Hope – Stars Above Me

Election Day

‘In this dark hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure’ – Faramir of Gondor

I offer these poems to anyone who may be dreading the worst today. I pray that even as they acknowledge the possibility of darkness, they point you toward the light.

Autocracy’s Rise

The darkening skies descend.

The unsuspecting masses blink

As trembling prophets absorb

What they knew would come.

For them, the expected death

Of what they once held dear.

They brace, for loss, for ruin,

And the marching feet of doom.

They know, that past is prologue,

As the behemoth takes its place

At the vanguard of a chilling dread

That now hangs over all.

Yet this they know, deeply:

That all will not be lost.

For all cannot be taken.

There is still that which abides,

Which nothing can filch or harm,

Beyond the dragon’s reach.

There is faith,

The substance of hope.

And love beyond imagining.

The forest, filled with wild.

Music, to dance to, to fuel desire.

For eternity. For Life.

There is the present moment.

To savor, bless, and know.

And in that moment God,

Ever-present. Constant. True.

Pointing the way forward. On!

Presence. Protection. Peace.

Is this not what matters,

Most of all, when all else fails?

To know that in such days

The best cannot be broken?

That in the end the sadness

Comes untrue, and love wins?

Oh Blessed One who stills my soul!

Let me not forget these truths.

And when the sky is darkest,

Let me feel your smile,

That I may brave the tempest,

Shielded by thy perfect love.

For Election Day

I have no earthly ruler

No President to claim

I serve the one who is the King

The name above all names.

The empire is a monster

A snarling, fearful beast

Like Grendel or Polyphemus

On mortal flesh it feasts.

Perhaps once I thought otherwise

That it was true and brave

I know it now for what it is:

It reeks of death and grave.

The times they are so fearful

Dreadful, dank, and dark

The leopard beast is on the march

As ‘lambs’ now wear its mark.

And yet I have no need to fear

Though all I once knew fails

My life is in the hands of Christ

Whose Kingdom will prevail.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Church. Why Bother?

‘All we are is dust in the wind’ – Kansas

I recently presented my church family a survey asking what questions they or others they knew had regarding faith. Not surprisingly, someone asked why people need to go to church. It wasn’t a snarky question; it was legit. They were relaying a question someone had asked them, someone who didn’t see the value of going to church, and wanted to know, I presume, how best to answer it. Now, if it were a believer who asked such a question, I would of course give the standard answers: you should go to church because Jesus calls us to community; to worship; to grow; because we need each other; because the church is God’s chosen means to make disciples and spread the Gospel. If all that failed, I might pull out Hebrews 10:25 and close with the old ‘because God says to’ bit. But the question didn’t originate with a Christian. It came from a professed unbeliever who thought church was a waste of time.

How to answer such a person? Why should they, or perhaps you, reader (for after all I don’t know who is reading this and shouldn’t presume you believe) bother with church?

For starters, I let me say that if you are asking why you should go to church for religious reasons, why you should enter a building on a Sunday morning to take part in an institutionalized religious service, I don’t think you should. Yes, I know that sounds weird coming from a pastor who leads religious services every Sunday, but honestly, being religious has never had much appeal to me. If you go to church to ‘get religion,’ I’d say you would be better off to stay home. That isn’t why I go to church, and it isn’t why you should go either.

I think you should go to church for a different reason.

I think you should go because it is the place where you just might discover what life is about.

Perhaps you think you already know what life is about. A lot of people do. I see folks every day who find meaning and value in quite a noble place: in each other.[1] In family. In friendships. In loving and being loved. There are far worse places to find meaning, I’ll grant you that. If you view the universe as nothing more than a vast cosmic accident, or, if you think accident too indelicate a way to put it, then something that just happens, ‘each other’ would be a good place to find meaning. You should spend your time, transient though it may be, cherishing your loved ones, nurturing your relationships, and working to make the world a better place for them. I see great appeal in this. I have seen Carl Sagan’s Contact and am moved somewhat by the revelation in the story that, in the end, in all the universe, all we have is each other. And so, if you believe that’s all there is, then by all means, love those around you as much as you can while you can. Make the most of your journey from the cradle to the grave by loving and being loved. You will live on in the memory of those you leave behind. Perhaps in the effect you had on them.

