For your reading pleasure: An article on heaven and the Christian

Heavenly minded: It’s time to get our eschatology right, say scholars, authors - By Robin Russell managing editor for the United Methodist Reporter.

Blessed

What does it mean to be blessed? In order to answer that question you have to talk about perspective first. Perspective is important because it can dramatically change the way you see things. Your point of view or perspective is the place from which you view things. It is the place where you stand. It is your view point, reality as you see it.
Perspective can do funny things to the way we see things. It can cause us to see things that are not there or it can cause us to ignore the most important things which are right in front of us. From our perspective it seems that the sun, stars, moon and planets revolve around us. Drivers often hit things because their perspective is limited by blind spots.
Our perspective or lack there of can either hinder or help us. Sometimes, having a unique perspective on things can give us the ability to see things others can not. In society we tend to seek out leaders who have this unique perspective. We hope that they can see the terrain ahead and lead us there. Sometimes this means learning to value things differently than we otherwise would.
And so, what does it mean to be blessed? Well, let’s think about our “American” perspective and what is typically thought to be a symbol of blessing. For most people the thing that comes to mind first is wealth. Having a good job, a good income and lots of stuff usually tops the list. One only has to look as far as the news stands for proof of this. The American dream is sold to us in full color on glossy paper.
Now, this is not to say that having a good job is not important, but even the way we define a “good job” is tied up in ideas of wealth and prosperity. We often ignore the intangibles of fulfillment and satisfaction. Feeling fulfilled by your work, feeling that you have genuinely accomplished something meaningful, means having the satisfaction that your work has some lasting meaning that will outlive you or your paycheck. Often times the biggest blessing that can come from our work is simply the knowledge that we have made things better for someone who could do nothing for themselves. It is at that point when we realize having the power to do something about the ugliness in the world is more important than simply buying our way out of it.
I love the PBS series called NOVA. I grew up watching it with my Dad and to this day it is one of the highlights of my week. When it comes to perspective, a show like NOVA does a great job of broadening your horizon. Last year they aired a program called “A Walk to Beautiful”. In this program the filmmaker follows several women in Ethiopia who suffer from fistulas. A fistula occurs when the barrier between the birth canal and the bladder is damaged leaving a passage between the two. For the women who suffer from this condition the malady is accompanied by shame, rejection and humiliation. In many instances they are rejected by their husbands and even their own families. They are excluded by the community at large and are looked upon as accursed. Caused by the traumas of child birth complicated by their youth, these women have suffered the double indignity of a still born child and ostracism.
The film follows several of these women as they journey to a mission hospital in Addis Ababa for treatment. At one point the film maker takes us to the bedside as the surgeon gives his patient the good news that she has been healed.
Her reaction is joy and as her surgeon walks away she calls him a blessed man. Is he blessed because he is a doctor? Is he blessed because he is more well off than others in his country? Surely, these are all realities of his life but his patient calls him blessed because of what he is able to do for those who can not do for themselves. He is blessed in his work of healing. From her perspective, anyone who can make such a change in the life of another must be blessed.
Later on, as the doctor shares the final results with his patient, we hear from the doctor himself that his joy comes from the privilege of being able to participate in healing the women who come to him. At the end of the day his joy, fulfillment, satisfaction, his blessing, comes from changing another’s life for the better. From his perspective, being truly blessed means creating good in the life of one who has only known the bad in life.
Paul tells us that whatever we do we should do it in the name of our Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through him. In other words, the work we do should be done with the perspective that it blesses not only us but our neighbors, our Christ and our God. In doing our work in this way Pauls tells us that we are actually giving thanks for what we have been given. Interesting, is it not, the perspective of a truly blessed person is one of thanksgiving and service rather than gain and achievement.

Genuine Imitation Christ

We live in a world where everyone seems to be looking for the “real deal”. Genuine this and genuine that. We want genuine food, genuine friends and genuine experiences.

Yet, as Christians we have this odd little secret. We are called to be imitators. It seems that, for a Christian, genuine is the last thing you would want to be. Being called an imitation is really rather complementary.

