Who Hallows God's Name? - Arends

I appreciate the opportunity to occasionally share my Christianity Today columns here. As always, your feedback means much.

Carolyn

So, Who Hallows God's Name?

We usually think it's our job. Think twice.

Carolyn Arends

[ January/February Issue- posted online at CT on 2/20/2013 8:08AM ]

On a recent trip, I had a conversation with a man who learned I was from Vancouver. He had lived there years earlier, and after asking if a particular music shop was still in the city, he told me a story.

His wife was a piano major at the University of British Columbia. When they went piano shopping as newlyweds, the saleswoman led them straight to the entry-level models. "She had us pegged exactly right," the man told me. "We didn't have two nickels to rub together. We were going to have to borrow the money to get the cheapest instrument there."

Everything changed, however, when the name of the prospective buyer's mentor—a world-renowned master teaching at the university—came up in conversation. The saleswoman was panic-stricken. "Not these pianos!" she exclaimed, herding the couple away from the economy section and into a private showroom of gleaming Steinways. "I'm so sorry," she kept repeating, horrified at the thought of the teacher finding out she'd shown one of his students an inferior instrument. Try as they might, they couldn't persuade her to take them back to the pianos they could afford. Once the master's name came up, only the best would do.

"Hallowed be thy name," I said this morning, mumbling my way through the Lord's Prayer. I've prayed that phrase countless times. But today, I find myself thinking about the reverence a flustered piano saleswoman had for a teacher's name, and the prayer begins to change shape.

What does it mean to "hallow" God's name? I was raised to flinch whenever someone uses it as a mindless exclamation or, worse, a curse. I've heard about the extreme care taken in branches of Judaism: Pages containing the name of YHWH are never thoughtlessly discarded but rather buried or ritually burned. When I've prayed the Lord's Prayer, I've tried to cultivate that kind of personal reverence for his name—even while living in a world prone to profane it, and a church apt to make puns with it on T-shirts.

I'm glad I was taught to avoid blasphemy. But I'm beginning to suspect that my understanding of what it means to hallow God's name has barely scratched the surface.

Names are a big deal in the Bible. From Abraham ("Father of Many") to Jacob ("Heel-grasper") to Peter ("Rock"), monikers don't merely identify, they reveal. Moses understood this. So he asked God (whom he knew by the generic deity designation Elohim) for his personal name. "Yahweh," God told him, offering Moses the kind of intimacy that only comes on a first-name basis—and revealing his covenant with his people in the process.

Every name we have for God is a revelation of his character. So making his name holy must have something to do with revealing him here on earth. But a review of the human track record tells us this isn't our specialty.

There is a scene in the 1999 CBS miniseries Jesus that haunts me. Jesus is in agony in Gethsemane, and Satan comes to tempt him one last time. In a devastating move, he shows the Lord a preview of the evils that will be done in his name, and asks if his sacrifice will be worth it.

The scene is not from Scripture, but the scenario it proposes is powerful. In the shadow of the Cross, did Jesus observe all the wrongs—catastrophic and petty—we'd credit to him? Did he see inquisitions and gas chambers, defenses of slavery and "God hates fags" placards? Did he anticipate the way we'd use his name as a political trump card, or speak for him and pronounce his judgments in the wake of tragedies? Did he hear us mutter, when confronted with need, "God helps those who help themselves"? Did he want to shout that he'd said no such thing?

We can only guess at all he endured in the garden, but we know for certain that when one of his friends sliced off a soldier's ear, Jesus put it back on. "You can't hallow my name," the gesture seems to say, "if you're associating it with something I would never do." Thanks be to God, many of his disciples have altered the course of human history with the good done in his name. And yet, 2,000 years later, we still have a propensity to wield our swords—rhetorical and otherwise—on his behalf.

In light of all this, the Lord's Prayer takes on new urgency. None of the six petitions Jesus taught—for God's name, kingdom, will, bread, forgiveness, and deliverance—are things we can obtain on our own. In fact, all the verbs are passive. This means that the first request is not really, "Let us hallow your name." It's more, "Father, do what we can't—make your name holy in all the earth."

Only God can reveal himself to the world. But if we pray as he taught us, our reverence and care for his name will grow. That's when we'll begin to exchange our cheap instruments of self-interest and power for the costly cross of Christ—the only instrument worthy of our Master's name.

