On Using the “Contemptible” Cursing Psalms

I walked into the Episcopal Church on Christmas Eve in 2006.[1]  The liturgy and the sanctuary were beautiful, but something in the course of the service threw me out of a prayerful space.  I had just finished a semester of work on holy war, so the idea of divine violence was fresh in my mind; and the psalm appointed for the service was one in which the death of enemies by fire or by the sword was mentioned.  It took a few minutes to re-enter a prayerful space.  I wondered about the appropriateness of the psalm to the occasion.[2]

When one prays with scripture, or reads the scripture prayerfully, can we do it to God’s glory with these verses?  Is, say, infanticide (let’s not mince words here) something holy by virtue of being in scripture (see below discussion of Ps. 137)?  Isn’t it a bit cruel in worship to make someone, who claims no hate for anyone, read/pray “I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies (Ps. 139:22)?”  How are such sentiments even honest to Jewish or Christian theology, which counsels love in the face of hate? 

I’ve gotten to the point where I can read the most objectionable stuff in the Bible with little difficulty.  But it took time and study.  Still, the objectionable stuff makes me pause because its own nature and because of my sensitivity to others who are not where I am in my thinking. 

Well, how did I get (somewhat) comfortable with this material?  I don’t seem to be a monster (though I recognize some very dark parts in my own soul and psyche).  My journey to an uneasy comfort with the material mirror’s C.S. Lewis’ own journey; in fact I was partly shaped by it.  So I offer my story along with Lewis’ own reflections, which takes one through seeing scripture as a full expression of humanity and placing ourselves in the text.  I will also model a form of Bible Study, in which one puts oneself in the place of biblical characters.

If we still believe that all Holy Scripture is “written for our learning” or that the age-old use of the Psalms in Christian worship was not entirely contrary to the will of God, and if we remember that Our Lord’s mind and language were clearly steeped in the Psalter, we shall prefer, if possible, to make some use of them…At the outset I felt sure, and I feel still sure, that we must not either try to explain [the objectionable material] away or yield for one moment to the idea that, because it comes in the Bible, all this vindictive hatred must somehow be good and pious.  We must face both facts squarely.  The hatred is there—festering, gloating, undisguised—and also we should be wicked if we in any way condoned or approved it, or (worse still) used it to justify similar passions in ourselves.  Only after these two admissions have been made can we safely proceed.[3]

I think Lewis is absolutely correct here:  The Bible, which is for our instruction, contains terrible and monstrous things that we must name as such (slavery, sexism, racism, infanticide, and genocide, to name a few). And we must not allow these things to appeal to us or approve the monstrosities of which we are capable. 

If the above statement about the Bible seems harsh or below the dignity of the text, then let’s take another example from the Bible.

Psalm 137, a deeply moving lament and probably the best known of the most graphic psalms, states that “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones (137:9).”[4]  Those are already strong words, but let us take it a step further and get the picture in our minds.  “May God reward the one, bestow prosperity and happiness on him, who tears Babylonian babies from their mothers and beats their brains out on the pavement! May that person never look back upon his deed with regret and guilt, but congratulate himself for having done the right thing and having been blessed by God for it.”[5]  Can you put yourself in the place of the mother, as a man wrests her screaming child by the legs and swings the child to the ground?  Can you hear the crack of the skull?  Then, the silence of the child and the wailing of the mother?

This is Psalm 137.  Infanticide isn’t the whole story (which I’ll return to), but it is the climax.

The Bible contains many such verses and stories that one can shy away from until one does the hard work of facing the passages’ gruesomeness with all of his or her imagination and senses.  It is also a very faithful way to read the Bible, because if one wants to theologize and allegorize these gruesome parts, it is still needful to know what the author literally means.  (And I think the Psalmist responsible for 137 was indeed being literal.)

So, once again, the Bible, which is for our instruction, contains terrible and monstrous things that we must name as such, and we must not allow these things to appeal to us or approve the monstrosities of which we are capable. 

