Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Oscar Arnulfo Romero

Oscar Arnulfo Romero was appointed archbishop of San Salvadore in 1977. It was a country of instability and civil war. By 1980, 3,000 people were dying every month. One of the priests serving under Romero was murdered because he was speaking on behalf of the poor against the landowners. This enraged Romero against the authorities and he began publicly denouncing their policies. He wrote President Carter, pleading with him to stop sending money and weapons to the El Salvador government. Every week, Romero made radio broadcasts in which he condemned the use of terror and government death squads and called on soldiers to disobey immoral orders. “Romero believed that the task of the church is to challenge sin in the world, which must involve attacking institutions that perpetuate sin. To ignore that sin is to be complicit in it and take the sin into the church itself.”

“On March 24th, 1980, he preached a sermon on 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul states that before the body can be raised it must die, like a grain of wheat being planted into the ground. He told the congregation that those who dedicate their lives to the service of the poor are like the grain of wheat and are promised a bountiful harvest. Finishing his sermon, Romero stepped up to the alter to say Mass and was shot through the heart by a sniper.”

(This story is from What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us? By Jonathan Hill; P. 167-168)

Monday, March 26, 2007

Tenant Farmers

So Kris spoke on the parable of the tenants on Sunday and it really made me think about a lot. Here are some of my notes while I was listening. Kris said that even though the Israel listeners would have wanted to assume the vineyard was them ... Jesus was, not so subtly, pointing out that the vineyard was the whole earth and the life of God at work, God's promises and that Israel and now the church are only tenants or stewarts.

He went on to point out that hypocracy cannot stop the life and promise of God. All it leads to is empty hands and hell-bound christian leaders. God will wrench the vineyard from their hands and kill them. But the vineyard will thrive and change the world. Definite wake up call on reality and who is in charge.

If Israel is the tenants and now the church is the tenants ... we are to be caretakers of the life and promise of God in the earth. This connects right back to the beginning. Adam and Eve were stewards and caretakers, leaders on the earth, farming leaders of living things. But when they chose to self-serve and eat what wasn't theirs, the garden (the promise of a blessed world) is wrenched from their hands. It had to be wrenched from their hands, they were killers who would go on to gut the whole world in order to feed their hunger to be God, instead of embracing the reality of being a tenant farmer.

And now Jesus has made another change of hands. The others are all of us, but we must continually remind ourselves that we are stewards, that is reality and what is most profound is that we are stewards who are made in the image of our master ... we are created to follow him and see the life and promise of God go out into the earth.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Another take on the prodigal story

I was thinking about posting some more thoughts on the parable that I preached on this past Sunday ... there was so much there I couldn't get to it all, but this morning I read what my friend Bethany wrote to support the small group leaders and thought it was amazing. She leads the small group ministry at our church and writes weekly prompts with questions to help the groups to converse over the text and ask good personal questions. Her retelling of the story is definitely worth reading. The only change I have made is taking out the questions. The text is Luke 15.

I. Jesus is slandered (in mutterings) by the Pharisees. It's an understandable muttering. They don't say he smells or that he goes against God, but this time they are concerned w/ his company. To them, he hasn't drawn a line in the sand where people for God stand over here, and those that don't stand over there. I can see how they perceive him as a 'fence-sitter'; the worst kind to those devout. His behavior is a slippery slope. And somehow I can hear their nagging parental threat, " you'll turn out to be like the friends you keep."

I don't think they are muttering out of pure concern for Jesus' future. I think somehow they are upset that they, the faithful and the reverent to God, aren't being affirmed by this holy man. I mean, really, they've been putting in there time here! And instead of getting to be his buddy, he wants to be buddies w/ people who haven't put their time in at all!

(Note: this is the same heart of the older brother, the heart of the entitled and the presumedly jilted)

II. Instead of giving the brats a good talking to, Jesus tells them some stories. He never ceases to amaze me w/ his patience. And these stories reveal his heart. His heart is something that the Pharisees were missing. They got His law and His morality, but it was his heart (where he loves from) that they were missing - explains why I think they were so hungry, and therefore cruel.

III. So, there's a father and two sons. The youngest son, not entitled to a lot, asks for what he is due. He sees that he can get something out of being in this family, and he decides he wants to get it now; to cut and run. He sees the immediate benefit of the temporal gift and wants it, not seeing or understanding the heart of what it means to be given his portion. His portion is the composite of his father's life. His father's toils, his honor, his wisdom. To ask for it in cash contradicts the very gift. The gift is getting his father, not the material wealth that comes along w/ it.

The father gives it to him. Not gives it to him in a lecture or a swift beating, but merely, gives him what he wishes. The whole time the older brother stands by. The younger brother goes and loses it. He sinks lower than any good jew. He compromises what is important. And in the throws of starvation, he remembers his father. He remembers that maybe his father would take him back as a hired hand. He doesn't expect anything more, nor does he show signs of mourning for having lost his father to only potentially gain a new employer. He makes up a speech, a deal, a compromise.

