Some encouragement

I have been thinking about these two passages a lot in the past few days…

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”- Matthew 11:28-30

“I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.  So I say, ‘My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD.’  I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.  I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.  Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’  The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” -Lamentations 3:17-26

Broken and Beautiful

I was listening to an old podcast of Speaking of Faith today on the L’Arche Community.  For those of you not familar with L’Arche it is an intentional community where people who are “mentally handicapped” live with people who are “not mentally handicapped.”  The former are called “core members” and the later “assistants.”  The most famous assistant at L’Arche has been Henri Nouwen.

If you have time I would suggest a listen.  Except for the last few minutes when Krista Tippet, the host, says that these people have learned to forgive God for His flaw in their creation it was a great program.  The whole purpose of L’Arche is about finding God in other people and about finding beauty in brokenness.

During an interview with someone involved they said that everyone is broken, and indeed everyone is handicapped, some of us are just spiritually handicapped rather than physically or mentally.  And that everyone is broken, but some people just manifest their brokenness more than others.  It is that idea that I have been thinking about tonight.

I do not believe that God made a mistake when people were born with Downs Syndrome or another “disability.”  And I don’t want to say that they are broken like some toy.  Rather they are the product of a world that is not the way it is supposed to be.  Indeed, we all are.  I am even wondering if their “disability” allows them to even more recognize the brokenness in their life and in the world.  While those of us who are “normal” (which I don’t believe for a second anyone is) are blind to brokenness.

This world does not like brokenness.  When something breaks we throw it away.  But what if in God’s scheme the only place to find beauty was in brokenness.  What if it is not in greatness and success that we experience God, but in failure and brokenness?

These thoughts are probably rather incoherent.  I guess what I am driving at does not have so much to do with L’Arche or with people who are labeled as “mentally handicapped,” but with the whole idea of finding beauty in brokenness.  Or even more the idea that in this life the only place to find beauty is in brokenness.  That we find God in the valley.  That God speaks in pain.  That God is in the broken.

The only choice is not to choose

I have posted this previously but with the election coming up I thought it was a good time to post it again…This was written by Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre before the election of 2004, but I believe it applies equally well in this election; especially as we debate the idea of choosing between the lesser of two evils.

The Only Vote Worth Casting in November

Alasdair MacIntyre
University of Notre Dame

When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives. These are propositions which in the abstract may seem to invite easy agreement. But, when they find application to the coming presidential election, they are likely to be rejected out of hand. For it has become an ingrained piece of received wisdom that voting is one mark of a good citizen, not voting a sign of irresponsibility. But the only vote worth casting in November is a vote that no one will be able to cast, a vote against a system that presents one with a choice between Bush’s conservatism and Kerry’s liberalism, those two partners in ideological debate, both of whom need the other as a target.

Why should we reject both? Not primarily because they give us wrong answers, but because they answer the wrong questions. What then are the right political questions? One of them is: What do we owe our children? And the answer is that we owe them the best chance that we can give them of protection and fostering from the moment of conception onwards. And we can only achieve that if we give them the best chance that we can both of a flourishing family life, in which the work of their parents is fairly and adequately rewarded, and of an education which will enable them to flourish. These two sentences, if fully spelled out, amount to a politics. It is a politics that requires us to be pro-life, not only in doing whatever is most effective in reducing the number of abortions, but also in providing healthcare for expectant mothers, in facilitating adoptions, in providing aid for single-parent families and for grandparents who have taken parental responsibility for their grandchildren. And it is a politics that requires us to make as a minimal economic demand the provision of meaningful work that provides a fair and adequate wage for every working parent, a wage sufficient to keep a family well above the poverty line.

The basic economic injustice of our society is that the costs of economic growth are generally borne by those least able to afford them and that the majority of the benefits of economic growth go to those who need them least. Compare the rise in wages of ordinary working people over the last thirty years to the rise in the incomes and wealth of the top twenty percent. Compare the value of minimum wage now to its value then and next compare the value of the remuneration of CEOs to its value then. What is needed to secure family life is a sufficient minimum income for every family and that can perhaps best be secured by some version of the negative income tax, proposed long ago by Milton Friedman, a tax that could be used to secure a large and just redistribution of income and so of property.

