Meditation on This Week's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011:

First Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-11

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm: Psalm 119:33-40

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 149

Second Reading: Romans 13:8-14

Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20


The Gospel readings from the last several weeks have shown us Jesus trying to prepare his disciples to take over his mission, once he's no longer physically there to lead them. Here we see him address issues of conflict management, and his advice seems to hold true, even centuries later: try to work out the conflict privately and go through increasingly public discourse.

The last verse is one of the more famous Gospel verses, the one that tells us that we only need two or three to gather in the name of Christ, and he'll be there. But what does this verse mean for the larger church? If Christ is with us when we gather in his name, even in very small groups, do we really need the larger Church?

The Church as Societal Institution suffers from many problems, and today's crop of atheist writers are happy to enumerate them. I'll be the first to say that child abusers who achieve a position of power are a problem that must be dealt with swiftly, and I'm as bothered by scientific illiteracy (as well as other types) as any atheist. But the church has other profound problems, and one of them is that we're supposed to be a group that gives people a compass and a meaning, yet we do a very poor job.

Alienation is one of the issues that the Church faces but often doesn't know how to solve. Especially in larger churches, it's too easy to come to church every Sunday, yet not make meaningful connections. Many people can't conceive of having time to go to church on Sunday, much less at any other time. How do we get busy people to commit to a church, especially when they feel little denominational loyalty? How do we help people get to know each other well enough so that they would feel comfortable bringing conflicts to the church for resolution? Can you imagine doing what Jesus suggests earlier in the Gospel, bringing disputes to your Church brothers and sisters? If not, why not?

Throughout the twentieth century especially, we've seen churches try to solve these problems by adding programs to the weekly schedule, so as to focus not just on worship. Many denominations meet throughout the week with Bible studies, covered dish dinners, musical rehearsals, and the like. Many churches offer not just fellowship, but also the opportunity to do some social justice work. Churches offer these opportunities for a variety of reasons, but one of them is to keep people feeling connected, both to the church and to each other. As churches get ever larger, individuals feel ever more isolated.

Some of the more interesting late-twentieth and twenty-first century church movements have focused on that last verse and decided that the largeness of the institutional Church is the problem. When churches acquire a building, they sacrifice many opportunities to serve the world, because the building has needs. When institutions have a payroll to meet, they choose not to give as much to the poor as they could, if they had no employees.

Some modern groups have decided to simplify, to emulate the early church, which was often small enough to meet in people's houses and to share a real meal, not a symbol of a meal. Some modern groups go even further and actually pool their resources, and some even go so far as to live together. There's an exciting stream of the Emergent church which finds inspiration in earlier monastic movements and other intentional Christian communities.

Of course, this life choice wouldn't work for everyone. But we are in a time of great Church reformation, and it will be interesting to see where it all leads. As we approach both the 10th anniversary of September 11 and later, Reformation Day, it’s a good time to think about how to shape our own individual churches to make them places where we could bring conflicts to be solved, where we feel the presence of Christ in our brothers and sisters gathered there. How can the Church be a force for peace in the modern, multicultural world?

Poetry Tuesday: Risking Our Lives to Save Them

On Sunday, our pastor talked about the part of the Gospel that told us that those who would lose their lives would save them and those who would save their lives would use them.  He talked about the cost of the cross.  He talked about the French town of Huguenot Catholics who, at great risk to all, saved the town's Jews from the Nazis.

Our pastor reached right out to shake us out of our smug complacency.  We sit here, almost 100 years away from the rise of the Nazis, and we imagine that we would never let the situation get that bad.

Our pastor pointed out the increasingly harsh treatment of illegal immigrants.  He observed that churches in Alabama have declared that they will disobey the law by continuing to transport the children of illegal immigrants to Sunday School.  He told us about municipalities in Georgia who have declared that they will resist the attempts of authorities to enforce immigration laws.

He finished by asking us what we would do if the state of Florida enacted harsh laws.  It's an important question, since we live in a state that is likely to do just that.

Here's a poem that addresses that question.  I wrote it after hearing about people in the Southwest who set up water stations for illegal immigrants making that hazardous passage through the desert.  I wrote it in the summer of 2001, before the stricter laws passed in the days after September 11.  It seems like a relic from a simpler time, when people were allowed to set up water stations in national parks.  Yet it seems more relevant than ever.

This poem was first published in The South Carolina Review and was part of my chapbook, Whistling Past the Graveyard.

