Memo to me...

Dear left rev., please read the blog for relevant posts before posting. That is all.

Well, even if I had read the blog before ripping my last post, I probably still would have posted it. I was trying to explain to a friend what a blog is, and he asked why I do it. I responded: because I was invited to, because it answers a need for me to be in dialogue, and because it provides me with an outlet to refine and sharpen my own theological, philosophical, and spiritual understanding of my faith and tradition.

And it is a ministry, given and received.

That love of others, that care for their freedom is what causes us to go into such controversial subjects as the individual and the state, war and peace. The implications of the gospel, teaching the works of mercy, lead us into conflict with the powers of this world. Our love of God is a consuming fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It is a living God and a living faith that we are trying to express. We are called to be holy, that is, whole human beings, in this life of ours.-Dorothy Day

No Holiness But Social Holiness

One just discusses what is the greatest good for the greatest number and without mentioning God at all, hasn't one really been talking about God, if one believes? Do you see what I mean?
Tena

I hope very much that I see what you mean, Tena. I was going to respond to your comment in the comments, as I thought that’s all for which I’d have the time. But, as happens so wonderfully often, your comment resonated quite well with my current train of thought and with the services at my church this Sunday.

The quote in the header is from John Wesley, an Anglican reformer whose piety movement within the Church of England grew to develop an identity as a separate denomination, particularly in America. Wesley’s focus was always on the ways in which we act as Christians, not upon the ways in which we profess ourselves Christians. He took it as read that the creeds and doctrines of the Anglican Church would be that of anyone who felt called to a higher level of Christianity than simply professing them several times a year. Rather his focus was on holiness, personal and corporate-what that meant from the perspective of Scripture and Tradition, and what that looked like lived out in the world. The primary vehicle of holiness was, for Wesley, the grace of God in Christ. A great deal of Wesley’s preaching and his developing theology (which he never thought of AS a developing theology; that was left for later theologians in the Weslean tradition to articulate) focused on what he saw as the “means of grace,” the many ways in which the grace of God could touch a willing or unwilling heart and work transformatively. Perhaps I’ll write a little about this at another time. My focus today is the point raised for me by Tena above. Christians testify to the truth of the gospel, the Good News, not by what they say, but by how they live. You cannot lay claim to holiness if it does not manifest in the world around you as holiness. Not as self-righteousness because you are holy, but as love for others because the holiness you receive by grace demands nothing less and requires much more.

In 1748, Wesley began a series of sermons “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount.” In Discourse IV, Wesley examines the need for outward holiness to flow from inward holiness- for our love of God to manifest as love of others. In other words, should Methodists retreat into “high and heavenly contemplation…only communing with God in our hearts?” Predictably, the response is no. In fact, Wesley claims that Christianity “cannot subsist at all without society.”

The virtues so essential to Christianity as Wesley understood it, such as meekness or peacemaking, mean nothing when practiced in solitude. In fact, a Christian life is really lived at its best when it is lived among “ungodly and unholy men,” as exposure of this nature is cause to develop and refine these virtues to a high degree. Wesley’s “ungodly and unholy men,” are those who profess the Christian faith, but do not live it. Or also, considering his time, those who profess a faith Wesley understands to be wrongly guided, including Quakers and Roman Catholics. Living only with other “Christians” might take the edge off. And, in fact, it is the task of the Christian to live as a Christian among the ungodly and be “the salt of the earth,” seasoning everyone around with holiness.

One can see that those who practice of Christianity was less fervent or evangelical than that of a devoted Methodist might be somewhat annoyed by this attitude. It does smack of self-righteousness. It is indeed a very fine line on which to walk-more so today, perhaps, when diversity of beliefs and denominations require far more willingness to be open to the depth and breadth of God’s presence among us. However, according to Wesley, one who lives a Christian life cannot hide it. Ironically, “it is impossible to hide your lowliness and weakness,” which are the very aspects that would facilitate being hidden. Christians testify to the truth of the gospel “by their lives.” While this could be taken as justification for “Jesus in your face,” approaches to testifying to the grace of God, but it needn’t be. Wesley uses the words “absolute, total apostasy” to describe those who, once moved by justifying grace, do not exhibit the fruits of justification in that love of God, enabled by this grace, lead into love of neighbor.

To those who would object that religion lies in the heart, not in outward things, Wesley responds that if “the union of the soul with God,” which is the root of all religion, “be really in the heart it cannot but put forth branches…He is well pleased with all that outward service that arises from the heart.” To other objections, such as the futility of trying to help the poor, Wesley’s response is that Christ did not cease from trying to do good, and neither should we. He also makes clear that for all of our “efforts” it is God who does the work. It is a very real trap that our motives may lead us into, and Wesley maintains that, to live a social Christian life, “let it be your sole aim that all who see your good works may `glorify your father which is in heaven.” Wesley cannot conclude without some practical advice. You’ve been told not to hide your holiness, but there are specific ways to reveal it. While giving practical advice on how to manage a lifestyle and “shine in all good works,” ultimately the formula is to “be thou full of faith and love; do good; suffer evil.”

If one is a believer in God, as you say Tena, then talk of the work that God calls God’s people to is talk of God. As Wesley once said, “If your heart is as my heart, then give me your hand.” As a believer, as one who takes with all consuming seriousness the commandment laid upon us by Jesus-“Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”- I don’t think for a minute God cares who gets the credit.

Wesley would often end his sermons with this benediction

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.

Well, that works for me.

"Whatever you did for the least of these...."

Tena raises an excellent question regarding the post below:

One just discusses what is the greatest good for the greatest number and without mentioning God at all, hasn't one really been talking about God, if one believes? Do you see what I mean?

