Author’s Note: When I use myth I simply mean a symbolic narrative or a story that gives meaning.

When I was in Kindergarten recess time amongst the boys was spent riding blue tricycles all across the playground.  All of the tricycles were the same except one.  All of the tricycles had a rainbow logo on the front except for one that had a lion’s logo on the front.  It was understood amongst us that this lone tricycle with the lion on it was the best and the fastest tricycle there was.  This meant that if you were the chosen line leader for the week that you got first ‘dibs’ on the greatest and fastest tricycle there was in all the playground.  This lionized tricycle also granted its rider a certain leader of the pack authority that was gained only to be lost at the close of each school week.  Kindergarteners would come and go but the tricycle’s lure and authority remained for it was the lion that gave it its power.  Eventually we would move beyond Kindergarten to 1st grade and with due time this myth or story of the fastest lion marked tricycle would lose its power over us.  In case you didn’t know, it turns out that the almighty lion tricycle was not faster than the other tricycles.  Though, the lion on its front was way cooler than a rainbow.

It would be easy for me to dismiss the collective belief of the 1987-88 Kindergarten class of St. Mark’s Lutheran School in the faster lion tricycle because we were five years old but I don’t think that would be fair.  As we get older we may leave behind certain stories or myths but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t replaced by others more fitted to our psychological development.  I may no longer believe in the greatness of the lion tricycle but I may believe in the greatness of the United States of America because of the stories and myths that indicate this to be so.  Similarly, I may no longer believe in the greatness of the lion tricycle but I may believe that everything happens for a reason with my own hindsight validating this storyline or myth.

We could go on with more examples but my main point is that we all live according to a story or multiple stories that help us to make sense of the world we live in and serve to give us meaning.   The conundrum of life in the 20th and 21st centuries is that so many of our stories have been deconstructed with the advancement of science and we’ve been left picking up the pieces in ways that previous generations never had to before.  We’re sort of left trying to make sense of it all without the certainty that such stories were able to provide previous generations.  While I’m sure there are those who would disagree it was probably much easier to believe in the Genesis creation story before the scientific revolution.   Similarly, no one apart from remote tribes in South America or elsewhere believes that the sun, moon or stars are gods or netherworlds consisting of aliens.

In reaction to this there seems to be two responses: a desire to go back to the ways things were, a sort of toxic nostalgia or throw everything out and move on into a materialist’s paradise.  One extreme resists the urge to change and is in denial while the other extreme wants to unburden itself completely to the whims of change and a hollowness that only modernity could leave us with.  But such results, on either end, seem so dire, boring, and hopeless.  Maybe the problem isn’t so much that we live by stories or myths that can be deconstructed but in the fact that we don’t really have much to offer in response to this deconstruction.  Instead, we carry on with the same stories with the hopes that some will just come to believe what we believe despite evidence to the contrary.  I don’t know, maybe I’m off but denial is a powerful thing.  Still, I am burdened by the fact that toxic nostalgia is almost always inaccurate, anachronistic and leads to a dead orthodoxy.  At the same time I am burdened by how secular materialism simply doesn’t account for the empathic and emotional qualities bound up with being human and those things which really do set us apart from the rest of creation.

We need stories to live by.  It seems to me, though, that now more than ever we need stories to live by that seek to answer and help us with some of life’s deepest questions at this moment in time.  Is it fair to expect a 21st century person to view the world with the ancient eyes of a 9th century B.C. Jewish peasant? Better still, how would they have responded to living in our world today?  What would something like Genesis look like if it were written today? How can ancient wisdom inform our modern approach to life?  Or are these questions not allowed to be asked?  Are they too much to bare?

I don’t mean to be picky or to be “that guy” but I really don’t like the idea that Jesus is the greatest hero or superhero of all time. I’m also not into the idea that superheroes of various kinds are reflective of a deep human desire for a savior of some sort. I used to be into these ideas. I used be into finding the Christology in superhero movies which always follow the same script of a Manichaean struggle between good and evil wherein the protagonist against all odds saves the day. It is so easy to see the Jesus story in all of this, at least on the surface. Maybe this angle of seeing superheroes reveals our aversion to who Jesus actually is and what he actually did. In large part, there’s not much ambiguity in these stories; there are good guys and bad guys. There may be some moral ambiguity at times, but nothing that would cause an existential crisis of sorts, at least not on the part of the viewers. And I think that’s why I’ve moved beyond the superhero framework. It is not that I think it is all bad rather I think it’s too easy and if there’s one thing that the gospel stories aren’t it’s easy.

