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On Liturgy and Its Value: An Interview with Dr. Matthew Emerson

On Liturgy and Its Value: An Interview with Dr. Matthew Emerson

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

As a pastor, I’m constantly thinking about worship. It is my vocation, after all, to lead people to God, and this is something I take very seriously. God is the object of worship – he is the focus, the aim, the center of it all. Part of my job, then, is to protect the sanctity of this “center.” That is to say, my responsibility as a shepherd is to make sure I am leading God’s people to God alone. But in order to do this, I have discovered that I have to give prayerful attention to the way of worship.

I have come to discover that all worship, like life itself, is liturgical. That is to say, our souls are formed and shaped by repeated patterns of actions, habits, and customs – and these are always directed toward objects of our love and devotion (on this, see Jamie Smith). For example, one might argue that our modern culture – with its repeated bombardment of advertisements about the latest product – has formed and shaped us into a very materialistic culture, a culture that is devoted to seeking the next best thing (say, the latest iPhone). We are a consumeristic people, often obsessed with wealth and “stuff,” because we (myself included) have allowed ourselves to be caught up into culture’s captivating flow. Thus, we are shaped and formed to think certain ways, to believe certain things about reality and about ourselves. To be sure, we are often profoundly shaped by the prevailing cultural habits and customs. Jamie Smith has argued, for example, that our culture has its own liturgy – a liturgy that has, among other things, power and wealth as its focus, aim, and center. Indeed, certain segments of our culture, like the church, want to make people into worshippers – a people whose devotion, though, is to something other than God. But as Smith often observes, the culture does a better job of making worshippers than the church. The reason is because the culture sees what many in the church often fail to see, namely, things like the formative power of repetition for changing people’s thoughts and behaviors.

All of this has led me to prayerfully re-think the ways of worship in our own church. Though I still have much more to learn, I am convinced that the church must do a better job in seeing the value of thoughtful liturgy if it wants to successfully train people to be worshippers of God. I believe the corporate worship gathering on Sunday morning provides fertile ground for such training and discipleship. For it is there where we can recite the Lord’s Prayer and thereby train our children about what it means to petition God for our “daily bread.” It is there where we can, together, rise for the Gospel reading, likewise teaching those younger in the faith what it means to respect the presence of the King. When we repeatedly pass the peace of Christ, every Sunday, we are all – together – teaching and proclaiming Gospel. And if we let it, such repeated actions will, over time, shape and form us into a people that God desires – not least into a Gospel-proclaiming, missional people. 

In the course of things, I have had the delightful opportunity to get to know Dr. Matthew Emerson, the Dickinson Chair of Religion and Associate Professor of Religion at Oklahoma Baptist University. He also serves as one of the Executive Directors at the Center for Baptist Renewal (CBR), an organization that helps local congregations come to see the value of Christian tradition and its related practices for worship. I highly recommend the work of CBR to you as a resource for future study. To shed some more light on the subject of liturgy and worship, Dr. Emerson was kind enough to field some questions. I pray that you find the conversation edifying.

Note: My words are in bold; Dr. Emerson’s answers follow.

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Dr. Emerson, many people might be unfamiliar with the word “liturgy.” What exactly is liturgy and a liturgical form of worship?

The word “liturgy” comes from a Greek word, litourgos, which just means “the work of the people.” The “work” referenced is the act of worship, specifically the priestly activities in the Old Testament related to the Tabernacle and Temple. Because for most of church history worship has contained the same basic elements acted out in essentially the same way, it has also come to refer to the repeated practices of churches in their worship services.

Is it true that, in some sense, all church worship services are liturgical?

Since “liturgy” as a generic term just refers to the repeated practices in a worship service, yes, every church has a liturgy. It may not contain elements from what we would call “liturgical churches” like responsive readings, singing the doxology, and the like, but it does typically contain repeated practices. Take an average Baptist church, for example – usually there is a call to worship, followed by (announcements and then) a greeting, three songs, offering and special music, reading the sermon passage, the sermon, and an invitation coupled with a final song. We could break that down into two basic categories – Song and Sermon. Other churches may vary from this, but the point is that most churches include the same elements in their worship service every week, and usually in the same order. This means that every church has a liturgy, a set of repeated practices ordered in the same way that shapes its people.

There is a tendency among some evangelicals to object to liturgical forms of worship on the grounds that liturgy is too repetitive, rote, and cold. Shouldn’t worship be lively and free? What spiritual advantages are there to be gained by having repetition in worship?

I think the easiest analogy here regarding the importance of repetition is to think about habits. At least for me, I remember in my childhood the idea of good habits and bad habits being reinforced by a variety of people – parents, pastors, scout leaders, teachers, etc. Our culture, along with most other cultures, implicitly acknowledges the value of repeated practices. We understand the value of exercising regularly, of repeating the same routines in our workplace, of using prayer calendars or devotional guides, of having a daily quiet time. And we also have habits that we may not even be aware of – maybe you visit the same coffee shop every day, or maybe you drive the same way to work, or maybe you call a friend or family member on the same day of the week. The point is, we repeat all kinds of things, and we recognize that some of those repetitive actions are good (exercise, prayer) while some of them may be bad (unhealthy eating habits or lifestyle choices, for example).

Regarding worship, there are two things to be said. First, the benefit of repeating good practices – i.e. good habits – doesn’t stop at the church door. Repetition is still beneficial in worship, and for the same reasons as it is outside of worship. Repetition of good habits in worship by those who have faith in Christ is like repetition of an exercise routine – it builds spiritual muscle, so to speak; it maintains a healthy heart, from a spiritual perspective; and it produces spiritual endurance. (Of course, none of that happens apart from faith in Christ, because it is Christ who works by his Spirit through these practices to form us.) The second thing to be said about repetition in worship and whether or not it becomes cold and lifeless is that we repeat all kinds of things in worship each week. As I mentioned earlier, most churches have a fairly stable order of worship, even if we don’t call it liturgy. We sing, pray, and hear the preaching of the Word. And when we look at each of these elements, I’d guess that, if I visited any church on any given Sunday, the songs they sing have been sung at least once in the past month, the preacher probably repeats any number of phrases, points, or themes, and the prayers sound fairly similar. Repetition in and of itself does not produce lifelessness. Faithlessness produces lifelessness. That is not to say that any particular person will always “feel” engaged in any particular worship practice. I don’t always “feel” good going to the gym or while I’m at the gym or when I get home from the gym. But I do know that repeating those practices is for my good. I also know that, in worship, singing, praying, and listening are for my good and that the Holy Spirit is working through them for those who have faith to produce holiness.

When I was a young elementary student, the entire class had a ritual of sorts where we would, in unison, stand and then publicly proclaim our pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States. We did this regularly, repetitively, daily. Why are we quick to accept cultural liturgies like this one while being reluctant to embrace Christian liturgy?

I haven’t quite figured out the answer to this question, although I think it’s a good one. Maybe in our rejection of churchly liturgies the state has filled the gap, so to speak. We avoid repetition, liturgy, and the like in our churches, and so our government, along with sports (think about the patriotic elements leading up to games) has stepped in to fill that role. Another possible answer, given by Jamie Smith, is that our habits are both the evidence and producers what we love. And so there may be something to be said about what we love more – America or Jesus. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is always the answer, but it’s an idea worth considering. I think more prominent in people’s minds when they reject repeated worship practices is the idea that liturgy is too cold, too Roman Catholic, too inhibitive for evangelism and church growth. Those are also objections worth considering, but I think we’d have to do that with more time and space.

You are one of the executive directors for The Center for Baptist Renewal. Can you tell us a little bit about your organization and what its mission and aim is?

About Us – CBR (centerforbaptistrenewal.com) is a group of conservative, evangelical Baptists committed to a retrieval of the Great Tradition of the historic church for the renewal of Baptist faith and practice. The work of CBR is grounded in an affirmation of the supremacy of Scripture and a commitment to Baptist convictions as articulated in historic Baptist confessions. While we hope CBR will edify all kinds of Baptists, the CBR Staff find the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 to be an appropriate confession upon which to base our own work.

Mission – The mission of CBR is to equip leaders to appropriate perspectives and practices of the historic church within the context of their local congregations for the sake of renewing Baptist faith and practice.

