Here’s a retelling of the Genesis account of Judah and Tamar (from The Feast).

Judah arranges a marriage between Er and Tamar. Er dies because he’s got moral issues. The writer of this story seems more comfortable than I am in ascribing death to God’s judgment. Regardless, Er is dead, and Tamar now needs a husband, according to Jewish tradition. This is a little part of Torah known as the “levirate law” (see Deut. 25; Ruth 3–4), which states that the next oldest surviving brother should marry the widowed sister-in-law in order to preserve the dead brother’s lineage and to give the widow a place in the social schema. Onan becomes the lucky guy to take on his brother’s wife.

Apparently he goes along with the arrangement publicly. But his private acts of nonconsummation (for lack of a better word) have earned him his own noun, “Onanism.” (Just thought you’d like to know that little factoid, if you didn’t already.) God is not pleased and strikes him dead. Two dead brothers, a woman twice widowed, and a whole lot of confusion. Judah, the patriarch and leader, looks around and does the obvious math: Tamar is the common denominator. To protect the son he has left, Judah sends Tamar back to live with her parents, sending the message to anyone watching that this woman is dangerous. In Judah’s eyes, she’s a pawn and a problem more than she is a person.

The story then reads “after a long time,” which in Scripture means the story is about to get really interesting. Judah goes through his own hard time when his wife dies, and he takes a buddy with him to Vegas once he’s finished his mourning period. Okay, it wasn’t Vegas, for those who read your Bibles carefully. It’s Timnah.

Somehow Tamar finds out about her father-in-law’s travel plans, and she decides that, if she is to get what she needs to survive and have any social value, she must take matters into her own hands. Tamar decides to play “the whore” (the Hebrew indicates) by wearing a veil. The veil points out that Tamar knows exactly what she’s doing: she’s seducing the man who’s denied her respectability all this time.

Judah must not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, because he does not recognize her upon approach, which could be a testimony to how drunk he is. (As an aside, this part of the story reminds me of Jacob with Rachel: after all that hard work, how does he not know he’s been given the wrong sister? How drunk are you when you are unable to distinguish between the hot sister and the one with “weak eyes”—a Semitic way of saying, “not as pretty”?) Or perhaps Judah’s failure to recognize Tamar is a testament to how little he’s paying attention. He’s treating Tamar not as a person, but as a thing to be consumed.

Either way, the story makes things pretty clear: Tamar is approaching this encounter as a business proposition. Judah is approaching it as a “boys will be boys” experience. Both know what they want, and both get it. Because Judah cannot pay Tamar for her services rendered, he leaves his drivers’ license and credit cards with her. Actually, the seal he leaves with her is his proof of identity encased in a cylinder he would have worn around his neck. Like Esau, he’s willing to trade a great deal for a moment of indulgence.

Three months pass. Judah finds out Tamar is pregnant and becomes incensed, demanding her punishment for misconduct in a moment of thick irony. According to Torah, she could be hanged, burned, stoned, strangled, or beheaded. One scholar reminds us of the seriousness of the moment: “Criminals who were to be burned or strangled had to stand in dung up to their knees.”¹ But Judah is specific: Tamar must be burned.

And then, Tamar sends a prophetic word back to Judah. Like Nathan’s conversation with King David, Tamar exposes Judah for the Torah violator he really is and not the public do-gooder he claims to be. Judah has made a mess of his role in the story. Tamar is not afraid to bring his transgressions to the surface, despite her own obvious sins.

Only the Bible would continue with this sordid story. Tamar gives birth to twins, a familiar twist in the Genesis narrative—one of these twins will be in the lineage of King David, and of Jesus.

The mess becomes the place for God to do God’s mysterious work. We still tend to think that God works best with perfect people, whose hair is cut just right, who know all the right language. But the Bible continually reminds us that God isn’t interested so much in people who look the part. God’s interest lies in people who make a mess of the part. People who, like Judah, are more interested in appearing virtuous than practicing virtue by protecting the innocent and vulnerable, granting justice to a widow who’s lost two husbands, abstaining from giving in to lust and physical longing that turns a woman into “the sum of her parts,” a far cry from the image of God that Genesis declares women to be. No matter how often we forget, God keeps working with lyin’, cheatin’, whorin’ jerks.

This story says something about power. Those who have power, like Judah, usually act quite different in public than they do in private. The narrative details of this story prove the point. Judah only deals with his misuse and abuse of Tamar once he is publicly exposed. People in power so often wait for a public shaming to become truly authentic in their real messes of sexual exploitation, gender bias, injustice, abuse of power, public persona versus private reality.

