Predestination for Dummies

Posted in Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Weighty theology made simple(r)

If there is a $64,000 question in the Christian faith it is predestination. When it comes to God, who chooses whom?

To consider this age old question look at the passage in John chapter 10 (vs 22-30) in which Jesus delivers one of his “ouch” comments to the religious. Jesus has just finished a sermon in which he used the metaphors that he is both “the door” to the town corral, and “the good shepherd” working for the sheep’s benefit. The religious leaders, upset at the implication that they are profiteering off of and abusing the “sheep,” chase Jesus from the lecture hall and press him: “Stop beating around the bush, are you the messiah or not?”

Like a professor on his way back to his office after a controversial lecture, Jesus stops to speak to these unreceptive students. “I have told you. And in case you missed the lecture, I hold healing labs every afternoon.” The religious leaders are absolutely irate at his answer (in vs. 31 they pick up stones to kill him). Jesus response is, “I’m more than the promised deliverer, I am actually one with the God who sent the deliverer to you…but you can’t understand that because only the chosen here my voice, and you simply aren’t among the chosen.” (v. 25-30) It is an uncomfortable passage – a first century mic drop.

First century sheep in a community corral knew their shepherd’s voice and followed them out to pasture as they sang. Jesus is not so much making an accusation as a statement of fact – those who lack relationship with him are unable to hear his voice. They don’t believe so they don’t hear. And because they don’t hear, they won’t follow. They are apart from him. Therefore, no one is protecting them from being snatched in the end – they don’t have eternal life. The bad news in the Good News is that while all may be invited to the party, not all will show up to it (Matt. 22:1-14). But, hurt feelings aside, Jesus answer raises a theological question that has not gone quietly into the night after some 500 years: When it comes to God, who chooses whom?

Jesus lobs up an idea here (and in many other places) that God is sovereign and chooses who will have faith. John 15:16 is the classic: “You did not choose me, but I chose you…“. But Jesus also offers up the opposite thought: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12) Which is it? Does God choose humans, or do humans choose God? Christians on both sides of the question agree that God created humanity and, in the fulness of time, redeemed wandering humans through Jesus’ cross, and now initiates relationship with humans. But when it comes to the human response, is our response caused by God, or do we initiate our response ourselves? When we ask, “Who does the choosing?” we have two apparently contradictory ideas held up in the Bible: “Whoever believes in him has eternal life” (John 3:16), yet, “No one can come to me unless the Father…draws him” (John 6:44). So, again I ask, who is choosing? Jesus’ answers often raise more questions. He is a frustrating savior.

There is a tension between God’s initiative and human responsibility not resolved in the Bible. God draws, yet you and I are presumed to be responsible. God chooses. Yet we must choose. So is it our choice or God’s?

The theological terms for this question are monergism vs synergism. Is it God alone (monergism), or do humans play a role with God in salvation (synergism)? We’ve created entire theological systems around the question: Calvinists (who think it’s all God) have TULIP and Arminians (who think humans are “able”) have LILAC. Both systems are elegant in their internal consistency. Both bump up against the Bible at key points – all over are two seemingly inconsistent ideas: God is sovereign, in charge of the world and chooses you and I, and yet, you and I are accountable for our response to God. The very word “accountable” presumes that, since we are “able,” we are held to “account.” (Remember, the most basic Protestant tenant of biblical interpretation is to “assume the clear meaning of words.”)

It is a classic conundrum: If God knows all, is all powerful, and sovereign over all, what kind of free will do we have? If God is really all loving and allows us to choose, have we not saved ourselves? And if we save ourselves, did we really ever need God to begin with? Yet the scriptures, both Old and New, hold up both premises: God is sovereign. We must respond. I know what you are starting to think: Matt, quit dodging the question! But if scripture rather than my system be the foundation of the Christian life, I simply cannot.

Yes, some preachers commit to one system and some to the other. But the truth is that honest preachers can’t give the question of who’s doing the choosing a neat bow that explains all the scriptures’ teaching on this point. The Gospel is so simple a child can understand it, yet so deep that the most brilliant folk to walk the earth have spent their lives plumbing its’ depths. We just cannot tie a neat bow around the issue of God’s sovereignty and human freedom. We are in mystery here, and it would be wise to tiptoe at this point. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” And we know that every page of the Bible implies that our choices count, or, as Joshua said, “Choose you this day whom you must serve.”

What I know is this: The bible tells us that God chooses. Full stop. And God tells us to choose him back. Full stop.

And that is, frustratingly, that.

25Nov2015

What is truth?

Posted in Culture, Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Our cultural “believies” and the war against fundamentalism.

Unless you have spent the last two weeks living under a rock you have been stunned by the violence in the name of religion. This is not the first time the news has been bad. And not the first time religion was involved.

