More Sifting

Every part of Scripture is God breathed and useful in one way or another - 

showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.

Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.

-2 Timothy 3: 16-17 (The Message)

Here's some not so nice baggage I have had to sift through with this Timothy reading: I have used this text as a weapon against other people, and I have had others use it as a weapon against me.  I admit and confess that I have misunderstood what Paul was actually saying to Timothy and I thought that the "God breathed" Word was some sort of infallible support for my own (all too fleeting) sense of orthodoxy.  So first of all, I would like to repent of my own idolatry of the Bible.  I would like to repent of all the times when I felt that God's Word justified some prejudice or opinion of mine.  I would like to repent of any and all times that I tried to strangle the breath out of the Word.

I would also like to lay this burden down: I have come to a place where I cringe when I hear someone say the word biblical.  Which is kind of tricky in my line of work, sort of like a doctor who doesn't like the sight of blood.  None of this is because I have rejected the Scripture, or because I no longer bind myself under the authority of the Word, but because I get the sense that a lot of times people use that word too lightly, they use it to mean "traditional," or "moral," or "ethical," or maybe even "righteous," in short they are not adequately acknowledging how complex and alive the actual God breathed Word truly is.

I will turn to Psalm 137 as my example, because it is personal and beloved to me.  This was one of the Scriptures read at my brother's funeral.  Of all the memories of that day, one of my Dad's friends reading: "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and we wept when we remembered Zion." But he didn't read all the way to the end of the Psalm, for good reason, the last verse of the Psalm reads: "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks!"  That part always seems to get left out of the reading of that Psalm, the bitterness and the anger at the oppressor that has so twisted the singer of songs that he would delight in the killing of infants.  We have a hard enough time acknowledging lament in the Scripture without that sort of brutal image. 

And this is not an isolated incident.  The Bible is full of stories that I would not tell my children: Judah and Tamar, the Levite's concubine, David and Bathsheba (and poor Uriah), Amnon raping Tamar (different Tamar this time) and David, good old king David, not doing anything about it.  I could go on, but if you have even a passing familiarity with the stories I'm talking about you will notice that justice is rarely done, the innocent are not protected and all of the people suffer for the sins of a few.

So when you say something is "biblical," my snarkiest response is likely to be, "you mean like rape and incest and the killing of children?"

But I get it, you just mean the good parts, where the baby Jesus is smiling at the Blessed Virgin as the cattle are lowing and the wise men are bringing gifts.  But Herod kills a bunch of kids in that story too!

How am I supposed to deal with this in any sort of beatific fashion?

Well, the fact of the matter is, I can deal with those rough edges.  I can learn something about God, and about humanity in all of them, but what I learn may lead me to hang up my harp on the branches and not exactly want to sing any more songs.  I don't always like this book that sits open in front of me every day, but I have chosen to wrestle with it, yell at it, slam it shut and eventually come back to it again and again. So when I say biblical, I am not being simple minded or naive.  When I say biblical, I could be talking about a soaring vision of light, or black, knotted pit in my stomach, it just depends.  But I'll tell you what, I take this Word very seriously, and because I do people that accuse me of being one of the "itching ears" gang that Paul talked about in his letter to Timothy, because of my progressive politics, it forces me to practice forgiveness of a very certain type. 

See, here's the thing, my inclusive stance towards LGBTQ people, my support of marriage equality, my desire for a more just system of laws, the fact that I actually want to protect the environment or work to end racism or poverty instead of just hoping that Jesus will come back soon, all that stuff is a result of my working with and wrestling my way through these Scriptures.

I have, in fact, changed my opinion on several of the things on that list as a result of a convicting moment that I had while reading Scripture or preparing a sermon. It's pretty safe to say that there is almost nothing I think, write or talk about that isn't in some way touched by my on-going relationship with the Scripture.

If you tell me something like: "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it," you are essentially like that person who thinks that they can tell a Navy fighter pilot something about flying because you were super good at playing WWII Fighter Ace on Nintendo. It's not that I would dishonor your conclusions, you may even be right about something, it's that I don't think you have actually put in the time or the honest struggle in coming to those conclusions.  You are not treating the Scripture as God breathed you are treating it like the rules of Monopoly (and probably cheating) or a self-help book that mostly just validates your own sinful biases.