But of course, if you believe that is all there is, then you must acknowledge something. Your memory in and impact on the hearts and minds of those around you may not be as great as you like to think. Sure, you matter to those around you, but mattering is only a transient thing. For one day, you will die, as will those who love you. Your memory and impact may live on, in your children, your grandchildren, perhaps even others. But one day, even those who remember you, even those you impacted, will pass from the scene as well. Eventually, there will come a generation that no longer remembers you. I mean, honestly, how much do you know about your great-great-grandparents? Or their parents? Not much I bet. And as for your impact, well, perhaps you will leave an indelible mark on history, but for most of us, even our greatest impacts will one day become so attenuated they will hardly be felt at all. In the end, a day will come when no one will remember you, and the life you lived will fade from both memory and history.

All the more reason to make the most of life while you can, right? To seize the day, love for all you’re worth, and give as much transient meaning to this transient life that you can. For yes, if the physical universe is all there is, that’s really all we have. All we can really do is make the best of what is, in the final analysis, a crappy situation. Enjoy life and forget about the fact that in the end, even if you do manage a legacy that lives on in memory and history, even if you do make an impact that matters for millennia, one day even the universe itself will burn out, perhaps devour itself as stars collapse and black holes consume one another, until finally, as Steven Hawking suggested, everything ends in darkness, in a moment when, if anyone were around to see it happen (which there won’t be), they might say the only two words that could possibly sum up the meaning of the universe’s entire history: So what?

That’s what life means if it’s just something that happens. Fill your world with all the transient meaning you can. But in the end, it will end. Nothing will matter. There will have been no meaning to it at all.

But what if there’s more?

What if life is more than a cosmic accident, something that just happens? What if life is more than the inevitable if lucky conglomeration of just the right molecules? What if life happened by design? What if there is a Designer who imbues all life, each life, with eternal beauty and purpose? What if we were made for more than fading memories and attenuated impacts? What if, as the songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman sings, there is:

More to this life than living and dying,

More than just trying to make it through the day…

More to this life,

More than these eyes alone can see,

And there’s more than this life alone can be? [2]

If there were, wouldn’t you like to know it?

A church, that is a community of faith as opposed to an institutional religious event, is a place where people seek to know if this is true. A place where people have opened up their hearts and minds to the possibility of more. It is a place where you can hear the experiences of others who have found something more. A place where people have found deeper meaning than the transience of memory and impact. A place where people have found something more than a universe destined to end in darkness. A place where people have found, okay I’ll come right out and say it: God.

And in God, they have found more life and love than they ever imagined. They have found a universe filled with love, created and held together by love, in which they may, by all means, cherish their loved ones, treasure their relationships, and work to make the world a better place, but may do so knowing that their relationships and loves are more than transient. They are eternal.

I would offer this to you, dear skeptic, as a reason to go to church. That you might open your heart and mind to the stories of those who have opened theirs to such possibilities – and found something more.

And maybe, just maybe, discover that they are right.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] I am aware that some people don’t find meaning here at all. They are self-absorbed and could care less about those around them. I am choosing, reader, to not count you among them. If I am wrong about you, I would suggest that you should perhaps go to church to, if nothing else, learn to come out of yourself.

[2] Steven Curtis Chapman, More to This Life.

The Book of Life

‘I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire’ – Revelation 20:12-15

Most people, if they acknowledge an afterlife, think the criteria for joining it is ‘being a good person.’ By contrast, Christian Orthodoxy proclaims that no one is good enough to earn heaven. ‘No one is righteous, not one,’ say the scriptures (Romans 3:10). Salvation is bestowed, as Martin Luther said long ago, ‘through grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone.’ Beyond this, there has been, at least in the western church, a distinct way of looking at Judgment Day. Hebrews says we die once, and then the judgment (9:27). Traditionally, western Christians have interpreted this to mean that if you embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior before you die, you are saved. If not, you are damned. Death forever seals the fate of the unbeliever.

The notion that salvation is possible through Christ alone, has never, at least in orthodox Christian circles, been in legitimate dispute. The faithful have always known that the conception of ‘all roads leading heaven,’ is a heresy that makes a mockery of the Cross (if there were any other way to salvation, why would God send Jesus to die?). But the conception of Judgment Day has not always been as clear. In the early Church, there were friendly debates about it. The Church Fathers engaged in lively discussions on the subject, often invoking an obscure passage in 1 Peter that speaks of Christ, after his death on the Cross, descending to Sheol, the place where, in Old Testament and Intertestamental theology, the dead awaited Judgment Day, to preach the Gospel (1 Peter 3:19-20; 4:6). Most Church Fathers believed this meant, at the very least, that Jesus offered salvation to all who had lived before him, who had not had the opportunity to hear his message. After all, the Fathers reasoned, God is nothing if he is not fair. This much then, was relatively easy to accept.