In the Christian calendar last Sunday was Christ the King – the one modern day in our liturgical year. Christ the King Sunday was given to us by pope Pius XI at the end of WWI. As hard as it is to imagine, the carnage then was far worse: 18 million died as machine guns, planes, tanks, chemical warfare brought our ability to kill into the modern era. And an ugly truth: the leaders on both sides claimed to follow Christ.

Pius XI called it, “a failure to remember God.” He thought, “the people need to remember that this world does indeed have a king, but that king is not us. The pope set aside the last Sunday of the Christian year as an acknowledgement of the gracious rule of the King of Peace…and to grieve and groan our failure to walk in the way of peace. It is a day to remember and return – sort of a societal Ash Wednesday.

Christ the King is a powerful idea. But there was another response to the Great War: Rather than deepen religious commitment, some philosophers and politicians sought to eliminate it. The results of the attempt to eliminate religion were staggering. The next 70 years saw the atheistic states of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Amin and the Kmer Rouge kill more people than every religious war in history. Somewhere between 110 and 260 million people died at the hands of those seeking to eradicate religion.

Religion proved far more resilient than they imagined, though. 20% of America was still in church last Sunday. China and Africa are in the midst of the fastest extension of Christianity in history. Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam are also growing. Social science has acquiesced to a persistent truth: Humans are religious. Maybe you have noticed that the narrative has changed from “God is dead” to “there are too darn many gods.” But a question remains: What do we do when people behave badly and use religion to justify that behavior? Since eradicating religion didn’t work, today another solution is being tried: To relativize and privatize religion.

You may not know it, but this isn’t the first relevatizing’s first rodeo. Pontius Pilate attempted the same strategy 2000 years ago. (John 18:33-38) Hours before being crucified Jesus was delivered to Pilate’s doorstep by religious leaders begging for his execution. Pilate, of the Roman knight class, was governor – the ancient version of being on a military “remote.” Do well and he would retire to a cushy life. Blow it and he would return home in disgrace. The last thing Pilate wanted was a religious squabble getting out of hand. Going inside he asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” (v.33) Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world, that’s why my soldiers aren’t fighting.” (v.36) In other words, Jesus wasn’t breaking Roman laws.

Pilate pressed him, “So you are a king?” (v.37) Pilate wants to worm his way out of the sticky political mess outside. Jesus wants to get into the mess that is Pilate’s interior: “I have come to bear witness to the truth.” “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Even on trial, Jesus is inviting Pilate to himself. Pilate shrugs, and utters the expression forever linked to his name, “What is truth?” (v.38) Then, knowing he is going to condemn an innocent man, Pilate walks out without waiting for an answer.

We all have times when we, like Pilate. don’t want to hear it…times when we want what we want and don’t want others intruding on those wants. Quite the opposite of Christ the King, this is me the king. Comedian Charles CK calls these, “my little believies.” He says, “I have things I believe. I don’t follow them. They just make me feel good about who I am. They are my believies.” “Believies” aren’t new, they’ve been with us since Adam and Eve did what they wanted in the garden. It’s always easier to walk away from truth than to confront where our beliefs lead.

In his book The Reason for God Tim Keller looks at our cultural “believies.” The first “believie”: “There can’t be one true religion.” The claim to exclusivity, we are told, is wrongheaded and dangerous. “After all,” this line of thought goes, “religion is nothing more than a cultural construct – Syrians are Muslim and Americans are Christian because of the culture in which we were raised. The arrogance that arises from the conviction that one has the absolute truth is responsible for the evil in our world.” So, we are told, religion should be condemned and relegated to the purely private sphere of life.

Tim Keller points out, though, that condemning religion is only possible if one holds to some other, some alternate, belief system – and all belief systems require both a “leap of faith” and a perspective of superiority. For the secularist both of these are inherently inconsistent. Keller also argues that privatization is never possible as everyone, no matter what faith or creed, brings a value system into the public discussion.

Now we are hearing a new “believie”: “Religion isn’t the problem. Fundamentalism is.” But be honest, we all have fundamental beliefs. In a pluralistic world the issue isn’t how deeply we hold our beliefs, but where those beliefs lead. Rather than pretending differences do not exist between religions, what if we were honest about them and instead evaluated which set of beliefs lead their believers to be the most loving and receptive toward those with whom they differ? Which set of unavoidably exclusive beliefs lead to humble, peace-loving behavior? Using those criteria, I believe Christianity has much to offer a world in crisis…much more than the secularists solution of relative, culture bound, privatized religion.

How could you possibly trust someone holding the philosophy that truth is relative not to cheat you?

After all how could you possibly trust someone holding the philosophy that truth is relative not to cheat you in business? Not to cheat in your marriage? To finish the job of parenting your children? Oh, a relativist might do all of those things. But there is nothing in their belief system to encourage their dependability. Heck, you can’t even count on the relativist not to crucify the innocent son of God.