Vision – We envision Baptist churches in which:

  1. Scripture is held in high regard as the inerrant written revelation of God in Christ and regarded as the final authority for faith and practice;
  2. The wider Christian Church is approached in a spirit of unity while maintaining a convictionally Baptist identity;
  3. Historic creeds of the church are used as catechetical resources for the edification of members and recited regularly as part of the gathered worship of the church;
  4. The preaching of the Word of God and the celebration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the central acts of corporate worship; and
  5. Worship, spiritual formation, and witness are shaped by Scripture and informed by the rich traditions of the church.

Goals –

  1. Build awareness among Baptist church leaders of the value and relevance of the traditions of the historic church.
  2. Provide leaders with resources and tools necessary to implement elements of the Christian tradition in their churches in ways that are meaningful and edifying.
  3. Encourage leaders by fostering relationships in which mutual learning, mentorship, and collaboration can take place.

What books and resources would you recommend to those who are interested in learning more about the value of liturgy?

The first place I’d go is Jamie Smith’s You Are What You Love. I’d also check out Mike Cosper’s Rhythms of Grace.

Thank you, Dr. Emerson, for taking time to answer these questions.

 

“Of Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays”

“Of Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays”

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

The great challenge for the church is to proclaim and live out the Christian virtues in a world that has gained so much earthly success by forsaking them.

The Christian call to humility, moreover, is difficult in a climate where humility is seen as “weakness.” In our world, the Christian claim that the death of God on the cross was an instance of “power” falls on deaf ears. Why? Because the collective consensus is such that “power” is synonymous with the competing western virtues of prestige, wealth, capital assets, and sword. (This mindset, sadly, often exists in the world and the church).

Thus, the claims “the cross is power” and “weakness is strength” are taken as both (1) non-sense to a world inoculated with power and (2) non-desirable to a church that has been compromised by it. (May the Lord’s conviction start with me.)

And yet: the fundamental Christian claim is that the message of the cross “is power” (1 Cor 1:18).

Notice the grammar of that statement: “the message of the cross is power.” The “is” is important. Why? Because crosses are not typically instruments of power for those who are hanging lifeless upon them. By all appearances, it is the crucifier, not the Crucified, who “is” at that moment in “power.” And yet we confess the opposite: Christ, the Crucified, is for us a display of power. In his submission to God (yes, even to the point of death; Phil 2:8), Christ destroyed evil, soaking up the world’s sorrow and plight in himself (Is 53).

The message of the cross, then, is power; weakness is strength.

As people like Hauerwas often remind us, the great mission for the church is to challenge the world’s grammar of power, strength, and success. This will not be easy. In fact, it will be excruciatingly hard. In doing so, however, the church graciously offers the world not merely a new grammar but also a new logic of what it means to be powerful, strong, and successful.

It offers the weak of this world a renewed sense of strength, namely, that God has identified with them in their weakness. It offers the poor a wealth of riches, for God takes up the plight of the exploited, having been victimized himself. It offers the foreigner a place to call home, for he too was far from home. It makes an offer to the rich in this world, inviting them to find better, more lasting, meaning that comes through giving – for God gave of himself too. It invites the powerful of this age to find their hope not in power but in a person, Christ – the one who put aside his own matchless prestige for the well-being of others. This is the new logic. A healing logic. A logic centered upon the work of Christ.

Importantly, this Christo-logic is one that makes it reasonable to embrace weakness because it knows that there is a God who, most gloriously, vindicates on Sunday what was displayed on Friday.

Indeed, the shock of Friday’s suffering often leads us to the tomb of Saturday’s depression, but it will always end with Sunday’s resurrection.

Saturday will be over soon, friends. 

Eucharistic Love: Reflections on Maundy Thursday

Eucharistic Love: Reflections on Maundy Thursday

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

The Following was a sermon I delivered on Maundy Thursday (April 13, 2017) called “Eucharistic Love: Reflections on Maundy Thursday”

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There is an interesting story about Peter found in the Gospel of John 13:1-9. Verse 1 begins by saying how much Jesus loved his disciples. During this scene, during the famous Last Supper, it says that Jesus rose up, put aside his outer garments, and grabbed a towel and “tied it around his waist” (vv. 3-4). The disciples would have recognized this look, for it was the look of a house servant. Scripture says that Jesus “poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (v. 5). One gets the impression that the whole room is stunned to silence. Here was the Master of the Universe, stooping over to wash the feet of commoners. One imagines that the disciples were in humbled shock, at a loss of words. But then verse 6 says that Jesus “came to Simon Peter.” Now if we know anything about Peter, we know that he was the type who found it challenging to keep his mouth shut when he needed to. He apparently knew very well that old principle which said, “Whatsoever entereth into thy mind, let it come forth abundantly from thy mouth.” Peter was a man of principle. And when the Creator God stooped down in the form of a servant to wash his feet, Peter broke the silence, as only he could: “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus responded by saying simply, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” But Peter, with perhaps a sense of piety, objected: “You shall never wash my feet” (vv. 6-8).

Peter was shocked. He was like most of us American Christians: Peter was a successful doer, a “Type A” personality. He was a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” kind of person. He was afraid of nothin’. Present him with an angry Roman Imperial Army, and he will take them on alone. And so, given such boldness and courage and strength, Peter’s Lord should not be stooping down in front of him to do something as menial as footwashing. How preposterous, thought Peter.

We can appreciate Peter, and we are always quick to defend him, laughing him off. This is because we can identify so easily with him. After all, we are also a successful people, a nation full of “Type A” folks. We are certainly a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” kind of people. Like Peter, we are a busy people: we work; we are religious; we admire religious devotion; we are capable of grabbing swords and fighting, defending ourselves, thank you very much. I really like Peter. But I am also really like Peter. And like Peter, I need a rebuke from the Lord. Like Peter, I need to be stilled; Jesus is calling me to know that I need Jesus to serve me. Like Peter, our church needs to sit still and be ministered to by the service of Jesus. We need to slow down and quit pulling ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps—not because we are called to be lazy but because we simply do not have any spiritual bootstraps on which to pull. We, like Peter, are a church that is impoverished spiritually. And so, I propose that from here on out we refer to ourselves as “St. Peter’s Church.” The reason is because we have his lesson to learn. I will speak more about this at the end. But first, let us draw our hearts to hear a preliminary lesson that we must learn first about this season.

One of the great reminders of Holy Week is that “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10).

With these words, God offers the world a new language. He gives the world an example, a new posture by which we can embody love to both friend and enemy. This new posture, if we let it, is liberating. Indeed, Christ invites this world’s slaves to adopt a new form of servanthood that ends in resurrection by means of love as sacrifice.

This invitation is to a new identity. We are called to this new identity. Like Peter, we need to go from being “Stubborn” to “Saint.” It is a holy invitation to leave behind the ways of the world to embrace the ways of Christ. Let me explain.

Those who live according to the ways of this age need enemies in order to survive. Having enemies grants people a bonding opportunity with those people whose enemies are the same. When another person is defined as outsider and becomes object of ridicule and hate, then the insiders are able to quickly come together and identify themselves as “the good side” or the “moral side.” The “others” are outside the group and away from their interaction, while the “insiders” take their aim at the outside others. The world gets cliquish and exclusive in their interactions with “outsiders,” that is, with Samaritans and other types of socially-shunned “others.” The world defines people in terms of “rich and poor,” by ethnicity, etc. Consider the Berlin Wall: it was more than physical structure; it was both ideological and spiritual, separating people from people. Having boundaries is not wrong in and of itself: every group has boundaries for inclusion and exclusion, not least the church (see below). Even heaven has boundaries!

The problem, however, with the way the world constructs boundaries is that they (that is, the world), do not permit loving communication between the two opposing sides. When the world constructs a boundary between people, it is usually out of fear or hate or ignorance or all three together. For example, the rich question the poor’s ability to work; the poor question the rich person’s ability to love the poor. The world’s way of having boundaries is such that there is a lot of talking about one another, but very little talking to one another.

