In the End, We are Loved

         When you think of John the Baptizer, what do you consider? His strange diet of bugs and honey? His wardrobe choice of camel’s hair? The fact that he did not become a priest in the Temple like his father and instead went out to the edge of the civilized world to preach? 

         If I asked you, what is the point of John the Baptizer; why does he exist? Maybe you would say “to point to Jesus”, which isn’t wrong, but is definitely not the whole story. John’s life is more than simply to tell people that his cousin is God’s chosen One. John’s existence has a complex purpose and reason for being, just like each of ours. 

 

         Consider what his father, Zechariah, says in the blessing that we read today as the psalmody (Luke 1:68-79): And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (vv. 76-79)

 

         John’s purpose, besides bringing delight to his parents as a child of their old age, is to tell people that they have received salvation, a restoration of wholeness, through the forgiveness of their sins. The people must know that this compassion is part of God’s nature in order to understand who Jesus is when He comes. 

         

         Did you get that? Zechariah understands a concept of salvation, of reunion with the creator, of wholeness and hope- before Jesus is born. Additionally, it is this message that John will proclaim in the wilderness. He is not saying that the Messiah isn’t necessary. He is pointing to the fact that God is already loving, already forgiving, already compassionate, already merciful, and the coming of the Messiah is the telos of the nature of God, not an anomaly. 

 

         Telos is a fancy church word. The writer Rachel Held Evans describes it best in her latest and last book, Wholehearted Faith. I will read her words to you, rather than reinvent a wheel. Evans says: 

 

“… Scripture reminds us, the end is never quite the end as we typically understand it; it’s only a beginning. One of the biblical words for “end” is telos, This Greek word doesn’t have the air of finality that the English word “end” has. In other words, it’s not a dead end. To the contrary, it’s full of life, because it has a sense of completion and contentment. It carries the satisfaction of doing what you know you’re called to do and the fulfillment of being who you were always meant to be. 

         The telos of an apple tree is to flower and to fruit, producing blossoms and apples and seeds that will propagate the next generation of tree. The telos of a honeybee is to collect pollen and produce honey, working in concert with other honeybees throughout seasons of plenty to store sustenance for seasons of lack. The telos of a surfboard is to help a surfer catch a wave. The telos of bread and wine is to sustain and to nourish, to delight the tastebuds and gratify the body until the next meal comes…

         The telos of a human- your telos, my telos, our telos- is to love lavishly and indiscriminately, as our God has loved us. Love is what we were made to do. But even more than that, love is who we were made to be.” (Evans, Wholehearted Faith. p. 177f) 

 

         This telos, this end which is not an end, matters. When John goes out to the wilderness to preach about the nature of God, he is doing so because the message matters. If he does not proclaim this word, which likely burns in his chest and keeps him awake at night, he knows people will fail to perceive and to understand the One whom God sends.

 

         The very same misunderstanding that John feared still happens today. Christians still tend to believe the God of the Hebrew scripture (Old Testament) is angry, vengeful, and in need of appeasement. No matter how many times we read in the psalms, in the prophets, and in the writings that God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”. No matter how many messengers proclaim, “Be not afraid”. No matter how many times we read about the Divine Being always keeping promises, covenants, and commitments. Still, still, STILL- people hold wrong ideas about God the Holy Parent and, when they do, they form wrong ideas about Jesus. 

 

         The telos of John the Baptizer was and is to remind people, even the worst people, of the merciful and covenant keeping nature of God who creates and preserves a welcome to all prodigals in all places, at all times. 

 

         He points to a God whose telos is to make all things new, not to make all new things. The incarnation, the coming of Jesus- as God- among us, is one aspect of that telos. 

 

         Which brings us to our own selves, our own vocations, our own telos. As Evans wrote, “The telos of a human- your telos, my telos, our telos- is to love lavishly and indiscriminately, as our God has loved us. Love is what we were made to do. But even more than that, love is who we were made to be.”

 

         How do we be love? How do we live out this miraculous, hopeful, and holy way of being, doing, and resting in this life and into the life of the world to come with the help of the Holy Spirit? 

 

My inclination is to tell you that first we must reject the aspects of our lives that do not conform to God’s love and will. However, even as I think and write that, I realize that it is wrong. 

 

First, we must actually believe that God is love. We must lean into the gift of faith and believe that we have been made in God’s image- all of us and every person we know. We have to believe that God sees us as worthy of love, of compassion, of restoration. 

 

When we dare to believe that this love is true, true for us, true for all people, then we will be open to the repentance that John points to. The turning away from division, the rejection of injustice, the spurning of habits and ways that cause pain and bring death. 

 

          The chief purpose of our lives has never been to make ourselves worthy of the gifts of God. Rather, the chief purpose is to grow in the understanding of those gifts and how God equips and calls us to use them, with the help of the Holy Spirit, for Christ’s sake in the world. Comprehension of our telos comes through leaning on the everlasting arms and knowing that we did not earn our place there but have been gifted it through Christ’s faithfulness. 

 

         In this season of Advent waiting and preparation, in thinking about the celebration of Christ and the promise of Christ’s return, I invite you to consider your own telos, the fullness for why you have been created. It is not merely for your parents, your children, or even your neighbors. There’s a reality for why you specifically have been made, a special way that you specifically can glorify God and imitate Christ, a specific way that you are called to live and show love among God’s faithful people and in the world. 

 

         We have been called to love because we have first been loved. We were created from love, and, in the end, we return to the source of love. This is not a new thing since Jesus’ birth, but the reality of who and how God- Creator, Word, and Spirit- has always been. Love made us, made all things. And it is our telos to love with our whole being- in all we do and say- every moment of our lives. 

