Logs in Eyes and Thorns in Sides: Some thoughts on staying human in the face of the world's latest madness

"Cure thy children's warring madness, bend our pride to your control." -- from a hymn by Harry Emerson Fosdick

This is probably not an objectively accurate assessment, but the world seems to me to be in even more turmoil than usual.

Because of my time in Palestine/Israel, my email inbox and Facebook news feed are both overflowing with articles about the devastation in Gaza and the turmoil in '48 Israel and the West Bank. Iraq is once again in the news, and I pray for Middle Eastern Christians and ethnic minorities there even as I pray, desperately, that my government doesn't, once again, assume that we can fix things with more bombs. The numbing level of destruction in Syria continues. Meanwhile, the ebola outbreak ravages on; unaccompanied children cross lonely deserts in desperate hope that the source of the policies wrecking their countries of origin can also be a place of sanctuary; friends get themselves arrested to try to bring some compassion and sanity to our treatment of these children; Leigh's experiences this summer have made me aware of the absurdity of the U.S. incarceration system; a friend is undergoing treatment for a rare form of cancer.

And, from July 18-24th, I embarked on a week long reminder that I (a) do actually need sleep and (b) am not actually particularly skilled at working with youth, all the while coming face-to-face with all the hurt that is present even here in 'paradise.'

I know it's a privilege to even be able to say this, but I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Which explains why, after a long week of working with my 'Concrete Christ Service Project' youth at a variety of community organizations on Oahu--all the while sleeping little and unsuccessfully trying to ignore the "warring madness" of the world--I found myself crying while I tried to offer a final reflection to the youth.

I really respect people who get energized in the face of injustice and catastrophe; who channel the fierce heat of anger into the focused passion needed for sustained advocacy and activism.

I am not really that person.

I click on article after article, feel more and more hopeless, waver between unhelpful engagement and total shutdown. I default to depression. I get tired of saying what feels the same thing over and over again. I run out of words, and get terrified that I will never have them--words, that is--again.

So I've read and watched and felt useless, and I finally needed to write something, to at least have a word or two. To breathe some sort of life instead of just choking silently.

I'm not going to offer much in the way of analysis about Palestine/Israel or Iraq or the border situation. Hundreds of people are already doing that--some helpfully, and some not so helpfully--and I'll include a couple of links at the end of this if you want to hear from people with some expertise.

What I am going to write a few words about is how I am trying to keep my own humanity alive so that maybe I can do something helpful to protect the humanity of others.

There is a part of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus says: “Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when there’s a log in your eye? You deceive yourself! First take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye."

The passage is about not judging others by a different standard than the one by which you judge yourself. It's about not being a hypocrite.

But to me, it's also a word of grace. Because it tells me that I am not powerless in the face of violence or destruction or injustice. Rather, I am involved. My gaze is involved. And that means that there is something that I can do. Something we can do. Good news.

There's plenty of specifics I can talk about, many of which I've written about in detail before. BDS is one type of specific action that starts with my purchases and the decisions of groups that I have a voice in--my church and my government. The youth and young adults I worked with this summer wrote letters of welcome and love to unaccompanied children crossing the U.S. border through the website TheyAreChildren.com--a simple way to overcome the distancing with which national policy is often decided. And I don't think the U.S. can say anything-anything-anything about the current catastrophic situation in Iraq without looking at the log in our own eye when it comes to violence and chaos in the region.

Of course, this sort of examination of complicity can land me right back in the hopeless pile, so I don't just need to remember Jesus' admonition about logs-in-eyes. I also need Paul's reminders about thorns-in-sides. About how it's sometimes not so simple to remove them. And about how Jesus responds to our prayers about them, sometimes, by saying, "My grace is sufficient for you, because power is made perfect in weakness."

Sufficient. Or, to be less Bible-y: enough.

It's all I could think of to tell the youth on the final day of our camp. I choked up a bit as I told them that God's grace is enough; and that if, as I believe, we are all created in the image of that God and held infinitely in the grace of that God, then we, too, are enough.

We're enough.

I think we all need to step a bit out of our comfort zones, but I think that will look differently for all of us. Some will submit themselves to arrest; others will call Congress; others will bake cookies for a sick neighbor. We will do different things at different times. We will have different selves to offer to the world during different periods of our lives.

But we will be enough.

What we have to offer will be enough.

It's in weakness, Christ tells Paul, that God's power is made perfect. It's in our soft, fleshy, imperfect humanness that God does what needs to be done. We're not called to be superhuman. Just to stay human. That's step number one.

We have logs in our eyes--each of our individual eyes, and our collective, institutional eyes. We have logs in our eyes, and we have thorns in our sides. But we have a God who is sufficient, and who calls us to do, for a world seemingly gone mad:

just enough.

So pray, with me. Trust God, and do the next thing. And please try to stay human out there, friends.

----
a very few of the more helpful pieces I've seen over the past week or so:

-- resource packet from the California-Pacific Annual Conference (UMC) Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer for Unaccompanied Migrant Children
-- statement and prayer about Gaza from folks at Bethlehem Bible College
-- analysis of the implications of international law for the crisis in Gaza from the excellent Noura Erakat 
-- reflection about listening to marginalized voices, such as those incarcerated, by Leigh Finnegan
-- I'd read anything that Robert Fisk writes; he's a fierce truth teller
-- some thoughts on Christian responses to Iraq from Jeremy Courtney of Preemptive Love
-- video from the UMC General Board of Church and Society on a simple way to 'vote' for justice and peace in Palestine/Israel (hint: don't buy SodaStream)
-- reflection on children in war, from Mark Schaefer at American University 

and of course there are dozens of great organizations to support with your social media presence and your cold, hard, cash. let me know if you want details on that. 

My questions about "A Way Forward"

I was going to put a link to "A Way Forward" in case you haven't read it, but actually, if you haven't read it, I'm not sure you care too much about this post. Which I'll sort of circle back to at the end. So, skip to the end...or, instead, go outside, take a walk, and get lost in wonder, love, and praise.

For the authors of the document and those signing, my question is:
Who is the intended audience? What is the purpose of the signatures? To show support, of course--but to whom? What is the goal of the effort put into this?

For those who want to split, my question is:
What will we do differently so that we're not just a smaller version of an irrelevant social club? Do we really believe that by leaving either the conservatives or the liberals behind, we will suddenly be able to fulfill our mission more effectively, or are we just saying that because it sounds better than "we don't like each other"? Would the labyrinth of logistical considerations related to a split be worth the "mission payoff"?

For those who want to stay in communion, my question is:
Is there a better way to do that than a $10 million logistical nightmare, requiring significant effort, time, and travel for thousands of people who palpably dislike each other, and organized around 19th century parliamentary rules that were never meant to be simultaneously translated, resulting largely in decisions that are ignored by most of our congregations, much less people in our mission field? Is anyone, at all, looking at General Conference and saying, "Look at those Christians! See how they love each other!"

For those who want to keep the language in the discipline, my question is:
If doctrinal obedience is so important, why were you not absolutely up in arms about the 302 delegates (around a third of the total) who voted against a statement that "God’s grace is available to all, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus," a statement so clearly in line with biblical principles and Wesleyan teaching? Is what the Bible says about same-gender sex really more important than what it says about grace? Isn't grace upon grace upon grace, not sex, the Wesleyan emphasis? Where the doctrinal denunciations of Neo-Calvinism, or Christian Zionism? Or the trials of pastors who refuse to baptize infants or, for that matter, pursue socially responsible investment (a Disciplinary requirement)?

For those who want to change the Discipline, my question is:
What is going to change, in 2016 or 2020 or 2024, to make the hurtful experience of 2012 worth going through again? For those that our awful language most directly impacts, those who have most grievously injured by this whole mess, doesn't it become re-traumatizing at some point? And for those working on legislation, do we see this as (sorry to rip off the phrase) a way forward or is it just habit at this point?

There may be answers to all those questions. Feel free to comment if you have them; I'd certainly appreciate it. But here is my last set, and it's addressed to me most of all:

Is any of what I say, about this particular controversy or about the UMC, actually doing anything to advance the mission of the church; or, more accurately, to respond to and participate in God's gracious mission of healing and transforming and redeeming and reconciling the world?

