"Here I am. . . I have come to do your will, O God."

Last Sunday at Southeast Church of the Nazarene, Pastor Steve preached from Hebrews 10:5-10, which was a scripture reading chosen by the universal church for the Sunday before this year's Christmas.  Hebrews 10 has been on my mind lately; I recently wrote a post after hearing another compelling sermon based on that chapter.  Here I want to offer my own meditation on the passage, with thanks to the three preachers who preceded me, the third being the unknown author of Hebrews.

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.
Then I said, 'Here I am--it is written about me in the scroll--
I have come to do your will, O God.'"
verses 5-7, NIV

I am compelled by Christ's words upon entering the world:  "Here I am. . . I have come to do your will, O God."  When I see the words "Here I am," I think of when God called the prophets Samuel and Isaiah to proclaim God's word, and they each responded "Here I am."  I also think of when God tested Abraham.  God called, "Abraham!" and Abraham said, "Here I am" (Gen. 22:1).  Then God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.  To make a long story short, Abraham was about to kill Isaac when an angel of the Lord called, "Abraham!  Abraham!" and Abraham said again, "Here I am."  God then provided Abraham a ram to sacrifice as a burnt offering instead of Isaac (Gen. 22:11-13).

Each of these people were called to do God's will.  For Samuel and Isaiah, God's will was to proclaim God's word to specific people.  For Abraham, God's will was, as I see it, to trust God to the point of offering Abraham's son, whom Abraham loved and in whom he had a future.  In response to their calls, Samuel, Isaiah, and Abraham said, "Here I am."

So it was with Jesus.  What was God's will for Jesus?  Here is all the author of Hebrews says:  "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all" (v. 10).  Was it God's will to make us holy?  Or that Jesus sacrifice his body on the cross?  Or something else?  It is not clear.  But what is clear is that as a result of God's will, we have been made whole, rejoined to God, through Jesus' sacrifice forever.  Our offenses against God have been canceled; our relationships with God and one another have been restored to harmony. 

Just as the prophets, Abraham, and Jesus were called, I believe we too are called to do God's will.  What is God's will for us?  Paul says God's will for us in Christ is that we be joyful always, always pray, and give thanks in all situations (1 Thess. 5:16-18).  When Jesus' disciples asked what God required of them, Jesus said that God's work was to believe in the one God had sent (John 6:29).  (What does it mean to believe in Jesus?  That would be fun to explore in a future post.)  The prophet Micah says that what is good and what the Lord requires of us is "to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with [our] God" (Micah 6:8, NRSV).  Those are just some passages that come to mind.  

Does God have a specific will for my life beyond what I said in the previous paragraph and beyond the greatest commandment of loving God and loving my neighbor as I love myself?  Does God call me to something as God called the prophets, Abraham, and Jesus?  Personally, discerning God's will has been an adventure, and I am still learning how to listen and respond.  I have made mistakes, and I have discovered truth thanks to God's whispers in my heart and the help of friends and guides.  I hope that, like the prophets, Abraham, and Jesus, I too respond to God's call with a life which says "Here I am.  I have come to do your will, O God."

God, thank you for Jesus, who has taken away the sin of the world.  Help us to discern your will, and may we follow through on what you have already revealed your will to be.  May your presence, love, joy, and peace come in all their fullness, and may your will be done in the world as it is in your realm.

Waiting for the Coming of Christ (sermon)

Last Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, I preached the following message, "Waiting for the Coming of Christ," at West Richmond Friends Meeting. 

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9, NIV). 


This passage was written by Peter to Christians and meetings scattered throughout the world.  He writes, “Though you have not seen Jesus, you love him.”  This is a bold statement to make.  How does Peter know these believers love Jesus?

Peter, of course, had seen Jesus, and knew of his own love for Jesus.  Peter had been called by Jesus to leave his job as a fisherman to gather people into God’s reign.  Peter had seen Jesus heal his mother-in-law from a sickness.  Peter had seen Jesus walk on water—and walked on water himself, for a little bit.  Peter knew about Jesus’ death, and was there when Jesus revealed his resurrected self to his disciples.

The believers Peter was writing to, on the other hand, hadn’t seen Jesus.  They had only heard stories about him.  They had come to know God through faith in Jesus, and in Jesus’ name had received power to live as God’s children in the world.  But did they love Jesus, whom they had not seen?  It’s much easier to love someone you have seen than someone you haven’t.  Most of the people I love are people I have actually met.

The same issue arises with the next part of the passage:  “And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him.”  How does Peter know these Christians believe in Jesus?  Did Peter visit each meeting, asking each person what their theological positions or doubts were? 

I think the reason Peter knows that these Christians love and believe in Jesus is because of their very identity as meetings, gathering together to worship God.  They met regularly, maybe once a week, living and sharing life together, serving their communities, loving one another as they had been loved.  It was probably during one of their worship services that they read Peter’s letter.  Also, Jesus had said, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”  So Peter knows and can say confidently that these meetings love and believe in Jesus.

Further, I think loving someone and believing in someone go hand in hand.  You love someone you believe in, and when you believe in someone, you love them.


“You believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Peter says that they are filled with joy because they are receiving the goal of their faith, the salvation of their souls.  I would here like to explore the word “salvation.”  The root of the word is “save.”  When people are saved, two things happen.  First, they are rescued from some kind of destruction.  Second, as a result of being rescued, they are then able to live their lives as they were meant to be lived.  For instance, if a child is lost in the woods, someone saves that child by finding and guiding the child home, delivering the child from danger.  The child’s being saved implies that the child can now live apart from fear, returning to a whole life. 

I understand “the salvation of your souls” to mean that these believers’ deepest, truest selves are being healed of their wounds, restored to completion, and brought to maturity in their identity as children of God.  Peter says this is the goal of their faith, the very reason they gather to worship God and why they love and believe in Jesus.  This is being given to them as a gift from God, and fills them with “an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

Again, how does Peter know they are filled with joy?  Personally, joy seems to me to come and go based on circumstance.  At the same time, I detect that there is joy dwelling in me even when I do not recognize it.  I believe that that of God is in each of us, and if so, then so does joy, because joy is of God, and perhaps the more we pay attention to God, the more we come in contact with that joy.  I think Peter can confidently say these believers are filled with joy because he has faith in God’s work among them to bring about wholeness among them on their deepest level.  For Peter, their joy comes from knowing that God is cultivating their souls to maturity.

