That We Might See Once Again

Stanley Hauerwas in his seminal volume, A Community of Character, observes that life is a gift – not a right, not an entitlement – but a gift from God. Or, if you must keep God out of it, life is given from the very origins of all that is, seen and unseen. And we now know that most of Creation remains unseen as dark matter and even more so dark energy – which are called dark not because they are evil or bad but simply because you cannot see them. About which I choose to join with my late friend, colleague and teacher, Richard Chiroff, that Dark Energy, that which appears to hold the universe together and allows it to expand all at once, is what some of us call the Holy Spirit.

Those who choose to see life as gift, as given, have a particular world view. Whether or not we call this religious or not does not matter. Knowing life as gift, as given, leads to living in says that some have called righteousness, or right-mindedness, or even mindfulness.

In his most recent volume of Sabbath Poems, A Small Porch In The Woods, Wendell Berry, gentleman farmer and thoroughly American poet and visionary, offers the following definition: Right mindedness: a mind in place, in right relation to Nature, and it’s neighbors. And as the African-Scottish folk song Jesu, Jesu puts it, “All are neighbors to us and you.” With “you” being Jesus, the Anointed One who falls on his knees to wash our feet in an effort to open our eyes to see once again that the stewardship of creation granted to us “in the beginning” is always to be a life of thanksgiving for the gift of life itself. And that the character of our lives of thanksgiving is always to be a life lived in service of others, all others, including all of creation.

Or, as Berry puts it, accepting life as gift leads us to recognize that we are in relationship with that which brought us here in the first place, and with one another. Life known as gift leads us to desire to be in “right relation” to Nature, and its neighbors – others, all others.

Whether we care to admit it or not, we are not doing a very good job in our relationships to Nature and its Neighbors. Job-like, we are in perpetual anguish over this breakdown in our relationships with Nature and one another. We imagine that such things as God and Science are  somehow adversaries, at war with one another, rather than complimentary world views within the totality of all creation, that which is seen and unseen. We keep making advances in the realms of that which we can see. Yet, these advances seem to further alienate ourselves and one another from all that remains unseen.

Perhaps the Book of Job offers what might be called a Daoist resolution. After 41 long and at times tedious chapters, the Book of Job lands in chapter 42 with a confession of humility the likes of which seems utterly foreign in the current atmosphere of angrily competing voices of certainty. Job finally surrenders when faced with the sudden and inscrutable felt presence of YHWH: When I asked you to meet me in court, O Yahweh, I simply didn’t know what I was talking about. But things are clearer to me now. I no longer wish to challenge you; I only wish to learn from your wisdom. I will be quiet while you answer my questions. Therefore, I yield, And I admit my mistakes.  [Job 42:1-6, as paraphrased by Walter Brueggemann et al in Texts for Preaching: pp 558-559]

We could all stand more often to be quiet and do much more “yielding,” and admit our mistakes. Even more so, admit that in the end we simply do not know it all. And as the author of the Dao De Jing puts it: we all know that beauty is beautiful and yet makes ugliness; being and non-being arise together; hard and easy complete each other; before and after follow one another; the things of this world exist, they are, you cannot refuse them; to bear and not own; to act and not lay claim; to do the work and let it go; for just letting go is what makes it stay.

Ursula K. Le Guin sums up this portion of the Dao: “To believe that our beliefs are permanent truths that encompass reality is a sad arrogance. To let go of that belief is to find safety.” [Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching a new translation, p 5] It is in letting go that Job finds safety and his life flourishes once again. Not because of something he does or believes, but in his letting go and “not doing.” It is in that moment of “not doing” that he becomes the recipient not of God’s justice, but rather he experiences the welcoming gift of God’s mercy. Job shows us how to experience life as gift with humility and thankfulness. He yields to the very fact that he does not and does not need to know it all to be in a right relationship with Nature and its neighbors.

Again, Brueggemann et al conclude, “In other words, Yahweh loves Job as Yahweh loves all people. Yahweh has blessed Job as Yahweh intends to bless all people. To be sure, human willfulness and sin often distort our relations with God and with one another and frustrate God’s mercy. But Job’s new happiness is no more the result of some new righteousness on his part

than his sufferings were the result of some terrible act of sin. God’s ways are mysterious and past our understanding, but one thing is not in dispute: the God of Israel, the Father of Jesus Christ, is a God of compassion whose ultimate will for all persons is peace and joy.” [Ibid p 559] Replace “God” with “Nature” if you must to allow what this ancient wisdom tale means to convey – to “do not doing;” to yield to that which is unseen; to admit our mistakes and allow a new wisdom and presence lead us to safety; to give up the need to fight for what will always be an incomplete wisdom, knowledge and truth. To abandon our sad arrogances and open ourselves to others – all others. To do so is to dwell in the safety of the ultimate will of all creation to know peace and joy.

