Siloam’s tower & Oklahoma’s tornado

I’ve read a great deal of pastoral theologizing on the Internet since the news about the tornado in Oklahoma. The themes are all familiar. And they are ancient, of course. As long as people have died in ways we cannot understand, we have turned to God and asked for or demanded answers.

I can never escape a passage from the Gospel of Luke when I hear such news.

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Luke 13:1-9, NIV)

Jesus did not withhold tears when Lazarus died, and he certainly knew anguish over suffering. There is a time to mourn and ask questions, but I don’t think we can demand answers of God. Or rather, the biblical witness appears to be that making such demands is not going to get us the answers we seek.

There is a man in the ditch over there, beaten by robbers. Ours is not ask why God allowed the beating. It is to get down in the ditch and tend to his wounds.

Who is Jesus?

A compelling little video that asks the key question.

Why did God do it?

For us and for our salvation 
he came down from heaven: 
by the power of the Holy Spirit 
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, 
and was made man. 
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; 
he suffered death and was buried.

This confession of the church caused unbelievers to ask critical questions. Anselm of Canterbury attempted to answer one question that he said unbelievers were asking: Why did God have to become man and die for our salvation? Why could God not have accomplished this in some other means or by some other person?

Anselm assumes the incarnation and crucifixion were necessary. Anselm assumes this because he believes that God would not require the suffering and death of an innocent man if it were not necessary. And he affirms the Nicene Creed, which says that these things were done for us and for our salvation.

So, if we were in Anselm’s position, how would we answer the question posed to him: “Why did God have to become human and die for our sake?”

What makes church effective?

Mark Noll in a Q&A about American Christian history and the church today:

My own historical sense is that churches that have been effective and have thrived mostly are concerned more about the communication of the Christian message. What turns out to be the most effective way of strengthening the organizations is not always looking at the organizations, but it’s looking at the message.

What is the church for? It’s to communicate the love of Christ and the doing of Christ’s work in the world. It seems to me that the effectiveness of institutions will depend upon, not clarity of thinking about institutions, but the success of church institutions will hinge upon the clarity of thinking about the message that they want to communicate.

UM doctrine and atonement

Does the United Methodist Church endorse a theory of atonement?

I’ve often been told that the UMC has never canonized a single theory of atonement. We view all theories as contributing part of the overall understanding of what Christ accomplished on the cross.

But is that really true? Are all ways of talking about the atonement in keeping with United Methodist doctrine? Here are words from our Book of Discipline’s section on doctrinal standards that interpret the meaning of the the cross.¹

From Article II of the United Methodist Articles of Religion:

“The Son … who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.”

From Article VII of the United Methodist Confession of Faith:

“We believe that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The offering Christ freely made on the cross is the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, redeeming man from all sin, so that no other satisfaction is required.”

I’m not sure that either or both of these fit with one of the well known theories of atonement, but they do appear to set out some basic building blocks.

Jesus Christ was a sacrifice, according to both of these, a sacrifice for sin. His sacrifice redeemed humanity. The synonyms for “redeem” include ransom, rescue, save, and deliver. By this sacrifice the Father was reconciled to us. The Father was put back in friendship or harmony with us, to use the dictionary definition of reconcile.² This sacrifice served as satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.

I’m still learning about atonement theories, but it appears that any United Methodist discussion of atonement must be one that can accommodate notions of sacrifice, redemption, reconciliation, and satisfaction.

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¹ Of course, moral influence theory (among others?) does not focus solely on the cross, but generally the death of Christ is considered important to understanding atonement.

² Morgan Guyton points out that this is an interpretation from the language in the Articles of Religion in which the Father is reconciled to us. The language in the Confession of Faith differs. It says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. How that differs from the Articles creates a field of meanings within which the UM conversation should take place. At least it seems to me.

Proclaiming Easter in Acts

So what does Easter mean?

