Archive | March 2016

An Easter Evening Reflection: Ethics as Easter—or the Virtuous Zombie

Mar28

An Easter Evening Reflection: Ethics as Easter—or the Virtuous Zombie
David R. Weiss
March 27, 2016

“Just remember folks, the Easter bunny and his evil candy are pagan idols not to be worshiped by the true believers. Then again, neither should a zombie. Trust in experience, not myth.” –Ben Zamora-Weiss

I don’t believe there was an empty tomb on Easter morning. At least not in a physical sense. I suspect that Jesus’ body, having been first brutalized and then crucified, (perhaps) wrapped in clean linen and placed in a garden tomb, eventually found its way back into the dust from whence it came.

Which is why Easter’s hallelujah hoopla often sits as uneasily on my lips as I sit uneasily in the pew during Easter worship. Now mark my words: I continue to identify with the Christian tradition, to draw strength, inspiration, wisdom from its teachings and tales. (Although I feel a greater kinship with Jesus—that ancient prophet-mystic-healer-teacher—than I do with the dogmatic orthodoxy that developed in his wake … and, I’m pretty sure, against his wishes.)

When I saw my son’s playfully serious Facebook post, I added my own little rejoinder: “But he’s a virtuous zombie.” Which is (sort of) how I feel. Let me explain.

TLDR version: Jesus died. Decomposed. End of story. Except not. After days, weeks, months of grief, Jesus’ followers decide to honor his memory by carrying on his teachings in their community. And … BOOM! Well, maybe b o o m. By actually applying Jesus’ teachings they precipitate such new, incredible, authentic human community that Jesus truly seems “undead”—so much in their midst that how else to speak of it except to say, “He’s here, he’s alive!”? Long story short: eventually this experience took on narrative form as resurrection. A powerful metaphor (or, as Ben says, though in a disapproving tone, “myth”). Our big mistake is that on Easter we worship the metaphor rather than incarnate the ethics. The point is to be “infected” by the virtuous zombie.

Long version: thirteen paragraphs and a conclusion. (Remember which blog you’re reading. Some people would call this piece full-blown heresy. I prefer to think of it as a perfect example of why I call my blog “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.”)

1.  I see Jesus as a real historical person who was a mystic (in his experiential sense of oneness with God/Universe), a prophet (in calling on his people to change their attitudes and behaviors—their ethics), a sage (a skilled teacher of his vision of renewed community), and a healer (however you explain it—and I don’t think you need to suspend the laws of nature to do so—Jesus, like others in history, could channel extraordinary healing power). His ministry was NOT focused on calling others to worship him. Rather his teachings and healings, even the manner of his meals, were aimed at announcing God’s unconditional regard for “the least of these”—thereby inviting us to take God’s perspective as our own by practicing deep, risky and relentless compassion toward others.

2.  Jesus’ ministry was sufficiently vibrant that it came to pose a real threat to both Jewish and Roman power structures. Because both of these societies/cultures (like virtually every society/culture) were built on a hierarchy of privileges and biases, of in-groups and outcasts. And Jesus’ model of community fundamentally challenged that.

3.  His death, in which both Jewish and Roman leaders were complicit, was NOT—I repeat, was NOT IN ANY WAY—a sacrifice for sin. It was the unmistakable consequence of the threat he posed to the status quo. It was a political elimination by the most brutal means possible.

4.  Sidenote: that the church came to (mis)understand his death as a sacrifice is a misstep that can be explained historically, biblically, theologically, anthropologically, etc.—but it remains nonetheless a devastating and inexcusable misstep because it empties the arc of Jesus’ life of its true redemptive power.

5.  It seems likely that Jesus (not unlike Martin Luther King, Jr.) anticipated his death—after all, he, at least, understood the threat he posed to the prevailing powers. Despite this, his followers (like most followers) could not see beyond their imagined messianic success for Jesus. The gospels are clear on this: Jesus realized—to the week—when the shit was going to hit the fan . . . and the disciples and the rest of his followers were mostly oblivious to this right through the Last Supper.

6.  So, when the arrest, trial, flogging, beating, crucifixion, and death all happen it knocks the wind (if you prefer, think Wind, capital W—Spirit, faith, hope) right out of Jesus’ followers. They’re devastated. Grief-stricken. Traumatized. At a loss for words. Again, if you prefer, think Word, capital W: at a loss for Word.

7.  Aimless, for days, weeks, months maybe, the circle of Jesus’ followers frays at the edges, wondering what do we now? (In John’s gospel we might have an echo of a recollection that those who used to be fishermen went back to fishing.) In any event, “Easter” did not happen on a chronically calendared third day. Their grief and confusion and despair and trauma—like most life-numbing emotions—persisted far past that mythical third-day morning.