One that interestingly (serendipity? Synchronicity? Moving of the Holy Spirit? You decide.) connects with this.

Her question, intentionally or not, is cast in terms of a modern ethical system: utilitarianism. It's a system so compelling John Rawls had to refute it by using its own terms against it. But there are other ways to respond to utilitarianism, and Tena's is one of them.

I mean to put these observations in stark contrast to one another, because both are true, and compelling, in their own ways. The idea that so long as we speak of the greatest good for the greatest number, we speak of God; and the idea that so long as we care for the least among us, we care for God.

And above all, the idea that we cannot afford to stand in judgment over the actions of another. We may feel, well, compelled to; but compulsion does not equal justification.

I know I'm leaving this hanging. It's Mother's Day, and I have other obligations myself. But I hope to return to this soon.

Seventh Sunday in Easter

Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

68:1 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee before him.

68:2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, let the wicked perish before God.

68:3 But let the righteous be joyful; let them exult before God; let them be jubilant with joy.

68:4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds--his name is the LORD-- be exultant before him.

68:5 Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.

68:6 God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land.

68:7 O God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, Selah

68:8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain at the presence of God, the God of Sinai, at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

68:9 Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad; you restored your heritage when it languished;

68:10 your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.

68:32 Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth; sing praises to the Lord, Selah

68:33 O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens; listen, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.

68:34 Ascribe power to God, whose majesty is over Israel; and whose power is in the skies.

68:35 Awesome is God in his sanctuary, the God of Israel; he gives power and strength to his people. Blessed be God!

"The Cube and the Cathedral"

Blogging from the bookstore (as I am doing) is a perilous occupation (not least of which because I'm on "company time") , but I'm looking through catalogs (for work! Honest!) and came across what looks like an interesting book.

The title is in the caption. It's by George Weigel. Mr. Weigel is, from the biographical information available, apparently both an intellectual, a Catholic (the author of a biography I coincidentally just shelved, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II), and, from the plaudits, conservative. None of which is truly relevant, but in the blogosphere especially, such things usually determine how fair a hearing one's ideas get. So let's put all the cards on the table.

The book, which I won't have a chance to read for a while, is subtitled: "Europe, America, and Politics Without God." I should say at the outset that I have my own thesis about how Jeffersonian separation of church and state spared America much of the dissolution of religious life Europe seems to have undergone; but that's another thesis for another day. Mr. Weigel's thesis seems to be...well, let me quote the catalog:

Weigel traces the origins of "Europe's problem" to the atheistic humanism of the nineteenth-century European intellectual life, which set in motion a historical process that produced two world wars, three totalitarian systems, the Gulag, Auschwitz, the Cold War--and, most ominously, the Continent's de-population, which is worse today than during the Black Death.

And yet, many Europeans still insist--most recently, during the debate over a new EU constitution--that only a public square shorn of religiously-informed moral argument is safe for human rights and democracy. Precisely the opposite, Wiegel suggests, is true: the people of the "cathedral" can give a compelling account of their commitment to everyone's freedom; the people of the "cube" cannot.

Can there by any true "politics"--any true deliberation about the common good, and any robust defense of freedom--without God? George Wiegel makes a powerful case that the answer is "No," because, in the final analysis, societies are only as great as their spiritual aspirations.

The "cube," by the way, is the Great Arch of La Defense, in Paris. The "cathedral" is Notre Dame, also in Paris.

I don't know that I would agree with Wiegel's reasoning, or even all of his conclusions (and the reasoning often guides the consequences of the conclusions, so that is a large caveat), but the very concept is worthy of deep consideration. It is certainly possible to consider a society without spiritual aspirations at all: Voltaire claimed to have done it, as well as Rousseau, Sartre, and many French and Continental intellectuals. But they all did it in the context of a society still pursuing some spiritual aspirations. Were they right? Or were they naive? In America today, I would argue that we are as godless as the Europeans. Our "common good" is not defined in spiritual terms, but monetary ones. The true measure of worth of any public policy or "public good," is financial. James Dobson and Pat Robertson command attention not because they are spiritual leaders, but because of the money they raise, and the audiences that supply that money. A large audience equals a large bank account, equals a guaranteed place at the table of public discourse. But has it anything to do with God?

And is our answer to them that God has no place in the discussion? Or that their God is not the only version at the table?

"We certainly don't want a particular brand of Christianity enacted as the law of the land."

A quote from Rev. Veazey's column linked below, since the comments section leads me to believe that almost no one has read it yet [edited, with gratitude to jane for the correction!]:

One of the "Justice Sunday" speakers, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, put it in terms as chilling to religious liberty and diversity as any I've ever heard. Like other fundamentalists, Mohler believes there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible-his-and he equated the inerrancy of his interpretation of the Bible with the inerrancy of the Constitution, based on his biblical beliefs. In bringing the Bible and the Constitution together, fundamentalists like Mohler are moving toward mainstreaming their biblically based interpretation of the Constitution. Judges would be held to the standard of biblical teachings, as interpreted by fundamentalists. I don't doubt the sincerity of Mohler and other fundamentalist ministers who share this view that the Bible is literally true and they alone know what it means, but they are on dangerous ground when they then suggest that they alone also know what the Constitution means-and that anyone who thinks differently is anti-Christian. Christians have strong differences of opinion on the meaning of scriptures and most of us don't want to see a particular brand of Christianity held up as the only real Christianity. We certainly don't want a particular brand of Christianity enacted as the law of the land.

This, of course, is the issue. Inerrancy of interpretation that spreads from God's word (which is absolute, and so inerrant ab initio) to law. And the interpretation itself is inviolable, because it begins with the absolute. A neat tautology, but not one that applies neatly to the real world.

