This week we continue our reading from Jesus' Sermon in the Plain in Luke. This is in contrast to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, in which Jesus' audience is only Jewish, male and hierarchical (the twelve apostles). There, as the New Moses, he ascends the holy mountain and gives his new law, the law of love. Now, in today's pericope, the plain is highly symbolic, for Jesus' audience is mixed -- Jewish and Gentile, male and female, all as equals. Those described no doubt closely resembled the church as it was constituted by the time the Lucan Gospel was released some sixty years after Jesus left this world. Whereas, on the Mount, Jesus' message was about torquing up Torah -- calling the people to go far above and beyond mere legal observance -- here he presents to a new way of life contrary to the conventions of Graeco-Roman culture. That world emphasized reciprocity -- helping those who could in turn help you, taking care of your own, repaying good and evil. He challenges the audience and us to go beyond common expectations to a whole, fresh approach to life.
I remember when Dr. Tony Campolo came to Tulsa and addressed a large group of Christian clergy. He began his presentation by saying that he was not a Christian and neither were we.! That shocking statement was based on today's Gospel reading [Lk 27-38]. Let's take a look at what Jesus expected our new norms of conduct to be as Kingdom people, norms very few indeed would endorse, for they challenge our culture of machismo and violence, military worship and imperialism, consumerism that feeds selfishness and fuels accumulation, and waste of resources, and feeds on inequality of wealth,.
One important teaching was peaceful non-violent resistance. We were to abjure violence, to turn the other cheek to an attacker, and to offer our shirt to someone who has stolen our coat. Imagine our meeting every form of aggression with a non-violent response. I still remember when our middle son was in high school in Texas and I was in seminary, he came home one day to tell me that a bully had punched him. I asked if he had done anything to bring it on and how he had responded. He answered that he had done nothing to provoke the attack and he reacted to his attacker by telling him that, as a Christian, he would not fight him, that violence accomplishes nothing. My son said that, at that point in the encounter, the other boy just turned and walked off. Situation defused. I was very amazed.
A second teaching was loving and praying for the wrong people. Loving and prayers for your family and friends are fine, said Jesus, there is nothing at all special about that. Instead, he said, love your enemies, do good things for those who hate you, pray for your abusers. I am reminded of the lives and ministry of Martin Luther King in our tradition, and Gandhi outside it. Hearts can be turned!
Another element in the sermon was not to ask for restitution of your property is taken, not to expect repayment of a loan, and to give to everyone who begs of you. That requires an extraordinary level of detachment from things, especially in our selfish, consumerist culture. At a family funeral many years ago, I spoke with two ladies who remembered my grandfather. They said that Grandmother used to get really upset because Grandad would not go chase after items that had been borrowed by someone and never returned. "If they can live with it, I can live without it," he would say, and that settled the matter.
So we are here challenged to be seriously counter-cultural. Just imagine a world in which everyone acted as Jesus here counsels us to do. Imagine the Kingdom of God. .
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Septuagesima: The Curse of Wealth
Jesus has a message that should disturb us. He is reversing a long-held Jewish belief, one that many evangelical Christians still hold. By way of introduction, we need to know that Jewish Scripture was clear that righteousness (meaning just deeds) lead to blessing. From that conclusion, Jewish thinkers had adopted the reverse inference, which is the false premise that the extent to which you are wealthy reflects how much God loves you. If you are obscenely wealthy, that cannot have happened because of sharp dealing or oppression of others, rather God must be mad about you. If you are in the middle, then you are ok. If you are poor, God disapproves of you: you must have done something wrong or be paying for your parents' or grandparents' sins, and so you deserve your poverty. This notion in turn goes back to the primitive, unacceptable ancient Jewish view of their tribal deity, the idea that God is a super-sized version of us on a bad-hair day. Angry, jealous, quick to judgement and rage, capricious, and cruel and -- more importantly -- micromanager of the cosmos. I am not acquainted with a god that is worse than any human father I know, and I hope you aren't either. Jesus helps us discover the God of unconditional, radical love who calls us to be all we can be in life.
In our pericope [Lk. 16: 7 et seq.] Jesus says crazy things like, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." And, on the other hand, "Woe to you who are rich." Jesus and His Mother are very good at these radical social reversals. They tell us a time of reckoning is coming.
