So, it's back to work. As much as I'd like to talk more about the World Cup or my journey on the Appalachian trail with Jack, or just the blessings of a vacation that didn't exactly go as planned. I've got to talk about Presbyterian stuff. There was a decision made by the 221st General Assembly that was, in some ways, more controversial than the decision regarding the definition of marriage. This decision involves Israel, and in today's global political situation Israel is the biggest hot button out there.
The decision was not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things: divesting the relatively limited investments of the Presbyterian Church (USA) from three US based companies that have been involved in activities that directly profit from the occupation of Palestinian territories by Israeli settlements. These three companies are: Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard and Motorola. These are all massive, billion dollar corporations, who are barely going to feel the PC(USA) pulling their investments.
This move is not going to effect any sort of change. It's not going to change the heart of Benjamin Netanyahu or the people who are engaged in the six thousand year process of "inheriting the Promised Land." It's not going to cause these corporations to turn their backs on a viable revenue stream.
All it's really going to do is make a whole bunch of people angry and emotional, it's going to damage our relationship as body with our Jewish neighbors who see Zionism as the true expression of God's plan for his chosen people. It actually puts us in the camp of the minority voices, among the Jews and among our fellow Americans.
But those voices are there, even among Israelis. Voices that say that the status quo of the relationship between Israel and Palestine is unjust and should not continue. We have added our two-cents, for what it's worth. We have thrown in with a very narrow minority of people in the world who support the nation state of Israel, but not unconditionally.
There are people out there who would see Israel destroyed, no doubt. There are also people who have no problem tiptoeing along the path of genocide in defense of Israeli sovereignty. We are, as a body, seeking some middle ground, which is mostly what Presbyterians do. I know, it's not exciting and it makes you think that maybe we've strayed a bit from our Scottish head-banging roots, but the world is complicated, and doing the right thing usually isn't easy.
If you're going to take a stand on something as emotionally charged as Israel's place in the world, you're going to tick some people right off.
The question is: are you angering the "right" people?
If you're challenging people who are clinging to an extreme position, fundamentalists on either the left or the right, you're probably doing the right thing.
If you're stepping outside the simple and doctrinaire solutions that can be compressed into compelling sound bytes, your're probably doing the right thing.
If TV news anchors seem mystified by the whole thing and maybe even a little hostile to you, you're probably doing the right thing.
If you are speaking for the helpless and the powerless, for the dispossessed and oppressed against systems of injustice that have been crushing them for generations... well you're definitely doing the right thing.
This particular action has been brewing for a decade, if not longer. It is extremely precise and designed to minimize collateral damage. We're not boycotting Israel, or Israeli companies. We are not pulling our support from anyone who does business in Israel/Palestine, only from three, American companies, who have been found to profit from very particular ventures that are directly related to the occupation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers. It should be noted that we have asked them to stop, but we don't have enough clout. We have requested dialogue, but important parties involved don't want to talk.
So now we take a symbolic stand, which we only took by the narrowest of margins, because it's really all we can do.
About the only thing you can do in a situation this complicated is look at who is on your side and who is shouting at you. That will tell you an awful lot about where you stand.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Thursday, June 26, 2014
The Fault is in our Gear, and our plans, and a whole bunch of other stuff
The big journey on the Appalachian Trail was only about half as long as planned. But the first problem was really the plan. I may have been a little too optimistic. Thinking that Jack and I could walk over 25 miles in four days on the trail was a bit naive. It was his first trip on the Trail and my first in over 20 years. I forgot a lot of things that should not have been forgotten like:
1. Packs are heavy, especially when they're loaded for four days of back country camping.
2. Mountains are high, and the trails that lead up them are often steep, especially on the AT, which is by no means a "beginner" trail.
3. I am not 18 anymore.
4. Jack is only 10.
5. Important pieces of gear can fail at any moment, like this:
1. Packs are heavy, especially when they're loaded for four days of back country camping.
2. Mountains are high, and the trails that lead up them are often steep, especially on the AT, which is by no means a "beginner" trail.
3. I am not 18 anymore.
4. Jack is only 10.
5. Important pieces of gear can fail at any moment, like this:
That's what I was supposed to sleep in for three nights
Anyway, there were a dozen warning signs that we should turn back, but this one that happened at about 3:00 AM and left me sleeping on a picnic table under (thankfully) a starry sky, was the one that finally made the decision for me.
In hindsight, I should have planned a one, or maybe two night excursion, that was a little less strenuous, but I didn't, so adjustments had to be made. Thankfully, I am now a grown-up and can (mostly) put my ego on hold when I need to. I can also find the good in a bad situation, which would have gotten much worse with a little bit of stubbornness. So here's the good:
1. Jack and I got "out there." It was exciting, it was a challenge, and it was really an amazing experience, warts and all.