Peter also says that this joy is “inexpressible,” so here is probably a good place for me to stop trying to explain it.


What does this have to do with Advent? 

Advent means “coming,” and is the time when Christians remember and celebrate the coming of Christ in two ways.  First, we remember how the Israelites waited for the Messiah and how Mary and Joseph waited for Jesus to be born.  We look back to how Mary herself was filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy when she was filled with the Son of God.  Second, we wait for the promised coming again of Christ to our world. 

First Peter 1:8-9 comes at the end of a larger passage in which Peter actually writes about this coming again of Christ, although instead of using the word “coming,” he uses the verb “reveal.” 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than precious gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9, NIV

This passage is oriented towards the revealing of Jesus Christ, the coming again of Christ, when the believers will be honored for the genuineness of their faith, which is currently being tested and refined through “all kinds of trials.”  Peter is saying that the suffering they are going through is actually contributing to the goal of their faith because it is making their faith mature. 

As a student, I see a parallel between this time of waiting for the coming of Christ and finals week, which is this week for ESR students.  During finals week, we students go through suffering of one kind as we study, write papers, and take tests in the effort to achieve the goals of our being students:  finishing and passing our classes, and learning and becoming mature, or at least more mature than when we started.  This time of stress contributes to our learning process, because through taking these tests we learn what we are supposed to learn.  In the back of our minds, we know that Christmas break is coming, when we not only find rest, but know that we have finished the work we are here to do, completing our classes and learning all we were supposed to have learned for this period of time.  Knowing that break is coming gives us hope.

Peter is writing to these meetings who are going through their own kind of finals week, during which they are waiting for the coming of Christ, finishing what they are here to do, enduring their trials, and becoming people complete in God’s image.

I believe that Peter’s words to these believers are for us, today.  Though you have not seen Jesus, you love him.  And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

You may wonder if you really love God, and you may have doubts about your faith.  But Peter says that you do love and believe in God and in Jesus.  You are being filled with joy because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the wholeness of your innermost being.  God is faithful, cultivating you into maturity so that you may finish your faith journeys completely.  I do not know why exactly God is doing this, but I do know that God loves you.  The trials you are going through may actually be making your faith genuine so that when Christ comes, not only will Christ be honored, but you too will be honored for the kind of person you have become through your trials and through God’s working in you. 
   

Waiting worship is one of the main ways we love and believe in God.  In our time of waiting, may we wait for the promised coming of Christ into our world, and for the coming of Christ’s presence in our midst in even this hour.  And may we also be filled with the joy of knowing that God is working among us so that just as Christ is coming, we too are coming to be revealed alongside Christ in our full identity as children of God. 

As we enter waiting worship, may we wait for the One who has already been waiting for us, and may we grow in deeper love for the One who first loved us.

Making Things Holy and Whole

In today's programmed worship service at ESR, Michael Sherman preached from Hebrews 10 about sacrifice.  Michael argued that Jesus' death on the cross was the final sacrifice and that God no longer desires Christians to sacrifice, but rather to give of ourselves willingly.

This resurfaced some questions I have been asking since being in seminary:  What was and is the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross?  How did or does Jesus' death save us?  What does it mean for Christians to sacrifice?  Perhaps exploring the very word "sacrifice" will help.

Sacrifice comes from "sacra," which means holy, and "facere," which can mean to make, to do, or to perform.1  "Holy," it is important to note, comes from "hale," which means health, heartiness, wholeness.2  Literally, to sacrifice means to make or do something something holy, something whole. 

If Jesus' death on the cross was a sacrifice, then Jesus' death was something holy and whole, or it made some thing or things holy and whole--or both.  As I understand it, this is consistent with the gospel.  Christians proclaim that Jesus' death on the cross has reconciled humanity and God.  Some say that his death has reconciled the whole world with God.  That through Jesus' death, we receive forgiveness of sins, and through Jesus' wounds we are healed.  That the cross has dismantled the wall between Jew and Gentile.  Jesus' death is holy and whole because it makes us holy and whole.  If his death did none of these things, then it would not be holy; it would not be a sacrifice.

How does Jesus' death make us holy?  In my theology class last semester we learned about the classical theories of atonement.  First is the New Testament teaching about sacrifice, rooted in the Jewish tradition of sacrificing lambs for the forgiveness of sins, in which Jesus is the sacrificial lamb whose blood covers humanity's sins once and for all.  In the Ransom/Classic/Christus Victor Theory, Satan has dominion over human souls, so God offers Jesus' life to Satan in exchange for human souls.  But God tricks Satan by raising Jesus from the dead, thus winning complete victory over death and evil.  The Satisfaction/Objective Theory states that our disobedience has dishonored God to such an extent that humans can do nothing to satisfy our debt.  Only God can pay this debt, and does through Jesus, who is both human (thus he can die) and divine (thus his death fully pays back our debt).  Finally, the Moral Influence/Subjective Theory teaches that Jesus' death is an example of God's love for us, and that it should inspire us to turn from our sinfulness, seek God's forgiveness, and receive God's love.  Without Jesus' death, we would not be moved to so change.  These are not the only theories, no doubt, and I do not think they completely answer the question of how Jesus' death makes us holy because I think holiness is about more than only the forgiveness of sins.  Still, each of the theories, although in different ways, proclaim that somehow Jesus' death makes us one, or whole, with God. 

