A Jungle Gym Epiphany

Someone told me not too long ago, “There are people who believe, and people who don’t.”

Maybe.

I’ve certainly heard from people who consider religion unnecessary, object strongly to the Christian faith, or are offended at the very thought of God.

Or who believe firmly that anything outside the limits of everyday experience is superstition, myth, or fraud.

Balaam and His Ass, Rembrandt van Rjin,
Amsterdam, 1626  

Epiphany, as in moment of insight, is fine.

Epiphany, as in “manifestation of God among us” (celebrated last Sunday), is nonsense.

Yet, from what I’ve seen, we all believe in something.

In love, or goodness.

In reason, or science.

In family, or nature.

In beauty, or power.

In matter.

Or money.

We pretend we have logical reasons for our own grid of assumptions, but from what I can tell, what we believe is more often shaped by experiences – some we acknowledge, some we don’t.

A church that treated us badly.

A parent that loved rigid doctrine more than us.

A community that made us feel welcome.

A failure escaped by turning away from the whole social construct surrounding it.

Looking at the epiphany story I wrote of last week, I find myself wondering: why do some dismiss, without pause, the story of Balaam’s donkey, or the work of angels, or the Magis’ star?

Or, maybe a better question: why do I embrace them?

Yes, I’ve heard that anyone who believes in miracles is ignorant, uneducated, naive, misguided, foolish . . . The list goes on.

I have a PhD from an ivy league grad school (Penn) where those who embraced the Christian faith were sometimes treated as mentally deficient, mentally unwell, or, most likely, both.

But I realized then, as I’ve seen often enough before and since: assumption of superiority does not in itself constitute a convincing rationale.

And many of the most gifted scholars, authors, artists, philosophers I’ve followed have been deeply persuaded of the truth of the Christian faith.

Convincing apologetics aren’t hard to find if you have any interest in finding them.

Yet even as a kid, I knew that a pro or con list would most likely be shaped more by the inner predisposition of the person making the list than by demands of logic or reason.

The moment of turning, for those who come to faith later in life, is far more often a sudden awareness of God’s intervention than result of careful study or logical argument.

So back to my question: why do I believe in miracles?

I’m fairly sure there are many answers, none sufficient in themselves.

But I go back to an episode when I was nine or ten.

I was at our school playground – several blocks from my home – playing with friends with no adults nearby.

I was climbing on the metal jungle gym – a square grid of pipes, set in a concrete floor.

At the highest point, I hung upside down, feet in the air, head down, hands holding the highest pipe. Dangling upside down, I lost my grip, plummeting head first toward solid concrete.

And landed on my feet.

I remember standing there, heart pounding, looking up through the grid of metal.

Eight feet?

Ten?

Somehow I had turned completely, in a two foot square of pipes, without hitting metal.

Without landing on my head.

With no harm at all.

It’s not really possible.

By rights, I should have had a cracked skull. Or broken neck. At least a severe concussion.

So choose:

It didn’t happen.

I’m a gymnastic wonder and righted myself without knowing it.

Or – God intervened.

That jungle gym is long gone, but while it stood, while I still lived nearby, I sometimes went and stood inside it – in the place where I landed – and tried to reason it out.

I can still picture myself hanging, feel my sweaty, not-so-strong hands slipping. 

I can still feel myself landing, sneakers slamming hard on hard concrete.

And there’s still no explanation except one:

I’m not alone in this world.

There’s a God who knows and loves me.

There’s more going on around me than I’ll ever fully know.

I could offer lots more stories like that.

Accidents that didn’t happen.

Or that happened and loved ones emerged unscathed.

Strange encounters that completely changed my direction.

Words of direction spoken when I least expected to hear them.

Unexpected, unexplainable gifts of insight, or patience, or strength, or skill.

Reassurance in times of staggering need.

If you believe it’s all coincidence, hallucination, wishful thinking, then hold fast to that belief, and see where it leads you.

You can sweep any story away with a shrug, a strategically raised eyebrow.

And yet -

We all believe something.

We all see what we choose to or are able to see.

We all marshal our explanations, dismiss things that don’t quite fit.

CS Lewis, professor and scholar who narrated his journey from agnosticism to strong belief in the Christian faith, found himself musing on this in The Abolition of Man: 

The kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on `explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on `seeing through” things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to `see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To `see through’ all things is the same as not to see. (p.91)

To "see through" all things is the same as not to see.

I choose to see, even when what I see is hard to understand, doesn't quite add up, is way beyond my own control.

I’m not saying my Christian faith is based on some unexplained stunt on a long-gone climber half a century ago.

I’m saying that incident shook me, and taught me to watch for signs I otherwise might have missed.

Signs of love surrounding me.

