Category: Living in The Story blogs

Psalm 144

Look at the gorgeous poetry of Psalm 144!

The LORD is my Rock, my Fortress, my Stronghold, my Deliverer, my Shield….

But humans are like a breath or a passing shadow…

These words echo words and sentiments from other psalms, especially Psalm 18 and Psalm 8. It’s as if our psalmist has been reading the earlier songs in Book I and is now re-reading, re-interpreting and re-newing these long ago praises for his own time.

Even after returning home from exile in Babylon, Israel is surrounded by adversaries and feels as if they are drowning in a sea of infidelity by those whose “right hand are false.” This psalmist of Israel struggles against uncertainty and against the unreliability of their betrayers.

No wonder this vision of the Savior is strong and solid and substantial. No wonder the poet imagines this Redeemer…

…bowing your heavens to come down

…touching the mountains so they smoke

…making the lightning flash and sending out arrows

…stretching out your hand to rescue me from the mighty waters.

Psalm 144 alludes to the miracles of judgment against the oppressors of Egypt and the ancient and reassuring story of rescue through the waters of the Red Sea.

Ancient history for this people is not the boring stuff of textbooks; rather history is story, OUR story.

This is us!

Continue reading “Psalm 144”

Warnings and Blessings

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“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Our mothers warned us about the power of words. They cautioned us to use words that are positive and helpful and healing.

“Don’t judge another person until you have walked a mile in her shoes.” Our mothers warned us about using our own limited experience to criticize the experience and actions of another.

“You are what you eat. A penny saved is a penny earned” – our mothers warned us and tried to teach us to live our lives in a good balance.

And then we grew up – and lo and behold we find our mamas’ words coming out of our own mouths.

But even as we hand on some of this age-old advice to the next generation, we can still hear our mothers’ voices in our heads reminding us to “practice what we preach.”

As we complete our reading of Deuteronomy, we hear some similar efforts of advice giving: Moses passing on wisdom to the next generation.

Deuteronomy’s stage is set with the people standing on the edge of their Promised Land.

Here Moses is pictured as the patriarch saying farewell to his children, reminding them who they are and reiterating the core truths that bind them together.

Continue reading “Warnings and Blessings”

As You Read. Weeks 18 and 19. Deuteronomy.

In James Michener’s wonderful book, The Source, a Jewish archeologist on a dig in Israel explained to his colleague: “If you want to understand the Jewish people, read Deuteronomy. Read it five times.”

“It’s the great central book of the Jews,” the character Eliav said. “If you master it, you will understand us.”

The people of Israel seem to have a strong sense of God’s faithful presence with them. They have seen God’s hand bringing them out of Egypt and into a sacred covenant relationship in a new land. They have recognized God’s amazing grace preserving them as a people and rescuing them from Exile in Babylon.

The Moses of Deuteronomy asks:

Ask from one end of heaven to the other: has anything so great as this ever happened …?!

Deuteronomy is set on the far side of the Jordan River, looking across into The Promised Land.

From this perspective, Moses recounts the story of rescue from Egypt. He retells YHWH’s presence at Sinai. He reminds of the 10 Commandments and the Law. He prepares them for the years ahead, when Moses will have passed on the baton of leadership to Joshua.

When we read Deuteronomy, we remember how the people of Israel were  a motley crew of slaves in Egypt. They went from being no people to being God’s own people.

But please remember, the story the Old Testament tells is The Story of Israel. It doesn’t pretend to tell any other people’s story in the vast sweep of human history.

There is no mention whatsoever about what the God of all creation and the Lord of nations might have been doing in Mongolia or Ethiopia or Machu Picchu during those ancient days.

I am confident God has been on the move throughout all time, in all places, creating relationship and writing the divine story in the human heart in ways we cannot even begin to fathom. However, none of those stories are the stories of the Bible.

The Old Testament is Israel’s story – and it is shot through with amazement.
Continue reading “As You Read. Weeks 18 and 19. Deuteronomy.”

Psalm 146

Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

Psalm 146 sings of the rightness of creation with the Creator reigning as Lord and Sovereign.

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.

During the time of Exile, the Davidic monarchy ended. The experience of Israel in Babylon reminded them that blindly trusting in any human – even the king – is bound to bring disappointment and even despair.

There is only One who is truly faithful within all creation: the Creator.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them …

For Israel, the Creator-of-All is also the personal God of Jacob.

Israel’s God: the One who called and chose them to be God’s own people. For Israel in exile, struggling to hold on to hope and faith, it is God alone who is faithful forever.

Continue reading “Psalm 146”

Loving God, Loving Neighbor

Love is a verb. You can write that down.

This may sound familiar to you because just a few blogs ago, I talked about how faith is a verb. So now here I am claiming that love is a verb.