Carolyn

Power Washed By God - Arends

Power Washed by God-Carolyn Arends

The blessings—and danger—of divine proximity.
(In the October issue of Christianity Today, posted online 10/17/2011)

Here is my newest CT column - an attempt to grapple with some aspects of God's judgment in light of his mercy ... I'd love to know what you think!
Carolyn 


Last summer, we hired a man with a power washer to clean our deck. As he blasted the dirt that had defied our feeble garden hose, I found myself wishing all the muck in my life could be dealt with so efficiently. Sticky kitchen floor? Messy relationships? Unleash the water pressure!

But not so fast. Two weeks earlier, a neighbor's teenager, Matt, was cleaning the driveway with a rented power washer when he felt an ant crawling on his calf. Instinctively, he turned the nozzle toward his leg, obliterating the insect—and, unfortunately, some layers of muscle and tissue. Matt's injury is not uncommon; an online search produces innumerable accounts of gruesome wounds and even fatalities related to the use of pressure washers.

So I decided to give my handyman and his potentially flesh-stripping machine a wide berth. I had to do some reading for a biblical studies course, so I sat by my kitchen window and kept one eye on my yard and the other on the Pentateuch.

I was making my way through Exodus, feeling a little jealous of my spiritual ancestors. It seemed they never had to wonder if God was there. They had only to follow pillars of cloud and fire, gathering up the manna served fresh daily from God's kitchen. At Sinai, Yahweh made his presence even harder to miss, clearing his throat with thunder, lightning, trumpet blasts, trembling mountains, and billowing smoke.

I wondered why the present-day actions of the immutable God sometimes seem so muted in contrast to the God of Moses. I wouldn't mind a pillar of cloud or fire when I need direction, or some manna on my front lawn when I pray for provision.

But 10 chapters into Leviticus, I sobered up to the dangerous side of God's proximity to the Israelites. They had just set up the tabernacle, and two of Moses' nephews had been recruited for the priesthood. When they failed to follow protocol and offered "unauthorized fire" at the altar, "fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord" (Lev. 10:1-2).

This seems a little harsh. Two guys make one mistake their first day on the job, and they get "fired." But other similar incidents had the same tragic result: Achan's stashed plunder (Josh. 7), Uzzah's casualness with the ark (2 Sam. 6), Ananias and Sapphira lying about their offering (Acts 5). In each case, God was inaugurating a new era in salvation history, and in each case, his holiness was underestimated with dreadful consequences.

These episodes remind me of a strategy employed by one of my schoolteacher friends. On day one, he sends the first unruly student into the hallway, knowing that an early show of authority makes the rest of the year go smoothly. It is tempting to think of the disturbing accounts of God's judgment as cases of extreme classroom management.

But as I struggle to reconcile Yahweh's apparent "zero tolerance" policy in these stories with the inexhaustible mercy we see in Jesus, I wonder if both the wonderful and awful aspects of God's power experienced at close range aren't more like the blasts of a pressure washer than the techniques of an irate teacher. God's holiness is the very thing we need to get wholly clean. But, unmitigated, it's too much for us. We can't survive it.

Maybe Yahweh's holiness (and its sometimes fiery consequences) became more visible at turning points in salvation history less because God wanted to set a stern example, and more because at those moments he'd drawn particularly near to his people in all his power. As envious as I might be of God's visibility to the Israelites, they clearly sensed the danger inherent in his proximity. In Exodus, they ask Moses to speak to God on their behalf, so they can stay at a safe distance.

When I grasp that God's holiness is necessary for my cleansing but is also, by its nature, a vaporizing force, two things come into clearer focus. First, I begin to perceive God's judgment as no more malevolent than the blast of water from a pressure washer. It is simply God's holiness doing what God's holiness does. Second, this reality points to one reason we need a mediator. Jesus is the only human who could vicariously absorb (and ultimately survive) the cleansing we so desperately need. Because of him, we are washed not by a force so intense it annihilates us, but rather by the blood of the Lamb.