I do not believe that my interpretation of Scripture is infallible, or even that it might not change more down the road.  I do not expect that everyone will agree with me about how to live with and in the God breathed Word, I'm not the Pope, nor do I want to be. I would just like people to stop implying or even insisting that I'm not paying attention to this Word, as much as I would like to live otherwise, I just can't get away from it.

Baggage down, sermon ready.

Sifting

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, 

Knowing from whom you have learned it...

-2 Timothy 3: 14

This has been happening to me a lot lately.  When I sit down on Monday to read the Revised Common Lectionary passages for the coming Sunday, there is one that I think, "no way, not that one." But by Wednesday I have realized that the very one I wanted to stay away from is the one the Spirit is pushing me towards.  I've started too many sermons in the past month with that little trope though, so I'm getting it out of the way here on Wednesday, hoping that I will be able to clear the deck of old baggage and really deal with this passage with fresh eyes and a new heart.

So, on to the baggage. I strongly identify with Timothy, I may not exactly be the youngest of the young, but for a good while, when I first started ordained ministry, I was the youngest minister in whatever group I was a part of.  I actually felt a bit of relief when, after about three or four years of that, a couple younger folk arrived in my Presbytery, so I didn't have to be the baby anymore.  I also identify with Timothy because I have been blessed with several wise mentors to teach me the ropes of this peculiar vocation.  

It starts with my Dad, I grew up as the son of a Pastor.  But my Dad was always the kind of person that would inspire my peers to say, "he doesn't really seem like a normal Pastor."  I heard that a lot, but since he was my primary frame of reference I didn't really know what that meant. I do now though, because I have seen a lot of "normal pastors." I think what was meant by that was essentially people who are so preoccupied with their religiosity that they neglect their humanity.  In other words, they don't keep it real.  I get why it happens, it's a defense mechanism, you put up a persona instead of your true self. Being real with people makes you vulnerable.  When they criticize and/or attack you they're not just taking down some false front you've constructed, they're actually ripping you.  Paul is trying to coach young Timothy through such a situation, to paraphrase: Hold on to who you are and remember who you have learned from.

I was fortunate to have two mentors in Seminary: David McFarlane, a diminutive Scot with impressively expressive eyebrows (they would make Peter Capaldi proud).  Who used a very Doctor Who-esque approach to disarm and counter the rather uptight, wealthy, congregation of The Presbyterian Church, Sewickley.  David insisted that the tall steeple and trappings of wealth would not change him or intimidate him.  He drove out of Sewickley (a town with a Bentley Dealership), in the same beat up red Honda Civic that he arrived in.  I owe to David an appreciation of Jonathan Edwards and a better understanding of the politics of wealth and power, as well as an appreciation for Planned Parenthood (an organization I had vilified in my own mind).  His good nature and kind liberalism started to crack the ice of a rather rigid dogmatist in the making. I think, I hope, he got to me in time.

By the time David and I parted ways, we were both fairly sure that my pastoral life would probably not lead me into a large corporate church like Sewickley.  I don't remember the exact wording of his advice, but it was something along the lines of: "If you're ever going to try to lead a congregation like this, let it be when you are old enough to retire in peace if, or rather when it starts to eat your soul."

With that experience tucked into my pocket, I moved a bit north to work with Rev. Dr. W. James Legge, who the first time I met him looked exactly like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus was a priest.  Jim has been the Pastor at a congregation that was much more like the ones I would realistically serve, for a really long time.  He was the master of "do as I say, not as I do." He helped me get my hands in to the dirt of ministry in a way that simply would not have been possible in Sewickley.  He showed me that often you have to carve out your own way and do things according to your gifts, not the gifts that other people think you ought to have.

