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The Benedictus

December 22, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Christmas2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The First Carols of Christmas – The Benedictus
Sycamore Creek Church
December 21, 2014
Tom Arthur

Merry Christmas Friends!

Christmas and Christmas Eve are just around the corner.  I’m excited about SCC’s Christmas Eve services this year.  We’re going to be 1 Church in 2 Locations over 3 Days with 4 Christmas Eve services!  We’ve sent out 10,000 postcards to our neighbors inviting them to celebrate Christmas Eve when it works for them.  We handed out almost 1000 Christmas Eve invites with MSU Men’s Basketball schedules on the back at last Sunday night’s game.  So how is your own inviting going?  I want to continue to encourage and challenge you to invest in and invite three people to Christmas Eve this year.  Write those names down, and then pray for them.  Get on our Facebook event page right now and share it on your own timeline.  Make some special individual invites through Facebook.  Do it right now.  I think it’s going to be a great Christmas at SCC this week!

So today I want to wrestle with a problem.  On one level it’s a problem we’ve just been dealing with.  Here’s the problem: we tend to want the benefits without the cost.  We don’t want to go all the way.  We want the ends without the means.  We want to be fans of Jesus, not followers of Jesus.  We want the benefits without the cost.

When it comes to our church, we want the church to grow and reach more people, but we’re not always willing to take the challenge of inviting someone.  But this shows up in all kinds of other places too.  Take for example my own desire to play the guitar.  I’ve always wanted to learn to play the guitar.  Jeremy, our worship leader, led a small group this past summer that was about learning to play the guitar.  I participated and while I was in the group I set about fifteen minutes aside each day to practice.  But since the group has been done, I haven’t really wanted to put the time in that is needed to learn to play it.  I want the benefit of knowing how to play the guitar and the joy that comes with it, but I don’t really want the cost of setting time aside each day to practice and learn.

Wanting the benefit without the cost shows up all over the place.  We want money without work.  We want energy without exercise.  We want health without nutrition.  We want knowledge without study.  We want healthy relationships without confession and forgiveness.  We want happiness without holiness.  We want salvation without righteousness.

Today we’re continuing a series called The First Carols of Christmas.  We love singing Christmas carols this time of the year, but do you know the first carols?  There are four books in the Bible that tell the story of Jesus’ life.  One of them was written by a doctor whose name was Luke.  Luke tells the story of Jesus’ birth in a unique way.  It’s almost like a musical.  People are talking normally and then all of a sudden they break into song.  There are four songs in Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth and one scene that was later turned into a song.  We’ve look at two of those so far: Gabriel’s Ave Maria and Mary’s Magnificat.  Today I want to look at Zechariah’s Song which is also called the Benedictus, or Blessing.  I want to explore the cost that Zechariah sings about that goes along with the benefit.

Zechariah is the father of a better known figure, John the Baptist.  Zechariah is a priest, and his wife, Elizabeth, is barren.  One day Zechariah is chosen by lot to offer incense in the temple.  While in the temple he meets Gabriel who tells him he will have a son, and he is to name his son John.  Zechariah isn’t quite so sure about this, because he and Elizabeth are old and past the childbearing years.  So he asks Gabriel how he will know this is going to happen.  For his lack of faith, Gabriel strikes Zechariah mute until John is born.  So Zechariah goes home mute and he and Elizabeth conceive a child.  He may not have had much faith with Gabriel but he had enough faith to jump into the sack with his wife!  In the meantime, Gabriel goes to Mary, and says, “Hail Mary, full of grace!”  This is the Ave Maria.  Then Mary goes to visit Elizabeth and sings the Magnificat.  Then Elizabeth gives birth to a baby.  They take him to the temple to be circumcised, and the temple leaders ask what his name will be.  Elizabeth says that his name will be “John”, and the temple leaders wonder why he’s not being named after his father, Zechariah.  Zechariah writes “His name is John,” on a tablet.  His tongue is loosed, and he is able to speak again.  At this point he breaks into a song that is usually called the Benedictus (Blessing) or the Song of Zechariah.