I think when we view Jesus as a superhero it gets us off the hook from dealing with the deep issues of our false selves. Instead of grappling with these things we project them outwards onto Jesus, our savior and superhero.  I can transfer my being a poor miserable sinner onto Jesus and not have to deal with my deeper “wounded child” issues. I can simply sacrifice the call to follow Jesus to the continual reassurance that he’s done it all for me already.

I find myself wondering if the image of an anti-hero makes more sense when it comes to Jesus of Nazareth.  Or maybe that needs to be taken in tandem with the superhero image.  He’s such a terrible let down in so many ways. I can’t help but think of his response to the rich man who tries to ingratiate himself to him by calling him good.  He’s simply dismissive of such flattery.  When the moment comes to spark the revolution he couldn’t be bothered, swords were to be put down and he was to be bound. No angels were called down and neither does Jesus valiantly fight for his rights. He dies, his disciples having left him because he was such a let down to them and his moment had passed. Cursed is he who hangs on a tree, right?

It strikes me that Jesus on the cross has much more in common with the Jew who was put to death in concentration camp than with the American soldier who died in combat in World War 2.  Instead of giving meaning to the world and its institutions Jesus simply strips it all away.  As Brian Zahnd notes he reveals the world’s best religious system of Judaism to be, well, quite lacking.  He also reveals the world’s best legal system, that of the Roman Empire to be, well, quite unjust.  The end point of Jesus’ life reveals to us the apparent helplessness and meaninglessness of the ways in which we have ordered our lives as human beings.  It doesn’t get us off the hook for examining such things, at least it is not supposed to, instead it serves as an invitation to do things differently.

Social Media is such a strange place.  Anyone can be whoever they want to be and project that image out into the world through such mediums as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  It is the perfect set up for the narcissist, the abuser, the oppressor, and the deeply insecure because it enables them to be in complete control and frame their persona and narrative.

How often have we heard of the politician who led a double life? The public persona of telling the people what they want to hear and the private persona of corruption and ruthlessness.  How often have we heard of the clergy person who led a double life? The man of the cloth loved by the people he serves and admired for his orating abilities and a private persona of alcoholism and emotional abuse towards those closest to him.

Such real life examples abound and believe it or not they may be right in front of you as you scroll down your News Feed on Facebook.   Strangely, what we may fail to realize is that by simply liking their posts or their photos we are further emboldening them in their abuse and possibly further alienating the abused.  Furthermore, we may be even liking the post of someone who isn’t even real, they are simply a created persona.

It’s striking to me how much we tend to get things backwards.  We are living in a rather tumultuous time and it would seem that calls for justice are everywhere and for good reason.  But are such public calls and cries also easier now because of social media?  They don’t require the same vulnerability and risk that face to face calls would seem to require.  And similarly, don’t such calls also distract us from what is right before us and the seemingly insignificant like the person right in front of us?  Seeking change is good but what good is it if you’re not seeking to change yourself?  Often the change that we seek outside of ourselves is simply the change that we want to see within ourselves.

It was a seemingly inconsequential car ride.  A few days ago I hopped into our car to drive to the Dunkin’ Donuts down the road from our house to get a cup of Joe. This is a normal occurrence for me providing a break from sermonizing or whatever church responsibilities are driving my day such as emails, meetings, visits or teaching.  During this rather brief car ride I usually listen to NPR or I listen to music.  On this car ride I opted to listen to the music of a thrash/hardcore band that I recently gotten into by the name of Power Trip.  Listening to the brutal sounds and screams of their album Nightmare Logic it dawned on me in a way that it never had before why I have continued to listen to such heavy brutal music since I was 15 years old.  It validates and gives voice to feelings and thoughts that are seemingly denied or overlooked by pop culture as well as the more traditional institutions of church, government and school.  Here, one can speak of things and express those things in ways that may be deemed inappropriate and impolite by the powers that be.

