Sermon preached July 21, 2013
Texts: Genesis 1:1-8, 24-31; 2:1-9, 18-25; John 1:1-18
A frog sits on a log in a swamp singing a song called “The Rainbow Connection.” As the song is ending, up paddles a canoeist. “Help, help. This is a serious call for help. Someone help.” He comes upon the frog. “I have lost my sense of direction.” Frog: “Have you tried Hare Krishna?”
This must be my year of the Muppets. That scene begins “The Muppet Movie” – the first feature-length film starring Jim Henson’s lovable muppet characters. One of the wonderful things about the Muppets is that they appealed to children, yet had humor for adults. “I’ve lost my sense of direction.” “Have you tried Hare Krishna?”
Kermit the Frog walks into the El Sleezo Café and sits down at the bar. “Buy me a drink sailor?” “I don’t even know you.” “Buy me a drink anyway.” The woman’s date intervenes. “Are you talking to my girl?” Woman: “I think he touched me.” Man: “You better go wash or you’ll get warts.” Frog: “No, that’s a myth.” Man: “Yes, but she’s my myth.” Frog: “No, myth, myth.” Then a young woman walking by says, “Yes.”
The question posed for today, from the sticky Scriptures suggested for this summer was this: "How do we know which Scriptures are mythological and which Scriptures are factual?” The texts suggested were Genesis 1 and John 1. I embellished a little by adding some of Genesis 2 to the readings.
How do we know which Scriptures are mythological and which Scriptures are factual? The question may sound kind of abstract, but I think it matters. It matters if we seek a thoughtful faith. It matters if we want to respond to some of our sisters and brothers in the faith who see nothing but fact in the Bible, and who think that this is the Christian position.
Let’s look at the story of creation. A few years ago, I was channel surfing on the car radio. Is that getting to be a lost art in this world of Cirrus radio? Anyway, I stumbled onto a signal where there was this rather breathy radio preacher. “And I tell you, if you don’t believe the Bible, that God created the world in seven days, not seven periods of time, seven days, well, you can’t be a Christian.” For this preacher Genesis 1 had to be true, literally factual. And if you do not believe that it is, then you are not a Bible-believing Christian, a true Christian.
There are some problems with this. For one, if one reads carefully, one finds two distinct creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. We are familiar with the days of creation, with the orderly progression from day/night to plants to animals, culminating in the sixth day’s creation of human beings – So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. Beginning in Genesis 2:4 we have another take. Before there were any plants, the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Then God plants a garden and puts the man in the garden. Later, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” To avoid this idea of two creation stories set side-by-side in the first chapters of Genesis, those who read the Bible literally tend to argue that chapter two just gives details missing from chapter one, but that doesn’t work well.
The more significant problem with a literal/factual reading of the early chapters of Genesis is that it seems to run counter to just about every bit of empirical scientific data we have about the earth, and to the best of our scientific thinking. The earth is millions of years old, as best we can tell, not a recent creation. Some sort of evolutionary processes seem to function in living things. It has taken some time, but many theologians have found compatibility between evolutionary science and Christian faith. The official position of the Vatican is that something like the evolutionary processes described by Charles Darwin occurred, but that these processes don’t preclude Christian understandings of the human as created in the image of God, or as having a soul. Theologian John Haught writes about the potential compatibility of science and theology.
Even if religion and morality have been adaptive – say, in the evolutionary sense of aiding the survival of human genes – theology is not necessarily wrong to claim at the same time that religion and morality exist because of a divine invitation to each personal consciousness to reach beyond itself toward an infinite horizon of Meaning, Truth, Goodness and Beauty (God and the New Atheism, 85).
Haught also responds to those who argue that evolution and Christian faith are incompatible. Taking the Bible as a source of accurate science actually diminishes the sacred texts. Symbols and metaphors… lead us much deeper into the world of the spirit than literalism does. Taking the Bible’s figurative language literally actually leads to a loss of religious depth. (Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution, 78).
How do we know which Scriptures are mythological and which Scriptures are factual? Science matters in answering that question. It seems pretty clear from the best of our scientific knowledge that the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 cannot be “factual.” It is important to raise two cautionary notes here. One, science is a human endeavor suspect to mistakes and misinterpretation. The best science of one day and time has proven inaccurate at a later day and time. The best of science keeps an open mind about the full range of empirical data available, yet some, in the name of science, argue for a narrow view of what is scientific. The quote in the invitation to worship was from the scientist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) – “all science is either physics or stamp collecting.” Respect for science is different from “scientism” – “the idea that science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective” (Hilary Putnam, Renewing Philosophy, x). That there may be a measure of biochemical or biophysical explanation for some healing does not mean that prayer does not help with healing, or that something miraculous may occur. So the first cautionary note is not to give too much to an uncritical science, to scientism.
The second cautionary note is even more crucial to a thoughtful faith. I would challenge what can be too strong a contrast between the mythological and factual. I appreciate the question asked in the sticky Scripture box, and I have asked it a lot myself. I also think we need to be careful because the default mode of thinking in our culture tends toward an uncritical scientism which equates factuality with truth and the mythological with magical thinking. We live in a scientistic culture, a secular culture. To quote one of my theological teachers and mentors, Schubert Ogden: The widespread popular assumption that what is mythological in its form of expression cannot be true evidences only the extent to which all of us today are, to some degree, under the spell of secularism. Underlying this assumption is the secularist denial that there is any truth other than empirical truth most fully worked out in the sciences. (The Understanding of Christian Faith, 132).
For me, a thoughtful Christian faith is open to scientific knowledge, acknowledges that much of our Scripture is mythological in language and form, yet argues for the importance, yes, even the truth of the mythological. Interestingly, modern Christian fundamentalism is really “a kind of inverted scientific approach in its adherence to a crudely literalistic reading” (The Literary Guide to the Bible, 539). Fundamentalism says that we need to read the creation story and all Scripture in as literal way as possible and that it and they must be factually true. If not, the entire meaning of Christian faith crumbles.
There is a better way to understand Scripture. John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg write helpfully about this in their books The Last Week and The First Christmas. Are these stories fact or fable? For many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, these are the two choices…. It is important to realize that there is a third option that moves beyond the choices of fact or fable. (The First Christmas, 27). They call their third option “parabolic truth.” “The meaning of a parable – it’s parabolic truth – does not depend upon its factuality” (33). In telling a parable one can say, “I don’t know whether it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true.”
To try and make factual claims from poetic, parabolic, and mythological texts is to miss the point of those texts, because these texts “myth the point” – they speak truth in powerful ways that speak to the human spirit.
If we are to read the Scriptures in ways that open us up to what God’s Spirit might be saying to us today, I think we need to develop a richer understanding of poetic, mythological and parabolic language, or poetic, mythological and parabolic truth. The late author Joseph Campbell is another resource for helping us do this.
Campbell tells us “myth is of the order of poetry” (Myths to Live By, 258). He quotes the Christian monk Thomas Merton. The true symbol does not merely point to something else. It contains within itself a structure which awakens our consciousness to a new awareness of the inner meaning of life and of reality itself. (265) In his extensive televised interviews with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell reflected on the power and purpose of myth. People say what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality so that we feel the rapture of being alive (Campbell and Moyers, The Power of Myth, 5).
Awakening. Aliveness. These are at the heart of Christian faith. Jesus offers the image of new birth to Nicodemus – awakening, aliveness. Jesus says that he came that we might have life, life in all its fullness. Awakening. Aliveness. God’s Spirit continue to invite us into this newness of life, and because that awakening and aliveness are often best expressed in the language of metaphor, symbol, poetry, parable and myth, we dare not disparage them. Facts matter, but here is a fact. Human beings respond in the depth of their lives to symbols, metaphors, poetry, parables and myths. They move us in powerful ways, and through such language God’s Spirit speaks to our spirits and souls inviting us to newness of life.
Theologian John Haught poses the question of what the purpose of our lives might be in an evolving universe. Our vocation, our mission in life, must be in some way to participate in the universe’s own ageless labor of intensifying the reign of beauty…. A lively awareness of the general cosmic aim toward beauty give us a rich context in which to cultivate the life of virtue. The virtues we idealize are still the traditional ones – humility, compassion, justice, gratitude, hope and so on…. In the context of evolution, we can see more clearly than ever that the good life is one that contributes meaningfully not only to the spiritual growth of the individual person but also to the ongoing creation of a whole universe. (Responses, 142)
The first story of creation is a parabolic truth about the beauty of the world and the importance of the human person. The second creation story is a parabolic truth about the care of God, and our need for each other. It is not good for us to be alone. The re-creation story in John says that the very wisdom that is part of the created world finds its way into our world, particularly in one Jesus, in whom was embodied grace and truth.
The world was not made in seven days, but that story is deeply true, as are the companion creation stories. God is the relentless, persistent power toward beauty. The way of following Jesus is the way of awakening, of aliveness, of intensifying the reign of beauty. It is a way full of grace and truth. It is a way that can only adequately be expressed in the powerful language of myth, symbol, metaphor, parable. It is the way God’s Spirit continues to invite us to live, and that’s what matters most. Amen.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida: Revelation Decoded
Sermon preached July 14, 2013
Texts: Revelation 13:11-18, 22:18-19; Revelation 21:1-7, 22:1-5
Iron Butterfly, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"
Play clip of song.
I might have played “Super-Cala-Fraga-Listic-Expi-Ala-Docious” but I don’t have that on my i pod. What these songs share is some non-sensical words, or at least words that don’t seem to make any sense. Super-cala-fraga-listic-expi-ala-docious is intended to be non-sense in a fun song, so in that way it makes some sense. “In-a-gadda-da-vida” apparently was intended to be “In the Garden of Eden.” There are a few stories about how in the garden of Eden became in-a-gadda-da-vida, but at least we know something of the intent. It makes some sense.
The year I graduated from college, I decided I was going to read something entirely for enjoyment, so I read The Lord of the Rings, but I went back even further with The Silmarillion and then The Hobbit. There are a lot of characters and events to keep track of, so I bought a companion book, a Tolkein dictionary that listed characters, events, etc. If I ever was confused during my reading, I could easily look something up.
The Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible. Someone suggested tackling this during our summer of sticky Scriptures, and so here we are. Revelation shares with “super-cala-fraga-listic-expi-ala-docious” and “in-a-gadda-da-vida” the feeling that we need some help to make sense of it all. Unfortunately, there is no authoritative guide to what the symbols in the book meant to the author, no Tolkein-like dictionary for the book.
There is no question that Revelation is strange, mysterious, fascinating, difficult, and potentially powerful. St Jerome wrote, “Revelation has as many mysteries as it does words” (The Literary Guide to the Bible, 523). It elicits all kinds of reactions. A biblical scholar has written of it: The Book of Revelation remains for many Christians a book with “seven seals,” seldom read and often relegated to a curiosity in the Bible. For others it is the book of the New Testament, full of predictions for the future and revelations about the present. (Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza,The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 1) An English novelist has reacted this way to reading the book: I found it a sick text…. There something not quite right about Revelation…. The riot of violent, imagistic occurences; the cabalistic emphasis on numbers; the visceral repulsion expressed towards the bodily…. In its vile obscurantism is its baneful effect. (Will Self, Revelations, 381)
Revelation is neglected by many, repulses others, and still others find in in a road-map for the future of the world. How might we read it so that the Spirit of God can speak to us through it?
It is helpful to remember that Revelation is a kind of literature. When you are reading science fiction, it is helpful to know that it is science fiction. Revelation is apocalyptic literature. This kind of literature, which had many expressions in first-century Judaism, purported to reveal mysteries about the cosmic dimensions of the world – what might be happening in the heavenly world and how that affects the present and future of this world. It relied on symbols and images, many of which made more sense the original audience. Reality tended to be portrayed in simplistic either-or terms – good and evil, light and darkness, God and the devil. Apocalyptic literature expected that the world would end in the near future, but only following a time of intense suffering. It was often written in times when people of faith felt themselves under threat of some kind.
One of the features of apocalyptic literature which puzzles us about Revelation is its use of symbols – seals, trumpets, beasts. Some of these symbols would have made more sense to the original readers, but even to them, some could have been mysterious. To us, we have really lost the code – the symbols are even stranger. All this use of symbolism has made Revelation open to wild interpretive flights. Kathleen Norris wrote: More than any other book of the Christian Bible, Revelation has suffered from bad interpretation; solipsistic, short-sighted, cruel (Revelations, 370). I was living in Dallas, Texas when the ATF and FBI surrounded the Branch Davidian compound about a hundred miles south near Waco. At one point, David Koresh promised to surrender if he was given broadcast time to explain his theology of Revelation. It was broadcast on Dallas radio, and I listened. It was wild. The images from Revelation have a strong echo in our culture. The last three digits of my cell phone number happen to be sixes. Don’t you suppose I get some looks!
