Short Sermon

I'm giving a sermon on Thursday for our St. Brigid Community Eucharist. The sermons generally don't go over five minutes.

The text I'm preaching from is Luke 13:1-9, which on first glance is pretty tough. Here is the rough draft.
__________________

I can imagine the conversation revolving around why these things had happened. We still ask the same questions, don’t we?

Two tragedies had recently occurred; Pilate had desecrated bodies during a religious service, and a tower had fallen down, killing eighteen people.

Something interesting happens next. Something that goes against the grain for many people. The prevailing idea of the time was that the gruesomeness of the deaths must have been punishment for their sins. Does this sound familiar? Pat Robertson...blaming the Haitian earthquake on the supposed sins of the Haitians…Last week, a delegate from Virginia made a point that women who have abortions are subsequently punished with disabled children later on.

But Jesus confronts this claim. “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no!” Jesus says something similar in the Gospel of John when He is asked by His disciples why a man by the side of the road is blind. Jesus seems to be telling us that we are not afflicted by life as divine punishment.

God is not an abusive father, ready to mete out punishment once we step out of line. We aren’t killed for our sins.

Jesus rejects retribution and yet calls for us to repent, to turn to God, anyway. Why bother?

We are called to a harder Way. It is a mark of maturity to do what is right because it is right, not because we are afraid of the alternatives or punishment. Jesus calls us to follow God, to be lured to God...with love...not with flinching fear.
_______________
Any thoughts?

Well, why not try?

I've decided to attempt to get an academic paper I've written published in the Christian Century, after some revisions to make it fit the medium.

Below is the rough draft from which I'll start editing. I'm going to add a story at the beginning of a priest I know who was dismissed from jury duty because he couldn't separate his faith from his sense of justice. There are many other examples of this that I know about, including a UCC pastor in Oklahoma who was told that mercy had no place in the courtroom while he was arguing for mercy--at least not the death penalty-- in the sentencing of a black, lesbian, mentally-disabled woman . The paper is currently devoid of religious connotation, which I would add as well...particularly since I think Christians, as a matter of principle, should not separate notions of care or justice. Feedback would be appreciated.
______________________________________________________

Carol Gilligan suggests that most moral situations can be interpreted in terms of both the ethical perspectives of justice and care. Yet, it is an open question as to whether the justice perspective is better suited to social and political contexts and the care perspective is better suited to more personal relationships among people. While I agree with Gilligan that most moral situations can be interpreted validly in terms of either care or justice, I will go further to say that the two are not easily separable---that care and justice coexist along a spectrum. I would like to illustrate that, while there may be differences in degree in the equilibrium between care and justice, tension between the two perspectives is necessary to avoid a shift from virtue to vice by drifting from the mean of an outcome that is as ideal as possible. I will then address the differences between a societal debate and a personal debate using the issue of abortion and argue for the appropriateness of both care and justice as public ethical frames.[1]

Some definitions are in order. For our purposes, justice is defined as the emphasis and application of abstract rules revolving around one’s freedom from interference. To steal is to transgress another’s right to property; to kill is to transgress another’s right to life. Justice is also concerned with negotiating hierarchies of rights in a fair and just manner. This notion of justice is very minimalist in that it is not very “personal.” The caring perspective emphasizes the avoidance of breaking relationships and negotiating competing needs through communication; one must avoid hurting others while maintaining relationships that are healthful for oneself. This notion of care implies interpersonal relationship, whether we care for it or not.

One way of interpreting the relationship between justice and care is to think of care as the property which keeps justice within a mean. What the care perspective contributes to justice is a stronger emphasis on contextualizing the norms. Therefore, care may keep justice from either becoming solely retributive, tyrannical, or blind to circumstance (in favor of a rule). Likewise, Gilligan’s post-conventional mature care ethic is not only the ability to empathize, but also the ability to reason toward a balance of one’s own needs and the needs of others. Justice is similar in that one must be able to account for both parties’ claims in order to bring about a just end. Justice, as the ability to determine the fairness of disparate possible actions, could be seen as a way keeping a mean between excessive egoism and disproportionate self-sacrifice in cases of determining how one should care. The difficulty of finding and maintaining means of justice and care come more from matters of degree as opposed to a difference of kind. Exactly how much care (mercy) should justice allow? Who rightfully has a claim on another’s time, emotions, and attention? Neither care nor justice disappears in either case; it is a balancing act between the two.