 

         This is not impossible. It is very possible and even probable, if we are willing to believe the truth about the nature of God. The truth that has always existed. The truth that we heard from our brother, John. 

 

Amen. 

Eshet Chayil

It's been a hard week. In each still moment, my mind went back to Rachel Held Evans. I experienced the wishful thinking and grief again and again, as I would thinking, "Surely it's not true." How can she not laugh again? Hold her children again? Console her spouse, Dan?

Julia, you may tell me, she will do these things again in heaven. As true as that may be, it is not enough to stop the tide of unremitting sorrow that is swamping them and so many others now. Heaven is not meant to be a salve to stop earthly pain. It is the answer to the pain caused by the forces that oppose God, but it does not mean that pain is not real when it is experienced in this life.

I've literally thought about her body growing cold, her ashes or her dust, her 3-year-old wondering again where Mommy is, her husband replaying last words over and over. I think about the small anniversaries passing by at a horrible clip- last week she, a month ago she, two months ago she...

A friend pointed out that this is terrifying in many ways. It is, I agreed, because this is the kind of fluke risk we have not accepted. We have considered (or not considered) the risks of car travel, heart disease, breast cancer. We know that there are wars and even shootings in public places. We've weighed the effort to keep ourselves in good health and to balance our rest and our work.

We don't weigh the risk of a fluke medical situation when we go to the hospital to have something treated.

Even when we know the US has very poor maternal care, especially for black and brown women, we still assume most things will be fine.

An unusual reaction to medication, causing our brain to seize, is not in our catalog of worries.

Or it wasn't.

The way we make it as parents to simultaneously try to control everything and to accept that we control almost nothing. Rachel's death showed us that we aren't in control of things we hadn't even fever dreamed.

What can we do?

We can remind each other of the low chances of this kind of death and that it likely wasn't preventable.

We can work to prevent the deaths that can be eclipsed, especially with regard to maternity and maternal health.

We can promote the truth about vaccines and preventative medicine.

And we can assure one another that if the worst happens, we will always speak of them, we will mother their children, and we will not let their good legacy die.

I think that's what I need to hear today and what I will be telling the other women of valor whom I know.

And it's what I will say to Rachel when I see her. Or what I am telling her now, which she may already know.

The Tabitha of Our Time

When I was a kid, the term "dorkus" was not one of endearment. I distinctly remember my parents saying that my siblings and I shouldn't call one another that because Dorcas was woman in the Bible who did good things and was remembered well. I honestly cannot recall if I've ever actually met a Dorcas in name, but I have met many who emulated Dorcas/Tabitha (Acts 9) in spirit.

Dorcas was the woman's name in Greek and it was Tabitha in Aramaic. For the rest of this post I will refer to her as Tabitha. The only reason I bring up the Dorcas part of the story is because if Rachel Held Evans didn't actually write something about giggling as a child during that reading, I know that she would have done it. 

Rachel died early this morning, following complications from treatment of flu plus a UTI. She was four days older than me and left behind two very young children, a spouse (Dan), her family, close friends, extended support network, and a world that needed her writing. 

To me, RHE was the Tabitha of our time, strong in discipline and courageous in faith. I deeply resonated with her own pain at feeling rejected and eventually shut out of the evangelical faith of her childhood. Moreover, her willingness to continue to write, to speak, and to challenge powers and principalities of this world regarding so many issues was a genuine example of what it means to let one's light shine to give glory to God in heaven. 

As she has been sick and now on the day of her death, we who mourn are like Tabitha's friend in Acts- raising up the bits of her writing to show others. "See her work." "Look at how good this is." "She did such powerful things." To any who will come close, we pour out our grief- at her youth, at the randomness and horror of her sudden death, and our heartbreak for her family. 

I ache. 

“The Proverbs 31 woman is a star not because of what she does but how she does it—with valor. So do your thing. If it’s refurbishing old furniture—do it with valor. If it’s keeping up with your two-year-old—do it with valor. If it’s fighting against human trafficking . . . leading a company . . . or getting other people to do your work for you—do it with valor. Take risks. Work hard. Make mistakes. Get up the next morning. And surround yourself with people who will cheer you on.” - The Year of Biblical Womanhood

I am stricken. 

“But there is a difference between curing and healing, and I believe the church is called to the slow and difficult work of healing. We are called to enter into one another’s pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome.”  - Searching for Sunday

When I first heard, I actually looked down to see if I was wearing a shirt that I could physically tear because garment rending seemed the only way to respond. 

“I am a Christian,” I concluded, “because the story of Jesus is still the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.” - Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. 

The death of a 37-year-old woman is not well with my soul. The death of a woman who spoke truth to the forces that oppose God and God's will is not well with my soul. The grief of tiny children, a husband, parents who did not plan to bury their child is not well with my soul. And it never will be.

Apparently, with this Tabitha, there was no Peter to see our grief and raise her from her bed for this life. I will not pretend to be okay with that.

I will not turn to platitudes, easy answers, or quick comfort. This absolutely sucks beyond belief. It is horrible. And, to be honest, I do not think I can be convinced that this was or is God's plan. And I don't think Rachel would have thought so either.

So, what did Tabitha's friends do in Acts? They wept. They told stories of her. They consoled one another. They shared their pain. They treasured her work and showed it to others. They told her story. They continued in that, for their friend, right up to the resurrection.

Sounds like the thing to do to me. #becauseofRHE