2. I saw my son buck up to the hardships of the journey and not cave in. I was really proud when he said he would go on, I was even prouder when he encouraged me to keep going.
3. I saw my son also appreciate the wisdom of not pushing it too far, even though he wanted to press on, he didn't complain when I told him we would not.
4. I looked up at the stars and had to laugh at how quickly my plans can come to naught, but laugh I did, because I knew that something bigger than me was at work, and I've been around that block enough to find it funny when God dumps me on my ass in the middle of the night.
5. I'm getting better at taking a hint.
6: Oh and this:
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Movement of the People
Think of a ship, an old metaphor, I know. The ship has some problems and has been drifting through unfamiliar waters for quite some time. Some in the ship think a drastic overhaul, which includes all sorts of modern advancements is the only way to really move forward. Others think that modifying the boat in ways that were never thought of before are heresy of a sort and will ultimately lead to an unstable craft, doomed for Davey Jones Locker. Over the course of time it becomes apparent that the two opinions are more or less deadlocked, until a few modifications are painfully made, and some of the purists leave in a huff, claiming they have found a better boat, a boat with fewer problems, that is faithful to the good old designs.
This leaves the craft, somewhat worse for wear, in the hands of those who are willing to move forward into uncertainty and adapt, maybe even sacrificing some of the distinct features that once made the ship the great vessel that it used to be. They're scared by what they now seem to have the freedom to do, and they're a little sad that so many of the former crew no longer feels they can call the vessel home, but they're pretty sure the ship is not going to sink, at least now that they can finally do the things they have felt were necessary for so long.
You have probably seen through the parable by this point and know that I am talking about my denomination: the Presbyterian Church (USA). From the outside, whether you celebrate it or not, you will note the rather bold decisions that the 221st General Assembly has made this past week. They have decided, after several false starts to adapt our polity to allow freedom of conscience on perhaps the biggest hot-button issue facing most main-line churches today: marriage equality. This is an even hotter button in the church than it is in secular politics, because we have this troublesome book that refers to same gender relationships as "abominations," and no matter what you do to explain that away (and some people have done some pretty solid explaining), the words remain and they are stuck in some pretty persnickety places in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
At the same time, for Christians, we have this guy named Jesus, who constantly talks about how we need to love each other and forgive sins and be forgiven, and heal and be healed, and he seems to have a way of dealing with rules that doesn't get too hung up on black and white interpretations, but which does give great weight to the Scriptures of his ancestors. We can't really follow Jesus very well if we just throw the book out the window, but...
This is where it gets difficult. Some people in the church don't think that there should be a "but..."
I have to admit, it gets a little worrisome to me as well. I can make a good intellectual case that we need to interpret what God is doing by the standards of the world we actually live in rather than the world of the bronze age world of tribes and kings. I can also feel that we need to interpret what God is doing through the stories of those who have felt oppressed and denied their basic humanity at the hands of a church that is supposed to love them and proclaim the grace of God into their brokenness.
But in the end, I probably can't convince anyone who wants to hold on to those old words like "abomination" that they ought to think any differently.
I have lived through this debate about what the church should do with regard to these issues since I was in seminary. I have changed my opinion, I would say I have grown, but that runs the risk of being pejorative towards those who feel the way I used to feel. I used to feel that this issue was a crux on which would hang the very future of the church. I used to feel that God might just get so fed up with us constantly disregarding the rules that he just gave up.
Then I spent ten years preaching the Gospel and ministering to God's people, many of whom felt (many of whom still feel) the way I used feel about this issue. I began to see this disconnect between the message of grace in the gospel and the desperate clinging to rules. I saw that God is really quite interested in forgiveness and really only has a use for conviction where it leads to repentance and healing.
But I cannot impose that on people who honestly feel that there's more to it than that, because then, I'm not walking what I'm talking. It grieves me to see people I love, "Take a Stand," by saying, "NO!" when I really believe that the way of Christ is to say, "YES!" But I also understand that grief is a part of the Christian walk of faith, and so I guess I ought to just live with it.
I am proud of my Church in this moment, because after decades of searching for the faithful path, and several false starts the 221st General Assembly finally did something really hard, they said, "yes, if you please."
I feel we need to understand that the actions of GA did not impose on congregations or clergy any action that would violate their conscience. The only thing it did was allow those who have heretofore had to violate either their conscience or church polity, a way to avoid that dilemma.
The only thing that has been imposed on those who disagree with these actions is the duty of remaining in community despite those disagreements.
I have read a variety of responses so far, and there is hope that maybe we will be able to navigate these waters together. The grieved side has said that they expect we will eventually see the destructive nature of the choice we have made. The victorious side has said that they will try to be gracious to the dissent and sensitive to the hurt that has been caused. At least a few people are saying the right things.