But there were some among the Church Fathers, especially in the Eastern portions of the Church, who took things a bit further, interpreting this Petrine passage to mean that Jesus, who entered eternity after his death on the Cross, preached to everyone who had ever lived or would ever live, either during or after their moment of death, thus providing everyone with a face-to-face opportunity to respond to his Gospel message. For such writers, the debatable point was whether everyone responded affirmatively to the Gospel or if only some did, but they agreed that there was some opportunity at the threshold of eternity for salvation.

Eventually, as the Roman Catholic Church emerged, such thinking was kiboshed in the west, leading to the traditional view of Judgment expressed above. But in the east, the possibilities for grace remained broader. What I find fascinating is that while today, this kind of talk can lead to charges of heresy, in the first six centuries of Christian history all of these positions were deemed acceptable.[1] The nature of Judgment, and the ultimate outcome, were considered mysterious, ultimately in God’s hands; it was okay to dream of various possibilities, even teach them, so long as you remembered that the source of salvation was Christ.

Regardless, I am sure that for many traditionally minded Christians, this still smacks of heresy. They (you reader?) may point to various scripture passages to refute such reckless dreaming, including, no doubt, the passage from Revelation 20 quoted above. Therein, John the Revelator envisions Judgment Day. Everyone who has ever lived is brought before God’s throne. Death and the grave (Sheol, where the dead await judgment) give up their dead, everyone stands before God, and the books are opened. There are two books, one that records our deeds, the other the Book of Life, wherein God records the name and story of everyone who belongs to the Lamb (Jesus). Those whose stories are not found in the Book of Life are judged on their works, which is bad news. Because the criteria for entrance into God’s eternal Kingdom is not being a relatively good person. Remember, ‘no one is righteous, not one.’ And so, the traditional view of Judgment Day makes it easy: come Judgment Day (whether that be when you die, or when Jesus comes again – Revelation 20 focuses on the latter, but encompasses the former), if your name is in the Book of Life, you have nothing to fear. But if it’s not, it’s the Lake of Fire, aka hell, for you.

But the fact that this wasn’t so clear to the Church Fathers, coupled with Peter’s strange comments about Jesus preaching to the dead, gives me reason to pause and ask, ‘What really happens on Judgment Day?’ What happens when people come face to face with the awesomeness and perfection of God and recognize their fallenness and imperfection? What is it that God seeks to accomplish on Judgment Day? In the Bible, the judgments of God are restorative, seeking to bring the sinner to an awareness of sin, that he might repent. And if that’s true, and it is, then we must wonder if there is more to the matter of judgment than the traditional view allows.

Such questions have blazed in my mind ever since my seminary days, when something happened that started me thinking like those imaginative Church Fathers. Some friends and I had travelled to spend the day in NYC. One of our stops was the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, where there was an exhibit of medieval tapestries. The unfortunate part of our visit was that we arrived 20 minutes before the Museum closed. We raced through the exhibit anyway. The tapestries were magnificent, wall sized, glorious works of art. There was one portion of the exhibit that focused on the theme of judgment – medieval conceptions of Judgment Day. They were dark and apocalyptic, with enough fire and brimstone to warm the heart of the most ardent fundamentalist. One depicted God on his throne with a serenely detached look on his face, as sinners fell into the fires of hell to be tormented by ghastly demons. It was clear that to these artists, God was a fierce, wrathful being, strident in his ways, indifferent to the plight of sinners. At the time, I was traditionalist in my thinking of judgement and hell, but nevertheless these tapestries seemed off to me. They just didn’t reflect the gracious God I had come to know in Jesus.

Thinking such thoughts, I turned a corner and saw a tapestry entitled, ‘Joseph is Recognized by his Brothers.’

Perhaps you know the story, if not from the Bible, at least from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Joseph’s brothers had treated him horribly, tossing him in a pit, selling him to traders, causing him to become a slave and prisoner in Egypt. But God was with Joseph and, following the passage of many years, raised him up to be second in command in Egypt, a hero who saved the land from a ravaging famine. The famine was so bad that all the nations came before Joseph for grain.

Joseph’s brothers came too.

They didn’t recognize him at first, but he recognized them. Eventually, after messing with their heads, he revealed himself to them. The brothers were of course terrified. The tapestry I saw at the Met majestically captured that moment of terror. It captured the brothers’ emotions and actions. One was trying to run away. Some looked to Joseph for mercy. Some keeled over as if dead. One looked heavenward for mercy from God, expecting none. The tapestry revealed that for the brothers, this moment was nothing other than Judgment Day. They knew they were guilty. Joseph was completely within his rights to execute them on the spot, and they knew they deserved it.

