He who hung the earth is hanging.
He who fixed the heavens in place has been fixed in place.
He who laid the foundations of the universe has been laid on a tree.
The master has been profaned.
God has been murdered…

But He rose up from the dead
and mounted up to the heights of heaven.
When the Lord hath clothed Himself with humanity,
and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer,
and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned,
and had been judged for the sake of the condemned,
and had been buried for the sake of the one who had been buried,
He rose up from the dead,
and cried with a loud voice,
“Who is it that contends with me?
Let him stand in opposition to me.
I set the condemned man free;
I gave the dead man life;
I raised up one who had been entombed.
Who is my opponent?
I am the Christ
I am the one who destroyed death,
and triumphed over the enemy,
and trampled Hades underfoot,
and bound the strong one,
and carried off humanity
to the heights of heaven.”
“It is I,” says the Christ.

This Easter finds me at the happy convergence of three memorable texts (my life’s story could pretty much be told in terms of what I read). The first is this one, Melito of Sardis’ (ca. A.D. 195) remarkable Easter sermon (I’ve extracted lines from near the end of the sermon) — a text that Bob Webber often extolled for its so-called “Christus Victor” theme.

God is crucified so that humanity can rise, Melito practically sings. This death of God and resurrection of man is the means by which “the One who sits on the throne’ says, ‘I make all things new’” (Revelation 21:5). This “all things” is, well, “all things.” Praise be. Art is new. Science is new. As are gardening, cooking, playing, singing.

It was with Melito’s sermon dancing around in my brain that I serendipitously came upon this thought from sociologist Werner Stark:

The truths of religion can be much more easily and much less inadequately expressed in artistic than in linguistic terms — or better, in the language of art than in the language of science. St. Thomas Aquinas’s hymns are much more convincing, so far as live faith is concerned, than even his best arguments. … Max Weber coined a more remarkable phrase than he knew when he called himself on one occasion “religiously deaf.” But those who can hear will find, for instance, in Anton Bruckner’s Te Deum a statement of faith, which is not only supremely moving but also experientially satisfying and convincing. The rationalistic demotion of art to something ‘merely sentimental’ is not the least disservice which the discursive intellect has done to religion, and, indeed, to all humanity. The fact is and remains that the rationalist as such has no ear for the divine call (Werner Stark, Sociology of Religion, Vol IV [ Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969], p. 72).

The third text is complement to the second: R.R. Reno’s commendation in First Things (Mar. 27, 2009) of David Hart’s new book Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale, 2009) — a book that is an attempt to get the “religiously deaf” to listen to their own folly. From Reno’s remarks I extract but this thought:

“The revolutions that genuinely alter human reality at the deepest levels,” Hart writes, “are those that first convert the minds and wills, that reshape the imagination and reorient desire, that overthrow tyrannies within the soul.” Christianity caused such a revolution, and it did so, Hart claims, with its fundamental claim about Christ: In him each one of us can join our humble humanity to the glory and holiness of God.

Honor, laud, and glory to our crucified and risen Christus Victor.

And fivefold thanks.

Thanks, first, for the utter graciousness by which Jesus came.

Thanks, second, for the loving faithfulness that brought Jesus back from death to life.

Thanks, third, for the Spirit’s kiss by which I find myself astonishingly not “religiously deaf.”

Thanks, fourth, for the host of gifted saints and fellow-travelers (from all times and all places) who have given us such stunning musical and artistic expressions of the glory of Holy Week’s story.

Thanks, fifth, for the fact that ours is a faith that satisfies the itch to compose hymns and that prompts us to make our best arguments as well.

I’m grateful to Thomas Howard for Dove Descending, his commentary on T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” But why must Eliot be so pointedly obtuse as to need line-by-line decoding? (Though I suspect some of my students would think I find in Eliot a kindred spirit.) Having forced my way through “Prufrock” and “Hollow Men” and “Wasteland” last week, I’m ready for some words of redemption. I’m just getting started on “Four Quartets” — I love the notion of there being “a way up that is at one and the same time a way down,” but this poetry is tough going. (I hope I can get some help from Charlie Kidd when he returns from abroad.)

Last week while grading exams (almost done), I listened several times (and am doing so even now) to Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony. The Alpine Symphony, a tribute to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, makes Nietzsche’s atheism (or at least his quest for a “nobler god”) feel so, I dunno, so what? Brave?

