Category: Gospel

What about when we don’t “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God”?

On By Jesse ZinkIn Anglican Communion, Gospel2 Comments

A particular verse from the prophet Micah—chapter 6, verse 8—has long been a favourite of many Christians. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” It even got a shout-out from Episcopal priest Luis Leon in his benediction at President Obama’s inauguration. It seems to summarize what many people believe about the life of faith.

The trouble is, of course, that there are many parts of the world where justice, kindness, and humility—along with a lot of other wonderful virtues—are not in great abundance.

One of these places is Sri Lanka. Since the end of its civil war in 2009, a single family of brothers has managed to consolidate its grasp on the levers of state power. Recently, the chief justice was impeached and removed from office. So much for justice, when it’s clear that the courts are firmly under the thumb of the president. A friend of mine involved in the church in Sri Lanka e-mailed to say, “Our situation is quite tense just now as people live in fear and anger and the Regime grows more suspicious and unpredictable. We need the prayers of all.” The church has been actively involved in this situation, in part by opposing the impeachment.

But I was struck by the recent pastoral letter of the Bishop of Colombo. In it, he denounces the current situation and writes, “We no longer appear to be a constitutional democracy.” But the action he calls for is not what you might expect. He calls for the church to repent:

This is a time for us as a Church to take an honest look at ourselves, where we have shamelessly compromised our loyalty to God. We need to repent of ways in which we, as individuals as well as collectively, have;

  • been silent when we should have spoken
  • allowed ourselves (thoughtlessly or out of fear) to be used by those in authority to speak lies or commit wrong and unjust acts
  • consciously received benefits for ourselves through acts of injustice committed against others

I as your Bishop, call the Church to a period of lament together for the terrible state of our nation today, and repentance for our failing as a Church to “love mercy, to seek justice and to walk humbly with the Lord” (Micah 6:8).

While reading this letter, I was reminded how Jesus’ ministry began with the call to repentance. It is very easy to long for change in the world and to demand that other people change. But that is not what Jesus begins with. Jesus begins with our own transformation. The message of the Gospel seems to be, “Change is going to come. Let it begin with me.”

I’m all for doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. But I also know that simply stating that again and again won’t make it happen. What will make it happen, though, is turning again (the meaning of the word “repent”) in our weakness and imperfection to the overflowing love of God in Christ and allowing ourselves to be transformed in that encounter to be agents of the new reality God longs for us to live in.

The Bishop of Colombo has called for this Sunday, 3 February, to be a Day of Lament in the churches of the diocese. Perhaps we can join our sisters and brothers in Sri Lanka in prayer that day, as we pray for transformation in that country, but most of all within ourselves.

“Epistemological Humility” and Gregory of Nazianzus

On By Jesse ZinkIn GospelLeave a comment

The church yesterday commemorated the fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus. (The Episcopal Church apparently marks Gregory’s day on May 9; not sure why it is different.) Gregory is one of the great theologians of the early church and is remembered for his many contributions to the way we think about God. For instance, he argued that we should think of the Holy Spirit as fully divine, which I always like to note because it allows me to mention the Pneumatomachi, or Spirit Fighters, who sound like a cartoon superhero gang but were really people who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

But what I appreciate most about Gregory’s theology is his emphasis on what we might call “epistemological humility.” That is, we should be careful about how and what we say about God. No matter how good your theology, it can never fully wrap itself around the mystery and wonder that is God.

In his famous Theological Orations, Gregory compares himself to Moses ascending Sinai. When he reaches the peak, he saw

as it were, shadowy reflections of the Sun in water, reflections which display to eyes too weak, because too impotent to gaze at it, the Sun overmastering perception in the purity of light. Thus and thus only, can you speak of God…. For were a thing all heavenly, all super-celestial even, far more sublime in nature than ourselves, far nearer God, its remoteness from him and from his perfect apprehension is much greater than its superiority to our low, heavy compound. (28.3)

God is such a different kind of being from humans that our knowledge of God will always be imperfect and incomplete. As a result, any inquiry about God begins in an odd place: with the recognition that no matter what we do, our inquiry will never reveal everything we want to know.

This is not to say that we can’t say anything about God; Gregory is a theologian after all and his recognition of his own fallibility doesn’t prevent him from expounding on the nature of the Trinity. But in order to do theology, Gregory argues, we have to be “purified,” that is, we have to be constantly converted to closer relationship with God.

