Pentecost 11 Year B
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Mark 15:16-20
Imago Dei
By Rich Gamble
In today’s passage all those that Solomon murdered to get the throne are long forgotten, Solomon is shown to be pious and humble. He doesn’t wish for power, he doesn’t need wealth he only wants a clear head to see the path of good so that he can lead his people well. God is so impressed that God says, Hey Sol, since your request was so humble, I’m going to give you the wisdom you seek but I’ll throw in the power and wealth stuff as well. And sounding a bit like an infomercial host, God even throws in a special bonus offer of long life.
Understand what is being said here. God is moving to shape the world through powerful people. God blesses the people that God likes with power, and wealth, wisdom and long life. Therefore those people who are obtain power and wealth will be seen as wise and blessed by God. Those who are poor and powerless must by this logic be outside of God’s favor.
I just heard about a book and the movement it documents. The book is called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet. According to what little research I’ve done about the “The Family” it is described as powerful people who, in the name of God seek the power to control the peoples of the world. They believe that the Christian message is about the power to dominate and that God blesses those who have wealth and power and God wants them to use that wealth and power to implement their vision of the world.
I haven’t researched this book or movement so I cannot tell you whether it is all true but there is truth in it. This image of Solomon blessed by God with wealth and power and wisdom is exactly that sort of world view. Solomon was a ruler who centralized power and wealth into his own hands. And those who wrote the passage we read today believed and wanted us to believe that such actions are the way God operates in the world. So those who seek to centralize the wealth and the power into their own hands are only doing what Solomon did and the Bible says Solomon was blessed by God to do just that.
If this were the only way of understanding God found in our tradition, I would be an agnostic or a Buddhist anything other than a Christian. Because I utterly and completely reject the assertion that Solomon the wealthy, murdering, despot represents an embodiment of the will of God. Indeed I believe that such an image is the exact opposite of the will of God. And the reason why groups such as this must understand the threat to our faith and the world such folks as described in the Book of Kings and in the book The Family truly are.
Though it is not our lectionary text I included the passage we read today from the Gospel of Mark describing Jesus.
In this passage Jesus is mocked, beaten and abused and in his lack of power, in his pain and suffering in his vulnerability is the image of God. A leader embodying the will of God does not use violence and wealth to control people; rather such a leader challenges the authority of that system to the very core. Jesus in this passage in Mark is the Christian image of God’s will. He is shown here living in such a way as to link him with the victims of power and violence. This passage de-legitimizes all those who would aspire to be some form of king or queen, general or titan of Wall Street.
God’s chosen one here is not blessed with the goodies of domination. He is a prisoner of the system, tortured, a victim of a kangaroo court, and in the end murdered. The harsh and painful vision of Jesus’ last day on earth is the ultimate protest against a system that uses violence, twists justice and ultimately murders its enemies.
Solomon or Jesus stand as polar opposites of each other. Solomon is the image of God blessing the domination system’s leaders with wealth and power and long life. Or Jesus is the image of God’s servant in utter conflict with the domination system, Jesus is blessed because he is willing to suffer poverty, torture and murder in order to non-violently oppose Solomon’s system. Only one is the embodiment of God’s will. Only one is God’s idea of a leader.
This plays out in how we worship and how we vote. It plays out in how we think of the Bible and how we think of our economy. Our choice of ultimate meaning has direct and profound implications on all other choices in our lives. If we are not clear about what we believe, if we are not clear about what has authority in our lives, then our muddled faith will lead to a muddled witness in the world. And in the conflict between clear and strongly held ideas of God as dominator and muddled ideas of God as basically nice. The muddled ideas will lose and Christianity will be defined in the public mind as one in which violence is condoned, wealth is praised, and the suffering of the poor is generally forgotten. That is the case today.
In the town hall meetings across the country we see how fear and lies infect a community and get people to stand against their better interests. It is an eloquent argument about the power of propaganda to twist a democracy into the tool of tyranny.
We are called to know what we believe, proclaim what we believe and live what we believe. Only then can the world see in us and in those like us a vision of God that stands against the Powers and with the poor, a God who offers an alternative to judgment and fear and eternal punishment. Only in the clarity of our faith can the power lies to generate fear be confronted at the most fundamental level.
The fate of the world hangs on what happens here, and in similar places all over the globe. Our image of ultimate meaning will determine future history. Fortunately it’s not all up to us. God’s nurturing Spirit is at work in the world and that is good news.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
problems
The church computer will not let me cut and paste things into the blog account. That is why nothing new has appeared here. I just discovered that if I use a different computer I can paste copied text. So below is last week's sermon.- Rich
God's Real Estate
Pentecost 7 Year B
2 Samuel 7: 1-13
God’s Real Estate
By Rich Gamble
There is a lot of work done by Christian theologians in their attempt to harmonize various parts of the Bible. For some reason many Christians think that just because something is in the Bible it is an accurate reflection upon God. I think that the Bible is an amazing document and the most important document in human history; but it is not of one mind about the nature of God. Though it may be an oversimplification, I see the Bible as portraying two distinctly different visions of the nature of God. And whenever we say anything about the nature of God, we are also talking about the nature of the human community which strives to embody the values of that God.
Today’s text is at the heart of one of those visions of the nature of God. It is called the Davidic Covenant because God is making a covenant with David. It starts with David fretting because he has a nice wooden house and God’s place (where the Ark of the Covenant is) is in a tent.
God says to David (via the prophet Nathan) you are worried about building me a house, I’ll build you a house. God is using a play on the word house, meaning a permanent establishment of David’s lineage in the role of king. And to tie up the deal David’s son will build God a house, meaning a temple.
So David gets a house and God gets a house and the people of Israel get permanent peace. Sounds nice, who would not like a deal like that?
This is one vision of the nature of God. God here is like a king, but God for whatever reason subcontracts out the work of ruling the realm of God’s particular people. God leaves the running of the nation to the offspring of one of God’s favorites. If they are David’s offspring, that is good enough for God. They don’t have to be intelligent, or nice, or just. Their virtue is inherited. And after God, hands over the keys to the realm to David’s kids, God settles into a nice semi-retirement in an assisted living residence that Solomon will build for God. God just pulls up a recliner in the Holy of Holies in the Temple and people come and tell God what a great Divinity God is, and they offer God all sorts of offerings.
It is a good life for a deity.
It is a good deal for David’s kids as well. They get some peace of mind. Putting God in the temple means that they don’t have to worry about God wandering around and stirring up trouble. God is in God’s house, and the sons of David control that particular piece of real estate, indeed they run the whole city of Jerusalem. That is the weakness of tangible things like real estate, they can be controlled by people with money or guns, or in Solomon’s case, swords. The Jews understood this a little bit. That is why in the first covenant the agreement the people made with God was not to have idols. If you invest a statute with a connection to God, well, then the guys with the guns or gold can take the statue and thereby control that access to God. If God is going to be for the little guy, then God must never be linked to something that can be controlled or manipulated by the mighty.
