Denver Community Church

November 1, 2020: Set Apart for No Mercy – Michael Hidalgo

According to the Bible, God tells the people of Israel to utterly destroy the Canaanites. All of them: Men, women, children, infants, animals. Not only are they to be killed, they are to be shown no mercy. More than showing no mercy, they are to be cherem - set apart - for destruction. This, from the lips of a God who is “slow to anger” and “abounding in mercy.” Even giving a moment’s thought to this is enough to make one’s stomach turn. It’s genocide, there’s no getting around that, and apparently God commands his nation of priests to carry this out on the cities, towns and villages in the land they are going to take over. 

Some defend this command, believing God is just so whatever God says to do, you do. No questions asked. I mean, who are we to question God? Those who think this way argue the Canaanites were the most horrible people living in the Ancient Near Eastern World. However, the Canaanites were no better or worse than anyone else living back then. The only difference between them and, say, the Assyrians is they lived in the wrong place. They lived in a land that Israel wanted and the way to get it was to wipe them out.

This story and these words echo the words of a King of Moab in the 9^th Century B.C. named Mesha. In other words, this kind of violence was not original with the people of Israel. ANE tribes often praised their gods by attributing gross violence to them, and then, after the battle, gave them glory for their victory. The gods were violent warriors who looked out for their people, and were ready to destroy anyone (and in this case everyone) else. Let’s not forget Israel was immersed in this culture, and to a certain extent participated in it. So, what do we do with these stories? The simple answer is “engage them” for what they are. That being a record of people’s conversations about God, how they understand God and what we can learn from that.

October 25, 2020: Does God's Blood Boil? – Amanda Lum

There are many stories in the Bible about God getting angry. One even pits God as so mad that he needs to take some time off, some time away to cool down, because if he doesn’t he’s gonna lose it! And when God loses it, God turns and destroys people. A lot of people. This portrait of God is alive and well today. Some point to God getting really angry over some very specific sin - sin they are never guilty of - which is convenient. But there is a more subtle way of talking about a god that is kind of a jerk. Not long ago I spoke with someone who spoke of how their god got her attention by causing her to be in a terrible accident. What? This is how god got her attention? By hurting her, putting her in the ICU for 3 ½ weeks and scaring her family because they thought she’d die? 

It’s important to note that any parent who did something similar to their child to “get their attention” would be arrested and imprisoned. Rightly so. But this is how we talk about God (I guess there is some kind of divine excuse for abusing people that we as humans don’t get)? And we do it quite often. How can we love a god like this? Trust a god like this? Believe in a god like this? Worship and pray to a god like this?

But this is the portrait painted in many passages of the Bible: God. Is. Angry. But what if this is one portrait of God and teaches us something, not about God, but about humans? What if this is a reflection of the ancient, primitive, backward view of a fire-breathing deity who needs to be satiated by our good deeds and proper behavior at every turn? Perhaps God’s anger has something to teach us - not about God but about us.

October 18, 2020: He's Really Nice, But. . . .– Michael Hidalgo

The story of Jonah has long captured the minds and imaginations of many. It seems to have it all, a stumbling prophet, a supernatural fish, second chances and a surprise ending: God asking Jonah a question about why God shouldn’t show mercy. As popular and enduring as that story is few people ever say, “Man, that book Nahum? It is a real page turner!” Even though one only need turn very few pages to get there from the end of Jonah. 

 

Like Jonah, Nahum too involves Nineveh, but there is no fish and no second chances. However, like Jonah, it too ends with a question. The question is not about God’s mercy, but about why God shouldn’t absolutely, utterly and without question destroy and wipe out Nineveh and pelt them with filth (see Nahum 3.6: shikkuts) as though this is a scene from Monty Python.

We start the series here because, let’s face it, when it comes to the Bible there is no shortage to the troubling pictures of God and God’s people. But then, there are no shortage of beautiful, loving, endearing pictures of God - as mother, as lover, as creator, as forgiving. So what do we do with this? Toss it? Ignore it? Defend it? Or maybe wade into the mess of things and allow this contrast to lead us into something deeper. 

October 11, 2020: The More the Merrier – Michael Hidalgo

Christianity is not a religion for the elite. Not even close. Consider its name. It references Jesus of Nazareth who was a victim of state sponsored execution. The disciples who carried his message were all executed, save one, and he was exiled. It attracted the last, the lost, the least and those on the margins. And the invitation to be a part of this movement that was birthed by a rabbi from the outskirts of the Roman Empire? One only needed to be tired or worn out or burned out on religion, for then they might here the invitation of Jesus, “Come follow me.” Which is to say, this invitation, this movement, this way of living is open to everyone. 

It was this reality at the heart of the early church that caused it grow so rapidly. The early church sought to serve, to include, to recognize that everyone belongs - because this is what they saw Jesus do. Jesus was often found in lonely, out-of-the-way places with the down-and-outers. This is why, at DCC, we invite everyone who will to journey with us in our transformation. 

October 4, 2020: Never Stop Exploring – Bekah Stewart

Often, when we use the term “Christian” we have a quick definition in our minds. However, the contours of the Christian faith are vast and ancient. We forget this as we often have only grown up in one expression of it. However, with more exploration there will be a greater appreciation for all it has offered to the world over the Centuries. At DCC, we are explorers who want to see how far this Jesus based faith goes. After all, if we claim to worship an infinite God, the one who holds the universe together, why would we ever think a small, manageable faith is what we should be about? 