I can recall being told that I would eventually grow out of such music as I got older but that hasn’t really happened.  While I may have moved on from certain bands and albums I am still a lover of heavy music with a message.   I recognize that I can go to music and seemingly be validated in the noise and the words.  Validated in ways that I may not feel otherwise in my day to day interactions and responsibilities.  This realization is particularly poignant to me because I am a pastor in a conservative church body and over the last 15 years my desire for music with a message has only deepened.  I am recognizing in ways that I hadn’t before why I listen to the bands that I listen to.

I go to the sounds and yells of Sick Of It All because they articulate and express so well the frustrations of life in post-industrial America while the church and media seem oblivious to such things. Instead they stand on the side of the suburbs and hyper-gentrification theologically validating the way things are and extolling the virtues of neo-liberal capitalism.

I go to Rise Against for an anti-war message because I rarely, if ever, hear such a thing in the news or in the church of which I am part of.   Instead I receive emails encouraging me to become a military chaplain and am expected to automatically believe in the virtues of American militarism.

I go to Madball to process anger that I can’t express publically because that would be not be in accordance with the niceties that so many have come to identify the faith with.  Instead we all go along to get along, feigning smiles and patting backs, soaked in the stain of triangulation and passive aggression.

I go to the Cro-Mags because they express so beautifully the existential angst that I have so often felt since the hormones of early adolescence began to rage through my body.  Instead, I’m told we’ve got all the answers, at least the ones we need.  Modernity’s fundamentalisms are quick to remind us of this much.

While the church I know seems so concerned with life after death I find myself more and more concerned with life right now. A life of repentance and struggle, of hearing and doing, of struggling through the narrow door not to be explained away by easy explanations of what Jesus has done for me.

Save that for someone else.

This past summer we spent three straight days in Disneyland with Becca’s side of the family.  As was expected we had a blast and are already looking forward to going back this coming summer.  Though, there’s something that has stayed with me since we left the parks.  It was the quiet that we encountered when we got back to Becca’s parents house after the three days of madness.  It hit me then how overstimulating Disneyland is from the amount of people to the subtle background music to the full on in your face imagery like fireworks, parades, and Disney characters.  The quiet that we encountered after this was incredibly refreshing and much needed.  Though, I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I was completely out of the Disney environment.

I’ve seen messages that emphasize that the church should glean something from Disney in regards to the way in which they can hold people’s attention.  This point is well taken, especially as it relates to the art of preaching.  But I confess I don’t want my attention held, I want it to disappear in God.  I’d rather have quiet.  It seems like that’s a dangerous commodity these days.  Quiet, that is.  I know, it is a little weird referring to it as a commodity but I’ve got a 3 year old and a 1 year old.  In my world it really seems like it’s something I must trade and invest in given how little of it there is.

Quiet and stillness are truly countercultural in a culture that runs on production and consumption and wears busyness as a badge of honor.  To be quiet, to take a step back means to be missing out on something of importance.  For only the important are out there because they worked hard to get noticed.  They produced and have thereby been rewarded.  It’s fascinating, you know?  We consume never to be satisfied, only to move on to the next thing.  We spend hours Tweeting, sharing, liking and updating only to be more miserable than before.  Yet we continue on like the hardest worker in the world; the junkie.  Motivated by the next hit of dopamine.

And oddly, we already have what we need.  We just struggle to realize it.  Is that not the problem that compels the person to become a junkie, to go looking for more?  I lack, therefore I must fill.  But with what?  Noise?  Distraction? Maybe Jung was right about us after all when he wrote,

“People will do anything no matter how absurd to avoid facing their own psyches.”

There are certain things that over time are harder and harder for me to ignore and have ended up becoming sources of frustration and even anger.  One specifically relates to how the church and its pastors often use and interpret the scriptures.  A recent article written by David Bentley Hart for Commonweal exposes this very problem.  Hart brilliantly writes,

“Throughout the history of the church, Christians have keenly desired to believe that the New Testament affirms the kind of people we are, rather than—as is actually the case—the kind of people we are not, and really would not want to be.”

