CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Matthew 25: 14-30

This is a parable about personal responsibility, a warning of the terrible consequences of squandering our God-given blessings.

This is a parable about hard work, about how God blesses those who tug at their bootstraps hard enough and long enough until they finally step out of the mud and onto solid ground.

This is a parable about giving back to God, about being good and industrious stewards of financial wealth so that we may return to God that which is God’s.

The kingdom of heaven has been like this. But is this what it is supposed to be like?

Is the kingdom of upward mobility in this parable the same kingdom in which Jesus says the first shall be last? Is the kingdom of heaven a place where those with plenty get even more and those with little will have everything taken from them? Because, wasn’t it Jesus who said it was easier to thread a camel and its hump through the eye of a sewing needle than for a rich man to squeeze his bulging pockets through the pearly gates.

Jesus said that no one can serve God and wealth, but this passage has been twisted to serve both masters. The morals the Christian tradition has gleaned from this parable, to me, seem to serve the Master Mammon more so than the God of the upside-down kingdom where the poor and oppressed are the kings and the queens.

Perhaps this isn’t a parable about personal responsibility, about hard work and giving back to God. These are not necessarily bad things. Each of these values has important things to say to us; I just don’t think they are the moral lessons, or at least the only lessons, this parable offers.
This is a parable about the rich getting richer, about doubling your money and, then, just for good measure, extracting more from the less fortunate.

This is a parable about protest, about standing up to injustice in spite of the violent, awful consequences from those in power.

This is a parable about slavery, about people being exploited for prosperity.

These three are slaves, not employees. Slaves, not even servants. Their humanity was bought at a price from a slave trader or it was swallowed up in the spoils of war. They were no longer humans. They were a product. When the harsh master upbraids the third slave, he says, in the original language, not “You wicked and lazy slave,” but “You wicked and unprofitable slave.” The slave’s great crime wasn’t his lethargy; it was his lack of profit, his lack of production, because as a slave that was all he was good for, his only measure of worth.

It’s difficult for us, in 21st century America, to imagine just how horrible slavery was and just how much it insidiously boiled down, not to race, but to economics.

In the 19th century, though, slavery was a way of life in America. If you weren’t a part of the system of slavery in the South, then you were tainted by in the factories in the North that used the cotton and ate the food picked by slaves.

Our nation’s history is often told from the perspective of the powerful. Though I grew up in the Deep South, I knew little about slavery, other than that it happened, there was a war and it ended. I didn’t know that Reconstruction crumbled by charges set by our own government. I didn’t know about the plantation that changed its name to prison. But recently, I’ve been reading slave narratives, to hear former slaves like Mary Reynolds in their own voices, explain what it was like to be a piece of property.

Like the slaves in the Parable of the Talents, Mary Reynolds had a master who reaped where he did not sow and who likely would have taken pride in his ability to drive deep, motivating fear into those who worked for him. Hearing her story as a slave on a plantation in Black River, Louisiana, might help us to understand this parable from the eyes of the slave, the eyes of the outcasts of society for whom Jesus came:

“Massa Kilpatrick wasn't no piddlin' man. He was a man of plenty. … It would take two days to go all over the land he owned. He had cattle and stock and sheep and more'n a hundred slaves and more besides. He bought the bes' of niggers near every time the spec'lators come that way. He'd make a swap of the old ones and give money for young ones what could work.

"Slavery was the worst days was ever seed in the world. They was things past tellin', but I got the scars on my old body to show to this day. I seed worse than what happened to me. I seed them put the men and women in the stock with they hands screwed down through holes in the board and they feets tied together and they naked behinds to the world. Solomon the the [sic] overseer beat them with a big whip and massa look on. The niggers better not stop in the fields when they hear them yellin'. They cut the flesh most to the bones and some they was when they taken them out of stock and put them on the beds, they never got up again.

We was scart of Solomon and his whip, though, and he didn't like frolickin'. He didn't like for us niggers to pray, either. We never heared of no church, but us have prayin' in the cabins. We'd set on the floor and pray with our heads down low and sing low, but if Solomon heared he'd come and beat on the wall with the stock of his whip. He'd say, I'll come in there and tear the hide off you backs.' But some the old niggers tell us we got to pray to Gawd that he don't think different of the blacks and the whites.

We prays for the end of Trib'lation and the end of beatin's and for shoes that fit our feet. We prayed that us niggers could have all we wanted to eat and special for fresh meat. Some the old ones say we have to bear all, cause that all we can do. Some say they was glad to the time they's dead, cause they'd rather rot in the ground than have the beatin's. What I hated most was when they'd beat me and I didn't know what they beat me for, and I hated they strippin' me naked as the day I was born.

I share this story not because it is so shocking, but because I think when we hear this story and re-read the parable, it changes the meaning in a very profound way.

Slavery, whether in antiquity or in America, was an engine for the rich to build their wealth, using the souls of their slaves as fuel. On the scar-stripped skin of slaves, injustice and brutality was spun into gold, into silver, into talents -- the equivalent of 15 years of work. So how would the good and faithful slaves double that much money so quickly?

Perhaps, they followed their master’s lead. Maybe they sowed where they did not reap. Knowing what was expected of them by the harsh master, perhaps they drove their fellow slaves harder and longer under threat of the stone-tipped whip. Maybe they chopped up families, selling the elderly for younger workers who could build more, grow more and pick more.

In a slave-based economy, any gain came at the cost of humanity, both of the slave and the enslaver.

The third slave, however, refuses. Read in the context of slavery, his burial of the money is the ultimate act of defiance, an aggressively nonviolent protest that reveals the master’s true identity. And when his master returns, the slave has the courage to speak truth to power.

He says, “I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”

His indictment pulls back the curtain on the economic system of injustice and calls the master by his true name: a thief who sows where does not reap, who gathers where he didn’t scatter seed and who harvests the bodies and souls of his slaves. The slave was afraid, afraid for his fellow slaves and for himself.