Human beings, being what they are, the Jews couldn’t get by with no object to link them to the divine, so they built the Ark of the Covenant which wasn’t supposed to be the likeness of God, it was just supposed to be God’s throne. As objects associated with the divine, the Ark was not too bad, it could be moved easily enough and for the longest time it was housed in a tent. It moved with the people. But it was a slippery slope. If the presence of God is in even something as portable as a tent, still some people get to go into the tent, and some people end up deciding who gets to go into the tent. And those people can use the control of the tent flap to set themselves up over other people.
David took the Ark and locked it in his town. Solomon took the Ark and locked it in the Temple. So David and Solomon controlled access to God and conveniently here God gives ultimate political, military and economic power to David, Solomon and his kids and their kids forever.
This sort of thinking happens when people start thinking that God is connected to something tangible like a church, or a religion. The people who control that church or religion have access to all sorts of power over others.
There is another view in the Bible. In that view God is tied to no object, ritual or real estate. God ties God’s self to humanity but to all humanity. To be for all, this God is especially for those who are ignored or abused by other people. This God makes no promises to people because of their ancestry or their geography. God rather stands with those in need whoever they are and condemns those who cause or ignore those needs whoever they are. For the sake of the poor and oppressed kings are condemned, Israel is condemned, priests are condemned.
This God cannot be locked into a particular piece of real estate or religion. This God moves about seeking out those who suffer. This God does not utilize the power of greed and violence to dominate but rather uses love to console those who suffer and empower others to put an end to human suffering.
The Bible doesn’t offer us a vision of God to accept or not. The Bible offers us two utterly different visions of God.
One offers punishment if you fail to follow the rules of the religion, and the orders of people in charge. And offers health and wealth and happiness if you toe the line.
The other offers love to share with no guarantees of health, no opportunity for wealth (as long as there are people in need), and the real possibility of conflict with those in power.
I don’t believe that the text today is a depiction of the God I believe in. It deserves to be in the Bible, so that we have a clear view of the choice between the two primary visions of God.
The Bible also shows us how David’s descendents go on to lead Israel to ruin ultimately even to the destruction of God’s house and David’s house.
If your faith locks God into real estate like this sanctuary, or this nation, if your faith locks God into one particular set of rituals or authorized spokespeople, if your faith locks God into a special relationship with people of a particular race or gender, or sexual orientation. Then the God of this text, the God of the Temple, the God of the many rules is the God for you.
Jesus broke rules to heal and feed people. Jesus argued with priests and condemned the rulers of the Temple. Jesus included sinners, rule breakers, and non Jews into the circle of his fellowship. Jesus stripped away the power of domination by calling on people to love their enemies and give away their wealth.
In the last two thousand years there has been a concerted effort to stick the God of Jesus and Mary, Moses and Miriam back into the box of rules, and priesthood, real estate and nation.
Whenever I hear someone talk about God being linked to a particular religion or nation or people who inherit their virtue, I look for who is gaining by controlling the tent flap.
Whenever I hear about someone who is suffering illness, poverty, loss, or oppression, I hear the voice of God calling me to their side.
The Powers That Be have chosen the god of David, and they seek to hide any other choice from our eyes. Thank God for the Bible, for the people who wrote it, and preserved it. For if we look, we will see that we have a choice. The world has a choice. One choice leads us to the fate of the house of God and David. The other leads us down the path of Christ and the promise of new life. That path and promise are indeed good news for us and the world.
2 Samuel 7: 1-13
God’s Real Estate
By Rich Gamble
There is a lot of work done by Christian theologians in their attempt to harmonize various parts of the Bible. For some reason many Christians think that just because something is in the Bible it is an accurate reflection upon God. I think that the Bible is an amazing document and the most important document in human history; but it is not of one mind about the nature of God. Though it may be an oversimplification, I see the Bible as portraying two distinctly different visions of the nature of God. And whenever we say anything about the nature of God, we are also talking about the nature of the human community which strives to embody the values of that God.
Today’s text is at the heart of one of those visions of the nature of God. It is called the Davidic Covenant because God is making a covenant with David. It starts with David fretting because he has a nice wooden house and God’s place (where the Ark of the Covenant is) is in a tent.
God says to David (via the prophet Nathan) you are worried about building me a house, I’ll build you a house. God is using a play on the word house, meaning a permanent establishment of David’s lineage in the role of king. And to tie up the deal David’s son will build God a house, meaning a temple.
So David gets a house and God gets a house and the people of Israel get permanent peace. Sounds nice, who would not like a deal like that?
This is one vision of the nature of God. God here is like a king, but God for whatever reason subcontracts out the work of ruling the realm of God’s particular people. God leaves the running of the nation to the offspring of one of God’s favorites. If they are David’s offspring, that is good enough for God. They don’t have to be intelligent, or nice, or just. Their virtue is inherited. And after God, hands over the keys to the realm to David’s kids, God settles into a nice semi-retirement in an assisted living residence that Solomon will build for God. God just pulls up a recliner in the Holy of Holies in the Temple and people come and tell God what a great Divinity God is, and they offer God all sorts of offerings.
It is a good life for a deity.
It is a good deal for David’s kids as well. They get some peace of mind. Putting God in the temple means that they don’t have to worry about God wandering around and stirring up trouble. God is in God’s house, and the sons of David control that particular piece of real estate, indeed they run the whole city of Jerusalem. That is the weakness of tangible things like real estate, they can be controlled by people with money or guns, or in Solomon’s case, swords. The Jews understood this a little bit. That is why in the first covenant the agreement the people made with God was not to have idols. If you invest a statute with a connection to God, well, then the guys with the guns or gold can take the statue and thereby control that access to God. If God is going to be for the little guy, then God must never be linked to something that can be controlled or manipulated by the mighty.
Human beings, being what they are, the Jews couldn’t get by with no object to link them to the divine, so they built the Ark of the Covenant which wasn’t supposed to be the likeness of God, it was just supposed to be God’s throne. As objects associated with the divine, the Ark was not too bad, it could be moved easily enough and for the longest time it was housed in a tent. It moved with the people. But it was a slippery slope. If the presence of God is in even something as portable as a tent, still some people get to go into the tent, and some people end up deciding who gets to go into the tent. And those people can use the control of the tent flap to set themselves up over other people.
David took the Ark and locked it in his town. Solomon took the Ark and locked it in the Temple. So David and Solomon controlled access to God and conveniently here God gives ultimate political, military and economic power to David, Solomon and his kids and their kids forever.
