When in Rome?

This September I started preaching on Romans. I am so used to using the lectionary, but it has been energizing to actually look an a book of the New Testament and go through it sequentially. Of course we are just starting. I may get sick and tired of Romans in a few weeks.

What's amazing to me is what a Jewish book it is. So much of the letter is devoted to theological questions about what it means to be Jewish and believe Jesus is the Messiah.

It is also full of "Chutzpah". Here is the author of a letter who has never been to the Church in Rome. (We don't know if Paul had been to Rome before his conversion or not.)

But he writes a letter, claiming authority over a group of Christians, most of whom he has never met.

The other remarkable thing is that so much of the stuff Paul addresses is the same stuff we struggle with today. How to live in peace cross-culturally, how to live in peace with your government, how to live in peace with others, and most important, how to live in peace with God and find the serenity that comes from that relationship.

Of course the best part of preaching is always what you learn. I am always astonished that no matter what part of the Scripture I read or study, even the parts most familiar to me, still have something new.

Of course, one of my friends says, "That's because of all the brain damage from your wild youth. You did know this stuff, you just think it's new because you don't remember anything not written on the palm of your hand in indelible ink!"

While some of that may be true, I am still amazed by how God seems to surprise me in the bible.

peace - paul f.

Harry Potter flies again!

This July, one of my favorite fictional characters returned to the big screen. Harry Potter, the amazing boy wizard, once again returns for a summer appearance. I don’t know about you, but I have been grateful for Harry’s reappearance in print or the big screen.

Harry hit the bookshelves in 1997, and for the last 12 years, in print or in movies, J.K. Rowling returns her fans to Hogwarts each summer. The last book of the series broke all previous sales records for any publication when it sold more than 15 million copies globally within 24 hours of being released!

Why are these stories so captivating? I can only speak for myself. Somehow, J.K. Rowlings characters bring to life the hard work of growing up. Harry and his friends face death and its loss, the ups and downs of friendships, discerning good from evil and the hard work of choosing good especially when we’d rather choose evil.

And through it all, even the most evil characters are portrayed with understanding and when merited, compassion, without justifying their wrongdoing, Sometimes the evil people return to goodness and their evil is conquered. And sometimes their evil is simply vanquished when they die.

But what I like best is that good always conquers evil in the end. Harry’s adventures remind me that good will always eventually triumph over evil, including the evil that is part of us.

There is much that is evil in the world. I could make a list, but just read the newspaper, and you’ll find a few examples. Christians believe that evil is real, dangerous, and destructive. But we also believe that evil will be defeated.

We believe it’s defeated on a small scale in daily ways. Simple acts of kindness, compassion, and mercy defeat evil. Decisions to forgive those who have wronged us, decisions to ask forgiveness from those we have wronged. Each of these acts destroys an evil.

We believe that it will be defeated on a cosmic scale at the end of time. Someday God will renew the world in such a way that evil will cease.

We believe that our own evil will be defeated and removed from us by God’s forgiveness and love. And we believe that the evil we have experienced will be redeemed, transformed, and somehow turned into something good and holy.

Finally in Harry Potter’s world, the victories over evil are always won by sacrifice. So too in our world, for good to triumph over evil means sacrifice. Sometimes it is my small sacrifices that prevent or undo an evil. But most often evil is undone by Jesus love shown on the cross.

So get some tickets, grab your popcorn and watch the battle!

HOT ! DRY !

When we moved to Eagle Pass 11 years ago in the summer one very hot day the clouds built up in the sky. A huge thunderstorm moved in from the west. Thunder boomed, lightning flashed, but no rain materialized on the ground.

The next morning my older next door neighbor, Jack, who had lived many years in South Texas told me, "I estimate I got at least 3 or 4 inches, what did you get?" I looked at him wonderingly and asked "Did you get rain out on the ranch?" "Rain!?, I waern't talkin' 'bout rain! I'm talking about lightning!"

A few days later another storm came through, and a few drops fell and spattered dusty cars and streets. Another older fellow put his hand up to the windshield and measured the distance between the drops. "I figure this to be about a 4 inch rain he stated, and the other old timers all chuckled.

I learned quickly that it takes a sense of humor to live through the hot, dry, summer in this part of the world.

Finally in late September, it rained hard one evening. The next day I stopped by Jack's shop to pick up some hardware, and he said "Pay attention, everybody in town will be cheerful today." He was right. People were unfailingly happy, laughing, walking around with a smile on their face.