The problem with our culture’s believies, is that they leave us with bigger problems than they solve. In contrast to our culture’s “spiritual but not religious” view, the Christian world view teaches:

Truth is Objective (Truth is what is.)

Atheist Bertrand Russell talked about proving a teapot orbiting between earth and Mars.” But my ability to argue the point is irrelevant to that object’s actual existence. Either a teapot is spinning out there or it isn’t. Contrary to the oft repeated myth that truth is relative, Truth is what is, regardless of what I would like it to be.

Truth is Revealed: Truth is difficult to discern. Luckily we were not left on our own at this point. Truth was revealed generally in nature, but specifically in Jesus Christ and God’s word, the scriptures. Truth is what God says it is…not what I or my culture would like it to be.
Truth is Narrow: The only area in which we struggle with the idea that truth is “narrow” is religion. Think about it…

Do you want a chemist with a broad definition of chemistry? Imagine a “broad” chemist bringing you a glass of H2O2: “What is one little extra atom of oxygen among friends?” Unfortunately H2O2 isn’t water. It’s peroxide. Truth is narrow.

Do you want an accountant who has a broad definition of addition? “Who says 2+2 must = 4? Why can’t it equal 3 or 311?” I’m guessing the IRS auditor will not be sympathetic. Why? Because Truth is narrow.

Do you want a pilot with a broad definition of what constitutes a runway? “That airport is really busy today, but the freeway is long and straight. How about we set this 737 down on the Interstate?” Truth is narrow.

Do you want a spouse with a broad definition of love? “This is great Janice. Our love is awesome. Why don’t we share it…You have four sisters. Let’s all get married!” The answer to all of these is, No way! Truth is narrow. And finally…

Truth is not private, it’s Personal. For a Christian, truth is not a what, truth is a who. Christian faith is based in the who of Jesus Christ. God loved humanity so completely and so relentlessly, that having seen our rebellion from before creation, God had a plan in place to redeem our fallen world. It involved his son Jesus Christ personally coming to earth, demonstrating a life of peace and self-sacrifice…A life of love and intimacy with his Father. And a life in which our rebellion and God’s wrath would be satisfied by Jesus’ self-emptying love – his personal replacement for you and I on the cross. And we know it worked because three days later Jesus walked from the tomb, seen by scads of people, and was bodily assumed into the clouds before his stunned follower’s eyes. People, truth is personal – bound irretrievably and irrevocably to God’s love for you, personally, through his son, Jesus Christ.

What is truth?

Jesus told Pilate, “I came to bear witness to the truth.” Jesus Christ said, “The truth will set you free.” And Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Looking at Jesus, his friend John wrote, “To all who receive him. Even to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.” For Jesus, this is personal. It is about you and I becoming family with God.

What do we do with Truth?

The great need for truth in our day is not to win the argument for absolute truth’s existence, but to walk in humility as children of the True One. What part of the truth of Christ’s kingship over your life bugs you? What do you not want to wait around and hear? Where are you passing the buck or fearing another’s agenda in your life? When you see the news do you fear? Or do you see God’s opportunity to share the love and light of Christ? The world cannot afford for you and I to privatize our faith. If you are the follower of a King whose kingdom is not of this world, despair not – light shines brightest in the darkness. The world most needs light when it is dark outside.

(An adaptation of a sermon. To watch that sermon click the graphic. Sermon starts 17 minutes in.)

16Sep2015

The True Cross

Posted in Liturgical Church, Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Church of the Holy Sepulcher at sunrise.

Is the cross a sign of your life?

You probably missed it. It didn’t show up in most calendars and you would have to have been born under a lucky star to have heard it mentioned in the media. Monday marked the observation of the Feast of the Holy Cross. On September 14, 335 the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem was dedicated. On that day the “True cross,” discovered by Emperor Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, was brought into the church she had commissioned over the sites of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. But the Feast of the Holy Cross is much more than the celebration of a historically unverifiable artifact. Commemorating the instrument of Christ’s death is appropriate because the central focus of the Christian life is the Cross. The Cross is more than an event in history. It is the event in history.

The Cross is an eternally present reality for those allowing their lives to be hummed in the key of Jesus. The Cross is the unveiling of God in the world. It defines the proper shape of human existence. But what does a cross-shaped life look like?

Mainly it means that a truly meaningful life can’t be found in the self-centered life. We simply were not created to be self-fulfilled. We were not designed to be drinking bird contraptions, endlessly and mindlessly bouncing up and down after whatever fluid the world says we should peck at. Our lives, especially in the midst of trials, find our purpose as we give ourselves away. The way of the Cross, is the way of the other. And God is the ultimate “Other.” St. Paul says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3). The great truth of the Christian life is that we only find ourselves outside of ourselves. Orthodox priest, Fr. Stephen Freeman, offers helpful advice for living the cruciform life:

– Pray. Prayer is directing our hearts outside of ourselves towards God.

