Wool-gathering in the third week of Lent

Two interesting bits from Huffington Post's "Religion" section that I just want to highlight during the season of Lent.

First, an atheist among evangelicals finds out the latter are people, too:

There's a widespread impression among evangelicals that secular progressives would like to see them flushed out of the culture. Look at the strange currency of the war on Christmas, an annual pageant of outrage that from my point of view seems like goofy satire. Many evangelical Christians buy into it because in them resides a potent fear of endangerment, for which there's plenty of real-world evidence: a lot of secular progressives treat evangelicals with derision, the media feeds a public appetite for exposes on their churches, and we celebrate when their leaders are disgraced, humiliated, or revealed as enjoying the same behaviors they built careers on decrying as sin.

So the notion that they'd trust a liberal, atheist writer to fairly represent their stories, or that they'd act naturally around me, knowing the filter through which I was viewing them, was just unrealistic.

As for the dogmatism of evangelicals:

A secondary surprise was that I felt implicated in the ignorance I observed -- relating to gay rights, to the environment, to feminism. I started to believe that their reactionary attitudes on these subjects were a result of profound insularity, which itself seemed the legacy of a culture that rejected them: mine. Why would they open themselves up to influence from a culture that made no space for their beliefs?

And then there's that question of understanding the other:

The book's appeal for secular progressives, I hope, is implicit. I think we like to think of ourselves as very tolerant, but we're comfortable being nasty to evangelical Christians. I think Internet culture has really exacerbated this attitude. It allows for hostility that would be unacceptable in life, where interacting with flesh and blood people counteracts any budding impulse to reduce someone to a disgusting cartoon. So I want this book to restore some humanity.

I'd hope that evangelicals would be interested in reading the book to see how their ideas and culture translate to a person working very hard to take them seriously, who nonetheless doesn't share their central beliefs.

Interesting what responses resentment breeds; they are seldom helpful ones. I have family members who could easily be described as very conservative in their religious beliefs, if not "evangelicals" in the Thomas Road Baptist Church sense of the word. I keep my theology to myself around them, mostly out of respect. I have friends who are very conservative religiously, and I treat them with the same respect. I find it works better than demonizing them, and I find it hard to demonize them since I know them personally. On the intertubes, however, who do I know personally, except those I already agree with?

And then, although I'm hardly an expert on neurobiology, neurology, brain structure, or even how much neuro-science explains how we think, this seems to me to be contrary to the popular press reports that religious belief is the product of a particular, and peculiar, part of the brain:

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, used functional MRI to evaluate brain activity in 15 devout Christians and 15 nonbelievers as the volunteers assessed the truth or falsity of a series of statements, some of which were religious (“angels exist”) and others nonreligious (“Alexander the Great was a very famous military ruler”). They found that when a subject believed a statement—whether it was religious or not—activity appeared in an area called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is an area associated with emotions, rewards and self-representation.

...

“The fact that we found the same brain processing between believers and nonbelievers, despite the two groups’ completely different answers to the questions [about religion], is pretty surprising,” says Jonas Kaplan, a research psy­chologist at U.C.L.A. and co-author of the study. The finding adds to the mounting evidence against the notion, popular in the scientific community as well as among the general public, that religious faith is somehow different from other types of belief, explains co-author Sam Harris, also of U.C.L.A. In contrast to this assumption, he says, “Believing the sun is a star is rather the same as believing Jesus was born of a virgin.”

Some of this leads directly into what Wittgenstein would call "language games," as the word "believe" is subject to varying interpretations depending upon the context (does a religious believer really "believe" in her religious doctrine the way another "believes" the sun is a star?). But the fact that the same brain function is involved in processing either type of information is...interesting.

BTW: I'm pretty sure The Onion has been reading my blog.

Third Sunday of Lent 2010

Isaiah 55:1-9
55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

55:2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

55:3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

55:4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.

55:5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;

55:7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Psalm 63:1-8
63:1 O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

63:2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

63:3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

63:4 So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

63:5 My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips

63:6 when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

63:7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.

63:8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

1 Corinthians 10:1-13
10:1 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,

10:2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,

10:3 and all ate the same spiritual food,

10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

10:5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

10:6 Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did.

10:7 Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play."

10:8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

10:9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.

10:10 And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

10:11 These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

10:12 So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.

10:13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

Luke 13:1-9
13:1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

13:2 He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

13:3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

13:4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

13:5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."

13:6 Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.

13:7 So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'

13:8 He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.

13:9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

“How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?” --Sara Palin. I understand political discourse, and public discussions. But I have to admit, hearing a professed Christian dispose of hope and change with a back-handed swipe, has made me a bit uncomfortable.

Not that Sara Palin is a "professional" Christian, but she's made her religious beliefs an important part of her public persona; and every once in a while, I think people who profess Christianity in public shouldn't be allowed to just use it as a free pass for proving their worthiness. Every once in a while, I think they ought to be held to living up to it. So while you don't have to agree with President Obama's "audacity of hope" (a phrase he got for his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright), dismissing "hope" as futile and naive is...well, it's hardly Christian.

Which is not the same as saying Sara Palin is not a Christian, nor is it a judgment on her Christianity. But the hope of Christianity has always been important to Christians; hope is not a thing that should be blithely dismissed. Hope is what much of a Christian's profession of faith is about. And if your profession of faith is just something you say under certain circumstances, in certain contexts, to certain audiences for certain purposes, what kind of profession is that? What are you confessing, if you can't confess it fully? So this is not a judgment on Sara Palin; this is a judgment on all of us who confess to be Christians. How's that hopey-changey thing working out for us?

Without change, there is no hope. Without hope, there is no change.

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

There is an absolutely mad hope there. That is an absolutely extravagant promise of change. And is it supposed to come in spite of us? Or because of us? Are we supposed to wait for this to happen, bye and bye, in God's own good time? Or are we supposed to be inspired by it, and live this vision right here, right now? The prophet says "listen carefully to me...listen, so that you may live....and eat what is good, and delight yourselves with rich food." Those are actions, verbs, activities. There's nothing there that says "Wait" or "Trust" or "Have Faith" and God will take care of the rest. Listen, the prophet says; listen; and be changed. Everything Isaiah says is in present tense.