I learned to be grateful for rain.

Over these last few weeks I've been praying hard for rain, and giving thanks for clouds and shade. God knows when it will rain again. And the fact is that God does know. And when it does make sure to say "Thanks".

And for fun read this poem, "Said Hanrahan". It could have been written in South Texas.

peace - paul f.

Re-Creation

Recreation.

The word means to re-create. It is interesting that we choose such a word to describe activities that we consider fun.

Fun is essential to wellness.

We have a person in our Episcopal Church community, the Diocese of West Texas who works with churches and vestry in areas of evangelism and church growth. One of the things he does is some basic personality inventories of leaders and leadership groups.

A few years back I took the test. It showed that I like being a leader, but I also like to have fun. I am best at leading when what we do is creative and fun.

(That may explain why puppets show up in church so much!)

For the last week, Anne, Suzanna, and I have been in Oregon meeting up with our son Colin and other friends and family for some much needed re-creation. And I plan to have fun!!

I am so grateful to God for the opportunity to take a few days to simply be, to visit with family, and to let my brain wander off in different directions for a while.

Thanks be to God for opportunities to be re-created.

Peace - paul

Spiritual Warfare - 3 Floors or 1 Floor?

Does our spiritual universe have 1 floor, 2 floors or 3 floors?

Anthropologists have noted that the modern, scientifically sensitive,Western world reduces the spiritual universe.

What they mean is that people can conceive of spiritual reality in 3 different ways.

Historically most peoples have used a 3 tiered model that looks like this:

Heaven, God, Hell, etc.
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Earth’s spiritual world: Angels, demons, spirits
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Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter

But in the West, the universe gets reduced to a 2 tiered world that looks like this:

Heaven, God
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Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter


Or reduced even further to this:

Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter

You can see the assumptions that are made with each view of the universe. The 3 tiered model assumes a world that has both seen (material) reality and unseen (spiritual) reality. It assumes that the spiritual world influences the material world. In other words, it believes that spiritual forces are at work all the time, not just a spiritual reality that we find after we die.

Most Westerners assume that that view is the result of leftover primitive superstitions that have been disproved by modern science. We assume that the world of angels, demons, miracles, etc. is the result of ancient peoples attributing powers to parts of the material world which they did not understand. But given the advent of the microscope, the telescope, particle physics, etc. we now know that such a world does not exist.

Some Western people still believe that Heaven is real. (Far less believe that Hell might exist!) And many Westerners have dispensed even with any afterlife at all. They are complete materialists.

I have gone from believing in a materialist one tiered universe to a full fledged belief in a more traditional (primitive?) view of a 3 tiered universe. In my next post, I’ll explain why.

Peace in Christ - Paul

Spiritual Warfare continued...

Spiritual Warfare

I quoted C.S. Lewis “Screwtape Letters” book in the May edition of the Christ Church Newsletter. But a longer quote is helpful when writing about spiritual warfare. It is perhaps the best intro about the issue of fallen angels ever written. By examining the portrayal of angels and demons in the arts, Lewis uncovers the root of much of our own beliefs. In doing so, he forced me to examine not what I thought I knew about the subject, but to look again at the biblical passages, and to reflect about how much my worldview is shaped by an comic visual images coupled with an Enlightenment perspective which minimizes or eliminates substantive spiritual reality altogether.

Here is the rather long quote from the intro: (Highlights are mine.)

“The proper question is whether I believe in devils. I do. That is to say, I believe in angels, and I believe that some of these, by the abuse of their free will, have become enemies to God and, as a corollary, to us. These we may call devils. They do not differ in nature from good angels, but their nature is depraved. Devil is the opposite of angel only as Bad Man is the opposite of Good Man. Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael.

I believe this not in the sense that it is part of my creed, but in the sense that it is one of my opinions. My religion would not be in ruins if this opinion were shown to be false. Till that happens -- and proofs of a negative are hard to come by -- I shall retain it. It seems to me to explain a good many facts. It agrees with the plain sense of Scripture, the tradition of Christendom, and the beliefs of most men at most times. And it conflicts with nothing that any of the sciences has shown to be true.