Well, here is what the preachers in the Book of Acts said as they explained the meaning of the resurrection and the response it calls for:

Peter on Pentecost:

Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. … Repent and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:36, 38, NIV)

Peter before the Sanhedrin:

Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is the stone your builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:10-12, NIV)

Peter at the house of Cornelius:

He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. (Acts 10:42-24, CEB)

Paul in Pisidian Antioch:

We proclaim to you the good news. What God promised to our ancestors, he has fulfilled for us their children by raising up Jesus. … Therefore, brothers and sisters, know this: Through Jesus we proclaim forgiveness of sins to you. From all those sins from which you couldn’t be put in right relationship with God through Moses’ Law, through Jesus everyone who believes is put in right relationship with God. (Acts 13:32-33, 38-39, CEB)

Paul in Athens:

God overlooked ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives. This is because God has set a day when he intends to judge the world justly by a man he has appointed. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31, CEB)

 

It is more than morality

A man told me a few weeks ago about how concerned he was for another person, who I’ll call Joe. Joe is a good, moral man, but he does not have any particular belief in God. My friend was worried but also confused. He more or less equated “being a good person” with “being a Christian” and did not know how to deal with it when those two things did not go together.

I get the impression lots of Christians feel the same way. You hear lots of testimonies about how Jesus helped people clean up their act and become better people. And I don’t doubt that it happens. I know people who have had that experience. But “becoming a moral person” is not the end or aim of Christianity.

Many moral people are not Christians. I was a pretty good person long before I became a Christian. Christians are not immoral people, but being moral does not make a person a Christian. You can be moral and have no faith at all.

John Wesley often taught this exact thing. Look no further than standard sermon number two “The Almost Christian.” The whole point of that sermon is that you can be a moral, biblically literate, sincere, church going person who truly believes that Jesus Christ was a powerful teacher and prophet and still have missed the central point of it all. Being a Christian, Wesley preached, hangs on whether we have a sure trust and confidence that our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God.

Of course, we don’t follow Wesley in most things these days, but I do wonder if that leaves us with little answer to the man I mentioned at the start of this post. If Christianity is about the moral refinement of human beings and the material improvement of life on Earth, what does Christianity offer humanity that is not found in so many other places? If Jesus is a moral example — rather than a means of actual spiritual transformation — then why isn’t Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi just as useful?

If being a good Christian really is about being good, doing good, and showing up at church, then we really have no business bothering upstanding citizens with talk of Jesus. It is only if they are in need of something deeper than they can imagine that we can help them.

Jesus has the best signing

John Swinton recounts a story told in one of his classes in a book about disability and theology. The story is told by a deaf woman named Angela. It is about a dream she had.

In that dream she had met Jesus in heaven. She and Jesus talked for some time, and she had never experienced such peace and joy. “Jesus had been everything I had hoped he would be,” she said. “And his signing was amazing!“

The point of story for Swinton was that for Angela heaven was not a place where her deafness would be healed, but where it would be normal.

I have written from time to time before about the way my son Luc has opened my eyes and raised questions that I had never encountered before. He has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

What will Jesus be like for him? Will they sit down together on a cozy sofa in heaven with a remote control in one hand, a cup of milk with a bendy straw close by, and watch Star Wars movies or Mary Poppins? Will Jesus like the dancing chimney sweeps as much a Luc? Will they laugh together?

These questions delight and perplex me. They call into question my intellectual, cognitive Christianity.

Gustavo Gutierrez writes in his book We Drink From Our Own Wells that following Jesus starts first by having a spiritual experience — an encounter. We have an experience before we develop a theology. Gutierrez quotes Anselm saying that we do not understand God and then believe. First we believe, then we slowly come to understand.

I wonder what experiences God and Luc have shared. I so wish I understood. I am humbled by the thought that my conception of the life of the Spirit is so weak that it can scarcely imagine how Luc and God relate to each other. I am chastened by the arrogance that sometimes leads me to act as if the ways of God are fully understood by me.

I am grateful for another line that Swinton wrote in that book. It is about his own work. It goes like this:

Negotiating the world of disability and the world of people who don’t consider themselves disabled can be tragic, frustrating and deeply joyful at the same time!

Yes, we are all disabled in one way or another. What I do not know is which disabilities God heals and which are little more than labels for people who do not fit our idea of what a normal person is and does.