Moments of grace embracing me.

Light shining in all around me.

Magi and Star, anonymous etching, 1885

Balaam's Oracle, Magis' Star

The oracle of Balaam son of Beor,
the oracle of the man whose eye is clear…
who sees the vision of the Almighty,
who falls down, but with his eyes uncovered:
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near--
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.
      Numbers 24:15-17  

So here’s the question this Epiphany Sunday: 

How did the Magi, from somewhere east of Jerusalem, know the prophecy about a star heralding a new king in Israel?

 And why, knowing that, did they NOT know the prediction that he’d come from Bethlehem?
 And why did the prophetic experts in Jerusalem share what they knew of Bethlehem, with no interest at all in the star the magi saw?

 And what does all that have to do with Balaam, that strange prophet for hire of the early days of Israel? 

Balaam on his talking donkey, Basilica di San Zeno
 Maggiore, Verona, Italy, 12th century 

If you think the whole thing is myth, these questions are obviously not worth pursuing.

But if you read it as part of the most intriguing historic narrative ever constructed, then those questions are worth a journey of their own.

Balaam, son of Beor, apparently a free-lance Aramaic seer, was hired by King Balak of Moab to pronounce curses on the people of Israel, sometime in the late Bronze Age, around the 13^th century BC.  After some misgivings and dialogue back and forth with Balak, Balaam agreed to travel with the Moabite officials toward the place where the Israelites were camped along the Jordan.

Three times, in narrow passes, Balaam’s donkey refused to move forward, despite abuse and beatings from its owner. Ironically, the donkey was afraid to move past the angel of the Lord blocking its way, while Balaam, the “seer,” was unable to see the angel.

Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.”  Numbers 22:28-33

Again – if miracle disqualifies historical account, don’t bother. Just as Balaam couldn’t see the angel without God opening his eyes, those needing verification for anything unusual might as well stop reading now. 

Balaam's inscription, Deir Alla

Although, I confess, that’s part of the marvel of this story. Dismissed as myth, Balaam showed up unannounced in an archeological dig in 1967. Workers on an expedition in Deir Alla, in Jordan, uncovered traces of lettering in fragments of plaster. International scholars who gathered to examine the fragments found that one said, in bold letters, “the prophet, Balaam son of Beor.” Other text detailed a time of coming judgment, in prophetic language that mirrors the oracles of Balaam reported in Numbers. The pieces of writing are dated to somewhere between 6 and 800 BC, with general agreement that they provide a record of prophecy passed orally across centuries.

That’s not the only evidence pointing back to Balaam. The Babylonian Talmud offers discussion of his lineage, his influence, the meaning of his prophecies. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in caves at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank between 1946 and 1956, discuss Balaam repeatedly, with varying interpretations of his prophecies and their meanings.

And somehow, apparently, his prophecy of a star and scepter was passed down in the regions where he had traveled, resurfacing with the Magi in search of the king they believed the star would signal.

Which leads me back to the questions I began with:

How did the Magi, from somewhere east of Jerusalem, know the prophecy of the star heralding a new king in Israel?

 And why, knowing that, did they NOT know the prediction that he’d come from Bethlehem?

 And why did the prophetic experts in Jerusalem share what they knew of Bethlehem, with no interest at all in the star the magi saw? 

Three Wise Men detail, master of Sant'Apollinare,
Ravenna, Italy ,526 AD

Questions one and two: if Balaam’s oracles were passed on orally, and recorded in writing centuries later, they would have passed into the historic record, at least in the region of Jordan, if not in areas beyond. If the Magi had only those oracles to go on, then they had mention of a star and king, words of blessing for the people of Israel, and warning of disaster for anyone who opposed the God of Israel and those he promised to protect.

Other more overtly messianic prophecies, recorded by Israelites in subsequent centuries, would be unknown to them.

Question three is a little harder: If the magi brought news of a star, why were they the only ones to see if?

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem  and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he  had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.  “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

  for out of you will come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

      Matthew 2:1-6

Here’s what I’ve concluded, digging back through Jewish writing about Balaam and his star: no one believed him. He wasn’t Jewish, wasn’t a proper prophet, had questionable motives. What he had to say was dismissed. Along with any mention of a star.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), 

“it is significant that in rabbinical literature the epithet "rasha" (the wicked one) is often attached to the name of Balaam (Ber. l.c.; Ta'anit 20a; Num. R. xx. 14). He is pictured as blind of one eye and lame in one foot.” 

As for the donkey, “The tale of the talking ass must be regarded as a bit of primitive folk-lore, introduced into the narrative as a literary embellishment.” 

I find myself back to the question of what we see and don’t see.

Balaam couldn’t see the angel until his eyes were opened.