This sort of thinking happens when people start thinking that God is connected to something tangible like a church, or a religion. The people who control that church or religion have access to all sorts of power over others.
There is another view in the Bible. In that view God is tied to no object, ritual or real estate. God ties God’s self to humanity but to all humanity. To be for all, this God is especially for those who are ignored or abused by other people. This God makes no promises to people because of their ancestry or their geography. God rather stands with those in need whoever they are and condemns those who cause or ignore those needs whoever they are. For the sake of the poor and oppressed kings are condemned, Israel is condemned, priests are condemned.
This God cannot be locked into a particular piece of real estate or religion. This God moves about seeking out those who suffer. This God does not utilize the power of greed and violence to dominate but rather uses love to console those who suffer and empower others to put an end to human suffering.
The Bible doesn’t offer us a vision of God to accept or not. The Bible offers us two utterly different visions of God.
One offers punishment if you fail to follow the rules of the religion, and the orders of people in charge. And offers health and wealth and happiness if you toe the line.
The other offers love to share with no guarantees of health, no opportunity for wealth (as long as there are people in need), and the real possibility of conflict with those in power.
I don’t believe that the text today is a depiction of the God I believe in. It deserves to be in the Bible, so that we have a clear view of the choice between the two primary visions of God.
The Bible also shows us how David’s descendents go on to lead Israel to ruin ultimately even to the destruction of God’s house and David’s house.
If your faith locks God into real estate like this sanctuary, or this nation, if your faith locks God into one particular set of rituals or authorized spokespeople, if your faith locks God into a special relationship with people of a particular race or gender, or sexual orientation. Then the God of this text, the God of the Temple, the God of the many rules is the God for you.
Jesus broke rules to heal and feed people. Jesus argued with priests and condemned the rulers of the Temple. Jesus included sinners, rule breakers, and non Jews into the circle of his fellowship. Jesus stripped away the power of domination by calling on people to love their enemies and give away their wealth.
In the last two thousand years there has been a concerted effort to stick the God of Jesus and Mary, Moses and Miriam back into the box of rules, and priesthood, real estate and nation.
Whenever I hear someone talk about God being linked to a particular religion or nation or people who inherit their virtue, I look for who is gaining by controlling the tent flap.
Whenever I hear about someone who is suffering illness, poverty, loss, or oppression, I hear the voice of God calling me to their side.
The Powers That Be have chosen the god of David, and they seek to hide any other choice from our eyes. Thank God for the Bible, for the people who wrote it, and preserved it. For if we look, we will see that we have a choice. The world has a choice. One choice leads us to the fate of the house of God and David. The other leads us down the path of Christ and the promise of new life. That path and promise are indeed good news for us and the world.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Welcome Aboard
Easter 7 Year B 052409
John 17:6-19
Welcome Aboard
By Rich Gamble
John’s Jesus is a guy with a lot to say. Here he says it in an extended prayer. In the prayer you may have noted that the word “world” comes up many times, thirteen times in the section of the prayer we read today.
John uses the word, not as a synonym for planet, although sometimes people think in such terms. It is often interpreted to mean that we Christians are not really meant for this world we are meant for something else, something not of this world, which for most traditional Christians this means heaven. You can understand why some people in reading texts like this would see our corporeal existence on this planet as something to be endured until we can move up and out of this existence.
One loose interpretation of this passage takes the word world and translates to “godless world.” This way of thinking leads to the embrace of such notions as Armageddon, the notion that the godless world has to be destroyed so the god filled world can emerge; or the idea that life is a veil of tears which we must endure for the sake of the joyous life after death. Such thinking can easily lead folks to be apathetic to the destruction of the planet, since the planet is the site for opposition to God. Earth is godless and doomed, heaven is the destination.
Such interpretations of scriptures as this one from John have lead us to a bunch of bad behaviors and placed the planet in peril.
The word translated “world” here from John makes much more sense if we see it as John’s reference to what we here call the Domination System. If we used that phrase as the way to translate John’s Greek word cosmos it sounds like this:
17:14 I have given them your word, and the domination system has hated them because they do not belong to the domination system, just as I do not belong to the domination system.
17:15 I am not asking you to take them out of the domination system, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.
17:16 They do not belong to the domination system, just as I do not belong to the domination system.
17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
17:18 As you have sent me into the domination system, so I have sent them into the domination system.
The gist of this passage is this. We are in the Domination System. It is the world view of human civilization. It cannot be helped. The Domination System is the default setting for human thinking and acting. No matter how noble the vision, eventually humans will click back to the default setting. We see that in the history of utopian communities. We see that in the history of Israel and in the history of the Christian church. We are in the Domination System and the System is in us.
This doesn’t mean that the system is inevitably going to win out over any alternative. It means that the struggle will be long and difficult and it will never be completely over. We should not be so naïve as to think that if we make some profession of faith in the God of the opposite of Domination (what the Bible calls Agape or self-giving love) and go to church that we are somehow immune to the System’s hold on our thoughts and actions. We are not immune, we are carriers of the power of Domination and the power of Agape. Even if we understand the nature of both we still face the constant effort of identifying the spirit of agape in us and acting out of that truth.
The Domination System’s use of violence and greed and fear is hard wired into us and if we are to be free of it we need to first admit it like people in AA admit continually admit that they are alcoholics. The AA model is a helpful one. That model calls on the alcoholic to admit that he is one but that he will not drink today. Tomorrow he will have to do the same.
We are called by God, not to be transported into some perfect society, but to be faithful in the midst of our fallen civilization. We are called to be in the world but not of the world.
To do this we need each other. We need to gather like this, with fellow believers and confess that the System is still in us. We are still motivated by fear or greed. With a carrot or stick, we still want to force others to accept our ideas. We need to take out our ideas hold them up to the light of our faith and examine them to see if they are formed out of the love of God or the fear and desires of the System. We need to come together to figure out how to help others see the System for what it is and see that there is a radical alternative. We need each other for support and for guidance.
We come together here on Sundays to proclaim our truth, celebrate our hope, confess our struggles and experience the support of each other and the God of agape. We are in Domination System and it is in us. Part of the work is to examine our beliefs and feelings to sort out whether it is the spirit of the System or the spirit of agape which stand behind any particular thought or feeling. But our real mission is not perfecting ourselves but transforming the world. Everyday the Domination System causes a world of suffering and the world needs an alternative. We are called to use the tools of agape, to bring about the healing the world needs.
This passage reminds us that when we strive to bring about a change, the System, will hate us, and those who embrace the system will strive to ignore, slander or destroy us depending on how much of threat we become.