Modern Abolitionist

Two hundred years ago, we would have stitched
cloth, hung our quilts on the line to give guidance.
We would have sung songs, whispered directions,
left lamps burning in strategic windows.
Then, as now, we would have helped with the herding north.

Now we hang flags of blue plastic
above water stations in the desert. We patrol
these tanks to make sure they never run dry.
Dryness means quick death for those who make the daily
dashes towards freedom. We position
these water stations in national parks
under telephone poles that stretch high above, a sure sign
even during dehydration induced hallucinations. The flags whip
in the wind, a dry rustle above the rattlesnakes.

I keep extra food and water in the truck. When I see
parched refugees, dusty and sunburned, I offer
these meager rations. I’m not above
giving folks a ride. There’s no Fugitive
Slave Act to make me cower in fear.

Some mornings I find a few of them in the fields
or huddled against the garage, the barn.
Unlike my neighbors, I don’t threaten
them with my gun or call the law.
I’ve learned enough broken
Spanish to invite them to breakfast.
Eggs and toast translate to any language.

I wish I could fully claim my Abolitionist
heritage, instead of just dancing on the edge of lawlessness.
But I am no Harriet Tubman to safely lead
people out of slavery, no John Brown
to plot uprisings and raid munitions bunkers.
Alas, I don’t have the eloquence of Frederick Douglass.
All I can offer is a glass of water, a bite
of food, substandard shelter, and a ride north.

God of Physics and Chemistry

Yesterday, my atheist friend told me about a colleague who said that she had prayed to God that the hurricane would miss us--and lo and behold, the hurricane had missed us.  Now, did our colleague really say that, or did my atheist friend misinterpret what she had said?

Either is likely.

Any way you look at it though, it's crummy theology.  Because if I pray that the hurricane misses my coast, am I not praying that someone else get hit?

And do I really believe that our God of free will, our God who set the world up with certain laws of geology and physics and chemistry, do I really believe that God would intervene to curve the hurricane away from me?

If my house gets hurt by a hurricane, does that mean that I didn't pray hard enough?  Or that I'm spirituallly lacking, so that God pays no attention to me?  Or that other people prayed better?

Those questions also show us the crumminess of a theology that says that if we just pray hard enough and believe enough and behave in certain ways, then we can control the world around us and control God.

We can't.  That's the hard truth of the world we live in.  No matter how good we are, hard times visit us all.

The Good News of the Bible is that we have a God who loves us so much that our God would come to our difficult planet to hang out with us.  The Good News of the New Testament is one of grace:  God will love us no matter our behavior.

Hurricanes are not punishment.  On some level, hurricanes are the way the planet deals with extra heat and energy.  Yet even those who would blame hurricanes on global warming (and thus see them as a fitting punishment for errant humans) would do well to look back to remind themselves of how hurricanes have always swept across the planet, even before we warmed it up so dramatically.

On this day when most of the East Coast faces an extraordinary threat from Hurricane Irene, I'm not suggesting that we abandon prayer as a response.  In fact, on a day where most of us can't do much more than watch and hope, prayer seems like a perfectly appropriate response.

Prayer for the Day before the Hurricane Makes Landfall

Creator God, who fashioned this astonishing planet of atmospheric swirls, help us remember the abundance that our habitat usually offers us.  Be with those who work to protect their homes.  Be with those who suffer from fear and anxiety.  Remind us that you are with us, and help calm our fears.

Meditation on This Week's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, August 28, 2011:

First Reading: Jeremiah 15:15-21

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 3:1-15

Psalm: Psalm 26:1-8

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b

Second Reading: Romans 12:9-21

Gospel: Matthew 16:21-28


This Gospel shows us a picture of Jesus who knows that he's on a path to crucifixion. With clear sight and clear mission, Jesus warns his disciples of what's ahead.

Peter has a typical reaction: "That will never happen." Peter reminds me of today's prosperity preachers, who deny the ugliness of the world, the difficulties of life, and the mission that Jesus calls us to do. Forget all that, the prosperity preachers say. Believe in God and God will shower financial wealth on you. If you don't believe me, look at the bestsellers in any Christian bookstore. It's full of books with titles like God Wants You to Be Rich. My inner cynic sneers: "Yeah and maybe God can do something about my wide hips. And maybe God could fix the leak in my colleague’s roof. And maybe God can make sure that the children of all my friends get good grades in school."

