the reality of the situation

Today I came across a sermon which focused on Christ the King as it was Christ the King Sunday in the revised common lectionary this past week. I was never one to go gaga for the pericopal system but today I found it particularly apropos. You can read the full text of the sermon here but I want to focus in on one quote...


"On the cross we don’t see a legal transaction where Jesus pays our debt.  We see God. The Word made flesh hangs from the cross. And let there be no mistake – this is Christ the King."


What a reminder. So often when I think about the crucifixion I focus on the result of the act. Sins paid for. Wrath poured out. The typical ideas and realities that are the result of that moment. But that is jumping the gun. It's moving past the reality of the situation. Hanging on that cross wasn't just a sacrifice that brought forgiveness it was God. Christ the king on his throne.


As we move into Advent it's so easy to jump the gun. We like Jesus as a baby but in the back of our minds we know where the story is going and it is so easy to miss the reality of the moment. That's why this Sunday's pericope and that sermon were so apropos to me, they made me focus on the situation, not the result.

the event

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only a week away. I never seem to know where the time actually goes, but the days have ticked away and now we stand on the precipice of the holiday season. Families will come together, meals will be shared, and the inevitable trips to the mall in an effort to find that perfect gift will commence. And without fail, advertisements will saturate the airwaves, television screens, and the internet, all in an effort to help us pick out this year's hottest gift. 

Now, it is not my intent to rail against the materialism that accompanies this time of year but to point out an aspect of human behavior. Frankly, I like having things. Chances are, you like things too. For the longest time I wanted an iPhone, and when the iPhone 4 came out, I knew I had to have it. Not because I needed it, but because it was/is the pinnacle of cell phone perfection. (Some may disagree, but I happen to be a huge Apple devotee.) For whatever reason, this season really brings out the need we have to obtain the highest ideal. Thats why we line up at 2:30am the day after Thanksgiving, we want that must have perfect item, but not just the item, we want the ideal price on that item too. Its about the pinnacle of perfection. 

It would be deceptive of me to pretend that this was limited to buying gifts, this behavior plays out in various areas of life. Whether its sports, education, music, art, even drug use, all of these activities are manifestations of us attempting to obtain an ideal, whether that is a skill or a state of mind or an emotion.  Life's pursuits are often tied to an ideal. 

My own pursuit for an ideal has caused me to become bitter and jaded. I am often so full of cynicism its hard to tell what I acutally believe. The ideal I pursue is the perfect "church," or a perfect version of Christian thought and experience. I know I am not the only one wants to obtain this ideal. So many of us want to find the perfect church, want to have the perfect theology, want to be the perfect christians. This isn't just personal though, entire denominations have formed because of people earnestly striving for this ideal. 

Throughout this pursuit there are times when we encounter ideas we don't agree with and we retreat to the safety of the past, taking comfort in the thoughts and beliefs of those who have gone before us. There are also times when we encounter ideas that we reject the past completely and offer up our own interpretation, or if we don't reject the past, we attempt to go back further to somehow trump the argument. 

Recently I discovered a well known author/philosopher/theologian named Peter Rollins. A few days ago I posted on my blog a quote from him which deals directly with the pursuit of this ideal. He says, "The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before... For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. 

Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance." 

Its not about a return to or the pursuit of an ideal, its about a return to an event. 


THE EVENT.


Christ on a cross.


Death and Resurrection.  

The more I think about my own pursuit, the more I think he is right. You cant experience an ideal. But in that event, you experience death and resurrection. You experience grace. Isn't that the point?

What do you think?

the task

"The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before... For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance." - Peter Rollins


Thoughts? More to come...

God is in the rain?

Last night my wife and I watched V for Vendetta. A superb film, one of my favorites, I was amazed at how much I still loved this movie not having seen it in a while. (Just in case someone hasn't seen it who might be reading this I wont give away the plot). There is one scene, that although is serious in the film, makes me burst out laughing. Its the scene when "Eve" is on the roof and it is raining. I know it is emotionally moving but for me, it brings back a different memory. 


A while back when I was still in college my friend and I were facilitating a college-age small group get together at Starbucks. There never were more than a handful but I really enjoyed those little meetings. One night it was a little rainy as we were about to finish up. During the prayer, my best friend blurted out, "And as we learned from V for Vendetta, you are in the rain." 


I will always laugh at this because it was one of those usual occurrences of my friend saying something stupid and at the time, we all poked fun at him for it. But last night, as I watched that scene and remembered that moment I thought to myself that maybe he wasn't all that far off. Not in his assertion that God somehow inhabits the rain, but in that he found a truth concerning the omnipresence of his creator in a source outside the biblical narrative.


Paul spoke to something similar to this in Romans when he said, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Now, I know that this passage is usually taken to mean the natural aspects God's creation, the physical earth and all its creatures, but I wonder if its more than that. If God left marks of jimself upon the ground he created, as Paul is claiming, why couldn't he leave marks of himself in other things like books, movies, or other technology? Is it possible for this verse to mean that God left marks of himself throughout the whole of his creation, even in what we create? Im not sure, but I'm curious.