Well, 43 comes to an end for me tonight. Tomorrow I wake up 44. Here’s a favorite song to end the year:
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Easter and the End
Today we had our Easter chapel at school (having it right before Easter is often suggested, but that gets in the way of Holy Week gatherings). I wrote and recorded it in the middle of last week, which feels like forever ago. Here it is for any possible edification.
In 1992, political theorist Francis Fukuyama published a book based on an essay titled “The End of History.” In the book, Fukuyama challenged the reader to consider the possibility that history had reached its end point: a good global order rooted not in savagery or self-absorption but in technology and economic growth. A few weeks ago, as covid-19 took over the 24-hour news cycle, pundits were asking if anyone had checked up on Fukuyama, as it seemed like our current moment revealed that history was anything BUT settled.
History, of course, means many things to different people. It’s a subject that we take in school (Hawaiian history or US History or AP European History), it may be a hobby reflected in items we collect (whether its coins or WW2 helmets or Native American arrowheads), or it may be a passion that pushes us to understand the world around us more fully Herodotus or Josephus or Gibbons). For most of us, history is a collection of dates and events that shape the story of humanity. And there are a lot of events like that: wars, discoveries and inventions, religious movements, and yes, pandemics like the one we are experiencing now.
Because humans are creatures who long for meaning, who want understanding, we often find ourselves asking about the point of human history: why is this happening? Where is this going? And, perhaps like Fukuyama, what will the end look like?
In our reading for today’s chapel, the apostle Paul is writing to Christians in Galatia about their own history, about the story that they are in. Our ESLR of humility lines up well with what he wrote there. Humility acknowledges that “we are born into God’s creation, which is vast, and into God’s story, which is already in progress.” In the letter of Galatians, Paul reminds Christians of the true through-line of history, the one thread that holds it all together, what thinkers like NT Wright call the one true turning point, that points to history’s true end. It is the story of the God who calls out Abraham from Ur and Haran. It is the story of the God who brings His people out of Egypt. It is the story of the God who gives the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai to shape a people to be a kingdom of priests. It is the story of the God who is faithful through the times of rebellious kings and weeping prophets, exiles and returns, until the fullness of time, until the set time fully come. That fullness of time, that set time fully come, that thread and throughline that reveals God’s purposes in history is when the God the Father sends the Son, born of a woman, born under the Jewish law, to redeem mankind, to give us the Spirit.
But this very big turning point in history comes with a very personal consequence for our lives. Moments like ours remind us that God is concerned with both the big picture of history and the smaller but significant stories of our lives, that He is sovereign over both. Because the Father who sends Jesus the Son does so to make US sons and daughters, to adopt us as heirs into his kingdom, reminding us that we aren’t just pawns in some cosmic chess game but that we are people for whom Christ died. And if we are followers of Jesus, if we have His Spirit in our hearts, we call out to the God of the universe and we call him “Abba,” Father.
Over the last week, Christians around the world have been remembering and retelling the story of Jesus from his triumphal entry to Jerusalem Palm Sunday to his turning over the temple tables on Monday, from his final teachings in the courtyard to his last supper in the upper room, through his agony and betrayal, trial and crucifixion through a silent Saturday and to what the Gospels tell us was a quiet, confusing, but very real celebration of his resurrection on Easter Sunday as Mary Magdalene and other women found Jesus’ tomb empty but with an angel’s promise that Messiah who had been dead was alive once more. If history has one true turning point, one true thread or throughline, one true end, it is revealed in the events that we have remembered and celebrated this past week and that we live out of each day as we carry our own crosses.
And just as the life and death and resurrection of Jesus is the turning point of history, so too can it be the turning point of your life and of our lives together. Jesus doesn’t just give us “the answer” as if life was some short answer test; instead He gives us himself as that which points to meaning and purpose and the real end of history. If you do not know Him, let today be the day that you turn to him. If you have questions about following Jesus, let me or another teacher or staff person at school know. If you are a follower of Jesus and you are struggling through these times of ours, I encourage you to reach out to your friends and family and your community here at HBA for support. And as the writer of the Letter of Hebrews reminds us, let us all look to Jesus, who for “the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all this Easter season.
