Following Thanksgiving to Its End

Art Matheny offers this teaching based on the following passage:

Luke 17:11-19 (ESV)

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

S.O.A.P. Treatment…

Scripture. What part of this passage jumps out at you? Why?

Observation. What noteworthy things do you see in this account?

Application. What do you think your take-home lesson is, here?

Prayer. How do you want to pray in response to all of the above?

Judgment Day: Death, Dying, and Decisions

Synopsis. The concept of Judgment Day developed over time in response to a wide range of historical, cultural, and theological developments which served to shape our faith ancestors’ view of hope (or despair) for the future. Jesus and the New Testament writers were part of that development. So, now, are we. In light of all we know, what do you believe about the eschaton?

Today I will probably encourage you. And frustrate you. Maybe disappoint you. Perhaps even make you want to get me fired. You know, just another Sunday for me… I do have an opinion about the eschaton which I’ll gladly share. But my hope is that through this teaching, with perhaps new awareness and new information at your disposal, you will land on your own view of what’s to come, and enjoy the peace and hope that can come from it.

First, some questions for you to answer:

What do you think Judgment Day refers to?
What/who influenced your perspective on Judgment Day?
Why do you want or not want a Judgment Day?
What role does the Bible play in your thinking about this issue?
What role does the person of Jesus play in your thinking?
Our casual reference to the Judgment Day is part of a larger study of the word eschaton, which speaks of the last things. It refers to a time in the future when the course of history will be changed to such an extent that one can speak of an entirely new state of reality. Eschatology is the study of the eschaton (Yale Anchor Dictionary of the Bible). What we are doing today is addressing eschatology. Fancy words for your next game of Scrabble/Words with Friends… Apocalypse, a word that is sometimes used synonymously with eschaton, is different. I’ll get to that eventually (a cliffhanger already!).

One of the most important pieces of information for you to grasp is that the thoughts and writings about the eschaton changed over time. Those changes are reflected in the Bible. This means there is not one unified way of thinking about the last days, even though theological traditions define themselves by positions on this and other issues. But hear me clearly: there is a range of thought reflected in the scriptures themselves about what is to come. There is no single definitive answer to the question, what will happen on Judgment Day? Thought is required, and that’s a good thing.

Yesterday, Today, and THAT Day. If you lived as an Israelite – a Hebrew by faith and perhaps also lineage – prior to the development of the monarchy (Saul, David, Solomon, etc.), your idea of the eschaton was maybe a generation or two away, with a fairly specific window of time. If you were a pre-king Jew, your thoughts about Judgment Day had mostly to do with geography. You were told as a kid that God was with you and your people – even as far away as Egypt! The Day of the Lord would be when you and your people got the land promised to Abraham at the very beginning:

Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”
And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.
Then the Lord told him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.” – Genesis 15:5-7 (NLT) c. 1750 BCE
The hopes of the earliest people in our faith tradition were that they would get and hold onto their own land. Moving around a lot can be interesting and exciting, but there is a welcome stability that comes with planting roots.

Several hundred years later, against the instruction of God, Israel got themselves a King – Saul. Turned out to be a real dud. Though he was tall, dark, and handsome, he was also not wise, and did not tend to some serious internal issues that motivated a lot of his behavior. His successor, David, was Israel’s forever favorite, but his reign was marked with lots of failure on personal and national fronts. Solomon, David’s son, was the wisest who ever lived, yet his lifestyle didn’t show it. The Kingdom was large and prosperous, but the foundation was weak. Four centuries into a monarchial system that was rife with corruption, Israel was clobbered, never to rule itself again (until the 20th century). The prophets of the day warned the royalty and the general population that if they didn’t clean up their act, Judgment Day was sure to come:

18 What sorrow awaits you who say, “If only the day of the Lord were here!” You have no idea what you are wishing for. That day will bring darkness, not light. 19 In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion— only to meet a bear. Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house— and he’s bitten by a snake. 20 Yes, the day of the Lord will be dark and hopeless, without a ray of joy or hope. – Amos 5:18-20 (NLT)
Judgment Day was not a day to look forward to, but to fear. Nice, huh? But not effective. Israel lost their country, were scattered, abused, enslaved.