The bad news in all this for us is that we are rich, in first century terms. We have many financial benefits, live comfortable lives, have discretionary income, and save for rainy days. As Jesus tells us elsewhere in the Gospels, the accumulation of wealth is the greatest spiritual danger. And the author of First Timothy tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil. Why would that be? Well, because when we are relatively well-off, we lose our sense of reliance on God. At one point the Psalmist tells us that we are cursed when we trust in human resources. The poor do not have the resources standing in the way between them and God, whereas we rich people do. And we soon start to believe that we can work, think, and save our way into happiness, that we can buy joy and peace. That is a devilish delusion.
The good news is that wealth itself is morally neutral. Money is just money. What we do with it remains the issue. The problem comes when we trust in our wealth, rely on it, and hoard it, while others are in need. Our happiness and our power lie in just the opposite: surrendering to the will of God and making real the obligation to love our neighbours as much as we love ourselves.
In our pericope [Lk. 16: 7 et seq.] Jesus says crazy things like, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." And, on the other hand, "Woe to you who are rich." Jesus and His Mother are very good at these radical social reversals. They tell us a time of reckoning is coming.
The bad news in all this for us is that we are rich, in first century terms. We have many financial benefits, live comfortable lives, have discretionary income, and save for rainy days. As Jesus tells us elsewhere in the Gospels, the accumulation of wealth is the greatest spiritual danger. And the author of First Timothy tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil. Why would that be? Well, because when we are relatively well-off, we lose our sense of reliance on God. At one point the Psalmist tells us that we are cursed when we trust in human resources. The poor do not have the resources standing in the way between them and God, whereas we rich people do. And we soon start to believe that we can work, think, and save our way into happiness, that we can buy joy and peace. That is a devilish delusion.
The good news is that wealth itself is morally neutral. Money is just money. What we do with it remains the issue. The problem comes when we trust in our wealth, rely on it, and hoard it, while others are in need. Our happiness and our power lie in just the opposite: surrendering to the will of God and making real the obligation to love our neighbours as much as we love ourselves.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Epiphany V: Deep Water
Today's readings teach us that the call on a Christian is not easy. We hear of Isaiah, Saint Paul, and Jesus' own executive committee, all experiencing fear, indecision, and doubt, triggered by uncertain future . Yet they overcame those spiritual obstacles to become effective people. But no, it is not easy to be a real Christian. It is easy to tolerate the status quo; it is hard to proclaim uncomfortable truths. It is easy to be a spectator; it is hard to be a prophetic activist. It is easy to go along to get along; it's hard to take on the establishment.
In last Sunday's gospel, Jesus went to his hometown, refused to perform on cue, and called for the restoration of Jubilee -- radical social change. For his trouble, the people tried to kill him. Now in opening for Saint Peter's Fish Market, he isn't taking unnecessary chances. He enters the boat, has them anchor out far enough from shore that the audience can't reach him, but close enough to hear. After preaching, he challenges Peter to go out into deep water to fish. Peter replies that they have been fishing all night without catching a fish. Nevertheless, he complies; and there is a miraculous catch. Peter's mind is blown and he confesses to being unworthy to be in Jesus' company. He says that he is a "sinful man." In response, Jesus tells him that he will now begin catching humans.
Like Peter, we often focus on our shortcomings: not educated enough, not smart enough, perhaps even not good-looking enough. Nevertheless, God has a plan for every one of us and can guide us into a future of abundant life. The problem, I believe, is that we want Jesus in our boat, but we want him staying in the stern, not interfering with our journey but available in case of emergency. Instead, we need to let Jesus take the helm and guide us into dangerous, deep water where we will be truly challenged and enabled to be the Christian people we are called to be. If you subscribe to the old assertion that "God is my co-pilot," please trade places.