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Reading Resurrection Letters
A wonderful way to spend part of Easter Sunday . . .
Deeper Than What We Make of It
Tish Harrison Warren’s most recent piece on Easter for Christianity Today dropped after I had recorded my Easter “message” for school, but I was glad to see it when it came time to put together the reflective follow-up piece. In the article, Warren makes the point that Easter is Easter regardless of how much we “make of it.” She’s writing this, of course, as Christians around the world, most of them used to planning all kinds of things for the holiday, are now doing the celebrating at home. The part that I adapted for the reflective follow-up piece:
I am a Christian today not because it answers all my questions about the world or about our current suffering. It does not. And not because I think it is a nice, coherent moral order by which to live my life. And not because I grew up this way or have fond feelings about felt boards and hymn sings. And not because it motivates justice or helps me to know how to vote. I am a Christian because I believe in the Resurrection. If it isn’t true, to hell with it.
On the other hand, if Jesus did in fact come back from the dead on a quiet Sunday morning some 2,000 years ago, then everything is changed—our beliefs, our ethics, our politics, our time, our relationships. If it is true, then the resurrection of Jesus is the most determinative fact of the universe, the center point of history. The Resurrection is ultimately truer and more lasting than death or destruction, violence or viruses. It’s truer, too, than our celebration of it, however beautiful, however meager.
You can read the whole piece here.
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Away from Trivial Grief
The particularities of life during a worldwide pandemic have brought some fresh urgency to how many are articulating their faith during this season of Lent and Easter. Yesterday I recorded my Easter message for school chapel; there’s really no way around acknowledging Our Current Moment. But it’s interesting to see how so many are responding in so many different ways.
Matthew Loftus, a teacher and doctor in East Africa recently posted his reflections to Plough. I feel like it strikes the right chord with not just a Christian response but a Christ-like response. He starts by recounting a story about children and the loss of precious little things as a consequence of living in a politically volatile place. He talks about the “small sorrows” and the “deeper griefs” of the moment. Then he writes:
I am not afraid of dying, I don’t think; I know I’ll stand before Jesus and thank him that it was only by his blood that I made it. No, I am afraid of mass pandemonium, of my neighbors starving, of returning home to the food we’ve carefully stockpiled over the last few weeks and filling my belly while it all happens. I am afraid of supplies running out, of our hospital not being able to make payroll because of the unjust structures that do not adequately compensate our institution for the work that we do, of trying to intubate someone and then losing power. I am afraid of watching my colleagues die, of leaving any child without a father, or of simply making a wrong clinical decision that leads to someone’s death. I am afraid of what I will say to my wife in anger and frustration or how I might lash out at one of the nurses when someone we are caring for dies. I am afraid of telling my children that they must isolate themselves from other children, or that we do not know when they’ll see their grandparents again. I might even be afraid of having to tell my children that their Legos are gone forever.
From there he writes about the difficult life of Helen Roseveare, a mission hospital worker who remained faithful to God and to her post even as she was personally ravaged by rebellion and rejected by her students. She connected her own suffering with the suffering of Jesus, with what the apostle Paul says of his own body “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Loftus adds:
What could be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? Only that which his hands and feet – us – have not yet experienced.
All of our griefs, big and small, fit into this. I think of Christ, sighing at unbelief and crying out in agony on the cross. He weeps at his friend’s tomb and gets exasperated by misunderstandings about yeast. He is betrayed by Peter but really saves his anger for a fig tree.
With the virus, for which we are woefully unprepared, flooding towards us in Kenya, I worry I have invested my life in this local healthcare project only to see it washed out in the end. I worry for the lives we will not save. And I still find it in my heart to worry about my son’s Legos.
