September 16, 2005
Nature
I sometimes wonder that if Nature thinks at all, what it thinks about us. Or is there even such a thing as Nature without us to filter it through our senses, that is, to measure and to locate it. We humans imagine, I suppose, that we do the Universe a service even by such notions as space/time (always in reference to us, of course) and passing our knowledge about it back and forth among us, opinions not always the same over the years from Aristotle to Pat Robertson.
It’s when we set those opinions in concrete, as it were, and go so far as to kill one another because of their immutability, that it all becomes so ludicrous. We call those opinions “law,” and we set them apart as if to be that than which there is no whicher — except we, of course, the filterers who decide what it all means.
Is it not perhaps the irony of all ironies to believe and to claim that no one of us is “above” a law that all the while we’ve named with certainty and with total disregard for the color of the glasses through which we watch it pass by?
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]
September 15, 2005
About
Pentecost 18/20A
Irma Rombauer in “The Joy of Cooking” talks about food like Jesus in “The Joy of Good News” talks about the kingdom. Throughout, as the subject of each different victual is taken up, Irma inserts a little preface, “About Bread,” “About Fish,” “About Beans,” etc. Throughout, as Jesus spins his parables, he says “the kingdom is about… ” “the kingdom is like… ” In neither case do these teachers get literal. They both leave room for the imagination, for analogies, for creativity, and where we lack a capacity for these things, they help us along with marvelous and enticing illustrations.
Jesus’ kingdom parable this Sunday is no different (Mt 20.1-26). This time, “the kingdom of heaven is like a householder” who’s a vintner making work for some laborers who are idling around outside the local unemployment office, probably wondering what’s next in their lives. You know the story. Some of them, the householder hires for the whole day, and others seem to come in shifts all the way to nighttime.
None of them strikes me as all that eager to get a job. But then, Surprise, and lets hear it for minimum wage! They all get paid the same, no matter the hours they put in.
This parable has always been the absolute plague of our labor and management economy and probably drives a biblical inerrancy entrepreneur out of his mind. For it’s a parable based on grace. We’ve an economy based on merit. And the two have never mixed all that well, not even with the trickle-down voodoo economics which never worked at all. It’s the problem with Christianity, grace is always a pain in the… pride. But until we find out what grace is about, what the kingdom of heaven is about, nothing about this Gospel will ever make much sense, for even when we do find this out, it’ll still not make sense because making sense is our criterion and making sense is not the end-all and be-all of grace.
Maybe the Bible’s a good place to start. The whole Bible is an about book, not an is book. So with life, so with us, each of us and all of us are parables. We are parables emulating Jesus who is the Parable of God. Jesus is not God. Jesus is about God. So, with grace, so with the payroll for the laborers in the vineyard. It is precisely where we turn all these analogies upside down and take then literally, that we emasculate the Good News.
One of the big troubles with religion is how difficult it is to get this straight. Religion wants to be an is way of handling grace instead of an about way. On the other hand faith is an about way. Religion needs faith to keep it honest. Faith needs religion — or a reasonable facsimile — and religion’s as good as the next — like we need our bodies, to keep us between the curbs. But the two are never the same.
So, the kingdom of heaven is never a place, but a relationship with God nourished by grace and implemented by faith. It is a story, a parable, and, like all stories, leaving much to the imagination. It is for this relationship that we are imagined by God and freed to sign on in the vineyard at the beckon of the householder and at whatever time we choose. Or, just stand around outside the unemployment office.
September 14, 2005
Changes
It’s taken six years plus Katrina for the president to admit a mistake. It was a welcome surprise when he did and an example we can all attend to. It’s never easy, and it surely was not easy for him. But, we might well ask in the light of these years of dissembling on other matters, So what?
Life patterns of denial and grandiosity are often symptoms of addictive personalities. Twelve Step programs have this in mind when, after several cleansing and confessional steps and strenuous introspection, one must “make amends,” a move that is often wrongly understood as merely saying one is sorry. To amend something means to change it, and, in this instance, to change one’s behavior at the least into a more productive direction.
A lot of mistakes led up to Katrina, not just the president’s, though an office of such great privilege must always accept great responsibility sooner of later. We’ll probably never know how much our collectively careless stewardship of the environment, of the economy, of society, of the poor, of international relations, and whatever left us so pitifully vulnerable. Nor can we avoid being curious as to what led to this sudden change in the president’s behavior, but we can and must be grateful for it and seriously consider following it ourselves.
But now come the amends. Addiction is a spiritual malady that takes many forms. We dare not relegate it only to chemistry, for it is also and mostly an inerrant and selfish lusting after and use of control and power. What changes is our administration and are we willing to make in our stewardship as we move through these Steps in our own ways to the eventual spiritual cleansing, awakening, and renewal that they promise?