It may be that as Christians we have realized we are never so genuine as when we are imitating. But the question then remains, what is it that we are to be imitating? Are we to imitate the world around us? Are we to imitate our friends and families? Should we try to emulate in our lives the high and mighty: those who have strength and power? Whom should we imitate?

Contrary to what you might think, you and I are not the first people to ask this question. For eons human beings have asked this same question, hoping to find some model on which to base their lives. Success or failure could rely on who you imitated. Here are a few options.

Imitate the powerful - imitate the king! There you go! Wear what the king wears. Speak the way the king speaks. Agree with what the king says. It all works well until one day the king is no longer the king and everything connected to him falls out of favor.

Imitate the wealthy! If you can not be rich then do your best to dress and act rich. Buy as big a house as you can get. Shop at the stores they shop at. Drive the cars they drive. Now, you may not be successful but you sure do look the part. That is, until the bank calls in your loan.

I know. Imitate the famous. That’s it. Imitating the famous is sort of like imitating the rich but it is as much about attitude as cash flow. Bootleg fashions will help you copy the look on the cheap but copying the attitude will not cost you a thing. Or will it? If you behave toward your friends and family the same way that the glam and fabulous do what will happen?

The list goes on and on. There seems to be no end to what we can imitate. It is not enough, however, for us to merely say that we should be imitators for a great amount relies on what we choose to imitate. As I have explained you can easily be undone by the very thing you imitate.

Perhaps the problem with many of the things we imitate is that they are of little consequence over the long run. Whether it is a lifestyle, a person or a philosophy, imitating the wrong thing can lead you down a path of sorrow.

Paul has given us an odd piece of advice which at first sounds very conceited. He tells us that we should imitate him. In all fairness to Paul that is only half the story. He tells us that we should be imitators of him as he is an imitator of Christ. Actually, he was telling the Corinthians who to imitate.

Why did he need to tell the Corinthians to imitate someone else? Simply it is because the way they were living their lives was problematic. Rather than going into how they were living their lives it is easier to look at the life Paul is telling them to imitate.

Before Paul makes this statement he explains to the Corinthians the philosophy he follows in life. “Do not seek your own advantage but that of the other.” In other words he is telling them that he is willing to give up a little bit of the liberty he has in order to benefit another person. Paul is willing to sacrifice some of the freedoms he knows are his not only for the benefit of the other person but for the glory of God as well.

It is in this that the artistry of leading a virtuous or “holy” life comes forth. Indeed it is in the truth of his statement that the true nature of following Christ comes forth. If either you or the Corinthians were expecting a laundry list of do’s and don’ts from Paul you were mistaken.

His words are a challenge to the Corinthians to think beyond themselves for the good of their neighbors and the good of the Kingdom. While things they may do are not necessarily sinful or wrong the effect that those things can have on another might be. In Paul’s mind an individual’s freedom does not trump her responsibility to a neighbor.

As Paul says, to imitate him in this is to imitate Christ for Jesus himself yielded his liberty for the benefit of others. To understand this is to understand more fully the truth of the atonement. To offer himself as an atonement for all of humanity was, for Jesus, to forgo a personal good for the good of others. In light of the atonement we, the Corinthians and Paul can do nothing else than imitate his example.

In our world people argue constantly about what their individual rights are. It is my right to do this. It is your right to have that. It is her right to be this. It is his right to think that. The conflicts arise when these rights compete for the same space. What happens when pursuing my “right” gets in the way of your “right”. When this happens it is often and only the powerful, proud and loud who “win”. It is these we are told to imitate, creating an ever deepening spiral of hate, disgust and resentment.

What would happen if we took Paul’s advice? What would happen if we tried to at least be like him and imitate Christ, keeping our liberty and our rights in tension with the needs of others and the reality of the Kingdom? What if we considered not only what is expedient for us but also good for our neighbor. What if we all considered the advantages of the kingdom before our own? What if?

A Line in the Sand

We all know what it means to draw a line in the sand. When a person ‘draws a line in the sand,’ it means that he or she is putting a limit on something. When I think of the phrase, ‘drawing a line in the sand,’ I think of confrontation. Drawing a line in the sand says, “this far and no further.”

