WhateverThings

On Friday, Robert Webber, author and theologian died after a long bout with pancreatic cancer. Most of my connection with Bob comes from reading his books, particularly his books on worship which were always insightful and challenging. (He wrote over 40 books including editing a massive 7 volume encyclopedia on worship). But, I also had some connection with Bob as he and his wife had bought a house in my hometown of Sawyer. The first time I met him was when he visited my father’s service station. I should know better by now, but we have a tendency to elevate writers in the Chrisitian world to some sort of superhero status. He was in many ways just an ordinary guy, who needed gas for his lawnmower like everyone else.The ECC website has a good article here on Webber including some comments from fellow pastor Joel Kruggel in which he talks about the way in which Webber continued to serve God until the end. Although Bob was suffering from pancreatic cancer, he continued to write until his death, drawing joy from this service to the Lord. My prayers are with his wife during this time.

Bob Webber’s attitude to the end is what connects him with the second death that affected me this weekend – that of Maron “Buck” Buckley. Buck’s death was not as expected as Bob’s but instead came quickly. He went in for a simply surgery a few weeks back, after which he developed pneumonia which his body was never able to overcome. Buck was one of the first people I met when I moved to Chebogyan; in fact he and his wife allowed us to live in their house while they were gone for the winter until we could find a home of our own. Until the end, Buck was always concerned with others. I had asked Buck if he would donate some items for our Habitat for Humanity banquet and even while he was in his hospital bed, he made sure that his wife got those items to me. The banquet took place while he was in the ICU and he never learned how much the items had raised. Not that it was all about the money, but I think he would have been honored to learn that someone appreciated his work so much. Similarly when he was able to communicate only by spelling words in someone’s hands, he was thinking of his children and their family. To the end, he too served others and so served the God that he loved. Along with the announcement of Bob Webber’s death that I received from AEF were the lyrics to a hymn which Bob had used at an Easter Vigil. For the death of any follower of Jesus they are a wonderful reminder:

Thine is the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son;
Endless is the victory, Thou o’er death hast won;
Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
Kept the folded grave clothes where Thy body lay.

Thine is the glory, risen conqu’ring Son,
Endless is the vict’ry, Thou o’er death hast won.

Lo! Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb;
Lovingly He greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
Let the church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing;
For her Lord now liveth, death hath lost its sting.

No more we doubt Thee, glorious Prince of life;
Life is naught without Thee; aid us in our strife;
Make us more than conqu’rors, through Thy deathless love:
Bring us safe through Jordan to Thy home above.

Thine is the glory, risen conqu’ring Son,
Endless is the vict’ry, Thou o’er death hast won.

(Lyrics by Edmond L. Budry)

Thine is the glory, risen conqu’ring Son!

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The idea of a destiny is sometimes tossed about in Christian circles. I think of things like the Purpose Driven Life and spin-offs. Not that the PDL necessarily teaches that there you have a particular destiny, but it easily becomes warped or misunderstood that way. God has a purpose for my life. I need to find it and then follow it. Sometimes that purpose is understood to mean a specific task, a special part of God’s plan. I don’t see that suggested a whole lot in the Bible. We may have unique opportunities but I am not sure that the Bible suggests that each person has a unique destiny to fulfill.

What raised more interesting questions for me was not the story itself, but the story behind the story. Why was Kara/Starbuck killed off (if she really was)?

In his podcast, Moore says “I was drawn to the audacity of it [killing off Starbuck].” I respect the willingness to kill off a main character. It’s hard because often it is a particular character that makes a show good. On the other hand, in a show like this it provides realism and also a sense of tension. If I am watching a show in which the main characters never die, my only worry is how are they going to get out of this trap rather than will they get out of this trap? I like that uncertainty in knowing that everyone is mortal. But, something about Moore’s comment strikes me as wrong. It almost seemed as if he were doing it simply for the shock value, which does not strike me as compelling reason. Not unlike what is sometimes done in churches, where we do something simply to try and shock or awe people. We have to ask ourselves, does it serve our mission?

I spent a little time perusing the SciFi forum after the show to see what the reaction was of other fans. There were a number who reacted with comments like “He ruined my show.” This all begs the question, whose show is it? On the one hand, it is really the product of Moore and his team. On the other hand, it is produced for an audience to see. I will have to wait and see how it plays out. Starbuck was a central character and it seems like her absence will alter the feel of the show (which has already been different during season 3 anyhow).

Another comment on the forums was that her death did not seem to be dramatic enough, or not fitting for a great hero. Not all deaths are dramatic or heroic. For example, Patton died in a car accident after the war. Hardly a great death for a brilliant military leader like Patton. Others have simply grown old and died in their beds. For some reason we have developed a mythos in which the hero, if s/he dies must make some great sacrifice or have a particularly dramatic death. Maybe it’s because we want death to mean something. Of course all it means is that we are sinners. The good news is that there was one death in history that had special meaning and significance, made even more significant by the fact that he did not stay dead but rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father. I am thankful for what that death means to me.

So say we all!

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The show revolves a lot around Helo who has been a good character particularly in terms of moral questions. There was the earlier episode in which Helo objected to the use of a biological weapons of sort, suggesting that to do so would cause the people to lose their souls. Near the end of the show Adama refers to Helo as the “lone voice in the wilderness” which is an interesting choice of words, making Helo a prophet of sorts which is the role he does play. It’s been done before, but … it is always good to see a character who knows what needs to be done, that sees that things are not quite right and continues to pursue it.

