Monthly Archives: April 2016

Goodbye, Old Friend

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Liebe3
Liebe died yesterday, but I was 3000 kilometres away and couldn’t say goodbye.

She was 10½ years old, almost to the day, a gift from my family for Christmas 2005. We had been at our carols service on Christmas eve and Monica and the kids were keen to get me home for my present which was arriving that night.

We were in the family room at home and I had been blindfolded. When it was removed I looked around to see this present, though at first I couldn’t see anything. Was it a new picture on the wall? Something wrapped on the table? They were all around, almost bursting with excitement, shining, expectant; I couldn’t see why.

Then, out from under the table, ran a little black puppy: paws too big, ears flopped down, tail high.

“Bloody hell!”

The kids laughed. Monica was dismayed. This was so out-of-the-blue, so out-of-the-box I was totally unprepared, and (almost) speechless. My shocked response still provokes mirth with the children whenever it is remembered. Somehow two thoughts hit me simultaneously: our life—my life—had just changed, and, I needed to bond with this dog. I laid down on the floor.

It only took a moment. The little puppy was delighted to have something, someone it was bigger than! It was all over me, licking and jumping and licking some more (didn’t anyone tell it I am allergic to dog saliva? Apparently not.)

It took us a little while to settle on the name. I was learning German at the time and a German Shepherd should have a German name! (Although I did consider ‘Gracie’ for a while. One of the boys had started dating a Grace, however, and so didn’t really go for Gracie.) The boys thought a theological name would be appropriate and suggested ‘Bone-Hoeffer,’ but I finally decided on Liebe, or more formally, Liebchen (‘Sweetheart’).

And a sweetheart she was. Liebe became part of the family the moment she moved in, bringing much happiness with her from the very start. Liebe and I tramped all over the escarpment, up and down Lesmurdie Falls, Whistlepipe Gully, all through the hills. We explored the neighbourhood together, discovered new streets, chased rabbits and cats, sniffed every tree and weed and lamp-post and letterbox and rubbish bin and plant and dogs-bum we came across (well, she did…). She was always keen to be in the middle of anything and everything we were doing, loved going out with us, loved sticking her head out the window in the car, loved being inside when she was allowed, loved people, and loved us.

The thing about dogs is that they are such loyal friends, and even after we moved into the apartment and couldn’t keep her any longer, I would still go to see her, and she would roll onto her back for her tummy-rub, always glad to see me, always ready for a walk or a romp. As she aged the infernal arthritis became worse, and slowed her down somewhat, but I am grateful that in the end she didn’t become debilitated or crippled by it. I couldn’t have borne seeing her suffer.

And thank you Chris, Jess, Jeremiah and Levi for loving Liebe as we did and giving her such a good home. We were so thankful for that, and now especially so.

When I was a kid people used to say that dogs don’t go to heaven because they don’t have a soul. Whatever were they thinking?? Liebe, I think, had more soul than I do. She was intelligent. She could learn. She grew in understanding. She was clever. At times she was cunning, and yes, sometimes she abused her power—just ask Maddie, our cocker-spaniel. Liebe would block her from coming up the path to the house, just because she could! Lieb could be jealous! She could feel. She could be hurt. She could be shamed. She loved. She was affectionate. She understood and was present when someone in the house was sad or sick. She responded to stress, to joy. She could play. She could tease. She was sociable.  She liked attention. She had soul.

One day there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which all is righteousness, joy, peace and love. It will be filled with animals because God loves his creatures. And if Paul’s word is true, that love is the greatest of the virtues, that it transcends the bounds of this life, that it lives on and forever, then perhaps that which is love and loved—Liebe—will also find a place there. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Best.Present.Ever.

Goodbye, old girl—and thank you for everything. I will always remember you.