The third slave knows that punishment awaits him. Flogging and torture were always done in full view of other slaves to serve as a warning against insubordination. But the third slave has seen what it costs to turn a profit, and the price is too high, for what would it profit a man if he gained the whole world, but lost his soul.

The slave puts his money in the only place where it could do no harm. In the ground. And, he returns it. “Here is your money,” he says. “You have what is yours. And only what is yours. Nothing more. Nothing less. I won’t do your dirty work.”

Unsurprisingly, the harsh master is furious, and confirms the slave’s characterization of him in word and in deed. He is thrown out, beaten, bloodied, damned to a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Of course, the difference between there and the slave quarters might have been minimal.

This, unfortunately, is what the kingdom of heaven has proven so often to be like. When anyone takes a strong, forceful stand for this kingdom of God, the world, built brick by brick, on injustice cannot stomach being shown its truest self. No one can confront the powers that be without the powerful flexing their might in return. King met the assassin’s bullet, Mandela languished in prison, Christ hung on the cross.

But there is hope. From King comes a President, rising up from a culture of dogged equality. From Mandela, a dismantling of apartheid and the construction of a mulit-racial government. From Christ’s death, comes our hope that hate, injustice and sin do not have the last word.
Unless we stand with the third slave, with Christ himself, that beacon of courageous humanity is always doomed to be tossed out by the powers that be. It is easy to get so swept up into a system that does at least as much harm as good. It takes courage to keep awake and not be lulled to sleep by the siren song of power, comfort and consumerism.

But this is a parable calling us to wake up and take up our crosses and follow Jesus, even if it leads to unpleasant places. There is so much to stand against; against injustice of hungry mouths in a land of plenty; against the exploitation of men, women and children who, like the slaves who once picked cotton, have their souls stitched into the fabric of so many of my clothes; against laws that tear apart families because of their sexuality or because of their nationality;AND against the violence that racks this community of Fairfield. The third slave challenges us to stand up with more than a sermon, with more than a bumper sticker and to do something… something radical, something together.

I've already posted my thoughts on doubt (here and here) over the past week or two, and I've stumbled across some other Christian Century bloggers hitting similar themes. Matt Mardis-Lecroy, a UCC Minister, has this reflection on doubt's function in President Obama's spirituality (here).
R.J., another UCC minister, has this reflection on doubt from the pulpit (here). And finally, pops!, has this reflection on Thomas and doubt (here).

Enjoy! I did.

Something is wrong with my priest.

She asked/voluntold me to give another sermon/nonsermon this week. And, I'm quite excited, because of what the lectionary serves up this week in the Gospel. Last week was the Parable of the Bridesmaids, which I'm sorry I missed, but have explored in-depth here, here and here.

After taking a class this semester and over the summer on slavery, I'm moved by the Parable of the Talents because it is also a slave narrative. Recasting this story from the point of view completely changes the meaning (see William Herzog's Parables as Subversive Speech, h/t R.G.)

Give it a try. Read Matt 25, and pay close attention to the idea that these are slaves, not servants; slaves, not employees. These are slaves. And, only one resists the inhumane injustice of slavery. And, that slave, like so many others who disobeyed their unholy earthly masters, were beaten to a pulp for it.

In the great garden, an immaculate tree stood in the center, with silver-tinged leaves and broad branches that stretched all the way to heaven. In winter and in spring, in summer and in fall, the sweetest-smelling blossoms erupted in more colors than the human eye could comprehend. And, from those blossoms, sprang fruit that tasted like pure honey, like the nectar of God.

People from all over the world made long, arduous pilgrimages to the Tree. They came dirty, tired and exhausted, but one glance at the tree revived their souls. Each would pluck one piece of fruit from the tree and plunge their faces into it. The juice would dribbled down their chins and drop to their aching, grimy feet. That one drop, in the blink of an eye, whisked away the dirt and the fatigue, beginning at their toes and traveling to the crown of their heads.

But, not everyone made it this tree. Some people were stolen in the middle of the night by slavers and made to toil endlessly under desert suns and beneath clouds that spewed forth bitter blizzards of ice, snow and sharp winds. Some people became exhausted, and fell under the weight of their own sorrows, despair and disappointments. Some people found themselves trampled, just a few steps away from the Great Tree, by excited, stronger pilgrims too eager for their own taste of the fruit.

The Great Tree was saddened as it looked around at all the people flung across the Earth in pain and agony, all caused only by their decision to journey to the Great Tree. Had they stayed in the safety of their homes, they would never have met the slavers, exhaustion, and the overeager. Their bodies were broken in their devotion.

Just then, a mighty rushing wind swept through the strong branches of the Great Tree, shaking loose a few pieces of honeyed fruit. With a scarcely audible cry, the nectar of God fell to the ground. Covered in dirt, in grime and disease, it felt shamed as it looked at the perfect fruit in the branches above. Trampled by unobservant pilgrims plucking fruit, it was bruised, battered and ignored. Soon, the only ones who paid it any attention were the worms, who bored a thousand tiny holes in its now soft flesh, eating away at it.

No one heard it whimper its last few breaths, as it disintegrated into a mound of rank, gummy filth.

And no one saw the seed that plunged into the deep, dark soil, beneath the surface where no light existed. And no one saw the birds that ate the other seeds amid the remnants of the fruit.

But, the man, dying of thirst and exhaustion on the roadside, saw the sapling spring from the ground.

And, it gave him hope that he could stand again.

But, the woman, forced to have sex with the master so that her child would not toil in the fields, saw the sapling spring from the ground.

And, it gave her strength to stand up in the power of her dignity and humanity.

But, the child, orphaned by a lost pilgrim, saw the sapling spring from the ground.

And, the child, lying on a bed of hay, turned his head and knew he would be fed.

So, I unwittingly inspired a series of blog posts (here and here). Unfortunately, it wasn't in necessarily the good way. Recently, Marvin Lindsay, a PCUSA pastor, posted a really interesting perspective on doubt, as it being an experience some go through in order for others not to have to go through it.

