It's The End of the World As We Know It But I Feel Fine

This post is a week overdue - I was having too much fun the day of the supposed rapture to comment upon it. Which is actually the first thing I'd want to say about the supposed rapture, anyway. When it comes to the end of the world, I hold with my brother and forefather in faith, Martin Luther, who once said that if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, he'd go out and plant a tree today. I spent last Saturday enjoying a full "tree-planting" kind of day with my best friends and the bambino, so had the world actually come to an end Saturday night, I would have had no regrets.

But as it was, I had neither fear, nor joy, nor thought that the world was actually going to come to an end on Saturday. Now, don't get me wrong- as a practicing Christian, I confess weekly the belief that Christ will come again. But as a practicing Christian, I also have no pretense of understanding what that's going to look like or when it's going to happen. Jesus wasn't really the Messiah anybody expected back in his own day, so I have no reason to believe he's going to return in any form or manner that I might anticipate today. Better to forgo my own expectations and just pray for the wisdom to recognize him when he comes (including but not limited to his presence in the Other right this very minute).

The one thing I have a pretty strong hunch about is that when he comes again, he'll be coming down to us, to be with us. I mean, that was his M.O. the first time, and the Bible from start to finish is pretty consistent about God's passion for the whole of creation (not just humanity). What I'm trying to say is, despite what many have turned it into, Christianity is not a religion of escapism. It's not all about me and Jesus and my personal salvation, and it's not all about Jesus whisking all the Christians away to safety before the biggest proverbial pile hits the fan. Those are corruptions of a faith that from its beginning was thoroughly incarnational and communal, a faith that is about deep abiding in and with the neighbor and the world.

Which leads me to the second thing I'd want to say about the supposed rapture: that there isn't any. It's not biblical. It's certainly not in the book of Revelation. It is at best a twisted interpretation of a verse from 1 Thessalonians.

This bears repeating, so let me say it once again: there is no rapture in the book of Revelation. You don't have to take my word for it - read the book for yourself. Revelation is a letter, to seven churches in Asia Minor. Seven churches existing in radically different circumstances - running the gamut from being persecuted for their faith to being on easy street and completely lax in their faith practices. This one letter is attempting to address seven churches in all these varying contexts at the same time. It's looking to simultaneously afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. At the very end of the letter (towards the goal of comforting the afflicted) it speaks of a new heaven and a new earth coming down. But nowhere within Revelation is there any talk of a rapture, period, let alone one that is taking people up up and away.

So where do the Millenialists (folks enraptured with the rapture - not to be confused with the generation known as the millenials!) get this idea from? 1 Thessalonians 4:17, "Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever." The wider context of this verse is:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Translation: New Revised Standard Version).

A couple things to note:

1. Paul says to encourage one another with these words, not scare the crap out of each other with these words, and not hold yourself holier than all others with these words. This is pastoral theology addressed to those who are wondering "What's going to happen to all who have died before Jesus comes again? And what's going to happen to me if I happen to be alive when Jesus comes again?" - it's meant to be a comforting and hopeful vision of what that might look like.

2. Paul is pretty clear that the dead will be raised first, and then God will deal with the living. This means that there is no rapture, no living people spontaneously getting whisked off to some heavenly safehouse to get front row seats to the immanent demise of the world. Even if you want to be incredibly generous in entertaining this as a possible interpretation of verse 17, the surrounding context makes it pretty clear that the zombie apocalypse will precede any rapturing of living people, and the verses immediately following (in the beginning chapter 5, which I did not quote above) are equally clear that no one will know, expect, or anticipate any of this ahead of time.

But, because prooftexting is one of America's favorite pastimes, Millenialists grab vs. 17 out its own context, put their own twisted spin on it (much easier to do out of context) and then tack it on to all the weird scary junk in Revelation [and only the weird scary junk, they conveniently ignore all the beautiful visions in Revelation of what it's like to be in the presence of God - I'm particularly fond of those parts because there's a lot of singing involved ;) ] To this abomination they also add some equally twisted selectively chosen verses from the book of Daniel and then huff and puff about knowing both the what and the when of the end of the world.

And because, as Mark Twain once said, "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes," way too many people are buying the selectively literalist highly proof-texted junk the Millenialists are selling.

As I've tried to point out here, just reading the Bible itself should be enough to debunk them. But if anyone would like to further equip themselves to take on the rapture, I recommend the following two books:

Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig Koester

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation by Barbara Rossing

Now I'm off to plant more trees. . .

