay points out that the struggle takes place within the mind of Jesus, but this does not make it any less real. 

The second place we tend to get stuck is on the last phrase of the second verse in Luke’s account. “He was famished.” And that leads us to the widespread Lenten practice of giving up something we like for Lent. Sometimes it’s chocolate or ice cream or all desserts. If that helps us to meditate on our faith journey then it’s a good thing, but my guess is that most of the time it just makes us grumpy. And grumpy Christians don’t make a very compelling witness.

All three accounts agree on a key detail: it is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the wilderness.

Jesus needed a time of preparation, introspection and contemplation. And we need that, too. It is good, between the hurry of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and the busyness of the spring, that we pause and reflect. It is a good time to contemplate our fears and hopes for the future, and to remember the joys and sorrows of the past. And in all of that, to ask serious questions about life and faith. What is it that really matters? What do we really care about? How will we put our ideals and our faith into action?

Saving the World: A Reflection on John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him

may not perish but may have eternal life.”

John 3:16

Several years ago on a Wednesday morning I was planning the worship service with Kim Wertz, our Music Director at the time, and Carol Reale, who was then and is now our Pastor of Christian Education and Family Ministry. 

As we were talking about the sermon, I said something about how the material was pretty heavy going. And Kim said, “Sometimes when you get into what various theologians or scholars think, I feel like I get lost in the footnotes. It’s good to know about Barth and Fosdick, or whomever, but I also want to know what you believe. It’s not that I’m going to believe whatever you believe, but that I want to know where you are in all of this.”

So I wrote this with Kim’s comment in mind. 

I think it’s important to look at where we are in the tradition and where it has taken us over the years. But it’s also important to say that this is what I believe, and this is why I believe it. Before we look more closely at this text, to use a thoroughly non-Methodist manner of speaking, let me put my cards on the table. 

I believe that we come from God and we go to God. I believe that God is the one who gives us life, and in the end, God is the one who calls us home. I believe in what theologians call universal salvation. My guess is that this is really what most United Methodist pastors believe, if you really press them, but most pastors would not say it as directly as I would. 

I believe that no one is ever lost. In the end, we all go home to God.

My friend Kent Moorehead used to say that every preacher has just three sermons. He or she may dress them up in different ways and present them with different illustrations connected to different biblical texts, but it’s still just three basic sermons. 

The truth is that I don’t even have three sermons. I have one sermon. It’s about the grace of God.

In the Bible, there are passages that speak of God’s grace and others that speak of judgment. There is a tension between them. But in the end, we have to decide where we will come down. I believe that the Apostle Paul is right when he says that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” I believe that has happened and it is the truth on which everything else rests. I believe that grace is the last word.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It is a beautiful verse and it is one of the best loved verses in the Bible. But it is also a source of division. 

Unfortunately, it has often been used by Christians to give a message of exclusion. In this judgmental reading of the text, the main point is that those who believe in Jesus have eternal life, and those who do not believe, perish. In this reading, the point is not grace, but judgment. 

It is as if the verse said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who did not believe in him would go to hell.” We can see immediately that whatever else it might mean, it cannot mean that. It cannot mean that the point of Jesus’ life and teaching was to expose non-believers and condemn them.

For God so loved the world

God loves the world. God loves what God has made, even though that world has in so many ways turned against God and rejected him. Nevertheless, God loves the world. For Greeks and Romans, this was an astonishing thought. Pagan gods and goddesses were distant, aloof, judgmental, capricious and uncaring. The notion of a compassionate God was a foreign concept.

God loves the universe; the cosmos. God loves people and plants and animals, mountains and rivers and streams, oceans and deserts and prairies and forests. God loves the stars and the planets. And it is more than just the natural world. God loves art and music, poetry and drama, great cities and little villages. God loves technology and science and medicine. God loves civilization and culture and society. It is not always good. It is not always what it should be, but it is still loved by God. And God loves the process by which it becomes something new and better, the progress of the ages. God loves culture in the same way that he loves human beings. We are loved as we are, but we are supposed to change and grow.