For Christians, Jesus' sacrifice is the act of holiness which changes everything.  But is it the final sacrifice, the final act of holiness?  Michael objected to someone doing something self-giving for another person with the expectation or requirement that the other person do something in return.  I think Michael's objection was because such an action is not healthy for relationships; it is not done in love, but in fear and selfishness.  Such an action, however, is not a whole or holy work, and thus it is not a sacrifice.  Rather, it is expression of a need, or manipulation, disguised as sacrifice.  I agree that God does not desire us to do such actions, but rather works done in obedience to God, in genuineness, in willingness, and in love.  I would call these works sacrifices.  I believe that Jesus went to the cross willingly in obedience to God, and not out of fear that God would damn him if he didn't, and not to guilt humanity into being good.  As horrible as he knew it would be, Jesus offered himself in the joy of knowing that his death would bring us peace.  I also believe that Jesus loved God and knew God's love for him and so obeyed God in love.

What does it look like for Christians to sacrifice?  What do we do that is holy and whole, or makes some thing or things holy and whole?  What contributes to the wholeness and completion of ourselves and the world?  An author pouring herself into a novel can be sacrifice.  A caregiver tending someone in pain can be sacrifice.  Also, playing ping pong with a friend can be sacrifice.  Worshiping in silence can be sacrifice.  Perhaps what makes these things sacrifices is love.  As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, all the actions in the world, even the most self-giving ones, are meaningless without love.  Love makes a work holy and whole.

Our sacrifice shares in the same meaning as Jesus' death because both are done in love and contribute to reconciling that which is estranged from God with God.  Our sacrifice is our ministry, in wonderfully various forms, our cross that we take up and through which we live and share life with others.  Our sacrifice is our willingness to offer ourselves in obedience to God, wherever God may lead us--and our following through. 

The worship service ended with the hymn "When I Survey the Wond'rous Cross," which concludes with the following words:

"Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all!"

In receiving the love of God, we are invited to wholly offer ourselves to the Life, and so become holy and whole. While Jesus' death was, according to the author of Hebrews, the end of one kind of sacrifice, the burnt offering sacrifice, Christians are called to be living sacrifices:  vessels of love whose lives are holy and whole, people who, in obedience to and participation with God, make things holy and whole.



1 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sacrifice?s=t
2 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holy?s=t

Abiding in Love Abiding in Us

This morning in Sunday School, we read 1 Corinthians 13, the famous “love chapter.”  I would like to share a few thoughts inspired by our discussion.

Before diving in, I think it important to mention that, though I think this chapter can and does apply to committed relationships and marriages, Paul is not writing about romantic love but godly love, which should flow between and be expressed among all relationships for Christians.

Consider how Paul defines love:  “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).1   Paul gives love a character sketch.  Paul says, "This is what Love looks like; now you should be better able to recognize Love walking down the street."  We learn best by example, so Paul gives us the example of Love by which to model our lives.  This character, Love, does not celebrate hurtfulness but the truth.  Love perseveres and trusts in the goodness that God has planted in all things.  Love is defined not by individual characteristics, but by how Love responds and gives in relationship to others. 

Paul’s character sketch of love is surrounded by two passages about various forms of ministry among the community of believers.  In verses 1-3, Paul says that if he speaks earthly and heavenly languages, if he prophecies the truth and understands deep secrets of the universe and God, if he works miracles greater than Jesus or Moses ever did, but has not love, his words and actions are hollow.  If he gives all that he owns to the poor and is martyred for his faith but has not love, his sacrifices are meaningless.

This reminds me of the word of God through the prophet Amos:

"I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
Amos 5:21-24

Celebrations, gifts offered to God, and the chords of a hymn are good things, but they are not good on their own.  They are good when their source is a community whose relationships align with justice and righteousness, a community dwelling in love.

Paul's message is important for people participating in ministry.  Is there love in my service?  I may write a blog post that is so doctrinally sound that it makes Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics seem nearly heretical; I may visit a sick person in a hospital and in so doing, visit Christ; I may even heal the divides between congregations and nations, but if I have not love, my words are clanging pots and pans, and my actions are plastic food.

The way we do things, the manner or spirit in which we act, is just as important if not more important than the actions themselves.  

In verse 8, Paul writes that while prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will cease, “love never ends.”  Our ministries and communities, on their own, are like all mortal things in that they will end.  My blog post will conclude with footnotes.  The worship service will reach its final note, and after singing it, we will move onto other tasks that await us that day.  A fellowship may stop gathering; a group of friends that I have come to love may one day scatter.  But when we do our work for God in love, when we relate to one another in love, our love is carried, and maybe along with it our work and our relationships too, on into the fathomless depths of the future.

How, then, do we minister in love?  How do we become loving people and communities?  Paul does not directly answer those questions in this chapter.  However, at the end of the chapter, Paul does say “And now faith, hope, and love abide” (v. 13).  It is interesting that he is translated as using the verb “abide,” which comes from the Old English “abidan,” which means to wait, remain, dwell (as in “biding my time”).2  Love lingers, sits waiting in the living room, stands at the street corner looking for the bus.  This suggests that the love of God is waiting for us.  It lives and moves inside and around us, and as we respond in acceptance to it, we become more like love; we become more patient, more kind, and so on; we become more loving.

In other words, love is the host and we are the guests.  Love is first; we are second.  Love is entrusted to us, and the more we are faithful with it, the more love we are given.  Like all relationships, love is a gift, one that must be accepted, treasured, and cultivated.  As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because [God] first loved us.”  The Bible expresses in many ways God’s love for us; two core examples are God’s delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and God’s reconciling the world to God and to itself through the suffering and resurrection of Jesus the Anointed One.  In addition, we can and should read our own experiences for expressions of God's love for us.  Because Christians have been so loved, we are called to love one another, people outside of our communities, and even those who hate us.  Because the world has been so loved, might this not also be God's call to the world?

God, whose love waits for us, help us to abide in love, so that we may abide in you, and that you may abide in us.



1 NRSV.
2 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abide?s=t.

Hoping All Things

Today in my discernment class, after reading Ephesians 3:16-19 and a passage by Henri Nouwen about how God calls each of us "Beloved," we read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.  Usually whenever I have read that third passage, I have thought about love between human beings, whether it be romantic or selfless love.  But hearing it today in the context of God's love for us, for me, portrayed a fresh perspective of God to me.

