Unclean Clean Good and Bad

OK... first of all, my apologies for a late post this week. I stopped using the lectionary about a year ago and forget that I need to check here! As I look at the Gospel lesson from Mark for this week, my first reaction is... I love it when Jesus is a rebel! When someone chastizes me or others for shaking things up, going against the grain, doing something "we've never done before!" or looking at things differently I think, Jesus was a rebel, too! Thanks for the compliment.

But, of course, the Gospel goes on to deal with issues of what is unclean and clean. The decisions about what is clean and unclean are human decisions, and Christ emphasizes that it isn't external things, or things we take into ourselves that make us unclean or unclean, but more what comes out of us that can be unclean or make us unclean. How interesting that we are so good at deciding what is clean and unclean, or what is good or bad. We are especially good at determining that for OTHERS more than for ourselves. The 'log in our eye, splinter in others' syndrome. But how do we determine that? And how often do the things we look at as being 'bad' turn out to be 'good' in the long run? 25 years ago I went through a horrendously painful time that I thought everything that was happening was bad. I even prayed for God to turn things around and make them 'good' again. But it didn't. For awhile I wondered if God had turned away, but I know now that God was just helping me get through because something really good would come of all the bad. In our adult study class at the Parish, we were talking about death and someone said, "Why do we always look at death in negative terms? I think God looks at death in a loving, positive light." We are very quick to put labels on things, situations, rituals, and people...especially labels of good and bad or clean and unclean... based only on our own experiences and thoughts. But if God created us and all around us and saw that it was good... why are we so quick to deem it bad or unclean?
There are many folks in this small town I live in who are unchurched, living below the poverty level, not related to anyone else in town, not involved in anything in the town, spend time at the local bar... and a myriad of other things that the 'regulars' in town use to deem them 'bad' and not worthy of their time, friendship, or care. And yet these 'misfits' are the ones that are reaching out to others, especially other 'misfits', sharing what they have, and the first to respond when help is needed. I know some of the 'church' folks question when I help them, sit with them at the park, or am in any way a part of their lives. But I think that it is exactly what Jesus calls us to do... to stop determining what WE deem to be good, bad, clean, unclean, worthy, unworthy, and see people and situations as God might see them... as basically good, worthy of our care.... and if we want to put a watchguard out for the negative, put it out in front of ourselves to make sure that, before we are so quick to judge others, that what comes from us is not bad, unclean or unworthy of God's glory and what comes from us is essentially good and that we are a conduit for the light of God.
So... in the midst of this prestigious group of folks with whom I have a high respect for... there's my 2 cents worth. Oh yea... and go out and be a rebel for Christ!

Who has the authority?

Going with the Roman Catholic passage...

Ephesians 5:21-33

²¹Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. ²²Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. ²⁸In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, ³⁰because we are members of his body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³²This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. ³³Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

I've chosen this Ephesians passage because I think it all too often gets used inappropriately. I once attended a wedding in which the bride was told that according to the law of God, she would be sinful if she did not submit fully to the desires of the groom. Of course nothing was mentioned to the groom about loving the bride as he would love himself.

That, and interpretations like it are dangerous, to say the least.

Immediately my mind jumps to asking what was going on in Ephesus that lead the writer of Ephesians to comment on household relationships (he also goes on to discuss children and slaves).

This section might be better understood in the larger understanding of how first century households were to be ordered. Among that, Paul describes the nature of the relationship of Christ to the church, as if to use the example of the household to teach his first readers about how they should look on the purpose of the early church, and the relation of the believers to the teaching of Jesus.

So what about the misuse of v. 22-24? This reading really should focus on v. 21,"Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (NRSV). This verse is the foundation for what comes next, and gives meaning to the discussion of how women and men should relate to their spouses. Without this verse being included in the reading (as often is the case in some weddings I've attended), the language about women submitting to their husbands clearly can be misdirected.

But focusing on how we can be subject (servants) to one another out of respect for Christ brings back the language of Jesus about the last being first and the greatest among us being the servants. So what does this look like in a selfish and individualized western capitalist culture?

And the idea of the husband being the head of the household simply was the legal understanding of the time. Women, children and slaves could not own property, and therefore the Ephesians writer uses this understanding to set up Jesus as the "head" of the church, meaning it is Christ who is to be the one who has established the 'house'.

Do we still set up Jesus as the head of the church? Have we replaced his teachings with self-help programs and a generic faith, based on common morality but ignores justice, healing and community connection?