8.  BUT—and all the best that Christianity has offered humanity hinges on this “but”—one day (weeks or months after the crucifixion . . . long after the body has decomposed), someone … Mary Magdalene? Peter? John? . . . someone says, “Ah, Jesus, I miss you so much. How I long for the days when you showed us how to be God’s kin-dom!” And in that moment of silent holy anguished longing, that person decides the best way to preserve and honor the memory of the man they loved is to recreate in some small meager way the community he had invited them to imagine. THAT MOMENT is the first glimmer of the dawning Easter morning. And it surely did NOT happen on the third day after his death—but the fact that it surely DID happen (which is more/less historically verifiable by the mere existence of the church, warts and all) matters much more than the timing.

9.  Jesus’ teaching about compassion (my shorthand for the whole of Jesus’ message and ministry—and my absolute bedrock core conviction about the fundamental nature of reality itself) presented a genuine cosmic truth, so when his followers choose to put it into practice they release energy not unlike a moral nuclear fusion reaction. Far from a meager attempt, because they manage to tap into the energy that courses through the cosmos itself, their earliest echo of Jesus’ own ministry is phenomenally vibrant. As Luke tells us in the Book of Acts, each gave according to their means and each received according to their needs. As I put it above, they precipitate a new, incredible, authentic human community. Yes, there was plenty of discord, too (human habit, at both the personal and social level is notoriously messed up), but the power they tap into is nonetheless so vivid that Jesus seems “undead”—so much “undead” and in their midst, that how else can they speak of it except to say, “He’s here, he’s alive!”? And so begins the metaphor of resurrection: words grasping after a reality too deep for words but begging nevertheless to be spoken. “He is here. In this way of being community, he is alive and here among us!”

10.  The earliest gospel, Mark, is written around 70 CE, at least 30-35 years after the crucifixion, and in Mark’s gospel there is not yet a narrative of resurrection, only an empty tomb. Whatever exact language the earliest followers of Jesus used to name the experience of phenomenal power that their communal ethics unleashed, by the time Mark wrote, they had only reached the point of declaring that despite being crucified, Jesus was not dead. They knew that, because they lived that truth. To borrow Ben’s Facebook wording, they “trusted experience,” and their experience was that whatever happened to Jesus’ body (and they likely presumed it had just decomposed), he was not dead.

11.  By the time that Matthew, Luke, and John assemble their respective gospel accounts (some 15-30 years after Mark) the empty tomb gives way to a “zombie” tale: Jesus is not only undead, he’s walking around. In the rich and fluid imaginative world of the first century this type of narration is myth in its best sense: the embodiment of deep truth in narrative. It is no lie, unless you press this truth too far in the direction of fact. In the pre-critical but myth-savvy minds of the early Jesus’ movement, I suspect no one was concerned about the “facts” of resurrection. Not because they didn’t care, but because in their experience, which is what they really cared about, resurrection was self-evidently true. It was (and is) profoundly true: “Jesus is alive and here among us, actively shaping the gracious character of our community.” But to force this truth into a factual claim (as we are wont to do) about the supposed re-vivified molecular character of Jesus’ body reduces it to a “myth” of the cynical sort referenced in Ben’s Facebook post.

12.  WORSE, by reducing the metaphor of resurrection to medical miracle we entirely miss its power. We tease our minds to the point of distraction. Could it really be? Back from the dead?! How marvelous! And before we know we’ve lost all interest in the real miracle: that a community of people actually chose to honor Jesus by incarnating in their own lives the ethics of compassion—and discovering that when they did this, they unleashed in their midst a power so transformative that the only metaphor they knew that could do it justice was resurrection.

13.  Hence my suffocating discomfort on most Easter mornings. We could be clamoring (in our best ritual, prayer, and song) about the ethical renewal of our lives—about unleashing the resurrection power of compassion right here in our midst and right now in our day to meet the challenges of racism, inequality, homophobia, climate change, transphobia, sexism, terrorism, etc. Because that’s what resurrection is for. But instead we stack Easter lilies everywhere, play our brass and organ like there’s no tomorrow, sing Hallelujah! in our loudest voices, and say “Happy Easter!” to celebrate a medical miracle that never happened . . . and because we put all our energy into worshipping the metaphor rather than incarnating the ethics, we all too rarely actually get “infected” by the virtuous zombie—leaving Ben’s criticism spot on. (And this is one time I’d rather he not be correct.)

Well, I can hear you right now. You’re thinking, “OMG, so whenever you talk about ‘resurrection’ you don’t really mean it at all—you don’t even believe it’s real!” Um, NO. I do believe it’s real. But it’s about the ethics that enliven our bodies. It has nothing to do with what happened to Jesus’ body after he died. Of that, I’m quite certain.

And because I take resurrection so seriously, I worry it’s the rest of you, shouting Hallelujah! over a metaphor as though it’s “real,” that have missed the miracle. More than anything today (and for all of our yesterdays, really) we need to tap into the compassion of Jesus’ life, not the misconstrued sacrifice of his death. Resurrection sits on this side of grave. It begins with us. Or not at all. If we could put that at the center of our Easter worship, I’d be a lot more comfortable. And until we do, as restless as I am, I suspect it’s worse for Jesus. He’s stuck—turning over—in his grave.