So how do we read this work more thoughtfully, open to God’s Spirit? I think that we do so recognizing that much of the work was intended as a commentary on the author’s own day and time, a theological commentary about Roman imperial rule. A number of scholars make a strong case that the number 666 could be the numeric value of the name Nero Caesar in Hebrew. Symbolically, the number six also falls short of the number seven, considered a perfect number. Oh that my cell number ended 777.
If the author of Revelation is offering a theological-political commentary on his own time, he does so out of a deep theological commitment, and faith and trust commitment that in the end, God’s purposes will prevail. In the end love wins. In this way, the writer, inspired by the Spirit, is sharing with us the central conviction of Christian hope – in the end God’s purposes prevail. In the end, love wins.
We often think about Christian hope in very individual terms – my hope for my life, particularly in the face of death. Christian hope means that my life will continue after death in God’s love, because of God’s accepting grace which I have accepted in faith. That is part of the Christian hope, but only one part of Christian hope. In the words of one of my theology teachers and mentors, Schubert Ogden: The great virtue of apocalypticism… is that it brings to expression the truly cosmic dimensions of Christian hope, which sees in the reality of God’s love the promise of final fulfillment not only for each individual person and the whole of humankind, but also literally for every created thing. (The Understanding of Christian Faith, 135). In the end, God’s purposes prevail. In the end, love wins. In the end, for all creation.
If that conviction of Christian hope is the core of Revelation, we have to admit that it gets mixed in with a lot of other stuff, some of which seems very human, and not always the best of our humanity. Revelation takes some of the violent imagery we discussed last week and makes it a part of God’s work. God is seen in places in Revelation as a warrior wreaking vengeance on others. There are images of the great wine press of the wrath of God, with blood flowing from it (14:20). God drops hundred pound hailstones from heaven (16:21). If we remember that apocalyptic literature was often written in times of suffering and distress, this human element of vengeance makes some sense, and we need to read such passages in light of the whole Bible and its witness to God’s love. Whatever the character of God’s judgment, it cannot be separated from God’s love, and violent vengeance seems to do that.
Revelation is a mixed bag, but at its heart is the conviction that God’s purposes prevail and love wins. That should be our focus in reading the text. But the writer does not simply leave us with this. Inspired by the Spirit, we get a picture of what God’s purposes look like, about what happens when love wins. The writer describes a new heaven and a new earth.
What does this look like? God is near – the home of God is among mortals. God is near, and God offers tender care. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes…. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Human thirst, literal and figurative, is quenched. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. The nations are healed – the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Revelation is about God’s purposes prevailing. It about a conviction that love wins. It is about the nearness of God, the care of God. It is about the thirsts quenched and nations healed. It is about hope, a tenacious and persistent hope.
And there’s where it hits home for you and me today. Hope. Don’t lose hope in your life, no matter how difficult. God is present. God is near. Even when we mess up, God’s love can come through – to heal, to forgive, to give us a new start. And we do mess up. The novelist Mary Gaitskill finds in reading Revelation “a terrible abstract of how we violate ourselves and others and thus bring down endless suffering on earth” (Revelations, 371). Revelation is terrifying in places, but in that way it is true to life. The world can be dangerous and terrifying sometimes, beastly. No matter how bad it gets, though, God’s purposes continue, and in the end, love will win.
The other dimension to this message of hope for us is that we are not to give up on working for God’s newer world. It is easy to lose heart, to be discouraged, to become cynical. This week I viewed two contrasting videos – a brief video produced in the 1950s about the power of the middle class and how post-war prosperity in the middle class was providing unique opportunities. I also watched Frontline about the difficult struggles of two formerly middle class families in Milwaukee. The kind of solid, good wage manufacturing jobs that were part of the core of our post-war economy are gone, and we’ve not yet figured out how to replace many of them. Discouraging. There are many other issues around which we could be discouraged. Revelation encourages hope, staying true to God’s purposes of building a newer world. When we do, our actions contribute to that newer world coming. I love the way theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff puts this. In the eschatological image of the city, we have the assurance that our efforts to make these present cities of ours humane places in which to live – efforts which are so often frustrated, efforts which so often lead to despair – will, by way of the mysterious patterns of history, eventually provide tiles and timbers for a city of delight. (Until Justice and Peace Embrace, 140)
Hope. Because there is hope for your life in God, live hopefully. God’s at work building a newer world. Amen.
Texts: Revelation 13:11-18, 22:18-19; Revelation 21:1-7, 22:1-5
Iron Butterfly, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"
Play clip of song.
I might have played “Super-Cala-Fraga-Listic-Expi-Ala-Docious” but I don’t have that on my i pod. What these songs share is some non-sensical words, or at least words that don’t seem to make any sense. Super-cala-fraga-listic-expi-ala-docious is intended to be non-sense in a fun song, so in that way it makes some sense. “In-a-gadda-da-vida” apparently was intended to be “In the Garden of Eden.” There are a few stories about how in the garden of Eden became in-a-gadda-da-vida, but at least we know something of the intent. It makes some sense.
The year I graduated from college, I decided I was going to read something entirely for enjoyment, so I read The Lord of the Rings, but I went back even further with The Silmarillion and then The Hobbit. There are a lot of characters and events to keep track of, so I bought a companion book, a Tolkein dictionary that listed characters, events, etc. If I ever was confused during my reading, I could easily look something up.
The Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible. Someone suggested tackling this during our summer of sticky Scriptures, and so here we are. Revelation shares with “super-cala-fraga-listic-expi-ala-docious” and “in-a-gadda-da-vida” the feeling that we need some help to make sense of it all. Unfortunately, there is no authoritative guide to what the symbols in the book meant to the author, no Tolkein-like dictionary for the book.
There is no question that Revelation is strange, mysterious, fascinating, difficult, and potentially powerful. St Jerome wrote, “Revelation has as many mysteries as it does words” (The Literary Guide to the Bible, 523). It elicits all kinds of reactions. A biblical scholar has written of it: The Book of Revelation remains for many Christians a book with “seven seals,” seldom read and often relegated to a curiosity in the Bible. For others it is the book of the New Testament, full of predictions for the future and revelations about the present. (Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza,The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 1) An English novelist has reacted this way to reading the book: I found it a sick text…. There something not quite right about Revelation…. The riot of violent, imagistic occurences; the cabalistic emphasis on numbers; the visceral repulsion expressed towards the bodily…. In its vile obscurantism is its baneful effect. (Will Self, Revelations, 381)
Revelation is neglected by many, repulses others, and still others find in in a road-map for the future of the world. How might we read it so that the Spirit of God can speak to us through it?
It is helpful to remember that Revelation is a kind of literature. When you are reading science fiction, it is helpful to know that it is science fiction. Revelation is apocalyptic literature. This kind of literature, which had many expressions in first-century Judaism, purported to reveal mysteries about the cosmic dimensions of the world – what might be happening in the heavenly world and how that affects the present and future of this world. It relied on symbols and images, many of which made more sense the original audience. Reality tended to be portrayed in simplistic either-or terms – good and evil, light and darkness, God and the devil. Apocalyptic literature expected that the world would end in the near future, but only following a time of intense suffering. It was often written in times when people of faith felt themselves under threat of some kind.
One of the features of apocalyptic literature which puzzles us about Revelation is its use of symbols – seals, trumpets, beasts. Some of these symbols would have made more sense to the original readers, but even to them, some could have been mysterious. To us, we have really lost the code – the symbols are even stranger. All this use of symbolism has made Revelation open to wild interpretive flights. Kathleen Norris wrote: More than any other book of the Christian Bible, Revelation has suffered from bad interpretation; solipsistic, short-sighted, cruel (Revelations, 370). I was living in Dallas, Texas when the ATF and FBI surrounded the Branch Davidian compound about a hundred miles south near Waco. At one point, David Koresh promised to surrender if he was given broadcast time to explain his theology of Revelation. It was broadcast on Dallas radio, and I listened. It was wild. The images from Revelation have a strong echo in our culture. The last three digits of my cell phone number happen to be sixes. Don’t you suppose I get some looks!
So how do we read this work more thoughtfully, open to God’s Spirit? I think that we do so recognizing that much of the work was intended as a commentary on the author’s own day and time, a theological commentary about Roman imperial rule. A number of scholars make a strong case that the number 666 could be the numeric value of the name Nero Caesar in Hebrew. Symbolically, the number six also falls short of the number seven, considered a perfect number. Oh that my cell number ended 777.
If the author of Revelation is offering a theological-political commentary on his own time, he does so out of a deep theological commitment, and faith and trust commitment that in the end, God’s purposes will prevail. In the end love wins. In this way, the writer, inspired by the Spirit, is sharing with us the central conviction of Christian hope – in the end God’s purposes prevail. In the end, love wins.
We often think about Christian hope in very individual terms – my hope for my life, particularly in the face of death. Christian hope means that my life will continue after death in God’s love, because of God’s accepting grace which I have accepted in faith. That is part of the Christian hope, but only one part of Christian hope. In the words of one of my theology teachers and mentors, Schubert Ogden: The great virtue of apocalypticism… is that it brings to expression the truly cosmic dimensions of Christian hope, which sees in the reality of God’s love the promise of final fulfillment not only for each individual person and the whole of humankind, but also literally for every created thing. (The Understanding of Christian Faith, 135). In the end, God’s purposes prevail. In the end, love wins. In the end, for all creation.
If that conviction of Christian hope is the core of Revelation, we have to admit that it gets mixed in with a lot of other stuff, some of which seems very human, and not always the best of our humanity. Revelation takes some of the violent imagery we discussed last week and makes it a part of God’s work. God is seen in places in Revelation as a warrior wreaking vengeance on others. There are images of the great wine press of the wrath of God, with blood flowing from it (14:20). God drops hundred pound hailstones from heaven (16:21). If we remember that apocalyptic literature was often written in times of suffering and distress, this human element of vengeance makes some sense, and we need to read such passages in light of the whole Bible and its witness to God’s love. Whatever the character of God’s judgment, it cannot be separated from God’s love, and violent vengeance seems to do that.
Revelation is a mixed bag, but at its heart is the conviction that God’s purposes prevail and love wins. That should be our focus in reading the text. But the writer does not simply leave us with this. Inspired by the Spirit, we get a picture of what God’s purposes look like, about what happens when love wins. The writer describes a new heaven and a new earth.
What does this look like? God is near – the home of God is among mortals. God is near, and God offers tender care. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes…. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Human thirst, literal and figurative, is quenched. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. The nations are healed – the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Revelation is about God’s purposes prevailing. It about a conviction that love wins. It is about the nearness of God, the care of God. It is about the thirsts quenched and nations healed. It is about hope, a tenacious and persistent hope.
And there’s where it hits home for you and me today. Hope. Don’t lose hope in your life, no matter how difficult. God is present. God is near. Even when we mess up, God’s love can come through – to heal, to forgive, to give us a new start. And we do mess up. The novelist Mary Gaitskill finds in reading Revelation “a terrible abstract of how we violate ourselves and others and thus bring down endless suffering on earth” (Revelations, 371). Revelation is terrifying in places, but in that way it is true to life. The world can be dangerous and terrifying sometimes, beastly. No matter how bad it gets, though, God’s purposes continue, and in the end, love will win.
The other dimension to this message of hope for us is that we are not to give up on working for God’s newer world. It is easy to lose heart, to be discouraged, to become cynical. This week I viewed two contrasting videos – a brief video produced in the 1950s about the power of the middle class and how post-war prosperity in the middle class was providing unique opportunities. I also watched Frontline about the difficult struggles of two formerly middle class families in Milwaukee. The kind of solid, good wage manufacturing jobs that were part of the core of our post-war economy are gone, and we’ve not yet figured out how to replace many of them. Discouraging. There are many other issues around which we could be discouraged. Revelation encourages hope, staying true to God’s purposes of building a newer world. When we do, our actions contribute to that newer world coming. I love the way theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff puts this. In the eschatological image of the city, we have the assurance that our efforts to make these present cities of ours humane places in which to live – efforts which are so often frustrated, efforts which so often lead to despair – will, by way of the mysterious patterns of history, eventually provide tiles and timbers for a city of delight. (Until Justice and Peace Embrace, 140)
Hope. Because there is hope for your life in God, live hopefully. God’s at work building a newer world. Amen.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Rocket's Red Glare
Sermon preached July 7, 2013
Texts: Joshua 8:18-29; II Samuel 8:1-2; Isaiah 2:2-4; Matthew 5:9, 38-48
Thanks to some friends from church here, Julie and I were able to have a front row seat at Duluth’s July 4 fireworks. It is really pretty amazing what some creative minds can do with chemical compounds and explosive devices. It is also kind of amazing how such a display helps me think about all the things I appreciate about being a citizen of the United States. I appreciate the beauty of our country – spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountains majesty, lakes, rivers, canyons. I appreciate the diversity in our nation. We are a country primarily comprised of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. Mine came from Finland, France (through Canada) and Sweden. While we have not been perfect in our ability to bring people together, ours is a vast experiment in diversity that has been successful on many levels. I appreciate the founding documents of our country – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. When South African blacks were looking to work on a new post-apartheid constitution for their country, these were two important documents they relied on. I appreciate our values of freedom, opportunity, caring for community, justice, the rule of law. I recently completed a book entitled The Orphan Master’s Son, a novel set in North Korea. While it is a novel, its portrayal of a closed society where some negative word about the government could get you imprisoned was chilling, and made me grateful for our freedoms. Some of my enjoyments in life are uniquely American in origin – baseball, blues-based music like jazz and rock and roll. Because I appreciate and care about this country, I participate in its civic life, I vote, I pray.
