The Challenge of Hope

 Let me begin with two quick notes: 

 

First, if you have not yet turned in your pledge card for 2021 please do so as soon as you can. As you can imagine, 2020 was a challenge for us. Our pledged giving came in well, but we lost a lot of the revenue that we often gain from different groups using our campus for one-time or recurring activities. When we combine our income losses with our commitment to increase mission giving and to pay our employees, we have run a deficit in 2020. We have the reserves to cover those deficits – and that is precisely what reserves are for – but a strong showing of pledges for 2021 would enable us to continue our ministries without and undue effects of cost-cutting. You are a generous congregation and I fully believe we will come through this pandemic strongly, so thank you for all that you do as St. Mark Presbyterian Church. 

 

Second, we had a very ambitious “Giving Tree” this year, filled with tags representing people in need whom we can help during Christmas. Those gifts are due next weekend, so we can use a few more folks dropping by to take a few more tags. I truly believe that generosity is the mark of the church during a pandemic, when gathering is limited and people are insecure about their future. Once again, St. Mark, you’re doing a great job being the church. Very well good job. 

 

Now, a brief word about our Advent theme, worship services, and how you can participate even as we continue to be physically distant. “Angels of Hope” is our theme and we are looking at four stories where angels visited different persons involved in the birth narratives of Christ. Last week we heard the story of Zechariah, the priest who struggled to believe the angel’s message about the forthcoming Messiah as well as a forthcoming child for him and his wife Elizabeth. Genuine hope is never without struggles. That is why I wanted to bring James Baldwin’s wisdom into the story as well, when he said that “Hope is invented every day.” We do not inherit hope, it is never automatic, there are often a myriad of reasons against it, and so it is always only appropriated by faith. In the end, Zechariah and Elizabeth did have a child even in their post-child-bearing years, their child did become the forerunner to the Christ, and, in Christ, God has fulfilled God’s promises. But, it was not because Zechariah and Elizabeth willed it into being. They had a child because God is faithful; the Christ came and dwelt among us because God is faithful. Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s lives were enriched with hope when they trusted that God is faithful. And, to be clear, Elizabeth trusted far more quickly than Rev. Zechariah did. (On behalf of pastors everywhere, let me sarcastically add, “Way to represent, Zeke!”) 

 

So here we are, also struggling with hope. Will the truth set us free, in a time when people seem able to say anything at all and call it “their truth”? Will the meek inherit the earth, when the market seems to reward those who already have much more readily than those who work themselves ragged? Are the peacemakers blessed, when a pacific tone is treated as irrelevant weakness in the “real world”? Is there room for “peace on earth” when we seem fundamentally divided and incapable of listening to one another? Like Zechariah, we have every reason to doubt and to struggle with the messages of hope that angels share with us. But, God is faithful. And God’s faithfulness is always the one and only reason for hope. Thanks be to God. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

 

Pre-preparing

Friends o’ the Mask, 

 

We had a brief conversation yesterday at dinner over whether there was such a thing as “pre-preparing,” or if simply “preparing” includes all of the stages of getting ready for something and not just the last part. The word “prepare” is curious in itself. The root, pare, taken by itself can refer to cutting the outsides away, like we might do with a paring knife, or simply to reduce something down. To pre-pare, then, would refer to the process of focusing, prioritizing, paring down ahead of time in order to be ready for the event for which we are preparing. You can see why the discussion might arise sitting at a Thanksgiving meal. The food was prepared all morning – in our house that meant baking garlic, caramelizing onions, chopping vegetables, and so forth, all of which was done by three marvelous cooks not named me. But, before all of that preparing could happen, Wednesday had trips to Grower’s Ranch (our favorite produce store), Trader Joe’s, and elsewhere. And before those trips, someone had to volunteer to take a side, a dessert, a main course, etc., and make up a list of ingredients that we needed. And so on. The ‘preparing’ on Thursday morning was preceded by several steps of preparing. Hence, the discussion of whether to repeat the prefix ‘pre’ and create the word ‘pre-preparing.’ 