On the outside though, and I understand that external judgment of the church is rightfully seen with a suspicious eye, we are being praised and noticed, not just for the content of the decision, but for the graciousness of the process. I have to admit, watching the way GA made its choices, you could easily forget how contentious the past few decades have been.
That's not for nothing. We are a witness to the Gospel, and for better or worse in the age of mass media, public image counts for a whole lot. Nobody was much impressed by those times where we hemmed and hawed and deferred the issue. We didn't look faithful to the standards of righteousness, we just looked like a bunch of stuck old prudes who were out of touch with the world they were working in.
You could look at this as caving in to the values of the world, or you could look at it as adapting to the reality of the world we have been called to serve.
Which is the right approach?
I don't know yet, this decision still has some ground to cover before it's done.
If you're grieved, please try to stay with us, we do need your voice
If you're happy, don't gloat, stay humble and live in grace.
If you're not sure, wait and pray with us please.
This leaves the craft, somewhat worse for wear, in the hands of those who are willing to move forward into uncertainty and adapt, maybe even sacrificing some of the distinct features that once made the ship the great vessel that it used to be. They're scared by what they now seem to have the freedom to do, and they're a little sad that so many of the former crew no longer feels they can call the vessel home, but they're pretty sure the ship is not going to sink, at least now that they can finally do the things they have felt were necessary for so long.
You have probably seen through the parable by this point and know that I am talking about my denomination: the Presbyterian Church (USA). From the outside, whether you celebrate it or not, you will note the rather bold decisions that the 221st General Assembly has made this past week. They have decided, after several false starts to adapt our polity to allow freedom of conscience on perhaps the biggest hot-button issue facing most main-line churches today: marriage equality. This is an even hotter button in the church than it is in secular politics, because we have this troublesome book that refers to same gender relationships as "abominations," and no matter what you do to explain that away (and some people have done some pretty solid explaining), the words remain and they are stuck in some pretty persnickety places in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
At the same time, for Christians, we have this guy named Jesus, who constantly talks about how we need to love each other and forgive sins and be forgiven, and heal and be healed, and he seems to have a way of dealing with rules that doesn't get too hung up on black and white interpretations, but which does give great weight to the Scriptures of his ancestors. We can't really follow Jesus very well if we just throw the book out the window, but...
This is where it gets difficult. Some people in the church don't think that there should be a "but..."
I have to admit, it gets a little worrisome to me as well. I can make a good intellectual case that we need to interpret what God is doing by the standards of the world we actually live in rather than the world of the bronze age world of tribes and kings. I can also feel that we need to interpret what God is doing through the stories of those who have felt oppressed and denied their basic humanity at the hands of a church that is supposed to love them and proclaim the grace of God into their brokenness.
But in the end, I probably can't convince anyone who wants to hold on to those old words like "abomination" that they ought to think any differently.
I have lived through this debate about what the church should do with regard to these issues since I was in seminary. I have changed my opinion, I would say I have grown, but that runs the risk of being pejorative towards those who feel the way I used to feel. I used to feel that this issue was a crux on which would hang the very future of the church. I used to feel that God might just get so fed up with us constantly disregarding the rules that he just gave up.
Then I spent ten years preaching the Gospel and ministering to God's people, many of whom felt (many of whom still feel) the way I used feel about this issue. I began to see this disconnect between the message of grace in the gospel and the desperate clinging to rules. I saw that God is really quite interested in forgiveness and really only has a use for conviction where it leads to repentance and healing.
But I cannot impose that on people who honestly feel that there's more to it than that, because then, I'm not walking what I'm talking. It grieves me to see people I love, "Take a Stand," by saying, "NO!" when I really believe that the way of Christ is to say, "YES!" But I also understand that grief is a part of the Christian walk of faith, and so I guess I ought to just live with it.
I am proud of my Church in this moment, because after decades of searching for the faithful path, and several false starts the 221st General Assembly finally did something really hard, they said, "yes, if you please."
I feel we need to understand that the actions of GA did not impose on congregations or clergy any action that would violate their conscience. The only thing it did was allow those who have heretofore had to violate either their conscience or church polity, a way to avoid that dilemma.
The only thing that has been imposed on those who disagree with these actions is the duty of remaining in community despite those disagreements.
I have read a variety of responses so far, and there is hope that maybe we will be able to navigate these waters together. The grieved side has said that they expect we will eventually see the destructive nature of the choice we have made. The victorious side has said that they will try to be gracious to the dissent and sensitive to the hurt that has been caused. At least a few people are saying the right things.
On the outside though, and I understand that external judgment of the church is rightfully seen with a suspicious eye, we are being praised and noticed, not just for the content of the decision, but for the graciousness of the process. I have to admit, watching the way GA made its choices, you could easily forget how contentious the past few decades have been.
