Children of the Promise

Scripture: Galatians 4-5

If you want to learn how to think like a theologian then you must study the sayings of the greatest abstract thinker of our time. I refer, of course, to Hall of Fame baseball catcher Yogi Berra.

Yogi’s thought is not limited by the laws of time and space. So he observed that “The future ain’t what it used to be” and advised “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Nor is his thought constrained by the principles of mathematics. So he noted that “90% of [baseball] is half mental” and once instructed his teammates to “Pair up in threes.”

Occasionally, the concept of human mortality appears to place some parameters around his thinking. This explains his statement: “Steve McQueen looks good in this movie. He must have made it before he died.” But, in general, even death itself poses no serious challenge to Yogi’s reasoning. Hence, this suggestion: “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t go to yours.”

Yogi understands a great deal about journeys of faith. Perhaps your own is described by Yogi’s trenchant comment “We’re lost, but we’re making good time.” In any event, it is absolutely clear that Yogi has the soul of a theologian. After all, it was Yogi Berra who once answered a reporter’s inquiry by saying “I wish I had an answer to that, because I’m tired of answering that question.” I’m confident that every theologian has, at one time or other, entertained just that thought.

In reading Paul’s letters, I have been struck by how often he had to answer one particular question. He had to answer it over and over again, and I wonder if he ever wearied of doing so. The question comes in different forms. But, at bottom, it always asks the same thing: “Who’s in and who’s out?”

Paul takes on this question again in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Galatians. Paul had personally founded the Galatian church, which was overwhelmingly made up of converts from Celtic paganism. It appears that, after Paul’s departure, some missionaries suggested to the Galatians that their conversion was incomplete and inauthentic because they had not accepted circumcision and other requirements of Jewish law.

This worried the Galatians, who apparently wondered whether their conversion had somehow missed the mark. From our perspective, this might seem rather amusing. We may grant that faith is not a matter of credentials while also acknowledging that conversion under the direction of the apostle Paul is a pretty good credential indeed. In any event, Paul wrote to address their concerns.

Now, there are many striking things about Paul’s answer. For example, in the course of responding Paul alludes to the parallel Hebrew Bible stories of Isaac and Ishmael and says “Now, this is an allegory.” It is a remarkable statement, really. Think about it: here we have Paul interpreting a Bible story and arguing for an allegorical and poetic—rather than a literal—understanding of what it means.

But, in my view the most arresting aspect of Paul’s answer lies in his description of our relationship with God. Paul points to two qualities of that relationship: he talks about its continuity; and he characterizes the relationship as an adoption. There is a lot going on here, so I want to look at these two themes separately. And then I want to talk about how those two themes, particularly when joined together, can comfort, inspire, and challenge us.

Let’s start here: the continuity Paul describes follows necessarily from God’s unchanging nature. Our God, Paul suggests, is a God of Promises—and has shown himself to be so since at least the time of Abraham. In the fourth chapter, Paul describes a foundational promise of freedom that God bestowed upon Abraham and Sarah and their son, Isaac. Paul declares that we, too, are promised and called to a life of freedom. He says: “You, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.”

Of course, this has implications in both directions. Granted, ours is a God of Promises. But ours is a God who expects us to be a People of Promises as well.

So Paul warns that we must not take the freedom God promises us as an opportunity for self-indulgence. Rather, he urges, we must use that freedom to pledge ourselves to God, to the love of our fellow human beings, and to a life of service. If we accept God’s promises, without making any promises in return, we fall into the trap that Dietrich Bonhoeffer brilliantly describes as “cheap grace”—the grace we bestow upon ourselves and that costs us nothing.

It matters greatly to Paul that God has consistently exhibited this quality—that our God is and always has been a God of Promises. It should matter to us, too. It should matter because believing in a God who fundamentally changes—or, more specifically, believing that one kind of God ruled the Hebrew people and another kind of God rules Christians—can lead us into all sorts of problems.

Still, we can and do fall into this sort of thinking. So, perhaps you’ve heard someone say something like this: “The God of the Old Testament is a God of justice, judgment, and anger; but the God of the New Testament is a God of forgiveness, mercy, and love.” Maybe you’ve even said it yourself. Now, reasonable people can disagree about many matters of faith and biblical interpretation. But I’d like to suggest to you that such statements are much more wrong than right—and may even be dangerously wrong.

First, such statements deny a continuity of faith that Jesus himself acknowledged and embraced. Jesus was an observant Jew who taught in the Temple while still a youth, honored Passover, and quoted from the Hebrew Bible. He declared that he had come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Jesus teaches us many things about new ways to understand what God wants from us and to think about our relationship with God. And for us Jesus's death and resurrection are defining moments in our relationship with God. But Jesus certainly never declares that God fundamentally changed, that the Hebrew Bible became irrelevant, and that the God who loves justice and who passes judgment became defunct and disappeared and so now we can all breathe a little easier.

