Remembering the Purpose of the Pulpit

 

So, the newly inaugurated President went to church on Tuesday.  Depending on your point of view, it didn’t go so well.  Or it did. 

 

I’ve been fascinated by the varied public reaction to the sermon that the President and Vice President were positioned on the front row of the National Cathedral to hear.  The Episcopal Bishop who brought the message, on her home turf, offered a kind of homiletical prayer for unity, and concluded with a plea for mercy.  I understand why the two principals in the audience weren’t receptive to the plea.  The President, himself, has since demanded an apology.  Having mercy on the controversial and the unpopular, on those whose very presence in this country is perceived as an affront isn’t what the electoral winners campaigned on.  Quite the contrary.  Different, they insist, is deviant.  Refugees, unwelcome.  I get their indignation at being preached to.  And while it is fair enough to argue political ideologies, that was neither the preacher’s setting, nor her assignment. 

 

Nor mine. It’s not the politics that has me scratching my head.

 

What has surprised me is the mixed reaction to the sermon within the Christian community.  Yes, some have expressed appreciation for the message that was proclaimed.  But more volubly, others have spoken condemnation; indignation; disapproval.  Many views I have heard and seen accused the Bishop of being “inappropriate.”  “Out of line.”  “Taking a cheap shop.”  “Abusing the privileged moment.”   “Imposing her radical views.”

 

That’s what surprises me. What she did is really nothing new. People of faith have been speaking bluntly to the powerful at least since Moses challenged the Pharaoh. The Hebrew prophets certainly won no powerful friends with their confrontational and condemnatory words addressed to kings and those in leadership. Unwelcome words spoken forcefully, and directly. Face to face. Jesus certainly didn’t hesitate to speak such words. Neither Peter nor Paul nor any of the subsequent martyrs.  From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, jr, the faithful have spoken the truth as they have understood it to power.  And they were hardly thanked for their integrity.  The “blood of the martyrs” wasn’t shed for being polite.

 

And what, in her moment, did the Bishop actually say to the President?  She spoke of unity—that, after all, was the advertised focus of the gathering.  She spoke of living out what we, as Christians, profess, even if it is unpopular—respecting differences, living sacrificially.  She cited Jesus’ admonition to love not only our neighbors—our beloveds—but also our enemies, and even those who persecute us.  She noted Jesus’ insistence that we be merciful, forgiving others as God forgives us.  Central to our faith, she recalled, is the recognition of the inherent dignity of every person; that it is antithetical to the faith to demonize or belittle those with whom we disagree.  She spoke of honesty and humility, and then closed with that now famous plea for mercy. 

 

I simply don’t understand what a Christian would find objectionable in those reminders; those enjoinders. Standing in a long line of prophetic voices, she offered the straight-forward gospel, unadorned.  Not, to be sure, all the theological contortions that the domesticated church has twisted itself into that focus exclusively on personal salvation as the guest pass for some eventual eternity, but rather the basic adherence to Jesus’ invitation to follow him.   

 

Not to worship him, but to follow him.  

 

 I have no doubt that Jesus would have recognized his words in every one of the Bishop’s sentences.  It was, after all, pretty basic stuff.  Christianity 101.  Hard to make it liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat.  But somehow, dishearteningly, the sermon was controversial…among Christians.  Amazing.

 

In response to those who chastise the Bishop for speaking out of turn, I hear Paul nudging Timothy to,

“…proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths” (2 Timothy 4:1-4).

 

Whether it is popular or not.  In season and out of season.  Preach the gospel.  Say what Jesus said.  Do what Jesus did.  And all those prophets before him and since.  Proclaim the good news in ways that inevitably hold us accountable.  That demand that our words become deeds.  You know, all that “looking out for the least of these” business.

 

It may or may not be patriotic, but it is certainly and transparently Christian.  Following Jesus. Like we were called to do.

 

If we don’t like what the Bishop had to say—if our ears tickled when we heard her words— perhaps our problem is less with the Bishop…

 

…than with ourselves. 

