Not Just a-Passin' Through

Introduction

For the first installment of the resurrected ET&N, I am dispensing with the standard "Then"-"Now" format to share something I preached at our church a couple of weeks ago. My home church ET&N subscribers will find a few changes to my spoken comments.

I have been out of work for the last eight months and during that time, I've been able to listen (audio books, podcasts, online) and read (books, Kindle, web) a lot of material between job search tasks. The sermon and this article are born of what I've learned, particularly from the works of N.T. Wright, arguably today's most profound theologian. If you haven't read any of Wright's work, I highly recommend it. If you have, you will hear echoes of his teaching in my thought.

I don't get the opportunity to preach often--once or twice a year on average, so when I do, I want to do something significant. For a number of years, I have intensely disliked the hymn, This World is Not my Home (and wrote an article about it), but it wasn't until I heard Wright comment on the same hymn (among others) that I was finally able discover the real foundation of my distaste. This sermon lays out some of that foundation (there's only so much you can do in 15-20 minutes). The text below is edited for a print audience.

Today I want to discuss HOPE and ask you to be open to the possibility that the HOPE offered through Jesus Christ may not be exactly what you think it is.

HOPE became an effective slogan in last year’s presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama ignited celebrations in far-flung corners of the world. Whatever your opinion of our new president, his victory demonstrated the deep human hunger for hope.

Hope-Killers

There are many would-be hope-killers out there. Prominent atheists have mounted a full-scale assault on God Himself focusing on monotheism and particularly Christianity. Scan the Religion shelves at Border’s or Barnes & Noble and you will find titles like The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, and God: The Failed Hypothesis. You may not read books like these, but many, many do, and I have. While their premises and conclusions are flawed at best, some of the observations are valid, and we need to take them seriously.

Ultimately, these works offer no rational explanation for the historically unlikely rise of Christianity, and in many cases, they propose a universe without purpose—one in which the very question of purpose is discounted or ridiculed. Purpose and Hope go hand in hand—you can’t really have one without the other.

For many believers, the atheistic arguments are relatively easy to discount, but there are also liberal theologians who are willing collaborators, attacking the historicity of the New Testament writings and seeking to rewrite the Christian faith in their own peculiar ways. John Dominic Crossan, for example, may honor Jesus the man but claims the resurrection doesn’t matter at all. Crossan is certainly aware the removal of the resurrection of Jesus Christ guts the New Testament, most particularly Paul, leaving only a hollow version of the old social gospel or Jesus as a rather pathetic wise prophet—both devoid of any source of hope. These revisionist accounts of Jesus are every bit as hope-killing as atheism.

Other hope-killers are the Christians who aid and abet the critics by providing easy targets. Some are easy to identify: the powerful men who organized and funded the Crusades, the superstitious clergy who carried out the Inquisition, the greedy slave-owners who used the Bible to justify enslaving their fellow image-bearing humans, the hypocritical ministers who supported segregation, the church leaders who hid the exploitation of children by their own priests. All of these were initiated or justified by people claiming the name of Christ, while in reality they were morally indistinguishable from today’s Islamic terrorist, and they provided lethal ammunition for those seeking to deny the existence of God or the credibility of Christian faith, hope, and love.

Hope-Hoarders

But my concern in this issue of ET&N is not atheism, liberal theology, or even past atrocities perpetrated by Christians, but rather the subtle caricatures of Christian hope pervasive both inside and outside the church that function as hope-hoarders.

By way of example, I first want to go back to my own childhood.

When I was a young, my family drove cross-country on at least three occasions. Each day there were one or more destinations, but to get here, we passed through a number of towns. (This was before the interstate highways that now bypass virtually all but the largest cities.) When we passed through a town, we usually didn’t stop. If we did, it was just to get gas or eat lunch. Other than a gas station attendant or a waitress, we didn’t talk to anyone. We didn’t get to know them, learn about their struggles, help someone in need, or share about ourselves. We were just passing through after all. If there were people struggling with poverty, disease, injustice, or strife in the town, we never knew it. If my brothers and I were playing a game or, more likely, arguing about something, we might not even notice the town at all. Even when we stopped at some interesting tourist attraction, any interactions were usually with other tourists and the questions limited to where they were from.

There is a song, written by a lifelong member of the churches of Christ and often sung in many church buildings which, I submit, portrays the Christian life in terms much like my family’s cross-country excursions.

That song may in fact be one of your favorites. It is, admittedly, bouncy and emotionally appealing, but I won’t be sorry if I ruin it for you because I hope it is never sung again.