To do so, we need to be like Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, that beggar who hears Jesus and his followers walking in the way of Jesus from Jericho to Jerusalem in Mark 10:46-52. It is a caravan, with more people joining it every day until it is a long procession as Jesus enters Jerusalem. They are walking together in the hope of recovering what it means to walk in the way and to acknowledge life as gift. Bart cries out for mercy, for compassion. The followers who seem to fancy themselves as arbiters and gatekeepers of access to Jesus the root, the shoot, the offshoot if you will, of the source of all life as gift, try to keep Bart away. But Jesus hears his cry for mercy and stands still – he yields to the moment. It is a noisy and somewhat chaotic scene this caravan headed to Jerusalem and the three-times announced showdown with those in power, those representatives of Caesar, who in Biblical terms is the new Pharaoh. In the midst of this whirlwind of activity Jesus stands still and calls Bart to come forward.

Some find it odd that Jesus then asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Shouldn’t it be obvious? We should note, however, that Jesus does not presume to know what Bartimaeus really wants and really needs. And Bart’s answer ought to surprise us as he says, “Let me see again.” Again. He has somehow lost the ability to see, which has made it impossible for him to walk in the way, but rather must sit by the side of the way and beg. Like Job, he seems to know that simply being in the presence of the one who was “in the beginning” and through whom all life has emanated and moved out from a single point and burst of energy and light and life and continues to move out and expand and evolve can, must, somehow reestablish his capacity to see again what we all wish to see: The Way. 

Job just wants to know. Bartimaeus just wants to stand before the life-giving light so he can see once  again. Like Job, that is all he needs to do. Wanting to stand before the gift of life is all it takes to know mercy and to see once again how to make our way in right relationship to Nature and its neighbors. All are neighbors to us and you. Jesu, Jesu, show us how to love, show us how to serve, the neighbors we have from you. Right mindedness. Knowing, accepting, life as gift makes all the difference in the world, seen and unseen. When we lose the capacity to know this we lose our sight, our vision. Without vision the people perish. Seeing life as gift again restores our vision, our hope, our vitality – and our capacity to be in right relation to Nature and its neighbors.

Job Part 2

The Story of Job Part 2

It is always inevitable. For each natural disaster it seems there is at least one Evangelical Pastor who claims to know who is responsible for it. Hurricane Michael is not the exception. Self-appointed Christian “prophet,” Mark Taylor tweeted: “Does anyone else think it's strange that Justice K is sworn in and we have a major hurricane inbound? DS [Democrats] scared? They should be. Retaliation? Absolutely. We will not be intimidated! Warriors arise, time to go to work! You know what to do. … — Mark Taylor (@patton6966) October 9, 2018”

To understand chapter 23 of Job one needs to hear chapter 22 in which his friend Eliphaz, in the spirit of Pastor Taylor, also attempts to assign blame for all the bad things that have happened to Job. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

2 “Can a mortal be of use to God?

    Can even the wisest be of service to him?

3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous,

    or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?

4 Is it for your piety that he reproves you,

    and enters into judgment with you?

5 Is not your wickedness great?

    There is no end to your iniquities.

6 For you have exacted pledges from your family for no reason,

    and stripped the naked of their clothing.

7 You have given no water to the weary to drink,

    and you have withheld bread from the hungry.

8 The powerful possess the land,

    and the favored live in it.

9 You have sent widows away empty-handed,

    and the arms of the orphans you have crushed,

10 Therefore snares are around you,

    and sudden terror overwhelms you,

11 or darkness so that you cannot see;

    a flood of water covers you.

To sum up Eliphaz, “You are obviously not as good as you think. It’s your own fault for not taking care of the widows, orphans, strangers and resident aliens whom God commands us to care for.” Strangely, this still seems to assign Job’s situation as “an act of God,” while the reader already knows it was Satan who brought this calamity on. Further, as I read it, I am not so sure that the author of this poetic fable is not aiming his charge at one and all who are listening or reading this story. What are we doing for the weary, the thirsty, the hungry, the widows, the strangers who by virtue of national policy are being warehoused, imprisoned, families ripped apart, people losing their homes while “the powerful possess the land, and the favored live in it?” More than a fable, the speech from Eliphaz is more like a prophetic critique of the status quo that seems to stretch on for centuries and even millennia to this very day.

Job holds steady and agrees that God is Just and what’s more our God is reasonable and merciful. If only he could find God to lay his case before him. “Oh, that I knew where I might find him” This is the lament of all faithful women and men in every age who experience undeserved suffering. Just ask the people of Mexico Beach, FL today. Just ask the women who were sexually assaulted yesterday. Just ask the LGBTQ community who remember that 20 years ago this week Matthew Shepherd was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming simply for being who he was – a young gay man. Just ask the 53,000 voters in Georgia, 70% of whom are black, whose registrations are being held up by the very man who is running for Governor and is also the official overseer of his own election. Just as #Me Too and #VeteransforKaepernick, and dozens of others raising all sorts of Justice and Peace questions.