With Dad, David, and Jim, not to mention some really good Seminary Professors in my corner, I thought I was ready to do this thing.  But, as it turns out, there is nothing quite like having to run your own circus to find all the pitfalls.  And so the Spirit gave me a friend and colleague in my first call, another absurdly long-tenured Presbyterian in the next town over, Bruce Shannon.  Bruce and I worked together on everything from a cooperative youth program to Presbytery council right up until I left Western PA and he retired a few months apart.  I can't even begin to number the times that I leaned on his experience, and bent his ear about some little nonsense.  I probably ignored  and neglected enough good advice from him to fill a decent size book. What advice I did take saved my bacon. Bruce and I had nearly a decade of working together and I'm pretty sure that without his friendship and wisdom, things might have gone very differently for me.

I needed to be reminded of "whom I have learned it." That's what today was all about.  I've got more baggage in the later parts of the text from 2 Timothy, but as it turns out, I only got through the first verse.  I've got some more sifting to do, or this is going to be a long sermon.

Civil Discourse?

We are less than a month away from the election.  Every time I write a blog that relates to this circus I think, "Okay, that's it, I'm done.  I've said all that I can say." But Trump really is the gift that keeps on giving, like herpes.
I didn't immediately fly off the handle when I heard about his "locker room talk," because, quite frankly, as much as I wanted to be shocked and appalled, I wasn't.  For what it's worth, the Donald is actually right, I have heard people talk in a way that was every bit as vulgar and disrespectful about women.  And no, I'm sorry, I mostly did not stand up and call them on their bad behavior, because they were idiots, I knew they were idiots.  I also knew that they, as idiots, were mostly harmless and what's more, were probably likely to stammer like a fool when confronted with an actual woman.  Did I mention that most of the incidents I'm referring to happened in High School? Maybe a few in college, but have mostly vanished from my world by the age of 42.  I don't miss them.  Trump was 59, he was on his third marriage and actually had grandkids.  He also occupied a position of authority and had the privilege that comes with money.  Meaning that his "locker room talk" about making advances on women and groping them was more than just the empty posturing of a 16 year old boy, it was, as has been accused by many women, a clear and present danger.
The whole scenario made me feel sorry for any women that this lecherous pumpkinhead may have assaulted, and who just had to swallow that because he was Donald J. Trump.  But that was not the end of the public molestation that this election is forcing upon us.  Then came the justifications, for sake of my blood pressure, I'm just going to focus on three:

1. It's just locker room talk.  Bull-freaking-pucky, as noted above, this is, indeed something you are likely to hear in locker rooms, among teenagers, who have limited experience with actual sex.  Among grown-ups who are capable of dealing with the relationships that ought to define sexual relationships, this sort of talk tends to go away.  Because girls are no longer abstract things that you want to "get some" from, they are actual people you spend time with and maybe even commit to, then they become the mother of your children, and then, if you have a daughter, if some clown started saying what Donald said, you want to rip his throat out with your bare hands... Sorry, I'm getting too emotionally involved with this one, let's move on.
2. Bill Clinton is a slimebag too. Yes, Bill Clinton is a lecherous toad as well.  He absolutely abused his authority and engaged in adulterous relationships, regardless of what the definition of "is" is.  This is such an incredible deflection that I felt my intelligence being insulted even more than when I watch those payday loan commercials where people are so thankful that someone was able to take usurious advantage of them.  This is what is known in the world of rhetoric as a false equivalence, and would mostly be declared out of order by any moderator worth their salt.  First of all, we are not electing Bill again.  Second of all, we are not electing Bill again. I will fully capitulate to the fact that Bill and the Donald, heck let's throw JFK in on that as well, are actually birds of feather who have managed to grope and molest their way through life.  I admit that the shameful way we have allowed rich and powerful men to harass and abuse women with impunity is unacceptable.  We need to stop allowing that to happen. Period. End of Sentence. John Oliver pointed out this funny but profane clip, it's almost like the first woman president has to face her very own version of Darth Vader, except the dark side of the force, in this case, is chauvinism, sexism and misogyny.  It actually makes sense that her very own husband is, in fact, an illustration of all that bad old stuff, but this time America, we have a choice and our eyes are open.
3. Women read Fifty Shades of Grey, they must like dirty, rapey stuff. I saved this one for last because, great googly-moogly, how is this even a justification? First of all, I will be the last one to defend FSoG, not because they are profane or controversial, but because they are horrible writing.  I very much would like it if we could collectively rise up and say that they are trashy, horrible, very bad books.  I do not like the way that they essentially romanticize emotional control and sexual abuse, and I do not need reminded that I'm misunderstanding the power dynamic in those sorts of relationships.  Controlling behavior is abusive by nature.  If you need a contract to define how you are going to relate to each other sexually, that is probably not good.  But I digress, whether or not a woman enjoyed reading that trash does not entitle anyone to molest or assault her, to "kiss her without waiting," or to "grab..." I'm not even going to say it.  The fact that I like to watch horror movies does not make it okay for someone to chase me around wearing a hockey mask and wielding a machete.  I do not consent to that sort of treatment.

