Category: Bible

Safe Community

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I can just picture the scene here. On Thursday, the disciples arrive in the Upper Room they have rented for the Passover and immediately they start positioning for the best seats (or reclining pillows as it were). In this tradition the most prominent and important people sat near the host. And here are the disciples just arrived and already debating about who would sit where.

In case one wonders where they were getting their delusions of grandeur, consider that they had just returned from an itinerate preaching tour. In general they had been welcomed and accepted. And as they started performing miracles and doing healings they developed a certain form of popularity. People liked them, they were rock stars.

They wanted to be liked, wanted to draw crowds and develop followings. They had some idea that they were in Jerusalem with Jesus because something big was about to happen – something important that dealt with the kingdom – and they were excited. And here they were having an exclusive holiday meal with their leader and they start bickering about who is considered the greatest.

I have to assume that Jesus got a bit frustrated at this point. All week he had been talking about giving up power and lifting up the oppressed and now they start bickering about who is the greatest. Talk about missing the point. So he says to them – “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

Jesus as always turns things upside-down. Unlike most pep talks that focus on winning and showing how superior you are to everyone else, Jesus encourages them to serve. He tells them not to be like those who seek power and lord it over others. To not gather a following that idolizes them. But instead tells them if they are in positions of power they should be using it to serve others – to be a community that cares for each other. Jesus then models that community by breaking bread with them and by performing the lowest form of service – that of washing his disciples’ feet. Even he – the leader they follow is not establishing a kingdom to rule over but creating an ethos of love and service.

This act of communion, of serving one other, should remind us of the sort of community we should be – one that turns the hierarchies of this world upside-down and values service and love more than power and prestige.

This week I will be cross-posting the reflections I wrote for Journey’s IFC’s blog relating the events of Holy Week to our church’s value statements. Some of these have appeared in different forms here at onehandclapping in the past. Image – “Christ Breaking Bread – Navajo”

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Listen To and Obey God

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I find the events of Wednesday of Holy Week to be humbling. Basically they reveal how much the disciples, Jesus’ closest and best students, still struggled to integrate his teachings into their lives. They were his followers, they were supposed to listen to and obey him, and yet they still messed things up.

This is the day that one of Jesus disciples got fed up with how Jesus was doing his thing and decided to be a catalyst for more extreme action by betraying Jesus. Perhaps Judas the Iscariot – one of the Sicarii or dagger-man, a splinter Jewish extremist group that promoted violence and murder as a means of overthrowing the Romans – was fed up with Jesus’ creative nonviolence. His political views eschewed how he listened to and obeyed his teacher. He wanted a swift rebellion, and perhaps thought the only way to spark such action was to betray the very man he claimed to follow.

This is also the day when a woman broke her treasured alabaster jar of perfume over Jesus’ feet. The disciples, conditioned to Jesus’ teachings about serving the poor, were offended at her extravagance, asserting that the perfume could have been sold for money to give to the poor. Jesus though admonishes the disciples and called her act beautiful. The disciples had become so wrapped up in the literal interpretation of his words that they missed the spirit of love and devotion that his teachings were based on.

So it humbles me to realize that even Jesus’ closest followers didn’t always get the listen to and obey Jesus thing right. How could I be so arrogant to assume that I even barely have it figured out? But it is also comforting. Jesus still loved his disciples and stuck with them – even though they messed up over and over again. I know I let my biases, my cultural proclivities, cloud how I hear and follow the words of Jesus. But I also know that Jesus loves me anyway, and that even my imperfect attempts to listen to and obey him are sufficient.

This week I will be cross-posting the reflections I wrote for Journey’s IFC’s blog relating the events of Holy Week to our church’s value statements. Some of these have appeared in different forms here at onehandclapping in the past. Image – “Washing Jesus’ Feet – India”

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Embrace Imperfection

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On the Tuesday of Holy Week, the Bible records Jesus telling his followers what the Kingdom of God is like. But of course, in his typical fashion, he turns everything upside down. What the world treasures and values has no place in God’s Kingdom – what the world deems acceptable and perfect is often empty and corrupt.