It is also important, as we celebrate the many good things about our country to recognize that there is a human tendency to draw circles around “our group” tightly, and that such tendencies can lead to harm, violence, and destruction. The rocket’s red glare of national pride can slip rather easily into rockets of destruction aimed too indiscriminately at others.
I think the issue of human violence and destruction is the issue raised by two of the texts we read this morning, two sticky Scriptures suggested for this summer’s sermon series on difficult Bible passages. The passages from Joshua and II Samuel raise the issue of a God who seems to sanction absolute warfare with the complete destruction of the enemy, or the rather capricious killing of the other. In Joshua, the city-state of Ai is completely devastated. The city is burned and all the inhabitants were, in the words of the text “slaughtered.” Twelve thousand people were killed, all the residents of Ai. The king was hanged. In II Samuel, Moabites lose in a battle to King David, and the King uses a measure of rope to determine who will live and who will die – “two lengths of cord for those who were to be put to death, and one length for those who were to be spared.”
What do we do with these texts that are a part of our Scriptures? What do we do with such texts in a world that is often too violent and destructive, a world often marred by religious violence?
Unfortunately, it seems every religion has been used to justify violence at some time in its history. It has been used to draw a tight circle around “us,” as against “them” and then to seek to wreak havoc and destruction against them. We are acutely aware these days of violence and destruction which perpetrators justify in the name of Islam. 9-11 will never again be a series of numbers since September 11, 2001 when terrorists claiming inspiration in Islam flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York. We will never again think of the Boston Marathon in quite the same way after two young men, moved by Islamic jihad rhetoric, planted bombs at the marathon this spring.
Christianity has been used to justify violent action. The Crusades were religiously-sponsored violence. Pope Urban II in 1095 called on Christian to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims, who he called wicked, accursed, and alienated from God. The Thirty Years War in Europe in the 17th century pitted Catholic against Protestant, both justifying themselves religiously.
Buddhism, which many look upon as a religion of pure peacefulness, is currently being used to justify violence against Muslims in the country of Burma. Buddhist mobs wielding torches and machetes have attacked Muslim villages in the country.
Some think that if we just get rid of all the religious rhetoric and traditions that would eliminate such violence and destruction, but I don’t think so. I don’t believe violence and destruction are inherent in any of these religious traditions. I believe there is something in our humanity which lends itself to violence and destructiveness, and that religions are sometimes used to justify what has arisen from our human condition.
To be human is to be self-conscious, self-aware. Unlike other biological creatures, we don’t just function on instinct. We have to make our way in the world. Psychologist Erich Fromm is insightful. Man’s existential conflict produces certain psychic needs common to all men. He is forced to overcome the horror of separateness, of powerlessness, and of lostness and find new ways of relating himself to the world to enable him to feel at home…. Each of these needs can be satisfied in different ways. (The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 255). Among our basic psychic needs, Fromm argues, is a need to be effective, to make a dent, and if we can’t do that in a creative way, Fromm argues, we will do that in a destructive way (Anatomy, 264; The Essential Fromm, 82).
Another psychologist, Anthony Storr, discusses human destructiveness from a different angle. He argues that a certain amount of human aggression is natural and needed in our lives. It is linked to self-affirmation (Human Destructiveness, 7). Theologian Marjorie Suchocki puts this insight well. Aggression in itself can be good, prompting us not only toward survival, but toward development of ego-strength. It can help us to dare to do things that are good but nonetheless a bit frightening to us (In God’s Presence, 70)
So we have this need for a measure of significance, to feel like we make a difference. Storr goes on. If the individual’s requirement to be recognized and appreciated as a person in his own right has not been met, the normal drive toward self-affirmation and self-assertion becomes intensified and transmuted into hostility. Aggression is liable to turn into dangerous violence when it is repressed or disowned (21).
The situation for humans can become particularly volatile when our imaginative capacity becomes involved. In considering something like the Holocaust, Storr insightfully writes: Cruelty and destructiveness of this order is peculiar to the human species because it requires the operation of the imagination. It represents the nether side of man’s most priceless asset. To be able to see fellow human beings as wholly evil, as possessing magical powers for harm, as being both despicable and dangerous, requires an imaginative capacity not found in other species. (137)
The roots of human destructiveness are found in our human condition, in our need for self-affirmation, for significance, to feel effective. When these needs do not find a creative outlet, they seek other outlets. This may not explain socio-pathic violence, but that is beyond today’s sermon. And if the Bible is a human book, at least to some extent, as well as an inspired book, then perhaps some of this less creative human stuff finds its way into the Bible, too.
The Bible is the story of God, but also contains the stories of a nation. And have you ever noticed that some of our national stories are a bit one-sided. We tend to tell the heroic tales. We tie our significance to being members of a group. Our stories can be triumphalistic. Perhaps some of this kind of material has found its way into the Bible. Look how great an army we have, we completely defeated our enemies at Ai. Look how powerful our king is, deciding the fate of the defeated Moabites. Whatever happened, these have become heroic tales of victory.
The danger in such stories is that we take them as revealing something of the very nature of God – violent and vindictive. Such stories can seem to justify our own destructiveness. Joan Chittister makes an important distinction between patriotism and jingoism. Patriotism is love of country…. Jingoism is chauvinism, a love of country that lacks a critical eye. Or better yet, perhaps, a love of country that lacks a loving eye. When we love something to such a degree that we lost the capacity to compare it to its own best potential, we don’t really love it at all. We idolize it. Read wrongly, these passages from the Bible can seem to justify jingoism, and destruction based on it.
But such a reading is at odds with the longer sweep of the biblical story. It is not simply a contrast between an Old Testament God of violence and destruction and a New Testament God of love. Within the Old Testament itself, we see a growing sense that what God is finally about is a new world, a peaceable kingdom where they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; where nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. God is at work toward a world where the peacemakers are blessed and enemies are loved.
Such a reading of the Bible, and of these sticky Scriptures does not answer all our questions about whether war is ever justifiable, but it suggests that certain kinds of war are not. This reading of these sticky Scriptures does ask us to ask ourselves these questions. Does our reading of the Bible move us in the direction of God’s dream for the world – justice, peace, reconciliation and love? Do our expressions of faith move us in the direction of a thoughtful and reflective faith? And a thoughtful and reflective faith can support a thoughtful and reflective patriotism, though not an uncritical jingoism.
In the end, is there any positive value in reading such difficult texts such as those in Joshua and II Samuel? I know they pushed me into thinking deeply about the human needs that may lay behind violence, hostility and destructiveness. How can such needs be met more constructively. The American philosopher William James once argued that war brings out some good in people – a certain discipline, a certain camaraderie, a certain heroism. He suggested we needed a moral equivalent of war, something that called upon these positive human qualities without destroying other people. Inside of ourselves, there are times when we need to get beyond personal patterns of behavior that are harmful. We may need to marshal a certain war-like courage to confront ourselves.
Are such metaphoric readings of these sticky Scriptures worth the price? I don’t know, but if grappling with them leads us to a more thoughtful and reflective faith, leads us to a deeper commitment to God’s dream for the world, invites us to courage and love, then maybe. Amen.
Texts: Joshua 8:18-29; II Samuel 8:1-2; Isaiah 2:2-4; Matthew 5:9, 38-48
Thanks to some friends from church here, Julie and I were able to have a front row seat at Duluth’s July 4 fireworks. It is really pretty amazing what some creative minds can do with chemical compounds and explosive devices. It is also kind of amazing how such a display helps me think about all the things I appreciate about being a citizen of the United States. I appreciate the beauty of our country – spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountains majesty, lakes, rivers, canyons. I appreciate the diversity in our nation. We are a country primarily comprised of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. Mine came from Finland, France (through Canada) and Sweden. While we have not been perfect in our ability to bring people together, ours is a vast experiment in diversity that has been successful on many levels. I appreciate the founding documents of our country – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. When South African blacks were looking to work on a new post-apartheid constitution for their country, these were two important documents they relied on. I appreciate our values of freedom, opportunity, caring for community, justice, the rule of law. I recently completed a book entitled The Orphan Master’s Son, a novel set in North Korea. While it is a novel, its portrayal of a closed society where some negative word about the government could get you imprisoned was chilling, and made me grateful for our freedoms. Some of my enjoyments in life are uniquely American in origin – baseball, blues-based music like jazz and rock and roll. Because I appreciate and care about this country, I participate in its civic life, I vote, I pray.
It is also important, as we celebrate the many good things about our country to recognize that there is a human tendency to draw circles around “our group” tightly, and that such tendencies can lead to harm, violence, and destruction. The rocket’s red glare of national pride can slip rather easily into rockets of destruction aimed too indiscriminately at others.
I think the issue of human violence and destruction is the issue raised by two of the texts we read this morning, two sticky Scriptures suggested for this summer’s sermon series on difficult Bible passages. The passages from Joshua and II Samuel raise the issue of a God who seems to sanction absolute warfare with the complete destruction of the enemy, or the rather capricious killing of the other. In Joshua, the city-state of Ai is completely devastated. The city is burned and all the inhabitants were, in the words of the text “slaughtered.” Twelve thousand people were killed, all the residents of Ai. The king was hanged. In II Samuel, Moabites lose in a battle to King David, and the King uses a measure of rope to determine who will live and who will die – “two lengths of cord for those who were to be put to death, and one length for those who were to be spared.”
What do we do with these texts that are a part of our Scriptures? What do we do with such texts in a world that is often too violent and destructive, a world often marred by religious violence?
Unfortunately, it seems every religion has been used to justify violence at some time in its history. It has been used to draw a tight circle around “us,” as against “them” and then to seek to wreak havoc and destruction against them. We are acutely aware these days of violence and destruction which perpetrators justify in the name of Islam. 9-11 will never again be a series of numbers since September 11, 2001 when terrorists claiming inspiration in Islam flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York. We will never again think of the Boston Marathon in quite the same way after two young men, moved by Islamic jihad rhetoric, planted bombs at the marathon this spring.
Christianity has been used to justify violent action. The Crusades were religiously-sponsored violence. Pope Urban II in 1095 called on Christian to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims, who he called wicked, accursed, and alienated from God. The Thirty Years War in Europe in the 17th century pitted Catholic against Protestant, both justifying themselves religiously.
Buddhism, which many look upon as a religion of pure peacefulness, is currently being used to justify violence against Muslims in the country of Burma. Buddhist mobs wielding torches and machetes have attacked Muslim villages in the country.
Some think that if we just get rid of all the religious rhetoric and traditions that would eliminate such violence and destruction, but I don’t think so. I don’t believe violence and destruction are inherent in any of these religious traditions. I believe there is something in our humanity which lends itself to violence and destructiveness, and that religions are sometimes used to justify what has arisen from our human condition.
To be human is to be self-conscious, self-aware. Unlike other biological creatures, we don’t just function on instinct. We have to make our way in the world. Psychologist Erich Fromm is insightful. Man’s existential conflict produces certain psychic needs common to all men. He is forced to overcome the horror of separateness, of powerlessness, and of lostness and find new ways of relating himself to the world to enable him to feel at home…. Each of these needs can be satisfied in different ways. (The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 255). Among our basic psychic needs, Fromm argues, is a need to be effective, to make a dent, and if we can’t do that in a creative way, Fromm argues, we will do that in a destructive way (Anatomy, 264; The Essential Fromm, 82).
Another psychologist, Anthony Storr, discusses human destructiveness from a different angle. He argues that a certain amount of human aggression is natural and needed in our lives. It is linked to self-affirmation (Human Destructiveness, 7). Theologian Marjorie Suchocki puts this insight well. Aggression in itself can be good, prompting us not only toward survival, but toward development of ego-strength. It can help us to dare to do things that are good but nonetheless a bit frightening to us (In God’s Presence, 70)
So we have this need for a measure of significance, to feel like we make a difference. Storr goes on. If the individual’s requirement to be recognized and appreciated as a person in his own right has not been met, the normal drive toward self-affirmation and self-assertion becomes intensified and transmuted into hostility. Aggression is liable to turn into dangerous violence when it is repressed or disowned (21).