– Be kind. Kindness puts others ahead of ourselves.

– Give thanks always, in all things. Giving thanks acknowledges that our lives are not the products of our own efforts, but a gift from God.

– Forgive. Forgive everyone for everything. The refusal to forgive is the radical separation of ourselves from others.

– Give stuff away. The more, the better. We do not exist to consume. Satisfying our daily needs is enough. When our true life is found outside of ourselves, then sharing what we have with others is the most natural thing to do with our possessions.

– Do not lie. Do not participate in other’s lies. Lying is an act of selfishness – an attempt to create a false reality in order to duck the truth.

I would add: Receive God’s grace: In all of life, but especially in the Eucharist. We do not grab grace in the Eucharist. We make, as Cyprian said “A throne for God with our hands” and receive him.

The Cross is the way of life so, finally,

–Embrace the practice of the Cross. Even Protestants can tangibly remind ourselves that we live in the shadow of the cross by making its’ sign frequently. In 250AD church Father Tertullian said that we Christians, “in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross” (De corona, 30).

The Cross is the remembrance of Christ and points to the great truth that our lives are not our own. They belong to the Crucified One – A Savior who bids His friends to join Him an act of pure love: self-sacrifice.

Did you miss the Feast of the Cross this year? Did it slip past you unawares? Despair not. You need not wait for September 14th to come back around. Simply live a cruciform life.

Because the True Cross is…you.

*This is a riff on Father Stephen’s post for a midweek sermon. If you do not read Father Stephen, you should. http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings And yes, I realize that the final sentence is narcissistic to the point of undoing the entire article. “You” just works so much better stylistically than “us”. 🙂

21Jul2015

How I became an atheist. And why it didn’t work out for me.

Posted in Growing up Phoenix, Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

I have a friend who says he was raised an apathetic. “Apathetic” makes a pretty good description of me growing up as well. I was not an agnostic – someone convinced that God is unknowable. I had no idea if God was knowable. Maybe there was a God. Maybe not. I had never given it much thought. If there was some sort of a supreme being who spun up the world, well, we did a pretty good job of staying out of one another’s way. So I didn’t believe in God. But I didn’t disbelieve in him either. Like I say, I was an apathetic. I just didn’t care.

At some point, though, one runs into life, or life runs into us, and we start to care.

Life ran into me one summer day after sixth grade. I came home and found my parents sitting on the edge of the bed in their darkened bedroom. My mom’s hands were over her face. I could hear muffled sobs. My dad motioned me in. “Your mom and I, we have decided to separate.” And just like that, with an obviously one-sided “we,” my Leave it to Beaver life childhood was gone. My world had been nice, quiet, predictable, moneyed. Divorce tends to unravel each of those. I was no exception. It turned out that most of my friends were going through their own pain: another divorce, a mom with cancer, a dad fired, an incurable disease. A lot was pressing in on our little group that summer as we sat on the cusp of the developmental mess that is adolescence. So, as sixth grade was about to begin, I looked at the world for the first time and wondered about the pain I felt and the pain I saw.

Broken people, broken families, broken neighborhoods, broken schools, broken cities, broken nations. The list of “broken” is disconcertingly long. How is it, if we are the product of a good and wise creator could the world be in such moral and physical squalor? I became an atheist for the reason many do: Pain. And just like that I was converted. I became a vocal and evangelistic atheist.

I was proud of my newfound disbelief. Make no mistake, it was much harder to be an atheist in the late 70’s. There were no Youtube videos. No Facebook memes. One had to find other atheists to talk to and go to the library and read Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, and Jean Paul Sarte. And atheism wasn’t cool the way it is now. To be an atheist was not avant garde. It was oddball. Things went well, though, in my newfound unbelief.

I relished helping my Christian friends, who were ill-equipped to defend their faith, out of their unreflected upon delusions. I might have left them alone if my Christian friends had seemed happier than the rest of us. Or if there were any evidence, even the slightest, that their faith gave them the strength to live a more moral or kinder life. Unfortunately, my Christian friends tended to be the biggest partiers, the most promiscuous, and oddly, the most judgmental people in my school. Naturally I asked questions about this. “How is it that I, someone who thinks that I answer to no one but myself, live a more moral life than you, someone who will supposedly answer to an all powerful deity who smites people that do the things you do?” Their answer was remarkably unsatisfying: “You just party on Friday and Saturday and ask God to forgive you on Sunday. Christianity is pretty awesome!”

“Seriously?” I would answer. “Marx was right, faith in God is an opiate to justify whatever immoral thing you are in the mood for. More than that, it allows you to feel superior in some God-given right to stand in judgment of others. If I ever were to pick a religion, I can tell you it wouldn’t be something as lame as Christianity.”