I found an animated version of this scene that I think shows well the musical nature of this story.  The animation is for children, but I think all ages can gain something from watching it:

 

 

Here’s the Benedictus as found in the Bible:

Luke 1:67-79 NRSV
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

The verse I really want to focus on is this one:

Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

Two Ways We Serve God – Holiness
We serve God in holiness and righteousness.  Let’s look at both.  First, holiness.  Holiness means being set apart for God.  What does it mean to be set apart?  Well, we set things apart for special uses all the time.  I set apart special decorations for Christmas.   They are holy.  I set apart special clothes for working in the yard.  Those clothes are holy.  I set apart special drinking glasses for special drinks.  One set of glasses for wine, one set for coffee, and one special set for anything else.  They are holy.  Then I have special, set apart time with my boys every Friday morning.  That time is holy.  I have special, set apart time with Sarah every Friday night.  That time is holy.  There is also special, set apart intimacy for marriage.  It’s called sex.  Sex is holy.  Then there’s special, set apart time for family vacations.  Vacation time is holy.  There’s special, set apart money for the church, my tithe.  It’s holy money.  We have a special, set apart candle for baptism anniversaries.  It’s a holy candle.  I have a special, set apart journal for prayers.  It’s holy.  I have special, set apart space to pray.  It’s holy space.  I have special, set apart toys for long trips in the car with our young boys.  Those toys are holy.

Speaking of those holy special toys for longs trips…After getting home from a trip to Indy for thanksgiving and putting away those “special toys,” I had this conversation with my four-year-old:
Micah: Daddy, where are the special toys?
Me: I put them away.
Micah: Why?
Me: They wouldn’t be special if we had them out all the time.
Micah: I don’t want them to be special.

Isn’t that just about how we all react to what is holy or set apart?  We say, “I don’t want it to be special.  I don’t want it to be holy.”  We want the benefit of special things without the cost, being set aside.  We want the happiness that comes with holiness but not the cost of it being set apart.

Two Ways We Serve God – Righteousness
Holiness is one way of describing the cost of salvation, but another way of describing it is righteousness.  Righteousness is being in a state of right relationships with God, oneself, others, your stuff, and the created world.  Righteousness and justice are closely related.  In fact, they are often the same exact word in the Bible.  Righteousness is well being for all, a soundness through and through.  I’m reminded of a car I saw one time up north in Petoskey.  It was a real junker of car.  What I would have called a hoopty.  But this hoopty had some seriously righteous rims.  They were fine.  But somehow the whole thing didn’t work.  The rims were righteous but the car was not.  God wants the whole car, not just the rims.  Or as C.S. Lewis puts it:

God became a man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.  It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature.
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Righteousness and holiness are the cost of salvation.  We often want to be saved, but we don’t want to be holy and righteous.  We don’t want to be set apart for God or to work on having right relationships.  So here’s a big question for today:

Are you more holy and righteous than you were last year?

Two Keys to Holiness and Righteousness – Self-Evaluation
What I want to do with the time we have left is give you two tips for being holy and righteous.  The first is to set aside regular time for self evaluation and examination.  I suggest starting with these three simple questions:

  1. Am I avoiding evil and avoiding doing harm?
  2. Am I doing good?
  3. Am I staying in love with God?

I use these three questions each morning while I’m journaling.  I reflect on the previous day and evaluate if I avoided harm and evil.  I reflect on whether I did good.  I reflect on whether I was intentional about staying in love with God.

I’ve created an inventory that we use around the end of each year or the beginning of each year here at SCC.  I also use it in our partnership classes.  It fleshes out these three simple rules into all areas of your life.  I’d suggest taking some time as 2014 wraps up and 2015 begins to take this inventory.  Then create an intentional spiritual growth plan for how you’ll seek God to help you improve in each area.

