Scripture

1 Corinthians 13:1-7, for a funeral

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1 Cor 13:1-7 If I speak in the tonguesof men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

These words are often heard at weddings, not at funerals. But they are just as appropriate. In marriage we see the romantic side of love, the love of one for another. But in reflecting back over an entire life we can see how that love flowed out to others, to see the hard work that it did in tough times, and to see that love is not merely something that is felt but something that one does.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he was writing to a church divided. There were rival groups fighting for attention and power while more serious issues were being ignored. They were boasting about their wisdom and knowledge, but Paul was pointing out that their wisdom was futile. The church was “majoring in the minors” to borrow a phrase. Paul responds to a number of their questions about the order of the service and so on, points out where he sees them in error. And then it’s at this point that he points them to the “why” behind the “what to do”. Continue reading →

Theology of Practice II

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“…And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk
humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

“To act Justly”

In my ministry, right action is not something that is set in stone.  Every encounter is new and involves no fewer than three people: myself, the other, and God.  Imposing my own plan based merely on what I think is necessary or important may hinder the process of that encounter and denies the needs of the other, as well as the working of God.  This does not mean that I am a passive observer, but that I act based not on my own preconceived notions but on what is revealed in the moment  encounter both God and the other.  Freeing myself from my own “should’s” beforehand will make me more open to what “could” be as well as to what God or the patient is telling me “could” be.  Acting justly, in the context of hospice chaplaincy, refrains from judgment and instead seeks to discover and celebrate meaning when possible, and to walk with
them in the silence when it isn’t.  The dying also may not have basic spiritual, emotional or physical needs met, and acting justly also requires that I advocate for them during those times.

“and to love Mercy”

Mercy can mean loving in spite of circumstances, not simply the putting aside of justice.  Just action will be merciful.  If action toward the dying is not merciful, it is not just.  My patients may be dealing with guilt and shame resulting from past wrongs, or a past injury to their self, that makes them feel outside of God’s mercy.  In other cases, they may be at peace and fully holding on to God’s mercy as I sign of His love and acceptance.  As chaplain I am not only a conduit of God’s mercy through prayer and counseling, but through my presence.  God’s mercy can be present to them because I am present to them.  In a similar way, because God is working through those I encounter in my life as well, God’s
mercy is shown to me in the lives of my patients and families.  In the same way as they receive mercy through me – I receive mercy and am reminded to be merciful to myself – through them.

“and to walk Humbly with your God.”

Humility is not self-abasement; rather it is fully recognizing my value through God’s gift of acceptance.  True humility then is not a matter of valuing myself more or less than another.  Instead it looks at life as inherently valuable and worthy, worthy enough for salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  Humility comes from recognizing that this value is not from my own doing or work, but through
Jesus’ mercy and action first.  This is something that is very much in process for me, but “walking” implies a journey rather than a destination.

Theology in Practice

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The Other:

Jesus’ ministry often involved interacting with those who were ill, dying, and marginalized by society.   These were the people that Jesus favored though, calling them “blessed”.  I feel that in the same way, the dying today are marginalized, dehumanized, and feared by our culture.  However, Jesus still favors these over the mighty and powerful.  Caring for the dying not only mirrors Christ’s ministry, but fulfills his call to “mourn with those who mourn” and to care for “the least of these”.

Those who are terminally ill and dying remain creations of God, and still maintain His image.  They therefore have dignity, value and honor that are not destroyed by their illness, and deserve to be treated accordingly.  Not only do the ill maintain their value as part of creation, but are also a means by which God reveals himself.

The ill and dying approach God just as they are.  Yet they may mask themselves because of their illness.  Disease can carry feelings of fear, anger and loss among others, all of which may be hidden by shame.    Jesus’ reaction was not to shame the dying, but to approach them in that shame and take its power away through touch, association and healing.

My Self:

As a chaplain, I function as a witness of Jesus and an agent of grace with those I encounter.  Just as in some traditions the sacraments are a means of transmitting and transferring God’s grace, my presence can be sacramental as well.  I believe that a major part of being a chaplain with the dying is in the role of shepherd.  While a shepherd protects the sheep, this is only part of the role.  Shepherds also provide safe environments where the sheep can flourish.  Shepherds also do not try to change the sheep into something other than they are.  Being a sheep is not a problem, so trying to fix the “sheepiness” of another will not only frustrate the shepherd but devalues the sheep.