Just as everything Jesus speaks of, in that parable and in the lesson of people killed by the tower, is in present tense.

Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.

So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'

He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.

If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

Sort of answers the question, doesn't it? If we don't bear fruit, why should we expect God to bear fruit for us? Or even expect God to plant new trees that bear fruit, and leave us alone to wait for the planting and the harvesting? Is this God's garden, or ours? If everything in the earth is God's, and all that fills it, aren't we stewards of God's earth, gardener's in God's orchards? If we don't have hope, what good is God's hope for us?

Our hope is not a foolish hope, a hope that God will do what we can't.

"Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."

And part of our repentance is to turn away from despair; to stop seeing as we see, and start seeing as God sees. There is, as Rev. Wright said, an audacity to hope, and the audacity is right there: that we could see as God sees. And part of the way God sees, is in the small things. After all, what matter is it if one tree out of an orchard bears fruit? Cut it down, replace it, move on! See the big picture, don't get bogged down in the details! But, as Mother Teresa reminds us, God (or some say the Devil) is in the details:

"There are many people who can do big things, but there are very few people who will do the small things."--Mother Teresa

Hope and change are not a matter merely big things. That's where we all want the change to come, of course; in big things. Big things, which are not us. So that 'hopey-changey' thing is easily derided in a world that resists big movements, but still teaches us that the "great men" of history are the ones who shifted the course of the river of time, who grabbed the zeitgeist by the shirt collars and made him change directions, take another path, go another way. Those men (and it's always men, but women, given the chance, would probably do the same) do so at great cost; but the cost is almost always to others. The cost is high, usually in human lives; and the hope blooms, and the change occurs; and just as quickly the change is forgotten, and the hope fades, and it's back to: "What have you done for me lately?" Without hope, there is no change; without change, there is no hope. But where do hope and change come from? Historical events? Changes in the course of human history? Or is it in the small things? And why is it so hard for us to try to change the small things?

Because we are the small things. Because our lives are made up, of small things. Because the small things are what matter to us: the friends we make, the lovers we know, the family members carried off to, or just by, war; or disease; or poverty. We are made up of small things; our lives are built up grain by grain from tiny accumulations, that in the end mean more to us than the big events of the world. Even the big events of our lives: birth, death, weddings, even divorce, are small things to the world. But they are the things that make us, that give us identity, that give our lives meaning, or take it away.

The extravagant call of Isaiah is to small things, to personal things, to the most intimate things, the things we need for life, the things that bind us into community: bread and wine and milk. The things we share at meals, the things we take in together, around a common table, at a common meal. From these things we will live and know that we have a covenant with God. Did you think Paul made that eucharist a binding ritual by accident?

The call of Isaiah is not extravagant because it gives so much: what is wine and milk and bread, after all? It is extravagant because it offers so much hope, the audacious hope of real and fundamental change. It is as hopeful as the gardener, sure that just one more season, just one more try, will make the tree worthwhile, will bring change. But the change of Isaiah comes in response to the vision, in living in the world pronounced by the prophet, who says: Come now! Come and eat! Come and enjoy!

Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

It is the optimism of the gardener in the parable; except we are the gardener, and the tree is our life. Without hope, why should we work it, why should we make the effort? Without change, what would our efforts matter? But even if our hope is in changing small things, it will be enough. Indeed, it will be everything.

Amen.


Picture from Vanderbilt University Special Collections.

"And when Justice is gone...."

I have no idea how long this ruling will last because I haven't read the particulars of the judge's order, and I'm not an expert in death penalty law and the Constitutional issues:

A Houston judge who declared the death penalty unconstitutional Thursday clarified his ruling in an impromptu hearing Friday, saying he ruled the procedures surrounding the process in Texas are illegal.

During Friday's hearing, prosecutors filed motions asking state District Judge Kevin Fine to reconsider his ruling and also to proceed with April's death penalty trial of John Edward Green Jr. Fine maintained at the hearing that he believes innocent people have been executed.

On the other hand, in the New Yorker article on what was certainly the execution of an innocent man in Texas (and what may well have been on Judge Fine's mind, if not in his order), there was this note:

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has said that the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.”

Maybe we're about to see that issue reviewed by the court. I kind of doubt it, since the evidence of other innocent people being put to death is probably not present in this case, and can't get admitted (off the top of my head I don't know how that evidence could be admitted in a trial. but it's not impossible. From news accounts, it just doesn't sound like this case is far enough along to have permitted the presentation of such evidence, and so the court has, I assume, taken "judicial notice" of such facts. Whether the court can even do that is another question.)

I also have to note this is a ruling in Harris County (where Houston is), which is indeed the county "which sends more inmates to death row than any other in the nation." It would be nice if we gained notoreity for being the beginning of the end of that reputation.

Friday before the Third Sunday of Lent-2010

"There are many people who can do big things, but there are very few people who will do the small things."--Mother Teresa

March Forth!

Er..sorry: March Fourth.

Torture as a Subject for Medition During Lent

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[a]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b]"

28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Okay, I spent my morning teaching "definition" as an essay and argument form in Freshman English, using as an example the definition of "torture." My analysis ran along lines provided in the textbook, ab initio anyway, distinguishing torture from interrogation, but assuming the two lay on a spectrum with interrogation at one end, torture at the other, and somewhere in between the "line" that gets crossed when you come from allowable (interrogation) to not allowed (torture). All in keeping with the public discussions of torture that have flailed around since allegations of water boarding and sleep deprivation and other techniques first surfaced.

But, I almost immediately asked: is torture simply an extreme form of interrogation? That isn't how the US Code defines it:

“torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

But I didn't use that definition. Instead, I pointed out to the class, we generally define torture as the intentional infliction of harm on a subject capable of suffering, and would all agree torture inflicted by a sadist on a victim, or by a despotic government as a means of maintaining control (my examples were the governments of Central American in the 1980's, trained in the School of the Americas in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of my students aren't old enough to remember the '80's. Most of them aren't old enough to have been alive in the '80's!) Then I wondered what the distinction was between torture that was evil, as in those two categories; and torture that might almost be "good," as in the question of: "When does interrogation become torture?"