Once again, their view of Judgment Day changed from the Monarchial vantage point. It was not about getting the Promised Land, either – a trademark of a Patriarchal view. And it was not about getting their butts kicked. Now it was about being restored, which reflected their Covenantal sensibilities. Jeremiah, a prophet who lived through the fall of Israel, offered these words of hope about that coming day:

5 “For the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. 6 And this will be his name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety. – Jeremiah 23:5-6 (NLT)
The “Day” was hopeful – something to look forward to. The great prophet, Isaiah, also had similar tones. Interestingly, scholars believe that what we call the book of Isaiah actually was composed of different voices over time, and reflects the Monarchial Judgment day as well as the Covenantal and even shows the development into apocalyptic thinking. Here is a covenantal example:

This is a vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all— the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. 3 People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem. 4 The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore. – Isaiah 2:1-4 (NLT)
So far, each of these modes of thinking are rooted in Israel’s experience, and have an actual day in mind in the future. Also, the future was still bound to earthy history. There was no thinking at this point about the eschaton reaching beyond the grave. What might we expect from a people who, for hundreds of years, try to hold onto hope for the peaceful restoration of Israel, only to see generations come and go. Over time, the people began to wonder if God might exact judgment at a much later time, through supernatural means. Apocalypticism was born, mythologizing the earlier modes of thinking about the eschaton:

Constitutive in the judgment will be a resurrection of the dead (51; 61:1–5), after which the righteous and chosen will dwell on a newly created earth, from which the sinners have been permanently expelled to the darkness and torture of Sheol (38; 45; 50; 58; 54; 63). Although fulfillment of prophecy cannot be an explicit category in this pseudonymous text, the language of Third Isaiah is evident; and the heavenly Chosen and Anointed One is seen as the referent of biblical descriptions (understood as prophecies) of the Davidic king and the Servant of the Lord. Just as important, this author is a bearer and transformer of the traditions generated in the names of Enoch and Daniel. – Yale Anchor Dictionary of the Bible
This line of thinking did not exist in the early history of Israel. But it did reflect much of the thinking of the Ancient Near East (ANE). In other words, once again, the thinking about Judgment Day was shaped by the experience and time of the Israelites. This was the case all the way up to the time of Jesus.

After 600+ years of being occupied, all New Testament writers and characters reflected a first century apocalyptic mindset whereby a supernatural event would upend life as they knew it. The new reality would be clearly different than the status quo. Rome defeated. Religious leadership held to account. This was prevalent in the culture of Jesus’ day – something that was not fully appreciated until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1946-1956, revealing what Jewish people were thinking in Jesus’ time. Apocalyptic fever ran hot in Jesus’ day and through the first century, which is reflected in many New Testament letters and remembered sayings of Jesus.

In one of Jesus’ parables talking about the coming day (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus made the point that it’s not what you say that you believe that results in acceptance by God. Rather, what you have done with what you believe reveals what you truly believe. Fruit provides the evidence of your faith. Not doctrinal adherence (which is what the religious leaders of his day demanded). Paul echoed this sentiment, in part, when he talked about how what we do with our lives portrays what we’re truly made of (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

The early church developed a tradition of worship whereby they began living as if the future Kingdom was fully present – realized eschatology. They didn’t choose to wait for the Kingdom of God to come and do its thing, because the Kingdom of God was already present, doing its thing:

In Christian worship the anticipated goal of final, eschatological deliverance was drawn into the sphere of present experience and celebrated as if it had been fully and finally achieved. In the phenomenology of this worship, past and future collapse into an eternal present; and the spatial distinction between heaven and earth is momentarily obliterated. In the light of this kind of cultic experience, there can be no hard and fast dichotomy between the presence of Jesus in the midst of the worshipping community and the “distant” presence of Jesus at the right hand of God. – Yale Anchor Dictionary of the Bible
The early Christian community believed in the Kingdom God now and to come. They could live in the “now” of the Kingdom even while working through the muck of life.

