Serendipity

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit in the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half a man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, 

you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

A peculiar thing to stumble across a reflection on work as I return from vacation.  The thing is though, vacation can seem like work, especially when family is involved.  We went camping with the in-laws, at the Jersey shore, which has steadily sunk down the list of places I want to spend my leisure time and now hovers somewhere around the level of reading a poorly written novel and slightly above having dental work done.  It's not that the Jersey shore is objectively terrible, lot's of people seem to like it, and that is essentially where my problems begin, it is a pretty crowded place.

I may not share the atheist existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre, but I absolutely share his diagnosis that "Hell is other people," particularly people who rub you the wrong way, maybe even some family members.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to shoot at my in-laws, it's not that sort of problem. I have this need to be alone sometimes, or at least alone with Michele and the kids, and vacations of the sort that we have been practically forced into over the past decade or so, leave no room for that at all, and so they seem like work.

That is essentially the attitude I took into last week, it was work.  I had to pack the car, I had to drive, I had to set up camp, cook food, be sociable, and tolerate the bugs and the crowds, then I had to tear down camp, pack the car again and drive home.  Fortunately for me, except the driving parts, I was able to drink beer pretty steadily throughout the process.

You know what? It worked out pretty well.  I did not treat it like it was some sort of hallowed sabbath.  It treated it like I had a job to do, and I tried to do that job with as much joy as a I could.  I think we get the mistaken notion that working in joy means you are always happy and everything goes as it should.  Work implies something that is challenging, physically, mentally and maybe even spiritually.  As one of my favorite TV Dads told his son: "That's why they call it work and not super-happy-fun-time."

Any time I have treated these excursions to the Jersey shore as though they were supposed to be relaxing and restorative, I have become frustrated and angry and generally made things unpleasant for myself and others.  I told myself that wasn't going down this time around.  I didn't try to make things just so, I didn't take my surfboard or anything of that nature.  I took a chair to sit in and the things necessary for camp life.  I didn't try to vanish off down the beach for some brooding walk where I let grief and sadness get the best of me. I did the Dad thing.  I took the kids to the beach and to the pool to let them do kid things, dig holes and play in the surf as much as the oh-so-attentive Avalon Life Guards would let them.  They're both on the edge of teenagedness so there aren't going to be too many more years of that stuff left I don't imagine.  Pretty soon they will be trying to "hang" with friends and generally be too cool for family time.

So I did my work, and the work happened to be called "vacationing."  I don't generally go in for the God helps those who help themselves mentality, it's bad theology, but I did feel like a lot of things got blessed in the midst of everything. The weather broke and cooler temperatures prevailed, good news for tent camping.  It only rained for a minute, and that at night when we were snug in our tent. The camp set up nicely and in a good spot.  Being there mid-week meant less traffic and less crowds, and the kids behaved themselves pretty well. Then we went home, and I got three days of real sabbath time, including a perfect trip to the Shenandoah river to float on a tube for four hours.  I feel adequately vacationed, something that I have not felt for quite some time.

It was worth the effort.

Sharp Disagreement

The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company;

-Acts 15: 39a

Paul and Barnabas were a great team. They had been through a lot together, they had been on trial and in jail, they had been beaten up and run out of town together, and they had seen hundreds of people open their eyes to the Good News of the Gospel.  But they couldn't agree on whether or not to take John called Mark with them.  Paul didn't want to because John/Mark had bailed on them at a crucial moment.  Barnabas wanted to give the guy a second chance.  It became such a sore subject that they could not agree and decided to go separate ways.  They didn't hate each other, they weren't all of the sudden mortal enemies, they just couldn't agree.

It's not a bad model, but honestly, it's not always an option.  When the Reformation was happening in the Christian Church, one of the strongest arguments made by the Roman Catholic Church was that, once they allowed one division there would surely be more and more and more.  They were annoyingly correct about that.  We can always find sharp disagreements, some sharp enough that we have to go our separate ways.  It is possible, but not probable, that this can be done without hate and rancor, but most likely there is always a need by someone to declare their opposition to be evil.