We are in the System but not of the System. That is a difficult distinction. All around us, buried within us, the spirit of the System churns away. We are like people paddling against the current of a powerful stream. It takes effort just to stay where we are. John’s Jesus says that we were placed here, to gather up those drowning in the river of greed and violence. God’s love has called us to be different, to paddle against the current, to struggle against violence and injustice, so that the victims may be rescued and so that others may see that it is possible to oppose the current and so be inspired.
We in Keystone are called to challenge hate and fear, violence and greed. We are called to show the world that an alternative way of organizing the human community is necessary and possible. If we are to follow our calling we need to be honest about the presence of the System within us as well as the presence of the power of God’s self giving love. If we are to follow our calling we need to understand that practicing justice and peace are skills to be acquired and practiced and not just thoughts to be thought. If we are to follow our calling we need to understand that we need each other for this work cannot be done alone.
We have the vision. We have presence of the God of agape and we have each other. We have all we need to change the world around us. And that is good news.
John 17:6-19
Welcome Aboard
By Rich Gamble
John’s Jesus is a guy with a lot to say. Here he says it in an extended prayer. In the prayer you may have noted that the word “world” comes up many times, thirteen times in the section of the prayer we read today.
John uses the word, not as a synonym for planet, although sometimes people think in such terms. It is often interpreted to mean that we Christians are not really meant for this world we are meant for something else, something not of this world, which for most traditional Christians this means heaven. You can understand why some people in reading texts like this would see our corporeal existence on this planet as something to be endured until we can move up and out of this existence.
One loose interpretation of this passage takes the word world and translates to “godless world.” This way of thinking leads to the embrace of such notions as Armageddon, the notion that the godless world has to be destroyed so the god filled world can emerge; or the idea that life is a veil of tears which we must endure for the sake of the joyous life after death. Such thinking can easily lead folks to be apathetic to the destruction of the planet, since the planet is the site for opposition to God. Earth is godless and doomed, heaven is the destination.
Such interpretations of scriptures as this one from John have lead us to a bunch of bad behaviors and placed the planet in peril.
The word translated “world” here from John makes much more sense if we see it as John’s reference to what we here call the Domination System. If we used that phrase as the way to translate John’s Greek word cosmos it sounds like this:
17:14 I have given them your word, and the domination system has hated them because they do not belong to the domination system, just as I do not belong to the domination system.
17:15 I am not asking you to take them out of the domination system, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.
17:16 They do not belong to the domination system, just as I do not belong to the domination system.
17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
17:18 As you have sent me into the domination system, so I have sent them into the domination system.
The gist of this passage is this. We are in the Domination System. It is the world view of human civilization. It cannot be helped. The Domination System is the default setting for human thinking and acting. No matter how noble the vision, eventually humans will click back to the default setting. We see that in the history of utopian communities. We see that in the history of Israel and in the history of the Christian church. We are in the Domination System and the System is in us.
This doesn’t mean that the system is inevitably going to win out over any alternative. It means that the struggle will be long and difficult and it will never be completely over. We should not be so naïve as to think that if we make some profession of faith in the God of the opposite of Domination (what the Bible calls Agape or self-giving love) and go to church that we are somehow immune to the System’s hold on our thoughts and actions. We are not immune, we are carriers of the power of Domination and the power of Agape. Even if we understand the nature of both we still face the constant effort of identifying the spirit of agape in us and acting out of that truth.
The Domination System’s use of violence and greed and fear is hard wired into us and if we are to be free of it we need to first admit it like people in AA admit continually admit that they are alcoholics. The AA model is a helpful one. That model calls on the alcoholic to admit that he is one but that he will not drink today. Tomorrow he will have to do the same.
We are called by God, not to be transported into some perfect society, but to be faithful in the midst of our fallen civilization. We are called to be in the world but not of the world.
To do this we need each other. We need to gather like this, with fellow believers and confess that the System is still in us. We are still motivated by fear or greed. With a carrot or stick, we still want to force others to accept our ideas. We need to take out our ideas hold them up to the light of our faith and examine them to see if they are formed out of the love of God or the fear and desires of the System. We need to come together to figure out how to help others see the System for what it is and see that there is a radical alternative. We need each other for support and for guidance.
We come together here on Sundays to proclaim our truth, celebrate our hope, confess our struggles and experience the support of each other and the God of agape. We are in Domination System and it is in us. Part of the work is to examine our beliefs and feelings to sort out whether it is the spirit of the System or the spirit of agape which stand behind any particular thought or feeling. But our real mission is not perfecting ourselves but transforming the world. Everyday the Domination System causes a world of suffering and the world needs an alternative. We are called to use the tools of agape, to bring about the healing the world needs.
This passage reminds us that when we strive to bring about a change, the System, will hate us, and those who embrace the system will strive to ignore, slander or destroy us depending on how much of threat we become.
We are in the System but not of the System. That is a difficult distinction. All around us, buried within us, the spirit of the System churns away. We are like people paddling against the current of a powerful stream. It takes effort just to stay where we are. John’s Jesus says that we were placed here, to gather up those drowning in the river of greed and violence. God’s love has called us to be different, to paddle against the current, to struggle against violence and injustice, so that the victims may be rescued and so that others may see that it is possible to oppose the current and so be inspired.
We in Keystone are called to challenge hate and fear, violence and greed. We are called to show the world that an alternative way of organizing the human community is necessary and possible. If we are to follow our calling we need to be honest about the presence of the System within us as well as the presence of the power of God’s self giving love. If we are to follow our calling we need to understand that practicing justice and peace are skills to be acquired and practiced and not just thoughts to be thought. If we are to follow our calling we need to understand that we need each other for this work cannot be done alone.
We have the vision. We have presence of the God of agape and we have each other. We have all we need to change the world around us. And that is good news.
Friday, May 15, 2009
God is Love
Easter 5 year B
I John 4:7-21
God is Love
By Rich Gamble
God is love. It sounds like something that should be on a bad Hallmark Greeting Card. But when we say God is love we are saying the most radical thing about the nature of the reality that can be said.
We are the children of the winners in the struggle for resources among human beings. Our ancestors were the ones who were able to win the competition for resources. They won because they were the best at utilizing the power of domination. Our ancestors out traded, out organized, and more successfully utilized violence more effectively than other peoples. The power of domination is the foundation upon which our civilization is built.
So it makes sense that our ancestors would naturally perceive domination as the undeniable aspect of power and they would see God as the very embodiment of that power. Because of our history, we think of God in a certain way, or perhaps because our ancestors thought of God in a certain way they came to dominate history. Either way we end up in the same place. When most people in our world talk of God they are speaking in terms of domination.
Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? The question presupposes that God has the power to control human destiny. But what if God doesn’t have that power? Some people would say that such power is the very definition of God.