One of the trickiest issues in the church, I think, is how easy it is to rely on the hermeneutic of self-justification and to interpret divine revelation in a way that suits the way we are already living. This obviates the need for the transformation that is at the heart of the Christian Gospel. As we commemorate Gregory, we might recall that rather than transforming God to meet our expectations, we might perhaps transform ourselves to meet God’s.

“The Lord has taken away the judgements against you”

On By Jesse ZinkIn GospelLeave a comment

Last Sunday, we heard from the prophet Zephaniah in church, who tells us in chapter 3, verse 15, as part of his prophecy for the future restoration of Israel:

The Lord has taken away the judgements against you.

The word “judgement” has been invoked recently by James Dobson, who says that Newtown is God’s judgement for a nation that has gone off the tracks. It’s not that I think Dobson misunderstands God (though I do), but that I think he misunderstands judgement.

When I was about 14, my family had a dog, a little beagle named Sparky. Each day after school, either my brother or I had to walk her. This usually provoked some bickering since, while we were both keen on owning a dog, neither of us were actually keen on walking her. So my parents came up with a solution: every Sunday, we sat down at the kitchen table, looked at the week ahead, and assigned each day’s after-school dog-walk to one of us. This was written on our weekly calendar and put on the refrigerator.

This worked fine until I came home from school one day a bit earlier than my brother and decided that, although it was my day, I could not possibly walk Sparky that day. Since our infallible list was written in pencil, I erased my name and—in my best imitation of my father’s handwriting—wrote in my brother’s name. He duly came home and asked if I had walked the dog. “Why, no,” I said, smiling sweetly, “it’s your day” and pointed at the calendar.

I’ll spare you the details of the verbal brawl that erupted but it reached such a point that my brother called my father at work. I was summoned to the phone. My father is the kind of person who almost never raises his voice. But on this day, I heard a voice that was quite loud on the other end of the line: “Did you change the calendar?”

In that moment, I realized I had absolutely nothing to say. Not one word. Instead, I wanted to sink into the floor. My father asked again, “Did you change the calendar?” Still, I said nothing. I just stood there, mute, holding the phone in my hand.

That moment of me standing there in silence, wanting to sink into the floor, was a moment of judgement. But it wasn’t my father doing the judging, it wasn’t my brother, and it wasn’t God. It was me. I had come face-to-face with my own wrong-doing, my own inability to do good, and I knew it. This is only one of many, many times that my own actions have led me to the equivalent of crippled silence. I know judgement well; I bet I’m not alone.

If we think about judgement in this way, then Zephaniah’s prophecy is a piece of incredibly good news: “The Lord has taken away the judgements against you.” In Christ, we learn that God’s love and mercy is constant and steadfast. That means we can always turn again to God and the crippling judgements we inflict on ourselves are taken away. This is the act of repentance, a word that is closely related to the word for “turn.”

So I agree with Dobson: the shootings in Newtown are a judgement. But they are a judgement we have inflicted on ourselves in contravention of the will of God. In those shootings, we see clearly the nature of our society: overly violent, unable to care adequately for those with mental illness, too lenient with our gun laws. The shock and grief that so many of us have felt since last Friday are a sign of the judgement contained in the Newtown shootings.

So what to do? We repent of our failings as a society and turn again to our merciful God; the burden of the judgement is, as Zephaniah tell us, taken away; and we are enabled to work towards the kind of society in which we do not so routinely inflict this particular form of judgement on ourselves. (I’m making this sound like it’s a one-off kind of thing. Of course, it’s not; it’s part of the pattern of faithful Christian living.)

It’s very easy to inflict judgement on others: that’s what Dobson has done, and it’s what others have done in response to him. It’s lot harder, however, to acknowledge the judgement on ourselves—I don’t like crippling silence—and repent of our failings as a society. But it’s the first step in creating the kind of world we want to live in.

I’ve been singing this song a lot to myself lately. Would that it were true:

Gasp! He talks about Jesus!

On By Jesse ZinkIn GospelLeave a comment

One of the things I noticed about Archbishop of Canterbury-select Justin Welby is that in his announcement tour on Friday, he talked about Jesus a lot. There were multiple references in the press conference and various interviews to “the good news of Jesus Christ.”

Now, to point out that a bishop talks about Jesus might not seem like the most noteworthy event. But it’s striking how frequently it has been mentioned in the press accounts. For instance, the Guardian:

Constitutional convention also mostly stops archbishops from talking about Jesus in public. No one seems to have told this one.