Two Keys to Holiness and Righteousness – Confession & Authenticity
If self-evaluation is the first key to holiness and righteousness, then confession is the second key.  Now confession brings up a lot of negative connotations for many of us.  We think of “going to confession” in a little booth and telling a priest our sins.  Kind of like this Seinfeld clip:

 

 

Confession isn’t so much about a little booth and priest as it is about being authentic with yourself, God, and others.  Here at SCC we seek to ignite authentic life in Christ and fan it into an all consuming flame.  Authentic life in Christ is the real deal, not the hypocrisy of saying you’re one thing when you really are another.  Now it’s impossible to stamp out all hypocrisy, we are humans after all.  But here at SCC we’re seeking to be holy and righteous by creating an environment where you can be open about who you really are.  When you examine yourself, do you share your faults with others?  If not, you’re missing out on some real opportunity for growth.  Take last week for example.  I started last week’s message confessing about the time I was in the back of a cop car.  I asked if anyone else wanted to claim that experience with me.  About a third of you have been in the back of a cop car.  Being authentic just means telling the truth about yourself, even when the truth hurts and isn’t pretty.  In this way, self-evaluation and confession lead to holiness and righteousness.

Being Light
Zechariah continues his song:

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
~Luke 1:79 NRSV

I want to be that kind of a church.  I want to be the kind of church that gives light to those who are in darkness.  Giving light is not be being perfect or having all the answers.  But being light is about seeking holiness and righteousness.  Being light is about having the benefit of salvation because we were willing to pay the cost.  Giving light is about showing others who are in the darkness where you found light.  It’s about searching for healing from abuse.  It’s about searching for meaning amidst hopelessness, peace amidst a gluttony of stuff, friendships amidst loneliness, a way forward amidst confusion.  Giving light is about searching for God amidst uncertainty.

It’s my hope and prayer that SCC would be a community set apart to practice right relationships, a community inviting others into the light, into holiness and righteousness.  We invite them into that light especially at times like Christmas, and we do it every day. So let’s go back to that big question:

Are you more holy and righteous than you were last year? 

Prayer
God, I confess that I have not always set myself apart for you.  Too often I have wanted the benefits of following Jesus without actually following Jesus.  Forgive me, and continue to make me into a new person.  Make me into a person who is holy and righteous, set apart for a right relationship with you, with myself, with others, and with the world around me.  I give myself to you today.  In Jesus’ name and by the power of his Spirit working in me, amen.

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Prayers That Stick – DUH

April 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Prayers that Stick

Prayers That Stick – DUH (Psalms of Confession)
Sycamore Creek Church
April 1, 2012
Tom Arthur
Psalm 32

DUH Friends!

This past week I found myself facing something of a trial.  I was throwing my own little pity party and saying to myself, “I deserve better than this.  I shouldn’t have to deal with this.  People should make my life easy.”  I was driving down the road speaking this way to myself when I heard more clearly than I’ve heard in a long time, “Who promised you a trial-free life?  Jesus certainly didn’t have one.”  DUH!  The next morning as I was writing in my journal and examining myself for sin, I realized the sin I had fallen into: pride.  Pride is a tricky sin.  It’s subtle and hard to notice, but pride basically tells us a lie.  Pride tells us that we’re something that we’re not.  Humility is telling the truth about yourself.  So in my journal I confessed my pride to God.

Today we continue a series called, Prayers that Stick.  We’re looking at the book of Psalms which is basically a book of all kinds prayers in the form of poetry.  These aren’t the kind of prayers that feel shallow.  They’re prayers that stick with you for a long time.  They’re prayers that are worth sticking in your memory by memorizing them.  They’re prayers that we believe stick with God too.  So far we’ve looked at prayers of praise, prayers of wonder and awe, prayers of lament and cursing, and today we look at prayers of confession.

It’s a good time to consider confession.  It’s a good time to confess.  Well, actually any time is a good time to confess, but today is Palm Sunday and it begins the week leading up to Easter called Holy Week.  This week ends the 40 days of Lent in which we prepare ourselves for Easter.  Part of that preparation is confession.  I’ve picked Psalm 32 to help us do that this morning.  Admittedly, Psalm 32 is more a psalm about confession than a psalm of confession, but I think we’ll still learn something that will stick with us.  So let’s begin with Psalm 32.