So he tells us that in the coming kingdom, people will be living their lives in their normal pursuit of the things the world values but when the Son of Man comes they will see how hollow and full of pain that way of life truly was. The rulers of the nations of the earth will fear the coming of God’s Kingdom because it means their power-plays and oppression of others will come to an end. For in God’s Kingdom, it is when we embrace imperfection and upside-down living that we find joy and abundant life.

Jesus compares this abundant life to a great banquet thrown by a King. The rich and powerful of the land shun the invitation to join in on this King’s upside-down way of life. But true to form, the King extends the invitation to the poor and the suffering of the land. The oppressed and the powerless are treated as honored guests in this Kingdom. The old corrupt ways of the world have no place there.

And he tells the story of an absentee landowner that gave his workers talents (money). When he returned he punished the one worker who refused to break the Jewish law against charging interest on his money. Jesus says in the oppressive spirit of the world, yes, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, but that is not the way it is supposed to be. The landowner may have punished the worker for sticking to his values, but to Jesus it is these very value-driven people who he will welcome into his kingdom – those who when he was hungry gave him something to eat, when he was thirsty gave him something to drink, when he was a stranger invited him in, when he needed clothes clothed him, and when he was sick looked after him.

To live in the Kingdom of God, it is required that we embrace imperfection. That we resist the siren calls of wealth and power (earned at the expense of others, the destruction of creation, and the oppression of the poor). That we turn the world upside-down and value the things Jesus values instead – caring for the suffering, providing healing for the sick, food for those who hunger, and welcome to those without a home. Everything our culture rallies against we must swallow our pride and embrace. Everything the world scoffs at as imperfect, we must treasure for that is the Kingdom of God.

This week I will be cross-posting the reflections I wrote for Journey’s IFC’s blog relating the events of Holy Week to our church’s value statements. Some of these have appeared in different forms here at onehandclapping in the past. Image “The Poor Invited to the Feast – Africa”

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Radical Inclusion

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Matthew 21:12-13
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them,” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

The Temple was the center of worship for the Jews. In the scriptures, we are reminded over and over again that true worship is more than rituals, fasting, and sacrifices – it is also about helping those in need, treating people fairly, and welcoming all. So after “triumphantly” entering Jerusalem and reminding people that the Messiah comes to serve and welcome all nations, Jesus proceeds on the Monday of Holy Week to the Temple. But as he enters the temple he sees systems set in place for aiding in sacrifices that apparently were taking advantage of the poor – overcharging them and cheating them on exchange. I’m sure as the scattered Jews trickled in for Passover some people saw them as easy targets to be exploited – all in the name of worship. And Jesus is outraged. He comes in, turns over the tables, and says that stuff about how this should be a house of prayer but it has turned into a den of robbers.

The house of prayer passage Jesus references here (Isaiah 56:7) is one of inclusions – of welcoming the nations. Not just the scattered Jews, but all nations. But in reality, at the Temple it was often more common for exclusions to be upheld. Jesus saw the discrimination against poor and foreign Jews and showed his displeasure. But others were regularly not allowed to fully worship in the temple either. Only Jewish men were allowed inside the Temple proper – women, children, and gentiles were only allowed in the outer courts, and eunuch’s were not even allowed to step foot on temple grounds. But Jesus welcomes even the most despised into God’s Kingdom – giving them a special place. The Messiah extends his grace to all – tearing down barriers of nationality, race, gender, sexuality and ability symbolically in the later rending of the curtain in the Temple and literally in the tangible acts of his kingdom.

In his indignation, Jesus affirms the idea that a place of worship be a “house of prayer” that welcomes even those society typically rejects. Those who seek to worship should not be excluded on any account. For Jesus, his church should always be radically inclusive.