 

Heaven help us. 

 

A Few Thoughts While Traveling

"​And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden​." (Joni Mitchell)

We travelled over a long weekend. The purpose was as poignant as it was joyous. I suspect I'll have more to say about that in the coming days. But having immersed myself, for the better part of the day, in airports (3) security checks (1) and airplanes (2), a few more immediate observations are on my mind in this Advent season, on this day liturgically given over to joy.

We had intentionally and strategically purchased seats near the front of the plane, within sight of first class, with extra legroom. We are tall, after all, and aisle seats maximize the space. We boarded early - group 2 - and watched from our seats as the capacity crowd assembled.

It was fascinating:

1. A young woman in shiny, skin-tight leggings and a tiger-striped coat led a leashed pit bull onto the plane and into her seat, with the dog at her feet.
2. The person on my row, window seat, boarded with a carry-on she couldn't lift. She stood in the aisle, looking petulantly sheepish, until someone behind her, anxious to proceed to his own seat, picked up her rollerboard and jammed it into the overhead bin.
3. A young family boarded - a husband, a wife, and a 3-year-old boy - and stopped near our row. The mother noted that the three of them had middle seats, on three different rows, and wondered if we might be willing to let them sit together. The thought that came to mind was, "​That might have been a consideration when you bought the tickets​."   It apparently wasn’t. 
4. After countless announcements by the boarding agent about a completely full flight, and the need to gate-check bags if you were in boarding groups 7-9 because of inadequate space, at least 20 passengers in boarding groups 7-9 dragged rollerboards down the aisle to the back of the plane...where they found no overhead bin space available.

So, how to account for these behaviors? Is it narcissism? Cluelessness? A conviction that it is your world, and the rest of us are simply here to help? Perhaps, on a brighter note, it is an abiding trust in the goodness of human nature.

I'm certainly not the hero of this story, nor its victim. Yes, Lori and I sacrificed our curated extra legroom aisle seats on behalf of the 3-year old boy, not wanting him to suffer the consequences of his parents’ obtuseness.  But we fared ok. At least we weren't in first class with the free-range pit bull.  I wasn't competing for overhead bin space, and I neglected to jump right up to assist the over-packed, under-muscled row neighbor. I'm not proud of that, but neither am I particularly ashamed. I hadn't been in charge of, nor responsible for, her wardrobe planning. I figured that her suitcase being beyond her means was on her.

I'm simply fascinated, and curious about what goes on in peoples' head. Or doesn’t. We are, indeed, a community - a village.  We need to look out for and help each other.  But generosity is a honey made sweeter by the offering, rather than demanding.

A gift given, rather than presumed.

Alas, in the words of the old Randy Newman song, "​It's a jungle out there.​"

All of which is to say that, while it was a wonderful trip, it's good to be home. In the garden.

That is, indeed, an Advent joy.

Hands Across the Water

Long before I unlocked the door at my first Des Moines address, the city has taken pride in its reputation as the "city of bridges." Embraced by the confluence of two rivers, there are need for such structures. Otherwise, whole sections of town would be cut off from one another. Geographically estranged. Fortunately, our forebears acted for community and built bridges. They built functional ones, but with an eye for aesthetics. The result was a series of spans, both performative and lovely.

But, alas, entropy comes to all things, even bridges. Or, as WB Years once bluntly, but poetically put it, "things fall apart." The center is always at the mercy of the opposite sides and their willingness to reach across.

Which is always the question: what about the other side?

Bridges, by their very definition, seek to connect two disparate banks, chasmically divided. If one could simply and deftly step across, a bridge would be unnecessary.

But as it goes, from time to time, I find myself here when I need to be there; or seeing you there, I long to be together. And so we build a bridge.

In truth it may be that we more loathe than long for our togetherness. We have become fond of asserting that "all are welcome" and that "all means all," but that's seldom a bar we manage to reach. There is always someone I prefer to exclude - always someone whose ideology I refute, whose politics I despise, whose rhetoric I condemn. There is always someone I prefer to leave stranded on the farthest shore.