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends." (NRSV)

How I heard it was something like the following:  God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  God does not insist on God's own way; God is not irritable or resentful; does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Here I want to explore the claim that God hopes all things.  I have not routinely pictured God as someone who hopes for things at all.  If God knows all things, then what room would there be for hope?  If I already know that Frodo and Sam will destroy the Ring of Power at the end of the story, for example, then when I am reading through The Lord of the Rings, can I truly say I hope they will succeed in the end?  I may feel something like hope, and that is to the credit of the writing abilities of J.R.R. Tolkien, but that seems to me an artificial hope compared to hoping for something which may not actually end up as I hope.

Maybe hope is one gift of being a member of a species that cannot see the future; if we knew what was to come, and how it was to come, then for what would we hope?  If I knew without a doubt that in the end, God would resurrect us from the dead, then I may eagerly await it, and I may even hope that it will come soon, but I will not hope for it.

Theologian Karl Rahner writes about a human hope for the salvation of humanity in the end:

"An orthodox theologian. . . is forbidden to teach that everybody will be saved.  But we are allowed to hope that all will be saved.  If I hope to be saved, it is necessary to hope that for all men as well.  If you have reason to love another, you can hope that all will be saved."1

If we love one another and our enemies, as Christians are commanded to do, then we will hope that the other and our enemies will be redeemed, even if we believe that the way to salvation is narrow.  Hope, then, indicates love.  What do I hope for?  For whom do I hope?  What do I hope for this person or that?  By asking what we hope for, we are asking who we love and what we value.  To say God hopes all things, then, is also to say that God hopes all things for us, which is yet another expression of God's deep and wide love for us.  Could it be that even more deeply than we are called to do, God hopes that all will be saved? 

We certainly do not know how the end will turn out, but to say that God hopes all things suggests that even God does not know how all things will end.    God hopes all things, which means that not all things are guaranteed.  Thus, in hoping all things, God is taking the greatest risk of all.  God shares in our vulnerability.

At the same time, God hopes all things, which means there is hope for us all.


1 Tilley, Terrence.  Story Theology.  (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1985),  66.

Thoughts on Holiness

This summer, in addition to reading and going to the pool with my brother, I have been thinking a little about holiness.  It may have begun one Sunday at Southeast Church of the Nazarene when John Denney, the Southern California Church of the Nazarene District Superintendent, preached.  In his sermon, Denney said something like, "The good news is that just as we are, God loves us and accepts us.  And the good news is also that God loves us so much that he will not leave us as we are."  I see that statement to be about holiness; God not leaving us as we are is the process of God making us holy.  The statement raises some important questions for me, which I will discuss near the end of this post, but first I would like to explore what holiness means.

The dictionary defines "holy" as something or things that are set apart to be revered, things that help us connect to God.1 Scriptures say that God is holy.2  God is distinct from us; God's ways are beyond our ways.  At the same time, the Holy One calls us to be holy.3  For the early church, to be holy meant to be like Christ and to be united with God.  Their scriptural foundation for holiness as Christlikeness was 1 John 3:2 (NIV): “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  Adding to the conversation, theologian Gregory of Nyssa believed that Jesus' resurrection made it possible for humans to become divine (another word for holy) through sacramental union with God and through prayer.4  More recently, at the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic church defined holiness as "perfect union with Christ," and said that this union is attained through individuals' membership in the church and cleaving to the saints.5

At a slightly different angle, author Madeleine L'Engle has written that the root of the word "holy" is the word "hale," which is also the root for "whole," "health," and "heal."  For L'Engle, to be holy means to become healed, whole, and hearty.6  (Similarly, we see the word "salve," which means an object that heals, in the word "salvation," which I consider yet another synonym for holiness.)  So there are different definitions of holiness.  As I see it, to be holy means to be like Christ, to rhyme with the Holy One, and in becoming like Christ we become whole and healed, fully mature in Christ.  This is the goal of our faith.

Now then, what does it look like for the people of God to be fully mature in Christ, to be holy?  I think of three perspectives:  that of the Nazarenes, that of many Quakers, and that of Madeleine L'Engle.  Pastor Steve Rodeheaver of Southeast Church of the Nazarene has said that historically, the Church of the Nazarene has expressed holiness in three streams:  purity, compassion, and missions.  In seeking purity, many Nazarenes, particularly in the Midwest, have abstained from things they consider to be of the world, such as watching movies in theatres, wearing wedding rings, and dancing.  This may be in response to the following passage in James:  "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."7

While the Nazarenes who emphasize purity pursue holiness by keeping themselves unstained by the world, other Nazarenes pursue holiness by committing to compassion.  One source for this stream is the founder of the denomination, Phineas F. Bresee, who felt a call to minister to the poor in Pasadena, California.8  "Let the Church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and elegant buildings; but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and wipe away the tears of sorrowing, and gather jewels for His diadem," Bresee once said.9  Out of this commitment to ministry among the poor living in the city, many of whom are damaged by alcohol and alcoholism, Nazarenes abstain from alcohol, so as to not cause the people they are serving to stumble.

The third stream of holiness among Nazarenes is missions, following Jesus' commission to go throughout the world, making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey Jesus' commandments.10  For Nazarenes, holiness is not limited to purity, compassion, and missions, but these are three major streams.  

How do we become holy, in the Nazarenes' view?  I cannot speak for all Nazarenes, but Pastor Steve has preached that "Discipleship is a miracle."  In other words, being discipled, learning of Christ, is not something we achieve as much as something we receive.  Just as it took Christ's touch to heal the blind and the deaf, it takes the work of the Holy Spirit within us--and our cooperation--for us to walk well with God.  Being pure, having compassion, and preaching good news to the world are efforts that begin with the Spirit.

Similarly, holiness among many Quakers expresses itself from the inside out, as I understand it.  Robert Barclay was a Quaker theologian in the 17th century whose writings on Christian perfection (or holiness) influenced minister John Wesley's doctrine of entire sanctification (holiness again)11, which is an important part of holiness theology for Nazarenes.  Like Pastor Steve's message "Discipleship is a miracle," Barclay wrote that it was God's responsibility to make God's people holy.12   To be perfected, Barclay wrote, one must turn to “the light and spiritual law of Christ in the heart,” and partake “of the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, and be made conformable unto his death, that thou mayest feel thyself crucified with him to the world by the power of his cross in thee”.13  For Barclay, holiness involved turning to the inward light of Christ and dying to the world in Christ.  