Sometimes we think we can love in the abstract. Warm, fuzzy feelings for people in general but – no – love is not so much a feeling as it is a verb.

Listen to what 1 John has to say:

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

1 John 4:9-12

Authentic love is always active.

Because God loves us and lives in us – therefore – we can love one another.

And when we make even a fledgling effort to love one another, God’s own life grows in us, God’s own love becomes more and more complete within us.

It’s a cycle of life, a circle of love.

Continue reading “Loving God, Loving Neighbor”

Psalm 49

Hear this, all you peoples; give ear, all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together.

My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb…

Psalm 49 sings like the couplets of the Proverbs.

This is a wisdom psalm, reassuring the faithful that God’s way is the way of true wisdom. Human wealth and success may look like a wise course, but the psalmist has no doubt that – finally, ultimately, eschatalogically – God’s way is the only way that will endure.

The Wisdom Tradition of Israel offers an intriguing mix of literature. The Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job – each gives insight into various approaches for making sense of the world.

Continue reading “Psalm 49”

God’s Own People

When I was in elementary school, I was lousy at kick ball. During recess, whenever the teams were chosen, I always was the very last one anybody wanted on their team. When I was a senior in high school, I lost the election for class president by just a few votes. When I was newly ordained, I put my name in to be senior minister at a church I really, really wanted.

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I was not chosen.

I guess we all know what it feels like not to be chosen. Most of us have some experience with being left out, excluded, dismissed.

Actually though, I have much less experience with exclusion than a lot of people in this world. Generally I have lived my life with so much grace that (I admit) sometimes I think I did something to deserve all the privilege that surrounds me.

In these Living in The Story journeys, we have seen a lot of grace.

We’ve been walking with the ragtag people of God: Abraham, Jacob, and then their descendants – enslaved and then liberated; following the pillars of fire and cloud toward their Promised Land.

We’ve been watching how YHWH interrupted their lives and called them into relationship.

God’s Covenant with Abraham. With Jacob. With Israel.

God’s own people: chosen and beloved.

When we move to the New Testament, we still see the ancient story of Israel continuing and evolving. Notice how the author of First Peter sees the church as the continuation and enlargement of the heritage of Israel.

In M. Eugene Boring’s commentary on First Peter, he says:

As heirs of Israel, Christian readers are addressed as “God’s own people” and those who have “received mercy.” First Peter understands that his Gentile (non-Jewish) readers have been incorporated into the continuing people of God.

M. Eugene Boring, 1 Peter (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999).

This is remarkable: non-Jews sharing in the promises and blessings of the chosen people. Peter’s one-time-pagan-turned-Jesus-people surely were remembering what life was like before Christ and now what their lives have become since Christ.

“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s own people.”

Who could have imagined?

You can almost hear Kris Kristofferson singing in the background:

Why me Lord? 

What have I ever done

to deserve even one

of the blessings I’ve known …

Why me Lord? 

What did I ever do

that was worth love from You

and the kindness You’ve shown …

Or if you are more the traditional sort, maybe you can hear the music of Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me playing in your head.

Dr. Boring goes on to comment how:

First Peter sees the church as a “chosen race” and a “holy people” not on the basis of nature, genetics, or social standing but by the act of God.

Our testimony, therefore, is the declaration of God’s saving acts in history, from creation to eschaton – the completion and culmination of all things.

The testimony and witness of God’s own people is that – from the very beginning of time to the end of history – God is ever acting on behalf of the promises, redeeming all kinds of people and creating a cosmic community grounded in hope and grace.

A cosmic community grounded in grace

“You are a chosen race,” (Peter says) “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

“Like the Israel of the Bible and of history, the church is called into being not for its own sake, but as an expression of the divine mission to the world.

The church is charged with God’s mission; the gift becomes a responsibility.” (Boring)

“The church” is the people. All of us together.

The community of Christ.

The heritage of God.

“The church” goes far beyond the boundaries that we tend to set up in our little congregations and denominations. “The church” is about – or at least ought to be about – what God has done.

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And Peter sees what-God-has-done-in-Jesus-Christ as the perfection of what God did for Israel in the Exodus story. Here in First Peter, images about the life of Israel from the Old Testament are applied directly to the church.

For Peter, this is our story.

All believers have been incorporated into mercy in this decidedly corporate, community, communal understanding. Relationship with God is bound up with relationship with God’s people; again and again in Scripture, these two relationships are inseparable. In the community God creates, we are not rugged individualists; we are “a people.”

Nones and Dones

The Christian witness has taken a beating lately. Every day I see articles about people who have become disenchanted with the church. “Spiritual but not religious” is the fastest growing demographic category, researchers tell us. Some call themselves the “Nones” and others call themselves the “Dones.”