Then something - conscience, maybe, or common cause or our respective resources - beckons our bridging in service to greater good. We don't have to marry each other or hunt for some snipe of affection. Perhaps the most we can do is hold our respective noses, shake perfunctory hands, accomplish our shared work, and safely retreat to our more comfortable and familiar shores.

A wise teacher once counseled that there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends. The organizing principle in a given moment is the need at hand.

And so we build a bridge. We build as many as we need. If a municipality can be a "city of bridges," surely a people can be as well. Because the gulf should not have the final word.

How Far We Have to Go

The prophet Isaiah, in the Hebrew Scriptures, likes to imagine heaven.  He doesn’t label his imaginings as such, of course, but that’s how I read them.  We are more familiar with grandiose depictions of John in the Book of Revelation - the gates of pearl, streets of gold, angelic choir-filled throne room image that sound more like a baroque painting than anything God might actually live in.  But I understand John’s need for hyperbole, even if I don't resonate with it.  

Isaiah’s imagination is so much more, well, down to earth.  In one, painted on countless nursery walls, he looks forward to a time when predators and prey in the animal kingdom coexist peaceably together.  “Cats and dogs living together,” as Peter Venkman predicted to the mayor in the classic movie, Ghostbusters.  But what Venkman saw as a sign of tribulation, Isaiah lifted up as a glimpse of the Reign of God.  

Elsewhere in the prophet’s writing he anticipates a time when God would host a feast of “rich food and well-aged wine” for “all peoples.”  That is perhaps my favorite image of the Promised Land.  Not some tropical island in the clouds.  Not streets of gold.  Not harps and choirs.  None of that grandiose stuff.  Instead, a feast - maybe an old-fashioned potluck with tables groaning under the weight of homemade casseroles and favorite salads and tantalizing family recipe desserts, instead of the ready-mades grabbed at the grocery store en route more common today.  A feast, for all peoples, instead of a homogeneous collection of folks who look just like me.  All that as a glimpse of “heaven”, which is really just a word for “the world the God intends.”

Unfortunately, we somehow along the way twisted the idea of heaven into a reward for the pure; a gated community for the righteous.  Our kind.

Jesus, I think, sounds a lot more like Isaiah.  In his frequent “the Kingdom of God is like...” stories, he describes behaviors, not beliefs; qualities, not dogmas; relational dynamics like forgiveness and welcome and mercy and kindness, not personal salvation.  He would have resonated with lions and lambs sleeping together.  And it’s obvious that he liked a good feast.  As for that “all peoples” part, he was all in.  One of his most famous stories elevates a Samaritan - a consummate outsider - to moral example, while depicting “people just like us” as anti-heroes.  

The question, as far as Jesus was concerned, is not about who we are or even what we profess; it’s not about where we are going, but about where we are and what kind of community we are building in the company of each other.  It’s about what kind of table we are setting, and whether or not “all peoples” are on the invitation list; about who we feed and clothe, who we welcome, and who we visit and comfort.

Now that xenophobia has been codified into Iowa state law, I brood over the chasm widening between the malignant brand of patriotism now in its ascendancy, and the teachings of the Christian faith that artificially undergird it.  That “all peoples“ part of the faith in particular.    While our public life has become fixated on the suppression of our differences - silencing conversations about gender identity, sexual preference, racial subjugation, and institutionalizing the always popular “proper order of things” -our spiritual hard-wiring establishes a different standard.

There is Peter, in the book of Acts, proclaiming, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.”

There is Paul to the Romans asserting, “God shows no partiality.”  And to the Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Or, if we needed a more definitively inclusive statement, there are the twin theological, evaluative bookends that "codify" divine assessment simply and succinctly: “God saw every thing made, and, behold, it was very good”  (Genesis 1:31).

And

“Everything God made is good, and nothing should be refused if it is accepted with thanks” (1 Timothy 4:4).

I wonder what might happen if, instead of hanging the 10 Commandments on classroom walls as some are requiring, we transferred those two biblical foundational principles onto posters and displayed them for all to see?  Everything God made is good.  Everyone.

