Delight and Song of Songs

 To celebrate Easter, we’ve been looking at the Song of Songs in our studies on Monday evenings. It’s a book that celebrates delight and human bodies, which is especially helpful in this time of a pandemic when life feels a little less delightful and moving our lives on to zoom has made us feel a little less embodied.

Song of Songs is a bit of a confusing book, at least partially because it’s an unusual genre in the Bible (e.g., a love poem) and Christianity has not always been very good at talking about sexuality. The following two reflections have helped us appreciate the text more fully.

Laura de Jong, who is a pastor, speaks passionately about how this Song awakens delight and longing in all of us, irrelevant of our marital status:

“Because this greatest of songs is about many things, but not just about human sexuality. And its not just an allegory of God’s relationship with his people. It’s also about longing, and excitement, and living deeply, and sucking the marrow out of life, and whimsy, and delight, and beauty, and language, and community. And it’s about God. What he has done, what he is doing, what he will do. The Song of Songs is an invitation to life.” Laura de Jong, “The Greatest of Songs.”

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury wrote a theologically profound article about sexuality and desire:

“Grace, for the Christian believer, is a transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted. The whole story of creation, incarnation and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ’s body tells us that God desires us, as if we were God, as if we were that unconditional response to God’s giving that God’s self makes in the life of the trinity. We are created so that we may be caught up in this; so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves God.” Rowan Williams, “The Body’s Grace.”

As the article is quite theologically dense, if you’d like some help understanding it, Debra Rienstra, a writer and professor, has summarized his work: Rowan William for dummies on sexuality.

originally posted at the Campus Edge blog 

Hope this Easter

 It has felt odd celebrating Easter this year, as it’s hard to celebrate when we do not get to be physically with many of those we care about. Besides the challenges of social distancing, more and more of us here in the United States are experiencing COVID-19 close up, either knowing someone who has become sick or becoming sick ourselves. There is tension between the sadness and uncertainty of this time and the hope and joy of Easter. 

Tish Harrison Warren has written an encouraging article in Christianity Today that proclaims the hope of Easter in the middle of the challenges of this time:

“The truth of the Resurrection is wild and free. It possesses us more than we could ever possess it and rolls on happily with no need of us, never bending to our opinions of it. If the claims of Christianity are true, they are true with or without me. . . . .

Believers and skeptics alike often approach the Christian story as if its chief value is personal, subjective, and self-expressive. We come to faith primarily for how it comforts us or helps us cope or lends a sense of belonging. However subtly, we reduce the Resurrection to a symbol or a metaphor. Easter is merely an inspirational tradition, a celebration of rebirth and new life that calls us to the best version of ourselves and helps give meaning to our lives. But the actualities that we now face in a global pandemic—the overwhelmed hospitals and morgues, the collapsing global economy, and the terrifying fragility of our lives—ought to put an end to any sentimentality about the Resurrection. . . .

I am a Christian today not because it answers all my questions about the world or about our current suffering. It does not. And not because I think it is a nice, coherent moral order by which to live my life. And not because I grew up this way or have fond feelings about felt boards and hymn sings. And not because it motivates justice or helps me to know how to vote. I am a Christian because I believe in the Resurrection. . . . If Jesus is risen in actual history, with all the palpability of flesh, fingers, bone, and blood, there is hope that our mourning will be comforted and that death will not have the final word.”

In honor of Easter, we’re going forward with a new study on Song of Songs. We start tonight. Join us! We’ll keep looking at Lamentations on Saturday, though, holding the tension of the sadness of this time.

originally published at the Campus Edge blog

Maundy Thursday - Thoughts on John 13

Two years ago I preached a sermon on John 13:1-15,34-35. The following are some thoughts from that sermon:


A number of churches and people continue the ritual of foot-washing on Maundy Thursday. If you have ever participated in a footwashing ceremony, you know that it’s a bit of an awkward experience. Feet are known, at worst, for their smell and, at best, for their usefulness in getting you around. There is something uncomfortable about getting on one’s hands and knees and touching someone else’s foot – or having someone touch your foot.

When we read this passage, we can easily gloss over the awkwardness of the footwashing. As everyone wore sandals and the roads were dusty and filled with garbage and animal dung, foot washing was an ordinary part of life back then. But if we look at the text, it doesn’t sound like what is happening is ordinary in any way.

The text describes in detail the foot washing. It describes how Jesus lay down his clothing to put on a serving towel. Within a few hours from this moment, Jesus’ clothing would be replaced with the kingly clothes in which the soldiers mock him and then his clothes would be stripped from him on the cross. Like Jesus lays down his clothing to wash his feet, Jesus, as the good shepherd, would lay down his life for his sheep. [cf John 10]

Jesus lay aside his clothing, poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. We recognize the strangeness of the actions through Peter’s interruption. Peter asks: Lord, are you really going to wash my feet? Even after Jesus assures Peter that he will later understand, Peter still adamantly refuses to have Jesus wash his feet. Even when Jesus makes it clear to Peter that refusing to have him wash his feet was the same as refusing to have any part with Jesus – even then, Peter doesn’t stop protesting. The protest simply shifts from Peter demanding that Jesus not wash any of him to demanding that Jesus wash all of him.