The problem, of course, is that the modern church has come to look very much like the world. We have boundaries, don’t we? Some of them are good; some are not-so-good. Either way, sometimes the boundaries that we have constructed serve to separate ourselves from people such that meaningful outreach to them is impossible—those dreaded “others.” For example, the church has constructed a good boundary on the question of marriage, that it is between one man and one woman for one lifetime. And this excludes the LGBTQ community. There is a lot of talk in the church about how the LGBTQ community is wrecking our society. But I wonder if the church has done a good enough job in reaching across the boundary to show love to them. Do you and I have LGBTQ friends that we seek out to do good for? Or take the Islamic community. The church has rightly insisted on maintaining a boundary between Christian doctrine and Islamic doctrine. Our ways of worship are different; there is a boundary between the two of us. That is fine. But one wonders if the church has done a good job in looking beyond the boundary between Islam and Christianity, reaching across it to display Jesus to them? How many Muslim friends do we have? According to the news, the Muslims are “taking over our country” in droves, so it should not be too hard to find one of them nearby. How is our church seeking to share Gospel kindness to them? Does the Body of Christ look at the boundary between the Church and Mosque as a mission opportunity or as a boundary to be fearful of? Perhaps we need another trip to San Francisco. The real question is whether or not the boundary between the Church and the World cannot be crossed. Indeed, can the boundary between Heaven and Earth be crossed? One wonders what would happen if such boundaries that have been constructed around the dreaded “other” did not prevent sacrificial love for the other. (Re-read that last sentence.)

Well, it did happen: the boundary between Heaven and Earth has been crossed, and the event was revolutionary. This is why the significance of Jesus’ coming to earth cannot be overstated. In a world of boundaries, Jesus offers the world a fresh vision for the identity of God not as a distant figure, but as one who became human. Since Christmas, one can now dispel all myths of a distant Deity in favor of the Deity who became like us (Phil 2:5-11). When Jesus spoke grace to a socially-shunned Samaritan woman (John 4), he was offering the world a vision of a God who is not to be identified as “distant.” Rather, the identity of God, which was offered to the world in that moment, was love-in-nearness. (Can you think of a modern-day Samaritan?) This is all the more true when Jesus died. Having been bound and scourged and murdered at the hands of violent humans, all the while maintaining a non-violent posture of defiant love for them, Jesus gave us a glimpse of what it means to embody God to others. Jesus’ crossing over the boundary of Heaven and Earth was revolutionary, especially when we stop to consider that his crossing over was so that he could take up a cross. Indeed, the event of the cross gives us a glimpse of how to respond to a world of betraying friends and wicked foes. The crossing over boundaries and the taking up of a cross for the sake of loving across boundaries is our calling as Church.

It does no good to object, saying, “Yes, but the call to love the enemy was for Jesus a specific calling just for him; after all, his sacrifice on the cross was for the purpose of redemption.” A response to this is simple: One cannot claim Christ if one will not, at the same time, embrace Christ’s cross (Matt 16:24). Moreover, the call to love your enemy (Matt 5:43-47) is grounded in the identity of a perfect God who shows love to all (5:48). If the Body of Christ hung on a cross for friend and foe in the first century, then one should not kid themselves to think that the Body of Christ is not called to a cross for friend and foe in the twenty-first century.

But of course, this presents a problem for those of us living in the twenty-first century. The problem is that we have been so inoculated with cultural power and wealth and comfort in our culture that none of us desire to take on this new identity of love for others–at least not in the extreme way Jesus did. I am personally too proned to opt out of the Jesus Way for my world’s way of comfort. I love comfort.

That said, living in the West, I am also very much interested in Christ and Christianity. Christianity is part of my social fabric and heritage. And so, my competing lusts for power and comfort on the one hand and for Christ on the other reach a point of crisis. One option for me is to fully embrace my lust for power and comfort and simply abandon Christianity altogether. Another option is to do the opposite: shun my lust for power and comfort and heartily embrace Christianity. But the blessing (or perhaps curse) of living in a consumer-centered culture is that I have the ability to create a third option. That is, I could maintain an allegiance for Christ yet all the while remain self-centered in my lust for power and comfort. In a consumeristic world where my church attendance and religious affiliation is opened up to a free market of available options, it is pretty darn easy for me to simply choose the option that best fits my own taste–one that blesses me with the preservation of my lusts of power and comfort while allowing me to profess adoration for the idea of Jesus. Yes, the idea of Jesus is attractive.

As a result of this great act of religious entrepreneurship, my culture and I are now able to circumvent the choice between the love of God, love of Mammon, and love of Power by bringing these three together in a sort of twisted trinity. It is the best of both worlds: I get myself and Christ. But the reality is that what I get is not the true Christ. It is a tamed Christ, formed and fashioned in my own image. In a great act of blasphemy, I have reversed the creation account, making God the dirt, crafting him according to my will, and then enthroning myself as a god. The result is a Christ who is muted, one who can no longer say to Rich Young Rulers like myself: “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor.”

I am tempted to think that it is easy to be a Christian in our culture. I have come to conclude, however, that it is terribly difficult. In fact, it is difficult precisely because it is easy. One thing that I have learned is that we value things that come at great cost. For example, we will value a brand new corvette, protecting it from hail and bumps and scratches, more than we will value our recently-purchased twenty-year-old minivan. The reason, of course, is because we paid more for the corvette. The corvette, inevitably, will get more of our time and our attention and our devotion because we paid more for it. The reason Christianity is so terribly difficult in our culture is because it costs so very little to have it. Christianity gets very little of our time, attention, and devotion because we paid so little for it. It costs me nothing. Relationships that do not cost are relationships that are, by definition, cheap. A Christian’s relationship to Christ is no different. (By no means am I merely picking on the Christians in our culture as if we are horribly worse than others. After all, it is equally true that Christians in Africa, for example, have their own struggles and temptations. My present purpose here is to simply minister to my own culture, pointing out possible areas where repentance might need to occur in our specific lives as the church. If I were an Ethiopian Christian, I would be pointing out areas where we Ethiopian Christians had made serious compromises to our faith. Christ is able to critique the idols of every culture, including our own. Let us not refuse Christ when he desires to wash the feet of Saint Peter’s Church.)

It must be said, then, that the greatest temptation for us as American Christians is not that we will abandon Christianity for the ways of my world, but that we will embrace the ways of our world and call that Christianity. This is desolation. An abominable act of desolation. In fact, when those who profess Christ in the church and yet insist on living according to the ways of the world, the Bible is clear that such people are to be excluded from the congregation of Christ (1 Cor 5:9-13; Titus 3:10). In 1 Cor 5, for example, the professing Christian is defiling another person. Because this act was contrary to the ways of love, this person was commanded to either repent and start living a life of love or be excluded. In Titus 3, the person is a trouble-maker and is likewise not living out love for others. People like that person are to either repent and start living a life of love or be excluded from the church. The church is called to be “set apart” from the world by its very calling to include all people in acts of love; by doing so, we adopt our new Christ-identity. In other words, we begin to look more like Jesus. By refusing to do so, we adopt the world’s identity. In other words, we have very little share in Christ. In this sense, the church is both inclusive and exclusive, but the center is the same: sacrificial love for people. Unlike the world, our community is not dependant upon hate, but rather upon love. Our community is based upon love for people. And so the church is to be different, antithetically different, to the ways of the world. But I wonder if cultural Christianity has not blinded us to this greater reality.

If the church is built upon acts of love, and if Christ has shown us that love must, by definition, cross the world’s boundaries, then the church is called to be a church that crosses boundaries that the world has constructed. The church, unfortunately, has a tendency to follow the world’s boundaries and obey those boundaries. The church, while professing Christ with great adoration every Sunday, often fails to follow Christ across boundaries. We like the idea of Jesus, and we like the stories of Jesus talking with Samaritans and healing lepers, but the Samaritans and lepers of our culture have not taken a bath in the past year, so we find them undesireable. Showing Samaritans love is dirty and we are, therefore, uninterested in doing so. But the problem is not just that the church finds modern-day Samaritans uninteresting; the problem is that the modern-day church has itself become uninteresting (as Stanley Hauerwas often points out). There is nothing interesting about a modern-day church that prefers its own comforts and fame and power over radical acts of charity. Our dying world sees nothing unique and interesting about the modern-day church because we are so much like them: after comfort, wealth, and power. The fear I have about myself as a modern-day church person is that the only thing unique about me when compared to my world is not how I live differently from the world but that I speak highly of Jesus. That is, I know more Bible stories than the world, which might be interesting; but my life looks so much like the world, which makes me uninteresting. My fear is that as a modern-day churchman, I praise Jesus only with my lips, not with my hands and feet. (My feet, if you recall, are like Stubborn Peter’s: they are dirty and need of cleansing. Today is Thursday and Jesus has laid aside his outer garment, taken a towel, and grabbed water. And now, behold, he is approaching me. I object, though, because I am far too busy doing church.)