My inner cynic is perhaps too dismissive too quickly. If God appeared in my study this morning, God might say something like, "Yes, I could do something about your wide hips--and so could you, since you've done it before. Yes, I can fix that leak. If those children study, they're likely to get good grades." Then God would wait for me to stop whooping with joy, and God would say, "But I have a larger vision for the world. I have a different definition of the word rich. I'm creating my Kingdom not just in Heaven, but right here and now, on your planet, and I want you to be part."

We'll have all kinds of crosses to bear, Jesus warns us, and we'll lose our lives in all kinds of ways. But we'll get wonderful rewards.

It's important to stress that Jesus isn't just talking about Heaven, or whatever your vision is of what happens when you die. If Jesus spoke directly, Jesus might say, "You're thinking too small. Did I give you an imagination so that you let it wither and waste away? Dream big, dream big."

I'm rereading N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. He's got interesting things to say about our ideas of life after death, but he's quick to stress that Jesus doesn't just announce a Kingdom in some Heaven that's somewhere else. On the contrary--the appearance of Jesus means that God's plan for redeeming creation has begun. And we're called to help. Wright says, ". . . you must follow in the way of the cross, and if you want to benefit from Jesus' saving death, you must become part of his kingdom project." (204-205). He points out, "But God ordered his world in such a way that his own work within [our] world takes place not least through one of his creatures, in particular, namely, the human beings who reflect his image" (207). And for those of us who feel inadequate to the task, Wright (and before him, Jesus) reminds us of all the talents that we have at our disposal: "God gloriously honors all kinds of ways of announcing the good news" (226).

For many of us, the most difficult part of Jesus' mission that he gives us will be the willingness to believe that the arc of history bends towards justice, as Martin Luther King reminded us. The arc of history also bends towards beauty and wisdom and love and mercy. Some of us are so beaten down that we forget. Some of us would have no problem being crucified for our faith, but it's much harder to believe in God's vision of a redeemed world and to work to make that happen. But scripture and thousands of years of theology makes it clear, as Wright says, "We are called to live within the world where these things are possible and to agents of such things insofar as they lie in our calling and sphere" (248).

We'll lose our current lives of bitterness, fear, hopelessness, and rage. But we'll find a better one as we become agents of the Kingdom.

God of the Rough Drafts

Yesterday, two different bloggers wrote about the creative process and making things with our hands.  Beth, a graphic designer, in this post remembers a time when she needed ink and paper and glue and sharp knives.  I, too, remember doing newspaper layout with x-acto knives.  I remember the huge machines that printed the newspapers.  But now, when I read a paper newspaper, I grow impatient with having to flip pages and wrestle with the paper.  I'd rather read online--me and the rest of the world, apparently.

Beth's post inspired Dave to write this post about manual typewriters and what a physical task it was to create poems.  He ends with a great image of his old computer buried in a field:  "A few years later, I finally upgraded and put the old beast out to pasture — literally. I didn’t know then about the heavy metals and other hazardous substances found in circuit boards, cathode ray tubes and the like. So now it sits in a shallow, unmarked grave somewhere out in the goldenrod patch we call a field."

I love this idea of a computer in a field.  I have this vision of plants abloom in microchips and motherboards.  I may play with this idea further.

Beth wrote this line:  "Can we appreciate creation if we don't know what it is to be a creator?"

I'd take this a step further:  can we have a fully developed relationship with our creator if we don't have experience with creating ourselves?

I'd also wonder if our experience as creators is shaped by what story we've been told about our Creator God.  If your God is the God of Noah who drowns creation, what is your relationship to your own creations?  How does the story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden shape your creative self?

I prefer the God of the earliest Genesis creation story.  Many believers don't realize that there are several creation stories in Genesis, but there are.  The Adam and Eve story is a much later creation story.

Go back and reread the first chapter of Genesis.  Reacquaint yourself with that Creator.  Here we see a God at work creating and delighting in creation.  God doesn't say, "Oh, I thought this was a good idea, but it turned out to be repulsive.  I'm destroying it."  Not in the first chapter of Genesis--God declares everything God makes to be very good.

We also don't see God wrestling with new technology coming along to make the old technology obsolete.  God doesn't have to wrestle with whether or not to use paint or a computer program to make the perfect shade.  Now there's an idea for a poem.  Hmm.

I wrote a poem called, "When God Switched Fabrics."  It begins this way:

"On the third day, God switched
fabrics. At first, God had followed
respectfully the lessons of the elders:
which fabrics could be used,
which fabrics couldn’t go together,
which decorative objects were suitable.
God stuck to the established patterns:
Flying Geese, Star of Bethlehem, and Log Cabin."

In this poem, God goes on to become a fabric artist.  It's one of my favorite metaphors I've created for God.