Peter’s response is perhaps not the most surprising part of the passage. After all, we, too, have the tendency to extremes. Often we live as people who don’t believe we need our feet washed – we act as if we’re fundamentally good folks who just happen to have some quirks. Or, we tend towards the other extreme – overwhelmed by how we have failed or seeing ourselves as worthless in God’s eyes. We so often forget the role of water in our lives – the power of the baptism in which we are brought into the community of God and Jesus’ continued ability to wash us of our sins.

The surprise in the passage is how Jesus responds. He does not sigh in exasperation at Peter’s extremes, nor at how the disciples don’t seem to recognize who he is and his love for them. Instead, Jesus simply explains what it means to follow him.

After showing them what love looks like, he explains that they, having had their feet washed by their Lord and teacher should now go out and wash one another’s feet. Later in the text, he puts this slightly differently. Just as Jesus had loved them, so they are to love one another.

Jesus’ love extends grace to them as they don’t understand; yet the grace also includes the invitation given in the footwashing – that they might have a part in him. While Jesus is not standing in front of us with a bowl of water to wash our feet, the invitation to have a part with Jesus extends also to us.

Having been washed by Christ, we are then invited to do as Jesus has done. Jesus has washed away the smelliness of our sins but has also reminded us of how our sinfulness doesn’t define us. We, just like our feet, have a purpose. We are to love as Jesus has first loved us.

The text notes that this is a new command, but it is hardly a new idea. Loving one’s neighbor was an important part of the Old Testament law. [Leviticus 19:18, 35] The newness of the command is not in what it is telling us to do but about how we are to go about it. Because of Jesus’ love for the disciples – and us – we are able to go out and live fully into the impossible command of loving our neighbors – not on our own strength but because of Christ’s deep love for us. Just like Jesus’ feet were anointed, so Jesus’ footwashing anoints us to the work of sharing the good news.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

2 Kings 5 in the time of COVID-19

When I started washing my hands so much that they dried out for the first time in my life, I started pondering 2 Kings 5, especially v. 13 where Naaman's "servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”” 

The following are some of my thoughts: 

If I had been asked to do something hard,

I would have done it with conviction.

Especially if it meant saving someone’s life.

Luther argues that we are not to flee from plague.

We, especially us in ministry, are to ‘remain steadfast before the peril of death.’

Tending the sick would be like tending Christ himself. 

But instead I am asked to wash my hands again and again.

Singing some silly song so I do it long enough.

And to stay home and stay away from other people.

Where are the heroics in that?

It seems so little.

And even almost cowardly.

As if I’m afraid of illness and death.

Yet if it’s so little,

Why do I chafe under these requirements?

Why do I protest against it so strongly?

Why do I want to turn away in anger, like Naaman in 2 Kings 5?

If I had been commanded something difficult, would I have not done it?

How much more then, when only this little is being asked of me?

Wash, be clean, keep others clean.

Wash and be clean.

Rearrange the way you look at the world.

For Naaman, the command was an invitation.

Humble yourself,

wash yourself in the dirty river of this other country,

follow the seemingly arbitrary commands of this prophet and his God.

Recognize that all your best efforts cannot save you.

God alone does the impossible.

Wash your hands, stay home.

Let go of your plans.

Recognize how little control you have over the future.

Deny yourself

Trusting that God can use this seemingly small effort to save lives.

Naaman returns to the prophet healed.

Deeply thankful, ready to make a great sacrifice.

Except he is not allowed to pay for the gift he received.

A reminder again

that no matter how mighty we are

God does not need our help.

God meets us in our humanity

The gracious gift of a piece of earth so that we can align ourselves with God

While not needing to give up everything in our lives.

An ancient sort of technology.

Allowing Naaman to remain with those he cared about.

While continuing in thankfulness for the gift he received.

Our gifts today are internet, computers, zoom and Netflix,

Keeping us connected to those we love

Allowing us to keep meeting together.

For the request to stay home is hardly easy.

Being human means being in community.

The lack of physical presence

Requires each of us to go a little against who

We are created to be.

Naaman didn’t learn humility in a day.

It started with the quiet voice of a servant girl

And the humility required to listen to her.

It all began with a stranger.

A foreign captive in Naaman’s house.

Who spoke up and was heard

Who brought words of hope

A promise of the impossible

In a time when distancing makes helping hard

When every other could be a potential threat

And even those I love

Are disrupting the order of my life.

How does one keep loving and listening?

When I’m turning in on myself

With barely enough energy left over for me,

How do I care for those who are part of my communities?

my next door neighbors?

Let alone the foreigner

and the potential threat.

This illness that spreads through being connected.

How does my physical distance

Not become emotional and spiritual distance?

But that is not what the servant girl did.

She spoke up.

Naaman listened.

Elisha intervened.