Enron. 9-11. Abu-Ghraib. Mortgage crises. But big messes occur when little messes happen in the midst of our daily choices and actions. Adultery, abuse, betrayal, gossip, and hate. The big messes and little messes cannot be separated. Recognizing this entanglement gives us a place from which we can begin rebuilding our faith. God is interested in the messes we’ve made. God decides to enter into the mess, and makes sense of our world.

Here’s another excerpt from The Feast.

“A writer, whose name I’ve since forgotten, once wrote that the two great religions in America are optimism and denial.”

—Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk

The soul of American Christianity is malnourished. We are in constant need of having our imaginations raised from slumber. Feasting together on the words and stories of Scripture is the way this happens. If I’m correct that America’s religious soul is starving, starvation is the symptom and not the problem. The problem is that many of us lack a diet of the Gospel in our lives. We fill our hearts and minds with the junk food of social pop-psychology and shallow entertainment. Our souls atrophy because we do not feast on the teachings of God’s story. The following chapters provide a few recipes.

The atrophy of Christian spirituality is ironic, of course, because the Judeo-Christian Scriptures are packed with “feasting” language and imagery. The prophet Jeremiah declares, “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight,” (15:16). God commands  Ezekiel to eat the book he’s been given (Ezek 2:8ff). Jesus tells the crowd that real spiritual life is reserved for those who are willing to eat his flesh and drink his blood (Jn. 6). John the Apostle is instructed to eat the little scroll which will “turn your stomach sour but in your mouth will be sweet as honey” (Rev 10:9-10). Eugene Peterson inspired me to dig deeper into this image in Eat This Book:

Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body.     Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives 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, feet washed in company with the Son.³

Digesting the teachings of Scripture is one way Christians can actually embody the good news of God in our chaotic world. In my own consumption of the Scriptures, I often see God as priest to the outcast and prophet to the religious. As I write this I live in the inoculated suburbs of Detroit. Scripture has proven to be a powerful remedy for indifference and apathy, prompting me to go into all the world as I try to heal, evangelize, practice justice, and raise hands in adoration to God, the Father.

* * *

As a collective whole the church has fallen short of this lofty vision, for more humans died violent deaths in the twentieth century, the alleged height of Christendom, than in all previous centuries combined. Genocide in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Darfur, Northern Uganda, Rwanda, Kosovo, and Srebrenica, along with the devastation of WWI, WWII, and the Holocaust crushed the optimism that characterized the West at the onset of the twentieth century. By 1930, due to war and an unprecedented economic turmoil now known as the Great Depression, the spirit of progress began to give way to a spirit of disillusionment.

Modern Christianity did not fare well because it failed to feast primarily on Jesus and Christian Scripture. Many of the aforementioned atrocities took place in “Christian” nations or nations closely affiliated with the Christian religion (including Nazi Germany, which at the rise and reign of Hitler’s Third Reich, was overwhelmingly Lutheran).⁴ Or, in the words of one poet: “After two thousand years of [Christian] mass / We’ve got as far as poison-gas.”⁵

The following statistic reinforces my claim that American/Western Christianity is in a state of decline: according to Alister McGrath, though almost two-thirds of all Christians lived in the West in 1900, two-thirds of all Christians in the world now live outside the West. Hence the phrases in popular parlance regarding the seismic shift in religion as we know it—the United States is now post-Christian and postmodern.

In the last fifty years, Christianity shifted to the far corners of the world: China, South America, and Africa. Scholars now note that there are more Anglicans in Africa, for instance, than in all of Great Britain.⁶ The largest Christian congregation in the U.K. is Kingsway International Church, started by two African leaders, and Africa now boasts more Christians than the United States. Conservative estimates indicate that less than one half of one percent of China is Christian, though as one spiritual guide points out, “one half of one percent of infinity is a lot of people.”

My own religious tribe, Churches of Christ from the American Restoration Movement, has been slowly declining for the last three decades.⁷ This trend mirrors what’s happening in most of Western Christianity, which—with the exception of two major segments of Protestant faith, Pentecostalism and Independent/Community Churches—is in a season of stagnation and severe deterioration.

