Sunday, December 21, 2014

Incarnation Implications
Advent is fading, Christmas is rising, Epiphany is coming, Lent is shadowing, Holy Week is excruciating, Easter is liberating, and Pentecost is expanding. All because of Jesus, the Incarnate God of the flesh, of humanity, of personness.

I ask why?  Why did God choose to become human?  Why could not God have remained a Spirit, a mystical presence who stirred our inner self, touched our consciences, who sometimes came as fire or rain or storm, or sunrise?  Why wasn't God's liberating activity in the Exodus enough? Or the conquest of Canaan enough? Or the Restoration from Babylon enough? Or the kings, the Psalms, the Prophets enough? Why wasn't that enough so that God could just be God?

I submit these actions were not enough because God's People forgot what it meant to be a human being created in God's Image. God had to become human, to remind us again what it means to be a human being created in the Image of God, to restore the created nature of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to restore, enlighten and transform humanity's place, nature, and character in the world.

Here comes Jesus, the Christ. What happens through Jesus the Christ?

WE LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HUMAN BEING.
What does this mean? (Sounds Lutheran!)

BECAUSE GOD CHOSE TO BECOME HUMAN AND ENTER THE WORLD:

WE LIVE OUT OF GRACE: "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (I Cor 15:10). Grace is God's love and forgiveness given to us and claiming us as part of God's family. Grace tempers any arrogance, shuts down any sense that we are "masters of our fate, and captains of our souls" (Poem: "Invictus"). Arrogance turns attention upon ourselves instead of God's higher purpose.  Grace yields the stage to Jesus. We live in the spirit of the hymn: "Give me Jesus, you can have all the rest". Through grace we humbly kneel to the will of God.  We are nothing apart from God's grace. Grace is life's starting point. Our place and purpose in the world is defined by God's grace because grace creates out of nothing. We are because of God's grace. God's mark is upon us meaning we not our own.  Through grace, our bodies, our personhood are united with God in Christ so that we reflect the character of God. God's grace makes humanity humbly holy. All this because we are "in Christ." Christ, fully divine, fully human, ocean of grace!

WE ARE FREE: "For freedom, Christ has set us free." (Galatians 5:1) In Christ, through Christ, we are forgiven, redeemed, transformed, washed by the blood of the Lamb, made new. "Dance with the Spirit [of Christ] early in the morning.  Walk with the Spirit [of Christ] throughout the long day." (Song by Jim Strathdee) "Where the Spirit of [God] is there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3:17) We are liberated to be human beings, persons of God, to discover our gifts, to form relationships, to value our feelings, to test our minds, to respect our bodies, to use our senses. To quote Tony Campolo: "The Kingdom of God is a Party!" In Christ, we are fully human and fully alive! Only the humanity of God in Christ can liberate humanity.

WE ARE DISCIPLES: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God." (Romans 12:1) In the Affirmation of Baptism (ELW), each person who stands prepared to confess their discipleship, promises to: live among God's faithful people, hear the word of God and share in the Lord's Supper, proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. All of these promises are experienced and expressed through Christ's humanity as Son of God and our humanity, within humanity.  Because we are Baptized into Christ, we look to Christ as the human example of discipleship, to imitate his actions in our contexts. Because we are "in Christ", we are bound to be Christ through our humanity. Christ's humanity is our humanity, meaning out of grace, out of freedom, we engage the world, enter the joys and sufferings of the earth and humanity, and be instruments of God's transforming will. God's grace, God's freedom, God's call to discipleship is realized through Christ's humanity lived through us. 

WE ARE CALLED TO LIVE NONVIOLENTLY: "Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection....overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:9-10, 21). Jesus' life was a testament to nonviolence. In two situations when weapons were central to the dramas, Jesus said "Enough" and "No more of this." The Fruits of the Spirit [of Christ] are: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." (Galatians 5:22-23) All of these fruits are nonviolent. These words were written by Paul, a converted Jew, who was transformed from a life of violent persecution to one of proclaimer of love. Paul in his humanity was reflecting Christ! Nowhere in the Gospels nor Paul's letters are Jesus' followers called to do violence to others. We learn nonviolence by imitating Christ's nonviolence.