That's not for nothing. We are a witness to the Gospel, and for better or worse in the age of mass media, public image counts for a whole lot. Nobody was much impressed by those times where we hemmed and hawed and deferred the issue. We didn't look faithful to the standards of righteousness, we just looked like a bunch of stuck old prudes who were out of touch with the world they were working in.
You could look at this as caving in to the values of the world, or you could look at it as adapting to the reality of the world we have been called to serve.
Which is the right approach?
I don't know yet, this decision still has some ground to cover before it's done.
If you're grieved, please try to stay with us, we do need your voice
If you're happy, don't gloat, stay humble and live in grace.
If you're not sure, wait and pray with us please.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Out There
Next week boy child and I will be taking our first hike together on the Appalachian Trail. We're both pretty excited and a little nervous. The AT is forming a sort of connective line through my life. I did my first stretch with my Dad and a group from church when I was about 14. The trail was really my first experience of adult life, when a friend and I did a stretch right after high school graduation, sans parental supervision. Now I'm taking my son. It's part of the journey of fatherhood, it's part of the journey of physical well-being and part of the journey of spiritual renewal.
I'm not even sure that "through-hiking" is really a dream of mine, though I will admit the idea is striking. I just can't wrap my mind around taking almost six months to hike all the way from Georgia to Maine. That type of immersion just maybe doesn't fit my personality. I am a fan of the phenomena of leaving and returning. I am fascinated by the processes of preparing to leave and going "out there," but I'm equally fascinated by the physical and emotional processes of returning home.
I find that, while there are certain "re-entry" problems, journeys generally leave you with a deeper appreciation of home. I have already begun to consider the creature comforts I will be temporarily giving up next week: showers, air conditioning, a bed, a toilet, food that doesn't have to be re-hydrated, I know I will miss a significant portion of the World Cup. And there are also the more relational things, Cate will be with my parents in New Jersey, Michele will be home, probably wondering what to do with herself without all of us to keep her occupied, our family will be separated in a way that has, up to this point, been extremely rare. Jack and I will be "out there" together. I'm not really 100% sure that either one of us is really ready for this, but I know we need to do it. I need to get him away from all the electronics and toys, and he needs to get me away from this thing called grown-up life.
He's a sturdy kid, and he soldiers pretty well, but I know that backpacking always puts your resolve to the test. You have to climb and carry and endure, I am looking forward to being proud of him. That is an act of faith, to trust a ten year old to face adversity, and to know that in the end his endurance will be rewarded by mountain streams and spectacular views and the feeling that pretty much nothing else can bring quite like the feeling of self-reliance that comes when you walk out of the wilderness and back into civilization.
The prep work is done, the route is planned, the gear has been carefully selected. I was going through Jack's pack the other night, and I found that he has been thinking in his own sort of way, he had his flashlight, compass and the stuff I had told him to pack, he also had stashed a few "Jack" things, some gum, a few Legos and various other little nonsense. To a 10 year old, necessity has a different definition, but then again, he comes from a long line of over-packers.
For me, one of the spiritual components of this sort of journey is the need to simplify; consider what I really need, plan for contingencies, but not go overboard. I tend to want to go all decked out with enough gear to live off the land for a month, and so I constantly have to ask myself: are you actually going to use that? Is it worth its weight?
That's a question we need to ask ourselves all the time, but which our comfortable modern lives usually don't require. It is a question that can be asked of things, but also of relationships and obligations. It's a question that I think is crucial to ask of the church: are we worth our weight?
But I digress, I'm talking about backpacking here, I think.
I have this hope, an expectation really, that this trip will be a moment Jack will remember for a very long time. I also hope that it is the first of many of these journeys for us as father and son. Jack is just a bit too young to go on the Camino with my Dad and me next year, but I think that journey will probably be in our future as well. I wonder how these times away will be during those teenage years, when maybe he doesn't want to go so much, or in those young adult years when he's just too busy. Yeah, I can hear Harry Chapin in the background right now too... "the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon..."
Maybe I'm being too sappy, maybe not.
Time to get out there and find out.
I'm not even sure that "through-hiking" is really a dream of mine, though I will admit the idea is striking. I just can't wrap my mind around taking almost six months to hike all the way from Georgia to Maine. That type of immersion just maybe doesn't fit my personality. I am a fan of the phenomena of leaving and returning. I am fascinated by the processes of preparing to leave and going "out there," but I'm equally fascinated by the physical and emotional processes of returning home.
I find that, while there are certain "re-entry" problems, journeys generally leave you with a deeper appreciation of home. I have already begun to consider the creature comforts I will be temporarily giving up next week: showers, air conditioning, a bed, a toilet, food that doesn't have to be re-hydrated, I know I will miss a significant portion of the World Cup. And there are also the more relational things, Cate will be with my parents in New Jersey, Michele will be home, probably wondering what to do with herself without all of us to keep her occupied, our family will be separated in a way that has, up to this point, been extremely rare. Jack and I will be "out there" together. I'm not really 100% sure that either one of us is really ready for this, but I know we need to do it. I need to get him away from all the electronics and toys, and he needs to get me away from this thing called grown-up life.