I add here my own sense of scripture.  Scripture is indeed a window through which we can catch glimpses of the Divine and find all things necessary for salvation.  But, like all other writing by humans who tried through inspiration to capture something of the unlimited God in the limited world, we “see through a glass, darkly (1Cor13:12)."  Scripture, like all human writing, is not just a window to God, but a mirror.  We see ourselves in the text too.  What becomes distorted is when we look for God through the window, and misrecognize ourselves as God through the mirror.  This turns dangerous when we read human pettiness and hatred as divinely inspired, and seek an outlet for that hatred by attacking others.

Also, the psalms are songs, not systematic theologies.  They can still tell us something about God, but they tell us much more about the authors and their experience of the world.  To build an entire picture of God out of the Psalms (or the Bible) is a mistake of genre.  (Remember, the Word of God in its closest-to-perfect form was when the Word took flesh (Jn1:1ff.) But the psalms are a great place to learn about humanity.

This brings us to some uses for the psalms: In them we meet ourselves and the rest of humanity.  In them, the range of human emotion is displayed and explored. Consider the laments of Psalms 13, 86, 130 and the celebrations of 126 and 147 as expressions of the height and depths to which the soul can reach.  If a god could not reach us or be found in these places of the soul or body, what good is that God? 

It may be an uncomfortable truth that some of us meet ourselves in the psalms.  At least, this is an uncomfortable truth for me.  As one who battles exasperation, impatience, doubt, and anger under multiple levels of apparent calm, the angrier psalms remind me of what I am capable of and where I have let myself go occasionally (in thought and act).  The psalms do not warrant or legitimate the worst in me, but remind me that that these feelings are still present in me.  And the psalms remind me that my feelings do not conform to the grace of God that I know and experience, and that God will meet me in my basest thoughts to raise me up. 

Lewis also mentions another use for the psalms:

It seemed to me that, seeing [in the psalms] hatred undisguised, I saw also the natural result of injuring a human being.  The word natural is important here.  This result can be obliterated by grace, suppressed by prudence or social convention, and (which is dangerous) wholly disquised by self-deception.  But just as the natural result of throwing a lighted match into a pile of shavings is to produce a fire—though damp or the intervention of some more sensible person may prevent it—so the natural result of cheating a man, of ‘keeping him down,’ or neglecting him, is to arouse resentment; that is, to impose upon him the temptation of becoming what the Psalmists were when they wrote the vindictive passages.  He may succeed in resisting the temptation; or he may not.  If he fails, if he dies spiritually because of his hatred for me, how do I, who provoked that hatred, stand?  For in addition to the original injury I have done him a far worse one.  I have introduced into his inner life at best a new temptation, at worst a new besetting sin.  If that sin utterly corrupts him, I have in a sense debauched or seduced him.  I was the tempter.[6]

We occasionally wrong other people.  If Lewis is right, the psalms, by showing the range of human emotion, confront us with the results of actions we all do to one another.  What will we do then?  Will our friends, loved ones, and neighbors be able to read, “yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me (Ps. 41:9),” and see us in their reading of it?

This line of reasoning led Lewis to write that it may be incorrect to then read “the cursings in the Psalms with no feeling except one of horror at the uncharity of the poets.  They are indeed devilish.  But we must also think of those who made them so.  Their hatreds are a reaction to something.”[7]

Let’s then return to Ps. 137. 

 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,

 “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

 How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?

 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones (KJV).

Now, like putting yourself in the position of the mother of the child the psalmist wants killed, put yourself in the position of the psalmist.  Jerusalem has fallen, and warfare in the ancient days (or today) was not polite.  The psalmist may have watched his city destroyed in flames and looted, women raped and children killed, others enslaved.  The enslavers then laugh at the newly enslaved, saying “sing to us!”  War and captivity frame this psalm.  Is the anger and rage of the psalmist, in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the enslaving of his people, at least understandable even if the desire for infanticide is not of God?  I tend to think so.

The Bible, which is for our instruction, contains terrible and monstrous things that we must name as such, and we must not allow these things to appeal to us or approve the monstrosities of which we are capable.  But it is important for us not to shy away from these things either, particularly the psalms.  They are a source for theology, but more than that, they are a source for anthropology, sociology, and psychology.  If it is important for us to know ourselves in seeking to understand our relationship to God and our neighbor, the psalms serve us well.