Every where we turn, people who have been left out, who recognize that they are “not chosen” by insider religious types have said: “thanks but no thanks.” Especially young adults – when they see the institutional church being exclusive instead of inclusive, they question the authenticity of our so-called Christian message.

The church is called into being as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people in order that we may tell others, in order that we may demonstrate to others God’s amazing grace and mercy.

Our mission is to witness; our calling is to give testimony to what God has done in the world. And in our lives.

Witness in both word and deed.

Each one of us individually and all of us together must offer bold and faithful testimony to the mercy of a God who – in Jesus Christ – has created a community where all are chosen, where all are welcomed, where all are loved.

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The witness of the church must be loud and clear: We ALL have been incorporated into mercy and it is God who has done this.

Who could have ever imagined?!

Living in The Story readings for Week 17

Numbers 17-36

Psalm 49

Psalm 71

Psalm 97

Luke 5-7

1 Peter

2 Peter

Why Me Lord Songwriter: James Somerville Copyright: Notting Hill Music

Psalm 99

The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble!

The LORD sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!

Psalm 99 makes peace with the loss of the Davidic monarchy that occurred during the Babylonian Exile.

Never again will Israel look to a human king for leadership; rather it is Yahweh God, the LORD God alone who is king of all the earth. Israel will forever more acknowledge only THIS Sovereign who sits enthroned above the cherubim.

The cherubim, in this reference, are the angels, the heavenly beings who sit above the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat. But of course, with the destruction of the Temple, the Ark was lost.

The Ark, the Temple, the monarchy, the city Jerusalem and the promised land were no more and Israel would never fully recover from their Babylonian captivity.

Continue reading “Psalm 99”

As You Read. Weeks 16 and 17.

The Book of Numbers does what it says: it names and numbers Israel.

Here we find numerous lists of tribes and families listed and counted. Here is another origins document naming the original members of this newly called out tribal people; a people who will eventually become the nation and kingdom of Israel.

As it opens, Numbers is set at the holy mountain, Sinai (or Horeb as it is sometimes named) and its first ten chapters complete the Exodus story about the giving of the Law.

Exodus 19:1 to Numbers 10:10 describes how this ragtag rescued people were received into a formal covenant of relationship with the God who brought them out of Egypt. Here they receive instructions about how to live within this covenantal relationship.

Continue reading “As You Read. Weeks 16 and 17.”

The Faithfulness of Faith

Faith is a verb. You can write that down.

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Used to, I thought faith was believing right things in correct ways. Even though I’ve always been a part of a non-creedal Christianity, I still thought you had to assent to certain creedal statements about church, God, Christ, Spirit, the Bible. Faith was about ideas.

Now I believe faith is a verb. For me, it’s more about my doing faithful things, acting in faithful ways, behaving with faithful intentions.

Faith is about change and transformation and personal commitment and the re-orientation of a life.

Faith is about my counting on the faithfulness of a God who creates and informs and sustains the faithfulness of my own faith.

It’s about entrusting myself to the faithfulness of the God who covers for me even when I do believe incorrectly and even when I do behave unfaithfully.

It’s about letting the whole of my life flow from the life of the God who is the ultimate Verb, the One who is ever the I AM; always present tense; always acting on behalf of all humanity for the sake of the Promise.

The Hall of Fame chapter

When we read the famous chapter 11 in Hebrews, we can’t miss how active real human faith really is. This chapter is chock full of verbs.

The faith of our fathers and mothers that “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, put enemies to flight.”

The faith of the martyrs who “suffered mocking and flogging and imprisonment, who went about persecuted and tormented.”

Faith is a verb.

Sometimes the verbs of our lives are less active, describing our efforts to endure fixed realities and to wait out whatever challenges come our way.

Other times the verbs of our lives are more active with the power to change our world; verbs of faith that can make things happen and transform our existing reality.

And yet, of course, faith also is a noun.

There are some facts, some realities that we must assent to before we can act. The Hebrews writer says we must first and foremost believe that God IS. And then we can believe that God acts.

Like air, even when we can’t see God, faith assents to this Divine Fact of our lives. It is the grounding of ourselves in this Unprovable Fact that moves us and motivates us to act as well.

Believing THAT God IS gives us confidence to entrust ourselves to the One who is the Ultimate Verb of eternal, always-present Being. As Hebrews says: God ‘rewards’ and responds; God acts and interacts with everyone in the life long process of our seeking.

Faith is not abstract, rather faithing embodies hope; it makes hope tangible and reveals invisible realities.

Faithing is stepping up, and then going beyond what we know is possible.
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The Letter to the Hebrews pictures faithful living in one particularly powerful image with a decidedly active verb when it imagines faith “as a race that is run with perseverance.”

