On the Enfleshed Word

God-as-Christ,
We are your body; you know our fleshly pain and our fleshly rapture.
Bring to us new vitality,
that we may live as Christ lived,
wholly with the assurance of faith in God,
We ask these things in the name of God-Enfleshed, Jesus our Christ.
Amen.

What does it mean when we say that Christ is the incarnate Word, the Word "made flesh"?

There are multiple aspects of a "word" that can be considered. There is, first of all, the spoken word, the combination of sounds that when spoken together convey a particular meaning. With the spoken word, there is not only meaning conveyed through the choice of word, but also through the tone of voice used. In a way, a word becomes "enfleshed" when it is spoken; the speaking emerges from a combination of muscular contractions, passages of air, and obstacles created by the tongue. The body is needed for the message to be conveyed.

But a word may also be an abstract idea, the concept represented by our language of symbols. Is Christ an idea?

And when a word is written down, it is again embodied. A word that is written with graphite, or ink—or even wax and pigment—is made using the "flesh" of creation, the "body" of the world. Could it even be said that this earthly flesh is the body of God? For it was non-existent until God birthed it, and even humankind was made flesh from dirt.

My God, How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars; I hear the roaring thunder:
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Refrain
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee;
How great thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee;
How great thou art, how great thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander,
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain’s grandeur
and hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze;

Refrain

And when I think that God, his son not sparing,
sent him to die, I scarce can take it in;
that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
he bled and died to take away my sin;

Refrain

When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation
and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
and there proclaim, my God, how great thou art!

Refrain

I wrote this sermon back in February for my course on Congregational Song as a Resource for Preaching and Worship. While my father has been in ICU these past few weeks, this hymn and sermon have been on my mind regularly. I offer the words here as a sign of peace for all of us as we struggle through difficult times.

How Great Thou Art

When my grandfather died in 1998 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, this beautiful hymn, How Great Thou Art, was chosen for his funeral. Grandpa JB requested this hymn years previously while planning for his funeral, before his mind had started to fade too much. He chose the hymn because it represented one of his happiest memories. When my father was a young boy taking singing lessons, he would sing this hymn to my grandfather for hours on end, trying his hardest to achieve the perfect sound.

Although I was not there, and have only the vaguest memories of my grandfather, I can just picture how absolutely blissful these moments were for him. Before my father suffered from throat cancer and lost his saliva glands, he had one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard, with the perfect husky quality to it that made the hymns he sang so perfectly soulful that you could just feel the emotions portrayed by the text. And my grandfather JB was such a perfectly God-loving man that he has been my inspiration as I walk along this spiritual journey of mine. To listen to his son, with his soulfully formed notes, sing a hymn of such eloquent praise to God, I can only imagine that my grandfather could not have been prouder.

For me, the hymn is heartbreaking. It reminds me of times before my father’s voice was diminished by radiation treatments, and before my grandfather’s mind withered away as a result of the disease eating away at him. The sharp contrast between who these two people used to be, and who they became as they struggled with illness, causes me to question the message the hymn delivers. Rather than a proclamation of awe, the refrain becomes a question for me: My God, How great art thou? How can you send your son to die on a cross to save the rest of the world from sin, yet leave my father and my grandfather to suffer through the burdens of their dysfunctional human bodies?

As I was preparing to write this sermon, I researched the origins of this hymn, and found a compelling story about the author’s inspiration for writing it. The hymn was written in 1885 by a Swedish poet named Carl Gustav Boberg, and was set to the tune of a traditional Swedish folk song. Boberg wrote the hymn after walking home from church near Kronobäck, Sweden. As he returned home to Mönsterås,

“a thundercloud appeared on the horizon, and soon sharp lightning flashed across the sky. Strong winds swept over the meadows and billowing fields of grain. The thunder pealed in loud claps. Then rain came in cool fresh showers. In a little while the storm was over, and a rainbow appeared.”

When Boberg finally arrived home, he opened the window and saw the bay of Mönsterås, and heard the song of a thrush and the peal of the church bells in the quiet evening air, and was inspired by this series of sights, sounds, and experiences to write the hymn.