The Mail—not admittedly the best source—had a similar sentiment in a headline:

Not your average Archbish! Not only does he actually believe in God, but the new Archbishop of Canterbury is the son of a bootlegger who was Vanessa Redgrave’s lover

(This is more than modestly unfair to the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who believes deeply in God and talks a lot about Jesus. Sometimes, though, it take a little while to realize that’s who he’s talking about.)

One thing I am learning in the Church of England is that there is actual debate about how overt clergy can be about their faith—that is, how much they can talk about Jesus. At a meeting I was at the other day, one priest said that in her marriage preparation, she didn’t want to give the couple anything that was “too Christian.” This came as a bit of a shock to me and is, perhaps, a sign of the ways in which Britain is farther down the secularization path than the United States is. (I’ve been chronicling some of those points in my Death of Christian Britain series of posts.)

On the other hand, back in April, I was noting the ways in which the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church went a whole interview without mentioning Jesus.

In every market, competitors are always on the lookout for the thing that will distinguish them from their competitors and make them stand out. Our world has a pretty crowded marketplace of ideas right now. Call me silly, but I think talking about Jesus—the one idea that Christians have that no one else does—is one way to stand out. We still need to answer the question of what the good news is. But for now, I’ll be content with an archbishop who can talk about Jesus—even if it is depressing that that alone is noteworthy.

Religious discourse in an age of “I have no need of you.”

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal Church, Gospel5 Comments

I came across this Facebook spoof the other day:

(And that’s only part of it: you can see the rest of it here.)

This spoof is funny—and depressing—because it is true. Particularly as the American election enters its final weeks, it seems my Facebook feed has become dominated by such threads. And it’s not only on Facebook. More and more, people in this country seem to believe that things would be best if the other party just disappeared. Everyone is saying—effectively—”I have no need of you.”

The trouble is that sometimes discourse in the church mirrors a little too closely discourse in society. In this regard, I am reminded of San Diego Bishop James Mathes’ article in the Daily Episcopalian a few days ago. In it, he reflects on what a Christian commitment to discourse—especially at such a polarizing time, politically—might mean:

It begins with a commitment to discourse, especially with those with whom we differ. It continues with great care with the words that we use and the judgments that we make about others. Our common conversation about things of importance should be imbued with prayer. It requires more questions of inquiry than assertions of our own position—positions we should hold gently.

In all of this, the blogosphere is presently problematic. Read, react, respond is the norm. I wonder what would happen if we read, meditated and pondered, asked only questions of inquiry for a few days, and only then positively expressed our place in the conversation. Blogging could quickly take on the character of discourse and transformation.

And here is my dream: that our larger society would take note of how Episcopalians discuss the hard questions—how we speak with care and listen in deep, searching ways. As they observe us, they would see who we are as the body of Christ and how we treat each one another. As they see us, they will want to know more about the one whom we follow. I yearn for that kind of church: quintessentially Anglican and truly inclusive.

Although Bishop Mathes’ article drew quite a lot of critical reaction, I think he’s on to something. The way Christians talk to one another—and to others—can be part of the church’s counter-cultural witness. Rather than taking a posture of hostility to those who espouse different views, I think Christians are called to take a posture of relatedness.

Two reasons immediately spring to mind:

  • The other person in the conversation is made in the image of God. Surely, this is worth something. Rather than looking to tear that person down, perhaps we might concentrate on looking for the image of God in them. This can be awfully hard to do.
  • It is basic New Testament theology that we need one another to be whole. “I have no need of you” is precisely the thing we cannot say to one another, as Paul teaches in I Cor. 12. It is relatively easy to say this to people who have traditionally been excluded or whom we agree with. It is quite another thing—though no less important—to say that to those we cannot seem to find any common ground with. But that exactly the challenge the Gospel lays before us.

These can be challenging tasks. For instance, a posture of hostility towards Adolf Hitler seems quite justified. There has to be a genuineness from all involved in the conversation for this to work.

Still, I don’t think I’m the only person who is tired with the state of political discourse in this country. If it is not depressingly predictable, it is utterly vapid. I share Bishop Mathes’ hope that people could look to the church—Episcopal or otherwise—and say, “Look at them. They disagree on some issues but that does not take way from their commitment to discourse with one another and a sharing of a common life.”

I hope for a church where issues matter and are openly debated but not at the expense of the relationships we share by virtue of our one baptism in the one body of Christ. In this context, it’s worth remembering that Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is a missional prayer: “that they all may be one…so that the world may believe.”

It may be a lot to hope for. But I think there’s deep evangelical potential in it.