But we also know from our theology and relationship to a God who loves Creation that there is a better expression of relationship to which we are called.  We find those in the psalms too, and in the rest of scripture.   

So when we pray the psalms, we pray for humanity, and give voice to the full range of human expression even when we do not feel the same way.  The chances are good that in praying the psalms, even the troubling ones, we are actually praying with the words someone else would wish to use, and so is in need of our prayers.  The practice of praying the psalms continually reminds us of what we are capable of feeling, and what others experience.  By the grace of God, may we find in the psalms’ examples which moves us closer to God by emulating God’s love and avoiding the impulses which destroy ourselves and others.

---

[1] Up until then, I had left and re-found Christianity, but I wasn’t looking for a community.  Yet, Christmas Eve would be the visit that would put me on the path to confirmation and perhaps ordination.  The church was also where I was wedded to Laura.  I rediscovered the importance of community to authentic expressions of the Christian faith.

[2] Also, shortly after the election of Obama, some conservatives began praying for at least the impeachment of Obama, some prayed (or pray) for his death.  Psalm 109:8 became a catchphrase for them:  “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”  Personally, I felt this was inappropriate, because when one puts the verse in context, what follows is this:

 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.

 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

 Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. (Ps. 109:9-15, KJV)

The use of this psalm seemed to me to be a good example of using God’s word to revel in one’s own hate and bloodlust.

[3] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), 22.

[4] Personally, the most moving rendition of this psalm, which captures the heartbreak of an entire people, is Don’s McLean’s rendition of the first verse.  The singing of that verse in a round echoes the lament of a nation by enacting it through voice.

[5] The source for this quote is from another person who wrote of C.S. Lewis’ work on the psalms.

[6] Reflections, 24.

[7] Reflections, 25

A Blessing for Preachers

May the Word of God clear your throat when you find it closed in fear or discomfort;

So that you may proclaim God’s vision for the world with courage and love.

May the Spirit and Mind of God clear your mind when you find it cluttered;

and inspire you when you find it difficult to write or speak for loss of words;

So that you may find the proclamation of the Gospel in your time and place.

May the presence of God open your eyes to the world around you 

and the congregation before you;

So that you may see God’s work all about you,

and act as a witness to a truth greater than the world as we see it.

And may the blessing of the One, Holy, Triune God be with you and go before you, now and forever.  Amen.

Amos and Advent

Daily Lectionary for the day:  Amos 5:1-13

“For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time.” -Amos 5:12-13

Today’s daily lectionary reading from is the sort of thing we’d rather skip over.  God is angry.  Amos is angry.  You do not get many good vibes off of the reading.  Why do we read this?  What is uplifting about this?

I asked those questions.  I do less often now.  I’ve discovered that it makes a difference whether you read your Bible in a warm study or library or living room, or if you read it sitting downtown on a cold day, as someone who appears homeless pushes a shopping cart by you.  Setting matters; God’s word means different things in different spaces and moves your heart in different ways when you find yourself among those whom Amos writes about. 

Amos and Advent are meant to disturb us.  There are reasons we are ‘waiting’ (a watchword of Advent), and they are reasons that can be obscured by the warm sentimentality of Christmas.  Advent is a season where time bends on itself and orients us in the past, present, and future.  Advent is the season in which we are reminded that, as we wait for Christmas, we also wait for nothing less than the complete inversion and conversion of the world as we know it.  Amos is still worthwhile to read because the world is not how God would want it.  We do not have to look far to see those who trample the poor (Amos 5:11) and the needy pushed aside (5:12).  If we would see “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (5:24),” perhaps we should be a bit imprudent, and have something to say about what we see around us (5:13).  Because, while we wait, there is work to do.

Advent and Mary: the Mother of Christ and Subversive Radical

Last year I ran across a rewriting of Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) named “The Canticle of the Turning.”  And, on the first day of Advent, I have been thinking about the Blessed Virgin Mary's connection with the season, as well as the season of Advent's connection to the Second Coming of Christ.

