Why the song title, "Persevere"?

In my previous post, I mentioned how the long instrumental second half of "Half the World" was an after thought, one that came nearly 30 years (!) after I first set out to compose the intro. Why on earth did it take me so long to think of taking the words of v. 3 (which are sung twice): "We'll do a pilgrimage ..." and portraying that long pilgrimage musically with an extended and repetitive riff? Well, for one thing, I was busy with other things. But once the idea stuck, it was hard to let go of. The transformation of the song, halfway through "Half the World," really takes place with the switch to the electric guitar, but also with a slight change in which notes are emphasized in the hammered transition from the Cmaj7 (I'm talking shapes here, since this is all capo 2 stuff) to B7sus. Where in the song, I had been plucking the fifth string between the chords, the whole thing took on an entirely new feel as I went for the third string. Now when I play it, I love to get the top string ringing like a drone throughout, which sets a rather nice ceiling over the whole, not unlike the effect of those long synth pad chords. 

As for the final track, "Persevere," with its short speech for a lyric, this was inspired by the comment that I hear most often from students in my worship class, when I take them on a tour of worship through the Old and New Testaments. It is a good occasion to tell them about Kierkegaard's definition of sin as the opposite of faith (Romans 14:23), which forces us to rethink this long-standing theological aberration about a "fall from grace." No, says Jesus, "God sends rain on the just and the unjust." It is all grace, all the time, even if it does not always feel like it. As the Dominican Meister Eckhart said: "God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk." Or as I put it here: "The Fall was never a fall from grace. It was only ever a fall from faith." That places the responsibility for faith back where it belongs, and it also gives us the reassurance that, when we are "in faith," i.e., "in Christ," we really are free from sin, free from the (eternal) consequences of sin, and, yes, free to go and sin no more! So many students have been struck by this, it seemed to me worth restating in this final track as we set out once again on the "pilgrimage" with the admonition to persevere as our mission statement.

The Freedom of Christ

So what can happen when one superimposes lectio continua over Lent? Well, for one thing: this short series of six sermons on Galatians, preached ten years ago as I was designing and experimenting with Year D. With so many homiletical options on the table these days, one would not presume to issue such a collection with the expectation that such a series would ever be considered normative or exemplary—by anyone, least of all an author whose job it is to study and teach manifold approaches to preaching—nevertheless, this little book is at least a fair representation, a non-exemplary example, so to speak, of how preaching can cover significant territory with (I hope) some depth, yet at a fairly brisk pace.

More specifically and somewhat pedagogically, I offer it as an example of what I call "reiterative exposition," which is, as I understand it, akin to what Walter Brueggemann calls "re-utterance." For the record, I do realize that while Brueggemann favors, promotes, and envisions preaching as "re-utterance" of the Word, he is less positive about "reiteration." The difference, if there is one, seems to me less clear and stark than it evidently does to him. So with that expression of intent, i.e., that I think we are aiming at the same thing, here it is: a reiteration or a reutterance (as you like) of the gospel of freedom, The Freedom of Christ.

Here's hoping that, after all the flailing and failed fleshly attempts at freedom we see displayed in the weeks leading up to Lent, this articulation of and invitation to the freedom of Christ will find its way home in many a reader's heart.

UPDATE: For some reason, according to Google Trends, there seems to be particular interest in Galatians in Zimbabwe these days, so perhaps this title will grab some African readers. Note as well the rising interest in the epistle itself, in contrast to the diminishing interest in the lectionary.

Kierkegaard's Bicentennial OR May the Fifth see you put down Lucas and pick up the great Dane

A friend asked me the other day how best to observe the 200th anniversary of Kierkegaard's birth on May 5, 2013, and my reply was to refer him to the "The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Devotional Discourses." These can be found in Vol. XVIII of Kierkegaard's Writings, entitled Without Authority.