Second, such statements deny the reality of the texts. Granted, if you go looking for justice, judgment, and anger in the Old Testament and for forgiveness, grace, and love in the New Testament you’ll certainly find them. But it isn’t that simple.

In fact, the Hebrew Bible includes numerous passages in which God exhibits forgiveness, mercy, and love. Consider how God loved David, despite his conspicuous foibles. Consider how God forgave and embraced Jacob, the troublemaker who misled his father and tricked his brother out of his birthright. Consider how the Psalmist described the God he worshipped just as we describe the God we worship: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

By the same token, the New Testament includes numerous passages in which divine justice, judgment, and anger are put on full display. Jesus turns over the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, and we cannot believe he does so in a warm and fuzzy way. He shows anger toward the Pharisees who refuse to answer his questions. He repeatedly refers to a time of judgment. Indeed, some theologians, like Albert Schweitzer, have maintained that this idea of divine and final judgment had a central place in Jesus’ preaching.

Now, why does all this matter? Well, it matters because harboring illusions about the Hebrew Bible encourages us to harbor illusions about the Jewish faith and our Jewish brothers and sisters. Throughout history, such illusions have fed one of the greatest evils to bedevil our planet, the evil of anti-Semitism.

And this also matters because harboring illusions about our own scriptures can leave us with a God who does not qualify for the name. To use Richard Niebuhr’s sardonic, and sometimes misused, description, it can leave us with “a God without wrath [who] brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” We may, even if unconsciously, cling to such an image because we find it comforting. But let me ask you this: is there anything less comforting—and more frightening—than the idea of a God who is one thing one day and something fundamentally different the next? How could we place our love and trust in such a God?

Still, Paul recognizes that, while God does not change, our relationship with God can. And he describes those who come into a new relationship with God as God’s “adoptive” children. This idea of “adoption” has prompted a great deal of debate and deserves some exploring.

It turns out that we actually know very little about “adoption” in the ancient Near East. We know that the Mosaic Law did not address it. But we also know that it was fairly common. We know that the Hebrew Bible includes some instances of adoption—Moses was adopted by Pharoah’s daughter and Esther was adopted by her cousin Mordecai. But we also know that such scriptural references are rare and fleeting. Neither the text nor the history of the scriptures gives us much help in understanding why Paul would have used this word.

So we are left to speculate—and we have, for dozens of centuries. Indeed, this question has occupied some of the greatest theologians in history. Thus, St. Augustine argued that “Paul says ‘adoption’ so that we may clearly understand that the Son of God is unique. For we are [children] of God through [God’s] generosity and the condescension of [God’s] mercy, whereas [Jesus] is Son by nature, sharing the same divinity with his father.”

Augustine expresses his point with characteristic clarity and power. But maybe Paul uses the word “adoption” for other reasons as well. Maybe he uses it because it is dense with meaning and suggestion. Maybe he uses it because, in that single word, he could capture a multitude of ideas. Maybe he uses it because this is Paul at his poetic, allegorical best.

So consider these possibilities. We are “adopted” because God has a defining, active role in the relationship. God takes us in. Indeed, God takes us in even if no one else will. Thus, Psalm 27 says “If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.”

We are “adopted” because we can come into a new relationship with God from anywhere, from any place, and from any past. As the first chapter of the Gospel of John suggests, we all have the opportunity to become the children of God.

And we are “adopted” because we are invited into a fundamentally different kind of relationship with God. It is not simply a relationship of obedience. It is a relationship of trust and love.
It is, as Paul perfectly expresses it, a relationship in which we can call the most awesome power in the universe “Abba,” “papa,” “beloved parent.”

Of course, like all allegories and metaphors this one is imperfect. For example, it does not account for the fact that God made all of us and so we are all the created children of God. But we know that allegories and metaphors work in this rough sort of way. When Bob Dylan sings that someone is "like a rolling stone" we appreciate that there are actually more ways in which they're not like a tumbing rock than ways in which they are. Still, the image of "adoption" is a powerful and useful one.

Jesus calls us to make, and honor, these same promises to all our brothers and sisters. This can challenge us and frustrate us and exhaust us. But it can also motivate us and inspire us. And, finally, it can save us.

So we keep at it. We try to make the promises and to keep them. We try to do what we say we will do. We labor long and hard to tend to the family. And in this work we do not, we must not, we cannot rest. For, to paraphrase the words of Robert Frost, we have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep, and miles to go before we sleep.

Amen.

