Austin | Purple Theology

For thousands of years we assumed that Earth was the center of the universe. That the sun and moon and stars and whatever else there was out there revolved around the Earth. And that the earth itself was stable and unmoving—completely at rest. After all, it certainly seems that way when you step outside and stare out into the universe. But now we know that none of this is true. Now we know that well, we’re tiny little ants, who live in a tiny little corner of this huge planet…which is spinning around its axis at a thousand mph…while orbiting the sun at the center of our solar system at 66,000 mph…a solar system which is itself flying around our galaxy at 450,000 mph…which is itself hurling through the universe at a couple million mph! Do you ever trip and fall and don’t know why? That’s why. We thought we were the kings of the cosmos, but we’ve discovered we’re more like ants on a rollercoaster. We’ve discovered the universe is a whole lot bigger and we’re a whole lot littler than we ever imagined. It reminds me of the words of that great prophet, Bob Dylan: Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone If your time to you Is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’. Now the times are always a changin’, but it certainly seems to be the case that in the 50 years since Dylan penned these prophetic words, the times have been changing at a rate never before seen in the history of the world. In particular, technology has created, for all intensive purposes, a new world. You click a few buttons and in a few minutes you can learn more about the world than previous generations could have hoped to learn in an entire lifetime. Think about it. Our ancestors interacted with a small handful of people each day—their family and maybe the family that lives in the cave down the street. But you and I interact with hundreds, if not thousands of people on a daily basis—because of cars and planes and TV and internet, we bump up against people from all over the world all the time. And as we’ve bumped into all these people from all over the world, we’ve discovered something; namely, that we disagree with each other about an awful lot of stuff—food and clothes and politics and religion. Think about something that you’d be willing to stake your life on; something you believe so deeply that you’d be willing to die for it. Got it? Well no matter what that something is, somebody else is willing to die for their belief that you’re wrong about that. I was in college when the bigness and diversity of the world came crashing in on me. The claims of science and other religions started ringing in my ears and I realized that there were a lot of voices out there claiming to have the truth. And as all those voices ricocheted around in my head, I got more than a little confused, and for the longest time I just didn’t know what to do with it—the skepticism and the doubts and the questions. Many people are in the same place—on and off the fringes of faith because they just don’t know what to do with their skepticism. This series is for skeptics, which probably means it’s for all of us. Because most of us have a skeptic down in us, somewhere and sometimes. And so before we go to the Bible to let it show us what to do with our skepticism, we need to talk for a second about what faith isn’t. Your faith is as strong as you feel certain about it—this is the way many of us have been taught to think about faith.[1] To have faith is to be certain that what I believe is true. So certainty = strong faith and skepticism = weak faith. And when you think about faith this way, it’s pretty clear what you’re supposed to do with your skepticism: you better pretend it’s not there and push it out of your mind and heart so that you can get back to feeling certain, because that’s what it means to have faith, that’s what God wants from you: certainty. Now maybe you’ve never had anybody come right out and say that to you, but if you’re anything like me, this is the way you’ve been taught to think about faith. And there are lots of problems with this—two in particular. #1- You Can’t Be Certain I can only assume that most of you reading this are human beings. And so, fellow human beings, the first problem with the whole faith = certainty idea is that, well, we’re all human beings…which means we simply cannot be certain about much of anything.[2] Think about it. We’re painfully finite, limited, fallen creatures who know far less of reality than we could ever even begin to comprehend. We peek at the infinity of the universe through a tiny pinhole, during a very brief space in time. And...

