The resurrection body: an Easter meditation

In 1667, the city of Dubrovnik, which sits on the Adriatic Sea, was drowned.* During the earthquake which caused it, the sea receded from the harbor four times leaving it dry, then rushed back to slam against the cliffs and docks and the ships that moored there. At least 5,000 people died. A good deal of the city was ruined. The Cathedral was destroyed. The Marketplace obliterated.  The famous library housed at the Franciscan monastery was lost.

I have not lived through a devastation such as this. Perhaps I can get some sense of it through the power of imagination, but I cannot know unless I live through it. I can have some sympathy for those who suffer, but I do not know the struggle to survive in the way the survivors of the disaster know it. This is true of any cataclysmic disaster, such as the one the swamped Japan this year, or the loss of the twin towers in New York City. If it did not touch my life directly, I might be aware of it, but I do not KNOW it.

Many aspects of life are like this. I have to live life to gain the knowledge I need. I cannot know in a good deal of cases unless I keep choosing to live in spite of what I do not yet know.

Here is an example: when I was young I conceived of marriage as the place I could finally, legally have sex. I didn’t know anything, really, about the deeper power of intimacy after many years of partnership with my wife, and how much more profound, tender and meaningful sexual expression would be as a result. I had to live it to know it. People could tell me about it who had lived it. I could try to imagine it. I could argue against those who doubted its importance, or whose experience was otherwise, but it would only have been an argument by faith rather than by knowledge of having that faith become reality.

We find another example in entrepreneurship. Can I really know what owning my business is like until I actually do so? Can I truly understand the extra hours it requires and the new responsibilities that accompany new freedoms until I become an owner? Probably not. I can imagine what it would be like. I can listen to the stories of entrepreneurs who succeeded and failed and try to make sure I don’t repeat their mistakes. Even then I won’t really know until I live the adventure of ownership.

We might wonder what it will be like to have a new pastor at the helm of a congregation. We might try to grasp what it would be like to sit in the boss’ chair, or to live in another city, or to make more money. We could try to imagine what it is like to be a grandparent or to retire or to own a boat–any of these life experiences we have not yet had–but we won’t really have knowledge about them and we certainly can’t testify about their reality–until we actually live them.

Perhaps the greatest of these arenas is death and the afterlife. Even if you read a believable account of someone who died and was resuscitated and found themselves in the very court of heaven in between, you don’t really have personal and intimate knowledge of death, the resurrection and eternal life with God until your adventure in living takes you there.

In such moments where we know that we don’t know something, we have to choose who and what we will believe, living in faith that those who have been there already are reliable and motivated by their desire to minister to us by passing along their wisdom. In such moments we have to know that we don’t know, and live in faith regarding those who do.

I think of it as if I live on the backside of a tapestry with all its tangled, colored strings. I have to trust that there is an ordered and beautiful picture on the other side. If I study the backside of the tapestry, I might get some sense of it, maybe enough to recognize the real picture when I finally see it, but I still do not know what it is really like until I do. Still, I know enough from what I do see to trust that it is really there.

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Living with this kind of faith is a spiritual discipline–a way of living humbly and offering what you know for the benefit of others, even while they offer what they know and you don’t so that you too can benefit. For instance, I do not know very much about soil composition and how its health is maintained for the benefit of food production. I am glad for those who do know, however, and for those who treat this is holy work done for the glory of God.

Perhaps you don’t know very much about how to lead groups in making decisions–groups like a church family. Yet, you can agree, can’t you, that trusting people who do now how to lead groups in decision-making is far more desirable than repeating methods you know do not work and only end in greater conflict?

And here is one of the most sensitive of them all: letting others into your hurt. Some of us live with hurt because we think  no one knows what it is like for us. The result is we don’t really know what mercy, forgiveness or compassion are like, because we can’t imagine that other people have had similar experiences and could be sorrowful alongside us. As a result, instead of weeping together in our great disappointments, or instead of sharing together the joy of forgiveness and resurrected hope, we end up being hard on another. We get all legalistic and impatient and judgmental with those we falsely think do not understand us, and this reinforces the belief among us that no-one understands and makes us even more intolerant of each other.

The apostle Paul takes on this issue of fear because of lack of knowledge in his first letter to the Corinthians. Some Corinthians Christians were uncomfortable with the idea of a resurrection and eternal life with God. Because they did not witness the resurrection of Jesus why should they be expected to believe such a thing could happen? More specifically, if a resurrection was promised to them, just how would it work? They knew bodies aged, deteriorated and expired. They had never seen a body re-fashioned and refreshed. So, even though they were Christians, they kept challenging the possibility of the resurrection, demanding that someone explain the mechanics of how a resurrection was conducted, and the makeup of the resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15:35).

Paul’s response was, “That is a foolish question!”