We draw lines in the sand all of the time. We put boundaries up against things and people we do not like. Sometimes these lines are for our convenience. Other times such boundaries are for our well being. Regardless of why lines are drawn, they are for our purposes and needs.

On occasion, however, we will take a stand and draw a line for those who can not draw that line on their own. History is full of people who have confronted someone powerful on behalf of the weak. Taking a stance may involve a situation as grandiose as going to war against an oppressive nation. More often than not, however, it simply means standing for someone when everyone else stands against them.


Sticks and Stones
In the gospel of John, there is a story of a woman who found herself on the losing end of conflict. She had, we are told, been found to be in adultery. Now, where was the man with whom she had been found to be in adultery with? We will never know. None the less, the woman was convicted by the great and righteous, and led to her slaughter.

Dragged before the new teacher in town, the woman waited for him to hurl the first stone at her; an honor offered him by the crowd. She watched as this teacher, named Jesus, knelt down. Was he picking out a stone? Was he deciding how best to dispatch this unclean woman from his presence?

No. His interest did not seem to be with her at all, but with the crowd who condemned her. As he knelt he drew in the sand between himself and the crowd. To the woman’s amazement, those who had condemned her dropped their stones and walked away.
Cowering, the woman heard Jesus speak; asking if there was anyone present who desired to condemn her. She confessed that no one was to be found. “Neither do I. Go and sin no more,” was Jesus’ response.
In the woman’s weakness, Jesus had drawn a line in the sand. He stood for her when she could not stand for herself. Her guilt was not in doubt. Jesus did not doubt the accusations. His concern was not for whom the woman was at the time; or even for whom she had been. His concern was for who she could be.

Loved to be
As Howard Thurman said in his book Jesus and the Disinherited, Jesus loved the woman in a radical way. He loved her in a way that led her to become the person she wished she could be. He loved her as if she were that person already. Jesus loved her in a way that challenged her to better herself. All she needed was for someone to draw a line in the sand.

Jesus said to those who would take her life, “You have come this far but you will go no further.” At the same time he drew a boundary for her as well, saying: “From this point on you must be different than you were.”

All people draw lines, and make boundaries. It is not often that we will draw lines on behalf of others. It is not is also not often that others draw lines on our behalf. Jesus is drawing a line in the sand for you. Who will you be after that line is drawn?

The Meaning of Sacrifice: After the Exodus – Sin (4 of 5).

Covenant, community, and sacrifice; so, where does sin fit into all of this? After all, we have always been told that sacrifices had to be made because of sin. While that is true, I have shown that God’s primary concern seems to be with the establishment and maintenance of community.

Sometimes however, we do things that jeopardize community and covenant. When this happens things must be done to repair the damage. This is where the issue of sin and sacrifices made for sin come into play. As we seen last week with Cain’s murder of his brother Able, sin is inextricably linked to the death of community. Therefore, we find a second purpose for sacrifice as expiation.

If you remember back about four weeks ago, we discussed the difference between propitiation and expiation. Propitiation, as it applies to sacrifice, has to do with drawing nearer to God. Expiation, on the other hand, has to do with the notion of being washed, especially from sin. When we speak of sacrifice made in response to sin, we are speaking of expiation.

Last week we saw that Leviticus places sacrifice as a means of propitiation in the front of the line of reasons to make sacrifice. It is only after describing sacrifices made for the sake of fellowship that God prescribes how to offer sacrifices for sin. Now, if you pay attention to chapters 4 – 6 of Leviticus, you see that there is a distinction being made about the sins requiring expiation.

First of all, there are sacrifices to be offered for sins committed unknowingly. It is interesting to note that God doesn’t spend much time listing out specific sins and transgression. It is simple enough for him to say, “If anyone sins, doing any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done…” It is understood that any breach of the covenant between God and his people requires expiation. On the surface there doesn’t seem to be anything very outstanding about the sacrifices, but it is in the practice that we see uniqueness because God makes allowances for nation, leader, and individuals at all levels of society.

