Grace, Justice, and Mercy, Via Victor Hugo

In Hugo's Les Miserables, Bienvenu catches a calloused liberationist off guard with the thought that "perhaps mercy is but a higher form of justice." The holy Bishop of Digne caught me off guard, too. Ever since I read that line, I've wrestled with what I thought I knew about the higher economy. I intuitively sensed that Bienvenu was right, but I couldn't reconcile this with my understanding of the relationships between justice, mercy, and grace.

As a child, I was taught that:

• Justice is getting the things you deserve. 
• Mercy is not getting the bad things you deserve, and 
• Grace is getting the good things you don't deserve.

While I still think these are reasonably sufficient definitions for a 6 year-old, my understanding was skewed by the hierarchy they occupied in my mind. To me, justice was the norm, and grace and mercy were exceptions given by a benevolent God who was too nice to let consequences mess up our lives.The idea that mercy could ever be higher than justice was to me, counter-intuitive.

I'm trying out a new paradigm:

• What if grace is the standard, rather than justice? 
• What if justice is merely the structures which maintain the status quo created by grace? 
• What if mercy is that which prevents the status quo from destroying the original intent of grace's creations? 

This would therefore mean that grace is the motive, justice is a means, and mercy is a higher means, as it more closely resembles the motive. Remember as I have only just truly realized, that grace is not God's plan B response to sin's derailment of justice. Grace preceded sin, because creation itself was an act of grace: it's a good thing we didn't deserve. Grace created order out of chaos. The maintenance of order is called justice. Mercy returns order to a broken world in a way that justice sometimes cannot, for while justice is but a blind process, mercy flows from relationship, the highest of created orders.

If This was Victor Hugo's understanding of the higher economy, then his comments via Bienvenu make perfect sense. 

Thoughts? Anyone?

You Use the Weak to Lead the Strong

Jon Stewart went BUCK on Pat Buchanan yesterday, defending the Bible, of all things, against misuse.

Stewart's main point is a good one: In times of tragic catastrophe, no one gets to play all-knowing editorialist commentator. Enough said. Now, onto my editorial commentary about all the editorial commentary.

In the paradigm of traditional conservatism, Robertson is a highly exalted prince. In this same economy, Stewart, an unabashed liberal, would be viewed as a rather lowly fool. I like that a foolish man such as Mr. Stewart was used to shame the proud while unabashedly proclaiming the compassion of God to his largely unbelieving audience. If bashing Christians is what it takes to elevate God and his Word, then this was a huge win for the Kingdom. Soli Deo Gloria

Ezekiel 21:26 - This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Take off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was: The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low.

1 Cor 1:27-29 - But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

Why Write New Worship Songs?

From Sovereign Grace's Bob Kauflin: "Because God’s saving acts in history and in our lives demand new songs. Because 1000 tongues or a 1000 songs will never be enough. Because Jesus Christ is a great Savior worthy of unending praise. Because the Word of God is eternal and life-changing. Because this is one small way we can contribute to building up the church, comforting God’s people, and advancing the gospel, all for the glory of God. And because, in the words of King David, “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:3)."

I'd like to think of our songs as drops in a series of waves beating in endless succession against the shores of God's glory. Each generation is a new wave, made up of a lot from the old and a bit from the new.

"Before the Throne" - New Verse

 I was noticing how "Before the Throne of God Above" doesn't have a verse that actually tells the gospel, so I thought I would attempt to write one with the imagery of baptism, since the Christian Calendar year celebrates the Lord's Baptism this upcoming Sunday.

From Heaven's throne came Christ in love
To ransom sinners such as we
His blood alone was price enough
His body bore our penalty
And as He laid below the earth
The object of wrath's recompense
So we are dead before our birth
Til we are raised alive in Him

This Makes Me Sad

THIS MAKES ME SAD...

1. Because it's theologically and historically inaccurate. God did not have sex with Mary. That contradicts the idea of a virgin birth and it's simply not what was reported. Mary was the vessel of God, not His mistress. When asked how Mary conceived Jesus, Martin Luther replied, "Through her ear." The Son is the Word of God. When she received His Word verbally, she received Him physically.
   
2. Because it puts physical intimacy at odds with spiritual intimacy. This cartoon makes it sound like if a woman is intimate with God, then she will find marital intimacy boring or unworthy. This is the exact opposite of true. Trust me.
   
3. Because it's actually a funny cartoon. Being such, people typically assume the truth of the setup because only the punchline has to be twisted. That's common sense in the humor world. It reminds me of a joke only Catholics get because only their theology allows the premise: "So Jesus said to the crowd, 'Let the one without sin cast the first stone.' Just then, a projectile soared over the crowd and hit the adulteress square in the forehead. Jesus quickly parted the crowd and, upon spying the culprit, exclaimed 'Go home, mother, I'm trying to teach a lesson here.'" It's only funny if you believe Mary was sinless until the assumption, or if you accept it for the sake of the argument. The trouble is, nonbelievers look to the church to proclaim their own beliefs. If a reader is to receive the above cartoon, he will assume that surely a church knows what they're talking about when it comes to the setup. I wish it were so.
4. Because it's a church advertisement and they should know better. Seeker sensitivity means caring about what people NEED to hear and see from the CHURCH, not what they are USED TO hearing and seeing from each EACH OTHER. This is not advertisement. It is obscenity.

