Pretension Busters: Beauty

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputations, Thesis 11)

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.

Matthew 23:27

Those in love with their own moral beauty can't see past it and delude themselves as to the condition of their hearts. Even Job protested that he was not like other men (or even Adam himself) who covered their transgressions by hiding their iniquity in their heart (Job 31:33).

Sometime ago as we were studying Psalm 51 ("Create in me a clean heart, O God!"), one of the group asked: "What do we pray for after we've received a clean heart?" i.e. what's the next step, how do we make 'progress' in the Christian living thing? I had to have some help with this one so I asked around my circle of theologians. The answer: "You pray for a clean heart." There is no 'progress' to made after receiving a clean heart.

Such reasoning can be traced back to Martin Luther who--when expounding on the petitions of the Lord's Prayer--made this comment regarding "Thy will be done...": Of course, God gives you a free will. Why do you want to make it yours? The very act of "making it yours" destroys its freedom. In the same way the very act of claiming a 'clean heart' demolishes its cleanliness. According to Luther the only progress is to begin anew--that is, to be returned by confession and repentance to your baptism wherein your sin is forgiven and the life of Christ is yours.

Yet there are those who persist in boasting and claiming: "I gave my heart to Jesus!" As if Jesus would want such a dirty and corrupt piece of garbage. No, Jesus is going to put it and you out of your misery: in his mercy you're going to die but thanks be to God that you'll rise with Christ to walk in newness of life. Now the heart at the center of you is no longer yours but Christ's. As long as it stays his, it's the most beautiful, free, and joyous thing imaginable; but--as soon as you try to make it yours--well, the very act of claiming it destroys it.

Moral beauty is no deeper than our deeds and ugly goes clear to the bone--for it's out of the heart. But those--who through the Word of God--have been put to death and received the life of Christ--have Jesus' heart and can never be truly ugly and possess a beauty beyond that of morality for it is of the Holy Spirit---they no longer live but Christ lives in them (Galatians 2:20). But... try to affix the possessive "mine" to such life and beauty and immediately it evaporates, thrusting one right back into the need to plead: "Create in me a clean heart, O God!"

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

Pretension Busters: Bailouts

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputations, Thesis 11)

For whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

Mark 4:25

Understanding the divine plan as some sort of "economy," has let Christians view God's work of salvation in Jesus Christ as a "bail out" of humanity because our sin was so bad. This divine economic plan consisted of myriad "transactions" between humanity and God where merit was exchanged for blessing or favor. Merit was awarded to those who appropriately "thank, praise, serve, and obey" God. Blessing was the extension of God's good will for this mortal life and an eternal life with God. On the occasion when "thanks, praise, serve, and obey" happened to be in short supply, there were "sacrifices" or rituals by which merit could be earned. Eventually, humanity's "merit debt" became so great only an infinitely meritorious sacrifice would be sufficient. Hence, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross: God's "bail out" of the merit economy.

The "merit" economy is extremely useful to religion and the institutional church. It's usefulness is responsible for its flourishing through the centuries. But... no matter how useful to the financial well-being of religious institutions (are there any that are really too big to fail?), the merit economy is simply not biblical nor is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross God's "bail out" of humanity.

Eternal life has never been a reward for the meritorious but only a gift of faith in Christ. Jesus has always and only been the way, the truth, and the life--no one gets to the Father but through him. God didn't call Jesus off the bench for his faltering all-stars. Jesus the Christ is no (T)oxic (A)sset (R)ecovery (P)rogram no matter how many times it's claimed that he covers (TARP)s our sins. Read John, chapter 1: "In the beginning was the Word...," Ephesians, chapters 1 & 3: "He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ..." & "..to enlighten everyone about God's secret plan--a secret that has been hidden for ages in God who has created all things." and Colossians 1: "...the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints."

Jesus' words in Mark--to him who has, more will be given; to him who has not, even that will be taken--just will not make sense if what one has is "merit" or "righteousness" or "works"--they do not fit the divine meritocracy. They only make sense when Jesus is not talking about a quantity of anything but a quality--that is, whether or not one "has" Jesus. If one "has" Jesus then more, much more, will be given (even the "merit" so previously longed for), but if one does not "have" Jesus, then all one has is personal merit and that is nothing, really nothing and even that nothing will be taken away.

My goal is that their hearts, having been knit together in love, may be encouraged, and that they may have all the riches that assurance brings in their understanding of the knowledge of the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2:2-3

Pretension Busters: Arrogance

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks,

“God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.”

Why does the wicked man reject God?

