Hallelujah

The line "it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah" from Jeff Buckley's song "Halleujah" keeps going through my head this week. It reminds me how much I love the Psalms. At first I was always kind of bored by the Psalms, they seemed to just be a bunch of long ways of saying "YAY GOD!" but over the years, and through my educative process at seminary, I have learned to appreciate the subtler nature of them. In particular I like the Psalms of lament, because they contain so much powerful emotion from across the spectrum. Lament Psalms are about praising God, but they come to that praise through pain, agony, and even loss. This speaks to me because while I have rarely truly doubted in God and I am generally optimistic and cheerful, the ability to express grief is important to me. It is easy to praise God when life is great. It is easy to give thanks to God, when we are surrounded with God's bountiful gifts. But to express that same love in the midst of tragedy is so much more powerful to me. A cold and broken hallelujah shows a love for God that goes beyond our temporary condition and understands the more powerful and permanent relationship we have with God. Not based on our happiness at this moment, but based on God's presence and love for us in the midst of all the bad things that happen in life. I only hope my love for God is strong enough to give birth to so powerful an expression of faith as a cold and broken hallelujah.

Pinning Down God

I have had an image in my head of a butterfly pinned to a board in a museum, with tiny labels attached to different parts. For whatever reason that image seems very fitting to me of how I often want to view God. I have a real desire at times to want to pin God down to something and attach labels. If I can do this then I can really isolate what God is, the component parts of divinity. All of this is just a reaction to the struggle with uncertainty in faith. For the last several weeks I have really been living in the midst of that. I am struggling to find an authentic way to express both my sound belief in God and the cloud of uncertainty that surrounds it. I believe the uncertainty that I feel is a good thing, but there is still that desire. A few months ago I was trying to take a picture of a butterfly, but the butterfly refused to land long enough for me to take a good picture. The same is true with God. The more I try to pin God down, the more God flits away. It is theologically frustrating, but aesthetically and emotionally satisfying.

Faithful Questioning

I need a new sort of questioning, rooted not in doubt but in faith. The tendency is place questioning with doubt and certainty with faith. All of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience has taught me that life is not filled with certainty but questions. When I was in school we were always encouraged to ask questions, this was how we were meant to learn, but at the same time, questions often meant acknowledging that we did not understand what was going on. As a vain academic, the questions I was most proud of were the ones that pushed the envelope of learning far beyond what we were meant to have covered in the class. Now this worked for me, I was an intelligent child, capable of understanding many of the more advanced concepts that were being taught, my deep probing questions were good for where I was at in my learning process. At the same time I wonder if I would have had the courage to ask the questions if they were simple and basic ones that everyone else already knew the answer to. I am ashamed to say the answer would probably have been “no.” Academic vanity and pride have always been struggling points for me.

Often contained in the idea of asking questions is the idea that we will get answers. My experience however is that simply or complex, questions often lead to more questions. I remember in 9^th grade trying to understand the periodic table of the elements and generating more and more questions about how electrons worked. The reason I share this is I think faith is meant to be the same way. Sometimes I feel we try to simplify faith too much. Rather than trying to probe the complexity of Jesus, we reduce him merely to the Way, the Truth and the Life, or the Trinity to creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Whatever the question, the temptation is to try and find a simply answer which resolves it for us.

What do I do with this as a pastor? How do I help lead people not to answers, but to questions that will give them a better understanding of the complexity of God. I think an atom is a really good way to look at God. The basic understanding of an atom is a ball. Then if you get more complex it is a series of shells (electron levels) surrounding a smaller ball (the nucleus). If you study more however you learn that electrons spin, and rotate and do all sorts of other things, so that simply to see them as shells is not right, and then you add in the uncertainty principle and learn that the shells we previously used to understand the make-up of the atom only tells us where an electron is something like 90% of the time. Is there an uncertainty principle to God? How do I deal with the human needs for answers when I believe we are better living in the questions? How do I transform the grammatical question mark from an expression of extreme doubt or skepticism into an expression of healthy growth? I know many churches that advertise that questions are welcome, the implication is that they will provide answers. I want to be part of a church that helps people with answers find more questions to ask, a church that peels back the various atomic models to find the deeper uncertainty of God that requires a greater expression of faith.