Then again, if your best hope is to have your ashes parked on the top of the Himalayas in a Chock Full o’Nuts can (per The Bucket List, which movie Shari sat me down to watch this weekend, and which movie felt to me like an extended commentary on how to make Nietzsche work for you — even if the main characters do make non-Nietzschean moves toward relationships), you move past bravery into, well, again, what?

OK, I guess it makes a pretty big difference whether there’s a Redeemer or not. If not, The Bucket List is about as close to redemption as you’re going to get, I suppose. That said, I’m not sure a bucket list isn’t a bad idea even if (or since) there is a Redeemer.

What could be on mine? I’ve already killed a gator, hit a home run, played Bach & B.B. King, swung a samurai sword, driven (even briefly owned) a muscled up Mustang, kissed the most beautiful girl in the world, raised with her the three most vibrantly alive sons ever, written more than I have the right to expect anybody to read, spoken truth into the lives of half a generation of seminarians, seen tons of the majestic …

Before we leave Strauss, his Also Sprach Zarathustra (the whole tone poem) has inspired me to try to get the “Prelude” into my fingers on my Lucille and out through my Fender tube amps.

My head still hurts (that good hurt when your head feels like it’s taken in more than it’s able) from how rich the Institute for Worship Studies experience was this session. I’m grateful especially for bold prayers and wise counsel I received, and for the self-giving love I witnessed among strong-willed and talented worship leaders. It’s curious that my teaching partner and I are going through such parallel dysfunctions in church life. I love the church so — may all of us who love the Groom and his Bride help each other help Her not dress so ugly. I hold much promise of Her better adornment through my IWS friends.

Like I said, random thoughts … but, hey, it’s my blog.

Note to both devoted readers: I won’t forget about the other seven reasons for samurai sword training in Japan.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality. • T. S. Eliot

Well, how about some perspective?

OK, those little chores aren’t hanging over my head any more. That’s a pretty good thing. One less drain on the battery.

Plus, on reflection, it was great to be reminded that, recent setbacks notwithstanding, I am still able to afford a few simple pleasures, like the music of John Tavener and the prose of Wendell Berry. More, paying off reimbursements from preaching and worship leading at Lookout Mtn. Pres. two weekends ago brought refreshing memories of a healing time with old and new friends.

Reliving last weekend’s sword tournament gave me one more opportunity to give thanks that Randy has found something he does remarkably well … as well as one more opportunity to give thanks that, as event registrar, I’m learning to serve outside my area of gifting.

Recalling last weekend’s tournament also gave pause to consider what a “ruinous visitation” it was for my sensei’s sensei to expose a glaring flaw in my suihe (side to side cut) and to observe that I didn’t know yet how to aim the sword accurately. Change or die, for sure. (Learning how to accept “ruinous visitations” will have to become a chapter in the book: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Coaching Little League, Training Dogs, or Submitting to a Samurai Sword Sensei.)

Moreover, I did get a couple of hours in Scripture yesterday … with no “preparation agenda” … just getting caught up in the flow of the narrative in Numbers and Mark. That was pretty cool.

I did get to talk with Bob and Charlie (yesterday was his 21st, and his first Newcastle), and wish them well on their spring break trek to MS to do Katrina relief work. That was pretty cool too.

Randy and I did get to cut some pool noodles. My new Hataya Wakizashi is absolutely amazing. Beyond cool.

And Shari and I did get to consider together that in a world that Ecclesiastes describes so keenly, nonetheless God is at work … and in his time and in his way, he will make all things right. Way beyond cool.

This Lenten season is providing a remarkable opportunity to rediscover the wonder of what was redeemed — from the brutally painful to the mind-numbingly mundane:

In a grave they laid you, O my Life and my Christ;
and the armies of the angels were sore amazed
as they sang the praise of your submissive love.

O Life, how can you die? Or abide in a grave?
For You destroy the Kingdom of death, O Lord,
and you raise up the dead of Hades’ realm.

John Tavener, Lamentations & Praises

If Jesus died and rose again it means every one of us is heading for one of two destinations, according to C. S. Lewis: being “immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”

My friend Greg Davis lost his battle with esophageal cancer this week. But he won a more significant campaign. Greg loved Jesus. And Greg lived as though he weren’t just returning to dirt. He lived as though he were destined to become an everlasting splendour.