Yet just as so many are losing the faith that has been a source of comfort and direction in ages past, more chaos marks the twenty-first century global landscape. The devastation of America’s 9-11, the Indian Ocean tsunami, tragic earthquakes in Pakistan and Kashmir, the horror of Hurricane Katrina, and the latest surge of wars in the Middle East should cause Christians to ask two important questions: “Is God present and working in the face of such pressing evil?” and “How can Christianity be ‘good news’ for those who do not ‘believe’?” These two questions undergird this entire book. I’m convicted that Christianity’s real genius and power rests in its ability to bring healing, justice, and equality to all people. The real test of Christian theology is the result it brings for those who do not subscribe to the Christian faith.

* * *

The Feast engages the discussion of what Christianity, as a spiritual movement rather than an institutional religion, can sound and look like in a pluralistic society like the one emerging in the United States.

Before I get into Wuthnow’s conclusions in After the Baby Boomers, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the challenges of forming young adults into diverse Christian community. That last part is crucial.

1. As I noted earlier, young adults (college, young professional, and young married) are among the most ignored demographic groups in the local church. Most churches tend to cater towards the “family”–in my estimation, this can be dangerous. Partly because it ignores the diversity to which the body is called, partly because the gospels don’t allow the family to be privileged over other folks. More people are single than are married in the U.S. If that does not serve as a warning, I don’t what will.

Having said the previous, I believe there’s a way to passionately pursue young adults while also equally passionately pursuing families. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

2. Mobility. Young adults are, even by high U.S. “mobility” standards, incredible mobile. Mobile per relationships, jobs, housing, weekly schedule, responsibility, church loyalty (many young adults spend equal time at 2 or more congregations). When dealing with middle-class or upper middle-class young adults, the ability to travel makes one even more mobile. Who wants to commit to regular community (so boring!) which requires weekly accountability when one can get away for a reasonably cheap price?

3. Form and Function. When I worked for Rochester Church, I decided early on I would resist the attractional/come-and-see model. I don’t think it’s anti-gospel, heretical, or sinful, I simply did not think I personally had the personality or energy to pull off an event driven ministry. I had my critics as a result. I was convinced that I’d rather form young adults in more intentional ways, even (or especially) if that meant I would replicate myself in smaller ways. In ways, I hope, that last beyond the big events, or dramatic activity. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done better, but I feel good about what we tried to accomplish.

BTW–I am aware of some churches who are able to form young adults in ways that bridge the attractional/missional impulses–but it’s very difficult and very rare.

TJ McCloud (our young adult minister at Otter Creek Church) has some great ideas moving forward. The bottom line for churches trying to integrate young adult’s into the larger community (not doing church for young adults only–that’s a different project I know nothing about but am in awe of those doing it well like my friend Dave Clayton at Ethos Church)–it’s hard work. It means we’ll fail. Try. Fail some more. Learn from each other, keep going.

I’m doing some reading/research on young adults in the U.S. and the relationship of Christianity. Many point to Robert Wuthnow’s book, After the Baby Boomers, as the definitive work on the subject.

Having just moved from a job in which I worked closely with college students, doing a doctorate degree on the relationship of religion and culture (largely being shaped by 20-30 somethings), and serving as minister for a young church (Otter Creek Church might be the youngest congregation I know of in Churches of Christ)–I’m committed to thinking about the manner in which churches are reaching young adults.

I’ll write more in a later post regarding specific research. For now, I want to delineate between three groups who comprise the young adult demographic.

1. College students. Though a college degree is probably equal to a high school diploma 25 years ago, the reality is that most Americans still do not attend college. So, by college, I mean “college age” to encompass 18-23 year old’s who may or may not actually be in college.

2. Young professional (single, divorced, singe parent). College grad’s, hard-working men and women who are focused on making ends meet and making meaningful relationships. If the average U.S. citizen waits to marry until 27, this group is become a larger demographic unreached by churches.

3. Young married. 25-35, these young couples are married, working hard, trying to pay the bills (like group 2) while also navigating the tricky waters of marriage.

The challenge is to integrate these three into the larger life of the church, a challenging endeavor for all three groups (especially college students). I’ve long believed that young adults, save the elderly, are the most neglected age demographic in churches. They also tend to be the most difficult group to form spiritually (more on that later).

My greatest fear is that the generations ahead of young adults (Boomers, Silent, GI to use one linguistic model) is unwilling to create a church that speaks to young adults in a fresh and challenging way.

When an author writes, he/she often feels compelled to explain the “why” behind the substance. Here’s why I wrote The Feast. (NOTE: This was written before I changed jobs, moving from Rochester to Nashville).