During Advent we wait (the watchword of Advent) for Christmas—the Incarnation of God, the First Coming of Christ—and we celebrate that historical event, as well as Christ taking up residence within us.  But Advent is also about waiting for the Second Coming of Christ.

The Second Coming is an uncomfortable subject whenever it comes up, and rightfully so.  People abuse the idea, make predictions that do not come true, and use the Second Coming to scare people into submission.  Yet we say in our Creed and our Eucharistic prayers that “Christ will come again,” so we must have something to say about it.  

I’m not going to set out a prediction, but I will make a bold suggestion.  Advent is the season in which we wait for nothing less than the complete inversion and conversion of the world as we know it.  This is the promise of the Second Coming.

That is quite a claim, but Mary’s Magnificat is a prime example of a celebration of God’s promise to upend the world as we know it.  This promise of God’s decisive work in our world is celebrated in our liturgy.

Mary’s Magnificat is a song which celebrates God’s complete inversion of the world as we know it into what God would want to see.  She sings of God’s promise of mercy; that the proud are scattered, that the mighty are cast down while the lowly are raised, and that the rich are sent away empty and the hungry are fed.  The "Canticle of the Turning" highlights what is in plain sight in the Magnificat, but is somewhat muted in the song’s familiarity and Mary's meek and mild image.

 

To make it plain:  the Magnificat is subversive; and “The Canticle of the Turning” follows Mary’s sentiments with allusions to other biblical images.  Below are the words to the “Canticle of the Turning (sung to the tune of Star of the County Down).” The best version in recording--in my opinion--is the version by Emmaus Way.  I encourage you to read it alongside the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) and envision the upending of the world about which Mary sings.

____________________________

My soul cries out with a joyful shout
that the God of my heart is great,
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things
that you bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on your servant's plight,
and my weakness you did not spurn,
So from east to west shall my name be blest.
Could the world be about to turn?


Refrain
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn!


Though I am small, my God, my all,
you work great things in me,
And your mercy will last                          
from the depths of the past
to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame,
and to those who would for you yearn,
You will show your might,                          
put the strong to flight,
for the world is about to turn.


From the halls of power to the fortress tower,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears
ev'ry tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more,
for the food they can never earn;
There are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed,
for the world is about to turn.


Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God's mercy must deliver us
from the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard
is the promise which holds us bound,
'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around.
_________________________


My meditations over Advent will continue on some of these themes.

 

"Lord, when did we see you?" - Sermon for Christ the King Sunday

Matthew 25: 31-46 The Judgement of the Nations

 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is my favorite passage in all of scripture.  There are 3 reasons this is my favorite passage.  The first reason is that the parable points to my social ethic in a nutshell; a vision of what the church should be to the world.  The second reason is that it speaks to the side of me that strives for perfection--which I know is an unattainable ideal--but it is an ideal I respond to nonetheless.  The third reason this is my favorite parable—and it took me a while to realize this—is that what seems so clear in Matthew because of his matter-of-fact presentation (Goat/sheep, left/right, righteous/unrighteous, etc.) is actually not clear at all.  There is something new to see every time we come to the sacred texts of our tradition, particularly in the hard sayings.  I have come back to this text repeatedly over the years and I have seen something new every time.

So, this is my favorite passage in all of scripture, even though it has this incredibly scary side to it—this specter of everlasting fire and judgment.

It is easy to read this passage and miss the Gospel.  There is Good News, but Matthew means to jolt us, which may mean spiritual whiplash as he confronts us with judgment. But he does not leave us there.  Matthew does not condemn us.

If you were to search for a phrase that defines the essence of the Gospel of Matthew, the phrase “righteous perfection” would do the trick.  In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”  God is not only perfect, God is considered righteous.  And we see in our Gospel passage that “righteous” and “unrighteous” are words used to distinguish the sheep from the goats.

Righteousness, now there is a heavy term.  It brings up some pretty ugly rhetoric in the world today.  Now, I came from a religious background in which going to Heaven or Hell depended on the way one thought.  To stray from what the group thought and taught meant one’s salvation, one’s righteousness, could be called into question. Righteousness was best defined as the avoidance of sin.  Well, okay, but that isn't all righteousness is. I eventually left that world because I couldn’t keep thinking in the ways I grew up thinking.  In fact, I left Christianity.  But eventually I came back, and when I did, I started looking for what salvation and righteousness meant to me.

