Paychecks, Power, Position, and Prestige

Chapter 31 of the Rule of Benedict, an ancient rule for monastics, St. Benedict of Nursia offers guidelines for the cellarer of the monastery. The cellarer is the one appointed by the prioress or abbot to oversee and distribute neccessities to those in the monastic community. It is a position of great responsibilities and is of great importance to the monastery.

The Rule states, "...above all, let the cellarer be humble." Benedict requires them to "provide them members their allotted amount of food [and other necessities] without any pride or delay, lest they be led astray."

Benedictine monastic, Sister Joan Chittister, in her commentary on this chapter, writes, "It is not right...to tax other people's nervous systems, to try other people's virtues, to burden other people's already weary lives in order to satisfy our own need to be important.

Today, in our nation, there are many professing Christians, politicians, preachers, and others who are taxing the nervous systems of the less fortunate, trying the virtues of those experiencing prejudice and discrimination, burdening the already weary lives of  those already oppressed, and they do so out of their own need to be important.

In the context of this desire for importance, Chapter 46 of the Tao Te Ching says, "...there is no greater sin than desire, no greater curse than discontent, no greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore, the one who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism expresses this as follows:

1. The Truth of Suffering - the world is full of suffering.

2. The Truth of the Cause of Suffering - the cause of suffering is found in the thirst of the physical body and illusions of worldly passion.

3. The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering - if desire (the root of human passion) can be removed, then passion will die out and human suffering will end.

4. The Truth of the Noble Path to the Cessation of the Cause of Suffering - in order to enter a state of no desire and suffering, one must follow a certain path.

It is interesting to me that religions, philosophies, and cultures all seem to offer instructions and advice on how to find our way and how to walk that path: the Tao Te Ching (which when translated, is the Book of the Way, or Path); the indigenous tribes of North America teach of The Harmony Way; Buddhism, with it's teaching on Dharma and the Noble Eightfold Path used; Judaism and Shalom; and the teachings of Jesus where he speaks of being the Way, Truth, and Life.

As a follower of the recorded teachings and example of Jesus, understanding this foundational and universal truth and teaching of "the way" sheds new light on his claim of offering the way, the truth, and the life (which, by the way, is more than simple biological life. It's a claim of offering way and truth that leads to a whole, complete, fulfilling life).

From this perspective it makes sense that he said, "Don't worry about tomorrow...what you will eat...what you will drink...what you will wear. This is why Jesus told the self important religious leaders, "If you love God, and if you love your neighbor as you love yourself, you keep all of your laws."

Pride, and the need to be important, causes us to desire bigger paychecks, yearn for more power and influence, scrape and scramble for higher position, and compete for more prestige. Pride and desire for importance causes us to love things and use people rather than love people and use things.

As living beings created to live in community, may we learn and practice humility. May we be content. May we serve one another without pride or delay.

Lao Tsu, Buddha, Jesus, and the Migrant Child

Luke 9:47-48

"But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.’"

The Tao Te Ching,  chapter 36, says, "That which shrinks must first expand. That which fails must first be strong. That which is cast down must first be raised..." It continues by stating, "Soft and weak overcome hard and strong." God, hear our prayer.

Recently, Attorney General Sessions quoted Romans 13 to justify the expansive and abusive strength of an oppressive and cruel policy that rips migrant children from the arms of their asylum seeking parents. There are many interpretations of this chapter, but any that does not consider it's cultural and linguistic context, are suspect, especially those that ignore the almost 2000 verses in the bible that command justice and peace.

The quoting the Apostle Paul’s admonition to obey the authorities (Romans 13), and thus the law, as a justification for horrific policy is not only abominable biblical interpretation and textual manipulation, it is woefully (and likely intentionally) ignorant of the broader witness of Scripture on the the issue of the law, power and authority, and the vulnerable. For instance, one should spend some time reading other relevant  passages; Revelation 13, and Isaiah 10 are both a good beginning.

The prophet Isaiah, in chapter 10 of the book of Isaiah writes, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless."

Buddhist teacher and activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book Peace Is Every Step, writes about "interbeing." He says, "To be is to inter-be." In other words, "We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing.