I also approach my position as a servant, as Jesus came as a servant to all, and led through that service.

As the ill approach God just as they are, I approach God just as I am as well.  I bring my own gifts, stories, fears and sin to the encounter.  Shame causes me to want to hide as well, but recognizing this can allow me to empathize with them as a fellow sufferer.  God chooses to use people within history and within their own history for His work, and these particularities are significant to each encounter I have.

Finally, working with the ill and dying is a way that I encounter the living Christ in the world, for in caring for “the least of these” I care for the suffering and dying Christ.

The relationship:

The relationship is not merely a one-on-one relationship, for God is present and active in every relationship as well.  The other is, as a teacher of mine stated, just as much in God’s hands as I am.  I can hold loosely to my own agendas and be more at peace when I recognize this.

On Textual Criticism

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During a brief lull in my day I peroused the news wires and found an op-ed piece by Bart Ehrman on the Huffington Post concerning biblical authorship.

Ehrman follows the academic tradition of viewing the biblical texts through the lens of textual and historical criticism.  That is to say, he doesn’t take anything the bible says at face value.  While I studied biblical criticism in seminary, I can’t say that I understand it completely.  However what I can say is that even what I do understand doens’t make sense all the time, at least to my logic and reasoning.

Textual criticism holds that most of the bible is at best a “pious fraud” or at worst, according to Ehrman, outright lies.  In his article Ehrman focuses in on the idea that only “the most rabid fundamentalists among us” still regard the bible as literally true and free from error, and goes on to say that significant parts of the scriptures are outright fabrications.  He focuses in on the latter half of the NT primarily, namely 1 & 2 Peter, and Paul’s letters.

Without going in to much detail as to why these letters are regarded as inauthentic (Ehrman doesn’t either), here’s the thinking: if you compare letters to each other there should be more similarities than differences.  Some letters are pretty certain to have come from Paul, others not so much.  So if we compare those that we aren’t sure about to those that we are sure about, they should be similar in style and composition.  If not, one is probably inauthentic.  Note that this is a very cheap-and-dirty version of the hypothesis here.  Letters like 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus are probably not Pauline because they are so different from his other letters in form, thought, and theology so he couldn’t have written them.

However, here’s my own thinking on the matter.

Take a paper that I wrote in the beginning of my Systematic Theology class and compare it to one that I wrote (or maybe I did) at the end.  Will they be similar?  Yes, but how much so?  Thinking, wordage, form and maybe even structure will all be different.  There may even be inconsistencies from one to another.  Why?  Because I was a different person at point A than I was at point B.  That, I think, is a huge problem with this theory of criticism: it requires that people be consistent over sometimes long periods of time based on a very small sample size.  It seems like a lot to hang on a big assumption, and I don’t find the assumption to be necessarily valid.

Also, if the texts are not authentic, why are details like Paul’s urging Timothy to stay in Ephesus (1 Tim 1:3) and to bring him a cloak that he left in Troas (2 Tim 4:13) included?  If I’m writing a pseudonymous letter, I would want to avoid such details as much as possible, because they can easily be refuted (I can see Timothy arriving in Troas – “A cloak? Paul who?”).

Are there problems in scripture?  Sure.  But I, along with the majority of my non-rabid Evangelical friends and comrades would suggest that these problems negate the message.  If Mark wasn’t written by Mark, does that mean it’s a complete lie?

Again, I’m not even trying to make this a complete refutation of textual criticism, Ehrman, or anything else.  This is more just me talking out loud than anything.  Take it at face value.  Who knows – maybe I didn’t even write this!

Cliffs

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My wife and I are in a study at church in which you read the Bible from cover to cover in 90 days.  If that sounds crazy, that’s because it is.  It is quite the experience though, and quite the challenge.  It’s challenging not only practically (carving out an hour to read every day) but also spiritually.

Frequently in the Hebrew scriptures, at least early on, the covenant seems to be hanging by a mere thread.  On some occasions that thread is threatened by the behavior of the people involved (Abraham is a classic example).  At others it’s God who threatens to cut the cord and start over.  In the former instances, one is able to attribute grace to God and find the lesson there.  However, the times where the Israelites are saved from destruction only through the individual bargaining of Moses, for example, are more troubling. 

Other passages relate God as one who regrets his actions, sends “lying spirits”, or curses individuals for seemingly innocuous acts.

Sometimes you read and wonder, “what God are we dealing with here?”