The situation for humans can become particularly volatile when our imaginative capacity becomes involved. In considering something like the Holocaust, Storr insightfully writes: Cruelty and destructiveness of this order is peculiar to the human species because it requires the operation of the imagination. It represents the nether side of man’s most priceless asset. To be able to see fellow human beings as wholly evil, as possessing magical powers for harm, as being both despicable and dangerous, requires an imaginative capacity not found in other species. (137)
The roots of human destructiveness are found in our human condition, in our need for self-affirmation, for significance, to feel effective. When these needs do not find a creative outlet, they seek other outlets. This may not explain socio-pathic violence, but that is beyond today’s sermon. And if the Bible is a human book, at least to some extent, as well as an inspired book, then perhaps some of this less creative human stuff finds its way into the Bible, too.
The Bible is the story of God, but also contains the stories of a nation. And have you ever noticed that some of our national stories are a bit one-sided. We tend to tell the heroic tales. We tie our significance to being members of a group. Our stories can be triumphalistic. Perhaps some of this kind of material has found its way into the Bible. Look how great an army we have, we completely defeated our enemies at Ai. Look how powerful our king is, deciding the fate of the defeated Moabites. Whatever happened, these have become heroic tales of victory.
The danger in such stories is that we take them as revealing something of the very nature of God – violent and vindictive. Such stories can seem to justify our own destructiveness. Joan Chittister makes an important distinction between patriotism and jingoism. Patriotism is love of country…. Jingoism is chauvinism, a love of country that lacks a critical eye. Or better yet, perhaps, a love of country that lacks a loving eye. When we love something to such a degree that we lost the capacity to compare it to its own best potential, we don’t really love it at all. We idolize it. Read wrongly, these passages from the Bible can seem to justify jingoism, and destruction based on it.
But such a reading is at odds with the longer sweep of the biblical story. It is not simply a contrast between an Old Testament God of violence and destruction and a New Testament God of love. Within the Old Testament itself, we see a growing sense that what God is finally about is a new world, a peaceable kingdom where they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; where nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. God is at work toward a world where the peacemakers are blessed and enemies are loved.
Such a reading of the Bible, and of these sticky Scriptures does not answer all our questions about whether war is ever justifiable, but it suggests that certain kinds of war are not. This reading of these sticky Scriptures does ask us to ask ourselves these questions. Does our reading of the Bible move us in the direction of God’s dream for the world – justice, peace, reconciliation and love? Do our expressions of faith move us in the direction of a thoughtful and reflective faith? And a thoughtful and reflective faith can support a thoughtful and reflective patriotism, though not an uncritical jingoism.
In the end, is there any positive value in reading such difficult texts such as those in Joshua and II Samuel? I know they pushed me into thinking deeply about the human needs that may lay behind violence, hostility and destructiveness. How can such needs be met more constructively. The American philosopher William James once argued that war brings out some good in people – a certain discipline, a certain camaraderie, a certain heroism. He suggested we needed a moral equivalent of war, something that called upon these positive human qualities without destroying other people. Inside of ourselves, there are times when we need to get beyond personal patterns of behavior that are harmful. We may need to marshal a certain war-like courage to confront ourselves.
Are such metaphoric readings of these sticky Scriptures worth the price? I don’t know, but if grappling with them leads us to a more thoughtful and reflective faith, leads us to a deeper commitment to God’s dream for the world, invites us to courage and love, then maybe. Amen.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Leviticus, Oh Joy!
Sermon preached June 23, 2013
First United Methodist Church, Duluth
Texts: Leviticus 18:19-26; 19:9-15, 18-19, 33-34; 25:8-17, 25-28
So here is the Bible I received from my church in the spring of my third grade year – “Young Reader’s Bible.” Doesn’t this just look like the kind of Bible young readers would want to carry around with them – hip, sleek, elegant. May 26, 1968 – doesn’t this just say “1960s”?
Another feature of the Bible was that it used different print sizes. The smallest type was used for long lists of names or rules or materials. Most of the Book of Leviticus is printed in this smallest type.
But here we are. Someone suggested Leviticus for the sticky Scriptures sermon series this summer, so here we are. Leviticus – oh joy!
Before diving into the text, a few words about the book may be helpful. Leviticus takes its name from a Greek term meaning, “of the Levites.” The Hebrew name for the book translates “the manual of the priests.” This is a text focused on rules for Levites, for priests, though there are a number of other rules and laws intended for everyone. There is a great deal of instruction about worship and animal sacrifice. Such material really begins in Exodus 25 and extends through Numbers 10. Robert Alter in his wonderful translation of the first five books of the Bible, The Torah (The Five Books of Moses) writes of the material in Leviticus: Most of the laws… are focused on topics that may seem less than urgent to audiences not part of the ancient world in which they were framed (539)…. The preoccupations with dermatological conditions, genital discharges, mildew, the recipes for fritters and breads used in the cult, and the dissection of animals and the distinctions among their various inner organs does not correspond to modern assumptions about the content of great sacred literature (544-545).
So we have this book full of rules and laws that arise from a cultural situation very different from our own. Much of the material is more concerned with ritual purity than with broad moral issues. Some have argued that many of the rules and laws had a survival function for a small, nomadic community. Cleanliness can mitigate disease. But we who live in a very different social milieu, with numerous public health laws, and with a dramatically different understanding of religious life (there will be no animal sacrifices here today), is there anything in Leviticus for us? How might we discern what has continuing relevance from what seems distinctly culture-bound and time-bound? The question matters because for all its obscurity, passages from Leviticus are still hauled out to condemn certain behaviors. Are these good readings of the text?
I think there are some things for us here in Leviticus, though I would be content to leave a great deal of the book in the smallest print of my Young Readers Bible. Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (19:2). I think this is at the heart of Leviticus, being holy, being transformed by God toward a divine-like character. Eugene Peterson, in the introduction to his paraphrase of Leviticus, writes this about holiness. Holy refers to life burning with an intense purity that transforms everything it touches into itself. Leviticus, at its heart wants to communicate something about God and the divine-human relationship.
Jewish philosopher and theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book God in Search of Man: a philosophy of Judaism, writes about this as well. Human life is a point where mind and mystery meet…. Man is driven to commune with that which is beyond the mystery. The ineffable in him seeks a way to that which is beyond the ineffable…. Beyond the mind is mystery, but beyond the mystery is mercy. Out of the darkness comes a voice disclosing that the ultimate mystery is not an enigma but the God of mercy. (353)
This desire to connect with God, merciful and holy, is the heart of the laws and rules of Judaism and of Leviticus. The rules of observance are law in form and love in substance…. Law is what holds the world together; love is what brings the world forward. The law is the means, not the end; the way, not the goal. One of the goals is “Ye shall be holy.” (323).
At its heart, Leviticus is about holiness, about a fire burning in our lives that transforms us. It is about our relationship with a holy God. But what does holiness mean beyond this image of the burning fire of life? Leviticus helps answer this question, too.
Holiness is about justice, about fairness. When harvesting, one is supposed to leave a little in the fields. “You shall leave them for the poor and the alien.” Alien here is the term used for immigrant or non-citizen. “You shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.” “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” “You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity.”
And if all this discussion of fair wages, of caring for those on the margins wasn’t strong enough in itself, there is the whole section on the year of jubilee. “It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.” No family could stay poor forever. No family could accumulate wealth forever at the expense of others. What a radical idea of justice, care and fairness. By the way, there is no good historical evidence that this part of the law was ever put into effect.
While the specifics may be time-bound, fit for an agricultural society, the principle of justice and fairness behind the specifics is strongly communicated.
Holiness is not only justice and fairness, it is love. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
At the heart of Leviticus is God and human relationship to God. God is holy. God’s heart burns intensely with love and justice. Human persons, being touched by God, are to be transformed in the direction of love and justice. This is the heart of Leviticus. This is the end to which all the specific rules and laws were directed. But rules can become unloving, laws can become unjust. Heschel: Rules are generalizations. In actual living, we come upon countless problems for which no general solutions are available. There are many ways of applying a general rule to a concrete situation. There are evil applications of noble rules. Thus the choice of the right way of applying a general rule to a particular situation is “left to the heart,” to the individual, to one’s conscience. (327). Leviticus provides within itself a principle for discerning which of its rules and laws might be more time-bound, more culture-bound.
Most would agree that rules about two kinds of cloth are time and culture bound. We don’t get too worked up about that. While tattoos are often a subject of heated discussion, few of us, even those of us not fond of tattoos, regard them as matters of deep moral significance. Yet again and again, this next verse is seen as an inflexible moral law: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.”
Do we hold on to this verse, even when we are willing to let go of so many others, because of our discomfort with human sexuality as a whole, or especially of same sex attraction? Have we allowed what is sociologically normative, that is, there will always be more heterosexual attraction than homosexual attraction, to become morally normative? Do we know much about the cultural context of the verse in Leviticus? We do know that there were some religious groups that used sexuality in ways deemed immoral and inappropriate. Is this verse directed toward such practices?
What about justice? What about love? If holiness as justice and love are the criteria for posing questions about verses in Leviticus, perhaps we should ask about justice and love in interpreting this verse.
In his insightful chapter on homosexuality in his book Jesus the Savior, theologian William Placher writes: Friends I respect who struggle with this issue sometimes say, “But the church needs to take a stand somewhere”…. Even if one concludes that [homosexuality] is a sin – and, for reasons already noted, the biblical evidence does not persuade me of that – it is also a form of behavior that gets people fired from jobs, beaten up, called rude names, generally treated with contempt in many parts of our society, and sometimes even murdered…. Those who grow up gay generally have a hard time of it in contemporary America…. The pattern of Jesus’ ministry would clearly imply that, even if homosexual behavior were a sin, here is precisely not the place to “draw the line.” Far better to draw it in the face of sin like greed, which our culture generally treats with something like admiration, especially when it is masked as “success.” (102-103)
Equally powerful are the words and witness of South African Archbishop and Noble Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu. A student once asked me, If I could have one wish granted to reverse an injustice, what would it be? I had to ask for two. One is for world leaders to forgive the debts of developing nations which hold them in such thrall. The other is for the world to end the persecution of people because of their sexual orientation, which is every bit as unjust as that crime against humanity, apartheid…. Opposing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a matter of justice. It is also a matter of love. Every human being is precious. We are all – all of us – part of God’s family. We all must be allowed to love each other with honor. (God is Not a Christian and other provocations, 54)
People of good faith disagree about how to interpret the passages from Leviticus around human sexuality. If we take the book of Leviticus seriously as Scripture, though, we should find our interpretive key in the notions of justice and love. Justice and love are what matter.
At the heart of Leviticus we find the heart of our own faith because we are invited to discover something of the heart of God. God is holy. God’s heart burns for justice and love. God seeks to transform us in the direction of justice and love. That’s our journey, the journey to which we are invited by God in grace. Oh joy. Amen.
First United Methodist Church, Duluth
Texts: Leviticus 18:19-26; 19:9-15, 18-19, 33-34; 25:8-17, 25-28
So here is the Bible I received from my church in the spring of my third grade year – “Young Reader’s Bible.” Doesn’t this just look like the kind of Bible young readers would want to carry around with them – hip, sleek, elegant. May 26, 1968 – doesn’t this just say “1960s”?
Another feature of the Bible was that it used different print sizes. The smallest type was used for long lists of names or rules or materials. Most of the Book of Leviticus is printed in this smallest type.
But here we are. Someone suggested Leviticus for the sticky Scriptures sermon series this summer, so here we are. Leviticus – oh joy!
Before diving into the text, a few words about the book may be helpful. Leviticus takes its name from a Greek term meaning, “of the Levites.” The Hebrew name for the book translates “the manual of the priests.” This is a text focused on rules for Levites, for priests, though there are a number of other rules and laws intended for everyone. There is a great deal of instruction about worship and animal sacrifice. Such material really begins in Exodus 25 and extends through Numbers 10. Robert Alter in his wonderful translation of the first five books of the Bible, The Torah (The Five Books of Moses) writes of the material in Leviticus: Most of the laws… are focused on topics that may seem less than urgent to audiences not part of the ancient world in which they were framed (539)…. The preoccupations with dermatological conditions, genital discharges, mildew, the recipes for fritters and breads used in the cult, and the dissection of animals and the distinctions among their various inner organs does not correspond to modern assumptions about the content of great sacred literature (544-545).
So we have this book full of rules and laws that arise from a cultural situation very different from our own. Much of the material is more concerned with ritual purity than with broad moral issues. Some have argued that many of the rules and laws had a survival function for a small, nomadic community. Cleanliness can mitigate disease. But we who live in a very different social milieu, with numerous public health laws, and with a dramatically different understanding of religious life (there will be no animal sacrifices here today), is there anything in Leviticus for us? How might we discern what has continuing relevance from what seems distinctly culture-bound and time-bound? The question matters because for all its obscurity, passages from Leviticus are still hauled out to condemn certain behaviors. Are these good readings of the text?