So this is where we are America.  We have a month more of this, and then we have to choose.  The point where we can feel good about this process has long since passed.  I'm just hoping to get through the next debate without having a rage induced aneurysm.

Justice For All

Evil can hide in systems much more readily than in individuals.

-Richard Rohr

As you might be able to tell, I'm not a fan of this election cycle, it's giving me bad feelings on a pretty much daily basis.  The thing that I guess I'm most vexed by is the way that the veneer of our civility has been peeled away and the rotten underneath stuff is so visible. Political relationships have devolved into petty squabbles where truth and righteousness get steamrolled in the push to "win." The prejudice that has lurked in the shadows of our society has decided that now is the hour to step out onto the big stage and strut it's stuff.

I have caught myself, several times, calling a certain orange tinted candidate, evil.  But that's not really accurate.  I don't think the Donald is evil, he's authoritarian, arrogant and chauvinistic, but that just makes him all the more attractive to people who just can not stand Hillary. I think insofar as either candidate represents something evil, it is evil that hides from them behind a mask of ideological assumptions about the world.  Trump preaches the idea that if you just take off all the restraints, people and businesses will be able to roll into prosperity and good times.  Trump is a man at home in chaos, he seems to flourish in this environment where truth is hard to come by.  At the same time, he shouts about "Law and Order" (not the TV show), and seems to have no idea about how that echoes Mussolini and Franco, nor does he see any contradiction in advocating authoritarian rules for the masses while removing what regulations we have to restrain the robber barons (of which class he is a lifetime member).  His personal and professional life has been chaotic to say the least, multiple marriages, failed businesses (and some successful ones), his name on shining buildings and cursed on the tongues of many whom he owed money.  "Reality" television loved him, because he is larger than life, and his cult of personality has proven to be able to cross over into the world of politics.

But he is not alone in serving and protecting Evil.  Hillary has been a part of the political system, with all of its wars, greed and corruption for pretty much her entire adult life. Her "corruption" like her much discussed email scandal, were really just capitulations to political necessity.  The comment has been made by those who pay more attention to politics than me that Hillary has been playing the political game for so long that she may have actually forgotten what it was like to not be a part of the game. She has been so long in the dragon's lair that she has become a dragon herself.

Here is the larger context of the above quote from Fr. Rohr: 

Today, most of us try to find personal and individual freedom even as we remain inside of structural boxes and a system of consumption that we are then unable or unwilling to critique.  Our mortgages, luxuries and privileged lifestyles control our whole future. Whoever is paying our bills and giving us security and status determines what we can and cannot say or even think.  Self-serving institutions that give us our security, status or identity are considered "too big to fail" and are invariably beyond judgment from the vast majority of people. Evil can hide in systems much more readily than in individuals.

If I'm honest, and I generally try to be, I know that I could probably get whole-heartedly behind either candidate if it weren't for this pesky thing called the Gospel that keeps telling me to look out for the least of these and the little ones.  I could embrace Trump's strong-man iconoclasm and say that, for all his faults, at least he's something new and different, because the old system might just be too broke to get anything but congress overriding a veto on highly emotional grounds, and then realizing that they probably just opened American service people and contractors all over the world to being sued in foreign courts.  I could be more enthusiastic about my support for Hillary, because essentially I do believe that she is the better choice, not because she's going to change the system, but because she knows how to work the system.  But I'm not happy about endorsing the status quo (I'm still mourning for Bernie).  I want things to change, I just don't want them to change in the way I think Trump would change them. The majority of us are probably going to be voting based on rejection principle rather than on some positive criteria, and that may be sad, but it might just get us through this kerfuffle.
I believe that the Gospel leads us to be salt and light, and work for the peace of the city, even if we are exile.  The Christian relationship to civil authorities (rendering unto Caesar) is tricky.  I believe we are called to work for justice and challenge "the world," which meant essentially, the systems of greed and violence, those "structural boxes" and systems of consumption as Rohr described them.  The truth of the matter is that we are probably never going to get a presidential candidate who really takes a Gospel approach to the process or the office.  They crucified Jesus, and he wasn't even running.

