February 15--Running to Win

"You know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. So run to win! All those who compete in the games use self-control so they can win a crown. That crown is an earthly thing that lasts only a short time, but our crown will never be destroyed. So I do not run without a goal. I fight like a boxer who is hitting something--not just the air. I treat my body hard and make it my slave so that I myself will not be disqualified after I have preached to others" (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

I just love it when Paul gets competitive.

It strikes a deep inner chord in me to know I am not the only follower of Christ who likes to win.

I know we Christians preach the need to curb our ambition, to love others beyond our own achievements, to want what is best for everybody, to put the needs of others before our own. I know the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

But there is just something deeply fundamental in me—perhaps cultivated from the earliest days of childhood—that wants to be the best! That strives to be the best. That feels a fleeting but still potent flash of pride in winning an earthly crown. In the words of Ricky Bobby from that great film sensation Talladega Nights, "If you're not first, you're worst!" And who wants to be worst?


Even Ricky Bobby, however, has a serious conversion experience once he realizes how much his competitive drive has been based on the fear and pain of a childhood lacking in paternal love . . . and how carelessly he has hurt his best friend in his pursuit of greatness. By the end of the movie, “racing to win” has become more about Ricky’s integrity than about his victory lap around the NASCAR track. In order to “win,” once Ricky has changed his mind and heart, he has to be willing to lose. And he has to be willing to love his neighbor as himself.


This, of course, is more along the lines of what Paul had in mind when he encouraged the first century Corinthians to “run to win.” It is a spiritual discipline he is talking about . . . of being willing to “lose” for the sake of our integrity . . . of risking failure in order to love those who desperately need our care . . . of resisting the temptation to let anything in our lives distract us from responding to the grace of God . . . of training our hearts and minds—and yes, even our bodies—to the lifelong work of living in the Spirit.


But it is a communal race! We cannot win it alone.


Paul did not have the same concept of team sports that we do, but he surely understood the church as the “Body of Christ.” And this communal body, I think he would claim, must run the race together, must win the race together, and must do this by undergoing rigorous conditioning, just as the individual bodies within it must set measureable goals toward achieving that crown which will never be destroyed.

It is a victory in this life when we in the church really do live out good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed. And it is a victory in the life to come when we place every part of our lives into the hands of a loving and challenging God and allow these lives to be transformed.


So what does the “conditioning” for this race look like?


Some believers have taken Paul’s words about “treating the body hard” quite literally . . . adopting an ascetic life or even engaging in self-flagellation as a way of knowing the suffering of Christ.

Others of us lift up the inherent goodness of the body and its capacity to perform great feats—athletic or otherwise—when we invite God to cultivate and guide its energy as we would cultivate and guide a garden, as a trainer would cultivate and guide an athlete.


In either case, we know that God cares about our bodies and how we discipline them and how we use them to promote justice and peace . . . and we know that God cares about the hearts and minds and spirits that accompany our bodies . . . and we know that God is inviting every part of our being into a race we can only win if we let go the competitive desire for an earthly crown and be willing to “lose” for the love of the world.


So our invitation this week is to hear clearly the voice of the Holy Spirit training us and cheering us on, whether our next practice session is at the local soup kitchen, in our daily devotional life, or in advocating for peace in the halls of Congress.


May God grant us the victory, may we "run to win." Amen.


Gusti Linnea Newquist



(additional lectionary texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Mark 1:40-45)

September 17--Practicing What We Preach

Here comes our good friend Peter, rocking the boat as usual. We’ve met him three times before in the gospel texts over the past six weeks, but we just can’t seem to get enough of him. So far Peter has progressed from an aborted attempt at walking on water to a dramatic confession of Jesus as the Christ . . . only to turn around and chastise his Messiah for telling the truth about his pending death and resurrection.

Our friend Peter just couldn’t leave well enough alone, even after all that. He had to follow it up with a question to Jesus about forgiveness.

“Lord, when my fellow believer sins against me, how many times must I forgive him?” Peter wonders. “Should I forgive him as many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive him more than seven times. You must forgive him even if he wrongs you seventy times seven” (Mt 18:21-22).

I think it might be easier to walk on water.

Forgiveness is one of those thorny theological concepts for those of us who claim to pursue God’s justice in the world and who have been appalled by the misuse of this powerful spiritual discipline. We know far to well that the immediate call to forgive an abuser, or those who commit genocide, or even an older sibling who ceaselessly taunts a younger one can trivialize the deep suffering and legitimate anger on the part of those who have been wronged. As L. Gregory Jones points out in Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, “Christians have too often supported forgiveness, love, and forbearance while failing to acknowledge the moral force of anger, hatred, and vengeance” (244). To the contrary, anger can actually serve a moral purpose, as a protest against injustice and as a commitment to our inherent human value in the face of dehumanizing acts. And when our efforts at forgiveness suppress bitterness, rather than restore right relationships, we can inadvertently strengthen the hand of those who do harm but do not seek to change their ways.

But as I re-read Matthew's text for this week, I'm starting to think Jesus had some of this complexity in mind when he offered his parable in response to Peter’s question. A modern day version of that parable might go something like this:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a loan officer who decided to demand payment in the midst of a sub-prime mortgage crisis. A homeowner who simply could not pay the debt was brought before the loan officer, who ordered foreclosure. So the homeowner begged the loan officer, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of compassion, the loan officer decided not only to stop the foreclosure but to cancel the entire loan altogether!