In an editorial in the NY Times today Bret Stephens writes an open letter to Dennis Prager the aim of which is to decry the current hostility for the news media.  Mr. Stephens seems a bit wrapped up in his desire to show that he took some philosophy courses in college, but he wraps up the article with the following: 

It used to be that conservatives thought liberals were wrong, while liberals thought conservatives were evil. Among the other ways that Trump has degraded the conservative movement is that he has turned us into a mirror image of what we used to accuse liberals of being.  He's turned us into haters.

It is actually fairly hopeful to me that Mr. Stephens is not the only conservative voice I have read that recognizes that something is amiss in our public discourse.  I admit, I sometimes get far too wrapped up in my own desire to be right.  I have felt a certain sense of schadenfreude as Trump turns out to be every bit as much of a bumbling blowhard as I expected.  Every time Mitch McConnell has to eat his BRCA hat, it makes me at least a little happy, but what would make me even happier would be if Congress, Democrat and Republican, would actually start acting like the grownups they claim to be.  I do not doubt that if egos and CYA politics could be put aside for a minute the crisis of healthcare (and it is a crisis, but not one created by Obama) in this country could be solved.
I believe, perhaps a little naively, that both sides of the aisle have some ideas that need to be reckoned with in any really big problem that faces us.  I only joke when I talk about moving to Canada, there aren't enough Presbyterian churches up there.  For better or worse we can't go our separate ways as a nation.  We tried that once, it didn't go well.
We have big problems that face us, and there are reasonable disagreements about those problems and their solutions, but we're not going to solve anything going the way we're going.  Just possibly, when credible journalists report something that reflects badly on the President or on some policy from healthcare to climate change to immigration, it's not because they're out to get someone, but because they are, you know, doing their job.
The presence of "fake news" in the form of propaganda and tabloid journalism may numb us to the constant stream of mendacity, but we cannot let it sour our ability to discern truth.  If we start our common cause on solid ground we will get a lot farther in the end.

The Game of Thrones

And in that day you will cry out because of your king, 

whom you have chosen for yourselves;

But the Lord will not answer you in that day.

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel;

They said, "NO! but we are determined to have a king over us,

So that we may be like other nations,

And that our king may govern us and go out before us

And fight our battles.

1 Samuel 8: 18 - 20

For their sin of rejecting God's just rule, The Lord gave the people of Israel precisely what they asked for.  I will be honest with you, this narrative from 1 Samuel haunts me about as much as any text from Scripture.  I say haunts because it is so painfully accurate concerning human nature, and because it so accurately describes our current idolatry of power as much as it describes a situation from ancient history.

Life at the end of the era of the Judges had some serious flaws, the Book of Judges ends with the ominous line: "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes." That assessment comes after one of the most brutal stories in the Bible, about the Levite's concubine (not one you teach the Sunday School kids), and a period of inter-tribal strife.  The era where Judges like Deborah and Sampson and Samuel had been the voice of God and the arbiters of justice was failing.  The Tribes had a hard time getting together about anything and so each of the groups that comprised the nation of Israel had a constant feeling of dread and insecurity.  They couldn't trust each other completely and they definitely couldn't trust all the jackals snarling at them from the wilderness.

The answer was clear in their minds: they needed a king, they needed a strong man who could raise up the armies and who could force the fractious leaders of the 12 Tribes to work together, who could elevate their people from a loose confederation to a mighty nation.  Does this sound familiar at all? Maybe if I phrase it this way: "Make Israel Great Again!"  How about now?

The conversation that God has with Samuel in this narrative is heartbreaking.  Samuel prays to the Lord, feeling like he has somehow failed at his task, and God says, "Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.  Just as they have done to me from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other Gods, so also they are doing unto you."  He goes on to tell Samuel to warn them about all the things the king will take from them and what life will be like under the rule of a mere human.

But God sounds sort of fed up in the end, and so they get what they want: their very first mad strongman.  In stories like Game of Thrones it often takes generations of inbreeding and grasping at power until you produce the Mad King Aerys Targaryen. But in ancient Israel, they got lucky right off the bat, a guy who was the perfect strongman, a powerful military leader, who was also a profoundly insecure narcissist and ended up being a paranoid delusional personality.

Good times.