It is a gracious act of God that, in the best interest of the people and their relationship, he allows them to substitute an animal as a sign of repentance and recompense. The sacrifice for sins made “unwittingly,” acknowledges the reality of human frailty and forgetfulness. This is not to say that transgressions made in ignorance are not sins and do not imply guilt; it simply means that God understands that the outcome of our actions do not always reflect our intentions.

Keep that in mind. The intent of a person is very important, and Leviticus shows just how important it is in God’s estimation. Indeed, we have all at one time or another been unjust towards another person without really intending to do so, and we have seen the damage it can do to our relationships. Usually, however, we can apologize and move on, but what about those times when we have intentionally been unjust to others or experienced it ourselves? How much more difficult it is to restore those relationships?


In chapter 6 Leviticus takes a radical turn in talking about sacrifice for sin. Up to this point God has been making provision for “accidental” sin, and as I said not much changed for two chapters other than who was involved. When God begins to talk about intentional transgressions he is very specific and very demanding.

The most notable difference occurs in 6:2-3. God says, “When any of you sin and commit a trespass against the Lord by deceiving a neighbor in a matter of a deposit or a pledge, or by robbery, or if you have defrauded a neighbor...” Suddenly, an unjust act intentionally directed toward a neighbor is equated with a “breach of faith” against God. We are being told that a trespass against your neighbor is a trespass against God.

Remember what we learned last week? God is ever present at the table, and because of relationship to him through covenant, we are never alone in our relationships with others. It is never just you and me. With God involved it becomes a matter of “us”. The way in which we relate to others is no longer a hidden matter, there is always a witness.

Additionally, we see that God makes greater demands for sins committed knowingly. No longer is he satisfied to merely let the people redeem themselves through the use of a substitute. Do not misunderstand him. There will be a sacrifice made to show repentance, but before the guilty party can even approach the altar they must take actions to restore the broken relationship with their neighbor.

4”…when you have sinned and realize your guilt, and would restore what you took by robbery or by fraud or the deposit that was committed to you, or the lost thing that you found, 5or anything else about which you have sworn falsely, you shall repay the principal amount and shall add one-fifth to it. You shall pay it to its owner when you realize your guilt.” This is really interesting. It is as if God is saying that when we cheat, steal, and are otherwise oppressive to our neighbor, we can never claim ignorance of his will or say it was an accident. Furthermore, we have no place coming to God until we have made things right with the one we have most grievously harmed. Because of the triangular relationship we spoke of last week, a breaking covenant with your neighbor is breaking faith with God.

God is telling the members of his covenant community that before he will even listen to their apology, they must not only pay back what they took from the other, but they need to add one-fifth of the value to it for good measure. Does this sound familiar? It is Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, who responds to Jesus’ grace by not only paying back what he owed, but promises to pay back four times as much. It is Jesus telling his disciples to leave their gifts at the altar and be reconciled to their neighbor first.

Jesus and Zacchaeus did not come up with this on their own. Jesus was repeating what his father had already said. Zacchaeus was doing what he had been told to do. How can we expect to approach the table in friendship with God when we have harmed another? To do so is to pretend that He is ignorant of the brokenness that exists between you and your neighbor. As I have said, we can never forget that it is no longer just you and I at the table it, is now us because God is present. God is not fooled.

At one time or another we have all sinned as a result of our ignorance, more than likely, we will do so again. God in his graciousness makes allowance for that and shows great compassion for our frailty, making expiation for those instances. But when we go hunting for those whom we can devour and then sit down at the table as if nothing has happened we take that graciousness for granted. As we sit at the table God asks us where our brother or sister is. When we, like Cain before us, answer, “How am I to know, am I their keeper?” we heap conviction upon our own head.

We are all very interested in drawing nearer to God, and the grace that comes with being in his presence. The problem is that we are not often as interested in allowing others to enjoy that grace as well.

The Meaning of Sacrifice: Leviticus Part 1 (3 of 5)

So far we have nailed down the idea that a major purpose of sacrifice is to establish community. This can mean creating a place at the table for God, accepting the place God has made for you, or honoring the place that God has made for another. Along these same lines, sacrifice as a friendship building act of hospitality involves bringing our best to the table. As we saw last week with Cain and Able, a truly acceptable sacrifice involves giving your best.