Hebrews envisions us faithful runners as surrounded by a “cloud of witnesses,” the faithful who have gone before, cheering us on. Hebrews presumes we do not run this race alone, on our own power and stamina and know-how; but rather we are running with Jesus, “the Pioneer of our faith, the Perfecter of our faith”while we are encircled by eternal encouragers.

The Boston Marathon bombing

A few years ago, a moving interfaith worship service at the National Cathedral honored those who were wounded and died at the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

When I heard President Obama use these same powerful words from Hebrews as a way to comfort the Boston Marathon runners and the cloud of witnesses at the finish line who had been so traumatized on that terrible Monday, my spine tingled.

It was a powerful image in that setting: running the race with endurance and fortitude; rising again to run again in spite of the traumas life brings.

Running has long been powerful in the imaging of faith: keeping-on-keeping-on with patient staying power in this marathon of living.

But there is another profound image of running that speaks to us today, another image of running that makes my spine tingle: the picture of people running – not away from danger and disaster – but running right into it.

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We’ve seen this kind of faith and faithfulness race to confront heart-breaking, gut-wrenching pain over and over again.

Wherever there is tragedy, faith and faithfulness will rush in. Faithful people will always step up, step out and go beyond what they know is possible. Their faithing will always embody invisible realities of hope and compassion and perseverance.

These are people who live their lives chock full of verbs.

And then, on the other hand, there is still another kind of story from Numbers, a little story about the paralysis and stagnation of unfaithfulness.

When Israel walked away from slavery in Egypt, they were walking in the direction of the Promised Land. The Red Sea opened up before them; a pillar of cloud and fire went ahead to guide them and followed behind to protect them; bread fell from the heavens and water flowed from the rocks.

Time and time again, God’s people saw evidence of God’s faithfulness and they experienced the “I AM” who is ever acting on behalf of humanity for the sake of the Promise.

But when the people sent their scouts into the land of promise to spy it out, the reports they received made them quake with fear.

It’s too hard. We’re too small. The challenges are overwhelming. Our resources are limited. The obstacles are like giants. We are like grasshoppers. We can’t. We won’t.

Instead of running the race set before them; instead of running into the challenges that – yes – were very big; instead of facing the apparent impossibilities with the faithfulness of faith, the people dug in their heels and turned their backs on their own future.

As the story goes, because of this faithlessness, they ended up running around in circles; they wandered in a wilderness of hopelessness for 40 years. “40 years” in Bible-speak = a very long time.

You probably noticed the Hebrews author did not include this little story from Numbers in his Hall of Fame in chapter 11.

The “pilgrims” and “sojourners” he praises weren’t wandering around in circles. They might not have known exactly where they were going, they may not have known how to get there, but Hebrews describes how these pilgrims of faith managed to see what was invisible.

He describes how they greeted God’s promises from a distance; how they could imagine a city whose builder, whose architect was God.

Even when they did not know where they were going, they knew they were going somewhere.

And if not in their own lifetime, they entrusted themselves and their children and their great-great-grandchildren to God’s faithfulness. They trusted enough to continue to live faithfully even if they didn’t see the promise come true for themselves; they were content to live toward the promises.

Consequently in the midst of all their unknowing, they still were able to live with focus, direction and confidence.

  • So there is First, running with perseverance the race that is set before us.
  • Second, running with courage right into the challenges that come to us.
  • And now Third, running toward God’s promises.

Faith – the assurance of things hoped for; faith – the conviction of things not seen.

Anthony Thiselton says:

Like all God’s pilgrim people of faith…we need forward looking faith which will appropriate and act on God’s promises concerning the future purposes… Like Abraham, we must “venture forth.”

We need fresh vision, fresh courage, fresh perseverance, fresh heart in the face of stagnation and a desire to shelter within old securities. Hence we are urged: “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992) 265.
We have the same choices God’s people have always had.

We can let the challenges overwhelm us, paralyze us, or cause us to wander around in circles. Or or we can run the race that is set before us.

We can wait, hoping that God might send something more than manna (like say a GPS!) so that we can know exactly where we are supposed to go and how we are supposed to get there. This way we don’t have to depend on faith.

Or we can step out and step up before we know, faithing into our future, putting our faith and trust and hope in the One who promises to accomplish amazing and good and impossible things in us and through us.

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We can pull inward inside our comfortable lives and protect ourselves. Or we can let our lives be broken bread and poured out wine: “sacraments of mercy and blessing” for others.

We can embody hopelessness or we can embody faithfulness.

I vote for faithfulness. How about you?

So may our faith – may our lives – always be chock full of verbs.

Living in The Story readings for Week 16

Numbers 1-16

Psalm 54

Psalm 91

Psalm 98

Luke 3-4

Hebrews 11-13