Then there was the Bible. Picking that apart with people who don’t know it very well isn’t difficult. And don’t get me started on the weird and distasteful things the church has done (and continues to) through the centuries.

All in all, atheism worked pretty well for me. At least until the end of sophomore year in biology class…

Sophomore biology is often where churched kids begin to doubt their Christian faith. For the first time they are confronted with Darwin’s theory that time and chance account for life in all of its diversity. As the scientist said at the launching of the Hubbell telescope, “We no longer need ancient myths and foolish speculations to explain our origins.” I didn’t have the slightest inkling biology class would work in reverse for me. But it did. It was the sheep eye dissection unit the last week of school that ruined me as an atheist. The football coach / biology teacher, Mr. Swerdfeger, would sit on the front of his desk with a clear plastic bag filled with sheep eyes in one hand, reach in and grab one, and toss it the queasy students at each lab table.

Biology class had two-person tables and metal stools whose screech on the linoleum made the sound of fingernails on the chalkboard endurable. Biology lab pairs pimply, barely pubescent boys with entrancing young ladies who smell of gardens in Spring. These creatures would turn their attention toward us and inform the boys, “I will NOT touch it.” To have been spoken to by one of these goddesses was a great honor. We would have grabbed the eyeballs anyway to impress, but to have been spoken to guaranteed our obedience.

Mr. Swerdfeger pulled an eyeball from the plastic bag, and threw it toward our table in the back right corner of the class. I snatched the eyeball from the air to place in the wax tray, blackened by thirty years of use and reeking of formaldehyde. As I stared at the mass of tissue in my hand an awareness crept across my mind…There are eight or nine tissue types present in an eyeball: pupil, iris, lens, cornea, retina, optic nerve, macula, fovea, vitreous fluid. Evolution, the unit immediately preceding the dissection unit, explained that biological complexity is the result of beneficial mutation. It is the mechanism of beneficial mutation that allows life to overcome the second law of thermodynamics, which says that in the closed system of the universe, life should be running down. It is beneficial mutation that Jeff Goldblum was talking about in Jurassic Park when he famously said, “Life will always find a way.”

As I held that sheep’s eye it occurred to me that those eight or nine tissue types all have to be present and working together for the eye to be useful. Beneficial mutations are only perpetuated if there is a benefit. There is no benefit to any of those tissues without all of them present together – which should be impossible…unless someone was messing with the recipe. And it dawned on me, something, or someone had interfered in the system.

I dropped the eyeball and stood up. My worldview crumbling as my body rose from my lab stool.

Mr. Swerdfeger was annoyed at the interruption. “What’s the matter, Marino? Are you grossed out?”

“No sir.” I said, “I’m freaked out. I have to leave.” I grabbed my backpack and walked out. worldviews don’t die easily. After wandering aimlessly through the breezeways, I found myself heading home.

I did not realize it, but I had been confronted by a classic God defense: design demands a designer. By the time I walked through our back gate I knew that there must be a God and that I needed to find a religion that explained it or him or her or whatever or whoever. I was not a Christian. I was not even contemplating considering becoming a Christian. I just knew that if someone had asked me that day, “How is atheism working out for you?” My answer would have been, “It isn’t.”

I simply had a hard time believing that what I can see is all there is.

*By the way, Mr. Swerdfeger was a fantastic teacher. Once when I was in the midst of ditching two weeks of school he rode his bicycle a mile to my house with a pile of homework in his backpack and told me that if I didn’t do the hours of work to pass his class he wouldn’t just fail me, he would find me and hurt me. Mr. Swerdfeger was a large man. He finally retired when the school told him that his biology class was so difficult they were going to make it the AP course. He retired rather than dumb down his curriculum. If you ask me, every high school in the country could use a few Mr. Swerdfegers.

3Jul2015

Gimme-gimme Golfball

Posted in Growing up Phoenix, Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Central Phoenix

The Central Phoenix neighborhood I grew up in had its fair share of characters. It would not be inaccurate to say that we were a virtual pantheon of the idiosyncratic. One of our eccentrics was an elderly gentleman we knew as “Gimme-gimme golfball.” (I use “gentleman” loosely as he may have been Phoenix’s most ill-tempered resident.)

Yesterday a few elementary school friends and I were catching up in the pizza joint of our childhood. Over thick slabs of Sicilian style, one friend, as old friends do, looked over and made the insider reference: “Gimme-gimme golfball.” At the mention of his name all four of us, middle-aged men decades removed from the old man’s maltreatment, groaned in unison. Anyone who grew up near Chris Town Golf Course can regale you with stories of the places on their anatomy that Gimme-gimme marked with his golf club, an ancient 2 iron. None of us seems to have escaped his withering stare, his snarling curses, or the wack of that 2 iron. At least not in our memories.