It is here that the NRSV translation fails us in verses 16-17, making it sound as if Job is resigned to die. A more accurate translation, according to Walter Brueggemann, et. al., would be:

It is God who makes me fainthearted,

the Almighty who fills me with fear,

yet I am not reduced to silence by the darkness

or by the mystery which hides him.

That is, Job is resolute in his trust and faithfulness in his God, is not “reduced to silence,” and seeks even more so to penetrate the inscrutable presence of God. If he only knew where to look.

Job does not seek blame or explanations or theories or doctrines. He seeks a response. A compassionate response. And the opportunity to make his case; to tell his story; to get some sense that his case is being heard. This is what a lot of different people are asking for today.

Brueggemann, et. al., conclude, in Texts For Preaching:

“And here the matter is held in suspension. Job has confronted what is perhaps the most difficult question posed by Christian theology: How does one account for all the suffering that takes place in a world created and governed by a gracious God? When one replies, as Eliphaz does, that the answer lies in human sinfulness, there is ample evidence to affirm that Eliphaz is correct—but only partially so. Eliphaz’s views do not take into account all the innumerable instances in which suffering is inflicted on men and women for no apparent reason whatsoever, from the ravages of nature to terrible diseases that cripple and kill. There simply are those terrible moments when no human sinfulness lies behind our pain. In those moments, where is God?

“Job not only protests that Eliphaz’s views are wrong, but he also, in his stated inability to locate God, confesses his own partial agnosticism in the face of his pain. It simply is not possible to know the mind of God in certain situations of life. It is not possible to dialogue with God over this matter and to come away with solutions that are completely satisfactory. Job finds God to be simply unreachable!

“Job points to a dilemma whose solution he “cannot see” (v. 9b), but one for which Christian men and women find resolution in Jesus Christ (although Christians would also confess very imperfect knowledge in the matter). In Jesus Christ, God joined humankind in its suffering, both deserved and undeserved. The cross of Jesus Christ is that point in time and space where, more than any other, God identified with human suffering and experienced it to its fullest extent.

“Thus Job performs the enormous service of raising questions which he cannot answer and of pointing beyond himself to One who can.” On to chapter 38 and the Voice from the whirlwind. To be continued in two weeks…

What We Can Learn From Job Part I

Rabbi Harold Kushner once sought to answer the question, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Properly this is called the problem of Theodicy: if God is good why is there evil and suffering? To become a Christian through the rite of Holy Baptism, we are called to “renounce the evil powers in this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” In particular, both the Church and the nation have been recently and increasingly focused on the problems of sexual violence against women and children. All attempts to sweep such concerns under the rug have been proven futile. The curtain has been pulled back. Corrupting and destructive evil is real.

And if there was any thought that once our current political dilemma is “resolved” this might all go away, the one and only Nobel Prize that is conferred by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, The Peace Prize, was awarded to two individuals who have devoted their lives “for being symbols in the fight to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.” The Committee goes on to say, “that while wartime sexual assault and the #MeToo movement in general are significantly different, their goals share key elements: They both aim to acknowledge the abuses of women, eliminate the victim shaming and support women who speak out about their sexual assaults.”

The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, who has treated victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for most of his adult life, founding the Panzi Hospital, which supports survivors of sexual assault. Sharing the Prize is Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor of rape and captivity by ISIS. She is a member of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq and was taken captive by ISIS members who had launched an attack on her small village. She was held as a sex slave for three months before escaping from her captors. In 2016, she was named the U.N.'s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. It is believed that some 3,000 Yazidi women and girls remain enslaved. As long as they are enslaved, ISIS has not been defeated. Corrupting and destructive evil remains real.

One might say that God is trying to keep our attention on the problems of sexual violence against women and children. Against this backdrop, we begin a cycle of readings from the Book of Job: “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Job is offered to us, like Dr. Mukwege and Ms. Murad, as one who has “renounced the evil powers in this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”

In this nearly 3,000 year old fable, Job’s faith in God is challenged by Satan  - a Hebrew word meaning “adversary,” or “accuser,” not the Devil of the New Testament. Job has a flourishing family, much cattle, bountiful crops and life is good. Job thanks God for all good gifts that surround him. Satan suggests that if Job is to lose everything his faith and love of God will vanish and he will curse God. Suggesting that Job serves God because it is profitable.

God, it turns out, has faith in Job and says, “Very well, he is in your power, but spare his life.” Satan strips Job of everything he has, and goes so far as to cover his body with sores. Then his wife says to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” But he says to her, “…Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this, we are told,  Job did not curse God.