But then, as I continued to assess the brothers’ reactions, I saw something else: Joseph. For him, this was no time for revenge. It was a time for restoration. It was not a time to say, ‘I told you so.’ It was a time for grace. Joseph was reaching out to his brothers. He was stooping to lift those who had fallen onto the floor. His eyes were filled with mercy. It was as if he were crying to them, ‘Wait! Don’t run away! Don’t you see? I know what you did. But I still love you! Come close to me. Take my hand. Everything will be alright. It’s not too late for us!’

And then, in my mind’s eye, I saw the brothers’ reaction to all this (this is all in the Bible, BTW, not just on the tapestry). I saw them turn to Joseph. I saw them hugging Joseph and one another, weeping and filled with a crazy, unexpected, lunatic joy. They had expected Joseph to be their harsh judge. He turned out to be their savior.

I was awestruck. There have been moments in my life when I have felt as if God were speaking to me. This was one of them. I was overwhelmed by a feeling that God wanted me to know something about His heart. Standing before that tapestry and looking into Joseph’s face, I realized I was not just looking into the face of Joseph. I was looking into the face of Jesus. And I knew that Jesus was inviting me to consider the possibility that he might be more merciful that I had ever imagined.

I wrestled with this experience for a long time. Eventually I authored a book about it, Grace at the Threshold. After many years of thinking, praying, and studying, I have come to believe that there may indeed be possibilities for grace beyond our expectations. That there may indeed be some – those who never had a chance to hear the Gospel; those who heard it, but under conditions where they could not possibly accept it; those who had been shipwrecked in the faith, those who, for whatever reason, God in his mercy and sovereign power chooses to extend grace – who will one day look into their Judge’s face and, like Joseph’s brothers, find their Savior there. That perhaps, on their day of Judgment, some whom the pious had chalked up as lost causes will fall to their knees and cry, ‘My Lord and my God.’ And yes, God – and it is his decision after all, not yours or mine – will accept them.

But what about the Book of Life? It says your name has to be in there. Well, Revelation never tells us when the names are written in it, only that they are. God can write a person’s name and story in his book any time he pleases. He is God after all.

Does this mean all will be saved? I would love to think so, but alas, I doubt it. There are many passages in scripture that suggest that not everyone makes it in the end. John records that those whose stories are not found in the Book of Life (i.e., there are some whose stories are not) are thrown into the ‘Lake of Fire.’[2] Sadly, there are those who will, even at Judgment Day, persist in their resistance to grace. Like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, they will clutch their ‘rings’ even as they fall into the fires of Doom. As much as I would like everyone to be saved (which is hardly wrong of me, God desires the same thing, see 2 Peter 3:9) I fear not everyone will.

And so, even as I revel in the possibilities of grace, I ask you to consider one more thing. Each day we make choices that determine both who we are and who we will be, choices that, among other things, take us closer to farther from Jesus. It seems possible that, through such choices, we can harden our hearts to the point where we become impervious to grace.

And so what we most need to know is this: Jesus, the Savior of infinite grace, the one who is both your Judge and Savior, is, right now, reaching for you. He is saying to you, no matter who you are, where you have been, or what you have done, ‘Come closer! It’s not too late for us. I know what you’ve done. But I still love you!’ His quill is in his hand, ready to inscribe your story in his Book of life.

I don’t know for certain what your judgment day will be like. But I do know how you can be sure that you will make it through. You can take the hand of the one who loves you, the one who will always love you, the one who died on a Cross to prove his love for you. And you can do it right now.

Why wait another moment?

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] For example, Gregory of Nazianzus, who chaired the Council of Constantinople, a crucial Church gathering that affirmed the Church’s official position on the humanity and divinity of Christ, believed in the apokatastasis, or the Universal Restoration of all things, including that all of humanity would be saved through Christ. While holding this view, he was dubbed ‘The Defender of Orthodoxy.’

[2] What precisely ‘the Lake of Fire’ is lies beyond the scope of this already overly long post. Traditionalists believe hell means conscious eternal torment. Conditionalists believe it means judgment followed by the cessation of existence. Either way, its not good.

An Updated Christian ‘To Do’ List for Post-Election Life in America 2022

But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you – 2 Timothy 4:5 NLT

Tomorrow is Election Day. Perhaps I should say, the start of election week, for we probably won’t know the full results for several days. If you have been paying attention, you may be feeling the stress of it all. We face the threat of political violence, and, depending on who wins, the possible death of democracy, which, for all its flaws, seems to be the best form of government this side of the Second Coming. I tend to agree with Winston Churchill, who said, ‘democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’

My Mom, God rest her soul, used to say, half-jokingly, ‘always expect the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed.’ I have pretty much adopted that mantra as I head into the week. I fear that the results of this election will change things dramatically, and not for the better. It seems likely that dozens, if not hundreds, of election deniers, Christian nationalists, and white supremacists (not to mention their enablers) will win key offices at both the state and federal level. Should this happen, the perilous times we find ourselves in will become, well, more perilous.