*       *       *

David R. Weiss is the author of When God Was a Little Girl, a playfully profound and slyly subversive children’s picture book (Beaver’s Pond Press, 2013; www.WhenGodWasaLittleGirl.com) as well as To the Tune of a Welcoming God: Lyrical reflections on sexuality, spirituality and the wideness of God’s welcome (2008, Langdon Street Press). A theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, David is committed to doing “public theology” around issues of sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace. He lives in St. Paul and speaks on college campuses and at church and community events. You can reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com and read more at www.ToTheTune.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.”

On Seeing by Faith: The Journey Ahead

Mar16

This is the last in a series of five Wednesday evening Lenten reflections I’ve been invited to offer at Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire as I accompany them in a congregational journey toward a deeper embrace of creation and a faith-based response to climate change. Later this spring I’ll offer several public lectures hosted by Grace. The text for each reflection is my own choosing, drawn from Luke’s “journey” material.

5 Lent week 5 TEXT

Lenten Reflection for Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Grace Lutheran Church, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

On Seeing by Faith: The Journey Ahead
David R. Weiss

Luke 18:35-43 (NRSV) – Jesus Heals a Blind Beggar Near Jericho – As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard a crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” Then he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet; but he shouted even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you whole.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God.

*       *       *

 In just four more days Jesus reaches Jerusalem where he’ll make a triumphant entry on Palm Sunday … followed five days later by a crucifixion. He’s getting close to the end of his journey.

We’re still only at the beginning of ours.

But first, about the miracle in our text tonight—

I’m not going to weigh in on whether this man’s blindness was caused by psychic trauma, illness, or injury. And I’m not going to speculate on whether Jesus restored his sight by somehow healing the trauma, marshaling his own energy to overcome the illness, or breaking outright the laws of nature to make a brand new eye.

Luke isn’t concerned with those things either. But he does mention several things that should matter to us. First, the crowd tries to silence the beggar. They don’t view blindness as anything Jesus is concerned about—at least not the blindness of beggars. Second, he doesn’t let that stop him; he shouts all the louder until he’s heard. Third, Jesus tells him that his sight has been restored by his faith: he is “seeing by faith.” And, fourth, he responds by glorifying God.

Luke’s message is pretty clear: Don’t be deterred by the voices around you. Turning to Jesus in faith lets you see. In fact, this message is made all the more clear by the episodes he places on either side of this passage.

Right before this text (and for the third time on his journey) Jesus tells his disciples that in Jerusalem he will be handed over, mistreated, flogged, and killed. He also tells them that he will be raised again on the third day, but they can’t imagine any of this—least of all the killing—so they are hardly comforted by the promise of rising. Luke sums up their response emphatically, in three distinct phrases in the verse right before our text begins: “The disciples understood nothing he said … its meaning was hidden from them … and they did not grasp it at all.”

Lacking faith, they could not see the way forward. All the voices of expectation in their minds (and in their culture) said that if Jesus was the messiah, God’s anointed one, then only success could await him. Only victory. They could not imagine that being in the company of Jesus might mean being vulnerable. They were blind.

Right after our text Luke offers the well-known story of Zacchaeus, the rich tax collector who desperately wanted to see Jesus, but could not because he was too short. After he climbed a tree to get a better view, Jesus calls him down and dines in his house. The crowds grumble—maybe the same crowds who thought Jesus had no time for blind beggars?—because Jesus should have known that Zacchaeus was wealthy only because he cheated people out of their taxes. But Jesus knows something more, because after they dine Zacchaeus is able to see far more than just Jesus. He sees, perhaps for the first time in his life, the poor. He pledges out loud to repay anyone he cheated—fourfold—and to give half of his possessions to the poor. Is not this as amazing a miracle as restoring a beggar’s sight?!

In both passages Luke uses the same Greek word to describe what happens. Jesus says to the blind beggar, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you whole—or has saved you—or has healed you.” When Jesus hears Zacchaeus’ declaration based on his newfound moral clarity—his own restored sight, if you will—Jesus says, “Today salvation—or healing—or wholeness has come to this household.”

So what we really have here is a three-step set of intertwined passages that tell us something together:

If you can’t imagine becoming vulnerable, you can’t hear what Jesus is saying, no matter how clearly it’s spelled out.

But when you manage to tune out all the other voices and simply turn to Jesus in faith, you gain your sight and you can glorify God.

And when the sight you gain is moral vision you glorify God by doing justice and by attending to the poor.

Luke isn’t simply recording events. He’s crafting a story. He’s arranging these tales to help us see by faith.

*         *         *

So now for us.

We’ve been accompanying Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem these past five weeks. Some of us in here have been accompanying him on that journey for five decades—or longer. We know where that journey leads; both to the cross … and to the empty tomb.