Honestly though, David, the first "good" king was also capable of being less than a nice guy, ask Uriah the Hittite.  Solomon, for all his wisdom, gets himself serious wrapped up in some serious idolatry in order to smooth out one of his most important marriages, and that is really at the core of what the problem is: power is one of the most brutal idols that there is.  The saying goes, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Observation tells me that power is actually an even more idolatrous trap that even money, and it's not just for the one in power, but also for the ones who give the "king" his throne.  The people of Israel were willing to give up all the freedom that Samuel warned them would be taken, and pay the price that Samuel warned them would be required.  For what? For security, for the feeling of power in the face of "the nations." For the idea of Israel being a player on the world stage.

But they never were, not really, because that was not God's plan for them. That was not why God brought them up out of Egypt, in fact it was precisely the opposite idea.  God wanted them to a blessing to the nations, not a scourge of them.  God made that promise to Abraham so that grace could unfold in the world, no so that Abraham's descendants could become divinely sanctioned tyrants.

George Martin tell us that "When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die." That is truth.  God knows that is the truth, that's why God tries so very hard to give us another option on how to live in this world, by trusting in God, all the time.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

If it be your will, that I speak no more,

that my voice be still, as it was before.

I will speak no more, I shall abide until,

I am spoken for, if it be your will.

-Leonard Cohen, If It Be Your Will.

Fair warning: I am going to agree with Eugene Peterson. I'm sorry if this offends you, but I have been far too blessed and encouraged by what has poured out of the soul of that gentle old man to abandon him now.  Even though the carnival barkers who shout about moral decay and "caving in" to the culture are now ready to declare him apostate, I'm still with him, or rather I feel even more than ever that he is with me. We are both ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and we both have pretty righteous beards.

Once upon a time, I attended a conference where Eugene was the keynote speaker. It was, along with a preaching seminar I took with Fred Craddock, one of my few brushes with honest to goodness Church celebrity.  For those of you unfamiliar with Eugene Peterson, he is a Presbyterian pastor turned writer of spiritual theology and the source of the Bible translation/paraphrase called The Message.  This week Jonathan Merritt published a short interview he did with Eugene in which he asked him about his retirement from writing and public life.  In the course of this interview he asked about the "hot-button" issue of homosexuality/marriage equality.  As a writer and pastor Peterson never exactly tackled the issue directly, although if you know him through his writing, and you have ever gotten a sense of who he is, I think you would be rather un-surprised to find out that he, coming to the end of his career never felt it to be all that much of an issue.  He shared a few little stories about gay people he had served as a pastor and how those relationships had shaped his view of the issue.  When asked whether or not, if he were still serving as a pastor, he would perform a same sex marriage ceremony, he simply said, "Yes."

That restrained, but honest answer is indicative of Eugene Peterson.  He knows it is a hot potato, he knows it is going to earn him some enemies, and it has.  Conservative folk from the Presbyterian Layman to the Babylon Bee have jumped on Peterson's "admission of guilt," but honestly there's not a lot they can do or say to tarnish the legacy of a man who has lived so faithfully and spoken so powerfully about ministry.

One of Peterson's earliest works was called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, it is a series of reflections on the Psalms of Ascent.  I would say that his entire life has formed itself rather nicely to fit into that title. If you want to get a flavor for what Eugene is like and how he handles things that are a pretty big deal with humility watch this. I especially love the part where Jan tells Bono to be careful and not run on the stones. Eugene is decidedly not a follower of fashion, nor is he much of a self-promoter, the fact that he has been such a successful writer is a testament to the quality of what he has written.

I didn't really intend this to be a defense of Eugene Peterson; he has no need of defending, nor is he probably at all concerned with people accusing him of not taking Scripture seriously, or playing fast and loose with the truth. Call it more of a statement of trust. I know from reading his books, including his memoir where he talks about how he came to undertake the massive work of interpreting the whole Bible in modern language, that he takes Scripture more seriously than any of his critics.  In fact, he has written a whole book called Eat This Book in which he encourages us to take the digestion of Scripture, as a central Christian discipline (and no, he does not literally tell you to eat bibles).

