Posts Tagged ‘Luke’

Cleaning-woman God.

{ September 2, 2009 @ 5:07 pm } · { personal reflection }
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I interviewed with my district committee this morning in order to pass into the next phase of affirmation toward ordination in the United Methodist Church.  In the process of this interview, which included questions about my theology, my understanding of ordination, my own call to ministry, and the opportunity to list my own weaknesses, one of my committee members asked me a surprising question: Which is my favorite parable?  Anyone who knows me knows a couple of things: 1) I’m pretty into inclusivity.  In other words, I don’t really “do” favorites.  I kind of love everything.  2) I’m into hyperbole (see number one).  If I love something, I love it – it’s fantastic, amazing, incredible.  If I dislike it, it’s “That’s horrendous!” Or, at least until next time, when there’s an exception.  I’m sure it drives people crazy.  In fact, I know it does.  So, when asked, “What’s your favorite…?” I totally freeze up.  All of a sudden, my mind touches on a million options (or at least five), and I get the sense of being unfairly pinned down.  The thing is, in these situations, sometimes something about me really does reveal itself.  So it was this morning.  I sat quietly for a few moments, waiting for inspiration and thinking of the various implications of each of the parables coming to mind… and then just opened my mouth and worked with the first thing that came out.

One story that Jesus tells, right after the lost sheep and right before the famous “prodigal son” in Luke 15, makes my heart warm.  Actually, if this isn’t too weird, the feeling I get from that parable is the same body-sense I get from being in love – deep comfort, total clarity, exceptional hope.  It gets about two verses, and it’s in the form of a question… He says, “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?”  What woman, indeed?

I’ve lost things.  Lots of things, big and little, important and insignificant.  People, too.  Ideas, hopes, opportunities.  But that coin, it represents something special.  Everytime I think of that parable, I think of that woman, sort of middle-aged, in the center of her simple house, standing with her hands on her hips for a moment or two, thinking.  Then, suddenly, on her hands and knees on that hard, dirt-packed floor, tearing things out of corners, throwing blankets, pots, living space-things behind her with intensity, even abandon, the other nine coins stacked carefully on her rough kitchen table, glinting in the lamp light.  Systematically but frantically searching for that little silver coin in the dark, dirty corner it’s rolled itself into.  It’s equal to all of the others she has, already waiting there collected, but that’s just it… it’s equal in value.  It, too, deserves to be sought out, found, shined on the hem of her apron and gathered together with the others.  To be put where it belongs, in its home.  Because what’s wrong with a lost coin?  One thing: it can’t fulfill its purpose, the thing it was made for.  Separated from its brethren, it’s not able to be as fully-what-it-is as it might be.  It’s valuable in its own right, even more valuable when gathered into its community.

Telling this story to the committee, I lost it.  I mean, big, rolling tears started pouring over my face and I felt the weird feeling of telling a story from the heart of the world.  Wondering what it was about this story, I realized it’s my gospel.  One line, in the form of a question.  Who, what God, would not do this, would not gather together each and every one?   The one in whom I am learning every day to trust would.  The God I know, realizing this little coin has been lost, has gotten down on her knobby, creaking knees in the mud and the garbage and scrabbled through with her bare hands looking desperately and intently for me, like parent looks for her child lost in a crowd, to bring me back home… un-distracted by anything not immediately related to the problem, disregarding any consequence other than that of finding, of seeking and finding.

There’s a poem that matches this sense of God for me, and it was envisioned by the 14th century Hindu poet Janibai.  It’s entitled, “You leave your greatness behind you.“  May you, too, feel with deep assurance that God has left God’s greatness behind, just for you, to show you that you are loved, coveted, and needed for the building up of the Kingdom.

Jani has had enough of samsara,/but how will I repay my debt?/ You leave your greatness behind you to grind and pound with me./ O Lord you become a woman/ washing me and my soiled clothes,/ proudly you carry the water and gather dung with your own two hands./ O Lord, I want/ a place at your feet,/ says Jani, Namdev’s dasi.

Lens of tears.