But this other journey we’re on today, this mis-adventure on a changing planet, we’re only just beginning this journey, and we don’t know yet where it will take us.

I told you two weeks ago that all 16 of the warmest years on record have occurred in less than the span of my daughter’s 20 years on the planet. (She turned 20 today – so Happy Birthday, Susanna.) And I mentioned that 2016 is starting out even warmer.

Consider this. Not unlike Jesus’ words predicting what would happen to him when they reached Jerusalem, the data coming in on 2016 is alarming. Just Monday—just two days ago, right smack in the middle of Lent—NASA released its latest report: January 2016 was a full 2 degrees warmer than the global average established over a 30-year baseline period (1951-1980). It was a new record. It was the first time in modern global temperature tracking (that is, since 1880) that any month had been warmer than the average by 2 full degrees.

Until February. You see, February, rather than dropping back a bit … or rather than simply remaining as warm as record-setting January, well, February set it’s own new record. It rose another half-degree—in a single month—across the entire planet. A planet now 2½ degrees warmer by average than it has ever been in the last 135 years.

Monthly global surface temperatures (land & ocean) from NASA for the period 1880 to February 2016, expressed in departures from the 1951-1980 average. The red line shows the 12-month running average. (Image credit: Stephan Okhuijsen, www.datagraver.com/case/world-temperature-anomalies-for-februari-2016)

Monthly global surface temperatures (land & ocean) from NASA for the period 1880 to February 2016, expressed in departures from the 1951-1980 average. The red line shows the 12-month running average. (Image credit: Stephan Okhuijsen, http://www.datagraver.com/case/world-temperature-anomalies-for-februari-2016)

Do you recall Luke’s description of the disciples’ response to Jesus’ words? “They understood nothing he said … its meaning was hidden from them … and they did not grasp it at all.”

This is our predicament. Amid the expectations of our culture, we cannot imagine a tomorrow in which the planet itself—human society for sure, and a multitude of animals and eco-systems—experiences a veritable crucifixion. But recall Luke’s three-step story:

If you can’t imagine becoming vulnerable, you can’t hear what’s being said, no matter how clearly it’s spelled out.

But when you do manage to tune out all the other voices and simply turn to Jesus in faith, you gain your sight and you can glorify God.

And when the sight you gain is moral vision you glorify God by doing justice and by attending to the poor.

What does it mean to “see by faith” on a now rapidly warming planet? I can’t spell it all out. I don’t know myself. But I’ll offer three strong convictions, based on our confession of a Trinitarian God:

Seeing by faith means confessing that all of God’s creation deserves our respect and care.

Seeing by faith means recognizing that God—both before and after Jesus, but especially in Jesus—enters history to keep us company. And that God’s company leads us into not away from vulnerability.

Seeing by faith means that, as we are transformed by the Holy Spirit (think: “saved,” “made whole”), we respond here and now by acting with justice for a hurting planet. By changing those behaviors that threaten to cheat future generations out of their planet. By using the wealth that is ours—the science, technology, and wisdom that we have—to tend to the need of the poor, whether those “poor” be fellow citizens of the world, fellow creatures, or the eco-systems on which we all depend for life.

It’s now just seven months since Pr. Dean first asked me to consider being with you this year—and only seven weeks since I began this journey in earnest myself. Almost every word I’ve shared, every image I’ve offered, every connection I’ve made is as new to me as to you. I’m still only at the beginning of this journey.

I hope it’s a journey on which you’ll join me. Not because I know the way, but because I’m convinced that this is a journey which must be traveled. And a journey on which—if we travel together, and if we travel by faith—we will find ourselves in the company of Jesus. Amen.

*         *         *

WEEK FIVE – Questions for reflection & conversation:

  1. I suggest that, both for Luke and for us, restored sight has to do with a willingness to become vulnerable and to attend to the poor. Was it helpful to see how these passages fit together—and how they speak to us today?
  2. We tend to hear “salvation” as about what happens after we die, but in Greek the word just as likely describes health and wholeness before we die. What difference does this make?
  3. I refer to some pretty scary weather data—and then link it to Jesus’ passion predictions. How did that strike you?
  4. What in my “triune” proposal for “seeing by faith” was insightful, unsettling, or empowering?
  5. What else struck you in tonight’s reflection?
  6. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

http://www.davidrweiss.com / drw59mn@gmail.com

 

Dragging Sabbath Through the Dirt: Worship & Healing the Planet

Mar11

This is the fourth in a series of five Wednesday evening Lenten reflections I’ve been invited to offer at Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire as I accompany them in a congregational journey toward a deeper embrace of creation and a faith-based response to climate change. Later this spring I’ll offer several public lectures hosted by Grace. The text for each reflection is my own choosing, drawn from Luke’s “journey” material.