This week I will be cross-posting the reflections I wrote for Journey’s IFC’s blog relating the events of Holy Week to our church’s value statements. Some of these have appeared in different forms here at onehandclapping in the past. Image – “Jesus Drives the Merchants from the Temple” – Nicaragua

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Silence, Women, and The Annunciation

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Today is the Feast of the Annunciation – March 25th an exact nine months before the mass celebrating the birth of Christ. We women know that pregnancy, like life, is messier than that – rarely following some to the minute timetable. I, for one, doubt that Mary would have traveled during the usual period of confinement, and was probably confronted with an unexpected early labor as the result of her travels. But we women weren’t the ones to set these dates.

What I find interesting though are a couple of the posts I have seen today on the nature of the annunciation itself. Quiet posts, it seems, almost if they were whispered, afraid of their reception. “What really happened,” they ask, “when that angel visited Mary to bestow on her that seed of the divine?” What generally happens when a man decides he desires a woman in that way is the answer they imply. But to speak such a thing in reference to a holy event is often unthinkable. It is less taboo to evoke the Greek tradition of mythology, recounting the ravishments of the poor maidens one god or another took a liking to. But the unspoken question remains – is Mary simply standing-in for Leda’s encounter with a divine winged being – “A sudden blow: the great wings beating still above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed by the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.” (W.B. Yeats)

Part of me wants to just deny what it may have meant to have been propositioned by God. I’ve even argued on this blog in years past that I just can’t believe in that sort of God. I’ve willed myself to reject Rossetti’s painted portrayal of a frightened Mary (seen here) and take Mary’s response of “I am the Lord’s servant, May it be to me as you have said” as a sign of strength. I had to believe that the soul that sung the Magnificat joined in willingly in this act of creating new life, and perhaps I still do believe it. But I struggle with the knowledge that this is a topic the church tries to avoid. Why is the question only raised in hushed apologetic tones? Why can’t we stop being silent about the ways women, especially biblical women, have been used just for their bodies?

I am currently reading Azar Nafisi’s memoir Things I Have Been Silent About regarding her years growing up in Iran before the Islamic Revolution. In reflecting on her cultural traditions, she commented that in Iran, memoirs and histories only focus on great deeds and events. When her father published his memoir, all personal anecdotes and reflections were expunged as insignificant. But those stories were actually the substance of life, leaving the remaining narrative of seemingly heroic events hollow. She then decided to write about the things she had been silent about – the daily joys and vicissitudes of real life. And these stories included the personal experiences of the rampant sexual abuse of children common in a culture of severe sexual repression. These children were silenced by their guilt even as victims. In the name of protecting the glories of a great religion, the truth remained generally untold.

But of course the truth is that sexual abuse surrounds us. One in four women report being sexually abused at some point in their lives. And given that most women I know who bothered to report such abuse were laughed at by the authorities, I assume the actual statistics are far higher. Most of us are taught early on to shrug it off, “boys will be boys, they can’t help themselves…” and so forth. Christian groups try to hide incidents of rape in their midst, and I know a Christian publisher who refused to print a story of date rape at a Christian College because it would be too inappropriate for their readership. The Catholic Church is finally having to deal with years of sexual abuse by their assumed representations of God on earth, but it is too little too late.

We have been silent about the sexual abuse of women in the church. Our stories (our bodies) have been dismissed as insignificant. Our Bible stories reduce women to mere sex objects, useful as pleasure providers or wombs. They gloss over the rape and trafficking incidents as if it was natural for men to simply use women in such ways. We are taught that it is our fault if a man decides to abuse us. And perhaps like Mary, some women have learned that when confronted by a powerful man claiming to be God’s messenger we have no choice to but to meekly say “may it be to me as you have said.” When the stories don’t get told, or are excused away, the environment simply remains ripe for the abuse to continue. Perhaps I too need to stop convincing myself that there isn’t terror in the annunciation and simply be willing to hear that side of the story.