 

The dinner conversation ran out of steam with no resolution, but the issue remains a live one, because we are now getting ready for the season of Advent. Since the word “Advent” means “coming,” it is a season where we prepare for the coming of Christ. We sing, “Prepare the Way, O Zion,” and hear the words of John the Baptizer that are echoed in that song. We prepare for the coming of Jesus by listening anew to the prophets of old, and sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” And we give ear to those messages of the New Testament that point to what we call “the Second Coming” or, properly, “the Second Advent.” That’s a bit trickier for us, since we have heard so many misguided attempts to dissect the mystery out of those messages and to treat the Second Advent as a kind of parlor guessing game. But, still, we know that the early church was animated by the idea that the world-as-we-know-it is a time-dated reality that will one day give way to a ‘new heaven and new earth,’ where peace and justice kiss, the sting of death is gone, and every tear is dried. So, the season of Advent is that time when we focus directly on the double-layered experience of anticipating the coming one. 

 

But, as our dinner conversation displayed, ‘preparing’ has many layers. Today, an Advent Team will be preparing the sanctuary, fellowship hall, and other spaces for you to have a fulfilling worship experience, we have been pre-preparing for this preparation for quite a while. Likewise, the idea of ‘preparing for the Second Coming’ is multi-layered. “Preparing” is rarely a matter of a last-minute rush to make sure that all things are ready. It is, rather, a discipline, a manner of living a lifetime of expectation. We go through this Advent season year after year - not because we are mad and imagine that if we do the same thing over and over we might get a different outcome, but because we are cultivating a mindset of living toward the coming of Christ. That’s the pre-preparing that enables us to hear the words of the prophets, angels, and characters in the stories anew. And that is why we participate in the Alternative Christmas Market or take a tag off of the Christmas Angel tree. These are our ways of preparing, by living into the coming one’s reign of justice and peace.

This year our theme is “Angels of Hope.” We’re not so interested in vexing over whether angels are real or mythological symbols, whether they are like giant bird-people or shiny choir members, whether rational 21^stcentury people should even be using that language when speaking of sacred things, or the long-lasting waste of time wondering how many of them can dance on the head of a pin. The word “angel” actually means “messenger,” an etymology in Greek that carries over into English in the word “evangel,” or “good news.” Each week we will hear how the good news comes to people and we will marvel at how powerful, but complex hope is. Through the stories of Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds, we will see how angelic messages bring faith and doubt, wonder and fear, hope and despair – a genuine look at what it means to prepare for a new world. 

 

So, today, we are pre-preparing - or, for you sticklers out there, we are in early stages of preparing. Get ready. The season of preparation is at hand. 

 

Mark of St. Mark  

On Election, pt.5

 IMPORTANT NOTE: Starting Monday, Nov.2, I will be out of the office for three weeks. I will have an “out of the office” autoreply on my email and any concerns that you may have should be directed to Sue-Ann Wichman (sueann@stmarkpresbyterian.org) or Hayes Noble (hayes@stmarkpresbyterian.org). Thanks to the HR commission, session, staff, and many of you who have helped to make this sabbatical space possible. Our Saturday livestream worship will show reruns for those Saturdays, but the Sunday ‘in person’ worship will continue per normal. 

 

SECOND NOTE: November 15-22 is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. If you or someone you know is a rental property owner in Orange County, United to End Homelessness has an incentive program to help provide Permanent Supportive Housing that may be of interest. Feel free to check out this description or pass this information along. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/welcomehomeoc-property-owner-workshop-november-tickets-112888566742

 

Last week I left off by noting that, for John Calvin, the doctrine of election was not about speculation, but more about taking comfort in God’s steadfast love. To continue …

 

One big concern among Calvin and his followers – which seems to be the what hardened this doctrine of comfort into a doctrine of judgment – was the need to avoid human pride, particularly the arrogant assumption that we can do anything to “deserve” God’s favor. For them, ‘grace alone’ means that it is not up to us to earn salvation, not even in making the critical decision to believe. In other words, faith is a gift from God. Think about that for a moment. Most people would not react against such a notion, but most of us do not follow that belief to its logical conclusion. If faith is a gift from God, that means that the faith I have is something that God freely chooses to give. God freely choosing to give is exactly the language of the doctrine of election. It is a way of holding on to Paul’s language, “It is by faith that we are saved” while not assuming that faith is some form of accomplishment on our part, but a result of God’s grace. 