We obviously have very different experiences (and perhaps, correspondingly, definitions) of doubt. Please check out his posts to get the entire context, but no need to pile on with contradictory opinions. I decided to post my thoughts here, instead of clogging up his blog, because this is one of my most passionate issues because I know, personally, how "doubters" (I prefer mystic, but then I'm a little self-important, hence the blog post) are often treated and dismissed by clergy across the religious spectrum, liberal or conservative.

In the follow-up to my comment quoting Buechner's idea of doubt being the ants in the pants of faith, Lindsay responded that, to him, doubt is:

... the corrosive force that calls into question the worthiness of the project. Doubt sneers at the hope that a Good God waits to answer our questions. Doubt holds in contempt the confession that God is for us, not against us. Doubt wonders whether we ought to bother in the first place.
I can see where doubt in this form could become corrosive, if it leads to thumb-sitting and a kind of nihilistic, unabated skepticism and cynicism about everything, not just faith. If doubt becomes permanently paralyzing, then certainly it has gotten out of hand.

But so too can faith be corrosive. If faith becomes permanently, zealously active, without ever being self-critical and honest, it reels out of hand into the territory of abusive dogmatism, oppressive orthodoxy and bloated, prideful belief.

Perhaps, the problem is when faith is not inoculated with doubt, and vice versa.

Doubt and faith, to me (and Paul Tillich), are inseparable, two sides of the same coin. To have faith is to have doubt. Without one, the other cannot exist.

For me, doubt was not the corrosive force; my faith was. And the experience of doubt, which was intensely existential and painful, was nevertheless a constructive one. It continues to be. My concern when we demonize doubt is that we ostracize a sweeping group of people for whom faith in a good God is not as easy, be it from personal experience or from grim exposure. When we demonize doubt, associating it with sin, we obliterate the only path to to salvation some can walk.

When doubt descended on me, it threw me into four months of near-sleepless nights. My soul frayed at the edges and threatened to come apart completely. But the experience opened up enough creative tension to liberate God from the Bible and from me. Doubt pried open the lid to my soul. I don't think this experience is for everyone, but I do think it is for some, and this blog, I hope, gives those people a chance to explore faith and God in ways that some in more traditional churches may prefer to whistle past.

In doubt, I felt alienated, unsure, like someone tossed about on the waves, just as the book of James says.

But, I wonder if someone like James would rather take their chances on the rough sea in a rickety boat, constantly taking on water as the waves tumble over them, or would someone like James take their chances on the water, walking, maybe, but most likely, swimming, toward a phantom on the horizon. For me, I strained toward the phantom that materialized and disappeared with the swells, partly because I hoped the phantom ahead existed and would welcome me, and partly because I knew that whatever is ahead is better than what is behind.

In retrospect, though, the phantom rising and falling on the waves of doubt was merely a reflection of the Divine that is ever-present, materializing even from the deadly splash of dark water, from the bright pinprick orienting stars above and from within my quaking, but moving, feet. As Paul Tillich says in Dynamics of Faith, "The doubt which is implied in faith accepts this insecurity and takes it into itself in an act of courage."

Unlike Peter, it wasn't faith that forced me from the boat, it was doubt. Like Peter, though, I never want to get back in it. And, it is my sneaking suspicion that most in this terrestrial tumult live among the waves, not in the shelter of the boats.

And, speaking from personal experience, it is so much easier to hear the words of faith, hope and love -- of liberation -- above the screaming storm if they aren't shouted from afar in the comfort and safety of the boat.

When my faith foundered, the voices echoing the Nicene Creed in the cavernous halls of St. Luke Episcopal Church caught me. Buoyed by the voices of the saints past and present in that Alabama parish, I felt my faith picked up at the seams and pinned to angels who carried me over canyons of doubt. It was as if, unable to reach toward heaven on my own, the confident voices of those around me raised my own voice like a marionette doll, awkward, but vaguely human.

The Creed saved my faith. It saved me.

Now, though, I wonder how many of those strong voices that I felt carried me in weakness relied on me just the same.

And, maybe, this is the true beauty of the Creed, not that all those past and present raised their voices in utter faith and bold assurance of things unseen. Perhaps it is in the feeble offerings of each voice, giving strength to the crippled, crack cries of the next, that the Creed's true power lies.

That every time we say the Creed together, we create our faith together, spinning it out of the thin, stained light, the musty, moth-eaten faith of our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters. How ephemeral this faith is, shimmering on quivering voices, threatening to disappear with its images of the Divine and to leave behind only the smell of stale coffee breath and peppermint gum.

When we affirm our faith with the Creed, are we really simply affirming our faith in the faith of others, past, present and future?

Yet, out of such a beautiful, farcical facade, faith and community can be created, like gold from straw.

These days, there's not much left in the Creed that I believe as I once did. It's not so much that I've dismantled the deep, mysterious myths of the virgin birth, the resurrection, the one baptism for forgiveness of sins and such, but that I've realized that the true mysteries of faith have little to do with how I view the content of such stories. More often than not, I mumble through the Creed, and let the voices of the saints past, present and future wash over me, like a salve, not to restore my faith in belief, but my faith in community.

In these moments, I am much more aware that the community of the church is so much more than the fables and myths that bind us together. And, that somewhere between the two, lies the holy, fragile as decaying lace.

And as beautiful, too.

But it is a beauty tinged with the cursed. As the pious above chant of the God begotten of Light, the unfaithful faithful call out in ragged whispers from the danky moldy crypt deep beneath the sanctuary's floorboards. They are exiled by the Creed, Christians made non-Christian by the un-Christian, who forced the faith through the Constantinian sieve of statecraft.

They are the communities crucified for unity, now calling out for resurrection.

And, then, there are the ones who could not manage to say some form of the Creed, or say it convincingly enough, and found themselves on the coal-black end of a burning stake.

So, I mumble the Creed with reluctant lips and an eager heart, begging forgiveness for it even as I am healed by it.

The Creed saves me, completely. And damns me, irredeemably.