And on the subject of the filibuster: the focus of this group is clear. Their program was titled: "Justice Sunday: Filibustering People of Faith." These judges are not being appointed because of their particular brand of Christian faith. If they have no more qualificationst than that, they are not qualified. Their faith, or lack thereof, should not be the grounds for their approval or disqualification, especially to the bench. By trying to make this a uniquely religious issue and, as Rev. Veazer notes, a uniquely religious issue of a uniquely narrow religious conviction, they are crossing a line that a multi-cultural, legally secular, society cannot cross. These judges are free to practice their faith. They are not free to claim a right to appointment based on their religion, and destroying the filibuster rule on this basis is precisely what is being sought. The values and failings of the filibuster is one issue. The grounds for removing it in this case, and how that removal would be accomplished (via simple majority v. 2/3rds, a rules change "decreed" by that simple majority, which is a violation of almost all systems of parliamentary procedure) is the issue here.

Rev. Veazer goes on to note that:

James Dobson of Focus on the Family, another "Justice Sunday" speaker, railed against the Supreme Court as "arrogant and imperious and determined to redesign the culture according to their own biases and values," holding up the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision for special scorn.

No word on whether Mr. Dobson held out any special scorn for Miranda, Gideon, Griswold, or Brown v. Board of Education, decisions that also redesigned the culture. I was parciulary affected by Brown. In 1972, my high school experienced a "race riot" because of forced integration. It certainly redesigned the culture of my small East Texas town, and not according to the biases and values of at least some of the whites of that town. But I suppose Mr. Dobson doesn't want to touch the morality of that one (and yes, it was seen as a moral issue, as much as a "state's rights" issue. Some elaborate moralities for slavery were constructed in the 19th century, and they were disassembled until after the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others).

Nunc Dimmitus

Now, Lord, you are releasing your servant in peace,
according to your promise.
For I have seen with my own eyes
the deliverance you have made
ready in full view of all nations;
a light that will bring revelation to the Gentiles
and glory to your people Israel.

"On the Brink of 'Theocracy' "

I am basically "parking" this one here, so I can come back to it later. With thanks to "SallyH" in the Eschaton comments, I came across this column by Rev. Carlton W. Veazey. It seems that "Justice Sunday" has stirred more than a small amount of interest.

Which, in this case, is a good thing.

Psalm 62

My soul waits, silent for God,
for God alone, my salvation,
alone my rock, my safety,
my refuge: I stand secure.

How long will some of you attack
tearing others down
as if walls or fences
on the verge of collapse?

You scheme to topple them,
so smug in your lies;
your lips are all blessing,
but murder fills your heart.

Wait, my soul, silent for God,
for God alone, my hope,
alone my rock, my safety,
my refuge: I stand secure.

God is my glory and safety,
my stronghold, my haven.
People, give your hearts to God,
trust always! God is our haven.

Mortals are but a breath,
nothing more than a mirage;
set them on the scales,
they prove lighter than mist.

Avoid extortion and fraud,
the hopes they breed are nothing;
and if you should grow rich,
place no trust in wealth.

Time and again God said,
"Strength and love are mine to give."
The Lord repays us all
in light of what we do.

"War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"

Questions of identity redound with issues of community, culture, social mores, ethics, and morality. We decide who we are based on who we think other people are, and the decisions can be astoundingly parochial. I knew a woman, a few years my senior, when I was living in St. Louis. She had lived in a particular suburb all her life, and told me one day that she and her husband had moved away for a few years, but moved back as quickly as that good. Being a transplant from Texas myself, I understood the tug of homesickness, and wondered where she had moved to. It was another suburb not ten minutes away, in the heart of metropolitan St. Louis, a suburb my wife drove to every day for her job.

Parochialism is seldom as dramatic as that, which makes it all that much harder to see. But parochialism is at the heart of our human nature. Jean-Paul Sartre argued for an ethic based on the responsibility of choosing an ethic for all of humankind, when one makes an ethical choice for oneself. Ethical choices, of course, cannot exist outside of a system, a set of rules, of boundaries on what choices are acceptable, what choices unacceptable. Sartre realized that, even in our individual and existential freedom, we are not free to make choices absent any consequences. When we choose, he argued, we choose for all humankind: when we decide what is right and what is wrong, we decide for all humankind. He meant for that kind of choice, that kind of knowledge, to make us humble; to even burden us with the awful responsibility.

But sometimes, it just turns us into monsters.

Re-reading "The Colonel" this year for the poetry section of my Freshman English course, I realized how much the imagery of the poem had become a metaphor for the fear and paranoia that seems rampant in the Administration. When the President traveled to Buckingham Palace, he insisted on moving around the grounds in a bulletproof car. He also demanded extraordinary security measures. Press reports at the time indicated that the Palace only balked when a request was made for a steel-lined room for the President to sleep in. He refuses to address crowds which are not pre-selected. The security for the Inaugural Parade this year was so severe, even George Will commented derisively on it. But that level of security reflects both a level of paranoia, and the perception that it is needed in order to maintain control.

The wall around the house the Colonel lives in includes barbed wire and glass that will "scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace." He has bars on his windows, keeps a gun handy. Secure enough in his power that he can horrify his guests with his barbarity and his grisly totems, he is still not secure enough to enjoy what his efforts have won him. He will never be secure enough. What he has gained, can be taken away. His power rests on fear. His house, as the poem presents it, is a metaphor of that fear, which cuts both ways.

When we choose, we choose for all humankind. When we decide what is right and wrong, we decide for all humankind. Deciding in favor of power does not lead to power, or security; because power only works by generating fear.

Hard to be secure, when you are generating so much fear.