 

I believe that the real challenge for Calvin and others was something like, “Why in the world would someone not believe in a loving and just God?” Imagine them asking that question while contemplating the cross, where the cruelty of human rejection is met with God’s loving act of sending the beloved son even to die on behalf of that cruel human race. A conclusion might be, “I have faith because I have received it as a gift that God has freely chosen to give. If others hear this message and do not respond with faith, then for whatever reason God did not choose to give them the gift of faith.” Suddenly we have a doctrine of “double predestination,” which – taken out of that context – sounds horribly judgmental and depicts a capricious God. But, within the context of humility in our own standing before God and joy in trusting in God’s grace, even the doctrine of “double predestination” loses some of its edge. Don’t get me wrong – this doctrine is still problematic, because Calvin and particularly his followers expressed this belief in the rawest of terms, that some are predestined for salvation while others are predestined for damnation. 

 

I think a better expression of divine election comes from Karl Barth, who argues that, in Christ, God has elected humanity for salvation. For Barth, Paul’s language of Jesus as the “second Adam” and those long conversations about Jesus being “fully human and fully divine” are intended to show that when God raised Jesus out of death, God issued a divine “yes” to humanity, overriding even humanity’s “no” to Jesus. It is God, in utter freedom, choosing humanity, even over our own resistance. That is the kind of confidence and joyful hope that the doctrine of election is intended to capture. 

 

I’m sure that these reflections have raised more questions than answers, and perhaps have even dredged up some nightmares among those who were raised among hyper-Calvinists. I think it is unfortunate when people simply dismiss the language of election or predestination as if the Reformers were either idiotic or cruel. But, it is even more unfortunate when people take those doctrines and use them as oppressive tools of judgment against others. I’ve tried to show that the motive behind election was not to deny human freedom or pretend that everything that happens was charted out before creation, but to provide a doctrine that says, even in a world where cruelty and pain are always part of the story, God’s steadfast love is the story itself. 

 

That’s all I got. Cheers, 

 

Mark of St. Mark

 

 

 

On Election, pt.4

 Election, pt. 4 

 

Quick Notes: There are two events coming up soon that may be of interest to you. The first is a “Matthew 25” event by the PCUSA, on October 28 at 11:00am, looking at the challenge of global, systemic poverty. For information, click here. The second is a Webinar on “Creating and Maintaining Empowering Mission Partnerships” on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 7:00pm by the Presbytery of Los Ranchos. For information, click here. (Full disclosure: I’m a panelist.) 

 

It has been said about those who believe in the philosophical doctrine of determinism, and likewise can be said about those who believe in the theological doctrine of election: “If you throw a baseball at their head, they will duck.” What they won’t do is just sit there thinking, “God has chosen everything that happens, so Imma let this ball smack me in the head.” The conversation about election is simply not that daft.

 

Everyone, regardless of their philosophical or theological bent, has to deal with the senselessness of chance, luck, happenstance, and unintended consequences – whether it seems to work in our favor or bedevil us. For example, one of the Scriptures that the doctrine of election is based on is the often repeated “Jacob have I loved; Esau have I hated.” We can – and should – nuance the words “love” and “hate” in this phrase, but the shock value of keeping them is what forces us to take election seriously. If God chose Jacob (aka, the People of Israel) over Esau (Israel’s enemies in the OT era), the verbs “love” and “hate” bring that free act of God’s choosing into bold relief. Do we dare say something like this about God? Do we even dare say something like this about the way the world works? If God is sovereign in some way over the world, can we look at great events and say that the results were God’s doings? Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, could only look at the War Between the States and say, “The Almighty has His own purposes.” That is similar to the humble wonder that concludes the story of Job. Sometimes that’s the best one can say when believing in an “almighty” but unable to make sense of how things happen in the world. 