In last Sunday's gospel, Jesus went to his hometown, refused to perform on cue, and called for the restoration of Jubilee -- radical social change. For his trouble, the people tried to kill him. Now in opening for Saint Peter's Fish Market, he isn't taking unnecessary chances. He enters the boat, has them anchor out far enough from shore that the audience can't reach him, but close enough to hear. After preaching, he challenges Peter to go out into deep water to fish. Peter replies that they have been fishing all night without catching a fish. Nevertheless, he complies; and there is a miraculous catch. Peter's mind is blown and he confesses to being unworthy to be in Jesus' company. He says that he is a "sinful man." In response, Jesus tells him that he will now begin catching humans.
Like Peter, we often focus on our shortcomings: not educated enough, not smart enough, perhaps even not good-looking enough. Nevertheless, God has a plan for every one of us and can guide us into a future of abundant life. The problem, I believe, is that we want Jesus in our boat, but we want him staying in the stern, not interfering with our journey but available in case of emergency. Instead, we need to let Jesus take the helm and guide us into dangerous, deep water where we will be truly challenged and enabled to be the Christian people we are called to be. If you subscribe to the old assertion that "God is my co-pilot," please trade places.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Epiphany IV: Jesus Bombs Back Home
I am addressing as a single unit the gospel readings for the last two Sundays, Luke 15-30 in total. For some reason, the lectionary divides the story into two parts, making it easy to lose the plot. Jesus has gone home and attends worship service at the little synagogue in Nazareth. Here any male can pray, read Scripture or comment on the Scripture. Jesus selects the messianic passage from Isaiah in which the author gives his vision of the Kingdom of God: good news for the poor, release of prisoners, new sight for the blind, liberation of oppressed people, and most importantly restoration of Jubilee Year. Jesus tells the faithful that this scripture is being fulfilled in him, the Anointed One.
Jesus goes on to tell them that Elijah and Elisha performed miracles for , not Jews, but gentiles. He reflects in that way on his decision not to share messianic blessings with his hometown crowd, for a prophet is accepted in his home town. After all of this, the people are enraged and take him up to a brow of a hill to throw him down to his death, but he escapes.
Two important points need to be shared. First, the traditional reading that Jesus' life is endangered because Jews are xenophobic and can't live with blessing of gentiles is common, but it is nonsense. The prophet Zechariah speaks of righteous gentiles streaming into Zion as friends of Jews. In the Second Temple, there was a court of the gentiles! Moreover, righteous gentiles, commonly called "God-fearers," attended synagogue and contributed to their construction and ongoing upkeep. In other words, Jews fully expected and supported God's blessings of righteous gentiles. Suggesting otherwise is simply an anti-Semitic reading. Rather than accosting his fellow Jews, Jesus simply refused to bestow messianic blessings on the Nazareth faithful who had no confidence in the local boy made good.
The second, and critical, point, is that Jesus has in effect endorsed enforcement of the law related to the Jubilee Year, which had been abandoned after Jews settled in the land, built a capital city, and crowned a king. Here is an explanation: Seven is a key number in Judaism. The seventh day of every week which ran from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday was Shabbat, the Sabbath, kept holy before God. Every seventh year was Shabbat ha-Aretz, when all fields were left fallow for natural recuperation. And every seventh series of seven years, the forty-ninth year, inaugurated Jubilee. That year all debts were to be cancelled in full, all slaves to be set free, all big landholdings to be broken-up and redistributed. Calling for a return to Jubilee practice shows that Jesus was truly prophetic and uncompromising in commitment to the abandoned biblical call for social justice. He had taken on the local Chamber of Commerce and they, no doubt, had no interested in seeing their accounts receivable zeroed out, or their slaves freed, or their estates turned over to the poor. That certainly makes the most sense in understanding the story.
As we are now Jesus' representatives on earth, we are tasked with his prophetic ministry. We're obligated to endorse and live out Jesus' call for radical social justice. Regardless of the cost.
Jesus goes on to tell them that Elijah and Elisha performed miracles for , not Jews, but gentiles. He reflects in that way on his decision not to share messianic blessings with his hometown crowd, for a prophet is accepted in his home town. After all of this, the people are enraged and take him up to a brow of a hill to throw him down to his death, but he escapes.