And so the church creates a golden calf and calls that calf Yahweh, worshipping its god in great religious fervor and devotion. The altars are full; revivals have come and gone with tears and fears. But nothing has stuck because such emotion cannot be sustained for too long. The problem is that, despite appearances, we might not have been worshipping God the way he desired. Could it be that we were worshipping our man-made image of God? It will take time to answer that question. We should chew on that a bit.

All the same, the church must do more than appear to be worshipping God; we must truly worship God. And the worship of God, to be sure, cannot take place where love for people is not taking place. Here is a truth that should not easily fade from our ears: The church loves God as much as it loves its own Samaritans. (Who might those people be?) In this way, we are called to cross boundaries. We are called to grab towels and water basins. But so long as we refuse to be washed by Jesus ourselves, we will never wash others in the name of Jesus. We should take seriously, therefore, the call to convert from being Stubborn Peter to being Saint Peter.

But first, we must make a decision. We will have to decide if we want the true Jesus or if we want the god of this world. The ways of this world is to sacrifice others for the sake of one’s own comfort. But the way of Jesus is to sacrifice our own comfort for the sake of one’s own neighbor. This is what Jesus did. And if Jesus Christ is Lord, then we must decide how we will live. We have to decide, first, who we are. Are we first citizens of this world, or are we first citizens of heaven? But again, the great cultural temptation is not that we will choose the world over Jesus but that we will confuse the ways of the world with the ways of Jesus. The great temptation is to allow ourselves to be grouped into the culture; the temptation is to confuse the fact that “we” the church is different from the “we” of our culture. We must determine who “we” are.

Stanley Hauerwas, a writer on Christian ethics, teaches by what he calls the “Tonto principle.” You know the stories of the Lone Ranger and his Native American companion, Tonto. On one occasion, as the story goes, the Lone Ranger and Tonto found themselves surrounded by 20,000 warring Sioux Indians. The Lone Ranger looked over at Tonto and said, “This is a bad situation, Tonto. What do you think we should do?” Tonto replies, “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?”

Stanley Hauerwas is correct: When it comes to our identities, we Christians need to decide who “we” are going to be. Are “we” first followers of Jesus Christ, or are “we” first citizens of the world? The way we can answer that question is by asking whose ways we follow. Some of the Jewish people claimed to have Abraham as their father, but Jesus said they were really sons of the devil (John 8:39-47). In all appearance, these particular Jews looked like God’s people—they prayed at Temple, they read their Bibles. But they acted evil. The real question for the church is whose ways have we adopted? The ways of the world or the ways of Jesus? Despite the temptation, we cannot have both.

The crux of the matter is that the self-centered ways of the world are antithetical to the love-filled ways of Christ. This is a harsh reality for me as a Son of Adam whose name is “Cain.” Indeed, I am Cain.

But thanks be to God that he, through the sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth, has offered me a new name for free. He has offered me a new identity. He has offered us all a new name for free. This new identity is necessarily coupled with a new way of living, that is, in radical love for all. We are to love as we have been loved.

Our old identity, like Cain, sought to turn man back into dust. Our new identity in Christ reverses the ways of Cain and the ways of this world: It brings us back to life. (This Sunday, some women will discover something earth-shaking.) The Gospel calls us to live fully alive lives. The world is dead in its hate, but the church is to be the spark of life by the way of love. If you want to know what it means to be truly human, do not admire the ways of Cain but the ways of Christ, whose boundary-breaking love on the cross disarmed the powers of hell, breathing life once again into Adam. But of course, the way Jesus broke boundaries was not through power, but through weakness. It was through the cross. Jesus broke boundaries by laying aside his plans, his wants, his desires for the sake of others. For the sake of you. He had to die.

We must ask, then, in light of this fact: What does it mean to worship a crucified Lord in the 21st century? If the boundaries of heaven did not keep back the King of heaven from showing love to the sons and daughters of earth, how must we live today? Is there not now an obligation upon us? If freely we have been given, should we not freely give? Indeed, the call to Jesus is a call to die. The altars of revival are normally full when we promise comfort and peace and joy, etc. But the call to Jesus is a sombering call, and the altars are often found empty. The people of God normally run away from such calls—Jesus is left to take his cross alone while the disciples flee in fear that their lives of comfort will be taken from them. John abandons Jesus; Stubborn Peter denies Jesus.

Truly, truly I say unto us all: Our obligation is to love others—all others—even at great cost to ourselves. But the only way to do this, the only way to live fully alive lives, is to take the time away from our busy lives and let Jesus stoop down and love us. It is terribly awkward, but it is necessary.

Our church family desperately needs to settle better into this type of worship, don’t we? We are too loud; we talk too much; we do too much; too busy; we have too many plans; we do everything but settle into the presence of God in a quiet rest. As a church family, together, we need to find more rest during each of our gatherings. Each Sunday, we need simply to be washed in the Word, cleansed by the Sacraments, refreshed by the waters of Song and Prayer. The world’s culture finds all this boring; and the entertainment-focused modern church finds it unexciting. But who cares? I am personally bored with the world’s busyness, and the modern-church’s focus on entertainment is emotionally exhausting and entirely uninteresting. True, Martha appears holy in her busyness; but Mary is holy by simply existing in quietness before Jesus (Luke 10:38-42). One wonders if the modern-day church has looked too often to Martha for a model of worship when Jesus, all along, has been pointing us to Mary. Martha was too busy trying her best to serve Jesus; Mary was better for being served by Jesus. In this way, she became a better servant herself.

Let us remember the words of Jesus to his contrary disciple, Peter: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8). Peter might have been known as “Stubborn Peter,” but by taking the time to let Jesus love him, he was being converted from Stubborn to Saint. “Lord, not my feet only,” Saint Peter says, “but also my hands and my head!” (v.9).

Indeed, Lord, wash us and make us fit for service.

May God bless St. Peter’s Church as she witnesses his love this Maundy Thursday.

Amen.

Eucharistō, 2

Eucharistō, 2

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

Two thousand years ago, the Body of Christ was called to bear the burdens of both friend and enemy, speaking truth to power and grace to the humbled “other.”

Both Pilate’s power and Caiaphas’ religion were illusory. The embodied presence of Jesus, in perfect union with the Father, stood before both men and, as a result, before us all. We are Pilate’s brood, Caiaphas’ progeny. The history of human relations speaks to this fact. Like Pilate, we are often seduced by power, lured away by its promise of pleasure. Our religion helps little, for like Caiaphas, our religion is often hypocritical, useful for nothing more than selfish gain. In an act of worship, we are too easily infatuated with either Pilate’s grandiose power or Caiaphas’ pompous garb. And when the twain meet in the hearts and souls of people, lambs often get slaughtered. In fact, they do.

Behold the Lamb. Jesus was not crucified because he was nice, but because he was subversive, a non-violent threat to those who knew only the way of violence. Jesus’ love was a threat precisely because it was a truth that contradicted the ways of both Pilate and Caiaphas–ways still as seductive today as they were in the first century.

But the Jesus Way, though it be known as the fool’s way (see 1 Cor 1:18), is the way embraced by the Jesus people. We will cling to the old rugged cross – more than a song; it is a way of life. Admittedly, this is not the way to earthly power. And still, our attention is quickly attracted to Jesus’ Ways. There is something curious about him and his way of the cross, something mysteriously curious. Even Pilate finds him interesting enough to dialogue with for a time. Though initially captivated by Jesus, our lust for power and prestige soon tames our interest, drawing us to something more exciting, more secure. To people like me and you – to Pilate and Caiaphas – interest in the Jesus Way is “terrifically difficult to sustain” (E. Peterson).

But the way of Jesus is the way to future resurrection, if we want it. The cross-people are accused of being drunk on what Caiaphas and Pilate consider an untenable folly. “What is truth?” they ask.

Though the cross-people are put to open shame by both the worshippers of Rome and the admirers of the Temple, they press on unashamed in their proclamation of the Good News that Jesus – and he alone – is Lord. Pilate and Caiaphas have conspired that such confessions merit death: The Lamb will die. To the cross, they cling. Indeed. But soon: from the tomb they spring.

There is a temptation to separate one’s confession from one’s way of living. It is easy to be a Christian confessor while not being a Christian practitioner. “Easy” because it escapes death. But surely this is nonsense. The way of Christ cannot be so easily separated from the Christ-ian. The Body of Christ is a unified Body in both confession and practice. All who partake of the Body, then, should seek to be the hands and feet of the Body. We have a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on. Some of those cheering us on have heard for themselves the chorus of a loud Roman colosseum that sang harmony with the roar of a charging lion. In an act of Holy Communion, therefore, let us do more than learn from these Saints; let us participate (koinonia) with them in their witness to power’s religion and religion’s power: When persecuted by both, they prayed; they did not fight back.