It was this passage which spoke to me.  It looked like it was a clear teaching that seemed to be the needed expansion to the theology in which I was raised, and it confirmed my growing sense of what it meant to be faithful.  I came to think that what we believe means nothing if it means we do nothing for those less fortunate than ourselves.  It turns out that in this passage (and in the prophets), that is what righteousness means.  Righteousness also means to live the imperative of the 2nd commandment, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves,

Matthew means to jolt us into this righteousness— into actions that confirm the best of our faith.

At that point I thought I had it figured out.  I thought I could tell the sheep from the goats.  I thought I knew I was a sheep…

But then I thought maybe I was a goat.  Do I do enough?  Am I righteous enough?  Why doesn’t Matthew provide a better checklist, a number of people I’m supposed to feed, clothe, or care for?  That way I can do my part and know when I’m done?

Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness…But not give us a false certainty about ourselves.

I returned to this passage again and I realized that in the passage, neither the sheep, nor the goats, knew how they ended up where they did.  A sense of dread came over me.  I thought I had traded an impossible faith—believing things that I could not in good conscience believe—for an ethical ideal too far to reach.  There was no certainty that I would ever do enough. The upside to this revelation was that I realized that if I could never do enough, how could I judge others?  The freedom from judging others became a relief.  I am not God.  I’m responsible for myself.  I can only search my own heart.

Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness… and take away the ability to claim we know others’ hearts so well.

I returned to the text yet again and noticed that the righteous were not feeding, clothing, and visiting out of fear of Hell.  They did it because of who they were.  They did it because it was right.  It’s as though Matthew and Jesus knew modern theories of moral development.  But this is also spiritual development.  It is a mark of moral and spiritual maturity to do what is right because it is right, not because we are afraid of punishment or looking for a reward.  And it’s an ongoing process that we participate in.  There’s freedom and relief in knowing that.  Jesus calls us to follow God, to be lured to God...with love...not with flinching fear.

Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness... and show us that true righteousness is not the fear of Hell, or the fear of God, or thought of reward, but to do what is right for right’s own sake, which is to love our neighbor as we love God.

The thing that always caught my eye about this passage—even as I was slow to notice these other things-- was the phrase “that which you did for the least of these, you did to me.”  Today is “Christ the King” Sunday, and we have an opportunity to reflect on where we find God in Christ in our own life.  In the Gospel passage, we recognize the King, who tells us that He has actually been with us the whole time.  Christ the king is present in those on the margins, among His people.  The righteous and the unrighteous do not see Christ in the story.  Yet Matthew records that Jesus is telling us where to find him.

Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness by telling us who it is we also see in the faces of the marginalized.

Christ is present in the least of these who we see before us.  How radical is that?  That behind the eyes of all who stand before us, we can catch glimpses of the Divine.  Matthew, when he wrote about the birth of Jesus, points out that the name Immanuel—which applies to Jesus— means ‘God is with us.’[1]

God is with us…and we see that image of God…the image that God created…the image shared by Christ when he walked the earth as God incarnate…the image which the Holy Spirit enlivens daily… that spark of the divine…that image of God… present in those who stand or sit before us hungry, thirsty, ill-clothed, sick, imprisoned.

Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness by telling us that  Christ  is  still  here.

Perhaps something more can be said about the righteous and the unrighteous… Something more than the righteous do merciful things and the unrighteous do not.  My guess is that the righteous find blessing in this life on earth from their experiences with others.  They experience a sense of holiness that comes from conversation with others, from sharing a meal with others, and from trading stories with others.  In doing so the righteous follow the example of Christ who came to serve…not to be served, and who identified with the type of people polite company did not want to keep around.  

In the gospel passage, the righteous built relationships.  They invited people in, spoke to them in visits, broke bread and drank wine together.  The unrighteous, who may have done these things if they knew Jesus would show up, did not bother with relationships. They did not bother with people in need.  Sure, the unrighteous may not have meant anything bad or malicious by the marginalized.  They just did not bother at all.  Matthew is telling us that apathy is not righteous, and in ignoring those on the margins, the unrighteous missed seeing God.

Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness by entering into relationships that matter…relationships that express both love of neighbor and love of God by bringing us together.

It is easy to miss the Gospel in this passage because Matthew means to jolt us into righteousness.  But he does not leave us in fear.  We are not condemned.  Matthew points out to us that our faith is best expressed in works of mercy that matter in this life…that it is a matter of turning one’s heart—which no one else can see and judge—to the point where doing what is right becomes second nature.  The trick is to learn to see God, by loving God and our neighbor.  The refusal of this love is our choice, and is a refusal of relationships that matter.  

We are not in this alone.  God does not leave us to our own devices only to pull the rug from under us.  God is present in us and with us (as in the Holy Eucharist) to help us see the sparks of the divine we may otherwise miss.  We are all God’s own.  And God loves us.  Let us love God back; and let us love our neighbor too.

---

[1] Matthew 1:22-23

Sermon: What is the Currency of the Kingdom of God?

Year A

Matthew 22:15-22

As a seminarian, I’m often asked a few questions by nearly everyone I meet at diocesan convention. Questions like:  What is seminary like?  How is seminary going?  For me, the experience of seminary is hard to boil down into something simple, but I will say this:  sometimes seminarians are put into awkward positions. 

For instance, if you were a seminarian, there may come a day when you haven’t been to your home parish in over a year, and on the day you return to preach, the reading from the lectionary is one of the Bible’s most explicitly political passages.

What do you do with that?

Contemporary American thought tends to support keeping religion and politics separate.  We do not often want to hear politics preached from pulpits.  We tend to think that religion is above politics—that religion should remain unstained by political processes. 

Or maybe it’s the other way.

Maybe religion stains politics…

We’ve seen through history and in current events that mixing religion and politics

can yield deadly results and oppressive policies.  Maybe, we think, it’s better to see religion as purely the realm of the spiritual, and politics the realm of the material—what we experience in the real world, outside of the church.

Still, the Gospel reading shows Jesus in the thick of a political situation, and reminding those around him of their responsibilities to God. 

I beg your indulgence, because in a time when many of us tend to live dualistic lives in between the secular and the religious, I believe it makes a difference if one’s faith leads one to allow constraints and divisions and oppressions that are already present in the world (and in the church), or leads one to participate in a faith that seeks to set people free.

But let’s begin at the beginning.  What’s going on in this story?  What is so political about it?

Jesus has come into Jerusalem just days before his death.  He and his entourage are in the temple.  He has been telling parables in which the Pharisees appear in a bad light.  Jesus makes them appear to be hypocritical and unbending religious purists. 

The Pharisees have had enough.  So the Pharisees think about ways to embarrass and discredit Jesus.  Maybe, they think, we can get him to say something embarrassing or treasonous.  The Pharisees send some of their own to Jesus with a question, along with some folks named in the gospel as Herodians.

Some background may be helpful here, because this is an odd part of the story.  You see, the Pharisees and the Herodians would not have liked each other.  ‘Herodian’ means a supporter of Herod Antipas, who was not a very nice guy.  He’s the guy who had John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, beheaded.

Herodians were folks who supported the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.  Pharisees did not like the Herodians because the Pharisees were not fans of the occupation; the Pharisees thought the Herodians were sell-outs.  But a mutual hate can make for strange friends, and Jesus made both the Pharisees and the Herodians nervous. 

Jesus threatened the power they had fought to keep

For the Pharisees’— it was their bid for the people’s religious lives,

For the Herodians— control of the occupational government. 

This meant that both groups had the most access to power; And someone like Jesus, who called their use of power into question, was a problem to be ‘resolved.’

The group comes up to Jesus, and they ask their trick question.  A yes or no question which should have embarrassed Jesus no matter which way he answered it.  If Jesus said to pay the tax, He would appear to be a sympathizer of the oppressive government and lose credibility with many of his followers; the Pharisees win.