Take a moment and go back through the list of subjects we’ve discussed already this morning. We’ve considered subjects like how one deals with cataclysmic catastrophe, prepares for marriage, decides to own a business, or becomes a joyful grandparent. Is it wrong to wonder such things? In most cases, no. But to use our questions as a means of avoiding the risk of loving someone, or putting our gifts to work for others, or using gifts God wants to give us is wrong. It is foolish to refuse to live simply because we are afraid of living! What kind of life is it to die before you are dead? How does that bring any glory to God?

This is the type of foolishness Paul speaks against. Just because a person doesn’t have direct, personal knowledge of something doesn’t mean they can’t have faith in those who do. Why deny the possibility of a resurrection just because one has not yet died personally, been resurrected or seen a resurrected person? There were too many witnesses to the resurrected Jesus to simply throw the story away, and Paul takes pains to document the list of those witnesses.

And just because one does not yet have a resurrection body does not mean there is no resurrection body. Why waste time demanding to have knowledge that one cannot yet have? It is better to understand why it is we do not yet have such knowledge (because haven’t yet lived long enough), and to trust that life will eventually bring that knowledge to us just as it has to others.

In this case, the Corinthians were foolish to focus on the material makeup of a resurrection body when such a body does not come from the construction of a fallen and corrupt world. Imagine what it would be like to be resurrected with this deteriorating body we have now. That would be much more a picture of hell. This is Paul’s point too. He tells us the body we carry now is rooted in corrupt Adam and a human race that is stained by sin, but the body to come will be rooted in the one who destroyed all these things and who has the power to redeem and make all things new. And here is a fact that some of us know better than others: the longer we live and the closer we get to our grave, the more we know how frail this body is and the more we anticipate going home to be with God even while we continue in loving service to others here on this earth.

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We end up avoiding so much of the joy that life could send us because, like the Corinthians, we ask such foolish questions–not just about the resurrection, but about many things and all because we are afraid of what we do not know.

• We say don’t know enough to make a decision. So we keep on delaying what we know would be good for us.
• We keep asking for someone to confirm the truth of a matter to us, even though many people have already confirmed it. We are too comfortable with the undesirable reality to have to reach out and embrace the more desirable reality that might be available.
• We deny that something is possible only because we have not yet seen it ourselves. This type of blind denial often leaves us looking more foolish than ever.

Let’s get even more specific. The apostle Paul says asking what the resurrection body will be like completely misses the point. Here are other questions we are likely to ask that are all too familiar, and which keep us from enjoying the fullness of life granted because of the resurrection of Jesus:

1. Tithing? What if I run out of money?
2. Volunteer for the church? What if it requires too much of my time?
3. Who would I be if I stopped (choose one or more of the following: holding grudges, feeling sorry for myself, letting my illness be an excuse for my behavior, letting my druthers rule my happiness, etc.)?
4. Get married? What if the one who loves me gets all ugly or gets sick and cannot work?
5. How can God really love me given all the bad I have done?
6. How will I know this is the job God has for me?
7. Is peacemaking really possible in this violent world?

These are foolish and misdirected questions because you and I cannot know the answer on this side of the question. To find the answer we must live into them.

–We cannot know the blessings of God’s provision until we first begin living a firstfruits lifestyle.

–We cannot know the joy of sacrificial service among God’s people until a church family is our first family.

–We cannot experience transformation as a person without letting go of the old, familiar self and the way it operates.

–Spouses cannot know the fullness of giving and receiving in marriage until they actually begin doing so (This is a word of advice for married and for those considering it). We can also point to those who determine to enjoy the single life as a chaste servant of God. We can’t know what that is like until we begin living into that enjoyment.

–We cannot know the full extent of God’s love if we still hold to our will and our self as the chief master.

–We cannot know how God will work through us in our work–any type of work–until we seek to do God’s will–what we already know to be God’s will–wherever we are and whatever we are doing.

–The quiet strength of peacemaking will be unknown to us until we give it a try in the face of violence.

It is Easter. Now is the time we remember that God conquered death and the grave. We cannot know our resurrection body yet, but we can start living according to what we already know about life on the topside of the tapestry God creates for us. As people of faith we can embrace what we do not yet know and be people who not only have hope, but offer hope to the hopeless, strength for the weak, and good news to those who think they are too lost or too broken to be rescued.  A-men.

-mark l vincent

*Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: a Journey Through Yugoslovia, New York: Penguin, 1940

Not letting go of the gospel

Reflections from 1 Corinthians 15:1,2

 

An often told fable within Islam is when the cat said “I am going to take a hajj.” The hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca that good Muslims desire to complete as one of the pillars of Islam. Upon the cat’s return from his hajj, the mice wondered whether the cat really had transformed from his former sinful ways. The king of mice decided he should pay his respects, but the other mice remained suspicious and did not go. The mouse king found the cat in prayer, but upon seeing the mouse the cat pounced. The king barely escaped.

When the mouse king returned, the mice asked him if the cat had changed his ways.  The king said, “The cat prays like a hajji, but he pounces like a cat.”

This fable reminds us how hard it is for true transformation to take place. Each of us is born a pagan, and the pagan remains close by, even as we grow in faith and practice.