So, whether justice should be the primary framework in social and political contexts is not so much a question about justice in itself, but a question of how care should be allowed to temper justice. The debate is familiar: shall our society writ large be “tough” on crime or “soft” on crime? To some extent, the question details how our society seems to operate: the state is more retributive in its standard for justice while private individuals are (generally) exhorted to be forgiving and caring of others. That level of caring and forgiveness is not generally treated as the state’s responsibility or duty, particularly in the criminal justice systems. Hence mercy in the courtroom is sometimes vilified as dereliction of duty on the judge’s part.[2] Yet, it is also true that in matters of education, healthcare, and the environment, a perspective of care is more pronounced even at the societal level (couched in terms like social justice). There are very few clear lines to demarcate when one shifts from justice to caring.

Finding equilibrium between justice and care comes into sharp focus in the debate over the morality (and legality) of abortion. Issues of care and justice are debated internally, on the individual level. To whom shall one do justice; for whom shall one care? Who (or what) is more important, the mother or the fetus? How will a decision to abort affect relationships? One must determine if abortion can ever be just. If abortion is not just and should therefore be restricted, will one allow for exceptions? Here is where a perspective of care is either denied (no exceptions allowed) or considered (in particular cases, abortion may be acceptable). When one conclusively (or perhaps just tentatively) satisfies oneself with a position, then they enter the public debate. And it isn’t a matter of translating one’s personal “caring” rhetoric into “justice” for the benefit of the public sphere …one maintains one’s own sense of an answer to the issue based on how he or she resolves the tension between justice and care.

Nor should such a translation be required. The balancing act between justice and care is the more proper way of conceiving of both public and private moral issues than a divided sense of justice and care that requires one to reframe in order to enter public debate.[3] To allow care and justice, in all of the viewpoints’ intertwined complexity, is also beneficial since the public debate should not become exclusive of other valid viewpoints. To consider the public realm merely the realm of justice would be to cripple the very real interplay between what justice means and the realities that frequently confound such meanings.

I have sought to clarify the relationship between the perspectives of justice and care as well as their relationship to public and private ethical debates. While one may speak accurately from perspectives of care and justice, the two are bound in a complex relationship and hold each other in necessary tension. Precisely because of this complex relationship, the notion that one must translate one’s private (supposedly) caring perspective into terms of justice in order to enter public debate is unhelpful and presents a false dichotomy. Instead, public debate should allow for the advocates to bring their own arguments as they have formed them. To exclude those who think in terms of an ethics of caring is to intentionally create an unhelpful blind spot in public discourse.

---

[1] This essay is based upon the readings provided in Mike Martin’s Everyday Morality: An Introduction to Applied Ethics, 4 ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2006), 79-83.

[2] I am making a broad generalization here, for mercy in the courtroom is seen by some as exemplary…as attempting justice that is restorative as opposed to merely punitive.

[3] Reframing one’s argument is a wonderful skill, though. It enables one to effectively communicate across audiences.

_______________________________

Redemption of the Sea

I was asked to write a devotion for Lent. I decided to take up the bad reputation of the sea as my topic.
_____________________________________________________

“The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;
the God of glory thunders;
The Lord is upon the mighty waters.” Psalm 29:3

Like most storms on the Gulf Coast, one can expect them like clockwork on summer afternoons and yet still be surprised by how fast they move. Laura and I were half of a mile offshore when the thunderclouds and lightning started to move closer, indeed corralled us. Yet, with all of the potential power of nature surrounding us, we lost the wind in the very real calm before the storm. The little sunfish sailboat, about 10 feet long, was barely moving. Neither of us panicked, but it did seem to be a matter of concern that the lightning was coming closer to the metal mast of our tiny boat.

The sea/deep/waters (tehom in Hebrew) is sometimes a scary place. The sea—over which the spirit moved in Genesis 1:2—is the sign of death and primeval chaos that God held back when God let creation be. Through the sea, God led Israel away from death in Egypt. It is out of the deep that we call to God (Ps. 130). By the waters of Baptism, we die and rise again in Christ. There are many other mentions of tehom; but finally, in the book of Revelation, we read that at the consummation of the Kingdom, the sea shall be no more (Rev. 21:1).

We live in this sea, do we not? We have each known the chaos, been in proximity to death, and will someday experience the end.

Death and chaos, and yet…creativity. Today’s Psalm reminds us that God is still upon the waters. It was also from the sea that God brought forth life (Gen 1:20)…and God is still there, opening possibilities and beckoning us to participate in our own lives. The sensing of this Divine Presence allows us to risk because we can trust in that Presence.

That day, Laura and I rowed ourselves back to shore with an oar we keep in the sailboat, landing mere minutes before the storm came upon us. Yet, we are always willing to go back out.

Why not risk other adventures?
__________________________
May I suggest a hymn for today?
“Eternal Father, Strong to Save”

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger's hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe'er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.