Even though this teaching offers only a brief overview of the development of eschatological thinking, I hope I’ve made the point that the idea developed over time in response to a multitude of influences. There was not uniform thinking about eschatology – where and when you lived in Israel impacted your thoughts about the eschaton: “In all likelihood, the eschatological perception of reality was experienced by those who were not necessarily in charge of either Israel’s political or religious institutions… It is important to emphasize the fact that neither Jewish nor Christian eschatology can in any way be considered a unified or consistent system of beliefs and symbols about the saving events of the future. (Ibid.)” To be blunt: the thinking about Judgment Day – even for Jesus – was rooted in the time in which they lived. The question, then, that we must ask is, would they think the same way, given all of the world history that has passed since? I seriously doubt it – especially regarding timing. The precedent is that belief is shaped by experience. How then do we think about the eschaton or apocalypse? Or do we? Or should we?

I think there are some things we shouldn’t do. First, in light of all we’ve covered, I think it would be really foolish to build a view of the end of time on a foundation 2,000 years old, which was built on shifting sand for nearly 2,000 years before that. Taking all we’ve known since into consideration is a time-honored tradition practiced by rabbis for centuries, was practiced by Jesus and Paul and the whole gang of disciples (which is why they got into so much trouble), and has continued to be part of the Christian tradition since on a wide range of issues. We stretch. The faith lives and breathes. That’s what keeps it alive. That’s a very good thing. The opposite would be to live in a time capsule from the first century, which is absolutely impossible.

A second thing I think we should avoid is binary thinking. We human beings love our binary thinking that keeps everything and everyone neatly separated into categories we can control. The remembered sayings of Jesus even reflect binary thinking: the eschatological parables are about separating sheep from goats! Yet simultaneously we see Jesus being incredibly inclusive in his lifestyle and with the grace of God. Jesus’ life was built on the Micah 6:8 mandate to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. He went to the cross because he believed and lived it so much. When he speaks in binary terms, I think there is a different tone and meaning than when we try to do the same. So, as tempting and cathartic as it may be to consign certain people groups and politicians to hell, it is absolutely off point, out of line, and will not in any way result in more grace breaking into the world. Just the opposite, I think.

I take great comfort from Paul’s image of the refiner’s fire. There’s a lot of good stuff there. Building my life with precious stones sounds a lot like Micah 6:8 to me. We get to do that! Isn’t that awesome? It’s possible! It’s encouraged! It’s empowered. At the same time I am deeply encouraged by the fact that the chaff in my life will someday burn off. Some of the chaff I know about and do nothing about. Some of the chaff stays with me even though I work hard to get rid of it. Some of the chaff I don’t even recognize because I don’t have eyes to see it. One day, however, I will be free of it! I don’t really care if it’s the day I die or if I stay in some sort of sleep mode until some final day comes – the point is that the chaff will be gone, leaving behind what I hope will be beautiful stones I’ve tried to incorporate into my life and the rest of the world. That’s hopeful to me. It’s like justice and mercy are two sides of the same coin. It’s like grace is inherently just. I don’t need to condemn, then. But I can grace, knowing justice comes along with it.

At the end of the last book of the Bible (Revelation, Chapter 22), there is a picture of the Holy City shining bright with beautiful precious stones. Precious stones! Sounds familiar! In the middle of the city is the river of life, with fruit trees on the banks producing fruit every month for all to enjoy. An invitation is given for any and all who are thirsty to come and drink. A feast of water that sustains and animates life, sourced from the very depths of God. Can you imagine it? This beauty calls us forward, not to cower in fear of future retribution (so we better say the right secret password to get us in), but to confidently approach that throne with all aspects of our lives for the duration of our lives so that all lives might experience the fullness of life.

May it be so for you. May it be so for me. May all hear of it so that it may be so for all people everywhere.

Rahab: Shame Undone

Jenny Matheny brings this uplifting teaching to CrossWalk, reminding us that God is with us on our journey even when we can’t see it, that God loves us unconditionally (so we can let go of any and all shame that is so self-destructive), and that our faithfulness makes a greater difference than we can possibly imagine.  Go Rahab!