Just like I wish I could turn the power washer on all the messes of my life (without the resulting carnage), I still find myself longing for more visible manifestations of God's nearness and power. But in the final analysis, I am grateful that the God who once resided in a cloud on the mountain now lives in us, baptizing us not with an obliterating flood, but with his Spirit.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

 www.carolynarends.com

A Both/And Path to Truth - Arends

My newest Christianity Today column was in the August issue and went online August 15th.  I'd love to hear about your interaction with it -- I worked to express something here I've been trying to articulate for a long while, but found it surprisingly difficult to get the ideas across. How'd I do? Does this spark anything for you?

A Both/And Path to Truth

Why the narrow way to faith is also expansive.

My friend John Blase is a writer who chooses his words with utmost care. So when I noticed he refers to his wife as his "girlfriend" in his blogs, I knew the quirk was intentional. It turns out the habit goes back to the time when John was asked whether the lovely lady next to him was his wife or his girlfriend. He gave the only answer that made sense: "Yes."

I've been thinking about John and his girlfriend/wife a lot lately, especially when I read my Bible. Is it faith or works? I demand of the text, and the answer seems to be: "Yes." Is God a God of revelation or of mystery? Is he as close as a whisper or beyond all things? Yes. Yes. Is the kingdom of heaven now or not yet? Should I be wise as a serpent or innocent as a dove? Should I fall headlong into grace or work out my salvation with fear and trembling? Yes. Yes. Yes.

A lifetime of evangelical thinking has primed me for either/or questions,breeding a deep distrust of both/and propositions. After all, one of the distinguishing features of Christianity is its insistence that there is one way to God. A wariness of pluralistic worldviews is completely warranted. But if I'm not careful, that insistence can mutate into creating artificial schisms that fly in the face of a God who desires to make us whole in radical ways.

When we fall for false dualities, we end up arguing over whether the gospel is concerned with ministering to the poor or proclaiming the Word. We believe our theology must emphasize either a free gift of grace or a call to holy living. In a myriad of areas, we polarize, dichotomize, and greatly minimize the life God has for us.

In his book Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith, Richard J. Foster argues for a larger, less-fragmented view of life in Christ by exploring six great traditions that have ebbed and flowed throughout Christian history. My husband and I once used these six "streams" as curriculum for adults at a family camp. It was fascinating to observe the ways that personality and denominational background influenced affinities and aversions to the various traditions.

Our introverts extolled the Contemplative Tradition, with its focus on prayer and meditation. The activists among us couldn't wait to cover the Social Justice Tradition. Our Pentecostals wondered why we were taking so long to get to the Charismatic Tradition's exploration of the Spirit-filled life, while the Baptists felt we should begin and end with the Evangelical Tradition and its insistence upon the centrality of Scripture. Most of us were intrigued by the Incarnational Tradition's assertion that all aspects of life should be lived sacramentally; almost none of us had a natural attraction to the Holiness Tradition, because an emphasis on virtuous living had been so frequently divorced from grace in our past experience.

Foster's careful analysis showed us how these traditions have informed, provoked, and corrected each other over time. Even in our little camp group, we saw how our various inclinations could help us balance each other; it took all of us to make up the body of Christ. And we could concede that, while we'd always be naturally stronger in some areas than others, there was no excuse for completely ignoring (let alone disparaging) whole planes of life in God's kingdom.

This insight is easier to write about than live. Efficient people and organizations are lauded for decisive and focused thinking; they find a singular mandate and stick to it. The paradox that so typified Jesus' teaching is expansive, complex, and nuanced. It requires mulling and wrestling; it forces huge shifts in paradigm and, eventually, practice. When we are asked to hold two seemingly opposite truths in tension, we experience confusion (which can be painful) before we get to any sort of cohesion. So, we often bail and settle for one pole or the other, congratulating ourselves for taking a stand, but losing at least half of what God has for us in the process.

Most of us would like our faith to reduce tension. But, according to Jesus (who told us to be anxious for nothing but always alert, to be last in order to be first, to be weak to be strong, and to lose our lives to find them), tension is required.

When my producer friend Roy Salmond noticed that his church included a desire for "vibrant faith" in its mission statement, his musical mind instantly linked vibrancy with vibration. A vibrant faith, he warned his fellow congregants, may necessitate oscillation and tension. In the absence of motion, there's no music.

I too desire a vibrant faith. So I am trying to remember that the Way is narrow, but the life we're called to is wide and deep. Still, I can't help asking: Is following Jesus an act of simple trust, or an adventure of unimaginable complexity?

Yes.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

 

www.carolynarends.com