When my faith foundered, the voices echoing the Nicene Creed in the cavernous halls of St. Luke Episcopal Church caught me. Buoyed by the voices of the saints past and present in that Alabama parish, I felt my faith picked up at the seams and pinned to angels who carried me over canyons of doubt. It was as if, unable to reach toward heaven on my own, the confident voices of those around me raised my own voice like a marionette doll, awkward, but vaguely human.

The Creed saved my faith. It saved me.

Now, though, I wonder how many of those strong voices that I felt carried me in weakness relied on me just the same.

And, maybe, this is the true beauty of the Creed, not that all those past and present raised their voices in utter faith and bold assurance of things unseen. Perhaps it is in the feeble offerings of each voice, giving strength to the crippled, crack cries of the next, that the Creed's true power lies.

That every time we say the Creed together, we create our faith together, spinning it out of the thin, stained light, the musty, moth-eaten faith of our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters. How ephemeral this faith is, shimmering on quivering voices, threatening to disappear with its images of the Divine and to leave behind only the smell of stale coffee breath and Dentyne gum.

When we affirm our faith with the Creed, are we really simply affirming our faith in the faith of others, past, present and future?

Yet, out of such a beautiful, farcical facade, faith and community can be created, like gold from straw.

These days, there's not much left in the Creed that I believe as I once did. It's not so much that I've dismantled the deep, mysterious myths of the virgin birth, the resurrection, the one baptism for forgiveness of sins and such, but that I've realized that the true mysteries of faith have little to do with how I view the content of such stories. More often than not, I mumble through the Creed, and let the voices of the saints past, present and future wash over me, like a salve, not to restore my faith in belief, but my faith in community.

In these moments, I am much more aware that the community of the church is so much more than the fables and myths that bind us together. And, that somewhere between the two, lies the holy, fragile as decaying lace.

And as beautiful, too.

So, I'm not really calling this a sermon any more. Neither am I preaching tomorrow. I am merely just speaking. Anyway, this is pretty much it. Feel free to comment with critiques, worries or pointers. And place bets on whether I'll ever be asked again. :)

On Mountaintops (Exodus 33)


Growing up, I went to churches that spoke of “mountaintop experiences” with God, these indescribable moments of sheer joy, ardent, worshipful closeness with God that lofted and buoyed the spirits beyond the daily turmoil of life into a kind of ecstatic fervor. I heard preachers talk about Moses meeting God at the top of Mt. Sinai, of Elijah meeting God at the top of Mt. Horeb and of the two prophets joining a transfigured, bioluminscent Jesus.
I was on the mountaintops when I knelt at the altar seeking the presence of God, hoping to see God face to face, as a friend, as Moses, Elijah and Jesus did. I was on the mountaintops when I yielded without protest to the will and whims of God’s mighty, if at times capricious, hand. I was on the mountaintop when I had no doubts that God would always walk with me, always talk with me and would never, ever even consider leaving my side and send me to wander in the dark of the wilderness alone.
But I wonder whether we had it all wrong, because Moses’ mountaintop experience doesn’t sound anything like the experiences I had.
At the top of Mt. Sinai, Moses isn’t yielding to God. He’s bickering with the Almighty on the mountaintop. He isn’t worshiping God, he’s challenging the wisdom of the All-Knowing, up there where the air is thin, the ground barren. It is in the valleys that Moses seems surest of God, promising the people of the Creator’s continual, loving presence. On the mountaintop, Moses doubts the promises even as he is fighting for them.
And, I’m pretty sure he’s terrified, too, not so much with fear and trembling but haunted by the idea that all he has promised the people will be revealed as vanity, that he will find himself alone as they are lost in search of a Promise of Land. You see, God, after leading the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery, had apparently become violently ill with the people after they went on essentially an idolatrous bender. Now, the One who promised to go with them is promising to vanish while the Israelites wander in the wilderness.
It would seem that God is a like a pathological deadbeat dad, constantly seeking a chance to cut and run, to abandon his children rather than deal with their tantrums.
In fact, earlier, God tries to disown the Israelites. As God’s anger burns at the golden calf debacle, God tries to shove the people onto Moses, telling the prophet to deal with “your people” who “you brought out of Egypt” and who are now making unholy mischief at the foot of the mountain. This God who wrought terrible plagues on the Egyptians, who creeped death into the palace beds, to free the people of God now flatly denies any connection to them. This is always when Jerry Springer brings out a manila envelope with the DNA paternity test.
Moses’ rejoinder is more subtle, but no less effective, essentially saying, “Don’t put this on me, these are your people, God, who you delivered from Egypt. Will you know abandon us?”
So now, with God again threatening to go out for ice and then high tail it to heaven, Moses finds himself as the defense lawyer for his people. His argument is brilliant, methodical and extremely rational. He essentially paints God into a corner, and God acquiesces and promises to go with Moses and the people.
So perhaps, for Moses, the mountaintop isn’t this glamorous experience like we we would like to think. What if the mountaintop isn’t this light-filled place that burns away our doubts, our insecurities and our fears? What if the mountaintop is the place that throws these things into sharp relief? Maybe, the mountaintop is the place where we have no choice but to face these things we keep hidden in polite society. Maybe it is this transparency and the unbearable lightness of being that Moses experiences on the mountaintop and that sets his face on fire when he finally comes down.
While the mountaintop trope is a common one in Christianity, I think maybe we misunderstand it as the summit of perfect sanctification that, at least temporarily, lifts us above the imperfect muck in the valleys below us. Because every time we see prophets encountering God in high places, it is always in unexpected ways and in unfortunate circumstances.
And rarely, is it a moment of sheer joy, of absolute surrender to God, of perfect union with the Holy of Holies.
We see Elijah, alone, hunted by assassins and emerging from his mountaintop cave, straining his ear into the screaming storm, waiting, hoping for the whisper of God in the sheer silence.
“Why have you left me here alone, the last of the faithful?” Elijah shouts in despair.
We stand amazed as Job, in his righteousness and his righteous anger, finally rips away the sack-cloth piety, revealing his oozing boils, his rawness of flesh and spirit and indicts the Creator God for using him as a rook in some cosmic chess match with the adversary.
“Why have you abused me for the spoils of divine sport?” Job cries.
We hear the hoarse, desperate whispers of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, pleading in utter, terrible humanity to drink from a cup, any cup, that doesn’t overflow with his own blood. We avert our eyes and whistle over the beggardly cries of Christ on the cross.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Why?
Why?
Why?
This question, faced when we have no other options but to face it, is what transfigures our souls. It isn’t a mere coincidence that Jesus, on the mountain of transfiguration, finds himself flanked by Moses and Elijah, a kind of divine foreshadowing of his own mountaintop confrontation with God.
No, this is the question, infused with doubt, tinged with hope, echoes from the mountaintops of faith.
And I think the most frustrating thing for me is the silence that seems to clog the air as our questions echo off the cold stone of the mountain walls, returning to us, in a distorted, fading voice. We never get a straight answer from God.
But maybe this is part of the problem. We come to God seeking answers, demanding an explanation of things we cannot understand. But, maybe, God is not an answer. God is the question at the heart of all our questions.
But I do not come to church to face my questions. More often than not, I come to escape them, to let others recite the Creed and have their faith carry me over the gulf of my own doubts. And, there is value in this, don’t get me wrong. But how is it that I have made this house of worship in my mind so sacred that I can no longer be human in it? So holy that I would hold our breaths if Christ came in, foul-smelling and homeless, sleeping on rocks as pillows? When I walk through those doors, more often than not, I fold up my doubts and hope to have my faith filled up for a little while longer.
What would happen if, instead, I came desperate enough for a glimpse of God that I sullied this holy of holies with humanity. Would a glimpse be enough to wipe away that which haunts me? No, but a glimpse of God is always all I can hope for. A glimpse of God is all my soul can hold. In my finitude, in my humanity, in this second of eternity in which I live, I can only hope to glimpse the faint trace of the infinite, the ultimate reality beyond and within me.