{ February 4, 2009 @ 10:36 am } · { political, social justice }
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Usually, I wouldn’t do this, but early in December I started to write a post and then never finished it, partly because my mind hadn’t wrapped itself entirely around the topic and partly because holiday chaos overtook my capacity to think through it further.  But my head’s back in that same place today, so I’ll work with it now.  Originally, I was struggling with understanding a speaker I had heard at seminary, Reverend Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, who is the director of the Two Futures Project, an evangelical effort for a nuclear weapons-free world that works primarily with younger Christians.  This man, who’s only a little older than myself, spoke eloquently and passionately about the need for our nation and the nuclear-armed West in general to lay down its weapons for the sake of the future of our planet and our species.  He stated, referring to the fact that we are armed and yet simultaneously denouncing countries who are building and newly testing nuclear weapons, “As it stands, we’ve got no moral authority to oppose them; you can’t preach temperance from a barstool.”

The day after I heard him speak, a song came on the radio, one that I’m sure is familiar to most of us, “Someday At Christmas” sung by Stevie Wonder.  The lyrics felt like a collision between real life and dreaming: “Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys/ Playing with bombs like kids play with toys/ One warm December our hearts will see/ A world where men are free/ …Someday at Christmas there will be no wars.”  Music is an emotional experience for me, tending to sort out and clarify difficult feelings into organized thoughts and pictures, and this one hit me right in the chest.  I remember I was driving in my car, and the image of children of God playing with bombs as though they were toys welled up a sense of deep sadness and horror in my soul.  Then I remembered what Tyler had said about preaching temperance from a barstool… and I began to reflect on what Jesus said in Luke, “Can a blind person lead a blind person?  Will they not both fall into the pit?”  And, also, in Matthew, ‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire.”  Maybe these two verses don’t seem to fit together, I don’t know.  But they popped into my head and forced me to consider how nuclear weapons have anything to do with the anger I feel toward other people.  How the violence in my own heart can be as damaging, at least according to how I understand what Jesus might be saying, as a bomb decimating a city.  Am I exaggerating? Perhaps.  But I don’t think so, for two reasons.

First of all, how can I judge others to be in the wrong, when I’m comfortably sitting on my own barstool waving a hefty glass of antagonism, pride, need for power, and self-protection, even prejudice and, yes, hatred?  I think I hear Jesus saying to us that the slide from one type of violence to the next, from violence in our souls, little violences done daily, to larger violence done in the world is a slippery one.  That, possibly, the small angers and hurts we inflict upon one another sums up, combines, lives cosily together in a miasma of badness that ultimately must lead to larger violences.  Like that scene in Ghostbusters when the glowing pink goo takes over the city, a collection of the people’s evil boiling up from underneath.  Perhaps it’s about desensitization.  Research has taught us pretty clearly that small negative influences are gateways to larger ones.  But I also wonder if what Jesus was telling his people was that these small ways of being out of line with the way of God turn us even farther away from that vision for peace and justice, wholeness and love of neighbor, so that we must hedge ourselves against the small evils in order not to find ourselves unprotected when the big ones come.

I mean, we have to admit it…. we live in a fallen world.  There are big badnesses, real threats ever present, lurking in the shadows and looming in plain sight.  If we’re blind to our own ways of living violently with one another, whether it’s through cruelty of words or use of fists and weapons, neglect of those around us who live in need of basic kindnesses,  manipulation and coercion to make our own lives feel more secure… if we’re blind to these, then we can’t very well claim the high moral ground when others follow our example and take it even to the next level.  Especially when we’ve modeled that level so well and used our resources to exhibit our power.  How can we really ask others not to do the same if we are unable or unwilling to admit the wrongs we’ve done and resolve ourselves to learn from the lessons there?  I remember Tyler made another statement, toward the end of his talk, that has stuck with me.  It reminded me that it’s okay to make errors, as long as we can learn to see ourselves in an honest light.  God’s vision isn’t of us as unbroken, but it is of humanity as transformable, if we begin to see as God does.  He said, “In a fallen world, the only way we will see as God does is through the lens of tears.”  It won’t be easy or perfect, but tears can be cleansing.  Regret isn’t the end of the world.  Refusal to lay down our weapons, psychological, emotional, nuclear, will be.