What follows are something like 40 chapters of theological attempts to explain or answer the problem of suffering and evil in the world. Much of it features three friends of Job and a fourth, Elihu, who offer all the usual bromides: You must have done something wrong. You brought this on yourself somehow. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Job swings between faith and despair, cursing the day he was born, and finally ends with a flourish demanding that God declare why this has happened to him. Job has no patience. There is no such thing as “the patience of Job.” Job demands that God stand trial.

The three friends give up, Elihu summarizes their efforts, stating that Job has risen for the defense of self, not God. And then it happens. The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind.  “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins for I will question you, and you shall declare to me!” Then comes what William Safire once described as, “the longest and most beautifully poetic speech attributed directly to God in scripture.” The foundation of God’s defense is, “Where were you when I was creating this universe in the first place? If you have so many good ideas you should have been there to help out!”  The idea being that God, suggests Safire, is busy bringing light to darkness, imposing physical order on chaos, and leaves his human creations free to work out moral justice on their own. In fact, in Genesis God pretty much leaves the stewardship of creation entirely up to us. [New York Times, January 10, 2005]

Job is humbled. “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Yet, in telling his story, in testifying to friends, in demanding an explanation from God, and through sheer resilience, Job realizes that he has been graced by the living presence of God. His tirade has caused God to appear, demonstrating, much as Jesus does on the cross, that those who suffer are never alone. Job is satisfied, not so much by the content of God’s answer as by contact with God himself. Emmanuel. God with us. Us. All of us.

That is, the answer to the problem of evil is not to be found in the arguments of Job’s friends, or even God’s defense. The answer, if you will, is a response. Rabbi Kushner suggests, “A religious response to tragedy need not be solely about God.  It can be about how the sufferer responds, whether with acceptance, with rage, or with a new understanding of how life works.  It can be about how others respond to his or her pain, with pious explanations or with hugs and shared tears.” Like Job, we can repudiate past accusations, doubts, and even anger and know that we are not alone, living this life in communion with a God who is with us in our sufferings. And listening to and honoring other’s stories of suffering and survival is what heals. All of us.

Wesley Morriston in his essaay, God’s Answer To Job, reminds us of a story that The Hasidic teacher, Rabbi Bunam, tells: ‘A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, "I am but dust and ashes." On the other, "For my sake was the world created. "And he should use each stone as he needs it. The experience of the Whirlwind has taught Job to use the first stone. But what we need, and what the book of Job tries, with only partial success, to teach us, is how to use them both together.’ [Religious Studies 32, Oxford Univeriy Press: 1996]

Knowledge is to know the difference and when to use them. As we listen to others, or tell our own stories, we need to learn the difference. Job held to his faith in God. God had faith in Job. God has faith in us. God is with us in the suffering. To be continued.

Inside Out

For almost nine grueling hours on Thursday a culture of power, privilege and entitlement was on full display in an attempt to negate a story of personal trauma and vulnerability. It left many of us exhausted, spent and deeply concerned and disappointed that our community life in America has come to this.

Overlooked in all the analysis and commentary is one simple fact and resource: from beginning to end The Bible has much to say that may be helpful to navigating our way back to what we once called The Common Good. The Common Good used to call us to be as concerned, if not more so, for those who are most vulnerable in our communities and our country than for our own self-interest.

On the road to Jerusalem where he faces a violent execution at the hands of those who wield power, privilege and entitlement on behalf of the Roman Empire inside the ancient walls of its client state Israel – the center of both Israelite ritual worship and governance – Jesus has now twice told his closest followers that once they get there he “is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” In the meantime, on the way to his crucifixion he demonstrates the central importance of healing, caring for and serving the most vulnerable he encounters along the way. The way of living as God would have us live with each other in God’s creation.

His disciples, often portrayed as a stand-in for all of us, simply do not get it. In Mark 9: 38-50, a somewhat enigmatic little passage, John says to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” One can almost feel Jesus heave a deep sigh as he says that, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” This is a mild chastisement for his band of followers who evidently think that the power, privilege to cast out demons is exclusively reserved for Jesus and themselves. We are your privileged insiders, John is saying, so we will put a stop to it! To which Jesus replies, in a series of typically mystical and hyperbolic middle eastern quips, “This is not about insiders and outsiders. There are no boundaries to serving the most vulnerable and the common good.  Let him be.” That is, rejoice and accept that there is good work that goes on outside of our little circle of friends.

Jesus warns, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea,” the word for stumbling block is skandalon, from which we get the word “scandal.” It literally means to place an obstacle in someone’s way that causes them to fall. Yet, Jesus often extends this to mean not meeting someone’s immediate needs. It is a scandal to suggest stopping someone who is also doing our work of healing.