I’ve known few people as gifted in so many areas — and so unwilling to trumpet his abilities. Raised in Liberia by missionaries from the U.S. (his dad was a bush pilot), Greg responded to God’s call to the nations by equipping himself for ministry and going to Ireland as a missionary. When his marriage fell apart and he found himself a single dad, he took up counseling. His pastoring was characterized by an unusual capacity to care for the discarded and ignored — thus, I think, our mutual love for French artist Georges Rouault.

Along the way Greg found he had a knack for photography and for wordsmithing — so he published a book of his photos and poems, Windows of the Heart: Poetry & Photographs (Writers Press, 2002). Because nobody else around him seemed to understand how to make their computers work, he learned “information technology” (even figuring how PCs work — to Greg, that anybody would use anything but a Mac was proof of radical depravity). Though he felt his IT ability was as much a curse as a gift, he gave himself selflessly to helping others use digital technology (“Well, the basic reason your computer’s not working is that it’s not plugged in”).

A couple of months after I started leading worship at Orangewood, I felt it was time to bring a little art into our “sanctinasium” (sanctuary/gymnasium/school auditorium). It’s one thing for reformed people to have a lean aesthetic — but gym aesthetics are beyond lean. I’d say more like off-puttingly utilitarian — without even the hauntingly mysterious potential of catacombs. In support of lyrics that particular Sunday I projected some art I use in classroom teaching, and I did so with a singular set of fears: that the congregation would find the art helpful but me unable to find the time to provide the art from week to week. “Lord, I offer this to you — but if it’s going to be more than a one shot deal, you’re going to have to do something.”

No sooner did the service end than a short, bald, bearded guy walked up to me: “Hey, I just started working at the church part-time in IT … but my real interest is art … if you have any interest in doing more of what you did this morning, I think I might be able to help.”

Little in ministry has given me more pleasure over the last four years than brainstorming with a gifted and godly worship team about how readings, segues, songs, prayers, sacraments and sermons can complement each other — and then sitting back to watch Greg create slide backgrounds, videos, poetry, and handouts to make a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. See his corpus at writeclik.com. His visual point of departure might be a Vermeer or a Rembrandt or a Rouault or a cathedral or a train station or a worked-metal cross atop an Istanbul church or a neon-lit cross in front of an Orlando rescue mission. His imaginative capacity and theological depth and biblical breath were astonishing. And his friendship irreplaceable.

A week before his death we sang, “Be Still My Soul,” and I could barely get through it because I knew my friend would soon be departing:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to your God to order and provide;
in ev’ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: your best, your heav’nly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: your God will undertake
to guide the future as He has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
and all is darkened in the vale of tears.
Then shall you better know his love, his heart,
who comes to soothe your sorrow and your fears.
Be still, my soul: your Jesus can repay
from His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning on
when we shall be forever with the Lord.
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

The second most enjoyable thing I’ve done in the last two years (the first was gator hunting last year) was going to the U2 Vertigo concert in Miami as Greg’s guest (thus the “vintage” post elsewhere on this site, “BB&BB: The Beat Goes On”). So I know the sign-off Greg would prefer is from his favorite Irish theologian, Bono:

Grace
It’s a name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world.
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things.

Following the deaths of the Spartan King Leonidas and “his brave three hundred” at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., the various Greek city-states decided they needed to pull together. Xerxes’ gargantuan army and navy were poised to overwhelm Greece, indeed the whole of Europe. At the eleventh hour the Greeks realized they needed each other.

Traditionally, Greece looked to Sparta for leadership on land and to Athens for leadership on the sea. But in this case there were misgivings about giving Athens command of the city-states’ combined fleets (despite Athens’ contributing the largest number of ships). Herodotus isn’t clear whether the reluctance was due to lack of confidence in or envy against Athens, or due simply to a recognition of Sparta’s moral capital.

The point is: Athens “got it,” to quip Herodotus: civil war in the face of an external threat is suicide.

Or, in Facebook-speak: mutual defenestration means self annihilation. When the enemy is at the gate, that’s not the time to be throwing each other out the window.

Rather than lobby for their traditional right to command, Athens accepted Spartan command of the navy as well as of the army. The result: two brilliant victories — one by Greece’s combined navies (at Salamis) and one by Greece’s combined armies (at Plataea) — and one huge and final retreat by Xerxes. The result: daughters of neither Athens nor Sparta were exported to harems in Persepolis.