Gimme-gimme’s 2 iron might have been the inspiration for the multi-purpose tool. The well-worn club was used mostly as a cane. But it doubled as a retriever of errant golf balls, and, far too often for our tastes, was pressed into service as a device for the bludgeoning of the local preteen male population. Gimme-gimme used that old club for many things…unfortunately, none of them was golf.

How is it, you ask, that an elderly man was attacking boys with a 2 iron in a perfectly nice middle-class neighborhood? We boys had ended up on the losing end of a vicious territorial rivalry over our community golf course and the fruit it produced, errant golf balls. The neighborhood nine-hole had been fashioned on the cheap from an old sheep farm. It was acres of open space with trees dividing the fairways, a small lake, a driving range, maintenance sheds beside the abandoned farmhouse, and a grain silo that begged to be climbed. It was next to the source of our most enduring form of entertainment, a large family owned citrus orchard separated from the eastern edge of the course by a long line of ancient and gnarled salt cedar trees. Can you imagine such a place not becoming the stomping-ground of boys for blocks around? Unfortunately, Gimme-gimme thought so too. We were there for mischief. He was there for money.

Chris Town Golf Course

One morning in the summer after the fourth grade, I was perched in a salt cedar watching golfers and pretending to be a WWII radio operator defending a Pacific island from bagcart towing invaders. I heard a golf ball bounce off of a cedar trunk and lodge in the rusting iron mesh of the farm fence the cedars had spent five decades attempting to engulf. I scampered down from my hiding place. Reaching into the cedar needles just inside the fence for my newfound treasure, my fingers wrapped around a coveted Titleist ball when, WACK, a blazing pain erupted in my temple. I rolled on the ground, grabbing my head in agony. Through tears I saw the old man’s grizzled arm reach through the fence. “Gimme that ball, kid.” He said, as he pocketed the ball and ambled off, not bothering to look back and see if he had inflicted lasting damage on my now dented noggin.

One day I complained about the old man to a friend when we were in the clubhouse buying candy from the 10 cent vending machine. The golf course manager, within earshot behind a rack of collared shirts for players who showed up in inappropriate attire, barked, “That old man provides a service to the golfers…you should probably stay out of his way.”

Gimme would clean the balls he found in a washtub in the back of his old camper truck, carefully repaint them, and sell them for a dollar through the golf course’s north fence while seated on a 3-legged canvas camp stool on Maryland Avenue. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was bolstering his retirement income. Maybe both.

Of course we didn’t tell our parents that the old man was marking us up with a 2 iron whenever we got too near his income source. We also didn’t tell them we swam in the lake after hours, or snuck over to the clubhouse and sampled bottles of warm soda from the cases stacked in the shed, or tried to get the night crew to chase us in their gas powered Cushman carts either. Kids didn’t give away their secrets in those days. And parents, well, they didn’t really want to know. But I did ask my dad about the old golf ball salesman once. His reaction was telling. “The old grouch works hard enough. He would make a decent living if he wasn’t such a joyless, angry old cuss. We would rather hike all the way back to the clubhouse and pay retail.” Which explained another mystery: Why the golf course manager was so fond of Gimme-gimme.

I learned an important lesson from Gimme-gimme golfball, lumpy temple and all: When you do a job, do it with smile on your face. After all, a joyless service is no service at all.

29Apr2015

On the commemoration of St. Catherine of Siena

Posted in Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380

“Love transforms one into what one loves.” Dialogue 60

In a day where people complain that they cannot be a super man or a super woman, we have Catherine of Siena: The original renaissance woman. Catherine was mystic, prayer warrior, nurse who tended to the patients other nurses refused to see, social activist, ambassador to and from popes, doctor of the church, and pastor extraordinaire. Catherine’s advice was sought far and wide by bishops, kings, merchants, scholars and peasants. More than 400 of her letters to these souls remain. Catherine perfected the art of kissing the Pope’s feet while simultaneously twisting his arm. The secret to her great spiritual power and energy? A deep and intimate connection to God she described as a “mystical marriage” with Jesus.

“The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.” Dialogue 2

If you would like to sit at the feet of one of the few to be both mystic and doctor, you can buy her Dialogue for the “instruction and encouragement of all those whose spiritual welfare was her concern,” on Kindle for a dollar. Or better yet, go for “Top Seven Catholic Classics” and get her along with Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God), St. John of the Cross (Dark Night of the Soul), St. Teresa of Avila (Interior Castle), Thomas A’Kempis (The Imitation of Christ), Bernard of Clairvaux (On Loving God) and the Cloud of Unknowing for $5.

“To the servant of God, every place is the right place, and every time is the right time.” Letter T328

A prayer of St. Catherine’s:

Holy Spirit, come into my heart; draw it to Thee by Thy power, O my God, and grant me charity with filial fear. Preserve me, O ineffable Love, from every evil thought; warm me, inflame me with Thy dear love, and every pain will seem light to me. My Father, my sweet Lord, help me in all my actions. Jesus, love, Jesus, love. Amen.

