The Eucharist of Solomon – 1 Kings 4

Eucharist I’ve finished Hauerwas’ commentary on Matthew and have turned to Peter Leithart’s work on 1 & 2 Kings. So far, so good. Even though I disagree with Leithart on some of the theological implications he draws at a few points, this is still an extremely rich theological commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, a book I’ve never really studied. I highly recommend it.

In chapter 4, we see Israel flourishing under the rule of Solomon, who is a new Adam for the Israelites as well as one who fulfills the rule of Joshua. In verse 4:20, we find the Israelites celebrating this reign, “Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy (NRSV).” These activities, “eating, drinking, and rejoicing,” were the activities of the central sanctuary and of worship (p. 51), and they are also the joy we experience in Holy Communion.

In the next verses (4:22-23), we find a list that has no apparent connections with Eucharist on the surface,

“Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal, 23 ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl.

Yet Leithart brings out some very fascinating connections,

Solomon’s menu includes meat that is not part of Israel’s sacrificial feasting. Sacrificial animals represent Israel, while clean wild animals symbolize Gentile ‘God-fearers.’ As Gentile nations are incorporated into the body of Solomon’s kingdom, so ‘Gentile’ animals are incorporated into his physical body (p. 51).”

In this passage a simple list of seven animals prepared for Solomon’s table become a portrait of God’s table hospitality. “The Gentiles eat the crumbs that fall from his table, and this typifies the greater Solomon who sets up a table in the center of the world, one so abundant that it feeds humanity (p. 51).”

Next Sunday, most of us will celebrate Holy Communion. As we prepare for this gracious feast, let’s remember the Solomonic feast. It really seems to be a celebration of magnificent proportions. How much more then should those of us who worship the one greater than Solomon be involved in a glorious celebration. Even though we will remember the bitterness of the Passion, we shouldn’t forget the table we set is the table open to all people – a table of forgiveness, joy, hospitality, and grand celebration!

(graphic from adoremus.org)

Glory Days

This morning my wife Nanci and I were talking about a friend of mine who is moving this year. She asked me, “Why is he moving already?” Without thinking I said, “Well, it just wasn’t a very good fit and they’re a ‘Glory Days’ Church.” We both laughed at this reference to the Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

You all remember the song right?

I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was

Chorus:
Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days

Well there’s a girl that lives up the block
back in school she could turn all the boy’s heads
Sometimes on a Friday I’ll stop by
and have a few drinks after she put her kids to bed
Her and her husband Bobby well they split up
I guess it’s two years gone by now
We just sit around talking about the old times,
she says when she feels like crying
she starts laughing thinking about

Chorus

Now I think I’m going down to the well tonight
and I’m going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days

Does that sound like any churches you know, “sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory of…” or “just sitting around talking about the old times. Unfortunately glory days will pass you by, and Glory Days Churches cannot be faithfully missional churches. So if you find yourself sitting and thinking to the exclusion of getting up and doing, ask yourself whether you’re a Glory Days Church. If so, decide you’re going to live the glory days now! In the immortal words of Rob Schneider, “You can do it!”

Adam Hamilton’s Financial Transparency

While I don’t know the circumstances surrounding this email (posted on the Church of the Resurrection web-site), I very much appreciate Adam Hamilton’s financial transparency. You might find it interesting and encouraging as well.

I continue to appreciate how Church of the Resurrection continues to be distinctly United Methodist as they reach out to “non and nominally religious people.” Get that? I’m not even a member of their Church, and I can tell you part of their mission and vision. How’s that for a mission statement?!

While I’m talking about COR, take a minute to visit Andrew Conard’s blog to read the thoughts of one of their pastors. He’s got some interesting thoughts on a variety of topics.

The Right Way to Pray

Prayer My daughter was getting ready for bed last night, and we started to say our bedtime prayers. Like many four year olds, she’s really a talker. So lately instead of praying out loud myself, I’ve asked her to do the bedtime prayer. It always starts like this:

“Daddy, how do we start?” “Well honey, we usually start by saying ‘Thank you God’ or ‘Dear God’ or something like that.” So she starts and begins by thanking God for everything. Last night, however, she had this brilliant insight. She said, “Daddy, do you think we can sing our prayers?” Astounded by her monastic leanings I said, “Of course we can!” You’ll have to imagine the tune, but I think you can make do.
“Thank you God for Mommy, Daddy, and Bubby. I love them so much and we love you too. Thank you for this house you picked out for us, because we really like it…especially the ceiling.” This was followed by some mumbled song-praying, but I distinctly made out the words unicorn and castle. We closed with a communal prayer as she reminded me, “Now daddy, let’s sing Amen together!”