In other words: is any of this hectic activity relevant to anyone except those of us who are already talking about it?

And if not--what do I need to do differently?

Some things I remember

It is Memorial Day; a day for remembering. And it is good and right to remember.

Here are some things I remember.

I remember my dad, a two tour Vietnam vet, though you wouldn't know that from his license plate or his hat, speaking to a group of people in a university classroom. "Memorial Day is a sad day for me," he said. "It's a day I remember friends I've lost--not just in combat but here at home, from suicide or drugs or alcohol or homelessness." It was the first time I'd heard him say it so directly, in more than two decades.

I remember him, during the lead-up to the first Gulf War. How worried he was. I was young, then, and didn't have these words, but...there was a deep wound, there.

I remember being a kid, and playing war. Thinking it was a glorious thing, the guns and the planes, the heroes and the excitement. Watching war movies with my dad.

I remember the day the planes struck the towers. How clear and blue the sky was, with not a plane in sight. I remember how surreal it was. How I thought, "This is madness." And somehow knowing that this was the beginning of more madness.

I remember marching in DC with tens of thousands of others. I was with my dad and we walked down to the Vietnam War Memorial, and he found a name here and a name there. And I had the sense that this was going to happen, again.

I remember kids in my high school cheering when the principal announced that we were going to invade Iraq, and this deep sense of anger welling up in me that we would cheer death.

I remember going with a friend to a Quaker meeting in college, and feeling like perhaps peace was a possible thing, a palpable thing. Praying for it. Longing for it.

I remember hearing of the death by suicide of a young man from my high school who was in Iraq. A man--a boy--I didn't know well. And hearing that, during many months, the suicide rate among soldiers was higher than combat losses.

I remember people cheering for soldiers in the airport. How some seemed so appreciative, while others had faces that were hard to read. I remember my dad saying, "When people thank me for my service, I tell them to call up a favorite teacher and thank them instead."

I remember being in Bethlehem, with the fighter planes thundering overhead, and a young Palestinian man saying, "They are practicing for something big." And they were. And Gaza burned.

I remember being at a funeral, and watching two young soldiers fold a flag with shaking hands, and how I had the deep sense that it was right for them to do so, that this was not about any policy or any critique but about honoring a man who had served.

I remember people who have died fighting their own private wars, with depression or isolation or the weight of life.

And I remember writing all of this before. Sharing all of this before.

And I suppose that I will keep doing that, as long as we insist on adding names to the list of people we need to remember on this day.

We remember that on the night before Jesus threw himself into the face of violence, he shared bread and wine with friends. And we make a claim in the face of all evidence to the contrary that love wins. That breaking bread and sharing wine somehow has some power in the face of death's steady march. That we will feast together at a heavenly banquet.

So, yes. Today, I will remember. I will honor. I will pray for God's loving and gracious arms to hold the dead, to hold the widows and the orphans of war, to hold the veterans and the victims of war.

I will remember. And also. I will not consent to add names to the list. I will not--and I will keep saying this until I'm out of breath to do it--I will not dance to the drums of war.

A few thoughts on Aldersgate Day and sharing stories

So, today is Aldersgate Day, that wonderful day each year when I get to see which of my Facebook friends are really, truly Methodist nerds.

For those of you who aren't in the know (or who have, you know, lives and stuff), Aldersgate Day is like a Methodist mini-holy day, also known as "Heart Strangely Warmed" Day. Here's Methodist founder John Wesley's journal entry from May 24, 1738:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a [Moravian] society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Huzzah! Heart strangely warmed! Conversion experience! Revival! Methodism begins!

Here is what I love about Aldersgate Day.

While the experience at Aldersgate Street more than 275 years ago is often referred to as a conversion experience for Wesley, at the time he was not only already a Christian, but already an ordained Anglican priest. He had already gone on mission to the colonies, had truly mucked things up, and had returned feeling despondent and doubtful. What happened at Aldersgate wasn't a conversion to a different religion, it was a re-conversion (a re-"turning"). A realization that all of the things that he had read and learned and preached about might actually apply to him. That God really, actually, loved him and wanted to get up to something rather revolutionary in his messy life of faith and doubt.

I love that. It's a bit of a counter-narrative. It's not a checked box. It's not a repudiation of everything that came before, nor does it turn everything after into just telling that one story over and over and trying to get other people to have exactly the same experience. It's just a moment in time when the whole story came into focus. John Wesley would not have appreciated the sort of obsessive focus on a singular, personal salvation experience that has become so emphasized in much of USAmerican Christianity. This is, after all, the man who wrote against the concept of "holy solitaries," saying: "The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness, but social holiness."

I guess what I'm saying is, I like Aldersgate Day not because of that one day, but because of what it says about every other day. Every other part of the story. And not just my story. But my part in the whole grand story of God's love. And of all the ways that we totally don't get it. And then those times when, suddenly, it comes into focus. And we realize that God is up to some amazing things. Bridging separation. Healing brokenness. Challenging alienation and shame. Getting all up in the face of oppressive power. Inspiring. Resurrecting.

And we're invited along for the ride.

So: next time some wandering proselytizer asks you, "Have you been saved?" Or, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?" Maybe you should say:

"Got an hour or two? I've got a story to tell you."

I'd love to hear yours.

Whether today is an Aldersgate Day sort of day for you, or whether it's one of those "lost in the fog" sort of days, or whether it's one of those "I suck at talking to women [or whoever] and then I deny them communion which is sort of a no-no and then I leave the colonies in disgrace and almost die in a storm" sort of days, it's part of your story. And whether you realize it today or not, God loves you. Even you.

Even me.

Even us.

Painted wall in the common area of the Wesley Foundation at the University of Hawaii.

First thoughts on Hawaii

So. I'm in Honolulu. What to say, what to say?

It is humid here but nothing like the soul-crushing weight of humidity in DC.

This is a very diverse place. Different languages, different ethnicities, different backgrounds. I've met a few of the students I'll be working with. One is from Ithaca, NY. One is from Maui. One is from Beijing. One is from Atlanta. One is from Korea, by way of American Samoa.

Everyone has been very nice to me. The students have been giving me good tips on things I should check out.

The place where I am living is cool, but the bugs don't mess around (pictures pending--those suckers move fast).

Unlike DC, people drive pretty slow and also do not seem to be out to murder each other.

Also, when I walk my normal pace here, I feel like I'm sprinting.

Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959 after struggling to defend its sovereignty against...guess who:

 

So it's been a state for 55 years, and is the most recent U.S. state. DC, it's time.

According to one sign at the Waikiki beaches, surfing almost disappeared from Hawaii by 1900 because missionaries tried to ban it:

Way to go, us. Nothing makes Jesus look good like trying to eradicate fun.

I am not sure that I will learn how to surf:

But I definitely want to learn how to play the uke:

Spot and I can't wait for Leigh to get here so that we can check out some of these excursions (book courtesy of UMW Book Sale at Metropolitan):

And, finally, I am one lucky, lucky dude. 

A couple more songs

I was messing around this morning with recording music on my iPhone, so I thought I'd post two songs that I recorded using the generic voice memo app. I was sort of amazed at the quality of the recordings--certainly not studio quality but not terrible either. Any suggestions for more sophisticated apps?

---

Here's the lyrics:

"When We Breathe"

In you we live, in you we move, and have our very being.
And when we don't know how to pray your Spirit cries within us.
So when we breathe you're there.
When we breathe you're there.
Closer than the air is your love!
When we breathe you're there.

In you all things came to exist.
You bear along here with us.
The stars sing out, you know their names.
Creation groans for justice.
And when we breathe you're there.
When we breathe you're there.
Closer than the air is your love!
When we breathe you're there.

When we breathe in to sing your praise our lungs are already filled with your grace.

---

"Sparrows"

The first time I saw death was a tree in my backyard.
I remember I watched it fall.
And ever since that day I've been waiting for my skin to fall away.
I didn't know it then, but that's the price of being alive.

I am talking to my father now, about his father and about the war.
And he is telling me stories that my sister wants to record.
We're making sense of craziness and making light of pain.

God's eye is on the sparrow but the sparrow still falls, and so will I.

A couple of months before my mother's mother died, I drew a picture of gray birds.
They were flying away to some unknown destination, and with a child's intuition I dedicated them to her.