That he gave his only Son,

God sent Jesus to show us what God is like, and to teach us what God expects from us. This is the gift of God’s presence among us. Sometimes this giving of Jesus is interpreted as God sacrificing Jesus for us. In this crude understanding of the Doctrine of the Atonement, the idea is that God is angry with human sin, and there must be a sacrifice to appease God’s anger. Jesus takes our place, and dies for us, so that his death pays for our sins.

This crude theology is morally suspect. 

It is as if you, as a parent, had four children. Three of them were impossible. They were mean and cruel. But the fourth child was perfect and was exactly the kind of person you wanted him or her to be. And you were so angry that you were ready to kill the three horrible children, but you decided that you would kill the perfect one instead. And somehow, killing the perfect child would get rid of your anger toward the other three. 

You wouldn’t do that. No parent would do that. And I don’t believe God would do that, either.

Jesus did not die because God was angry with humanity. He died because his perfect faithfulness collided with human sin. He was faithful, even to death. He gave up his life rather than deny who he was or to whom he belonged. His faithfulness challenged Herod and Pilate, and collided with the empire. He held out the Kingdom of God, and highlighted the differences between God and Empire. He challenged everything that was wrong with the world, and for that he was killed. In that inevitable collision, as Paul said, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” But his death was caused by human sin, not by God’s anger.

So that everyone who believes in him

We speak of believing as if it were the same as thinking or guessing. “Do you believe the Red Sox will get back to the World Series?” That is not a faith question. (Okay, maybe it is a faith question, but you get the idea.) We believe that one candidate would make a better president than another. We believe that we need to get enough sleep and exercise.

But believing, in the biblical sense, is not the same as thinking. And it does not mean agreeing to a set of propositions. It is not giving assent to a doctrine. To believe, in the biblical sense, is to give one’s heart. When we say that we believe in Jesus, we mean that we give our hearts to him. If we live in him, he will live in us.

May not perish but may have eternal life.

Eternal life is the gift which Jesus offers to his followers immediately. They can choose to live the abundant life which God offers today and live, from now on, in the unending presence of God. The alternative is to continue in their old lives. The offer holds within it an element of self-judgment. We have to decide where we stand.

We do not become Christians by osmosis. We do not become Christians by sitting next to other Christians, although it helps. We do not become Christians by going to church or by studying the Bible, or by singing hymns, though all of that helps. We become Christians by asking Jesus to come into our lives and deciding to follow him.

In our choosing, we determine our own experience.

We can choose to live consciously in the unending presence of God from now on. Or not. But our decision does not determine whether or not God loves us, only how we experience that. 

God is saving the world. The whole we world. Because God loves the world.

Franklin Graham Is Wrong (Again)

Dr. Hawkins in her hijab

Hear, O Israel: The LORD your God is One. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

When Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment, he began with the Shema, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD your God is One. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."

Not surprisingly, he linked it to a verse from Leviticus (19:18), commanding that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The rabbis believed that the love of others was implicit in the love of God. You cannot love God if you do not love your neighbor.

For Jesus, this was the summary of the Torah: love God and love your neighbor.

I have been meditating on the great commandment while reading the story of Dr. Larycia Alaine Hawkins, an associate professor of political science at Wheaton College (this would be the Illinois Wheaton, not the Massachusetts Wheaton). She announced that during Advent she would be wearing a hijab as a sign of “embodied solidarity” with her Muslim sisters and brothers, and posted an explanatory note on Facebook in which she said that we all worship the same God.

She wrote:

I stand in human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor because we are formed of the same primordial clay, descendants of the same cradle of humankind--a cave in Sterkfontein, South Africa that I had the privilege to descend into to plumb the depths of our common humanity in 2014.

I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.

But as I tell my students, theoretical solidarity is not solidarity at all. Thus, beginning tonight, my solidarity has become embodied solidarity. 

It was a beautiful statement, but it elicited a punitive response from the college. Dr. Hawkins was placed on administrative leave, not for wearing the hijab, but for what they called “significant questions regarding the theological implications” of her action. “Wheaton College faculty and staff make a commitment to accept and model our institution’s faith foundations with integrity, compassion, and theological clarity,” the college declared in their public statement. “As they participate in various causes, it is essential that faculty and staff engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the college’s evangelical Statement of Faith.”