He's a sturdy kid, and he soldiers pretty well, but I know that backpacking always puts your resolve to the test. You have to climb and carry and endure, I am looking forward to being proud of him. That is an act of faith, to trust a ten year old to face adversity, and to know that in the end his endurance will be rewarded by mountain streams and spectacular views and the feeling that pretty much nothing else can bring quite like the feeling of self-reliance that comes when you walk out of the wilderness and back into civilization.
The prep work is done, the route is planned, the gear has been carefully selected. I was going through Jack's pack the other night, and I found that he has been thinking in his own sort of way, he had his flashlight, compass and the stuff I had told him to pack, he also had stashed a few "Jack" things, some gum, a few Legos and various other little nonsense. To a 10 year old, necessity has a different definition, but then again, he comes from a long line of over-packers.
For me, one of the spiritual components of this sort of journey is the need to simplify; consider what I really need, plan for contingencies, but not go overboard. I tend to want to go all decked out with enough gear to live off the land for a month, and so I constantly have to ask myself: are you actually going to use that? Is it worth its weight?
That's a question we need to ask ourselves all the time, but which our comfortable modern lives usually don't require. It is a question that can be asked of things, but also of relationships and obligations. It's a question that I think is crucial to ask of the church: are we worth our weight?
But I digress, I'm talking about backpacking here, I think.
I have this hope, an expectation really, that this trip will be a moment Jack will remember for a very long time. I also hope that it is the first of many of these journeys for us as father and son. Jack is just a bit too young to go on the Camino with my Dad and me next year, but I think that journey will probably be in our future as well. I wonder how these times away will be during those teenage years, when maybe he doesn't want to go so much, or in those young adult years when he's just too busy. Yeah, I can hear Harry Chapin in the background right now too... "the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon..."
Maybe I'm being too sappy, maybe not.
Time to get out there and find out.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
The Word of the Lord...
I'm on vacation this Sunday, so I don't have to preach for the first time in a good while. But you kind of get in the habit of working through Gospel texts, and this week Jesus says some stuff that is fairly likely to tick a lot of people off, at least if they're paying attention.
Matthew 10: 24-39 is a sort of random collection of prophetic sayings. They're prophetic, not because they predict the future, but because they call people to a different mode of thinking. In fact, some of these sayings are so very difficult that you will often witness some of the more peculiar hermeneutic gymnastics, in order to explain exactly how these things can have meaning. People who are otherwise firmly in the literal camp when it comes to understanding scripture, get a little nervous when Jesus starts talking about persecution and the sword that will separate us from the people who are dearest to us.
The phrase "family values," is often held as sacred in the political and religious life of this nation, however, Jesus says here that the cross is going to stand in direct conflict with that. We make idols of our family. We sacrifice ourselves and our children on that altar. How often does family trump God? I know it has for me, I take my duty as a father every bit as seriously as I do my duty as a Pastor, and I have promised myself that if the latter and the former are in conflict, then my kids come first.
Guilty as charged.
I rationalize this by convincing myself that God has given me this family and that I am called to be part of it. I try to avoid those contrived hypothetical situations where the two things would be at odds, and I simply thank God for the grace that allows me to be both an idolater of my family and a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I hope that I never have to make a choice of one over the other.
I do know that my desire for my children is to raise them up to know and follow Jesus, and maybe this is the way through the dilemma. I want to make disciples in my own family, I want them to see how my own discipleship makes a difference, and that, I suspect, means that I need to love them with all my heart, and demonstrate how that works, so that they can understand, "through a glass darkly" how God loves them as well.
There is danger for us, in understanding Jesus' teachings as being a refutation of the good and healthy aspects of our humanity. This path leads us to gnosticism. To understand our relationship with God as the primary source of all other relationships, is exactly the opposite of that. Our relationship with God establishes a pattern for our other relationships. At least, it should work that way.
In the discussion of the language we use for God, whether we stick to the traditional masculine forms or whether we try learn to include references to God that are either feminine, or gender-neutral, the issue of calling God, "Father," is often at issue. Some people have good, or at least generally positive experiences with their actual fathers, but some people have been abandoned, abused or otherwise damaged by their actual fathers. Thus the word, "Father," carries unfortunate baggage that then gets transferred to God.
This is a prime example of getting it backwards, our notion of God as a loving, merciful, just and holy, ought to inform our worldly vision of what a true father can and should be. To allow our broken experience of men who may or may not deserve the title of father to shape our idea of what God is, is the very essence of idolatry, it is making an image of a god who is not God.