Scripture on Sunday – Psalm 14

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Brad Pitt Atheist Quote

Read Psalm 14

Psalm 14 is a challenge to modern—and not so modern—self-reliance, to the kind of practical atheism so widespread in contemporary Western society: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

The fool, here, is a fool in God’s eyes rather than a human label, for those labelled fools in Scripture are anything but fools from a human perspective. The problem is not lack of intelligence or common sense; it is not mental deficiency but moral deficiency. As Craigie (147) notes, the ‘fool’ may in fact be highly intelligent, cultured, worldly-wise, and esteemed. Yet, when “the Lord has looked down from heaven,” he sees—a fool.

I must pause. It is much too easy at this point for Christians to read this psalm with a defensive or otherwise aggressive and antagonistic ‘us-versus-them’ attitude, as though the label is not rightly applied also to them. It is much too easy to claim the high moral ground and despise those ‘godless fools!’ This the psalm does not allow: “There is no one who does good…not even one….They have all turned aside” (vv. 1-3). If we are not presently fools, we have been, and, from a New Testament perspective, it is only by divine grace that we are not fools now.

In my experience, Proverbs 22:15 has an ongoing significance: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”—it does not depart just because one grows up! Parents rightly discipline their children to help them learn the pathways of wisdom and righteousness. Adults, even Christian adults, must discipline themselves lest the fool buried deeply within emerge and return. “The fool is not a rare subspecies within the human race; all human beings are fools apart from the wisdom of God” (Craigie, 148).

The word for fool in this psalm is nāb̲āl, which implies an ‘aggressive perversity’ (Kidner, 79). The concept is common in Israel’s wisdom tradition, and especially prominent in Proverbs. The sense the word carries is seen in Proverbs 1:7 where it is set in opposition to the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of knowledge (cf. Proverbs 9:10). The essential characteristic of the fool is that they do not take the reality, relevance and reign of God into consideration in their thought: they live as though “There is no God” (cf. Psalm 10:4).

For faith, however, this is the fundamental reality of existence: there is indeed a God. This God looks upon human affairs, cares for his people and will be their refuge and salvation. This God will ultimately judge the world, holding its inhabitants to account. Fools are such because they do not acknowledge this fundamental reality and so live and act as though they were their own god. It is this aspect of human life that St. Paul so clearly outlines in Romans 1:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools… (vv. 18-22).

That Paul has Psalm 14 in mind is confirmed in Romans 3:10-12 where he cites this psalm to emphasise the universal sinfulness of humanity. (Craigie (146f.) notes that some Hebrew manuscripts include Paul’s entire passage from Romans 3:10-18 in their version of Psalm 14. This is of historical interest for it shows that perhaps some Jewish scholars in the early Christian centuries were also reading Paul to the extent that his words found their way back into the Hebrew manuscript tradition.)

The essential characteristic of the wicked is further described in Psalm 14:4, presented as God’s own speech: not only do the wicked fail to “call upon the Lord,” they also “eat up my people as they eat bread.” Here the failure to show due regard to God is linked with its corollary: the failure to show due regard to others. Again, Craigie’s exposition (147) is worth hearing:

The fool is opposed to God, threatens the life of the righteous, and thus evokes both lament and prayer for deliverance from those whose lives he affects. … The fool is one whose life is lived without the direction or acknowledgement of God. Thus, the precise opposite of fool and folly is not wise man and wisdom; the opposite of folly in the wisdom literature is lovingkindness. That is to say, the fool is defined by the absence of lovingkindness, which in turn is the principal characteristic of the relationship of the covenant; he lives as if there were no covenant, and thus as if there were no God (Craigie, 147, original emphasis).

Wisdom therefore laments the folly and oppressive activity of the wicked, and cries out to God for salvation, and is also hopeful that God will indeed “restore the fortunes of his people,” and show himself their refuge, especially in the judgement. Thus the people of God continue to counsel the wicked (v. 6), declaring their faith in God, and instructing others in the fear of the Lord. Although their affliction and lament is genuine, their posture is resolute in faith toward God, steadfast toward their companions in sufferings, and firm in their attitude toward the oppressor.