And then I read this:

A voluminous report released two weeks ago by the Justice Department's ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), revealed in great detail how, in early 2002 after discussing "enhanced interrogation techniques" during numerous meetings with CIA, the National Security Council, then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former Vice President Dick Cheney's attorney, David Addington, Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attorney John Yoo and a 28-year-old attorney named Jennifer Koester, who was just two years out of law school, started work on a legal memo that would redefine the federal torture statute's definition of severe pain.

They needed to "redefine" that term because they wanted to authorize actions by the President, to exclude them from the definition of torture which are acts prohibited by law. To do this, of course, they had to look to statutes which gave definitions of "severe pain," and not surprisingly, those statutes are all statutes that concern health care.

"The term 'emergency medical condition' means a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that a prudent layperson, who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine, could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in - (i) placing the health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child) in serious jeopardy, (ii) serious impairment to bodily functions, or (iii) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part."

That definition, as the article points out, "ended up appearing in the final version of Yoo's legal memorandum."

Well, as I say, where else are you going to look for such definitions?

There are clear problems with this approach, and not merely the problems non-lawyers would have with the very idea of using health care statutes in a perversion of their original intent (the torture techniques Yoo was writing to justify were already a perversion of psychological care, not to mention interrogation techniques). The clear legal problem is that this kind of legal analysis would never stand up in a court of law.

That standard is the sine qua non of legal analysis: would a court approve of the reasoning? It is true that many types of legal analysis, from law review articles to law firm memos to Attorney General opinions (commonly issued in Texas on points of law) are never reviewed by a court, but the standard remains: if it wouldn't fly in front of a judge, it's not worth the paper it's printed on. Not to say all lawyers hold to that standard, but all lawyers are aware of it, and know that if they can't get it past a judge someday, they want to be careful about advocating it today.

Yoo never faced that challenge, and knew he wouldn't, and it is why he has a position in a law school today, one that, I would argue, simply on the grounds of these memos, he doesn't deserve. The reasoning of these memos is so poor it would cost a first year lawyer his job in any competent law firm.* Yoo gets away with it because he knows his legal opinion will never be the subject of a court challenge, because no torture victim is going to have standing to sue the President in court, and no prosecuting attorney is going to bring a criminal charge under 18 USC 2340A against the President or any member of the Administration who might need to use Yoo's "reasoning" as a legal defense. In other words, he is simply working in a legal limbo where he knows his arguments merely provide a paper excuse for actions that no one will ever be held responsible for; at least no one with direct contact to John Yoo.

So, how do we get from torture as a technique of sadism and terrorism to torture as a technique of interrogation, when we "redefine" torture? Well, as I told my students, the question is: what is the purpose of interrogation? The purpose is to elicit reliable information. And what is the purpose of torture? Two out of three times, per my classification (sadism, terrorism, extreme interrogation), torture has no purpose except to inflict pain and suffering. How does torture become a type of interrogation, then? Does it ever? And if it doesn't, is there really a spectrum, and a line that can be crossed? Can we really establish a definition of torture that includes interrogation, distinguish between painful techniques that are valid for interrogation (such as detaining the suspect in a closed room) from those that are invalid (water boarding, sleep deprivation, or pulling out fingernails)? Is the difference really just one of degree? Or isn't it rather one of kind? How else is any other understanding of torture linked to something legitimate like interrogation? And how is it, then, that we ever link torture to interrogation, except to attempt to legitimate cruelty and sadism?

It's a difference of kind, not of degree, and no amount of sophistry can change that. Which is sort of like the case of John Yoo. Is the difference between Yoo and my law school professors really one of degree? Or isn't he fundamentally unfit to teach law students anything about the law, since he so clearly denigrates the standards of legal practice and reasoning?

Merrily we roll along....

*and no, that's not just my opinion:

The memorandum, drafted by John Yoo and OLC head Jay S. Bybee, provoked outrage and disgust among legal professionals and the public-at-large. Harold Koh, a professor of international law and the Dean of Yale Law School, informed the Senate Judiciary Committee that it was the most erroneous legal opinion he had ever read. A law professor at the University of Virginia claimed that the memo "was less 'lawyering as usual' than the work of some bizarre literary deconstructionist." In December 2004, the Department of Justice repudiated the Torture Memo, although John Yoo continues to stand by the analysis.

Texas Independence Day 2010

Time for the shirt again:



Yes, I actually wore this today. In public. With my Luccheses.



Life is good.

Meditation for the Second Week of Lent-2010

"As soon as one says anything about religion, one is questioned from two sides. Some Christian theologians will ask whether religion is here considered as a creative element of the human spirit rather than as a gift of divine revelation. If one replies that religion is an aspect of man's [sic] spiritual life, they will turn away. Then some secular scientists will ask whether religion is to be considered a lasting quality of the human spirit instead of an effect of changing psychological and sociological conditions. And if one answers that religion is a necessary aspect of man's spiritual life, they turn away like the theologians, but in an opposite direction.

"This situation shows an almost schizophrenic split in our collective consciousness, a split which threatens our spiritual freedom by driving the contemporary mind into irrational and compulsive affirmations or negations of religion. And there is as much compulsive reaction to religion on the scientific side as there is on the religious side.

"Those theologians who deny that religion is an element of man's spiritual life have a real point. According to them, the meaning of religion is that man received something which doe not come from him, but which is given to him and may stand against him. The insist that the relation to God is not a human possibility and that God must first relate HImself [sic] to man. One could summarize the intention of these theologians in the sentence that religion is not a creation of teh human spirit (spirit with a small s) but a gift of the divine Spirit (spirit with a capital S). Man's spirit, they would continue, is creative with respect to itself and its world, but not with respect to God. With respect to God, man is receptive and only receptive. He has no freedom to relate himself to God. This, they would add, is the meaning of the classical doctrine of the Bondage of the Will as developed by Paul, Augustine, Thomas, Luther, and Calvin. In the face of these witnesses, we certainly ask: Is it then justified to speak of religion as an aspect of the human spirit?

"The opposite criticism also has its valid point. It comes from the side of the sciences of man: psychology, sociology, anthropology, and history. They emphasize the infinite diversity of religious ideas and practices, the mythological character of all religious concepts, the existence of many forms of non-religion in individuals and groups. Religion, they say (with the philosopher Comte), is characteristic for a special stage of human development (the mythological stage), but it has no place in the scientific stage in which we are living. Religion, according to this attitude, is a transitory creation of the human spirit but certainly not an essential quality of it.