Pondering such thoughts these past few days, I began to worry. But then I recalled a post I wrote just two years ago, just prior to the 2020 election. You can check that post here. Back then, I made two Christian ‘to do’ lists, one to employ in the event Trump won, the other if Biden won. Today, I just want to remind you all, and me, of those lists. So here they are, with slightly modified titles:

List One – Things to do if the Republicans win big this week

Hope
Pray
Stand against racism and bigotry
Speak up for immigrants and refugees
Care for Creation
Advocate for and serve the poor and vulnerable
Speak truth
Do justice
Love God
Love my family
Love my neighbors
Love my enemies
Seek the Kingdom
Anticipate the return of Jesus
Point people to Jesus

Yes, should the Republicans win, it will be important, as in life and death important, to do all these things. On to list two:

List Two – Things to do if the Democrats unexpectedly win big this week

Hope
Pray
Stand against racism and bigotry
Speak up for immigrants and refugees
Care for Creation
Advocate for and serve the poor and vulnerable
Speak truth
Do justice
Love God
Love my family
Love my neighbors
Love my enemies
Seek the Kingdom
Anticipate the return of Jesus
Point people to Jesus

Get the picture?

The situation is no different than it was in 2020. No matter who wins this election, the mission of those who follow Jesus will not change. We will still live in a world that is broken and in need of a Savior. We will still need to live as the advance echoes of the world that is to come. We will still need to stand at the crossroads of culture and show the world the peculiar way of God’s people. True enough, some of the things on the list will perhaps be more or less challenging depending on who wins. But the mission will not change at all.

This gives me hope today, as it did in 2020. No matter what happens tonight, even should the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, God remains our refuge and strength (Psalm 46:1-2). Jesus remains our Lord and Savior. The Kingdom remains the place of our citizenship. And the mission is the same.

This, as it did in 2020, gives me hope today. I hope if gives you hope too.

Whatever happens folks, be ready. We have work to do.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

The Sufficiency of Jesus

‘My grace is sufficient for you’ – Jesus, to his friend Paul, in 2 Corinthians 2:9

I am exhausted.

It’s been a long haul these past few years. So many losses. So many struggles. So much going wrong with the world. I could create a list, but, for one thing, you probably have one of your own, and for another, well, I want to keep this blog post relatively short.

I will say that this week I have been thinking of the poem, The Second Coming, by W.B. Yeats, particularly the following lines:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and

Everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

It seems to describe the world we live in quite well. Whenever I think of all that is happening (or about to happen), I am nearly overwhelmed by anxiety. The exhaustion of trying to navigate through the times we live in caught up with me a long time ago, and honestly, some days I don’t know how I’m going to make it to the next.

Which is why I was so struck recently by these soothing words of Jesus, words I too often forget amidst the cacophony of our times.

‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

(Matthew 11:28-30 NLT).

Ah yes, the sufficiency of Jesus. The promise that he is the one who will take my burdens and cares, vouchsafe me in his grace, and be my shelter amidst the storm.

To give credit where it is due, I should note that I was reminded of these words while reading John Eldredge’s wonderful new book, Resilience: Restoring Your Weary Soul in Turbulent Times (I heartily recommend it). Eldredge reminds us that while the world tempts us to live in its tumultuous, convoluted, anxiety provoking story, Jesus calls us to live in the story of his Kingdom, a story of love, grace, redemption, and hope. A story that offers peace and rest in the midst of the storm. A story that gives us strength to carry on.

This is the story we must live in. The story of Jesus.

Of course, living in Jesus’ story does not mean that we are to withdraw from a troubled world. How tempting it is to escape, to, say, move to the mountains and forget about everything (I confess sometimes that sounds simply wonderful). Jesus, however, commanded his disciples to go into the world – to be agents of his grace, makers of his peace, speakers of his truth, proponents of his justice. To storm the very gates of hell. He commanded us to make a difference by making disciples, finding others who are willing to live in his story alongside us, and thereby point a world gone mad back to God.