3Apr2015

What’s so “Good” about Good Friday? A lot of truth in one little word

Posted in Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

What’s so “good” about Jesus Christ’s death? Why would we commemorate such a thing?

Here is what one of Jesus’ first and closest followers, Peter, wrote about his death several years later: “Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” (Peter 3:18, NRSV) Consider the implications of that one little pronoun, “for” in this single sentence. “For” occurs in our English translation 3 times. In the Greek New Testament, however, these are three different words.

“FOR sins” is “peri” – “concerning” or “about” – We get “perimeter” from this world. This is “about” in terms of “encircling.”
“once FOR all” is a single Greek word: “hapax” which is, “a single occurrence that won’t happen again.”
“the righteous FOR the unrighteous” – “huper” – for the sake of, on behalf of.”

There is a lot of theology in those three little prepositions: Jesus suffered to “encircle” our sins, in a “one time act”, a righteous replacement “for your sake.”

All of which is pretty darn “good.”

1Apr2015

Marshawn Lynch cast as Jesus in new made for tv biblio-epic…

Posted in Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Caveat: A sarcastic/April Fools/Tuesday in Holy Week/on the verge of blasphemous offering…

On this day 2000ish years ago Jesus was being repeatedly interrupted as he taught, hazed by the different groups of religious leaders. But what if Jesus were not the prince of peace? Have you ever wondered how Tuesday in Holy Week might have gone if Jesus had gone “Beast Mode”? Here is the script from tonight’s Netflix special on Holy Week with Marshawn Lynch cast as Jesus, limited to only giving answers from his Super Bowl week press conferences (Marshawn in italics)…

Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” ^{(Matt. 21: 23)}

Jesus replied, “I’m all about that beast mode.”

²³ They asked. “And who gave you this authority?” Jesus replied, “Yeah.”

Confused, the Pharisees repeated the question.

²⁴Jesus said, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things: Do you have any skittles?

²⁷ So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

^22:15Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you…aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

Jesus answered them, “I’m just about that action boss.”

When the Pharisees looked confused, Jesus said, “I’m just here so I don’t get…fined.”

The Herodians replied, “Um, Jesus, I am not sure you answered the question.

So Jesus answered more slowly, “I’m…just…here…so…I…don’t…get…fined.”

The Pharisees grumbled amongst themselves…

Knowing what they were thinking, Jesus replied, “Cause they continue to ask me the same question. I have to give the same answers.

^22:23That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. ²⁴ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. ²⁶ The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. ²⁷ Finally, the woman died. ²⁸ Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”

²⁹ But Jesus answered and said to them, …“You have two more minutes to look at me.”

^23:1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “I’m thankful. “Thank you for asking about my stomach. And, “I appreciate it.”

³⁴Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied, “I’m going to sit here for the next 20 seconds. And look at you same way you looked at me. We’re done here.

^22:31The people were amazed at his teaching. So Jesus said, “Shoutout to my real Africans,”

^26:3Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high pries…4 and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him.

—

Actually, Jesus did go into beast mode later that week before Pontius Pilate. When Jesus answered Pilate’s query in John 19, “Are you king of the Jews?” Jesus answers, ³⁴“Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you about Me?” And,³⁷“You say correctly I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world.”

And when you think about it, Jesus saying, “If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself.” ^{(John 12:32)} is not really that much different from him saying, “You know why I’m here. I’m…just…here…so…YOU…don’t…get…fined.”

28Mar2015

The Justice-ification of the Church: Where we went wrong and how we can do better

Posted in Culture, Leadership, Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Years ago a Catholic priest from India told me, “Ghandi said, ‘I look at Jesus and I want to be a Christian. But then I look at the lives of Christians…and I don’t want to be a Christian.‘” The great scandal of the church, for Ghandi and for us, is the troubling lack of love shown by those of us who call ourselves “Christian.”

—

Having made pilgrimage to the Holy Land this spring, I was astonished at how small it is: The events in the Gospels can mostly be seen from each other: Bethphage, the village from which Jesus had the disciples borrow a donkey and her colt, is on the Mount of Olives. From this hill you can look across the narrow valley and over the Brook Kidron at the walls of Jerusalem and the gate Jesus rode through on the day we call Palm Sunday. The temple, from whose courts all four Gospel writers record Jesus casting the money-changers, was just inside the city wall. When Jesus entered the temple and focused on the failings of the religious establishment rather than shake his fist at the Roman occupiers whose Antonia fortress stared down into the Temple grounds, Jesus set the stage for the crowd’s turning on him when he stood before Pontius Pilate five days later. You can walk the Via Dolorosa, along which Jesus carried his cross to the place of crucifixion in minutes. The spot where Jesus was crucified and where he was buried are also remarkably close – so close that both the location of the crucifixion, Calvary, and Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb are under the same roof today. It is stunning how little geography God used in the great saving acts of his Son.