Once again, as in Psalms 9-10, we find that practical atheism issues in “abominable deeds” (v. 1) which oppress others. This atheism is grounded not so much in philosophical speculation as in moral scepticism (Charry, 65). Thus Ellen Charry insists that “the pedagogical import of Ps. 14 is that faith in God is the moral basis of society” (69). When we turn from God as the orienting centre from which and toward which we live, we substitute something else—almost invariably the self—as that centre. We become, in Luther’s famous phrase, homo incurvatus in se—humanity turned in on itself—and so selfish, or sinners, which is to say the same thing.

The Best Book I’ve Never Read

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The Color Purple Book CoverWell, that is probably an overstatement based in ignorance: there are undoubtedly many great books I have never read! Nevertheless, about a year ago I started listening consistently to audio books when cycling or doing the housework and so on. Usually I listen to novels, especially since I do not have much time to read novels anymore. A little while back I listened to Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and then listened to it again.

The book is an extraordinary work, harrowing and brutal, devastating in its portrayal of inhumanity, sensitive and tender in its realistic portrayal of the beauty and tragedy of humanity. The audio performance was itself part of the pleasure; read by the author, every nuance and inflection drew me more deeply into an unknown world, as the story implicated and accused me, frightened and outraged me, touching my heart with its pathos and vision. It is both a cry of rage and protest against the injustice and inhumanity we humans inflict on one another, and a stubborn affirmation of hope in the midst of suffering, of endurance against all odds, of a kind of triumph in the end as we become more and more who we truly are.

Yet this becoming is neither easy nor automatic. Virtues grow slowly and under great pressure, and it is these that sustain a great and ordinary life. Walker does not idolise suffering, excuse injustice, or laud poverty. Nor is she ‘politically correct.’ Her major character, Celie, emerges into freedom only with great difficulty, slowly becoming the character and finding the community by which she becomes who she is.

(I wonder if Stanley Hauerwas has written on this story? I must see what I can find.)

The Color Purple is a deeply spiritual, deeply theological book, though the theology conveyed is neither biblical nor orthodox. In a preface to a newer, British edition Walker reflects,

Twenty-five-years later, it still puzzles me that The Color Purple is so infrequently discussed as a book about God. About ‘God’ versus ‘the God image’. After all, the protagonist Celie’s first words are ‘Dear God’. Everything that happens during her life, spanning decades, is in relation to her growth in understanding this force. I remember attempting to explain the necessity of her trials and tribulations to a skeptical fan. We grow in our understanding of what ‘God/Goddess’ means, and is, by the intensity of our suffering, and what we are able to make of it, I said. As far as I can tell, I added.

The book is an epistolary novel, the drama, characterisation and plot progressing by means of a series of letters written by Celie and her sister, Nettie. Many of the letters, especially in the earlier sections of the book begin simply, ‘Dear God.’ The final letter of the book begins, ‘Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear everything. Dear God.…’ Walker clearly holds a pantheistic, or at least panentheistic, view of God in which the divine is deeply immanent within everything, a faithful creator and life-giving, life-affirming Spirit. She revolts against the intellectual idolatry that reduces God to the white, to the male, to the human. From the perspective of Christian orthodoxy, her rejection of Jesus Christ as attested in Scripture as the revelation of God is deeply troubling. From the perspective of the lived history of her family and people, it is hardly surprising.

alice-walker

There is much in this critique that Christian orthodoxy could listen to and learn from. Walker’s vision of the grace given in the order of creation is deeply moving and inspiring. Her understanding of the sinfulness of humanity is also particularly acute—at least to a degree. Where she departs from Christian orthodoxy is in limiting God to the order of creation. Hers is a religion of nature, and ‘redemption’ a reconciliation of the human spirit with this universal and universally-available reality.