God's eye is on the sparrow but the sparrow still falls, and so will I.

She says that she's still hurting.
Well, so am I.
She says it's like he's still falling.
Well, aren't we all?

God's eye is on the sparrow but the sparrow still falls, and so will I.

An Easter Season Sermon -- "Playing a Different Game"

This is a sermon I preached last night in Kay Chapel at American University. It's about how it's hard to talk about resurrection when we're experiencing grief or death. It's based on 1 Corinthians 15.

The raccoon sighting is bonus material.

Christ is risen! Hallelujah!

            And Happy Easter! While it’s easy to think of Easter as a single day, in church tradition Easter Sunday is just the first day of the Easter season. It’s called the Great Fifty Days of Easter, marking the time between now and Pentecost. So while resurrection is always central to the Christian faith, in the grand story of the church, we are just beginning a whole season focused on the proclamation of the resurrection. Fifty days of joy. Which I think is pretty cool.

            But it’s also a challenge. Because sometimes, it’s awfully hard to proclaim the resurrection. It’s awfully hard to figure out how to talk about life and hope and newness when we are inevitably faced with death and despair and fear. I’m not just talking about in a general sense. I’m talking about the very real ways that each one of us is touched by death and by hurt in our lives. People we are deeply connected to who are sick, who are dying, who have already died. What do we say? How do we proclaim the resurrection, when we are holding the hand of a loved one in the hospital or hearing the bad news on the phone, and words of hope seem false on our lips?

            Last year, just before Easter, my best friend’s dad died after being sick with cancer for a very long time. During middle school and high school, I practically lived at their house. Mr. Summerville could sometimes be sort of a grumpy, cynical guy, but I knew I was always welcome to hang out, play video games, have dinner, and be a general nuisance. I went to visit while he was in home hospice care. He was having trouble talking but he smiled when I got there and told me he thought I’d make a great minister, which meant so much to me. He was someone I cared about deeply, and his son Dan, my best friend, is one of the most important people in my life. And Dan called to tell me that his dad had died, even though it was expected, even though I’ve gone to church my whole life, even though I’ve worshipped on almost 30 Easter Sundays, even though I’ve been in seminary since 2010, you know what was the best response I could come up with?

            I said, “This sucks. I am so sorry. This sucks. Cancer can go straight to hell.”

            The part about cancer going to hell was at least vaguely theological. But no words of resurrection came from my lips that day. I was sad, and angry, and I didn’t want resurrection on some distant day. I wanted Rick Summerville alive.

            Now, my best friend Dan and his dad are not the most churchy of folks, so maybe I get a break for not throwing religious language at them. But I don’t know that my response is much different when it comes to committed Christians. I’m not sure it feels much more helpful to talk theology when death strikes. My professor Mike Stavlund works for a church in Northern Virginia. A few years ago, his four-month old son, Will, died. And Mike found himself doing what no parent ever wants to do: attending the funeral of his child. Last year I heard him give a talk about grief. I asked him, after that talk, whether belief in the resurrection helped at all after Will’s death. And he said something like: “No. No, it really didn’t. It’s not that I don’t believe in it. It’s that I could have really used some resurrection in that hospital room at 3am.” He didn’t want resurrection on some distant day. He wanted Will alive.

            In the face of death, real, actual, painful death, suddenly the promises of the Great Fifty Days of Easter feel strangely hollow. Here we are, at the very center of Christian faith, and all we can think of to say is, “I’m so sorry,” and maybe that’s the best thing we can say, if we say anything at all. We hear the words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. We hear him quote from the prophet Hosea, and say: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” And then someone dies. And dammit, it sure does feel like a loss. It sure does seem to sting.

So what does that mean for the proclamation of resurrection? What does that mean for this, the core claim of our faith? As Paul says in tonight’s typically intense passage: “If there’s no resurrection from the dead, then Christ hasn’t been raised either. If Christ hasn’t been raised, then our preaching is useless and your faith is useless.” We’re Easter people. We can’t just turn away from this point.

But I don’t think we need to turn away from it. Because Paul, I think, is grappling with the same sorts of questions about resurrection. Tonight’s passage is part of a whole long chapter about resurrection. Unlike Paul’s other letters, we know that this one is written in response to a letter sent to Paul by the church in Corinth. They apparently have some pretty major doubts about this resurrection business, and Paul is trying to respond to them. Now, I need you to imagine something with me. It’s almost certain, based on passages in Paul’s letters and what we know of communication in the 1^st century Roman world, that Paul didn’t write his letters by hand; rather, he dictated to a scribe. So I want you to imagine Paul dictating this letter. And he’s trying to answer questions about the resurrection, and about whether there is a resurrection of the dead for all people or whether that was just something Jesus did, or what. And I want you to imagine Paul pacing back and forth, talking out loud, half to his scribe and half to himself, trying to figure out just what the heck to say. And he tries one explanation, and then he doesn’t quite like that, and he tries another, and doesn’t quite like that and so he tries a third. He tries to compare the resurrection to planets or to birds or to fruit or to seeds that are sown. He goes on for 58 verses, and by the end of it I wonder if he’s as confused as the Corinthians. You get to the beginning of chapter 16 and Paul’s like, “Ok...uh...anyway, let’s talk about the collection money.”

Oh, Paul.

So I keep coming back to this passage, because in the questions of the Corinthian believers and in Paul’s struggle to respond, I see my own questions and my own struggle. What the heck are we talking about when we talk about resurrection? What do we say when death does have its day? I keep coming back to this passage. About everything changing. About bodies that don’t decay. About death, no longer having a sting or a victory. No longer winning.

Victory. Winning. It’s hard to hear this language without thinking of competition. Of sports. Of games.

Ok. I know that we’ve finished our Game of Thrones Lent and Easter series, so I won’t hang on this for too long. But it occurs to me that the phrase “game of thrones” can stand in for all the games of power and violence and alienation and death on display in our world. Early on in the series, Cersei Lannister tells Ned Stark: "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die." And if you have even a vague knowledge of the series, you know that “die” is the more popular of the two outcomes. Play the game with power, play the game with violence, play the game with death, and death, it seems, wins.

And yet Paul insists that, in light of the resurrection, death has no victory, no sting. Which makes me think that Paul isn’t talking about victory in the game of thrones, the game of power, the game of death. It makes me think that Paul is talking about a different game.

For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus signifies the beginning of a new age, an entirely different world order than the pre-resurrection one. But it’s just a beginning. Using harvest language, Paul calls Jesus’ resurrection the “firstfruits” of this new world. But the full harvest is yet to come. The new world is both already here, and not yet fully here. The sun has dawned but the shadows of night still linger in the valleys where death makes its home.

So while death, for Paul, has lost its grip on the world, it’s not all the way out yet. Death is itself in its death throes, but is thrashing around and causing all sorts of damage in the meantime. Oppression and injustice and violence, and also all the stuff that doesn’t make national news but still comes crashing into our lives, cancers and car wrecks and suicides and overdoses, are all still wounding, still killing. But Christ is risen. Alleluia! And something has changed. Death is still winning the old game. But something has changed, something deep. There’s a new game being played.

Now it can be pretty tough to actually see the new game. Sometimes we get these glimpses. Like, if the game is police dogs versus civil rights protestors, police dogs will always win. But if the game is about a deep change going on in the power system of this country…well, that’s a different game. If the game is arguing with Westboro Baptist Church, I’m not sure there’s much hope for victory. But if the game is actually about responding with poetry and music and free hot chocolate…well then, that’s a different game…one which, by the way, AU won. If the game is an armed KKK member versus unarmed people in a Jewish Community Center, including two members of the largest United Methodist Church in the country, we know who wins. But if the game is about the continuing growth of interfaith friendships in communities like that one in Kansas and like this one at AU, then KKK—you’re gonna lose this game so hard. Where’s your victory, death? Where’s your victory, hate? Where’s your victory, violence?

But.

I’m not so sure that I would say that to the family of those Methodists who were killed in Kansas; at least not on the day they found out that their loved ones had been shot. It would be too soon; too easy; too abstractly theological. My mind leaps back again to holding the phone as Dan tells me his dad has died. Listening to my friend Mike as he talks about all of the saccharine stuff that good Christian friends said when his son died. Sitting with the 4 sisters of a 35 year old man whose funeral I conducted last week, and listening to their stories, and thinking: “Nothing will ever make this make sense.” And death seems to win, again. And death definitely stings.