The teachers of the law couldn’t see the star, or the meaning of the star, because they discounted Balaam and all he had to say.

And we, looking back: so often we dismiss donkey, prophet, star, Magi, angels, story of Christ’s birth. 

As myth? Primitive folk-lore? Literary embellishment? 

We chuckle at the thought of a talking donkey, argue over the physics involved in the description of the star, miss the greater miracle: that God chose to intervene through the birth of a child whose mission of mercy still rattles prison doors and rebuilds broken lives.

Are we really wiser than those early wise men?

Or are we so intent on going where we choose to go we refuse to see what’s standing right before us?

One last thought I take from this story that spans so many centuries:

Truth will bubble up when we least expect it. The story of the Magi’s star draws breath from a donkey, a mercenary prophet-for-hire, an earnest brigade of journeying wise men, disinterested scholars, ancient fragments of plaster.

On this Epiphany Sunday, I pray for myself, for you, for pilgrims near and far: 

That this may this be a year when the truth becomes clearer. 

That the eternal story, strange and wonderful, will seize our hearts and quiet our doubts. 

That the light of Christ, in all its unexpected forms, will shine ever brighter.

That we will know the joy of true epiphany.

The Journey of the Magi, James Tissot, France, 1902, 

Abundance, Blessing, Cost

"If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it ...
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
Rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we will never know it . . .
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields . . .
Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality."
 (from Work Song, Part 2: A Vision, Wendell Berry)

Last week I wrote about The Grace Outpouring, a book sent to me by a fellow blogger in the UK. The book explores the idea of God’s blessing, and how we become avenues of that blessing.

This week, thinning peaches on my three young peach trees, I was reminded of the idea of blessing, and of Wendell Berry’s poem: 

“The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.” 

I find myself in a season of abundance and great blessing. House wrens serenade me from the backyard box I put up weeks ago. Bluebirds perch on a log just yards from my front window where I leave seeds and bits of suet. Locust blossoms perfume the air, and my woodland beds of trillium, foamflower, and bluebells invite the buzz of nectar-laden bees.

The hummingbird is back, exploring the scarlet honeysuckle I’ve trained above the path from driveway to backyard. The rabbits have multiplied. I meet them along my mossy paths, or surprise them investigating my peas and lettuce nestled in a raised bed made of storm-torn locust limbs.

Most days I feel very rich: rich in friends and family, rich in health and purposeful, interesting work.

But perched on a ladder in a damp, cold wind, picking off tiny peaches so the remaining fruit grows plump and juicy, I find myself thinking about how much I take for granted.

I didn’t know, until I planted peach trees, how much work it takes to grow a peach. I bought them at the local farm market, complained when I succumbed to peaches at the grocery store and found them hard, or tasteless. I’m not sure I even knew what a real peach was like until I moved to Pennsylvania and encountered just picked peaches at a local fair: yellow flushed with pink and red, warm and juicy, sweet with a succulent sweetness food chemists still can’t duplicate.

We live in a flattened world, far from the blessings God intended.

We eat prepackaged food, shipped from somewhere far away.

We hurry through our days, missing the music of early morning birdsong, the beauty of clouds, the soothing whisper of breezes on birch branches, or streams slipping over mossy stones.

We are too often impatient, and hard of hearing.

Peaches, I’m reminded, are an investment in the future. For every peach I eat, there was someone who envisioned an orchard, and planted trees.

And someone who went out in the winter to prune.

And someone thinning the peaches, picking tiny spheres by hand, hour by hour, focused, painstaking work.

All of those investments are part of the blessing of peaches – a blessing easily missed, easily taken for granted.

Roy Godwin, author of The Grace Outpouring, speaks of the many aspects of blessing in God’s kingdom: forgiveness, health, unity, peace.

But none of that comes easily. There’s a cost. Not to the person who receives the blessing, but to the one who gives it.

Just as the grace of Christ’s cross is given freely, but cost him his life. Grace is free, but costly.

I didn’t see this the first time through my reading of The Grace Outpouring.

I found myself wondering, “Why does God answer prayer there, and not so often here?” “Why do they find themselves blessed, while we feel God is far away?”

But reading through again, I was struck by the tenacious obedience of Godwin and Daphne, his wife.

The decision to move to Ffald-y-Brenin, the retreat center, was costly, and disruptive.

The financial challenges were great.

The emotional work of rebuilding lives in a new, unfamiliar place was familiar. I’ve been down that trail: painful, costly, poised between regret and hope, far from hard-earned networks of support.

Finally settled at Ffaldy-Brenin, Roy and Daphne Godwin faced a series of strange leadings: preparation in prayer, risky conversations, small steps of obedience followed by next steps, more difficult, more costly.