A Matter of Perspective

Scripture: I Corinthians 7

A few years ago, I found myself in a conversation with a farmer who had recently given up on an enterprise he had pursued to supplement his income: operating a "corn maze." You know how this works: the farmer mows a complicated labyrinth through his high-standing cornfield; non-farmers stand in line and pay money to wander around in it; and this experience confirms everything farmers have always suspected about non-farmers.

When I asked this farmer why he'd abandoned his corn maze business he squinted, got a sour look on his face, and shook his head slowly. "It was those city folks," he explained. "They'd get in there, get lost, and then get our their cell phones and call 911. They'd tell the emergency dispatch operator that they'd gotten turned around and needed help. Sometimes they'd ask her to send a helicopter. Then the operator, who had misplaced her sense of humor about this a while back, would call me yelling about how I shouldn't allow idiots into my corn maze."

I think this offers an irresistible metaphor for the human condition. We waste time, and sometimes stand in line for the privilege of doing so. We mistake movement for progress. We go around in circles. We charge forward only to realize we have rushed backward. We search for markers and signs and instructions with little success. We grow confused and frustrated and even panicked about our sense of disorientation. And, when we finally get desperate enough, we seek the wrong help from the wrong sources.

In his letters to the Cornithians, Paul tries to explain how the followers of Jesus should make their way through the maze of human existence. The letters are dense with instruction, often conveyed through potent aphorisms and poetic imagery. As a result, verses from these letters are routinely recited at weddings, intoned at funerals, etched into jewelry, printed on bumper stickers, and otherwise taken out of context. This gives rise to a problem, because we can become so enamored with Paul's language that we lose sight of his overarching message.

In my view, the overarching message of these letters is this: becoming a follower of Christ entails a fundamental change in perspective. Becoming a follower of Christ means accepting a new vision, a new understanding, a new set of priorities. Of course, this proves so challenging for us because we inhabit the same old body in the same old world and tend to see things through the same old eyes in the same old ways. But Paul assures us that, through Christ, we can change our perspective. This change has three dimensions and I think it worthwhile to tease them out and consider them separately.

One of these changes in perspective is reflected in Paul's words in the seventh chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. In this passage, Paul recognizes a fundamental truth about human psychology: when life gets hard, we tend to assume that no good can come of it until things change. Or, to put it differently, we often think of difficulties as detours on our voyage to a better place.

Of course, this has some truth to it. The current world financial crisis has had devastating effects on millions of people. Still, our leaders assure us that eventually things will improve. They tell us we need to have hope--in part, because historical experience and economic principles suggest we should; but, more importantly, because it is impossible to drive an economic recovery on the stale fuel of resigned despair.

Unfortunately, however, some of us will face hard circumstances that will follow us throughout our days on earth. Debilitating health problems, terminal illness, the death of a loved one, addiction--these are not minor detours in our lives; these are unwelcome traveling companions that will accompany us all the way to our final destination. We can, of course, find comfort, peace, and hope in the promises that our final destination offers--indeed, this constitutes part of the perspective that we bring to things as Christians. But in I Corinthians 7 Paul offers a still different perspective on life's most trying circumstances.

Paul introduces this perspective by inviting us to consider the situation of the slave. This is a brilliant device, because it acknowledges the radical uncertainties of human existence. After all, Paul knew that some slaves would win their freedom and would find themselves on dramatically better and altogether different paths. But others would not. Others would die just as they were born--as slaves.

Paul assures us that even in that most desperate of situations--even when a force beyond our control takes over our lives and governs every minute of our day-to-day existence--there is something we can do. We can be in that place with God. We can be in that place knowing that we are freed from the burdens of loneliness (for God is with us), and emptiness (for God will fill us), and melancholy (for God will love us), and sin (for God will forgive us).

This is not sugar-coated blather. Nothing here promises to take the pain away. And this is not a call to complacency. Paul invokes the example of slavery to make a point about what is possible even in the most constraining of circumstances and not because he favors indentured servitude. This is an invitation to a different understanding. It is an invitation to stop pounding on the wall because we feel lost, to climb up out of the maze, to find our way to higher ground, and to look at things from a new perspective.

In his book Thinking It Through, Kwame Anthony Appiah of the Princeton University Center for Human Values provides this wonderful metaphor, perhaps the Ivy League version of my Chelsea, Michigan corn maze:

"Imagine you are lost in a large old city in Africa or Asia or Europe [and you'd] like to know where you are. The trouble is that just when you think you have found your way out of one maze of alleys, you are plunged into another. If, in your wanderings, you climb to the top of a tall tower, you can look down on the streets you have been lost in and suddenly everything begins to make sense. You see where you should have turned one way but went another; you realize that the little shop you walked past, with the cat in the window, was only yards away from the garden in the next street, which you found hours later. And when you get back down into the maze you find your way easily. Now you know your way about."