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (an excellent book), and of the article in the current Harpers' Magazine, is on "Democracy Now!" as I type. Hedges' father, as he says, was a Presbyterian minister, and he himself holds an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School. He is making an excellent argument that the "Dominionists" (who, apparently, take their name from the King James version of Genesis 2, where humanity is told to "take dominion" over all the earth) are a political, not a religious, movement.

The Rev. Joseph Phelps, pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, (and a graduate of Southern Theological Seminary, in the '70's), which church held a "counter" "Justice Sunday" service which 1000 people or so attended, is also on, and he gives me use for a word I learned in elementary school. As Rev. Phelps points out, the founders of this country were "disestablishmentarians." That is, they were against creating an "established" church.

Moehler told "Justice Sunday" that they were calling on people "merely to be moral, we want them to be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we don't just need instruction, we need salvation." He tied that sentiment directly to the federal judiciary, whom he said held control over much of what is important to this nation. Not satisfied, he makes clear, to control the administrative and legislative branches of government, he was exhorting people of a similar mind to seek control over the judiciary branch, as well. It is not unreasonable, to pick up on a point from the previous point, to call such language intolerant, or to focus on the issue of tolerance. What Lewis Lapham said, in that quote, was: "we err on the side of folly if we continue to grant the boon of tolerance to people who mean to do us harm in the conviction that they receive from Genesis the command ‘to take dominion over the Earth,’ to build the Kingdom of God, to create the Christian nation. The proposition is as murderous as it is absurd ...” What Mr. Lapham is complaining about there is not the activities of a Martin Luther King, Jr., or even necessarily the political candidacy of a Pat Robertson. Mr. Robertson sought political power, and Dr. King sought to change the injustice of American society. What Mr. Lapham identifies is not the error of trying to bring the kingdom of God to earth (we can have a fine theological argument, in fact, on precisely what that kingdom of God is: whether it is imminent or present, to come, coming, or already come). The concern voiced by Mr. Lapham is for "people who mean to do us harm," and do so "in the conviction that they receive from Genesis the command...to create the Christian nation." What these people seek is not merely political power, but absolute control; and an absolute control based on absolute religious beliefs.

When Albert Mohler says the line isn't drawn at morality, but at salvation, he means a very particular, very narrow theological position, one shared by a tiny segment of the world religion of Christianity. Mr. Hedges writes from his experience at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, and he makes it clear that the issue for the supporters of "Justice Sunday" is not the filibuster, or the appointment of a few bad judges, but winning a battle of good over evil. Whether that battle even has any theological validity is another question; whether we are called to fight it, and win it, on God's behalf, is the question before us. That is another issue, as Reinhold Niebuhr argued in Moral Man and Immoral Society, that I may take up for myself, but I cannot impose it on society at large. What we are seeing, in fact, is the last gasp of "Christendom," but we should not prolong its death throes by quibbling over distinctions about "tolerance."

This is not a Christian nation, and should not be. If Christ ever intended to rule as a temporal leader, then his death was indeed a failure. There can be no other way to understand it. As Rev. Phelps says, Rev. Mohler and his allies want to rewrite American history. They are antidestablishmentarians. They seek the establishment of a "Christian nation." And one of the crucial questions will be: whose Christianity? That of Benedict XVI? Of the Jesus Seminar? Of Shelby Spong, Jerry Falwell, Marcus Borg, Matthew Fox? Which kingdom of God do we establish? The basiliea tou theou of Luke? Or the basiliea ton ouranon of Matthew? Or do we follow John's gospel, where Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world? Do we build the Civitate Dei of Augustine? Do we adhere to the natural law of Aquinas, or do we teach our children that the law of America is based on Mosaic law, as one man said this morning in a story on NPR?

As Mr. Hedges points out, the group behind "Justice Sunday" is not promoting the personal salvation of an evangelist like Billy Graham. They are using that theological position as a sword, a political tool, to gain political power. I can respect, while I reject, the position of a believer that my salvation depends on accepting his or her version of religious doctrine. What I cannot respect, and must reject, is anyone seeking to use religious doctrine as an excuse to take political power, and to wield it over me and my family in the absolute sense so clearly intended by this group.

The End of American Days?

Louisville, Kentucky was the home of "Justice Sunday" a few weeks ago. It is also the home of a friend of mine, a fellow pastor, who sent me this article from the Louisville Eccentric Observer (look for John Yarmuth's column, "The End of American Days"). Lest you think all of Louisville agreed with "Just-Us Sunday," or that all the complaining is confined to the blogosphere, Mr. Yarmuth's concluding paragraphs:

The culture war is misnamed, because it understates what is at stake. Our society is engaged in a death struggle for the preservation of individual freedom, and everyone will be drafted. You cannot remain neutral, because if you’re not with them, you’re the enemy. The old adage holds that your freedom ends at my nose. It doesn’t make a matzo ball’s difference to me, as a Jewish American, what anyone believes until those beliefs restrict my personal liberty, and the †’ ambitions extend way past my nose. They involve my eyes, my ears, what I do with my body and the fate of my soul. They want to control what I can watch and hear, what my descendants can learn and whom they can love. In short, they have utter contempt for the American spirit.

As Lewis Lapham wrote in Harper’s, “The delusional is no longer marginal, and we err on the side of folly if we continue to grant the boon of tolerance to people who mean to do us harm in the conviction that they receive from Genesis the command ‘to take dominion over the Earth,’ to build the Kingdom of God, to create the Christian nation. The proposition is as murderous as it is absurd ...”

It's worth noting, too, that the Rev. Albert Mohler of Louisville Theological Seminary was the only clergy to speak at that "service." And Seminary Presidents seldom represent any one in any congregation. This is not at all, in other words, a "grassroots movement."

But the Harpers' article mentioned in the column is undoubtedly worth reading. And something other than a "it can't happen to us" attitude is going to have to be cultivated, and among more than the denizens and audience of the blogosphere.