Godwin describes a deepening pattern of obedience, a day of prayer in new, unfamiliar ways, a sense of contentment from knowing they’d done what they’d been given to do, then, unexpected fruit: 

“Early the next morning there was a frantic hammering on our front door, and we emerged to find the guests – who had come as individuals and not as a group – up and talking. I thought maybe the fire alarm had gone off, but it turned out that there was a different kind of fire at work.
 "During the night, Jesus had appeared in dreams to each of them and spoken amazing words individually to them, into their lives and their situations, and for each of them this had brought amazing healing. In many cases his words had touched concerns that nobody else knew about, in their childhood, very early on in their lives. There was wonderful healing and a new freedom for them all.
 "Now they wanted an explanation, and our pithy response to these thirty overwhelmed guests was ‘God is blessing you. Let’s just give him thanks, and let’s ask him to keep blessing you.”
 "That wasn’t all. In the following weeks a torrent of water began flowing out of springs above us that had been dry for many years. It was their dryness that had given rise to the name of the area here: Synchbant, which means “dry streambed.” The millstream that had been fed by the springs had dried up and was no more. But now there was a torrent of water" (p. 57).

There are mysteries far beyond me. Somehow, what we do ripples out, for good or harm. Careless choices, selfish appetites, harm the land, dry the streams, send birds into silence. And in God’s mercy, the opposite is true as well: costly obedience, acts of generosity and grace, bring healing not just to us, and to others, but to the land itself.

I have not finished with my peaches. I’ve let them grow too tall; some branches are beyond my reach. Balanced on my ladder, I consider: leave them to scatter the tree’s energy? Prune the tree back? Ask for help?

There was a time when I opted for easy, looked for the simplest solution, heated frozen dinners, watched too much TV. Took life for granted. Wondered why God seemed so far away.

Now, I choose to live like a slow growing tree, investing in wholeness, waiting for wisdom, shouldering my share in the cost of grace, so I can share the grace, as I’ll share my peaches later this summer: sweet, warm, surprising. Golden blessings to be savored. 

Pentecost People of Blessing

We live in a world thirsty for grace, hungry for any hint of blessing.

But what we find, too often, is judgment: not fast enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, not “good” enough.

Jesus said: 

“I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5) 

On Pentecost, God’s grace rained down on the waiting disciples, then poured through them to the city around them:

“The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. . . .More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.  As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.  Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.” (Acts 5) 

That is far outside most of our experience, yet there are times and places where grace bubbles up, rains down, flows like living water through thirsty crowds. Some of us shrug, explain it away, fine-tune  theologies that justify our unbelief.

Others of us pray, with the prophet Habakkuk: 

Lord, I have heard of your fame;

I stand in awe or your deeds, Lord.

Repeat them in our day,

In our time make them known

Habakkuk 3

I have written about praying for a young woman named Emily, struck by lightening almost five years ago. A fellow Synchroblogger from the UK, Chris Jefferies of Journeys of the Heart and Mind, recently contacted me to say he’d been reading my posts about Emily and prayer and felt God prompting him to send me a book: The Grace Outpouring, Becoming a People of Blessing.

The title alone was enough to capture my interest. How do we become a people of blessing?

But I was also drawn by the sense of God weaving bits of his church together. Chris is part of a fellowship of Christians in Cambridgeshire, England. The book tells of God’s work at Ffald-y-Brenin, a retreat center in south-west Wales.  My own little group gathering to seek God’s healing now includes a friend from Albania, a lovely woman of faith from Jamaica, a missionary’s daughter born in Korea. Our backgrounds are all different. Our longing to know God more deeply is the same.

To me, one sign of God at work is the breaking down of boundaries, the weaving together of people from different places, different experiences. At Pentecost, the boundary of language was broken down:

“Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2)

But Pentecost was about more than breaking down of boundaries. God’s people, empowered by the Holy Spirit, began to do what Jesus had promised: 

“Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”(John 14:12) 

The Grace Outpouring is the simple story of how that promise is taking shape in one small corner of the world. Roy and Daphne Godwin stepped into leadership of a remote retreat center and began to explore what it means to be agents of blessing. 

“The measure we use toward others will be the measure that he uses toward us. As we forgive we will be forgiven (Matthew 6:14-15). As we bless we will be blessed (Genesis 12:3). In Luke 10, the disciples were instructed to declare the peace of God over the towns they entered. For us today, that means asking God to manifest his character in the communities we live in. As we pray using the revealed names of God, he will come and show his beauty, mercy and compassion.” (36)

 Roy Godwin, with coauthor David Roberts, talks about the way Christians sometimes think we’re called to pronounce judgment rather than blessing: 

"I had already begun to question a culture of faith that places a high value on correcting strangers. . . . Having a heart to bless will challenge the judgmental mid-set that can color how we look at those we live with and among. We can become a “grace first” people. . .