As I read this I couldn’t help but exclaim inwardly, “Yes!” “Yes!” “Yes!” This is because in the world of face to face and internet communication I have found that true scriptural exegesis isn’t really welcome so long as it does not validate a common sense understanding of the world.  In fact, it’s a bit scary to witness the hoops and levels of outright denial that many will go through in order to maintain the status quo hermeneutic they hold.  Not only that but how nasty and personal they get in the process of defending their point of view.  Recently, I had to unfriend someone on Facebook because of their of incivility in regards to an article that I had posted about Christo-anarchism.  I had been around the bend with this person before on other social media platforms regarding various topics such as the rich man in the Gospel of Mark and how the Markan Jesus stood against economic injustice.  Much frustration had developed over time as he argued against Christo-anarchism from a dogmatic perspective that was informed by Luther’s Small Catechism. The problem, though, with this line of argumentation was that it did not take into account the deeper narrative frameworks of the scriptures and, in particular, the Gospels.  He would simply not take up my arguments on scriptural terms.  When he did use scripture it was in the vein of proof-texting which is just downright tiring and reminiscent of reading parts of Augustine’s writings. (As an aside, and interestingly enough, Augustine can be credited with theologically legitimating the Constantinian shift of the church in the 4th and 5th centuries.)  Disconcertingly, this person has had no lack of supporters in the form of pastors and, unsurprisingly, professors with Ph.D’s.  Yet, to be fair, I can also tell you of friendly encounters wherein the Scriptural witness was abandoned in order to defend the status quo of American militarism and an oversimplified view of Lutheran vocation “that affirms the kind of people we are.”  Again, disconcertingly and eerily put forth by those with Ph.D’s, those with the “best minds” and those within the church hierarchy.  This, at least for me, gives an added punch to the argument that location is everything when it comes to how one interprets a text.

Nonetheless, I especially resonated with Hart’s experiences regarding the criticisms he received for an article he had previously written for First Things .  In this article he praised Laudato Si.  Here’s what he notes about the said criticisms:

“The most representative statements of the contrary position were two earnest articles in the Public Interest by Samuel Gregg, neither of which addressed my actual arguments, but both of which correctly identified my hostility to libertarian apologetics. And on at least one point Gregg did have me dead to rights: I did indeed say that the New Testament, alarmingly enough, condemns great personal wealth not merely as a moral danger, but as an intrinsic evil. No, he rejoined with calm certainty, it is not wealth as such that the New Testament condemns, but only a spiritually unhealthy preoccupation with it (the idolatry of riches, wealth misused, wealth immorally gained); riches in and of themselves, he insisted, are neither good not bad. This seems an eminently reasonable argument, I suppose. Certainly we have all heard it before, almost as a truism.

Here, however, my more than two years laboring in the vineyards of the koine Greek had rendered me immune to the reasonable view of things. For, while Gregg had common sense on his side, I had the actual biblical texts on mine, and they are so unambiguous that it is almost comical that anyone can doubt their import.”

More often than not, after various conversations I have come to a similar conclusion as Hart.  I’m sure in the eyes of others I came across as stubborn and resistant to common sense but the texts say what they say.  I don’t presume to say that I’ve got it all figured nor am I willing to say that I am good at embodying it either.  Nonetheless, it seems to become a burden of sorts that only gets heavier as I see the scriptures misused again and again by those who purportedly know best.  Like King Saul who has been given a spirit to torment him I feel similarly crying out from within, “Can we at least be honest about this?” I know! I know! I am being sooo melodramatic!  But in the words of the great Anthony Hamilton, “Do You Feel Me?”  Thus, in closing I gift you with this wonderful song.

I have experienced and witnessed miracles.  I have also seen the fruits of wisdom blossom and accomplish much.  Yet, I have also seen their limits.  I have found myself waiting for the miracle, waiting for the sign only for it to never come.  I have seen wisdom be thrown off by the illogical and unpredictable proving it can only go so far.  In the midst of this meaning was traded for meaninglessness.  The seeds of emptiness were sown that could not be easily gone with a quick snap of the fingers or explained away with an engineer’s systematization.  Still, I looked for a sign, I looked for some wisdom, some meaning.  Though, as life went on, such things were harder and harder to find.