IV. But God isn't a god of compromise and he doesn't make deals. The father in this story doesn't either. Before the younger son can speak the proposition, the father runs to him and embraces him. There is no room for the employee relationship. There is only the father/son relationship. A regal man of wealth, a man of respect in front of the whole village makes passionate spectacle of himself. There is no withholding. There is no pride that separates the two of them. Seeing the compassion that his father has, the son for the first time recognizes that it wasn't the money that he wanted and then lost, but it was his father, his relationship that he squandered. Here, the son understands the heart of his father, not one to hold something over his head, but a father who only cares about reconciliation.

VI. And then there's the older brother. The one who was obedient, and who never left. The one who put his time in. He comes home from working and there is a great party. Right there there is a contradiction for him. He is a worker, he sweats his faithfulness and somewhere there's a party that started without him. And then he finds out it's for his loser little brother who humiliated his father and his family. And he gets rewarded w/ a party! So the older son refuses to join in the celebration on principle. Just like the Pharisees, he is standing on that side of the line, indignant that his father is partying w/ a man who blasphemed the family.

But when the father comes out to him (notice the father searched both of them out into reconciliation) we find that it's not that the brother is back, but it's the private feelings of the forsaken that are revealed. It's not about the little scoundral, it's about the older brother not feeling celebrated enough. He feels he deserves affirmation. He misses the heart of the father as much as the little brother.

And instead of giving it to him, he gives the older son what he desires: affirmation. And then he invited him to be reconciled to him, and his brother.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Lent Reader

Have you guys read any of this? Its the reader we have for sale in the bookstore. Truth be told, I didn't buy one until yesterday ... I thought I could just read the ones for sale ... but once I realized I was 80 pages in and really liking it, I thought it wrong to keep reading a book that was for sale.

Anyway, I knew I would like the entries by Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, Lewis, etc ... but there are tons of writers I have never heard of who are powerful to read. Stephanie, there is actually a Geoffrey Hill poem in here (Lachrimae Amantis).

The one I read this morning is by Barbara Brown Taylor. She writes about the Christian temptation to shift the killing of Christ off to the Jews and Romans, as long as they remain the villians, then we are off the hook. "Unfortunately, this is not a story that happened long ago in a land far away. Sons and daughters of God are killed in every generation. They have been killed in holy wars and inquisitions, concentration camps and prison cells. They have been killed in Cape Town, Memphis, El Salvador and Alabama. The charges against them have run the gamet, but treason and blasphemy have headed the list, just as they did for Jesus. He upset those in charge at the courthouse and the temple. He suggested they were not doing their jobs. He offered himself as a mirror they could see themselves in, and they were so appalled by what they saw that they smashed it. They smashed him every way they could."

She goes on to write about how dangerous it is for religion and politics to become mixed up ... but just before we get off the hook again (saying, but I am no Caiaphas or Pilate or Herod) she cuts in; "They may have been the ones who gave Jesus the death sentence, but a large part of him had already died before they ever got to him -- the part Judas killed off, then Peter, then all those who fled. Those are the roles with our names on them--not the enemies but the friends. ... Peter said. 'We weren't friends, exactly. Acquantances might be a better word. Actually, we just worked together. For the same company, I mean. Not together, just near each other. My desk was near his. I really don't know him at all.'"

And this was the part that hit me the most: "What happened then goes on happening now. In the presence of his integrity, our own pretense is exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light. In the presence of his fierce love for God and for us, our own hardness of heart is revealed. Take him out of the room and all those things become relative. I am not much worse than you are nor you than I, but leave him in the room and there is no room to hide. He is the light of the world ... A cross and nails are not always necessary. There are a thousand ways to kill him, some of them as obvious as choosing where you will stand when the showdown between weak and the strong comes along [Judas chose the saftey of militia, guns and handcuffs] others of them as subtle as keeping your mouth shut when someone asks you if you know him."

Then, since she is writing this to be presented on Good Friday, she concludes: "Today, while he dies, do not turn away. Make yourself look in the mirror. Today no one gets away without being shamed by his beauty. Today no one flees without being laid bare by his light."

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Poem about the Magi and Herod

I wrote this when I was preparing for a sermon on this text in Matthew.

Herod and Magi
Wandering nomads from the east. Like gypsies but more respectable. Like the Dali Lama coming to Bush to give him advise. And they come.

I see them with my two eyes and wonder at their search.

God did you send for these men or did they wander off through their own searching. Did you want them to come or did they come and you let them?

And what of this king who acted like the devil. Was he even a man? What possessed him to try to destroy the hopes of Abraham, David and Isaiah. The promise of messiah was so woven into the People of God and yet Herod the great would destroy it all.

Is this the evil end of a man who sought power and control his entire life ... to have as a last act the slaying of Jewish children with the thought that he would kill God's King? With one last thought of overthrowing the plans of God and having assalted the Great One take His seat?