"If we will let the wisdom of God inhabit our thinking, a consistent “grace first” pattern will emerge in our actions and words. “Grace first” prayer for healing doesn’t search for wrongdoing in a person’s life that needs correcting as a prelude to a miracle. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence for that approach in the ministry of Jesus. We simply ask that the power of God should touch that life.” 

Godwin describes the ways he and others have seen God’s blessings at work: miraculous healing of physical and mental illness, sudden insight into spiritual things, unexpected unity, restoration of relationships, conviction of sin, deep experience of forgiveness. The stories are told simply; a statement at the start of the book explains:

“God is too great to need our exaggeration. This book contains many testimonies as spoken to us by guests at various times. We want to be as accurate as possible. If the reader is aware of any error, please let us know so that we many correct it in future editions.”

 Some of the stories from the book are excerpted, and indexed, on Chris Jeffries’ Journey’s of the Heart and Mind. More recent stories are gathered at Kingdom Vision UK. 

"Coming before the cross at Ffald-y-Brenin"

These stories resonate deeply with what I’ve seen of the way God works: bringing to light deep hurts no one else could touch, meeting doubts, anger, and grief with his own great love. Revealing truth through dreams. Speaking directly – sometimes in an audible voice – to those who doubt his presence.  Restoring damaged joints, healing mysterious, debilitating illness.

Reflecting on the healing seen at Ffald-y-Brenin, and beyond, Godwin concludes: 

“It seems clear to me that it’s impossible biblically to separate the good news of the kingdom from healing, because if you actually read the accounts of the Gospels and Acts, they flow together, so that when mercy flows out to us it is not just to help us find forgiveness, but it’s also to do with all that we are. This unstoppable stream, this river, this flood that is released upon us touches every part of our lives. . . 

"When Jesus came into a community, it was good news for those who were open to welcome him. Although they were amazed by his words and teaching and dazzled by the miracles, it was the outflow of his life that was such good news for them. . . . He reached out to the sick and healed them, opened blind eyes, restored deaf ears, lifted the weight of condemnation off the guilty and prompted them to live a different way in the future.

"All this, he taught, was a sign that the kingdom of God had come upon them. His healing miracles were not an incidental happening while he got on with the real business of preaching the gospel. He was the gospel. It was the overflow of his presence empowered by the Holy Spirit that was the breaking in of the kingdom.

"When jesus commissioned the disciples, it was with the instruction to mirror his own ministry. They were to heal the sick, release the oppressed, and declare that the kingdom of God was close. God cares for the whole person, and the gospel, the good news, is for the whole person.”(13) 

To all that, I say “yes,” while I wonder: why does healing come so freely in some places, and so rarely in others? How do we continue to pray when it seems like nothing changes?

I’ll be back to this topic next week. There’s more to process, and much more to learn.

In the meantime: 

“A kingdom worldview says that mercy and grace come first. .. 

"What might the song of the redemptive community we aspire to be sound like? Perhaps these words go some way toward capturing its essence: 

We welcome all who come here.
We greet all that we meet.
May we be as warm and open as Jesus was,
With a heart for the last, the lost, and the least.
We don’t want to look away
Or sweep anybody under the carpet.
With God’s help we will not diminish anybody.
We will be the voices of mercy,
Blessing all with the love of God
In the wonderufl name of Jesus. 

"So how do you make this vision a reality in the streets and buildings around you?

Your comments, reflections, questions are welcome! 

Other recent posts on prayer:

Does Prayer “Work”? May 5, 2013
Like a Motherless Child, May 12, 2013 

Other posts on Pentecost:

Resurrection Power: A Prayer for Pentecost  May 27, 2012
Waiting for Pentecost June 5, 2011
An Altogether Different Language June 26, 2011

Advent One: How Do I Know?

This is the season when our secular script calls us to account. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday: consumer capitalism is taking attendance and counting the collection. Get your money in motion. It’s your patriotic duty.

I find myself agnostic on free market fundamentalism, and non-compliant on the call to dutiful consumption. I don’t believe our future depends on ever-increasing production. Instead, I’m intrigued by thinkers like EF Shumacher, Herman Daly, Gar Alperovitz, Marjorie Kelly, and their exploration of a commons-based economy less dependent on measures like market shares and GDP and more open to alternative systems of value.

Every year, as Advent collides with our annual consumer celebrations, I find myself thinking about belief systems, identity issues, where we put our hope for the future. Am I of value because I spend? Is my contribution dependent on the size of my paycheck? Is my hope for the future tied to the health of my pension? If I question our economic model, will I be tried for heresy?