And here’s the thing. It will sting. It will sting every single time when we can no longer hug the people we love, when we can’t call them on the phone, when we can’t hear their laugh and see their smile and wipe away their tears anymore. And you know what? It should sting. It should sting because the people we love help us see God, and so when we lose them it feels like losing a piece of our divine image. It should sting because at some fundamental level we feel the scandal of death. We experience it as injustice.

Here’s how Paul says it: “Death’s sting is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.” It’s a bit of a packed statement, but here’s how I’d paraphrase it. Death stings because it’s a part of the deep alienation that we feel, from each other and from God and from the world. It’s a tangible manifestation of the separation that we experience in our lives. And the Law, the code of justice and right conduct laid out for us in scripture, just makes us even more aware that the world is not as it should be, that there is a deep wound bleeding and that it’s killing us. Every time we try to establish justice, every time we try to make things work, we find ourselves coming up short, and we are reminded of that wound. And until the kingdom comes in all of its fullness, and we feast together at the heavenly banquet, that’s going to keep happening.

            So the resurrection isn’t a trick to try to make people feel better about the death of someone they love. No. There are times when, to paraphrase the prophet Jeremiah, we refuse to be comforted. We are allowed to mourn. We are allowed to cry. We are allowed to yell at God. In fact, I can show you the psalms that do just that, and if those run out then we’ll write some of our own. No, we proclaim the resurrection to remind ourselves that something has changed, and that the alienation we feel has, deep down, been overcome by the kind of love that’ll go through the grave to get to us.

Even when we don’t feel that love, it’s at work in us. Working in us for wholeness. Working in us for healing. Working in us for life. That same love is sending us to the side of the people dying and the people mourning, to hold hands and to listen and to cry, so that the overcoming of alienation and separation isn’t a theological abstraction but an incarnational witness to the good news of God’s love. It’s not just, “God loves you,” though that’s of course true. It’s, “we love you, and we are here.” We are here, listening and maybe not saying anything, not because we don’t believe in the resurrection, but because we do believe in it. And it’s sent us here to look death in the eye.

            And that work, the work of showing up and sitting in solidarity and listening well, that work is, as Paul says, not in vain. Even more than that, the work of our loved ones, the way that each has played their part in the great cosmic game of life, is not in vain. Death doesn’t get the last word. Because while death is very, very good at the game that it knows how to play, the game has changed.

            So remember. Remember, when death strikes, that anger and grief and pain are natural and appropriate responses, not to be hidden away or suppressed with theology. But also remember that Christ is risen, the first sign that something very deep has changed. Remember that we are an Easter people, a people of resurrection hope. Remember, remember, remember – no matter what victories death seems to have, we are playing a different game.

            Christ is risen. And as Paul says, “Thanks be to God, who gives us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

             Alleluia. 
             Amen.

Easter Monday: On belonging, not knowing, and "What do we do then?"

So, I meant to post something awhile ago, since I was in the middle with this blog-alog with Andy. But then Holy Week and Easter...and also getting engaged!! So I've been a bit preoccupied. So here it is, my final response to the questions that Andy asked in this post: "What if God isn’t just that which gives us meaning or allows us to feel like we belong? What do we do then?" I thought that trying to answer the last two questions (since I took a shot at the meaning part in my last post) would be a good way to finish out a sort-of-series about not knowing. It's impossibly long and you probably won't read it all, but...here it is anyway.

So, Andy asks:

What if God isn't just that which allows us to feel like we belong?

Two thoughts on belonging.

One: as Andy said in his post, belonging is a very powerful thing. It's a wonderful word but often has dangerous consequences. Here's Andy's take on it:

"We fight wars (literal as well as theological) in order to figure out who belongs and who does not. We witness the attraction and comfort that is created by a sense of belonging, and yet we also see the trail of wreckage left behind when that same belonging is kept just out of arms reach. We can’t figure out where that desire for belonging comes from or what will finally rid us of the grip that it holds on out lives, but we know that we are terrified of what life looks like when we are alone."

Part of what Andy is getting at here, I think, is the way that we find belonging by creating an in-group, which of course requires an out-group. We figure out how we belong by excluding others. And this exclusion is often violent--emotionally, spiritually, and all too often physically. Religion is pretty adept at this, and certainly Christianity is no exception.

Interestingly, however, right at the center of Christian faith is, I would argue, a powerful rebuke of this tendency to create belonging by "othering," scapegoating, and excluding. This has been very much on my mind over this past (Holy) week.

The Catholic theologian James Allison, inspired by Rene Girard, points to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a refusal to go along with the exclusion mechanisms of humanity. Take John's gospel, for example. Perhaps no other biblical text has been so often used to exclude and create Christian "in-groups." One of my students shared with me recently that she had been spit on by a Christian who was holding a John 3:16 sign. And John 14:6 is always quoted with the emphasis on the to make it as exclusionary as possible: "I am the way and the truth and the life."

But John also has some insight into the insider-outsider scapegoat mechanism. In 11:50, Caiaphas the High Priest says: "You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for people than to have the whole nation destroyed." A similar story in Luke's gospel has Herod and Pilate, natural enemies, becoming friends because of Jesus' death. Jesus death becomes a uniting factor, a way to bring people together. A way to create belonging.

And then (spoiler alert) comes the resurrection. And Jesus is alive. The scapegoating mechanism falls apart. And yet, instead of taking revenge, Jesus breathes peace. Offers life. Shares forgiveness. Jesus, in other words, doesn't just reinscribe the mechanism by creating a new in-group. Jesus challenges the type of belonging that is created by exclusion. The violence of exclusion is defeated and a new type of inclusion, one that is nonviolent and open and inviting, is created. In the words of Jesus, again from John, "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold."

So followers of Jesus, then, should always be looking to the outsider, the excluded, and saying: how do we go there? Because that's where Jesus is, living and dying and being raised. In other words, God doesn't make us feel like we belong. God challenges the basis of our sense of belonging. God disturbs our belonging. God sends us out to give and receive love in places outside the comfort of belonging. And as soon as the out-group becomes the in-group, God troubles the waters of belonging and sends us out yet again from the comfort of our cliques.

--

Ok. Second thought:

The other way that I think religion often is used to create belonging is by assuring people that they are not alone in the universe. This is, I think, a good thing. It's part of the fundamentals of what I believe.

But the way this idea is constructed can sometimes be a bit of a problem. What I mean is that I often hear this idea posed in a very individualistic way that seems to set it up in opposition to human relationship. The idea, for example, that fickle friends will abandon you but God never will. Or that when we're lonely we can just turn to God and we won't be lonely anymore. My girlfr...er, holy cow, my fiance!!!!....Leigh once went to a church that changed U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" into "I finally found what I'm looking for." And she cringed, and I cringe, not only because you probably shouldn't mess with U2 lyrics, but also because the changed lyrics don't match our experience. Finding Jesus or building a relationship with God or becoming Christian didn't magically satisfy our desires or make us never lonely or sad again. In fact, there's something dissatisfying about following Jesus. A sense of always being sent somewhere uncomfortable, of being dissatisfied with the world-as-is because we've been given a sense of the possibility of a world-as-it-could-be, a realm of justice and peace and truth and love. Of abundant life for all.

So I also think that God isn't something that gives us belonging over and against the real human need for community. There are very lonely people out there and they don't just need to hear about Jesus and then everything will be fine. They need us, sitting with them and listening to them and holding open holy space for silence and loneliness. To paraphrase the letter of James, "If a brother or sister is lonely or excluded, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; know that God loves you and that you are not alone,' and yet you do not supply them with companionship and love, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."

There are people who feel Godforsaken and they don't just need to hear, "You're wrong, God's still here." They need to hear, "I've felt like that too, and so have so many of the saints and holy people throughout history." Even, as we were reminded on Good Friday, Jesus. Or maybe they don't need to hear that so much as they need to feel it by having us sit next to them and not judge them for their experiences.