The phrase "turning to the light of Christ" describes corporate worship for many Quakers, in which Quakers commune with God by sitting in silence, setting their minds on God, and rising to speak to the meeting when moved by God.  Professor of spirituality Carole Spencer writes that for the early Quakers, union with God in worship was the beginning of holiness.14  Further, “[t]o live in the Light meant moral, ethical, social and political holiness”.15  In other words, holiness began in worship and continued in an outward motion through Quakers' relationships and interactions with other people. 

Quakers today live by certain testimonies, which I see as expressions of holiness just as purity, compassion, and missions are key expressions of holiness for Nazarenes.  The Quaker testimonies include Truthfulness/Integrity, Justice, Equality, Simplicity, and Peace.

An example of someone who lived these testimonies is John Woolman, a Quaker living in the 18th century in the New World.  Convicted by God that slaves and colonists were equal in God's eyes, Woolman sought to convince many members of the Religious Society of Friends to free their slaves.  His life embodied the Quaker testimonies, and is an example of someone whose actions flowed out of his relationship with God.

Madeleine L'Engle takes a different approach when she discusses holiness and wholeness.  In Walking on Water, her reflections on being a Christian artist, L'Engle writes that the creative process makes us more holy because it makes us more whole--that is, if we are truly listening to and serving the work and not trying to control it.

In prayer, in the creative process, these two parts of ourselves, the mind and the heart, the intellect and the intuition, the conscious and the subconscious mind, stop fighting each other and collaborate. . . . When mind and heart work together, they know each other as two people who love each other know; and as the love of two people is a gift, a totally unmerited, incomprehensible gift, so is the union of mind and heart.16

When the mind and heart unite, we become whole persons, and thus holy.  While it may sound like L'Engle is saying that wholeness is something we obtain on our own efforts, she emphasizes that holiness is not something we acquire.  "[Becoming holy] has nothing to do with virtue or job descriptions or morality.  It is nothing we can do in this do-it-yourself world. It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognized and received."17  Could L'Engle be saying that as we pray and create, God collaborates with us?  That the act of creating is a means of grace which makes us more holy, like partaking in a sacrament?

I see two themes throughout my exploration of holiness as expressed by Nazarenes, Quakers, and L'Engle.  The first is, holiness is a gift.  It is not something I earn or deserve, but something given in love from God.  It is a miracle, and while I cooperate with and trust in God's work in making me more like Christ, the responsibility is ultimately God's.  This is a relief, one of which I need to continually remind myself because of my constant forgetfulness of God's grace and faithfulness.  The second theme is, outward expressions of holiness come from the inward work of God in our lives.  Just as grapes grow from branches that are connected to a vine, I too come alive and bear grapes--not of wrath, but holiness--when I am rooted in God through worship and prayer.  As I am nourished in the vine, the grapes come in their own time.

If John Denney had said only that "The good news is that just as we are, God loves us and accepts us," and left out the part about God not wanting to leave us as we are, then could Denney (and I along with him) truly say that God loves us?  For Christians, love is expressed most clearly in God's sending Jesus to die so that we might be reconciled with God.  This implies that we had once been estranged from God, that all was and is not yet well.  Put simply, we need God's help.  In saying that God desires to make people holy, to heal people, I am assuming and affirming the doctrine that we are wounded, and that this woundedness keeps us from maturity in Christ.  Holiness is God's work in healing our woundedness.  If we love someone, will we not try to help them the best we know how in their struggles?  If we wish to write a good poem, will we not craft it, edit it, until we are satisfied?  To maintain a beautiful and productive garden, don't we need to uproot weeds and prune branches?  Helping others, crafting a poem, tending a garden--these are metaphors for God's work of making us holy and healing our woundedness.

If you are like me, you may now be asking something like, "What do you think God desires to change in us?"  Other forms of this question are "What do you consider to be sinful?" and "What do you think it looks like, precisely, to be like Christ?"  It may be these questions that I am truly getting at in writing this post, and attempting to answer them would require a post of its own, at the very least.  I am in no hurry, nor am I ready, to write that post.  I have given some examples of what many consider to be holy and not holy; these examples are not exhaustive.  I believe that sure guides for holy living also include the Ten Commandments, the prophet Micah's message "What does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God,"18 the Beatitudes, and what Jesus says is the greatest commandment:  "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  And a second is like it:  'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"19  May God help me live in this way!

As I conclude, I would like to mention something that has come to mind when asking what is holy and what is not.  The resurrected body of Jesus, in its perfection, still bore his scars.  If holiness means being like Christ, and if being like Christ includes sharing in his sufferings and his resurrection, then our perfected bodies and souls will bear our own scars.  Like Jesus, we might find holes in our hands and sides.  Becoming holy does not mean that our wounds, the ones that have grown with and within us, the ones we have inflicted on ourselves and others, the ones we've received from others, will vanish.  Instead, being holy means that through the Spirit's power, we will begin to live beneath our wounds, at the source of our life, which is God.  We do this in the power of the Spirit and because God loves us.  It may be that our scars will become a part of our wholeness, transformed from defects into something which contributes to our completion.  What once brought us shame, God will make good.  Our wounds, and ultimately our woundedness, will no longer have power over us because they no longer have power over him.

1 Dictionary.com.  "Holy." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holy?s=t (accessed Aug. 7, 2012).

2 Leviticus 19:2.

3 1 Peter 1:15-16.

4 Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, Vol. 2.  s.v. “holiness.”
5 Ibid.
6 L'Engle, Madeleine.  Walking on Water (Colorado Springs, CO:  WaterBrook Press, 1980), 60.
7 James 1:27, NRSV.
8 Snu.edu.  "Phineas F. Bresee."  http://snu.edu/phineas-f-bresee (accessed Aug. 7, 2012).  