(For the United Methodist position on nuclear arms, you can read the denominational statement,  “In Defense of Creation”.)

Dirty clothes in church.

{ January 31, 2009 @ 1:34 pm } · { personal reflection, poverty, social justice }
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I’m back from vacation in Ventura County, California, a trip to see my brother and sister-in-law who are stationed there at the local naval base.  I haven’t had a “real” vacation in nearly four years, and I have to admit that leaving snowy central Ohio for the temperate sunniness of an actual metropolitan area was nearly irresistible.  Seeing family was icing on a Southern Californian, wine-soaked cake.  Aside from doing the tourist-thing in L.A., wondering why anyone on God’s earth would ever want to live in Hollywood, wine-tasting and eating In-N-Out burgers, walking the beach and enjoying the weather, I also found myself saddened.  One of my favorite radio programs is Le Show, a public radio show hosted by satirist Harry Shearer who calls the home of his show on KCRW in Santa Monica “the home of the homeless.”  I never really accepted that this might actually be true – surely New York is the actual home of the homeless, right? – until this week.  Never, ever in my life have I seen so many people sleeping on the street, resting against curbs, heads propped up on piles of garbage bags. Walking with shopping carts full of everything they owned, sick-looking mangy dogs riding shotgun.  In Santa Monica’s gorgeous park, homeless people everywhere.  I use the word “literally” with hesitation, but there were literally poor people everywhere.

It made me think of James 2:1-5: 

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?”

James was not talking about the Santa Monica pier, but he was calling out his congregation about their treatment of their fellow human beings in worship.  Since loving our neighbor means extending that love beyond the boundaries of our church walls, I don’t think he’d disagree that letting our sisters and brothers live like disposable, unwanted pieces of garbage on our streets is an abomination.  Even in sunny California.  Do we, can we even claim to, really believe in our glorious Lord, as long as this is the reality of even one woman, child, or man?  As I remembered James, I remembered Jesus’ condemnation in Luke 11 of his fellows the Pharisees:

Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. 

Oh, gah.  Ouch.  Starting in December, I’ve been getting to know a homeless man named Aaron who came to a community breakfast in our church.  I sat with him for breakfast a couple of Sundays in a row and invited him to stay for the service following the meal.  Against all odds, he actually showed up a few weeks in a row in December and January.  Aaron’s not the easiest person to be around.  I’m no princess, but a confession is in order here.  Aaron stinks.  Dirt is a part of him, ground into his skin and hair.  The air around him nearly pulses with the scent street scum, of days-old urine, of desperation.  It is pungent and assaultive.  His fingers are so dirty it’s all I can do to shake his hand some Sundays.  The outside of his dish is dirty, if we use the picture Jesus drew.  I don’t know his heart so well.  I don’t know him and likely never will know much more than I do now.  But Aaron isn’t the problem here.  I am.  Because I’m all clean and shiny.  I can choose some Sundays to come to church wearing junky clothes, but in truth I’ve got expensive suits in my closet.  I can come looking like a million bucks, smelling lovely, smile on my face, fitting in just fine.  God made my outside, but my inside struggles when I stand next to Aaron.  My instinct is to recoil, to greet him in church and then find another room to be comfortable in, where the air is clear.  How many of us give to the church to make it stay just the way it is, all clear air and sunny light and familiar, clean friends?  When instead our alms are to be the love Jesus calls for us to pour out, toward those whose cups and dishes appear dirt-encrusted?  Alms for the things that are within, rather than for the things without.  Aaron, and the people on the street in Santa Monica, living these lives of sadness and need while I trot off to my dinners and expensive wine-tastings, my air travel and Starbucks, they shine a light on the inside of my dish.  And God may have made it, too, but I’ve let the muck accumulate.  I’ve been cleaning the outside, scrubbing it raw, polishing it up, looking good.  But the inside, well, wickedness, greed, unrighteousness… these abound.  I have made distinctions between the rich and the poor.  I have not asked Aaron to sit with me, in the best seat in the house.  I have not served him.  My hesitation reveals my heart, which hasn’t fully claimed God’s promise in Jesus.  My alms are insufficient.  