We all have beliefs we hold firmly, creeds we confess. Some of those are so deeply embedded we no longer see them for what they are, some so foundational to who we are we’re surprised when someone calls them into question. We hold narratives we assume are normative: Treat the world well. Watch out for your own. Go to a good school, get a good job, make as much as you can.

Somehow we believe our own constructs are the right ones, while simultaneously endorsing the idea that all faiths are equal and your truth is as good as mine.  If everything is equal, then Romney’s version of reality is equivalent to Obama’s, Rush Limbaugh’s rants as reasonable as Jon Stewart’s sly reflections. Are some things true, and others false? Are some valuations right, and others wrong?

Here’s a simple one: do you believe that what we see is what we get? That the material world is the measure of value, that life proceeds according to easily duplicated models, that there are natural laws that nothing can change?

Or are there realities beyond the physical realm? Does my value rest in something you can’t count? Are there times when natural laws are set aside by forces we can’t see?

Maybe not so simple.

Ideas have premises as well as consequences, and each plank in our platforms, each item of our creeds, rests on others, some explicitly affirmed, some studiously suppressed. For most of us, if we make the effort to clarify, we find contradictions, confusions, items of faith held in unacknowledged tension.

My goal in this blog has been to dig around in what I believe, to examine premises as well as consequences, to try to hear the half-heard words that form and inform who I am, what I do.

Advent lands me back at the foundation of that, as the narrative of a baby born two thousand years ago collides with the narrative of power, profit, personal value playing out in the stress and strain of an American December.

So I’ll start here: why would anyone care about the story of that provincial baby, nobody child of nobody, born in an occupied country, in a dusty nowhere town, in a stinking animal stall?

And what halfway intelligent modern person would believe, for even a millisecond, that that baby was the product of a deity’s word, spoken to an unmarried teenage girl, or that mythical creatures no one can document showed up in force to sing to some smelly shepherds?

Approach this as a scientist, and the narrative crumbles quickly.  No one can “prove” the facts of an individual’s conception, immaculate or otherwise, and what scientific evidence would support the songs of angels: undoctored photographs? Phonograph recordings?

The story of Jesus, like many stories of scripture, sits outside the realm of science, which is not to say that scientists can’t be Christians; many are.  But for those who insist on scientific naturalism, on a reality that conforms, is explained, can be proved, by the laws of science, the Christmas narrative is a fairy tale, a silly myth, of no more weight, and maybe less interest, than Seuss’s Grinch, or Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin.

But if science is the measure of meaning – we live in a very flat world indeed.

Philosopher Peter Kreeft speaks of “the radical insufficiency of what is finite and limited”, the “cramped and constricted horizon” encountered when “our best and most honest reflection on the nature of things led us to see the material universe as self-sufficient and uncaused; to see its form as the result of random motions, devoid of any plan or purpose.”

Advent is a reminder that we all, whatever we profess to believe, find ourselves constrained by the constricted horizon of "what is." Surrounded by broken systems, broken institutions, broken people, we surrender to the self-protective stance so deeply encouraged by an impatient, uncaring world. Even those of us who say we believe in an active God surrender to the finite, limited vision of reality, measuring our worth in taxable dollars. We fall into compliance with superficial valuations. We become complicit in the competitive enterprise. Our voices are silenced. Our hope for change is dulled.

At first, (as young adults, or willful dreamers) we rebel at the “radical insufficiency” of the current regime: we try to be generous, even though generosity looks foolish. We try to be honest, even when honesty is rarely rewarded. But slowly we cave. We blend. We realize that those ideals we held have no place in a material world.

Then God grabs our world and shakes it – like a child shaking a snow globe – and the scenery changes.

Yesterday I started rereading the gospel of Luke. Luke, the only Gentile writer represented in the Bible, was also one of the most educated: an upper-class Greek doctor, Paul’s “beloved physician”, and a careful historian.

He starts his account of Christ’s life with a promise to share only what he's researched himself and is convinced is true:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us . .  With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account . . .  so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

After his quick introduction, Luke plunges headlong into the story of Zechariah, John the Baptist's father: names, dates, simple history. But in verse eleven, the narrative takes a turn: "Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear."

I love the detail. Not just an angel, but “standing on the right side of the altar.”

The angel explains what is about to happen:  Zechariah’s aging wife will become pregnant with a longed for baby. The child, a son, will be part of God’s plan of intervention for his people, and the world.

I identify deeply with Zechariah’s response: “How do I know this is true?” Religious leader though he is, he's asking for proof: Will you give me some kind of unassailable documentation? Will you come tell my neighbors, so they know I’m not crazy? Could you make this announcement in church next Sunday? So everyone else hears you too?

How do I know?

