Wheatland’s worship service is filled with symbols. One of those symbols is the stole. Stoles are long strips of fabric that drape around the shoulders and down the wearer’s front. They are often made of fancy material with embroidery on the front. You’ll see stoles with crosses, the bread and cup, Trinitarian symbols, and fish (Ichthus/ΙΧΘΥΣ).

Stoles are worn by bishops and priests in more liturgical churches. Deacons wear stoles too, hanging diagonally across their chest. Priests and pastors often receive a stole upon ordination. They signify pastoral authority and remind the wearer that they have submitted to the lifestyle of the ordained.

Above all, a stole is a visible reminder of Jesus’ “easy yoke.” Wearing a stole reminds the congregation that the stole wearer speaks and acts in Jesus’ name. It’s not decoration. The stole says that the one wearing it is now yoked with Christ.

Donatus Magnus was a leader of the church in 4th-century Africa. Under persecution, and in fear for their lives, many of the priests in his territory turned over their Scriptures to their persecutors. These people were called traditores; the word means “to hand over,” and it is the root of our word “traitor.”

When the persecution was over, repentant priests returned to their work. However, Donatus declared that all communion services where they presided, and any baptisms they performed, did not count. This led to the false teaching which claimed that for the sacrament to be valid, the priest providing it had to be morally perfect. AKA, “Donatism.”

Before long, the broader church rejected the Donatist position, making clear that the sacraments are valid not because of the purity of the individual priest but because of Christ. What a relief! Both then and now. This history lesson reminds us that not only does God use imperfect ministers to do his work, but it is Christ himself that makes baptism and communion valid. Christ is the one acting in baptism and communion.

When you come forward to receive communion, you are not receiving it from one of our pastors. The stole around their neck reminds you that what you receive comes from Christ, through imperfect hands. A Wheatlander may give you the bread and the cup, but in actuality, it is Jesus himself who serves.

The secret of the easy yoke is that it is Jesus’ yoke. It is not just his teaching; it is not just his outlook on the events of this world; it is Jesus himself, arm around us. It is Jesus sharing with us what he feels, what he understands—it is Jesus counting us his friends and sharing his very life with us through the actions of our brothers and sisters. Next time you see it, let the stole remind you that Christ is indeed with us!

Fireworks were randomly going off in the background. Not intended as part of the sermon. The sermon title is a pun on an old Oliver Stone movie.

Like many rabbis of his day, Jesus’ “yoke” was both his body of teaching and his way of seeing and interpreting the Torah and the world. We don’t use that word much anymore, but that doesn’t mean we don’t find ourselves under the yoke of modern teachers or “influencers.”

We can only wear one yoke at a time, so let it be Jesus’ easy yoke.

A life lived under the yoke of Jesus may look a little like this,

The disciple is not there to jot down ideas and then go away and then think about them. The disciple is where he or she is in order to be changed; so that the way in which he or she sees and experiences the whole world changes. – Rowan Williams

It is sometimes fun reading other people’s mail. In the case of C.S. Lewis (and for that matter, the Apostle Paul), we only read one half of the conversation. But what a conversation!

Lewis continues his half of the “conversation” with Malcolm by commenting on religion. In fact, I wonder if this isn’t Lewis’s more thorough version of a phrase we hear today, “It’s not religion, it’s a relationship.” Sometimes those activities we do in order to get close to God become another barrier keeping us from God.

At any rate I can well understand how a man who is trying to love God and his neighbor should come to dislike the very word religion; a word, by the way, which hardly ever appears in the New Testament. Newman makes my blood run cold when he says … that Heaven is like a church because, in both, “one single sovereign subject—religion— is brought before us.” He forgets that there is no temple in the New Jerusalem. (Rev 21:22)

He has substituted religion for God—as if navigation were substituted for arrival, or battle for victory, or wooing for marriage, or in general the means for the end. But even in this present life, there is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the social, the intellectual, the recreational, and all the rest.

… This department of life, labelled, “sacred,” can become an end in itself; an idol that hides both God and my neighbours. (“When the means are autonomous, they are deadly.”) It may even come about that a man’s most genuinely Christian actions fall entirely outside that part of his life which he calls religious.

It goes by a lot of names, but the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac always produces new questions, new insights, and new growth. Here are two great takes on this provocative story.

Maggie Dawn asks some great questions that help us see ourselves in the story. But not just that, she reminds us that the Bible has an eye on those that are often overlooked.

Jason Micheli uses the story of Abraham and Isaac to illustrate how the Bible is a giant and interconnected collection of writings and shouldn’t be interpreted without an eye for the whole.

The myth of the Hydra is an awkward metaphor for the study of Scripture. Hercules discovered that every time he killed one head of the multi-headed monster, two more grew in its place. Similarly, every time we think we understand of a passage of Scripture, two more possibilities emerge. This is the case when Abraham goes to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

Scripture is all about God. But on the way to revealing who the God of the Universe is, Scripture messes with our preconceived notions and our knee-jerk reactions. In revealing God, the Bible, at times, reveals our biases about who God is supposed to be.