It is ironic, isn't it? It is precisely when we feel most lost that we're most likely to become fixated on where we are. But that may not offer any answers to us. We may only be able to find answers by stepping very far back and looking at a much bigger picture. Paul, shall we say, invites us to the view from ten thousand feet.

This raises two additional points about perspective. The first is this: we cannot stay in the tower. We have to come back down into the streets to put our new perspective to use. There is a great line in a work by one of my favorite theologians--Johnny Cash. He has a song with the refrain, "You're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good." We don't want to be "so heavenly minded" that we're "no earthly good." The whole point, after all, is for us to do all we can to bring God's kingdom to earth, as it is in heaven.

Our new perspective gives us a better sense of where we've been, where we are, and where we should go. It helps us navigate life with an improved sense of direction. And it grants us the understanding to assist others in their travels.

Eileen Lindner, of the National Council of Churches, tells a story about an experience she had at, of all places, a Jiffy Lube. While the oil in her car was being changed, Lindner wandered into the shop's waiting room. She looked around in vain for something to read but finally spotted a thick booklet. She writes:

"I started to turn through it and I realized it was the manual you study when you are getting your boat driver's license. [A]s I leafed through it I saw a section that said, 'What to Do When Boats Encounter Each Other at Open Sea.' I thought that was interesting. Here on terra firma we have lights and lanes and signs, and it does not work out that entirely well. How do they do it on open sea? I started to leaf through the book, and it said there are two kinds of craft: one has access to great power; it can accelerate and decelerate, power throug waves, change direction, and come to a stop just where it wishes. It has engine power and control. The other kind of craft is dependent on natural elements: human muscle power for paddling and rowing, tide and wind in the sails, sea current and human striving. These two crafts are known respectively as 'privileged' and 'burdened.' The text went on to say, 'When the privileged and the burdened encounter each other in the open sea, the privileged must give way if the burdened is ever to make safe harbor.' I thought to myself, 'Who wrote this thing? Mother Teresa? Dietrich Bonhoeffer?' I turned to the front and to my surprise the author listed was the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Now I ask you .... how is it that the New Jersey Department of Transportation knows that when the privileged and the burdened encounter each other, the privileged must give way if the burdened is ever to make safe harbor--and the Church of Jesus is having a little trouble with the concept?"

That leaves me with my last point about perspective, and a little boating story of my own. So here is my final point: unlike the experience of the traveler in Appiah's parable who climbs to the top of the tower, our new perspective won't give us a perfect understanding of how to work our way through the maze. We'll see the big picture but not the whole picture. And we're human, so we'll still make wrong turns, walk in circles, and lose our sense of direction from time to time. Occasionally, we'll even pray for a helicopter and sometimes--just sometimes--God will answer us with those "helicopters" we call angels and miracles.

But we can never allow our perspective to serve as a justification for pride. We can never let our assurance become arrogance. There is just too much, way too much, that we do not know.

And so here is my boating story. A number of years ago, I spent many weekends sailing with a Methodist minister friend of mine. As we sailed, we spent most of our time talking about boats and fishing and jazz music and the weather. Sooner or later, though, our conversations almost always drifted toward matters of theology.

One evening we were returning down a channel from a sail in Lake Erie. We approached a drawbridge, which was up, but my friend turned his boat and circled in place. As we circled, he kept a close eye on a high tower that stood at the base of the bridge. I didn't understand why we hadn't proceeded under the bridge and so asked my friend what was going on.

"Well," he said, "the watchman in the tower will signal when it is safe for us to go through."

Still a bit puzzled, I asked "Don't you need to sound your horn or flash your lights so he knows you're waiting?"

He smiled. "No, he knows I'm here. He's always watching. And he knows what I want. I don't need to do anything to tell him. So he'll let me know when the time is right."

"What if you don't see him when he signals?" I asked.

"Don't worry," he replied. "He'll keep signaling until I get the message."

I remained a bit mystified. "But the bridge is up," I said. "I don't see how it could be unsafe to go under it."

"That's right," he responded. "You don't see. But he does."

And, at that moment, a massive freighter came under the bridge from the other side. After the huge ship had rumbled past us, a light flickered in the tower, and the distant signal told us all we needed to know. So we headed safely home, this having completed our theological discussion for the day.

Sometimes we find our way through the maze without much difficulty. But often, in some lives very often, we discover that we have arrived at one of those lost, confusing, disorienting places. And occasionally it turns out that we'll be spending quite a bit of time there.

Our faith gives us a new perspective on these experiences. It lifts us up to higher ground. It gives us insight to navigate our way. And it assures us that we can say, as the patriarch Jacob said on one dark and lonely night when he slept with a rock for his pillow, lost in a spiritual labyrinth of his own: "Surely, the Lord is even in this place. And I did not know it."

Amen.