Which, you might think, would mitigate against the peace he promises. After all, the world doesn’t take kindly to those who, even silently, point out its madness. But no. For Jesus, in giving this commission, promised to ‘be with us always, even to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:30). In other words, as we go about the business of walking through a troubled world, his promise to lighten our load endures. He carries our burdens. He gives peace in the midst of the storm. He gives rest in the midst of the tumult. He gives hope to carry on. His presence, his grace, is sufficient for us in this age. And when this age is over, he will still be with us, wiping the tears from our eyes and the sweat from our brow, as he invites us into a universe where all things are made new (see, Revelation 21:1-5).

Dear exhausted souls, today I pray that you, in the midst of whatever you are going through, discover the sufficiency of Jesus. That you who are weary and heavy laden come to him and find rest. I pray with the apostle Paul that:

‘…from God’s glorious, inexhaustible resources you will be empowered with the inner strength that comes from the Holy Spirit. That Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. That your roots will grow down deep into God’s love and make you strong. And that you would have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. I pray that you would experience the love of Christ and be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God’(see, Ephesians 3:16-19).

Friends, we need to live in Jesus’ story. We need Jesus to do this for us.

He is enough.

He will do it.

He is all we need.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

MLK and the Theology of Hope

Say not the days are evil – Who’s to blame?

Or fold your hands, as in defeat – O shame!

Stand up, speak out, and bravely,

In God’s name…

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,

How hard the battle goes, the day how long,

Faint not. Fight on!

Maltbie D. Babcock

This past week we marked the day that honors the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. No doubt you heard and read many eloquent testimonies to his life, legacy, and patient endurance in the face of evil. Among the words I read were these from the editorial board of The Washington Post:

‘King preached both urgency and patience – nonviolent perseverance in the face of fire hoses, dogs, beatings, lynchings. Every second of marginalization [for African Americans] was intolerable. Yet it took a decade after King’s 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott for Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1955. Enslaved Americans had been freed a century before. King did not lose hope. He kept working.’

King understood that it takes patience to overcome evil. For King evil was not theoretical. He knew that evil is real and difficult to root out. In the face of all that he and his partners endured in the struggle against evil, the obstacles that stood in the way of progress, and the slow pace of reform, it would have been easy for him to have lost hope and given up. Truth be told, there were moments when he was tempted to do so. But he never did. He kept hoping. He kept working.

In this, I submit, King expressed the Theology of Hope.

The Theology of Hope always endures in the face of evil. It knows that in a fallen, broken world, evil exists, and that from time to time, gains the power to, for a time, have its way. But it does not let that knowledge quench the hope for better days. It believes. It perseveres. It works for better days even when their arrival is delayed. For it knows, as King so famously said (although it was actually the Reverend Theodore Parker who said it first) that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’

We need King’s perspective in the times we face. As a new year breaks upon the shore of our lives, there is much that might cause us to despair. America is becoming balkanized. People believe the most bizarre conspiracy theories. A slow-moving coup continues apace. The days when people pulled together and sacrificed for the sake of the general welfare seem to be gone forever; individualism, at least in some quarters, has all but triumphed over communitarian love for neighbor. Truth is both relative and disposable. Democratic principle, the foundation on which our society has been built, however imperfectly, is under assault and crumbling. What happens when the very foundations of a society are broken? When everyone does what is right in their own eyes? When truth is lost, and people are divided? History tells the answer: evil rises and takes over. And yes, my friends, we are witnessing evil rising to do so before our very eyes.

I suppose some at this point may be thinking, ‘Gee, Brent doesn’t sound very hopeful. Where is his Theology of Hope?’ Please bear with me. I confess that I am not extremely hopeful about stopping evil in its tracks at the moment. Evil exists in our society (it always does in any society) and all signs point to its rising. We may well be entering a period of time unlike any experienced in most of our lifetimes, a period when evil men and women take the reins of power and bring down the veil of darkness. Just how dark things may get I cannot say. But darkness does indeed seem to be on the horizon. To say so is not to express the loss of hope. Rather, it is to acknowledge current trends. It is to acknowledge the same reality that King knew, that from time to time, and for a time, evil, which always exists, gains in power.

Hope, you see, is not the fool’s hope that denies the existence of evil, but the solid ground on which we stand even as it rises. Hope abounds, even when evil seems to gain the upper hand. I for one, have not lost hope in these darkening days. For I know what King knew. Evil exists, and evil may prosper for a time. This is the reality of life in a fallen world. But the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. It bends toward love. And if that is true, and it is, then evil will not endure. It may have its hour, but in the end, it will be cast down. Love and justice will have the final say.