We need friends. Jesus, if John 15 is to be believed, needed friends. Which, in a boring old orthodox Christian understanding, means that God needs friends. Which means that we need to be friends, to each other and to the friendless.

--

So there it is. God doesn't give us belonging. God challenges our belonging, and sends us to be with people who feel excluded or lost or lonely, and not just to offer them trite theologizing of their plight but to actually be with them and be their friends.

Which helps to answer Andy's last question. If God doesn't just give us meaning or belonging, then what do we do then? Well, we stand with those who are face-to-face with experiences of meaningless and exclusion. We stand with them, not with easy assurances of meaning (God has a plan) or belonging (God loves you but I don't have much time for you), but rather with our presence, with our friendship, with our lives. And that's really, really hard, and will take a whole lot of work over a whole lifetime, and we'll probably mess it up all the time, and, to paraphrase Rumi, we'll need more grace than we thought. But, to quote that old beast John again: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

--

But here is one more thing, one more answer to the question of "What do we do then?" As I said in my last post, in Andy's initial questions I hear the echo of concerns that belief in God is just a human projection. Author Rachel Held Evans, in one of my favorite pieces of writing ever, writes about doubt on Easter Sunday and poses the question this way: "What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?"

You'll have to read her post to see how she answers the question. It's far more articulate than mine.

But her question reminds me of another favorite piece, from a wonderful book called the Sparrow. In it, an agnostic character asks a Jesuit priest, "What if you made all of this up? What if it's just a story?"

And the priest thinks for a second, and smiles, and says, "Then what a story."

If God isn't just that which gives meaning or belonging, what do we do then?

Why, what we always do. We tell our stories. We share our stories with each other. And that, ultimately, is how we find true meaning and belonging and love. In the telling, in the listening, and the sharing.

So:

Whatever you believe, share your story.

I would love to hear it.

And if you care to listen to my story as well, I will tell you that my story is just a little story in a very, very big story about a love that is so deep and so big and so old that it overcomes death to be with us. That my story is, somehow, inextricably caught up in the story of a homeless Palestinian Jew who stumbles up to Jerusalem, knowing it will cost everything. Who, after a miracle of miracles, is scrubby enough that a woman who loves him confuses him with a groundskeeper. Who teaches that the greatest commandment, the greatest law, is love, and then shows us how that is true.

I will tell you that, in the big story that my little story is a part of, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, life wins. Love wins.

And if what I think I know is all wrong? And if it's all just a story?

Well...what a story.

What a story.

A happy Easter season to all of you. Whatever your story, you are loved.

Not Knowing with Andy , pt. I

Wouldn't the title of this post make a great ongoing podcast?

My friend Andy and I used to get into these long theological conversations/debates/duels, which I miss. He wrote a post the other night that I thought was really interesting, based on a Neil Gaiman poem that ends:

"I really don’t know what I love you means 

I think it means don’t leave me here alone"

You should check out Andy's whole post here. He ended it with these questions:

"What if God isn't just that which gives us meaning or allows us to feel like we belong? What do we do then?"

I told Andy I'd write a post in response to his question, but he had to write a blog in response to the question, "What if God really is that which gives us meaning or allows us to feel like we belong? What do we do then?"

He's done his part. Now it's my turn.

Andy did something wise, which was to break his response into 3 shorter posts rather than one long post. So I'm going to follow that same format.

So, part one is: "What if God isn't that which gives us meaning?"

--

In Andy's question I hear echoes of the critiques brought against religion by the so-called "Masters of Suspicion"--Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche. For Freud, God was just a projection of the desires of humans. Marx is well known for calling religion the "opiate of the masses," but the image he uses that I think is more illustrative of his position is of religion as the beautiful flowers hiding the chains of oppression. And Nietzsche (if I understand him correctly, which I probably don't) felt that the Christian religion was just a way to try to deny the creeping nihilism that he felt was infecting European society.

Christianity's response to these critiques has generally been to shout them down, to try to drown them out with the beating of bibles and the ever-louder singing of praise songs (don't get me wrong. I love me some ever-louder singing). But I think that if we're not willing to actually engage with these criticisms that it probably says more about us and our doubts than it does about some German (Austrian?) guys. And indeed a growing number of Christian scholars are doing just that, engaging with the Masters of Suspicion with an attitude of curiosity and self-reflection rather than defensiveness. (It's worth noting that Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848, during which time chattel slavery, supported by many Christians, was the law of the land in the USAmerican South. I'd imagine Jesus was a wee bit more pissed off at the latter than the former).

What does that have to do with meaning?

First off, let me say that I very much agree with something Andy says in his post on meaning:

"For starters, I believe that there are acts that are devoid of meaning. I think that we can try our best to theologize everything, but acts like genocide, rape, murder, and the like are inherently meaningless. This doesn’t mean that we cannot grow or recover from such acts, just that the acts in and of themselves are meaningless."

I'm preaching at a funeral this week for a young man (who I did not know) who died in a car accident. There's no inherent meaning in it. It's a tragedy, period. It is not part of a plan. It will not make more sense by and by.

And so I think what I hear in Andy's first question--"What if God isn't that which gives meaning?"--is an echo of the question that I think folks like Freud and Marx and Nietzsche first raised: "What if we've just created God because we need to feel like everything is ok?"

And the thing is that I just don't think that everything is ok. The God that I believe in thinks some stuff isn't ok. Stuff like what Andy mentioned--mass murder, sexual assault. Things like economic oppression and racism.

The prophet Jeremiah reports God saying: "Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more." There are some things that cannot simply be ok, some things that cannot be redeemed in-and-of themselves, some events after which there is no immediate comfort.

What God does, I'd argue, is stand in solidarity with us in the midst of meaninglessness, and give us the grace and the strength to figure out how to continue our stories. How to integrate meaninglessness into a broader story of meaning. And the thing is that God doesn't show up and "poof" do it for us, but rather walks with us and stands with us.

In Acts, there's this great story of Peter and Cornelius. At one point Peter sees a vision of unclean food and a voice telling him to eat (it's worth noting that he has this vision as he's praying on the roof instead of eating. I've had this happen as well. PrayPrayPray...mmmmbacon....PrayPrayPray). Then folks from Cornelius' house--not just a Gentile but a Roman centurion, so definitely not the "good guy" for Peter--show up and say that Peter should come with them. And he does, and by the time he's gotten to Cornelius' house he's decided that his vision means that he shouldn't call any person unclean.

Check Acts 10 out for yourself if you want, but at no point does the author say that God says to Peter: "You shouldn't think Gentiles are unclean." Peter has come to that conclusion based on a dream about bacon (well, ok, actually lizards or something) and a conversation with some Gentile servants. And yet exactly there is God acting to bring about meaning. Not by magically creating it out of nothing, but by participating in the meaning-making, story-crafting efforts of humans, who are in turn made in the image of a storytelling God.

God's grace allows us to read our stories as part of a bigger story. In Donald Miller's words, "I am a tree in a story about a forest."

But that's different than turning to God for meaning; different than saying "God has a plan"; different than saying "We'll understand it better by and by."

God empowers us to confront meaningless, not deny it.

Which, oddly enough, is sort of what Nietzsche--the great detractor of religion, the declarant of the death of God--wanted to do, too.

In this post I will throw aside epistemic humility and will tell you exactly what the United Methodist Church will look like in 1,000 years.

In class on Wednesday, we were talking about the work of Phyllis Tickle, who is sort of the kindly godmother of emergence Christianity. (She just turned 80, although my professor refuses to believe it).

Tickle has this idea that USAmerican Christianity could historically have been grouped into 4 broad categories--High Liturgy, Social Justice, Evangelical, and Charismatic. But that there is starting to be crossover conversations, with an emerging center, which is in turn leading some people in each of those categories to double down and draw back into their respective corners. So...like this:

Anyway. At the very end of class, one of my classmates raised what I thought was a really interesting point. He said that he felt like Tickle, and many of the other folks we're reading, seem a bit too sure of their theories about where the church is going over the next century. What I thought was really perceptive about his comment was that it wasn't a critique so much as a self-realization: sort of a, "Look, I really want to believe that right now we are deciding the future of Christianity, cuz that seems pretty cool, but what if that's not really what happens at all? What if we're actually sort of a mediocre generation?"