For the last several years I’ve been teaching religion courses in Spirituality, New Testament, Gospel and Culture, and Christian Faith at Rochester College (Michigan) in the department of religion. I’ve also served as the teaching and young adult minister for a large local evangelical church. During this time, I’ve struggled to connect the power of the Jesus Story to people who, perhaps for the first time in American history, are learning what it might mean to be Christian in a post-Christian context. These students come from all segments of American Christianity: Catholic, Protestant (mainline and evangelical), and even some Anabaptists (though they might not use this word). And yet, together we’ve discovered that as real as the differences might be, the similarities are even greater.

As nationalism, apathy, idolatry, and indifference runs rampant, I’ve become passionate about the project of connecting the world of Scripture with today’s world. This book is written out of my struggle to live in the world of Scripture. The realms of this struggle include academia, preaching, teaching, and personal study, as well as my own journey as a person trying to figure out what it means to be a Christian, following the ancient teachings of Jesus in a modern and complex society. The Bible reminds me that the word for this is disciple.

I am convicted, as I listen to various thinkers (including my students), that Christians are in the midst of  re-imagining the  meaning of sacred words like gospel, salvation, church, justice, sin, worship, grace, evangelism, and faith. Christians do not play according the rules of the world, for we are people of the Way and we take seriously the opportunity to embody the teachings of Jesus in our particular time and place. We choose the other option, the path “less chosen.” The name the church has given to us for this other way is incarnation. We don’t wage war, oppress, acquiesce, flee, or compromise—filled with God’s Spirit, we are committed to enter into the world redemptively. One of my professors at Columbia Seminary, the legendary Hebrew Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, once said in a class lecture, “The church always appears to be dying. When’s the last time the church wasn’t in crisis? That is the context into which we enter to do the work of God.” If he’s right, I hope The Feast will awaken heads, hands, and hearts to the imaginative vocation of being the church for the sake of our neighbors and our world.

I recently started preaching/teaching through the Gospel of Luke @ Otter Creek. This past Sunday I worked through the first four verses of Luke’s Jesus Story. Here’s a paraphrase of Luke’s introduction (really, it’s his disclosure for motivation).

Various men and women have used their creative abilities to capture the events just as those events had been transferred by people who were present at the time of Jesus’ remarkable life, telling that story to everyone who would listen. Because I’ve done my own homework, surgically combing my way through stories, testimony, examples, and evidence–I was compelled to join in the creative process of retelling the Jesus Story for my good friend (your love for God is refreshing). I’m telling stories of Jesus as a part of The Story so that you will continue to be drawn into a deeper trust of the events you’ve been immersed in.

Luke realizes that he stands, two generations after the death of Jesus, in a long line of witnesses who believe that, in Jesus, God had forever rocked the world. The world would never be the same. Death, sin, poverty, power, oppression–they would all be turned upside down.

Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote that Jesus forever changed the history of human civilization and yet, remained in a square area of that of the state of New Jersey. Why? How could that happen? “All because people talk,” writes Taylor.

Some people believe that stories are fragile, untrustworthy, weak. But to be Christian is to be enrolled in a story.

My friend John York has influenced me profoundly in this manner. In a sermon he preached a few years ago, he said: Some of you have heard me tell the story before that I originally heard from Fred Craddock. It’s the story of Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and poet, also a Professor of Literature with a Ph.D. from Stanford, and a Kiowa Indian. When Momaday was a small boy, his father waked him early one morning and said, “I want you to get up, go with me.” His father took him by the hand and led him to the house of an old Indian squaw and left him; said “I’ll get you this afternoon.” All day long the old squaw of the Kiowa tribe told stories to the boy, sang songs to the boy, described rituals to the boy, told the history of the Kiowa to the boy. How they began out of a hollow log in the Yellowstone River, of the migration southward, telling the story of wars with other tribes, the great blizzards, the buffalo hunt, the coming of the White Man, the pressure and the war and the moving south, Kansas, privation, starvation, diminished tribe, finally Fort Sill, reservation, confinement. About dark, his father came and said, “Son, its time to go.” Momaday later looked back on that experience and said, “I left her house a Kiowa.” Craddock tells that story and then asks the question, “When children leave our church buildings do they leave Christian? Because to be Christian is to be enrolled in the story and anyone who can’t remember any farther back than his or her own birth is an orphan.” Anyone who can’t remember any farther back than his or her own birth is an orphan. When our children leave our church buildings do they leave Christian? Is this where they learn who they are?

These quotes grabbed my heart Wednesday night during our Vespers gathering (Thanks to Phil Wilson for sending these to me).

Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.

(Frederick Buechner)

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.

(Frederick Buechner)

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

(Frederick Buechner)

In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.

(Frederick Buechner)