Prayer/Meditation

God, Social Justice, & Social Welfare | Job 5.15-16

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth,
from the hand of the mighty.
So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.
—Job 5:15–16

I want to take this to all of my conservative friends. They are right that much of the life circumstances of the poor are often from the “sword” coming from their own mouth. But we also see here that their lot is not only attributed to “the sword of their mouth”, but also “the hand of the mighty”. And either way, regardless of the cause of their situation (and its persistence), the people of God are called to follow God’s lead in a commitment to pursue their freedom from these types of bondage–both within them and without. The good news is that this not only gives them hope, but it also shuts the mouth of injustice itself.

And this doesn’t seem to just be in individual ways, but even in systemic ones. Does it not follow, then, that Christian can (should?) in good conscience see their role as political beings as a means by which to accomplish these systemic ends? Perhaps it’s not just for individual Christians and Churches to “serve the poor”, but Christians utilizing political capital to mobilize government resources to follow God’s lead? Just asking.

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

How Preaching Saved Me from Evangelicalism’s Bible

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

bible-pulpit-sepia

If I’ve learned anything the past few years, it’s that Evangelical Fundamentalism is absolutely right: as I’ve embraced more and more what conservatives often label a “liberal” view of the Bible, it really has negatively affected my spiritual and devotional life.

When you think the Bible is itself the “infallible, inerrant, Word of God”–when you think that the precise words themselves hold a magical power–you do approach the Bible with a greater amount of awe, respect, and mysticism. I’ve written before how it wasn’t until college that I read any of the Gospels on my own, because I had this fear of reading the “literal, unfiltered” words of Jesus. They seemed so big and other-worldly to me.

I’ve loved the Bible my whole life. I still have the first Bible I was ever given as a child. I still vividly remember the evening on my parent’s bed after they had read a Psalm that had been stuck in the middle of the stories about David that it finally clicked for me that the Bible wasn’t just narratives, but also poems and other kinds of writing.

My Southern Baptist upbringing has got it engrained in me that my entire spiritual and devotional life should revolve around this book. No matter how much I tell myself otherwise, something in me always has (and always will) “evaluate” my spiritual health by how I engage the Scriptures, in both quantity and quality.
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Wolterstorff: the liturgy & worship of lament [quote]

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

job-silohetteLast week, I was in Michigan again for my seminary program. Tomorrow I will post some reflections on my time there. Today, I want to offer you this amazing post-length excerpt by Nicholas Wolterstorff from an amazing piece of his called, “Trumpets, Ashes, & Tears” (pdf):

I suggest that there is yet one more thing which the believer experiences in his life of dispersion and which he brings with him to the liturgy….

As we human beings travel through life we experience pain and suffering–in part our own, in part that of others. Some of this pain and suffering is non-innocent suffering; it is punishment for, or the consequence of, moral evil. But not all of it is that.

The suffering of the Israelites in the brickyards of Egypt was not the consequence of their sin, nor was the suffering of the Jews in the camps of Auschwitz. Some of the suffering of our world even resists our seeing it as the counterpart of anyone’s sin–the accidental death of a child, for example.

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Relentless Mercy (I’m never looking at Jonah the same way again) [QUOTE]

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The forceful rejection of the doctrine of mercy is voiced by a man who was willing to die rather than cause others to die, and who was willing to leave his native land and pay with his life rather than serve the compassionate God. His vigorous and sincere opposition to divine mercy is striking evidence that it is desperately needed. Just as the flight is unqualified, so is the pursuit relentless…

Jonah must bow his head before the absolute sovereignty of the divine will…before he can hear and understand the explanation given by God, who forgives without being lenient. The gates of escape are shut in the prophet’s face; precisely this provides the opening of the gates of repentance to the transgressors with its full significance, since both are direct outcomes of the Lord’s love for His creatures.

The paradoxical tension between the Lord’s inordinate severity with Jonah and His extraordinary leniency with Nineveh teaches us about the absolute sovereignty of the divine will; it is resolved only when Jonah comes to realize that the will of the Lord is not arbitrary, but compassionate, for those who are near and for those who are far from Him. 

–from the JPS Bible Commentary on Jonah, by Dr. Uriel Simon

Jonah: a Children’s Story of Verbs

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Jonah-boat-comicMy Hebrew class has moved from learning grammar to the actual process of translation and interpretation. To do this, we’re going through the book of Jonah. Our first interpretive assignment was to look at all the Jonah-related verbs in the first six verses and draw some theological conclusions. Here was my contribution.