I also wrote a poem called "God at the Creativity Retreat."  One year, the Create in Me group studied the first chapter of Genesis, and then we did our own creating.  I was struck by the difference in how we humans approached creativity during the 4 day week-end retreat and how God approached it.  I wrote this stanza:

"God doesn’t understand
the instant rejection of creations.
God spends part of each
day leaning into our ears to whisper,
'It is good.'"

I wish I could end this post by showing you what I saw in the sky this morning:  a rainbow!  It reminded me of that promise to Noah--no more drowning of creation.  But in my files, I do have this picture of a double rainbow, which appeared in the sky several years ago.  So, on this day when it may seem like the earth is shifting under your feet and you don't know what to expect anymore and a huge storm threatens the entire east coast, remember the promise!

When You're an Eyelash in the Body of Christ

Our pastor had just gotten back from Churchwide Assembly on Sunday, and he had unity on the brain.  He preached on both the Gospel and the Romans text.  He talked about us being parts of the body.

Usually when I hear the Romans text preached, I like to think about which Christian body part I am that day.  On Sunday, I felt tired and grumpy for no good reason.  I wanted to be the liver or the kidney of the body of Christ, but I felt more like an eyelash or a fingernail. 

I tried to remind myself that eyelashes and fingernails are important too.

I told myself that I didn't really want to be a vital organ.  If I was the kidney, I'd have a lot of poison to filter.  Yuck.  Who really wants that?

Still, I can't deny that it's hard to live without a kidney, and I lose more eyelashes and fingernails in the course of a month than I can count.

Our pastor's closing comments reigned me back in from my negative self-talk.  I'm intrigued by the idea that I can recognize negative self-talk as it's going on, and sometimes, I can even shorten the negative torrent.  However, will I ever get to the point where I don't indulge in the negative self-talk at all?

After all, throughout our Bible, we see God using human eyelashes and fingernails to do great things.  Granted, God uses humans who are closer to vital organs in the body of the faithful too, but God can use even the tiniest of humans to achieve the goals of the Kingdom.

Our pastor talked about the various disagreements and more serious strife that have affected our Christian community.  He reminded us that our time fighting is time we will never get back.  We simply do not have time to waste in fighting.

We also do not have time to waste in feeling sorry for ourselves because we don't see ourselves as a rock of the church, like Peter.  I might remind us all that Peter wasn't always the vital organ that he would become later.

We all have days when we're the eyelash of the body of Christ, and we can take comfort from knowing that others are on duty as vital organs.  We can take comfort in the fact that when we band together with other eyelashes, we serve an important function too--we keep dust and dirt away so that the vision stays clear and unscarred.  We can remind ourselves that God has a greater imagination and can use us all, whether we're eyelashes or toenails or femurs or intestines or the tiniest cell.

Feast Day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Today we celebrate the life of the 12th century monk, St. Bernard of Clairvaux.  What an amazing man!

Those of us interested in monasticism owe a debt to St. Bernard, who was responsible not only for founding his own monastery, but for sending monks out to establish monasteries or to rescue already-formed monasteries from heretical directions.  We give him credit for the founding of hundreds of monastic communities.

Bernard was also responsible for helping the church avoid schism at several key points.  He also defended the church against various nobility who wanted church holdings.

We could give Bernard credit for moving the church towards a more personal faith, although I imagine he would be horrified at the manifestations of those ideas of a personal relationship with Jesus that many of us have.  He's also responsible for elevating the status of Mary within the church.

I confess, as a Lutheran, the veneration of Mary always mystified me.  Then I visited Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist order of monks.  I found the references to Mary soothing, and the Compline service which included prayers to Mary as we faced a stone statue (very abstract in style) surrounded by candles helped me sink into a deep sleep.

As I research these monastics of older centuries, it's intriguing to me to see how ideas that we associate with later centuries were present even in medieval times.  We see medieval thinkers wrestling with an emotional/mystical approach to faith (like Bernard of Clairvaux) and with an intellectual/rational approach to faith (like Peter Abelard).  Throughout Christianity, we still struggle with the best way to integrate these two approaches.

So, today, as I enjoy a Saturday with friends, I'll remember to be grateful for Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.  My friends and I will surely talk about the issue of how to live an authentic life, one where all our values are in sync.  In an earlier age, we might have found sanctuary in an abbey.  I'll probably float the idea of intentional community as we discuss our various options.  Monastic communities are some of the most successful incarnations of intentional communities--how could we follow their models if we want to live an integrated life?