There are times that call for a sense of measure and proportion — times when you need not to be doing a smack down on each other. Fifth century B.C. Greece it figured out. Will we?

On one front, we face militant Islamists who have declared a reverse Crusade on us, demanding we either grovel before a disincarnate cosmic monad, or die.

On another, Mormons, arguably the fastest growing religion on the planet, knock on our doors with their terminal niceness (with, as Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven chillingly recounts, notable exceptions) and their uber-Disney promise that not only can you wish upon a star but you can get your own star where you’ll be a god or goddess.

Then there are the angry atheists who grouch about the immorality and intellectual suicide of faith. And just wait until this Christmas season’s (how deliciously ironic) release of the movie based on Philip Pullman’s vision of anti-Narnia: The Golden Compass.

Meanwhile, mainline Western churches languor under the sway of pre-pagan eros and post-Christian heterodoxy, embodying in a way that couldn’t be more precise Jude’s prescient warning about “ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).

It’s an extraordinary time for evangelicals to rediscover the stability of the Bible’s meta-narrative of creation, fall and redemption —  the one true and enduring story that puts the lie to the false stories of jihad, of self-deification, of autonomy, of faux Christianity. A stability that allows us to read each other’s odd takes on the story with sufficient grace to account for the Grace that took on flesh to cover all our inadequacies.

In the end, much more is at stake than when the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of King Leonidas and “his brave three hundred” took stock of the price that had been paid for them. Nothing less than the opportunity to embody an answer to the prayer of the Second Person of the Trinity: “May they all be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you: may they be in us that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21).

I know it’s a comic book version of history, but I am irresistibly attracted to 300 — both Frank Miller’s graphic novel [i.e., comic book for “grown ups”] and the movie it inspired. Forget the poetic license (we don’t know why the shepherd Ephialtes betrayed the Spartans, we don’t know how King Leonidas’ wife supported his campaign back home, we don’t know if the doomed king made anybody like the above-quoted Delios return home to tell the tale and marshal support for the next campaign) — 300’s license is no greater than Braveheart’s. Forget the over-the-top visual and auditory reconstruction — yeah right, the Spartans fought with exposed six-pack abs and celebrated to heavy metal music while Zeus punished the Persian navy. The genre is Classics Illustrated on steroids — perhaps literally to judge from how buff this Leonidas and his Spartan warriors are.

The fact is: Europe came close to capitulating to Persian conquest in 480 B.C. — save for the time purchased and the example set by 300 brave Spartans (and others, to be sure) who perished in the shade of Persian arrows (a line Frank Miller takes directly from Herodotus) at Thermopylae. Fictional though the character is, and fictional though his lines are, Delios’ (and through him, Frank Miller’s) homage is apt.

“Huzzah!” for the 300 who didn’t come back, either “carrying” or “on their shields” (another great line Miller took from historical sources — this time from Plutarch). And “Huzzah” for leaders who understand the stakes are as high for us today. I’m glad I’m not “The Decider.” I don’t know if George W. Bush was naive about how much harder winning a peace would be than winning a war. I do know brave men and women are giving it their best shot … in that regard, I commend, in passing, Peggy Noonan’s piece “To Old Times” in the Wall Street Journal (8/25/07; Page P14), her own “Huzzah!” to American soldiers in Iraq: “I always notice the pictures from the wire services, pictures that have nothing to do with government propaganda. The Marine on patrol laughing with the local street kids; the nurse treating the sick mother. A funny thing. We’re so used to thinking of American troops as good guys that we forget: They’re good guys! They have American class.”

Anybody who has questions about what has been at stake at least since the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and its actual destruction in 2001 would do well to read the Christian sociologist Jacques Ellul’s impassioned and insightful The Betrayal of the West (Seabury Press, 1978), a plea for a defense of what is good in Western civilization. Ellul understands two things many pundits don’t. First, he understands that the contemporary war against the West began before 1993 and that it was launched by voices internal to the West (but that’s not the subject of this posting). Second, he understands that what makes the West worth fighting for is that it itself succumbed to a more lethal attack from the East, an attack that followed Xerxes’ by half a millennium.