Psalm 32 NLT

Oh, what joy for those
whose rebellion is forgiven,
whose sin is put out of sight!
Yes, what joy for those
whose record the LORD has cleared of sin,
whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

When I refused to confess my sin,
I was weak and miserable,
and I groaned all day long.
Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.
My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.
Interlude

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you
and stopped trying to hide them.
I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.”
And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.
Interlude

Therefore, let all the godly confess their rebellion to you while there is time,
that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment.
For you are my hiding place;
you protect me from trouble.
You surround me with songs of victory.
Interlude

The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.
I will advise you and watch over you.
Do not be like a senseless horse or mule
that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”

Many sorrows come to the wicked,
but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the LORD.
So rejoice in the LORD and be glad, all you who obey him!
Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!

Thank you God for Psalm 32!

Did you notice that there were a lot of different ways to describe sin in the first couple verses of this psalm?  There are four kinds of sin according to Psalm 32:

32:1 Rebellion (pe-sha) – an active rebellion against God’s will;

32:1 Sin (hka-ta-ah) – un/intentionally missing the mark of God’s will;

32:2 Sin/Iniquity (a-ohn) (guilt) – accumulated guilt from rebellion or missing the mark;

32:2 Deceit/honesty (ru-me-yah) – deceiving oneself and/or others.

When I look at this list of the ways to sin, I realize that there are a lot of different ways to sin just like there are at least four words to describe it.

When we commit these kinds of sin there are consequences.  We learn more about that as we keep reading the psalm.  In verse three we read about how unconfessed sin tears us apart inside, and how God doesn’t leave us alone but convicts us of this sin:

When I refused to confess my sin,
I was weak and miserable,
and I groaned all day long.
Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.
My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.

In the end we’re left without much strength, perhaps physical, emotional, or spiritual strength.

When I was working at another church, we had a copier that you really weren’t supposed to put card stock through it.  It was apparently bad for the machine.  But I needed something printed on card stock and decided to run it through it anyway.  As I was doing this the secretary walked up and noticed I was using the machine in a way I shouldn’t be using it.  So what did I do?  I lied.  Yes, I was working at a church, and I lied.  I told her that I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to do it.  Active rebellion.  DUH!

Well, over the rest of the day my conscience would not let me go.  My stomach was in knots.  Every time I saw her I felt like I had betrayed her trust.  I probably didn’t look any different on the outside, but on the inside I was being eaten up.  Finally I went to her, and I confessed.  I said, “Sue, I need to tell you something.  When you saw me putting card stock through the copy machine, and told me I wasn’t supposed to do that, I lied to you.  I told you I didn’t know, but I did know.  I’m sorry that I lied to you.  Will you forgive me?”  She was gracious and forgave me, and I felt the weight of the sin lifted off of me.  Thank you God!

What are all the kinds of ways you find yourself sinning and what is it doing to your physical, emotional, and spiritual strength?

Just in case you’re having a hard time coming up with ways that you’re sinning, there are several places in scripture where different writers list different sins.  That’s one of the benefits of daily Bible reading.  You learn how you’re life isn’t hitting the mark, and you’re given the grace of conviction so that you can confess those sins and be made right with God and others.  Here are some of those lists of sins to ponder and examine yourself:

Romans 1:29-31 NLT

Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving.

Ephesians 5:3-4 NLT – Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes — these are not for you.

Colossians 3:5-9 NLT – So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry…Now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other…

1 John 2:16 NLT – For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world.

Revelation 2:5 & 3:16 NLT – Look how far you have fallen from your first love…Since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!

Have we become Luke Warm?

When I look at that last one in Revelation, I regularly ask myself, have I become lukewarm?  Have I lost my first love?  Have I made anything else in my life more important than my love for God?  Sometimes, church, I wonder if we have not become a lukewarm church.  Here are some questions to ponder about whether we’ve become lukewarm or not:

  • Do you spend unhurried time daily with God? Or does God get your crumbs of time if even that?  If you’re too busy for this, then you’re too busy.  (I was talking with Jana Aupperlee earlier this week.  Jana is helping to lead the Run for God small group that is doing spiritual and physical training to prepare to run a 5K race.  She told me how she has been convicted in the past that she is able to find daily time for exercise and running but not always for God.  Are the rest of us like that?)
  • Do you seek counsel from other Christians in your spiritual walk?  Are you in some kind of small group?  Or are you a solo-Christian who thinks you can go it alone, that everyone else is wrong, crazy, and ignorant?
  • Do you give cheerfully? Do you give regularly and intentionally?  Do you give sacrificially?  Do you give from the first portion of what you receive?  Or do you give begrudgingly when you feel like it or not at all?
  • Do you serve cheerfully?  Or have your extracurricular activities so overcommitted you and your family that you serve only because we chase you down?  Do you serve only when it’s convenient for you?
  • Do you have an overflow of joy for inviting people to know Jesus in and through the community we call SCC?  Does your love for God and for this church naturally flow into your conversations with people around you?  Or is this whole church and Jesus thing just a game rather than life and death and eternity?  Have you taken the opportunity to invite three people to Easter seriously or do you brush that opportunity aside and ignore it?
  • Do you come to church with a bib on only to feed yourself, or do you come to church with a towel in hand so that you can help feed others?  Do you stick to the people you know on Sunday morning or are you regularly working on building community here at SCC with people you don’t know, especially guests among us?

Friends, if we are turning into a lukewarm church, then that’s something we need to pray to be convicted about, confess to God, and then do a U-turn and get going the other way.  But how do we confess?  What does a confession look like?  Psalm 32 provides some guidance.  Just like there were multiple words for sin, so too are there multiple words for confession.  We read about four ways to confess in verse 5:

1. I confessed (ya-da) – Made known;

2. I did not hide (ca-sah) – Uncover, only God can cover our guilt;

3. My iniquity (in the NLT it simply says “Them”, but literally the Hebrew says “a-ohn” or guilt) – Take responsibility, the guilt is mine;

4. I will confess (ya-dah) – Cast it off (and onto God).

So confession includes making the active rebellion, missing of the mark, guilt and deception known, uncovering it and putting it where it can be seen, taking responsibility, and casting it off of oneself (by God’s grace) onto God.

Usher, a contemporary R&B singer has a song called Confession.  In it he tells the story of how he cheated on his loved one and now his “chick on the side” is having his baby.  Here’s the lyrics to the song:

Chorus: These are my confessions
Just when I thought I said all I can say
My chick on the side said she got one on the way
These are my confessions

Verse 1: Now this gon’ be the hardest thing I think I ever had to do
Got me talkin’ to myself askin’ how I’m gon’ tell you
’bout that chick on part 1 I told ya’ll I was creepin’ with, creepin’ with
Said she’s 3 months pregnant and she’s keepin’ it
The first thing that came to mind was you
Second thing was how do I know if it’s mine and is it true
Third thing was me wishin’ that I never did what I did
How I ain’t ready for no kid and bye bye to our relationship

Is this a real confession?  It’s not bad, but somehow it feels forced to me.  It feels like he’s been backed into a corner and is looking for a way out. If he found it without confessing, I get the sense that he’d take that route.  If his “chick on the side” would have an abortion, then he wouldn’t have to confess.  If he found out the baby wasn’t his, then he could deny the accusation.  But for now, it appears that he’ll have to “man up” to it and confess.  I’d prefer for him to take more responsibility.  His confession could go something like this:

I have done wrong to you.
I have done what I should not have done.
I was unfaithful emotionally and sexually.
I would like to ask you to forgive me, but I expect that if the relationship continues, it will require a lot of hard work to repair the broken trust.
I am sorry for what I have done.

In the same way that there are several ways to sin and several ways to confess, there are several ways that God forgives us.  We read about these back in verse one and two:

32:1 – Our active rebellion is Forgiven (na-sa) – It is lifted up off of us.

32:1 – Our sin is Covered (ca-sa) – We uncovered it in confession and God covers it with forgiveness.  The verb here is passive.  God does the work.  We receive it.  Augustine says, that our “sins are buried in oblivion.”

32:2 – Our guilt is Cleared (hka-sha) – God does not count it in some heavenly ledger.

Interestingly there is no word for forgiveness that is paired with deceit.  Maybe that’s because deceit hinders us from making the sin known to begin with.