On the news the other night, a bystander to an auto accident gave God the credit for the fact that no one was seriously injured. But to think in such ways about God is to also give God the blame when people are injured or killed, or struck down by misfortune. Those who believe in God as dominator want to give God the power to determine each element in our existence which makes sense if God is the ultimate source of that kind of power. People prosper because God wills it, people suffer and die because God wills it. And someday we will come to understand the great mystery of such actions.
But if God is agape love, then maybe God isn’t in control of our destiny. To those who think of God as dominator, to say that God isn’t in control is to say that God isn’t God, or that God is weak or less than what God should be. But if God is self giving love (which is the kind of love John talks about here using the Greek work agape) if God is agape, then the typical ways of thinking about God and power are all wrong.
Another way to think about it is in the metaphor of the parent child relationship, which the Bible uses often. The traditional way of thinking of God is in the relationship of a parent to a small child. With a small child the parent controls the child and manages the world around the child. In a healthy parent/child relationship, the parent disciplines the child, protects the child from harm, and provides for all the needs of the child. The parent controls all of these aspects of the child’s life so that the child will be safe and grow up to be a healthy adult. The parent dominates the child’s life but does so for good reasons.
But in a relationship between a parent and an adult child, the same behaviors would be seen as unhealthy. If the parent watches over the adult child as they would a toddler then their actions could be seen as harmful to the adult child. In a healthy relationship between a parent and an adult child there is no power to force the child to behave in a certain manner and even if the parent had that power, it would diminish the adult child’s freedom to choose and learn and mature.
Adult children make mistakes that their parents could have prevented but the price for that level of control is to keep the adult child from maturing.
Parents of adult children don’t have the power to make their children live their lives in certain ways, and even if they do have that power, it would be wrong to use it. Parent’s of adult children can set a good example, they can warn, they can hope but they cannot force their child to act in the way they would have them act.
A God that is agape, cannot force humanity to act in a certain way, because force is outside the nature of agape. God as agape is not in control of human destiny. God as agape can hope for us, can inspire us, and can support us with loving acceptance. But God as agape cannot, would not control our lives. God as agape cannot, would not punish us with suffering here or in the afterlife.
If the foundational aspect of universal reality (which we imply when we talk about God) is agape, then our notions of social reality change as well. Last week we saw this in terms of economics. John points out that if someone has the world’s goods and sees their brother or sister in need and does not share, they are not manifesting the truth and power of God.
This week John points out that to see God as agape is to do away with fear and hate.
Our nation’s economic system is built on greed. Our nation’s criminal justice system is built on instilling fear of prison in people. Our nation’s military is there to instill fear in other nations who would oppose us. If God is a dominator then these systems make sense. If God is agape, then they stand in contradiction to the power of God.
If God is agape, then the world may well be in our hands, to cherish or destroy. We have tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and we have left the garden of our childhood. We are adult children of a God that is love. It is up to us whether we act in ways which honors God by using the power of love, to create a more loving world or act in ways which reflects the power of domination.
Julia Ward Howe, wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic to inspire the soldiers of the Union army. It was published in 1862. In the hymn she links the will of God to the cause of the army of the Union.
After the war, she had second thoughts about war as a tool for social change. She began to think differently about power and perhaps about the very nature of God. Rather than seeing power as being in the hands of men using the power of domination, she began to call on women to utilize the power of love.
She is seen as one of the founders of the idea of Mother’s Day, which to her, was a day for women to chart a different course for human history. She outlines that direction in her Mother’s Day proclamation written in 1870.
Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
Arise then...women of this day!Arise, all women who have hearts!Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!Say firmly:"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.We, the women of one country,Will be too tender of those of another countryTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up withOur own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."Blood does not wipe out dishonor,Nor violence indicate possession.As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvilAt the summons of war,Let women now leave all that may be left of homeFor a great and earnest day of counsel.Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the meansWhereby the great human family can live in peace...Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,But of God -In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly askThat a general congress of women without limit of nationality,May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenientAnd the earliest period consistent with its objects,To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,The amicable settlement of international questions,The great and general interests of peace.
To think of God as agape love is to think of God in radically new ways. To think of God as agape is to think of our lives, and communities and power in radically new ways.
God as love, implies that God won’t step in and fix all of the things we have messed up.
God as love gives us the power (love) and the vision we need to live our lives as reflections of that love.
God as love speaks to the hope that the power of love has the ability to overcome fear and hate and greed to create with God a paradise of purpose and plenty.
And that is good news.
I John 4:7-21
God is Love
By Rich Gamble
God is love. It sounds like something that should be on a bad Hallmark Greeting Card. But when we say God is love we are saying the most radical thing about the nature of the reality that can be said.
We are the children of the winners in the struggle for resources among human beings. Our ancestors were the ones who were able to win the competition for resources. They won because they were the best at utilizing the power of domination. Our ancestors out traded, out organized, and more successfully utilized violence more effectively than other peoples. The power of domination is the foundation upon which our civilization is built.
So it makes sense that our ancestors would naturally perceive domination as the undeniable aspect of power and they would see God as the very embodiment of that power. Because of our history, we think of God in a certain way, or perhaps because our ancestors thought of God in a certain way they came to dominate history. Either way we end up in the same place. When most people in our world talk of God they are speaking in terms of domination.
Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? The question presupposes that God has the power to control human destiny. But what if God doesn’t have that power? Some people would say that such power is the very definition of God.
On the news the other night, a bystander to an auto accident gave God the credit for the fact that no one was seriously injured. But to think in such ways about God is to also give God the blame when people are injured or killed, or struck down by misfortune. Those who believe in God as dominator want to give God the power to determine each element in our existence which makes sense if God is the ultimate source of that kind of power. People prosper because God wills it, people suffer and die because God wills it. And someday we will come to understand the great mystery of such actions.
But if God is agape love, then maybe God isn’t in control of our destiny. To those who think of God as dominator, to say that God isn’t in control is to say that God isn’t God, or that God is weak or less than what God should be. But if God is self giving love (which is the kind of love John talks about here using the Greek work agape) if God is agape, then the typical ways of thinking about God and power are all wrong.
Another way to think about it is in the metaphor of the parent child relationship, which the Bible uses often. The traditional way of thinking of God is in the relationship of a parent to a small child. With a small child the parent controls the child and manages the world around the child. In a healthy parent/child relationship, the parent disciplines the child, protects the child from harm, and provides for all the needs of the child. The parent controls all of these aspects of the child’s life so that the child will be safe and grow up to be a healthy adult. The parent dominates the child’s life but does so for good reasons.