9 Missionstrategy.nazarene.org.  "Quotations from Dr. Bresee on the Poor, etc."  http://missionstrategy.nazarene.org/missionstrategy/Default99ac.html?tabid=267 (accessed Aug. 7, 2012).

10 Matthew 28:19-20.
11 Spencer, Carole, Holiness:  The Soul of Quakerism (Great Britain:  Paternoster, 2007), 31.
12 Barclay, Robert, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity:  Being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the People Called Quakers (Philadelphia:  Kimber, Conrad, &Co., 1805), 268.
13 Barclay, 258-9.
14 Spencer, 2.
15 Spencer, 62.
16 L'Engle, 192-3.
17 L'Engle 60-1.
18 Micah 6:8, NIV.
19 Matthew 22:37-9, NRSV.

Cobblestones (poem)

As I left your apartment
I began walking
on the cobblestoned night sky.

Driving on the 805,
you had closed your eyes and grinned
"Rollin'--"
shaken your head
"Rollin'--"
and nodded your feet.
"Rollin' on a river"

At the beach, a cigarette dangled
from the cave between a young woman's lips, and blood
smoke spilled out my window.

The sky had erupted, spewing lava
out onto the street.  "Are we lost?" you said.
Leaving the parking lot, a woman
fingered me with her face, which resembled a rare steak.
"No, it'll just take us longer to find it."

The light on the sea was gum stains
on your North Park sidewalks
behind the fishing pier.

"What's that over there?" you said.
I said that leads to the bridge
and further, an overlook.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     Go
far enough, beyond the moon's glow
cloaked in stone clouds
and you will find in the darkness a road
paved with starry Light.

The Unanswerable Question

"How are you?"

It is a question we ask more frequently than other questions in the course of our day (if we are among other people), and despite how easy it might be to dismiss The Question, it is perhaps among the most important questions we ask.

Let us consider, briefly, alternatives to The Question.  This will, I hope, illustrate the meaningfulness of The Question.  Classical journalists may tell you that there exists among the realm of interrogatives a canon called the Five Ws and the H:  Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.  Our Question employs H, but we could replace H with any of the Ws.  In so doing , what is gained, and what is lost?
 

• "Who are you?"  A deep question, one that most people ask, or at least should be asking.  Even Rango, a chameleon, asked himself this question.  Be warned, though, that this weighty query requires a thoughtful, prepared response, and may not even be answerable, at least for a while.
   
• "What are you?"  Aside from the obvious response, "a human," an answerer could respond with ethnicity, occupation, vocation, religious affiliation, gender, or personality type, to name a few possibilities.  While "What are you?" is, in an appropriate context, an important question, asking it as often as we ask The Question would distance people, as though the questioner were peering at the answerer through a magnifying glass.
   
• "When are you?"  Of the W and H questions, this one appears the easiest to answer.  If you were to ask me this question now, I would be tempted to say, "I am currently at 6:52 pm, Pacific Standard Time, on Monday, June 18, 2012 AD/CE, on the western calendar."  But such an answer does not do justice to the question.  Although you and I likely do not perceive to have the time to explore the nature of time now, I will say that according to writer Madeleine L'Engle, time expresses itself in two dimensions:  chronos, "our wristwatch and alarm-clock time" (recall how I was tempted to answer "When are you?", for example), and kairos, "God's time, real time."  Chronos flows in one direction, like a river, whereas kairos branches in many directions, like a tree.  (For more on this subject, read L'Engle's Walking on Water and A Wind in the Door.)  So, while chronologically I am now at 7:04 pm, same day, same year, and same calendar, I may also be, kairologically,  five weeks or ten years ago or maybe even two months into the future.  So, answering this question is not as easy as it might seem.
   
• "Where are you?"  People do not often ask this question in person because the location of the answerer is usually apparent.  However, if one is eating lunch at a table and someone has noticed that one's lack of speech among the surrounding people, the perceptive and curious person may ask this variation of the question: "What planet have you been on?"  In such a case the quiet one might respond with the following in jest:  "Remind me, what's the name of this planet we are on right now?"
   
• "Why are you?"  Answering this question would require knowledge of the chain of causes which led to one's conception.  How could the questioner expect one to have such knowledge?  That would be similar to asking, "Why are babies made?"  If taken back far enough, that would be like asking "Why did God make the universe?",  unless you are really merely asking,  "Why are you the way you are?"  But asking "Why?" risks being interpreted as disapproval.  To avoid this possible negativity, the questioner might best ask "Who are you?", or better yet, The Question.

Usually when someone asks us The Question, we do not answer directly, but rather we respond to an alteration of The Question: "What are you feeling?" or, in different words, "What mood are you in?"  That is why we answer with "Fine," "Pretty good," "Can't complain," "Sick," or something else.

The Question, though, is potentially grander than "What are you feeling?"  We ask "How?" to discover a process.  For example, "How do magnets work?"  "How do you make a lemon pie?"  "How do you spell 'midwestern?'"  If asked literally, The Question seeks knowledge about the process of someone's becoming who they are now.  What is the story of how and why you are you?  What decisions did you make or not make to become who and what you are?  What roads did you travel to get here?  What significant events occurred, what significant people have you met along the way?  What have you been thinking and feeling to put you in the state you are in at this moment?  One might translate The Question into "How do you come to be who/what/when/where/why you are now?"  or even simply "Tell me your story."

Beyond process, we ask "How?" when we are caught up in wonder.  Let's say someone has built an amazing castle out of Legos. The impressed observer will ask, "How did you do that?"  The architect might answer, "I put the pieces together based on this booklet and what I thought would look cool."  If the observer is seeking to learn how to design a stunning castle, the architect's lack of specifics would likely not fulfill the observer's desire.  To be fair, though, how can the architect adequately explain the process of making something beautiful?  Wonder often escapes words.   If wonder could be put into words, I suppose that all the web pages in the world could not contain those words. To answer slightly more satisfactorily, the architect might need to speak in poetry.