But first, my incredibly literal and somewhat stilted translation of the opening verses [Jonah 1.1-6], including all the odd word order and idioms of Hebrew:

(1) And the word of the LORD was to Jonah son of Amittai, in order to say, (2) “Rise, go to Ninevah, the large city, and cry out against her because their evil arose to my face.” (3)And Jonah rose in order to flee in the direction of Tarshish from the toward-facing faces [Hebrew idiom for “Presence”] of the LORD and went down to Joppa and he reached a ship going to Tarshish and he gave its fare and went down in it in order to enter with them to Tarshish away from the toward-facing faces of the Lord. (4) And the LORD hurled a large wind upon the sea and it manifested as a large storm among the sea and the ship thought to shatter towards itself. (5) And the sailors were afraid and they cried out, man to his God, and they were made to throw the receptacles which were in the ship into the sea away from them towards making themselves small and Jonah had gone down into the rear of the vessel and had laid down and slept heavily. (6) And the chief sailor came to him and said to him, “Why are you sleeping? Arise! Cry out towards your gods! Perhaps the god of you will bear us in mind and we will not perish.”

And now for some lessons we can draw…
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My Gospel Terror, Acts, & Letters [photo sermon]

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Acts-bible-lomo

Each week, WordPress has a Weekly Photo Challenge, where they give a theme and invite people to highlight photography representing that theme, accompanied by a few meditations on it. Occasionally, I try and write a “photo sermon” or meditation based on those themes, accompanied by a photo of mine . This week’s theme is “Letters“.

* * * * *

I grew up in church and grew up loving the Bible. I did devotionals and sat in Sunday School classes for the vast majority of my life. And yet, it wasn’t until I got to my junior year of college and took a class on the Gospels that I read any of the Gospels all the way through. Sure, I had probably heard most of the Gospels preached on or excerpted in devotionals and books, but I had never read a Gospel from beginning to end.

At the time, I thought it was because they seemed too holy. It felt like too much for my young soul to handle to read the very words of Jesus on my own. It was too weighty for me and scared me. Maybe I just wanted to wait until I could drink whiskey or wine while reading them.
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Confirm everything, even the Holy Spirit | Acts 13.2-3

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
—Acts 13.2-3

I love this. Because they were so in tune with God and his Spirit, even after the Holy Spirit tells them something, they still feel they need to fast and pray before doing it. Those early Christians weren’t just willy-nilly following whatever spiritual whim and inspiration they got. They were careful and made sure they were hearing God rightly. May we do the same.

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

Job, God, & Satan (Can I get some help from the scholar’s out there?)| Job 1.6-7

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
—Job 1:6-7

Anyone out there know how the ancient Israelites would have received these words? I see no other parallel in the OT to something similar to this (maybe the Psalms about God’s combat with the other gods?). I find it so confusing.

The one thing I am confident of, though, is that the conflating that Christians often do with this stuff is out of line. The way that (especially Evangelicals) use these verses to set up a systematic theology of “Satan” is absurd and does damage to the texts. Also, there is no indication that this is the same entity that is the serpent in the garden, nor the “Morning Light”, nor the NT Beelzebul, nor the beast of Revelation. Heck, there’s no clear connection between this particular “Satan” and the NT “Satan”.

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

A Holy Saturday kind-of Easter (on doubting the Resurrection)

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Rothko-blue-and-gray

The culmination of Lent is Holy Weekend, prefaced by Maundy Thursday and consisting of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. I realized that each year that I have been really intentional about my Lenten engagement, one of those four “Holy Days” seems to overshadow the the others and carry over into this Easter season (yes, it’s a season).

There are some years where the foreshadowing and ever-repeating Presence of Jesus in Communion makes Maundy Thursday the highlight (or lowlight?) of Lent. Some years, the utter darkness, weight, and drama of Good Friday overtake me and linger in my mind well into Easter season. And still others, no matter how I try to reflect and meditate on sinfulness and fallenness, I still can’t escape the lighted joy and horizon-cresting dawn of Easter, whose anticipation overshadows (or over-brightens?) my Lenten experience, making all the doom and gloom seem foreign to me.