I think there are some things for us here in Leviticus, though I would be content to leave a great deal of the book in the smallest print of my Young Readers Bible. Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (19:2). I think this is at the heart of Leviticus, being holy, being transformed by God toward a divine-like character. Eugene Peterson, in the introduction to his paraphrase of Leviticus, writes this about holiness. Holy refers to life burning with an intense purity that transforms everything it touches into itself. Leviticus, at its heart wants to communicate something about God and the divine-human relationship.
Jewish philosopher and theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book God in Search of Man: a philosophy of Judaism, writes about this as well. Human life is a point where mind and mystery meet…. Man is driven to commune with that which is beyond the mystery. The ineffable in him seeks a way to that which is beyond the ineffable…. Beyond the mind is mystery, but beyond the mystery is mercy. Out of the darkness comes a voice disclosing that the ultimate mystery is not an enigma but the God of mercy. (353)
This desire to connect with God, merciful and holy, is the heart of the laws and rules of Judaism and of Leviticus. The rules of observance are law in form and love in substance…. Law is what holds the world together; love is what brings the world forward. The law is the means, not the end; the way, not the goal. One of the goals is “Ye shall be holy.” (323).
At its heart, Leviticus is about holiness, about a fire burning in our lives that transforms us. It is about our relationship with a holy God. But what does holiness mean beyond this image of the burning fire of life? Leviticus helps answer this question, too.
Holiness is about justice, about fairness. When harvesting, one is supposed to leave a little in the fields. “You shall leave them for the poor and the alien.” Alien here is the term used for immigrant or non-citizen. “You shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.” “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” “You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity.”
And if all this discussion of fair wages, of caring for those on the margins wasn’t strong enough in itself, there is the whole section on the year of jubilee. “It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.” No family could stay poor forever. No family could accumulate wealth forever at the expense of others. What a radical idea of justice, care and fairness. By the way, there is no good historical evidence that this part of the law was ever put into effect.
While the specifics may be time-bound, fit for an agricultural society, the principle of justice and fairness behind the specifics is strongly communicated.
Holiness is not only justice and fairness, it is love. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
At the heart of Leviticus is God and human relationship to God. God is holy. God’s heart burns intensely with love and justice. Human persons, being touched by God, are to be transformed in the direction of love and justice. This is the heart of Leviticus. This is the end to which all the specific rules and laws were directed. But rules can become unloving, laws can become unjust. Heschel: Rules are generalizations. In actual living, we come upon countless problems for which no general solutions are available. There are many ways of applying a general rule to a concrete situation. There are evil applications of noble rules. Thus the choice of the right way of applying a general rule to a particular situation is “left to the heart,” to the individual, to one’s conscience. (327). Leviticus provides within itself a principle for discerning which of its rules and laws might be more time-bound, more culture-bound.
Most would agree that rules about two kinds of cloth are time and culture bound. We don’t get too worked up about that. While tattoos are often a subject of heated discussion, few of us, even those of us not fond of tattoos, regard them as matters of deep moral significance. Yet again and again, this next verse is seen as an inflexible moral law: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.”
Do we hold on to this verse, even when we are willing to let go of so many others, because of our discomfort with human sexuality as a whole, or especially of same sex attraction? Have we allowed what is sociologically normative, that is, there will always be more heterosexual attraction than homosexual attraction, to become morally normative? Do we know much about the cultural context of the verse in Leviticus? We do know that there were some religious groups that used sexuality in ways deemed immoral and inappropriate. Is this verse directed toward such practices?
What about justice? What about love? If holiness as justice and love are the criteria for posing questions about verses in Leviticus, perhaps we should ask about justice and love in interpreting this verse.
In his insightful chapter on homosexuality in his book Jesus the Savior, theologian William Placher writes: Friends I respect who struggle with this issue sometimes say, “But the church needs to take a stand somewhere”…. Even if one concludes that [homosexuality] is a sin – and, for reasons already noted, the biblical evidence does not persuade me of that – it is also a form of behavior that gets people fired from jobs, beaten up, called rude names, generally treated with contempt in many parts of our society, and sometimes even murdered…. Those who grow up gay generally have a hard time of it in contemporary America…. The pattern of Jesus’ ministry would clearly imply that, even if homosexual behavior were a sin, here is precisely not the place to “draw the line.” Far better to draw it in the face of sin like greed, which our culture generally treats with something like admiration, especially when it is masked as “success.” (102-103)
Equally powerful are the words and witness of South African Archbishop and Noble Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu. A student once asked me, If I could have one wish granted to reverse an injustice, what would it be? I had to ask for two. One is for world leaders to forgive the debts of developing nations which hold them in such thrall. The other is for the world to end the persecution of people because of their sexual orientation, which is every bit as unjust as that crime against humanity, apartheid…. Opposing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a matter of justice. It is also a matter of love. Every human being is precious. We are all – all of us – part of God’s family. We all must be allowed to love each other with honor. (God is Not a Christian and other provocations, 54)
People of good faith disagree about how to interpret the passages from Leviticus around human sexuality. If we take the book of Leviticus seriously as Scripture, though, we should find our interpretive key in the notions of justice and love. Justice and love are what matter.
At the heart of Leviticus we find the heart of our own faith because we are invited to discover something of the heart of God. God is holy. God’s heart burns for justice and love. God seeks to transform us in the direction of justice and love. That’s our journey, the journey to which we are invited by God in grace. Oh joy. Amen.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
It Happens
Sermon preached June 9, 2013
Texts: Luke 13:1-9
Theodicy. It is the term for theological thinking about God and evil. If God is both all-good and all-powerful, how do we explain hurt, pain, evil, destruction? Why do bad things happen, and why do bad things happen to good people? These questions have vexed some of the great minds in history, and they continue to occupy people’s thoughts.
We hear some thinking about theodicy in our public life and in the media. The television evangelist Pat Robertson asserted that Hurricane Katrina, which devastated sections of New Orleans, was the result, in part, of abortion policy in the United States. God was sending a message. Retiring congress woman Michele Bachmann said that Hurricane Irene, and an earthquake that occurred about the same time was God trying to get the attention of politicians. Clergyperson and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, after the shootings at Sandy Hook wondered why we should be surprised. “We have systematically removed God from our schools.” Ignoring God, God was ignoring us.
This may not be the best thinking in the realm of theodicy, but it represents our natural desire to try and understand what is going on when bad things happen, and to try and understand where God might be in all of it. We want to understand better the character and nature of God.
Such thinking goes back a long way. Jesus seems to be responding to questions of theodicy in Luke chapter 13, yet his answer appears frustratingly incomplete. The person who suggested this text might have been frustrated by such an incomplete answer, as well as wondering about why bad things happen. One of the favorite theological theories in Jesus’ time, and one that still hangs around, is that bad things happen because the people to whom they happen needed correction, or punishment, or a wakeup call. The common belief that Jesus addresses is that painful experiences are the result of God’s judgment. Robertson, Bachmann, and Huckabee seem to be saying similar kinds of things, don’t they? Disaster was God’s judgment, God’s attempt to get the attention of some.
Jesus seems to reject this theological position. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No…. 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.” Jesus does not seem to think that these bad things happened because of human sin or God’s judgment. It happens. Tragic and destructive things happen.
So where is God? Jesus suggests that God is not punishing, but then where is God? Did God allow these things to happen? Are such things part of God’s plan? We often hear such theology. God may not cause hurt, pain, destruction, but God allows it. God allows such things because they are a part of God’s plan, a plan shrouded in mystery. Unfortunately, Jesus does not address these issues in this text. He seems content to say that we live in a world where it happens – tragedy, pain, destruction – it happens. He then shifts the question. I want to follow that shift, too, but not before sharing a bit of my own theological wrestling.
We read the Bible in a wide context. We should read the Bible with a view to the whole story in the various books. We also read the Bible in the context of our lives, and we experience pain, we witness tragedy. We hear preachers and television personalities and politicians say that God is punishing, or God has a plan, and we wonder about all of that. I am deeply moved by the tragic and painful events in our world – the hurricanes, the tornados, the buildings collapsing, war crimes, genocide, slavery, the Holocaust. It was in trying to come to terms with the Holocaust that some of my deepest thinking about evil began. But tragedy is not just large-scale. I have been profoundly touched by the pain of families as loved ones have died so out of time. I have heard some say that God needed another angel. While I appreciate the comfort such thinking can give, it doesn’t do that much for me. It leaves me unsatisfied.
Does God allow wide-scale massacre? Does God allow the death of a mother, a child? Are such tragedies and deaths part of some mysterious plan of God?
In the early third century, the Christian theologian, Origen, penned these words. Moreover, even the simpler of those who claim to belong to the church, while believing indeed that there is none greater than the Creator, in which they are right, yet believe such things about him as would not be believed of the most savage and unjust of men (On First Principles, 271) The writer of Hebrews, even earlier, makes a simple statement, “God is not unjust” (6:10) Frankly I find it difficult to think of some of the hurt, pain and tragedy in the world as in any way part of a plan of a just God, or a loving God.
In his classic book, When Bad Things Happen To Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner argues against trying to see everything that happens as a part of God’s will, God’s intention, God’s plan. By the way, Kushner writes out of his own wrestling. He had a son, named Aaron, who suffered from a dread disease that aged him unnaturally, prematurely, and his son died two days after turning 14. In his book, Kushner offers an interpretation of the biblical book of Job. The author of the Book of Job… believes in God’s goodness and in Job’s goodness, and is prepared to give up his belief… that God is all-powerful. Bad things do happen to good people in this world, but it is not God who wills it…. Forced to choose between a good God who is not totally powerful, or a powerful God who is not totally good, the author of the Book of Job chooses to believe in God’s goodness. (42-43)
Other teachers have helped me think along these lines. One of my doctoral professors, Schubert Ogden argues if “omnipotence” is a coherent concept at all, it cannot mean all the power there is, but only all the power that any one individual can conceivable have, given the existence of other individuals having the power over which omnipotent power can alone be exercised (The Understanding of Christian Faith, 47). That is to say, unless human freedom is a complete misunderstanding, individuals other than God have some power.
Together many of us have read Marjorie Suchocki’s book on prayer, In God’s Presence. Suchocki, too, argues that human freedom and power are real. If we have a situation where God’s power and freedom interact with our power and freedom, then we have a situation where God’s power and freedom are limited by our own (21). Think of it as a dance, whereby in every moment of existence God touches the world with guidance toward its communal good in that time and place, and that just as the world receives energy from God it also returns its own energy to God (24).
If there is such a thing as human freedom and power, we can also detect in the world a certain freedom and power in nature. We may not always like to live in a world where hurricanes and tornados are a part of the picture, but perhaps that is the only kind of world where human life is also possible. And God is always there working and willing and wooing the good in whatever way that is possible in our world.
I believe we live in a world where it happens – tragedy, suffering, pain, destruction, and also kindness, generosity, caring, compassion. It is a frustrating and beautiful world. I believe God is at work in the world toward the world’s good, but sometimes I wish God’s willing and wooing were stronger or different. I understand the language of the Psalms. Without cause they hid their net for me; without cause they dug a pit for my life…. They repay evil for good; my soul is forlorn…. You have seen, O Lord; do not be silent!... Wake up! (Psalm 35). In the end, I trust that God continues to work toward beauty, justice and love. By the way, you can disagree with where my theological thinking has taken me. It will make for good conversation and lively dialogue.
But Jesus does not spend a lot of time on such theological speculation. He even seems to suggest that it can lead one astray, off track. He shifts the question and the emphasis. “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Instead of focusing on these others who have been caught in tragedy, Jesus asks his listeners the question, “where are you?”
Luke’s is the only gospel to tell this particular story. It fits in with how Luke wants to tell the Jesus story. Remember, the Bible is both a Spirit-inspired and a human book. Luke uses the term “repent” more often than any other gospel writer (People’s New Testament Commentary). For Luke, the presence of Jesus is an occasion for people to consider how they are living their lives.
The irony of Jesus’ words is that in the end, we all die. Tragic deaths are heart-rending. They move us to ask profound questions about God and the world. In the end, though, life is terminal for everyone of us. How are we going to live? Who are we going to be? We cannot hide behind merely speculative questions about the nature of God and the world, intriguing and important as they can be. What matters most is who we are going to be in a world where it happens – tragedy and pain and suffering, and where we will all die.
The parable Jesus tells after his speculation about tragedy is meant both to reinforce the message of repentance, which is another word for turning or re-orienting. It is also a clue as to the kind of reorientation that we want in our lives. The gardener in the story is patient. He is willing to nurture the fig tree, to give it what it needs for life and fruitfulness.
God is a God of patient, tender, caring, wanting to bring the best out of each of us and in the world. This is the kind of life to which we are called. Earlier in his gospel, Luke writes that Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:36).