Tears of a Clown

I do not like clowns.  It probably stems from some combination Stephen King's IT, and pictures of John Wayne Gacy.  I'm not given to irrational phobias either.  I tolerate spiders, snakes, rodents and suchlike, as long as we keep our respective habitats sorted properly.  But clowns?  I do not like clowns.
I'm not exactly afraid of clowns though, it's more of a vague sense of irritation when I see one, and a feeling of being sort of spooked out by the nature of them (extends to mimes as well).  I can't entirely explain the creepiness of clowns to those who don't feel it on an ontological level.
Needless to say, the trend of lurking clowns, no doubt instigated by some brainless internet stooge and apparently becoming something of a trend, causes me some trouble. Here's why: I'm not a violent person, but that is primarily because of my upbringing and my core beliefs in love, grace and the brotherhood of humankind.  I believe in non-violence, because I believe that violence only begets more violence and the world is a brutal enough place without my fear-induced blood lust being added to the mix.
That being said, I tend to think that I could straight up murder some creepy clown who showed up in my backyard or in a deserted parking lot.  I would not be acting as the clear thinking Christian man that I try to be, I would be responding to that clown the way most people respond to a bee in their underwear, which is in a focused state of panicked agitation.  That merry prankster should pray I'm not armed.
One clown has been shot. It's really only a matter of time before someone gets killed over a stupid prank, because I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
I can see how this started out funny. I think clowns in general started out funny, but at some point things outlive their cultural epoch, like burlesque shows and black face.  I think perhaps this is the nadir of clowns as a cultural phenomenon.  What began as a way to perform rollicking slapstick and indulge a talent for making things out of balloons, is now nothing more than a creepy punch line to a joke that goes too far to really be funny to any non-psychopath.
I actually do understand the entertainment value in sheer chaos and disturbance.  I've been to a Gwar show, I get it.  But clowns lurking?  It's just too sinister to allow me to believe it's anything but a cynical ploy to get attention and maybe gut-shot.
Y'all need to quit, or someone's gonna get dead.

Sources

Remember when your teacher told you that you needed to remember the multiplication tables because you wouldn't always have a calculator with you? Yeah, about that, I now pretty much always have a calculator with me (on my phone), not to mention something that will tell me in a few seconds about the quadratic formula, the definition of a cosine or the acceleration due to gravity.  It can also call up the Gettysburg Address, the Preamble to the Constitution or Hamlet's monologue.
What it cannot do is sort out all of the nonsense that passes for news these days.  In the past day or so, I have seen articles shared on facebook by people I'm friends with that claimed the following: Hillary Clinton ordered a drone strike on Julian Assange (Wiki Leaks guy), because Assange has been "threatening" to release information detrimental to her campaign.  Granted it is a crackpot story from thoroughly disreputable sources, however, it has come to my attention that people don't really carefully consider the source before they re-post. I use this example because it should raise the following question in EVERYONE's head, regardless of whether you support Clinton: Hillary Clinton is no longer Secretary of State, a Senator, or functioning in any capacity that would give her the authority to order a drone strike on someone (and honestly I'm not even sure any of her other positions would have given her that authority, maybe sec. of state? Maybe?).
There are equally ridiculous things being said about Trump, although there are enough absurdities that issue forth from the orange one that do not require hyperbole.