For me, this year is a Holy Saturday kind-of Easter.
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Here’s absolutely everything the Gospels say was happening on Holy Saturday

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
–Matthew 27.62-66

On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
–Luke 23:56b

Yep. That’s it.

See other Marginalia here. Read more about the series here.

Sabbath [a Holy Saturday poem]

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Rothko-Black-RedOn the 1st Day: God created Palm Trees and Donkeys
On the 2nd Day: He created Fig Trees and Temples
On the 3rd Day: He created Scribes and Pharisees
On the 4th Day: He created Silver and Kisses
On the 5th Day: He created Bread, Wine, and Gardens
On the 6th Day: He created a Tree, Nails, and Thorns

And on the 7th Day: God rested from His labor.

And there was evening
And there was mourning…

___________________________

[read my other Holy Day poetry here]
all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

The Elements [a Good Friday poem]

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death-of-salesman-clothes-hangerWelcome, hello
Come in.

Take your shoes off
Set down your suitcase
And hang your jacket

Enjoy the fire; enjoy the tea
Rock in the chair, back and forth

That’s all you can do right now.
Rest.

Your items will still be there when it’s done.

Your shoes–
the mud will be dry, they’ll feel like new
to aid you on your way

Your suitcase–
is not all that important, frankly
take it or leave it
it doesn’t do much

And your coat–
yes, it just hangs there, dripping from the storm
the rip in its side as apparent as ever

But it will dry out and stiffen once more.
Ready to clothe you and hold you;

To keep what’s within,
within.
To keep what’s without,
without.

To speed you home in health.

But for now

Let us wait.
Let us drink.
Let us rest.
Let us cry.

Let us feel the searing heat of flame lap our feet in the hearth below.

___________________________

[read my other Holy Day poetry here]
all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

Longing for Liturgy (a Catechumen’s reflection on Holy Week) {by David Schrott}

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In recent years, and prior to my Orthodox catechesis, I heard many a Protestant writer or preacher lament that Easter was not of enormous import to most Christians when it was the eminent Christian holiday.  I didn’t share that view. Easter was an after-thought for me – another spring holiday without much real significance. Little did I know that it was the cultural liturgy of the market-place that informed my position towards the holiest of Christian celebrations.

Liturgies form us. Whether they are cultural or religious, we are moved to be formed in the image of something and in the West, the market-place is driven by the most powerful liturgy called Consumerism. Christmas is the most powerful holiday in our culture and not because of what it is or what it means; it is the most powerful because of the 30-something day cultural liturgy from Black Friday til Christmas day that forms our hearts not toward God, but towards pretty much everything else. As James K.A. Smith notes in his book Desiring the Kingdom, the Culture understands liturgical formation better than the modern church does.photo1

The Holy Orthodox Church is not the modern church.  Before I decided that Orthodoxy was the church of the Apostles, the Fathers and Christ himself, I longed for liturgy without knowing what I was longing for. I think this is the basis of the modern Evangelical root of church innovation. The Western Christian wishes to attach himself or herself to something, but doesn’t know how or have the framework for doing so; so innovation in church methods based on market research emerge. A few years ago, I’d fast all of Good Friday (and accidentally get drunk when breaking fast that night with beer and bread; Lord have mercy!) or round up friends for a Maundy Thursday dinner or try to watch the Passion movie. These were my own personal longings for connectedness to Holy Week and the larger Church; these were longings for liturgy. Little did I know that there was already a place where these connections existed and they existed nearly unchanged for most of 2000 years.
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Holy Week Music: Mozart’s “Requiem”

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Klimt-Death-LifeOne of the primary ways I relate to the Church Calendar is through music (hence the free Mixtapes I put out each season). Even when I am terrible at engaging at an intellectual or even a practical devotional way, I am really intentional about filling my life with music that will still put my soul in the proper posture for the particular season.

For this Lent, I found myself spending significant time with Mozart’s Requiem, a “Mass for the Dead”. This was his last (and still mysterious) piece–unfinished before he died. Before Holy Week was over, and as we enter into the Holy Weekend, I wanted to offer this to as a way you might be able to engage in these last few days of Lent. Here is the audio, and below that you will find an English translation of the entire Mass. The words are achingly haunting and beautiful and deserve your perusal whether you have time for the music or not. Have a blessed Lent.

W. A. MOZART, REQUIEM
English Translation, from St. Matthew’s choir
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