Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

When is a "natural talent" a spiritual gift? That isn’t an easy question to answer. If you limit yourself to the Pauline lists, you quickly realize that you can’t offer an either/or answer to the question. Could they be natural talents with a supernatural add? Could they be transformed natural talents, where once they were natural but if they are used for sacred purposes we should consider them to be spiritual gifts? It is probably best not to make a sharp distinction between gifts and talents and recognize the mystery of the Spirit’s engagement with our lives. In the mystery of creation, we can recognize that what we call talents are in reality divine gifts of grace. We can use them for our own purposes, or in gratitude to the creator use them in the work of God’s kingdom. A gift’s usefulness to the community faith is rooted in our appreciation of the one who is the true source of all talents and abilities, the Creator.

The biblical discussions of creation witness to the mystery of human life. There is a strong sense that humanity is created for a relationship with God and gifted with abilities that relate to that calling. Hear the implications of the Psalmist’s affirmation of God’s attention to the details of our formation as individuals.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made

(Ps. 139:13-14).

We do not have to take this passage in a deterministic or literalist manner to appreciate our calling by God to stand before God as people who are "fearfully and wonderfully made." This passage helps us affirm that each of us, no matter our backgrounds, skills, intelligence, social class, have something to offer to the world. Who we are and what we do does make a difference. No one else can do what I do like I do it and no one can do what you do quite like you do it. It’s not just a matter of talent; it’s also a matter of personality and temperament. Who we are is somewhat of a mystery, but the call to use our talents and abilities to create a community of faith that will witness to the love of our God, that is not a mystery.

Excerpted from Gifts of Love (unpublished mss.)

Does God Love of Necessity?

When we say, with the author of 1 John, that "God is Love," what do we mean by this?  According to this text, if taken quite literally, it is not simply that God loves whom God chooses to love, but God's essence is love.  It is a divine attribute, just like omnipresence, et al.  So what does this mean, especially as it regards God's relationship with humanity?

First we start with a definition of love and I have found Tom Oord's basic definition to be quite useful in this regard. 

To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic/empathetic response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.  (Oord, Nature of Love, p. 17).

 From this basic definition he suggests that love exists in three forms, in spite of love (agape), because of love (eros), and  alongside of love (philia).

Now the question is -- does God love us of necessity or does God chose to love?  Tom Oord suggests that if God is love, then God must love of necessity.  Now some would say, yes God loves within the Trinity (that was Augustine's view) but God does not of necessity love the creation.  Oord, however, making use of the Hebrew statements about chesed  (see Ex. 34:6; Ps. 136), God's steadfast or everlasting love, suggests that "the God whose love for creation is everlasting and endures forever must be the God who necessarily and essentially loves creatures" (Oord, p. 130).

It is in this sense that we can say that God's love is unconditional. Oord writes:

God essentially loves creation, because God's essential nature includes love for the world.  If God's nature did not include love for creation, Christian appeals to God's unconditional love would be baseless.  (Oord, p. 133).

So, my questions are, based on what Oord has written, does God love us of necessity?  And what does that mean?

Give God the Glory -- Sermon

Psalm 96

Music has the power to stir our souls and enliven our hearts and minds. Whenever Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus is played or sung, nearly everyone stands. They may even join in singing the chorus. It happened just the other day, when Pat concluded his recital with this very piece.

Why do we do this? Is it just habit or expectation? Or is it because this piece of music is so inspiring that we cannot take it in sitting down? What is important to point out is that the Hallelujah Chorus, like Psalm 96, calls forth from us, a declaration that God is sovereign, not just over our personal lives, but as the Psalmist declares, over “all the earth.” And so we sing:

“Hallelujah For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, hallelujah”

And then, we proclaim:

The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord,

And of His Christ, and of His Christ;

And He shall reign for ever and ever . . .

“Hallelujah For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, hallelujah”

In this song of praise, we hear echoes of the biblical declarations of God’s reign, declarations like the one found in another ancient hymn, one that Paul included in his letter to the Philippians. This hymn declares that the one who emptied himself of glory has been raised up by God,

So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).

 I don’t know what instrumentation Paul imagined for his hymn, but I expect it carried a sense similar to that of the Hallelujah Chorus and the 96th Psalm. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if our songs are accompanied by mighty organs, simple guitars, or even no accompaniment at all. What matters is what comes forth from the heart as a declaration of allegiance, thanksgiving, and praise.

The 96th Psalm calls for us to sing to God a new song. The Psalmist invites us to join with the whole of creation in singing the praises of God, who is our creator. It is by classification an enthronement psalm, which acknowledges the reign of God, and in this case also declares the good news that God is at work bringing salvation, healing, wholeness, and hope to a world that is fragmented and broken. It evokes from us visions of God’s splendor, which is reflected in the beauty of God’s creation. And then, it closes by offering us promises of stability and justice.