The word pagan can mean a person without religion, and that is the sense in which I use it here. Even though I am a Christian, there are moments I think and act as if I have no faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ. I act as if no transformation is present in my life. In truth, all too often, I pray like a Christian, but then pounce like a pagan.

This uncompleted transformation is the Apostle Paul’s concern for the Corinthian church as he writes the letter we call 1 Corinthians, and especially the passage we mark as 15:1-2.

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. (NASU)

I’ve already mentioned that pagan can mean holding to no religion. The word also refers to belief in many gods and practicing this belief in ways that monotheistic religions consider unholy—such as child sacrifice or ritualized sex. Both definitions of pagan surrounded the Christians in Corinth. Outside the church walls were many temples to many gods, and many prostitutes who served those gods. Inside the church walls were people who distorted the gospel in many ways—from forcing competition among church leaders that led to church division (ch. 3), to celebrating their tolerance of an incestuous relationship (ch. 5), to suing each other and thus ruining their testimony to pagans (ch.6), to not understanding the place of marriage within the Christian community (ch.7), to disputing whether food offered to idols made one more or less of a Christian (ch. 8), to a myriad of issues about the reason for, the order or and the appropriate conduct of worship services (ch.11 ff).  Like me and like you, there were many ways for the Corinthian Christians to pray like Christians, but to live as if they did not believe in the God who makes salvation possible in Jesus Christ.

Several times in this letter, Paul points to our Christian faith as an integrating and transforming principle for all of life, each time appealing to the pervasive power of the gospel message.  One of the best known is found in 10:31 at the conclusion of his discussion about food offered to idols:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (NIV)

And here, as Paul opens his great discourse on the resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, he reminds this church he loves so much that the gospel is the center of whatever they do.

• He preached this gospel to them. That is why they even exist as a church.
• They received this gospel. That is why they formed a church.
• They took their stand on this gospel. That is why their church was different than the many pagan temples around them.
• They were being saved because of this gospel. Paul deliberately uses a form of the verb “saved” to demonstrate that their salvation in the gospel was an ongoing process. They were saved and they were being saved. Their church fellowship and unity needed to be strong in order to keep a proper focus on the gospel. Paul states they must hold firmly to it.

 

If these Christians lost sight of the gospel, the work of preaching it, and the results of belief in it would be in vain.

 

Paul repeats the gospel message frequently in his writings, and he does so here in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff so that there is no mistaking what he means before he launches more fully into his discourse on the resurrection of Jesus. Paul serves as an example for all leaders of why frequent repetition of a mission statement is so critical to getting that sense of mission into the fabric of an organization. The gospel is the mission, and living it out is the core of all mission-related activity for the Christian. By taking our stand on it, repeatedly; by calling it to mind repeatedly; by reminding each other of what it is and what it means, repeatedly, we are more likely to stop pouncing like pagans, and to keep praying and serving like Christians.

 

For now, let’s note that the gospel is a little different between how Jesus preached it and how the apostles preached it.

• Jesus and John the Baptist: “The time has come . . .The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15 NIV).

• Peter at Pentecost: “ God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of this fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. . . .Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. . . .Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:32-39 NIV).

• Paul at Athens: “. . .now [God] calls all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17: 30,31 NIV).

 

When John the Baptist and Jesus, preached the gospel, they looked forward to the act of salvation God was bringing. When the apostles and early Christians preached the gospel, however, they looked back to the events of the crucifixion that brought salvation, the resurrection that showed God’s power over death, and the ascension that exalts Jesus as part of the Triune God, who intercedes for us, pours out his Spirit upon us, and is preparing a place for us. Thus, once the act of bringing salvation was complete, the content of the gospel expanded naturally and accordingly.

In essence, Jesus says, “Here I am!” For the apostles and we who represent this third generation of Christianity[i] the message is “the resurrection happened!”  This is especially important to the Apostle Paul and for his conversation here as he sets down the resurrection as the reason the gospel is reliable. For Paul, if there is no resurrection there is no gospel. If the Corinthians stopped believing in the gospel, then, they might slip all the way back into paganism.

Further discussion on this subject can dip deep into theology and quickly lose those of us who don’t make a habit of reading 2,000 page books in a 10 point font.  Here is a diagram I developed to try to convey it in a simpler fashion:

 

Each of us has a region of what we care about. For the non-religious person (pagan) or the person whose religious impulse is to try to stay out of a god’s notice, the region is care of self. While this sentiment exists in all places, times and cultures, never has it been so refined a notion as the philosophical work of Fredrick Nietzsche in the 19^th century, and the economic theory offered by Milton Friedman and the Chicago school alongside Ayn Rand’s utopian writings such as Atlas Shrugged in the 20^th. The influence of the individual self as over and above all else held great sway in both U.S. and global economic policy since the Reagan years. It serves as at least one significant contributing factor to the economic turmoil we have faced recently—especially the emphasis on short-term results at the expense of long-term relationships with customers, workers and vendors.