Church: Communities of Safety and Movement

Let me start with an introduction, because if you’re reading this, you’re probably expecting Pete. My name is Sam Altis. About two months ago, my wife, Kaylan, and I loaded up all of our belongings and moved from Indianapolis to Napa, where she’s finishing her doctorate in clinical psychology by working at Napa State Hospital. While in Indy, I co-pastored a quirky, eclectic church called Trinity. Crosswalk quickly resonated with us in a lot of ways, so it didn’t take long for us to land here. 
It also didn’t take long for Pete to hand over the mic on a Sunday morning, which, you should know, is a rare quality in a pastor. When asked what he wanted me to talk about, he wrote me a blank check, “Talk about whatever you want.” Normally that kind of freedom would lead me to pick something that might ruffle a few feathers.  From what I can tell though, Pete has done everything he can to ruffle your feathers, and you’re unruffle-able.  That’s also far too rare. Way to go. 
So instead, let’s talk about something we presumably all have in common: church. First, you should know that I never liked church growing up. So much so that I developed a Sunday ritual to avoid it. Here’s how it went. My dad was always the one to take my brother and me to church. My dad also loved to sleep in. So, each Sunday, I’d do everything in my power to make sure he slept as long as possible, in hopes that we’d be so late, we’d just skip church. Most of the time that consisted of lying motionless in bed, trying to remain absolutely silent so my dad wouldn’t wake up. If that failed, I’d go into stall mode: the 30 minute shower, the lost shoe, or, if times were really desperate, the feigned stomach ache. 
It’s not that the people at church were awful. They were actually really nice. It was more about how church made me feel. Normally, I left feeling crappier than when I came in. Hearing about how sinful you are for an hour will do that. I also never felt like I could be myself. If I wanted to talk about music or movies, it seemed like I had to talk about Third Day and Kirk Cameron movies. No offense to either of them. They just weren’t my thing. At the heart of it, church felt too small. Too narrow. Like it wasn’t actually leading me to a God worth believing in. 
Fortunately, my church experience has been redeemed. It has a lot to do with a story that I want to tell you about. It’s a weird story, but a powerful one. It’s found in Acts 8, right as the church was beginning. It goes like this. 
Some sort of heavenly being told Philip, a church leader, to go out into the desert. When he got there, he found an Ethiopian eunuch riding in a chariot, reading from the book of Isaiah. Philip ran up to him, asked him about the text, which led to a much longer conversation about Jesus. After awhile, they came across some water. The Ethiopian looked at Philip and asked, “What can keep me from being baptized?” Next thing you know, Philip is in the water, dunking this guy. As soon as he’s baptized the Ethiopian, Philip is zapped away, Star Trek style, to another location. Story over. 
Weird, huh? And what does this have to do with church? Once we unpack it, quite a lot actually. When we see the story from the perspective of the two characters, we see the values church is meant to embody. Let’s start with the Ethiopian.
Safety and Inclusion.
The Ethiopian eunuch is a complex character. We aren’t told his name, but we can know a lot about him just by a few details. First, he was probably pretty rich and powerful. The text says he was in charge of the treasury for the queen of Ethiopia. That probably paid well and came along with some status. The fact the he was riding in a chariot and reading a scroll give away his wealth too. That would’ve been the equivalent of a Rolex and Bentley. 
At the same time, he was almost certainly a social outcast. In the ancient Roman world, society was divided by gender, and your gender gave you certain roles. They might not have been fair, but it provided a clear system. If, however, you didn’t fit neatly into one gender category, you were seen as less than human. That’s how eunuch’s were seen. Not female. Not male. Something gross. In many ways, they were the ancient equivalent to transgender individuals, and they suffered many of the same stigmas. Their families abandoned them. “Decent” people wouldn’t talk to them. They often lived isolated, lonely lives. 
Religiously, Jewish and Christian communities didn’t have a place for them. At that point, the church was abiding by pretty strict Old Testament standards for inclusion. You had to be circumcised, follow the law, obey ritual cleanliness rules. Unfortunately for eunuchs, Deuteronomy 23:1 made it pretty clear that they could never meet those standards: “No man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off can belong to the Lord’s assembly.” (You never had to memorize that verse in Sunday school, did you?)The Ethiopian was unclean. Forever. 
He wasn’t allowed in Roman communities. Jewish and Christian communities had no place for him. So, when he asks Philip, “What can prevent me from being baptized?” that question is dripping with context. Baptism is a means of inclusion. It says you’re a part of a spiritual family. And up until now, the eunuch was prevented from inclusion by every other family. 