Airplane Etiquette

This is as much a plea to the universe as it is a post, but I am recently returned from a trip to visit Breen, Patrick, and the bambino. And I have to say that once again the lack of common courtesy exhibited in air travel continues to astound me. The three that bother me the most:

1. No one is comfortable on an airplane, at least not in coach. It is a tight, cramped space. It is rendered even tighter, more cramped, and less comfortable for the people sitting behind you when you put your seat back into their laps. Please keep that in mind next time you hit "recline."

2. Some people on the flight really do have tight connections. Like, connections so tight they find themselves racing through the Detroit airport, from the far end of concourse A, through the trippy tunnel, to the far end of concourse B, in order to catch their next flight before it stops boarding. I am often one such person, and I can't tell you how annoying it is to be running by people who were seated in front of me and got off of the plane ahead of me, who are now dawdling looking for something to do because they have a couple hours to kill before their next leg. If you have a lengthy layover or are at your final destination, please let the people with tight connections get off the plane first. It's not that hard and is just the polite thing to do.

Coming home I had an atypically long connection, even as things were delayed and messed up all day due to bad weather in Detroit. So, both flights I stayed seated until others in a bigger hurry (because of delays and whatnot) had gotten off the plane. The number of shocked but genuine thank yous I received from both the flight crew and fellow passengers seated behind me was an indication to me of how uncommon such a simple common courtesy really is these days.

3. I walk fast, especially after I've been cooped up in a plane, so I am usually one of the first to arrive at the baggage claim. I always stand about three to four feet away from the carousel - this is close enough that I can see if my bag is coming and can quickly pop in closer to grab it, yet far enough away that other passengers can also see whether their bag is coming and have space to walk in and grab it. Every. single. time. I am standing there waiting and my fellow passengers walk right in front of me and stand flush to the carousel, effectively forming a human wall around it. This makes it very difficult for those not part of the wall to see whether their bag is coming, and virtually impossible to step in and grab if you do happen to catch sight of it. Plus the people that have formed the wall have a hard time grabbing their bags because they are all standing so close together there is no room to maneuver their suitcase off the line. Again, such a simple, common courtesy - stand a little bit further back, give everybody a chance to see and to move.

So, fellow travelers who may be reading this - next time you fly, please keep these things in mind. A little politeness goes a long way, and could make everybody's experience of air travel a little bit better.

Stepping down from the soapbox now,
C

Stress Comes Out Sideways

Ever since internship, my stress dreams are always related to worship. Usually they are preaching nightmares, but sometimes just worship-in-general nightmares (things going horribly wrong and/or me being horrendously unprepared). Even in going back to school, my stress dreams this past year have all been preaching or worship related.

Last night I had another one. Curious thing this time, though - I wasn't the pastor in this dream. I was a member of a choir that was singing at someone's ordination. The choir was rather large and composed of members of InVocation, Schola (seminary choir), and the cast of Glee. Everybody else had a robe on, and I was scrambling around the choir room trying to find mine, to no avail. Someone suggested I just dress like a pastor instead, because - conveniently - I DID have my alb with me and I happened to be wearing a cleric (which I pretty much never do unless I'm leading worship). So I put the tab in my cleric and put on my alb but then began freaking out because I only had my white stole in the bag (because it's Easter) and I needed my red stole for an ordination. As I'm running around trying to find a red stole to borrow, the service begins, the choir processes in without me. Whoops. Now I am trying to figure out a way to sneak in without being too much of a distraction and take my place with the choir, though I won't really fit in there wearing my alb, but I also won't really fit in among the pastors because I still haven't found a red stole. I was frantically working at how to fix this situation when I woke up.

And I woke up with a tight knot in my shoulder, the same knot that's been plaguing me for the past three days. The first morning I woke up with it I told myself I must have slept on it funny. But it hasn't gotten any better, and feels terribly similar to the knot that showed up the day after dad took the first load of my stuff back to MN, the knot that stayed with me all summer, not disappearing until I myself was back in MN.

So I was pondering these curious events this morning - the spring semester just ended, and I've got a couple weeks downtime here before my June class begins. What in the world do I have to be stressed about, to the point of having an unusual stress dream and the return of the painful knot?

Then I remembered: exactly a year ago my letter of resignation went in the mail. I spent the whole day having to tell people I dearly love that I was leaving, feeling like I was going to throw up with every new conversation I had to have. My people were incredibly gracious in receiving the news but still, it was one of the most difficult days of my entire life - definitely the most difficult thing I have ever done on purpose.

