There's a few questions I get asked by everyone I talk to about seminary. "Where are you going to be?" "How long will you be in seminary?" "What classes are you taking?" So, to satisfy everyone's curiosity, I'll answer all those questions here.
The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (LTSG) is, unsurprisingly, located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those who are familiar with their Civil War history will recall that the battle of Gettysburg was fought over three days, July 1-3, 1863. A few names and phrases will probably jump to mind—the 20th Maine, Little Round Top, Devil's Den, Pickett's charge, Cemetery Hill, and Seminary Ridge. It's that last one that's particularly interesting. There was a seminary overlooking the little town of Gettysburg, and the ridge on which it is located is known as Seminary Ridge. It was first occupied by the Union army as a lookout tower; then it was taken by the Confederates, who used it for the same purpose. That seminary is still there today. The original building with the now-famous cupola is still there, although it is now an historical museum. All around that building the seminary has grown up, right on the battlefield. LTSG is well aware of its rich history; their motto is, "Bearing witness at the crossroads of history and hope."
More specifically, my husband Steve and I (it still sounds strange to say that, six weeks later) will be living in a one-bedroom apartment on the seminary campus. We'll be just a few hundred feet away from our classes, chapel, and the refectory, and we're right across the street from the YWCA. We're very excited for our new place, small though it may be. We'll have our own kitchen!
As for the second question, the Master of Divinity program for ordination in the Lutheran church takes four years. (Four years for a master's! All my friends will have Ph.Ds by then.) The structure of the M.Div. program is actually very appealing to me—we'll take two years of classes at LTSG, then go on internship for a full year, and then return to the seminary for the fourth year. This will give us a chance to really prepare ourselves for ministry; after our internship, we'll have the opportunity to fill in the gaps in our education, with a better understanding of what we need to know. During our coursework, we'll also be doing different hands-on work, from teaching parish to CPE (clinical pastoral education, undertaken in a hospital). By the time we're out of seminary, we should have a real grounding both in the academic and the practical aspects of ministry.
Now for the part I'm really excited about: classes! Both Steve and I are enrolled in the seminary (this has been a bit confusing for some people, so I'll clear it up right now; we're both studying for ordination), and we'll be taking many of the same classes, at least at first, as we fill our requirements. This fall, I've signed up for Biblical Hebrew, Introduction to the Old Testament, The Early Church and its Creeds, Introduction to Systematic Theology, Integrative Seminar I, and Practicum in Worship Music. Biblical Hebrew is one of the two possibilities to fulfill the biblical language requirement—the other is Greek, of course. Greek is actually required for all seminary students, but since Steve and I have both done three semesters of very intensive Greek courses, we are exempt from that requirement. This gives us the opportunity to study Hebrew instead, which I'm very excited about. Introduction to the Old Testament is just what it sounds like; students are required to take introductory courses for both the Old and New Testaments, and we're starting at the beginning. The Early Church and its Creeds is a class I'm taking without Steve; it should be interesting to study the history surrounding the church councils and the writing of the creeds. Introduction to Systematic Theology is another required course; I don't know what to expect from this one, but I decided to take it this semester so that I can take a course I'm really interested in next semester. In the spring, they are offering (or at least, probably offering) a theology course called "Theological Thematics: Faith, Hope, Love: The Unity of the Theological Virtues". Those who know me from St. John's will know that I wrote my Senior Essay on Paul's letter to the Romans, and the theological virtues were the central focus of my paper (as they must be, if one wants to write about Paul). I can't wait to take this course, and I'll be very disappointed if they decide not to offer it in the spring. Integrative Seminar is something that all students are required to take each of the three years of classes. The course description will explain it better than I could: "This course is concurrently related to the Teaching Parish field education requirement (M.A.M.S. and M.Div.) and therefore extends over two semesters... This seminar focuses on the congregation and has as its purpose to build an effective pastoral understanding of the congregation as simultaneously social system and people of God." Another class about which I'm in the dark, but I'll let you know how it turns out. The last course, Practicum in Worship Music, doesn't really count as a class; students who sing in the seminary choir get a small course credit. Steve will be taking a course on youth and family ministry in place of my Early Church and its Creeds course.
