No A-Veil Last Sunday after Epiphany February 3, 2013 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

            In C. S. Lewis’ marvelous tale, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a group of adventurers sets out intending to sail into the uttermost east of the magical world of Narnia, hoping to find the country of Aslan, the Lion, the Son of the Great Emperor. As they voyage far beyond all land, the salt brine turns sweet. Then we read,

For a long time everybody on board drank. And for a long time they were all silent. They felt almost too well and strong to bear it; and presently they began to notice another result. As I have said before, there had been too much light ever since they left the island of Ramandu – the sun too large (though not too hot), the sea too bright, the air too shining. Now, the light grew no less – if anything, it increased – but they could bear it. They could look straight up at the sun without blinking. They could see more light than they had ever seen before. And the deck and the sail and their own faces and bodies became brighter and brighter and every rope shone. And next morning, when the sun rose, now five or six times its old size, they stared hard into it and could see the very feathers of the birds that came flying from it.

This is something of what Paul gets at with his description of the church as she draws nearer to the coming Kingdom. Paul insists that while Moses had to damp down the result of God’s glory, he intends to preach it bareface: no rhetorical reverse-Ray Bans to take the lightning edge off the gospel, no soft-sell of the searching strobe light of salvation.

But the real kicker comes in verse eighteen: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” Under the Law, Moses only dropped his veil when he retreated to the tabernacle to be alone with God. Under grace we mutually unmask because eyes strengthened by repeated drafts of living water can increasingly endure unbearable doses of divine luminosity. Our sisters shine brighter for us, and we shine brighter for them. The glory of the gospel is that it empowers me to bear the weight of my brother’s glory.

Who Was that Un-Masked Man?

Doug

Today’s Column is Brought to You by the Gift of Love Fourth Sunday after Epiphany February 3, 2013 1 Corinthians 13.1-13

            C. S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, quips, “William Morris wrote a poem called ‘Love is Enough’ and someone reviewed it briefly in the words, ‘It isn’t.’” Lewis goes on to argue that while the natural emotions of affection or friendship or romance cannot make us whole, the uniquely Christian love of agape can.

            Paul agrees. He seems to believe that this kind of love is enough to carry the contentious Corinthians from worship as performance (chapter 12) to worship as prophecy (Chapter 14), from worship as showing off self to worship as sounding forth salvation.

To bridge this gap, Paul composes himself an encomium right on the spot.

An encomium was a set poetic form consisting of five parts. Writing them was a standard exercise in the formal education of the ancient world, a kind of Greco-Roman “What I Did on my Summer Vacation.” Paul probably had to dash them off on a regular basis as a kid. Of the five classic elements Paul skips one so that we have: Prologue (v.1-3), Acts (v.4-7), Comparison (v.8-12) and Epilogue (v.13).

But there is another great work of literature which nicely sums up what the apostle does here: “The Alligator King” from Sesame Street. The tale begins,

Said the Alligator King to his seven sons,


I'm feelin' mighty down.


Whichever of you can cheer me up


Will get to wear my crown.

Six sons in succession approach and offer their royal father rich gifts – each of which somehow manages to harm the old monarch, the last one leaving him face-down on the throne room floor.

The seventh son of the Alligator King


Was a thoughtful little whelp.


He said, "Daddy, appears to me


That you could use a little help."



Said the Alligator King to his seventh son,


"My son, you win the crown.


You didn't bring me diamonds or rubies, but


You helped me up when I was down.

That pretty much does it. The Corinthians competed to bring the fanciest spiritual gifts to electrify the Sunday services, while Jesus seems to indicate that we meet God in the fallen sparrow (or alligator, whatever), and that the smallest act of love outshines the biggest show of power. This is the kind of love, to return to Lewis, “that enables (us) to love what is not naturally loveable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior and the sneering.”

            Our Father has promised us a crown, and there’s no competition because he seems to dish them out by the double-dozen (Rev 4.4). Just remember that the crown-winning gift is the ability to see God in the least of these, and help the Lord up when he was down.

See Ya Later, Alligator!

Doug

Three Cheers for the Inefficient Church Fourth Sunday of Epiphany January 27, 2013 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

            A billboard along the freeway shows a picture of a hand holding an iPhone above the caption, “Church: Anywhere.” The sponsoring congregation podcasts its services so that worshipers can come to church without the bother of, well, coming to church.