I have long been convinced that when the Jesus in the gospels speaks of “little ones,” and “children,” these phrases are stand-ins for the “am ha aretz” of the Old Testament, roughly translated “the poorest of the poor,” and for the repeated commands to attend to the needs of “widows, orphans and resident aliens.”

In the case of the person casting out demons in his name which is a scandal to John, Jesus retorts that not to cast out those demons is the real scandal. To attempt to put a stop to someone doing God’s work of repairing and healing a broken world just because that person is not an “insider” or one of us is the real scandal. This is not about consolidating power, privilege and entitlement, John, it is about extending the Rule of God’s will to any and all who are in need; who are vulnerable; who are routinely ignored by those in charge.

Then comes the difficult words of self-mutilation: “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; …And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; …And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.” These are hard words as we used to say in seminary. I believe the sense is that those who use their power, privilege and entitlement as a stumbling block for those more vulnerable do more damage to themselves than to the others. The one causing the scandal emerges more damaged than the ones affected by it. Though not to be taken in the most literal sense, his words do hint at removing people from power, privilege and entitlement for the overall health of the whole community, or The Common Good. That is, self-sacrifice on behalf of others is what strengthens and maintains the integrity and health of the community.

There will always need to be a surrendering of power, privilege and entitlement to adequately attend to the needs of “the little ones” and thereby heal and repair the brokenness of the community and The Common Good.

Finally, Jesus speaks of salt and fire: “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” These are the most mysterious words in all of Mark’s gospel. Salt preserves, seasons and is used as a purifying agent. Fire purifies as well, and tempers and strengthens things like steel. The community needs both to survive. To endure the hardships and scandalons that lie ahead and sometimes seem to surround us on all sides. Brendan Byrne, in his commentary A Costly Freedom [The Liturgical Press, Collegville,MN: 2008] sums it up this way: “if you maintain that quality of life, with all the sacrifice it entails, you will, despite all, live in peace with one another; there will be no “scandalizing” of the little ones.” [p 156]

This text from Mark happens to be appointed to challenge us this week. This week in which we were able to witness the damage that is done when power, privilege and entitlement attempts to assert itself against the most vulnerable amongst us – which must include the one-in-three women in our society who have experienced sexual assault at least once in their lives. To include them amongst the “little ones” is not at all to demean or lessen their stature among us. Rather, it is to include them along with those for whom God and God’s community are to value the most, care for the most, which in Biblical terms means to love the most. The text declares that there is good that happens outside the community and scandal that lies within.

So-called organized religion too often has sheltered and participated in the culture of power, privilege and entitlement. It has often been the scandal. Yet, we are called to be those people who are willing to sacrifice our self-interest to support and care for all those for whom the God of the Bible has a particular and deep concern: the little ones, widows, orphans, resident aliens, and all those who have suffered from the myriad demons that surround us on all sides, especially within the corridors of power, privilege and entitlement. We are here for you. Today and forever.

There Were No Winners

Yesterday, September 27, 2018 – yet another “day that shall live in infamy.” Another Body Blow. They seem to come and go more and more frequently until the nation is left numb and seemingly permanently divided and dysfunctional.

A Body Blow to all who saw and listened to Dr Christine Blasey Ford speak truth to power as she recounted a sexual assault she endured at age 15; especially those who have suffered sexual assault themselves. A Body blow to all who saw and listened to Judge Brett Kavanaugh defend himself, his “name,” his family, and angrily accuse the Democratic members of Senate Judiciary Committee of a “vast left-wing conspiracy.” A Body Blow to the Body Politic when Senator Lyndsey Graham (R-SC) lashed out at his Democratic colleagues on the committee.

No one won. America lost. America lost all sense of dignity and proportion. On a downhill-slide for years now, the process of Advise and Consent for the US Senate to confirm presidential appointments to the Supreme Court has become the arena where every aspect of our country’s dysfunctional constitutional government is on grotesque display.

It was riveting. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion. For some of those millions who were watching and listening across the land it must have been a traumatic “event” like those suffered by both Dr Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and their families, all of whose lives have been disrupted and changed forever.

Accuser and the Accused both provided dramatic, passionate and heart-felt opening statements. Dr Ford was measured, calm, concise and to the point in both her statement and her answers. It was striking that not one Republican committee member other than Chairman Grassley (R-Iowa) spoke a word to Dr Ford. Rather they hid behind a hired-gun – a prosecutor of sex crimes from Arizona – who asked all “their” questions for them in true prosecutorial style. One has to wonder how a human being can listen to what Dr Ford detailed about the traumatic and humiliating assault she suffered when 15 and not say one word thanks, or “I’m sorry,” for her courage to come forward; not offer one word of comfort; only to sit there stone-faced, no affect whatsoever, as this articulate and accomplished woman re-lived her trauma in as much detail as she can retrieve from her hippocampus 36 years later before a committee in that tiny hearing-chamber, and before a national TV and Internet audience. All the while keeping her composure. Her answers to the hired counsel were always concise, precise and to the point.