 

Science offers an analogous puzzle for us. J.S. Whale once fabulously said, “The modern mind which is revolted by this doctrine of Election cheerfully accepts the modern doctrine of Selection, and is not appalled by the thought: ‘The warm-blooded mammals have I loved, but the Ichthyosauri have I hated.’”[1] The problem of randomness does not diminish just because we call it evolutionary selection rather than divine election. And the angst of the question of election arises any time we hear of a disaster that seems to strike randomly (“act of God” according to insurance claims), or anything that seems unfair and undeserved, like the death of a child. Sometimes we try to console ourselves with the words, “Everything has a purpose” or “God is in control” or “All things work together for the good.” (Friend alert: These phrases may offer comfort when we appropriate them for ourselves, but they rarely have that effect when we say them to others who have experienced tragedies.) While these words point to something true and comforting, they often feel empty and unsatisfying.

 

The doctrine of election aims at this feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction. I read recently that John Calvin – whom many people ‘blame’ for the doctrine of election – considered it a great mystery, to be approached with trembling and faith. He did not see it as a stern doctrine of inescapable judgment and doom for some, but as a comforting doctrine, because it did not leave salvation up to fragile humans, but to a God whose steadfast love endures forever. 

 

I will pick up on this thread next week. There’s still a lot more to ponder here.

 

Cheers, 

Mark of St. Mark

 

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[1] The Protestant Tradition: An Essay in Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), p.143.

On Election, pt.3

 Note: I have heard that some of you have been reticent to sign up for in person worship because you do not want to take up a space that someone else might want or need. What a beautiful concern! Here’s how you can address it. So far, we have not had to deny anyone because we’ve reached our max capacity. Even so, when you register there is a space for you to add a note. Simply indicate that, if we reach our max, you would be happy to yield your seat to someone else. Then, if that is necessary, we’ll contact you with thanks. If not, you’re in!

 

During this month I am addressing the topic of election. You can read the two previous essays on my blog here. Today I want to address the most common way that people think about election: “Election means that we are predestined to go to heaven or hell regardless of what we believe, how we live, or what we choose.” If election is that automatic, we appear to be nothing more than programmed robots, and here we are imagining that we have lives of passion, conscience, deliberation, and choice. 

 

First, let me say, this common presentation of election is simply not biblical. Biblical election is when the texts express confidence in God’s power and God’s goodness together. And, biblical election is found in texts that deflate human arrogance by reminding us that some folks have ears to hear and some don’t; some folks have hearts that are hardened and some don’t; and that God is free to initiate, rather than dependent on our invocations or incantations. So, something as simple as beginning a prayer with “God is great, God is good” reflects part of the biblical tradition that ascribes sovereignty and freedom to God. Still, it is overspeaking to describe election as God’s whim that takes away human agency. There are too many texts, stories, testimonies, and claims in the Scriptures that express the human capacity to participate in, to follow, to trust in, and to respond to God. Claims about God’s power and goodness do not preclude human choice and will. In fact, the name “Israel” means “one who wrestles with God.” That’s not a robot. 

 

Also, the chief way that God is described – perhaps the only claim that tries to get to God’s essence – is that “God is love.” The nature of love, insofar as we understand and experience it, is that for love to be genuine it requires freedom. Therefore, if God’s love is important to us, then God’s freedom to love (or not) is important to us. And love not only requires freedom to be given, it grants freedom to be reciprocated. God’s freedom to love and our freedom to respond are expressed and implied repeatedly in the most repeated phrase of Scripture, “God’s steadfast love endures forever.” 

 

So, election, as God’s free choice to love, really is a thing in the Scriptures. All of the great stories then begin with God’s free choice: Creation begins with “Let us make ….” The promise to Abraham begins with God’s choice. God consistently exercises freedom by choosing the younger over the older (Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau), inverting the typical means of allocating power in the Ancient Near East. And, of course, in the New Testament, it is God who sends God’s son to bring salvation. 

 

However, while the idea of “election,” as God freely choosing, is the foundation for the biblical stories, that is far different from a definition of election that makes God an arbitrary power and that reduces us to robots. Love requires freedom, yes, but it also requires vulnerability. And that is where we’ll pick it up next week. 

 

Mark of St. Mark 

On Election, pt. 2

As you might remember from last week, I am spending October talking about election. Last week I invited you to think of all of the “givens” in your life – the abilities, proclivities, qualities, and other traits that were given to you long before you made any conscious decisions or choices about your life. And, as I said last week, the ‘givens’ have enormous consequences for who you are, how you live, what you do in life, who you love, and how you roll. That part of your life is primarily what the doctrine of election aims to address. Paul’s question, “What do you have the you did not receive?” invites to approach our faith with the starting point of “the givens.” 