Loftus concludes his own part of the reflection with this, something that can be a real struggle but also seems very true, Christ-like, amidst the posturing we all are too often guilty of:
Our ability to manage and live with grief depends on how much we are willing to identify with Christ. If we do not make ourselves vulnerable to the pains and sorrows of this world like he did, nor risk what we have for the sake of people who are hurting, then our griefs will be trivial indeed. The degree to which we are united with Christ – in spirit, in prayer, in suffering – is the degree to which he shares the burden of those sufferings with us.
There’s more in the piece definitely worth reading, including a closing quote from Bishop Ken Untener about stepping back and taking a long view.
May God bless your Maundy Thursday.
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Twenty Years Later . . .
Twenty years ago, this teaser trailer was released:
It is difficult to imagine a world where the finished product of Peter Jackson and friends hasn’t been realized. How odd to have a voice-over by someone not from the movie! How odd to see a trailer to this movie without Howard Shore’s score bringing it to life! How odd to witness scenes from later movies in the trailer mostly promising the first! How odd to hear so little dialogue from the most quoted movie series of my lifetime! And yet here we are, twenty years later.
Here’s a short article from twenty years ago that The Guardian posted about the trailer. It really was another world back then.
Big Picture Warning
As a single guy led by faith to live far from home, I often find myself trusting in the Big Picture more than others. On the best of days I hope to live a life that more closely resembles the promise made by Jesus at the end of his encounter with the rich young ruler (though I am neither rich nor young nor a ruler). The reality of Our Current Moment definitely call into question some of how we understand life in the Big Picture, and rightly so. Ephraim Radner, who wrote another piece that I quoted a few days ago, has this to say about uncertainty and Our Current Moment:
Uncertainty is at the center of the Christian vocation. Uncertainty may not comprehensively describe that vocation, but it defines it in an essential way. Many Christians will and do reject this claim, I realize. “We know with certainty all that is important to know!” they will say. God is in control; God is good; God rewards the faithful; Jesus is Lord, and in him death and sin are defeated; the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church, and heaven awaits us. These are indeed Big Picture certainties. But the Big Picture isn’t all there is to God’s reality or to the Christian’s life. Small pictures are the bits that make up the Big Picture’s mosaic. In these little corners of reality, dark holes of uncertainty await the unwary, and teeming abysses of confusion stand ready to swallow the complacent. In the Time of the Virus, church leaders seem to be focusing mostly on the Big Picture. They shouldn’t; it’s evangelically irresponsible.
That last phrase is sobering: the idea of being “evangelically irresponsible.” If nothing else, it points to an interesting dynamic in how we articulate concerns based on the given moment. When things are going smoothly in life, we focus (perhaps) on the small stuff. When things are chaotic, we focus on the big stuff. Radner continues:
Who knows what will happen tomorrow? None of us do. The entire book of Ecclesiastes flows out of this truth (cf. 8:7), which hovers about the whole of the Old Testament. It finds a classic assertion in James, as he goes after the confident traders of his day (4:14): “You do not know about tomorrow. What, after all, is your life?” The failure to grasp this reality is embodied in the confident rich man, saving his piled riches in a barn, whom Jesus berates in the voice of God: “Fool! Your life will be taken this very night! And then who will possess what you have gathered?” (Lk. 12:20). Everything resonates here: our lives, our families, our labor, our pastimes, our homes, our savings, our predictive obsessions.
“Who knows what God will do?” Radner adds. And then “Who knows where I will end up?” Both are good and legitimate questions that should come to mind when we think about life and how it intersects the biblical story. Then Radner weaves it all together:
It is, of course, the present that is underlined in all these realms of ignorance. Because we do not know tomorrow, we do not know God’s plans or even the depth of God’s character in planning. We do not know how it all adds up, we are stuck firmly in this one place where God has thrust us, stripped of organizing frameworks of meaning based on the plotting of the stars. “Today,” God seems to say, “take stock of today.”