The writer Albert Camus is reported to have written, “Many oppressors and many more victims and very few healers.” We live in a world where it happens – where there is tragedy, suffering, pain, destruction. It is a world where death comes too early and too tragically for some, but it will come for us all. How are we going to live? Who are we going to be in such a world? To whom should we orient our lives? God’s persistent invitation is to orient our live to God’s love. God is at work for our healing and well-being. Accept that. God continues to work for the healing and well-being of the world. Join that. Now is the time. Now is always the time. Amen.
Texts: Luke 13:1-9
Theodicy. It is the term for theological thinking about God and evil. If God is both all-good and all-powerful, how do we explain hurt, pain, evil, destruction? Why do bad things happen, and why do bad things happen to good people? These questions have vexed some of the great minds in history, and they continue to occupy people’s thoughts.
We hear some thinking about theodicy in our public life and in the media. The television evangelist Pat Robertson asserted that Hurricane Katrina, which devastated sections of New Orleans, was the result, in part, of abortion policy in the United States. God was sending a message. Retiring congress woman Michele Bachmann said that Hurricane Irene, and an earthquake that occurred about the same time was God trying to get the attention of politicians. Clergyperson and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, after the shootings at Sandy Hook wondered why we should be surprised. “We have systematically removed God from our schools.” Ignoring God, God was ignoring us.
This may not be the best thinking in the realm of theodicy, but it represents our natural desire to try and understand what is going on when bad things happen, and to try and understand where God might be in all of it. We want to understand better the character and nature of God.
Such thinking goes back a long way. Jesus seems to be responding to questions of theodicy in Luke chapter 13, yet his answer appears frustratingly incomplete. The person who suggested this text might have been frustrated by such an incomplete answer, as well as wondering about why bad things happen. One of the favorite theological theories in Jesus’ time, and one that still hangs around, is that bad things happen because the people to whom they happen needed correction, or punishment, or a wakeup call. The common belief that Jesus addresses is that painful experiences are the result of God’s judgment. Robertson, Bachmann, and Huckabee seem to be saying similar kinds of things, don’t they? Disaster was God’s judgment, God’s attempt to get the attention of some.
Jesus seems to reject this theological position. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No…. 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.” Jesus does not seem to think that these bad things happened because of human sin or God’s judgment. It happens. Tragic and destructive things happen.
So where is God? Jesus suggests that God is not punishing, but then where is God? Did God allow these things to happen? Are such things part of God’s plan? We often hear such theology. God may not cause hurt, pain, destruction, but God allows it. God allows such things because they are a part of God’s plan, a plan shrouded in mystery. Unfortunately, Jesus does not address these issues in this text. He seems content to say that we live in a world where it happens – tragedy, pain, destruction – it happens. He then shifts the question. I want to follow that shift, too, but not before sharing a bit of my own theological wrestling.
We read the Bible in a wide context. We should read the Bible with a view to the whole story in the various books. We also read the Bible in the context of our lives, and we experience pain, we witness tragedy. We hear preachers and television personalities and politicians say that God is punishing, or God has a plan, and we wonder about all of that. I am deeply moved by the tragic and painful events in our world – the hurricanes, the tornados, the buildings collapsing, war crimes, genocide, slavery, the Holocaust. It was in trying to come to terms with the Holocaust that some of my deepest thinking about evil began. But tragedy is not just large-scale. I have been profoundly touched by the pain of families as loved ones have died so out of time. I have heard some say that God needed another angel. While I appreciate the comfort such thinking can give, it doesn’t do that much for me. It leaves me unsatisfied.
Does God allow wide-scale massacre? Does God allow the death of a mother, a child? Are such tragedies and deaths part of some mysterious plan of God?
In the early third century, the Christian theologian, Origen, penned these words. Moreover, even the simpler of those who claim to belong to the church, while believing indeed that there is none greater than the Creator, in which they are right, yet believe such things about him as would not be believed of the most savage and unjust of men (On First Principles, 271) The writer of Hebrews, even earlier, makes a simple statement, “God is not unjust” (6:10) Frankly I find it difficult to think of some of the hurt, pain and tragedy in the world as in any way part of a plan of a just God, or a loving God.
In his classic book, When Bad Things Happen To Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner argues against trying to see everything that happens as a part of God’s will, God’s intention, God’s plan. By the way, Kushner writes out of his own wrestling. He had a son, named Aaron, who suffered from a dread disease that aged him unnaturally, prematurely, and his son died two days after turning 14. In his book, Kushner offers an interpretation of the biblical book of Job. The author of the Book of Job… believes in God’s goodness and in Job’s goodness, and is prepared to give up his belief… that God is all-powerful. Bad things do happen to good people in this world, but it is not God who wills it…. Forced to choose between a good God who is not totally powerful, or a powerful God who is not totally good, the author of the Book of Job chooses to believe in God’s goodness. (42-43)
Other teachers have helped me think along these lines. One of my doctoral professors, Schubert Ogden argues if “omnipotence” is a coherent concept at all, it cannot mean all the power there is, but only all the power that any one individual can conceivable have, given the existence of other individuals having the power over which omnipotent power can alone be exercised (The Understanding of Christian Faith, 47). That is to say, unless human freedom is a complete misunderstanding, individuals other than God have some power.
Together many of us have read Marjorie Suchocki’s book on prayer, In God’s Presence. Suchocki, too, argues that human freedom and power are real. If we have a situation where God’s power and freedom interact with our power and freedom, then we have a situation where God’s power and freedom are limited by our own (21). Think of it as a dance, whereby in every moment of existence God touches the world with guidance toward its communal good in that time and place, and that just as the world receives energy from God it also returns its own energy to God (24).
If there is such a thing as human freedom and power, we can also detect in the world a certain freedom and power in nature. We may not always like to live in a world where hurricanes and tornados are a part of the picture, but perhaps that is the only kind of world where human life is also possible. And God is always there working and willing and wooing the good in whatever way that is possible in our world.
I believe we live in a world where it happens – tragedy, suffering, pain, destruction, and also kindness, generosity, caring, compassion. It is a frustrating and beautiful world. I believe God is at work in the world toward the world’s good, but sometimes I wish God’s willing and wooing were stronger or different. I understand the language of the Psalms. Without cause they hid their net for me; without cause they dug a pit for my life…. They repay evil for good; my soul is forlorn…. You have seen, O Lord; do not be silent!... Wake up! (Psalm 35). In the end, I trust that God continues to work toward beauty, justice and love. By the way, you can disagree with where my theological thinking has taken me. It will make for good conversation and lively dialogue.
But Jesus does not spend a lot of time on such theological speculation. He even seems to suggest that it can lead one astray, off track. He shifts the question and the emphasis. “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Instead of focusing on these others who have been caught in tragedy, Jesus asks his listeners the question, “where are you?”
Luke’s is the only gospel to tell this particular story. It fits in with how Luke wants to tell the Jesus story. Remember, the Bible is both a Spirit-inspired and a human book. Luke uses the term “repent” more often than any other gospel writer (People’s New Testament Commentary). For Luke, the presence of Jesus is an occasion for people to consider how they are living their lives.
The irony of Jesus’ words is that in the end, we all die. Tragic deaths are heart-rending. They move us to ask profound questions about God and the world. In the end, though, life is terminal for everyone of us. How are we going to live? Who are we going to be? We cannot hide behind merely speculative questions about the nature of God and the world, intriguing and important as they can be. What matters most is who we are going to be in a world where it happens – tragedy and pain and suffering, and where we will all die.
The parable Jesus tells after his speculation about tragedy is meant both to reinforce the message of repentance, which is another word for turning or re-orienting. It is also a clue as to the kind of reorientation that we want in our lives. The gardener in the story is patient. He is willing to nurture the fig tree, to give it what it needs for life and fruitfulness.
God is a God of patient, tender, caring, wanting to bring the best out of each of us and in the world. This is the kind of life to which we are called. Earlier in his gospel, Luke writes that Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:36).
The writer Albert Camus is reported to have written, “Many oppressors and many more victims and very few healers.” We live in a world where it happens – where there is tragedy, suffering, pain, destruction. It is a world where death comes too early and too tragically for some, but it will come for us all. How are we going to live? Who are we going to be in such a world? To whom should we orient our lives? God’s persistent invitation is to orient our live to God’s love. God is at work for our healing and well-being. Accept that. God continues to work for the healing and well-being of the world. Join that. Now is the time. Now is always the time. Amen.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Sticky Scriptures: Not Getting Stuck
Sermon preached June 2, 2013
Texts: II Timothy 3:16-17; II Peter 3:14-18
In 1616 Galileo went to Rome to persuade the Church authorities that the view he seemed convinced was correct – namely, that the sun was the center of the universe around which the earth rotated, a view proposed earlier by Copernicus, Galileo went to Rome to convince them of this view and that this view was not in contradiction to the Bible.
The Church, at the time, declared Galileo wrong. A verse such as Psalm 104:5, which can be translated “you set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be moved” was considered evidence that the earth did not move. A papal decree was issued declaring the idea that the sun was the center of the universe around which the earth revolved “all together contrary to Holy Scriptures.” Books propagating this viewpoint were banned. Galileo was told not to teach this viewpoint, except as an erroneous mathematical theory. Apparently he did not succeed, because in 1633 he was brought back to Rome and put on trial. He was convicted as being “vehemently suspect of heresy” and placed under house arrest, where he remained until his death in 1642.
That the earth revolves around the sun is all together contrary to Holy Scriptures. The Bible might be a problem for us. Here are a couple of sentences from a biblical scholar. The Bible is a profoundly problematic collection of books in many senses – religious, cultural, political, intellectual, moral, ethical and aesthetic…. If reading the Bible does not raise profound problems for you as a modern reader, then check with your doctor and enquire about the symptoms of brain-death. (Robert Carroll, The Bible as a Problem for Christianity, 2)
Strong words, but perhaps necessary ones. If we are honest with ourselves, the Bible is a book we struggle with. We struggle with its age. We struggle with its variety. We struggle to understand it. In some parts we struggle to stay awake for it. And in some of the parts that seem kind of clear, we struggle with what we read there. We can get stuck in our struggle with the Bible. Sometimes we find the Bible used in downright embarrassing ways.
This past week was the meeting of Minnesota United Methodists known as Annual Conference. You would not be surprised that one of the topics discussed was same-sex marriage. While an Annual Conference does not have the authority to change the overall denominational policy about same-sex marriage, which I wrote about in our most recent newsletter, we still debate, and we can make recommendations to the policy-making body of the church. In the debate in St. Cloud, a layperson from a Twin Cities church said something like: “You cannot read the Bible and say that homosexuality is not a sin. It is a sin. You cannot cherry-pick the Bible.” I could not help but notice, though, that this man was clean shaven, something prohibited in Leviticus, but that’s a future sermon. In a debate about divesting from a certain company because of its providing the Israeli government with helicopters used against Palestinians in defense of settlements, one gentleman rose to say that we cannot go against the Bible, and in the Bible the Israelis are God’s chosen people, and that this is the land God promised them.
The Bible is a struggle, and we can get stuck in it.
Part of our problem is in the claim the Bible makes for itself, or rather, certain understandings of this claim. II Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. We speak of the Bible as a uniquely inspired book. What does that mean? For a lot of folks it translates into a view of the Bible as inerrant, and its writers so moved by God that they are infallible. Such folks argue strongly that this is the only true Christian position. Anything less is vehemently suspect of heresy.
If this is the claim of the Bible and the church, we have problems. Certain interpretations of Scripture, taken literally, don’t work well with our understanding of the world. Galileo was more right about the universe than the church of his time. We have seen the earth from space, and Copernicus and Galileo were basically right about it. The church, through Pope John Paul II has admitted mistakes were made in Galileo’s trial. Pope John Paul II did that in 1992. Not exactly scientific discovery at lightening speed.
But I don’t think inerrancy makes sense. Here is a difficult quote from another biblical scholar, difficult but important. This position bristles with difficulties. Human discourse cannot, in principle or in fact, adequately comprehend its subject matter. And all human language changes in meaning and reference over time. It is virtually impossible to say what might constitute a perpetually inerrant statement, much less how such things as poems, parables, or myths might be wholly inerrant since they are not propositional to being with. The problem of how divine inerrancy could characterize essentially limited, perspectival, and linguistically constrained human discourse seems rationally insurmountable. (Sandra Schneiders, “Inspiration and Revelation” in New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible) What this scholar is trying to say is that language changes over time. At one time to be moved in one’s bowels was an expression for compassion, now it is reason to take immodium. Statements are couched in words, language. What would a perpetually inerrant statement look like?
Inerrancy, as an understanding of inspiration doesn’t make a lot of sense, but not to worry, I don’t think that is even the claim of the Bible. II Peter 3:15b-16: So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. Paul wrote according to the wisdom given him – Paul wrote. There is a recognition here that the biblical authors were human persons, writing from the wisdom given them. Inspired, but not infallible – their language can even be confusing.