But in a relationship between a parent and an adult child, the same behaviors would be seen as unhealthy. If the parent watches over the adult child as they would a toddler then their actions could be seen as harmful to the adult child. In a healthy relationship between a parent and an adult child there is no power to force the child to behave in a certain manner and even if the parent had that power, it would diminish the adult child’s freedom to choose and learn and mature.
Adult children make mistakes that their parents could have prevented but the price for that level of control is to keep the adult child from maturing.
Parents of adult children don’t have the power to make their children live their lives in certain ways, and even if they do have that power, it would be wrong to use it. Parent’s of adult children can set a good example, they can warn, they can hope but they cannot force their child to act in the way they would have them act.
A God that is agape, cannot force humanity to act in a certain way, because force is outside the nature of agape. God as agape is not in control of human destiny. God as agape can hope for us, can inspire us, and can support us with loving acceptance. But God as agape cannot, would not control our lives. God as agape cannot, would not punish us with suffering here or in the afterlife.
If the foundational aspect of universal reality (which we imply when we talk about God) is agape, then our notions of social reality change as well. Last week we saw this in terms of economics. John points out that if someone has the world’s goods and sees their brother or sister in need and does not share, they are not manifesting the truth and power of God.
This week John points out that to see God as agape is to do away with fear and hate.
Our nation’s economic system is built on greed. Our nation’s criminal justice system is built on instilling fear of prison in people. Our nation’s military is there to instill fear in other nations who would oppose us. If God is a dominator then these systems make sense. If God is agape, then they stand in contradiction to the power of God.
If God is agape, then the world may well be in our hands, to cherish or destroy. We have tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and we have left the garden of our childhood. We are adult children of a God that is love. It is up to us whether we act in ways which honors God by using the power of love, to create a more loving world or act in ways which reflects the power of domination.
Julia Ward Howe, wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic to inspire the soldiers of the Union army. It was published in 1862. In the hymn she links the will of God to the cause of the army of the Union.
After the war, she had second thoughts about war as a tool for social change. She began to think differently about power and perhaps about the very nature of God. Rather than seeing power as being in the hands of men using the power of domination, she began to call on women to utilize the power of love.
She is seen as one of the founders of the idea of Mother’s Day, which to her, was a day for women to chart a different course for human history. She outlines that direction in her Mother’s Day proclamation written in 1870.
Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
Arise then...women of this day!Arise, all women who have hearts!Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!Say firmly:"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.We, the women of one country,Will be too tender of those of another countryTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up withOur own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."Blood does not wipe out dishonor,Nor violence indicate possession.As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvilAt the summons of war,Let women now leave all that may be left of homeFor a great and earnest day of counsel.Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the meansWhereby the great human family can live in peace...Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,But of God -In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly askThat a general congress of women without limit of nationality,May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenientAnd the earliest period consistent with its objects,To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,The amicable settlement of international questions,The great and general interests of peace.
To think of God as agape love is to think of God in radically new ways. To think of God as agape is to think of our lives, and communities and power in radically new ways.
God as love, implies that God won’t step in and fix all of the things we have messed up.
God as love gives us the power (love) and the vision we need to live our lives as reflections of that love.
God as love speaks to the hope that the power of love has the ability to overcome fear and hate and greed to create with God a paradise of purpose and plenty.
And that is good news.
Nothing More Radical
Easter 4 Year B
I John 3:16-24
Nothing More Radical
By Rich Gamble
Last Weekend I was in Spokane. I was at the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ.
I have never been a big fan of these meetings. First of all, because I am required to go and anything which requires me to do anything, pushes my “question authority” button. Secondly, I have a hope for what such gatherings could be and that shines a bright light on the bland reality.
On the whole these gatherings are like the denomination, a gathering of pleasant, liberal, aging Christians. The annual meetings strive always to be pleasant. Votes are pro-forma; all controversy has been cleansed from the procedures. It is all very agreeable.
I understand this. I understand how you don’t really want to formulate policy among a gathering of a few hundred individuals. But while I am sitting there, occasionally called on to raise my voting card in harmonious agreement with everyone else, I wonder, brood would be more like it, about what my role is in the Church with a capital C.
I know what my role is when I am here. I do all the things a pastor does, some to the things a secretary does, and some of the things a custodian does. On top of that I help manage this building as a place where justice and peace are practiced and taught.
But sitting in that group of pleasant people, I am just an observer and as such what I see is not that hopeful. Nor should it be. There is much that presses in on us. Tens of thousands of people starve to death every day. The climate is heating up. Guns and drugs are proliferating as a sign of hopelessness. People, when they step away from the myriad of distractions our society is so good at producing, are worried about their futures, about their children, about finding meaning in post consumer society.
Do we have an answer for the world’s problems? It has to be more than educate ourselves, pray and be pleasant. Do we have an answer for the world’s problems? If so we should be striving to get our message out there. If not, then let’s just admit that we are a social club.
Social clubs are not bad things. You go there, meet people you like and know, and you make connections. There is absolutely nothing wrong with social clubs. Unless they are social clubs set in the midst of misery. Then there is something unreal, sad and maybe even sinister about a group of pleasant happy people gathering to enjoy each other’s company surrounded by others in misery.
Sometimes it is good to have a chance to sit back and observe, and what I observed made me want to stand back and look at Keystone. Are we a social club, which prays? Do we have anything to offer the world? If so what? And how are we getting what we have to offer out to those who need it?
In the study of the Bible and economics we saw how the Hebrew people, in thinking about their own identity as former slaves liberated by a unique God, sought to live as children of that God.
In Jesus, our spiritual ancestors focused in on agape love as the key to understanding that God. In terms of economics John simply states the underlying principle of economics which honors the God of love:
“How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
Here in one simple question John establishes the basis for an economic policy which can relieve the world of much of the suffering it endures. If you have the means to aid someone in need, and refuse to, how can the love of God abide in you?
Beneath this simple statement lies an understanding that the nature of ultimate reality is found in God and the best way we can understand the nature of God according to John is found in the word agape in Greek or love in our English translation. John says later in this same letter: God is love. (1 Jn. 4:8)
God here is not a tribal God for a certain people, but a universal God for everyone. God is the center of ultimate meaning for everyone and everything whether they understand this or not. Therefore love is the center of ultimate meaning for everyone, whether they believe it or not.
Agape love centers in self-giving, not in conserving. It seeks the benefit of all, not just a few. And in order to achieve the best for all, we are called to seek out those in need, meeting the needs of the needy is the best way to ensure that everyone may enjoy the blessings of God’s agape centered universe.
People don’t need just material goods of course. Apart from the basics of water, food and shelter, people also need dignity, and a sense of their own value, a sense of their ability to contribute to and shape the world around them.
So we take the principle of agape as stated by John’s question, and expand on it. John says: “How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” But we could also ask: How does God’s love abide in anyone who has education, dignity, or power and sees a brother or sister without these things and refuses to help?