The contrast was stark from the very beginning of Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement and testimony. Out of the box he was angry. One might even say furious. Facial affect ranging from anger to sneering to near-tears whenever mentioning his parents or family. While merely inches away from achieving his life’s dream of a seat on the US Supreme Court, he repeatedly reminded us of all the hard work he has done to reach what would be the pinnacle of any attorney’s career, and how unfair it felt to him to have to defend what he described as an exemplary life from high school all the way to this very moment before a nation wanting to hear the truth. His answers to his questioners were rambling, unfocused, and a mix of sarcasm, anger and repetition of the same talking-points he had outlined in his opening statement. He thought nothing of interrupting US Senators while asking their questions, and even periodically turned their questions back at them as if it were they who were under scrutiny. They were. He would see to that. At times it appeared as if he could not answer a simple yes-or-no question. He would stare at his inquisitor with contempt in his eyes. One cannot question his belief that he did nothing wrong. One is forced to wonder, however, if his temperament is a fit for the highest court in the land? One thing was clear: the man really likes his beer! His performance was applauded on Twitter by the President of the United States immediately after the hearing was gaveled adjourned.

At the end of the day there were victims strewn all over the field of battle – and it was a battle. The two witnesses had to have gone home exhausted, spent, and no better off than when they first sat down at the witness table. Every senator on the committee must have been exhausted, spent and questioning deep within themselves how it has possibly come to all this. Trauma survivors across the country must have felt exhausted, spent and at once buoyed by the doctor’s courage and wondering if there had been any forward progress on how this kind of abuse and assault will be treated in the future.

 As it all began to unfold, I was running errands. I had read Dr Ford’s statement the night before on NPR.org. Yet, nothing could have prepared me for hearing those words from her directly. I sat in the car listening on the radio, rivetted to every word. Grace under pressure. Pure grace. As I got out to go into Whole Foods, I saw the man in the car next to mine also listening to her every word. That was a hopeful sign. Men listening to this woman whose life was traumatically altered forever one afternoon in Montgomery County, MD. The day the earth stood still. I watched more of her testimony both in the car and at home. During a recess I made it to the gym in time to see Judge Kavanaugh’s entire opening statement and first few answers to questions while on the treadmill for as long as I have ever trod on the mill. Then during the next recess, I made it home for the rest of the hearing. All the post-game analysis was predictable on any network. Take your pick. Like everyone else, I was left exhausted, spent and disappointed that it has come to this. All my past traumas were themselves laid bare, deep within the lock-box of my hippocampus. No doubt Lady Justice shed a collective tear for us all. There were no winners.  

Who Do We Say That We Are?

I can still see the test question as I sat in Professor John Koenig’s New Testament final exam: The Gospel of Mark: Masterpiece or a Mess? Choose one and defend your choice with the text. To this day I stand by my choice: Masterpiece. Hands down. Despite the peculiarities of the endless use of “kai” – Greek for“and” – and the peculiar narrative device some call “The Messianic Secret” – the fact that everyone and every demon knows exactly who Jesus is except for the seemingly hapless disciples are always depicted as scratching their heads. Like the time after he fed the 5,000 with three loaves, and then the 4,000 with seven loaves, and then they all get in a boat to go “to the other side,” and the text suddenly reads, “Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread.” Says Jesus, “Do you still not understand?”

I had noticed, even back then, without being told, that the unknown author of Mark has a unique “sandwich” technique to his narrative. Like the time Jesus is off to heal the daughter of a very important man in the community, which narrative is “interrupted” by the woman who fights through the crowd as he is going to the man’s house. She has been dealing with a flow of blood that would not stop for 12 years (the number of disciples, the number of tribes of Israel, the age, we learn later, of the dying girl). She reaches just to touch the hem of his garment when it happens: Jesus feels the power going out of him, she feels as if she has been struck by lightening and is healed. They exchange glances and perhaps a few words. Then it is on to the very important man’s house to restore life to the girl who has been presumed to be dead.

For years, for decades, those arbiters of what we hear read in church had bracketed out the story of the woman with the flow of blood to make the narrative about the very important man and his daughter smoother, more continuous. As if to say, “What sloppy narrative technique by Mark to insert this story of a poor, unclean woman!” into this story about this very important man and his daughter. Revisions to the Sunday Lectionary have now restored her story to its rightful place  because in the narrative sandwich, hers is THE STORY. Mark makes it the central story. She is a woman of great hope and faith against all odds. She does not ask for much. In fact, she asks for nothing but simply touches the hem of his garment. Her story is the central story of this part of Mark’s narrative. I think of all our prayers and demands when we pray to Jesus and I try to remember her story, asking nothing for herself. She is like that other woman for whom just the crumbs under the table are enough. When we pray, how much is enough?