And I’m going to do something about it.

Taxes and tithes

{ November 1, 2008 @ 1:55 pm } · { personal reflection, political }
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The other day in my Gospel of Luke class (during which, I confess, I was intermittently passing in and out of conscious attention), someone made the comment that perhaps our taxes should count as tithing, considering the fact that they go toward the greater good of society.  Um… first, I should say that I was not listening much prior to this comment, so any reflection I attempt here relies on absolutely zero context, excepting my theological education and common sense.  And, for the sake of full-disclosure, I had already commenced with eye-rolling earlier in the class due to another comment linking Jesus to capitalism, so my attitude was irreparably soured.  And, having grown up within the Mennonite tradition, I am already biased toward believing that any government that spends the bulk of its citizens’ income tax on war spending does not deserve to receive it.  The Kingdom of God is endangered in a world of war.  It’s why I’ve taken 3 days to talk about it.  This comment hit me in the sternum like a brick. 

So, here’s where I am with taxes as tithes: absolutely not, NO, under no circumstances should government taxes be considered our offering to God.  I seem to remember Jesus saying something about giving to God what is God’s.  I don’t remember him telling us to give to Caesar what is God’s.  But, I realize I sound angry, even horrified, and there’s a need here for listening more deeply to what my colleague may have been trying to say.  As I’ve said, we’re studying Luke, whose gospel pounds home the necessity of caring for the poor, the need for keeping a constant eye on the building up of the kingdom of God to the exclusion of mammon, a regular check on where our priorities really lie.  In Luke, this care and prioritizing requires a “spreading of the wealth,” something I seem to be hearing called socialism lately in the national political media. 

Sure, this means using wealth in such a generous and responsive way that it furthers the Kingdom, if you have wealth, which might mean renouncing it altogether or spending it for the good of the poor.  Luke’s message isn’t entirely consistent or clear – if we give away all of what we own, almsgiving is obviously not possible, but he tells us to do that, as well.  So I get it… it’s confusing.  But where I struggle is with the word “generous.”  Is our government’s spending generous?  I know (church and state, and all that) we can’t claim it’s focused on the growing of the Kingdom of God, despite the fact that many federal, state, and local programs do indeed care for the marginalized of our society, and do it well.  But this care does not constitue even nearlythe bulk of the spending, and as citizens we have no control over how our taxes are spent, really.  That brings me to the question of what tithing really is, then.  How do we understand this odd word, one that has, I think, as many definitions as there are people who give to the church?  The scriptures aren’t entirely clear, either, so we can’t prooftext our way out of this one. 

Here’s my understanding of tithing: we are to intentionally, carefully, and generously provide out of the blessings of our lives, be those possessions, skills, resources of any kind, for the furthering of the Kingdom of God in this world.  We give because we love God and God’s vision for the world so much that we can’t help but give, and give with radical, extravegant generosity and abandon.  This can be through giving to the ministry of the church, but it doesn’t need to be.  I think giving to a community of believers in ministry together is a special kind of giving – it shows one’s faith and hope that this gathered community of broken and seeking folks has the Spirit moving through them, that the Church is the face of God in the world, and that God is, has been, and will be transforming Creation into something new and wonderful. 

But taxes? 

First of all, aside from what I’ve already said, my understanding of giving back to God what is (in any case) already God’s means that making it mandatory doesn’t qualify.  We give to God because we love and were loved first.  Giving comes from a sense of gratitude and hope, not guilt and certainly not obligation.  Here’s how I could justify that statement.  I would consider taxes as tithes when our government’s every decision was made with the good of the entirety of the human family in mind; when preserving, enriching, and honoring life was the primary vision rather than self-preservation and a culture of death; when creation ruled over destruction; when the voices of the poor had a heavier lobby in Congress than the voice of wealth; when the goal of unity outweighed the push for personal gain.  What I’ve just described is a vision of the Kingdom of God, broken into the life of our political, cultural, and social systems. Is this our reality?  No.  So no dice on taxes as tithes.  But, oh, until then, I’ll keep praying.

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