We note at this point that we have already broken with both parties and both candidates. Try to promote the pro-life case that we have described within the Democratic Party and you will at best go unheard and at worst be shouted down. Try to advance the case for economic justice as we have described it within the Republican Party and you will be laughed out of court. Above all, insist, as we are doing, that these two cases are inseparable, that each requires the other as its complement, and you will be met with blank incomprehension. For the recognition of this is precluded by the ideological assumptions in terms of which the political alternatives are framed. Yet at the same time neither party is wholeheartedly committed to the cause of which it is the ostensible defender. Republicans happily endorse pro-choice candidates, when it is to their advantage to do so. Democrats draw back from the demands of economic justice with alacrity, when it is to their advantage to do so. And in both cases rhetorical exaggeration disguises what is lacking in political commitment.

In this situation a vote cast is not only a vote for a particular candidate, it is also a vote case for a system that presents us only with unacceptable alternatives. The way to vote against the system is not to vote.

Christian Economics

“You are not making a gift of your possession to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his.” – Ambrose of Milan, 340-397 A.D.

“Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours but theirs.” - John Chrysostom, 347-407 AD

“He who strips the clothed is to be called a thief. How should we name him, who is able to dress the naked and doesn’t do it, does he deserve some other name? The bread that you possess belongs to the hungry. The clothes that you store in boxes, belong to the naked. The shoes rotting by you, belong to the bare-foot. The money that you hide belongs to anyone in need. You wrong as many people as you were able to help.” —St. Basil

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” – The Acts of the Apostles

The Richard Dawkins Reality Tour

The Atheist Bus Campaign launched today in England.  It is sponsored by the British Humanist Society.  There is an article on the campaign in the Guardian.  Ads are being placed on city buses advertising atheism.

The point of the campaign is to raise money for the cause of “counter religious advertising.”  The article in the Guardian notes that it is occurring at the same time as an advertisement for the famous Alpha Course.

As Dawkins says: “This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”

I think that a lot could be said in response to this campaign.  And as a Christian I would rather donate money to Alpha than to atheism.  However, I also have no problem with atheists advertising if they so desire.

But, they could have done better than “There’s probably no God.”  Probably?

So you’re saying there’s a chance?

Maybe, this should be called “The Agnostic Bus Campaign.”

Stop reading the Bible

I have noticed something recently as I have been visiting various churches and listening to different pastors preach.  They have stopped preaching the text they read before their sermon.  Often the sermons they preach are very good, biblically sound, and practical to the Chrisitan life, but they do not relate to the passage.  They could have read almost any passage of Scripture and preached the same sermon.

This seems to be the case among almost every different “label” – the “young, restless, and reformed” do it and the emergents do it; women do it and men do it; Anglicans and Catholics; liberals and conservatives; mainline and evangelical; pro-war baptists and peace loving Mennonites.  It is the case among those who believe that a church service has not occurred unless there is screaming and an altar call.  It is the case among those who thing that expositional preaching that verges of theological lecture is the only way to preach.  It is the way among health and wealth preachers, the religious right and religious left, the priests who preach 5-10 minute homilies, the pastors who yell for well over an hour, or even those who would rather have a dialogue than stand up and talk at people for 30 minutes.

So I have a suggestion – Stop reading the Bible before you preach.  Or at the very least stop telling the people gathered for worship “this is the text I will preach today.”  Just get up and talk about whatever you want to talk about.

On Wine

Do not try and prove your strength by wine-drinking,
for wine has destroyed many.

As the furnace tests the work of the smith,
so wine tests hearts when the insolent quarrel.

Wine is very life to human beings if taken in moderation.
What is life to one who is without wine?
It has been created to make people happy.

Wine drunk at the proper time and in moderation
is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul.

Wine drunk to excess leads to bitterness of spirit,
to quarrels and stumbling.

Drunkenness increases the anger of a fool to his own hurt,
reducing his strength and adding wounds.

Blessed are those who have peace with God….?

This is from the study note on Matthew 5:9 from the Reformation Study Bible.  I am curious how many people have heard this verse interpreted this way before.  Also, if you think it is in line with the interpretation of the Church catholic through history.

Matthew 5:9 – “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Note – “Spiritual peace, not the cessation of physical violence between nations, is in view.  Although the term is usually understood to mean those who help others find peace with God, this peace can also be understood as those who have made their own peace with God and are called His children.”