So that's what I'm looking forward to. Classes start after Labor Day, and I'll let you know what they're like once they've gotten going!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Another Old Sermon
I preached this sermon for the Easter Vigil service this year, March 22, also at Bethlehem Lutheran.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight is a night of waiting. Yesterday evening, we observed Good Friday with a Tenebrae service, a service of darkness. Yesterday, we recalled the moments of Christ’s death on the cross, when the earth shook and even the sun was blotted out in response to the death of Christ. Those events demonstrate to us—as they did to the centurion who observed them when they originally happened—that “truly this man was the Son of God.” On Good Friday, we realize the full audacity of what was done to Jesus: the Son of God, the Word made flesh, was tortured and killed. The whole earth responded to this event, and the individuals who recognized who Jesus was—the centurion, the women at the cross, the disciples—were also struck to the heart by his death.
Last night, we remembered the sacrifice of God’s Son. Tonight, what do we remember? Where are we in the gospel story? For a few minutes, I’d like you to forget the reading we have just heard. It is not yet Easter morning; the women have not yet gone to the tomb and found it empty. Today is the sabbath, and the followers of Jesus are waiting. Likewise for us, we are waiting. Of course, we already know what is coming. We know what will happen tomorrow morning, when this church is filled with people and light and music and joy; we already know the ending of the story. But let us dwell here, on Easter vigil, a little while. Let us appreciate the terrible tension of the three days; the tension of being trapped between death and the resurrection, in this waiting place. Let us pretend for a little while that we do not know what will happen tomorrow. Let us imagine what the followers of Christ on this first Easter vigil were feeling.
I want to share with you one imagined account of this story, told in a novel called Lamb. Anyone who has read Lamb can tell you that it is humorous, sometimes inappropriate, and certainly scripturally unsound. However, I find the treatment of the passion story in this novel very interesting. The novel is supposed to be a new gospel, written by a man who was Jesus’ childhood friend. As such, this friend has known Jesus longer and better than any of the other disciples; he has followed Jesus for twenty-five years. He has seen all the miracles and heard all the teachings. In the days leading up to the crucifixion, he realizes that Jesus is in grave danger from the Pharisees and Priests and does everything he can to protect Jesus. In the end, of course, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and crucified—just as happens in the gospels. This friend, faced by Jesus’ death and his own failure to protect him, is horrified. He cannot comprehend the “Good” in Good Friday. He sees his friend, his messiah, murdered, and he cannot accept this outcome. He kills himself in this waiting time, after the crucifixion but before the promised resurrection.
There is no such character in the gospel stories, of course. But this imaginary character strikes a chord with me. Isn’t his reaction eminently believable? He knew Jesus better than anyone; he knew the miracles; he recognized Jesus as the Son of God. But the Son of God was not supposed to die, at least according to his understanding. His hope died along with Jesus. And is that response not understandable? What kind of world would kill its savior? How can we live in such a world? How can we go on living when the Son of God himself is dead and buried?
So much for one view of the crucifixion. From this perspective, it seems hard to find the joyful message of good news that we know is coming with the morning. But again, this character does not really exist. As terrified and grief-stricken as Jesus’ followers certainly were, they do not kill themselves like Judas does or like this character in Lamb. What do they do instead? The gospels are very limited in their treatment of the waiting time. We do know a few things: a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea requests Jesus’ body from Pilate and buries it in a tomb newly carved out of the stone. According to the gospel of John, a man named Niccodemus pays for myrrh and aloes and helps Joseph to prepare the body. The women watch and wait at the tomb. A guard is set and the stone is sealed in place to prevent anyone from stealing the body. Then, on the sabbath, which is today, they wait. The women plan to anoint the body after the sabbath, but for this day, the day we now call Easter Saturday, they are forced to wait, alone with their fears and sorrows.
What were the disciples and other followers thinking during this time? What kept them going, unlike the follower in the novel? What led Joseph of Arimathea to take the body and prepare it? What were the women waiting for outside of the tomb? Martin Luther, in a sermon on these passages from the gospel, makes a compelling argument. He focuses on Joseph of Arimathea, saying, “Joseph was not a plain and common citizen, like the apostles . . . he was a member of the council of Jerusalem and very rich. . . . Now, Joseph, who had taken no part in any of the proceedings against the Lord Jesus and did not want to be present at His trial, did a very dangerous thing when he sought Christ’s body for a decent burial. He was thus likely to incur the fury of the whole council and of Pilate himself, who had condemned the Lord, and he thus gave them to understand that in his opinion Christ had been a pious and good Man, who had been wronged in the sight of God and the world.
