Archive for year 2012
The Vulnerable God and Simon of Cyrene
The Vulnerable God
William Placher writes,
Love involves a willingness to put oneself at risk, and God is in fact vulnerable in love, vulnerable even to great suffering. God’s self-revelation is Jesus Christ, and, as readers encounter him in the biblical stories, he wanders with nowhere to lay his head, washes the feet of his disciples like a servant, and suffers and dies on a cross — condemned by the authorities of his time, undergoing great pain, “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity”
This week we reflect on the pinnacle of the vulnerably of God … the death of Jesus.
Pulled Into the Narrative of Suffering
In Matthew 20: 20 – 23, the mother of disciples James and John asks Jesus this question, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
Jesus’ response turns the whole conversation on it’s head. James and John’s mother assumes that Jesus is coming into Jerusalem to set up his Kingdom, whereby Jesus will claim the thrown of David and push the Romans and their rule out of the land of Israel.
The disciples see Jesus’ entering Jerusalem as a power play and they want a piece of the power.
It was evident that James and John, their mother and the disciples had yet to understand the nature of the Kingdom: freedom, vulnerability, love and often suffering.
Jesus responds, “You don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” In the Old Testament “the cup” was a metaphor for suffering … the very opposite of power. In fact, power is the human response to suffering. Power is the human response to vulnerability. Suffering is the divine response to vulnerability.
Jesus then states, “You will indeed drink from my cup ….”
And although they didn’t understand it, the disciples eventually would understand the brokenness of God over the world. They would eventually re-narrate the vulnerability of God in their own suffering … a re-narration that God invites all of his followers to embrace. As we’ve prayed so often, “Lord, break my heart with the things that break yours.”
Simon of Cyrene
Perhaps that re-narration is nowhere more visually clear than in Simon of Cyrene. It seems that Simon is actually forced into helping Jesus carry the cross to Golgotha. Mel Gibson portrayed Simon in “The Passion of the Christ” as being unwilling to carry the cross.
And I think most of us respond in the same way. When God asks us to help him carry his burdens and we realize that his burdens are the weak, the poor and the sinful, we all turn our heads in disgust.
“You mean you’re calling me to weakness?”, we ask. “I thought you saved me in order to give me strength?” we snark.
And we find ourselves like Simon of Cyrene being forced to carry a cross that isn’t ours.
“But, you’re God … why can’t you carry this on your own?” we retort. “Aren’t you all-powerful? Aren’t you the one who created the world?”
The truth sets in.
God needs our help.
HE CAN’T CARRY THE BURDEN ALONE.
Some final thoughts from William Placher,
If God becomes human in just this way, moreover, then that tells us something about how we might seek our own fullest humanity — not in quests of power and wealth and fame but in service, solidarity with the despised and rejected, and the willingness to be vulnerable in love.
We become human when we become Simon of Cyrene and embrace the vulnerability of God by carrying his cross with Him.
The Day I Became Jesus
A reading from The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 37 – 40:
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
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Nearly two weekends ago we reveled in the uncomfortable in breaking narrative of the Kingdom of God.
And as the narrative unfolded, we played the part of Jesus.
We are used to playing the part of Jesus. After all, we’re Christians. We’re a “little Christ”, “followers of Jesus” who are supposed to think, feel and do like Jesus in this world.
I work at a funeral home where I regularly minister – what I hope – is the compassion, grace and perspective of Jesus.
Both my wife and I work and volunteer at a parachurch ministry for at-risk and vulnerable youth, being Jesus to youth who have little to no family.
And this past weekend we were the adoptive couple to a healthy newborn baby boy.
But, we didn’t play the part of Jesus that you might have assume we played.
You – and I – would assume that we would have played the part of the redemptive Jesus. The Jesus who swooped down in the life of this little boy and rescued him from a potential life of difficulty. His biological father out of the picture. His biological mother fighting to provide for herself.
And we – the 30 something, financially stable, mature Christian couple – swooped down to take him into our Christian family. We were the redemptive Jesus here. Right?
Wrong.
Nicki and I were the poor and broken Jesus. The Jesus in the jail. We were the homeless Jesus. The whore Jesus. The Jesus on the street corner begging for money.
We were the least of these.
In this situation, we weren’t the Jesus who gave all, we were the Jesus who received all. We were the ones who couldn’t provide for ourselves. We were the ones who needed the redemptive Jesus to come in and make us whole. We were the couple who couldn’t conceive.