4 Lent week 4 more info

Lenten Reflection for Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Grace Lutheran Church, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Dragging Sabbath Through the Dirt: Worship & Healing the Planet
David R. Weiss

Luke 13:10-17 (NRSV) Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman – Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Luke 14:1-6 (NRSV) Jesus Heals a Man with Dropsy (Edema) – On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy. And Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?” But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him, and sent him away. Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this.

*       *       *

 Her body had started twisting itself in strange, awkward ways a couple decades earlier. No one – least of all the woman herself – knew why. She’d suffered no injury, nor been afflicted by any illness, not that anyone knew of. And because no other explanation presented itself, she was deemed, first by rumor, then by open designation, as having been “crippled by a spirit.” Unable even to straighten herself any longer, her own spirit seemed broken.

When she came to the synagogue that particular Sabbath she wasn’t looking to be healed. After eighteen years she had stopped looking for anything beyond a next morsel of bread, a next day of sunshine, and maybe, just maybe, that rare next gesture of kindness.

But she might well have come that particular Sabbath looking for Jesus. By now rumors of this holy man – this self-styled prophet and healer – were everywhere. So perhaps she came to the synagogue where he was said to be teaching just hoping to catch a glimpse of something called hope, something she had long since become a stranger to.

… Meanwhile, on another Sabbath, in another place – this time not at a synagogue, but in the home of a Pharisee – one of the household servants moved awkwardly in the background, trying his best to be inconspicuous around his master’s guest. But – as always – the unsightly swelling in his legs was undeniably conspicuous, leaving him undeniably humiliated and ashamed. It was, in fact, an act of mercy that the Pharisee even kept him on as a servant; his movements were too painfully slow to be of much service around the house any longer.

… We see two people in need. And Jesus encounters both of them on the Sabbath, that day that sits as the true crown of creation – that day of holy rest. Time made sacred, to remind us that creation, though mostly comprised of the mundane activities required simply to get by, creation is ultimately aimed at something more. Someone who is More.

For hundreds of years the Jews had woven this sacred rhythm into their lives. Work stopped on the Sabbath. As though each week, for 24 hours, a portal opened to the Beyond. And, whether by simple rest or through devoted prayer, creation’s daily routine was reset, recalibrated to be in sync with God’s greater purposes and hopes.

But, as with most moments where holiness meets humanity, people eventually turned hope-filled mystery into something more manageable, but also less mysterious, and less hopeful. Rules marked out what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. From sowing to sorting, from weaving to writing, from baking to building, from cutting to carrying, human activity was hemmed in on all sides as though holiness needed the day all to itself.

Thus, in Jesus’ time, the Sabbath, originally intended to be an interlude of rest and renewal – and a holy hint of creation’s hope and its destined wholeness – the Sabbath had become, too often, the rigid, rule-bound and routine confirmation of the way things are … and the way they must always be.

So when Jesus summoned up his own sacred energy to accomplish these two healings, he knew what he was getting into. He was crossing long established boundaries. Risking real scandal. Appearing ready to drag the Sabbath through the dirt.

And those who are indignant at Jesus’ impulsive impatience, well, they have a point. There are six other days on which to heal. Neither of these persons was in immediate danger of dying, so would it really have been asking too much for Jesus to wait one more day?

“Yes!” Jesus says. “Absolutely too much.”

Because for Jesus the very point of Sabbath time – its unique gift to us – is not to hoard its holiness or its hope, but to spill it, graciously, generously, like a cup that runneth over … onto the needs of this world, even and especially on the Sabbath itself. Elsewhere (Mark 2:27) Jesus says more plainly, “Look, people, the Sabbath was made for humanity’s sake, not humanity for the Sabbath.”

So it doesn’t dishonor the Sabbath to promote the full flourishing of any of God’s children on this holy day. Indeed, there may be no better day to harness our energy for the flourishing of creation than on the day we devote ourselves to honoring the God who created it all.

Of course, we Christians don’t gather on the Sabbath, but on Sunday. We do this not because we dismiss the value of the Sabbath, but because we see that value – that moment of sheer gracious renewal and restoration – most clearly in our tradition on Sunday. For us, Jesus’ resurrection on a Sunday morning, signals God’s unmistakable and ongoing commitment to creation’s hope and its destined wholeness.

Each week I ask a variation of the same question: In these texts, do we hear insight on how we confront Climate Change? Again this week, I believe we do.

Today, in 2016, alongside the multitude of people whose needs cry out to us, alongside them, we ALSO have individual species, entire eco-systems, indeed a global climate all crippled, twisted beyond recognition by human “progress.” And we have an atmosphere swollen with greenhouse gases that feed an escalating loop of increasing warmth. We have rivers swollen with toxins. We have landfills – holes in the very humus from which God fashioned us as human beings – swollen to overfull with the discarded waste of our lives.

But listen, we have six other days on which to heal the planet. Do we really need to deal with it smack in the middle of worship? Would it really be asking too much for us to wait until after the service had ended?