Now, in chapter eight (8:27-38), dead center in a gospel that begins with the answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?” And a gospel that ends with women fleeing an empty tomb telling no one what they saw out of fear and trembling. That is the macro sandwich if you will. For those of us who may be lucky enough to be utterly unlike the disciples and have been paying attention to Mark’s narrative arc, when you get to the end of Mark’s story, and the women are too frightened to say anything – or at the very least Mark gives us nothing but an empty tomb – I believe we are meant to have the question at the center of Mark’s story ringing in our ears: Who do you say that I am? Mark leaves it for us to answer for ourselves.

The brilliant thing of it is, that Mark’s answer is the very first sentence in the whole story: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ/Messiah, the son of God.” This is not the way whodunits are meant to work. Who besides Law and Order Criminal Intent tells you whodunit at the beginning. Yet, there is a power in how Mark leaves it at the end. The listener, the reader, is left like Peter and the disciples in chapter eight to answer for his or herself the question that stands at the very center of the Mark-Sandwich: Who do you say that I am? You have heard all the evidence. You have heard what the demons and the Scribes and the Pharisees and Pilate and all the others have had to say. Now it is up to you. Who do you say that I am? Which question in the end is really, “Who am I? Who are we?” Socrates would have been very proud of Mark’s narrative genius! Know thyself, indeed!

We do well to note how tricky answering this fundamental question really is when we see Peter answer correctly, “You are the Christ – the Anointed, the Messiah.” Jesus orders the disciples to tell no one Odd, isn’t it? Until we realize that as Jesus outlines what being the Christ really means: he will undergo great suffering, be rejected by the scribes, the chief priests and the elders, and killed, and then rise again on the third day. Then Peter objects.

This is not what Peter expected at all. People were looking for a king or warrior messiah to rid Israel of the Roman Military Occupation. Or, at least a judge who would banish the enemies forever. Not a suffering messiah who gets crucified on a Roman cross. Just when Peter and we think we know who Jesus is, Jesus glances at us and Peter and declares, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are putting your mind on human things and not on divine things.” Then to double down on this he says to all who are within hearing distance, “If you want to become one of my followers, deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me!”

Get behind me, Satan! We misunderstand if we think it applies only to Peter. Peter is a stand-in for all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus – those who walk in his way. He looks at all of us and is saying, do not object, do not stand in my way – get behind me and follow in my way. Which is to say, to join him in his radical mission of tikkun olam. To rescue, heal and repair the world will mean to challenge and even overthrow many human views and values that hold us captive to Satan and to the demonic in this world. Besides, had we read the first verse of the entire gospel, we would know that Jesus does not need our protection from all that he says is going to happen, and does – it is we who need him and his protection.

A great misunderstanding in all of this, and the Church has encouraged such thinking, is that we think we need to pick up His cross. Whereas he says you are to pick up “your cross.” Much damage has been done when the Church urges us to share in his sufferings when in fact all four gospels declare that he comes to share in ours. He is with us in our sufferings. This is the good news. Which is why the question, “Who do you say that I am?” is so important for us each to ponder, because our answer to his question tells us everything we need to know about ourselves.

I am forever grateful to a young girl named Eleanor for helping me to grasp that my cross, the cross we are asked to pick up and embrace, is the cross that is traced on our forehead in Holy Baptism sealing us and marking us as Christ’s own forever. Eleanor, who was a young girl when baptized, would ask me several times, “Can you still see the cross on myforehead?” Finally, it struck me, like a 2x4 right between the eyes: that is the question for all of us. Can the people we meet still see the cross on our foreheads that says we will love our neighbor as ourselves, and seek justice and peace for all people, while respecting the dignity of every human being? Will we get behind Jesus and join in his radical challenge and overthrow of human views and values that hold us captive to the demonic in this world so that we can get on with the work he calls us to do: to repair and heal a broken and sinful world? Who do we say that we are?

Ephphatha!

John Prine tells the story that one Christmas after his divorce he and a friend took out his model trains and nailed the track to the dining room table – “Just because I could!” In such a spirit, as I was exiting Macy’s I passed by the Nike sector of the store and purchased myself a brand-new Nike tee with large Swoosh, 25% off – just because I could.

As the seventh chapter of Mark comes to a close, we find Jesus in foreign, Gentile territory looking to get some rest, but instead he ends up spending time alone in a house with a woman. Not just a woman, but a Gentile woman. And then heads off to the big Greek cities of the Decapolis, which are all temples to Greek gods like Dionysius, and whore houses, and who knows what, and they bring him another Gentile, a man this time, who is deaf and mute. At which point Jesus sticks his finger in the man’s ears, and then spits and touches the man’s tongue. Then he sighs, looks up to heaven, and says “Ephphatha!” Which, we are told, means “Be opened!” All this comes after his encounter with some religious authorities who had complained that he and his disciples were not washing their hands before meals.