He says to himself, “You will not hold me accountable.”

Psalm 10:4 & 13

There is a wide-spread tendency in contemporary Christian circles to fulfill H. Richard Niebuhr's prophetic statement: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." The most obvious symptom is easily heard in the vocabulary of its leaders. "Wrath," "sin," "judgment," "cross" have been eliminated and in their place stand "love," "tolerance," "acceptance," and "hospitality" or "welcome." By ridding their congregations and churches of the past's "negativity," these leaders are convinced they've established a "kingdom" presence--a beachhead of the new creation--in the midst of this old one.

What they and their congregants fail to realize is that they've done nothing "new." Without the preaching of Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2) there is no end to the old, no new creation, and all they've done is to establish a new regime of the law. Only this time--without Christ to be the end of the law--there is no end to the tyranny of their "love," "tolerance," and "hospitality." Without Christ and him crucified, their churches are merely social clubs and mutual admiration societies where the iron rule of "niceness" must be held inviolate. Unless... unless someone should be so foolhardy as to name a sin or an intolerable behavior then the "niceness" disappears and brute intimidation makes its appearance: "Love! or else!

Now to be sure God is love (1 John 14:6), and God so loved the world (John 3:16), and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). The Gospel is good news only to sinners. When the proclamation of Jesus Christ--crucified by you and resurrected for you--when that proclamation ceases to be "news," then arrogance has set in, faith and hope have vanished, and the good news is merely a hollow claim of divine affirmation upon the status quo.

O, let us cry with Paul: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25) How nice of those in their mutual admiration societies to give Jesus a rest! Dietrich Bohnhoeffer made the radical--but biblical--claim: "When God calls a man, he bids him come and die." (The Cost of Discipleship) God does indeed take all comers, sinners all. As God loves them in the cross of Christ, those sinners see that God's wrath against them is indeed justified, that his judgment upon them is appropriate (You're going to die!). And right there... right there in the midst of sin, wrath, judgment, and death... right there the Gospel is not only Good News, it is the best of all possible news!

When Jesus heard this he said to them, “Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 2:17

Pretension Busters: Apathy

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

With great power God grasps my clothing; he binds me like the collar of my tunic.

He has flung me into the mud, and I have come to resemble dust and ashes.

I cry out to you, but you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me.

Job 30:18-20

Silence... silence in response to prayer challenges faith uniquely because faith is utterly dependent upon a word from God. Silence... silence from God when we call forth, cry out, plead unceasingly... silence even shuts up faith itself--stealing away its very breath. Silence... silence tempts us to go away--to stop crying out--to cease prayer itself and be silent ourselves.

Silence... nothing destroys God's "customer relations" like the unmet expectations of unanswered prayer. Of course, to all those "customers" of a vending-machine-God who treat prayer like its coin and faith like the coin's denominator, silence is simply the result of insufficient coinage and/or in insufficient denominations. A solution to God's silence simply requires more payment--more commitment--on behalf of the customer.

One of my mentors taught us to tread lightly, speak softly, and carry not a "big stick" but a bruised reed. "Try telling," he'd say, "Try telling a mother--awake for 30 hours at the bedside of her child, dying--try telling that mother she hasn't prayed hard enough. And if she doesn't floor you, her husband will."

When prayer gets silence in response, when we fear that God is not merely indifferent and apathetic to our plight but actively afflicting us, when there is no miracle--not even a "still, small voice"-- for faith to grasp, then there is no greater gift than a neighbor who comes as a preacher bearing God's Word into that terrible silence.. and faith catches its breath again.

"Be still! And know that I am God."

Psalm 46:10

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.

Psalm 91:15

[Jesus said,] “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you."

John 14:18

Pretension Busters: Ambition

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

After a few days,

the younger son gathered together all he had

and left on a journey to a distant country,

and there he squandered his wealth with a wild lifestyle.

Luke 15:13

Ahh... the arrogance of this son: demanding an inheritance before the old man had even had the decency to "drop dead." Then the ingrate runs off to be free of the family's and the community's disapproving gaze so he could enjoy all the delights of the so-called freedom his wealth could buy for him. This cheeky little ingrate soon realizes that no matter how long his journey from home may have been, he cannot escape life's realities: freedom is costly, even so-called freedom must be bought with a price.

This selfish jerk of a son makes his long journey of vainglorious ambition so he can live "high on the hog" until he's literally "feeding the pigs"--a bad ending to his long journey into ridicule. The Apostle Paul pairs this concept of "vainglorious ambition" with that of Jesus' ambition when he writes his letter to the Philippians. There in chapter two, he uses two words: "kenodoxia" (vs. 3) and "ekenoesen" (vs. 7)--both based on the same root word "kenoo"--to contrast selfish ambition with Jesus' self-emptying.