The reading brought me back to a place where I hadn’t been in a long time.  Several years ago, right out of college, I came to a point where I thought the whole Christian thing was a sham and tossed the whole thing out.  I didn’t question scripture so much as see it as irrelevant.  I didn’t stop believing in God, but I stopped believing in a God that made sense.  I saw the cliff dividing faith and doubt and stayed on the doubt side of the cliff, choosing not to jump.

Reading the Bible in this drag-race “no holds barred” way brought me back to that same cliff I had been to so long ago.  It was not a comfortable place to be.  This time, however, the pain came mostly from remembering the experiences I had around me at that time.  I had felt like a broken person, and felt that God had done the breaking.  Now I approach the cliff much more whole, but still felt that I was revisiting the concentration camp years after being liberated.

All Christians struggle with faith and doubt.  If you haven’t, I think you need to.  Jacob’s wrestling with God (or angel or whatever) was not an accident, and neither was it a hindrance to him.  It was a significant event in his journey, and marked him for the rest of his life.  It’s remarkable to note that after his encounter, Jacob notes that he had confronted God and yet his life was spared (Gen 32:30).

Struggling with God does leave scars, doubts, uncertainty, anger and fear.  However doing these things do not mean that we are afraid to step off the cliff of faith, but have maybe stepped out further than we ever had before.  And lived.

CPE Unit 2, Thomas Merton and drag racing through the Bible

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I started my second unit of CPE last week.  One question that I’m looking at this term is “how do I love God?”  This came up during our last unit as one of my fellow students described his theology as simply “love” – which says a lot and nothing at the same time.

As part of this, I’m reading Thomas Merton as well as engaging in a church group which is reading the Bible in 90 days.  I’m interested in Merton because of his incorporation of eastern thought in his spirituality.  Buddhism lends itself to spirituality in hospice care a great deal, and this may help me grow in this area.

Reading the bible in 90 days will lend some much needed discipline and meditation to my ongoing CPE education.  Also, I think that having a topic on mind as I read will guide me a bit as I do this.  I’ll give my impressions as I go.

Self (on Romans 7:21-24)

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“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” Rom 7:21-24

I remember back in seminary that there was some debate as to how much one should put him or herself “in the way” of the message on is presenting.  The more idealistic of us wanted to get themselves as much “out of the way” as possible, the idea being that our selves are essentially bad filters of the Word.  We tend to put our own spin on things and see things through our own sin-colored lenses, thus distorting the gospel.  The best sermon is one where the presenter sets aside their own agendas, stories, and beliefs and seeks only to speak as led by the Spirit.

The counterargument stood that one simply can’t do that.  All communication is mediated by both the presenter and the listener, and in the same way that a listener can’t hear a message without filtering it through their own accumulated experience, the presenter cannot step out of the way of the message.  Apart from a theophany, every message will be touched by our own particular influence.  Rather than see this as a “tainting” of the message, this side chose to recognize the self as part of the message.  Rather than try to hard to remove yourself (because you can’t), throw yourself in.

I’ve seen this in my own practice of spiritual counseling as well, and I see how dual-minded I am.  I have held to the notion that I cannot remove myself from my message, and yet I have tried so hard to do that in my counseling.  Not that I have tried to remove myself completely.  I have interjected my own stories about life, death, and so on.  However those have really only touched at who I am. 

I think that this duality, if I can call it that, in part came across from my own training in Rogerian and other person-centered methods of counseling.  Here, the focus of counseling is strictly on the other – personal judgements, concerns, and narratives are out of bounds if you want to follow a strict framework of this view.  Interactions tend to revolve around reflecting and reframing, which involve turning the other’s narrative around in different ways and then showing it back to them.  Sometimes an interpretation is given, but if so only to clarify.  The goal is to make the other feel and be heard by the counselor, who provides unconditional positive regard and tries to, in a sense, “get out of the way” of the listener’s hearing themselves.

Sounds cryptic.

The problem I’m seeing, and experiencing, is that in doing this am I really engaging with this person, or are they engaging with themselves?  And if they are engaging with themselves, where am I?

Perhaps this has led to my own sense of disconnectedness at times, as well as my own frustration with not feeling heard, appreciated, and downright angry.  I’m trying to negate myself from the equation, which is impossible, and end up frustrated and angry – not with the client, but at myself because I can’t say what I want or even feel what I want.