In building community sacrifice is also a means of sealing covenant. As with God and Abraham’s covenant, sacrifice can be used to show just how far each party is willing to go with their promise. This is important because a covenant is not like a contract (for further discussion on this see chapter 9 of Living Responsibly in Community, Glennon, Hauk and Trimiew eds.)A contract can be broken by one party thereby releasing the other party from any commitments. Covenants however, are interested in relationships and therefore the wellbeing of both parties one for another. Just because you walk away from your promises doesn’t mean I can walk away from mine. This is the promise that God is making to Abraham and his descendants.

Let’s look at that promise again. In the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, God is reinforcing his promise to Abraham by means of the ritual sacrifice which I mentioned last week. In the promise of doing so, God tells Abraham that his descendants will be slaves in a foreign land, but that he will deliver them from their bondage and bring judgment upon that nation.

Now you and I, unlike Abraham, know the rest of the story. We have the benefit of reading ahead to the Exodus. We know that the descendants of Abraham were, indeed, enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt and were delivered by God out of bondage. In this act God does two things.

First of all, he maintains his commitment to Abraham, even though Abraham is long dead. Secondly, he reestablishes the covenant community he enjoyed with Abraham by showing his faithfulness to Abraham’s children. Even the language Moses uses with Pharaoh shows that Gods intention is to renew the covenant community. Moses tells Pharaoh that God desires that his people join with him in the wilderness for a feast. When the people do join God in the wilderness he sets some ground rules about what being a part of his covenant community looks like.

As I promised you a couple of weeks ago, we now turn to Leviticus. As a book Leviticus is important to us because it is a thorough explanation of everything that God explained to his people regarding their relationship. Yes, I know it is the first book you skipped when you made that commitment to read the whole bible. It is rather long and as I said it is very thorough and repetitious. It is rather long and as I said it is very thorough and repetitious. This repetition should only serve to underscore in your mind just how seriously God takes his commitment to community and how seriously he wants us to understand what community looks like.

Towards that end Leviticus starts with a discussion of, you guessed it, sacrifice. Everywhere we have looked so far, it seems that nobody had to be told how to make a sacrifice. In Leviticus we see God taking the time to explain how to prepare a proper sacrifice before even prescribing which sacrifices should be offered for what reasons.

When he has explained to the people what a sacrifice should look like, God then begins to talk about the different reasons why they should make them. Interestingly enough, the first reason mentioned is not for sin or atonement, but for peace and well being. Some commentaries simply refer to it as the “meal” offering showing its connection to the earliest meanings of sacrifice as we have already discussed (see The Old Testament Library: Leviticus). Once again the idea here is joining with God in fellowship. This may have been a sacrifice specifically offered as a sign of fellowship with God, or a step in having a fellowship meal with family and friends. Once again it is a way of inviting God to share in the feast as well as recognizing his role as the founder of every feast. God becomes the perpetual guest of honor.

It is interesting to me that God should begin his list of sacrifices with one that exists purely to celebrate the friendly relationship between God and his people and between the people themselves. It is only after this point that God begins to talk about sacrifice in relation to sin. Could it be God is telling us that if, in living out our day to day relationships with people, we remember that we are bound to our neighbors through our covenant with God, sin might not enter in? Remember last week when we looked at Cain and Able? God warned Cain that sin was crouching at the door ready to devour him. That sin found its expression in the ultimate breech of community, one person killing another. If Cain had remembered how he was tied to his brother through God, he would not have found himself asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He would have known. You see, we have all had those times when we forget that we are our brother’s or sister’s keeper.

There is something that happens around the table when we remember that God is ever present. It is no longer simply you and I who are at the table but “we”. It is now God, you and me. We are caught up in this triangular relationship with the divine. As you approach the table seeking community with God, be honest with yourself about who is missing from their seat at this table.

