thy blood was shed for me

Although I love the Lenten season, I often find it difficult to actually observe it. In the end, I think it reveals how much restructuring my whole life needs, not just for this one season a year, but for every day. Not enough space is made for prayer. My ears are not open and my heart is not as attentive as it should be. I live like a frantic, worried soul when I should be at peace.

Richard Foster's book, Celebration of Discipline spoke deeply to me this week. Two of his chapters revealed to me what I lack (among many other things): simplicity and solitude. He refers to these as two of the outward disciplines, but stresses that the outward manifestation flows from an inward reality. "It is possible for a person to be developing an outward lifestyle of simplicity and to be filled with anxiety," he says. The inward must come first. This is what Lent should be about: a pursuit of the deeper inner realities of the Spirit-filled life; those realities that can only express themselves outwardly.

Strangely enough, all of that was simply an intro to what I am actually posting about. My point is that I am actively trying to observe Lent and go deeper, so here is something to that end.

I'll be teaching the song "Thy Blood Was Shed For Me" in church tomorrow. This is a somber and penitential hymn originally written by Charles Wesley and put to new music by Matthew Smith, one of my favorite modern hymn-writers. The melody is wonderful in its ability to capture the two sides of repentance the lyrics portray. First, we see our sin and grieve over it. But then, we leap in faith into Christ - casting our sins onto Him. So musically this works itself out beautifully. The start of each verse is low, quiet and sorrowful, a deep meditation on our poverty. But then the melody immediately soars like an insistent plea as the lyrics turn from sorrow over our sin to a surrender to Christ and his ability to cleanse us. My ability to describe it stops here - I can't begin to portray the arrangement in words. You can hear part of the song as Smith's website. Just scroll through the tunes on the main page.

It's a fitting melody, but ultimately it is the words that anchor a hymn in place. And these lyrics powerfully portray our situation both apart from Christ and in communion with him. Here they are in full:

Let the world their virtue boast and works of righteousness
I, a wretch, undone and lost, am freely saved by grace
Take me, Savior, as I am; let me lose my sins in Thee
Friend of sinners, spotless Lamb, Thy blood was shed for me
They blood was shed for me

Full of truth and grace Thou art and here is all my hope
False and foul as hell, my heart, to Thee I offer up
Thou wast given to redeem my soul from iniquity
Friend of sinners, spotless Lamb, Thy blood was shed for me
Thy blood was shed for me

Nothing have I, Lord, to pay nor can Thy grace procure
Empty, send me not away, for Thou knowest I am poor
Dust and ashes is my name, my all is sin and misery
Friend of sinners, spotless Lamb, Thy blood was shed for me
Thy blood was shed for me

That first verse is especially relevant to our Lenten journey. This is ultimately where we must go: seeing the depth of our lostness, we turn from self-boasting to see the breadth of Christ's fullness and we declare "Take me, Savior, as I am. Let me lose my sins in Thee!" In this season of the "Christian Passover" may we speak these words and know their truth: "Thy blood was shed for me."

the cult of celebrity, and more

This week has brought two separate but related conversations about the state of our celebrity-soaked culture. The second one is more direct. On Monday night, our church hosted its bi-monthly cultural discussion, Theology at the Forge. The design here is basically to create a public forum where people are challenged (first as humans and citizens) to look at themselves and the world around them a bit more critically. The basic underlying questions for our meal discussion are ones such as: what's wrong with society? What can be done to make it right? What do trends in society teach us about human nature? About ourselves? What good can be found? How can we create more of this good? What underlying beliefs have led to the "texts and trends" we find in our culture? In short, culture is a product of worldviews. When people get together, they inevitably live out on a communal level what their desires and passions are. At Karis, we think discussing such things is worthwhile, and it's essential for shaping us into people who live more and more consistently with reality, rather than by false presuppositions.

But I have diverged from my point, I hope that brief description is enough! In this particular installment of TATF, we discussed "The Cult of Celebrity: Who's Your Role Model?" When we look at our culture today, we see that the influence of celebrity culture is undeniable. The magazines we read, the news we watch, the fashions to which we adhere, even the causes we back up...many of these are a result of our subconscious connection with what flows from Hollywood. The first discussion that I was involved in, on Sunday night, went even deeper into this. We looked at the checkout lane of a grocery store from a theological perspective. This stems from an article in Everyday Theology called "The Gospel According to Safeway." The authors basically argue that the checkout lane is preaching a certain vision of the good life, and it is one that we often passively accept. Better sex, easy weight loss, convenient solutions and quick sugar fixes are all at your fingertips as you impatiently wait for the obnoxious mom with 3 kids in front of you to finish checking out. In fact, the authors argued that celebrities are the de facto symbol of the good life. They have everything we want (or think we want): wealth, fame, money, sex, and so, hard as this may be to digest, we idolize them (aka. we worship them). And what we worship shapes who we are.

But of course, the answer here isn't that all mass media or all celebrities are bad. Nor is it to say that there is no place for thoroughly enjoying a musician's work or an actor's films. Rather, this raises many pertinent questions for anyone living in 21st-century western civilization. Here are some that came up Monday night:

1) The death of Heath Ledger is all over the media. We hear more about this than about the deaths overseas, or for that matter, in our own communities. What might this say about our culture? About human nature?

2) Why do you think we are obsessed with celebrity gossip? (People is the most-read magazine).

3) The January issue of Esquire is peppered with advice from celebrities on how to live life. Would you say our culture equates fame with wisdom? Do we place more trust in celebrities for advice than our own friends and neighbors who know us?

4) It seems like soft news (ie. the Daily Show or the Tonight Show) are taking over as our source of information. Is this a good or bad trend? What does it say about our culture as compared to past ones?