We then had a brief theological discussion when I told her that I thought God probably loved that prayer. She said, “Do you think God heard it? He doesn’t come around here.” Of course, all four year olds have a deep grasp of the invisibility and omnipresence of God, so I said, “Yes honey, I know he heard it.”

She then rattled off some serious apophatic postmodern theologizing on the nature of God. “Daddy…God is like when you take paper and you cut it out with scissors and then you have the parts left over…” Of course, this was far more than my inflexible calcified adult mind could handle, so I said, “You’re exactly right. Now go to sleep.” And she did.

Church Transfer Letters: Harmless or Bane of my Existence?

I am having a small dilemma. When we receive transfers from other denominations, do we really have to track down their Church letter from Applesnort, Kentucky? Maybe I’m a product of my generation, but I need to know if there is any real reason we need to get transfer letters for folks who join our congregation from other denominations.

I mean, does this help in the annual trans-denominational member count or what? If we don’t do it, are we in grave danger of counting the same member twice in scientific accounting of membership rolls?

Don’t worry, I do my job sending and receiving these letters, but sometimes I’m just not sure it’s worth the effort. Sure, I sometimes get the occasional letter that says,

“Dear friend in Christ, we didn’t know Ralph was still a Christian. Come to think of it, we didn’t know he was still alive! I hope you have better luck with him than we did. Grace & Peace….”

I know someone out there knows the answer, and I know you’re going to tell me. I look forward to being enlightened.

The Movement of the Father

Yesterday I preached on the Prodigal Son. I noticed something interesting that didn’t make it into the sermon, so I thought I’d post it here. There are two verses that really caught my attention.

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20

Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. Luke 15:28

Both verses emphasize the movement of the father. The father moves out to embrace the sinner, and he moves out to embrace the bitter firstborn. What does this tell us? This father isn’t passive. This is a father who won’t let his status stand in the way of reaching out to those he loves.

There can be no doubt that this is a reference to the God Jesus prayed to as Father. He reaches out to the flagrant sinner; he embraces the bitter hardworking firstborn. He does this all on the terms of those who are lost, rather than on the terms of his own status.

So, who are we called to be? We’re called to be those who “go,” and this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, from Abraham to Jesus, God’s people have been called to go. Abraham was called to go and form a new nation blessed to be a blessing, and Jesus calls his disciples to go into all the world making disciples and baptizing them (Matthew 28:19). A missional God will lead to a missional Church.

Clergy Appointments: aka Fruit Basket Turnover

Some folks out there will remember the old game Fruit Basket Turnover. Chairs are set up in a circle, the player in the middle calls out a fruit and those players assigned that fruit jump up and try to get a free seat. At any point, the middle person can call out “fruit basket turnover!” and all players have to find a vacant seat. In some ways that game resembles the appointment process as clergy wave mercifully at every U-Haul they pass in the week following annual conference thinking, “That could be one of us.”

Along with this process, there is the cherished hobby of many clergy – appointment speculation! With that in mind, I really like what the Kansas East Annual Conference has done announcing the appointments as they are made official on their website (h/t Amy Forbus on the MethoBlog). It seems like this satisfies the “curiosity” of folks and makes the process even more transparent, which I believe is a great thing. Nice idea Kansas East!

Evangelicals Condemn Torture

The Washington Post has an article describing the National Association of Evangelicals’ condemnation of torture. Richard Cizik is one of the co-authors of this piece, and I really appreciate the ways he has tried to broaden the “evangelical” agenda to include things like this and the environment. But, I still wonder what good proclamations like this do. Sometimes, it seems that our churches still feel like we’re in a “Constantinian” sort of setting where the government listens to our moral proclamations. Of course, perhaps it doesn’t matter if they listen as long as we present an authentic Christian witness.

One Tick at a Time

Today I’m working on Sunday’s sermon. I came across a new resource by Leonard Sweet called Wikiletics, an open source resource for illustrations (or animations as Sweet calls them), sermons, and images. As I read through some of the illustrations for this week, one in particular caught my eye.