We were the ones who needed to be lifted out of our misery by someone else’s act of unselfishness.
And by one act of unselfishness, we were redeemed this last week. We were lifted up. We were made whole by a young woman who made the utterly unselfish choice to give us her baby.
“For I was broken and infertile and you gave me your son. Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did it me.”
It’s not very often that we really get to act like Jesus. But last week, we were able to be Jesus – not in our giving – but in our receiving.
Nine Months of Emotional Labor
I have been told that during the Iron Age parents would not name their child until it was a year old. The infant mortality rate was so high during ancient times that parents protected their hearts by simply not naming their son or daughter. It was a defense mechanism, a practical survival ploy for the parents, whereby they could shield their heart from attaching to a nameless child that was likely to die.
Today – with the incredibly low infant mortality rate that science and medicine have provided us — we simply don’t have such a problem.
Except, for those of us who adopt, there is a great risk that we could lose our child in the first couple months of our child’s life. And we could be tempted to distance ourselves from the child we’ve fought so hard to bring into our home. We could be tempted to hold back our love so as to protect ourselves from the possibility that he or she could be given back to the birth father or birth mother.
Over the next nine months, Nicki and I will love, care for and attach ourselves to a child that wouldn’t legally be ours. Although it’s unlikely that we will lose Jeremiah, it’s possible. Not probable, but possible.
In our specific situation, the birth father isn’t a part of the picture, but he does seem willing to fight the birth mother’s decision. And although the birthmother is honestly our hero, the birthfather could take away this little gift. If the birth father decides that he wants Jeremiah, if he hires a lawyer, and if he is deemed competent, Jeremiah is his to parent.
Part of me wants to see the birth father as MY enemy. An enemy of my dreams, of my hopes for a family, and enemy of Jeremiah. But then I realize that he’s unintentionally gifted me this little guy that’s tucked into my chest even as I write. No, I want God to bless the birth dad. And I pray for him. I pray for him because I can’t help but love the birth dad. I pray for him, asking God to love on him something awesome.
If he doesn’t sign off his rights, according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, they will terminate in roughly five months. After those five months, Jeremiah will legally be in the custody of our adoption agency for four months. And after those four months are over, we meet with a judge and Jeremiah legally becomes our son.
Its nine months of emotional labor, with these first four to five months being extra taxing on Nicki and I.
We’re jumping all in, though. We’re NOT going to be the parents of the Iron Age and attempt to distance ourselves so as to avoid being hurt by loss. We’re going to love as much as we can, the best we can, with as much of ourselves as we can give. We are going to love Jeremiah Michael Wilde (that is his legal name … a gracious gesture given to us by the birth mother when she filled out the birth certificate). And if we lose Jeremiah, we might have intense pain, but we’ll have no regret.
In the meantime, we’ll love and live and … we’ll fundraise (more on that later).
We SO don’t want to lose him. It’s amazing how much your heart can love in just one week. So, please pray for us. Pray that we’d be “all in” and love without worry. Pray for the birthfather. Pray that God would bless him. And pray that we’d be blessed to have the privilege to legally adopt Jeremiah.
And if you’re not the praying type, send us your love and hope.
Introducing Jeremiah Michael Wilde
On Friday afternoon I was standing at the graveside of an elderly man we had just buried. I was waiting for the vault man to put the lid on the vault when my phone started buzzing. It was my wife.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
I coyly responded, “For what?”
But I knew what my wife meant. Today was our birth mother’s due date and yesterday we had received news from our adoption agency that the birth mother was three centimeters dilated.
It was time.
“Her water broke. She’s five centimeters. She’s at the hospital.”
At the time of the call, the cemetery was only a couple minutes away from the hospital. But pulling up to the hospital in a hearse isn’t very fashionable, so I drove a half hour back to the funeral home, picked up my wife, we packed our bags and drove through the tourist ridden Amish country to the hospital in Lancaster County.
We arrived and were ushered into the delivery room where a group of strangers awaited to accept us into their family by giving us one of their own. Hugs. Kisses. Tears. Tears.
This isn’t how it is supposed to be. We should be able to have our own children. But we can’t. The birthmother was ready to give us what we couldn’t have and she couldn’t support. And yet, what awaits inside of her womb will forever unite our mutual brokenness in redemption.
She’s six centimeters.
