Popcorn

So this Gospel passage is often used to defend the modern notion of hell. So let’s get that out of the way. I’m an annihilationist, meaning I read the Gospel as a choice between life and death, not heaven and hell. Jesus contrasts punishment and life. He does not say punishment or reward nor does he say punishment or the bosom of Abraham. I say bosom of Abraham because that is the alternative to the fire used in the Lazarus and the Rich man parable. In Mathew 10:28 Jesus talks about the fire that will destroy the soul using a Greek word can also mean life.

That all being said it misses the whole point of this passage. As much as I would love use this as a hammer passage to chastise politicians that pass laws making feeding the hungry illegal, or who deliberately spread a disease for their own financial gain, or who lock the stranger’s babies in cages. That’s not the point of this passage either.

The point of this passage, as I understand it, is that if Christ is your King, your focus should be easing people’s suffering. Clobber passages have nothing to do with easing people’s suffering. To bring up a point I have made several times, the Good Samaritan did not seek revenge on the bandits, he tended to the wounds of the victim.

Tending to the victim does not make for stories that (to quote Eddie Izzard) that are good for eating popcorn. We blame the victim in our culture. The poor brought hunger on themselves. If you used “the Secret” (meaning if you wish hard enough) you’d never get sick. And we have no use whatsoever for people who’ve ever been in prison, much less those who are still in there. It’s better for the hero to kill them off in the final reel.

The kingdom isn’t like that. The kingdom will be full of people who care for others. People who care for others are bringing about the kingdom. Caring for others is about finding out what the other needs, not how YOU think they should be cared for. Something funders of charities don’t understand – the rich and the eye of the needle thing. Love IS the answer. Sadly, there is so much resistance to that truth. If you listen to our pop songs, even love is framed as a competition.

Resistance to the culture we find ourselves in is not going to be about fighting evil. Where anyone got fighting evil from Jesus’ words is beyond me. It will look like the Underground Railroad, getting slaves out of the South. It will look like hiding Jews in occupied Holland as in the Ann Frank Story. I bet you could eat popcorn to movies like that.

 

   

 

How wise can a virgin be?

 

What if the foolish virgins never left to buy oil? What if they let their lamps go out, but stuck around anyway? I’m guessing they’d be as embarrassed as anyone who botches their job at a wedding, but they’d still have gone to the feast.

Now let’s talk about the “wise” virgins. They will not share their oil, and in fact it is they who send the foolish virgins out to buy oil – in the middle of the night. Would the market even be open? Are the foolish virgins foolish because they listened to the “wise” ones? Jesus doesn’t say the bridesmaids who came to the door after it was shut had even gotten the oil.

So what of the behavior of the so-called wise virgins? Assuming for the sake of the argument that oil represents faith, I can relate to the difficulty of sharing it, because my faith is rooted in my personal experience, an experience that no one else has had. Though some have had similar experiences – but I did not provide those experiences. I can guide people on their faith journey, but I can’t share my faith directly.

However in this story the “wise” give really shitty guidance – or at least some of them do. We know no oil was shared, but we don’t know who or how many suggested that the “foolish” go on a pointless errand. This brings to mind one of my biggest pet peeves about Christianity in America; people who convince others that they have to have all their shit together before they can approach God. That Church is for those who are so-called pure, and those who need Christ the physician do not belong there. You’ll find them in any church.

But these are all virgins we’re talking about, the inexperienced. So perhaps they’re all making honest mistakes. The true culprits are the groom’s entourage. The ones who have been with Christ and know better and still misinform virgins; clergy obviously, but also those who go along with them to avoid embarrassment.

You’d think they would rather be embarrassed and at the feast then to be told by the Son, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to err, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Blessed are we who were told we do not belong, who were sent away by the so-called wise, and still stayed for the consummation of the marriage - which is the “good part” anyway. In fact consummation of our love, not of possessions, is why many of us were condemned. Blessed are we who looked upon the shed blood of those like us, while the so-called wise pretended that they were pure. 

No doubt this was a challenge. Many of us ran out of oil, yet could not stay away so long that we missed the feast. In the early Church, being a Christian meant found family. Love in a world that treated people like possessions. I believe the marriage of Christ and the Church is the first true love marriage.

May we be loving found family to others who have been sent away.

 

  

 

 

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost: Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32, Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32

 

Are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? Ezekiel reports God asking these questions about Israel’s notion that what is just, what is fair is that children are punished for the sins of their parents. God does not condemn the child for the parents’ sins, but even forgives the sinner if they change their ways. That is what is just and fair in God’s eyes.