But that same homeowner went straight to his brother, who owed him a thousand dollars, and demanded repayment. His brother pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But the homeowner refused and garnished his wages until he could pay the debt. When the homeowner’s family members saw what had happened, they were angry. They told the loan officer what had happened. The loan officer said, “You selfish jerk! I forgave you an entire home loan because you pleaded with me, but you couldn’t forgive a thousand dollars from your brother?” And in anger, the loan officer placed the house on auction the very next day.

Forgiveness in this parable is all bound up in power and fear, rejection and hypocrisy. What might have become a reconciliation and new life for the homeowner and his brother instead turned to disaster for them both. What might have led to a more compassionate lending practice on the part of the mortgage company turned into anger and retrenchment. All because the homeowner couldn’t share the wealth. All because he couldn’t forgive even one time.

Perhaps Jesus tells us to forgive one another seventy times seven times because he knows we won’t get it right the first time, or the second time, or the seventh time. I think Jesus knows that there is no “forgiveness light switch” that we can simply flip up or down. It’s a lifelong journey of naming and confronting evil and suffering, both that which is done to us and that which is done by us. In the meantime, we participate in an ongoing community of confession and repentance and reconciliation, sharing the truth of our lives with others who help us always turn toward healing and wholeness. And our family of faith holds us accountable when we are not able to give even a small portion of the grace we have received. And our God remains faithful even until the end of the age.

So I hold out hope that we can keep trying to walk on water, that we can keep trying to forgive one another, that we can keep trying to ask for forgiveness ourselves. Not as a particular moment in time but as a daily discipline and a divine gift. Not as a way to pacify pain or to overlook injustice, but as a way to transform it into a new reality. This is our Christian walk. May we move forward with courage and faith. Amen.

Gusti Newquist

P.S. Kelsey Rice Bogdan is on vacation this week.

September 7—Discipline and the Disciple

"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” –Matthew 13:15-20

When I was in college, several friends of mine went to a large and very popular church near campus. I remember hearing a story once about how their church had used this passage to handle an incidence of adultery within the congregation. The church leaders attempted to talk with the man in private, and when he refused to give up his affair, they brought him before the entire church one Sunday and publicly cast him out of the congregation. There’s no doubt that they took this passage seriously.

I remember feeling rather ambivalent about the whole thing at the time. Certainly I’ve never been okay with adultery, and kicking people out of the community for sin is found in scripture—in addition to this passage, there is the common refrain found in Deuteronomy, “ So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 19:19, etc.), and Paul’s rhetoric on the contaminating effects of sin in 1 Corinthians 5. At the same time there seemed something rather harsh to me in simply throwing the man out of the church. Granted, I didn’t know this situation from the inside, and perhaps pastorally, such strong consequences were necessary for the person to acknowledge his own behavior. But I wondered how likely it was that this man would ever begin to address the broken relationship and hurt that his actions had caused if he were summarily cut off from his faith community. If the lines of dialogue were closed, how would the offender ever grow? How would the offended ever heal?

When I looked again at today’s lectionary passage in Matthew, a passage upon which many such protocols are based, I realized that Jesus’ rules for church discipline aren’t about punishment or rejection. Nor are they meant to preserve unity in the church at the cost of disagreement or diversity. Rather, they are all about relationships within the community. Notice how, in verse 15, the question is posed as “If another member of the church sins against you…” (italics mine). Now, those two little words set the tone for the entire passage. If they are not there, then the passage can be taken to address generic activities that contradict the church’s moral or ethical code. In some ancient sources, these words are indeed missing from the passage, suggesting such a general interpretation.

But if the two words are part of verse 15, as other ancient sources attest, then the entire passage becomes all about holding my Christian sibling accountable when her actions have broken our relationship. For in this the Apostle Paul is right—“a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough” (1 Cor. 5:6), and the bitterness and anger that results from an open wound between two people eventually poisons the whole community. So in this interpretation, Jesus’ plan sets up a way for the community to address broken relationships so that justice and reconciliation can take place. For when the community comes alongside one who has been wronged, confronts the breach, and calls for justice, it is not about enforcing uniformity of doctrine or belief. It is about being a disciple of Jesus—for just as Jesus came to heal humanity’s relationship with the Creator, members of his church are called to heal relationships with one another. And that healing cannot take place if we don’t address our brokenness with honesty and authenticity.

Yet what if someone refuses to acknowledge his wrong and try to mend fences? Is that the point at which we cast him out? In the past, when I’ve read the words, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (v. 17), I assumed that this was meant as a rejection of the offender. But as New Testament professor Mark Allan Powell points out in his commentary on Matthew, Jesus is saying quite the opposite—Gentiles and tax collectors were the outsiders of the Jewish community, to be sure, but they were also some of the people Jesus most persistently reached out to during his ministry. Treating someone as a Gentile and tax collector is not a call to cut off the wrong-doer, but a call to deeper and more persistent engagement with that person. For ultimately, the goal is unity—a reconciling unity, in which Christ himself is present among us (v. 20). And that requires not uniformity of opinion, but uniformity of loving, grace-filled care toward one another.

Our business as a church, then, is not about casting out and cutting off. But at the same time, it isn’t about discreetly overlooking the broken relationships within our community—from the petty fights and painful betrayals buzzing within local congregations to our failure as a Christian faith community to love and serve all humanity. Reconciliation cannot happen without justice, just as justice is empty without healing and reconciliation. And in Jesus’ discipline for the church, he gives us a practical, everyday starting point for practicing both.

Kelsey

PS-- The image above is of the Zaccheus story, one of the most famous stories of Jesus reaching out to a tax collector to bring him to discipleship.