This summer we are going to be looking at sticky scriptures, Bible passages that have been a problem for someone, perhaps for many. I wanted to do this to help you get unstuck, or prevent us from getting stuck on these. In a Bible with sticky scriptures, how might we avoid getting stuck? I want to touch on some general principles we will use this summer.
We begin by admitting that the Bible can be problematic. We need not kid ourselves about this. The Bible is a difficult book on many levels. It is boring in places. It is confusing in places. It is beautiful in places. Its language leaves us awestruck in places. The Bible is a tough book, yet a wonderful and beautiful book.
We avoid getting stuck when we hold together both the idea of the Bible being Spirit-inspired and human. There has been a great deal of scholarly research on authorship, and the context in which many of the books of the Bible were authored, and this is helpful information. It can help make the text come alive for us, if we are willing to search out that information. And if the authors were human, perhaps some of their cultural and intellectual ideas are part of what’s in the Bible. In the Bible God works as God always has, with human beings. God works with the world as it is, but to try and move it to a different place. That different place may be a place that goes beyond some of the cultural and intellectual imaginings of the Bible’s authors.
We avoid getting stuck by reading the parts in light of the whole. If something of God’s story is being told in the Bible, is there a direction to the story? If the direction is love and justice, peace and righteousness, might we criticize some readings of the Bible that lend themselves to injustice, hatred, selfishness, narrowness?
And if something of God’s story is being told in the Bible, for Christians the center of that story is in Jesus. “For in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). Jesus could be pretty hard on the religious authorities of his day. He often challenged the unloving interpretations of the biblical texts of his time. Not getting stuck with a difficult Bible means being willing to read the Bible with this Spirit of Jesus.
So we are going to tackle some particular Bible passages this summer, and I want to do that with the basic unsticking principles in mind. I want to tell you, though, my goal here is not to engage in an intellectual exercise which results in us holding the Bible at arm’s length, safe from its power. I want this work to be soul work, which is in part mind work – but also heart work, and vision work. You see, I want us to not get stuck so that we can open this Bible and at the same time open our hearts, open our minds to the Spirit of God which still uses these words to communicate God’s amazing, transforming love. I want us to meet the God the Bible writers are writing about.
The same man who wrote about the Bible being profoundly problematic, also writes: If you can tolerate contradiction and contrariety and can handle hyperbolic drive and chaotic manipulation of metaphor, then the Bible will burn your mind. (Carroll, 147) We want our minds to burn and our hearts to be aflame.
In other words, All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. The point of inspiration is not the production of an inerrant text. God continues to use the Bible to try and grow more loving lives. The tragedy of getting stuck with difficult Bible passages is not that we need to struggle with intellectual difficulty. That struggle is o.k. The tragedy comes when we get so stuck that we stop growing in love, that our relationship with God gets stifled. Amen.
Texts: II Timothy 3:16-17; II Peter 3:14-18
In 1616 Galileo went to Rome to persuade the Church authorities that the view he seemed convinced was correct – namely, that the sun was the center of the universe around which the earth rotated, a view proposed earlier by Copernicus, Galileo went to Rome to convince them of this view and that this view was not in contradiction to the Bible.
The Church, at the time, declared Galileo wrong. A verse such as Psalm 104:5, which can be translated “you set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be moved” was considered evidence that the earth did not move. A papal decree was issued declaring the idea that the sun was the center of the universe around which the earth revolved “all together contrary to Holy Scriptures.” Books propagating this viewpoint were banned. Galileo was told not to teach this viewpoint, except as an erroneous mathematical theory. Apparently he did not succeed, because in 1633 he was brought back to Rome and put on trial. He was convicted as being “vehemently suspect of heresy” and placed under house arrest, where he remained until his death in 1642.
That the earth revolves around the sun is all together contrary to Holy Scriptures. The Bible might be a problem for us. Here are a couple of sentences from a biblical scholar. The Bible is a profoundly problematic collection of books in many senses – religious, cultural, political, intellectual, moral, ethical and aesthetic…. If reading the Bible does not raise profound problems for you as a modern reader, then check with your doctor and enquire about the symptoms of brain-death. (Robert Carroll, The Bible as a Problem for Christianity, 2)
Strong words, but perhaps necessary ones. If we are honest with ourselves, the Bible is a book we struggle with. We struggle with its age. We struggle with its variety. We struggle to understand it. In some parts we struggle to stay awake for it. And in some of the parts that seem kind of clear, we struggle with what we read there. We can get stuck in our struggle with the Bible. Sometimes we find the Bible used in downright embarrassing ways.
This past week was the meeting of Minnesota United Methodists known as Annual Conference. You would not be surprised that one of the topics discussed was same-sex marriage. While an Annual Conference does not have the authority to change the overall denominational policy about same-sex marriage, which I wrote about in our most recent newsletter, we still debate, and we can make recommendations to the policy-making body of the church. In the debate in St. Cloud, a layperson from a Twin Cities church said something like: “You cannot read the Bible and say that homosexuality is not a sin. It is a sin. You cannot cherry-pick the Bible.” I could not help but notice, though, that this man was clean shaven, something prohibited in Leviticus, but that’s a future sermon. In a debate about divesting from a certain company because of its providing the Israeli government with helicopters used against Palestinians in defense of settlements, one gentleman rose to say that we cannot go against the Bible, and in the Bible the Israelis are God’s chosen people, and that this is the land God promised them.
The Bible is a struggle, and we can get stuck in it.
Part of our problem is in the claim the Bible makes for itself, or rather, certain understandings of this claim. II Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. We speak of the Bible as a uniquely inspired book. What does that mean? For a lot of folks it translates into a view of the Bible as inerrant, and its writers so moved by God that they are infallible. Such folks argue strongly that this is the only true Christian position. Anything less is vehemently suspect of heresy.
If this is the claim of the Bible and the church, we have problems. Certain interpretations of Scripture, taken literally, don’t work well with our understanding of the world. Galileo was more right about the universe than the church of his time. We have seen the earth from space, and Copernicus and Galileo were basically right about it. The church, through Pope John Paul II has admitted mistakes were made in Galileo’s trial. Pope John Paul II did that in 1992. Not exactly scientific discovery at lightening speed.
But I don’t think inerrancy makes sense. Here is a difficult quote from another biblical scholar, difficult but important. This position bristles with difficulties. Human discourse cannot, in principle or in fact, adequately comprehend its subject matter. And all human language changes in meaning and reference over time. It is virtually impossible to say what might constitute a perpetually inerrant statement, much less how such things as poems, parables, or myths might be wholly inerrant since they are not propositional to being with. The problem of how divine inerrancy could characterize essentially limited, perspectival, and linguistically constrained human discourse seems rationally insurmountable. (Sandra Schneiders, “Inspiration and Revelation” in New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible) What this scholar is trying to say is that language changes over time. At one time to be moved in one’s bowels was an expression for compassion, now it is reason to take immodium. Statements are couched in words, language. What would a perpetually inerrant statement look like?
Inerrancy, as an understanding of inspiration doesn’t make a lot of sense, but not to worry, I don’t think that is even the claim of the Bible. II Peter 3:15b-16: So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. Paul wrote according to the wisdom given him – Paul wrote. There is a recognition here that the biblical authors were human persons, writing from the wisdom given them. Inspired, but not infallible – their language can even be confusing.
This summer we are going to be looking at sticky scriptures, Bible passages that have been a problem for someone, perhaps for many. I wanted to do this to help you get unstuck, or prevent us from getting stuck on these. In a Bible with sticky scriptures, how might we avoid getting stuck? I want to touch on some general principles we will use this summer.
We begin by admitting that the Bible can be problematic. We need not kid ourselves about this. The Bible is a difficult book on many levels. It is boring in places. It is confusing in places. It is beautiful in places. Its language leaves us awestruck in places. The Bible is a tough book, yet a wonderful and beautiful book.
We avoid getting stuck when we hold together both the idea of the Bible being Spirit-inspired and human. There has been a great deal of scholarly research on authorship, and the context in which many of the books of the Bible were authored, and this is helpful information. It can help make the text come alive for us, if we are willing to search out that information. And if the authors were human, perhaps some of their cultural and intellectual ideas are part of what’s in the Bible. In the Bible God works as God always has, with human beings. God works with the world as it is, but to try and move it to a different place. That different place may be a place that goes beyond some of the cultural and intellectual imaginings of the Bible’s authors.
We avoid getting stuck by reading the parts in light of the whole. If something of God’s story is being told in the Bible, is there a direction to the story? If the direction is love and justice, peace and righteousness, might we criticize some readings of the Bible that lend themselves to injustice, hatred, selfishness, narrowness?
And if something of God’s story is being told in the Bible, for Christians the center of that story is in Jesus. “For in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). Jesus could be pretty hard on the religious authorities of his day. He often challenged the unloving interpretations of the biblical texts of his time. Not getting stuck with a difficult Bible means being willing to read the Bible with this Spirit of Jesus.
So we are going to tackle some particular Bible passages this summer, and I want to do that with the basic unsticking principles in mind. I want to tell you, though, my goal here is not to engage in an intellectual exercise which results in us holding the Bible at arm’s length, safe from its power. I want this work to be soul work, which is in part mind work – but also heart work, and vision work. You see, I want us to not get stuck so that we can open this Bible and at the same time open our hearts, open our minds to the Spirit of God which still uses these words to communicate God’s amazing, transforming love. I want us to meet the God the Bible writers are writing about.
The same man who wrote about the Bible being profoundly problematic, also writes: If you can tolerate contradiction and contrariety and can handle hyperbolic drive and chaotic manipulation of metaphor, then the Bible will burn your mind. (Carroll, 147) We want our minds to burn and our hearts to be aflame.
In other words, All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. The point of inspiration is not the production of an inerrant text. God continues to use the Bible to try and grow more loving lives. The tragedy of getting stuck with difficult Bible passages is not that we need to struggle with intellectual difficulty. That struggle is o.k. The tragedy comes when we get so stuck that we stop growing in love, that our relationship with God gets stifled. Amen.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Stay Tuned
Sermon preached May 26, 2013
First United Methodist Church, Duluth
Texts: Proverbs 8:1-5; John 16:12-15
Many of you are familiar with the concept of the “lectionary.” The Ecumenical Lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings – Psalm, Old Testament, Gospel, and New Testament – for each Sunday of the year. It is widely used in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. I typically follow the readings, though will not this summer in the series on “sticky scriptures” I am offering.
Today’s readings seemed to have something to do with wisdom, so I thought I would preach about it. Wisdom. Nice idea in the abstract, but was this really a wise choice?
We humans are not always so wise, or even so bright. Here are some label instructions which suggest that we have a long way to go. On a Sears hair dryer: Do not use while sleeping. On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside. On a bar of Dial soap: Directions: Use like regular soap. On a Swanson frozen dinner: Serving suggestion: Defrost. On a bread pudding: Product will be hot after heating. On an iron: Do not iron clothes on body. On most packages of Christmas lights: For indoor or outdoor use only. On an American Airlines packet of nuts: Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts. On a child’s Superman costume: Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.
Wisdom may be calling out, but you have to wonder if anyone is listening. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, renders Proverbs 8:5, which in the NRSV reads – “O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it” – this way: Listen you idiots – learn good sense! You blockheads – shape up! Sometimes we may be a little blockheaded.
Yet, we live in an information age. There is more information out there available more quickly than many of us would have imagined thirty years ago. When I first attended UMD, there was computer registration for classes. You had to go to the gym, stand in long lines, and pull computer punch cards to register, and it was always frustrating when you finally got to the table and there were no more cards for the class you wanted to take. Now my phone has more memory than the first home computer we bought. Information it might once have taken days to find out, maybe because you had to go to the library to look it up, can be received in minutes through an internet search, or a phone service like “cha cha.” We live in an age of Wikipedia and Twitter – loads of information, instantaneous information, but I am not sure we would call this information age an age of wisdom.
Bombarded with information, the words of Mick Jagger still seem pretty true, about the guy on the radio speaking “about some useless information, supposed to fire my imagination” (“Satisfaction”). The words of Bruce Springsteen still seem relevant: “there was fifty-seven channels and nothing on” (“57 Channels – and nothing on”). Do I really need to know the latest drama about the Kardashians, or Linday Lohan’s latest legel problem. Fifty-seven channels and nothing on, indeed!
Our information age has not necessarily made us less prone to blockheadedness. The information age has not magically produced an age of wisdom. Information and wisdom seem distinct, so what is “wisdom”? It is certainly not simply the accumulation of facts and information, though facts and information matter. It is not just thinking that has lasted. The phrase “conventional wisdom” indicates that our sense of what is truly wise can change, that the wisdom from the past, while important, also needs to be critically examined. The American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, defines wisdom this way: the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight. Wisdom has to do with discernment, which has to do with knowing, but more importantly, with orienting our lives.