“Yes!” Jesus says. “Absolutely too much.”

Because the very point of Sabbath time – its unique gift to us, which we Christians experience in our Sunday worship – is not to hoard its holiness or its hope, but to spill it, graciously, generously, like a cup that runneth over … onto the needs of this world, even and especially in the midst of our Sunday worship.

For us, too, it doesn’t dishonor Sunday worship in any way to promote the full flourishing of any of God’s creatures on this holy day. Indeed, there may be no better day to harness our energy for the flourishing of creation than on that day when we devote ourselves to honoring the God who created it all.

Last week I posed the question, How do we welcome the animals and the plants, the soil and the eco-systems to our table? I don’t fully know. I’m still sorting this out, and I need your help, but listen:

In our songs, those moments when we draw this planet’s undeniably warming air into our lungs and sing our faith, it’s time for our singing to give clear voice to creation, both in grieving lament for the planet’s suffering and in fervent hope for its rest and renewal.

When we baptize, we sprinkle our newest members of the Body of Christ with water that is kin to the warming oceans and the melting glaciers – and close cousin to the rains that pelt the planet in the rising intensity of storms and floods unleashed by climate change. It’s time for us to hear the cry of those waters, even when they sit so still in our baptismal font.

The bread and the wine that we sanctify as Body and Blood, they are – even as we bless them – the fruit of agricultural and industrial practices too often at odds with sustainable life on a finite planet. The reverence with which we lift them to our lips here in church must – like the holiness of Sabbath itself – spill outward onto all the food that nourishes us.

When we pass the peace, perhaps we can start remembering that it’s me and – honest to God – my 100 trillion microbes saying, “The Peace of Christ be with you … (and your 100 trillion microbes).” From now on, when we say, “Peace,” it’s time to broaden the reach of that Peace until it truly embraces all of creation.

Climate Change, like a woman twisted and bent or a man swollen and disfigured, is showing up on our Sabbaths. Rather than turn away or wait until after church, it’s time for us to follow Jesus and begin our own healing work right in the midst of our Sunday mornings. Not as an interruption in our worship, but as one fundamental expression of our worship.

Jesus drew the world’s need directly into Sabbath grace. Crossing long established boundaries. Risking real scandal. Appearing ready to drag the Sabbath through the dirt. So should we. Amen.

 

WEEK FOUR – Questions for reflection & conversation:

  1. I suggest Sabbath was originally intended to offer hope-filled mystery, but became “more manageable … less mysterious, less hopeful.” Is the same true of Sunday worship?
  2. I liken the persons in need in these texts to the creatures and eco-systems in need today. Is this comparison compelling? In what ways (or why) does it fall short?
  3. I say we must find ways to address the needs of creation right “smack in the middle of worship” and I suggest some ways we might begin “to drag Sabbath through the dirt.” Are you convinced? Excited? Are you ready?
  4. What else struck you in tonight’s reflection?

 

http://www.davidrweiss.com / drw59mn@gmail.com

From Kingdom to Kin-dom, From Ego-system to Eco-system

Mar3

This is the third in a series of five Wednesday evening Lenten reflections I’ve been invited to offer at Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire as I accompany them in a congregational journey toward a deeper embrace of creation and a faith-based response to climate change. Later this spring I’ll offer several public lectures hosted by Grace. The text for each reflection is my own choosing, drawn from Luke’s “journey” material.

Green Lent

Lenten Reflection for Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Grace Lutheran Church, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

From Kingdom to kin-dom, from ego-system to eco-system
David R. Weiss

Luke 14:12-23 (NRSV) – He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.

*     *     *

Tonight I begin with a quick review. You’ve invited me to be with you each Wednesday during Lent. Let’s be honest, neither of us quite knew what we were getting into. Pastor Dean suggested I offer some reflections on a Christian response to environmental concerns, sort of an invitation to embrace creation with fresh zeal and faith-based insight. I chose to focus in on Climate Change as the most necessary journey before us today. And I selected texts for us to consider, drawn from Jesus’ original “Lenten” journey to Jerusalem.

So now I’m joining with you weekly to reflect on how Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem might inform our own journey in response to Climate Change.

On Week One I offered four bits of wisdom for our journey.

  1. That we’ll need to exercise fierce resolve. Jesus “set his face” to go to Jerusalem and did not let anyone dissuade him from going. We must choose to confront Climate Change—and we must do so knowing that some in the church will think it’s the wrong decision, and urge us not “to go there.” We need fierce resolve.
  2. That we’ll need to remember what we know. Our response to Climate Change may be shaped by many points of view and should be informed by the best science available, but it should also be distinctively Christian—shaped by the stories, images, priorities, and principles that we find in Jesus, in our Scriptures, and elsewhere in our tradition. This is no time to set our Christian faith to the side, but rather to bring it front and center. We need to remember what we know.
  3. That we’ll need to move from temptation to tabernacle. The early Hebrews felt God’s company during their wilderness travels; they saw it in the great canvas tent that traveled with them as symbol of God’s presence. We’ll need to recognize that God is with us … often out ahead of us … as we’re called to think, learn, and live outside our comfort zone. No easy fixes. No guarantees. Just the promise of God’s presence as we move from temptation to tabernacle.
  4. That we’ll need to be all in. Life is busy; we all face competing demands on our time. But it’s time for this journey to get priority because this road, which MUST be traveled, can ONLY be traveled safely and faithfully if we are fully present here and now. We need to be all in.

