Believe

In Mark's gospel, Jesus comes proclaiming the "gospel of God," saying, "the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near; repent and believe the gospel." The last three words in this statement have always stood out to me. Most good news I am predisposed to believe. I think that this is because most of what I consider good news already conforms to what I value or believe. But this good news is connected to the word "repent," which indicates that believing might require me to see the world differently. Belief might require quite a risk, and seeing this announcement as good news might fight against my natural inclinations.

Whether or not you believe that this announcement of Jesus constitutes good news, the truth is there is no hope for anything beyond the way things are now unless there is some announcement of a reality that requires us to see things differently. And in the New Testament, the thing to believe to make a difference is often the resurrection.

Paul says in Romans 10, "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." So, here's a reflection on "believe with your heart" and "you will be saved" in anticipation of Sunday's sermon.

I am convinced that "believe" in the New Testament means more than just intellectual assent. Believe here is something rooted in the heart, in our will and imagination. I want to be careful here not to make belief a quantifiable, a measurement by which we are thrown into perpetual anxiety about whether or not we truly believe. For instance, I think it is possible to "believe with your heart" and still entertain doubt, to still have moments of despair. What I think Paul has in mind here is the notion that the belief in the resurrection of Jesus (not the belief in resurrection in general, but belief in the specific person Jesus and what his life represents--that God honors this particular existence) evokes an entirely different world of possibility with an entirely new set of commitments and practices. And its not hard to tell if your life is oriented in a different direction in anticipation of a different reality even if we lack purity or consistency.

The most obvious difference here is that we no longer set our affections in life as if death has the final word. And this sets in motions all kinds of other commitments. We reckon time differently. It would be hard to prove from my life perhaps, but I think it would make mid-life less of a crisis. It would change what counts for progress or success and change our evaluations around words like strong and weak. And these kinds of changes are important in embracing the particular life to which Jesus calls people. The life of the Kingdom of God is full of risk. It requires us to love enemies, to turn the other cheek, to go the other mile, to always forgive. These kinds of commitments are unsustainable, and have been deemed by many Christians impractical and unrealistic, apart from a belief in the heart that God raised the one who lived like this from the dead. It is belief in the resurrection that makes sense of language like "whoever would save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Kingdom will save it." This life is never wasted. God always honors it.

And this is what saves us. It's not simply checking the box "true" next to the statement "God raised Jesus from the dead." "Saved" is the actual lived existence of people who have chosen to live in a life framed by the world imagined by the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

On a personal note, I frequently despair here. I often find myself living within a different frame of reference that suggests that I am the only one that can guarantee the kind of life I want or deserve or need. And I have from time to time serious doubts about the possibility of an actual resurrection in the first place. I think "believe in the heart" has to combine both the intellectual and practical side of this equation (notice here that I am not contrasting head and heart, intellect and emotion). There are times when my practice fails to point to my belief in this reality. In times like that, my understanding keeps me in the game. And in those times when my understanding fails, my commitments to practicing a particular way of life keeps me in the game. And all of this under the prayer, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."

Resurrection, Glory, and Post-Election Speech

I was with a group of people from ten different congregations in the Pacific Northwest who are working together on missional transformation. Many of them have found my blog, and a few let me know that they didn't agree with my decision to vote for Obama. There was a look of disappointment in some of their eyes. This is the way of elections. They have a tendency to push us into camps that have fairly exclusive views of the world.

Part of this exclusivism is the result of the use of language in elections. While we may disagree on the right candidate, we have broad agreement that we are glad the commercials, punditry, robocalls, etc, are over. Our elections are a season of debased speech, which cheapens discourse and calls into question the promise of language to convey truth. It is a thin season that will not sustain civil discourse.

I was in class the night of the election. This particular class is dominated by international students and on a break we had an interesting conversation about the US election. The three Koreans in the class all were stunned by the negative campaigning. To them, it's like these otherwise sensible Americans lose it for a season.

So, the post-election question for me is how to speak in a world of debased speech. And we have little choice about the matter. We are a Word faith. We believe that God creates through speaking, and that his work of redemption comes through a Word made flesh. How can we speak in a world that is weary of empty speech?

There is much to say here, but I simply want to point out some things that Paul is doing in 2 Corinthians. On at least three occasions he talks about his conduct in speech related to his experience of the resurrection. In the opening chapter he talks about circumstances in Asia, where he was "utterly, unbearably crushed, " "despaired of life itself...so that we might rely on God who raised Jesus from the dead." Just a few verses after the report of his deliverance, he writes about "our boast, the testimony of our conscience, that we have behaved in the world with frankness and godly sincerity... ." Paul's experience of deliverance, of the one who raised Jesus from the dead, results in a certain kind of speech.

In the next chapter, Paul explains his travel patterns to the Corinthians through the image of being a captive in Christ's victory procession. Paul is a death and resurrection man, the aroma of Christ "from life to life." Connected to this image of death and resurrection we again find language about speech. "We are not peddler's of God's word like so many, but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God."

Chapter four includes the most striking phrases in which Paul describes his life in terms of the death and resurrection. Paul knows life as "hard pressed, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair...always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus might be seen in my mortal flesh...While we live, we are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that his life might be seen in us." This chapter begins with a description of speech. "We have renounced the shameful things one hides, we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone... ."

Later in the chapter, Paul quotes from Psalm 116. "In the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with Scripture, 'I believe, therefore, I speak,' we also believe and therefore we speak." What is this spirit of faith? Pslam 116 is a psalm of deliverance. The psalmist rejoices that God has heard his cry for mercy. The chords of death entangled him, the anguish of the grave surrounded him. He was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Yet, God delivered him.

It is in this spirit of faith that Paul dares to speak. It is from the depths of despair that a Christian word emerges. The experience of deliverance form "utterly, unbearably crushed" provide the conditions for authentic Christian speech.

This is no doubt in part because we are speaking of something we know experientially. But it is also undoubtedly a result of the transformation that comes from experiences of deliverance. Things just change. Life has gravity. In fact, I love the language of weight in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul admits that we are hard pressed, echoing back to his experience related in chapter one of being utterly, unbearably crushed. But chapter four ends with Paul saying "our slight momentary affliction is not worth comparing to the eternal weight of glory." I love that image. Glory is substantial. It is not thin applause or easy victory. It is thick with significance. It doesn't just ignore life's circumstances, but admits all details and finds beauty in the midst of them. Glory.

This week has been a tough week for many of my friends and me. Cindy Wilson, a great friend, died suddenly and without warning of meningitis. I have walked around with heaviness all week. My chest feels like someone set an anvil on it. I am not ready yet to claim resurrection, to move to some kind of good that might come out of this (and I certainly won't ever say this happened for a reason, or was part of God's plan). But I don't have to, because God is present in the death of Jesus. I have been invited again to trust the one who raised Jesus from the dead. The eternal weight of glory won't come apart from this, but precisely through this. Glory weighs a ton.

And because this is the glory I long for, my speech won't be glib or easy or flowery about this. Speech connected to the weight of glory doesn't need adornment. It's not triumphalist. It can admit to circumstances. It doesn't paint a smiley face on everything. I remember hearing Bill Cosby talking about laughter. He contrasted the thin laughter of teenage girls to the deep belly laugh of his father. The difference was life experience. It didn't come as easy or as often, but it was far more meaningful and joy producing. It weighed something. And so should Christian speech.