Tena's Question

Which then causes me to wonder if I'm just being all too human (what else would I be?) in hoping that I would find acceptance from my creator as opposed to anger. Which in turn makes me wonder if I'm just turning the whole thing back on myself, instead of moving outward, away from my ego.

This never stops, does it?

No, it doesn't stop, actually. Annie Dillard tells the story of Israel in the wilderness, when Moses goes up on the mountain to talk to God. The theophany of God's presence: the thunder, the lightning, the wind, the sheer noise of it, terrifies the people, and they go into their tents. When Moses comes down and asks what they are doing, they tell him they are afraid, and that they've decided Moses should talk to God alone, because the presence of God so near to them is overwhelming. They don't all want to be in touch with God; they'd rather Moses did it. It isn't that God is angry; it is that they are scared.

She ends her essay this way:

At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world. Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: the hum is the silence....

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega. It is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even address the prayer to "World." Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing. Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 255

Perhaps the exhortation to prayer is still too far to ask you to go. But the clear direction is to go toward the "world," and to go fearlessly. The more you engage others, the less you engage only yourself. The more you see good in others, the less you see only what you like about yourself. The more you ask these questions, and ask them of someone not yourself, the more you empty yourself, and wait. Julian of Norwich, it turns out, was right. All things shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

This is why there has always been, and will always have to be, a "church." Only in the community do we know that we are not pursuing the shadows of our own eyes. Only in the community, do we get the personal voice of the Psalms. Only in the community do we get beyond ourselves, but more wholly become ourselves. Only in community, whatever shape or form or the facts of it are, do we quit our tents. And then the question of prayer, and prayer without ceasing, becomes two simpler questions: What is prayer? and what is not?

Are these things right or wrong?

I've read this poem to two classes in two days. I tend to read poetry when I'm trying to teach it; perhaps hoping that the poem itself will do all the work. In both classes, someone was sniggered at the public mention (in a classroom!) of one word.

See if you can figure out which one.

What does it say about our culture, that this poem doesn't provoke us as much as the Anglo-Saxon language?

THE COLONEL, by Carolyn Forché

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD IS TRUE. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

May 1978

Psalm 12

Help us, Lord,
for no one stays loyal,
the faithful have vanished.
People lie to each other,
no one speaks from the heart.
May the Lord silence
the smooth tongue
and boasting lips that say:
"Our words will triumph!
With weapons like these
who can master us?"

Then the Lord speaks out:
"I will act now,
for the poor are broken
and the needy groan.
When they call out,
I will protect them."

The Lord's word is pure,
like silver from the furnace,
seven times refined.

Lord, keep your promise,
always protect your own.
Guard them from this age
when wickedness abounds
and evil is prized above all.

God is weaving

As I look around in my conference of the United Methodist Church, I do see many pastors who are lauded as exemplary managers-growers of churches, makers of disciples, payers of full apportionments. I also see many pastors who are lauded for their challenging and inspiring preaching, their dedication to outreach and their willingness to go to the margins, their respect for biblical scholarship and their assumption that tradition must stand on its merits and relevance. Fortunately for one just entering the ministry, there are pastors in whom these traits intersect in some degree or other, and they tend to be available for mentoring.

Strength in one area should not exclude at least competency in the other. The church requires both types, but my own preference, and, I suspect, my skillset, lies in the second category. I admit my bias before I go on to state that I believe the future and relevance of the mission of the church lies more in the hands of those who are concerned less with managing and maintaining the vehicle for proclaiming the message of God than with grappling with the challenge inherent in the message of God.

Struggle is certainly one aspect of our relationship with God. To approach our sacred texts with honesty and openness is to know oneself as one of those stiff-necked people, stubbornly determined to find in God what we find in ourselves. It is to attempt to live a life that seems at time to defy the instinct for survival.

Yet, there is also a sense in which we cooperate with God. For example, creation can be thought of as a process rather than an event. If creation is a one off happening, then we and everything in it can only be seen as the result. However, to understand God’s creative activity as incorporating us and responding to our existence requires our participation. And it is our task as those who would be a part of God’s creation to see our actions and our relationships with God and with each other as an integral part of God’s activities. Consider this:

God is crying.
The tapestry of creation
That she wove with such joy
Is mutilated, torn,
Made into pieces,
Its beauty torn apart with violence.
God is crying.
But see!
She is gathering the pieces
To weave something new.
She collects the pieces from hard work;
The aim: to defend
The initiative for peace,
The protests against injustice,
Everything that seems
Small and weak;
Words and deeds given
As sacrifice
In hope,
In belief,
In love.
And see!
She is weaving them together
With the golden threads of joy
To a new tapestry:
A creation richer, more beautiful
Than the old!
God is weaving,
Patient, persistent,
With a smile
That is shimmering like a rainbow
Over her face, striped with tears.
And she invites us
Not only to continue
To give her our works
And our suffering pieces-
But even more-
To sit beside her
At the loom of Jubilee
And weave
Together with her
The tapestry of a New Creation.
-M. Rienstra, translated by Yvonne Dahlin

There are a few obvious flashpoints in this piece from the foundation of traditional, patriarchal, Christianity of God as “wholly other,” omnipotent, omniscient, and, above all, masculine. Would I preach from this perspective? Oh yes. I would because it adds another layer of meaning to our struggle with God, and perhaps our understanding of God.

If we are God’s “good creation,” made in God’s image, then God too must be creative and imaginative enough to see “results,” as mere beginnings and our struggles with God and with each other as the warp and woof of something new. This could be uncomfortable to a stiff-necked people who like clear boundaries, security in right belief and actions, and “results.” I would hope so, anyway, for in the ensuing struggle is potentiality for new creation. Perhaps the new creation will be readily apparent when we fully recognize ourselves as both God’s good creation and God’s co-creators.