1. Affirming God’s Glory and Greatness

And so, at the invitation of the Psalmist, we come before the throne of God, singing a new song that declares before all the creation God’s glory and greatness. In doing this we affirm that God transcends our boundaries and our lives. God is present with us and among us and even within us through the Spirit, but we are not God. Karl Barth speaks of God as being “wholly Other.” That may or may not be sufficient definition of God’s being, but it is a reminder that when approach God, we stand upon holy ground.

When Moses went to the mountain to receive instructions for God’s people, God reminded him that he stood on sacred ground and that he should take off his shoes. Here in this Psalm, we’re directed to:

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;

bring an offering, and come into his courts. (Vs. 7-8).

Come into God’s presence, bringing with you both words of praise that affirm God’s greatness, and bring signs of your devotion, offerings that affirm your allegiance to the one who sitteth on the throne of heaven.

2. Enjoying God’s Beauty and Splendor

Even as the Psalmist invites us to kneel before the Lord our Maker, the writer declares that “honor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary,” and then invites us to worship God “in holy splendor.” This is an invitation to enjoy the beauty and splendor that is reflected in God’s creation.

Consider the wondrous beauty of God’s creation, whether it’s the dunes along Lake Michigan, the deep blue waters of Crater Lake, or the majesty that is Mount Shasta. Each of us can name a place that is so beautiful that we can’t do anything except stand or kneel in awe. There are other expressions of God’s splendor that come from within us, as we are invited to co-create with God things of beauty and grace. This invitation is written into our very being, for as Genesis reminds us, we have been created in the image of God. And so, it is our calling to bring forth beauty and splendor in the world. It might be music, such as we see displayed by the choir or the organ. It might be a piece of art or a poem.

N.T. Wright speaks of humankind being the reflection of God’s “wise, creative, loving presence and power.” God is enlisting us, in our very creation, “to act as his stewards in the project of creation.” Therefore, Wright states that:

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in this world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. (Surprised by Hope, Harper One, 2008, pp. 207-208).

We speak of ourselves as being a missional church. Therefore, as we create beauty we express God’s mission by helping create a better world, a world in which God’s name is honored and praised because there is joy and there is hope.

3. Experiencing Stability and Judgment

As we reach the closing stanzas of this great Psalm, a Psalm that directs us to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation, we hear words about judgment and stability. As we’ve been learning in the Wednesday studies, salvation isn’t about being whisked away from this world by God. Instead, God’s work of salvation is about making the world whole, and as we experience this wholeness – not perfectly of course – we have the opportunity to participate in God’s work of healing that which is broken. It is, to quote Paul, our participation as ambassadors of reconciliation, even as God, in Christ, is reconciling us to God’s self, so that we might experience the new creation (2 Cor. 5:16-21). Salvation has a partner, and that partner is judgment. Now, in our study, we’ve also been learning that God’s judgment and justice aren’t about punishment and condemnation. Although, God separates that which is good and honorable from that which is evil and dishonorable, God is not doing this in order to punish or condemn. God’s judgment is designed to make things right so that there might be peace and good will on earth as in heaven. The Psalmist declares that God will come to judge the earth in righteousness and truth. If we trust that God is not just fair, but gracious and merciful and loving, then we need not fear God’s justice. Instead, we can find in this message a word of hope, for God is not abandoning us or this world, but God instead is seeking to make things new.

Even as God promises to come and judge with righteousness and truth, we also hear a promise of stability. The Psalmist declares that the “World is firmly established and shall never be moved.” Now, that doesn’t mean that the earth won’t experience quakes or other cataclysms. I suppose it’s even possible that California could break off and fall into the sea, making Las Vegas a beach town. Rather than hearing this in a geological sense, perhaps we should hear it in the context of living in a mobile culture. It is an invitation to put our roots down into God’s presence and entrusting our lives to the care of God. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes of “the wisdom of stability,” and speaks of stability as being “a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but in the battered and bruised world we know. If real life with God can happen anywhere at all, then it can happen here among the people whose troubles are already evident to us.” (The Wisdom of Stability, Paraclete, 2010, p. 24).

With this promise of stability as our anchor in this world, may we join together with the seas and the fields and the forests, and sing for joy before the Lord, declaring that God is glorious and great. Yes, let us sing: “To God be the glory, great things he hath done!”