Scandalous also is how small the distance between, “Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” and “Crucify Him!”

In the Gospels this took five days. In the Episcopal Church our liturgy places both the Palm Sunday and Good Friday scripture readings on the same day. My guess is that this is, in part, an acknowledgment that many will not prioritize attendance at the commemorations of our Lord’s redeeming acts in the Paschal Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. But it is also an acknowledgement of basic human nature: The distance between celebrating someone and demonizing them is also remarkably short – because, as humans, we have a remarkable capacity for…small.

With just a little dollop of disappointment we can move from kindness to vitriol in a single motion. We look for scapegoats, rush to judgments, and hold others in bondage with binary thinking. We litmus test and sort people into categories of our own devising. And we wish those short of wholehearted endorsement of the platforms we embrace cast into outer darkness. A few exhibits:[1]

Several months ago at lunch I overhear the animated conversation between a socially active pastor of another mainline denomination and an atheist college professor sharing our table. The pastor labeled group after group, “Evil!” until the atheist professor finally asked him, “Where’s the love, man?”[2]

A student asked me to breakfast the next morning and confessed (tearfully) that he was considering leaving the seminary. He was trying to grow in prayerfulness and was told that his pleas for his fellow students to act in love toward others was evidence of insufficient commitment to the social causes espoused by his peers. He was certain he would never gain their acceptance.

A progressive friend posted on Facebook several weeks ago, “I am uncomfortable that my church’s stance on every issue seems to completely mirror the culture.” I think he is right…

…but I am not nearly so nervous about aping the culture as I am about the next exit on this highway: the justice-ification of the church.

The conflation of church and culture is surely foolish, and I think, also small. But there is a great Protestant tradition of church by focus group. What I cringe at is the way Christians (progressive Christians in particular, but we are not alone in this), have managed to systematically turn social causes into “justice issues.” We do this with seemingly little self-awareness of the ramifications of these crusades. When we label an issue “justice” we stop working for sensible public solutions and begin brandishing swords. This is never so clear as on social media…

We call the press, issue positions, and forward polemics on our Facebook feeds.

But in the public sphere in a pluralistic society there will always be those who do not endorse our worldview. Can we make room for them? Can we “seek to understand before being understood”? Can we begin with the presumption that people are generally of good will and work from there toward solutions? What if, instead of “justice,” we argued our great disagreements starting with, “How do we find a ‘win’ for everyone?” And, “What will lead to human thriving?” Or better yet, remember that the church is first and foremost a place to worship Jesus Christ. How did the church become ground zero for the activism industry?

“But Matt,” you say, “justice is biblical. The Old Testament prophets spoke truth to power.” Yes, but you are not a biblical prophet, and this is not 2600 years ago. In our day “justice” is not helpful because it can never make room for another. Enraged justice usually results in the shaking of fists and mobs with torches in the night. When we drop the “justice” card then someone is guilty…and they must be punished. “Justice” is not served until the evil is purged.

When we label a disagreement “justice” it generally ends one place: “Burn the witch!”

But I do see examples of hope in the emerging generation of leaders: Two weeks ago a friend who is active in LGBT politics asked me if I would organize a meet and greet between an LGBT political action group and evangelical pastors. Yesterday seventeen young evangelical pastors and thought leaders met with Matthew Vines and others engaged in promoting same-sex marriage. While there was clear theological disagreement, it was a time of relationship building, healing, and mutual respect. Here is another: Next week I will be at a luncheon in the Roman Catholic bishop’s office to discuss spiritual unity between evangelicals and Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ.

It is a short way down the hill to Jerusalem. It is a short way from the cross to the tomb. It is a short way from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify!”

But it is also a short way the other direction.

Going from “Crucify!” to “Hosanna!” is the exact same distance. It does take more work, but the Prince of Peace went up to Jerusalem and was crucified so that no one else need be.

Next week we will celebrate the forgiveness of both human and institutional sin on the cross. We could join Jesus in the way of that cross, extending our arms in love to all who are near. Perhaps if we did that, those who are far will see and notice. And the scandal of the church will be swallowed in the scandal of the cross.

—

As that old Indian priest said that day, “I implore you. Make Ghandi wrong. Be Easter people. May the love of our Lord Jesus Christ so shape and form you that all the world would see his mercy.”

[1] Out of politeness I will only use examples from my own tribe. Evangelicals and Catholics will be able to think of many of their own examples.

[2] These evils included fracking, pipeline building, driving petroleum based cars, failure to recycle, and the fact that Darren Wilson had not been lynched. (The pastor was white.)

25Dec2014

A Baby Announcement

Posted in Spiritual Encouragement by Matt Marino

Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born this day of a pure virgin: Grant that we who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 213)