Here's a clue, and I'm going to be as balanced as I can here.  If it comes from Breitbart, Mother Jones, The Daily Kos, Occupy Democrats, Fox News, CNS or any of the myriad other mudslingers You should always consider the information contained therein to be suspect.  I'm not saying they never tell the truth, but their version of the truth is probably slanted.
Fact checkers like Snopes, Factcheck.org and Politifact are necessary stops on your daily internet browsing.  Don't be dissuaded if one of wizards of misinformation tries to convince you not to look behind the curtain because: fact checkers are just another tool of the "liberal media" (right wing) / "establishment" (left wing).  Breitbart loves to "fact check the fact checkers" because, a lot of the time, the fact checkers are more critical of their boy (the struggle of being the propaganda mouthpiece of a pathological con man).
I admit, my cynicism meter gets pushed into the red an awful, awful lot these days, I want to just throw up my hands and concede that in a world of liars I'll settle for half truth and be done with it, but I'm not okay with that really.
I spend a lot of my time engaged in a practice called Exegesis, in which I take a particular passage of Scripture and I try and interpret what it means.  The end result of this practice is the sermon that I crank out every Sunday (and sometimes a few blog articles along the way).
The thing is, I spend an entire week wrestling with each little block of Scripture, because, no matter what someone might tell you, the Bible is a lot more complicated than a newspaper.  I have to take into account a lot different things in the process of exegesis far beyond just "knowing what the words mean." I have to consider history, I have to consider the the traditions of the church and theological perspective.  I have to consider how my own experience shapes my understanding, but also guard against committing "eisegesis" where I read my own bias and preconceptions into the text.  Finally I have to sort out all the stuff that I've learned and somehow figure out what I'm going to say and what I'm not going to say, given the time I have and the audience who will be listening.  Last week, I had a neat way to tie in the scripture from Lamentations with the teachings from Luke, but it would have taken too long to make the moves to get there, so I had to put it aside.  It was good, it was true, but it was sort of irrelevant to the rest of what I was saying.
It's kind of hard to hold back when you see something that confirms your bias: Trump is a stooge, Hillary is a crooked politician, the two party system sucks, neither one of them deserve to be president.  No matter where you stand, you can find some "news" outlet that makes you feel not so very alone.  That doesn't mean that the people who agree with you are right.  It doesn't mean their stories are true.
Just because the truth is often difficult and hard doesn't mean we get to give up looking.

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

But that Joke isn't funny anymore,

No, it's too close to home,

and it's too near the bone, 

after all...

-The Smiths

I admit, I got a few chuckles out of this, but frankly it was low hanging fruit.  Comedy is normally the result of taking some little quirk and exaggerating it, like Jon Stewart aping George W. Bush and his manner of squinting and his peculiar little chuckle.  But in those days, Stewart would often have to actually also exaggerate the content of what was said as well.  SNL hardly had to do that, and I'll be fair, they didn't really have to reach very far to skewer Hillary's smugness as she contentedly watched Trump hoist himself by his own petards.
The problem is this is about who we are going to call our leader for the next four years.  In our system of government, each branch, including the executive is limited in its ability to wreck our ship of state.  It's a good idea, but in these days, where image and perception are so important to actually creating reality, the public face of your commander in chief does matter.
If you peer behind the veil a little bit, you might find some Trump supporters who think that all these gaffs and other crass behavior are just some sort of ploy, or maybe just a series of poorly thought out mistakes, rather than who he is in the real world. Except, because he has been such a public figure for so long, we know that his record of being a boor goes back quite a ways.  We also know that he shows a sociopathic lack of humility, an allergy to facts, and apparently considers diplomacy and compromise to be signs of weakness.
Hillary's track record is that of a politician, and yes that means she's left some destruction in her wake.  Yes, that means she may have voted one way one time and another way another time.  It may mean that she has learned to dissemble and deflect with a preternatural skill that almost makes her seem like an automaton...
Funny right?
I don't know.  I'm not really laughing, and believe me, I'm enough of a cynic that I can usually laugh through quite a lot.
Right now I'm feeling like my cynicism, and maybe the cynicism of our very nation has risen up to bite us.  How did we get to the place where it's actually hard to tell the difference between a debate and a late night sketch comedy routine?  Have we smirked our way into a catastrophe?
Only time will tell.