“What moved him so boldly to expose himself? Only this, he was waiting for the kingdom of God. That is, he still believed that God’s kingdom would not fail to come, and that Christ, although he had so miserably hung and died upon the cross, would be raised from the dead by God.” We can understand all of the actions of the followers of Jesus in the same way. Why would the women go to the tomb and wait there, unless they were expecting something to happen? I referred to the time between Christ’s death and his resurrection as a waiting time; this very phrase implies that there is something to wait for.
The followers of Christ did not know what was coming; but they struggled to hold on to their profound hope and faith that all was not over. When the rest of the world was laughing, “He saved others; let him save himself!”; when the rest of the world saw the defeat of a man who claimed to be God; when the rest of the world dismissed his story, believing it had come to an end; when the rest of the world was moving on, the followers of Jesus waited. They did not know what would come; they had no idea what to expect; but they had faith that their savior was not finished. This faith is truly remarkable. When everyone and everything around them told them that they had been defeated, made fools of, they believed in the words of a dead man. A dead man! The Pharisees and the Priests knew, the world knows, that death is the end. A dead man can do nothing and say nothing, yet this dead man still inspired faith in his followers. In this terrible waiting time, when there was nothing to support their faith, when all the evidence told them to give up, the followers believed nonetheless.
And we hear, in the gospel of John, what came of that faith. Mary, in her faith, returns to the tomb and finds it open and empty. She summons Simon Peter and John, the other disciple, and they, too, see the empty tomb. Something has happened, clearly; the disciples see and believe that Jesus’ body is no longer in the tomb. But they still do not understand what this means; they return home empty-handed. It is Mary who remains, still waiting for something, still expecting something. She does not know what she is waiting for; her first thought is that someone has taken the body, and she wants to find it again. But she lingers, and as a result she sees exactly what she has been hoping for, what she was unconsciously waiting for. Jesus himself appears to her, calls her by name, and sends her out to proclaim what she has seen.
What a wonderful fulfillment of Mary’s hope! Even when waiting through the agonizing three days, with nothing to rely on and no one to turn to, she still hoped to see her Lord again. Would that God would grant us the same patient hope. Often, we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel when faced with far lesser adversity. Tonight, on Easter vigil, let us remember the hope of the followers of Jesus, and remember how that hope was fulfilled above and beyond what they could have expected. And let us, too, proclaim with Mary in the darkest times: “I have seen the Lord!”
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight is a night of waiting. Yesterday evening, we observed Good Friday with a Tenebrae service, a service of darkness. Yesterday, we recalled the moments of Christ’s death on the cross, when the earth shook and even the sun was blotted out in response to the death of Christ. Those events demonstrate to us—as they did to the centurion who observed them when they originally happened—that “truly this man was the Son of God.” On Good Friday, we realize the full audacity of what was done to Jesus: the Son of God, the Word made flesh, was tortured and killed. The whole earth responded to this event, and the individuals who recognized who Jesus was—the centurion, the women at the cross, the disciples—were also struck to the heart by his death.
Last night, we remembered the sacrifice of God’s Son. Tonight, what do we remember? Where are we in the gospel story? For a few minutes, I’d like you to forget the reading we have just heard. It is not yet Easter morning; the women have not yet gone to the tomb and found it empty. Today is the sabbath, and the followers of Jesus are waiting. Likewise for us, we are waiting. Of course, we already know what is coming. We know what will happen tomorrow morning, when this church is filled with people and light and music and joy; we already know the ending of the story. But let us dwell here, on Easter vigil, a little while. Let us appreciate the terrible tension of the three days; the tension of being trapped between death and the resurrection, in this waiting place. Let us pretend for a little while that we do not know what will happen tomorrow. Let us imagine what the followers of Christ on this first Easter vigil were feeling.
I want to share with you one imagined account of this story, told in a novel called Lamb. Anyone who has read Lamb can tell you that it is humorous, sometimes inappropriate, and certainly scripturally unsound. However, I find the treatment of the passion story in this novel very interesting. The novel is supposed to be a new gospel, written by a man who was Jesus’ childhood friend. As such, this friend has known Jesus longer and better than any of the other disciples; he has followed Jesus for twenty-five years. He has seen all the miracles and heard all the teachings. In the days leading up to the crucifixion, he realizes that Jesus is in grave danger from the Pharisees and Priests and does everything he can to protect Jesus. In the end, of course, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, and crucified—just as happens in the gospels. This friend, faced by Jesus’ death and his own failure to protect him, is horrified. He cannot comprehend the “Good” in Good Friday. He sees his friend, his messiah, murdered, and he cannot accept this outcome. He kills himself in this waiting time, after the crucifixion but before the promised resurrection.