So on this day honoring of the Annunciation (be it a remembrance of blessing or violence), I offer a poem to break the silence. Nicola Slee, writing in response to Phyllis Trible’s book Texts of Terror ( a book which looks at some of the terrible deeds carried out against women in the Bible), in it exhorts us to continue to read and not to dismiss those stories, and to use the horror we feel to fuel our prayers. I encountered it recently at Sally Coleman’s blog in her posts addressing the practice of “corrective rape” of lesbians in Africa and a recent incident in Brazil where a doctor was excommunicated from the church for performing an abortion on a 9 year old girl who had become pregnant after being repeatedly raped by her stepfather (he faced no such discipline). May it help us break the silence.

Should we remember Hagar, Tamar, Jephthah’s daughter, and
Lot’s?
Should we tell of their wretched lives to our daughters?
Should we speak on our lips the tales of torture, misery, abuse and
violence?
Would we do better to consign them to silence?
We will listen, however painful the hearing,
for still there are women the world over
being raped
being whipped
being sold into slavery
being shamed
being silenced
being beaten
being broken
treated as worthless
treated as refuse.
Until there is not one last woman remaining
who is a victim of violence.
We will listen and we will remember.
we will rehearse the stories and we will renounce them.
we will weep and we will work for the coming of the time
when not one baby will be abandoned because of her gender
not one girl will be used against her will for another’s pleasure
not one young woman will be denied the chance of an education
not one mother will be forced to abandon her child
not one woman will have to sell her body
not one crone will be cast off by her people to die alone.
Listen then, in sorrow.
Listen in anger, Listen to the texts of terror.
And let us commit ourselves to working for a world
in which such deeds may never happen again…

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The Bleeding Woman

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I love my church. And I love that it isn’t afraid to explore the difficult issues – and figure out how to do so in loving ways. We just finished a series that was designed to start the conversation about how the culture of patriarchy has harmed our faith. The point wasn’t to promote negativity, but to acknowledge wounds, remove the limits we have put on God, and move forward in more holistic and inclusive ways as a church.

This past Sunday we focused on how Jesus embraced women and other marginalized people – no matter who they were or what they had done he offered them a place at his table. We told these stories from the point of view of those Jesus reached out to and included. It was a beautiful and emotional service, as we affirmed that all were welcome and loved by Jesus and at our church. For it, I wrote a piece based on the story of the bleeding woman Jesus heals that I also wanted to share here. –

The Bleeding Woman

I’d gotten used to the bleeding. And the weakness that went along with it. But it was the loneliness that consumed me.

For twelve years, my body has unnaturally bled. At first I thought it was just my monthly courses run long, but then it didn’t stop. I tried to hide it from my family of course, smuggling out the dirty rags to wash down at the river. But nothing gets past my mother. When she found out she just gave me that look, you know the one, the one that told me that I was a complete failure – worthless. Whatever was she going to do with an unclean daughter?

At first they tried to take me to doctors. Always the Roman doctors, not the Jewish ones – they didn’t want it getting out in our community that I was unclean. The doctors were more than willing to take my parents’ money, but nothing they did helped. The bleeding just continued – and I grew weaker and weaker. When it got to the point that I was too weak to even help my mother with the chores, my father had the idea to marry me off as quickly as possible. I assume he knew that my condition would be discovered, but then I would be another man’s problem.

I’m surprised I survived the night my husband found out the truth. I think I passed out sometime after the third blow weak as I was. The next thing I knew he had thrown me at my father’s doorstep – demanding payment for the humiliation of having been given worthless goods. My father, of course, denied knowing anything at all – calling me a deceptive harlot, spitting in my face, and saying that I was no daughter of his.

Now everyone knew I was unclean. No one could touch me, and everything I touched or anywhere I sat immediately became unclean. No shopkeeper would allow me near his wares; no housewife would allow me to pause to catch my breath on her doorstep. I begged as best I could for the occasional bite of bread, as my condition even barred me from the profession most desperate women end up turning to. No one wanted me.