And, this, in the end, is God’s final answer to Moses who doesn’t trust the very promises of God, the promise that God will not leave or forsake us in the wilderness. When Moses asks to see God as proof that God will not leave the people as they trek toward the promised land, God responds by lifting the veil between this world and the next. God responds by speaking the true name of the Lord, the name which cannot be uttered by human tongue.
But all Moses can glimpse of this glory is the backside of God.
This is all we can ever see of God. At the moment of revelation, this encounter with God, when our finite minds finally catch on to the message of God, God is already disappearing behind ineffable mystery, leaving behind a vacuum of faith and doubt. We wonder if our souls and eyes are fooling us even as we feel our hearts warmed and burning within us. This overwhelming glance of infinite beauty, grace and love out of the corner of our eyes vanishes even as it appears.
This is humanity’s experience of God. It is the experience of chasing after a ghost, albeit a holy one.
Like Moses, when we see God, we see only the back side of God, because at that moment of dynamic divine revelation, God is already moving away from us, beckoning us away from the mountaintop and back into the messiness of human community. We see the back side of God and hear the voice saying, “Come and follow me.”
For me, this is the problem with the typical understanding of “mountaintop experiences” with God, the understanding with which I grew up. When the mountaintop remains only at the altar, only in worship, only in prayer, they are fundamentally selfish. Though they might make us feel better and warm our souls, these mountaintop experiences, shrouded with flimsy fog of empty inspiration, seek a chance to step outside of the injustice, pain and despair in the world and in our lives, instead of drawing us inexplicably toward these very place where God call us.
Moses descends from Mt. Sinai, chasing the backside of God into the wilderness. Elijah descends from Mount Horeb, chasing the backside of God, despite the peril of assassins, toward the people of God. Jesus comes down off the cross and up from the grave. His back is to us, and we cannot see his face, but we hear his voice saying come and follow me as he sprints from the mountaintop – this place of worship –- to live among the poor and the oppressed; to bring a cup of cold water to the thirsty; a crust of bread to the hungry; and measure of justice to the world, to our neighborhoods, through us.

So, in a fit of vanity, I googled my blog name and found an unsigned bluegrass outfit called The Franz Family. Apparently, on their May 2008 album, they have an amazing instrumental called (drum roll, please) "Unorthodoxology." I couldn't be prouder, not that I actually think it had anything to do with my stuff mind you. But considering most of their lyrics seem more on the orthodox side of things, I wonder what is behind this song.

The music, though, is really good and feeds my obsession with new-style bluegrass. If this band catches your ear, try out Abigail Washburn and Crooked Still as well. They are much in the same style.

there is a place beyond belief, where faith is true, and false. this promised land in which I incarnate god and god incarnates me, and together with the incarnations of humanity, we seek and find and create and destroy, this Jehovah, this God, this Christ.

in the land of milk and honey. curdled,
sweet. a river of creeds running over rough hewn rocks that drown
some yet quench desert throats.
the wrath of god entombed in its violent weight
the love of god kneeling before the indignity of humanity.
i black the eye of Christ Jesus splits my lip.

on the mountaintop, we see god, and scream
transfiguration: in fury, in frustration and faithfulness
revelation yields only doubt.

there is a place beyond belief, where my faith is true,
and false,
where in the Judas kiss I atone
for sins I have not committed.

So, my priest asked me if I wanted to preach this Sunday.

Texts: Exodus 33:12-23 and Matthew 22:15-22 and 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10.

Each of these texts speak to me in a variety of ways, particularly the Exodus passage. The difficulty is in picking a way. Or maybe I should, in very postmodern form, embrace that difficulty and tell the story from a number of perspectives. That could be interesting. And then, ask the congregation which story speaks to them and why.

I'm would certainly be interested in hearing from you folks out there who read this. How do these stories speak to you? Where do you find yourself in them, or do you?

I'll post whatever it is that I'm going to say (a sweetened, condensed version) on here Friday or Saturday.