Christian faith proclaims this. It proclaims the Theology of Hope. As a Christian, I believe in the light that shines in the darkness that shall never be overcome. I believe in the God who raises the dead, who can turn the darkest days to the bright morning light. I believe in the day of evil’s destruction and the restoration of all things. I believe in the sun of righteousness that rises with healing in its wings. And I believe that, until that day comes, while the darkness may come from time to time, the darkness will last only a night; everlasting joy will come with the morning.

So what do we do if we live to see days when darkness falls in deepening shades?

There is a great scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Frodo Baggins, having found himself torn from his beloved and peaceful Shire and cast into the center of a cosmic battle between good and evil, laments that such circumstances have come during his lifetime. ‘I wish the ring had never come to me,’ he tells Gandalf, ‘I wish none of this had ever happened.’ Gandalf’s reply is remarkable: ‘So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’ And then he adds these encouraging words: ‘There are other forces at work in this world beside the will of evil…and that is an encouraging thought.’

Indeed it is. This is why we can have faith that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice and love. Because there is One who does the bending: the God of love and justice.

And so, when evil days come, we cling to hope. We persevere. We endure. And we work. We speak truth. We strive for justice. We live in such a way that the world sees an alternative to the madness taking place around us. We show the world a different future as we serve as signposts pointing to better days. As Gandalf suggested, we do the best with the time given to us. And we believe that God will use that time, and our efforts, to bring about better days.

That is what Christian faith does when darkness falls. It holds, as King did, to the Theology of Hope.

And waits for morning.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Carry the Fire

‘Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold’ – Jesus, Matthew 24:12 (NLT)

Cormac McCarty’s The Road is as darkly dystopian a novel as you will find. It tells the story of a man and his son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world that is literally cold and growing colder. It is a world with few survivors attempting to escape cannibalistic bands of men. If this sounds awful, it is, but the story is nonetheless touching and beautiful. Hope abounds, as father and son hold on to one another, loving each other deeply from the heart, learning together what it means to live with faith. Throughout the novel, the father encourages his son with a simple phrase: carry the fire. The world around them is dark and hopeless, but they carry within them a spark of life they dare not, will not, allow the world to quench. This is how to survive in a cold world that is growing colder: you ‘carry the fire.’

I’ve been meditating the past several weeks on a familiar passage from Paul’s second letter to his son in the faith Timothy. It goes like this:

‘For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you’ – 2 Timothy 4:3-5.

I’ve known those words for as long as I can remember. But they have never felt more apt than they do now. We live in a time when facts do not matter. People are following the darkest inclinations of their hearts and accepting as true any cockamamie theory that justifies their expression. They are indeed rejecting truth and embracing strange myths (e.g., Q Anon, Pizza gate, The Steal). Elected leaders – and religious leaders – who consciously know better go along with such insanity, believing that they can use said dark expressions to forge political coalitions to remain in, and expand upon, their positions of power. Sin has been part of the world since the Fall, but ours is a time of descending shadow. We face the sort of days Jesus warned about. Sin is rampant everywhere, and the love of many is growing colder by the minute.

How does one live in such a world?

Carry the fire.

That is Paul’s advice to Timothy, his son in the faith. Not in so many words, but it’s what he means.

He breaks his advice down into four main points.

First, we must keep a clear head in every situation. Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, A Father’s Advice to his Son, begins, ‘if you can keep your head about you, when others are losing theirs and blaming it on you…’ That seems to sum things up well. People around us have lost their heads. But disciples of Jesus must not lose theirs. We must, as the author of Hebrews puts it, keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus. While others wander into myths, we must remain deeply rooted in the way, truth, and life of our Lord. We must, as Rich Mullins sang years ago, continue as the children who love while the nations rage.

Second, we must not be afraid of suffering. Too many believers have been silent in these times, fearful of the repercussions of speaking truth into the darkness. Church leaders have feared losing their flocks, ministries, or positions. Ordinary believers (as if there were such a thing!) fear losing friends and community standing. Folks, if we’re fearful of such things now, what will we do when things get worse? Paul wrote to Timothy from prison, awaiting his own death. The very next verses in his letter tell of how he was being poured out as a drink offering for his faith. Yet Paul was not afraid of suffering. He knew it was part of what can happen when you live faithfully for Jesus. Flannery O’Connor put her finger on the problem of people who don’t understand this basic truth when she wrote, ‘they think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is a cross.’ As believers living in a world that is cold and growing colder, we had better be prepared to pick up ours and follow Jesus. We cannot be afraid. If the world is to find hope beyond the darkness of our times, we must do what we have been called to do.