The text (Matthew 6) was a source of endless inspiration for Kierkegaard. So the first series of Christian Discourses, KW, Vol. XVII, is also to be enthusiastically recommended: 

More generally, if you want to know: Will the real Kierkegaard please stand up?  ... the discourses of his second (post-1846) authorship (Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Works of Love, For Self-Examination, Judge For Yourself, etc.), along with his (also late) higher pseudonymous works (Practice in Christianity, and Sickness Unto Death) are by far his most important works. 

    

And if you don't believe me, read his autobiographical explanation of his authorial/publication strategy in Point of View, and the highly revealing, if not prophetic, footnote, in which he expresses his (necessarily postponed) desire to write on the distinction between Socrates and Jesus Christ, in The Concept of Irony.

 

The point is simply, as I argued in my dissertation, don't get bedazzled by the early pseudonymous (primarily Socratic) works that have become for so many readers and for most of Kierkegaard scholarship, a sort of philosophical cul-de-sac. Read instead what he wrote when he resolved to pick up his pen once again in order to try and "win men, if possible," (and women, too, of course — many of his most avid readers were women) to Christian faith.

Meanwhile, in the interest of avoiding a similar beguilement, see Chapter 2 in my Groans of the Spirit (not my dissertation, but consisting of some dissertation outtakes) in which I argue by way of a discussion of Kierkegaard and Gadamer for giving pneumatology the priority over hermeneutics in any discussion of biblical interpretation for preaching.

Disaster directly ahead. Take Detour.

I know Trinity Sunday is a long way off, but when I read articles like this, I can't help but think Year D's Old Testament lection from 1Kings 11 might have some bearing, and I wish our denominational leaders would familiarize themselves with it. Solomon sought to placate his many foreign wives by worshipping their foreign gods. In short, he sought "interfaith harmony," and what he got was the opposite of what he (literally, as well as sexually) bargained for. Solomon's foolish apostasy angered the LORD. "Then the LORD raised up" one adversary after another to peel away Israel's territory; he got a divided kingdom, and eventually sent Israel and Judah on a long, slow slide into exile. The whole downhill plunge began right here. Seeking peace, i.e., with other gods, Solomon (and those who came after him) got war.

Now anyone can tell you peace is better than war. It takes no great intellectual or ethical giant to see that. But what too many well-meaning people, including many Christians, do not see is the law of unintended consequences at work when first principles are sacrificed for a false peace. Making peace with the gods of another religion, with the cult of another culture, cuts the Triune God out of the equation, and this is neither faithful, nor wise.

Similarly, in a secular analogue (I'm not one to confuse the Constitution with the Bible, mind you, so I say this with a caution to those who do), we have people saying: "Guns bad; ban guns!" What they do not see is that this direct approach to a false, coerced peace — at the cost of a foundational freedom that arose and was constitutionally codified not only from a wary distrust of human depravity (the neighbor's fallen nature), but from an even greater distrust of human governments that accumulate more and more power, wealth, ... and guns (!) for themselves — has sent the demand for guns and ammunition through the roof. Great! Now my neighbors and the government are spending money they don't have arming themselves to the teeth.

Yes, Kierkegaard was definitely onto something when he said "indirect communication" is the pattern for Christian ethics. For direct communication in the ethical sphere is little more than tossing lit matches into the arsenal. Even more importantly, there is all the difference in the world between Religiousness A (paganism) and Religiousness B (the Christian paradox), and the failure — by the church of all people! — to respect it amounts to courting even greater disaster.

What? Another football post?

Well, not exactly. But I have to say, I like these guys, and evidently they like Tim Tebow. They, and a few others these days, are remembering an all-important distinction, not just for life in general, but, as I preach to my preaching classes, it is all-important for preaching as well: the infinite qualitative difference between irony and earnestness. It's an old point made by Kierkegaard (the so-called master of irony, whose earnest writing has yet to been taken seriously as such) and running through his authorship from beginning to end. More on this if (Lord willing) my sabbatical request is approved.