There is a prequel of sorts to this story. Back in the very early 90s I rented the movie from the local video store. I didn’t last long: the opening rape scene was an affront, the lesbian encounter part way through not to be borne. I mentioned the movie in a sermon not too long after that, telling how I had turned it off. A woman in the congregation came up to me afterwards, surprised at my reaction to the film, and describing it as one of the most meaningful movies she had ever seen. Fortunately I could accept that what was difficult for one person was not necessarily the same for another (“for whatsoever is not of faith is sin”—Romans 14:23).

In hindsight, I think I see things more clearly. She was a woman; I, male. She was in her forties with more life experience and maturity, as well as more suffering and difficulty. I was barely thirty, if that, and with a much more ‘moral’ understanding of God. My own sexual brokenness and vulnerability played a large role in my reaction, as did the very black-and-white biblical hermeneutic I had in those days. It is possible the movie did not do justice to the story. But no matter how faithful or otherwise Spielberg was in his adaption of the book to the screen, it is more likely that I did not have either the life-maturity, spiritual maturity or theological maturity to hear, let alone penetrate, its message.

Twenty-five years later I am deeply touched and humbled by this story. Good literature does that: it holds up a mirror to ourselves, opening the soul to deeper understanding of itself, life, the world, and sometimes, God. Good literature probes, accuses, interrogates, and questions. And it does it in such a winsome and alluring fashion, we hardly notice it occurring. Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, and with good reason. This is a book to savour. I will read it for myself as time allows. I will also listen to it again, just to hear Alice Walker read me back into this world at once so alien and so presently real.

On Retreat

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17-SEP-Open_Leeroy-Todd-Sleepy-Eyes-740x500For a couple of days I am on retreat with the West Australian Baptist pastors. These retreats are always a quite restful and fun few days, as we catch up with old friends, enjoy some meals together and receive some input from the Conference speaker. This year’s speaker is Allan Demond, an inspirational Baptist pastor from Melbourne.

Allan is like a breath of fresh air, bringing a simple message on the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the busy life of a pastor. He began his sessions by telling of coming to Australia from Canada in 1995 to take up pastoral leadership of the church where he continues to serve. Early in his ministry he was asked by another pastor whether he served in the ‘charismatic’ or ‘anti-charismatic’ church in his suburb. He bristled at the characterisation. He rejected the fundamental premise that his ministry and the church should be captured in so limiting a label. Yet, upon researching the history of his new congregation, he found that the church had earned a reputation for opposing certain works and activity of the Holy Spirit, and so determined to explore this issue and ‘hold open a space’ in which the church could enter into dialogue around what it means to be the people of God. “Who can be anti-charismatic,” he asks, “Anti-gift?”

And so began a decades long endeavour to ‘live out of a quiet and surrendered centre,’ to nurture a ‘deep and rich spirituality’ in his own life and in the congregation, and to learn the ways of the Paraclete, as he leads the church into the ways and ministry of Jesus. He discovered to his deep surprise and amazement, that the Spirit continues to author the ministry of God’s people in unique and powerful ways, speaking to and leading his people. His advice to the pastors: become aware of and recognise how the Spirit continues to be present and speak in your own life and context, and own it, and grow it. That is, thank God for his presence and gift and ask him for more.

Refreshing stuff from a humble guide.

Scripture on Sunday – Psalm 13

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Airplane-passes-over-an-eclipse-resizecrop--Read Psalm 13

How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever?           
How long will you hide your face from me?    
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

In these first two verses, the psalmist cries plaintively to the Lord who seems absent and unhearing, removed and uncaring. The words carry a sense of duration—interminable drudgery and aloneness, the fourfold repetition of ‘how long’ emphasising the silence and inactivity of God. The reader feels the tension; on the one side an unrelenting enemy and on the other an unresponsive God, the desperate psalmist caught helpless in the middle.

The enemy is singular, though the psalmist’s adversaries are multiple (cf. v.4). Craigie has no doubt that the enemy is “death” which is fast approaching, the singer being struck down with a life-sapping illness of some kind (Craigie, 142). Whether or not Craigie is correct, the circumstance is common in these early psalms of David: his enemies are ever present, and it seems they have the upper hand, their triumph assured. He has a sense of being alone and vulnerable in the world.