Now, I think that what Tickle and others are trying to do is articulate what a Christianity might look like that can speak into--and be spoken into--by very real cultural shifts that are taking place. But there is a level of confidence to it all that I think should raise some healthy challenge. I happened to glance at the back cover of another book we read for this class, by Pete Rollins. Tickle wrote a blurb for the book (it's a fantastic book, by the way, and worth reading: How (Not) to Speak of God) that reads in part: "Here, in pregnant bud, is third-millennium Christianity."

So, ok. I love Tickle and I love Rollins, so here's hoping she's right. But it's 2014. We're only in the second decade of the third millennium, and Rollins' book was written in 2006. So...isn't there sort of a pretty huge chance she's way wrong?

That third-millennium Christianity will look like something totally completely and utterly unrelated to Rollins or her or me or you?

I mean, 1,000 years is a long time. A little humility about our claims is probably called for. That's actually a really important reminder for me, because I've been spending a lot of time and words recently debating the politics of United Methodism/ordination/church schism/denominationalism/so-on-and-so-forth. I won't rehash all of that conversation here; go check out my friend Jeremy at Hacking Christianity for some good details and links. Jeremy's very anti-schism in the UMC; I'm not sure where I stand but have been feeling sort of pessimistic about it all. One of my classmates noted on Wednesday that he knows a lot of people who seem to be doubling down on denominationalism at the same time as other people are declaring denominations to be dinosaurs, beasts of the past who once ruled but are now destined for extinction.

And maybe we all need a big bucket of ice cold "who the hell knows" water dumped on our heads. Not in the sense of a dismissive shrug and a "who cares," but rather in the sense of: "If we suspect that the Spirit might be up to something, let's all try to be faithful to that, knowing that we know little, knowing that it will look different for all of us, and so trying to be a little bit gentler with the rest of the know-nothings."

Which maybe is a bit dissatisfying but, in the words of a major prophet: "So it goes."

There's a translation of Psalm 16 that I've been mulling over for a class this week that sticks with me.

The psalmist addresses God and says:

"Beautiful things are always in your right hand."

I don't have a clue what the future of the church looks like, to be honest. But that's ok. Beautiful things might just be at hand, anyway.

Some music

So a while ago I made some recordings that I said would be a CD, and the CD itself never really materialized.

I don't really love the recordings, and I more than don't love my voice. But people still ask me about it even though it's been 3 years. Which is really flattering, I mean it. So...here's some songs. Enjoy:
 







And, as a bonus, here's a live recording from a worship service in Oxnam Chapel at Wesley Seminary, with my friends Rachel and Drew singing and playing musics:

Doubting doubt, or the double-edged sword of epistemic humility

So on Monday I wrote about how I hate theodicy (i.e. if God is good why does awful stuff happen) and how that's sort of a problem 'cuz it's kind of a big deal in seminary.

As I hoped he would, my friend and former roommate Andy responded on facebook. Andy's a bit of a theodicy buff so I was glad he took time to comment. I'm just going to quote him here (since it's on facebook and public anyway):

"So you've got me on the fence. Part of me absolutely agrees that there is a time and a place for talking about theodicy and that that time and place usually isn't in the midst of suffering. On the other hand, wrestling with how my conception of God fits in with my experiences (individual and communal) of suffering in the world is what brought me back from the ledge and has kept me going on a number of occasions. Either way, I agree 100% that having epistemic humility and being willing to say "I don't know" has to be part of the equation."

Since I know Andy, and know a bit of his story, I know he's on to something here: his own wrestling with the "Why, God?" has been a huge part of his journey. So it was perhaps a bit arrogant of me to declare, in my last post, that theodicy is unhelpful in the face of real suffering.

Although come to think of it, Theodicy is Dead would be kind of a great name for a book.

The phrase "epistemic humility" that Andy mentions just means being humble about what we can claim to know. And what his response got me thinking about is how that sort of humility is a two-edged sword. I can declare that theodicy is irrelevant because it claims certainty in the face of deeply uncertain events; but can I acknowledge a genuine claim for its relevance?

And that question, in turn, got me thinking about my own journey. About how, in high school, when my mentor and coach killed himself and everything felt fragile and awful, I got so angry at the church because I felt like there were no answers there. And while my little church did the best thing, which was just to love me and keep telling me they loved me, I could also have used a few folks with some theodicy chops to yell at. Because as it was, it was just me--in one vivid memory--yelling at the ocean. Asking why, and how God could let someone be in so much pain, and whether someone who kills themselves goes to hell and if so what kind of God would do that and if not then why don't we all just do it? And honestly it was awfully lonely.

That's raw stuff when you're 15. It doesn't get too much less raw 15 years later.

So my own "I don't know" is a hard-fought one, and that's important to remember. Because while "I don't know" is often the best response, sometimes there is healing in the wrestling. Or, to be a bit more biblical with the imagery, maybe the wrestling is going to hurt but it's going to make us into a new person.

I guess what I'm left with is this: the "I don't know" of my response to suffering needs to inform what I believe about the world. And my belief about the world needs to inform my response to suffering. It's a conversation requiring a steady return to humility, on all sides. There's not one singular starting place with a solid path to the right answer.

But that's true even if I claim that the right answer is, "I don't know."

Theodicy and not knowing (or, stop being a jerk and just admit that sometimes life sucks and you have no idea why.)

True confessions of a seminarian: I hate theodicy.

If you're not a seminary type, see this brief explanation from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:



Theodicy comes from the words for "God's justice," and basically just means "if there's a God why do things suck for a lot of people and often for me?"

The problem with hating theodicy is that, as a seminary person, it's supposed to be all, like, THE BIG QUESTION and what not. It's supposed to be the thing that sort of gnaws at all our theological brains. And I hate it, not because it's a hard question to answer, but because I've seen it hurt a lot and I don't think I've ever seen it help.

I've heard a lot of awful things said to suffering people to explain why they're suffering.

And rarely, if ever, have I heard a suffering person say, "Oh, thank goodness you explained to me how my suffering still fits with your view of God! That's a relief!"

Maybe I'm wrong. Feel free to disagree.

Anyway. This has been on my mind this week because we talked about it in Emergent Gathering on Wednesday, and then I heard John 9 preached on Thursday morning, and then we talked about John 9 in my class on Thursday afternoon, and then I heard John 9 preached on Sunday.

You can read the text itself, but at least part of it involves the disciples assuming that some guy is blind either because he's a sinner or his parents are sinners, and Jesus tells them that's not true, but then goes on to say something that sounds suspiciously like "God made him blind so that we could all see how cool God is when he gets healed."

Many people, myself included, would argue that that's not really what the text says, but either way probably not a good one to quote to people who are in pain.

The thing that I find interesting about John's gospel, though, is that these long theological discourses that John's Jesus embarks on, such as in John 9, get scandalously interrupted by Jesus doing human stuff like crying and touching people who are suffering and getting thirsty and what not.

All the theological back and forth in John 9 can't really explain the fact that Jesus heals somebody by spitting in dirt and making it into mud and smearing it in the dude's eyes. There's all sorts of great theological symbolism in there, but what's more important, I think, is that it's physical touch and physical elements--mainly, dirt--that seem to mediate healing. Not just ethereal power, but skin and mud and spit.

Or, in the words of Whitley, "To touch something real / Will make your wounds heal."

So what I get out of that is that showing up and listening and touching and holding and playing in the dirt and saying things like, "That sucks, that really sucks," is probably better than trying to explain things. And I think that holds true even of the best attempts at explanation. Even Moltmann's "crucified God" or Caputo's "weak God" or the idea of the "freedom of all reality" that's sort of emerged out of religious engagement with post-Einstein science seem to me to fall completely flat in the face of real suffering. It might be good for my own theology, it might inform my response to suffering, but I probably shouldn't quote it in the hospital.

In contrast is the comforting power of the "I don't know" that Parker Palmer talks about in a conversation with a woman suffering from depression. She asked him why some people who are depressed kill themselves and some people don't. And Parker Palmer tried to come up with a good explanation and all he could come up with was, "I have no idea." And a few days later the woman sent him a thank you note. All of the people in her Christian circles had tried to explain it, and it had been awful. And Parker Palmer said, "I don't know," and it was a huge relief.

"I don't know. But I'm here if you need me."

