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Recently, I was asked to give a prayer at the area chamber of commerce meeting, with these instructions: "Make it brief, and don't mention God too much."

How am I supposed to do that? I can't stop boasting about God. God's work is so impressive to me that snowflakes don't even describe it. Nor do hummingbird's nests. Nor fireworks. Nor breakfast. God is so grand to me that I have to boast.

What I most like to boast about is theology. Nature is second only to theology. Most of us understand how to boast about the sunrise or the ocean, the mountains or the fall leaves. We know about beauty and the incredible amazement in God's creation. We discover and rediscover awe by watching a bird outside of our windows. But fewer of us know how to enjoy our theology.

By theology I mean the invitation and commandment to enter every human difficulty with God's hope. I mean being dominated by God talk, God walk, God think, and God activity. I mean being held by God and no one else. I mean the sure victory of transforming love over suffering. We are to get up every day and participate in the new age, the new common wealth, the transformed time of God. We are to get our hands dirty. We are to live as though God's time is already here. We are to live joyfully with a sense of great possibility. We don't need to rely on force or violence. We may act but we need not force or control. We don't have to save the world so much as love it. We count on God's work to win out in the end. We are people who live as though God is here, active, and victorious.

What is theologically right about Jesus? About what dare we boast? Jesus suffered well. We will all suffer, but very few of us will suffer well. Jesus loved well. He forgave his enemies. There is a kind of jujitsu to Jesus. He throws the negative forces back at these enemies. Theology is the turn toward God-living that reverses the pattern of the world and releases the forces of God and good in every human encounter. Jujitsu is an ancient form of sumo wrestling from the sixteenth century. It relies on balance. The issue is not to dominate your opponent but to improve yourself. We do not operate through physical strength but the skillful use of balance. The element of surprise is key. In the jujitsu of Jesus, effective nonviolence exposes the limitations of adversaries so thoroughly that oppressors are caught off balance and stumble over their own shortcomings. We live by God's energy and power, not by the powers of the world.

How can we not boast about these wonderful agile moves that any of us can do? How can we not boast about the God who shows us the way? How dare we take a "Pilate" on this level of good news? Many of us will, when confronted with life's difficulties, get out the water and wash our hands. Instead, once we know the power and love of God expressed in theology, we find a time for spiritual fire, the shiver of grace. We become free not to be afraid of any great interpretive fight. We tell the chamber of commerce that we can't stop talking about God. We become aware of how important the arts of interpretation are. Theology bests nature as a matter for awe and wonder because it is the art of interpretation. It is knowing that God is in charge, while others are suggesting we downplay that news.

When we have "Yes" or "No" conversations and do what we are told, we lose, prematurely, the war of interpretation or theology. Theology is nothing more nor less than the knowing of God. Once we know God, we can't stop boasting about God.

Remember also that war starts in interpretation. Cruelty starts in interpretation. Your joy starts in interpretation. When we know God, we can't help but sing and speak and come out of our hiding places.

I think of a boy who loved to play hide-and-seek. He found the perfect hiding place. The only problem was that his perfect hiding place was so good that the other children couldn't find him! They went on to another game. He was alone and hidden. He cried and cried. Instead, he could have found himself and begun boasting. We are people who come out from hiding to boast. This is no time for people of faith to hide. It is very much time for us to speak.

I heard a rumor in jujitsu class. In that class we turn the force that is coming against us back on itself. There, with Jesus, we imagine the triumph that can come out of trouble, the good news in the bad news. There we see what the poet said about the broken vessel. It crashed on the floor, leaving itself wide open for something new.

Anyway, the rumor I heard was about the Mel Gibson Christian foundation. Instead of enriching Hollywood, the great movie, The Passion Of The Christ, caught the jujitsu of theology and enriched others. The foundation helped people who were hurt by violence in the name of Christ. I heard that the foundation gave away all the profits that the movie made. And then I heard everyone saying, "This is what it is to know Jesus in the power of the transformed now."

If God had made the movie about Jesus, and God did, all the money would have been given away, just as all of Jesus' power was given away to the world. This is the kind of God about whom we may dare boast. In fact, how dare we not boast?

Now no one really likes a boaster or even a booster. We find such people self-serving and not really good vehicles for carrying the gospel. When we boast, we need to find a way to boast with humility about ourselves and pride in our God. The litmus test, the way we know whether we are boasting as people of faith or as people of pride, is whether we personally gain or not. Like the Mel Gibson Christian foundation, the best proof of the gospel is when it is given away. It is spread around. It is not about us. It is about God. We relinquish and release when we boast. We point, like a good steeple, to the heavens, not to our position or résumé on earth. Indeed who we are and what we have as a reputation is important in the service of God.

Getting invited to the chamber of commerce meeting to speak is important -- it matters. It matters that we prepare well and speak well and that we have good pointer fingers in our PowerPoint presentations. What matters more, though, is the ledger at the end of the day. Does the ledger show God with more points, more money, more adherents? Or is it we who grow in these ways? Both can happen simultaneously, but boasting about God is boasting about God. It is not sneaky self-promotion. There is a difference.

That's why the jujitsu is so important. It is important to be agile in the service of the gospel. It is important to know how to turn the light on the right subject at the right time. Surely we must practice our wrestling. We must get good and deft at it. We must train. Then we must wrestle with the constant temptation to have the light shining on ourselves. When the light comes toward us, it is our job to reflect it back, twice the size, to the God who made us good wrestlers in the first place.