Preached by:

Dr. Robert D. Cornwall

Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Troy, Michigan

Trinity Sunday

May 30, 2010

Jesus, Ascension and the Connection of Heaven and Earth

This Sunday we will observe the Day of Ascension (the Day of Ascension -- 40 days after Easter-- is actually observed on Thursday this year).  What is Ascension and how does it function in our theologies?  We have enough trouble with Easter and Pentecost, what do we make of this event that suggests that Jesus disappeared into the clouds?

As I contemplate this question for sermon and such, I'm also participating/leading a study of N.T. Wright's Surprised By Hope.  In this book, he suggests that heaven and earth are actually close by  each other, essentially overlapping each other, with heaven serving as the "control room of earth."  So, where does Ascension fit into the picture?  Well to answer that question we have to come to an understanding of the relationship of heaven and earth.  

Wright offers a suggestion that resonates with my mind, as I've long thought that we should think in terms of different dimensions of reality rather than trying to fit heaven and earth into the same space/time continuum.  To understand Ascension, Wright suggests, we must take a "relational view."   So consider this statement:

Basically heaven and earth in biblical cosmology are not two different locations within the same continuum of space or matter.  They are two different dimensions of God's good creation.  And the point about heaven is twofold.   First, heaven relates to earth tangentially so that the one who is in heaven can be present simultaneously anywhere and everywhere on earth:  the ascension therefore means that Jeus is available, accessible, without people having to travel to a particular spot on earth to find him.  Second, heaven is, as it were, the control room for earth; it is the CEO's office, the place from which instructions are given.  "All authority is given to me," said Jesus at the end of Matthew's gospel, "in heaven and on earth."  (Surprised by Hope, p. 111).

I find this intriguing and suggestive.  It takes us beyond the hold of literalism or simple modernist skepticism, to consider another realm of understanding.  It also invites us to consider the way in which God is present and active in our own context through Jesus.   

Genesis for Everyone Parts One and Two -- Review

GENESIS FOR EVERYONE: Part One, Chapters 1-16. By John Goldingay. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 197 pp. GENESIS FOR EVERYONE: Part Two, Chapters 17-50. By John Goldingay. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 186 pp.

Genesis is the beginning of the story, starting creation and moving toward the creation of a people called Israel. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, and Joseph and brothers, these are the foundational stories, but the distance between that book and our day is quite wide and thus we need good and helpful guides. John Goldingay, David Hubbard Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, seeks to offer us that guide.

The title of the book defines the audience quite well. This a set of commentaries – two in all – that focus on Genesis, written with a broad set of readers in mind. It doesn’t presuppose any expertise in the Bible, even providing at the end of each volume a glossary of words that might need some defining. A similar set of commentaries on the New Testament is being written by N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham.

In style and scope these commentaries remind this reader of William Barclay’s Daily Bible Study series that Westminster Press published a generation earlier. The difference in these two approaches is that while Barclay tended toward historical and cultural analogies, Goldingay largely integrates his commentary with stories from his life – family, friends, students. Each set of passages is usually introduced with a story from life, drawing the reader into the ancient story through the modern one. Whether that is helpful, only the reader can decide.

In terms of approach to the text, Goldingay is a scholarly British evangelical. He views the text as divinely inspired and guided, but that doesn’t mean that he takes the text with wooden literalness. He recognizes that the text Genesis came into existence over time, at the hand of multiple authors, though he doesn’t go into any detail as to the nature of that process. Indeed, he doesn’t deal with traditional authorship questions – JEDP. One would assume that the author doesn’t believe that such a discussion would further the conversation about interpreting the text at hand. Suffice it to say that God was involved and that the number of authors was several.

Goldingay sees history in the Genesis account, but he also sees parables. He likes the word parable rather than myth, due to the way many use the word myth (in a negative fashion). As he reads the text, he’ll suggest where the story is moving into the realm of history or the realm of parables, recognizing that often there is a gray area. Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Noah, they are much more likely to be parabolic, stories that teach us about God and our relationship to God. As we get toward Abraham and the stories that follow, they are more in the realm of history, though even here there is some room to maneuver.

With regard to Genesis 1, which is often at the center of debate, he writes:

God did not design Genesis 1 to tell us what a camera would have caught if it had been present to film creation. Faulting it for failing to do so misses the point, and defending it to show that it does do so also misses the point. We have no need to try to show that science is wrong and that actually the world was created in six days, just a few thousand years ago. Equally we have no need to try to conform the "facts" of Genesis with science, for instance, by suggesting that a "day" in Genesis need not mean twenty-four hours but could cover a longer period (1:27-28).

To try to make the biblical text conform to science, or the reverse, simply misses the point that the text (and God) intend to make. The point he wants to get across is that this text has meaning for us, in our day.