What Jesus is challenging here, and pretty much everywhere, is precisely that sort of spiritual backwardness and the quagmires of sin they lead us into.
It is indeed dangerous to deny sin, because in denying you compound its power. But it is also dangerous to give it too much control, to use the brokenness of a fallen world as your framework for your relationships and your understanding. The solution to the problem is suggested by Jesus here: flip the situation, act like there is nothing that will separate you from God, do not hold anything more dearly than your relationship with God, and then your other relationships will most likely follow that pattern.
Honestly, without being absurd or insane, name a situation where God would call you to actually harm your children. Bringing them to church, even if they don't want to go, making sure that worship is part of the pattern of your life, even if it means giving up some worldly pursuits, these are not destructive things, they are things that form lives in the proper balance.
God loves children, and you can be pretty sure that if you feel that it is the will of the Creator to neglect or do harm to a little one, you are probably way off base. Families are our best and most intimate opportunity to love one another as God loves us. They are the places where we understand agape, the self sacrificing type of love that seeks the good of the beloved above the needs of the self.
Because they have this connection with that sacred sort of love, they can become powerful idols, but it doesn't have to work that way. We find by losing and in losing we find, it doesn't make intuitive sense but it is the way God actually works most of the time.
Matthew 10: 24-39 is a sort of random collection of prophetic sayings. They're prophetic, not because they predict the future, but because they call people to a different mode of thinking. In fact, some of these sayings are so very difficult that you will often witness some of the more peculiar hermeneutic gymnastics, in order to explain exactly how these things can have meaning. People who are otherwise firmly in the literal camp when it comes to understanding scripture, get a little nervous when Jesus starts talking about persecution and the sword that will separate us from the people who are dearest to us.
The phrase "family values," is often held as sacred in the political and religious life of this nation, however, Jesus says here that the cross is going to stand in direct conflict with that. We make idols of our family. We sacrifice ourselves and our children on that altar. How often does family trump God? I know it has for me, I take my duty as a father every bit as seriously as I do my duty as a Pastor, and I have promised myself that if the latter and the former are in conflict, then my kids come first.
Guilty as charged.
I rationalize this by convincing myself that God has given me this family and that I am called to be part of it. I try to avoid those contrived hypothetical situations where the two things would be at odds, and I simply thank God for the grace that allows me to be both an idolater of my family and a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I hope that I never have to make a choice of one over the other.
I do know that my desire for my children is to raise them up to know and follow Jesus, and maybe this is the way through the dilemma. I want to make disciples in my own family, I want them to see how my own discipleship makes a difference, and that, I suspect, means that I need to love them with all my heart, and demonstrate how that works, so that they can understand, "through a glass darkly" how God loves them as well.
There is danger for us, in understanding Jesus' teachings as being a refutation of the good and healthy aspects of our humanity. This path leads us to gnosticism. To understand our relationship with God as the primary source of all other relationships, is exactly the opposite of that. Our relationship with God establishes a pattern for our other relationships. At least, it should work that way.
In the discussion of the language we use for God, whether we stick to the traditional masculine forms or whether we try learn to include references to God that are either feminine, or gender-neutral, the issue of calling God, "Father," is often at issue. Some people have good, or at least generally positive experiences with their actual fathers, but some people have been abandoned, abused or otherwise damaged by their actual fathers. Thus the word, "Father," carries unfortunate baggage that then gets transferred to God.
This is a prime example of getting it backwards, our notion of God as a loving, merciful, just and holy, ought to inform our worldly vision of what a true father can and should be. To allow our broken experience of men who may or may not deserve the title of father to shape our idea of what God is, is the very essence of idolatry, it is making an image of a god who is not God.
What Jesus is challenging here, and pretty much everywhere, is precisely that sort of spiritual backwardness and the quagmires of sin they lead us into.
It is indeed dangerous to deny sin, because in denying you compound its power. But it is also dangerous to give it too much control, to use the brokenness of a fallen world as your framework for your relationships and your understanding. The solution to the problem is suggested by Jesus here: flip the situation, act like there is nothing that will separate you from God, do not hold anything more dearly than your relationship with God, and then your other relationships will most likely follow that pattern.
Honestly, without being absurd or insane, name a situation where God would call you to actually harm your children. Bringing them to church, even if they don't want to go, making sure that worship is part of the pattern of your life, even if it means giving up some worldly pursuits, these are not destructive things, they are things that form lives in the proper balance.
God loves children, and you can be pretty sure that if you feel that it is the will of the Creator to neglect or do harm to a little one, you are probably way off base. Families are our best and most intimate opportunity to love one another as God loves us. They are the places where we understand agape, the self sacrificing type of love that seeks the good of the beloved above the needs of the self.
