Soft Difference :: A Lenten Reflection

  • February 15, 2016
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  • Park Forum
The Lenten season’s focus on inward sin is meant to be catalytic—a renewal of self, through Christ, for the benefit of the world. Through holiness, the faithful are rooted, nourished, and able to bear fruit. Sin saps the branches—a gospel-centered understanding of sin promotes human flourishing. Forming a distinctly Christian understanding of sin is essential.

Religious identities rooted in their rejection of a particular social environment are inherently violent. Miroslav Volf notes that it is only when faith is “nourished more on its own intrinsic vision than on the deprecatory stories about others” that it is able to live in and not of the world. Volf, a theologian at Yale, continues:
It is Christian identity that creates difference from the social environment, not the other way around. When identity is forged primarily through the negative process of the rejection of the beliefs and practices of others, violence seems unavoidable, especially in situations of conflict.

We should keep in mind, however, that the call to follow the crucified Messiah was, in the long run, much more effective in changing the unjust political, economic, and familial structures than direct exhortations to revolutionize them would ever have been.
The New Testament’s call to meekness, something which Volf calls “soft difference”—becomes the key to winsome and transformative faith.
People who are secure in themselves—more accurately, who are secure in their God—are able to live the soft difference without fear. They have no need either to subordinate or damn others, but can allow others space to be themselves. For people who live the soft difference, mission fundamentally takes the form of witness and invitation. They seek to win others without pressure or manipulation, sometimes even “without a word.”

Soft difference is not simply a missionary method. Rather, the soft difference is the missionary side of following in the footsteps of the crucified Messiah. To be a Christian means to live one’s own identity in the face of others in such a way that one joins inseparably the belief in the truth of one’s own convictions with a respect for the convictions of others. To give up the softness of our difference would be to sacrifice our identity as followers of Jesus Christ.
Today’s Reading
Job 14 (Listen – 2:23)
1 Corinthians 2 (Listen – 2:26)

Tempting God :: A Lenten Reflection

  • February 12, 2016
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  • Park Forum

If morality was all that Christ desired for the lives of his followers, the cross would be superfluous. Christ’s response, when tempted in the wilderness, wasn’t “that would be immoral,” but, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Theologian J.P. Lange explains; “To tempt God is to involve oneself in four contradictions: (1) faith without obedience, (2) prayer without self-surrender, (3) action without warrant from on high, and (4) success without comfort or assurance.”

To tempt God is to give the appearance of spiritual vitality, as Lange points out, but still live unfaithfully. Jesus’ success in temptation shows how broken we are. The Christian experience isn’t just about doing the right things—if we cultivate righteousness under our own power, we still miss relationship with God.

“If the truth of being justified by Christ alone—not by our works—is lost, then all Christian truths are lost,” Martin Luther cautioned. The great reformer believed one of the keys to faithfulness was renewing the gospel—the good news of Christ’s work—in our hearts daily. Luther continues:

Now both these things continue while we live here. We are accused, exercised with temptations, oppressed with heaviness and sorrow, and bruised by the law with its demands of active righteousness. These attacks fall upon our flesh—the part of our heart that still seeks to earn our salvation.

There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works-righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works-righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work. On this truth and only on this truth the church is built and has its being.

This distinction is easy to utter in words, but in use and experience it is very hard. For in times of struggle, the devil will seek to terrify us by using against us our past record, the wrath, and law of God. So learn to speak to one’s heart and to the Law. When the law creeps into your conscience, learn to be a cunning logician—learn to use arguments of the gospel against it.
Today’s Reading
Job 11 (Listen – 2:01)
Romans 15 (Listen – 4:32)This Weekend’s Readings
Job 12 (Listen – 2:21)  Romans 16 (Listen – 3:30)
Job 13 (Listen – 2:27)  1 Corinthians 1 (Listen – 4:03)

The Root of Faithfulness

  • February 11, 2016
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  • Park Forum

Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. — Victor Frankl

Every temptation Christ faced was rooted in something which he was within his rights to claim. Jesus was tempted to claim his rights by his own power, on his own timeline, and apart from his Heavenly Father. The temptation account is not a lesson inspiring the faithful to live stronger lives, instead Christ demonstrates what is possible when a person’s identity is firmly rooted in God.