Future Quote from a Great Man

I decided only to care what God thought back when He was the only one listening anyway.

Body Image

I've been hearing the term "body image" since junior high. The topic is usually heavily stressed to girls as a preventative measure against depression and promiscuity. The idea is this: a healthy body image propels one toward continued health, but an unhealthy body image leads to a self-perpetuating destructive cycle. If I feel ugly, I will act as though I feel ugly, which is an unattractive quality to all but two types of people: sexual predators, who will gladly exchange compliments for copulation, and advertisers, who will quickly trade capsules for currency. Since we want to avoid these destroyers of intimacy, we give our young girls axioms to ingest which we hope will reinforce positive body image, thus averting damage and affirming health.

I guess because we're a fragmented and compartmentalized culture, it never occurred me to apply this paradigm more broadly. If Scripture uses the body as a metaphor in a variety of ways, which bodily principles transfer with it? Does "body image" effect the Church's health? I think so, and I'd like to begin excavating this as far as I can, offering some scripture-based axioms which I believe apply broadly to the bodies of individuals, families, and the church:

1. Loving heads maintain their bodies with precision care. We start with an obvious one. Paul does all the work for us in Ephesians 5 when he ties this analogous principle of the individual to the marriage and to the church as well. "²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body." Both excess and neglect are slow and painful murderers. Moderate intake is vital and the quantities vary significantly. The body's survival is of utmost importance to the head, so one must get to know his body's needs and treat her "according to knowledge."
2. Vanity is a vapor and oblivion a void. We want to be able to examine our bodies in such a way that we can evade narcissism (both positive and negative) and still be reflective enough to know where we need improvement. Those who are oblivious about their appearances are usually, let's just be honest, disgusting. But there's no such thing as an unbiased mirror. The person looking into the mirror must interpret the data, and is never objective in his or her conclusion because said viewer has a vested interest in the outcome. Physically, one must depend upon the dual effort of good mirrors and true friends. Reliable mirrors give us meaningful data, and true friends help us interpret that data in constructive ways. Families are an ideal situation for this both physically and spiritually. Spiritually, we must lean wholly upon Scripture as our mirror, but, since interpretation can be skewed, one must consider the historical church one's friend and family. Obviously, since this is a sticky subject for most people (who is truly satisfied with their body?!), this takes some serious trust and humility both on the part of the examined and the examiner. This is why Jesus encourages us to remove the plank in our own eye so that we may see clearly to remove the speck out of our brother's eye.
   
3. Bodies are only equipped with one mind. Jesus says it this way: "Man cannot serve two masters." Individually, we can take this simply to mean that we are to cultivate pure hearts so that we are not divided in our pursuits. In marriage, it gets a even more difficult. God makes the two into one, telling them to be of one mind. Not easy when we're not even wholly united within our individual selves. He calls the woman the body and the man the head. Seems like a good argument for complementarian marriage, and it probably is, but I'm not sure Hebrews were as black and white about the physical location of the mind as we are. It might be good just to explore this cave for a while in your own marriage. The Church, as God's body, is entreated to pray in submission to her Sacred Head's will, and He is covenant-bound to hearing her requests and laying His life down for her needs. It's pretty beautiful when you allow the paradigm to work itself all the way out.
   
4. The female body is designed to nurture new life. The female body has a uterus and mammary glands which are functionally useless to her. They are present for the benefit of an entirely unique person. Within a family, this is very obvious. Within the family of God, the Church plays the female role, which means a prominent part of her profession is the procreation of progeny: making and nurturing spiritual children. I just think that's so huge and special. 
5. She's a one-man woman. I haven't figured out exactly where to put this one yet, but since I already mentioned the principle briefly in the introduction, I'll cut straight to the chase. The Church has no business altering her body to attain to an ideal that pleases someone other than her loving and non-perverted Husband. We need to be really careful to avoid marketing and to ensure that our "seeker-sensitivity" doesn't detract from the things that our Husband finds pure and attractive. As our Pursuer, He's the true Seeker to whom we should be sensitive. He's the one who presents us to Himself as a pure and holy bride. Don't dirty yourself up for another man. That's called whoring and He doesn't like it.
   

I think if the body can hold these truths dear to her heart and truly believe them, her body image will promote healthy function in individuals, families, local congregations, and the church universal. I love analogies, and I feel like we might be missing some serious exegetical goldmines here by ignoring the clearly rewarding hermeneutic spelunking this particular analogy offers us. I keep thinking of more axioms, but this is getting too long. I might just spend some time outlining a book on this.