The pagan cares about their welfare and will sacrifice yours without thought in order to feel more secure and to get what they want.

A higher level of care is when one cares about their progeny. This might be direct, biological descendants, or people with whom you have significant relationship because you hired them or taught them. In this sense, progeny might also be a thing—such as a business you built or a book you wrote. This is the approach taken by the Sadducees in Jesus’ day. It is also the impulse behind loyalty to the clan or tribe or ethnic group we see continuing to operate in much of the Middle East, the Balkan region and throughout Africa.  And for those of you, who like me, share Scotch-Irish ancestry, let’s not forget that the Hatfields and McCoy’s continued their clannish feud here in the U.S. until at least the 1890’s.

The Sadducee doesn’t believe in the resurrection, or at least it doesn’t matter to her or his values. The closest thing to eternal life they can see is the importance of continuing their family—passing along the values taught by their ancestors. Thus, the Sadducee is deeply concerned that enemies are sidelined or even vanquished so that the people they are part of are not threatened and their way of life continues.

In contrast to the pagan and the Sadducee is the Christian whose region of care rises higher still, to that of one’s neighbor, and we know from the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) that our neighbor can be the very person who threatens our self-preservation, or the enemy who threatens the well-being of our people group. According to Jesus, his followers love their neighbors as themselves (Luke 10:27). According to the apostles, those who received the gospel feed their enemy and slake his or her thirst, overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:20,21). And according to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, the fuel underneath it all—that which makes it all real and worthwhile—is the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. Because it is real, and because we immerse ourselves in it, we keep preaching and living the gospel as servants of the world, not just ourselves or our families. It is because of this resurrection that the entire universe gathers around the throne of God and sings this song of praise to the Resurrected One:

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,

Because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God

From every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,

And they will reign on the earth.”

(Revelation 5:9,10) NIV

In v. 2, Paul states his concern that to lose this perspective is to lose the power of the gospel. Postmodern thinking and culture is also moving into a post Christian way of thinking and living. Moving beyond the gospel, we regress to thinking at best about our progeny, and at worst, just about ourselves. Paul contends it is much easier to move forward and up than it is backwards and up. Remaining resident with our Christian calling, then, requires a persistent articulation of and reflection upon the gospel. It is difficult to claim it again if we once chose to abandon it.

The understanding we should hold after considering all this, is that the resurrection is proof of God at work in redeeming the world, and that it gives us a reason to keep articulating and reflecting upon the gospel. The power within the gospel saves me personally, satisfying my pagan interest. It brings hope for my family and peoplehood, satisfying the love held by the Sadducee impulse. And, it places me in a position to see as God sees and act as God acts.

Friends, I want to remind you of the gospel. It has been preached to you. You received it. You chose to make a stand on it. This gospel brings you salvation and keeps you oriented in the place you truly belong. Hold firmly to it. Don’t let go of it, or all this effort is in vain.

-mark l vincent

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[i] The first generation is those who witnessed Jesus on earth. The second generation is those Christians reached by those who were witness to Jesus. We in the third generation are those who did not witness the life and ministry of Jesus, and did not learn about the gospel from those who did.

 

Who gets to speak for God?

Early in ministry I wrote a graduate school paper on women in ministry. I learned what wading into controversial waters meant because my professor flunked half of my paper for the theological pre-supposition of starting the argument with eschatology, although he gave me an “A” for my logic from there. At the same time, my conference minister made the paper available to the pastors of the conference because he found it to offer refreshing insight. Go figure. It was about this time that the theologian Tom Finger published his two-volume theology that started with eschatology. Go figure again.

Although the argument of gender roles in ministry is well settled for some into either conservative or progressive camps, it continues heartily for other congregations. Here is a sermon presented recently for one such family of believers:

WHO GETS TO SPEAK FOR GOD?

In our Scripture readings this morning, two texts are placed side by side. Acts 2 presents the apostle Peter’s explanation of what the Holy Spirit did and will do. People of all genders and ages who are filled with this Spirit will prophesy, proclaiming the good news of God’s saving work through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit’s action was the fuel behind the spectacular wonder of the Pentecost event.   The second text, near the end of 2 Corinthians 14, comes at the end of a substantial lecture from the apostle Paul on the use of spiritual gifts so that orderly worship might be maintained. Corinthian Christians, to whom he writes, had numerous issues that affected worship-competing over their favorite teachers, abandoning their marriages and getting drunk at the Lord’s table, for instance. Plenty of disorder there! Apparently some women were disorderly as well, although we are not told the why or what in a direct way. To address this Paul wants women not to speak and to restrict their discourse to conversation with their husbands at home. He appeals to the order of creation and the penalty of sin handed out at the Garden of Eden as the reason why.

Studied individually, these texts might seem to provide entirely different pictures. Studied side by side, we end up with a question: Who gets to speak for God, especially when the church meets for worship?