It’s four p.m. and we’re all hungry. So I grab the birthmother’s boyfriend and we speed off to McDonalds in search of a double cheeseburger, a Shamrock shake, a number one value meal and one or two other sundry health items.
By the time we get back, we learn that it’s time. It’s REALLY time. The nurses usher us out of the delivery room and into a private waiting room, where we’re told to make ourselves comfortable for an hour or two. We sit down and I crack open my carton of nuggets. It’s been a while since I’ve had McDonalds. And I can’t help but be a snooty white person and mentally hate what I’m eating while my taste buds delight in the ecstasy of fries, coke and something that resembles chicken.
While I’m inwardly ranting about McDonalds, the door to our private room opens and the doctor pops in, telling Nicki and I that “She’s ready to see you.”
“What?” we ask, begging for more context.
“He’s here. He’s healthy. She wants you to meet him.” My French fries filled mouth drops open. What we had expected to take an hour or two took 15 minutes. I nervously looked at my wife, we held hands and walked down the hall, opened the door and saw our son for the first time. Wide-eyed. Not a cry. Not a noise. Just looking at his new world. This was the moment we had imagined for seven plus years. The moment we couldn’t create ourselves. The moment that was given to us by a young girl whose broken unselfishness made us into parents.
Introducing Jeremiah Michael Wilde, a child born of sorrow, redeemed by the everlasting goodness of God.
*****
In a later post (probably sometime this week), I’ll explain all the ins and outs of the adoption process, but until then please extend your warm welcome through congratulations and prayers for our son Jeremiah : )
“As If There Is No God”
On April 8th, 1966, TIME Magazine published one of the most controversial magazine covers ever. The TIME cover asked the question, “Is God Dead?”
In the article, TIME pinpointed Dr. William Hamilton as a co-leader in the Death of God Movement. You might think that Dr. Hamilton was an atheist, hell bent on undermining theism, but he was actually a tenured professor of church history at a seminary in New York. He was a regular church goer, self-avowed Christ follower and — once the article was released by TIME — found himself the subject of death threats, ostracism and at the center of much hate.
Dr. Hamilton died this past February 28, 2012 at the age of 87.
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While I can’t comment specifically on Dr. Hamilton’s version of the “Death of God”, I can comment on some other versions of the Death of God in Church History, specifically Bonhoeffer’s. And, I imagine, that Hamilton probably shared a similar sentiment with Bonhoeffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the well-known Christian martyr of Nazi Germany during WWII. He’s also the beloved author of two widely praised books called, “The Cost of Discipleship” and “Life Together.” And yet he’s been heralded as an innovator of immanence, as developed in his other books, specifically his “Letters and Papers from Prison”.
Pastor Bonhoeffer writes “that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur (as if there is no God).
The “Death of God” for Bonhoeffer isn’t akin to atheism as one might immediately assume.
It’s a God immanent, not a god transcendent.
It’s a death to the god of the gaps.
It’s a death to the “opiate of the masses”.
It’s a death to the “deus ex machina“.
It’s the rejecting of the god above us who can miraculously solve all our fears by offering a hope of heaven.
Voltaire stated, “If God did not exist, we would have to invent him.” It’s the rejection of the god we invent as a crutch to take us out of this world of pain, sorrow and sin.
Bonhoeffer believed in God.
His was a God that is taking action through us, not one who is taking all our action and goodness out of this world.
It is the broken God of the cross imbued by the world’s sin, not the God of glory, imbued by power and holiness, riding in on a white horse for our rescue.
It’s a God who has been stripped of power, stripped of influence and subjected to the pains of the world.
The God who suffers with us.
The God who feels our pain.
It’s a rejection of a god of all certainty for the One who doubts … who pleads, “Why have you forsaken me?”.
It’s Jesus on the cross.
In forsaking the God above, we have the freedom to love below. Bonhoeffer’s idea was this: In killing our invented god, we become useful to the world.
It’s slippery, I know. But the idea is that our man made (often transcendent) god takes all of our love and good deeds out of this world. If we are to be any use in this world, that transcendent god must die, according to Bonhoeffer. And he must be replaced by Jesus … the dying God who so loved the world. When we realize the God is immanent in the world, we invest our lives in our neighbor and not necessarily in heaven. It’s that whole “in as much as you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it to me” idea that’s harder to live out when we see heaven as a trump card for all our problems.
*****
What part of your god must die?