 

One implication that starting with “the givens” has for us is that our theology – our inquiry into who God is before us and who we are before God – is grounded in humility. The 19^th century Reformed theologian Friederich Schleiermacher articulated this starting point in a way that has always been helpful to me. Speaking of religion in general, Schleiermacher argued that the beginning of religion is “the feeling of absolute dependence.” The very fact of my existence, of existence itself, is a reality into which I am thrown prior to any exercise of free will on my part. Is existence itself not worthy of wonder? And not only the fact of existence itself, but the capacity that you and I have to wonder at existence is another given for us. Rene Descartes expressed the philosophical conclusion to his method of doubt as, “I think, therefore I am.” I would express the religious starting point as “I am, therefore I wonder.” 

 

To me, this starting point of ‘existence that leads us to wonder’ is the chief purpose of any doctrine of election. “But wait!” you may be thinking, “Isn’t ‘election’ all about whether we are destined to go to heaven or hell?” That is indeed how most conversations about election go. I do not think that is exactly how Augustine of the 4^th-5^th century or John Calvin of the 16^th century – the two most prominent theologians who are invoked in conversations about election – intended for it to go. But, that is how the conversation has normally played out, whether by advocates for the doctrine of election or opponents to it. I find that unfortunate, but history rarely asks my opinion about things like that. 

 

So, next week let’s look precisely at this question of whether the doctrine of election means that I am personally destined to go to heaven or hell, regardless of how I live, what I believe, or what I want. It is a compelling question in many ways, a misshapen on in others (in my humble opinion). 

 

Until then, Cheers,

 

Mark of St. Mark

 

On Election, pt. 1

I am going to spend the month of October talking about election. No, not “the election.” I have plenty of opinions about that, but this is not the place for me to share most of them. I really don’t talk about partisan politics a lot, but I do address matters of truth and justice that have often been politicized. There’s a significant difference. 

 

Still, that’s not what I am talking about this month. I’ll be discussing the doctrine of divine election that has been part of Reformed theology from its inception and part of many theologies prior to that. This topic has been in play much longer than democracy and electoral votes. And it aims to address something quite different than our electoral process. In the electoral process, we exercise our voice and we choose leadership, policies, and directions. The doctrine of election rests not on our choosing, but on our having been chosen; not our initiative, but God’s initiative; not our will, but God’s will. And, frankly, because it does not rest on our choosing, our initiative, and our will, many people reject or simply do not like the doctrine of election. 

 

If you are someone to whom ‘election’ and its sister-term ‘predestination’ give the heebie-jeebies, I hope to persuade you to reconsider it over this month. Here I go. 

 

I invite you to begin by thinking of some of the most significant things about your life, some of which seem essential and some accidental. You are human, not a rabbit. You are male, female, transgender, non-binary, or your gender is fluid or unique. You may be attracted to males, females, both, all of the above, or none of the above. You were born into a family (for good or for ill), into a particular national identity, with a particular ethnicity. You are tall, short, or of medium height relative to others. You are left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous. You can roll your tongue or not and cilantro may taste like an herb or like soap to you. Except for rolling a tongue and eating cilantro, most of these distinctions have enormous consequences for who you are, how you live, what you do in life, who you love, and how you roll. And, you did not choose a single one of them. They were given to you, either via your DNA or by the happenstances of your birth. Perhaps you have made many choices related to these given qualities of your life. But, long before you made any of those choices, your identity was shaped by all of these “givens.” 

 

If nothing else, the doctrine of election invites us to pay attention to the “givens” – dare I say, “the given-ness of the givens.” That’s what the Apostle Paul was encouraging those feuding Corinthians to do when he asked, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” 

 

So, if nothing else, let’s start this conversation where it belongs: Not with the question, “What about my freedom?” but the question, “What do I have that I did not receive? And if I received it, why do I boast as if it were not a gift?” 

 

Then we’re on our way to talking about divine election. 

 

 Mark of St. Mark