On Week Two, I added two more bits of wisdom.

First, the explosive urgency of Jesus, who asks us, too, “Can’t you see how short the time is? How can you not read the signs of times?!”

Really. My daughter is not yet 20. But in her lifetime—in fact just since she was a toddler in 1998, she has lived through ALL SIXTEEN of the hottest years on this planet since we began tracking them in 1880. Every one of them has happened during her lifetime. Let me read them off for you, so you can really absorb this: the hottest 16 years since 1880 have been 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015. And so far, both January and February of 2016 have now become the warmest January and February on record—ever. This is world I’m leaving to my daughter.

When I suggested that, were he standing here today, Jesus would say, “Can’t you see how short the time is? How can you not read the signs of times?!” I’m speaking with love for my children and my grandchildren. How can we not read—and respond to—the signs of the times?

And second, I added the crucial insight that this same anguished Jesus also says, “Don’t worry. God knows what you need.” But, remember, I said Jesus says this, not to ease the urgency, but to give us the courage to finally face the threat that looms so large for our children and our grandchildren.

*          *          *

Now tonight Jesus talks about table manners … dinner etiquette for the kingdom of God, if you will. But it’s really much more than that. It’s about who we invite, about who we even imagine as “potentially” belonging on the guest list. Two short images sit side-by-side here. In the first one, we’re the ones doing the inviting; in the second one, we’re the ones being invited. Coming at us from both angles, Jesus is trying to undo the way we imagine HONOR works.

I spoke last week about the rich meaning of the phrase so often on Jesus’ lips: “kingdom of God.” That, rather than referring to a static place or time, it really means, “the dynamic activity of God as king.” I suggested that when we look at Jesus’ ministry, we see that, FOR GOD, being king means welcoming all of us as kin. And I told you that I often use the phrase, “kin-dom of God,” because it reminds us that God’s kingly activity is making us all kin.

There’s one more thing to emphasize about that tonight. When Jesus employs the metaphor of “kingship” for God, most of us hear him lifting our assumptions about kingship—power, majesty, wealth, luxury—and using them to help us imagine God. I actually think he’s doing the exact opposite. He’s giving us images of God, both in his parables, but also in his healings and table fellowship, that move in the other direction. He is criticizing, in fact, un-making the very notion of ‘king.’

He says, in effect, “I know very well, what you THINK kingship is about. I see the palaces and the robes, the weapons and the wealth of Rome. I see the corridors of power today, where presidents and prime ministers, congresses and corporations broker deals that gamble on the future of the planet as though it were a farm commodity. But that isn’t kingship. God defines royalty this way: by welcoming outcasts, by keeping company with those who are broken—and by that very company inviting them to become whole. God’s power rests not in some sort of divine invincibility but in daring vulnerability. In dedicating divine power and energy to lifting up the downtrodden, breaking the chains of oppression, and setting a feast where everyone—EVERYONE —is welcome. Only when you see your kings doing that can you truly call them royal.”

So who belongs at OUR table as we respond to Climate Change? Minimally, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” And not just because Jesus names them, but because, still today, these persons—and others who are pushed to the edges of our society—will be left most vulnerable on a hot planet. And Jesus says that true royalty sees these persons as kin.

Besides the least of these among our human brothers and sisters, the creatures belong at our table. The destiny of the polar bear and the monarch butterfly, the timber wolf and the urban songbird, matter to their creator, and so their destiny matters to us.

Besides these, the plants themselves and the soil, the very ecosystems woven so delicately over eons—and being undone in just centuries and decades by us—these, too, are God’s handiwork. Part and parcel of God’s kin-dom, they belong at our table.

How do I know? Because Genesis (1:27) tells us we are imago Dei. That in some mysterious sacred way we are “in the image of God.” That, at our best, we carry the standard of our king, the reflection of divine royalty in ourselves. In our ability to think, imagine, dream. In our capacity to show compassion, to choose justice, to embody mercy. But even … maybe most especially because we are so oblivious to it, in our embodiment.

Think of it: when Jesus says, “the kingdom of God is within you, he means “the dynamic activity of God making all things kin rests within you.” I have some guests with me tonight to make that point. I can’t exactly introduce you to them, but I can tell you about them. I weigh about 200 pounds. But that’s not all me. There are critters on me and in me, critters that are absolutely necessary not just for me to flourish, but for me to live. I’m talking about microbes. In my mouth alone, there are about 400 species of microbes that help me eat when I sit down at God’s kin-dom banquet. In my entire body—and yours!—there are about 100 trillion microbes that help me be me in my little corner of God’s kin-dom.