And so today, the Body of Christ is called to bear the burdens of both friend and enemy, speaking truth to power and grace to the humbled “other.”

May God grant his church strength. Let us pray for one another. Amen.

-Written by a recovering Caiaphas/Pilate.

Eucharistō, 1

Eucharistō, 1

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

We take Communion regularly and often at our church. The question that always (and rightfully) comes up is the question of “meaningfulness”–will it lose its “meaning” if we take it too often? I’ll answer that in two ways:

(1) My short answer: I don’t know. Maybe.

(2) My longer (better) answer:

I can only answer this question from the perspective of my own experience. How meaningful is Communion for our particular church family? Truth be told: Communion is regularly meaningful for us as often as our belief “Christ crucified” is meaningful to us. (Read that sentence a couple of times.)

Central to our faith is Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Our church is a bunch of sinners–the most depraved person in our church happens to be the pastor. And so for a mixed bag of recovering transgressors–fallen and depraved as we are–we still strive regularly and often to bind ourselves together; we come together weekly as a holy community in unity, always thankful and dependent on Jesus’ grace. Therefore, as those who have been redeemed, we are simply not in a position to de-emphasize “Christ crucified.” There’s really no way around it–we are too impoverished without him. It’s a sacred (indeed, precious) truth. And so with this mentality in place, it’s terribly hard for Communion to lose its meaning. Why? Because we see it as a eucharistic meal, i.e., a meal of “thanksgiving.” A Christian’s gratitude is like a deep ocean that can, if unleashed, drown out any sense of meaninglessness. Thus the words “meaningless communion” are oxymoronic. It is a phrase which ought to be seen as, well, meaningless.

Of course, though, we will struggle in the battle for “meaningfulness.” In fact, we do.

Perhaps the following will be helpful:

We take offering at our church every Sunday–often and regularly. It loses its intended meaning for us from time to time, as we forget that this act of giving is to be a worshipful act. I have personally given money to the church, for example, all the while forgetting that this should be a meaningful act of worship and not some mere formal “add-on” to the service. But instead of scrapping our time of “tithes and offering,” we use it as an opportunity to remind ourselves that it is in fact about worship. Instead of doing away with this opportunity for worship altogether, we disciple our way through it. Likewise, we sing every Sunday–often and regularly. We are led by a great, Spirit-led minister, as well as by other talented, worshipful musicians and singers. And yet, there are times when even I, the pastor, struggle to sing these beautiful songs as worship. Sometimes I find myself just moving my mouth–how shameful! But I continue to fight for meaningfulness in both my giving and singing. Instead of doing away with these opportunities altogether, I’m extremely grateful we keep doing them–often and regularly each and every Sunday. When I am weak, the reoccurring, weekly holy worship of Jesus draws me back in. When the temptation comes for these things to “lose meaning,” I don’t run; I enter the fight. I refocus. I repent and re-engage. The battle for meaningfulness is a worthy fight. Let us go and learn what this means: When marriage (a holy union) loses its sense of meaningfulness, the last thing you need to do is discard it altogether; it’s better to fight for meaningfulness in your holy union than do away with it. It’s a worthy fight. Stay married; stay singing; keep giving. Indeed, perseverance is nourishment to the soul. (He who has ears to hear, let him hear).

My personal thoughts as a pastor:

(1) When Jesus speaks, I desire to listen. Even when his words disturb (perhaps even subvert) my preconceived sensibilities and assumptions and beliefs, I want to listen. Even when his words confront my unholy thoughts and preconceived ways of “doing church,” I want to allow him to be Lord of the church… even when it hurts (recall: holiness is a battle).

And so, he speaks to me:

As a pastor, I am told to be attentive to the needs of the church. God’s people need nourishment and life (John 6:53-58); the church needs participation in Christ (1 Cor 10:16 – what a confrontational little text!). As a pastor, I don’t want to starve the sheep; I’m called to help feed them (John 21:17).

(2) There is nothing more satisfying to me than when the people come forward, one by one, to the front of the sanctuary to be fed during Holy Communion. It is there where I get to be used by God at the Table to serve and wait on his people; this is my holy work. There is nothing more enriching than when I get to tell each of them individually as they receive the elements, saying, “This is the body of Christ for you.”

It is at this time when God’s people get to, I pray, meaningfully experience God. During such meaningful times, Holy Communion is always:

Participatory, yet individual. Spiritual, yet tangible. Body, yet bread. Blood, yet wine. Heaven, yet earth. It is here when pagan dualism breaks down–when the bread is broken and the cup is poured and the saints partake.

I love these Holy moments. Words cannot describe the happiness I have when I get to see the saints “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps 34:8).

Christ is a wonderful gift–available to all who would have him. And so I ask the following question with all of its intended (and yet ever-biblical) ambiguity:

“Are you in communion with the Body of Christ?”

In Defense of the Mundane and Monotonous

In Defense of the Mundane and Monotonous

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

My typical response to the monotony of life–that is, to the humdrum, seemingly-insignificant, mundane, day-in and day-out routines that so often bore me (and perhaps all of us) to bits–has been to disregard it as anything good, just, or holy. When a person lives in a field that is sprinkled with the less-than-desirable blooms of regularity and monotony, the grass always appears greener on the other side. Find something more exciting, more entertaining, we think, something that has the lure of a deeper and more flashy spirituality. Much of American spirituality is indeed built upon the enticement of change and spontaneity. And, oftentimes, these are incorporated into the church and its services and, from there, labeled and understood by the church as “holy.” It is true that, for much of us worshipping from within Western church culture, we have come to view monotony as “unspiritual” and have, as a result, traded it out for spontaneity as the only “spiritual” alternative.

But, in defense of what I might term holy monotony, let me demur a bit in what follows.

I have kids.

Three of them. And because of these three blessings, our house is full of happiness–it is a cradle of fun, excitement, laughs, astronauts, princesses, baby dolls, lightsabers, as well as, to be sure, the regular flow of tears and fears (from both kids and parents alike).

Ray Romano was correct when he said that having children is a lot like living in a frat house: nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up. His point, I think, is so humorous because it can be universally validated by parents everywhere. He hits on something all parents experience, namely, the messiness of parenting. And it is a monotonous messiness: We are constantly finding toys and trinkets in the couch–along with candy, gum, and other sticky (messy) stuff. When kids are young, there is no let up. Monotony. But it is a holy monotony. Every loving parent will readily tell you that, despite the (constant) chaos and the (regular) hardships that come with parenting, they would not trade it for anything else. Give them the world, and they would throw it back. We parents love our kids. We parents love our work. Few would put it exactly this way, but every parent would agree with its basic sentiment: parenting, even with the monotony and mundane nature of the work itself, is nonetheless holy work.

In the course of learning what it means to raise kids, as well as becoming the parent I want to be (as opposed to, at times, being the parent I actually am!), I have learned much about the significant role prayer plays in the process. As a result, I have come to develop a habit, one that I carry out without fail, every night before I go to bed. Each night, once the kids are fast asleep, I walk into their room, give them a brief passing gaze and then bow my head to pray. The prayers vary, though they are always built upon one thing: gratitude to God. I pray with a sincere thankfulness for the gift they are. I am undeserving, and I know it. Yet God is scandalously giving, and I will know that too. I pray without fail. Regularly. Monotonously. Their bedroom, littered with dolls and lightsabers, is holy ground for me. With the same reverence and regularity as the high priest who would do his holy work in the Holy of Holies, I do my holy work–every night, in the same way, around the same time, in an ever-sacred monotonous sort of way.

All of this has taught me something special about the reality of worshipful monotony–both individually as a Christian and corporately as a member of the Body of Christ, not least as a shepherd of a local congregation.

Let me speak as a pastor, then.

There is a tendency to divide churches as being either “liturgical” or “non-liturgical.”  These are helpful descriptions, I suppose. Some churches are less-inclined to follow a set and established and traditioned pattern of worship than others. For some within the so-called “free church movement” (speaking quite broadly and generally), liturgy is not adhered to all that much. It is, after all, considered to be too mechanical and formulaic, and hence, unspiritual. Such churches value spontaneity over and against regularity. And those who worship from within this tradition do so at times from the mindset that to diverge from a spontaneous-centered pattern of worship is to somehow “quench the Spirit.” I often hear that, “If we do things too regularly in our services, then those things (communion, for instance) will lose value and meaning; we must never cement ourselves, then, into a regular pattern worship–we must avoid such unspiritual, liturgical structures.”