There are the stories and the experiences that we remember and take comfort in.  These are the signs.  They can increase our confidence in God but they can also work against our faith.  They can all too easily form within us a standard and an expectation in regards to how he should or will act.  He parted this sea here, therefore he will crumble the walls before me there.  There is the discernible system to explain why things are the way they are best articulated in the famous statement, “Everything happens for a reason.”  When tragedy strikes, when the unexplainable occurs, we always have a way out because we can explain it all away.  To stay in the anxiety and the discomfort is to be reminded that we are not in control.  Oddly, we seek out God in order to regain some modicum of control.

“God spoke to me.” “Come see what God is doing.” “God is on the move.”

I’ve been there, I’ve said similar things. Many seem to lay claim to God, yet contradictions abound. The abuser and the narcissist always seem to have God on their side.  Like a cacophony of voices or what must be like the mind of a schizophrenic, there are no shortage of voices claiming God’s approval and blessing.  All around me, God is here, God is there and yet he is seemingly nowhere.

There’s a fine line between atheism and faithfulness to Jesus of Nazareth. Faithfulness to Jesus often requires us to get rid of our crap, to get rid of those things that are seemingly good but end up being idols.  Things like signs and miracles.  Things like wisdom and reason.  Such things are exhausted and revealed to be incredibly lacking on the hill of the Skull.  There, no sign or miracle is given.  No one swoops down from heaven in a chariot at the last minute to give the bad guys what they deserve.  Strangely too, wisdom accomplishes its mission, for it was good that only one man should die rather than a whole nation.  There we see all of the institutions that we are taught to trust in take off their masks and dispose of the things they supposedly uphold.  The Church, the government, the right and the left hand, simply upholding the social order and sending another scapegoat on its way.  Thus, our way of life continues on unabated; a way of life that we created in spite of God.

I’ll confess, I’m compelled to rush to the Resurrection, to make it all okay and to take away any anxiety or discomfort.  But I’m not. The Cross of Jesus Christ gets to the heart of our problem.  It cries out at us and begs us to grapple with such things, with tragedy, with the seeming meaningless of life itself where not everything makes sense.  Where signs and miracles come, go or never show and where wisdom helps but shows itself to be lacking.  The Cross calls us to let our trust in such things go, to see them for the idols that they often are and the Resurrection calls us to begin anew.

I’ve been in ministry now for 8 years and one thing that has become clear to me in this amount of time is that the image that we project out into the world can mask much darkness. Human beings who believe in God and believe that they are doing God’s work can easily justify anything.  How often do we do something that we wanted to do all along and then attach God’s name on to it as if that makes it all okay?  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t guilty of this myself but I am.  Do what I want and then tack on God’s name as my legitimizer.  It’s a great tactic of ab-users.  The reason is that it’s hard to argue with someone who invokes God’s name in emotional circumstances and situations.  That’s what makes it so confusing.  That’s how it works.

The Pharisees claimed that Jesus was possessed by Beelzebub and his family said he was out of his mind. He didn’t subscribe to the normal narrative.  Accordingly, the Pharisees were considered the blessed, the sons of the light, and the keepers of the great tradition.  They were the faithful and they truly meant well.  They were ab-users, though.  They divorced their wives for better ones that brought more status and wealth.  They devoured widows’ houses to keep their way of life going.  They loved banquets, they loved to socialize, and they loved to network.  All of these things were for good because it could serve their children and their grandchildren well in the future.  All of this revealed that God was on their side and that they were blessed.  Ab-users wouldn’t want you to think otherwise, even though they left a trail of destruction behind.  Their image was great, the rest sucked, but you’re not supposed to know that.  That’s what social media is good for.  Press releases are a God send.  Triangulation is the best way to distract and push forth.

It’s not an accident that after being accused of being in cahoots with Satan and of being out of his mind that the Markan Jesus says, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Image is one thing, words are another, but actions speak much louder than anything else we can come up with.  How you live, how you behave, how you treat others reveals what you really believe, where your true allegiance lies. The rest…well…