Yet it is possible that the observer asks "How did you do that?" not to learn a process, but to express awe.  Giving an answer may only diminish the observer's admiration.  When interpreted as an expression of wonder, "How did you do that?" echoes rare moments when I have been so filled with unearned, unexpected joy that I have asked myself, "How can this be happening to me?"  In these moments I do not expect, or maybe even want, an answer to such a question.

Thus, asking The Question points to a glory which connects, involves, and transcends the questioner and answerer.  

How are you?

Held in the Light

Yesterday at Southeast, Charlene and Danny sang/played a song about how Christ is praying for us.  I think the lyrics officially said that Jesus is interceding for us.  The word "intercede" comes from inter-, which means "between," and cede, which means "to go" or "to yield."  So when the song says that Jesus is interceding for us, it's suggesting that Jesus is moving back and forth between us and God.

At ESR, I have learned another way to think about prayer.  Many Quakers describe interceding for someone as "holding that person in the light."  You might hear someone say, "I am holding you in the light."  So when we say that Jesus is interceding for us, we are also saying that Jesus is holding us in the light.

If Jesus is holding us in the light, then when we communicate with God, we are not so much starting a new conversation or offering an idea God hasn't thought of yet as we are joining Jesus as he communes and converses with God.  The communion and the conversation have gone on since long before we awoke.  The scriptures even tell us that we do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us in a motion deeper than words.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the light of the world.  When we say that Jesus is holding us in the light, then, are we saying that Jesus is holding us in himself?

The Light and the Life are holding us, and the world, in the Light.

Who are you looking for?

Tonight, the ESR class of 2012 celebrated their time at ESR in a baccalaureate service.  Susan Yanos, professor of writing and ministry, gave a message based on the ending of the Gospel of John, when the resurrected Jesus reveals himself to Mary.  In honor of tonight, and of this pilgrimage we find ourselves on, whether in or out of school, I'd like to share the following assignment I recently wrote for my New Testament class.

The Gospel of John portrays a deep and wide range of human experiences and emotions.  In the prologue, we read that the Word takes on flesh and dwells among us (1:14), validating our existence as humans.

We can see the gospel’s embrace of human experience in characters’ speech.  For instance, Nathanael expresses mistrust when he asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (1:46).  I imagine the steward in Cana guffawing after saying, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk.  But you have kept the good wine until now” (2:10).  Nicodemus reveals his ignorance—and expands the primal human metaphor—when he asks Jesus for clarification:  “How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (3:4).  The man healed of blindness expresses frustration and defiance when he tells the Pharisees, “I have told you already, and you would not listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you also want to become his disciples?” (9:26-27).  We catch a glimpse of the Pharisees’ wounded pride in their response:  “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” (9:34).

One of my favorite revelations of character is when Jesus goes to Judea to see his beloved friend Lazarus, and Thomas tells the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (11:16).  Although Thomas may have literally willed to die with Jesus, I like to imagine Thomas speaking sarcastically, knowing that they are heading into danger, yet, maybe because he is a disciple, or because he knows it is right, he has no other choice but to follow.

Before Jesus’ crucifixion, Pilate expresses wonder and existential despair in response to Jesus:  “What is truth?” (18:38).  After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciple whom Jesus loved exclaims upon seeing Jesus, “It is the Lord!” (21:7).  The narrator tells us that Peter is pained at Jesus’ asking three times, “Do you love me?” (21:17).  We see Peter’s curiosity, perhaps out of competition or fear of what’s to come, when he asks, “Lord, what about him?” (21:21).

Characters in other canonical gospels reveal character, too.  For instance, Peter has a reputation of sometimes speaking thoughtlessly (Matt 26:33, Mk 14:29, Lk 22:33).  But not only are the words I quoted unique to John, I also think their humanity is emboldened because Jesus’ speech is often symbolic in John.  From Jesus’ “I am” statements (4:26, 6:35, 8:12, 8:58, 10:11, for example) to his final speech and prayer (13-17), ironically, Jesus often doesn’t speak in a manner we would expect people “of the flesh” to speak.  Jesus’ symbolic speech foils for the earthly speech of other characters, and especially for Jesus’ own fleshly speech. 

Perhaps the most poignant expression of Jesus’ emotion is when we might expect Jesus to speak, but instead he is silent.  Near the middle of the gospel, Jesus and his disciples learn that Lazarus has died.  Jesus sees Mary and the Jews with her weeping, and asks a practical question:  “Where have you laid him?” (11:34).  They respond with Jesus’ own symbolic words (1:39), reversing the roles between master and servants:  “Lord, come and see” (11:34).  Then, “Jesus began to weep” (11:35).

On the morning of Jesus’ resurrection, Mary is weeping at the empty tomb, speaking with two angels in white.  Then she turns around and sees Jesus, although she doesn’t recognize him.  Could Jesus be teasing her?  He asks, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Who are you looking for?” (20:15), echoing his symbolic speech in 1:38.  Mary, thinking he is a gardener, asks him to take her to Jesus’ body.  Then Jesus says, “Mary!”  (20:16).  In one word, we see that Mary is reunited with her Lord, and her Lord is excited to see his friend again.


Verses taken from the NRSV.

Playful Theology

Today I took my final exam for History of Christianity I, in which I was instructed to compare Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God with one of Thomas Aquinas' proofs for God's existence.  If you have no clue what I just wrote, especially after the word "compare," then wait until you read Anselm's argument.  I would recapitulate it for you, but that's not my main reason for writing this entry, so I'll let you discover it on your own.  (To quote my professor, "Please don't feel bad" if you have to re-read Anselm's argument several times.  It didn't click for me until about half an hour after I turned in my exam, and I still feel fuzzy when I think on it.)

Anywho, my main reason for writing is to explore the fact that in their argument/proofs, neither Anselm nor Aquinas were really trying to prove the existence of God, as if they couldn't believe in God until they perfected their formulas.  That is, if they had not completed their their proofs, they still would have believed in God by faith.  As church historian Justo González writes, "What [Anselm] sought in doing this was not to prove something that he did not believe without such proof, but rather to understand more deeply what he already believed."  And for Aquinas, González says, "rational inquiry helps us to understand better that which we accept by faith."