I once thought this way, too. But then I heard a pastor (a Baptist at that!) say one time, “The Spirit can be just as much in the planning as he can be in the spontaneity.” With those words, I was awakened to a fresh understanding of worship. Could non-spontaneous and patterned worship be holy? I definitely think so.

I have come to believe that there are at least two problems with the idea that a regular, liturgical pattern of worship is bad. First, every church has a liturgy. I always chuckle when I hear non-liturgical believers bemoan and deride their liturgical brothers and sisters. After all, and ironically, even non-liturgical churches themselves have a regular pattern of spontaneous worship. Theirs is simply a liturgy of irregularity. It is not that they do not have a liturgy; they do. It is just that they have not yet come to recognize it.

Moreover, in my days of looking down on those who would, say, choose to pray pre-written prayers (as opposed to the more “spiritual” act of spontaneously making it up on the spot), I now, looking back, discover my past self to have been in a bit of hypocrisy: for even I, when asked to pray publicly over a meal, would mutter the same exact phrases and words each time. How many times, over and over again, have we heard our non-liturgical Christian brothers and sisters pray prayers like, “Father, bless this food to our body, and our body to your service. Amen.” If you ask them to pray over the next meal the next day, the prayer will usually take the same form. 

In similar ways, even in the free churches, liturgy exists (however unnoticed). To say nothing in regard to their sincerity, even those more independent spirits who bemoan and eschew patterned and tradition-based worship cannot escape the fact that they, too, have their own preferred pattern of worship and are likewise part of a tradition. Even if their tradition is a tradition-less one, they are still part of a continuous fabric of effective-history–what the Germans call Wirkungsgeschichte. One’s history and tradition are operative and effective in how one goes about life, interpretation, and even worship patterns. In the end, much grace needs to be extended to all worshippers in various Christian traditions without the boast of having supposedly risen above being in a tradition. A person can no more ignore the fact of their embeddedness within a tradition than one can separate being wet from wetness.

Second, the argument against liturgy as being “non-spiritual” because it becomes too regular assumes, at its core, that all monotony is necessarily unholy. Prayer times with my kids have taught me differently. My own pattern of worship at home is built upon the opposite assumption. That is to say, I believe that the regular, monotonous, and seemingly “mundane” repetition of the same prayers each night for my children give witness to the fact that, truly, there is nothing unspiritual about routine and, by extension, liturgy itself. Just because liturgy and monotony can be (and has been) abused in the past does not mean it is inherently bad in the present. I look forward to my monotonous prayers each night, for they are holy prayers to God on behalf of my kids. Holy prayers. Holy monotony. 

So what does all of this mean? I am barely in my thirties, and yet the longer I live, and the longer I (as a pastor) guide people to recognize the grace of God operating in their everyday lives, the more I have come to realize that true spirituality is not about evading the monotonous character of life, the mundane nature of living, or the humdrum patterns of parenting, working, or worshipping. We cannot escape liturgy, for it is who we are. It is better, I think, to embrace and worship in the mundane than it is to attempt to escape it. It might be wise to look at the ancients on this one. For in our modern world where life takes place in such rapid, ever-changing fashion–in a time when speed is considered a virtue, spontaneity a spiritual idol, and the mundane holy work of parenting robbed of its inherent holy status–it might be relevant to recall the ancient poets, especially when they speak of how God remains “the same” and how his “years have no end” (Psalm 102:27). 

They remind us that God is the constant in an unconstant world, that he is the Unchanging One in a world so obsessed with the next best thing. God is the steady (monotonous!) Rock of Ages. The poets’ words might prove to be a needed shock to a world full of unsteady people who have lost their ability to perceive the holiness of their mundane and monotonous work.

Perhaps our individual and corporate worship patterns could stand to be re-shaped to better, and more accurately, reflect God’s own unchanging, constant, and steady character? 

Holy Communion: A Plea for Congregational and Ecumenical Unity

Holy Communion: A Plea for Congregational and Ecumenical Unity

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

Before I begin discussing the importance of Christian unity and our call to work toward it, let me be clear by saying first that I think it is dangerous to pursue unity at all costs. There are, to be sure, things worth dividing over. Think, for example, of Paul’s remarks to the church at Corinth concerning immorality (1 Cor. 5) and likewise his message to the Galatians over the issue of adding “works of the law” to their faith in Christ (Gal.1:8). For Christians, truth is important, and the church must hold fast to conviction. The fact is that there is such a thing as heresy, and we cannot afford to compromise what is essential to Christianity. Therefore, in extreme cases, division might very well be healthy. In other words, we do not pursue unity at all costs.

That said, I fear that if we are not careful as Christians, we will not give proper weight to the important role unity must play in the life of the church as well. I fear that we Protestants, who have protest running through our veins, might be tempted to forget that, in addition to being called to contend for the Faith (Jude 1:3) even to the point of division if necessary, are also called to foster and work toward visible unity among others who reside in the Faith. This includes working toward unity not just within our local congregations (a very important component to our calling), but also with those of other orthodox Christian traditions.

It is in Jesus’ priestly prayer in John 17 where we see most clearly why unity is important. Jesus prays,

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23 NIV)

Jesus’ prayer here reveals his desire for his people: unity. Oneness with both God and each other is his will. Why is unity important? It is important for the church because of a watching world. When unity exists in the church, among the people of God, then, says Jesus, “the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (v.23).” The clear point here is that there is a missional consequence to having (or lacking) visible unity.

One of the most powerful ways to bear witness, that is, to proclaim Good News, to the world is to bear the marks of Christian unity. As I said above, the world is watching. They watch how we act and how we interact; they listen when we talk with, and when we balk against, one another. The fundamental question, therefore, that we need to be asking as Christians is not, Are we representing Christ to the world?, but rather, How are we representing Christ to the world? To be sure, we are always putting Christ on public display. The question, then, is, Are we bringing glory or disdain to him as we display him?

As we eavesdrop on Jesus’ conversation with the Father, perhaps we could afford to do a good checkup on ourselves: How committed are we to local, congregational unity? Are we actively engaged in seeking oneness in our congregations, or are we sacrificing our brothers and sisters on the altar of self-absorption? Are we even committed to a local body of believers? Likewise, we must also ask, How committed are we to true, ecumenical unity? Do we see ourselves, our particular tribe and denomination, as part of a larger body of believers, or do we arrogantly shut our ears to meaningful dialogue and communion with others who worship in other Christian traditions? A self-checkup begins, I think, by evaluating our prayer life. Are we prayerfully making war against the principalities and rulers of this present age that are working to ensure a spirit of disunity in both the local and catholic Body of Christ?

In light of the rugged individualism, as well as the lust for personal autonomy, that so permeates much of evangelical culture in the West, it is necessary that we pay close attention to Jesus’ prayer above. When Jesus says, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (vv. 20-21), the Lord’s heart could not be more clear: the church is called, indeed commissioned, to be just as unified with each other as Jesus is to the Father. His heart is “that [the church] may be one as we are one” (v.22). A question, I think, which ought to be considered is, Can this be said of today’s church? It seems that the contemporary church has advocated for too long a sort of “Christian” reductionism. That is to say, in much of what is considered Protestantism, a person’s Christian identity has been reduced down to nothing but one’s personal relationship with Christ. The Christian Faith, it seems, to many Evangelicals in particular is nothing more than a one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ. To be sure, an individual relationship with Jesus is important, but what about a relationship with the church? Much of Evangelicalism, in what I consider to be a betrayal of historic Protestantism itself, has unfortunately emphasized the former to the demise of the latter. We have, in other words, driven an unscriptural wedge between “having a relationship with Jesus” and “having a relationship with the church.” For many American Protestants, for example, church is not essential. In our consumer-driven culture, church has become an optional choice. “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian,” many say to me. My response to this, not least as a pastor, is simple: I wonder whether a branch can have any life without being attached to a vine?