What is it in him that is like us? Are there times when we should look to the skies or deep in the earth or into the heart of our brother with wonder, searching out a glimpse of the King ... but instead we seek to destroy that look in our blind search for more power and control.

God is at work in the earth, but do we look with our wideawake eyes and open up to joy and gladness at the wonder of God's glory ... or are we disturbed and angry and murderous?

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Helpful thought from Chekhov's phsyc ward

This is one of my all-time favorite dialogues (from Ward Six by Chekhov). It is between a doctor and a mad man (who lives in Ward six). The doctor sees him to be the only intelligent man in the town so he finds himself going down for a visit more and more often.

Doctor: Peace and contentment do not lie outside a man, but within him.

Madman: What do you mean?

Doctor: The ordinary man looks for good or evil in external things: an open carriage, a study, while the thinking man looks for them within himself.

Madman: Go preach that philosophy in Greece, where it's warm and smells of oranges; it's not suited to the climate here. Who was it I was talking to about Diogenes? Was it you?

Doctor: Yes, it was I ... yesterday.

Madman: Diogenes didn't need a study or a warm room, it was hot there anyhow. He could sleep in a barrel and eat olives and oranges. But you bring him to Russia to live and he'd be begging for a room, and not just in December, but in May. He'd be doubled up with cold.

Doctor: No. One can be impervious to the cold, as to any other pain. ... The wise man, or even the merely rational, thinking man, is distinguished precisely by his disdain for suffering; he is always content, and nothing ever surprises him.

Madman: Then I must be an idot, for I suffer, am discontented, and continually surprised by human baseness. ... All I know is that God created me out of warm blood and nerves--yes! And organic tissues, if it is viable, must react to every irritation. And I do react! To pain I respond with tears and outcries, to baseness with indignation, to vileness with disgust. In my opinion this is exactly what is known as life. The lower the organism, the less sensitive it is, and the more feeble its response to irritation; the higher it is, the more receptive, and the more energetic its reactions to reality. ... You must excuse me, I am neither a sage nor a philosopher."

He then breaks into a massive critique of Stoicism saying that it congealed 2000 years ago and has not progressed one particle and that it was always for the minority because it never took into account the majority of people who are in need and want of human things like food and shelter. It is for the wealthy academic and no one else. That's not even the best part ... its just so long I can't type more. He finishes by saying that all of the Doctors philosophy is really just convenience allowing him to lift no finger for other human beings ... "you have nothing to do, your conscience is clear, and you feel you're a sage ... No sir, this is not philosophy, not thought, not breadth of vision, but laziness, pretense, mental torpor ... "

The sad thing is that this danger of splitting mental thoughts and ideas from flesh and blood is a danger of all academic work, all rational, all philosophy and even theology. The Incarnation and the prophets before him remind us that we are to respond to irritants and outcries and that our minds must be alive and human.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Figs (another old poem, 2001)

Where is Bob Dylan?
Anyone to feel,
Anyone to imagine,
Anyone with strong words?

Young Eliot in the doorway,
But he will not take the step.
And we are the same,
Except lacking such daring imagination.

We repress the calling Christ,
Our disturbing Messiah.
We are uneasy and harassed,
But we pretend security.

Will we find our way?

The End
Is always coming because we don’t learn our lesson.

And in our end will a prophet come?
Will anyone prophesy our destruction
And offer a new beginning?
Is Moses among us?
Will anyone imagine something better?

And true peace is always offered
And this is for our Return.

The sword comes
Because what we think is life is death.
What we think is God is our own order,
Our own arrangement of things.

But in our end, Ezekiel offers resurrection.
Jesus feeds dry bones his own blood and flesh.

We must decide
We must leave our nets and follow
Leave my father in the boat
Leave my dead father.

We must bear fruit.
Please, let figs grow
Give us figs for our Lord.

Otherwise we will be cursed forever.
Otherwise we will be cast into the sea.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Feathered Pilgrims

Something dark is about in our souls. We wander aside and run like chickens with empty heads from snakes in dusty roads to thorns and hornets on either side. Our heart will not rest, but flees in terror ... in the wrong direction. The fire that blazes is cold and dark like the longest night. But then, turning we are stopped and flattened. Our eyes rise to the hill and at just that moment the morning sun breaks in reds and pinks, pouring its light down on us tiny things ... and suddenly the snakes are the ones in terror and we are in presence and heat. We swim in morning glory and long for this dawning to destroy forever the sleepless nights. It would seem our brains are filled with this light as long as we walk its way. The sun is coming down the hill to meet us and does meet us (though not in its fullness) and we are revived. We see the path before us and we must focus on our journey. We must walk and not falter. This path seems long and other yellow pilgrims are coming alongside. There are some who are teetering, there are some afraid and shuddering. We must speak and walk, we must carry each other as much as words and friendship can ... and we must all walk this path.

God, may your glory inspire our feathered brains with the dawning of the morning sun, with the reds and pinks and golds of glorious morn, still distant, but coming closer.