Most prominent among those who took to social media to support the college and denounce professor Hawkins was Franklin Graham, who posted his response on Facebook:

Can you believe this Wheaton College professor who says she’s going to wear a hijab for the holidays this year to show solidarity with Islam? Shame on her! She said that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Well she is absolutely wrong—she obviously doesn’t know her Bible and she doesn’t know Islam. The God of the Bible, has a Son named Jesus Christ. The god of Islam doesn’t have a son, and even the thought of that would be sacrilegious to Muslims. The God of the Bible sent His Son to earth to die in our place and save us from our sins. The god of Islam requires you to die for him to be sure that you’re going to heaven. That’s a huge difference—and there are many more examples! I’m thankful the school is dealing with this and has put this professor on administrative leave. Wheaton College is one of the premier evangelical universities in this country—and on top of that, my father Billy Graham and my mother graduated from Wheaton in 1943.

Many Christians understand Jesus very differently than Franklin Graham does. But he is right that what Christians believe about Jesus is very different from what Muslims believe. For Islam, Jesus was a prophet. For Christians, Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Word of God incarnate.

But does that mean we believe in a different God?

If God is One, then we cannot believe in a different God. We may understand God differently. We may experience God differently. But God is One.

Telling Muslims that they do not worship the same God that Christians do is the same as telling them that they do not worship God at all. It is telling them that they worship something less. It is hard to imagine anything more insulting.

And.

If the critical factor is what we believe about Jesus, then we would have to conclude that Jews also do not worship the same God.

And that would mean that the historical Jesus, the rabbi who kept the Sabbath and attended Synagogue, who was a devout and observant Jew, also believed in “a different God.”

What Does It Mean to Say We Believe in God?

Paul Tillich

Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:13-14

It happens more often than you might think. I am at a party or some casual event, and someone finds out that I am a pastor. After a short explanation of what it is about churches which keeps this person away, he (most of the time it is a guy) says awkwardly, “Well, anyway, could you put in a good word for me with ‘The Man Upstairs’?” At which point I am tempted to say, “As a pastor, I think it is my duty to tell you that ‘The Man Upstairs’ is a figment of your imagination.”

To get a sense of what an absurd image of God that is, picture Moses at the burning bush. And remember, this story dates back more than three thousand years. This is a primitive story told by primitive people. Here is Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, in Midian. He sees a burning bush. At this point, we modern people want to interrupt and point out that bushes don’t burn like that, but let the story go. [If you are fixed on the question of how the bush could burn like that, I will refer you to my wife, the geologist. Elaine says that there are natural gas vents in that area which could have produced approximately the phenomena recorded in the story.]

Moses stops to look at the bush and hears the voice of God, calling him to go back to Egypt and lead his people to freedom. Moses says no. He can’t do it. It is impossible. “Who am I,” he asks, “that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” They argue. God persists and finally Moses agrees. But he wants a name for this presence which has confronted him. God has already declared, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and Rachel.” Moses wants more than that. “What shall I say,” he demands, “when they ask who sent me?” And God says, “I AM WHO I AM.” And finally, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

It is a magnificent scene, and it reveals in this primitive people, a depth of theological understanding which we moderns are hard pressed to match. Could you possibly imagine that story ending with God declaring to Moses, “Tell them ‘The Man Upstairs’ has sent me to you”?

The cosmic “I AM,” the Creator of heaven and earth, is not to be confused with something as small as “The Man Upstairs.”

The great theologian, Paul Tillich, speaks of God as “the Ground of Being” or “Being itself.” “The Man Upstairs” is too small, too tame, too limited to be anything more than a figment of our imaginations.

Where does that leave us? As thoughtful Christians, what do we mean when we speak of God?

1. We begin with experience. The Bible was not written to convince us that God is real, nor was it written as an affirmation of faith. It is the story of the people of God, a record of their (our) experiences. In the Bible, faithful men and women are telling us how they have experienced God. The writers don’t start with their beliefs, they start with their experiences.

What fundamentally differentiates Christians and Jews (and Muslims, in many respects) from other members of our culture, is not in the first instance our belief. What makes us different is our experience.