And today is not an empty moment, nor one solely inhabited by the fears or anxieties of an opaque future. “Do not be anxious about tomorrow,” Jesus both warns and encourages his disciples. Instead, “seek the kingdom and its righteousness” (Matt. 6:31–34). To all the questions of “who knows?,” the Scriptures respond with concrete gifts. Who knows about tomorrow? James says, “Be humble.” Who knows if God will be merciful? The prophets all respond, “Therefore repent” (Joel 2). Who knows what will become of us? The Psalmist writes, “Remember who God is!” (Ps. 74:12ff.). Today, simply because God has given it to us, is filled with grace; and the service of this grace today is one whose forms are manifold and beautiful, shaped by the humbled, repentant heart that speaks of God’s great works. That service is our vocation in the midst of uncertainty.
Radner has more to say in the article about the questions of the Bible and our rejection of the Sabbath and how our own foolishness can be at play when we miss the particular gifts of today. All of these are reasons for you to read the rest of the article. Definitely something to ponder as we continue on in this sobering time.
Posted in Faith, Life in the Fifth Act, Notes for a World's End, Scripture
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A Slice of Comedic Genius
Over the last few days, the folks at the Ringer have been running a “greatest TV character of the century” poll. While I didn’t take part, I was glad to see that Michael Scott from The Office took the top spot. Even though he may not be my personal favorite, he is quite the creation (even if his character is rooted in the original British version).
The poll paired with what has been at least a soft-stop to most of the entertainment industry has had some nice side-effects, one being this interview with Mike Schur, who has done more to make me smile over the last few years than anyone in the industry. A guiding force for The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99, and The Good Place, he’s also had a hand in creating (or maybe mid-wifing) a number of great characters. The interview goes into some nice depth. It also includes links to some classic NBC comedy moments both recent and classic. Here’s a snippet from the interview:
Most comedies, I would say, are pretty lo-fi in terms of premise. They’re like a bunch of people hanging out somewhere in an office or in an apartment building in Manhattan. In that case, the discovery of the characters—you have some idea at the beginning. You can’t run a pilot without some idea of like, this is the funny one and this is the snarky one and this is the uptight one. But the characters are built brick by brick slowly by a large group of people over, hopefully, many, many years and hundreds of episodes. You have to know something about the world and something about the characters, it’s just what the ratio is at the beginning of the project.
And then:
The Office was being built off of the template from the British show, but there were only four characters who meant anything in the British show. There was David Brent and Gareth, Tim and Dawn, and everybody else was either a two-dimensional cipher or never got developed. When Greg [Daniels] brought the British version to America, he started with Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute, Jim Halpert, and Pam Beesly, and then filled that office with 20 other people. He had some idea of who Oscar was and who Phyllis was, but he very deliberately left them blank at the beginning because it was like, let’s do this organically. Let’s get a bunch of funny people in a room and pitch on, who are these people? What’s their personality trait? How do we learn about them?
At this point, Brooklyn 99 is the only show of Schur’s left airing currently. I was a late-comer to that show, binging it in the months leading up to it’s move from Fox to NBC. And I’m really glad I got on-board. It hasn’t had some of the obvious character evolution that we got in The Office or Parks and Rec (and the whole point of The Good Place was character evolution, so it doesn’t really count). But there’s just enough growth to feel like there’s some movement . . . and the jokes and running gags are some of the best out their (making it a little more like 30 Rock than anything else).
I enjoyed the article so much that it got me to watch the first episode of Cheers, a show I did not watch in its hey-day. Great episode with a nice set of comic turns (all while having some appropriate gravitas. It’s good to laugh, I think. And it’s good to have a place where you know everybody’s name, even if you’re just in the audience.
The Howling
A song to end the first week of the fourth quarter. It’s a Rich Mullins classic that you don’t hear that often unless you look for it. I love the sense of drive in the song.
Space Enough, and Time 