"If we analyze carefully these two groups of arguments, we discover the surprising fact that although they come from opposite directions, they have something definite in common. Both the theological and the scientific critics of the belief that religion is an aspect of the human spirit define religion as man's relation to divine beings, whose existence the theological critics assert and the scientific critics deny. But it is just this idea of religion which makes any understanding of religion impossible. If you start with the question whether God does or does not exist, you can never reach Him; and if you assert that He does exist, you can reach Him even less than if you assert He does not exist. A God about whose existence or non-existence you can argue is a thing beside others within the universe of existing things. And the question is quite justified whether such a thing does exist, and the answer is equally justified that it does not exist. It is regrettable that scientists believe that they have refuted religion when they rightly have shown that there is no evidence whatsoever for the assumption that such a being exists. Actually, they have not only not refuted religion, but they have done it a considerable service. They have force it to reconsider and to restate the meaning of the tremendous word God. Unfortunately, many theologians make the same mistake. They begin their message with the assertion that there is a highest being called God, whose authoritative revelations they have received. They are more dangerous for religion than the so-called atheistic scientists. They take the first step on the road which inescapably leads to what is called atheism. Theologians who make of God a highest being who has given some people information about Himself, provoke inescapably the resistance of those who are told they must subject themselves to the authority of this information.

"Against both groups of critics we affirm the validity of our subject: religion is an aspect of the human spirit."

--Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, ed. Robert C. Kimball (New York: Oxford University Press 1959), pp. 3-5

Let's just say it's "Monday," and leave it at that....

I am giving him more attention than he is due, but Jeremy Rifkin doesn't know what the hell he's talking about:

Both the Abrahamic faiths--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--as well as the Eastern religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, either disparage bodily existence or deny its importance. So too does modern science and most of the rational philosophers of the Enlightenment. For the former, especially the Abrahamic faiths, the body is fallen and a source of evil. Its presence is a constant reminder of the depravity and mortality of human nature. For the latter, the body is mere scaffolding to maintain the mind, a necessary inconvenience to provide sensory perception, nutrients, and mobility. It is a machine the mind uses to impress its will on the world. It is even loathed because of its transient nature. The body is a constant reminder of death, and therefore, feared, disparaged and dismissed in the world's great religions and among many of the Enlightenment philosophers.

Most of all, the body is to be mistrusted, especially the emotions that flow from its continuous engagement with and reaction to the outside world. Neither the Bible nor the Enlightenment ruminations make much room for human emotions, except to depreciate them as untrustworthy and an impediment either to obedience to God in the first instance or to the rational will in the second instance.

The ludicrously grotesque generalizations of his argument, conflating "faith" with feudalism ("At the dawn of the modern market economy and nation-state era, the philosophers of the Enlightenment challenged the Age of Faith that governed over the feudal economy with the Age of Reason.") and blaming most of society's woes on the "battle" between theologians and philosophers ("Theologians and philosophers have continued to battle over faith vs. reason ever since, their debates often spilling over into the cultural and political arenas, with profound consequences for society.") is one I should really respond to with: I wish we were that important. I wish serious theologians and serious philosophers really had that much impact on society. But I don't really see it.

And then to conflate Neo-Platonism and Protestant Christianity with Hebraic thought and Judaism, and lump all that together into a blanket statement on "religion" which encompasses Buddhism, Hindusm and Taoism (hint: only one of those three is accurately considered a "religion"), as well as reject the very materialism that underlies modern neuro-science and biology ("The experience of the transcendent is a set of neurons firing in particular arrangements of the lobes of certain brains!"); well, such is the state of public intellectualism in America today.

"Neither the Bible nor the Enlightenment ruminations make much room for human emotions, except to depreciate them as untrustworthy and an impediment either to obedience to God in the first instance or to the rational will in the second instance." Huh? What? Has this guy even read the Bible, much less examined a scientific text older than those of Descartes' era? Even the so called "Cartesian split" wasn't as radically fundamental as Rifkin is. Most of the better stories in the Hebrew Scriptures are people going off on wild actions prompted precisely because they are emotional, and how God either uses that happy accident to better ends, or patches the mess back together again, or just goes along with the flow. Emotions are "an impediment...to obedience to God"? Has he read the Christian mystics? At all? Has he even read Malcolm Gladwell's best-sellers, or the slew of economist turned sociologists who are busy explaining human psychology in terms of reasoning based on emotions, not classically defined reason?*

No, of course not. Ignorance is a state that allows us a purer contemplation of truth, uncluttered as our minds are by knowledge and reasoning that might obstruct our facile insights based on nothing.

*To be fair, I don't consider Gladwell or those economists seeking fame and best-seller riches intellectual heavyweights either, but for Rifkin to imagine and then present his ideas as a bold fresh gift to humanity; well, the arrogance and ignorance is O'Reilly-esque.

Second Sunday of Lent 2010

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great."

15:2 But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"

15:3 And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir."

15:4 But the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir."

15:5 He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."

15:6 And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

15:7 Then he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess."

15:8 But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?"

15:9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."

15:10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.

15:11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

15:12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

15:17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates...."

Psalm 27
27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

27:2 When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh-- my adversaries and foes-- they shall stumble and fall.

27:3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.

27:4 One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.

27:5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.

27:6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

27:7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!

27:8 "Come," my heart says, "seek his face!" Your face, LORD, do I seek.

27:9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

27:10 If my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me up.

27:11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

27:12 Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.

27:13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

27:14 Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

Philippians 3:17-4:1
3:17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.

3:18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.

3:19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.

3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

3:21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Luke 13:31-35
13:31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you."

13:32 He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.

13:33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.'

13:34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

13:35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Who is that? Who is that who "comes in the name of the Lord"? Jesus? It doesn't have to be. It could be us. It could be you, or me. It could be anybody, or everybody.

It's in Luke that Jesus sends his disciples out by twos, with nothing more than sandals, and tells them to stay where they are welcome, and to offer a blessing on every home they enter. He also tells them that blessing will stay with the family, or return to the disciples, depending on whether or not it is accepted. In any case, it will cost nothing to the disciples. Could he mean the same thing here? Could he mean quite simply those who have ears had better listen, but if they don't, there's nothing anyone else can do? Could he mean you won't see your salvation until you accept that it comes in the name of the Lord? But that's a double bind, because who is this "Lord" anyway? The Pharisees would know; even Herod would know. But would we? "We" Gentiles? And why would we know?