It is only through becoming human in Christ that God transforms each of us and the world. In Christ, God reveals in human form what it means to be created in the Image of God and called to be Christ's holiness in the world. In Christ, humanity is sanctified because Christ's humanity was sanctified. Christ's humanity transforms and physically exemplifies God's character. Christ defines what it means to be a human being. Christ's humanity teaches us what it means for us to be a human being. We learn from Jesus how to live and what to do that we can please God and make real the Reign of God.

O Holy Night!


Monday, December 15, 2014

The Greater Fools
Linda and I have been watching Aaron Sorkin's HBO Series "The Newsroom". The series focuses on the challenges facing a newsroom in putting forth the televised daily news: real news, real stories about the day's significant events, and not entertainment fluff.

The final show in the first season was entitled "The Greater Fool." The Greater Fool is one who can succeed where others fail. The Greater Fool is delusional, rather out of sync with the status quo, yet who presses on towards what he/she perceives is the finest goal. One of the characters says: "America was founded by Greater Fools." Think of Don Quixote.

I would suggest to be Christian is to be a Greater Fool. My evidence? Look to scripture: Amos 2:6: "Thus says the Lord: For the three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals." Luke 1:52-53: "He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." Luke 11:"But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mink and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God....When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross examine him...lying in wait for him, to catch him...." The message of the Christ was love, compassion, and justice. To be one with the people, to dress similarly, to eat bread and drink water and wine, to heal, to reconcile, to live like a commoner.

On the contrary, the message of the power elite, the religious sages, the ecclesiastical gurus was to protect their positions, to live in leisure, to parade in white robes, to wear gold and jewelled head pieces, to sleep on soft pillows, to be waited on by scented servants, to trumpet exclusivity. The Scribes and Pharisees failed to address the people's true needs. Similarly, the Roman occupation demanded taxation which further stressed the people's well-being.

As THE GREATER FOOL, Jesus was big on equality, listened well,  responded to the cries of the weak and sick, wanted folks to share the wealth as each according to need, took action to address the common needs of the people.  It took THE GREATER FOOL to establish the Reign of God! It took "Holy Delusion" to counter the calculating broken souls of the power elite.

What is the venom of the broken souls?  In the midst of an unjust, unkind, cruel government, a leadership just passed a CROMNIBUS budget bill which imperils fairness, equal opportunity, and future security. Consider this travesty:

Guaranteed taxpayer bail-out of careless derivative investments by banks and Wall Street, the wealthy can give ten times to political groups what they could before, lessening the influence of everyone else,
cutting funding for the IRS which means the wealthy will have fewer people to check on their tax evasion schemes, cutting funding for the EPA so corporations can further pollute the earth and release carbon into the air without hindrance from inspectors, cutting into guaranteed pension plans which means less for retirees, showering the Pentagon with nearly 60% of discretionary spending, cutting the WIC program by $93 million and allocating over $400 million for three F-35 fighter planes the Pentagon didn't request, cutting Pell Grants for low income students to go to college, and sending the cuts to for profit companies that provide loans for students as a pay back.

And don't forget the pending Trans-Pacific Trade Deal which will cost perhaps millions of American jobs.

Those who passed this Cromnibus Bill and are working to pass the TPT are not GREATER FOOLS. They are the calculating leeches, the market marionettes, the back room swindlers wise to the machinations of the corporate-business cycles, the pompous plutocrats, the obnoxious oligarchs, the fat, fanatical fascists, who utilize their power to play us all as their entertainment, bowing to the god of profit! Under the guise of success and power, it is these who have failed the nation, failed humanity, failed the test of justice.

Who are THE GREATER FOOLS?  It is the followers of the Christ. It is the people! The supposed powerless! Those who swim against the odds, who do the unscripted, who throw the curve balls, who dance to the rhythms of justice for all, who believe in sharing the wealth, providing housing and food for all, guaranteeing education and healthcare as rights for all, assuring that infrastructure needs are addressed, spending less on guns and bombs, promising that all citizens can vote without being subject to the canard of voter fraud.

ARISE, GREATER FOOLS!