On January 1, 2000, Elaine and Carolyn and I spent the first day of the New Millennium in Georgetown, Maine. We got up before sunrise and drove to Five Islands, and went down on the dock, and watched the sun come up out of the water where the Sheepscott River runs into the Atlantic Ocean. Then we drove to Reid State Park and walked out on Griffith’s Head. It was spectacular. It was almost perfect. The water was beautiful. The sky was clear blue. The sun, coming up out of the ocean, was so dramatic. There were perhaps a dozen people walking on the beach or sitting on the rocks. There was a family cooking breakfast on a camp stove. Even the little dog with the red bow was magnificent. If the family with the little dog, cooking breakfast on the top of Griffith’s Head had invited us to join them, it would have been absolutely perfect. It was so close.

As I stood there, taking in the incredible beauty and majesty of that scene, I was overwhelmed. And I thought, if I could just take everybody there; if you could see it as I saw it, I wouldn’t need to preach a sermon. Ever again.

One of the best known verses from both Psalms and Proverbs is usually translated as, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” But a better understanding of that verse is not “fear,” but “awe.” Awe of the Lord, wonder, amazement, this is the beginning of wisdom.

We begin with wonder and amazement, at sunrise and sunset, at the change of the seasons, at birth and death. The starry night and the bright sunlight both speak to us of wonder.

2. The order of the universe is amazing. There are some who say, “I would believe in God if there were some sign, some miracle, some supernatural occurrence.” They are looking for something which contradicts the natural order. I have to confess, I am just the opposite. For me, the ordinary is extraordinary. The order of the universe is a miracle of cosmic proportions.

I had a high school physics teacher by the name of Harry Drew. Mr. Drew was a wonderful teacher. On a fairly regular basis, he would ask us, “Did you ever think what would happen if ice were heavier than water? If ice formed at the bottom of the pond, do you know what would happen?” My classmates and I were not nearly as amazed by this as he thought we should be. He would glare at us, clearly appalled at our adolescent indifference, but with a twinkle in his eye as if he were enjoying some intergalactic joke which we didn’t get. Then he would lean forward and say softly, “Everything in the pond would die.”

The order of the universe is amazing. We often think of miracles as events which contradict the natural order. But the greatest miracle is the order itself. And miracles may best be understood as ordinary events through which we see the eternal presence of God. A miracle is an ordinary event which is transparent to the eternal.

3. Life has meaning. When we say that we believe in God, we are saying that we believe life has meaning. There is depth. It isn’t all shallow.

Elaine used to say of my Grandfather Gibbs, that it was wonderful to tell him stories because when you told him a story it seemed to take on greater importance. In the telling, it became more than it otherwise would have been. Events had meaning because we could tell him about them. He enjoyed the stories. He cared about us. It mattered to him, and because it mattered to him, it became more important to us. I suspect that you may have people in your own life who are like that for you.

Ultimately, God is the one to whom we tell our stories. God is the one before whom our lives are acted out. Our lives have deeper meaning because they matter to God, just as my stories took on a deeper meaning because they mattered to my grandfather. When we say we believe in God, we are affirming that life matters, ultimately and eternally. Our living makes a difference.

4. We are finite. I will not say this well, but I will try. For me, the greatest significance of living my life before God is that I believe it gives me a real perspective on who I am.

To believe in God is to live with a sense of finitude, a sense of limits. One of our junior high teachers liked to tell her kids in Sunday School, “It’s not always about you.” Believing in God is reminding myself, it’s not always about me. There is more in life than us. We are limited and God is unlimited. We are finite and God is infinite.

Paul Tillich asserts that to comprehend this, to stand before the universe and recognize one’s finitude, is an act of courage. It takes courage to claim one’s place before God.

We can make believe that we are the center of the universe, but believing will not make it so. It is comforting to think that the world revolves around us, but it doesn’t.

To take upon one’s self the limited nature of human life in this vast and uncertain universe, is an act of existential courage. Tillich calls it, the courage to be.” It is facing life honestly, as it really is.

What does it mean for thoughtful Christians to speak of belief in God in the twenty-first century? To me, means awe, and order, and meaning, and the courage to face life as it really is.