I cannot help but translate the actual experience of surviving a sudden thunderstorm into the experience of surviving the metaphorical storm that illness wreaks upon one’s family life. As the hymn gradually shows, and as Boberg celebrates, the thunderstorm is an inevitable trial of life, but God’s greatness is shown in the fact that all thunderstorms end, just as all of our trials and suffering end because of the grace of Christ’s death on the cross.

There is a verse of this hymn that is rarely found in hymnbooks or sung in churches, and I would like to offer it as a prayer:

“When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
bowed down with grief, to God I lift my face;
and then in love God brings me sweet assurance:
‘My child, for thee sufficient is my grace!’
Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art!”
Friends,
let us remember God’s sweet assurance,
and let our souls sing out with joy
in even the most difficult of times.
Amen.

On Love

"[Love is] a human emotion." "No. It is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies." ^‡

A wise friend once told me that love is not an emotion, but a decision that one makes about one's relationship with another individual. I would perhaps expand upon this definition: love is an ethic which guides one's actions with regard to other individuals.

This is not to say that there is not an emotion which occurs frequently in conjunction with this guiding ethic and which may be referred to as "love;" in truth, the emotion makes it easier to act ethically towards the individual upon whom one feels such an emotion. However, the presence of this emotion, which is a purely chemical phenomenon comprised primarily of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, in destructive relationships, and the ability to feel this emotion towards inanimate objects with which it is impossible to enter into relationship (such as depicted in scientific studies that claim it is possible to fall "in love" with chocolate; the same chemical reaction is produced by THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana) demonstrates that the emotion does not necessarily correspond to the virtuous qualities with which we associate the word "love."

Another good friend of mine argues that love is something which must be recognized by the person^† or individual^† that is loved; love requires the possibility, if not the actuality, of reciprocation. From a biological standpoint, I find this definition difficult to work with because it excludes sentient individuals who are biologically recognized as incapable of experiencing love. My primary example of such an individual is a child born with a brain stem (which is necessary for life) but without a cerebrum or cerebellum (which is necessary for higher-level functioning such as emotion, morality or ethic). Biologically speaking, the child is incapable of reciprocating love in any way, but is capable of being loved.

So what does this mean in terms of the Christian notion of love?

There is a popular Bible passage oft-quoted at weddings which defines the qualities of love. Interestingly, this passage (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) sets forth a description of love which is rarely fulfilled completely by human persons. As a whole, humanity is guilty of failing to love fully in the way that this text describes.

I remember reading once a meme which took 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and replaced each instance of the word "love" with the name of God, resulting in a complete picture of God's eternal and unchanging love.

In the Christian tradition, God sets the ethic with which we are supposed to live, yet it is in our human nature to fail. We are impatient; we are unkind; we are envious, boastful, arrogant, rude. We insist on our own way (the one and only way); we are irritable and resentful.

In some ways, we expect these failures. We prepare ourselves for the failure of others to live fully into God's example of love. What would the world look like if we loved as God loves?

† I use the word "person" here to indicate a specific member of the species Homo sapiens, whereas I include members of other species under the nomenclature "individual;" as a panentheist, I recognize sapience, sentience, and emotion across species.

‡ The focusing quote of this essay comes from Matrix: Revolutions. I worried that citing the source at the beginning of this post would undermine the seriousness with which I approach the subject. I find in my own moral philosophy that wisdom and revelation can come from the most unlikely sources, though I understand that some may not share my philosophy. Thusly, I wished to approach this subject without the burden of revealing my source as a third-rate sci-fi flick.

Thoughts on anger

But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me.” Then one of the servants answered and said, “Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the LORD is with him.” Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse, and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul. So David came to Saul and stood before him. And he loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.” And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.
-- 1 Samuel 16:14-23

A colleague of mine, Leonard, posted a question on facebook about the ways in which we view God, and he questioned why we seem to conveniently forget depictions of God as "wrathful" or "angry," and focus instead only on the loving nature of God. My colleague questioned whether there was a sort of misogyny in ignoring the wrathful side of God because anger is so often associated with the feminine. I have attempted to gather my thoughts on this subject here.