He writes about the rose and the garbage; how the rose decays and becomes garbage, and how the garbage becomes soil for a rose. He writes about wealth and poverty; how wealth produces poverty, and poverty creates wealth. He writes about the "good girl" and the girl on the street and how they help create the other. He encourages us to "look deeply into ourselves"and see her.

Maybe this is why Jesus was upset when he saw his disciples turning away the mothers that were bringing their children to him to receive a blessing. Maybe this was why he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me." Maybe this is what he meant when he summed up all the Jewish law into two; Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Why?  Because we can't be, we can't exist by ourselves. We have to inter-be.

What does this mean for us? It means I am the migrant child. You are the migrant child. We are the migrant children ripped from the arms of our fathers and the nourishing breast of their mothers.  By allowing this misinterpretation of Christian scripture - by remaining silent while families are destroyed and children are imprisoned in cages - We destroy ourselves.

To boldly go where no one has gone before...

Stanley Grenz begins the first chapter of his book, A Primer On Postmodernism, by quoting the opening lines of the TV Series, Star Trek. Those of us who grew up watching this sci-fi series remember well the opening line, “Space – the final frontier…” [cue theme music].  Hearing those words, I’m not sure there is a final frontier, be it space, or, where we go in search of truth. However, I do believe that Grenz does well in using the Star Trek theme as a lead into a basic discussion of postmodernism. “To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before” – that’s the call and quest of the postmodernist.

This blog concerns itself with the quest for a new way in living out the Christian

faith. In this paper, I'm exploring Brian McLaren’s discussion, in his book, A New Kind of Christianity, of what he perceives to be the present quest. Using the color scheme of the macrohistorians, he takes us through the spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet zones. McLaren refers to these color as quests: the red zone represents our quest for survival; the orange zone, a quest for security; the yellow zone, a quest for power; the green zone, a quest for independence; the blue zone, our quest for individuality; the indigo zone, our quest for honesty; and the violet zone, our quest for ubuntu.[1] This blog concerns itself with the violet zone and the quest for ubuntu.

            McLaren admits, “Not everyone wants to join the quest for a new Christianity.” But, he says, “…that’s okay. Skeptics’ resistance, suspicion, and opposition are actually a gift, and through their critique we on the quest will grow wiser and stronger” (p.13). Let me admit, that I bring some skepticism, resistance, and suspicion. However, I am not opposed to joining the quest for a new Christianity.

           On page 232, McLaren states that we now face the “seventh quest, the quest to heal what we have so disastrously broken, the quest to unify and liberate what we’ve tragically divided and conquered, the quest to rediscover a larger and more beautiful whole…” These are important words. Our human tendency is too often to divide into opposing groups and declare the opposition as heretical. Rather than seeking healing, unity, liberation and new discoveries, we instead, resort to attacks and ridicule.

            Brian McLaren perceives the postmodern to be presently in the indigo zone. At this place in the postmodern journey, it is honesty that is highly valued. Rick Diamond warns us that “…native Postmoderns have no sense that certain subjects…are inappropriate.” He says, “[Postmoderns] pride themselves on being honest and open; it’s a hallmark of their worldview” (p.4). The danger with being so enamored with honesty and openness is that our interactions with others can easily devolve into rudeness, obnoxiousness and condescension.  McLaren says, “We in the indigo zone feel comfortable casually critiquing, relativizing, and deconstructing the very systems, structures, doctrines, and institutions that red through blue cultures have worked, lived, fought, and died to build and defend” (p. 234). It would seem - for the postmodern - that the present frontier is the divide between honesty and ubuntu, and to go there is “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

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[1] Chapter 20, “How Can We transform Our Quest Into Action,” pp. 229ff.

Racing Toward Racism in America

      Al Sharpton is a racist. Rush Limbaugh is a racist. President Obama...racist. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, John Boehner? All racists. Your neighbor down the street? Racist. The milkman, mail carrier, cashier at the grocery store - probably all racists. As a matter of fact, for many people now days, just about everyone and every action is racist. The word racist is fast becoming a word used to describe everything, as well as becoming a word that due to over use, will soon mean absolutely nothing.