In Defense of Worship as a Concert

By Austin on Jul 2, 2015

“Worship should not be a concert.” It’s a common sentiment in many of the circles I run in, and in many ways I couldn’t agree more. The loud music, the blinding lights, the seamless transitions, and, God help us, the smoke machines. It can be a bit ridiculous, and not just as a matter of good taste, but as a matter of good theology. It feeds the ideology of the market and the religion of the consumer. It can condition people to be observers of a show instead of participants in worship of the triune God. None of this is good. Many churches that were once on the cutting edge of modern church worship have realized this and are moving back toward more measured and intentionally liturgical expressions of worship. And to all of this I say, Amen! However…I would like to speak a few words in defense of worship as a concert. A few days ago I went to see U2 in Chicago. I love U2. I think they’re the greatest band in the world. I think there are two types of people in this world: people who love U2 and people who suck. Our tickets were in the pit, because while observing a U2 concert from a seat is special, experiencing a U2 concert in the pit is a riot. We had a riot. Singing “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with 30,000 other people at the top of your lungs. It is sacramental stuff. Not too long ago, I went to another concert and the experience was, well, different. For whatever reason, the band decided they wouldn’t play any of their best songs but would instead play a whole set full of obscure stuff no one knew. They also failed miserably to bring the audience into the concert. Some bands know how to do it and some don’t. Which brings me back to worship as a concert. It seems to me that worship doesn’t need to be less like a concert so much as it needs to be less like a bad concert and more like a good one. Because if you think people don’t participate in concerts, I suspect you’ve never been to a great concert. At a great concert you get immersed, you lose yourself, you feel connected to the people around you, you feel alive. It’s like you’ve stepped into a different world. And that’s what worship is too: an excursion into God’s real world of revelry, peace, and joy; an excursion that reminds us that behind the veil of things, God’s real world is always at hand. I think there are all sorts of ways to do worship right. I can dig the high liturgy of my Catholic and Episcopal friends and I try to learn from it and incorporate it into the worship at my church. I grew up in a church with a huge, traditional choir and love hearing the swell of voices unaided by instruments. I have deep concerns with the worship of churches that barrage people with thoughtless light shows and smoke machines. But when it is done with scrupulous intention and generous accessibility, I think worship could do much worse than being like a concert. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that many would benefit greatly if our worship was more like a great concert instead of less like one....

Nepal and the Eyes of Easter

By Austin on May 6, 2015

A month ago I was in Nepal. Here is something I wrote the day of the earthquake. ————————————————————————————————— “Another earthquake will probably happen soon.” I didn’t think too much about it when he said it to me. I was exhausted after a hike to Shivapuri—a beautiful peak in the hills surrounding the Kathmandu Valley—and could barely keep my eyes open on the bumpy journey back into town. I was fond of our guide. He was quiet but friendly and we chatted for a good portion of our 15-mile hike. It started when I asked if he’d ever seen a tiger in the wild. He had. I barraged him with questions about Nepali wildlife and the Himalayas for the next few hours. Kathmandu is densely populated. Buildings upon buildings upon buildings. When you run out of “out”, you have to start building “up” and that was what worried him. Every seventy or so years, a massive earthquake hits Nepal. The fault line that produces the splendor of the Himalayas also produces earthquakes. He knew they were overdue for another one and that when it happened, the buildings would come tumbling down and the damage would be catastrophic. He was the first person I thought of when I woke up this morning. My phone was binging over and over, so I begrudgingly rolled over and picked it up. An earthquake hit Kathmandu—a big earthquake. Two plates in the belly of the earth shifted and the top of the world trembled. The official death toll at that moment was 111, but I knew it would be much higher. Just a month earlier, I had seen the buildings upon buildings and I shuddered as I imagined them tumbling to the ground. The second person I thought of was a group of people—the children at an orphanage we had visited. They lived a high rise building on the outskirts of Kathmandu, surrounded by green fields where they ripped and ran and played soccer. What if their building collapsed? My stomach churned. Right about then, my wife came into the bedroom with our 7-month old son for my favorite ritual—him crawling around on our bed in the morning with a million watt smile and eyes full of curiosity and wonder. It was a beautiful day—70 degrees, cloudless. My brother in law was getting married in a few hours and I was performing the ceremony. We had much to be thankful for. It was a strange moment. Here I sit with my son as he crawls over me, smiles at me, babbles to me. Moments like that make faith easy. Of course it’s all going to be ok. Of course there is a God of infinite love and goodness at the heart of things. How else could I explain a moment like this? But on the other side of the world, fathers are digging through the rubble for their sons. Many will not be found. “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.” That’s what Frederick Buechner says and in moments like this I don’t know what else to say. How do we hold it together—the beauty and tragedy? Some look at the world and see only the veil of death. Some see only the beauty of creation. But how do we glimpse the beauty of creation through the veil of death? Is it even appropriate to do so? I got out of bed and went outside to give myself some space to process things. “God—please give me the eyes of Easter.” That was the prayer that came to me over and over. The eyes of Easter have seen tragedy—they’ve gone to hell and back. They’ve bore the full burden of reality, in all its misery and suffering. They do not look the other way to preserve the saccharine bliss of naiveté. They stare death in the face. And yet they are eyes that have glimpsed an empty tomb—an empty tomb that makes promises so big and deep and wide that the hopes of those who glimpse it are forever haunted by intuitions of resurrection. Wishful thinking? Perhaps. Nevertheless, I’m asking for them. I have no bulletproof syllogism for why you should. I can understand if you think it irrational and irresponsible, because I’ve seen the world from behind those eyes too. I can only say that when I glimpse the world behind Easter eyes, I see something that makes sense—something that makes sense of both beauty and tragedy. Creation groans in its bondage to suffering and death. Things weren’t supposed to be this way. Something is terribly wrong. Damn the indifference of those who say otherwise. But there is also so much beauty, so much love, so much wonder. The problem of good has just as much bite as the problem of evil. Is the empty tomb too good to be true? My Easter eyes tell me it’s too good not to be true. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. What do you see? I see an empty...