According to Ellul, a smaller but deadlier army came against the West when the Apostle Paul, in Turkey at the time, had a nighttime vision of a Greek pleading for him to cross the Aegean Sea and bring the good news of Jesus Christ from Asia to Europe (Ac 16:9-10).

As Ellul puts it:

Upon this vision the specific character of western civilization depends; at this moment the mystery peculiar to the West and the contradiction that runs through western history come into being.

Imagine Christianity expanding toward the East instead of toward the West. The result? Western history would have been radically different, proving that all the major historical events were secondary in comparison with Paul’s dream. If the Persians instead of the Greeks had won at Marathon [ed. note, where Xerxes’ father, Darius had been turned back in 490] or Salamis [the turning point of the campaign against Xerxes some months after Thermopylae], western civilization would not have been different. …

If, however, the Mediterranean world had remained pagan, had developed according to its native genius, and had expanded under Germanic auspices, how differently the West would have turned out! The course of history would have been radically altered if the western will to power had been given free rein, unhindered by a bad conscience. The Middle Ages would have been different, and so would capitalism. Paul’s vision was thus the crucial moment for western civilization. It was the moment when God took radical action in the political and intellectual spheres. (pp. 73-74)

Beginning the day the Apostle’s feet hit European soil, God’s self-giving agape has been conquering Europe’s eros, its pride, and its autonomy. Jesus’ ambassadors came in love rather than imperial arrogance, but they came nonetheless with a demand as fundamental as the Persians’ “earth and water”: “There is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Ac 4:12).

So, “Huzzah!” indeed for King Leonidas and Sparta’s brave 300. But “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!” for ambassadors of the King.

For my friend Richard Pratt who tirelessly urges American evangelicals to prepare for the coming conflict with Islam.

For courageous African Anglican bishops who extend the agape of pastoral care to U.S. believers whose church leaders have reverted to pre-Christian eros.

For Emad (not his real name), formerly in the personal guard of the deposed head of state in what was once Xerxes’ Persia, who trains for gospel ministry in exile praying for the day he can return home. For Fadilah (also not her real name) whose Mideast politician-father was martyred for his Christian faith and who herself lives and ministers in the Mideast knowing she may pay the ultimate price as well.

For Joyce (her real name), my administrative assistant, who took Jesus’ footwashing example to the Mideast and found, to her delight, that Christians there were eager to take this modeling of Jesus’ cruciform life to Christian neighbors elsewhere in the Mideast.

For countless Christians in China, many of whom worship in secret as they prepare for their own missionary campaign to their west — places where we Westerners have long lost our voice.

Whatever the odds against us, they are paltry to King Jesus and his brave three hundred. As Frank Miller’s graphic novel concludes: “The order is given. The battle flutes play. To victory — we charge.”

Women, more especially,—in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion,—or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought,—came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven’s own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter revolves around three sinners who respond to their sinfulness in wildly different ways and with wildly different results. The adulterous pastor Dimmesdale hides his sin, and nearly loses his soul in the process. The sinned against physician Chillingworth never forgives. Instead, he grows obsessively vengeful and finally becomes devil’s food. Hester Prynne owns her guilt, accepts the full consequences of her sin — and even goes the second mile, so to speak, by generously (if misguidedly) protecting the identity of both her paramour and her husband. In the end, she emerges with a quiet radiance about her. She becomes a magnet for others whom sin has left “wounded, wasted, wronged, and wretched,” especially women. She can comfort and counsel chiefly because of her crucible.

It was impossible for me to read The Scarlet Letter and not burn with Hawthorne’s anger at a world and a church that suffered the male pastor’s hypocrisy and the male physician’s duplicity at the sinful woman’s expense. Yet the world Hawthorne longs for in the future — one in which “the whole relation between man and woman” is established “on a surer ground of mutual happiness” — I find in the new creation Jesus came to inaugurate in the first place. How sad that it remains so elusive.

Jesus comes to an adulterous woman’s defense, demanding that the sinless among the (male) scribes and Pharisees throw the first stone, and setting her free when her accusers wither at his challenge (Jn 8:1-11). Jesus accepts the hospitality of Samaria’s infamously five-times-over serial-adulteress (Jn 4). Jesus allows the up-close-and-personal touch of a woman who is marked out only by the moniker, “a sinner” (Lk 7:36-50). Jesus chooses women as first to witness his resurrection, and with his “Go tell …,” makes them, if you will, apostles to the apostles (Mt 28:1-10). Surely, this is part of what he did to “make all things new” (Rev 21:5).