There is no such character in the gospel stories, of course. But this imaginary character strikes a chord with me. Isn’t his reaction eminently believable? He knew Jesus better than anyone; he knew the miracles; he recognized Jesus as the Son of God. But the Son of God was not supposed to die, at least according to his understanding. His hope died along with Jesus. And is that response not understandable? What kind of world would kill its savior? How can we live in such a world? How can we go on living when the Son of God himself is dead and buried?
So much for one view of the crucifixion. From this perspective, it seems hard to find the joyful message of good news that we know is coming with the morning. But again, this character does not really exist. As terrified and grief-stricken as Jesus’ followers certainly were, they do not kill themselves like Judas does or like this character in Lamb. What do they do instead? The gospels are very limited in their treatment of the waiting time. We do know a few things: a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea requests Jesus’ body from Pilate and buries it in a tomb newly carved out of the stone. According to the gospel of John, a man named Niccodemus pays for myrrh and aloes and helps Joseph to prepare the body. The women watch and wait at the tomb. A guard is set and the stone is sealed in place to prevent anyone from stealing the body. Then, on the sabbath, which is today, they wait. The women plan to anoint the body after the sabbath, but for this day, the day we now call Easter Saturday, they are forced to wait, alone with their fears and sorrows.
What were the disciples and other followers thinking during this time? What kept them going, unlike the follower in the novel? What led Joseph of Arimathea to take the body and prepare it? What were the women waiting for outside of the tomb? Martin Luther, in a sermon on these passages from the gospel, makes a compelling argument. He focuses on Joseph of Arimathea, saying, “Joseph was not a plain and common citizen, like the apostles . . . he was a member of the council of Jerusalem and very rich. . . . Now, Joseph, who had taken no part in any of the proceedings against the Lord Jesus and did not want to be present at His trial, did a very dangerous thing when he sought Christ’s body for a decent burial. He was thus likely to incur the fury of the whole council and of Pilate himself, who had condemned the Lord, and he thus gave them to understand that in his opinion Christ had been a pious and good Man, who had been wronged in the sight of God and the world.
“What moved him so boldly to expose himself? Only this, he was waiting for the kingdom of God. That is, he still believed that God’s kingdom would not fail to come, and that Christ, although he had so miserably hung and died upon the cross, would be raised from the dead by God.” We can understand all of the actions of the followers of Jesus in the same way. Why would the women go to the tomb and wait there, unless they were expecting something to happen? I referred to the time between Christ’s death and his resurrection as a waiting time; this very phrase implies that there is something to wait for.
The followers of Christ did not know what was coming; but they struggled to hold on to their profound hope and faith that all was not over. When the rest of the world was laughing, “He saved others; let him save himself!”; when the rest of the world saw the defeat of a man who claimed to be God; when the rest of the world dismissed his story, believing it had come to an end; when the rest of the world was moving on, the followers of Jesus waited. They did not know what would come; they had no idea what to expect; but they had faith that their savior was not finished. This faith is truly remarkable. When everyone and everything around them told them that they had been defeated, made fools of, they believed in the words of a dead man. A dead man! The Pharisees and the Priests knew, the world knows, that death is the end. A dead man can do nothing and say nothing, yet this dead man still inspired faith in his followers. In this terrible waiting time, when there was nothing to support their faith, when all the evidence told them to give up, the followers believed nonetheless.
And we hear, in the gospel of John, what came of that faith. Mary, in her faith, returns to the tomb and finds it open and empty. She summons Simon Peter and John, the other disciple, and they, too, see the empty tomb. Something has happened, clearly; the disciples see and believe that Jesus’ body is no longer in the tomb. But they still do not understand what this means; they return home empty-handed. It is Mary who remains, still waiting for something, still expecting something. She does not know what she is waiting for; her first thought is that someone has taken the body, and she wants to find it again. But she lingers, and as a result she sees exactly what she has been hoping for, what she was unconsciously waiting for. Jesus himself appears to her, calls her by name, and sends her out to proclaim what she has seen.