There are riches in these readings almost beyond description. The covenant with Abram; the assurance of Psalm 27; the call to holiness of Paul's letter to the church at Phillipi. Any one of these would be the basis for a lifetime of study, for more books and one person could read. How do we understand them in the context of a single sermon, read them into an "upbuilding discourse"? Consider, to begin with, just the story of Abraham.

The verses above present him just as God has made a promise to him that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Which is great; but all Abram wants is an heir, a child of his (and Sara's) own. And when they get that child, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son on Moriah. But it's worse than that, because we know that story and how it comes out. It's worse than that, because when Abram complains that he still has no son, despite God's promises, God doesn't promise Abram as many sons as he has camels, or as many sons as he has sheep. He promises Abram as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. Which is great for them, as they'll be the heirs of the covenant; but for Abram? What can such a promise mean? He just wants a kid now. But he accepts God's crazy extravagance. He accepts it as the promise God made the first time. And still, it's even worse than that! "[Abram] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness." Now what kind of story is this? What kind of person is this? Who is this "Lord," that Abram believes this?

The Lord tells Abram that the Lord is Abram's shield, and Abram's reward will be very great; so great, in fact, Abram won't be able to live to receive it. "The LORD, says the Psalmist," one of those heirs of Abram whom Abram never knew, "is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" And still we are no closer to an answer, but this faith is clearly as near to the Psalmist as her(!) lips, as intimate as her (why not?*) own heart. The assurance is certainly as extravagant as anything God ever promised to Abram:

When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh-- my adversaries and foes-- they shall stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.

It's an extravagance we don't usually associate with Lent; but there it is. The extravagance of God doesn't end with Abram. And it doesn't quite make sense, either. It's rather like our salvation. What does it mean to be sheltered by the Most High? What does it mean to not fear, to be confident in all situations? What does it mean, except to be able to go out into the world? What else could it mean except to "celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house"? If we aren't saved for service and celebration and sharing, what good is salvation? We can't all be Abram, after all.

Which brings us back to Jesus. "I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'" And when else would we see him, unless we already recognized him? Could this be the meaning of the journey to Emmaus? Could this be the reason we don't see Jesus among us now, because we simply withhold the blessing, the Μακάριοι, the congratulations? Could it be our salvation is as simple as that? Could it be Jesus is as close as the person on the street, or next to us on the subway, or in class, or at work, or in the pew? Could it be Jesus comes to us through a computer screen, a comment on a blog, an e-mail? If we were to say "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" to everyone we meet, wouldn't we see Jesus then? And wouldn't that be the faith of Abram, to accept what the Lord has offered us, even if it wasn't what we expected, even if it wasn't what we thought we needed? And wouldn't that be our salvation, as close to us as our breath and our lips and our own hearts? And wouldn't it be nice to pronounce a blessing, to offer congratulations to everyone, as someone who comes to us in the name of the Lord? (Yes, even to Richard Dawkins.)

Wouldn't that be a grand salvation?

Amen.


*There are at least three songs in the Scriptures, spontaneous praise of God attributed to women. Why not some of the Psalms, if only as a thought experiment?

Picture from Vanderbilt University Special Collections.

Schadenfreude for Lent

This is too much fun to leave in comments below. Once again Sharl comes through for me.

It seems Richard Dawkins has found out that he's not universally "a greatly liked and respected person." To get the story, start with the the Times article, then go to Ruth Gledhill's blog. I'm not really enjoying this, because I don't know Mr. Dawkins and don't really wish him any pain. But I will say, as Ms. Gledhill intimates, that he seems to have attacked only a bloodless concept, and not realized he was addressing actual human beings, and not all of them the people he associates with, and who are his friends, family, and colleagues.

I'm not enjoying this because I've been through it, as I mentioned in comments below. The first lesson a pastor learns is that, while your friends and family may love you, and even your co-workers may respect you, some of the people in the pews will quickly come to despise you, and not necessarily for anything you do, but simply for what you represent to them. And what you represent is authority: some will respect it, some will reject it, and some will simply hate you. They won't think they are vicious; they will assure you it's "nothing personal." But they will sharpen long knives for you, and make you wonder if they don't stay up nights imagining slights they can turn into deceits, the better to ruin you, or at least make their misery, yours.

I see the same thing on blogs all the time. It's terribly easy to imagine anyone in a position of authority enjoys power you don't have, and further that they aren't really people with feelings, but things, objects, which deserve only your derision and curses. Ms. Gledhill touches on this point:

I resisted the temptation to ask him why, if he prefers not to fan flames, he even wrote The God Delusion, or lent his name to RichardDawkins.net. His distress at what has been going on in his forum suggests he has never really understood why so many people of faith found The God Delusion offensive. The strong language he himself uses to describe religious belief has a lot to do with it. Church Mouse recently blogged about how Dawkins upset a lot of Christians with a strongly critical article in The Times where he fastened on the utterances of US preacher Pat Robertson on Haiti to condemn an entire religion, describing Robertson as standing 'squarely in the Christian tradition.'

Do Dawkins' own followers, suppurating their rats' rectums all over his long-suffering staff, stand squarely in his atheist tradition?

See how easy it is to turn a person into "other"? I rejected Pat Robertson's ignorant statements, too. But I know better than to call him the absolute representative of all things Christian. Still, not enough Christians struck back at Mr. Dawkins for him to notice (he would have passed it off, anyway; and perhaps that says something about the nature of Christians. Though I imagine more Christians have heard of Mr. Robertson than Mr. Dawkins, and still the majority of Christians in the world are unaware of the existence of either gentleman.), so he finally hears it from his own "followers." People he probably never meant to have as followers; but then, he probably never imagined he was talking to real people about real people (as The Church Mouse points out*). He probably, like those people in the pews so determined to hate their pastor, never imagined anyone beyond the circle of his attentions was anything than "other." Which is something religion is supposed to teach you about.