I wonder, too, if church-less Christianity is even scriptural. As it has been said many times over, the New Testament knows of no lone-ranger, church-less Christian (except, of course, in those cases where a believer is put outside the church in an act of discipline; see 1 Cor. 5). And even in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, notice again what is said: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity” (vv.22-23). It is fairly evident, I think, that the Lord himself sees a Christian’s unity with other Christians as part and parcel with what it means to be united to him and, through him, with the Father. That is, a person would be hard-pressed to say they can have a viable relationship with Jesus without, at the same time, expressing that in unity with the church. A person, it seems, cannot effectively have one without the other. It must be said, then, that even though rugged individualism and self-consumed autonomy finds welcome space in much of today’s evangelical culture, one must confess that it finds no warrant in Christian Scripture.

It is important for Christians–for me, you, and believers everywhere–to work toward, and pray for, Christian unity. This includes attaching and committing ourselves to a band of believers in  our local area. But Christian unity does not happen magically when we join a group. The real work happens, rather, when we live and pray and cry and laugh and mourn and lament together. These opportunities happen in the various seasons of life, seasons which, through their coming and going in the passing of time, become real only in a long journey together. Thus, Christian unity can only be fostered through time(s) with one another. In other words, we will need to commit to the church for the long-haul. And the same must be said on the ecumenical front. We will not always agree with one another on every secondary issue, and I am not even suggesting that we should, but the Lord’s prayer is that everyone within the world-wide Holy Communion would welcome and receive one another just as he himself has already received us, namely, with much grace and patience.

Let us pray and work, therefore, toward our Lord’s vision. Amen.

You Aren’t Called To Do Everything: Say “No” to Busy

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

“But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction” (2 Chr. 26:16).

So says the Jewish Chronicler about King Uzziah. An otherwise good king, Uzziah fails miserably in the end. The beginning of his story is marked by sincerity and obedience toward God. The scripture says, “And [Uzziah] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according all that his father Amaziah had done. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper” (2 Chr. 26:4-5). 

Like many, King Uzziah’s life began with, as I said above, sincerity. You get the sense from the text that he really wanted to follow God with all of his soul. And for the most part he did. The problem, however, was that his sincerity soon gave way to pride and arrogance. During his reign, he was quite successful, and his fame was said to have spread far and wide (vv.6-15). And the Chronicler was careful to note that King Uzziah’s good fortunes were the result of God’s own help (v.7). Toward the end of this otherwise good story, we read that, “his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong” (v.15).

Notice those last words: “till he was strong.” God had been gracious to King Uzziah–after all, Uzziah himself began his reign with a humble posture toward God and, as a result, was able to receive goodness from God. But having experienced such great successes and even prosperity, Uzziah began to forget God’s kindness to him, focusing rather upon his own strength and might. Verse 16 says so much. “But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction” (v.16).

The interesting thing here is the form that Uzziah’s pride took. Here’s the rest of the passage in context:

But when he became strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. But Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty priests of the LORD who were men of valor, and they withstood the King Uzziah and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful, and it will bring you no honor from the LORD God. Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priest in the house of the LORD, by the altar of incense. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous on his forehead. And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him. And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the LORD. And Jotham his son was over the king’s household, governing the people of the land” (vv.16-21).

The scene begins with King Uzziah walking into the Temple, proceeding to burn incense before God. But the reality was that the Law did not allow for anyone other than priests to offer incense (Num 16:40). This was only reserved for Aaron’s descendants (Ex 30:1-10), not for a king. In the wisdom of God, living under the Old Covenant was a sort of de-centralized endeavor for God’s people. That is, not one person, or even one group of persons, were called to do everything. Some were called to be kings, some priests, some prophets, others farmers or whatever. But all the same, not one person was to do everything in Jewish life. After all, Israel was not to be a cult, centered upon only one celebrity leader. Yet, this is exactly where the King found himself drifting. He was a royal celebrity, after all, with fame and fortune. He began to get a big head, and as scripture says, pride comes right before a fall (Prov 16:18). King Uzziah’s own fall began with the rise of his own pride. He was so successful, so prosperous, that he began to think he could do anything. In fact, one wonders if Uzziah thought he could do everything. Perhaps that’s why he took upon himself the role of a priest. But, again, he was called to be a king, not a priest. This act was one of rebellion, plain and simple.

For those living in our 21st-century culture, I think a couple of insights and principles can be gleaned from this story. First, we need to realize that burning incense in the Temple was part of the worship service and therefore a good thing. In a sense (no pun intended), there was nothing wrong in what was done (namely, burning incense). The problem was that this particular service was not his to carry out. I think pastors, as well as every minister (whether lay or ordained) serving in the church, can be tempted to make the same mistake. If you are a minister (again, of any sort), read these words slowly: You weren’t called to do everything. You may try if you wish (as many do), but this will be to your own destruction. There is a huge temptation in our fast-paced, get-it-done-myself culture that draws ministers toward King Uzziah’s mindset–namely, the mindset that you can do everything and anything. Yes, I know. It’s hardly ever done with bad intentions or in explicit selfishness. In fact, most busy ministers are busy precisely because they don’t have bad intentions or selfishness. Rather, they busy themselves in a multitude of areas out of sincerity and compassion for others. Most busy pastors want to help as many people as they can, counsel as many people as possible, spend time preparing quality sermons, expend themselves making sure a mission trip happens, consume themselves with administrative issues or with raising funds for the next building project. It is always sincere. I am sure that King Uzziah had good motives and well-intentioned thoughts about what he was doing. It’s a good thing to do, he thought. I am after all serving God in worship, he probably mused. But worship service, even if it is driven by sincerity, can actually be destructive if not done appropriately (that’s a good word to consider). Exhaustion is a spiritual leprosy, a disease that all too often begins in the sanctuary if we aren’t careful. 

Second, you must know yourself and your gifts. If you take an honest assessment of how God has gifted (and hence, called) you to serve, then you will know where you can be most effective, as well as know where you are most limited. King Uzziah failed to do this. In his mind, he was gifted in everything and limited to nothing. He was too proud, and the Bible describes his actions as “unfaithful” (v.18). King Uzziah, by dabbling into what was only reserved by Law for priests, became unfaithful not just to the Law, but also to his own calling as King. This is interesting because when those who minister in today’s world begin to take on more than they are called to do (or more than they are gifted to do), they are really being unfaithful. This is ironic because, often, our busyness in the church is seen by others as tremendous faithfulness; pastoral busyness is seen as a spiritual feat to be imitated. But busyness is not rooted in faithfulness; it is an offshoot of pride. But this type of pride is unique, perhaps of the worst sort. After all, it does not look like pride; as we say, it looks like faithfulness. It is therefore the most deceptive sort of pride, and because of this, it is the most destructive. We cannot be too careful here. What looks faithful and good and pleasing to the eye can often prove to be quite deadly. Busyness is the turf of serpents.

Our culture is all about the product and therefore idolizes productivity. As a result, I reckon, we have adopted an unhealthy mindset that multi-tasking is the great virtue. In the West–not least in the western church–doing much is good, and more of that is better. The overpowering American concept of “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” has permeated every area of our lives–even, yes, church life. This was, in a sense, King Uzziah’s own problem and downfall. The serpent whispers quite convincingly, “burn the incense yourself.” By way of analogy, this proves to be our own peril–by burning another person’s incense, we end up burning out. Exhaustion really is spiritual leprosy. Like King Uzziah, you will be forced out of the truly effective life and driven to a house of regret and, often, loneliness. We were meant for Eden, but we’ve settled for a lonely and dry wilderness. Again, the turf of serpents. 

Saying “no” to busyness is a dangerous proposition. Our fast-paced culture will call you lazy, after all. The spirit that rules our times, like a cruel slavemaster, pushes and pushes us to constantly work, stretching ourselves to areas we have no business being busy in (read that slowly). But we have to respond with a resounding “No!” The cultural spirit, hating that word, will label you a glutton. But that’s okay; you are in good company. If the life of Jesus ever taught us anything, then we will surely know that it is better to be denounced by the culture (and religious people who have been inoculated with it) than to be denounced by God; better to be unfaithful to cultural norms than biblical ones. It’s tempting to always jump around, dabbling in this church program or exhausting oneself in that ministry. It looks good to appear busy and active and part of the action. But as Eugene Peterson says, “The pastoral itch to be ‘where the action is’ should be resisted.”

Yes.