I do not question the songwriter’s faith, and I think I understand what lies behind the message. Every human has an deep sense that something’s wrong…that this world is not what it’s supposed to be. But to claim, “This world is not my home,” denies reality and implicitly denigrates God’s good creation. The message of the song seems to be that life’s a lousy play, or perhaps a decent play ruined by a lousy cast, and what we should really care about is the party after the play is over. But how joyous is the cast party if the play is a flop?

No matter how you read the great creation story of Genesis 1, there are two crystal-clear messages found in the first and last verses: God created, and that creation was “very good”.

Furthermore, humans (and every other creature for that matter) were created for this world, so to say “this world is not my home” questions, in some way, God’s goodness and wisdom.

This world is my home. This time and place is where God chose to put me, and I have a purpose that can only be fulfilled here and now. I can’t say, particularly in my current joblessness, that I’ve completely figured out that purpose, but I know it’s true. Certainly, this world as it exists—thanks to human rebellion—is not the kind of home God wants for us, but it is undeniably our God-given home.

Dualism

Hope-hoarders arose almost immediately after Jesus’ death, beginning with those who insisted all Christians must follow the Law. Thankfully, that notion is unequivocally denied in Scripture. But a movement called Gnosticism arose late in the first century, gaining momentum until largely petering out in the fourth. Gnostics claimed that matter—God’s creation, that is—was inherently and totally evil. Gnostics taught that some people had a spark of the spiritual divinity inside them. Gnostics insisted that salvation consists of gaining the gnosis (Greek for knowledge) of that personal divinity so they can escape the evil material world and return to the spiritual realm. Some even went so far as to insist the creator of the material world was not God the Father of Jesus Christ, but some lesser, mischievous or even malevolent power. In Romans 6:1, Paul is probably addressing early Gnostics who claimed their behavior in the body (matter) had no relationship to their salvation (spirit).

Duality—the belief in two opposing principles, matter which is bad or at least an illusion and spirit which is good and real—has its roots in the thought and writings of Plato, particularly his Allegory of the Cave. His influence continues to persist in human thought and attitudes today—in a renewed interest in Gnosticism, in some New Age philosophy, and in misguided Christian teaching.

It is embodied, for example, in the comment most of us have probably made sometime, telling a mourner that his or her dead relative is now in “a better place.” While that is true in a sense, it may reinforce the dualistic notion that this world—matter—is a bad place, but this world is as much God’s creation, though damaged by humans, as whatever heaven is.

At this point, you may be wondering why I’m making such a fuss about a simple little song. Aren’t we supposed to long for God’s kingdom? Let me then move to what I find the most objectionable line in that song: “I’m just a passin’ through.”

A Just a-Passin' Through God

Imagine for a moment that this world was created not by the loving, just God of the Bible, but by the “watchmaker” god of deism—a god who made it, set nature in motion, but then—not interested in his own creation—wandered off to another corner of the cosmos, leaving the world to run on its own. Imagine this god suddenly remembered our world a couple of thousand years ago and was curious how things were going, so he sent an emissary to this small insignificant planet where he’d heard intelligent life had evolved. Now imagine that emissary just a-passin’ through before reporting back. What do you suppose he’d say?

I suspect it might be something like, “Wow! It looks like that didn’t work out very well. Those supposedly intelligent creatures have devastated their planet with their byproducts; at least half of the six billion of them barely have enough to eat while others enjoy daily feasts; and they constantly try to kill each other off for reasons I can’t figure out. I’m sure glad that world’s not my home. I recommend destruction.”

The Gospel—the Good News—is that we don’t have such a God. We have one who won’t give up on us despite our disrespect for Him and His creation, and He sent Himself on a mission that was as far from “just a-passin’ through” as we can imagine. BUT… just what did Jesus accomplish in that mission?

Getting to Heaven

Too many Christians consider the hope Jesus offers to be about personal salvation only. Is the goal of Christianity to “get to heaven”? Or even to “get to heaven and take as many others as possible with me”? What might an outsider think about the line, “My Savior pardoned me, and now I onward go”? Might she think, “Those Christians only care about their own salvation, not the world around them!” That’s probably not what the writer meant, but the implication may be plausible to others.

Might HOPE be something more profound, more surprising, more compelling, more mysterious, more challenging than the half-truth of personal salvation?