5) Does fame equate to moral or spiritual authority? (Oprah would be a good example here)

6) What about the way celebrity culture defines beauty for us? Is this healthy?

7) So what might be an alternative vision for the good life in these areas already mentioned? If the life promised by the magazines is unrealistic, then what is realistic? (We can't really answer a question like that if you don't figure out what is true and foundational to reality).

I hope these questions are helpful. I'm sure there are many more that could be asked. I obviously have opinions on them, but I'll leave it at that for now. Feel free to post a comment - this could be good conversation!

an intriguing election year

I'm sure I'm not alone in my increased interest in this year's election race. Part of it, for me at least, is that I am more informed than I was four years ago, and more able to think critically about politics and the role of government. I was fairly naive in 2004. I'm still naive now, just not quite as much so! But the other part of it is simply that it's an exciting race, at least on the Democratic side. It looks like it will probably come down the wire for Clinton and Obama, which should make the next 6 months quite interesting.

In any case, my point for this post isn't so much to discuss candidates or what's happening in the race. Rather, I wanted to provoke some thoughtful engagement in some important issues. Jim Wallis' book, God's Politics, has been immensely helpful in forming not so much my specific stances on issues, but in teaching me how to think about my role both as a Christian and a citizen (which go hand in hand) in the political arena. The central point of Wallis' book is that the best role for any faith community is to stand outside the central political sphere and speak prophetically to both the Right and the Left. Rather than letting the church become an arm of the Religious Right or of an opposing liberal agenda, God's people should speak truth across the board, and call biblical values in all political issues. For example, as Wallis points out, poverty is just as much a moral concern as abortion is. This has hit home with me. Perhaps this is why I resonated quite a bit with what John Edwards had to say in his campaign.

So, to illustrate a point, let's look at the poverty example. We could stand within the same old debate and listen to the conservatives on one side say "you can't just give people handouts; you need to hold them responsible!" Or the liberals on the other side saying "but these issues are systemic - it's all about society's oppression!" But here is why I like Wallis - he does neither of these. I post here a quote from his blog in which he describes a discussion he had on a conservative Christian radio station:

"When our discussion turned to the subject of poverty, I brought up how all too often our lack of relationship with the poor is a deeper problem than our ideological debates about how to solve poverty – how very few of us, including liberal Democrats, including Christians, have real relationships with the poor.

As a committed Christian and committed conservative, Thor [Tolo, the Christian radio host] believes it's primarily the church's responsibility to address poverty—not the government's. Even so, he admitted, "I feel very convicted by what you just said," and admitted his lack of relationship with poor people, even though he had concerns about government helping to promote a cycle of dependency.

I said we need a grand alliance between conservatives and liberals on the issue, an alliance that calls on liberals to address family breakdown, out-of-wedlock births, and other dimensions of poverty involving personal responsibility, and for conservatives to champion strategic investments in housing, health care, and education—with clear outcomes and results.

But I added, "When did Jesus ever call his followers to serve only the deserving poor?"

Smiling, he conceded the point. It's hard to disagree with Jesus."

What do you think of Wallis' point here? Is it possible to engage in these debates on a deeper level? Can the church stand outside these issues and be consistently biblical? I find myself much more hopeful, thanks to folks like Wallis, that she can.

Finally, his challenge to all Christians who say it's the church's responsibility to deal with poverty, should cause us to pause. If we say that, then are we doing anything about it? Do we actually have those relationships? Or do we just look like hypocrites? How can we respond to this challenge?

It will be an interesting year indeed.

ash wednesday, a day late

Yes I realize I am belated on this entry. I hoped to post it yesterday, but alas, these things are not always so simple! I wanted to initiate/invite some reflection for Ash Wednesday (yesterday), as we enter the season of Lent.

To state it briefly, Lent literally means "springtime." This is a fitting description, not because it falls on the transition from winter to Spring (at least in our part of the world), but because it paints a picture of new life. Lent has historically been a season of repentance and renewal for the church - a time of once again looking at oneself and to the sacrifice of Christ for a new sense of the unity offered by Jesus to his followers. This is a unity that places us in Christ fully - in His death and His resurrection. So we remember his call to die to ourselves, to "take up our cross and follow" him. But we also remember that through His conquest of death, we have the hope of new life, both in eternity and in small vignettes of the Kingdom here and now.

In other words, it is not merely a drab and morbid season of self-sacrifice and meditation on the sufferings of Christ. Rather, it is a time in which we take action to promote a greater unity with Christ in our own lives and those around us. So, yes, giving to the poor and fasting are fitting pursuits in this time. Through such acts we simultaneously cry to God for His life-giving love and faithfulness and we proclaim to our community the greatness of the Kingdom Christ brought in with his life, death and resurrection.

This 40-day sojourn (46 including Sundays) from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, culminating in Easter Sunday, is my favorite season on the church calendar. As with all traditions, there is a constant danger of becoming legalistic or simply going through the motions. But when observed with a heart longing for a deeper sense of God's presence in our world, these times can bring great refreshment and renewed purpose. Holy Communion comes with a profound and vivid sense of vitality for me this time of year. I invite you to join with the church around the world in remembering the beautiful sacrifice and redeeming life of Jesus Christ. We shall all shout on Easter Sunday: "He is risen!"

I'll leave you with a simple poem from Oscar Wilde called "The Ballad of Reading Gaol":

And thus we rust life's iron chain
Degraded and alone
And some men curse, and some men weep,
And some men make no moan:
But God's eternal Laws are kind
And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
In prison cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper's house
With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy those whose heart's can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?

Blessings to you this (day after) Ash Wednesday. May our hearts break, that He may enter in and heal them.