I am packing my bags, our picture frames, dishes, knick-knacks and all the memories of a lifetime in this house. Tomorrow, the bank will own the place I call home. My safety net, our retirement, has slipped away, like sand through a sieve.

I asked Jesus, "Am I to forgive these brothers of mine, who stole, exploited and took advantage of the poor, of the middle class, of people like me just trying to keep my family in food, clothes and a small measure of comfort?"

Jesus replied, "Yes."

"But how many times? How many times must we bear the brunt of others wrongs, must we feel the shattered glass of greed raining down on us? Seven times seven?"

Jesus replied, "Even 700 billion times seven, we must forgive."

******

"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," Jesus said. Wall Street.

"You have made this house into a den of robbers," he said. Main Street.

Surely, I say to you, whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done unto me," Jesus said. The Side Streets.

With all due respect to Bono, I think he gets it wrong when he talks with justified, righteous anger about the moral bankruptcy of the $700 billion bailout and how that money would be better spent fighting poverty. Transnational companies will continue to find ways to exploit our neighbors, the American government will not relinquish its dominance over weaker countries and we make it possible by literally buying into consumer culture.

If a real bailout of a sinking world is to happen, it must begin not with the banks on Wall Street or the businesses on Main Street, but with the wounded people on the side streets.

We begin by opening our front doors and sharing what we have. We change the world adding chairs to our dinner tables. We battle consumerism not on the front lines of a bailout, but on the winding path of community, a far more unsettling proposition.

But we cannot simulataneously call for change without we ourselves changing first.

We cannot expect Wall Street and the U.S. government to fight hunger and poverty when our actions are speaking so much louder than our words.

Jesus knew this. Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, for change doesn't come from Wall Street. Cleanse Main Street with righteous anger, but don't assume the vendors don't come flooding back the moment we leave. Help our neighbors, help ourselves, help the world; change ourselves, change our neighbors, and hope the world changes with us.

(please note, the opening anecdote is a fictional retelling of one of Jesus stories. My wife and I rent.)

Ever since my son started walking, I've been spending more time outside, sitting on my front stoop watching and interacting with him. He's enthralled by the dirt, rocks and flowers in our front yard, and mesmerized by the dogs that trot by and the birds that zip overhead.

In the past two weeks, I have met my neighbors. After living here a year, I finally know who lives in the really cool house a little way down (two artists with a platinum blond little boy), the house overlooking the regional park (an pleasant old man whose zucchini plants are becoming feed for deer) and the man with the awesome dreadlocks whose son plays college baseball. I've noticed my wonderful neighbor seem more burdened as her sister's Alzheimer's degenerates.

Julie Clawson had an interesting post recently about establishing just economies and the one-day-hoped-for revolution of fairness. My brother, The Grey Rider, always talks to me with great hope about ways to change things for the better and the potential for transforming the oppressive system.

Call me a Calvinist (which I'm not), but I'm not that hopeful in humankind's ability, particularly the rich, to put aside their greed for the good. I think there is a better chance we will run this planet, our neighbors and our families to a grinding, halting crisis before we would reach out a hand in compassion and justice.

Yet, I still buy fair trade coffee and sugar. Yet, I still shop at farmers markets. Yet, I still do all those things that good little liberals in the Bay Area are supposed to do.

And yes, these things are important to the "revolution." We must shop local, but we must also stop shopping so much. We should buy fresh, sustainably produced food, but we should also learn how to grow our own food. It is about reaching out to the "needy" community, but it is also about meeting my own community, sitting out on my front stoop and learning about my neighbors, sharing our thoughts and those things we no longer need.

Those folks with the 6-year-old are planning to give -- give! -- us their old baby stuff they don't need. And we're giving them our old infant stuff we don't need so they can share it with a single-mom they know. Recently, we dined on delectable plums our neighbors gave us rather let rot in the yard. There's a pint of tomatoes I picked that I'll be giving away tomorrow.

Imagine not a world in which we all shop at farmers markets and create a sustainable system. Imagine a world where most of our food comes from the bounty and generosity of the backyards of an entire street, where we grow not just what we want, but what the street needs. What if instead of everyone growing tomatoes and plums, we planned our gardens to cut out as much as possible of the ever-increasing grocery bill. Maybe this is the way we take back the economy from the masters of puppets pulling the strings on gas and food prices.

Maybe we do it by sitting on our front porch instead of in front of the television. Maybe we do it by digging up our lawns and planting food. Maybe we do it by sharing what we have not finding a cause to give to. Maybe we do it by returning to a simpler, more time-consuming era, where we repair our clothes rather than buy new ones, where we pick our food from the plants rather than select it from the shelves.

My 1-year-old son is eating Cheerios with a fork.

It would be fitting for the first woman vice president -- and possibly president -- of the United States to have been forged in the holy fires of Pentecostalism.

Though mocked and marginalized by mainstream society for the better part of its century as a movement, Pentecostalism has a long history of breaking glass ceilings. It is largely considered one of the first -- if not the first -- Christian group in America to cross racial and gender boundaries, integrating its worship services and opening its pulpits up to both minorities and to women.

Despite this progressivism (which was somewhat reined in by later generations), American society generally has turned a skeptical eye toward the emotional, ecstatic movement that seemed to subvert "respectable" religion. Denigrating them as "holy rollers," newspapers and the media immediately condemned the camp meetings.

And not much has changed. Remember the wholesale insulting of the entire Pentecostal movement in the film "Jesus Camp"? And every so often, a news program will do a sensationalized look at speaking in tongues, charismatic worship and attempt to debunk the phenomenon. America society has a long-standing discourse that distrusts Pentecostals, I would argue, because at the turn of the 20th century, they crossed strict societal boundaries and at the turn of the 21st century, they maintain an ardent belief in such nonrational and unscientific things as faith-healings and prophecy.