Even the apostle Paul — whom Hawthorne’s Puritans would arguably have considered more an authority anyway — sees a different and new place for women in Jesus’ new creation. Paul notes approvingly the fact that women are praying and prophesying in church — a sign of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that the day would come when God would pour out his Spirit on all people (1Co 11:2-16; Joel 2:28-32; and cf. Ac 2:16-21). He calls Phoebe a “minister,” employing the same term he applies to Jesus, to himself, to Timothy, and to what appear to be junior officers in the church — in fact, he (at least as I understand the text) lays out in his first letter to Timothy specific requirements for women who are to fill this office (Rom 16:1; 15:8; 2Co 3:6; 1Tm 4:6; 3:8-13, and note. v. 11). He may number a Junia among the “apostles” (interpreters disagree) in the same way Luke numbers Barnabas among them (Rom 16:7; Ac 14:4). Paul accepts the hospitality of Lydia, an unattached, business woman — no doubt one of those “new Roman women” whom Bruce Winter’s scholarship has brought into relief (Ac 16:14-15). And so important are his women Philippian “coworkers” Euodia and Syntyche — “who have been fellow athletes with me in the gospel” (to render his phrase overly literally, just to make the point) — that he urges their reconciliation for the sake of the ongoing ministry (Php 4:2-3).

To be sure — if I correctly understand two passages in Paul’s letters, 1Co 14:29-63 & 1Tm 2:9-15 — there is a point of demurral. A point at which women in the church defer to, as an Episcopal bishop recently put it to me, “a male presbuterate.” But what that point of demurral is isn’t obvious. And I would submit that according to Jesus and Paul, it’s not the first thing you look for. In fact, you only realize what it’s there for in an atmosphere that is alive with men and women co-laboring together in the gospel ministry. There have to be a thousand ways ecclesiologies can respect the dance that Paul envisions — and the whole argument about “ordination” is altogether beside the point.

In the last few years, I’ve been blessed with a number of relationships and models that have made it more important to me to urge us all to work harder to approximate the world of vibrant male-female co-laboring in ministry that Paul experienced and promoted.

Just for starters …

There’s Carla Waterman, with whom I team-teach in the Robt. E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. Carla is the sister I never had. It’s amazing to me the way she completes my sentences. My, “That you may have life,” inevitably leads to her, “And that more abundantly.” My, “That reminds me of a carburetor that’s got too rich a mix of fuel and air,” invariably prompts her, “You know, it’s like your yard is a jungle you want to make into a garden.” Carla says she looks to me for grounding. I look to her for wings.

There’s Carolyn James, whose books, When Life and Beliefs Collide and Lost Women of the Bible, boldly, biblically, and astutely encourage women to become students and sharers of God’s Word regardless of the shape of specific vocation.

There’s Geri Scazzero who complements her husband Pete’s (author of The Emotionally Healthy Church and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality) voice so nicely, if forcefully — using her public strength to urge him to protect her by telling people the truth, not necessarily what they want to hear.

There’s Vicki Taylor, my co-laborer at Orangewood Presbyterian, whose own tutelage in Christ’s school of suffering gives her a whole-souled winsomeness, whether she’s singing or counseling or mothering or speaking in public.

Of course, there’s Shari, my wife, who has chosen to teach her sons at home, all the while supporting my various ministries — nobody will ever know how much of what I teach or write that is of any value has really come from her.

And, finally, there are any number of women who have come to a testosterone-rich RTS/Orlando for training in ministry. Often from left-of-whoopee denominations, these sisters have convictions that have led them — often in defiance of church officials — to come to us for training that is theologically orthodox. They do so just so they can stand in pulpits that otherwise would be sub-orthodox. Their courage shames me because, unlike them, I’m in a theologically “safe” denomination — gee whiz, the most courageous thing I’ve done in years is force my eyes to accept contact lenses. But these sisters’ bravery bespeaks the promise that Jesus is not finished with his new creation.

God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever! Praised be His name! His will be done! Farewell!

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a study in the truth of 1Tim 5:24 (to paraphrase): “Some sins come to light right away, some take a while. If the baring of yours is late, may it nonetheless be in time.”