It should be (but it is not) unnecessary to add that a belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. Devils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because any- one holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats. They are given wings at all in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form be-cause man is the only rational creature we know. Creatures higher in the natural order than ourselves, either incorporeal or animating bodies of a sort we cannot experience, must be represented symbolically if they are to be represented at all.

These forms are not only symbolical but were al- ways known to be symbolical by reflective people. The Greeks did not believe that the gods were really like the beautiful human shapes their sculptors gave them. In their poetry a god who wishes to "appear" to a mortal temporarily assumes the likeness of a man. Christian theology has nearly always explained the "appearance" of an angel in the same way. It is only the ignorant, said Dionysius in the fifth century, who dream that spirits are really winged men.

In the plastic arts these symbols have steadily de- generated. Fra Angelico's angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of Heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish, and consolatory angels of nineteenth century art, shapes so feminine that they avoid being voluptuous only by their total insipidity -- the frigid houris of a teatable paradise. They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying "Fear not." The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say, "There, there."

The literary symbols are more dangerous because they are not so easily recognized as symbolical. Those of Dante are the best. Before his angels we sink in awe. His devils, as Ruskin rightly remarked, in their rage, spite, and obscenity, are far more like what the reality must be than anything in Milton. Milton's devils, by their grandeur and high poetry, have done great harm, and his angels owe too much to Homer and Raphael. But the really pernicious image is Goethe's Mephistopheles. It is Faust, not he, who really exhibits the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon self which is the mark of Hell. The humorous, civilised, sensible, adaptable Mephistopheles has helped to strengthen the illusion that evil is liberating.

A little man may sometimes avoid some single error made by a great one, and I was determined that my own symbolism should at least not err in Goethe's way. For humor involves a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside. Whatever else we attribute to beings who sinned through pride, we must not attribute this. Satan, said Chesterton, fell through force of gravity. We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. This, to begin with. For the rest, my own choice of symbols depended, I suppose, on temperament and on the age.

I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”

In my next post I'll look a bit at the worldview issues involved.
Christ's peace - paul
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April 12, 2009 "Right here, right now!"

Alleluia Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Lent is over, and this is the last of my lenten blog. This is mostly adapted from this mornings sermon.

After seminary, my wife Anne, and my children, Colin and Suzanna, and I moved to Virginia just a few miles from the Manassas / Bull Run battlefield.

A few weeks after settling in we went to visit the battlefield. Suzanna had was not quite 4 years old. In the visitor center, we’d seen an interactive presentation, with sound, and video clips, and loud recordings of rifle and cannon fire.

That night she wouldn’t go to sleep. Finally when I asked her what was the matter she told me she was afraid, because that war we’d visited earlier in the day was scary and very close to her house.

I explained to her that the war was over, and that the fighting we’d seen was a story about something long ago.

In fact there were annual re-enactments of both of the battles at that place, sort of a historical "memorial service."

There is a tendency to think about Easter that way too.

Sometimes we act as though our Easter services are a sort of memorial service. A service to commemorate something that happened a long time ago.

But Easter is much more like something else I saw when we lived in Virginia. Living as close as we did to Washington, D.C. for 6 years, I had many opportunities to go to the city and many opportunities to play tour guide.

If you’ve been, you know it’s a city full of memorials. You can walk past the Vietnam Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the World War II Memorial.

And when you go past these memorials you hear snippets of conversations. And there are three kinds of people you hear.

You hear the tourist, for whom the memorial is just that, a memorial.

Then you hear the "second generation" conversations. The memorial holds some meaning because a grandfather, father, son, uncle, brother, mother, sister, grandmother, or other relative was in the war.

But the third group of visitors are the veterans. When they get to the memorial, it is not just a memorial. They are often transported to a very real and still very present reality that shapes their lives to this day. For them, the memorial brings something that happened in the past right into the present.

And that is why Christians celebrate Easter. Not to memorialize something that happened a long time ago.

Easter is more like a party being given for a special guest. And our guest is Jesus. Because what happened on Easter is still happening. The one who rose on Easter is not far away, a long time ago, but here, right now by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I love the Narnia books, have very much enjoyed the Harry Potter books, and have read some of the Twilight series books.

And what I enjoy most about those books is that there is another world, living right beside us in what seems to be our so humdrum world.

Easter means that the Risen Jesus is right here, right now, and we can ask him to enter our lives just as he entered the lives of the disciples that Easter morning.

Come Lord Jesus. Amen.