Because they have this connection with that sacred sort of love, they can become powerful idols, but it doesn't have to work that way. We find by losing and in losing we find, it doesn't make intuitive sense but it is the way God actually works most of the time.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
The American Way
I was watching the United States play Ghana in their first game of the World Cup. Ghana has been the team that basically stamped their ticket home from the last two World Cups (2006 and 2010). The fact that a small African country has been such a bane to the mighty US of A, was a rather stark reminder that we are not the best at everything. We may be the only remaining superpower, we may dominate the Olympic games in many regards, but in the Beautiful Game, we are still wannabes.
The US won yesterday, but it was ugly. You got the feeling that Ghana was really the more talented team, but they just couldn't get a break. That happens in sports sometimes, and it's pretty cool when it breaks in your favor. Alexei Lalas, who was the red-headed wild man of the US team when they first started making some noise in the 1990's, who is now one of the main soccer talkers on ESPN said that the game was a typical American soccer match: grinding, nail biting, hang on through sheer guts kind of game. In other words, it was not the Beautiful Game, which is played by the likes of Brazil and Argentina, where there is as much artistry to the play as there is raw athletic talent.
I wonder if Ugly is perhaps the norm for this nation of ours. Maybe it's new, maybe not so much. I look at the way things have gone for us on the global stage of late. Our involvement in Iraq seems to have pretty much come to nothing, as now ISIS, a group that Al-Quaeda thinks is too Fundamentalist, is taking over city after city and waving a torch around a part of the world that is nothing less than a huge powder keg. We are going to leave Afghanistan, with a mere prayer that somehow the Taliban will not quickly return to power. We have bled and died in those places, but we may leave with nothing more than some jagged scars.
Our American style: winning through sheer determination and brute force, does not appear to carry the currency that it did in WWII. Probably because we're not fighting the same enemies. The military actions, from Korea to Afghanistan seem to be trying to teach us that understanding may be more valuable than superior technology and training.
Let's look at Iraq for instance: the Sunni and the Shia have been at each other for centuries. At different points we have painted the Sunni as the good guys and the Shia as the bad guys, but it's nowhere near that simple. We liked Saddam Hussein (Sunni) when he was our ally against Khomeni (Shia), but eventually we saw that Saddam wasn't exactly a good dude, so we had to fight him, twice. All the while Iran was laughing their turbans off and saying, "see we told you so." To us and to all the Sunni who thought that the US was really on their team.
Through it all we have held on to this illusion that the lines drawn in the middle east by colonial powers somehow mean anything. The nations: Iraq, Iran, Syria, are actually not anything like the Nation that we call home. They express their patriotism towards tribes and religious sects, not towards the creations of European minds. That's why they will so readily kill each other, and that's why dictators and supreme rulers of various types can flourish there: because an iron fist is the only way there is going to be peace.
Our policies and procedures in that part of the world have been over matched, like the US Soccer Team taking on Brazil: we might win for a moment but it will have to be ugly and expensive and sooner rather than later the order of things will snap back into place.
Some pretty smart people are saying we need to stay the heck out of there, let them fight it out, let them draw their own lines and try to do things their way. The downside of that is that a lot of innocent people are going to suffer and die, but that has been a reality with our way as well.
I feel like there are more important wars to wage, like the struggle for equality and human rights, but we absolutely discredit ourselves as humanitarians when we bomb people back into the stone age.
We've shown that we can win ugly, but it's only a momentary victory. Maybe we need to learn to win beautifully.
The US won yesterday, but it was ugly. You got the feeling that Ghana was really the more talented team, but they just couldn't get a break. That happens in sports sometimes, and it's pretty cool when it breaks in your favor. Alexei Lalas, who was the red-headed wild man of the US team when they first started making some noise in the 1990's, who is now one of the main soccer talkers on ESPN said that the game was a typical American soccer match: grinding, nail biting, hang on through sheer guts kind of game. In other words, it was not the Beautiful Game, which is played by the likes of Brazil and Argentina, where there is as much artistry to the play as there is raw athletic talent.
I wonder if Ugly is perhaps the norm for this nation of ours. Maybe it's new, maybe not so much. I look at the way things have gone for us on the global stage of late. Our involvement in Iraq seems to have pretty much come to nothing, as now ISIS, a group that Al-Quaeda thinks is too Fundamentalist, is taking over city after city and waving a torch around a part of the world that is nothing less than a huge powder keg. We are going to leave Afghanistan, with a mere prayer that somehow the Taliban will not quickly return to power. We have bled and died in those places, but we may leave with nothing more than some jagged scars.
Our American style: winning through sheer determination and brute force, does not appear to carry the currency that it did in WWII. Probably because we're not fighting the same enemies. The military actions, from Korea to Afghanistan seem to be trying to teach us that understanding may be more valuable than superior technology and training.