Before, I thought that theologians like Anselm and Aquinas were trying to teach an unbelieving world that God actually exists.  Believe, because it's rational!  Now that we've proven God through logic, you have no excuse!  Certainly, theologians tried this later, including some today.  But Anselm and Aquinas were doing something different than trying to save souls in their writing.  They were exploring the unseen territories of what they already believed, like someone who has bought a house and begins wandering through the rooms to really get to know the place.  Like musicians of thought, they were playing.

"Playing and praying are like the musicians' art that combines discipline with delight," writes Eugene Peterson.  "Music quickens something deep within us. . . . Karl Barth once declared that the music of Mozart led him to 'the threshold of a world which in sunlight and storm, by day and by night, is a good and ordered world.'"  Playing and praying, Peterson writes, enhance life, renew us, make us fully human.  

It will start like this, I think, (poem)

In my theology class we have been reading about the end of the world as we know it.  The scientific name for this is "eschatology," or the study of last things.  There have been many views about what happens after we die, what will happen to the universe when all the stars run out of energy.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives Christians hope that death is not the end, that God will creatively breathe new life into our decaying bodies so that we may endlessly dwell with God in a new creation.  This reminded me of a poem I read in high school by Charles Wright.  I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the poem and this subject.


"October"

The leaves fall from my fingers.
Cornflowers scatter across the field like stars,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . like smoke stars,
By the rain tracks, the lives in a drift

Under the snow clouds
. . . . . . . . . . . and the nine steps to heaven,
The light falling in great sheets through the trees,
Sheets almost tangible.

The transfiguration will start like this, I think,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . breathless,
Quick blade through the trees,
Something with red colors falling away from my hands,

The air beginning to go cold . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And when it does
I'll rise from this tired body, a blood-knot of light,
Ready to take the darkness in.

--Or for the wind to come
And carry me, bone by bone, through the sky,
Its wafer a burn on my tongue,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . its wine deep forgetfulness.

The Trees by Clear Creek (poem)

Today was the annual Spirituality Gathering at ESR.  Because I was in Carrie Newcomer's songwriting class and am in Carole Spencer's spiritual formation class, Carole asked me and three other students to create something based on the presentation of Phil Gulley, the guest speaker.  I wrote a poem.


Blessed are the barren trees by Clear Creek
rocking in the wind, eyes still closed
in the perfect light.
Soon,
in their time,
sprouts will join their dance.

But the leaves that scratch the
parking lot
can no longer drink
the Life.



Day, I have not clung to my
leaves.
I have fallen into sleep
in the snow.
When the fog surrounded me, I held out
all of my arms.
Now I lie here, waiting
to open my every green eye.

Beloved, hope in the Day
both now and forevermore.



Day, you are my Life
I sing for you like a bird
resting on a naked
branch.
I thirst for you
like a cloud beneath the moon.
In your house I have sat beside you
and in yourself you have draped, anointed me.
Better than my sprouts is your love
and even my roots will shake
for you.

In you I am satisfied as after a day rain
and when I sleep, I feast on your whispers.

All will stumble who set traps
but we will leap, standing still
because when you breathe out, we live
and when you hold your breath,
we listen.

Two Weeks of Singing

These past two weeks have been so full and good, for two main reasons:  Carrie Newcomer's songwriting class and Danny and Charlene's wedding.  Yesterday I finished my first intensive class at ESR, "Writing Mindfully," taught by Carrie Newcomer.  I was glad to meet new folks and hear songs written by each of the writers in the class, and Carrie is an excellent teacher.  Last night we shared our songs with the ESR/Bethany Theological Seminary community, and that was fulfilling.

I wrote two songs, one of which I recorded.  It's called "The Song of the Vine" (click to hear the song, featuring Ela Robertson on the cello), and it's based on the story of Jonah.  If you don't know the story, I suggest you read it.  To introduce the song, though, I'll say that Jonah is mad at God for calling Jonah to preach against the wickedness of the city of Nineveh.  After quite an adventure at sea, Jonah finally preaches against the wickedness of Nineveh and gets even angrier with God when Nineveh mourns for its evil and God shows mercy on the city.  So Jonah climbs a hill to look out over the city, to see what will come of it, and God plants a vine for Jonah.  Hope you enjoy the song!

Last weekend, I celebrated the wedding of Danny and Charlene Foster.  I am grateful and honored to have been given the opportunity to be with and sing for them.  I brought out my Washburn guitar, which I haven't played in a while, and plucked the wedding prelude, an instrumental medley of hymns such as "This is My Father's World," "For the Beauty of the Earth," "Blest Be the Tie That Binds," and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."  During Charlene's aisle march, I sang the first half of Depeche Mode's "Somebody."  Later, Brother Eddie led the congregation in "Thank You Lord," and at the end, Danny, Charlene, Eddie, Alex, Kat, Ira, and I played and sang "Thanks."

Pastor Steve's sermon on Isaiah 43:15-21 was perfect for Danny and Charlene, "people whom [God] formed for myself / so that they might declare my praise" (v. 21).

The dinner cooked by Sister Peggy was excellent--spicy chicken wings for appetizers, punch, meatballs, salad, and more.  Along with my parents, I sat with a couple who are Friends preachers and who have visited Richmond, and another couple and their child.  (Coincidentally, Jon was at another wedding.)  I had a fascinating conversation with Tony about God's work in the world as revealed in Scripture and the nature of time.  Our conversation, coupled with Pastor Steve's sermon the next morning about how God does not only exist in the past but also in the present, has fueled my interest in time and time travel.

One of the Friends ministers asked me how I knew Danny, and I told her a little bit about life at the Redemption House, how Danny and Charlene would sometimes set their electric keyboard, bass, and bass amp onto the cyan tiles of the living room to rehearse and jam.  It made me think of all my roommates from the Redemption House and other church friends and how great it would be to see them again.

At the end of the evening, a group spontaneously gathered around the upright piano and sang "O Happy Day" while Danny drummed away.  It was a happy day indeed--Amen and Absotutely!