How do we encourage healthy households which might not be of the standard described here? Single parent homes, same-sex homes, extended family households? How does this passage apply to other forms of modern households?

Happy homilizing!

OOPS.... I meant to post this to my PERSONAL blog!!!!

God is not Pleased

2 Samuel 12:1-13

But God was not at all pleased with what David had done, and sent Nathan to David. Nathan said to him, “There were two men in the same city—one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him. “One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest.”

David exploded in anger. “As surely as God lives,” he said to Nathan, “the man who did this ought to be lynched! He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime and his stinginess!” “You’re the man!” said Nathan. “And here’s what God, the God of Israel, has to say to you: I made you king over Israel. I freed you from the fist of Saul. I gave you your master’s daughter and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and Judah. And if that hadn’t been enough, I’d have gladly thrown in much more. So why have you treated the word of God with brazen contempt, doing this great evil? You murdered Uriah the Hittite, then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with an Ammonite sword! And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite’s wife as your wife, killing and murder will continually plague your family. This is God speaking, remember! I’ll make trouble for you out of your own family. I’ll take your wives from right out in front of you. I’ll give them to some neighbor, and he’ll go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in secret; I’m doing mine with the whole country watching!”

Then David confessed to Nathan, “I’ve sinned against God.” Nathan pronounced, “Yes, but that’s not the last word. God forgives your sin. You won’t die for it.

As we pick up the story, David, the apple of God’s eye, God’s chosen and anointed King, is in the process of screwing up big time. You just have to love David. Whatever he chose to do, he went at it full force. So when David decided to commit adultery he did it in grand style. He managed to get the wife of the commander of his troops pregnant while her husband was out of town on a business trip – a trip David has sent him on. Since the trip involved warfare, David decided to plot with the guy’s troops to expose him in battle and get him killed. And it worked. David was off the hook, scot free. Or so he though.

Somehow in the heat of things (pardon the pun) David lost sight of God. That should not surprise us since that is exactly what we do when we give ourselves over to sin. We turn away from God. Sometimes when we do that we compensate and rationalize by developing a god that approves of what we are doing or at least a god who understands why we need to do what we are doing and is willing to turn a blind eye to it. We decide that the god we follow is a loving god and that means our god wants us to be happy so he/she not only allows us to do whatever we wish, he/she approves of what we are doing. With that approach to theology so prevalent, morality and holiness have pretty much disappeared off of the church’s radar screen. Right or wrong is measured by what makes us happy.

Fortunately, when David found himself in this self induced na-na land of “I am living like hell but that is okay”, God did not abandon him there. Enter Nathan. Nathan was sent by God to jerk a knot in David because God really did love David and God loved him too much to leave him in that mess. Just like us, when David gave himself over to sin he broke his relationship with God. Just like us, David pretended that everything was just fine, but it wasn’t. God loved David too much to lose him. So he sent in the rescue team; a team of one named Nathan. I truly admire Nathan. He had more courage in one finger that most of us exhibit in an entire lifetime. He took on the task of telling the KING that he (the KING) was full of crap. Not a job I would want to sign up for.

Now, Nathan is a pretty sharp cookie. Instead of showing up with Bible in hand and boney finger pointed at King David, Nathan just told David a story. Everyone loves stories. The story Nathan told was a morality tale of an unjust, rich, powerful, stingy man who took advantage of a situation and some people and abused them. It was just about a pet sheep that he took to feed a guest but David was incensed. He went off and demanded that justice be served and the wrong be righted immediately. At that point Nathan turned to David and said, “You are the man.” I wasn’t there but I envision Nathan bathed in sweat, shaking like he was freezing; his voice cracking as he strained to deliver what could be a life ending message for him. There was an excellent chance David would kill him on the spot. Don’t forget that at this point in his life, David was behaving rather badly. What’s another dead guy if it helps cover his behind? As frightened as he must have been, Nathan looked the KING in the eye and called him a sinner.

Fortunately for Nathan and more fortunately for David, David repented. Repenting repaired David’s relationship with God but it did not get him off the hook of bearing responsibility for and results of his sinful behavior. Bad stuff happened anyway. But the most important thing was, not that David’s live was problem free and everything happening was making him “happy”, but that he was returned to a right relationship with God.

The most profound and powerful lesson in all of this is the obedience of Nathan. Because God had called him and empowered him, Nathan spoke the truth about sin to the most powerful man in the country. It could have literally cost Nathan his life. He had no guarantee that David would respond well and repent. Nathan’s obedience saved the King and probably saved the country.