If we needn’t be concerned about history and science in Genesis 1 and 2, which he sees as being a historical parable. To say this doesn’t mean that it’s not true, only that the truth is carried in a picture. But as we move along there is a movement, around Genesis 11 and 12, where parable begins to merge and then give way to history. But again, the point is not the historicity, but the story of God’s desire to reconcile and bless the world that God created (and recreated after the days of Noah). Of Abraham, he writes that here the story becomes more about real people and real places. He notes that the scholarly consensus has moved back and forth as to whether Abraham existed, so it’s wise he says, not to “hitch one’s wagon too firmly to whatever is the current scholarly consensus. Ultimately, he suggested that there will never be the kind of historical evidence that can make for “definitive judgments” (1:141). But, Goldingay sees in the way the story progresses signs that it is more than a parable.

Goldingay is open and yet cautious. Yes, I would use the word cautious rather than conservative. He seeks to anchor his commentary in the scholarly mainstream, but doesn’t push the envelope too far. There are not many surprises to be found here, but then this is written not for scholars but for lay people seeking to understand an ancient text so that they might find instruction for the faith.

On a personal level, I was interested in seeing how he handled the Sodom and Gomorrah story. He starts out his comments with an acknowledgment that this text stands at the center of contemporary debates. He writes about friendships with homosexuals, and recognizes their humanity and decency. As to where he stands on the issue, he writes:

I don’t take the view that same-sex relationships are just as valid as heterosexual relationships, but neither do I think they are inherently more terrible than various other ways of falling short of God’s vision for sexual relationships (2:27).

With that introduction to his own sensibilities, he goes on to say that this passage doesn’t speak to the nature of same-sex relationships that are under discussion today. The outcry that reaches God’s ears, that leads to judgment isn’t the sexual behavior of the people of Sodom, but rather “the violent way weak people are being treated by powerful people. The implication is that the issue in Sodom is the affliction of the powerless by the powerful” (2:28). The attempted rape of Lot’s visitors is just one more example of the violence and faithlessness of this city.

The book of Genesis is central to the Jewish and the Christian faith traditions. In it we find the roots of our faith. We hear of creation and covenant. We receive our commissionings from God and yet we see the ways in which we can be faithless. Goldingay, is in the end, a trustworthy guide. One need not agree at all points, to find in these two volumes a lively and instructive commentary on this most important text of scripture.

Genesis as Historical Parable

We've had a number of conversations here about the interpretation of Genesis.  Do we take it as history?  As science?  Should we read it literally or metaphorically?  The conversation becomes complex and conflicted, because how we answer the question has implications for other questions.  If we take Genesis as an explicitly historical text, especially chapters 1-11, which seem to have a mythical sense to them, then what do we make of the scientific evidence that challenges these assertions?

One way of handling the creation stories is to see them as a "historical parable."  This is the suggestion of Dr. John Goldingay, Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary.   Fuller is evangelical, but it is not fundamentalist.  Having earned two degrees from Fuller, I can vouch for the fact that its biblical faculty would not take Genesis 1-3 as straightforward history.  So, what does he mean by this?   He writes in his new commentary on Genesis -- written for a lay audience -- Genesis for Everyone, vol. 1 (WJK, 2010):

To describe Genesis 1 as a creation "myth" is misleading.  One reason is that the word myth is used in many different ways; it's a confusing word.  But another reason is that calling something a myth is usually an insult, because it implies it is untrue.  I would rather call Genesis 1 a parable.  Describing it as the cosmos's "line of descent" hints at something like that; the expression usually refers to a list of a person's descendants.  It is a term that points to an account of the world's creation.  It is a metaphor.

So, if it's metaphor, what does that mean for us?  He continues:

God did not design Genesis 1 to tell us what a camera would have caught if it had been present to film creation.  Faulting it for failing to do so misses the point, and defending it to show that it does do so also misses the point.  We have no need to try to show that science is wrong and that actually the world was created in six days, just a few thousand years ago.  Equally we have no need to try to conform the "facts" of Genesis with science, for instance, by suggesting that a "day" in Genesis need not mean twenty-four hours but could cover a longer period.  When we do that, we obscure the story's own point in picturing God doing a week's work and then having a day off.  We have no need to try to prove that evolution is untrue or alternatively to try to show that Genesis can be reconciled with it.  All this means focusing on concerns other than the concerns God had in inspiring the story.  (pp. 27-28). 

I appreciate this idea of parable.  It does have a stronger sense to it than does myth, which as Goldingay points out, has negative connotations.  It also allows us to stay away from harmonizing tactics that lack credibility.  Finally, it seeks to take the creation story on its own terms as a remembrance of God's act of creation.