Torture by Any Other Name Is Still Torture

Listened to portions of the Republican debates last week. The only candidate who categorically rejected torture as incompatible with a civil society was McCain, who himself of course experienced torture first hand.

All the other candidates employed this horrendous Orwellian double-speak- enhanced interrogation techniques. Torture by any other name is still torture, and apparently our country is encouraging and defending it regularly. Why, Lord? How long?

Christological Sabbath

I've always been bothered by the fact that Luther generally designated the 3rd commandment (sabbath) as part of the "old" covenant. That is, in his reading of it, it does not pertain to Christians other than as it designates the Lord's Day when Christians are to "fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching or God's word, but instead keep that word holy and gladly hear and learn it."

Compare Luther's explanation in the Large Catechism (I recommend reading the whole thing some time, in his explanation of the 10 commandments):

This commandment, therefore, according to its gross sense, does not concern us Christians; for it is altogether an external matter, like other ordinances of the Old Testament, which were attached to particular customs, persons, times, and places, and now have been made free through Christ.

So, without going into incredible detail, it appears that the Sabbath becomes another day of work, holy and sanctified work. Somehow this is ironic coming form the great proclaimer of justification by faith alone. Maybe it is because Luther was a workaholic? (now I'm sounding like Erikson the psychologist).

Anyway, what I noticed this time around as I prepare to preach on Sabbath, is that on the other six days of creation, God "spoke", and there was. God said, let there be... Our creeds affirm that this word spoken by God was the Word, Jesus Christ, and so we can confess in the creed that "all things came into being through Him."

But on the 7th day, God does not speak. God rests. And if God rests, then God does not speak, and so also the Word is not enunciated. Sabbath is a quiet day, at least as it is described in Genesis. God does not speak. The Word does not resound. The Spirit does not hover. Instead, God blesses and hallows the day.

So is there something quirky about having made Sabbath a Word day? Not necessarily, for Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. But Sabbath for Christians is about resurrection. It is about sitting down and resting and celebrating the great abundance of God's good creation. God's creation is especially clear to us because in Christ there is new creation.

But this probably means Sabbath is about more than keeping God's word holy. It also means ceasing from work. It means especially ceasing from consumption, fro living out of the gospel of scarcity. It means living a full day in the abundance of God, where God provides everything we need.

Maybe a better place to learn the Sabbath from Luther in his explanation of the creeds, where he says, using the word "abundantly" abundantly peppered throughout, "God created me and all that exists... God preserves... God provides... God protects... Jesus has redeemed... the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel... enlightened me... made me holy... the Holy Spirit forgives all sins... the Holy Spirit will raise us up on the last day."

Untamed Hospitality

As a devotional exercise in preparation for our September thematic preaching series on "hospitality", I'm reading Elizabeth Newman's incredible book Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers. Beginning in July, I'll publish a comment on one chapter per week, completing the set of posts by the end of August. Anyone care to join me in this reading adventure?

Busyness

Marva Dawn in her recent book on a "sabbath way of life" writes:

Often we are not present to people because we are basically slothful. This is the opposite of what our culture thinks. Busyness seems in our society to be a badge of honor; that we are so busy proves how important we are. But Eugene Peterson calls it an "enemy of spirituality" and "essentially laziness," for "It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God's actions. It is taking charge."

This is a rebuke that I constantly need. Do you? Do we realize that much of our busyness is not really godly activity? Peterson clarifies, "spirituality is not the absence of activity. You either enter into what God is doing or you don't." Busy people are lazy person "because they are not doing what they are supposed to do."

The Peterson quotes are from his Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work. I've been troubled lately by the fact that most people I know, including myself, when asked, "How are you?", answer, "It's been busy lately." This doesn't really address how we are. It's not sharing of ourselves. I'd add to Marva's insight that being busy shows how important we are. It is also a way of protecting ourselves, setting up a wall between us and others. We're busy = we're inaccessible, we don't really have time for all this chatter about how we are.

This is proved by the fact that when someone says, "I'm busy, how about you?" it is almost a challenge back. Their real question is, "Are you busy also?" Notice that no one ever says, "I've got lots of time on my hands. Really, not much going on lately." So busyness gets in the way of spirituality and relationship (two closely related things).