“Progressive Evangelism” and proclaiming the Gospel afresh in every generation

On By Jesse ZinkIn Gospel, Mission3 Comments

I was once in the customs and immigration line at Heathrow airport with the Rev. Otis Gaddis and watched as he struck up a conversation about faith with two other people in line. It was a sight to behold and I was filled with admiration for how skillfully he was able to do so. So it is no surprise that Otis—and several other of my former classmates—are among those profiled in a recent article about “progressive evangelists” in the Episcopal News Service.

“It [progressive evangelism] assumes that Christ is already present,” Gaddis said during a recent telephone interview. “The goal is not to bring people to church but to reveal the presence of church between you and the person you’re talking to.”

This line from Otis reminded me of something Max Warren, the former general secretary of the Church Missionary Society (and no “progressive” about evangelism or much of anything else) once said. He noted that the first thing a missionary should do when arriving in a new place is remove his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. That is, wherever we go, God has been there before us.

It reminds me also of Stephen Bayne, the first executive officer of the Anglican Communion, who once told a group of missionaries: “missionaries do not go out into the world to introduce the world to God or He to it. He is already there; He has been there from the beginning; He is standing waist deep in history, calling us to join Him. For the mission is His and not ours.”

I love that image of God being “waist deep in history.” God is already out there. We are going to join in. The progressive evangelists profiled in this story remind us that as much as we’d like we can’t do so on our own terms.

The ENS article provoked this comment from a Tom Swift:

Neither Jesus (“Go and make disciples of all nations”) nor Paul (“I preach Christ and him crucified”) would recognize this as evangelism. Christian evangelism is sharing the good news that sin and death have been overcome by the death and resurrection of Jesus. “Changing peoples’ minds and belief systems” is exactly the point! Such good news must be spoken with great love and respect for the other person’s values and beliefs, but it must be spoken to be evangelism.

This critique, I think, is helpful. I am reminded of Desmond Tutu’s line about the need to “share grace gracefully.” Particularly for Episcopalians—who have long made central our membership in the catholic church—a conversation about faith is not enough. A line like this

Progressive evangelism is not, however, about converting or getting people to church, he said.

can be a little worrisome, if you think about it. On some level, we believe that the grace that is in the sacraments needs to be shared broadly. Evangelism, at some point, has to be about “getting people to church.” (Or, even better, “converting” them.)

One of my favourite churchy slogans is “Proclaim the Gospel afresh in every generation.” The generation of which people like Otis and Adrian and Matthew and I and so many others are a part of bears this burden like every other generation prior to ours.

What’s interesting is the way in which the conversation started by evangelists in this article focuses so much on method: how do we proclaim? In this case, the answer seems to be by showing up in places where folks don’t expect the church to be. It’s also defined negatively, as in, not like those other, more conservative denominations.

I think what is missing from the conversation in the church these days is a focus on the third word in this slogan: Gospel. What is the Gospel we have to proclaim? What is the good news that people need to hear in this world? In what particular form does the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection need to be proclaimed? What is the kerygma—to use the word Paul uses—that we want to share?

These are the questions that still need to be addressed.

Why would a young person be ordained?

On By Jesse ZinkIn GospelLeave a comment

I was asked on the radio last week to answer the question, “Why would a young person chose to be ordained in this day and age?”

The conversation was lengthy—I got almost 30 minutes of airtime—and pretty good. I felt like I managed to provide a pretty fair accounting of what vocation is all about and why the good news of Jesus Christ needs to be proclaimed as much in this generation as in any other.

The interview has now been posted online. You can listen to it here. It begins around 10:30.

How would you have answered? If you’re not ordained and not planning to be, what do you say when people ask you why you’re in the church?

Search for a Gospel that is both Good and New

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal Church, Gospel3 Comments

Let’s say I’m a twenty-something with a college degree, living in Brooklyn. I kind of have a job but no benefits. I get by with money but I have lots of debt. I don’t see what the big deal is about gay marriage and it’s obvious that the earth is getting warmer. My parents dragged me to church a few times when I was growing up so I know something about all that religion stuff, but now my knowledge of religion is mostly based on people like Rick Santorum. I just don’t see the point of faith and I certainly don’t see the need for it in my life. I’m part of the “Rise of the Nones.”

Now let’s say that one day I’m surfing around the Internet and I come across the interview Katharine Jefferts Schori recently gave to the Huffington Post. The words “female” and “bishop” are so rarely connected in my mind that I click on the link to see what she has to say.