A pastor faced with controversial questions in their congregation knows immediately that their relationships are in jeopardy. No matter what they say someone will take offense. Say nothing and someone is offended. Say something and people in the congregation look to have their views confirmed. If not, there is offense.

With many such questions, Christian people are uninterested in how the Bible is interpreted in a faithful manner. They simply want their views confirmed. We are considering such a question today. As we work through the material it is important that we proceed with your understanding that I intend to be faithful not provocative, and with a commitment on your part not to be easily provoked. Together we might then consider the witness of Scripture.

The accompanying chicken-scratched diagram taken from one of my journals shows three ways many faithful Christians approach scriptural interpretation. Each one leads to a different response to the question, “Who gets to speak for God?” A fourth, that of disregarding the biblical text altogether, is not for our consideration in this study even though this is an approach many of us take for many dimensions of our lives.

I.   This first approach tends not to trust human experience as a reliable guide. Instead, the Bible provides a corral fence that governs one’s life. This type of biblical structure helps many people whose lives were wild and godless find forgiveness, health and help. This corralled point of view looks for biblical commands and tries to follow them without question because a person gets better results following these instructions than when they were their own moral guide. It isn’t necessarily legalistic, although a corral can become like a second type of law for some, and an inappropriate platform from which to judge the faithfulness of others.

II.  The second approach (the middle one in the diagram) brings a person’s life experience or their important questions to Scripture, looking for principles that helps them understand what happened to them, how they should live, or what answers they might find. You might map this as life–to faith–to life. the person starts with life experience, moves to the Scriptures for specific counsel, then seeks to apply what they learn (which makes for new life experiences). The Scriptures, then, are a funnel through which a person passes, hoping for guidance. This approach can get very topical and subjective, especially when the interpreter slices and dices rather than stepping back to look at the overall guidance of Scripture.

As a preacher, I normally avoid the second approach because I am committed to explaining biblical passages far more than preaching on pet topics. Even still, important concerns come before us that drive us to discover what Scripture says–this question of who speaks for God, for instance. As I trained for ministry, Dr. David Biberstine taught me a method of working with the whole of the biblical message in such a case. Once the related passages are considered in their entirety, the student of the scriptures drills down to guiding principles. This style brings this second style of biblical interpretation into the orbit of the third which I will show you now.

III.  The third style can be described as faith to life (the bottom picture in the diagram). In this case the Scripture funnels through me as I make myself open to receive it. Rather than conform myself to the Scriptures without discernment as in the first style, or choosing which Scripture to study based on my felt desire or need as in the second style, the Scriptures form me as I systematically study, ask questions, discern and am open to the insights of others.

This third style has its own danger–that of reverencing the Bible ahead of the God who gives us its message. Someone with my commitment to biblical exposition must keep their guard against bibliolatry.

To use this third style well I start with the whole of scripture, not parts in isolation. Even when working with a specific text, I labor to keep the perspective of the larger scriptural narrative. I must also do my best to suspend my preferences and pray for insight that God’s Spirit will guide my preparation.

This style works well with systematic exposition of the Scriptures, The difference between it and the first style is that style 1 expects questions to be settled and no longer questioned, whereas style 3 assumes we are never done learning, discerning and finding new light. The difference between it and the second style is that style 2 expects that my questions determine which Scriptures will be studied, whereas style 3 puts the Scriptures in the position of examining me.

All three come with intentions to be faithful but lead believers to different conclusions about our question of who speaks for God. The first approach usually concludes that until Jesus returns men do the speaking for God–especially among a worshiping community. Paul tells women to keep quiet after all. The second approach tends to follow the dominant set of experiences within the congregation, often alienating those who do not share those experiences. If there are no women leaders, then men continue to lead. If women have positive experiences in leadership elsewhere, and tell the stories of how they sensed God working through them, then over time the Scriptures begin to be discerned differently. The third style, which I admit is my style of preference, offers an alternative I invite you to consider this morning–especially as a way for faithful Christians of many preferences to live together in unity and common mission. Let’s dig a little deeper.

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Rightly or wrongly, here are three principles of Biblical interpretation I follow as I prepare to preach and teach. They are especially useful when dealing with what appear to be differences within various Biblical texts. I find them to be a consistent and faithful framework. I share them knowing that someone here might disagree with me, and fully aware that other competent Bible teachers use different frameworks in their desire to be faithful.

1.Distinguish between direct and indirect references.

2.Rely on clear intent over implied meaning.

3.Defer to Jesus.

Let’s consider each more carefully.

Distinguish between direct and indirect messages. Let’s return to the two passages we are considering. The Acts passage gives a direct message of explanation of the events of Pentecost:  people of all ages and genders are going to be filled with the Spirit and prophesy. Paul’s long treatise on spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12-14) offers a repeated and direct message: orderly worship takes precedence over the exercise of YOUR spiritual gift. Each correction Paul asks for is in light of this direct message. Paul expects a servanthood that promotes the gospel, even if you or I must set aside our rights to do so. These direct messages are the heart of these texts and should be the heart of our faithful interpretation. They take precedence over any other message we might find there. Indirect messages we draw from passages, such as the role of women or men  in ministry, should not be the base for doctrinal teaching.