     The most basic definition of racism that I've come across is found in the American Heritage College Dictionary. It defines racism as "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others." I'll be the first to admit that I can can become overly obsessive about the meaning of words and statements. I'm sometimes accused of dabbling compulsively in semantics. Nevertheless, I do believe that it is extremely important to remain careful and diligent in making sure what we're saying is what we mean. It's equally important that we do not assume more than what is written, or said, or done. 

     As I understand it (and I'm open to the possibility that I could be wrong), racism is the belief that a certain race is superior (or, inversely, inferior) to another. More specifically, a person must believe that their race or ethnicity is superior to another's race or ethnicity to truly be a racist. The person may be a jerk. The person may be profiting from needlessly and deliberately stirring up racial discord. The person may exhibit anger or overly aggressive actions toward other races, but the person is not a racist unless that person believes that their race is superior other races.

     So...semantics? Maybe, but semantics are important. Racism is a much too serious issue to allow it's meaning to be diluted and defined as almost anything and everything we dislike about a person or a group of people. Does racism exist? It most certainly does and it is sad and terrible, based on the insecure, angry, mean-spirited views of those who refuse to do the hard work of looking within, doing the hard work of self-reflection, and truly knowing themselves.

     Your thoughts, comments, rants are welcome.

     

Beautiful and Messy

“Humpty-dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty-dumpty had a great fall;

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

-Ancient Prophetic Utterance-

Tony Jones, in The New Christians: Dispatches From the Emergent Frontier, writes about his church, Solomon’s Porch. He says, “It’s not a perfect church, but it’s a beautiful and messy church” (p. 211). He reiterates that thought in Dispatch 20, which reads: “Emergents believe that church should be just as beautiful and messy as life” (p. 213).

One Sunday, somewhere toward the end of the sermon, I had members of my congregation turn to one another and say in a loud voice, “I quit! I give up! I can’t do it anymore…but God can!” One teen jumped to his feet and shouted it from the top of his lungs, “I QUIT!!” The elderly lady sitting behind him grimaced but I’m pretty sure she’ll be back next week.

The “I quit” moment was the culmination  of the morning message, which, in turn, was a culmination of my three weeks in residency at Drew University in New Jersey, during which crisis after crisis seemed to hit the members of my congregation. The “I quit” moment was designed to help my congregation understand that rather than being “freaked out and running amok at the foot of the cross,”[1] why not just quit? Give up? Admit we can’t do it anymore? As the quote at the top of the page implies, for many of us in the church, Humpty-dumpty has had a great fall and we can’t put him back together. Be it imminent divorce, struggle with sexual orientation and identity, alcohol dependency, ministry burnout, loss of employment, a life and death battle with cancer, as well as many other issues, reality is and was that every one of those issues were present that day in the sanctuary of that little stone church building on the corner. Helping them quit and give up seemed to be the best thing that I could offer them. It’s a beautiful thing, but it’s kind of messy!”

After the service, one church member went home and posted, “I QUIT!” in bold letters on her Facebook page. Her Facebook friends were duly alarmed and I was even freaked out a little bit until I remembered what it was about. On the other end of the “I quit” spectrum, an elderly gentleman and pillar of the church approached me after the service and asked, “Why aren’t the altar candles lit?” I think he was suspecting some big theological shift in the way we were doing worship; however, the reason the candles weren’t lit was because the burned down candles were stuck to sides of the candle holder tubes and until we could dig the old candles out, we couldn’t put new candles in. Beautiful and messy!

I believe ministry and mission is at its best when it rides the razor edge of chaos.I subscribe to a theology of Almost Amok – not a frantic, freaked out “amokness” – but a loosely controlled spontaneity. I have subscribed to such a theology since the beginning of my ministry and used to question whether I was overly idealistic and possibly a little bit ignorant. I quickly learned that I was guilty as charged on both counts, but as I have been exposed to new insights and knowledge, I have also come to truly beleive that the messier church is allowed to be, the more beautiful it becomes.

My vision is not to abandon the fortress, but rather transform it into a sanctuary. I envision the frontier as passing through the sanctuary church, not outside of it. I envision the exploration and experimentation as being first within the walls and then outside. I envision walls that are solid when needed for protection, but permeable when the need exists for a way in – when sanctuary and acceptance is crucial. Such an endeavor is dangerous because the sanctuary is easily entered which makes us highly susceptible to harm. However, the alternative of a closed, guarded entry is even more dangerous as it makes us susceptible a slow spiritual death and ultimate irrelevancy.