John’s question helps us look at personal and global economics from the perspective of the one in need. But the principle of agape that John describes extends to social and political issues as well.
And as simple as the basic statement that “God is love” is, it is also profoundly world changing. John’s question about the lack of love found in holding onto wealth when there are people in need, is a challenge to all people of faith. But it is also a way of re-organizing our world.
Imagine a world in which the hording of wealth at a time when people are in need is seen as an immoral act. Imagine lawmakers striving to work out laws which guard people from this immorality. Imagine the power of human creativity striving after love and not profit. This is a vision to guide our world in a radical new direction.
It is a vision the world desperately needs.
Do we have something to offer the world? Yes, we do. We have our capacity for compassion. We have resources including dollars, creativity, and most importantly the love of God within us. And we have the stories of our ancestors and vision of the future these stories impart.
If we keep these things amongst us for our own use, then we are a social club surrounded by a world of misery. As such John’s question questions whether or not the love of God abides in us.
What I did not see at the annual meeting was a group of people who were working out together how to most effectively embody the love of God in a world of need. In that, the folks at the annual meeting were no different than the church in general. What I saw at the annual meeting was what any church can easily become. What I saw was what we at Keystone are, more often than what we would like to admit. The world can ill afford the luxury of social club churches. Paulo Freire says "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." Likewise, to talk about injustice but never do anything is to keep things going in the same direction.
This passage in John’s epistle calls on us to focus our energies beyond ourselves. To engage the world beyond our doors in the way that will best embody agape love to those in need. What we do to educate ourselves is not for ourselves alone but for those in need. What we do for the building is not for ourselves but for our mission. What we do for here in worship is to empower ourselves to embody the love of God in the world.
This is our calling. We are the bearers of a vision the world desperately needs.
This is our work. We are the incarnation of the love of God.
This is our faith. And it is good news for ourselves and the world.
I John 3:16-24
Nothing More Radical
By Rich Gamble
Last Weekend I was in Spokane. I was at the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ.
I have never been a big fan of these meetings. First of all, because I am required to go and anything which requires me to do anything, pushes my “question authority” button. Secondly, I have a hope for what such gatherings could be and that shines a bright light on the bland reality.
On the whole these gatherings are like the denomination, a gathering of pleasant, liberal, aging Christians. The annual meetings strive always to be pleasant. Votes are pro-forma; all controversy has been cleansed from the procedures. It is all very agreeable.
I understand this. I understand how you don’t really want to formulate policy among a gathering of a few hundred individuals. But while I am sitting there, occasionally called on to raise my voting card in harmonious agreement with everyone else, I wonder, brood would be more like it, about what my role is in the Church with a capital C.
I know what my role is when I am here. I do all the things a pastor does, some to the things a secretary does, and some of the things a custodian does. On top of that I help manage this building as a place where justice and peace are practiced and taught.
But sitting in that group of pleasant people, I am just an observer and as such what I see is not that hopeful. Nor should it be. There is much that presses in on us. Tens of thousands of people starve to death every day. The climate is heating up. Guns and drugs are proliferating as a sign of hopelessness. People, when they step away from the myriad of distractions our society is so good at producing, are worried about their futures, about their children, about finding meaning in post consumer society.
Do we have an answer for the world’s problems? It has to be more than educate ourselves, pray and be pleasant. Do we have an answer for the world’s problems? If so we should be striving to get our message out there. If not, then let’s just admit that we are a social club.
Social clubs are not bad things. You go there, meet people you like and know, and you make connections. There is absolutely nothing wrong with social clubs. Unless they are social clubs set in the midst of misery. Then there is something unreal, sad and maybe even sinister about a group of pleasant happy people gathering to enjoy each other’s company surrounded by others in misery.
Sometimes it is good to have a chance to sit back and observe, and what I observed made me want to stand back and look at Keystone. Are we a social club, which prays? Do we have anything to offer the world? If so what? And how are we getting what we have to offer out to those who need it?
In the study of the Bible and economics we saw how the Hebrew people, in thinking about their own identity as former slaves liberated by a unique God, sought to live as children of that God.
In Jesus, our spiritual ancestors focused in on agape love as the key to understanding that God. In terms of economics John simply states the underlying principle of economics which honors the God of love:
“How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
Here in one simple question John establishes the basis for an economic policy which can relieve the world of much of the suffering it endures. If you have the means to aid someone in need, and refuse to, how can the love of God abide in you?
Beneath this simple statement lies an understanding that the nature of ultimate reality is found in God and the best way we can understand the nature of God according to John is found in the word agape in Greek or love in our English translation. John says later in this same letter: God is love. (1 Jn. 4:8)
God here is not a tribal God for a certain people, but a universal God for everyone. God is the center of ultimate meaning for everyone and everything whether they understand this or not. Therefore love is the center of ultimate meaning for everyone, whether they believe it or not.
Agape love centers in self-giving, not in conserving. It seeks the benefit of all, not just a few. And in order to achieve the best for all, we are called to seek out those in need, meeting the needs of the needy is the best way to ensure that everyone may enjoy the blessings of God’s agape centered universe.
People don’t need just material goods of course. Apart from the basics of water, food and shelter, people also need dignity, and a sense of their own value, a sense of their ability to contribute to and shape the world around them.
So we take the principle of agape as stated by John’s question, and expand on it. John says: “How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” But we could also ask: How does God’s love abide in anyone who has education, dignity, or power and sees a brother or sister without these things and refuses to help?
John’s question helps us look at personal and global economics from the perspective of the one in need. But the principle of agape that John describes extends to social and political issues as well.
And as simple as the basic statement that “God is love” is, it is also profoundly world changing. John’s question about the lack of love found in holding onto wealth when there are people in need, is a challenge to all people of faith. But it is also a way of re-organizing our world.
Imagine a world in which the hording of wealth at a time when people are in need is seen as an immoral act. Imagine lawmakers striving to work out laws which guard people from this immorality. Imagine the power of human creativity striving after love and not profit. This is a vision to guide our world in a radical new direction.
It is a vision the world desperately needs.
Do we have something to offer the world? Yes, we do. We have our capacity for compassion. We have resources including dollars, creativity, and most importantly the love of God within us. And we have the stories of our ancestors and vision of the future these stories impart.
If we keep these things amongst us for our own use, then we are a social club surrounded by a world of misery. As such John’s question questions whether or not the love of God abides in us.
What I did not see at the annual meeting was a group of people who were working out together how to most effectively embody the love of God in a world of need. In that, the folks at the annual meeting were no different than the church in general. What I saw at the annual meeting was what any church can easily become. What I saw was what we at Keystone are, more often than what we would like to admit. The world can ill afford the luxury of social club churches. Paulo Freire says "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." Likewise, to talk about injustice but never do anything is to keep things going in the same direction.