I'm thinking evolutionary biology never touches on that subject. But maybe that's uncharitable of me. Ah, well, it's Lent. Add it to my penance; I have a lot of that to do, a little more won't make much difference.

*It doesn't quite fit in the foregoing, but I have to quote The Church Mouse on at least one point:

What seems to infuriate Dawkins most is that he believes he has disproved religion already, so if you are still a believer you must either be a total idiot, or are deliberately trying to fool the general populace for malicious reasons. The thought that other people might listen to his arguments and still disagree simply doesn't seem to compute. In fact, it seems to be making him angrier and angrier.

I don't know about the "angrier and angrier" part; I'll take the Mouse's word for that. But I think the analysis is spot on: unable to conceive of a viewpoint beyond his own, unable, in other words, to conceive of a "wholly other," Dawkins is reduced to vituperation. Which isn't surprising, in the least.

More thoughts on Pearls, and Pigs, and Lent

Unintentionally picking up on what I said here (because I hadn't said it yet), Sharl pointed me here. Which has some interesting things to say:

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn’s Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn’t quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don’t know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, "God is not a monster." Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

It's a nice sentiment, but I have to say, I don't feel responsible for all the stupid things done in the name of God, or Christ, or Christianity. I'm humble, but I'm not that humble. I won't apologize for my beliefs, but neither to I want to proselytize from them. Not, at least, unless I get to define rather strictly what "proselytize" means. And when I'm through, it might not mean "proselytize" any longer. So maybe I don't want to do it at all.

The other thing is, I don't feel compelled to give atheists reasons to believe, or fewer and fewer reasons to disbelieve.* That inevitably brings us back to the question of the existence of God, and while that's an interesting chestnut in philosophy of religion circles (mostly for freshman, in fact), it's a red herring I'm quite willing to leave behind.

Is God a monster? No. But the fact that you may believe that is not my fault, and correcting your error is not my responsibility. And I'm tired of people, on either side of the argument, trying to make it my responsibility, or assuming that it should be. You don't believe? Fine. You do believe? Fine. Let there be a commerce between us, either way you come down. This is not a litmus test, this is not an entrance requirement, this is not a position upon which there must be judgment so that we can move on to "Judge not, lest ye be judged." What part about that do we not understand is absolute and, as Dom Crossan said, the sign of an unbrokered basiliea tou theou?

Lent is not a time for guilt and remorse (although it's been that for centuries, thanks to the Church and other misunderstandings). Lent is a time for reflection, self-examination, contrition,humility, and service to others. You know, the usual Christian stuff. If it isn't as joyful as Advent, it's because it ends on a less happy note. But that doesn't mean it's all about hair shirts and mea culpas for not being all that someone else expects us to be. Unless that someone else is God.

*To be fair, this is a valid position and concern for evangelicals, i.e., those of a certain theological persuasion. I am not among them, and never have been. My soteriology does not teach me that my salvation depends on your salvation. So if we are part of a faith community, we can agree on certain fundamentals. If we are not part of a common faith community, we can find other grounds for peace and mutual respect. Let there be a commerce between us, but one without money, one where food and wine are without price.

Of Pearls and Pigs--Second Thursday in Lent 2010

"Don't offer dogs what is sacred, and don't throw your pearls to pigs, or they'll trample them underfoot and turn and tear you to shreds." Matthew 7:6, SV.

Huffington Post is one of the places on the web I go regularly; but I've always avoided any posts there about religion, because it always draws the most negative and, from my perspective at least, ignorant comments.

It is proof that religion is very much a part of American life that so many people are so sure they have the last word on the subject when, like the average person on matters of Constitutional law or just civil law, or physics, or molecular biology, or evolutionary biology, or music, the fine arts, even business, they know next to nothing. But they are too ignorant to realize how ignorant they are, which is their sword and shield.

I shouldn't even be saying this, except that my blog is no lightning rod for attacks by atheists and non-believers, and I can control the comments here to keep it from being that. But if you read the comments to the inaugural post by Paul Raushenbush, a post in which he explicitly calls for a "Middle Way":

HuffPost Religion hopes to offer a sane middle way for people who wish to approach religion with both heart and mind, and who believe we can have disagreements without demonization.
...
As a start, it would help if religious people acknowledge that non-religious people can be moral, and if atheist people would acknowledge that religious people can be intelligent. Hopefully these truisms will become evident as HuffPost Religion provides a way for people to hear from one another.

You will find that the comments are, by and large, a demonization of religious people, and an insistence that religious people cannot be intelligent.

So Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo and Søren Kierkegaard and Georges Lemaitre, to name but a few, you are known as idiots to the commenters at Huffington Post. Sorry, but they know best.

Well, they don't, of course. And I wish Rev. Raushenbush well in his venture, and I'll stop in if only to read posts from Joan Chittester (though not from Jim Wallis, who is overexposed and under-spiritualized, in my not humble-enough opinion), but I won't linger, and I won't comment.

Lent is hard enough as it is.

"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"-First Wednesday of Lent 2010

The question remains:

The widow of an Internal Revenue Service employee killed when authorities said Andrew Joseph Stack III flew his plane into an office building has sued Stack’s wife, saying she should have warned others about her husband.

According to the seven-page lawsuit filed in Travis County court, Sheryl Mann Stack had a duty to “avoid a foreseeable risk of injury to others,” including Vernon Hunter, who was killed Thursday.

“Stack was threatened enough by Joseph Stack that she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel the night before the plane crash,” the suit said.

...

Dan Ross, an attorney representing Valerie Hunter said, “There are reasons why we wanted to get a lawsuit filed early, not because we wanted to hurt anyone or anything like that.”

He said that his client is interested to know if any insurance proceeds might be available that the Hunter family would be entitled to.

“This is the proper way to determine what assets, including insurance, would be available for Mr. Hunter’s wrongful death,” he said.

One comment from the link:

I wish someone in the legal profession would chime in here and let us know just what exactly the Hunter family could stand to gain from this lawsuit. Mr. Stack committed suicide, which rules out any life insurance payout, doesn’t it? He set his house on fire. No insurance payment there, right? It just seems to me that Mrs. Stack and her daughter are victims here, too. I’m just asking.