"This is a fascinating question and one I actually wrote a sermon about. One of the things people seem to frequently overlook about Jesus is the fact that he gets angry... a lot! There is of course the time that he turns over the tables in the Temple, which is probably the most memorable, but there is also the time that he curses a fig tree so that it does not bear fruit. And don't forget how many times he outright called the Pharisee and Sadducees stupid! However, whenever I have pointed this out in Bible study or some similar situation, it's usually brushed off as 'Oh that's just the human part of Jesus, not the God part.'

"What gets me about it is there is no specific reason that the anger is attributed to the humanity of Jesus and not the divinity. There is plenty of evidence in the Hebrew Bible of God being angry; therefore anger is quite evidently a quality that belongs to God. I think that our describing God merely with phrases of love and comfort is in fact avoiding the truth: God is not always loving and is in fact quite capable of anger."

In response to this post, I was reminded by another poster that "anger is not always the absence of love." I responded to this comment in kind:

"I was not trying to imply it was; in fact I would agree with you completely. Love and anger exist independently of each other, and both can co-exist. However, the typical understanding of God is that God does not get angry at his followers, sine qua non, and I think this is a false supposition. Anger in love is in fact very common in the Old Testament. Perhaps one of my favorite stories is when God gets angry at Saul because he does not live up to God's expectations of him; Saul does not live up to his own potential, and because of this God actually sends an evil spirit to plague Saul. Is this anger without love? I think not; it is anger because of love.

"And as for the idea that there is an inherent misogyny in referring to God as only loving, I think one must consider what value is assigned to God's anger. Is God's anger virtuous or shameful? There is a sort of binary in cultural understandings of how anger should be expressed. In men, it is perfectly acceptable to show anger, so long as it is not excessive and as long as it seems reasonable. As soon as a woman displays anger, however, she is immediately labelled as 'unstable' or 'crazy.' Would we be so bold as to claim that God's anger demonstrates instability or insanity? I do not have a satisfactory answer to this question. I can see the misogyny that you imagine, Leonard.

"Another thought: when there are descriptions in the Bible of God's love for his people, it is often described in feminine imagery: a suckling breast, a cradling mother, a protective hen. What is the implication of this?"

These are just my quick thoughts on the subject, and I hope to update with more as the conversation continues.

Peace like a river

“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her; Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her; that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.” For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed; On her sides shall you be carried, And be dandled on her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, So I will comfort you; And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

I have often encountered the phrase "peace like a river." Most notably, perhaps, it occurs in one of my favorite hymns, "It is well with my soul": "When peace like a river attendeth my way, and sorrow like sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say: 'it is well; it is well with my soul." I only recently learned that this hymn, written by Charles Wesley, derives from a very Wesleyan Methodist practice--did you know that there are kinds of Methodism that are not Wesleyan? I did not--of beginning each gathering with a reflection on the state of one's soul.

I never really thought much about the phrase "peace like a river." It was obviously meant to convey peacefulness, and there is nothing religious people like to use as a metaphor more than water--unless perhaps it's fire. So what kind of water is peaceful? Obviously a river!

However, tonight during a Lectio Divina meditation, we reflected on the text I shared above from Isaiah 66:10-13. During this meditation, I started thinking about this phrase in particular; for some reason it held my attention more than the rest of the text. And what I began to think about was my own experience with rivers.

Growing up in Big Bend, water was not very commonly available, and I definitely did not encounter rivers very often. The only real river nearby was the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries, and in the Big Bend area, the Rio was always muddy and usually quite low. After rainfall was a different story; the desert came alive with rain, and empty arroyos and creek beds suddenly flowed with water: fresh, clean, and rushing very quickly. I remember one specific instance where I was out hiking with my parents and it began to rain. My father had crossed a dry river bed, but before Mom and I could join him on the other side, the creek filled with violently rushing water. I could not get to my father, and he could not get back to me.

I contrast that experience of water with what I learned about rivers when I moved to Georgia. The major river in the Atlanta area is the Chattahoochee, which perhaps reflects more strongly the kind of river one usually associates with the phrase "peace like a river." I have childhood (and teenage) memories of floating down the Chattahoochee on an inner tube, a common spring/summer activity for people in North Georgia. During these inner tube trips, I started learning the rhythms of a river that was more constant than my desert rivers. Here, where the water ran deep the river moved slowly. Where the water grew shallow, the river rushed along more quickly. The shallow water was the more dangerous because it was easy to get caught on a river boulder and flip over. My cousin Taylor had the unfortunate happenstance wherein he cracked his head on one of these boulders in the shallow of the river, and had to rush to the hospital and have his head stapled.