More to come on this I expect…

Purpose (on Job 42:3b)

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“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know”  Job 42:3

I had a very hard time the past few weeks, as we took on the case of a 10 year old child who was suffering from cancer.  It so happened that I knew this boy’s mother very well, and she specifically sought me out to be her chaplain.

I’m typically assigned cases based on geography and whoever the case manager is.  I had never expected anyone to say “I want you to be my chaplain.”  It was humbling, terrifying, and one of the most meaningful experiences of my career.

My theology tends to be a bit more theocentric than christocentric (although I am still working on what exactly this means to me).  A main truth that I hold on to and have held on to is that God is in control, that He is omnipotent, and that His purpose is being worked out through all things.  The story of Joseph is critical to my understanding of God in this respect.  If something happens, there is a reason for it happening.  This does not mean that everything is meaningful to me however, and I will never know the meaning of most things in this world.  But that does not mean that they are any less meaningful in themselves.  It may not matter to me one lick that I’m the first one to go through the green light as it turns yellow.  However it will be quite meaningful to the person two cars behind me who decides to try to beat the red light and ends up in an accident.  If I’m not there, he makes it through no problem.  But I am there, and I don’t think that it could be otherwise.

Continue reading →

On Luke 9:46-48

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Then an argument started among them about who would be the greatest of them.  But Jesus, knowing the thoughts of their hearts,took a little child and had him stand next to Him. He told them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in My name welcomes Me. And whoever welcomes Me welcomes Him who sent Me. For whoever is least among you—this one is great.” Lk 9:46-48

On my daily morning commute to work I heard Chuck Swindoll speak on this passage briefly.  He spoke on it regarding confronting biblically, but it resonated with me in a much different way.

One of the things that I struggle with most in my job is affirmation and recognition.  Most of the time I don’t find it an issue.  I try my best to do my job, do it well, and go home.  However it’s not hard to get discouraged at times, especially when hard work gets overlooked over and over again.  I had a discussion with a friend who felt in the same position, finding that overwork and poor boundaries tend to get rewarded.  We both found the desire to draw more attention to ourselves in order to earn what we thought was our share of praise and glory.

We looked around though, and found that in many cases the exemplary “employee of the month” is the first to burn out.  In that light, was the praise worth it?

In this passage from Luke we find a similar struggle going on among the disciples.  Who’s the greatest?  Who’s the “disciple of the month?”  Who goes over and above?  Jesus, in this passage, directs rebuke not at their apparent behavior but at the cause of their behavior – pride, leading to resentment and division.  Rather than pick one of the disciples to stand at his side, he chooses a child.  The disciples did not have a good track record with children, shooing them away from Jesus at about any occasion they could.  Yet Jesus sought out children precisely for this reason.

Children long to be recognized, to be affirmed.  The minute one grabs the spotlight and says “look at me!”, another tries to trump it.  I think we are born strivers to some degree, some more than others.  Is such striving learned or inherent?

I can’t say, but I want to unlearn it.

Some time ago I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (ok – I listened to it in the car).  The hero of the book is a striver as well, but not to impress others.  The architect/hero Roarke savored the intrinsic satisfaction of living up to what he saw as his own inherent potential.  He cared less what others thought, going so far as to blow up one of his own buildings because it had been altered from his specifications.  He stated,

Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing.

I wish I could do that.  And perhaps that has something to with the Luke passage as well.  I can cling to the recognition of others as a marker of who I am and the value of what I’ve accomplished.  I can also cast that aside to find myself as I am in Jesus’ eyes, who doesn’t care what tricks I do.  My own pride so often comes between me and my Lord, not to mention my wife, my co-workers, and my friends.

Reflection on John 11 and Hebrews 2: Incomplete Pictures

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Readings: John 11:32-44 (the death of Lazarus), Hebrews 2:10-15  

“In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.  Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.  He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”  And again, “I will put my trust in him.”  And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”  Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

There are many ideas in Christianity that are difficult, if not nearly impossible, to understand.  These facets of our faith that are the most difficult, though, also happen to be some of the most critical.  One of these is the nature of Jesus Christ himself.  Jesus is not merely favored by God, or God-like, but is God.  John declares him to be “the Word”, eternal and unchanging.  Jesus is also, scripture tells us, fully human.  He ate, slept, bled, and probably had toothaches, stubbed toes and everything else that comes with life.  Not only that but he felt as we feel: he got angry, cried, laughed, admonished, and as we see here in the Gospel, grieved. Continue reading →