So like I said, I got used to the bleeding and the weakness, but the loneliness got to me. No one’s touched me for nearly twelve years. Oh, I’ve been spat upon and received the occasional kick from daring young boys – but no hugs, no shoulder to cry upon, no sister to help braid my hair. And it’s been that long since I’ve been allowed in the synagogue as well – to raise my voice in praise to God or hear the precious words of the Torah read. I am as invisible and worthless to God as I am to everyone else.

But then I heard rumors about a rabbi who could heal the sick and even raise people from the dead. Now, I’d been to my fair share of doctors and magicians who had claimed they could heal me – but somehow I knew this man was different. I don’t know how I knew, but something deep inside gave me hope that this time I could finally be well.

It took me a few days though to work up the courage to approach him. I knew I could never ask him outright for healing – I doubt any rabbi would heal a woman who broke the taboo of speaking in public to a man. And I was sure he would despise me for making him unclean if I even came near him. So I knew that my only option was to secretly approach him. If he truly was a holy miracle worker, just touching the hem of his cloak should be enough. I was good at slipping quietly through crowds; I just prayed my touch would go unnoticed.

I saw him hurry through the streets following one of the important synagogue leaders. His disciples were pushing the crowds away to help him through, but I knew that if I did not seize this opportunity, I may never get another chance. So I slipped through the crowds until I was close enough and then I reached out my hand and lightly brushed the edge of his cloak. And I felt a power course through me, I felt alive and full of a strength and energy I hadn’t felt in years. I knew I was healed. I wanted to shout for joy, I wanted to tell the whole town that I was clean again. But I knew no one would believe me, and I needed to quickly get away from this Jesus before he noticed me.

I was slipping away when I saw him stop in his tracks, and my heart sunk. He knew. He called out “who touched me?” His disciples laughed at him, they were in a crowd there were dozens of people touching him. But he asked it again and I knew my worst fears had been realized. I had risked it all for this one chance, and now I would be punished for my desperate attempt. I wondered if in his anger he would just whip me like the other men I had accidentally touched or if he would reverse my healing – condemning me to isolation for the rest of my life.

I knew I had no choice, so I threw myself at his feet, trembling in fear as I awaiting his punishment. I couldn’t even bear to look at him. I stammered out how I so desperately wanted to be well and how I knew that just touching his cloak would heal me, and that it did, that I was finally well. And I apologized over and over again for my brazen actions, hoping he would understand just a little why I dared make him unclean.

But then everything changed. You know when there’s that moment when your world shifts? This was it for me. He didn’t yell at me, he didn’t beat me. He didn’t even walk away in disgust. Instead he walked towards me and knelt down at my side. And then, and I will never forget this, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said “Daughter, your faith has healed you go in peace.” My own father had rejected me and no one had touched me in years, and here this rabbi blessed me and called me daughter. That touch, that word healed me more than just stopping the bleeding had. For the first time in years, I felt accepted and loved – I felt whole again.

Jesus looked past the names and labels that my culture had imposed upon me, and healed my wounds. He gave me a place at the table.

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Worship and Justice

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In light of my recent post on mission and worship, I was fascinated to read this post over at the God’s Politics blog and wanted to repost it here. Duane Shank writes –

I’ve long been interested in archaeology, particularly biblical archaeology. So it caught my eye when the Jerusalem Post reported this morning that the oldest known example of written Hebrew was discovered about eighteen months ago and recently deciphered. Written on a piece of pottery shard, it was dated to the 10th century BCE, the time of King David.

Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa, who deciphered the text and determined it was an ancient form of Hebrew, explained that “This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans.” While not definitively determined as a biblical text, the inscription certainly could be. Prof. Galil’s reconstructed translation reads:

1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

I’m not surprised to learn that this three-millennia-old inscription links worshiping the Lord to pleading for the poor. From the earliest days of humanity writing down God’s instructions, worship and justice were linked. It was true then, and it is still true today.

Duane Shank is the senior policy advisor for Sojourners.