In the sum of his life, Christ’s success was antithetical to worldly success. He restored man’s broken relationship with God, defeated evil, and rose to the right hand of his Father. To accomplish this he became impoverished, homeless, rejected, scorned, beaten, and executed. There are contemporary versions of Christianity that pray for all opposition to be removed—they are effectively praying they fail at following Christ. In Jesus’ own words:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

In meditating on the story of Christ’s obedience in temptation, we must focus our attention to how and why he was steadfast. Donald Hagner, a theologian at Fuller in southern California, writes,

The goal of obedience to the Father is accomplished, not by triumphant self-assertion, not by the exercise of power and authority, but paradoxically by the way of humility, service, and suffering. Therein lies true greatness. In fulfilling his commission by obedience to the will of the Father, Jesus demonstrates the rightness of the great commandment as well as his own submission to it.

Today’s Reading
Job 10 (Listen – 2:12)
Romans 14 (Listen – 3:28)

The Heart of Temptation :: Lenten Reflections

  • February 10, 2016
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  • Park Forum

The heart of Christianity isn’t morality, so the nature of temptation isn’t a draw toward immorality. As we enter in to the first day of Lent—a season of fasting and service, mindfulness, and community—we take time to reflect on the temptation of Christ. In the brutality of the wilderness we see that the heart of temptation is to convince us that life is better without God.

Divine sonship for Jesus meant far more than the power to do miracles. Jesus’ intimacy with the Father reoriented every aspect of his life. Therefore, when he faced temptation, this holy relationship was hit hardest. It is no different today. Temptation strikes at the core of our identity. N.T. Wright observes:
The first two temptations play on the very strength he has just received. ‘You are my son, my beloved one!’, God had said to him. Very well, whispers the demonic voice; if you really are God’s son, surely he can’t want you to go hungry when you have the power to get food for yourself?

In the wilderness the offer is made: quench your material longings by your own ability. Jesus’ reply? In the end, that wouldn’t satisfy my deepest longings. We have so many appetites—find a way to feed them all on your own and you’ll still be hungry.

Theologian Don Garlington writes,
The impact of Satan’s temptation is that Jesus, like Adam first and Israel later, had a justifiable grievance against God and therefore ought to voice his complaint by ‘murmuring’ (compare Exodus and Numbers) and ought to provide for himself the basic necessity of life, namely, bread.
Satan, in other words, sought to make Jesus groundlessly anxious about his physical needs and thus to provoke him to demand the food he craved.

The invitation of Christ is an invitation to have our deepest needs met in someone whose very nature is love. In the embrace of his mercy and grace we find the resting place for our identity. We experience in Christ’s forgiveness of us the freedom to forgive others. We find in Christ’s power all we need to flourish in the wilderness of our world.

Today’s Reading
Job 9 (Listen – 3:22)
Romans 13 (Listen – 2:35)

The Community of Lent

  • February 9, 2016
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  • Park Forum
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. — Romans 12.1
Lent is the opportunity for Christian communities to integrate personal faith with corporate works. The experience of fasting with a community brings the great commandment to life:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
The structure of this commandment is fascinating: a corporate belief—the Lord our God—followed by individual disciplines—you shall. Paul echoes this framework in Romans 12: in light of what we have experienced of God’s mercy, each of you live in this way. In Recovering Biblical Worship, N.T. Wright explains:
Heirs of the Reformation are so drilled in justification by faith that we easily forget that when Paul comes to worship and obedience he delights in declaring that what we do in Christ, on the basis of God’s mercy, is pleasing to God. This is not taking away one jot or tittle from justification by faith; here in Romans itself it is that to which justification by faith leads you.
Members of the Church flourish when the fruit of faith is born in and through their community. Timothy Keller writes, “Most of the ethical principles or rules in the Bible are not simply codes of behavior for individuals to follow; they are descriptions of a new community that bears the spiritual fruit of love and holiness.” Dr. Keller continues:
Far more of the Biblical ethical prescriptions is addressed to us as a community than as individuals. The Ten Commandments were given to Israel at Mount Sinai to form them into an alternate society that would be a light to the nations. The call of Romans 12:1-2 to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices” is usually interpreted as a call to individual consecration, but it is actually a demand that we commit ourselves to a corporate body and not live as autonomous individuals any longer.

All of Romans 12, in fact, should be read as a description of this new society. In the same way, Jesus’ call for his followers to be a “city on a hill” means we must read the entire Sermon on the Mount as a description of this new community, not simply as ethical guidelines for individual believers.
Because we have been justified by faith we have the joy of entering into a season of reflection by God’s mercy. Together we fast. Together we engage. Together we serve.

Today’s Reading
Job 8 (Listen – 2:08)
Romans 12 (Listen – 2:58)