Stepping out of the Brooklyn millennial conceit, here’s the question I want to pose: as our fictional twenty-something peruses the interview, does he find anything that is genuinely Good News? That is to say, does he find any of the life-altering, world-changing, drop-everything-and-follow gospel of Christ Jesus?

(Let’s note, of course, all the provisos. Of course, she was responding to questions, of course the interviewers wanted to ask her about hot-button subjects—sex, creation, Scripture—and of course an interview is not a sermon.)

I think the answer to this question about the Good News is no. Our fictional Brooklyn resident wouldn’t find much to disagree with. Bishop Katharine is in sync on same-gender marriage. Good. The church wants to respond to the poverty of the world. Good. She calls it “God’s mission,” but whatever. We agree.

The thing is, while our fictional millennial may think what Bishop Katharine has to say is Good, none of it is New. He already believes all this stuff already. The church is arriving late to the party. Glad to have you here but you’re old news. You do your thing, Bishop Katharine, and I’ll do mine. None of what Bishop Katharine has to say would, I think, make our millennial think, “Wow, I’ve got to learn more about Jesus and get myself into church!” In fact, by my count, the presiding bishop is quoted mentioning General Convention (once), more than she mentions Jesus (none).

Again, all my earlier provisos apply and nothing in this post is a comment on the presiding bishop herself. This interview, I’m sure you will agree, well represents the dominant working theology in the Episcopal Church in the early twenty-first century.

If you read the Gospels or Acts, it is clear that when people heard the proclamation of the Good News, their lives were transformed. Not just adjusted or modified but completely reoriented towards Christ. The fact that the gospel had such an impact is, to my mind, one of the best confirmations of its truth.

What is the Gospel message in the twenty-first century that is both authentically Good and authentically New, the proclamation that seizes the attention of the hearer and brings about dramatic life change?

How do we preach the unique witness of Jesus Christ in a way that makes people who’ve never heard about Jesus want to devote their whole lives to following in the Way he first showed to us?

That, it seems, are questions we still need to answer.

Tenebrae in Commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On By Jesse ZinkIn Berkeley Divinity School, Gospel1 Comment

Tonight at our weekly community chapel service, we read these words for Martin Luther King, Jr. Speaking in his “Eulogy for the Martyred Children,” he says:

So they have something to say to us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism…. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about WHO murdered them, but about the system, the way of life and the philosophy which PRODUCED the murderers…. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as the redemptive force that will bring new light to this dark city.

As we heard these words, this is the picture that was projected on a screen at the front of the chapel.

It was one of the many powerful combinations of word and image we had in this evening’s service of Tenebrae at Berkeley Divinity School. Tenebrae is one of those rare gems of in the Episcopal (and other) liturgical tradition—the service of “shadows” that marks the Wednesday of Holy Week, the moment before the holiest three days of the Christian year begins. It’s a non-Eucharistic service that allows the congregation to dwell in the readings and psalmody and let the force of the coming events wash over us.

This year, the Wednesday of Holy Week (the so-called “Spy Wednesday”), falls on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was 44 years ago today that he was killed on a balcony in Memphis, preparing to mark with striking sanitation workers.

We meshed the two together—a Tenebrae in Commemoration of the Martyrdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. We situated the events of this week and the killing of Martin alongside more recent crucifixions that have occurred and continue to take place every day in this world—rampant sexual violence in the eastern Congo; a history of lynchings in this country; protestors dying in Syria; and, of course, too much else to name or number even in one service. We read some of the Scripture readings appointed for the service but also listened to words from Martin and others. In lieu of a single icon in the chapel, we used an electronic iconostasis, projecting images during the readings.

I’m on the team that prepares worship at Berkeley so during most of evening services I’m a bundle of excess energy trying to make sure that everything is going to go just right. But tonight I sat down and let things wash over me. And it was simply incredible. Just as the one crucifixion two thousand years ago convicts me of my sin and imperfection—I was the one who went from shouting “Hosanna” to crying “Crucify”; I was the apostle that abandoned Jesus in his hour of need—the ongoing crucifixion in this world convicts me of my own disgraceful ignorance, apathy, and self-deceit.

But here is the good news, and it is news that is at the heart of the Christian Gospel: the story doesn’t end tonight. Holy Week doesn’t end on Friday on the cross. It ends with an earthquake and an empty tomb on Sunday morning.

As we left the chapel in silence, there was one final candle burning, the light that has kept people moving at even the darkest hours, the promise that new birth can—and will—come from even the darkest and deadest of situations.