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Waiting

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First Sunday of Advent 2009

I love the traditional Carmelite themes for each week of Advent – waiting, accepting, journeying, and birthing.  For a season that is all about the anticipation of a birth, using a framework that is rooted in the experience of childbearing connects it to a side of the divine that is often neglected.  Feminine metaphors are well suited, in my opinion, to tell the story of a birth.

Women who’ve given birth know the mess and horrific pain that accompany the joy of welcoming new life into this world.  And the waiting for a birth is no less conflicted.  Nine months is a long time.  Between the bouts of morning sickness, the swollen ankles, and the indigestion there are the long discussions about names and getting the nursery just right.  Alongside the vivid nightmares and panic attacks that you are just not ready to be a mom, there are the daydreams about what it will be like to hold your baby.  Those few seconds in the ultrasound room with the closed-lipped technician do little to assuage your made-up fears or the gut-level desire to just have the baby out already.  Even before you are sick of wearing the same two pregnancy shirts over and over again, you wish that your belly had a little zipper that would allow you just one peak at the little one inside (or at least a short reprieve from having your bladder used as a trampoline).  Waiting for something beautiful to be born – for joy to fully enter your life – is hard.  The child is already there, the joy is present, but you still long for its arrival.

And so mothers learn to wait.

Waiting for the word to become flesh – for the advent of the Messiah was no less difficult.  The dream was in the making, the prophets had cast the vision of hope, but like a pixelated ultrasound image, it left the people wanting.  They knew one would come who would turn the world upside-down, who would hear the cries of the oppressed and bring justice to the land.  Isaiah had foretold of this coming time yet to be born –

On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.

On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;

he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.

…

Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.

He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.

Feet trample it down—
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.

–          Isaiah 25: 6-8 & 26: 4-6

They were waiting for the world to change, for a new era to finally be born.  Like a mother longing to just hold that baby growing in her womb, they wanted the promise they had held on to for so long to finally come to fruition.  A few even realized that this gestation of a dream would reach it’s fulfillment in an actual birth.  And so we see prophetess Anna in the Temple approaching this incarnate deity exclaiming words of thanksgiving and giving encouragement to those there who had been longing for the redemption of Israel.  This child who Mary had waited a long nine months to finally suckle at her breast, was living proof that the dream was not in vain – that the wait was worth it.  The world that the prophets had imagined was finally being born where tears would be wiped away and all would feast on aged wine.

But births are never easy.  And upside-down kingdoms have a quirky way of being upside-down.  As joy arrived and dwelt among us, we discovered that there is meaning in the waiting.  The hope and joy is perpetually gestating and being born in light of the way this one little baby shattered every preconception we ever had about the dream we long for.

And so we wait. And anticipate. And live. And follow. And serve.

The child is here, the joy is present, and still we wait for the birth.  The waiting changes us and changes the world.

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Is Intellectualism Arrogant?

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One of the talk that surprised me a bit from Matter ’09 was actually the final conversation on Romans 12 between Cassie Faulk and Bill Mallonee. They both explored the voice of the artist – Bill through his story and music and Cassie through a paper on interacting with art as a textual critic. In her paper (or at least what I remember of it) she asserted that in textual criticism one must act in humility towards authors, choosing to love both the author and the audience. She said she had problems with art that was ugly because it didn’t originate with an attitude of respect for the viewer. Similarily she said she dislikes art that is so complex that the average person can’t “get it.” As she put it, if you have to already know stuff in order to understand a work of art then that isn’t appreciation it is merely an affirmation of arrogance – showing off how much you already know. For her all interaction should be done out of humility.

But some of us were uncomfortable with the assertion that to apply one’s intellect or to call others to use their intellect is arrogant. Perhaps, as an academic she intended to only refer to the extremes of art and literature, but in the church world where anti-intellectualism is the norm I find her position dangerous. The treasured mantra in churches these days is that the bible is easy enough for a child to comprehend. While there may be a level in which that statement is true, the way it is used is generally to avoid or ridicule any learned approach to theology or biblical studies. Instead we get bible translations written at 6th grade levels and “bible studies” that are nothing more than copy a verse to fill-in-the-blanks. people get to pretend they actually are “studying’ something when all they are doing is regurgitating words without understanding their meanings in context. In fact this anti-intellectualism has become itself a source of pride, as anyone who tries to push deeper is mocked.