I love the angel’s response. Polite, but sharp. Let me paraphrase: “Seriously? You’re a priest, here we are in the inner sanctum of the temple, I’m standing here in front of you, straight from God’s throne, me, Gabriel, still God's messenger, the same one who spoke to Daniel, centuries ago. I'm here telling you what God has planned, and you’re wondering if you can believe me, even while you're shaking with fear. You still need proof? Really?”

I’ve never had an encounter with Gabriel, but I’ve seen God intervene in my life. And in the lives of others. I’ve seen the intervention that brings forgiveness, freedom, joy, healing, laughter in the place of pain, a deep sense of belonging for those who felt abandoned.

And still, five minutes later, or five weeks later, five years later, we ask: “How do I know that was true?” “Why should I believe in miracles?” "Where's the proof?"

There are some great discussions of miracles available: a quick overview by Peter Kreeft, CS Lewis’ book “Miracles,” chapter seven of Tim Keller’s Reasons for God, Two interesting websites, Christians in Science in the UK, and American Science Affiliation in the US, offer extensive resources on the compatability of  science and faith. The Biologos Foundation, founded by Human Genome Project geneticist and physician Francis Collins, offers a helpful mix of articles about miracles and science, and a new book by Collins and Karl Giberson, The Language of Science and Faith.

But, for most of us, questions of miracles aren't really the point. We have other things on our minds. We have our own un-examined premises, and that's good enough for now.

In those dark days of the Roman occupation, some of God’s people, like Simeon and Anna in the temple, waited for God’s intervention, and celebrated at the first hint of his appearance. Some, like Zechariah, went about the motions of religion, no longer convinced that God might show up.

My guess is that then, like now, most didn't give it much thought. Life is far too busy. There are Christmas presents to buy.

Earlier Advent posts:

Advent Two: John the Baptist,  Dec. 12, 2010 

Marys' Song,  Dec. 19, 2010 

Christmas Hope,  Dec. 24, 2010 

Metanoia,  Dec 4, 2011 

Voice in the Wilderness,  Dec. 11, 2011 

Common Miracles,  Dec. 18, 2011 

The Christmas Miracle, Dec. 24, 2011

Resurrection Power: A Prayer for Pentecost

Pentecost, El Greco, 1600, Madrid

Today in our church we’ll celebrate Pentecost with a reading from Acts 2 in as many languages as we can muster: French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Greek, maybe an African dialect or two. We’ll have a big birthday cake, reminding us and our kids that Pentecost is the birthday of the church. And we’ll pause to wonder, at least some of us will, why the power displayed at Pentecost shows up so rarely in our corporate gatherings.

At least we celebrate. The church of my childhood never mentioned Pentecost at all.

Reflecting these past few weeks on the implications of the resurrection, it’s occurred to me that the full power of the resurrection wasn’t revealed until the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In his last extended conversation with his friends, described in John 14-16, Jesus made some stunning promises: They would do what he had been doing. They would be able to pray with new authority and expectation. They would be partners in the work of demonstrating God’s glory – through healing miracles, proclamation, teaching. They would experience God’s joy in a new way.

These things would happen through the agency of “the advocate,” or paraklete, the Spirit of truth, as a demonstration of love, God’s love for his people, their love for him and each other, and in the context of unity, the unity of Christ’s followers with him, with his Spirit, with each other.

Fifty days later, on Pentecost morning, those promises came true in a rush of wind, mysterious flames of fire, and a sudden burst of understanding and courage. The followers who had been hiding out, waiting, wondering, unsure of the next step, were suddenly speaking with passion and power in languages they didn’t know, in a public space where anyone could hear them.

Were they drunk? Crazy? Superstitious weirdos?

Peter, the same Peter who denied Jesus three times and put his foot in his mouth every time he opened it, explained the situation with the clarity and courage that were themselves demonstrations of the Holy Spirit’s presence:

“Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 

Pentecost, Keiko Muira, stained glass, Seattle

“‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy."

The next chapters of Acts describe a radical change in the people involved, and a new vision of what it means to walk with God and his people. Miraculous healings, unprecedented provision for human need, impassioned historical, spiritual discussion by unprepared fishermen, and a sense of love, unrestrained love, sweeping through the community, drawing men and women in ever growing numbers into a new way of life.

Did it happen?

The fact that the Christian church appeared, in force, on scattered continents within a few centuries of the Acts of the Apostles argues for the truth of Luke’s narrative. So do the consistent reports from early historians, who recorded the way Christians cared for the sick, fed widows and orphans, befriended outsiders, offered new rights and protections to women and slaves. No other religion had insisted on love as the basis of human interaction; no other religion had extended care so insistently to those who didn’t already share the same faith. The love of the early Christians was winsome, noteworthy, and contagious.