What I am considering here is the nature of Christian discipleship, into which Eugene has been one of my wisest guides. I am earlier in the path, but I feel a great sense of gratitude to men like Craddock and Peterson who have marked the way.  Standing on the shoulders of giants is how we make progress in religion as well as in science.  It is the value of tradition that we do not have to start from zero with regard to the walk of faith.  Khalil Gibran used the image of a bow and arrow to describe the launching of one generation from another.  The ideal natural course is for the older generation to help the younger generation launch further up and further in.  I feel like I am a much better pastor and disciple of Jesus for having read and learned from Eugene Peterson.  I know that his "controversial" answer of "yes" did not come frivolously or without serious prayer and discernment.  I know this because he has proven to be a trustworthy and faithful companion on the journey. Eugene would be the first to deflect any sort of hero worship or implication that he is some sort of guru.

At the end of his memoir, The Pastor, Peterson shares a letter he wrote to a young pastor who had written him for advice or encouragement.  His words in that letter should be for all of us in this vocation:

As I reflect with you on my fifty years in this pastoral vocation, it strikes me right now as curious that I have almost no sense of achievement. Doesn't that seem odd? What I remember is all the little detours into "proud" and "astray" that I experienced, the near misses, the staggering recoveries or semirecoveries of who I was and what I was about. People who look at me now have no idea how precarious it felt at the time, how many faithless stretches there were.

Just in case you want to think that Peterson is out to make himself look good or to win accolades, note that his work is filled with just the sort of humility before God's grace that you see there.  His decisions, his positions, his opinions are some of the most well thought out and examined, because he has not neglected to notice that he might be wrong, and often admits that he was, and that where he is and what he has become is not of his own doing.
I am a bit sad that Eugene is not going to speak for us and with us any longer, but he is in his 80's now and he deserves to rest.  I am glad that he took the time to mark one last signpost on the way out.

Update: Peterson has retracted his "yes" answer to the question of whether or not he would perform a same sex wedding ceremony if he were a pastor. In the explanation of the retraction he stated that he was framing the question in his mind as what he would do as a pastor, a role he had officially retired from a quarter century ago.  He also stated that consideration for the congregation he served would have to factor into his decision.  Which is an important piece of my own position as well, in the question of whether or not to officiate at a same-sex wedding, the level of acceptance within the congregation would be a factor.  I am not a free agent when it comes to my role as Pastor.  I felt that Peterson's first "yes" was motivated by a pastoral reflex, he was picturing, because of how Merritt phrased the question, two committed and faithful members of his congregation who happened to be LGBTQ. My read of his answer was that he was assuming that the church he served welcomed and accepted these people as brothers or sisters in Christ, without regard for their sexual orientation.  I think I understand that leap, because it's a leap I very much want to make, I want my congregation to be a radically welcoming fellowship where some of the old dividing lines have gone away.
That being said, I am conscious of the fact that, were I asked to perform a same sex wedding, I may not receive the unanimous consent of my congregation.  I don't know for sure because it has not been put to the test.  I am not particularly keen on performing random weddings for people that have no connection to the church, although I have done it.  I am hoping that, should a test of this principle come along, the relationship and the caring of the congregation would bring us together so that it is not my conscience against that of church members. I am trying to do the long slow work of having conversations when they arise, praying my way through the baby steps of building a community that opens itself to love.
I affirm my love and respect for Eugene, and I hope that this retraction was not simply a matter of bowing to public outcry. I do not retract any of the nice things I said, and I believe that this whole matter is still a signpost, but perhaps one that bears a caution about how emotional and complicated the issues surrounding marriage can be.  Even in a denomination like the PC(USA) where inclusivity is now a complete legal possibility, it remains an elusive goal. It reminds me of another quote from Peterson's Memoir The Pastor:

Men and women who are pastors in America today find that they have entered into a way of life that is in ruins.

Our job then is to seek what another one of my wise guides Walker Percy used as the title of perhaps his best novel: Love in the Ruins.  Love must be the guiding principle, for it is the only thing that can bring life out of death and rebuild the ruins of the great city.

Leaven

He told them another parable:

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed 

in with three measures of flower until all of it was leavened."