This is literally unimaginable. If you were to say “thank you” to each of these microbes inside you, pausing only one second on each microbe, it would take you over 3 million years simply to say thank you to each of the kin within your own body.

If I were to show you a little plot of soft grassy soil on a warm sunny day, and invite you to lie down and have a nice nap, many of you would happily lie down and rest. But if I added, well, actually it’s about 180 pounds of grass and soil, the other 20 pounds is bugs, but they’re small, and you’ll barely notice them, not many of you would be so quick to lie down.

But this is ME: 180 pounds of David and 20 pounds of 100 trillion microbes, the critter-kin that God has already woven into this human being from the humus, into this dirt-creature named David. I am my own eco-system. And you are, too.

If God has already invited so many to share the table with us, how can we not invite the rest? Amen.

 

 

WEEK THREE – Questions for reflection & conversation:

  1. I reviewed things, because we must actually learn these insights and carry them forward. Which have been especially helpful to you?
  2. I suggested that, far from borrowing royal imagery to describe God, Jesus describes God in ways that turn our notion of royalty inside out. How IS God “king”?
  3. So our “table guests” should include people, creatures, plants & ecosystem, but HOW?
  4. Imago Dei and 20# of microbes—is that cool or what?
  5. What else struck you in this reflection?

 

http://www.davidrweiss.com / drw59mn@gmail.com

That Eyes May Finally See

Mar1

I am posting this in honor of Spotlight, which just won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Picture. Spotlight tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting which broke open the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Boston area and earned the paper a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. I highly recommend the film. It is almost uninterrupted intrigue and becomes increasingly unsettling as it moves from start to finish. It tells a compelling story, but within the story, the moral of the movie speaks with a still small voice that becomes a whisper you can’t not attend to. It takes us to places we’d rather not go, but must–and does so with searing grace.

About this post:

In February 2014 I met Mike Johnson. He asked me to help him tell his tale of adult clergy abuse. Years earlier he lost his marriage to a predatory Catholic priest. The aftermath was devastating because the church’s silence not only protected the priest but also led to extreme alienation between Mike and his children, who were caught up in a maelstrom of events beyond their comprehending.

Mike wanted me to help him record his story as a sort of testament to his children, a chance to tell them what he had endured, in hopes that it might reach them in written form across the chasm of hurt that had widened between them over the years. But several months after we began collaborating, Mike unexpectedly fell ill and died. The project was set aside for nearly year after his death, but then Mike’s widow, Kris (his second wife), asked me to complete the story to fulfill a promise she made to Mike. In January 2016 I finished it. Kris has sent it off to his children and has given me permission to post it here.

Having been molested as a teen by a Sunday School teacher myself–and later finding myself trapped in a marriage of escalating violence–I know firsthand that silence suffocates hope, heightens the sense of helplessness, and aims to erase truth.

On Mike’s behalf, then, I am breaking these decades of silence for the sake of hope and empowerment and truth.

I’ve put the prologue below. The whole story runs 27 pages and is on a pdf here.

That Eyes May Finally See

A testament about adult clergy abuse

Michael Gerard Johnson with David Weiss
Dedicated to St. Odilia, Patroness of the Eyes

Prologue: The Weight of Clouds (6/10/15)

I met Mike Johnson in late February 2014. At the time he still had an impish humor to him despite the years of heartache he had endured and the health issues that were exacting their own toll. As we strolled the grounds of the Crosier Preparatory School and later chatted amiably over lunch in his home, we were both keenly aware of the tempest in his past. It was to be the subject of a shared project in the months ahead. But we were both in our own ways oblivious to the tempest rising in his body that would claim his life in less than four months.

Now I am, as it were, a witness. Once asked, and now beholden to speak. Mike shared his story with me, filled in with letters, documents, and memories, not so I could hear it, but so I could tell it. As a writer, I occasionally step, uninvited, into lives other than my own. At times in poetry, fiction, or essay, I have dared to speak for others. But this particular stepping is invited, even commissioned. In this case, Mike dared me to do this. And so this time it comes with a heightened responsibility to hold another person’s life at my fingertips, knowing he is counting on me to tell the truth of it.

Of course, when we started, neither of us counted on him dying—at least not so soon or so precipitously. But such is death: it reschedules everything. So this tale has been on hiatus for months. Allowing for grief to have its say. For lives to readjust their arc to this yawning absence.

But now, as the anniversary of Mike’s death (June 24, 2014) approaches, and with pages of notes scattered before me, and so many half-composed sentences inside me, it’s time to complete the tale I began last spring. Only these days I write, not with Mike’s editorial hand next to mine, but with that hand woven into the weight of clouds.

… Continue on the pdf