In the midst of this ‘dark night of the soul,’ the psalmist prays (vv. 3-4)—“lament is pointless unless it culminates in prayer” (Craigie, 142)—his faith evidently deeper than his experience, a bulwark against despair. Nevertheless, only the Lord can rescue him from the ever-present threat of death, and so he prays for God’s attention and action: “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!” Kidner (77) notes that in the Old Testament “God’s ‘remembering’ and ‘seeing’ are not states of consciousness but preludes to action” (cf. Exodus 2:24-25). Thus the prayer is for deliverance, that God would turn again toward the psalmist, rather than ‘hide his face.’

Given the desperate tone of David’s lament, one is unprepared for the final couplet, where optimistic praise and trust seem incongruous with what has preceded. David has trusted in God’s lovingkindness, and so his heart shall rejoice in God’s deliverance. Because he has trusted, he will rejoice and he will sing. David’s faith is deeper than his experience because God is a deeper, more enduring, and more encompassing reality than his suffering. God’s love is steadfast despite his seeming absence; his salvation is assured; his grace is bountiful: therefore David will trust in anticipation of deliverance, and even rejoice and sing.

If the path is prayer, the sustaining energy is the faith expressed in verse 5. … However great the pressure, the choice is still his to make, not the enemy’s; and God’s covenant remains. So the psalmist entrusts himself to this pledged love, and turns his attention not to the quality of his faith but to its object and its outcome which he has every intention of enjoying (Kidner, 77-78).

The idea of being forgotten by God haunts us—could God, would God, actually forget us? Could God utterly overlook us or cast us behind his back? Does God hide his face from us, turn his back, keep his counsel, and ignore our hurt and dire straits? It is likely that no one who has tried to live a life of faith has not had the experience the psalmist describes here. It is an experience that Jesus, too, endured when on the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Our experience is often at odds with our expectation, and to the extent that a Christian’s expectation is that their faith should exempt them from the common trials of life, their expectation is unrealistic. Our expectations with respect to God, however, are another matter entirely. We expect God to care—and not only to care, but to act. Is this also unrealistic? Not according to this psalm.

Kidner captures something crucial with his observations about God’s covenant and David’s faith. David’s faith was not a vague or amorphous hope, but conviction born of a lifelong awareness of God’s covenant love toward his people, including himself. Because God is the ultimate reality of all things David cannot help but pray. His being caught in the tension between God and his enemy is an inevitability on account of his faith.

Even if it makes sense to be a practical atheist, as Ps. 10 suggests, distrust of divine oversight is not psychologically possible for those who cannot but believe in both the loving-kindness and punishing judgement of God as the moral grounding of society. To believe otherwise is to succumb to a morally chaotic reality in which might makes right and personal agency is denied, further robbing the sufferer of power (Ellen Charry, Psalms 1-50, 64).

David laments because he has faith, and prays for the same reason. Indeed the power and astonishing boldness of his prayer lies precisely here: God’s own integrity is at stake. In this psalm there is no confession of sin, no self-blame or condemnation, no blaming of the victim: the reason for divine silence is not judgement on the psalmist’s sin. “On the contrary, God’s failure to act reflects badly on God, for it enables the enemy to gloat” (v. 4; Charry, 63). And so David calls God to account with a boldness born of a faith so deeply embedded in his soul it contradicts the seeming finality of his experience.

Years ago the Corrs, an Irish singing group sang “forgiven, not forgotten.” The words, if not the song, catch the reality of covenant existence with God. We are forgiven. We are never forgotten. God’s covenant lovingkindness is the deepest reality of our lives, and of all reality, something upon which we can trust, and so also rejoice and sing. Lament turns to praise because God’s covenant love and grace is the defining reality of the psalmist’s existence.