And we need to remember the meal before the authorities lodge their complaint was for 5,000 people out of doors in Jewish territory, and after opening the man’s ears and tongue he has his disciples feed another 4,000 people in Gentile territory. These are big meals with a lot of bussing of “tables” to be done! Who has time to wash their hands. Besides, as Jesus points out with a word from the prophet Isaiah who had to deal with similarly churlish and adulterous religious authorities, is it more important to take care of the poor and the afflicted at the gate by sharing your bread with them? Or, to make them wait to be fed to make sure everyone’s hands have been washed?

Now he goes on to heal a Gentile woman’s daughter; spit and touch a Gentile man’s tongue; has the disciples feed 4,000 more gentiles. That is, he doubles down and continues to defile his hands - just because he could! AND, because what he was doing was the right thing to do. He believes the Proverbs, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favour is better than silver or gold. The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all. Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail. Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor. Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.” [Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23] People are free to make of this what they will in the midst of the various and sundry controversies of the day.

Yet, I have been long haunted and intrigued by his encounter with this woman in Tyre. For all we know, he is hiding out because he is in foreign territory and has perhaps run across a lone Jewish household. He is getting away from all these crowds, and who can blame him? It is exhausting work and we have already learned that one single solitary healing can sap him of much power and energy.

The woman is persistent, and believes or even knows that Jesus can help. And she is not asking help for herself, but for her demon possessed daughter. She is obviously willing to risk breaking with all social custom to be alone with this foreign man in this foreign household to plead her daughter’s case. We might note, Jesus is outside Jewish territory and inside a house. Not just any Gentile territory, but the territory of the descendants of numerous oppressors of his people going back to the time of Elijah and King Ahab and his Baal worshipping wife Jezebel, as well as the Seleucids, of Antiochus IV whom the Maccabees had had to route from the land. The woman, is inside her territory, but outside the social norms and customs of both their peoples.

Jesus is immediately dismissive declaring, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” That is, I am here to take care of Israel First before caring for anyone else. It shocks some people to learn that Jesus, the Christ in whom we sing there is not East or West, would turn away foreigners and label “others” with nasty epithets. And “dog” was as nasty an epithet as there was in the time of Jesus. Why does he say this? Does he recall that after Ahab and Jezebel right here in Tyre had set up temples to idols and foreign gods, the result being that Jehu led a revolt in which Ahab was killed in battle, and Jehu had ordered a couple of eunuchs to throw Jezebel out a window; wherein horses trample her and the dogs consume her remains and lick up her blood? Might that somehow have stuck with him as he looks at this desperate woman of Tyre? Is she another Jezebel?

Nevertheless, the woman takes it. She even owns this epithet and runs with it. Why? Maybe just because she could! “But kind sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!” She knows well what it is like to raise children and the role of dogs in the household down to this very day! Jesus is moved. We might even say he has been opened – Ephphatha! Perhaps he realizes he has been acting like his accusers by considering this woman and her daughter defiled and unworthy of his attention let alone the powers of his Father that could heal her affliction – which is her afflicted heart that she has been unable to help her daughter on her own. He declares the daughter healed. And so is he. Thanks to this faithful mother, Jesus becomes Ephphatha.

I have often wondered just how this woman ended up inside the house anyway? And why? Later Mark tells us that there was a large group of women following Jesus and providing for his every need. They remain invisible through much of the story until we read in chapter 15:40 they are there at the cross looking on from a distance. And we are told they are diakoneow – we might say they are deaconing. This means, like all deacons in the history of the church to this day, they are charged with connecting need with resources to meet that need.

Might the woman have known to approach them? Might they have urged her to go into the house no matter what the results might be? Might they have sent her to Jesus because he, like the deaf and mute man and many many others he had already served, he, Jesus also needed to hear the word Ephphatha? Be Opened? We might well ask ourselves, who in this story was really in need of healing; of being opened? Who in our lives and in our time is in such desperate need of healing here and now? Who are those who despoil the cause of the poor and afflicted at the gate?

Maybe Jesus was just having a bad day. Or, maybe, just maybe he needed to be further opened to the full scope of extending his mission of healing and repairing the world to the whole world and everyone and everything therein. Like the women we are later told in 15:40 were always there decaoning day in and day out but don’t see, we don’t actually see or hear Jesus repent of how he initially treats this woman. But his actions, which surely further defile him in the eyes of the religious authorities, demonstrate that there are no boundaries for those who live in the way of the Lord who advocates for all who are poor, and afflicted, and waiting at the gate. One day may we all be opened – may we all become Ephphatha. Because we can. Amen