When I read about all these ways that God forgive us, an image comes to mind.  Many mornings I do exercise in my living room.  Micah, my sixteen-month-old son is usually running around at my feet.  He often wants to use all my exercise equipment: bands, pads, balls, and dumbbells.  I have one set of five pound dumbbells, that he can barely lift if at all.  The weight is way too heavy for him.  He is bent over by it.  But I can pick it up with ease.  I could easily throw it across the room.  The five pound weight is everything to Micah, but it is nothing to me.  Maybe our sin is to us and God what that five pound weight is to Micah and me.

If we begin to confess our sins in all their shapes, colors, textures, flavors, and styles, there are some new habits that we’ll be practicing.  Psalm 32 lists those new habits.  In verse eight of NLT we read “The LORD says, ‘I will guide you…”  But in the Hebrew the phrase “The LORD says” is not there.  The line of the psalm just begins with “I.”  Who is the I?  Obviously the NLT translation team thinks the “I” is God speaking.  I tend to disagree.  I think because its poetry that the I can be both God and the psalmist who is writing the psalm. Thus, not only does God guide us but the wisdom of those around us guides us too.  Verse eight goes on to list three things that this person does with us: guides us, advises us, and watches us.  In other words, we don’t do it alone.  We do it with God in community.  We share in the wisdom of those who have gone before us, and God gives us the grace and power not to do it again.

There are at least three ways I seek guidance from those around me.  First, I have a small group that I meet with regularly.  I don’t lead this small group.  I just show up and participate like any other person in the group.  Some of that participation includes  confessing my sins to them and seeking their guidance on how to make my relationship right with God and with the person I sinned against.  Second, I also have another pastor that I meet with regularly.  His name is Jon, and Jon is also my internet accountability partner.  I have a program called X3 on my computer that monitors what websites I visit.  It also runs on my cell phone.  Every two weeks it sends a report to Jon for us to discuss.  In this way I confess my true self to Jon.  Third, my wife, Sarah is a confession partner.  I regularly confess my sins, screw-ups, mistakes, and hang-ups to her.  In my better moments I even listen to what she has to say after I confess.

Who are the people who are guiding, advising, and watching you?

Psalm 32 draws a picture of the results of this kind of confession.  Our hiding place becomes God rather than hiding in sin.  The sorrow of sin, for sin itself is its own torment, disappears and is replaced with God’s unfailing love for us.  All of this can  simply be called joy.

Remember that sin of pride I told you I confessed to God in my journal earlier this week.  After I confessed it to God I sensed a kind of release from the weight of that pride, and some release from the anxiety of the trial.  I was given a new energy and enthusiasm to tackle the problem.  That’s what confession does.  DUH!

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Ultimate Prizes by Susan Howatch

March 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Ultimate Prizes
By Susan Howatch
Rating: 5 of 10

I’m afraid that Susan Howatch’s ultimate prize is accurate knowledge about one’s past.  Meanwhile, this Church of England series is getting to be a little formulaic.  The formula goes something like this:

Anglican clergy + life crisis + big sexual sin + denial of sin + emotional breakdown + spiritual director + confession/psychoanalysis of one’s past family history (especially the skeletons in the closet) = happy, healthy, and effective Anglican clergy.

This is the third in the Church of England series.  The first two, Glittering Images and Glamorous Powers, were gripping, and I couldn’t put them down.  This one sat unread for several weeks at a time.  I found the characters less compelling and the formula just a little too heavy handed.

Ultimate Prizes tells the story of Archdeacon Neville Aysgarth’s search for the ultimate prizes of life: climbing the ecclesial ladder, marrying the right woman, having the right children, and so on.  The only problem is that once Aysgarth has won the prize, he seems to no longer really value it.  Thus, when his first “perfect” wife dies, he courts and marries an eccentric socialite only to end up having an affair while she is recovering in the hospital from a disastrous labor where the child was killed in order to save the mother.  This behavior along with his increasing habit of turning to alcohol leads him to seek help from the spiritual director, Jonathan Darrow, who is the spiritual director in the first book in the series, Glittering Images, and the subject of the second book, Glamorous Powers, and who Aysgarth has had run-ins with as Darrow’s church superior.  The plot thickens.