So, a stress dream in which I feel caught between two worlds and unsure of my role, a painful knot in my shoulder for multiple days - the body remembers, even when the conscious part of ourselves would rather forget. Stress comes out sideways, indeed.

Notes from the Life Abundant

*A wonderful warm and sunny day.

*Worship with a part of the broken yet beautiful body of Christ.

*A street festival on the way out of church.

*An excellent concert with InVocation.

*A celebratory ice cream at Sebastian Joe's.

Life is good. :)

Don't You Just Hate It When*

. . .you're trying to get some laundry done while you're working on the big end-of-term paper and you don't really have time to make the bed just then so you throw the clump of newly-washed sheets on top of the mattress thinking you'll take care of that when you need a break later except then you forget all about the sheets until your brain craps out on you around 1:30 in the morning and the only thing you want or are even capable of accomplishing that point is catching a few hours of blessed rest and then suddenly you remember: #@$! I never made the bed.

Don't you just hate moments like that?



Yeah, me too.





*this post would have been made much earlier this morning but blogger has been down most of the day. One the upside, the term paper is now done and turned in. Some summary comments to write up and turn in to Chris, and I have successfully survived the first year of PhDland. Woot.

If you're looking for other amusements this evening, this story from Eileen is hilarious. It was even more hilarious over a celebratory end-of-term dinner earlier tonight, but the recounting on her blog is also quite good!

Mother Tongues and Other Tongues

So Holy Week Burkhard was in Chicago for a conference, then came north to spend the Easter holiday and following week on vacation in Minnesota.

We basically spoke English with each other while he was here. He would graciously say that's because his English needs more practice than my German. I would disagree with that assessment and chalk it up instead to my perfectionist tendencies creating high anxiety about all the grammatical mistakes I know will come out of my mouth if I try to speak auf Deutsch.

Both of us have a similar issue in that we each understand 80-90% of what we hear or read, but trying to actively come up with the right vocabulary and verb conjugations and grammatical constructs as we're speaking on the fly is hard. Especially since neither of us wants to speak "See Spot Run" versions of our non-native language - we each have complex thoughts and we want to express them as fully in other languages as we can in our mother tongue.

Sprachen geht mir schon viel besser, I've noticed, when I'm immersed in the language, like 3 years ago when I was in Dresden for Adri and Burkhard's wedding (btw, Happy Anniversary yous twos!), I was surprised by how much grammer and vocab came back to me, and how quickly my speaking abilities improved, once I got into town.

With that in mind, I've decided I just need to be more intentional about keeping German in my ears on a regular basis, so I've been trolling the internet for irgendetwas auf Deutsch that I could use toward that end. And I found this:



I knew Germans translated and dubbed over American movies, I had no idea they also translated Broadway plays! Some of the wordplay of the English is lost in translation (e.g. the chorus of "For Good" roughly translates "Because we've known each other, I am who I am today," which loses the double-entendre of good in the English verse: "Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you I have been changed for good"), but on the whole they get the same meaning across with the same meter and rhyme schemes, in a completely different language. Most impressive.

Our Theatre of Seasons

Last Tuesday morning it was snowing in the Twin Cities. Not heavily, nothing that stuck around, but snowing, releasing winter's very last gasp before spring finally came out of hibernation.

Then suddenly this Tuesday we jumped right into summer, being a humid 87 above.

Spring, I'm sorry I called you late -- but I also said you were a most welcome guest. Please come back out to play!


Addendum: 9:30 pm

Ok, when I put "theatre" in the title of this post, I didn't intend the weather tonight to become such a production.

The last time I saw a sky that color green and watched the earth go eerily still and silent like that, I was in Northfield and a tornado did things like this to St. Peter:



Thankfully a tight and fast moving storm without major damage this time but. . .yeesh. . .

Gruen Is Busting Out All Over

In addition to the budding trees, the lawn at the seminary has now actually grown long enough that it needs to be cut. I am almost drunk on the smell of freshly-mown grass. :)

Spring, you are a late but most welcome guest!

Of Principles and Particulars

Last night I was at the Festival of Nations, which I haven't been to in years. It was a lot of fun - ate a lot of good food, did a little shopping in the international bazaar, watched plenty of wonderful dancing.

They would project a picture from the representative country on a screen behind and above each group as they danced. Many pictures were rather nondescript scenes of nature or of houses typical of that country, so that even if you'd been to the country you couldn't really say "Oh, that's __________."