What a wonderful fulfillment of Mary’s hope! Even when waiting through the agonizing three days, with nothing to rely on and no one to turn to, she still hoped to see her Lord again. Would that God would grant us the same patient hope. Often, we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel when faced with far lesser adversity. Tonight, on Easter vigil, let us remember the hope of the followers of Jesus, and remember how that hope was fulfilled above and beyond what they could have expected. And let us, too, proclaim with Mary in the darkest times: “I have seen the Lord!”
Saturday, July 19, 2008
An Old Sermon
This is the sermon I preached at Bethlehem Lutheran Church on Dcember 30, 2007. The back story is that I spent all of the preceding week working on a sermon, and when I turned on my computer Saturday afternoon to finish it up, the whole thing was gone. This is the sermon I wrote that evening.
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wrote you all a very nice sermon. It was about Emmanuel, about God With Us, about what that name truly means. It was about the extraordinary reactions of the people involved in the Christmas narrative. Like I said, it was a very nice sermon, but then yesterday after lunch my computer crashed, so that sermon is gone now, lost forever. This is my new sermon.
As I sat in the car, driving back from my grandparent’s home in Tucson, where we had spent Christmas, and staring at the blank screen of my laptop which had previously held my sermon, I’ll admit that I was upset. I found myself repeating over and over the words of the letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” These are possibly my favorite verses in the Bible; I consider them a radical challenge about how we should live our lives as Christians. Rejoice in the Lord always, through everything. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything. Instead, in all things let your needs and wants be made known to God with prayer and with the giving of thanks. And the peace of our God, which surpasses all human understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Paul goes on to say, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Can you imagine the life built on these words? A life which is free from worries and concerns, a life which has surrendered total control to God through prayer with thanksgiving. A life which knows that the Lord is always near and rejoices in him always. A life which only reflects on things of excellence and worth, which is filled with peace and joy. A life in which these feelings of peace and joy spill out into action. Paul is challenging us to lead this life, to get over all the things which keep us from God. He is challenging us—and I do see it as a great and difficult challenge, although not an impossible one—to rejoice in our God, to see him through all our tears, to see him in everything and to rejoice.
The Lord is near, Paul says. As I said, I had intended to speak about Emmanuel, about the God With Us. From the readings we have just heard, it struck me that Emmanuel is not God in the garden with Adam and Eve—even though God actually walks with them in the garden and speaks to them face to face, they disobey and fear him. No, it is not until the Christmas story that we finally find our Emmanuel. Jesus is the God who is with us. And having God with us changes everything. It doesn’t make things easier or clearer—just the opposite, in fact.
God With Us, Emmanuel, is the ultimate paradox. In the terms of Søren Kierkegaard, a paradox is something that offends us, or rather something that has the possibility of offending us. It is something that cannot be reconciled by reason, cannot be explained away. But the paradox is the only thing which allows there to be faith at all. Anything which can be explained or proved does not need to be believed; it is when we are confronted with the impossible, the absurd—in short, the paradox—that we have the possibility of having faith. Without the paradox, without the possibility of offense, there is nothing to believe in. When we are presented with a paradox, we have a choice; we can either be offended by it (because after all, it defies reason; it is impossible and absurd) or we can have faith, we can believe in it.
Kierkegaard draws great significance from the words of Christ in the gospels: “Blessed is he who is not offended at me.” For Kierkegaard, Christ himself is the ultimate paradox. Christ is the God-man, Emmanuel, the God With Us. His very existence is offensive. Kierkegaard says that we can be offended by Christ, who is the Emmanuel, in two ways. We can be offended by the idea of a man who claims he is God, or we can be offended by the idea of a God who would become human. If Jesus was a man, then we are offended by his claim, which is either blasphemy or madness; if Jesus was God, then we are offended by a God who would lower himself and become helpless. The only other option is faith; faith that Christ, the God With Us, is exactly what he says he is—and not only that he is the God who is with us, but that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. We can be offended or we can believe.
We see in the Christmas narrative example after example of people who chose to believe when confronted with the paradox. Mary, the virgin mother; Joseph, the husband who was not the father; Simeon, the righteous man who was waiting for a messiah; Anna, the prophet who recognized the child. These people, though their stories are familiar to us, are truly extraordinary for their actions, their responses to the absurd. They are confronted with a message which defies reason and understanding, and they believe.