Darrow, along with some help from his other Fordite Monk friends, help get Aysgarth back on the straight and narrow.  They do so by exploring his past.  What we come to find out is that Aysgarth has had an extremely rocky relationship with his mother, father, and uncle.  Over time his denial has grown about what exactly happened between these three key figures in his upbringing.  Darrow helps Aysgarth explore the landscape of his childhood and young adulthood so that he can give up chasing the ultimate prizes and instead have healthy relationships with less-than-perfect people.

At the very beginning of the book Aysgarth says, “I did not understand why I had wound up in such a mess, and without understanding, how could I promise that my appalling behavior would never be repeated.”  At the end of the book after Aysgarth has “confessed” the truth about his past without denial of the skeletons in the closet, Darrow exclaims, “You’ve grasped the truth.  You’ve demonstrated with every syllable you utter that you repent.  Can’t you see your demon’s vanquished, cowering with terror in his pit?”  Notice the lowercase “t” for truth.

Here’s the problem: understanding and knowledge alone can’t save us.  Yes, they can help us grow in maturity, but it was knowledge that got humanity in the pit in the first place.  It’s not knowledge alone that will get us out of it.  Rather it is only when we grasp firmly on to the Truth, capital “T”, of Jesus Christ that we will be saved.  I do not necessarily think that truth and Truth are incompatible.  It is more a question of priority.  Howatch’s books major in truth rather than Truth.  This kind of truth can only be helpful when it is in service of Truth.

There was one particularly poignant moment that I found especially compelling.  When Asygarth is meeting Darrow’s old Abbot-General, Father Lucas, for spiritual direction, Lucas says, “I presume that most of your private prayers are ex tempore?  Well, there’s nothing wrong with ex tempore prayers, of course, but at present you want to be very careful that your prayers aren’t merely a flurry of words which will mar the inner stillness you must cultivate in order not only to maintain your equilibrium but to receive the word from God which will undoubtedly come.”   “Ex tempore” is Latin for “out of the moment,” and ex tempore prayers are spontaneous prayers.  Lucas goes on to suggest mixing in some written prayers from the Daily Office, the set pattern of prayers prayed several times a day.  I have found this suggestion exceedingly helpful in my own spiritual journey.  I grew up Pentecostal where written prayers were frowned upon.  Over time I have come to appreciate both types of prayer.  I think a mix of both would help most Christians grow in the spiritual maturity.

I would likely give up on this series at this point if it wasn’t for one interesting twist Howatch makes in the next book.  She picks up the story from the perspective of someone outside the church.  I am intrigued to see what she will do with this outsider’s perspective.  I hope there will be a new formula for this outsider’s spiritual journey.

Currently Reading/Listening:
Generation to Generation by Edwin H. Friedman
Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas
Scandalous Risks by Susan Howatch
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus’ Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman

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Glittering Images

December 27, 2010 by

Glittering ImagesGlittering Images
By Susan Howatch
Rating: 7 of 10

Glittering Images was a page-turner that I was a little embarrassed to be so engrossed in reading.  Susan Howatch tells the story of Charles Asworth, a Church of England priest, who is sent on a spy mission by the Archbishop of Canterbury to uncover any sexual improprieties in the life of the bishop of Starbridge, Alex Jardine.  Along the way Ashworth falls head over heals for Jardine’s wife’s companion, Lyle, experiences several sexual improprieties of his own with one of Jardine’s past flings, Loretta, and has an overall emotional, psychological and spiritual breakdown.  He wades through his current actions and his past history that contributed to those actions with the help of spiritual direction given by a monk, Jonathan Darrow.  While the narrative read at times a little bit like a woman writing the thoughts of men, overall it was a compelling storyline, and Howatch does a good job at delving into the psyche of a clergyman.

If all I was looking for in this novel was a compelling narrative, I’d probably be more than satisfied.  At times I couldn’t put it down.  I had to keep reading to see what would happen next.  But anytime an author sets the narrative in an ecclesial setting and delves into theological issues, I have a hard time ignoring some of the details.