Two important points need to be shared. First, the traditional reading that Jesus' life is endangered because Jews are xenophobic and can't live with blessing of gentiles is common, but it is nonsense. The prophet Zechariah speaks of righteous gentiles streaming into Zion as friends of Jews. In the Second Temple, there was a court of the gentiles! Moreover, righteous gentiles, commonly called "God-fearers," attended synagogue and contributed to their construction and ongoing upkeep. In other words, Jews fully expected and supported God's blessings of righteous gentiles. Suggesting otherwise is simply an anti-Semitic reading. Rather than accosting his fellow Jews, Jesus simply refused to bestow messianic blessings on the Nazareth faithful who had no confidence in the local boy made good.
The second, and critical, point, is that Jesus has in effect endorsed enforcement of the law related to the Jubilee Year, which had been abandoned after Jews settled in the land, built a capital city, and crowned a king. Here is an explanation: Seven is a key number in Judaism. The seventh day of every week which ran from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday was Shabbat, the Sabbath, kept holy before God. Every seventh year was Shabbat ha-Aretz, when all fields were left fallow for natural recuperation. And every seventh series of seven years, the forty-ninth year, inaugurated Jubilee. That year all debts were to be cancelled in full, all slaves to be set free, all big landholdings to be broken-up and redistributed. Calling for a return to Jubilee practice shows that Jesus was truly prophetic and uncompromising in commitment to the abandoned biblical call for social justice. He had taken on the local Chamber of Commerce and they, no doubt, had no interested in seeing their accounts receivable zeroed out, or their slaves freed, or their estates turned over to the poor. That certainly makes the most sense in understanding the story.
As we are now Jesus' representatives on earth, we are tasked with his prophetic ministry. We're obligated to endorse and live out Jesus' call for radical social justice. Regardless of the cost.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Epiphany III: A Look at Corinth
By the first century, the city of Corinth was a beehive of activity. It had great ethnic and cultural diversity and a significant Jewish population. Thanks to Saint Paul, it also had a fledgling Christian community. Paul's first letter to the them was intended to answer questions that were arising and deepen their theological understanding. (I imagine Paul would have fainted dead away if told that this little letter would end up having weight equal to Torah in a Christian bible centuries later.)
To understand our pericope [1 Cor. 12: 12-31a] you need to know that the early Church found itself in a holding pattern. People still believed that Jesus would make a personal, physical return to the earth to close the age. That meant two important things. First, there would be no need for Christian scripture because there would be no future generations to evangelize. Second, there was no need for ordination, for holy orders, for structure in the Church, because there would be no future generations to pass on authority to. Therefore, as we have read, people simply discerned their talents, if you will there charisms or spiritual gifts, and then exercised them as best they could. If you believed that you were called to preaching, you went ahead and preached as best you could. If you had sensed a call to lead in a congregation, you did. Some traditions have restored that chaos! (Remember that, while Saint James's church in Jerusalem was a prototypical model of our bishop-priest-deacon paradigm, Paul who was from the diaspora just founded little synagogues, where the customary leadership consisted of seven old men, with one chairing.)
With the end of the expectation of an imminent second coming of Jesus, the church wrote books called gospels to pass on the story, each with a different take on Jesus and the faith. And in that subsequent age, the Church stabilized around the three holy orders. The deacon serves as a model between the church and the world, is ordained by, and reports to, his bishop. A priest can do all sacramental activity of a bishop except one: ordination. A bishop has the fullness of the ordained ministry. With the new modelling, calls to ordained ministries are heard, tested, then affirmed and given the necessary education and training by the Church. That does not mean for a second that only ordained people have a call. On the contrary, all Christians are under a call. Some of them without ordination serve in professional ministry: our monks, nuns, and lay pastoral staff come to mind. But every baptised person is under a call. We call the process of identifying it discernment. Just as the Church investigates discernments to all he ordained ministries and to the non-ordained professional, so discernment is needed by everyone. Search your heart, prayerfully asking God to help you find your calling in parish ministry or out in the community, as an ordained person or as laity. As Saint Paul says, it is all about building up the Body of Christ in which there is an equal, diverse, and interconnected network, in which every single member has a significant role to discover and fulfill. Excuses will not be accepted. Moses and Jeremiah both plead poor speaking ability and being too young. No sale. Saint Paul was short, bowlegged, and stammered. That didn't stop him. He just hired Barnabas to be his mouthpiece. Give yourself to God, God will show you the way.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Epiphany II: Sign Story One
John's ahistorical but fascinating theological gospel begins with the Prologue, an addition tacked onto the front end of the manuscript to give the reader a sneak preview of who the protagonist is, namely the Word of God, in this radically different gospel. Following the prologue, we have seven "sign stories " These vignettes address seven issues that were expected to reveal the Messiah. (Remember that seven is the number symbolizing perfection in Judaism; and that mainstream Jews had generally failed to convert to the Jesus Movement long before this very late gospel was released.)