This is what I had hoped to understand when I began to write my sermon. I wanted to talk about Emmanuel, the significance of a God who is with us, the absurdity of it and the faith we have in it. Instead, I found myself staring at a blank screen and repeating Paul’s words, “Rejoice in the Lord always. The Lord is near.” Emmanuel, God With Us, is the God who is also a man, the paradox on which our faith is built. But Emmanuel is also the Lord, the Lord who even now is nearby and who hears our prayers and takes our worries. We choose to have faith in him in the face of the absurdity of God With Us, but faith does not end there. We are challenged again and again to do the absurd—to stop worrying, to give up the tenuous control we have over our lives and to give everything to God instead. I don’t want to lose sight of how nonsensical it is from the world’s perspective. If we were reasonable, if we were rational, we would never trust in something which we cannot see and we can never prove exists. To have faith in the Lord, to believe the words of the gospels and the creeds, is absurd. To live one’s life in the way Paul describes is an absurdity which must be constantly revisited and reaffirmed. Every day that we strive to live a life like this, we are striving to do the absurd. We are going against everything the world says, everything reason tells us. But once we’ve gone this far into absurdity, we might as well believe in the outcome, too: “And the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
This is the absurdity. I spent so much time, put in so much work, writing a sermon which was devoured by my computer. And even as I mourned the loss of that work, I rejoiced and praised God. After all, I knew he was near. And even more: I believe that this is what he wanted to happen, that he planned it this way, that this is the sermon I was meant to give all along. It is absurd. And yet it is my faith. I believe in a God who is with us, in Emmanuel. I know he is nearby, even now. Amen.
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wrote you all a very nice sermon. It was about Emmanuel, about God With Us, about what that name truly means. It was about the extraordinary reactions of the people involved in the Christmas narrative. Like I said, it was a very nice sermon, but then yesterday after lunch my computer crashed, so that sermon is gone now, lost forever. This is my new sermon.
As I sat in the car, driving back from my grandparent’s home in Tucson, where we had spent Christmas, and staring at the blank screen of my laptop which had previously held my sermon, I’ll admit that I was upset. I found myself repeating over and over the words of the letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” These are possibly my favorite verses in the Bible; I consider them a radical challenge about how we should live our lives as Christians. Rejoice in the Lord always, through everything. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything. Instead, in all things let your needs and wants be made known to God with prayer and with the giving of thanks. And the peace of our God, which surpasses all human understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Paul goes on to say, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Can you imagine the life built on these words? A life which is free from worries and concerns, a life which has surrendered total control to God through prayer with thanksgiving. A life which knows that the Lord is always near and rejoices in him always. A life which only reflects on things of excellence and worth, which is filled with peace and joy. A life in which these feelings of peace and joy spill out into action. Paul is challenging us to lead this life, to get over all the things which keep us from God. He is challenging us—and I do see it as a great and difficult challenge, although not an impossible one—to rejoice in our God, to see him through all our tears, to see him in everything and to rejoice.
The Lord is near, Paul says. As I said, I had intended to speak about Emmanuel, about the God With Us. From the readings we have just heard, it struck me that Emmanuel is not God in the garden with Adam and Eve—even though God actually walks with them in the garden and speaks to them face to face, they disobey and fear him. No, it is not until the Christmas story that we finally find our Emmanuel. Jesus is the God who is with us. And having God with us changes everything. It doesn’t make things easier or clearer—just the opposite, in fact.
God With Us, Emmanuel, is the ultimate paradox. In the terms of Søren Kierkegaard, a paradox is something that offends us, or rather something that has the possibility of offending us. It is something that cannot be reconciled by reason, cannot be explained away. But the paradox is the only thing which allows there to be faith at all. Anything which can be explained or proved does not need to be believed; it is when we are confronted with the impossible, the absurd—in short, the paradox—that we have the possibility of having faith. Without the paradox, without the possibility of offense, there is nothing to believe in. When we are presented with a paradox, we have a choice; we can either be offended by it (because after all, it defies reason; it is impossible and absurd) or we can have faith, we can believe in it.