God acted.

And so the impossible happened.

Stay at home. Help others.

It sounds so simple.

Yet, just like with Naaman, it asks so much more of us.

It sounds like nothing heroic,

except to throw my whole life into chaos

Rearranging all of our schedules,

Cancelling all my plans,

Confronting me with how little control I have,

Offering up my whole life to you.

The command has become the gift.

Let go of my efforts.

Trust in those of God.

And look forward to the day when this experience

Is behind us.

When we once again live fully in community.

And this experience is like the dirt that Naaman brought home.

A complicated piece of truth

To remind us of what we ought to be bowing down to.

Not our own control and plans.

But the one who controls all.

For such a time as this

When the wonderful person who has become your daughter's 'borrowed oma' gives you jello, which she'd gotten from lovely old lady who had to downsize and didn't want it to go to waste, you take it and say thank-you.

Despite the fact that you can't imagine ever wanting to make jello with your child and you marvel at how old the jello actually is, you cover it in a plastic bag and put it in your cupboard. And let it sit there for another year or so. Because you hate to waste food and you never know. 

After all, you might just end up in the middle of a pandemic when making jello with a 2-year-old sounds like a fantastic idea and you're kind of curious about how well powdered jello lasts after 25 years...

Coronavirus and Quarantine – Takeaways from Veritas Forum (held on Mar 24)

 On March 24, Veritas held a Virtual forum on Coronavirus and Quarantine: What Big Questions Can We Be Asking? featuring David Brooks, Andy Crouch, Lydia Dugdale, and Andrew Schuman.

Mitchell and I both found that the Veritas Forum generated an inspiring discussion about learning from past national tragedies, seeking signs of hope, and developing creative ways to be community. The following are some notes that we (primarily Mitchell) took. We encourage you to listen to it yourself (as well as the following conversations).

The first bit of the conversation focused on gleaning insights from past pandemics. While pandemics can lead to isolation and fear of other people, they can also teach us what it means to be together. The main precedents we have are the plague and the 1918 Spanish flu. In 1918, WWI also ended and, with it, the idea that “life has meaning” passed away. What’s the logic in living if your neighbor dies? Many would argue that the Great War was the time when “Europe stopped believing in God.”

Will we see a cultural transformation as the result of this pandemic? The human vocation is the shared activity of creation and stewarding the earth. Going back to “business as usual” too soon or too late could have consequences.

How do countries hold together in times of crisis? Historically, countries do well when there is high social trust, trust in institutions, integrated population, and a sense of togetherness. Unfortunately, the US has struggled on all of these fronts. To compare, after the bombing of London, social connection increased and Churchill gave moral meaning to the war by fighting fascism. An important part of the situation now is that an overwhelmed healthcare system forces difficult ethical decisions on doctors. The role of the doctor is to alleviate suffering and care for everyone but sometimes doctors are forced to make difficult decisions, which results in suffering for some (e.g., potentially limiting care for pandemic victims or through limiting resources for ongoing medical issues and potentially increasing suicide cases).

One sign of hope in all of this is that people are wrestling with big problems. Times of crises also encourage social innovation (e.g. the Great Depression). In this “great reset” we can now ask “was normal that great?” In particular, Generation Z will likely become more aware of mortality and ask “what matters to me?” When we are confronted with death it can shape us to want to “invest in living.” When we remove certainty from our to-do list we are liberated.

A remarkable claim in Christianity and Judaism is that “God is active in the contingencies of history,” including the worst events. There is nothing worse than “the neighboring empire conquering your small nation, burning your temple, taking away your beautiful things and embarking on cultural genocide.” It is hard to imagine a more dire time than post-exile for Israel: “How can we sing the song of Zion?” (Ps. 137). The amazing witness of the Hebrew Bible is that God was there and there is a way to sing songs of hope. One positive outcome in the case of Israel was a national recognition of sin. Whatever your worst case scenario is, God is present and unlocking possibility.

As people of faith, the exile becomes part of our story. While in captivity Jews are told to “contribute to the health of city.” This is the formation of a creative minority, a call to be separate but not isolated. Another religious idea present in most religions is that suffering is redemptive. It destroys the ego. “Suffering carves through the basement of the soul,” and only “spiritual and relational food will fill this void.” Lament is also “the seed of genuine creative action.” Writing a lament that cries out and reaffirms trust in God unlocks creative power. We can anchor our creative work in the injustice in the world and a trust in God. Creativity is birthed out of the pain and groaning of the world.

In response to questions, it was noted that resilience is not having “good thoughts.” It is about discovering the stress and viewing it as a challenge instead of a threat. Suffering hurts you unless you can attach it to a narrative of redemption. Christ’s example in the garden (“take this cup from me”) suggests that we can mourn and grieve and ask for it go away, but it ought to be coupled with “not my will, but thine.” Rather than a surrender to fate, this is saying, “it’s not my life.”  So when you pray don’t ask for it to go away, ask what is “spiritually most useful to transpire.”

originally published at the Campus Edge blog