I grew up in a tradition that believed, completely, in the work of the Spirit in the book of Acts, and believed, as completely, that such things no longer happen. Yet any unbiased reading of historical record will yield extensive evidence of the Holy Spirit at work, motivating public repentance for wrongs done others, courageous care for the sick, extravagant acts of generosity, supernatural healing, unexplained provision, dissolving of barriers between races, classes, genders.

In A.D. 185 Irenaeus wrote about the continued visible work of the Holy Spirit:

"Some drive out demons really and truly, so that often those cleansed from evil spirits believe and become members of the Church; some have foreknowledge of the future, visions, and prophetic utterances; others, by the laying-on of hands, heal the sick and restore them to health; and before now, as I said, dead men have actually been raised and have remained with us for many years. In fact, it is impossible to enumerate the gifts which throughout the world the Church has received from God and in the name of Jesus Christ . . . "

Augustine of Hippo (354- 430 AD) originally taught that miracles had been unique to the age of the early apostles. He changed his mind near the end of his life, as he encountered miraculous healing and financial provision. As bishop of Hippo in North Africa, he recorded in his City of God the many miracles he himself witnessed, as well as reports from reliable witnesses.

The Venerable Bede, (672/673 - 735), considered the most reliable historian of the Anglo-Saxon period,  Bernard of Clairvaux,  Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua,, Clare of Montefalco,, Bridget of Sweden, Vincent Ferrer, Martin Luther and John Wesley are a just a few of the Christian leaders across the centuries who recorded miracles observed as they sought to follow Christ's call to be like him, to do the things he did.

Peter Heals the Lame Beggar, Gustave Doré, 1865, France

A recent Christianity Today cover story, Tim Stafford’s Miracles in Mozambique: How Mama Heidi Reaches the Abandoned describes the work of Heidi and Rolland Baker, Americans who have lived since 1995 among the poor of Mozambique. They began by caring for a handful of orphans, but their work quickly spread to include miracles that bring to mind the first chapters of Acts: thousands of healings, outrageous generosity, an explosion of faith. The Bakers have been involved in training leaders for 7,000 churches, oversee a national Bible College and now provide for over 5,000 children at their centers.

Do I believe it?  A study published in the Southern Medical Journal offers documentation of some of the cases where deaf individuals, prayed for by the Bakers and pastors they’ve trained,  have become able to hear, and where the blind have received improved vision. The work in Mozambique is also discussed in Craig Keener’s scholarly, carefully researched two volume work Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts  (2011),

But my reasons for believing are more personal, as is the case for the other “hundreds of millions of people” Keener suggests have experienced and witnessed miracles: I’ve experienced the power of the Holy Spirit myself, in emotional healing, in surprising words of wisdom, in sudden courage to step into difficult situations. And I’ve seen that power at work in others: in sudden gifts of faith, physical and emotional healing, needs met in ways far beyond coincidence, spiritual growth beyond what circumstances would warrant.

Yet, I sometimes feel that I live in a spiritually dead zone. I picture God’s people, in the places where I travel, standing with crossed arms, clenched fists, closed hearts, almost daring God to intervene. Heidi Baker has noted that God has healed almost every deaf person she and colleagues have encountered in Mozambique. In the US? Not so much. Are we too busy explaining away the Holy Spirit’s work? Are we lacking in faith?

Or are we lacking in love? The work in Mozambique is driven by love: love for the poor, the orphans, the physically broken. Heidi Baker, in almost every interview or article, says “Love looks like something.” She believes that love demands practical, physical demonstration: feeding the hungry, healing the sick. She insists that any follower of Christ needs to “stop for the one,” needs to look intently at the needs of individuals, and ask God for the power to meet those needs.

untitled, Anna Kocher, 2000

That’s a costly form of love. A risky form of faith.

Do we dare open our arms to embrace it?

It reminds me of Peter and John, who stopped to look intently at the paralyzed man on the steps of the temple, offered him healing, then were jailed and threatened for sharing their faith and upending the status quo.

Noting the threats, aware of the cost, still they chose to pray for a fuller experience of Pentecostal power:

"Enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.  Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

To that prayer, I add my own: "Help us love in the way you love. Make us willing to hear, receive, obey the call to be like you. And give us the power we need to do that."



This is the last in a series about the resurrection:

Risen Indeed: The Hermaneutic Community 
The Great Reversal: A Resurrection People 
Earth Day Shalom: Ripples of Resurrection  
Resurrection Challenge: Feed My Sheep
Resurrection Laughter 

Resurrection Women: Happy Mother's Day

          Reconciling Righteousness 

Other posts about Pentecost
         Waiting for Pentecost
         An Altogether Different Language

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Click on the ___comments link below to see comments and to post your own.