To answer that question, we need only look at the life of Jesus. He spent his entire short human life serving others, fulfilling the words of the God spoken through the prophet Micah:

There in a nutshell we have a complete summary of Jesus’ life. He did justice in bringing the outsiders, underclasses, and marginalized into the community of the living God. He loved kindness in feeding hungry crowds and in curing his fellow humans of their physical, psychological, and spiritual illnesses. He walked humbly with God, emptying Himself of his true nature, becoming obedient, Paul tells us, to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8).

To outsiders looking in at the church, we are defined more by what we are against than what we are for. Where in the New Testament do we find the commandment to compel those who have not yet heard the call of the Master to think as we think and do as we do? Jesus never condoned destructive behavior, but he also never condemned the so-called sinners. In fact, his sharpest criticisms were leveled at the religious moralists (cf Matthew 23).

More to the point, Jesus states our failure to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the oppressed will be cursed and rejected upon His return (Matthew 25:41-46).

As Christians we are called, Peter reminds us, to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,” (Hebrews 10:24) not how to demonize our fellow human beings. He also charged us to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,” (1 Peter 3:15) not the justification for intolerance, even hatred, of others.

In teaching and living the passions of God on this earth, Jesus announced the coming of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom where (God) “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). He prayed, “Your kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

For many Christians, the goal is to get to heaven, but the primary meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not to show there is hope for life after death but more that there is hope for life before death.

Jesus taught that the Kingdom had already begun, yet we look around and we see a lot of tears, death, mourning, crying, and pain.

Why?

One reason is certainly that God’s restorative work is not yet completed and only will be after Jesus returns, but if we are even a little honest, we’ll admit that a second reason is that the church has failed to consistently reflect the Kingdom values described by Micah and practiced by Jesus. When the church fails to care for "the least of these." the prophetic words of Amos condemns our private and public:

In those Kingdom values lie the self-correcting mechanisms that are unique within Christianity. In opposition to the English slave trade, William Wilberforce led the abolition movement. In opposition to bigotry in American, Martin Luther King called white Christians to be true to their own beliefs. These and other social movements that triumphed against powerful political and societal forces arose from within Christianity—with people who took the Gospel message of justice and healing seriously, people whose goal was to bring the values of God's Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven, not just to get to heaven.

Recent surveys in this country show regular church-goers, who are expected to be good stewards of creation to love and pray for their enemies, are less supportive of environmental action and more accepting of torture. How can that be?

Can anyone image strip mining or human torture in the Kingdom of God?

When the Times of London invited a variety of scholars to submit essays on the topic, “What’s wrong with the World,” the Catholic theologian G.K. Chesterton supposedly submitted the following letter:

Dear Sirs:


I am.


Sincerely yours,
G.K. Chesterton

That’s the attitude we all need. Too often public discourse is reduced to the religious moralists and the secular humanists pointing fingers at each other shouting, “They’re the problem” when the truth is we all are and, most personally, as G.K. Chesterton said, “I am.”

I was one of the church-goers in the surveys, suggesting justifications for torture, remaining largely apathetic to creation care, and mostly ignoring the massive discrepancies in our world, where half of God's six billion children live on less than two dollars a day.

So, which will it be? A “just a-passin’ through attitude” that hoards hope and treats the world as if it doesn’t matter OR a Micah attitude that spreads hope and seeks, as God intended for Israel and all-the-more intends for the church, to work to reflect the values of the Kingdom of God, knowing that in our human weakness we can never fully accomplish the final restoration—only God can do that—but which shows the world that there really is hope—hope for today in humble acts of justice and kindness that give others a clear foretaste of what is to come.

Furthermore, in the 15th chapter of Second Corinthians, Paul assures us that in the Lord such labor is not in vain. Even if we don’t change the world in such a profound way as Wilberforce or King, somehow our Kingdom work will be reflected in the age to come, when all of creation is restored to God’s original design.

Maybe you’re saying you want to be a full-fledged citizen of the Kingdom, but how do you do it?

The answer doesn’t lie in a more effort, but rather in looking deeply at death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, of coming fully to grips with the simultaneously unimaginable horror and beauty of that act and, in so doing, be overwhelmed with a compulsion to live as He lived because we don’t have to die as he died.

What’s the problem with the world?

I am.

With God’s help, I can—we all can—so passionately look forward to God’s final restoration of creation, that I am compelled to get busy working toward it HERE and NOW!

How does that happen? I’ve come to believe that it’s only possible as the result of an understanding of God’s ultimate purposes, which will be the subject of the next installment of ET&N

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NEXT ISSUE: Gardening with God (September 15)

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