All that aside, the other side of me always wants to invite my friends and loved ones to be a part of what I’m doing because, well, they are my friends and loved ones and I love having them around. There are so many different people in my life that I would love to connect with each other, especially in the name of Jesus and his kingdom, and just see what happens in the mix. That’s really all I ever want to do, in whatever various ways it happens.

That being said, many of you know that we are starting a new Sunday evening worship service on January 27th at 5:00 pm. I’ll be sharing the message most weeks, and sometimes we will have people like Jay Smith, A.C., and maybe even the likes of Alex Buchner speak to us. Hopefully every week we will hear stories of things God is doing and also find ways of joining those things.  There will be great music, but most importantly the music will be led by great people who are trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus and live in the Kingdom. This can be said of all of the people who have been planning this service with us over the past few weeks.

Beyond that, I can’t say exactly what to expect, but I want you know that you’re invited. I would love to have you all  in a room together, worshipping and asking, “What would it be like if . . . ” as we pursue the kingdom together.

I can’t help but wonder how Jesus would have responded if he had been invited to pray at  inaugural ceremonies for Tiberias in 14 AD, or what Paul’s response to such a request for any of the emperors during his lifetime.

And this is what they had done with it.  They had taken the very words meant for life and twisted them into an excuse to accuse and rain down death with stones, lists to decide who was right and who was wrong, who was in and who was out.   His words, their lists.

He could hardly finish.  They demanded that he reveal his stance on their lists: “What do you say that we should do?!?”

He stood up and looked at them. How many times had he told them his desires for them? His heart broke—for her, for them, for all those sons of hell bound by their rules.

“Whoever has no sin…you throw the first stone.”

He stooped again to continue writing, but this time he wiped the ground smooth.  He touched the ground softly and closed his eyes, he remembered what it was like when he first felt the clay in his hand that he had made into man.  He remembered the pain when they first turned away, and he had sent them from the garden.

(First written June 3, 2008)

Have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust in the attic?  Ever quit a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice?  Have you ever bailed out on a call to embark upon a spiritual practice, dedicate yourself to a humanitarian calling, commit your life to the service of others?  Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless; to run for office, crusade for the planet, campaign for world peace, or to preserve the environment?  Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized bieng you were meant to be?  Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture?  Then you know what Resistance is.”

—Stephen Presfield, The War of Art

‘Every simplification which forces the original variety of voices [of the biblical text] into a well trodden path, is sin against the Spirit’!

—(from his essay “Justification and salvation-history in Romans”
in Pauline Perspectives – Tilling’s translation from the German original, p. 118)

One thing that I have learned from my graduate work in biblical studies is that we too often blur and downplay the Biblical message by harmonizing passages which should rather be read distinctly.  Often those of us who believe that the Bible is Divinely inspired so quickly want to mute, under the auspices of “the whole counsel of Scripture,” the tensions within the Bible that are created by the individual authors.  However, it seems to me that the belief that God speaks through the persons who wrote the Bible would also mean that their individual voices, even in areas where they may differ, are inherently important in revealing God and the divine story to us.  I don’t know how anyone reading Galatians and the Epistle of James can think that those two authors saw things eye-to-eye nor presented them that way.  It’s almost like one of them is responding rhetorically to the other–and they don’t seem to be in agreement.  One can imagine the following conversation (emphasis added from my imagined face-to-face debate between the two of them):

Note in particular Paul’s opening statement and James’ last sentence.  Maybe Paul and James disagree, or maybe they are just using language differently . . . but there are issues.[1]

Another example would be the differences in the birth stories of Matthew (Matt 1:18-2:23) and Luke (Luke 1:26-56; 2:1-40).  If we attempt to harmonize all of the differences, we may miss what each Gospel writer meant to communicate to us.  A few years ago, students in one of my classes could not read the separate Gospel versions without reading elements of one story into another and presenting these unconsciously harmonized-details in their summaries just minutes after reading the text.  The “Matthew Group”, prior to being made to read their passage again in order to look for the specific elements said could be found in the text, argued (somewhat angrily) with me that they had “just read about shepherds in Matthew!” —even though the shepherds are only found in Luke.