This passage in John’s epistle calls on us to focus our energies beyond ourselves. To engage the world beyond our doors in the way that will best embody agape love to those in need. What we do to educate ourselves is not for ourselves alone but for those in need. What we do for the building is not for ourselves but for our mission. What we do for here in worship is to empower ourselves to embody the love of God in the world.
This is our calling. We are the bearers of a vision the world desperately needs.
This is our work. We are the incarnation of the love of God.
This is our faith. And it is good news for ourselves and the world.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Resurrected Community
Easter 2 B
Acts 4:32-35
Resurrected Community
By Rich Gamble
I missed the movies here on Friday night and caught two remarkable shows on television. The first was a report on the series NOW. In that report, the viewers were shown not only the reality of glaciers melting away in our era of global warming but also why that it is a problem with direct and dire consequences. The second show was a conversation between Bill Moyers and the creator of an HBO series called The Wire.
In the show about the glaciers we were taken to the glaciers which feed the mighty Ganges river. That river provides water and irrigation to over 100 million people. The glaciers provide a means of water storage so that water is stored in the winter and slowly released during the summer. In this way the Ganges has a constant flow year round. When the glaciers disappear what will happen to the Ganges and the people who depend upon its waters? Another huge number of people depend on water from glaciers from the same are which flow to China. The loss of these glaciers will likely mean that crops will fail grain prices will rise around the world and more people will starve. This is a crisis bearing down on the world like freight train while we tinker around the edges of vast and growing production of greenhouse gasses.
Bill Moyer’s conversation with the producer of HBO’s “The Wire” was one of those rare moments when someone in the popular media speaks a core truth. David Simon, former Baltimore crime journalist and now producer talked with Moyers about The Wire, a television series which ran for five years and then ended. Simon talks about the utter failure of the war on drugs, how it has filled up our jails, reduced the attention of the criminal justice system to violent crimes, and has not in any hampered the flow of drugs onto the streets of this nation. This much, many of us have heard but Simon then goes on to talk about the large areas of our nation which are inhabited by an “underclass” of “surplus” workers. Large numbers of Americans live in areas which are basically left to rot because we have ceased to need the labor of the people who live there. Unneeded they are discarded, left to grind out their lives in poverty, crime, drugs and few opportunities for real change. The primary response our nation offers such folk is our ever expanding prison system.
In the course of the conversation, Moyers, a true gift to our nation, said: "Over the past 20 years, the elite one percent of Americans saw their share of the nation's income double, from 11.3 percent to 22.1 percent. But their tax burden shrank by about one-third."
Simon went on to diagnose why it is that Americans continue to support policies which are lining the pockets of the wealthy and abandoning the poor. He said that Americans seem to have a “casino mentality.” Like people who sit feeding their money into a slot machine because they see someone else winning and want to be like that person, while all the while it is the casino which is the real winner. We are taught in this nation to identify with the elite and not the poor with the few winners and not the many losers. And so we see our good as connected to rich and not the poor.
And there you have it. While the world is about to endure unknown levels of suffering, developing nations are rapidly expanding their consumption of fossil fuels so that they can enjoy a lifestyle like ours, while here, great wealth shifts into fewer and few hands and larger and larger numbers of people are left behind as unnecessary to the needs of those who rule our economy.
If you believe this, as I do, then there are few options:
Stick your head in the sand of popular media and wait for poverty and global warming to go away.
Stick your head in the sand of the afterlife and wait for Armageddon.
Grab as much as you can and horde it away in hopes of buying your way out of future problems.
Change things.
As indicated, if you want to stick your head in some sand, there is a form of Christianity for you. Unfortunately it is the dominant form of our faith.
But if you want to change things, there is a great resource in an alternative version of Christianity. And our text today is a primary source in that interpretation.
On Easter Sunday we heard Mark’s version of the Easter story. Mark’s version has no Jesus, no corpse no resurrected body, nothing but a young man to tell the tale of Jesus’ rising from the dead. We saw how this young man was connected to the mysterious young man who ran off from Jesus when he was arrested. The young man is now fully clothed, wearing white, the color of transformation, and no longer running away from Christ but rather staying in one place pointing people to where the risen Christ has already gone.
The only proof of Jesus’ rising is in the testimony of a young man whose life has changed. That in the Gospel of Mark is the sign of God’s presence in the life and ministry of Jesus: a transformed follower.
We would like something more: a larger number of witnesses, video would be nice, a burial shroud with Jesus’ image seared into it, something more than the testimony of one person whose life had changed. But that is all that Mark is offering, that, and the possibility that other followers of Jesus will also be transformed.
In the book of Acts today we have a brief vision into the community of followers of Jesus. Did you notice how that brief passage is structured. The first verse tells of how the community did not claim private property but shared all that they had, everything they owned was held in common. The next verse talks about how the Apostles gave powerful testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. The last verse talks about how there were no needy people among them because people sold their property and gave the funds to the Apostles to be distributed to those in need.
Did you hear it, sandwiched in between two verses which talk about the transformed attitude of the community towards private property and the use of their shared funds to aid those in need, was a statement as to the power of the witness of the resurrection.
It is easy to read today’s passage and see it as two different things. The Apostles share their resources, and share a powerful witness of the resurrection. When we hear it we think of the Apostles taking a break from the mundane actions of redistribution of capital to preach powerful sermons about the resurrection. But it is more likely that Luke is not talking about powerful preaching sandwiched between acts of sharing; rather, Luke is talking about one action. The witness to the resurrection is so powerful because it isn’t just words it is in actions that cut to the heart of difference between the resurrected community and the world.
Jesus’ resurrection is not about one person’s victory over death. It is about a community’s victory over the worldwide system of fear and domination. Not that they toppled the system but they created an alternative to it and showed people like us that it could be done.
What are we to do in the face of an impending environmental catastrophe and ever more violent disparity between rich and poor? Well like those first Christians, I believe we are called to set an example: To stand up against the liars and the misinformed, to stand up for the poor and oppressed, and to live in a way that proclaims our participation in a resurrected life.
God didn’t give us a five point plan, just some examples to learn from and follow. I don’t have a five point plan either, but I know we can grow in our faith and faithful actions. And I know the world needs to hear from those of us who have an alternative vision.
Our story is the story of new life coming out of and overcoming the worst of violence and oppression. Christ’s resurrection from crucifixion is a sign of hope for the world. We are the Body of Christ if we live as resurrected people. If we live as resurrected people then there is hope. If we stick our heads in the sand, hope is not with us.
The choice is ours but only one choice is good news for us and the world.
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