Palin grew up in the Assemblies of God, a charismatic-pentecostal denomination, which believes that the baptism of the Spirit, which is phsyically manifested in glossolalia, is available and intended for all Christians. So, it is more than probable that Palin not only participated in the raucous pentecostal worship, but that she also spoke in tongues, believes in faith-healing, and other such things. We know from her speech at Wasilla Assembly of God, she does believe in divine prophecy that tells believers what is happening and what will happen.

Now, as I've mentioned before (detailed here), I'm not a big fan of much of Palin's theology. But this aspect, the charismatic, Pentecostal bit isn't part of that. I couldn't careless if Palin spoke in the tongues of angels. Also, I think Matt Damon is completely offbase when he implies that someone who believes in creationism shouldn't have the nuclear codes, as if somehow that belief impairs judgement and morality.

People have talked about Palin shattering the glass ceiling which has imprisoned women from rising to the highest offices in our nation. But I think Palin faces another kind of glass ceiling, a different kind of prejudice that, if it surfaces and Americans are made aware of it, will be much harder to break.

Personally, I think the United States is more than ready for a woman vice president or president. I'm not sure, though, they would be prepared to put a Pentecostal in the same place.

Palin doesn't have a pastor problem, no matter how much liberals are salivating over some comments she made recently at Wasilla Assembly of God, the Pentecostal church into which she was baptized and had called home since 2002.

People are still pinging over Palin's comment in this clip. Some, like Charlie Gibson, are implying that Palin sees the war in Iraq as a task from God (here and here), while others are soft-pedaling the statement (here), saying it was taken out of context (sounding eeriely similar to liberal defenses of one Jeremiah Wright).

But Palin doesn't have a pastor problem. She has a theology problem, which is much more troubling.

But first, it should be noted that Palin is speaking extemporaneously. She jumps around the theological and social landscape of Alaska, the Assemblies of God and, as she is fond of calling them, "these United States." In case you don't want to watch the entire video (here), her controversial quote is prefaced by a lengthy discussion of her son Track and his upcoming deployment (September) to Iraq with the Army.

After asking for prayers for him, she adds, "And pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right, also for this country that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task from God. That's what we have to make sure we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Alone, the quote is rather ambiguous. As the mother of a soldier, of course, you want folks praying that God will be looking out for your child. Depending on how you read it, she could be saying, particularly as a mother, rather negatively that we should pray that there is a plan at all and that the plan is God's plan.

I think the key to understanding what exactly Palin is saying is to understand what she means by God's plan and the will of God within the context of her church's theology and its intersection with the public, political sphere. Looking at the issue more broadly, instead of searching for the damning sound bite, lends a much more disturbing insight into the theological mind and motivations of a woman who, if elected as McCain's vice president, could very well lead our nation.

Earlier in her now infamous talk, she says, "As you (graduates of Wasilla Assembly of God's discipleship school) go out throughout Alaska, I can do my part work really hard to create a national pipeline, about a $30 billion project ... and pray about that (project) also. I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that pipeline built."

Here, she is not praying that "God's will by done," rather she is saying that the church must pray so that God's will can be done. In other words, the unification of people and companies is God's will. A national pipeline in Alaska is God's will. But, God's people must first ask for it through prayer. God's people must activate God's plan, God's will. This, of course, is but a few small steps away from the rather dangerous name-it-claim-it theology popular in many Pentecostal circles.

Further, in praising the church's pastor, Ed Kalnins, she remembers his prayers when she was running for governor.
"He's so bold. He's praying, 'Lord make a way! Lord make a way!' ... I'm thinking this guy is really bold. He's not praying, 'O, Lord if it be your will may she become governor,' or whatever. He just prayed for it."
Here, most clearly, the emphasis is not on submitting to or seeking God's will, but on praying in such a way as to shape God's will in order to conform to our own will. I might note that Jesus taught his disciples to pray that God's will be done, or whatever, not that my will be made into God's will.

To me, this theology is scarier than what we know of W's theological underpinnings. W, at least, attempted to *do* what he thought was God's will. Palin, it would seem, would seek to mold the mind of God to conform to her politics, opinions and ideas. Palin doesn't want to do God's will; she wants to create it.

Perhaps, most tellingly, though, was the sermon preached at Wasilla Assembly of God for Memorial Day (video here), in which Pastor Kalnins informs his congregation that not only are America's wars justified, but they essentially represent the mighty arm of God.

"Many times war will wake up a nation, and here's what i'm afraid of, what's happening right now, whenever a citizen curses a war, many times they are cursing God's work," Pastor Kalnins says. "Many times it leaves our soldiers in Iraq unprotected because our citizens are complaining."
Later, he says:
"We pray for our government and we pray for our president. Lord, that you would just give them wisdom and that you would forgive the nation that is cursing them, God that is critizing them. Your word says to never criticize a leader. Forgive those who raise a hand against the White House, of the man that you placed in. We pray for President Bush that his latter years in the latter times would be much greater all put together in the moment." (emphasis mine)

In fairness, though Wasilla Assembly of God was Palin's church for most of her life, Kalnins was not the pastor that Palin grew up under. Still, there seems to be much resonance with their theology (both speak of prophecy in the sense of future-telling; Palin explains that the "spirit of prophecy that God is going to tell you what is going on and what is going to go on."). Further, Palin appears on stage with both Kalnins and the founding pastor who baptized Palin and apparently still attends there. So clearly, there has not been a profound theological shift within this church.

I think it would be unfair, though, to quote Kalnin as a surrogate for Palin's real views. However, Kalnin's theology provides us with an authoritative context (she obviously admires him as a man of God), which then can inform our understanding of Palin's religious ramblings.

Of course, it should also be noted that little of what either said would upset many folks who vote right-of-center. Like Jeremiah Wright's rants, these blips serve as nothing more than a viral energizer to Obama's liberal base.

If you want to laugh, spend half a minute and read this poem called Storm Troopers.