September 13, 2005
Numen
It’s an old story and probably apocalyptic. Given the internet and all, most everybody’s surely heard it. It seems appropriate, though, Peter’s bookkeeping about forgiveness still ringing in my lectionary ears from last Sunday (Mt 18.15-20).
A little girl lived on a South Sea island and was known to have regular conversations with Jesus. Her fellow villagers believed her and treated her with special attention. They were also altogether cautious neither to make light of her nor to take advantage of her gift for their own benefit.
Soon the word of her numen got around to the local bishop. Being a bishop and a guardian of stuff, he wasn’t all that prone to believe stories like this, usually writing them off to native lore. But the girl’s reported experience developed legs enough so that his curiosity provoked him to delegate his monsignor to enquire of the youngster concerning this phenomenon, lest, perhaps it get out of hand.
So the monsignor devised a test as to the authenticity of these “conversations.” He listened the girl out, then said would she ask Jesus in their next conversation what had the monsignor confessed in his last sacrament of penance. She agreed.
Some time passed. Hearing nothing from her, the priest impatiently sought her out. He asked had she talked to Jesus and did she bring up the question. Yes, she said. Well, what did Jesus say about what I said in my confession? He said that he’d forgot.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchuyrch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]
September 12, 2005
Greetings
When I turn on my cell phone, there appears on its screen the name of its creator superimposed over Michaelangelo’s drawing of the hands of our Creator and Adam a mere finger tip away.
I’ve always admired that drawing, but I’ve never been sure what the artist intended by it. Was it to depict God’s reaching out for Adam to shake hands and welcome him to the human race? Or have they just now let go after Adam’s receiving the Divine Jolt that started up his EKG out of flat line? Or whether, maybe, it was to show an unreachable gap that remained there until the Incarnation came along to close it?
The next image to appear before the phone becomes operative is the message, “Be safe. Be courteous.” Now, whether that’s the phone company’s suggestion or God’s is not clear to me. It does remind me of my Mom’s, “Behave,” when I went off to school each day, though it narrows down the options considerably.
Whatever, “Be safe. Be courteous.” is a fair exegesis of God’s charge about looking after Eden. If it had been used then, it might have saved Moses all that time writing the Pentateuch. But then, we probably would have figured out a way to complicate that, too.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchuyrch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]
September 9, 2005
Game
It was inevitable that somebody would inject the notion of game into this monumental tragedy we call Katrina. For game is usually and eventually the way we seem always to cope with limits, life, itself, being the mother of all games. Even Katrina, our very namesake, rebels to remind us that we’re never finally in charge.
The game always wins, even for the winners, for in the final analysis we can only win against each other, we cannot win against the game. It is in that same way that war is also a game, a game in which, ironically, there are only losers.
And so, our response to the hurricane has now become the “blame game.” We started playing it in Eden, for accountability is the most onerous — and original — of alternatives. The always reliable religious right through an organization called “Repent America” is no exception, claiming now that the gays and lesbians are at it again. Just as we caused 9/11, they’re now claiming that Katrina was an act of God aimed at an upcoming gay pride event scheduled for New Orleans. But, God bless them, who is ever comfortable with liability? Obviously not they. Certainly not I, and, I suspect, surely not thou. Nor our president who, when asked, even with obvious anguish, could not recall a single mistake he had ever made.
No, Katrina is not punishment, rather is it a consequence of our lack of stewardship — of the environment, of our society, of our economy, of our bellicosity, and on and on. It is, indeed, a game we are playing. God forgive us, it is the shame game.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchuyrch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]
September 8, 2005
Trumped
Pentecost 17/19A
The grace of God is not about magic and certainly not about anything easy. It’s about something simple, that God can be trusted, but not taken for granted. It’s what can be called a “difficult simplicity.”
One discovers this fact of life along a way that twists and turns, where Yogi Berra’s advice, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” makes perfect sense. It is what those early disciples first called “The Way,” and what we later unfortunately called “Christianity.” We might better have stayed with them. For “The Way” is a name that catches all the delicious ambiguity of the Gospel, doesn’t lend itself to the outrageous misuse of the label “Christian,” and most nearly follows Yogi’s exegesis.
To be forgiven is to be found by the grace of God. It is, like C S Lewis, to be “surprised by joy.” It is not to care whether light is wave or particle, but to celebrate gladly that there is light at all, and that it’s suddenly bathing and basking in our corner of life. God’s offer (aka Holy Spirit) is there for all. Whether all accept it is another matter.