Today we have the first sign story [John 2: 1-11]. Although the casual reader of scripture in trans- lation will not notice, the story begins with comedy. Mary, Jesus, and his followers, are attending a wedding party. (Such a party often lasted for days and was the most important of social occasions.). One of the cardinal rules of hosting a wedding party during the first century in Palestine was never, never run out of wine. Showing herself to be the quintessential Jewish Mother, Mary says to Jesus: "The have no wine." Jesus tells her that is not their problem, and this isn't his time. In response, she turns to the servants present and says, "Do whatever he tells you to do." Jesus gives in and turns the water into wine. When the head steward has tasted it (part of his job description), he asks the groom why he has waited until everyone is drunk before bringing in the good wine! So Jesus' disciples are blown away. End of story.
When I was a child, I was taught that the significance of the story was proving that Jesus could do magic. Wrong. Nor is it about providing more alcohol to a bunch of people who are three-sheets-to-the-wind. As usual, literal interpretation fails to convey the meaning of the tale. This story is actually about the Messianic Banquet long ago predicted in the book of Isaiah. There we read that the world-to-come will feature a fabulous meal served to all God's People, and that the principal feature of that feast will be the serving of fine, well-aged wine that never runs out. Message: God can meet the needs of all.
That is to say, Jesus can turn the water of our despair into the wine of hope, the water of sadness into the wine of joy, the water of failure into the wine of victory. Old, ordinary life can give way to new, abundant life. But what do we need in order to see that happen today? Our Lady has answered the question: "Do whatever he tells you to do."
Today we have the first sign story [John 2: 1-11]. Although the casual reader of scripture in trans- lation will not notice, the story begins with comedy. Mary, Jesus, and his followers, are attending a wedding party. (Such a party often lasted for days and was the most important of social occasions.). One of the cardinal rules of hosting a wedding party during the first century in Palestine was never, never run out of wine. Showing herself to be the quintessential Jewish Mother, Mary says to Jesus: "The have no wine." Jesus tells her that is not their problem, and this isn't his time. In response, she turns to the servants present and says, "Do whatever he tells you to do." Jesus gives in and turns the water into wine. When the head steward has tasted it (part of his job description), he asks the groom why he has waited until everyone is drunk before bringing in the good wine! So Jesus' disciples are blown away. End of story.
When I was a child, I was taught that the significance of the story was proving that Jesus could do magic. Wrong. Nor is it about providing more alcohol to a bunch of people who are three-sheets-to-the-wind. As usual, literal interpretation fails to convey the meaning of the tale. This story is actually about the Messianic Banquet long ago predicted in the book of Isaiah. There we read that the world-to-come will feature a fabulous meal served to all God's People, and that the principal feature of that feast will be the serving of fine, well-aged wine that never runs out. Message: God can meet the needs of all.
That is to say, Jesus can turn the water of our despair into the wine of hope, the water of sadness into the wine of joy, the water of failure into the wine of victory. Old, ordinary life can give way to new, abundant life. But what do we need in order to see that happen today? Our Lady has answered the question: "Do whatever he tells you to do."
Friday, January 18, 2019
Fundamentalist Flaws
In my opinion, there are several characteristics in the fundamentalist articulation of Christianity that are helping to hasten the demise of our Faith. Two of those flaws appear prominently in a column which I recently read, authored by an evangelical pastor. Let me begin by saying that I know that almost any viewpoint can be supported by quoting some passage of Scripture, out-of-context or interpreted through a theologically-defective lens. These two issues are no exception to that rule.