Later, I shared this interesting occurrence with another faculty member, a person who reads scripture regularly.   She then asked:  ”The stories are different?”

My thoughts are this:  What if attempting to minimize and/or do away with the tensions created by differences in the biblical texts we are actually missing something God is trying to say?  The Bible is a gritty book, and contrary to popular statements proclaiming its “simple message”, it is complex—as one should probably expect of the revelation of God, truth, and life.  I don’t think our fear of “contradictions” in the Bible should cause us to approach the text dishonestly or in an over-simplifying manner which reduces the tensions which make us uncomfortable.  Personally, I find that when I allow the individual voices to speak, even though it often complicates issues, the mystery draws me even more deeply into the text.

Who knows, maybe one of the messages God has for us these individual voices is that the unity of those who follow Christ is more about being found united in Christ rather than how much we agree, and that we can graciously pursue Him and his Kingdom together despite our differences.

NOTES

[1] Luther, a big fan of Paul and “faith alone,” was more than aware of the conflicts between Paul and the epistle of James.  He writes:

Though this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God. However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle; and my reasons follow.

In the first place it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works. It says that Abraham was justified by his works when he offered his son Isaac; though in Romans 4 St. Paul teaches to the contrary that Abraham was justified apart from works, by his faith alone, before he had offered his son, and prove it by Moses in Genesis 15. Now although this epistle might be helped and an interpretation devised for this justification by works, it cannot be defended in its application to works of Moses’ statement in Genesis 15. For Moses is speaking here only of Abraham’s faith, and not of his works, as St. Paul demonstrates in Romans 4. This fault therefore, proves that this epistle is not the work of any apostle.

In the second place its purpose is to teach Christians, but in all this long teaching it does not once mention the Passion, the resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ. He names Christ several times; however he teaches nothing about him, but only speaks of general faith in God. Now i is the office of a true apostle to preach of the Passion and resurrection and office of Christ, and to lay the foundation for faith in him, as Christ himself says in John 15 “You shall bear witness to me.” All the genuine sacred books agree in this, that all of them preach and inculcate [treiben] Christ. And that is the true test by which to judge all books, when we see whether or not they inculcate Christ. For all the Scriptures show us Christ, Romans 3; and St. Paul will know nothing but Christ, I Corinthians 2.  Whatever does not teach Christ is not apostolic, even though St. Peter or St. Paul does the teaching. Again, whatever preaches Christ would be apostolic, even if Judas, Annas, Pilate, and Herod were doing it.

But this James does nothing more than drive to the law and to its works. Besides, he throws things together so chaotically that it seems to me he must have been some good, pious man, who took a few sayings from the disciples of the apostles and thus tossed them off on paper. Or it ma perhaps have been written by someone on the basis of his preaching. He calls the law a “law of liberty,” though Paul calls it a law of slavery, of wrath, of death, and of sin.

Moreover he cites the sayings of St. Peter: “Love covers a multitude of sins,” and again, “Humble yourselves under the hand of God;” also the saying of St. Paul in Galatians 5, “The Spirit lusteth against envy.” And yet, in point of time, St. James was put to death by Herod in Jerusalem, before St. Peter.  So it seems that this author came long after St. Peter and St. Paul.

In a word, he wanted to guard against those who relied on faith without works, but was unequal to the task in spirit, thought, and words. He mangles the Scriptures and thereby opposes Paul and all Scripture. He tries to accomplish by harping on the law what the apostles accomplish by stimulating people to love. Therefore, I will not have him in my Bible to be numbered among the true chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him. One man is no man in worldly things; how, then, should this single man alone avail against Paul and all the rest of Scripture?

—Luther’s Works, vol 35 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1963), pp. 395-396