We believe this massive thing called Christianity, is ours to explore. And not only that, but that our faith teaches us that all things are ours, whether “he world or life or death or the present or the future”, because we are “of Christ, and Christ is of God.” If this is the case, then we have some exploring to do.

 

September 27, 2020: What Did You Call Me? – Michael Hidalgo

The writer of Acts tells us, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Which means there was a time when they were called something else. For them, however, who they understood themselves to be was clear. They were a group of people who modeled their way, their life after the life and teachings of Jesus. And who was Jesus? The union of the Divine and human, of material and spiritual, the one who came to give life to the full. It was this life manifested in Jesus that was, for the early disciples, the foundation of their identity.

 

Today, we live in a world that is filled with all sorts of ways to identify ourselves. And it becomes easy, with each label layered on, to lose our individual identity as image bearers and collective identity as Christians - those who resemble Jesus. Perhaps we need a moment to reflect on what it means for us to understand who we are and whose we are so that we will have greater clarity on our deepest and truest identity.

September 20, 2020: The Divine in Flesh & Bone – Michael Hidalgo

God never speaks in this book. With all of the accusations and the questions put forth; God remains silent. A feeling of distance adds to this sense of God not even hearing the cries or the prayers. But someone is listening. Someone is seeing. The first words spoken by the widow are, “Look, Lord.” She is crying out, “God can’t you, won’t you look at me?!” And then the geber shows up and says, “I have seen …” There is someone at last. Now, in the final poem, a prayer, there is no longer first- person singular, but first-person plural. 

What we witness is those who are suffering move toward one another, lament, cry out and eventually are found praying together. It’s possible that right there, in the midst of the flesh and bone of human beings, in that very place is where God is. What this teaches us is that God is present in the other - in the midst of pain, hardship, disappointment - when we cry out and we are not alone in our cry but surrounded by others. That is God being present. Too often we try to have answers, but maybe we are the answer. An answer given simply by us showing up.

September 13, 2020: The Scattered, Holy Stones – Del Phillips

When hard times hit nothing is at is should be. This is the point of this fourth elegy. Here we see a description of all that has befallen the city of Jerusalem as a result of it being utterly razed. Nothing is as it should be - even children who are a gift, now are seen as a burden. The priests and the anointed, those who once had the confidence of the people are no more. And they are the very ones who through their evil, were the cause of this calamity.

And the one who caused the calamity? Well that was God. Which raises the question, is this how God works? Does God really punish us for the bad things we or others do? Does it work the other way, where God blesses us for the good things we or others do? It is this hope that we find at the end of the chapter - that it won’t be this way forever in Judah. But for Edom, it will happen to them for the evil they have done. This can make God sound like a finicky deity who rewards and punishes based off what we do or fail to do. Is this really what God is like?

September 6, 2020: The Good and the Hard – Michael Hidalgo

In this poem a geber shows up on the scene. A man (what kind of man and exactly “who” this man is has been the subject of much conjecture) who has experienced the pain, the suffering and the exile firsthand. He then launches into a description of what he has befallen him: his skin and flesh grow old, his bones have been broken, he has been besieged and surrounded with bitterness and hardship, he dwells in darkness like those long dead, he has been walled in, and weighed down with chains. When he calls for help his prayer is shut out, his way has been barred  with blocks of stone, his paths have been made crooked, he was dragged from the path, mangled and left me without help, he was the target of arrows, his heart was pierced, he was a laughingstock of all the people, they mock him all day long, he is filled with bitter herbs, has only gall to drink, his teeth has been broken with gravel, he has been trampled in the dust, deprived of peace, he has forgotten what prosperity is and now says, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

His response to all of this? The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. W.T.F.? Seriously? How can this be? How can one name all that has befallen them and then turn to the one causing all the heartache and express trust? O’Connor writes, “When you meet the geber, you meet someone with tangled theology. Hope and horror stand side by side. Hope and honesty stand side by side. Hope and contradiction stand side by side.” And that’s the thing about hope - it doesn’t ignore the crap and the hard circumstances. It stands right beside them.

Many have been told that hope is to the exclusion of the raw emotions expressed by the geber - you either have hope, or you succumb to your circumstances. Here, however, is someone who has hope, and sits with humiliation, deprivation, suffering, bitterness, and the horrors of what he’s witnessed. Isn’t this how it often is? That hope is near to all these other circumstances? It’s possible to say in the same breath, “God is good” and “This is hard and it hurts and I’m getting screwed all in the same breath.”

August 30, 2020: Prophets of Rage – Scott Oppliger

The second elegy speaks toward anger. God’s anger with the people of Judah, and the anger of the poet toward God - one who is almost an enemy of the people. This is so necessary, because many have been taught to hold it in, to not speak to God this way, to keep our “emotions in check” and to not let them “get the better of us.” But that is not what we witness here, not at all. And why wouldn’t the poet be angry? How angry would you be if no one listened to your cry, to your wailing because of the pain and the hopelessness of your people? How angry might you be with God when you cry out and its seems God ignores you?

It’s likely the anger over the pain would well up, and eventually it would spill out, and it should spill out. Especially toward and before God. As Miroslav Volf rightly observes, unattended rage should be dropped at the feet of God. Why? Because God can handle it. More than that, naming and seeing our anger - allowing it to flow can be a gateway for us to see and name that which is causing our anger. Anger, can actually be a first step toward healing, toward speaking truth. And speaking truth is, after all, what prophets do. As Kathleen O’Conner points out, when we name what is wrong, when we lament, when we open ourselves to grief and anger - we expose the conditions that cause God’s good world to get out of order; we name them, and in doing so, open make them and us visible for remedy.