Peter seemed not so sure. He, like a lot of his type today, was not into ambiguity. He didn’t appear to have anything against forgiving, he just wanted to be careful not to overdo it. He didn’t ask Jesus whether to forgive, he simply wanted to know how much. “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Mt 18.21)
Jesus’ answer of 490 times probably pleased him immensely, not because it surely overtaxed his capacities, but because Jesus gave him the kind of left-brain teaser he really cherished. Whether Peter would climb all over his brother on number 491 or whether Jesus put any limit at all on redemption is not mentioned. Neither is there any reference to what must surely have been Peter’s immense pleasure over Jesus restoring him to the fellowship after a mere three betrayals — and actually giving him the keys to the clubhouse, to boot.
Forgiveness never comes easy — either giving it nor, especially, receiving it. The sin against the Holy Spirit, the so-called unforgivable sin, is precisely that not because God won’t forgive us, but because we won’t accept such reconciliation into God’s graces. By God’s imagining of us, we are free to choose. And that means we are free to refuse even God’s forgiveness.
Forgiveness, of course, never means to forget, nor does it mean there aren’t consequences nor punishments. What it does mean is that the connections are opened and kept open, the channels of communication are freed up, the vision, the eye-to-eye remains clear, the arms are open for embrace.
And forgiveness never means there are no risks. For the same painful exchange that created the need in the first place might well happen again. But, as well, the lack of forgiveness never means there is love or no grace, just that the love, the grace cannot break through to start its healing nourishment.
For we are the way God forgives. It is through you and me that God’s grace is known. It is when we — in the words of our baptismal covenant — “seek and serve Christ” in the other that grace explodes into our lives, and we are overwhelmed by it.
But then, if we just can’t buy all this, there’s always Oscar Wilde’s admonition that no less a worthy than St Paul confirmed. “Always forgive your enemies,” said Wilde, “nothing annoys them so much.” Whether or not he’d read St Paul, he was coming from the same place. Only Paul must have been beyond simply annoying somebody when he wrote, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head” (Rms 12.20). Well, we might add, it could be a lot worse.
But then, Jesus trumped the both of them and all the rest of us when he said, simply, “Love your enemies” (Mt 5.44).
September 7, 2005
Reward
The other morning on my stationary bike pedaling out of nowhere and wondering whether it was of much use, I got to thinking about entering the Tour de France. I enjoy watching out the upstairs window as our back yard goes by on my way to what the bike’s readout says averages about seven miles, but even so it occurred to me that the scenery on the Tour might be more intriguing if somewhat more daunting.
It was then that I saw the fox. It was casually nosing about our yard at what might have been a root or a root dweller. Our hill could pass for a forest if you discounted the random dwellings with which we humans have blighted it, but I can’t imagine it dense enough for a fox to feel much at home. Nevertheless, there it was, a bit lanky, but with an impressively reddish bronze coat and an elegantly bushy tail. When it looked up and in my direction, I suddenly realized what large ears foxes have.
CP and I were in Wales last March and spent a morning on a sheep farm. The Brits had only recently outlawed fox hunting, and the shepherd was not much liking the idea. I thought about him when I saw our fox and fantasized some more about maybe being a bugler on a fox hunt. It was a lot more attractive idea, for the Tour was rolling up to the foothills of the Alps about then, and I was looking for a way to have a flat tire or something.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchuyrch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]
September 6, 2005
Closets
One of the measures of the age of a house has come to be the number of its closets and, as well, if the realtors are to be believed, its value. The more, the larger, the better.
For most of us, closets are where stuff goes to keep it handy and out of sight. For some of us, that’s where it ends. But for others, there are adaptable shelves and hanging rods for closets to shape them into some sort of order. It is thought that neat closets measure not just age or value but also the state of one’s psyche.
Jesus seems to have thought well of closets as a place to pray. That there’s not enough room in any of mine even for the liturgy would probably not impress him. He might just shrug his shoulders and say that it was merely a suggestion.
On the other hand, prayer is a handy way to discover one’s identity, and in the closet is as good a place as any. Those who find it, also seem to discover that it’s altogether refreshing when they come out.
September 5, 2005
Work
It has been said that if you lose yourself in your work, you find who you are. And that if you express the best you have in you in your work, it is more than just the best you have in you that you are expressing.
Millions of people were already out of work before Katrina, without a place to lose themselves. And now at least another million have neither a place left to lose nor a place left to find.
Labor Day celebrates work and workers. But it’s never been more than a gossamer holiday, a kind of joke on ourselves. If it’s a day off from a work that no longer exists, it’s not even much of a time for play.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchuyrch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]