At Stone-Two-Birds

Robert - I have a question that is completely off topic. The creation story has always fundamentally bothered me. If God created man in his image, but told him not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that means man was created without conscience. Does that mean God is without conscience?

And where it really bothers me is why knowledge of good and evil, which I kind of take as sentience, in my own way of seeing this, would be denied man. Because without it, we wouldn't be human.

Where have I gone wrong in this?
Tena

This allows me to kill two birds with one stone, because of what happened to me yesterday.

My brother-in-law, a marvelous fellow who is the soul of kindness and generosity, returned to church several years ago and "discovered" Marcus Borg and the Jesus Seminar and such like readings of scripture, and became enamored of it. He loves to engage me in long discussions of the exegesis of texts, and being the kind of "all or nothing" person that he is, he reads widely in the "new" scholarship that's available. So this past weekend he had to be away from a Sunday School class he leads at one of the bigger (and Methodist, FWIW) churches in town, and asked me to come over and cover for him.

Which may or may not have been a good idea; we'll see. Having little time to prepare anything "new" (and no real inclination to get off my intellectual butt and do so), I picked up the basics of my thinking on hospitality, and ended up talking about Luke 7:36-50, knowing it would be controversial but expecting it would provoke the kind of questions and discussion he said his class was known for. He usually, he said, just tossed out "a piece of meat" and let them go at it. So I tossed out my meat, and stood back.

But what I tossed, instead, was a flash grenade. They all sat gaping eyed and, figuratively, at least, slack-jawed. After all, I was dressed like a pastor ("Roman" collar, no tie; haven't worn one in years), and talked like a religiously trained person. But what I said......

Which brings me around to Tena's question. Where has she gone wrong? Nowhere, actually. The error is in the church, if anywhere. Hard to blame the "congregation members" when the church itself is fuzzy to obtuse on the concepts.

This is a vexed problem, in one sense. "Israel" means "struggles with God," and my Old Testament professor used to warn us against letting God off too lightly. It seems reasonable, of course, that we would not struggle with God, merely with our understanding of what God is, or requires, or demands, and who we accomodate it. It isn't quite that simple, however; in fact, it isn't that simple by half.

But in this limited space, responding to this question, it has to be almost that simple. Take that advice, not to let God off the hook too lightly, as a starting point, or something to bear in mind. Then move forward. Move forward by first reading the opening chapters of Genesis and noting that, like the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we have two very different origin stories here. In the first. God creates the heavens and the earth, divides the water from the land, brings forth plants and then animals, and finally makes man in God's image. "Male and female God created them," in fact. That's where the "created in God's image" language comes from.

Now, go to Chapter 2. God "speaks" creation into existence (not really, but let's not belabor the theological point now) in Genesis 1, and humankind is part of that process. In Genesis 2, God actually forms Adam from the dust ("Adam" means, in Hebrew, roughly "red earth"), and later makes Eve as Adam's companion, from one of Adam's ribs. And while God pronounces all of creation, without boundary or limit, "good" in Genesis 1, God sets a few ground rules in Genesis 2, and even seems to have established a bounded Garden from which Adam and Eve can be excluded. Just so Creation seems divided between "good" and "not good." Genesis 1 is about the boundlessness of God; Genesis 2 is about the boundaries that pervade creation.

That's one observation, that shows how much dichotomy there is between the two stories. And the second is the more vexing, if it is coupled with a soteriology that requires the damnation of the human race because of the temptation of two people. In our post-Romantic individualist culture that seems particularly harsh, especially in a society that stratifies itself according to a caste system as vicious and unyielding as any Indian or aristocratic model (part of what I did wrong yesterday morning was to present prostitutes as people first, and reformed or even grateful converts, second), we don't like to think that any one else can decide our fate for us (although, of course, it happens all the time, and we accept it). But in a culture where identity rests, not in the individual but in the community, the "family," this problem doesn't present itself at all.

But is Genesis 2 really about damnation and perdition and punishment? Or can it be read as an explanation for our imagination? After all, it is easy to imagine an easier life than we have known, and to retroject that imagination onto the people who lived before us. We have an amazing capacity to see the complexity of our lives, but to imagine that the lives of others are simple by comparison, and in simplicity, probably happier and easier. The Garden of Eden answers that need; to see our past as one from which we have declined, and to which we should aspire to return. It's the same root as Arthur's Camelot, and the Once and Future King. It's not the only root of human nature, but it is the one most influential in Western thought. The Garden and the reason we don't live there anymore, is meant more as an explanation of our present circumstances, and why we can "remember" (or imagine) an easier life, but can't attain it. Onto that ideal is built the Augustinian perception that "our hearts are restless until they rest in thee," and then graft onto that an apocalyptic desire for justice and retribution, and before long you have sinners in the hands of an angry God. And it seems that God set this whole business in motion without or consultation or a chance for our participation, except as failures. And it seems God has no conscience.

And it is an easier lesson to sell, to tell the people that their lives are hard because of the original error of two people, and that it won't get any better until they accept that they need a Lord and Savior, and that there is a representative of that Lord and Savior who will figure it all out for them. Or at least give them the guidance they want in settling these big questions into small answers that are conveniently arranged around the lives they want to lead, anyway. We understand justice and punishment and retribution, especially if we set out to build our lives on them, and it feeds the self-worth of the individual to set them against both the world and below God in a constant tension that keeps them humble and haughty in nearly equal measure. We like, in other words, clear boundaries. We want to know what is good, and what is evil, and how to distinguish the two. In that Genesis 2 is right: we want the god-like power of ultimate knowledge. But having acquired it, we find out too late it doesn't make us happy, either. We find out, in fact, that we should have spent a bit more time thinking about what that: "And it was good," might really mean.