And what if perhaps, on occasion, we retold in some public forum the story of a feast that God is hosting, to which all peoples are invited.  Where no partiality is shown.

It all makes me realize how far we have to go.  And given how repulsed I feel about those who insist on another way - given the bile I taste when I hear their denigrating rhetoric - I realize how far I have to go, as well.

 

And Then There Was Stillness

 

We watched a man die last night.  Returning home along a trafficked thoroughfare, the motorcyclist came around us from behind, warping and wefting his way around and through the lines of cars, impatient; unwilling to endure the confines of the lanes or the strictures of the speed limit.  As he zipped around our position in the inside lane, he looped wide across the double line, gazing back over his left shoulder - at us, or someone else; it was impossible to know - he deftly replaced his phone from his hand into his left hip pocket as he accelerated and sped forward...

...where in the next instant he collided with an oncoming car.  The twisted, now vacant bike clattered down the street before scraping to a standstill. The dented car pulled toward the curb.  And the body lay crumpled and motionless on the pavement.

It sounds so trite, so predictable to say, “It happened so fast.”  But, indeed, it happened so fast.  In an instant.  One moment his face was peering toward our own, and quite literally the next moment it was staring unblinkingly into asphalt.

We pulled to a stop in an adjacent parking lot.  We called 911.  Others by now were out of their cars, cell phones in hand, dialing the same three digits.  Eventually we exhaled the breath we hadn’t even known we were holding.  After a time we reentered the traffic and continued our way home, swallowing as if that could help us digest what we had just witnessed.  Together we rehearsed the scenes - rewinding and replaying those silent but deafening moments, over and over again; frame by slow-motion frame - the zipping weave, the pass on the left, the look behind, the cell phone in the pocket, the...

...the stillness...

...the “what ifs.”  What if he had been wearing a helmet?  Would it have been any benefit?  What if he had stayed in his lane?  What if he had kept looking forward?  What if the car had seen him coming?  What if he had seen the car?  What if the light at the previous intersection had turned red a second earlier?  

What if...

In a single moment, a choice you make, a choice made by others, the rhythmic timing of the lights and the sunset and feet on accelerators and a carefree, windswept grin all converge in a sudden terrible, twisting, silencing stop.  And whatever was will be no more, and whatever might have been will never be.  

As the old song observes, “it’s funny how time slips away.”  And it’s true. In that instant, the lovely and celebrative dinner from which we were returning home seemed already hours ago, and the road ahead and the home that awaited us hours and miles ahead.  There was only that moment, replayed over and over again.  And the questions asked without answer.  And this  one particular life - someone’s son, perhaps someone’s brother, perhaps someone’s lover, certainly someone’s friend - brought, in an instant, to an end.

The scene looped through my sleep. And as I slipped again behind the wheel this morning and started the ignition for a trip into town, this ordinary excursion that I have conducted a thousand times before feels qualitatively different; holy even. With hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead, I resolve to pay a different kind of reverential attention;
to see;
to behold;
to treasure this slipping away moment;


On my behalf,
On our behalf.
And his. 

The interconnecting Pieces of Life in Community

For the past couple of weeks the air each morning has smelled like the whole of creation has vacationed in Havana and developed an addiction to cigars.  Smoke permeates the atmosphere, and, with any time outdoors, our clothes.  It gets in your nostrils. It permeates your hair. Some days are worse than others, but everyday the tendrils of the smoke wrap themselves around your very psyche and squeeze.  We tried to sit out on the deck on a few recently warm late afternoons, but we couldn’t stay.  The smell got to us.  Our solar panels aren’t doing so well either what with the smoke veiling the sun.

I have only scattered and indeterminate ideas as to the source.  The cornfield across the road looks singed, but I’ve seen no fire to account for it.  A few miles away the culverts have been burned, which surely accounts for some of the scent, but there isn’t evidence of continuous burning, and none in recent days.  But still the smoke persists.  Someone, somewhere nearby perhaps is clearing land and burning trees, but the duration and intensity of the smell suggests a fire of such a scale as to be noticed.  