First, the author prefaces the quotation of Scripture by saying "When the Creator decided to write a book..." The writer imagines that, out of more than a hundred sacred texts in the world, only the Judaeo-Christian bible is inspired. This wording betrays what I think is a misunderstanding of the concept of inspiration. I firmly believe that great art, music, and literature can be divinely inspired. Does that mean that I believe that God put Beethoven into a trance and wrote the Fifth Symphony for him? No, certainly not. In the same vein, I believe that God inspired the panoply of authors who wrote the books of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek over an extended period of time. Do I believe God dictated the contents or in some fashion guaranteed that they were free of human error? No, I don't. I believe the essence of Scripture is: the human expression of two ancient groups -- early Judaism and the early Christian communities -- recounting the experience of their search for God. The Bible contains quite a few contradictions, factual and scientific errors; and that is to be expected if we are actually dealing in writings of human beings. And, indeed, there are two different Bibles, Catholic and Protestant, and many manuscript variations. Does that mean that divine inspiration and profound insights can't be found in the Bible? No, not at all. In our Tradition, it is common to say that the Word of God is Jesus Christ, not a book. But that book is a witness to God's life in the world which, for us, finds supreme articulation in the Saviour who is the human face of God. In the Anglican understanding, God's revelation is not limited to someone's interpretation of a set of writings, but is experienced equally in scripture, tradition, and reason, in interplay.
The second faux pas lies in this statement: "Every human...is created in the image and likeness of God. Only those who have trusted Christ qualify as His children." Really? I will have to stand by my conviction that all of humanity are God's children, and that no person has to "qualify" to be a child of God by holding certain opinions about Jesus. This elitist view has a long and troubling history. Nazis said Jews don't believe in Christ, they are not God's children, so exterminate them. During many troubling times in various cultures, including the West, those with orthodox views concluded that heretics were not God's children, so they could be tortured and executed. Do you envision where Christian elitism can lead? What is the value in demeaning non-Christians?
There is a profound lack of humility in presuming to tell God how God can and can't communicate with humanity. There is immense hubris in presuming to tell God whom he can or cannot love and bless. We must not get above ourselves.
First, the author prefaces the quotation of Scripture by saying "When the Creator decided to write a book..." The writer imagines that, out of more than a hundred sacred texts in the world, only the Judaeo-Christian bible is inspired. This wording betrays what I think is a misunderstanding of the concept of inspiration. I firmly believe that great art, music, and literature can be divinely inspired. Does that mean that I believe that God put Beethoven into a trance and wrote the Fifth Symphony for him? No, certainly not. In the same vein, I believe that God inspired the panoply of authors who wrote the books of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek over an extended period of time. Do I believe God dictated the contents or in some fashion guaranteed that they were free of human error? No, I don't. I believe the essence of Scripture is: the human expression of two ancient groups -- early Judaism and the early Christian communities -- recounting the experience of their search for God. The Bible contains quite a few contradictions, factual and scientific errors; and that is to be expected if we are actually dealing in writings of human beings. And, indeed, there are two different Bibles, Catholic and Protestant, and many manuscript variations. Does that mean that divine inspiration and profound insights can't be found in the Bible? No, not at all. In our Tradition, it is common to say that the Word of God is Jesus Christ, not a book. But that book is a witness to God's life in the world which, for us, finds supreme articulation in the Saviour who is the human face of God. In the Anglican understanding, God's revelation is not limited to someone's interpretation of a set of writings, but is experienced equally in scripture, tradition, and reason, in interplay.
The second faux pas lies in this statement: "Every human...is created in the image and likeness of God. Only those who have trusted Christ qualify as His children." Really? I will have to stand by my conviction that all of humanity are God's children, and that no person has to "qualify" to be a child of God by holding certain opinions about Jesus. This elitist view has a long and troubling history. Nazis said Jews don't believe in Christ, they are not God's children, so exterminate them. During many troubling times in various cultures, including the West, those with orthodox views concluded that heretics were not God's children, so they could be tortured and executed. Do you envision where Christian elitism can lead? What is the value in demeaning non-Christians?
There is a profound lack of humility in presuming to tell God how God can and can't communicate with humanity. There is immense hubris in presuming to tell God whom he can or cannot love and bless. We must not get above ourselves.
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