Third, we are to work at telling others the Good News. Some translations put this, ‘do the work of an evangelist.’ An evangelist is one who proclaims Good News. We who follow Jesus have the best news of all and have been empowered to share it far and wide. The Kingdom has come. There is another way to live. We need not be captive to either strange myths or our darkest impulses. People must know this. We must stand at the crossroads and live out the values of the Kingdom, pointing the world to Jesus and his way. To paraphrase N.T. Wright, it is our call to preach hope wherever there is hopelessness, justice wherever there is injustice, peace wherever there is violence, and love wherever there is hatred. We are to preach Jesus, incarnate, crucified, and resurrected to a world that is cold and growing colder, that it might find the warmth it needs to thrive again.

And finally, we are to fully complete the ministry that God has given us. This will be different for each of us. But every Christian has a ministry. Whatever it is, whether it is running a global ministry, pastoring a small church, caring for a handicapped child, preserving the beauty of God’s creation, loving the neighbor across the street, or any number of other wonderful things, we are to continue to bloom wherever God has planted us until we are directed to another mission field or else our race has run. God will show us, each day, what he desires us to do. Ours is to draw close to him, discern his will, and perform whatever task he gives. In a world that is cold and growing colder, this may seem to not make much difference at times. No matter. We must be faithful to the end. We must do what is right. We must follow the lead of our Lord and Savior. And trust the rest to him.

This is how we live in times such as ours. We do not give up. We fight the good fight. We finish the course. We keep the faith. We pass on the torch of faith to those who come behind us. Just as those who carried it faithfully in the past passed it along to us.

The world is dark and cold my friends, and things may get darker and colder still in days to come.

Carry the fire.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

A Christian ‘To Do’ List in the Event Trump/Biden Wins

God is our refuge and strength…therefore we will not fear, though the mountains should fall into the heart of the sea – Psalm 46:1

Well, it’s Election Day, and like many of you, I enter this day with a certain level of anxiety. Many have said this is the most important election since 1860, and although I think that is something of an exaggeration (1876 was pretty big too!) there is no doubt that a lot rides on the outcome. Regular readers of this blog know that I certainly have my choice in this contest, along with a host of fears concerning what might happen should that choice not prevail. What will I do if it doesn’t? What will life be like if the country descends into the pit of despair I imagine will happen if the other side (Trump and Trumpism) wins? What will happen to the country? To my family? To the vulnerable among us? To the witness of the Church?

Such thoughts stand a good chance of keeping me up most of the night, even though I would prefer to go to bed early and skip the whole election night drama. Heck, it may be days or even weeks before we know anyway. Wait, what? Days! Weeks! Aye carumba! How can I get by day to day during such a prolonged holding period! I need to know! I need to know so I can figure out what to do on the other side of this election! In the words of Charlie Brown, ‘AAGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH!’

Oh foolish me. Truth is I already know what I will do. In fact, I know so well I made a list, well, two lists. One to remind me of the things I, as a follower of Jesus, will need to do in the event Trump wins the election. Another to remind me of the things I, as a follower of Jesus, will need to do in the event Biden wins the election. I think these lists may help some of you as much as they are helping me. And so, here they are:

List One – Things to do if Trump wins the election

Hope
Pray
Stand against racism and bigotry
Speak up for immigrants and refugees
Care for Creation
Advocate for and serve the poor and vulnerable
Speak truth
Do justice
Love God
Love my family
Love my neighbors
Love my enemies
Seek the Kingdom
Anticipate the return of Jesus
Point people to Jesus

Yes, should Trump win, it will be important, as in life and death important, to do all these things. On to list two:

List Two – Things to do if Biden wins the election

Hope
Pray
Stand against racism and bigotry
Speak up for immigrants and refugees
Care for Creation
Advocate for and serve the poor and vulnerable
Speak truth
Do justice
Love God
Love my family
Love my neighbors
Love my enemies
Seek the Kingdom
Anticipate the return of Jesus
Point people to Jesus

Get the picture?

The truth is, no matter who wins this election, the mission of those who follow Jesus will not change. We will still live in a world that is broken and in need of a Savior. We will still need to live as the advance echoes of the world that is to come. We will still need to stand at the crossroads of culture and show the world the peculiar way of God’s people. True enough, some of the things on the list will perhaps be more or less challenging depending on who wins. But the mission will not change at all.

And that gives me hope today. No matter what happens tonight, even should the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, God remains our refuge and strength. Jesus remains our Lord and Savior. The Kingdom remains the place of our citizenship. And the mission is the same.

I still may stay up awhile to see what happens, but knowing this, I can face tomorrow, no matter what it brings.

I hope you can too.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

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