I wonder what would happen if we, you and me, started telling the truth? What would happen if we started calling a sin a sin? We don’t because: it is not politically correct; it is none of our business; who are we to judge; where do we come off deciding what is right and what is wrong: it would make us uncomfortable; somebody might get angry. And the list of excuses goes on and on. Blah, blah. What it comes down to, we have all moved to the na-na land that David had moved to and when, or if, God sent us our Nathans, we failed to listen. We need to repent. My prayer is that God loves us enough to send us another Nathan or two and we have the good sense to repent.

Just a thought.

"Some of My Best Friends Are Atheists"

I think this psalm could be used (misused, actually, in my opinion) to slam atheists and make the case that those who have arrived intellectually at the conclusion that there is no God are incapable of good deeds. However, it seems to me that such an approach is not only untrue but much too simplistic. What the psalmist probably has in mind here is something else entirely.

A couple of Scriptural connections can be made. The RCL pairs Psalm 14 this week with the story of David and Bathsheba. That is instructive, because King David was by no modern definition an atheist. Yet his behavior here is certainly foolish--tragically so--and perhaps demonstrates the true intent of the psalmist.

Another connection is with Jesus' parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21). This fellow, having been blessed with abundant harvests, decides to build gigantic barns to store his crops, and to devote himself to his own pleasure. "I... I... my..." reads the man's soliloquy. And God calls him, "You fool!"

The problem the psalmist sees is not intellectual--someone ruling out God's existence through reason and logic--it's behavioral and theological. Wicked actions, including mistreatment of the poor, indicate, in the psalmist's view, what a person believes about God: not so much whether or not God exists, but whether or not God matters. This practical atheism is a problem not just outside communities of faith, but within them.

The challenging question for us is, "How do our actions demonstrate our theology?"

Minor Characters

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

The long arc of David’s story — from shepherd to giant-conqueror to warrior to fugitive to king — is told through 1 and 2 Samuel, and again in 1 and 2 Chronicles. This week’s Old Testament text portrays a triumphant moment for David. He’s leading a group of men, and they’re bringing the Ark of the Covenant to the city of David, playing musical instruments, shouting, and dancing with all their might.

And mentioned in the middle of the passage is Michal, daughter of Saul, who looked out the window and saw David “leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.” (v. 16 )

Who is Michal, other than Saul’s daughter? Why does she despise the sight of David dancing? It’s tempting to skip over this single verse, because it doesn’t seem to fit.

Michal was Saul’s youngest daughter, and years ago, she fell in love with David. Her father found out, and used her as a pawn to lure David into a dangerous wager that Saul hoped would result in David’s death. David delivered on his end of the bargain, so Michal became his wife.

Not long after that, Michal defied her father and helped David escape, saving his life. And then he went on the run.

With David gone, Michal’s father gave her to another man in marriage. This man loved her — when David returned years later, triumphant, and sent men to bring Michal to him, her second husband followed, begging not to lose her. He was told to go back home. Scripture doesn’t tell us how Michal felt about this turn of events, but perhaps this week's text gives us a clue.

Michal is a minor character compared to others in the story — David, Saul, her brother Jonathan. But she still has a story. If given the chance, how would she tell it?

In our own lives, we often look at others as minor characters. Even if we understand our lives as part of God’s story, we still run the risk of putting ourselves, our family, our church, our friends, our workplace, our nation, and our culture, at the center. We almost can’t help it. It’s the “view from the ground.” It’s how we make sense of the world.

The danger is that in relegating others to a minor role, we may forget that with God, there are no minor characters. When we forget that, we lose our capacity for compassion outside of our small circle. We also lose our ability to be blessed by learning what God is doing in others' lives.

God, in the person of Jesus Christ, demonstrated quite often that in God’s story, there are no minor characters. He specialized in turning upside-down every conventional notion of "major" and "minor." He conversed with an outcast Samaritan woman at a well. He noticed a blind man calling out for mercy, and healed him. He called out Zaccheus, up in the tree, and invited himself to dinner. He saw a widow putting small change in the offering, and lifted her up to the disciples as an example of great generosity.

Who are the "minor characters" in our world today? Who are the "minor characters" in our own lives? How can seeing them differently help us to be more compassionate? How can seeing them differently allow us to receive the blessings they bring?