Harry Potter and Insights on God

I am currently leading a discussion group/class on the connections between Harry Potter and scripture. The purpose of the class is to look at possible religious themes in Rowling's work as a way of better understanding our faith. I have done a similar class on the C.S. Lewis' book "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." With Lewis it was easy to compare and contrast between fiction and scripture because the connections were much more obvious. As I have been looking at Harry Potter with a similar goal in mind I have struggle with how to read the characters in Harry Potter. The discussion this week centered in part around the question of whether Harry Potter's encounter with Voldemort as a baby should be read as an Easter narrative or as Christmas. If we are to take it as Easter, then Harry living represents the resurrection and the triumph of Good over Evil, of Christ over Sin. The Christmas connections are just as strong however, since now hope is coming into the world, but what that hope is we are not sure of.
All of this pondering lead me to a remarkable insight. The challenge with any attempt to understand Harry Potter's religious significance is that our information is incomplete. Is Harry Potter meant to be seen as the Christ figure? Or is Dumbledore? I suddenly understand how things must have been for the disciples, crowds, and even the priests during Jesus' time, asking the question "who is this man." How could anyone begin to understand Jesus when his story was not yet done. The miracle of his death and resurrection is something almost too impossible to believe would happen even when you know it did, let alone before hand.
Theoretically the questions with Harry Potter have already been answered, copies of the last book are probably already being edited and polished off and ready to print, the mystery of what happens next is in part resolved; but for those of us who have not yet seen the book, we are left to try and ponder who is Harry Potter, what hope does he bring for Hogwarts, and how does he help us to understand the mystery of a man 2,000 years ago who changed the world with his teachings.

Touching God

I have been pondering the story of Thomas and the resurrected Christ for the last few weeks know. I love the first Sunday after Easter because there are some very powerful stories that we get to read, the road to Emmaus, where where Jesus is known in the breaking of the bread, and the story of Thomas, where he reaches out to touch and believe. Woven into Thomas' story is the idea that believing without touching is an even greater expression of faith. I agree with this, but I also think it is important to remember that each person needs to experience God differently.
I am a person of ideas and thoughts. The concept of God can be made known to me and derived at some level a priori, that is before experience. Other people are much more grounded in their senses. This is not a bad thing, but just a different way of experiencing and learning about the world. I think is important to remember that for many, God cannot be known without experience, without something they can touch, hold, see, or hear. I think the challenge that Thomas gives to us worship leaders and pastors is to remember that in addition to simply talking about, praying about, and singing about God, we need to find ways to make God physically known to people.
Unfortunately, most people will not have the opportunity to touch Jesus, to place their hands in his wounds, and come to know his love and his relationship for us through such a tangible interaction. I do not believe this means all experience of God must be filtered through words, and certainly not simply through worship. But I think we need to find ways to make God real to people.
Worship needs to involve both a mental and a physical interaction with God. My favorite line of liturgy without question, is one that is often spoken during Communion, "taste and see." There is a powerful reminder in those words that when we taste the bread we are tasting God, we are touching God. I guess that is just something I really want to see more of in worship is sounds, sights, and objects that can be experienced as a reminder of God's presence in our lives. I think Thomas speaks to me so much because he reminds us that there is often more to our faith than just hearing it, that it takes something more to make God real in our lives. Each of us in our own way needs to find a way to reach out and touch God.

"In God There Is Enough"

I was attending a conference this week and in the process heard the quote "in God there is enough." The quote really resonnated with me and my experiences recently. Anyone who has ever been involved in church, or for that matter any non-profit, finances knows how precarious things really can be. Despite all the planning that is done, a church is ultimately dependent on the often irregular giving of its members, it truly becomes a test of faith. The churches I work at currently are both looking at "projected" deficts for the end of the year, which means if everyone gives what they pledged and everything costs what we expect then we will have a shortfall at the end of the year. This can obviously be a source of great stress, but I think it is better to see it as a source of strength. I know for me personally as a pastor I love to not have to worry about money. In my own life I like the comfort of know that my upcoming bills will be covered by my upcoming paychecks, or better yet, by the money already in my account. I certainly have the same desire for my churches. I think the problem is that too often we want to be in control of everything. A church that has all its problems already covered has no need of God. The quote I heard is a good reminder that churches would be better to trust a little in God's grace and blessings rather than simply in financial calculations. I am not saying that churhes should not track their finances, but that rather than stressing about having a perfectly balanced budget, remember that God provides. How different would our churches, organizations, and stress levels be if we remembered that "in God there is enough."