In my time I’ve heard many a protestant complain that Catholics believe you can be a sinner all your life and then just say confession on your death bed and get into heaven. That’s not fair to the people who have lived a righteous life.

Our Gospel points out that tax collectors and prostitutes can show the righteous the way to the kingdom. The subject of sex work comes up relatively frequently in the Gospels. I’ve noticed in the Bible study I attend that folks are uncomfortable talking about sex workers. Not that my fellow students of the Bible claim to be righteous, exactly, but they all think of themselves as “good people.”

But here’s the irony. There is now a glut in the sex worker market. It’s hard to find a job as a stripper. There are countless people on sex cams competing for viewers. As legal jobs you can actually survive on become scarcer and scarcer, people will seek out quasi-legal jobs.

Most folks I know under 30 can’t find full time work. Minimum wage jobs are near completely part-time in order to avoid having to pay benefits. And even then scheduling is such that most of them don’t even know how many hours they’ll get from week to week. That was true long before the pandemic.

Job scarcity and the dismantling of benefits are the unfair ways of the US. Compassion or respect for sex workers, is God’s fairness. How righteous are you if you look down on people struggling to survive - People who want to live? How can you love Jesus if you think the poor deserve their fate?

And the people I know personally in these situations are white. A fair amount of people of color I know working two minimum wage jobs, support themselves and their children cleaning houses in what would have been their spare time.

And there’s nothing more unfair than cops murdering black people when white people in the same situation aren’t even roughed up. I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord.

In a bizarre twist of thinking, individualism in practice actually does make people pay for their parent’s fate – makes them pay for generations. The rugged individual comes out of the myth of the frontier: America as a wide-open land of unlimited opportunity for the strong, ambitious, self-reliant individual to thrust his way to the top. If you believe that then disadvantages of time, place, education and money are just excuses.

In 1960, the year before I was born, there were 30 TV westerns running in prime time. The Myth of the frontier was in your face, unavoidable. In the following few years the Civil Rights movement was only seen on the news if at all. I enjoyed watching some of those Westerns and I don’t even think there was evil intent behind most of them apart from the profit motive. Also it’s important to be critical of what we absorbed as children and how that influences us to this day.

And so I ask you, who are your tax collectors and prostitutes? Who would you be shocked to hear lead the way the Kingdom of Heaven? Truly I tell you, the looters and the destroyers of property are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For their anger is righteous. They know one’s life does not consist of possessions, something that Jesus told us. They know more than most that all lives belong to the Lord. That despite the messages we have absorbed – their lives matter.

 

Sermon for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 19:9-18 and Psalm 85:8-13 • Romans 10:5-15 • Matthew 14:22-33

Do any of you know what tacking is? It’s how you sail into the wind. It’s sailing in a zig zag pattern to catch a bit of wind in your sail, and then switch to the opposite direction when the sail starts to flutter. You cut across the wind diagonally because it’s impossible to sail directly into the wind. It takes a great deal of effort and attention. When tacking, if you zig too soon, or zag too late, you’ll be stuck in the water without any wind. When tacking, if you zig too soon, or zag too late, you’ll be stuck in the water without any wind. And yet, Peter forgot about the wind.

Imagine that, spending all your energy fighting something and then being able to forget that struggle, because your beloved teacher showed up. And then Peter does an amazing thing, and I don’t mean walking on the water. Impulsive Peter doesn’t just rush out to meet Jesus, he asks Jesus to command him to do so. And then he waits for Jesus to say, “come.”

The world feels kind of screwed up and crazy right now. It seems like there are too many things to address at once. And our efforts may seem minimal and fruitless, like tacking into the wind, where you advance very very slowly. And it’s easy to burn out that way. In fact burnout is inevitable unless you rely on something more powerful than yourself.

And before I jump into the metaphor of forgetting about the wind, I want to be clear I don’t mean sticking your head in the sand. Peter didn’t forget about the boat or the water, he forgot about the wind. He forgot for a bit what was against him. He forgot about the obstacles, the impediments, the things working against him. And he called on Jesus to tell him to do the impossible.

With his focus on Jesus, on God, he effortlessly did what shouldn’t be possible. And the minute he remembered the wind, he couldn’t do it anymore. Because acting out of fear, being reactionary will cause more problems than it solves. There are many people who will tell you the opposite of love is fear, and while I wouldn’t go that far, Jesus and the angels do often say, “Do not be afraid.” To that I will add, “Listen for the call.”