Sounds a lot better than:

"Here's why there's suffering."

Sometimes, what's called for is a reverent silence and a steady presence. Because that might not help. But at least it won't increase the hurt.

justification, self-justification, and blame

Today in my Emergent Gathering class we spent quite a bit of time talking about pluralism, and how Christians relate to folks of other religions/no particular religion.

What struck me about the conversation, given some struggles in my life and this idea of "giving up knowing" for Lent, is how easy it is for me to think about giving up my rightness when it comes to people with different faith backgrounds or religious beliefs...

...and how terribly difficult it is for me to give up being right in other areas of my life...

...and what that says about what I value. About where my treasure is and, therefore, where my heart is.

It's easy for me to shrug off being right about Jesus.

It's hard for me to give up a the feeling of being wounded or treated unfairly.

I was at Leigh's church the other day and we were doing a lectio divina, where the text is read meditatively instead of intellectually and we focus on words or images that seem to stick or stand out. A few of us shared, and then someone shared that she just "takes the text literally and just reads what the Word says."

This stands against everything I believe about scripture. Frankly that kind of statement annoys me. And still, I shrugged it off pretty easily. She's entitled to her beliefs.

But once I start feeling hurt or devalued? Once I get upset about something? It's very hard for me to turn off the hunt for rightness.

And that hunt is almost always dissatisfying. Brene Brown says that's because looking for blame is actually the opposite of accountability, because it allows us to focus on the feeling of being wronged rather than on clearly communicating our feelings of hurt or confusion.

It is always a hard thing to come face to face with the worst in ourselves, with the petty and the small, the self-centered and even the violent, that lurks in us. That's happened to me more than a few times over the past few months. And it's made me realize (again) that my addiction isn't theological rightness; it's being "right" in a much more superficial or petty sense. I don't know quite what to make of that, but there it is.

Sunday I preached at AU and I said something like, "We're not called to be right, we're called to be faithful."

And that means giving up self-justification and embracing justification, that old, old idea that it's a loving God that makes things right, not my conviction that I am right.

I suppose it's as hard, and as easy, as it always has been.

A sermon: "You Know Nothing, Jon Snow"

I preached last night at American University, on John 3:1-17. Our Lent & Easter series at AU is riffing on Game of Thrones. So the sermon was called "You Know Nothing, Jon Snow." The text is available here. The audio is, I think, available here, but if it doesn't work and you want to listen you can find me on facebook.

The sermon is about the faithfulness of unknowing.

little easters

They say that every Sunday is a little Easter,
    and so during Lent, there's no fasting on Sundays.

We break our fasts, we eat our chocolates or have our coffee.

So, what does that mean if you're fasting from knowing?
Is Sunday a day of certainty, of surefootedness?

I don't think it works like that, with this fast
    Sunday is just as much a day for stumbling along our stumbling way
            As Friday ever will be.

And maybe more so.

And maybe more so.

What do you do when it's not Ash Wednesday anymore?

I mean, what do you do the other 364 days of the year?
When being human seems like the most complicated option,
And you really need ashes,
And the reminder of dust,
And limits,
And that desperate searching for some good news
                       
                             in the middle of all of this.

On Ash Wednesday and not knowing

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day in the Christian year that marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is a season of repentance and fasting. It lasts 40 days, not including Sundays, which are always considered celebrations of resurrection. Because of the traditional association of Lent with fasting, people often "give something up" for Lent. Last year I wrote about things I wasn't giving up on.

A number of things have come together this year. In my Emergent Gathering class, we've been talking about epistemology--theories about how we know what we know or how we understand truth. We've compared foundationalism--an understanding of truth in which we look for a firm, unchangeable foundation to base everything we know on--and non-foundationalism--in which truth is understood more as a web with multiple anchor points, so that changing or removing one doesn't bring the whole structure down.

We've talked a bit about apophatic theology--the sense that we can't say what God is, just what God is not. We read Pete Rollins, who talks about how the hidden-ness of God is actually the hyper-presence of God. Not a new idea, as he would freely admit. A hymn from the mid 1800s, "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise," sings that God is "in light inaccessible hid from our eyes" and that "'tis only the splendor of light hideth thee." That God is too bright to look at directly. That, like light itself, God more allows us to see the world than is seen in and of itself.

We've talked a bit about epistemic humility--humility about what we can know. About strong beliefs, held loosely. Held gently.

And I went to the State House today, and got called an anti-Semite and a Nazi, and stuttered through a testimony, and left feeling an acute sense of my own limits.

And then there's this sermon I'm working on for the AU students, based loosely on the Game of Thrones series, about John 3 and knowing nothing. Stay tuned for that, or come hear it on March 16 in Kay Chapel if you want.

And now I am sitting here, typing this, with ashes on my forehead and the smell of burnt palm fronds in the air, having been reminded of humility, of repentance, of fragile and perishable humanity.

"From dust we are, and to dust we are to return." And that is good news, because if I am an angel than I am a failure of an angel, but if I am dust than maybe, maybe I am ok. Maybe I can try to be human, after all.

So, this Lent I'm going to try to give up knowing. I'm going to try to give up certainty. I'm going to try on, at least for a few weeks, the faithfulness of unknowing.

I don't know exactly how that will play out. I was thinking about blogging every day about something I am certain of, and then questioning it and interrogating it. Deconstructing it, you might say. But that felt a bit contrived for something so nebulous, so intentionally fragile.

So I will try it, and I'll see where it takes me, and I'll write about it when I can.

And I'll pray the prayer of those great poets and prophets, mewithoutYou:

"We hunger, and though all that we eat brings us no relief we don't know quite what else to do.
We have all our beliefs, but we don't want our beliefs.
O God of peace, we want You."

A sermon (that allowed me to squeeze the last bit of juice out of the 30 Day Challenge)

Yeah, I preached a sermon about the K-LOVE 30 Day Challenge, because after 30 days I better be able to squeeze at least a little more material out of the thing. Scripture was Psalm 119:33-40.

Last month, while driving through Western Maryland, I was flipping through radio stations, trying to find something that wouldn’t disappear as soon as I turned the next mountain bend. I happened to stumble across the local broadcast of a nationally syndicated Christian radio station.[i] And I happened to land on this station just as they were offering me something called “The 30 Day Challenge.” Listen to nothing but Christian music for 30 days straight, and they promised that my life would be changed.

            Also I might win an iPad mini.      

For Jesus.

            “Nothing but Christian music for 30 days!” I thought to myself. “That sounds terrible!”

            So I did it. From January 20^th through February 20^th, with a few necessary exceptions so that my friends wouldn’t kill me, I listened to nothing but Contemporary Christian Music.

            I know what you’re asking. And no, I didn’t win the iPad.

            Now, if you like Contemporary Christian Music, I don’t mean any of this to sound judgmental. After the sermon you can feel free to make fun of my pretentious love of NPR. But I just don’t like it. It all sounds the same to me, like all the guitar players have the same effects pedals and all the vocalists learned to sing from one of two of the same overly sincere white men. I don’t like it, I don’t like the sound of it, I don’t like a lot of the theology of it. I don’t like how so many of the songs could be easily confused with pop love songs, because if our theology can’t be distinguished from Taylor Swift than our devotion probably isn’t very reliable. And to be honest I have trouble believing the sincerity of a lot of it.

            But after 30 days of listening to Christian music, I’m wondering if there’s something else going in my reactions to the genre. I’m actually wondering—and this is confessional time—I’m actually wondering if I feel a bit…jealous of it all.

            I mean, it’s not that I’m going to switch all of my radio pre-sets to Christian music. But I’m wondering if I am just a bit jealous of the sort of devotion, the sort of emotion, that CCM artists and listeners seem to have. I’m wondering if my suspicion of their sincerity is actually a suspicion of my own sincerity. I’m wondering if part of me, maybe a big part of me, wishes I felt like that.