So I have an issue with saying that the need to be intellectually astute in order to understand something is simply arrogance. In my mind it is simply a means of getting at the complexities of the world. I don’t believe, for example, that if a person enjoys the show LOST they do so because they enjoy being arrogant. Yes, to get the show one has to be well read (or at least really good at google searches), but that just makes the show more interesting. I’ve heard people make fun of it and those of us who watch it because it is so complex, and to be thoughtful is in their world something to mock. But I don’t think the solution is so dumb everything down so that no one has to know much of anything as they engage the world around them. I want the news, or my TV shows, or my faith to make me think – to make me push beyond myself and go on that journey of discovery. I want the ah-ha moments when I see how elements of ancient Roman philosophy influence the writing of the epistles, or how ancient Egyptian culture helps LOST makes sense. It is about acknowledging the bigger world we live in, and that all of our stories have roots in each other’s stories. And it is about admitting that our response to the fact that God is big shouldn’t be to mock those that want to explore that complexity. To me it is more humble to admit that there is always more to learn – more ways to deepen the intellect – than to settle believing that one has it figured out enough to stop bothering.

But maybe that’s just arrogant of me…

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Preparing for Palm Sunday – Den of Robbers

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Matthew 21:12-17
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

As we have seen so far, Palm Sunday is all about the inclusion of all in worship. Jesus came to proclaim peace to all the nations and to welcome even the despised fully into worship. His indignation at the charade Temple worship had become led to him sending a powerful message as to what true worship involves. He proclaims that not only should the Temple be a house of prayer for all, but that it should also not be a den of thieves. In other words, that true worship not only upholds justice (in demanding the fair and equitable treatment of all), but it also opposes injustices that oppress the other. Once again, we need to take the “den of robbers” quote in its original context.

Jeremiah 7:1-11
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message:
” ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. 3 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
9 ” ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.

So the people have strayed from true worship because of their sins – which include oppressing the foreigner and not dealing with each other justly (or fairly). They assume the Lord favors them (notice the “we’re number one!” chant), but they miss the point of worship. When Jesus quoted these phrases, in this oral culture the people would recognize the context and place the phrases in these prophecies about worship and treatment of the foreigner. So as Jesus comes upon the temple full of “foreign” Jews who are being taken advantage of he loses it. Israel apparently hadn’t heeded the call of the prophets to reform worship. They thought they could just continue going through the motions and rituals of worship without participating in the worshipful way of life God insists upon. But when the rituals support (or simply ignore) the oppression of the poor, then they are no longer true worship.

In many ways it is easier to participate in the fun parts of worship – the singing, the rituals, the bible studies, the gatherings than the demands to serve and welcome the other. The crowds gathered to sing praises as Jesus entered Jerusalem, but even his closest followers deserted him when things got difficult and dangerous later that week. The crowds liked the pageantry, the miracles, and the healings but when demands were made of their lifestyle and their treatment of others they walked away. How often these days is serving the poor mocked within the church – or written off as “just the social gospel”? We deceive ourselves into believing that showing up, singing songs, and hearing a sequence of words equate with worship. But the Bible tells us that God detests all that if we are not also doing whatever we can to care for the poor and the foreigner. Worship is not about us – it is about God and the other, the ones God instructs us to love. Following Jesus and participating in true worship is hard.

So do we choose just to follow the palm strewn path – full of exuberance and passion, excited and joyful? Or do we also follow Jesus all the way to the Temple – even when it is dangerous, or uncomfortable, unpopular and demands something more than us than singing songs, hearing stories? Are we just as excited about changing our lives, standing up against oppression, and following the commands God has given us as we are shouting “Hosanna”? Worship encompasses it all.

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