I understand the explanation by the lawyer, and don't even challenge it. The legal grounds, though, for Sheryl Stack warning others about her husband's intentions, is unclear. Perhaps discovery is supposed to reveal that. But lawsuits are not supposed to be filed on purely speculative grounds, even if a valid cause of action is presented. And I don't know what that cause of action would be, aside from some version of "failure to warn."

One thing, though: the appellation of "hero" so quickly applied to Mr. Stack after the incident, now fades in the light of day. In movies there are explosions and deaths, and we are trained to cheer the protagonist who causes, or avoids, all this carnage, just as we believe (from the student papers I've just read) that owning a gun is a requisite to personal safety and self-defense. In real life, of course, the majority of us are safe without firearms, and being in possession of a weapon seldom makes you invisible and bulletproof, otherwise no police officer would ever be shot. In real life, bullets go where physics takes them, not human will. And violent actions destroy real human lives, not mere abstractions like political positions.

First Monday of Lent 2010

He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was that evil? And ants? They killed. No, the jungle wasn't evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares.

It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away. His killing that day would not have been evil if the dead soldiers hadn't been loved by mothers, sisters, friends, wives. Mellas understood that in destroying the fabric which linked those people, he had participated in evil; but this evil had hurt him as well. He also understood that his participation in evil was a result of being human. Being human was the best he could do. Without man there would be no evil. But there was also no good, nothing moral built over the world of fact. Humans were responsible for it all. He laughed at the cosmic joke, but he felt heartsick.

--Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press 2010).

First Sunday of Lent 2010

Deuteronomy 26:1-1126:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it,

26:2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.

26:3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us."

26:4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God,

26:5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

26:6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,

26:7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

26:8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders;

26:9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

26:10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God.

26:11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
91:1 You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,

91:2 will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust."

91:9 Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place,

91:10 no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.

91:11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

91:12 On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.

91:13 You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.

91:14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.

91:15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.

91:16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

Romans 10:8b-13
10:8b "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);

10:9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10:10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

10:11 The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame."

10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

10:13 For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Luke 4:1-13
4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,

4:2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.

4:3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."

4:4 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

4:5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

4:6 And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.

4:7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."

4:8 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

4:9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,

4:10 for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,'

4:11 and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

4:12 Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

4:13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

How near? How near, in fact, is near enough? How near does it have to be before you feel it, respond to it, act on it? As near as your breath? As near as your heartbeat? As close as your skin? Under your skin? Beneath your tongue? Drawn in and pushed out of your nostrils?

"Word" is "Logos" to Paul, but "breath" is "pneuma," which also means "air" as well as "spirit." It's logical, actually. Without breath you have no air; without breath or air the body has no spirit. Without spirit, you are not alive. How close is your spirit to you? How much does the Logos move you? What if, somehow, you could pack up your sorrows, and give them all away? Then would you feel saved?

Saved? Saved? Yes, saved. If you could pack up your sorrows, would you feel saved? Would you feel safe, secure, able to act on the Logos that is as close to your as your own skin, as intimate as your own breath, "as permanent as death, implacable as stone"? Would you act then? Is that all it would take?

It's hard to understand hard actions as salvation. We need some assurance, first. We need to know the hard part will lead to the good part; but what if we knew the hard part was faithfulness, and the easy part was action? Would we feel safe then? Would we feel saved?

Paul says this salvation is on your lips and in your heart. If it isn't in those places, where else would it be, and what good would it do you? And if it is in those places, what good is it if it doesn't make you act? If it doesn't lead you, drive you, compel you, to behave accordingly? What good is your salvation, if it doesn't make you feel safe? And if it makes you feel safe, why wouldn't you then do what's necessary?

You could go out into the wilderness, and not be afraid. You could go out to where God is most clearly seen, where there are no distractions, no confusion, no mistaking something else, some false idol, some human made object, for God. Where money is useless and the noise is from nature and the sights are God's handiwork. You could go out into the wilderness and not be afraid; if you felt safe.

The wilderness is not a place, of course; it's s state of mind. You could be in the wilderness right now, sitting before your computer, reading these words. You could be safe right now, but in the wilderness tomorrow morning, when the work week starts again. What salvation do you have there, in the place where you don't feel safe? What good is your salvation, if there is a place where you don't feel safe?

Is safety justice? It can be. "A wandering Aramean was my father," but God brought the ancestors of Israel to a place of safety, and then told them to take care of the aliens among them. They were safe because God had made them safe, and that meant they had to remember the lessons of justice, and where their safety came from, and why they should not be afraid, even of the aliens who lived with them, the ones who were not children of Abraham. They weren't better than those aliens; God didn't despise those aliens; there was no reason for the children of Abraham not to feel safe. Because the word of God was as near to them as their lips and their hearts.

Are you safe only at home? What about the journey, then? If you could pack up your sorrows, could you leave them behind and go on the journey, and feel safe? Could you pack up your sorrows and be safe? Are your sorrows what keep you secretly comfortable, secretly secure? Are your sorrows what keep you safe, and you don't really want to pack them up, don't really want to give them away? Are your sorrows what keep you out of the wilderness, out of the truly unsafe places, out of the places where you know you should be but you are afraid to be? If somehow you could pack them up and give them away, would you? Because wouldn't that be the ultimate safety, to know you'd given your sorrows away, and you had no reason to be afraid, no reason to fear the outcome of the next unsafe but just thing you did, of the next unsafe moment when you reached out to another person just because the word was on your lips and in your heart and you knew that faith was directing you, leading you, compelling you? And you knew that you were safe, and saved, and salvation was all it was about, but not the salvation by and by, but here and now? The salvation of your heart?

If you could feel that safe, or even expect to feel that safe at the conclusion, would you go on the journey? Would you pack up your sorrows and give them all away, if you could lose them, would you do it? Would you dare to feel safe, to be saved, so you could go on the journey and not fear the dangers? Would you do that? Would you?

What have you got to lose? If the Logos is in your heart and on your lips, then you "shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house." And you will be safe.

Amen.

Picture from Vanderbilt University Special Collections.

Song for the First Sunday of Lent 2010

Music now. Sermon later.

"There are no atheists in foxholes...."

A short excerpt from a new novel to be released in April. The characters are two African American Marines in the bush in Vietnam.