Rely on clear intent over implied meaning. This is especially true in trying to understand the connection of a specific text within the full scope of the biblical narrative.

CLEAR INTENT– in Acts 2, Peter’s words about who will prophesy did not originate with him. They come from the prophet Joel, looking ahead to the time after Messiah lives on earth and brings redemption. Passages like this one in Acts and the one that precedes it in Joel, point to God’s redeeming work and how it overcomes the penalties of sin given to men and women after the fall. One of my favorite such passages is Isaiah 65:17-25. It too points to God working to undo the results of Eden. One can even find the apostle Paul preaching this theme:

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:21-29 NIV).

I cannot locate the original source, but I have a quote written in my bible next to the curses of Eden in Genesis 3. It is from a favorite author of mine, Em Griffin, a former communications professor at Wheaton College. He writes, “there is no question women were relegated to a submissive role as a result of the fall. Pain and childbirth and hard toil in the fields were also tragic outcomes. But there is no reason to perpetuate the fruit of sin. We don’t object to anesthetic during labor or tractors to till the land on theological grounds, why then gulp hard at women giving direction to men?”

By laying these passages of God overcoming the penalty and curses of sin beside one another, we find a clear understanding that the genders are deeply similar but not completely identical. The different genders experience sin and overcoming sin in similar and differing ways. The God we worship offers salvation and the filling of the Holy Spirit to them all.

IMPLIED–Someone studying the Pentecost event of Acts 2 might notice that public, marketplace preaching was effective in 1st century Jerusalem. This is an implication, however, not what the passage was written to convey. That same student, if considering 2 Corinthians 14, might notice that something gender related was happening in the worship services of congregations Paul founded, because Paul otherwise models Jesus’ approach (see below). Even still, trying to use 2 Corinthians 14 to prove or disprove who gets to speak for God moves into implied meaning and away from messages that are direct and clear.  The message about God redeeming women and men that they might carry his message far outweighs the secondary themes of marketplace sermons as a technique, or just what it was the Corinthian women did that was so disruptive.

Defer to Jesus. Jesus is the one to whom we defer when passages seem to offer different directions. Some Christian traditions defer to Moses as the means to interpret Jesus, some traditions start with the apostle Paul as the point of reference. Who you start with makes a difference in the conclusions you reach, even though each one takes Scripture seriously. Deferring to Jesus absolutely does not mean we throw away or disregard what certain biblical texts say, but that we seek to understand them in the light of what Jesus tells us and exemplifies for us.

Here is a practical for instance: let’s say I have an older sister who wants to be the boss of me.  She tells me to mow the lawn and take out the trash because she knows these are my responsibilities, but my mother tells me to take out the trash, mow the lawn and make my bed. These are differing instructions and differing sequences, but they are not opposed to one another. I can do what either one says without being disobedient. Still, one of these voices is the more significant authority in my life and I do best by seeking clarity from mom. The biblical interpretation model I follow is that I seek clarity from Jesus.

Using this principle, we can look at passages like John 4 where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman by the well. We learn that Jesus:

•Engages women and men directly.

•Establishes and offers the kingdom, available to all men and women.

•Works to remove the penalties of sin for all men and women.

•Commissions his disciples to be witnesses and disciple makers everywhere. Although the twelve were men, we are given a clear picture that his community of disciples included many women, that the first witnesses of his resurrection were women carrying the message to the disciples, and that women and men formed the first Jerusalem congregation.

In the case of the Samaritan woman, she becomes the means by which her entire village is introduced to Jesus. She was the primary carrier of the message.

***********

There are many aspects of this conversation we might consider. Perhaps you want to go further and carry this into who gets to be ordained to ministry, or the role of women and men in marriage. The topic at the moment is narrower, however, regardless of the implications. The purpose now is to consider who gets to speak for God, and using this method of trying to grasp the biblical scope and draw related principles before we answer, we discover the answer is those persons filled with the Spirit of God. This is not the conclusion everyone will reach. If you disagree it is incumbent upon you to join me in this search to understand the witness of scripture in our lives. No one need feel alienated or shut out if they want a more conservative or open approach than I have taken.

And let us remember for all controversial conversations such as these:

• Our competition is not Christians who reach different conclusions. Our competition is warmongering, poverty, the theft of freedom, sexual slavery, recruiting people into sinful and destructive lifestyles, and all that we might put in the register of evil.

• Congregations are made up of people who use different approaches to studying scriptures, sometimes even mixing and matching them to suit the conversation. We have to find a way of living together in our diverse approaches to being faithful.