            I get the point. Televised church services have ministered to shut-ins and shift-workers for years. But I question the slogan. I can’t help wondering if “church anywhere” really amounts to church nowhere.

            Philosopher Peter Ludlow might agree with me. Professor Ludlow takes up a different aspect of modern life – online dating services – but comes to similar conclusions. (http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/13/01/the-many-problems-with-online-datings-radical-efficiency/266796/) “One advantage of inefficient dating,” Ludlow explains,

is that in times of scarcity we sometimes take chances on things we wouldn't otherwise try. In times of plenty, we take the path of least resistance (someone who appears compatible) and we forgo difficult and prima facie implausible pairings. And this is our loss. 1950s romantic comedies turned unlikely pairings into a formula—happenstance throws two unlikely people together and the sparks and romance begin. We all understand this kind of romance—it involves the strange chemistry of putting together two people who are, on the face of it, incompatible.

            Online church works the same way. It creates what Ludlow calls a “frictionless market” where I can dip into the parts of worship I like and not bother with the aspects – and, of course, the people – I dislike. Ala carte community caters rather than crucifying and celebrates the self rather than transforming it.

            Paul seems to favor “Church: Somewhere,” even if that somewhere is the seething cauldron of the Corinthian congregation. He dares to declare that God tosses out our personal profiles and tosses us into a huge stewpot of ethnicities and economies. The Lord seeks the strange chemistry of putting together people who are, on the face of it, incompatible. And when we submit to this romantic comedy called church, a wonderful thing happens: Dexterous fingers find out they need clumsy feet and we learn the reason that eye, ear, nose and throat constitute a single medical specialty. Those who are on the face of it incompatible now combine to show the world the face of Christ.

            C. S. Lewis’ arch-tempter Screwtape knows what he’s about when he suggests sending a soul on a consumer survey of area congregations. It makes him, Screwtape explains, “a critic where the Enemy (i.e., God) wants him to be a pupil.” But the idea of simply walking into the nearest church, “brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires.”

            Church anywhere? No, church somewhere. The trick is not to bring church to wherever I happen to be, but to bring me into what the church is: the visible body of Christ.

Online, or In Line?

Doug

A Firkin Full of Blessing Third Sunday of Epiphany January 20, 2013 John 2.1-11

            The King James Version calls them “firkins.” I’ve always gotten a kick out of that.

            We don’t use firkins much anymore but it works out to about thirty gallons per barrel for a total of one hundred and eight gallons. Calvin Miller says that Jesus sets up a six-kegger wedding.

            John makes this story do a lot of work: Jesus attends a wedding, a ceremony that has all kinds of implications for the great heavenly nuptials of Revelation 21.2. There are six vessels  (the number of humanity, one shy of the divine seven), for ritual purification (the Law), and Jesus stokes ‘em up to the brim: Law has reached its limit and must yield to divine grace. Wine replaces water as a tip-off that the blood of Christ will conclude the work for which religion was only a place-marker.

            John knows what he’s doing when he calls this the “beginning of His signs.”

            But there’s a homier side to the story, one that nestles nicely, even seamlessly, alongside all that exalted theology. Running out of wine constituted a major social disaster. One imagines Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes and the rest of the downstairs crew at Downton Abbey in such a fix. Somebody messed up – big time.

            This wasn’t Jesus’ deal. His rude reply to his mother is something along the lines of, “What’s your problem?” (Judges 11.12) His “hour has not yet come;” a side-job as a wedding caterer would amount to moonlighting from His Father’s agenda. But he steps in: because his mother asked him to, because some family of nobodies from nowhere had engineered their own embarrassment. Jesus, it seems, cares about that kind of stuff. And he doesn’t just slap a patch on the situation: He conjures some high-voltage vintage vino and sloshes it out by the firkin-full.

            “You might want,” observes N. T. Wright in commenting on this tale, “to pray through this story with your own failures and disappointments in mind – remembering that transformation only came when someone took Mary’s words seriously: ‘Do whatever he tells you.’” Jesus, John indicates, came for the mighty work of salvation, but Our Lord can multitask: He can work off the clock to solve your private crisis and do so in a way that proclaims that He is the Christ.

Cheers!

Doug