Once upon a time, a clock became preoccupied with worry about its
future. It began thinking about the number of times it would have to tick: twice each second, 120 times per minute, 7200 times an hour, 172,800 times a day, 63,072,000 times a year. When it realized that in the next 10 years it would have to tick 630,720,000 times, it had a nervous breakdown. The clock went to the watchmaker for therapy. While under the watchmaker’s care, the clock began to realize that all it needed to do was to tick one tick at a time.

Soon it began to tick again, and it continued ticking, one tick at a
time, for one hundred years.

I’m only about two years into my life as a pastor, and I already look into the future and think about the never ending stream of sermons that I’ll write over the years. If each sermon is roughly two pages single spaced and I only write 45 a year for 30 years, then that is 2,700 pages of material! Watch out Augustine. From that perspective, it is easy to be overwhelmed. That’s why I needed to know about that clock, taking it one tick at a time.

Christian Objections to Intelligent Design

Francis Collins, one of our leading geneticists and the longtime head of the Human Genome Project, has a new book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. The book gives an interesting account of Collins’ journey to the Christian faith and is an exploration of his thoughts on the interaction between faith and science. He doesn’t offer any revolutionary insights, but does talk about many interesting topics in a manner that is very accessible for the novice who is interested in this field.

One thing Collins describes is very helpful. Many people have asked me why a scientist who is a Christian would ever be opposed to intelligent design, and I haven’t been able to give a concise answer to that question. Collins offers a very helpful chapter on just that, and I’ll summarize some of his points below. All of this information is summarized from Collins’ book (pp. 181-195).

Intelligent design (ID), in its current form, is about 15 years old. It appeared in 1991 when Phillip Johnson, a Christian lawyer at UC Berkeley, published Darwin on Trial which first laid out the position. Michael Behe, a biochemist, introduced the idea of irreducible complexity (a key to the ID position) in the book Darwin’s Black Box.

ID has roughly three propositions

Evolution promotes an atheistic worldview and therefore must be resisted by believers in God.
Evolution is fundamentally flawed, since it cannot account for the intricate complexity of nature (e.g. bacterial flagellum, the blood coagulation complex, and the process of vision in the eye).
If evolution cannot explain irreducible complexity, then there must have been an intelligent designer involved somehow, who stepped in to provide the necessary components during the course of evolution.

Collins admits these objections appear compelling, but goes on to present scientific objections to ID. First, he suggests ID fails to even qualify as a scientific theory. Theories not only make sense of experimental observations, but look forward as well. ID simply cannot suggest further experimental verification. “Outside the development of a time machine, verification of the ID theory seems profoundly unlikely.”

Second, “ID theory does not provide a mechanism by which the postulated supernatural intervention would give rise to complexity.” Further damaging ID theory is the recent development in cell and molecular biology whereby irreducible complexity is being shown not to be reducible after all. Collins suggests ID proponents have confused the unknown with the unknowable. For instance, the human blood clotting cascade (which I had the privelege of working on during my graduate studies) is slowing becoming understood as a system that has developed incrementally over time.

“So,” Collins concludes, “ID fails to hold up, providing neither an opportunity for experimental validation nor a robust foundation for its primary claim of irreducible complexity.” For Collins, ID is slowing being revealed to be a complicated “God of Gaps” approach where God is ascribed to various natural phenomena that the science of the day is unable to sort out. Futhermore, he believes that ID,

“portrays the Almighty as a clumsy Creator, having to intervene at regular intervals to fix the inadequacies of His own initial plan for generating the complexity of life. For a believer who stands in awe of the almost unimaginable intelligence and creative genius of God, this is a very unsatisfactory image (p. 194).”

Collins closes this chapter with admiration for the sincerity and faith of those who endorse and advance intelligent design. He also admits to undertsanding ID as a reaction of those who have faced outspoken evolutionists who portray evolutionary theory as demanding atheism. He then closes the chapter with these words, “To the believer and the scientist alike, I say there is a clear, compelling, and intellectually satisfying solution to this search for truth (p. 195).” In the following chapter, Collins lays out his understanding of science and faith in harmony – a synthesis known in many circles as Theistic Evolution. Perhaps I’ll outline that on another day. What do you think of Collins’ response to ID?