But it doesn't set up a boundary, and we like our boundaries. If our God truly came to earth as human, and truly welcomed prostitutes without making them go through a purification ritual of some kind first, without requiring they make some kind of down payment as a sign of good faith before they could join the party, then it means all the boundaries are down, and that God's ways are truly not our ways.

And that while it is good, we'll have to spend a little more time thinking about what "good" is. Which is not so much a curse, as a responsibility. And if we don't take up that responsibility, the consequence is not so much a curse for eternity, as it is damnation in the here and now. God offers us life "into the ages," in the koine Greek of the New Testament, not after the ages are over. God offers it, but do we take it? That's the question. And what does God offer? We can't let God off the hook so easily. Like Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok, we have to wrestle with the angel to get the blessing. But the blessing is, in part, our sentience, our knowledge of good and evil. After all, how can we know it is good, if we don't know what bad is?

But is God responsible for this state of affairs, or are we? Or is it a shared responsibility? I'm not quite sure I know what hook God gets hung on, but I'm willing to keep God on there, if only by wrestling with the messenger. Now whether that is even publicly comfortable, as my experience yesterday confirmed for me again (it isn't!), or even the accepted (and therefore "proper") basis for ministry (the other "issue" in this matter); well, we'll have to see.

(p.s. this is a classic case of running out of time rather than having found what I wanted to say. Somebody make sure I come back to this; I want to go at Tena's final question again, when I have the chance.)

Two Stoned Birds, Part Deux

What does one have to do with the other? Tena's question and my experience in a Sunday school class, how exactly are they related?

The church.

During the class, one of the questions was whether a group of pastors would agree with my interpretation of the scriptures. I had to confess that was very unlikely. After the class, my sister in law, a dear and delightful woman, told me I was certainly a college professor (she enjoyed the class; this was a compliment). That, however, was what many critics of my ministry had told me, in my last year at my last church: that I belonged in a classroom, not a pulpit. Why? Because I had the temperament of a professor, not a pastor? I don't think so. I think because of what I teach.

My interpretation of the last 14 verses of Luke 7 might well be idiosyncratic and even indefensible, but it would barely raise eyebrows among Biblical scholars and scriptural theologians. It wouldn't even interest systematic theologians, I suspect. It is not, in other words, controversial. Certainly not the fire-bombing of a Shelby Spong, or the radical reimagination of God of Matthew Fox or even the feminist promoters of "goddess" images and ideas. Indeed, even feminist readings of scripture are more controversial than my small effort.

But among the laity, pastors are, by and large, not supposed to say such things. Just as they are trained, by experience or inclination, not to delve too deeply into the differences between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and what both mean for Christian soteriology. Most pastors, in fact, are neither Biblical scholars nor theologians, and so seldom stray far from what they first learned in Sunday school. It is not too much to say the system is self-perpetuating, and the most "successful" pastors (i.e., those with the largest and wealthiest churches, which is the usual "measure"), are the least interested in theology, be it Biblical or systematic: they are interested in management, and in Dale Carnegie-style "winning friends and influencing people."

When I finally realized that Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World was about Jesus, not a successful Willy Loman, I finally understood that.

Has the church run its course in this matter? It's too apocryphal to say so, but it is certainly running out its length of rope, and will soon hang itself. The "third-world" churches are not our model for any number of reasons, not the least of which involves the different cultures. It is colonialism all over again to imagine the African churches will "save" the European ones. I am convinced, in fact, that the survival of the church in this post-Enlightenment, post modern age, will require taking the bull by the horns, not finding ways to argue that the bull isn't there. The stories of the Bible are stories of struggling with God. We are more comfortable with a pocket-sized Jesus, a Jesus covered with the ash and debris of two centuries of tradition and familiarity. Removing the stains and soot and varnish and seeing something like the original colors again (Jesus was funny? Jesus really hung out with prostitutes?) is disturbing, but it is also necessary. This particular version of Christendom has had its run. It was over in the 19th century, but like the Roman empire, its reach is so vast that the collapse will take a long time to finish, and a longer time to register.

And it is time, despite the danger it creates to pastors as paid professionals, and the discomfort it brings to church members who want their Sunday mornings to be as predictable as their work weeks, if not more so, to reintroduce the living God to people. Because that God is there anyway, and anxious at least to let Tena, and others, into the conversation.

At the end of an "X-Files" episode that I remember now only for this closing, Dana Scully is talking to her priest about what has happened that hour, and he's telling her that perhaps God is always talking to us. This doesn't comfort her; in fact, she says, it distubs her even more. "Why?," the priest asks. "Becuase that means God is talking, but no one is listening," she answers. That can be, but should not be, an indictment of the church.

(and yes, I purposely placed these so this comes up below the first post; easier to read them in order)

So Far Away from Home....

I'm away from my resources at home (i.e., my Bibles), and I'm supposed to teach a Sunday School class on a topic of my choosing at week's end (or beginning, whichever you prefer), so I'm mulling over the topic of hospitality, and I come across this article by Jack Hiatte (via a link to a link to a link to a link; ain't the Internets wonderful?), which includes this passage that sets me thinking:

Here is a quote from Jesus that you almost never hear: "What do you think?" It's right there in the Bible. Jesus asks this question all the time.

One parable Jesus taught was this one, from Matthew: "What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, 'I will not,' but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, 'I go, sir,' but did not go." Jesus' disciples all strenuously raised their hands. They knew the answer! The first son was the most virtuous!

Whereupon Jesus (whose sense of humor is underrated) replied: "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you."