Kierkegaard draws great significance from the words of Christ in the gospels: “Blessed is he who is not offended at me.” For Kierkegaard, Christ himself is the ultimate paradox. Christ is the God-man, Emmanuel, the God With Us. His very existence is offensive. Kierkegaard says that we can be offended by Christ, who is the Emmanuel, in two ways. We can be offended by the idea of a man who claims he is God, or we can be offended by the idea of a God who would become human. If Jesus was a man, then we are offended by his claim, which is either blasphemy or madness; if Jesus was God, then we are offended by a God who would lower himself and become helpless. The only other option is faith; faith that Christ, the God With Us, is exactly what he says he is—and not only that he is the God who is with us, but that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. We can be offended or we can believe.
We see in the Christmas narrative example after example of people who chose to believe when confronted with the paradox. Mary, the virgin mother; Joseph, the husband who was not the father; Simeon, the righteous man who was waiting for a messiah; Anna, the prophet who recognized the child. These people, though their stories are familiar to us, are truly extraordinary for their actions, their responses to the absurd. They are confronted with a message which defies reason and understanding, and they believe.
This is what I had hoped to understand when I began to write my sermon. I wanted to talk about Emmanuel, the significance of a God who is with us, the absurdity of it and the faith we have in it. Instead, I found myself staring at a blank screen and repeating Paul’s words, “Rejoice in the Lord always. The Lord is near.” Emmanuel, God With Us, is the God who is also a man, the paradox on which our faith is built. But Emmanuel is also the Lord, the Lord who even now is nearby and who hears our prayers and takes our worries. We choose to have faith in him in the face of the absurdity of God With Us, but faith does not end there. We are challenged again and again to do the absurd—to stop worrying, to give up the tenuous control we have over our lives and to give everything to God instead. I don’t want to lose sight of how nonsensical it is from the world’s perspective. If we were reasonable, if we were rational, we would never trust in something which we cannot see and we can never prove exists. To have faith in the Lord, to believe the words of the gospels and the creeds, is absurd. To live one’s life in the way Paul describes is an absurdity which must be constantly revisited and reaffirmed. Every day that we strive to live a life like this, we are striving to do the absurd. We are going against everything the world says, everything reason tells us. But once we’ve gone this far into absurdity, we might as well believe in the outcome, too: “And the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
This is the absurdity. I spent so much time, put in so much work, writing a sermon which was devoured by my computer. And even as I mourned the loss of that work, I rejoiced and praised God. After all, I knew he was near. And even more: I believe that this is what he wanted to happen, that he planned it this way, that this is the sermon I was meant to give all along. It is absurd. And yet it is my faith. I believe in a God who is with us, in Emmanuel. I know he is nearby, even now. Amen.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Regarding the title
I'm pretty pleased with the title I came up with for this blog.
seminary
Seminary (along with disseminate and its derivatives) shares its etymology with semen, which I find rather entertaining on the immature level, but also interesting on a more intellectual level. Seminary is a place where seeds are planted and grow; the image naturally lends itself to the parable of the seeds:
"Then he told them many things in parables, saying: 'A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.' " (Matthew 13:3-8)
A pretty famous passage, and actually the gospel lesson we heard in church last Sunday. It seems that seminary is supposed to be one of the places where one can find good soil. I hope that's the case...but I wonder if the good soil is really a state of mind (or state of soul, perhaps) rather than an external state, whatever the etymology of 'seminary' might be. That is certainly Jesus' own explanation:
"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." (Matthew 13:18-23)
In any case, I'll be throwing out my own seeds (disseminating) from my seed-plot. Hopefully, someone will be interested in receiving them.
seminary
- Now Rare a place where something develops, grows, or is bred
- Old-fashioned a school, esp. a private school for young women
- a school or college where persons are trained to become priests, ministers, or rabbis
Etymology: ME, seed plot <>seminarium, seed plot, nursery, neut. of seminarius, of seed < semen, a seed
"Then he told them many things in parables, saying: 'A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.' " (Matthew 13:3-8)
A pretty famous passage, and actually the gospel lesson we heard in church last Sunday. It seems that seminary is supposed to be one of the places where one can find good soil. I hope that's the case...but I wonder if the good soil is really a state of mind (or state of soul, perhaps) rather than an external state, whatever the etymology of 'seminary' might be. That is certainly Jesus' own explanation:
"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." (Matthew 13:18-23)
In any case, I'll be throwing out my own seeds (disseminating) from my seed-plot. Hopefully, someone will be interested in receiving them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