The fact is, you are not called to do everything, mainly because you can’t. You will end up being unfaithful to the ministry you are called to if you spend so much time operating outside your own giftedness. So, don’t do that. Don’t operate outside your spiritual gifts. Find your ministry, the one that is energizing, not exhausting. Find your passion and don’t get distracted from it (no matter how lucrative it sounds). Find your gifts–your spiritual tools–and use them. But just remember, if your particular tools are hammers and nails, then that probably means you aren’t called to a life of painting (and so, don’t try to spend your life painting). Like every construction site, the church is being built up, and we need different people doing different things in order to grow effectively and in unity (Eph 4:11-16). An unhealthy busyness is simply distracting to our being effective in the church.

Therefore, say no to busy distractions and yes to your calling.

Indeed, say no to busy distractions so that you can say yes to your calling.

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This was an article I shared with our Pastoral Leadership Team at my church. If you found it helpful, please feel free to share it with your church’s leaders as well. 

Evangelicalism and Anti-intellectualism: Two Proposals

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

American evangelicalism remains an interesting segment of the greater Christian tradition. I personally think that conservative evangelicalism is being reshaped in this country, not least due to the recent political questions and debates that have emerged (see here for what I am talking about). This is not, in my mind, a bad thing, though time will tell if this “reshaping” is going to result in something good or not. We shall see. At any rate, what has become particularly interesting to me is how evangelicals view the role of education in the life and practice of the church. I plan to muse a bit more on this subject down the road, but I want to flesh out some preliminary and provisional thoughts, as well as some observations I have made personally over the past several years.

Here is my thesis: The American evangelical church has a strong tendency toward anti-intellectualism. I am by no means the first to recognize this. But presently, I want to discuss why our anti-intellectual bias is a bad thing—a terribly bad thing.

Over the years, I have heard things like, “Theological education will take the evangelistic zeal out of you” or “Learning about the history of the Bible is not what being a Christian is all about.” I even once heard a person say, “You may read the Bible in Greek, but I read it in the Holy Spirit.”

Huh? I’m not even sure what to do with that last one!

I have come to learn that these reactions are actually based upon more underlying problems within conservative evangelicalism, namely, a stunted view of the life of the mind. It was Mark Noll who said, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” He was correct. It is all the more unfortunate that anti-intellectualism has become a sort of modus operandi for the church. For example, in some evangelical traditions, people need not prepare to become a pastor; the only requirement is to be “called.” If they are “called,” then that is all that matters. I think this can be dangerous. Interestingly, most people prefer going to a medical doctor who has been educated, someone who has set aside years of their life to study medicine, chemistry, and physiology. I’m sure that God could miraculously equip a person with the knowledge needed to become a medical doctor overnight, “calling” him or her to the medical field; I suspect, however, that he uses other means to equip them—specifically, the discipline to work hard through years of medical school. We applaud our medical doctors for having devoted years to research, study, and practice, but when it comes to matters concerning the evangelical church, education matters little. (I wonder if this is not due, at least in part, to the fact that evangelicals have grown obsessed with “quick fixes” and have little motivation for things that take time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears—things like education.)

Of course, formal education is expensive these days, and so I understand why it is often out of reach for most people, not to mention ministers (perhaps we ought to do something about this?). I am not at all saying that those who are formally educated are better or smarter than those who are not; there have been notable and influential people, after all, who were self-educated. Formal education is neither here nor there; but education itself remains important. After all, our anti-intellectual leanings present a noticeable problem for conservative evangelicals, one that comes with dire consequences. One of those consequences is that evangelicals come off looking silly or confused or both—and that before an unbelieving world. Making statements like the ones quoted above betrays our calling to excellence. As a result, our witness comes off as being irrelevant. And why shouldn’t it? It is always appropriate to question the relevance of any group that shuns knowledge and applauds its own lack of it.  We can do better!

But the fact is that knowledge and education are both necessary components for the existence and well-being of the church. Take, for example, the significance of being educated in the biblical languages. Some evangelicals I have met laugh away at such things as being “too scholarly” and therefore “not relevant.” In light of these charges, a question needs to be asked: Is knowing Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic required for reading the Bible? I say, yes. I will even take it one step further. Without knowledge of the original languages, there is absolutely no way you can read your Bible. It is absolutely impossible.

Obviously, I am not saying you cannot read the Bible if you do not know the original languages. By no means. What I am saying, rather, is that somebody must have known the original languages in order for you to read your english Bible. For you to be able to pick up your Bible and read it, there must have been a person to translate it into English in the first place. So yes, knowledge of the original languages is a must. Either you will need to have been educated in the languages or you will need to rely on an educated translator’s version. But make no mistake about it: Knowledge of the original languages is required—either from you or someone else. In this case, education is not a mere flowery benefit or some abstract scholarly endeavor; it is a practical necessity.

I only mention the language bit above so as to make a general point, namely, that education is important. But I also wish to highlight the fact that, specifically, theological education is necessary for the church. Again, however, many evangelicals continue to think otherwise, feeling as though intellectual pursuits are somehow necessarily rooted in pride and arrogance. But this is simply not true. Some of the most humble people I have met have been scholars; and some of the most arrogant have been those who take pride in their ignorance. For someone to boast about their abundant knowledge is distasteful, yes. But for someone to boast about their ignorance is more than distasteful, it’s dangerous. The consequences of our anti-intellectual bent are dangerous. (I will tease this last part out later down the road.)

I suspect that anti-intellectualism is less a problem than it is a symptom. Maybe we need to first address why evangelicalism is prone toward an anti-intellectual bias. I feel the underlying issues here are deep, and I reckon that there are both philosophical and theological reasons for why we are bent that way. (I’m still working through these things, and I plan to lay out some thoughts in the weeks ahead.)

In the meantime, I want to offer two preliminary proposals.

First, perhaps evangelicals should stop and think. Maybe we should re-think our assumptions that education is not relevant for the church, for our communities, for our mission. After all, as we have seen above, education is very practical and beneficial. It is necessary even. We should also consider our Christian calling, for God calls us to a life of right thinking and calls us to flourish in our pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, and discernment (Rom 12:2; Phil 1:9-10). Thinking is not an option. We all engage in the act of thinking. The question is whether or not our thinking is informed or uninformed, educated or uneducated, wise or foolish. It has been my experience that the church is hungry for education, for in-depth training, for catechesis. It is true that not everyone feels called to master the Greek New Testament or philosophical hermeneutics or the ins-and-outs of second temple Judaism, and that’s okay. We are all gifted differently, and we each have our respective ministries. But having offered more in-depth classes within a church setting, I can say that there is a huge thirst among our people for it. The question for us pastors and teachers is, Will we feed the sheep?

Second, perhaps evangelicals should stop and thank. Maybe we should take a step back from our anti-intellectual tendencies and thank God for the scholar. This could be good for the evangelical soul. I recall a few years ago having a lively (not to mention informative) conversation with a Catholic monk. In the midst of our conversation, he was quick to assert that, “If it were not for us monks, you wouldn’t have a Bible.” How true that is. If it were not for those who have given their lives over to study, to a life of learning, the modern church would be in a world of trouble. The monasteries were the wombs of our sacred tradition. Likewise, our local community projects would be null and void if it were not for the scholar, for we would never be able to hand a Bible to anyone in our community if it were not for the good people who gave themselves to scholarly pursuits—to years of toiling through the original languages, mastering grammar and syntax. Let us thank God for the scholar. They make the local church’s job possible.

Again, I am still working through my views here. But I am convinced that it would do us well to see education as important precisely because it is necessary. Any bias toward anti-intellectualism should be abandoned. 

More thoughts to come…

Greek Vocabulary List for Romans

Posted on by Matthew Halsted

For the last five years, I have been going through the Greek text of Romans (the focus of my M.Th./Ph.D. research) with a fine-tooth comb. I have worked through the text of Romans so much that I feel like it is my own kid!

I decided some time ago to compile a sequential vocabulary list for every word that appeared in Romans, complete with glosses, etc. After spending a few time-consuming weeks on it, I discovered that I could do the same thing with no more than three clicks through Logos Software. The advantage of technology.  🙂

So, if you are interested in diving into the Greek text of Romans (a venture I highly recommend–just make sure you handle φύσις in Rom 2:14 with care!), then feel free to download and print off the list: Greek Word List__Romans

NB: The words listed are sequential (in the order they appear in the text), and I have not yet taken the time to insert the chapter/verse notations (empty space in the far right column). I plan to do that at a later date, as well as fix a few formatting issues. At any rate, if you see anything missing or errors in general, please let me know.