He was silent for a moment. Then he said "Ever'one here think it easy for me. I be this good little church boy from Mississippi with my good little church-goin' Mammy, and since I be this stupid country nigger with the big faith, I don't have no troubles. Well, it just don't work that way." He paused. Jermain said nothing. "I see my friend Williams get ate by a tiger," Cortell continued. "I see my friend Broyer get his face ripped off by a mine. What do you think I do all night, sit around thankin' Sweet Jesus? Raise my palms to sweet heaven and cry hallelujah? You know what I do? You know what I do? I lose heart." Cortell's throat suddenly tightened, strangling his words. "I lose my heart." He took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. He exhaled and went on quietly, back in control. "I sit there and I don't seen any hope. Hope gone." Cortell was seeing his dead friends. "Then, the sky turn gray again in the east, and you know what I do? I choose all over to keep believin'. All along I know Jesus could maybe be just some fairy tale, and I could be just this one big fool. I choose anyway." He turned away from his inward images and returned to the blackness of the world around him. "It ain't no easy thing."

--Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press 2010).

What I have not yet heard...

According to NPR this morning, Joe Stack, the man who flew a small plane into a building in Austin yesterday, left behind a wife and children.

According to Stack's own "rant" on the web, his wife's income was, for one year at least, less than $13,000.00.

Now, follow the bouncing ball:

1) Life insurance won't pay for a suicide.

2) Stack burned his house down, leaving his family homeless.

3) He destroyed what might have been another valuable asset, a private plane.

4) He took his own life, cutting off any potential income he might have provided for his family.

5) He has left them in undoubted shock and pain and bewilderment.

And yet some people want to proclaim him a "hero." Use him as an example of their political support. Use him as a basis for their jokes.

Huh.

Friday after Ash Wednesday-2010

Interesting story on NPR yesterday morning. It seems the "Christmas Day Bomber" may have been radicalized by Guantanamo Bay. He held a conference on the "War on Terror" of the Bush Administration at University College in London. Three of the speakers were former Gitmo detainees.

"I would have talked about how inside this tiny prison cell where you have no access to the rest of the world, the one thing that gives you solace is the Quran," Begg said. "The only thing that's familiar to you after they have taken away your clothes and taken away your family and taken away your environment and the very air that you breathe, the only thing you can see that is familiar is when you open that book."

Far from being a deterrent, a symbol that strikes fear in the heart of our enemies or protects Americans from "dangerous people," Gitmo has proven to be an instigator; a spark in a pile of gunpowder, a match struck in a fireworks warehouse.

We have met the enemy, and he is us. This should be a very familiar theme in Lent.

Still a little unclear about the concept....

Walking into the classroom building this morning, I passed a small "whiteboard" with a hand lettered sign on it, clearly set up by someone in the school administration. Funny I didn't notice it before, but it displayed a stick figure drawing with a large circular head, smiling and proudly displaying a black cross above the two dotted "eyes," clearly meant to indicate the ashes of Ash Wednesday. And to be sure you got the point, the caption read:

HAPPY ASH WEDNESDAY!

Uh.....

Thursday after Ash Wednesday-2010

In comments below, Rick quoted Chesterton:

Historic Christianity rose into a high and strange coup de théatre of morality -- things that are to virtue what the crimes of Nero are to vice. The spirits of indignation and of charity took terrible and attractive forms, ranging from that monkish fierceness that scourged like a dog the first and greatest of the Plantagenets, to the sublime pity of St. Catherine, who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody head of the criminal. Poetry could be acted as well as composed. This heroic and monumental manner in ethics has entirely vanished with supernatural religion. They, being humble, could parade themselves: but we are too proud to be prominent. Our ethical teachers write reasonably for prison reform; but we are not likely to see Mr. Cadbury, or any eminent philanthropist, go into Reading Gaol and embrace the strangled corpse before it is cast into the quicklime. Our ethical teachers write mildly against the power of millionaires; but we are not likely to see Mr. Rockefeller, or any modern tyrant, publicly whipped in Westminster Abbey.

It gave me the excuse to mention this:

If the leper was removed from the world, and from the community of the Church visible, his existence was yet a constant manifestation of God, since it was a sign both of His anger and His grace: "My friend," says the ritual of the Church of Vienne, "it pleaseth Our Lord that thou shouldst be infected with this malady, and thou hast great grace at the hands of Our Lord that he desireth to punish thee for they iniquities in this world." And at the very moment when the priest and his assistants drag him out of the church with backward step, the leper is assured that he still bears witness for God: "And howsoever thou mayest be apart from the Church and the company of the Sound, yet art thou not apart from the grace of God." Brueghel's lepers attend at a distance, but forever, that climb to Calvary on which the entire people accompanies Christ. Hierarchic witnesses of evil, they accomplish their salvation in and by their very exclusion: in a strange reversibility that is the opposite of good works and prayer, they are saved by the hand that is not stretched out. The sinner who abandons the leper at his door opens his way to heaven. "for which have patience in thy malady; for Our Lord hateth thee not because of it, keepeth thee not from his company; but if thou has patience thou wilt be saved, as was the leper who died before the gate of the rich man and was carried straight to paradise." Abandonment is his salvation; his exclusion offers him another form of communion.

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, tr. Richard Howard (New York: Vintage Books 1988, p. 6-7).

Ritual served many purposes in communal life. Sometimes I think it even served to create community, however flawed that community was.

"Because I do not hope to turn..."

I received an e-mail from a friend, a fellow pastor. I won't quote it in full, because I haven't asked his permission to do so. But he calls the ashes of Ash Wednesday a "black badge of courage," a sign of one's conviction, faith, and belief. A sign the wearer believes in God, through Jesus Christ.

He presents this in the context of Christian belief being a "touchy thing;" perhaps, he says, it is even dangerous, even in America. I know of people who would immediately argue with the sentiment, affirming my friend's statement even as they mean to deny it. Dangerous? Well, perhaps; depending on how you, as a Christian, choose to affirm and display your faith.

Do you have the courage, for example, to be humble? Do you have the courage to be last of all and servant of all? At one point in church history, Lent concluded with a service in which the King of England would gather beggars into the sanctuary, and kneel down, and wash their feet, as Jesus did in the Gospel of John. Do any of us have the courage to do that, now? To end our Lenten fast that way? To begin our Lenten journey in that spirit?