But nothing.  No word on the news, nor social media.  Nothing.  Nothing, that is, except the smoke.  

I’m not casting aspersions.  Don’t hear in my voice any condemnation or disapproval.  Years ago, B.J. Thomas had a song on the radio that asked, “Hey, won’t you play another ‘somebody done somebody wrong’ song.”  I liked the song, but that’s not what’s been playing on my jukebox.  I’m neither whining nor complaining; simply noticing.  And thinking about our intertwinement.  No one starts a bonfire in isolation.  All of us participate in one way or another, whether we like it or not.  Or as John Muir once observed, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

Take Dwayne for example.  Dwayne is the foster rooster who came to join our flock a few years ago as a favor to friends who live in an area inhospitable to anything that makes a sound.  And this guy, indeed, makes a sound!  Far from content with merely crowing up the sun, Dwayne can be heard to have a cockadoodledo of a comment about virtually everything - all day.  And he’s loud.  Surely our neighbors hear him, even out here in the country.  But thus far they haven’t used Dwayne for target practice.  Perhaps they find him quaint, or simply part of the price of living in the country.  

And before long the farmer across the road will fire up his equipment belching anhydrous ammonia for all the world to smell, and we’ll once again be looking for indoor distractions and occupations until the breeze can clear the stench.  Again, it’s part of our interconnected bucolic bliss.  He is certainly entitled, and owes me neither apology nor explanation.  But while we derive no benefit from the crop he will eventually - hopefully - harvest (there are, after all, no guarantees) we make our own olfactory investment in the process just by being where we are.

Because what one of us does, all of us experience.  We are inextricably tied together.  We affect each other - affect each other, too, as far as that goes.  Out in the country, or deep in the city, there are no isolation chambers keeping us pristinely separate.  Nor would I want there to be.

At the gym where we walk on the track up above an older man frequently occupies the floor shooting baskets.  It’s only him, all alone on the hardwood, shooting baskets by himself.  And he’s good, swishing the net from corner to free-throw line and points in-between; underhanded, overhanded, hook shots and trick shots.  He doesn’t hit them all, but his average is good.  The thing is, though, it’s hardly a game.  Basketball is not finally a drill, it’s a team sport; with other people and all.  There is passing and assisting and rebounding and plays; there’s offense and defense and fouls and blocks - none of which is possible with but one player occupying the court.

But sometimes we live like that, as though we were the only shooter on the floor, throwing up ball after ball, oblivious to all the others smelling our smoke.

The Sweet Table in the Window

(“I’ll have what she’s having.”)

For the second consecutive Saturday we have settled into our preferred table for two in the front window of the small bakery in the nearby community.  The narrow storefront in the old building just off the square tempts with an array of fresh baked pastries and a variety of prepared toasts served on China plates.  It feels like my grandparents’ house without the rules.  Young families, with babes in arms, drift in and out, welcomed by the older couples positioned like church greeters near the door.  The basket of toys gets passed around from table to table, and around the chairs circling the large farmhouse table anchoring the center of the room.

“Give me one of those cinnamon rolls,” the senior member of the assemblage smiled when his turn came at the counter.  “One with lots of icing.”  The host surveyed the options in the tray, complied with the order and smiled in return.  They had played out this routine before.  

Where is Norman Rockwell when you need him?  The bakery is a painting begging to be brushed.  We sip our coffee out of real cups, read the news, exchange contented smiles with a couple seated nearby, reflect the delight of the kids, and savor the remnant crumbs in front of us.  It is an idyllic weekend morning.  

Next, of course, is the walking track at the nearby wellness center - in part, to mitigate the calorie intake of the morning.  But every step will be worth the exertion, as was every forkful that preceded them.  

And we will look forward to next Saturday morning, for the toys passed around, the family smiles, the elderly greetings, the topknotted hostess behind the counter, the extra icing, and the table for two in the window.

And the subsequent miles on the track.