The adulterous Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale dies a death of “triumphant ignominy” because he comes to understand, though almost too late, that the torturous, red-hot letter he bears in secret on his heart and the accusations of the envy-devoured, sinned-against Chillin gworth are means of grace. Dimmesdale discovers in them instruments of a merciful God who will not surrender a loved one to a damning dichotomy between outward piety and inward corruption. If, with pain — actually, precisely through pain —, He will indeed effect that “sanctification without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14). And so, if tardily, Dimmesdale tells the truth about himself.

E. Digby Baltzell, late professor of sociology at Penn, once said, “Community exists to protect us from ourselves.”

As Dimmesdale confesses, “Praised be His name,” indeed! Praised be … for friends who ask (and want to know), “How are things — really — in your life?” Praised be … for each week’s meeting with a congregation of folks in aggressive pursuit of the God who has taken hold of them and me and who will not let go. Praised be … for students who, preparing for heroic lives of ministry — some even knowing that the prospects for martyrdom in the corner of the world in which they will serve are real, deserve professors who aren’t conflicted profligates.

Praised be … for a world so out of control, that moral sanity looks like the wisdom it is. Praised be … for a wife who makes the desire for a secret life, well, not very exciting. Praised be … for sons who need a dad who does not live a secret life.

Praised be … for the Word of God that seems fresher and more penetrating with each read. Praised be … for baptismal waters that remind me of my share in Christ’s death and resurrection. Praised be … for a Eucharistic table that promises I will become what I eat.

By these means, Lord, make me, unlike, Brother Dimmesdale, quick to own the otherwise damning truth about myself.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I never thought I’d be naming Woody Guthrie my theologian of the week. I never thought that crusty folk singer would put me in mind of the hope Christ came to bring. But today he reminded me of how tired I am of fear-based and hope-bereft theology. Somebody gave Eeyore the microphone, and it’s time to take it away.

This past Sunday during church I happened to be in a position to watch people’s faces while a women’s ensemble sang Nicole C. Mullens’ “Call on Jesus.” Our preacher (who this week was Orangewood Presbyterian’s much loved founding pastor, Chuck Green) had just challenged the congregation to consider the way the Lord had responded when Elijah called to him (contrary to the Baals who were apparently unable or unwilling to respond to their 450 prophets — see 1 Kings 18).

The song was rendered in solo/ensemble fashion, and we hadn’t distributed nor were we projecting the lyrics. I thought we’d surely field complaints about lack of visual support for the song’s text. Curiously though, I watched tearful faces silently mouthing the words, “When I call on Jesus all things are possible.” I was reminded both how desperately we need to know that hope, and how magnificently true it is.

Our God is not like the Baals. He’s not too busy. He’s not going to the bathroom (for which the Bible’s “turning aside” is a euphemism). He’s not on a journey. Not asleep and in need of awakening (see 1Kg 18:27).

Well, correct that: in fact, he did busy himself — thus, Jesus Christ stood before his friend Lazarus’ tomb and “stirred himself” (Jn 11:33). Coming as one of us, he experienced all of what it means to be a human — and that’s got to include “turning aside.” He undertook the most momentous of journeys, as Richard Baxter penned, “from heaven to earth, from earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to glory.” As a result, Paul notes, the risen God-man now sings his all-conquering love all around the world (Romans 15:9).

What Guthrie’s lines put me in mind of is how profoundly the song of the reality of Christ’s resurrection drowns out the nay-saying Eeyore songs. The songs that run, “Lord, have mercy … even though I know you never will.” It’s time to lose the “you’re born to lose, bound to lose, good to nobody” defeatism. It’s time to refuse the voices that bring only condemnation. Whether it’s the internal voice of self-condemnation: “I blew it so bad this time, he’ll take me back.”

Or the voices whose “Onward Christian Soldiers” is but a veiled carping against others in the camp: “You’re so concerned to stress that Jesus died for individuals, you’ve lost his vision for the church. You’ve lost the gospel.” Or the converse: “You’re so focused on the institutional church, you’re robbing true believers of their individual assurance of salvation and simultaneously offering nominal believers a false assurance. You’ve lost the gospel.”

Hello. The gospel is that Christ died for our sins according to Scripture … and rose to make all things new. New hearts and a new creation. Each and all. Somebody take Eeyore’s microphone and give it to Woody.