• We bridge these differences in our embrace of the gospel, through submission to Scriptural direction and mutual accountability. Thus, a Christian congregation is well served to not set up an authoritarian structure (which historically has been filled by men), who lord authority over women and the congregation via lifetime appointments to the role. Neither is it well served by a laissez-faire structure where we all have a say to the point that each individual gets to be an autocrat and leadership roles are filled with people who must do what pleases ahead of what is right if they want to be effective. Instead, we must create structures that keep the gospel at the front of everything, and where women and men work together in mutual submission to Jesus Christ who teaches us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.

This is important for a congregation calling its next pastor. Who gets to speak for God here? Some of you feel it must be a man and you are quite vocal about it. Some of you are open to a woman  and are far more silent for fear of bringing tension or offense.  Maybe there are others who feel far more strongly on either side of this than I have described. The call from today’s sermon, is to remember that you  serve Christ and one another before your own rights, to remember that faithful Christian might reach different conclusions based on the approaches they take to Biblical interpretation, and that we are responsible to find ways to live in unity and a unified witness in the face of hideous evil.

Let us do it to the glory of God who makes women and men and fills them with his Spirit that they might prophesy.

-mark l vincent

 

Committing yourself to agreement: a little more humility please

I’ve worked in enough congregations placed in the middle of farmland to be able to feel farmers feeling spring. Seeing cropland emerge from under snow cover changes the demeanor, adds to the sidelong glances to check how well the fields are drying out as you drive to town, and affects the subjects of coffee shop conversation. Farmers begin making comments about how busy they will be in just a few weeks. Speculation increases about the cost of materials and commodities.

Many other persons in rural congregations work in businesses that support agriculture. They too begin sitting a little more on the edge of their seat as spring looks like it might get sprung. It is a second skin that cannot be shed. Persons living in it might not realize how ingrained it is, but it is a rhythm they have learned to trust and live by. It is what they KNOW.

Working with congregational systems as long as I have I can sense where most congregations are in the cycle of organizational development. I get a good idea pretty quickly about what might be done, by whom and by when. This is my second skin. I sometimes don’t realize how deeply ingrained it is. It is a rhythm I’ve learned to trust and live by. It is what I KNOW. This is why I say I can feel farmers feeling spring. I feel it because I know the impact it has on church life when there are crops to be planted, crops to be harvested, the winter time when everyone goes on vacation.  Important decisions that require broad conversation and widespread ownership have to be woven in between these times.

All of us have these deeply ingrained patterns that we trust. They are a base of knowledge for us. Our tendency is to trust what we know and to distrust what we do not yet know, because it might force us to adjust or reorganize the knowledge we do have. Even if we can observe the new knowledge to be helpful , we tend to distrust it because it means changing our assumptions or our patterns of living.

A graduate professor of mine, B. Wayne Hopkins, used to tell of a Texas oil refinery worker who hoisted himself across catwalks and up ladders to adjust a valve several times a day. It was the most boring of jobs, but he tolerated it because it provided for his family and it was believed spinning the wheel to adjust the valve was necessary for the refinement process. After thirty years his job was eliminated because it was discovered adjusting the valve had no effect on oil refinement. The man sunk into despair because he now felt unnecessary and as if the purpose of his life was declared worthless.

This story illustrates a good reason why we might distrust new knowledge! It might be accurate, but it can simultaneously dismember what we spend our lifetimes building.

Distrust of new knowledge might be rooted in arrogance (I know what is best and what works), or anxiety (I don’t know for sure if it will work and I certainly don’t want to fail), or even anxiety masked as arrogance (That is a stupid idea!). These reactions show up when we have hard decisions to make and differing operating patterns out of which we make them.  Somehow, we have to move beyond what we know to what we do not know in order to embrace solutions that move us beyond stuck places.

Prairieview Mennonite Church is a good example of why moving to what you do not yet know is good and helpful. This congregation has now spent ten years already moving to an unknown place as two previously separate congregations merged to form one. Now, this congregation must move to the unknown place as a ten year old congregation whose people came from one of the previous two congregations, but everyone else now present and anyone else who comes to them did not. Having been two congregations is now the history. Living as one congregation is the present.

Here is a way of diagramming what being humble enough to move to new knowledge looks like:

I first learned of this diagram while working on my doctorate. I had to write a philosophical orientation that I bring to any research, revealing any biases I might discover. This provides a way for any future researcher to critique my work. If I reveal any bias I might have, it makes the work easier to build future knowledge later.  One of the biases I wrote about was my strong belief that the more that is learned, the more we learn, exponentially, that we do not yet know.

Look at the diagram and you discover it is simple to grasp. Each of us an arena of knowledge (the upper left hand corner). For instance, I know how to lace a shoe. This is the arena of those patterns we have learned to trust because they work.

Next come the items we know that we do not know (lower left corner). There are other ways to lace a shoe. This I know. How to lace them up in that manner I do not.

Third, are the items I do not know that I know (upper right hand corner). This can be tougher to grasp, mostly because I am describing something of which I am not aware. So, in this discussion of lacing shoes, we could say that I’ve forgotten that I could figure out how to lace shoes up in different ways if I simply sat down and became creative.  Of course, the minute I figure out an alternative way to lace up a shoe, it shifts over to the Known Knowns quadrant.