The beautiful and messy frontier involves a constant maneuvering of place. It means pushing some edges only to the point of making some uncomfortable for the sake of creating a safe caring place of comfort for others. This must be done without making the former so uncomfortable that they no longer feel safe, leave the sanctuary, and return to a fortress spirituality. In other words, not everyone needs to know they are on the frontier. Not everyone must share the same motives or intentions for ministry to be done. The important task is to create a space where ultimate safety and care is provided for the optimum amount of people. This is done by facilitating an ethos of care and acceptance. Such an ethos is not conducive to the old fortress spirituality but lends itself well to an open, accepting, caring place as sanctuary.

Jones, in the epilogue of his book refers to emergent Christians as feral. I find that to be a sad and depressing viewpoint. He portrays emergent Christians as “pushing over fences and roaming around the margins of the church in America” (p. 219). I choose not to accept such a destructive and somewhat hostile view. His reference to emergent Christians as “once domesticated in conventional churches and traditional seminaries” (p. 220) seems divisive and exclusive, especially when compared to Emergent Village Values and Practices, #2, “Commitment to the Church in All Its Forms” (p. 223). “They occasionally wander back,” Jones writes, “feeding off the structures and theologies of traditional Christianity, but they never stick around. Attempts to redomesticate them will fail” (p. 220). I choose to be more optimistic and open. For me, the frontier is the place where traditional and emergent meet, and such a place is beautiful and messy.

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[1] Attributed to Bruce Bridgewater, former program director at Bethel Neighborhood Center in Kansas City, Kansas.

The Big Embrace

A Father's Day reflection in memory of my dad.

Back in 1954, a young man of 20 years of age, tried his hand at writing. When he died in 2009, his family found a poem. It seemed to tell his story in the symbolism of a mountain stream. In tribute to him, they printed the poem on the back of his memorial card. That man was my dad, and the following is his writing…

Mountain Stream

By

Homer Neal, 1954

The mountain stream flowed cool and clear,

Over hills – through woods that growed on each side;

The stream seemed fearless of the dangers near,

But sagely beamed out reflections of light none of its beauty would hide.

The stream glided by green pastures, where contented cattle grazed,

It flowed beside clean fields of corn, waiting for the harvest moon;

The stream saw fields of sage-grass, where the food had once been raised,

Then viewed a vacant farmstead that age had found too soon.

It wound its way thru’ valley and woodlands,

And found a course in country and towns;

It even surged on thru’ treacherous badlands,

Then quietly emerged where wonders of nature abound.

          This Father's Day will the fourth without my dad being with us. I wish  he could be with us this Father’s Day. It's become a tradition at church, at the the end of the Father's Day service, for the men of the church (older men, younger men, teenaged guys, young boys) to all gather at the front, embrace one another, and tell one another, “ I love ya’, guy!” Dad would like that! As a matter of fact, I’m sure he would been right up there with us – right in the middle of the big embrace. In some way, maybe he is...

          On the inside cover of my dad’s Bible, he wrote the following scripture verse; “Greater is he that is in me, than he that is in the world.” We're going to  wind our way “thru valleys and woodlands.” There will be “treacherous badlands.” But, we need to hold strong to the fact that the Spirit of God is greater than anyone or anything we face in the world. And, most importantly, just like my dad did that early morning in September, 2009, there will come a day, when you and I can quietly emerge “where wonders of nature abound.”

Who Changed the Price Tags?

Tony Campolo tells a story about growing up in Philadelphia. When he was a boy, the night before Halloween was called Mischief Night - it was a night for practical jokes and pranks. He tells about one Mischief Night, when he and a friend broke into a five-and-dime store not far from his house. They didn’t steal anything. He said, “We did something far worse!” They went around and changed the price tags on just about everything in the store! He says, “The next morning, people found that radios were selling for ten cents, while bobby pins were priced at ten dollars!” What was valuable had been made cheap, and what was cheap had been made valuable!

He tells the story to make the point that in America (and I would add - more and more - in Christianity) - it’s like someone has broken in and changed the price tags - more and more - we invest little time in what is important - and we spend more and more time on what is worthless! Our values - our priorities - get all messed up!