Since I don't have my Bibles handy, I can't tell you where in Matthew this parable occurs, but that doesn't really matter. What caught my eye was the treatment of it (Jesus has a sense of humor?! Well, of course he does!), and that final statement: "The tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you."

Maybe I should explain that "tax collectors" in 1st century Palestine worked for the Romans, which made them "traitors" to their people. Prostitutes, of course, are shunned by everyone except their clients. And how does this connect to hospitality?

Well, I'm going to be teaching from Luke 7:36-50, the anointing story. The woman who "anoints" Jesus doesn't anoint him, actually; not the way a king or honored guest would be anointed. She performs what can only be described as an erotic act, because that's the way it was used in Greek literature: she washes Jesus feet with her tears (her own moisture), and dries them with her hair (something usually bound and kept hidden; and again, a very intimate gesture). The euphemism of "feet" for genitalia is not to be overlooked in the symbolism of the act, either. This is almost a symbolic act of oral sex; which Jesus turns into an act of hospitality (he tells his host: "You provided no water to wash my feet, but she has washed them with her tears."). He goes on to tell her, who has shown no faith at all: "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

Well, perhaps she has shown 'faith.' She has acted hospitably, in Jesus' interpretation, toward God. Or another human being, which amounts to the same thing.

But how is the kingdom of heaven like that? That's the point of the parables, of course. Not to lay down prescriptions, but to provoke discernment, new ways of seeing, openness of heart. As Mr. Hiatt points out, nobody ever clamors for the posting of the Beatitudes. He has his answer as to why that is, but perhaps we should simply be asking: why not? Why not the Beatitudes from Luke, and in a newer, clearer translation, such as the "Scholar's Version" crafted by the Jesus Seminar? The word "blessed" in that translation is replaced with one they argue is more accurate and true to the original Greek: "Congratulations!" Try it, and see if it doesn't make a difference.

"Congratulations, you poor! Congratulations, you hungry! Congratulations, you who are mourning!"

And Luke, of course, includes the curses, the "woes" in most translations. But let's be more honest about those, too: "Damn you rich! Damn you who are full! Damn you who laugh now!"

Any wonder we don't see those posted in prominent public places? And questions as to which are more important to us? Any answers as to what those Beatitudes really mean?

What do you think?

"Nuklear physics ain't so new, and it ain't so clear."--Howland Owl

We need Walt Kelly again. We miss him more than we realize. Perhaps he could help us make sense of the current political situation, since he lived through the McCarthy Era, beginning to end.

History is a hard thing to hold onto. I was too young for McCarthy, but I understood "the Bomb," which brought nuclear physics into everyday conversation, even if we weren't so clear on what it was. My daughter, almost 13 now, has no memory of "the Bomb" at all, and can't imagine a world under that Sword of Damocles. How to tell her?

But those who don't know history seem doomed to repeat it; or perhaps Marx was right, and history repeats itself, coming once as tragedy, the second time as farce. Now we are seeing the farce; but this time, the energy is aimed, not at the imagined enemies "across the water," or at shadows under the bed, or the creatures of our own nightmares, but at what Josh Marshall has aptly described as "the soft tissue of the law."

It was in law school that I realized what a fragile structure the law really is. It is backed only by the agreement of those bound by it. Police officers follow the law because they accept its dictates. Bailiffs in court obey the judge because they accept the system of justice as a whole. Politicians and public officials are bound by court rulings on the Constitutionality of laws, or the interpretation of statues, because they accept the system as a whole. It is all part of an agreement to behave in a certain way, not unlike the rules of etiquette. The only thing that really keeps the structure in place and the wheels turning, is our agreement that it should be done this way and that, at the end of the day, we accept the consequences for objecting to that process. "Civil disobedience" is civil precisely because it accepts responsibility for defying the system at its most fundamental level, the level of just authority. Criminals violate the system at that level but are punished, and so the system maintains its authority. But who watches the watchers?

The "nuclear option" in the Senate is not that the filibuster rule will be suspended for the nomination of judges; it is the way the suspension will take place. A "super majority" of 67 votes is needed under current Senate rules to suspend the filibuster. But who enforces those Senate rules? The Senate itself. The "nuclear option" is not the suspension of the filibuster; it is the idea that a simple majority of 51 can suspend that rule, because that's the way the Bush Administration wants it. It is no more and no less than the idea that judges should be put on the bench to enforce the rule of law by abrogating the very agreement that is the foundation of the rule of law. That's the "option," and that's why it's "nuclear." It poisons the system at its very roots.

Richard Nixon is our standard for Presidential malfeasance and criminality; but even Nixon feared the anesthetic of sunlight and exposure. Even Nixon knew that the full weight of society, as expressed in the enforcement of its laws, would be used against him. Bush seems to have no such fear, and no such understanding. And what he wants, is to undo the justice system and the constitutional system and the governmental system, all in the name of "justice" and "the Constitution" and "governance." Which would be supremely ironic, if it weren't dangerously farcical. History comes once as tragedy, the second time as farce. This time, it's coming as black comedy; the darkest, the most cynical and pessimistic possible. This time it comes attacking our governmental system, proclaiming in virtuous tones that we are not virtuous, arguing as a governement of laws, not of men, that we should in fact be a government of men, not of laws.

And the only question left is: will it be permitted? The polls do not support it, but there is good reason to wonder if the polls matter anymore. There is more than sufficient reason to be suspicious about electronic voting devices. There is more than sufficient reason to wonder how deep the rot goes, how extensive the desire for power runs, how corrupted and polluted the system already is. It is no longer paranoia to wonder: is this the end of the line, or the tip of a very dirty iceberg?

This kind of abuse of power ain't so new either; and the extent of its reach, ain't so clear.