The Shadow of Uriah

By Austin on Apr 6, 2015

Our staff is reading through the Psalms together. This week, I was assigned Psalm 17, and as usual (as our youth pastor likes to point out), David is telling God what to do. He starts out with his typical chutzpah: “Hear a just cause, O Lord, give heed to my cry.” David is confident his cause is just, his lips are truthful, and his way is peaceful (17:1-5). And he’s confident Yahweh knows it. So because his cause is just and Yahweh knows it, he’s confident Yahweh will grant his request. It’s not terribly surprising that David’s request is that Yahweh will deliver him from his enemies with Yahweh’s sword (17:13). David is, after all, a man of a different age. Save me and kill my enemies—this is what ancient people tended to ask of their gods. Clearly there are still many ancients among us. Despite my uneasiness toward David’s violent proclivities, I can place it in its proper space in time, and his cry for deliverance resonates deeply with me. I know what it’s like to feel surrounded by enemies. I know what it’s like to know that I am right and they are wrong. I know the desire to take refuge in the shadow of the almighty, but another shadow falls upon this psalm when I read it. The shadow of Uriah. Use your imagination and picture it: David cries out to God with righteous conviction, reminding God of his justice, integrity, and peacefulness. And this prayer rises up to heaven…where God and Uriah sit side by side. God and Uriah listen to David’s prayer together, glancing at one another from time to time with knowing amusement, chuckling here and there at the sheer absurdity of it all. David…a man of justice, integrity, and peace!? The pot-marks of healed arrowhead wounds across Uriah’s torso beg otherwise. David is no such thing, and one would presume that, in more honest moments, David knows it (and many of the psalms indicate that he most certainly does).[1] And yet here he is, making these comically self-righteous claims. Why? Perhaps because the good news of God was simply much better than he could have ever imagined. Situated where we are—on the other side of Golgotha—we are privy to a view David never quite had. David, at times at least, hoped Yahweh would deliver him because he was a man of justice, integrity, and peace. And across religions, most have believed (or wanted to believe) the universe is tilted in favor of the just. And that certainly would be good news. But as we approach Good Friday, we are reminded that the news is even better than that. For on Friday, we remember that the universe is not tilted in favor of the just so much as embracing of the unjust; that is, we remember that God desires to embrace the unjust in the arms of love. There are holes in his hands to prove it. And if the shadow of Uriah falls upon David, the shadow of Jesus falls upon us all. So if we want to take refuge in the shadow of the almighty, let us first remember: it’s a refuge for sinners. After all, the good news is not that we are good, but that we are loved. [1] And of course to be fair, it’s probably the case that David is referring to his righteousness in a particular case with a particular opponent and not a blanket righteousness. That said, David has a certain tendency to see himself as “in the...

He Hangs There

By Austin on Mar 31, 2015

A Holy Week Reflection ———————————— What does he think as he hangs there? What memories fill his mind? What emotions flood his soul? A strange thing—divinity crucified. An impossible thing—one would think. But there he hangs. Not a very divine thing to do. Does he perceive the absurdity? Does his blood boil? What does he think as he hangs there? It’s no easy task trying to glimpse the thing from behind his eyes and feel it from inside his heart. But his words beckon us to follow them back into the abyss from which they sprang. He speaks to God, a scoundrel to his left, his mother, his friend, and his tormentors. He forgives, he promises, he agonizes, he thirsts, and he gives up. What does he think as he hangs there? The question bursts with infinity. But surely, we must say, he thinks it is real. The grieving mother, the repentant thief, the splinters in his back, the gagging on his own tongue, the godforsakenness of it all. It is real and it means something. Such a strong temptation—to flood the abyss of Golgotha with the light of explanations. There are certainly worse things one could do. But first, let us pause and see the thing itself. God hangs. It is real and it means...