The Fast that I Choose

Is not this the fast that I choose?
Isaiah 58:6

I know that many people may find it hard to believe that Isaiah, writing so many centuries ago, could be talking about my Mustang.

Amazing, right?

Actually, Isaiah is proclaiming a message from God. He isn’t claiming to have come up with this on his own. Still, it’s amazing.

But I don’t think there is a better fast than my Mustang. It is the best kind of fast there is.

I have been thinking about this because the Mustang turned fifty last week. Not my Mustang. Mine is a 2012. But the first Mustang was introduced fifty years ago last week. You may recall that last week was called “Holy Week.” I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The golden anniversary has been the occasion for much nostalgic reflection.

In her Sunday column in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote, “It’s weird to be jealous of your car. But I am. Men look at my car with such naked lust, their eyes devouring the curves and chrome, that I often feel as though I’m intruding on an intimate moment. Women like it, too. . . . But the icon evokes a special feeling in men. It’s the Proustian madeleine of cars, stirring old dreams and new. Guys sometimes follow in the American beauty’s dreamy wake, by car or by bike, and leave mash notes on the windshield with their numbers, pleading for me to sell it.”

But Dowd has no intention of selling her 1965 convertible. When the first Mustangs were introduced, they were called 1964 and a half’s, but officially they were 1965’s. They looked good then and they look good now.

I have been a car guy since I was a small child and I was interested in the original Mustang, but in those years my car lust was directed toward MG’s and Austin Healey’s. I loved the Mustang Steve McQueen drove in “Bullitt,” but I was more taken with Dustin Hoffman’s Alfa Romeo in “The Graduate.”

When I told Elaine I was writing a blog about the fiftieth anniversary of the Mustang, she asked what that had to do with “Thinking Faith.” I was momentarily speechless, and she asked if my text would be, “I came that they might have acceleration and have it abundantly.” I did not laugh. In the first place, acceleration is a good thing. In the second place, I thought that really would be a good text. The original, not the edited version. Wasn’t the Mustang an illustration of “abundant life?” And finally, I could not understand how once again something that seemed so obvious to me was not obvious to everyone else.

It’s about nostalgia dressed up as a theology. It’s about how we always think the past is better than the present. Like the people of Israel, in the wilderness, wanting to go back to Egypt. But faith is always about being called into the future. Like the angel telling the women at the tomb that “he is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

One of the underlying themes in the Mustang anniversary is our longing for the past. This comment from the Mustang facebook page is a good illustration:

“Apparently, the Ford Mustang today celebrates it's 50th birthday. While the current models aren't nearly as well-designed and iconic as the ones built in the 60's and early 70's, this is still an impressive milestone. . . . They sure don't make them like that anymore… Happy Birthday!”

The current models aren't as well designed as those from the 60's and early 70's? Seriously? Does he know anything about new Mustangs?

I can appreciate the skepticism. I could not believe it when I saw the first advertisement for the new 3.7 liter V6 Mustang. They claimed 305 horsepower and 31 miles per gallon. It seemed impossible. But it’s true, at least the MPG part is true. On trips I always get on the high side of 30. The record number for me was a little over 34 mpg on a trip from Rhode Island to Maine. I have no way to measure the horsepower. I can tell you that it’s not just fast, it’s scary fast. It is, with a nod to Isaiah, the very best kind of fast. And did I mention the 6 speed transmission?

In 1964 the original base Mustang came with an inline six that produced about 85 horsepower (by today’s measurement methods), and the basic V8 delivered about 150 horsepower. Don’t even ask about the gas mileage. If you want a V8 today, you can get 400 horsepower and 25 mpg or 500 hp and mpg in the low 20’s on the highway.

Make no mistake, the old muscle cars were fast. A Steve McQueen type Mustang with a 390 inch V8 (6.4 L) would do zero to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds and run the quarter mile in 14.1 seconds. That’s very fast. According to the road test people, that would make it just a few ticks slower than a new V6.

In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul speaks of “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” There’s a new 2.3 liter turbocharged four cylinder available on the 2015. It’s supposed to have over 300 horsepower. It will be lighter and should get both better gas mileage and better performance. They really don’t make them like they used to.