So as I think about the phrase "peace like a river," I think about the different parts of a river. There is no river that runs deep the whole way, quietly passing slowly and peacefully. Instead, the river itself has moods; in one place it is calm and peaceful, in others it is violent and fast-paced. And these natural rhythms of the river are changed when it rains excessively, or when an area suffers from drought. So then what do these texts mean when they say that peace is like a river?

I interpret this text to be speaking not about peaceful relationships between people, but rather of the inner state of one's soul, much like Wesley's hymn. This peace that is described is not necessarily the calm part of the river, but encompasses the river as a whole. It includes the rapids, the shallows, the boulders, the muddy parts, the clear parts, and the deep parts. When comparing this to the state of one's soul, perhaps this text shows that a peaceful soul has moods just like a river; we are to recognize that there is grace in every emotion; in calmness, but also in turbulence.

On Eucharist

Perhaps this is a custom only shared by a distinct subset of Protestant churches, all of which happen to be the ones I have attended, but I am led to wonder: why is the Body of Christ always crusty, white bread? It is usually dry, and tough, and in most situations I cannot swallow it down until I have received the thimble-full of Blood to aid in this most difficult of sacraments.

Is it not traditional that the bread used in Passover — and thus the bread Jesus himself would've used — is unleavened? So why, when we Christians ignore this particular specification, do we content ourselves with the tedium of white, European-style crusty breads? Perhaps the Body is equally and appropriately represented by a rosemary-parmesan ciabatta loaf, or a corn tortilla, or (for those Southerners amongst my readers) a buttermilk biscuit. Surely the Son of God embodies all aspects of the human experience, and the bread chosen to represent his Body should have a more complex flavor profile.

I should perhaps not even mention the implication inherent in using white bread to represent the Body of God.

Theology of the Body

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink...Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

-- 1 Cor 12:13,27

I take the title of this post from a series of lectures given by Pope John Paul II, exploring the theological implications of the human self. I have not yet gotten a chance to read this series of lectures (which have since been compiled into a book), though I look forward to the occasion. I am writing this post because a thought crossed my mind as I was at the gym this evening, after about 19 minutes of running, and though the thought is not completely developed, I felt it was important to share.

The gym fascinates me, because it is a room filled with people who are so focused on their workout that they do not seem to communicate with anyone around them. In fact, it seems to me that it is considered somewhat rude to look at other people while they are exercising, perhaps because of the delicate nature of exercise: most people exercise to improve their own bodies, due to the perception that one's own body is imperfect in some way.

I wonder about the negative reinforcement that is at work in the gym. I personally have struggled with workout routines in the past because of my self-consciousness. I am terrified that everyone is looking at me while I run on the elliptical or lift weights. I am prone to sweating profusely, and I am not in the best shape physically. This self-consciousness sharply contrasts with how I feel about my own body while I am exercising. The process of burning calories and working up a sweat improves my self-esteem like nothing else. Even though I often look terrible and feel sticky after a good workout, I feel at my best physically and mentally, like I could take on the world.

So what would it mean for me if someone else at the gym looked over and smiled? Would such an experience affirm my own self esteem and body image in a way that smiles in any other context do not? I am also a proponent of physical contact, usually in the form of hugs. What would it mean for me if someone hugged me while I was at my sweatiest, without seeming disgusted by it?

My question comes from the nature of the human body, as laid out by the Bible and Christian thought. There are two main ways to think of the human person. The first way considers the person to be made up of two completely separate parts: a holy, perfect, immortal soul, and a fleshly, imperfect, mortal body. The second manner of framing the person is to consider that the body and soul function as one unit, neither more perfect than the other. The first viewpoint implicates the fleshly body as something that is unholy and should be denied; the second viewpoint glorifies the fleshly body and celebrates it.

My own personal theology rejoices in the beauty of the human body, whatever form it comes in. I am ashamed of the self-consciousness I feel in my every day life. In what ways can I affirm the glory and sanctity of the body in my daily world?