-Matthew 13: 33

I admit, I sometimes get discouraged by numbers.  Every day there are at least a few articles of woe reporting about how the church is in decline.  There are also no shortage of articles prescribing how we ought to fix that problem.  A brief survey of possible solutions:

1. We need to be more pure in our doctrine
2. We need to more flexible in our doctrine.
3. We need to be more clear about our values.
4. We need to be less self-righteous and judgmental
5. We need to engage people with quality, lively, contemporary worship.
6. We need to give people the deep roots of liturgical tradition.
7. We need to "get out there," where the people are.
8. We need to get the people "in here" where we are.
9. We need to offer value to talented, prosperous people who will support our ministry.
10. We need to minister to the least of these.

Alright, I just got to ten, and I'm getting bored already writing up pairs of seemingly contradictory strategies, but honestly I could go on, and on.  The thing is though, none of these by themselves are necessarily bad ideas, I have seen all of them proposed thoughtfully by various commentators on the Ecclesia.  I have tried to phrase each item as positively as I can, and I will tell you that, in certain circumstances, each one of them could lead to a healthy, or healthier church culture.  It would be great if we could actually figure out a way to do all of them without suffering a schizophrenic crisis.

But I think perhaps there is another thing that we need to do before we attempt any of that.  That thing is to realize, and honestly accept that God is not impressed by our membership roles.  God is not pleased by a million dollar church budget, or a new member class of 150 people.  We are entirely too impressed by those things to realize that God cares as much about one lost sheep as he does about the 99, and that is not a critique of the 99 that is a positive statement of God's attention to detail.

Mustard seeds, yeast, lost coins, small things, growing and living things, these are the fuel of parables.  Stories that have a place in the lives of the people who hear them.  The way yeast works is not by making all the flour into yeast, but by helping the flour turn into bread.  Is the goal of the church to make all the world into Christians or is it to leaven the world so that the kingdom of heaven can draw near?

How you answer that question will largely determine how well you can actually follow Jesus.  It will also determine how fixated you get, for better or worse, about any sort of numbers.

Division

Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste,

And no city or house divided against itself will stand.

-Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 12: 25

This is not about political divisions, or religious schisms, or even a family argument, this is about the fundamental truth that is illustrated here:

As another comic strip sage said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

I have seen what division does to communities, and thus I am more honestly worried about our nation right now than I ever have been.  It's not just Trump, it's not just Republicans that are causing this, it is a fundamental spiritual condition that afflicts us, our politics is just a symptom of a greater illness.

It bears note that Jesus said the thing above in response to people (the ever-present naysayers and keepers of the status quo) who thought that his ability to cast out demons was a product of him actually being somehow in league with Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.  Because they did not understand why or how Jesus was doing these things, their assumption was that it must be diabolical.  They had a hard time believing that he had this power because he was actually acting for God.  They also had the distinct impression that he was not on their side, and since "their side" was obviously the side of righteousness, he had to be something other, and that other goes by many names.  That other is shaped by the darkest terrors our hearts and minds can dream.

The thing is they were so blinded by the fact that Jesus would not color inside their lines and play by their rules that they took a stand against him. In taking that stand, for what they thought must be good reasons, they were standing against God, rather than against Satan.  It bears notice that the people that Jesus (and John the Baptist before him) were most critical of were the religious leaders and powerful people, the more powerful and wealthy you were the less likely you were to actually get what Jesus was saying. Those with the most to lose were the ones who would rather have blood on their hands than let him keep doing what he was doing.

In that comic strip above, you might say that it is the tiger Hobbes who is playing the role of the Devil, he gets that impish grin and then frostily disenchants Calvin of his illusions of invulnerability.  From a biblical standpoint though, and certainly from a Christian perspective it is Calvin who is the voice of the Satan.  The imperious six year old, spouting violence and control and daring anyone to challenge his reign of terror. The tiger is a prophet (Lord, I sure do miss Calvin and Hobbes), making the tiny tyrant aware of his own vulnerability and impermanence.

Do you want to know how to judge right from wrong, or perhaps more importantly the way of Christ from the way of the world?  Look for the opposite of power and control, look for the way that leads to kindness and compassion, rather than strength. Look for the way that puts you in God's hands rather than trying to put God in your hands. 

The way of the world always leads to division between groups that inevitably think they are right, they build power, they wrestle for control, they shout at one another, and the world burns and the demons play in the shadows.

But, by the grace of God, we do have an alternative.

Hold My Beer

You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other.

Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.

-Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 6: 24 (The Message)

When we hear Jesus talk like this, we take the same attitude that many a man has taken when one of his friends has suggested that a particular course of action is unwise or perhaps impossible: "Hold my beer."  Look, we've all been there, we hear it, we know it's sensible and true, but maybe we've had just enough alcohol, or maybe we just so badly want it not to be so that we're willing to try something highly unadvised. I wish that money wasn't such a strong competitor for my heart and mind.  I am exceedingly privileged in that I have found a path where serving God and the church is also a way to support my family and lead a comfortable life, but I would be lying if I said I didn't wish there was just a little bit more comfort, and a few more dollar signs involved.

It is pernicious, worrying about money.  I would say that there is real wisdom in the vows of poverty that some priests and monastics take, but to tell you the truth those vows simply pass the problem up  the food chain.  Churches, denominations and hierarchies worry every bit as much about money as your average household.  If I'm being honest, personally and in my experience with religious institutions, God loses this battle a good part of the time; thus this verse remains a prophetic word, a thorn in the flesh.

I'm holding on to the barest of hopes that the fact that I can still feel that jab is an indicator of the truth that God has not lost the war.  If I woke up tomorrow and the world had moved into the dream of Star Trek, where money had ceased to be the motivating force behind everything, where individual people and humanity as a whole (if not Ferengi) was free to pursue exploration and discovery, or art, or whatever moved their souls, where technology had replaced the need for anyone to live a life of menial service and allowed everyone to engage in noble and dignified vocation, maybe then I could say that God was really A-1 on my list.

But the thing is, on Star Trek, there is no real allowance for gods.  Sure the Klingons have some spiritual stuff that happens, and the Vulcans have elevated logic to a divine principle, but there is nothing really for the humans.  There is a ship's counselor, there are hairdressers, botanists, expendable red-shirts, engineers and all manner of people in the world, but never a chaplain.  The counselor has supplanted that role as near as I can tell, but it's never about a connection with anything beyond simple emotional processes.  They may have managed to get rid of money, but they also apparently have gotten rid of God.

It occurs to me that duality is a rather necessary feature of our make up, and Star Trek has tried to simply erase the central duality of most of our lives in order to pursue other avenues.  Since I'm in the Sci-Fi wormhole, it bears mentioning that Star Wars is actually entirely centered around a duality.  The Force itself is both light and dark and the adherence to one side or the other is the central drama... except for the fact that Han Solo represents the opinion of most non-Jedi and non-Sith, that the duality is nothing but "hokey religion."

Doctor Who has investigated the complicated relationship between the Doctor and the Master over the course of the series and there is a rather important implication that they actually need each other in some way, shape or form.  The season finale that just aired on Sunday night dangled the possibility, the hope, that the Doctor and Missy (the Master's latest and female incarnation) could somehow work together.  But (spoiler alert) the nature of the Master prevents that, and the last male incarnation of the Master shoots Missy in the back, precisely at the point where she had chosen to turn towards the Doctor.  This is an interesting commentary on the way that the feminine identity is a necessary corrective to some of the most pathological aspects of maleness. And also how the male ego is willing to self-destruct to avoid it. It only took a Sci-Fi series fifty plus years to bring that into the light, so maybe there is hope.  Here's the Doctor's sales pitch to Missy and the Master, it's pretty good theology:

 “I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that… Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I’m going to stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Some day… And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” 

It highlights again, how tricky duality can be, if you are forced to choose between power and vulnerability, most of us would choose power, even after we understand how destructive that choice might be.  That is essentially the choice between God and Money, giving yourself to God means surrendering your control.  Money seems to offer you a way to maintain control, it dangles the dream of being wealthy enough that you can insulate yourself from suffering.  Order offers us the dream that we can be safe from chaos and violence. The Dark Side is seductive, always. God's way by comparison seems rather mundane and yet at the same time difficult.

Jesus demonstrated vulnerability in his life, and it bears noticing that he suffered the consequences of that vulnerability past what most of us would consider the omega point of human experience.  I think the challenge of Christian discipleship is learning to look past the mortally constrained view of power and see that true life exists only in God.  Money, control and power will always dangle enticements and choices out there, they're not going to give up any time soon, and a lot of the time they are going to win.  Hope is belief that they will not win forever.