Glittering Images is an example of the triumph of psychological language over theological language.  I don’t have a general problem with psychological language, I was a psychology major in undergraduate, but often times the languages carries with it unexpected baggage that shifts the meaning of the theological understanding.  Let me explain by way of example.

After Ashworth experiences his total breakdown, he is brought to the door of Darrow, his spiritual director, by Loretta, the woman he has just had a sexual encounter with, because he is too drunk to drive himself.  Darrow immediately begins a process of getting Darrow sober enough to do what he needs to do to get back into good graces with God and his vocation as a clergyman.

Once Ashworth is sober, he is ready to confess to Darrow what he has done, do his penance, and receive the sacrament so that he can be in good standing again, but Darrow is not satisfied with a simple recounting of Ashworth’s present sexual sins.  He tells Ashworth, “Your behavior with Loretta can’t be confessed in isolation because such a confession would inevitable be inadequate.  And can you in all conscience receive the sacrament after an inadequate confession of at least one disabling sin?”  At another time Darrow tells Ashworth that they must get at the “mystery behind the mystery.”

The “mystery behind the mystery” ends up being an adequate psychological understanding and explanation of everything in Ashworth’s life that led him to those moments of sexual sin.  EVERYTHING.  His parents.  His schooling.  His vocation.  The men he has worked with.  His marriage.  His wife’s death.  His coping mechanisms with her death.  His sexual sins up to this point.  His relationship with his father.  His father’s relationship with his father.  His father’s relationship with his mother.  His mother’s past relationships.  Jardine’s relationships with women.  Jardine’s relationship with his wife.  Jardine’s relationship with Lyle.  Ashworth’s relationship with Lyle.  Ashworth’s relationship with Jardine.  And on and on and on.

Don’t get me wrong.  I was enthralled with it all.  (Maybe a little too much!  I’ve put the next book on hold at the library.)  I even think that this deep kind of explanation of the sinful brokenness of Ashworth’s relationships and all the relationships around him is a very helpful exercise.  While in college, I did some of this kind of work myself with a counselor and have occasionally revisited some of these kinds of issues since then.  Doing so has been immensely helpful in untangling the brokenness in my own life and cutting out the cycles of sin, but if an adequate explanation of our psychological histories is required for us to confess to a present sin and receive communion, then are we ever fully able to come to the table in good faith?  I fear we are back to feeling unworthy of receiving God’s grace in the body and blood of Jesus, the bread and the wine.  Yes!  We are unworthy!  Thank you, God, for giving it to us anyway!

Perhaps this is a theological quibble that I should ignore, or perhaps this is only a plot device to tell the story Howatch wants to tell, but it has the potential of leaving the reader with the impression that they must be able to explain all the roots of their sin in excessive thoroughness before they can receive communion.  Here’s what I say: Confess what sin you understand now and then receive communion and God’s grace to help you confess more.

Currently Reading/Listening:
The Shack by William P. Young
Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear by Scott Bader-Saye
Documents in Early Christian Thought edited by Wiles and Sante
Generation to Generation by Edwin H. Friedman
Turning Points by Mark Noll
Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas
From Jesus to Constantine by Bart Ehrman

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A Theology of Play

July 27, 2010 by

Slant 33

Sarah ArthurSarah, my wife, has a new article up on Slant 33 that is worth checking out.  Three contributors answer the question: Why is the theology of play an important piece of our spiritual puzzle?  She gives a good summary of the history and theology of play.  Good stuff! Check it out here.

I wonder in the midst of all three contributors’ responses what role confession plays in a theology of play?  My own theology of play or pleasure is actually rather weak.  I’ve been influenced quite a bit by John Wesley, and he doesn’t have a very positive view on anything we might do in our leisure time (except gardening!).  I recently saw a new book titled Pure Pleasure: Why Do Christians Feel So Bad about Feeling Good?  I haven’t read it but I think the title of the book asks an interesting question worth further reflection.   When should we enjoy feeling good and are there times when we should “enjoy” not feeling good (i.e. while practicing fasting)?  And how does this all interact with a culture that is so focused on only feeling good and indulging every possible pleasure?  These are questions I continue to contemplate.

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