Let's look at Iraq for instance: the Sunni and the Shia have been at each other for centuries. At different points we have painted the Sunni as the good guys and the Shia as the bad guys, but it's nowhere near that simple. We liked Saddam Hussein (Sunni) when he was our ally against Khomeni (Shia), but eventually we saw that Saddam wasn't exactly a good dude, so we had to fight him, twice. All the while Iran was laughing their turbans off and saying, "see we told you so." To us and to all the Sunni who thought that the US was really on their team.
Through it all we have held on to this illusion that the lines drawn in the middle east by colonial powers somehow mean anything. The nations: Iraq, Iran, Syria, are actually not anything like the Nation that we call home. They express their patriotism towards tribes and religious sects, not towards the creations of European minds. That's why they will so readily kill each other, and that's why dictators and supreme rulers of various types can flourish there: because an iron fist is the only way there is going to be peace.
Our policies and procedures in that part of the world have been over matched, like the US Soccer Team taking on Brazil: we might win for a moment but it will have to be ugly and expensive and sooner rather than later the order of things will snap back into place.
Some pretty smart people are saying we need to stay the heck out of there, let them fight it out, let them draw their own lines and try to do things their way. The downside of that is that a lot of innocent people are going to suffer and die, but that has been a reality with our way as well.
I feel like there are more important wars to wage, like the struggle for equality and human rights, but we absolutely discredit ourselves as humanitarians when we bomb people back into the stone age.
We've shown that we can win ugly, but it's only a momentary victory. Maybe we need to learn to win beautifully.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Leadership
A Fundamentalist group, though it may not kill anyone, although it may not strike anyone, is violent. The mental structure of Fundamentalists is violence in the name of God.
-Pope Francis, Interview with La Vanguardia
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is going to get down to business this week. We're going to argue about some pretty "hot" issues: Israel/Palestine, Marriage Equality and a number of other things that will probably draw headlines. There are liberal and conservative slants on just about any issue, and sometimes the arguments of people who disagree with you can really ruffle your feathers, and set your teeth on edge.
But honestly, one of the things that I'm most proud of in the peculiar corner of Christian faith that I call home, is that honestly we don't really have any Fundamentalists. We have some idealogues to be sure, but the last time we had any group that really strongly identified as Fundamentalist (the early-mid 20th century), they meant something rather different by the word Fundamentalist than the sort of thing the Pope is describing above.
Back then, the Fundamentalists, in the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy, simply wanted to hold on to a few (actually only five) basic tenants of the Christian faith in the face of what they perceived as the creeping relativism of liberal Christianity. The argument still resonates through many of the debates that will take place in General Assembly even now.
While the movement was actually rather more complicated the "Five Fundamentals" are:
1. The inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture (emphasis mine)
2. The Virgin Birth of Christ
3. The belief that Christ's death was an atonement for sin
4. The bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
5. The historicity of the miracles of Jesus
Now you will perhaps notice, if you're a Christian of some variety, that most of these points, with perhaps the exception of that rather crucial word "inerrancy," are decidedly non-controversial, even though we have been living for almost a century under the dominance of the liberal-modernist mindset. Sure, there are those out there that will argue against any of the above and still want to subscribe to a sort of rationalist Christianity that focuses primarily on the ethics of Jesus' teaching, over and above any of the "super-natural" elements of the story, but most Christians believe that the Scripture is indeed inspired. That Jesus was born of a virgin, that, in some form, his death was an instrument of atonement for sin. We certainly believe in the resurrection, and at least give a passing nod to the idea that the miracles were real, even if we don't really bank too much on the fact.
During the controversy, there were some heresy trials and a whole lot of really ugly disputation, much of of it entirely opaque to the eyes and ears of laypeople. In the end though, the death toll was zero. The number of people tortured in dungeons and broken on the rack: zero. The number of people imprisoned and publicly beheaded: zero. The number of bombs dropped, other than some verbal bombs laid down by the likes of Harry Emerson Fosdick: big fat zero.
In a rare historical moment, it seemed that human beings could argue about things, perhaps even things of ultimate importance, without killing each other.
Yes, I agree with Francis, Fundamentalism has an inherent violence to it, but that makes it all the more impressive that, in such a heated moment, the violence was restrained to the world of words.
Outside of Christianity, we have not reached this point as a species. The situation in the world is such that Fundamentalists are rightly feared, because they are willing to kill and die for their ideals and their theology, and they do not see that it is madness. Fundamentalism can dominate a situation, even when it's adherents are a distinct minority, because they think they have clarity and that clarity gives them passion and purpose. Whether it is Al-Quaeda, ISIS or the NRA, Fundamentalists have a fervor that gives them power.
And we have them in the PC(USA), on both sides of most of the issues.
Of all the things that might scare me about GA, of all the things that might frustrate me about the discussions we have and the way we have them, one thing I'm not worried about: we won't be shooting, hanging or blowing each other up. Way to go Presbyterians!
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