A big thank you to Prickliest Pear for posting this:

From John Hick's The Metaphor of God Incarnate:

The basic fault of the traditional understandings of salvation within the Western development of Christianity is that they have no room for divine forgiveness! For a forgiveness that has to be bought by the bearing of a just punishment, or the giving of an adequate satisfaction, or the offering of a sufficient sacrifice, is not forgiveness, but merely an acknowledgment that the debt has been paid in full. (127)

Sweat and blood stung his eyes, but the pain fueled his arms and legs past the point of exhaustion and fatigue. It was a fitting end to what had been a rather shitty month. All the conniving and scheming had finally come back to haunt Jacob, and he was on the run from his brother, his father-in-law, his family and all his lies that had driven everyone away.

And then, in the loneliness of the night, Jacob had come face to face with God. Maybe God picked the fight, wanting to put an end to Jacob's arrogance. Maybe it was God against whom Jacob had been fighting his entire life. Or maybe, it was no more than the flaring tempers of two stubborn creatures.

So, they fought.

Locked in immortal-mortal combat, they wrestled all night, the cool of the desert at night obscured by hot breath and bleeding lips. Jacob matched the Ominpotent blow-for-blow in what must have been an epic battle.

As the first traces of dawn invade the star-flecked sky, God tried to escape, but Jacob kept fighting, pulling the Infinite back to the dirt and spit of humanity.

And, then, Jacob found out that God is a bloody cheat.

Like a prehistoric Tanya Harding, God took his magic forefinger and dislocated Jacob's hip, crippling him in jarring pain.

But Jacob wouldn't let go.

"You bastard," said Jacob, passions unfurled from the fight. "I would have beaten you. Who the hell do you think you are?"

God shrugged and tried to kick him off those divine ankles.

Jacob demanded a name, half hoping his opponent wouldn't say Yahweh for how could he stomach a God who acted so unfairly, so unjustly. Or maybe, it was Jacob himself -- that cheater and deceiver -- with whom he was wrestling on that night.

"I know who you are," Jacob says. "So bless me, you cheat, you thief."

And so, Jacob is blessed -- and cursed -- as Israel, a symbol for all who have cursed the heavens even as they look to them for divine direction in the silence of the stars.

And so, Jacob is cursed -- and blessed -- as Israel, that man who met a God with flaws, who saw his own flaws in God and fought with them both.

God blessed Jacob.

It was the least that God could do.

Henry Poole Is Here isn't a long movie. It just plays one on the big screen.

By the time I had finally given up on the film, I looked down at my watch fully expecting to be well into the second hour of the movie, given the amount of boredom weighing down my eyelids.

I was shocked to see that only an hour had gone by in the 99-minute film that feels like a three-hour epic.

Yes, Henry Poole is here and he is dying, struck by bad dialogue, a nonexistent storyline, schmaltzy religion and a Rare Incurable Disease Without A Name (RIDWAN).

Not only does his fatal illness have no name, it doesn't really seem to have any symptoms either. Left to guess, I'd say it's probably a deadly strain of pink eye, given Henry's incessant eye-rubbing. Either that, or he sweats sunscreen, thus, permanently and irrevocably irritating his eyes.

Or, perhaps, its a disease that slowly locks the body's joints. How else are we to explain the awkward gestures and lumbering gate of Henry (Luke Wilson)? How else to explain Henry's apparent inability to actually open his mouth while speaking? I kept wondering if perhaps he had made off with his diagnosing doctor's stash of cotton balls and hidden the entire fluffy collection in his unshaven jowls.

So, Henry does what any person suffering from a RIDWAN would do. Seek a second opinion? No, Henry heads to his childhood home, the place where, paradoxically, he last remembers being happy and the place where his parents fought and divorced.

The house he buys comes with a fuzzy stain which looks (and bleeds) remarkably like a Catholic Jesus. His neighbors, led by the hopeful (and annoyingly symbolically named) Esperanza, believes it a miracle and pretty soon all manner of supernatural things are occurring. The movie magically suspends time, allowing the film to drone on and on and maintain its short hour-and-a-half running time. The wealthy start sharing their money with the poor. Food suddenly overflows in the cupboards of the hungry. Genocidal maniacs and gang-bangers fall on their knees in front of the Jesus Stain and renounce their evil ways.

Or not. Actually, a girl bespeckled with coke bottles gets to live her life without the inch thick rims. The blind, or almost blind, see. And a little girl, who hasn't spoken because of her traumatic parents' break up, touches the wall and can talk again.

Henry thinks it's a bunch of crap and does what anyone suffering from a RIDWAN would do when offered a hoaky chance at the miraculous. He avoids it, tries to scrub it off and finally takes an ax to it. This makes perfect sense. Here is a man with a disease without a cure and with a miracle stain in his backyard. No way would he even remotely want to see if perhaps it might work.

This is the kind of contrived crap that religious movies should avoid, casting the nonbeliever role in such absurd terms. People with diseases have done crazier things for a cure than touch a bleeding stain on a wall.

And, the movie's pandering of the miraculous in such blatantly naive terms reminds one of a church skit more than a Hollywood indie flick. All these miracles are self-serving ones; they do nothing more than make us feel good. They require nothing of the healed, except to gawk straight at the camera and fake a thankful tear.

What a capricious God that would use almight divine power to appear on a back wall so that a girl won't have to wear glasses any more and that a man resigned to death so much that he won't get a second opinion gets to live a little longer.

To be honest, if God shows up somewhere, I'd rather see the Divine working wonders in Darfur, Iraq, the murder-ridden, gang-saddled streets of urban America than in Henry Poole's booze-soaked backyard.

Of course, the movie is worth going to see, if only to hear the worst dialogue ever put on the silver screen.

Henry: (to Esperanza after saying something that was supposed to be profound) You sound like a fortune cookie.
Esperanza: Yes, well cookies don't talk, Mr. Poole.

More than anything, this movies displays the full, terrible result of the film industry's recent desire to cash in on the faithful. With its pseudo-artsy close-ups and montages, the film seems destined to be cut up and shown as sermon illustrations in megachurches across America. In fact, it'd probably be better that way, considering the lifeless storyline.