Finally, there are the things I do not know and I do not know that I do not know them (lower right hand corner). Are you confused? It is okay to be confused about this corner of the diagram because we are describing not only a lack of knowledge, but a lack of awareness of that lack of knowledge. Perhaps there are other ways of fastening shoes that remain to be discovered and I’m not thinking about it at all. Now that I am, however, it shifts over to the Known Unknowns because I’m conscious of them.

Let’s put the same box to work in a church context—a church that is between pastors.

You might be further interested to hear an observation which I hold about people who prefer rural living and those who prefer an urban lifestyle. While everyone functions from what they know, it is my observation that urban people are much more comfortable with ambiguity, marked by the gold circle in the next diagram. They might even prefer to be in an environment that keeps forcing them to have new experiences, but remain uninterested in figuring it out. They often pay people who know rather than having to know themselves. Rural people, by contrast, often prefer a higher degree of self-sufficiency, wanting to master skills and doing without rather than paying someone else to do them until they either have the time or the knowledge to do so. You can see their arena marked by the grey circle.

So, while we have much in common as humans, we also have significant differences—differences that become more marked and distant in our culture. We emphasize the difference and choose to accentuate them rather than to find new ways of working together.

I point this out because those who are moving into the small towns around farm land may well reflect a more urban mindset than a rural one, and that is different from yesteryear. It will make discernment and decision-making more intricate because not only will people have different opinions, they will also use different words than those who are already present at the church. When they use the same words, they will often mean something different than what was meant before. How complex it all becomes if we are not humble servants!

Becoming a humble servant is what the Apostle Paul has in mind as he writes to an internally conflicted and externally persecuted Philippian church, even while he languished in prison.  He writes:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

-Philippians 2:3-11 NIV

It is good for us to hear him inviting those who lead the church and those who are called to be mature to move more comfortably and less anxiously toward the unknown unknowns we inevitably face.

It is also good for us to hear each of Paul’s instructions in isolation:

1. Do nothing from selfish ambition. Life is not a homecoming game with losers you trample on in order to win. Instead, life offers a chance to build your succession. Each of us needs to matter less even as we raise the standing of others. This is what Christ does, yet look at the exaltation he receives.
2. Do nothing from vain conceit. Remember, our resistance to moving into the unknown unknowns can sometimes be our belief that we know better. Conceit of this type is destructive and refuses to acknowledge that our unknown unknowns are well-defined known knowns that others possess.
3. In humility, consider others better than yourselves. This is almost the same command as not acting from vain conceit. It is stated in the positive, however. Paul’s instruction is for us to stop being conceited and to pursue humility. We can start by deferring to the knowledge others have and we do not. This is what starts building succession as you raise the standing of others.
4. Have the same attitude as Christ Jesus. This is the same word Paul uses when we calls the Philippian Christians to have the same mind. “Mind” and “attitude” are the same expression in Greek, referring to a disposition, a direction one points their mind. We can easily draw the conclusion that not only does Paul tell the Philippians to have the same mind, but the mind he has in mind is the mind of Christ.

As the Son of God, Jesus could lay claim to omniscience and omnipresence. There are no quadrants with him. It is all Known Knowns. Yet, we see him functioning in the place of unknown unknowns, trusting that God would complete the work of salvation, putting the welfare of all humanity ahead of his own, and being held up as the example for our trust in one another, our making decisions together and our offering ministry to others.

I recall the missiologist Ray Bakke telling of an urban Baptist church in Chicago he pastored as it decided to add a Spanish language worship service. It has become one of my favorite stories that depict change. Apparently this English-speaking church had a particular member who resisted any Spanish language service. She was the oldest member and blocked any vote with her defiance. “Let them speak English if they want to worship with us,” she would say.

Ray knew that the church actually once spoke Swedish when it was an immigrant congregation but made the change to English back in the day. He was sly enough to know this woman had lived through the change so he went to visit her and asked her to tell him the story, if she remembered it, when this church she loved so much had made the original change in languages.

It turns out she was the culprit. She had begun a bible study with women in the neighborhood, and of course, none of them spoke Swedish. When they asked if they could come to church and perhaps hold an English service there, the leaders said no.  If they wanted to come to their church they needed to speak Swedish. So, this now elderly champion of English began holding English worship services anyway—to the point it could no longer be resisted and the change was made.

Half-way through her story the woman stopped, fixed her eyes on her pastor and said, “I know what you are doing! You caught me! All-right, I will support a Spanish service.”  According to Ray Bakke, at the next meeting of the congregation, she stood, shared the story, repented of her resistance, and invited her sisters and brothers to join her as they marched into a new round of unknown territory.

A good number of people gather in worship services today who face a similar scenario. The next years are unknown unknowns for them individually, and for the congregations they love. Their readiness to assume the mind of Christ and to move into what they do not yet know and cannot foresee will make all the difference to the impact of their witness.

-mark l vincent