For the love of links is a compendium, a mash-up, a random conglom of interesting bits of internet goodness. Enjoy at your own risk.

We proclaim it every week. We proclaim to the world, to one another, and even to ourselves. Maggie Dawn, with some help from Kurt Vonnegut(?), reminds us why.

In case you thought it was simple, this CT piece highlights how complicated relationships in the Middle East really are. It also demonstrates the hope that comes from worshiping and serving one’s neighbor. — A Lebanese Worship Song Called for Peace. Again. And Again.

Ragan Satterfield and Nathan Foster talk about encountering God in God’s good creation. “I like words and birds.” — Eyes To See

A nod to the day when then-President Obama held a press conference in a tan suit. — With a wink, Obama’s tan suit is back

This is an old interview with Jason Jones, whose account of the loss of his son is moving and strangely encouraging. His answer to the interviewer’s final question is worth the wait. — A Father Wrestles with God after the Death of his Child

There are many odd symbols for the Christian faith. The Pelican is another. — The Pelican In Her Piety and Le Pelican: Serving in Afghanistan

If you don’t know Mychal Judge’s story, you’ll enjoy learning about the priest who served the NYFD on 911.

In Romans 6:1-11, the Apostle Paul makes a connection between our baptism and Christ’s death, reminding us of how Christ has drawn us into his very life.

Two arrows, one pointed down and one pointed up. Christ comes down, into our condition. Into our experience of sin, evil, and death. As the Creed says, “he descended to the dead” – in addition to whatever else it may mean, it certainly means that Jesus experienced whatever we do when we die. That’s the downward arrow — where we are “buried with him in baptism.” The upward arrow symbolizes a movement from being “united in a death like his” to being united in his resurrection.[1] In this double movement, he goes down into our experience so that he can take us up into his.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. - Romans 6:5

We enjoy his life because he experienced our death.

On one hand, let us remember that we are God’s children. We belong to him, but not as slaves, not merely servants, but his children. He loves us so much, and our attachment is so close that we call him “Abba.” (Papa) And this is exactly what God wants. Romans 8:14-17 says,

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

On the other hand, we can’t ignore his transcendence. It is true that God is not like us at all. He is creator and we are creature. He really is “wholly other.” Yet God comes close to us in Christ. Romans 11:33-36 says,

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Our God is simultaneously “wholly other” and “closer than a brother.” It is in Christ that these two, the transcendent and intimate are held together. C.S. Lewis reminds his “imaginary” friend Malcolm how God will not be merely close without, at the same time, being far above all our imaginings.

I fully agree that the relationship between God and a man is more private and intimate than any possible relation between two fellow creatures. Yes, but at the same time there is, in another way, a greater distance between the participants. . . . We ought to be—sometimes I hope one is—simultaneously aware of closest proximity and infinite distance. You make things far too snug and confiding. Your erotic analogy need to be supplanted by “I tell at his feet as one dead.” (Malcolm compared prayer to making love to one’s wife.)

A few formal, ready-made, prayers serve me as a corrective of—well, let’s call it “cheek.” They keep one side of the paradox alive. Of course it is only one side. It would be better not to be reverent at all than to have a reverence which denied the proximity. (Letters to Malcolm, Chp. 2)

Jesus told his disciples to “go.” Their calling, their new vocation, was to proclaim that “the kingdom of God has come near.” And to make sure the point got across, Jesus empowered them to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, and cast out demons. Jesus’ word to his disciples is the same for us as it was for them.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. ~ Frederick Buechner

Unlike the characters of The Poisonwood Bible, we are not worried about producing results. We trust that God is going to work and that we get to participate in God’s work in the world. Faithfulness to the calling on our life does not come from a need to count converts, or a need to defend our right to do this work. Faithfulness to God’s call is bound up in Jesus incarnation in our world.

People assume that if God really wanted to change the world he would use raw power, he would send in the tanks, … send the bad guys packing. But I’ve come to read the Sermon on the Mount as God’s agenda for how the Kingdom comes, that when God wants to sort things out, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek and the brokenhearted and the hungry for justice people, and by their very ordinary below-the-radar work, they actually demonstrate to the wider world what it looks like when God becomes King on earth as in heaven. ~ N.T. Wright

Our Tuesday night group is reading Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis. One of his lesser-known books, it is filled with reflections about the Christian’s ongoing dialogue with God.

He begins by “picking” on professional clergy and people responsible for changes in the prayer book and worship services in England in the early 60s. He comes off like a stick in the mud. He is the theological equivalent of the old man shouting, “hey, you kids, get off my lawn!!!” Yet, his complaint reveals something important.

They (your average church-goer) go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best—if you like, it “works” best—when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

It turns out, thinking about the service less may help us worship more. Rote prayers and repetition are not the enemy of true worship. Knowing the words of the prayers and the songs, not wondering what is coming next, may contribute to us being present to God in a way we wouldn’t if we were busy wondering how to do the next thing in the bulletin.

As it turns out, Christian worship is joining in a dance and not just “counting the steps.”