Scripture on Sunday – Psalm 12

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Psalm 12Read Psalm 12

The first two words of this psalm—Help, Lord!—identify it as a cry for help, and yet it is also a declaration of confidence in God’s promise and goodness. When human speech becomes empty or evil, deliverance from its power is found not in retaliation whereby we return evil for evil, but in hearing, receiving and trusting the speech of God, especially God’s promise.

In verse one, the psalmist calls out to the Lord for help in the face of the disappearance of the faithful. As in Psalm 11, the focus is on society as a whole and the psalmist laments the evil and unfaithfulness which rises on every side. When one has companions it is perhaps easier to practise godliness and remain faithful while all around falls into decay. With the loss of any companions, however, the psalmist can but cry to the Lord.

Verses two to four characterise the unfaithful in terms of evil speech rather than evil deeds. Ellen Charry remarks that “the picture is of a contemptuous community in which each one takes him- or herself to be his or her own master or mistress, beholden to no one” (Charry, Psalms 1-50, 61).

The words of the wicked are empty, ‘smooth,’ and boastful; they use their words as weapons to prevail over others (vv. 2, 4). Falsehood and flattery issue from a deceptive, ‘double’ heart. While they speak with flattering words to gain the trust and allegiance of their hearers, in their hearts they are seeking their own rule and lordship. Their true intent is warfare, not welfare. So distressed is the psalmist that he cries that God would shut their mouths and cut off their flattery and boastful speech (v. 3). In effect, this is a prayer that God would overcome those who boast that no one can master them. Their claim to self-lordship is seen as a challenge and as an affront to the one true Lord.

Verse five marks a decisive change in the psalm as the voice of the Lord now speaks: “Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord. “I will set him in the safety for which he longs.” How this prophetic word is delivered is not known. Did it come to the psalmist in answer to his prayer? Does he in hope put the words in God’s mouth? Is it a liturgical word spoken in the midst of temple worship? However the prophetic word comes, it is the answer to the cry found four times in the psalms thus far: “Arise, O Lord!” (Psalms 3:7; 7:6; 9:19; 10:12).

Craigie translates the last phrase of verse five as “I will set him in safety. I will shine forth for him” (Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 136). Although he acknowledges that his translation is by no means certain, the image of God shining forth speaks of the revelation of his faithfulness in answer to the opening cry for help from the psalmist.

Thus, over against the empty, deceitful and boastful words of the wicked stand the promises of the Lord, which are characterised in verse six as ‘pure.’ God’s words are pure as silver is pure:

The word of the Lord is by its very nature valuable (as are silver and gold), but through refinement and purification, in the language of the metaphor, there is no dross in it. By implication, the speech of wicked persons is all dross, devoid of silver and gold! That of God is pure silver, pure gold! It is devoid of the dross of flattery, vanity, and lies, and can therefore be relied upon (Craigie, 138).

Encouraged by the divine promise the psalmist cries out in trust that the Lord will guard and protect his people, even in the midst of a hostile and faithless generation. Because God’s word is true and to be trusted, he can be confident. This confidence is based not in a change of circumstances but in the reliability of God’s word: the wicked will not triumph over the godly for the Lord will preserve them.

The wry observation of verse eight makes this clear: the battle continues. This verse might be seen as an amplification of verse one: the godly and faithful have disappeared from the social environment, while that which is ‘vile’ has been exalted and celebrated. Here the NASB is preferred to the NRSV: the wicked do not so much ‘prowl’ (as though in darkness), but ‘strut about’—openly and boldly in the broad light of day, and on every side. The psalmist’s observation, then, highlights the social implications of God’s ‘pure’ words. As Derek Kidner has pointedly noted, “The battle of words is no side-issue: a weakness here, and the enemy is in” (Kidner, Psalms 1-72 TNTC, 76).

At issue is what it means to be a faithful and godly community. Which words will shape the life of the community—empty and deceptive words, or the pure words which come from God? The people of God are to hear, reflect on and trust the words of God, choosing, declaring and embodying his words, even in a social context.