The Meaning of Sacrifice: Before the Exodus (2 of 5) Sermon 6, Week 6 SP '08

Last week we began to look at sacrifice by understanding (at least a little bit) how it worked in the ancient world. Now I want to look at how sacrifice is used in the Old Testament before the Exodus, when God delivered the children of Israel out of bondage to Pharaoh. There are two things I want to look at; shared sacrifice and covenant sacrifice.

First of all, remember what we found out last week about sacrifice as propitiation? Our friend Bishop Vogel explained to us that sacrifice, in the ancient world and especially among the ancient Semitic peoples, was as much about building community as it was about killing an animal. In fact, there were many different ways of sacrificing. Aside from the obvious blood offerings, there were libations (drink offerings) and vegetable offerings (grain, herbs, and other agricultural produce).

At times they were combined. Remember when I spoke of the Iliad last week? You know, Homer, the ancient Greek poet and not the cartoon? Well, I mentioned the sacrifice that Agamemnon made to Zeus, asking for victory in battle. Part of that sacrifice involved barley flour. The participants took handfuls of the flour and placed it on the victim’s head while they consecrated it to Zeus.

Later on in the Odyssey, Odysseus--the hero of the Odyssey, prepares for what amounts to a sacrifice for the dead. The hero digs a trench, slaughters two goats over it, and then sprinkles barley flour on top. Apparently, that was the equivalent of the “Super Buffet” for dead Greek heroes. Come to think of it, I think I saw that at a buffet last week.

Anyway, my point is that these were not uncommon things. Enter Cain and Abel. Genesis tells us that these two sons of Adam and Eve brought sacrifices before God. Cain was a farmer, so he brought an offering of his crops. Abel, we are told, “brought of the firstlings of the flock and of their fat portions.” Genesis goes on to say that God accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s.

What was the difference? Well, the difference is in the details. Genesis is rather specific about Abel’s offering but rather vague about Cain’s. Cain just brought a part of his produce while able brought the first and the best. Remember that sacrifice as propitiation is drawing nearer to God in a sense of community. It is a bit like being a good host. If you are inviting someone you really care about over to your house for dinner, you don’t just throw anything on the table. You give the best of what you have. If your boss were coming over for dinner, how many of you would take the opportunity to clean the leftovers out of the fridge. If you care about the person and what they think, you want to show them you care by giving them the best. In the case of Cain, it is not so much that God does not care for veggies as he does not like to be taken for granted. If we are going to talk about “making sacrifices” for God, we had better take our sacrifices seriously.

That brings me to my next point. Sacrifice also works to seal covenants. If we skip ahead to chapter 8 of Genesis we find Noah and his family piling off the ark after their long voyage. One of the first things they do is catch some of the animals before they get too far away and place them on the altar. God, having smelled the roasting flesh, takes the opportunity to make a covenant of peace with Noah and his descendants. He promises that he will never destroy the earth with water again and as a sign, hangs his bow up in the sky as a warrior might do when the battle is over.

So far we have been talking about sacrifice as something which costs us. When it comes to covenant however, God makes commitments too.

Within a few chapters of Noah’s story we meet Abraham. God and Abraham got along very well together and God had promised Abraham that he would give him heirs and an inheritance for them. To make his point, God tells Abraham to prepare a sacrifice. Abraham knows exactly what to do. Abraham takes a heifer, a female goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon. He then takes the heifer, the goat, and the ram and splits them down the middle. The halves of the animals along with the slaughtered birds are laid out facing each other, leaving a pathway between them.

The text tells us that a great dread fell upon Abraham, and it should have. This was a sacrifice meant to solidify a covenant.1 The persons making the covenant would state their responsibilities and then pass between the remnants of the slaughtered animals. Effectively, this was to say, may this happen to me if I don’t follow through with my promises. As the sun sets and the sky grows dark, it is God who through the blood, not Abraham. Sacrifice is an expensive thing, even for God.

As I said last week, we often trivialize sacrifice by making everything we give up a sacrifice, but we need to remember that sacrifice is something that demands our best and in response to us, God gives us his best as well.

1. For more on this subject look at the first volume of Gordon Wenham’s commentary on Genesis. Word Biblical Commentary Vol.1. Genesis 1-15.