Except for the German picture, which was unmistakably Dresden:



Which was cool but a little odd considering Dresden is in Saxony and the dancers were all dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes and were dancing traditional Bavarian folk dances.

It'd be like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band touring in a different country and having a picture of the Minneapolis skyline projected above them as they performed. In principle, same country. In particular, different regional customs and traditions.

Probably stood out to me more than usual because I'm wrapping up a semester in which we've done a lot of thinking about the importance of hearing the other into free speech and paying attention to their complex particularities, not painting people or congregations in overly broad strokes.

It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity

Ok, at this point it would require an absolute freak move on Mother Nature's part to snow us out, so I think I'm safe announcing this (our most recent attempts at performing and recording were cancelled due to Hoth-like conditions, not merely once but twice - we were starting to develop a complex).

InVocation concerts this weekend and next. A couple madrigals, some global music, pops - a little something for everyone in this program! See you there!

Grocery Store Wars

Star Wars + Food Politics = Awesome.



Would it be oversharing to admit I actually own a Darth Tater? It's a Mr. Potato Head with Darth Vader helmet, lightsaber, and other sundry parts. It was an awesome gift (thank you, Dan and Veronica)!

Hat tip to Beth Ann for the video.

Hello Gorgeous

Days like today are why I love living in Minnesota.

Some people live in places where you get weather like this every day. It becomes old hat. You start to take it for granted.

But you get a day like today at the end of a long, cold, snowy winter - when you finally get a day like today when the sun is shining and the sky is blue and the trees are budding and it's not too cold but it's also not too hot and there are no bugs out yet, well, if you live in Minnesota you understand in the very marrow of your bones what a rare and precious gift such a day is and you do everything in your power to soak in as much of this beauty as possible. A day like today makes even dour and unassuming Scandihoovians visibly ecstatic to be alive.

It was just too nice not to be outside. So I went over to Dad's tonight and we played catch in the front yard.

There's this students vs. faculty softball game coming up, you see, and I haven't thrown an actual ball or swung an actual bat in close to a decade (maybe more than a decade. . .as far as this is concerned, Wii and whiffleball don't count). Not only do I not want to look like an idiot on the field, I also don't want to hurt for a week after the game. So I thought it might be good to get a little practice in, ease my muscles back into certain ball-playing uses and movements.

So we were playing catch, but the lawn was uneven, and I was scared to chase down simulated pop flies because I didn't want to turn my ankle in a divot being too busy tracking the ball to look where I was running. So Dad suggested we move into the street. Three or four throws into this change of venue, the ball drops out of his glove and rolls right into the gutter!

We ran over to the cover thinking we'll just need a stick to fish it out. But nope, as we hover over the top looking for the ball, we can hear it steadily rolling down, down, down, then SPLASH!

That was the end of the game of catch.

Somewhere out there tonight a brand new softball is floating down the Mississippi River. Finders keepers if you snag it. ;)

Thanks be to God for a beautiful day!

Lose on Bell's Love Wins

As long as I'm at it, something I meant to post over a month ago: Dr. Lose's HuffPo article on Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins.

I bought the book, I've been enjoying Rob Bell's stuff for years (I think I've given away at least a dozen copies of Velvet Elvis, and am grateful to Jordan Baker for first giving a copy to me).

From the reviews I've read, I suspect in this particular instance Rob and I favor the same kind of heresy.

Someday I'll have time to read stuff beyond the class syllabus, then I can tell you for sure.

Worshipping Together vs. Worshipping at the Same Time

I am a busy little blogger today, but so much good stuff I'm finding that I don't want to lose track of.

This is an excellent reflection on worship and spiritual formation, thanks to Luther's Center For Missional Leadership blog (and more specifically, Mary Hess) for leading me to it.

My Soul is a River Winding Through a Weary Land

Thanks to Milton at don't eat alone for articulating so clearly the same thoughts and feelings I am having in reaction to Bin Laden's death.

Thanks to Choral Girl for drawing my attention to this particular post. And for a great dress rehearsal last night.

The Sermon I Wish I Had Heard on Easter

And if I'm being completely honest, the sermon I wish I'd preached on any Easter.

Thank you, Nadia - He is Risen, Indeed.

My New Favorite Blogger

This woman can write. She's a fellow alto, and even though I haven't shown up to Schola since Ash Wednesday, I can tell you, she can also sing. But for now, just check out the writing.