            See, when I came to seminary, I figured that it would be a sort of spiritual mountaintop experience, a kind of pilgrimage to theology geek Mecca where my spiritual practices would flourish and where I would be upheld and inspired by a deeply devoted Christian community. And then I got here, and I ended up feeling...well, a bit dry. Maybe more than a bit cynical. In the frenzy of paper writing and sermon preparation and living situation stress and classmate conflict and mental health challenges, I sometimes found myself asking: do I feel God anymore? Or even more simply: do I even remember how to pray? And I know, from many conversations with fellow seminarians past and present, that I am not alone in this experience. Maybe we’re all just doing seminary wrong. I don’t know. But it makes me, and I know it’s made others, wonder: how can I lead people to a place that I’ve forgotten how to get to?

            I bring all this up because I think if the poet of Psalm 119 was alive today, they would listen to Contemporary Christian Music. I mean, this Psalm is not just a love song to God. That would be one thing. This Psalm is a love song to the Torah. An impassioned ode about just how great the Bible is. Talk about overly sincere devotion—this thing drips with it. One of the songs that plays over and over again on the local Christian music station (“WGTS, 91.9!!”) is MercyMe’s chorus, “Word of God speak/Would you pour down like rain,” and Psalm 119 makes that song of devotion to the Bible seem restrained by comparison.[ii]

            Psalm 119 is 176 verses long. I’ve never written a 176 verse poem in my life. Wait. There’s more. It’s an acrostic poem, which means that each of the 22 stanzas begins with consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Wait. There’s more. Within every single one of the 22 stanzas, each line begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet that the first line of the stanza started with. So in stanza 1, every line begins with the Hebrew letter aleph, and in stanza 2 every line begins with the Hebrew letter bet, and so on. Wait. There’s more. The psalm uses 8 different words to refer to God’s word, words like Torah and commandments and ordinances, and with the exception of 3 verses in the whole psalm, every single line of the poem contains one of those 8 words.[iii]

            I get exhausted just thinking about writing something like that. I thought about writing this whole sermon as an acrostic poem but I figured I couldn’t pull it off.

            It takes a whole lotta love to write a poem like that. And the psalmist loves scripture. I mean, is really in love with it. This is a poet, a singer, who claims to “delight” in God’s commandments. Delight. I mean, I do love the Bible, but I don’t exactly get giddy about it.

            Eminent Hebrew Bible scholars Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson try to come to the psalm’s rescue, writing that “The sheer existence of this extraordinary meditation on God’s Torah is a telling reminder that Israel’s Law was no heavy burden laid upon a people, constricting its life and energies. Rather, God’s law is presented as the best of gifts of a good God.”[iv]

Fair enough.

But I tend to feel a bit more like Russell Rathbun, founder of the House of Mercy church in St. Paul, MN, who says of this psalm: “Unless it is a euphemism for something else, it’s difficult for me to see how longing and ordinances ever make it into the same sentence. An ordinance is something issued by the parks department to keep people from dumping their garbage in the woods. It is not an object of desire.”[v]          

In verse 55, the poet sings that they “remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your instruction.” Not that there’s anything wrong with lying in bed and thinking about scripture, exactly. It’s just not really what tends to keep me up at night. Is there something wrong with me? Can a poor, dried up, cynical seminarian like me get anything out of this psalm other than the vague feeling that maybe seminary has burned me out instead of building me up?

            Well, maybe.

            The Bible nerd in me was fascinated to find out that the stanza I read earlier is the Hey stanza, with each line in Hebrew beginning with an “H” sound. And in Hebrew, words beginning with the letter Hey are often imperative verbs.[vi] If it’s been awhile since grammar lessons, just listen to the first word of each line in English:

            Teach me.

            Give me.

            Lead me.

            Turn me.

            Confirm to me.

            Each of these lines is directed toward God. It’s asking God for something. Or, more accurately, it’s telling God to do something.

            This is important, I think, because Psalm 119 is often classified as a wisdom psalm, a psalm in which good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. I don’t like wisdom psalms. They’re too neat, too black and white. Give me a good lament psalm any day. Yet this stanza, at least, seems to me to be an inversion of the usual wisdom formula. It’s God that’s good here, not the psalmist. It’s God that needs to act. In fact, the psalmist admits to being stuck in addiction to selfish gain and vanities. You know, the stuff it’s easy to get stuck on: Money. Fame. Success. The sort of things that I get stuck on: wanting the affirmation and admiration of elders and peers. Wanting to be cool and relevant. Wanting you to like this sermon.

The poet struggles with these same things, and they know they need God in order to be transformed. Verse 38 reads, “confirm to your servant your promise.” In other words, “God, you promised! God, you’ve made some promises here. Keep them!” And there’s that powerful last line of the stanza: “In your righteousness, give me life.” That word “righteousness” could also be translated “justice.” God, if you are a just God, if you are a faithful God, if you are who you say you are—give me life!

            I wonder if the poet of Psalm 119 actually felt kind of like I do when I listen to Christian rock. I wonder if they were looking around at a whole temple full of seemingly devout, pious, impassioned worshipers, and saying to God, “God, why don’t I feel like that? God, why do I feel distracted by money and jealousy and insecurity? God, why do I feel so…well, dry? You promised, God! You promised.”

            This time, I think Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson are right when they claim that “One who pleads for God’s help with such earnestness and who asserts that it is time, indeed, for God to act, is by no means satisfied with the existing state of affairs.”[vii] If that’s the case, then this psalm is less of a CCM ode to the Bible as it is a U2 song, a bit easier for me to sing along to: “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”[viii] Because God doesn’t really satisfy our desires.

God changes how we desire.

Knowing God leaves us with a feeling of dissatisfaction about the world, because the world isn’t yet the Kingdom. Knowing God leaves us looking at the world and imagining that a different world, a redeemed world, is possible. In the words of theologian Peter Rollins, “Desire is not satisfied in God. Desire is born in God.”[ix] In other words, God isn’t the object of devotion, another topic for a Taylor Swift song. God is the subject that acts to transform us and to transform the world.

            The poet of Psalm 119 is longing to know God, and that gives them a real, deep longing for a transformed life. In fact, the Hebrew word that is translated as “give me life” or “preserve my life”—what the old King James Version translated as “quicken me”—appears 10 times in this Psalm. I don’t think they’re asking for a “I listened to Christian music for 30 days” transformed life, though if that works for you then that’s awesome. Not a life without worries and problems. Not a 100% satisfying life with all desires fulfilled. But maybe a life that is abundant and real and full. Messy, in-flux life. Life with its traumas and turmoil, but also life with its celebrations and successes.

Life in which I’m learning to stumble through prayers again. Life in which I can stumble up to the table of grace, to the bread and the wine I need to sustain me on the rest of my stumbling way. Life in which I might just stumble into signs of God’s kingdom, God’s new, abundant community.

And that is something I can wake up in the morning and really, sincerely ask for. Even on the dry days. That’s something that I can pray when my feet, by some miracle, hit the floor in the morning. “God, give me life today. Don’t give me numbness or distraction today, God. Don’t give me riches or affirmations of my vanities. Give me life today, God. Give me life today.”

And that’s something, I think, that we all need to be asking for, whatever we are feeling or not feeling, believing or doubting. Because, in one form or another, we are all in ministry. And ministry, in the words of that great excommunicated Southern Baptist preacher, Clarence Jordan, isn’t a job. It’s a commitment. Of life. To life. For life.

I think, as present and future ministers of the gospel, we can do worse than starting each morning by praying this prayer:

God, if you are a just God. If you are a faithful God. If You are who You say You are, a God who keeps promises: then give me life. So that I can commit my life. To life. For life. Amen.

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[i] “Positive, Encouraging” K-LOVE, to be exact: www.klove.com.

[ii] MercyMe, “Word of God Speak,” Spoken For (Columbia Records, 2005).

[iii] See Rolf Jacobson, “Commentary on Psalm 119:33-40, Working Preacher, available online at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1025.

[iv] Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson, “The Psalms,” The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 864.

[v] Russell Rathbun, “It’s a Long Way to the Punch Line,” THQ: The Hardest Question, available online: http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/ordinary29psalm/#more-666.

[vi] Jacobson, “Commentary on Psalm 119:33-40, Working Preacher.

[vii] Craven and Harrelson, “The Psalms,” New Interpreter’s Study Bible, 864.

[viii] U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” Joshua Tree Remastered (Universal-Island Records Ltd., 2007).

[ix] Peter Rollins, “200 Dollar Conversions,” The Work of the People, available online: http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/200-dollar-conversions.