Because for once, Peter checks his impulse and wait to see if Jesus wants him to try this. This is called discernment. Some sort of quieting the mind, forgetting the wind needs to happen; listening for that still small voice. Play the scenario out in your mind, not out of fear, but to check the feeling in your gut. Will this bring us closer to the light or life? Or will this take us into the dark, the way of death. Then check it out with some trusted friend or spiritual guide.

Jesus does not mince words about the wind being against us. To live as a Christian, a lover and follower of Jesus, will get you in trouble with family and authorities, or at the very least invite their scorn. The authorities are not with us. And that’s frightening enough, without the information overload of all the problems throughout the world.

Do not fear the wind, in fact Jesus tells us to love the wind. Jesus does not mean be nice and polite to the wind. He doesn’t mean stop tacking and sit still in the water. In fact even though it takes great effort, tacking is very much like loving the wind. Okay wind I want to go that way and you’re fighting me. What if I just sail sideways and let you push me that way, maybe even fooling you that going sideways at an angle is actually pushing me forward. Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

 

7.26.20

For the longest time I used to think there was only one answer to a Koan. You all know about Koans, right? The Eastern tradition? Go meditate on the sound of one hand clapping is a famous one. I honestly thought all the Buddhist monks had to come up with the same answer. As if once they reached enlightenment, they all thought the same. But then I learned an interesting fact. Buddhism has 650 years on Christianity for different theologies to from splinter groups. If you think the number of denominations in Christianity is overwhelming…

Honestly though, I’d now guess that every person comes up with their own enlightened answer to these Koans. Sure a lot of them come up with similar answers based on the baggage they carry, but I’m convinced that enlightenment is NOT a one size fits all kind of thing.

And so with parables. I think Matthew does us a disservice by explaining not one but two of the parables in this chapter. Or two and a half, really. As tonight’s Gospel repeats an interpretation of Angels throwing Evil into the fire. And even that interpretation is interpreted in translation. One translation from last week’s Gospel has the Angels burning the causes of Evil while others translate it as the ones who cause Evil.

And if any translation of that scenario troubles you, I’ll remind you that it’s going to happen at the end of all time, not when you die.

I’d take Matthew’s interpretations with a grain of salt, or maybe even three measures of salt. Because honestly I think the Kingdom of god is ineffable. What would this world look like if it were ruled by the unnamable, indescribable one Jesus calls Father? You’d think the way some people talk it already is. Everything is part of God’s plan. Everything happens for a reason. I don’t think for a nano-second that what we have now is the Kingdom of God already manifest.

And then we have pre-destination. One of the most god-awful ideas any human has conceived of. Apologies to Paul, who says many great things in tonight’s excerpt from Romans, but predestination is a fucked-up way to think. And I honestly can’t imagine why people who believe in predestination do anything. Heaven or Hell, it’s already been decided before you were born; nothing you do makes any difference. What a bleak existence. And that mindset gives no motivation to meditate on a parable. If you’re predestined to enlightenment, it’s just going to happen, right?

Seeking is hard. Call what you’re seeking enlightenment, to know the mind of Jesus, the beatific vision, or whatever else fits for you; it’s a long road with a lot of contemplative practice. A lot of people seem to think of mediation as relaxation, but it’s a lot of damn hard work.  If you think hearing cats is hard, try taming the monkey mind. In our over rationalized culture, we don’t pay too much attention to the ways the mind and thinking betray us. I don’t think parables are to be figured out. They are decidedly not rational. Once you have some kind of historical cultural context for these parables, you realize how irrational they are. Three measures of flower is a shocking amount – a bushel one footnote said. Also comparing the Kingdom to yeast, when yeast is forbidden during Passover, might cause a ruffle or two.

So I want to make plain that contemplating on a parable isn’t about reasoning it out. It’s something to hold in your mind as you take quiet time with God. There have been times when I’ve sat with something in my quiet time, not even thinking about it exactly just having it as an intention, and then sometime in the coming days or weeks, something completely unrelated will spark a thought and make what I was holding clearer to me. The still quiet voice has been for me overhearing a snippet of conversation. Some lyrics in a song on the radio. A leaf catching the sunlight as it falls to a busy city avenue.   All these things have resolved issues I was wrestling with or made decisions crystal clear. And all the same issues and decisions were not helped by a lot of rational thinking. Rational thinking just spun me in circles.

So might I suggest you pick a parable from this weeks reading and sit with it, not expecting an answer to come as you sit with it. See what happens. Believe me even if not flash of enlightenment comes, it will be time well spent.