Paul's connection let's us see Jesus' story and the prodigal son's stories in their differences and similarities. The prodigal wishes his father dead and demands his inheritance; runs off and squanders it. Jesus' father sends him off to die but before he goes he surrenders his inheritance. Their similarity is that both have a "bad ending to their journey," ending up disgraced and/or dead. Finally, at the last, both sons are thrust upon their father's love and mercy.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,

but in order that the world might be saved through him."

John 2:16-17

Pretension Busters: Agony

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

We were pregnant, we strained,

we gave birth, as it were, to wind.

We cannot produce deliverance on the earth;

people to populate the world are not born.

^{Isaiah 26:18}

^{In his great book: The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker names the fear--the reality--that everyone MUST come to grips with but studiously avoids--that is, every life ends in death. This fear, this reality brings about a condition that Becker names our "Generative Death Anxiety." He then goes on to demonstrate how our cultures--our religions--are fashioned to help us cope with this very specific anxiety by covering it up and keeping it out of mind. We work very hard, endure great sacrifice, and use force and coercion to maintain those cultural and religious drapes over our Generative Death Anxiety.}

^{Our agony comes when specific tenets of our culture or of our religion come under challenge from some competitor. This competitor can be another culture or religion; it can be reason or science; or, God himself can be the source of challenge and confrontation. When gripped by the realization that the "old ways" are not viable any longer, when the covering is ripped off of our Generative Death Anxiety and we are skewered by the sharp point of mortality salience and, when we no longer can coerce or enforce our cultural or religious death-denial mechanisms, then lament is ripped from our throats and in agony we confess our condition.}

^{But... Thanks be to God that he has heard the cries of his people and has come down to deliver them! (Exodus 3:7-8) Jesus Christ, the very Son of God born of woman, came into the world, entered the reality of humanity's Generative Death Anxiety, and experienced the sharp end of mortality salience--only to be vindicated by God raising him from the dead. (Isaiah 53:4) Joined with him as we are by baptism into his death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4), we no longer have death awaiting us at life's end. Death is behind us for we have been drowned in the waters of baptism--sinners killed by the just judgment of the Word of God. Therefore, since our life is now Christ (Galatians 2:20) and he is raised from the dead nevermore to die again (Romans 6:9), Generative Death Anxiety no longer afflicts us and the sharp pointed end of mortality salience has become a comfortable resting place.}

^{For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.}

^{Philippians 1:21}

Pretension Busters--

Adversity

www.despair.com --"Increasing success by lowering expectations" (so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

In times of prosperity be joyful, but in times of adversity consider this:

God has made one as well as the other, so that no one can discover what the future holds.

Ecclesiastes 7:14

"What does not kill me, makes me stronger." Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888. German philosopher (1844 - 1900) The son of a Lutheran pastor, Nietzsche was able to "sniff out" the hypocrisy of religion but, having no faith in Christ and thrust upon his own powers, he was made mad and lived out the end of his days in an asylum.

The great paradox at the center of faith in Christ is the one where reason ends; it is the place where religion is afraid to look and falters; it is the place where atheism begins. Yet, when we are held in the faith of Christ, this paradox terminates free will and births faith.

You may remember that a paradox is when you must declare two contradictory statements in order to speak the truth. Both of these statements must be held in tension; neither can stand alone and the tension must not be resolved; the truth resides in the way each statement counters the "absolutism" of the other.

The great paradox at the center of faith in Christ is this:

The absolute necessity of God;

and

The total responsibility of humanity.

What does this mean? In the first place it means that--for God to be God--God must absolutely and necessarily will all things: God wills, works, demands, and brings about everything that is; nothing that is is without God. In the second place it means that--for us to be human--each and every one of us (each human being) bears the total and entire responsibility for what they do, say, think, and feel; every person will be held accountable under that awesome and terrible responsibility; nothing human is without that accountability--there's no one but ourselves to blame.

So...

God, in order to make saints, does not amend the lives of sinners; he does not "help" them to be stronger, smarter, or more sincere. God doesn't use "adversity" to make the sinner stronger and more boastful in the self. No, God puts the sinner on a cross (just like Jesus'--Matthew 10:38) so that the sinner will die--no "postponing the inevitable." Out of that death on account of sin, God raises up a saint to walk in newness of life.

Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me – so that I would not become arrogant. I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10