A few scenes/lines that stood out:

In a conversation between Caprica 6 and “head” Baltar. Baltar is asking 6 about her captivity and suggesting ways for her to survive. Baltar says to her, “You are here because you want to be human.” And then, “There’s a trick to being human … you have to think only about yourself.” Of course there are questions about head Baltar – is it simply part of 6’s imagination or is there some connection with the real Baltar. So are these Baltar’s thoughts or simply what 6 thinks that humans believe? In some sense, this is a good analysis of the human condition, that one of our defining characteristics is that we often think only of ourselves. How will what I am doing benefit me? I am reading Miroslav Volf’s Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. We’ll be doing a series using the book during Lent and in it he speaks of how even in the acts of giving and forgiving our motivations are sometimes centered on self. In his chapter on “How can we give?” Volf quotes Martin Luther who says that a human being, “in all that he does or leaves undone, seeks his own advantage and his own way.” Our selfishness prevents us from giving.
Near the end, Adama says to Apollo, “There’s hate and there’s allowing hate. Two sides of the same coin, really.” A good summary of our responsibility to others. Sometimes we are tempted to feel smug because we ourselves are not guilty of racism, but we allow systems to exist that continue injustice or we laugh along with racist jokes or nod our heads in agreement.

The story may have been done before, but until racism and other prejudices disappear, we must continue to tell the story of the one who died for all. So say we al!

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A diet for our spiritual life is a good metaphor, because if we are to be healthy and grow spiritually we need to, as one writer put it, “eat this book (the Bible)”. We feed ourselves spiritually through service to others, listening to sermons, prayer and singing. One of the primary ways we are fed and formed is through the Bible, God’s written word to and for us.

My problem for a long time with this was that I didn’t see the Bible as the meal; I read it like a recipe book. I went to the Bible to find answers to particular issues: how do I pray, how to raise kids, how to manage my finances, what Jesus said about sexuality. Those and questions like them are answered, though not always as clearly as we would like (or think). I read the Bible for information, to answer questions, to know more about God. But, I have been learning that maybe I should be focusing less on information and more on formation. That is, I think we need to be reading the Bible more to be shaped by it, to allow God’s word to form us, not just inform us.

The image of eating the Bible is a helpful one. When we eat something, it is assimilated into our bodies and into our lives. When I was growing up, I remember hearing the phrase, “you are what you eat.” The same is true in our spiritual lives. When the prophet Ezekiel was given the task to speak to the people of Israel, God commanded him to eat a scroll and then speak to the people of Israel (Ezekiel 2:8-3:3; cf Jeremiah 15:16 and Revelation 10:9-10). The picture is of the prophet assimilating God’s word into his whole being so that when he speaks, God’s word will naturally come forth just as the food we eat is unconsciously assimilated into our bodies and is put to work in our words and actions.

I want to close with some thoughts on how you might begin a spiritual diet this year and how you might feed on the Bible, not simply studying it but taking it into your life in such a way that “it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father.” (Eugene Peterson)

Set apart a regular time for reading. It doesn’t have to be the start of the day, but a time when you are at your best and can be apart from the stress of life to open your life to God. Find a system so that you regularly cover the whole Bible On the other hand, don’t be in a hurry to just get through it – reading ththe Scriptures is not the time to practice your speed reading. Come to the Bible with the intent of knowing the will of God and the intent to do it. As you are reading ask, “God, what are you saying to me here?”. The goal is not to master the text and get all the answers – good interpretation is necessary – what you are seeking is for the text to shape and form you.

This is just a start of what a spiritual diet might look like. May the word of Christ dwell in you richly!

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It’s interesting that they chose to use more psychological means of information extraction than the Cylons who used pure physical torture. On the other hand, Adama and Roslin seem willing to quickly use this experimental drug to get the information they want with no thought of the ethics. I wonder if that was an intentional move by the writers to make you think about it; rather than having the characters have a moral debate, there is none which makes you ask, “shouldn’t somebody be asking the question?”

What struck me most though was the whole question of Baltar’s guilt or innocence. Is it guilt if you are unknowingly involved in something? I had this discussion recently with some other pastors where we talked about Wesley’s definition of sin as a willful transgression of a known law. Baltar certainly seemed unaware of his involvement in allowing the Cylon attack to occur; he appears to have simply been used. But, the question then becomes how he acted after he realized what had happened. He worked hard to cover up what he had done, primarily probably for self-preservation. But, as Gaeta notes in an earlier episode Baltar will do whatever it takes for Baltar to survive.

Baltar does come to the point where he admits “mistakes were made” but he never says I made a mistake. A great picture of the way we sometimes dance around confession of our own sins (leaving aside the question of what sin, if any, he committed). Mistakes were made. I was tricked. I was used. Do I do the same thing when I go before God, seeing myself as a victim rather than a perpetrator? To add to that, do I have to feel like I am drowning before I will even admit that much?

The good news is that I can go to God with my faults and sins and confess them and that he won’t send me out an airlock. Instead I can stand before him, forgiven and free. So say we all!

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