When I think of wisdom, I often think of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer”: “God, grant us grace to accept with serenity the things we cannot change, the courage to change what should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” Wisdom has to do with discernment and with orienting our lives. For Christians, it also has to do with God’s grace. God grant us grace, and in grace wisdom. The Biblical tradition sees wisdom as paying attention to God, listening for the voice of the Spirit. “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” Later on in Proverbs 8 wisdom is portrayed as being with God at the beginning of creation, “rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” In John, Jesus says that the Spirit “will guide you into all truth” and truth here, is best understood as wisdom. The pastor and theologian Andrew Shanks puts it well. The truth that belongs to the poetry of faith is not exactly a matter of correctness. Far rather, it is the truth of a true challenge: to imagine more, to feel more, to think more – in short, to love more. And so to be inwardly change. Changed, in the sense of saved. (What is Truth?, 5) To hear the voice of wisdom is to hear the challenge to imagine more, to feel more, to think more, to love more, and so to be changed.
Wisdom for Christians has to do with the grace of God, with the work of God’s Spirit, with the person of Jesus. Marcus Borg: Jesus was a sage, a teacher of wisdom. What he taught was “a way of transformation” and “his teaching involved a radical criticism of the conventional wisdom that lay at the core of the first-century Jewish social world” (Jesus: A New Vision, 97). In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is the one in whom the very wisdom of God, the logos of God, present at creation, becomes embodied – grace and truth, grace and wisdom.
For Christians, wisdom has to do with the grace of God, with the work of God’s Spirit, with the person of Jesus. And we believe in a living God, a living presence. This wisdom of God, this Spirit-voice, still speaks. “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” Wisdom’s call “is to all that live.” The voice of wisdom still calls us to imagine more, to feel more, to think more, to love more, and so to be changed. The great challenge in our day and time is that there are so many voices, so much noise. While you would think and information age might also be an age of wisdom, we often risk losing wisdom in a flood of information. So many voices vie for our attention. Our task is to stay tuned, to pay attention.
One night Rabbi Isaac was told in his dream to go to far away Prague and there to dig for treasure under a bridge that led to the palace of the King. Rabbi Isaac paid little attention to the dream, until it recurred four or five times. He then made up his mind to go. When he arrived at the bridge he found, to his dismay, that it was heavily guarded by soldiers both day and night. All Rabbi Isaac could do was gaze at the bridge from some distance. But since he was there every morning, the captain of the guards took notice, and one day asked Rabbi Isaac what was going on. The rabbi was embarrassed to tell the captain of the guards about his dream, but seeing little alternative, and finding the man congenial, he shared his story. The captain roared with laughter. “Good heavens! You, a rabbi taking your dreams so seriously. If I were so silly as to act on my dreams, I would be wandering around Poland today. I, too have had a recurrent dream – a voice keeps telling me to go to Krakow and dig for treasure in the corner of the kitchen of one Isaac, son of Ezechiel. Now wouldn’t it be stupid of me to wander around Krakow looking for someone named Isaac, and someone else named Ezechiel? How many such people are there?” The rabbi, stunned by what he heard, thanked the captain, returned to his own home, dug up the corner of his kitchen, and found a treasure abundant enough to keep him comfortable til his death. (Anthony DeMillo, The Heart of the Enlightened, 177-178).
Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice, still? Stay tuned – through worship, prayer, silence, self-reflection, deep conversation, deep conversation with the Bible and tradition, deep conversation with others. Stay tuned, pay attention.
One final thought on this Memorial Day weekend. We need to search for wisdom in our national life as well as in our individual lives and our church life. So many in our political culture seem more oriented to shaping information, to spin it, in the interest of winning the next election, than in seeking wisdom in the midst of complex issues like national security and care for the environment. The Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel issued wise words when he wrote a number of years ago: By what standards do we measure culture? It is customary to evaluate a nation by the magnitude of its scientific contributions or the quality of its artistic achievements. However, the true standard by which to gauge a culture is the extent to which reverence, compassion, justice are to be found in the daily lives of a whole people, not only in the acts of isolated individuals (The Insecurity of Freedom, 72). These words are echoed more recently by Jim Wallis in his new book On God’s Side: The prerequisite for solving the deepest problems this country and the world now face is a commitment to a very ancient idea whose time has urgently come: the common good. How do we work together, even with people who we don’t agree with? How do we treat each other, especially the poorest and most vulnerable? How do we take care of not just ourselves but also one another? (xi).
This weekend we will remember those who gave their lives for a better United States and a better world. Isn’t one of the best memorials we can give to continue the work toward a better future? I think this is true for both the church and the world. We stand on many shoulders here, and within this past year we added another set of them as Chester Park UMC and First UMC merged. Becoming the best First UMC we can be honors those who gave so much to our churches. Becoming the best nation we can be honors those who gave themselves to and for our country.
Wisdom calls. Wisdom’s call is the challenge to imagine more, to feel more, to think more, to love more, and so to be changed. Wisdom’s call is to be changed and to work for positive change in church and world, honoring the work of so many others. That’s what we are up to here, by God’s grace and Spirit. By God’s grace and Spirit we are staying tuned to the voice of wisdom in a very noisy world. Amen.
First United Methodist Church, Duluth
Texts: Proverbs 8:1-5; John 16:12-15
Many of you are familiar with the concept of the “lectionary.” The Ecumenical Lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings – Psalm, Old Testament, Gospel, and New Testament – for each Sunday of the year. It is widely used in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. I typically follow the readings, though will not this summer in the series on “sticky scriptures” I am offering.
Today’s readings seemed to have something to do with wisdom, so I thought I would preach about it. Wisdom. Nice idea in the abstract, but was this really a wise choice?
We humans are not always so wise, or even so bright. Here are some label instructions which suggest that we have a long way to go. On a Sears hair dryer: Do not use while sleeping. On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside. On a bar of Dial soap: Directions: Use like regular soap. On a Swanson frozen dinner: Serving suggestion: Defrost. On a bread pudding: Product will be hot after heating. On an iron: Do not iron clothes on body. On most packages of Christmas lights: For indoor or outdoor use only. On an American Airlines packet of nuts: Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts. On a child’s Superman costume: Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.
Wisdom may be calling out, but you have to wonder if anyone is listening. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, renders Proverbs 8:5, which in the NRSV reads – “O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it” – this way: Listen you idiots – learn good sense! You blockheads – shape up! Sometimes we may be a little blockheaded.
Yet, we live in an information age. There is more information out there available more quickly than many of us would have imagined thirty years ago. When I first attended UMD, there was computer registration for classes. You had to go to the gym, stand in long lines, and pull computer punch cards to register, and it was always frustrating when you finally got to the table and there were no more cards for the class you wanted to take. Now my phone has more memory than the first home computer we bought. Information it might once have taken days to find out, maybe because you had to go to the library to look it up, can be received in minutes through an internet search, or a phone service like “cha cha.” We live in an age of Wikipedia and Twitter – loads of information, instantaneous information, but I am not sure we would call this information age an age of wisdom.
Bombarded with information, the words of Mick Jagger still seem pretty true, about the guy on the radio speaking “about some useless information, supposed to fire my imagination” (“Satisfaction”). The words of Bruce Springsteen still seem relevant: “there was fifty-seven channels and nothing on” (“57 Channels – and nothing on”). Do I really need to know the latest drama about the Kardashians, or Linday Lohan’s latest legel problem. Fifty-seven channels and nothing on, indeed!
Our information age has not necessarily made us less prone to blockheadedness. The information age has not magically produced an age of wisdom. Information and wisdom seem distinct, so what is “wisdom”? It is certainly not simply the accumulation of facts and information, though facts and information matter. It is not just thinking that has lasted. The phrase “conventional wisdom” indicates that our sense of what is truly wise can change, that the wisdom from the past, while important, also needs to be critically examined. The American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, defines wisdom this way: the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight. Wisdom has to do with discernment, which has to do with knowing, but more importantly, with orienting our lives.
When I think of wisdom, I often think of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer”: “God, grant us grace to accept with serenity the things we cannot change, the courage to change what should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” Wisdom has to do with discernment and with orienting our lives. For Christians, it also has to do with God’s grace. God grant us grace, and in grace wisdom. The Biblical tradition sees wisdom as paying attention to God, listening for the voice of the Spirit. “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” Later on in Proverbs 8 wisdom is portrayed as being with God at the beginning of creation, “rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” In John, Jesus says that the Spirit “will guide you into all truth” and truth here, is best understood as wisdom. The pastor and theologian Andrew Shanks puts it well. The truth that belongs to the poetry of faith is not exactly a matter of correctness. Far rather, it is the truth of a true challenge: to imagine more, to feel more, to think more – in short, to love more. And so to be inwardly change. Changed, in the sense of saved. (What is Truth?, 5) To hear the voice of wisdom is to hear the challenge to imagine more, to feel more, to think more, to love more, and so to be changed.
Wisdom for Christians has to do with the grace of God, with the work of God’s Spirit, with the person of Jesus. Marcus Borg: Jesus was a sage, a teacher of wisdom. What he taught was “a way of transformation” and “his teaching involved a radical criticism of the conventional wisdom that lay at the core of the first-century Jewish social world” (Jesus: A New Vision, 97). In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is the one in whom the very wisdom of God, the logos of God, present at creation, becomes embodied – grace and truth, grace and wisdom.
For Christians, wisdom has to do with the grace of God, with the work of God’s Spirit, with the person of Jesus. And we believe in a living God, a living presence. This wisdom of God, this Spirit-voice, still speaks. “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” Wisdom’s call “is to all that live.” The voice of wisdom still calls us to imagine more, to feel more, to think more, to love more, and so to be changed. The great challenge in our day and time is that there are so many voices, so much noise. While you would think and information age might also be an age of wisdom, we often risk losing wisdom in a flood of information. So many voices vie for our attention. Our task is to stay tuned, to pay attention.
One night Rabbi Isaac was told in his dream to go to far away Prague and there to dig for treasure under a bridge that led to the palace of the King. Rabbi Isaac paid little attention to the dream, until it recurred four or five times. He then made up his mind to go. When he arrived at the bridge he found, to his dismay, that it was heavily guarded by soldiers both day and night. All Rabbi Isaac could do was gaze at the bridge from some distance. But since he was there every morning, the captain of the guards took notice, and one day asked Rabbi Isaac what was going on. The rabbi was embarrassed to tell the captain of the guards about his dream, but seeing little alternative, and finding the man congenial, he shared his story. The captain roared with laughter. “Good heavens! You, a rabbi taking your dreams so seriously. If I were so silly as to act on my dreams, I would be wandering around Poland today. I, too have had a recurrent dream – a voice keeps telling me to go to Krakow and dig for treasure in the corner of the kitchen of one Isaac, son of Ezechiel. Now wouldn’t it be stupid of me to wander around Krakow looking for someone named Isaac, and someone else named Ezechiel? How many such people are there?” The rabbi, stunned by what he heard, thanked the captain, returned to his own home, dug up the corner of his kitchen, and found a treasure abundant enough to keep him comfortable til his death. (Anthony DeMillo, The Heart of the Enlightened, 177-178).
Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice, still? Stay tuned – through worship, prayer, silence, self-reflection, deep conversation, deep conversation with the Bible and tradition, deep conversation with others. Stay tuned, pay attention.
One final thought on this Memorial Day weekend. We need to search for wisdom in our national life as well as in our individual lives and our church life. So many in our political culture seem more oriented to shaping information, to spin it, in the interest of winning the next election, than in seeking wisdom in the midst of complex issues like national security and care for the environment. The Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel issued wise words when he wrote a number of years ago: By what standards do we measure culture? It is customary to evaluate a nation by the magnitude of its scientific contributions or the quality of its artistic achievements. However, the true standard by which to gauge a culture is the extent to which reverence, compassion, justice are to be found in the daily lives of a whole people, not only in the acts of isolated individuals (The Insecurity of Freedom, 72). These words are echoed more recently by Jim Wallis in his new book On God’s Side: The prerequisite for solving the deepest problems this country and the world now face is a commitment to a very ancient idea whose time has urgently come: the common good. How do we work together, even with people who we don’t agree with? How do we treat each other, especially the poorest and most vulnerable? How do we take care of not just ourselves but also one another? (xi).
This weekend we will remember those who gave their lives for a better United States and a better world. Isn’t one of the best memorials we can give to continue the work toward a better future? I think this is true for both the church and the world. We stand on many shoulders here, and within this past year we added another set of them as Chester Park UMC and First UMC merged. Becoming the best First UMC we can be honors those who gave so much to our churches. Becoming the best nation we can be honors those who gave themselves to and for our country.
Wisdom calls. Wisdom’s call is the challenge to imagine more, to feel more, to think more, to love more, and so to be changed. Wisdom’s call is to be changed and to work for positive change in church and world, honoring the work of so many others. That’s what we are up to here, by God’s grace and Spirit. By God’s grace and Spirit we are staying tuned to the voice of wisdom in a very noisy world. Amen.
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