In response to the question, Philip gives my favorite answer in all of scripture. Silence. He says nothing, because nothing can prevent this man from being welcomed into the church. He just gets down, dunks him, and is zapped away. The whole story is about radical, unheard of inclusion. 
Side note: the church eventually became so uncomfortable with Philip’s silence that it added in another verse a couple hundred years later. You might see it in some translations, but it’s not in the oldest copies of the story. It didn’t take us long to be uncomfortable with God’s radical inclusion. 
Inclusion and safety are meant to be at the heart of what it means to be the church. Any genuine encounter with God should lead us to greater openness to others, not a more closed off community. This is hard, even unnatural for us. Psychologically, there’s a phenomenon called splitting. It’s when we divide the world into good and bad, and put something or someone entirely into one category because it’s easier for us to deal with. It allows us to exclude and dehumanize. Churches have been doing this well for years, yet when we do, it shows that we’ve not truly connected with the divine. If we had, we would see the divine image in each of those around us and open ourselves to them. 
Movement and Progress. 
There’s another perspective from which to look at this story: the church’s. Like I said above, at this point, the church had no formal means of including the Ethiopian because he didn’t meet Old Testament purity standards. The text says he just came from Jerusalem to worship. What it doesn’t say, but any Jewish reader would have known, is that he was almost certainly turned away when he tried to go in the temple. Since he was unclean, he was unfit for the presence of God. But our story shows us something different. It shows us that the church had actually missed God. God was out in the desert, welcoming the Ethiopian into the family. 
Fast forward seven chapters to Acts 15. Church leaders hold a council and make the revolutionary decision that inclusion in the church shouldn’t be based on Old Testament cleanliness rules. The revolution was late though. God had already done that in our story, the church just missed it. They were late to the party. God was moving, and the church was trailing behind. This is what it means to be the church: to try to keep up with the movement of God around us. 
This movement is a theme in Luke and Acts. Luke and Acts were meant to be read together, so they contain similar themes. About halfway through Luke, Jesus is said to “set his eyes on Jerusalem.” For the rest of Luke’s gospel, Jesus gets, to put it honestly, kind of mean. It’s like he’s hyper-focused on getting to Jerusalem, and the closer he gets, the more intense things get. 
Jerusalem is where everyone thought God dwelled. Specifically, they thought God dwelled in the temple. More specifically, they thought God dwelled in the inner most room of the temple: the holy of holies. So Jesus is laser focused on getting to where everyone thinks God dwells. But when he gets to Jerusalem, he’s crucified, seemingly ending his journey. Something strange happens at the time of his death. The curtain that separated the holy of holies rips. I was always taught that meant we can now, through Jesus, come into God’s presence. But if you look at the narrative of Luke and Acts, it’s actually the reverse of that. Jesus unleashes God’s presence into the world, and everything is turned upside down. 
As Acts unfolds, you can literally track the movement of God’s presence geographically. As it moves, more and more people are welcomed into God’s family, like our friend the Ethiopian eunuch, even if the church isn’t ready for them. All of a sudden, the church’s job isn’t to monitor who has access to God. It’s to try to keep up with the movement of God. 
That movement didn’t stop two thousand years ago. We’re still struggling to keep up. It’s easy for us to settle into an understanding of church that says we need to get back. Back to the early church. Back to the way we used to be. Back to the fundamentals. But while we’re looking back, God is moving forward, constantly surprising us. 
This doesn’t mean we ignore the past. On the contrary, we have to know where we’ve come from to know where we’re going. Looking back allows us to see more clearly the way forward. But forward is always our primary posture, because it’s where God is moving. 
What is God moving towards? Scripture talks about is in a lot of different ways. Reconciliation. Shalom. Love. Life. Healing. They’re all the different aspects of the same reality: wholeness. A way of living where everything and everyone belongs. And for some strange reason, God invites us into that journey, to help bring about that wholeness. 
That, I believe, is the primary purpose of church. To keep up with God on the journey toward wholeness. It’s not a simple or painless journey. It requires creativity, risk, and love. It’s by no means the easiest way of being a church, but I’ll tell you this, it’s more than enough to get me out of bed on a Sunday morning.