If Jesus said not to pay the tax, he would be guilty of treason.  An agitator.  The Herodians would not let someone who openly protested their rule live.  Rome does not like rebels.  If Jesus says not to pay the tax, the Herodians could have him killed, and the Pharisees still win.

Pretty brilliant, right? 

Politics as usual in occupied territories.

Jesus throws them a curve ball by asking for the coin. The coin was a denarius.  And it looked a lot like coins we would see today, but with a major difference.  Our quarter doesn’t name George Washington as God; the denarius did name the emperor as God.

For a Jew to be carrying a coin that called anyone but the God of Israel divine—in the temple of all places!— should have been embarrassing.  That the Pharisees and Herodians could produce the coin probably made them a bit sheepish.

Jesus then asks who is on the coin. 

They answer ‘the emperor,’ and Jesus famously replies “Give to the emperor that which belongs to the emperor, and to God what belongs to God.”

With this response the Pharisees and the Herodians are humiliated.  They walk away amazed; surprised that they did not see that response coming.  Jesus managed to take their yes or no question about taxes and turn even that to God.

I want to suggest that the gospel reading for today is

more than Matthew bragging on Jesus’ rhetorical skills,

more than a tale showing Jesus’ political prowess,

more than a scriptural permission for Christians to pay taxes,

and more than a handy reading to pull out and read for church pledge drives. 

The gospel reading today is a challenge to us because we are  all called to ask a few questions:

What bears the image of God?

What is the currency of the Kingdom of God?

Does this have bearing on

Our politics today?

In asking these questions we are then called to a process of formation; a process of sifting through our lives to find out what bears the image of what would want to rule over us in this world; and what bears the image of God. It is a matter of discerning what is from the kingdoms of this world, and what is part of the Kingdom of God. 

This is an act of discernment that we engage on our own and in community.

What makes this task difficult is that we are not just in the world or just in sync with God. 

We are both of God and in the world. 

We look at both the best and the worst of what we carry within us, and like coins in our pockets, we examine these things closely to see whose image we find on them.

Perhaps we begin with the work of exchanging

Within ourselves and with God’s help

Hate for Love

despair for hope

darkness for light

injury for pardon

doubt for faith.

In doing this work inside us, we learn something about God and God’s desire for the world we see before us.

Then we begin to see God’s economy and that every person bears the inscription of God.  The image that God created, the image shared by Christ when he walked the earth as God incarnate, and the image which the Spirit enlivens daily. 

But sometimes that image of God in other people is hard to see. The world and other people try to stamp other inscriptions on us all. 

Inscriptions of

race,

gender,

nationality,

ability,

wealth,

even religion.

How do these inscriptions influence us to act? 

To take a look around our country: 

Race can determine your level of care in the hospital, when you watch a staff that is helpful to one patient become cold to another.

Gender can determine what positions you can hold in business, government, the Church—if not on paper at least in practice.

Nationality can determine whether or not you can be treated as a person by the government-- Whether or not you are known as an ‘illegal’ or subject to enhanced interrogation techniques, otherwise known as torture.

Ability can determine if you are seen as a child of God or a cross to bear for family and friends.

Wealth can determine whether or not you are respected, or considered a human being of worth.

These inscriptions are powerful.  They still have a hold on me.  It takes a daily effort not to see the person in front of us as the sum of what marks society inscribes on them, but as Children of God, bearing God’s image, and of precious worth. 

Then we are called to act on our discernment.  To act as though our recognition of what is God’s and what is the world’s has meaning that is more than a theological proposition, but a compass to guide our actions in life. This may have political consequences.

The effort is to see what God sees; to acknowledge the different set of standards of God’s Economy— an economy based on life, and flesh, and blood, and warmth, and love—instead of an economy of metal, and paper, and scarcity, and neglect.

Then we give to God what is God’s by recognizing the image of Christ

in the stranger,

the friend,

the sick,

the hungry,

the thirsty

the imprisoned,

and the poor.

And ultimately, we may find that recognizing what belongs to God is more rewarding than to bow to the inscriptions the world fosters or bow in homage to economic systems that betray or deny the inherent worth of others.  In so doing, we give back to God— and give to neighbor— that which bears God’s inscription:  love, hope, light, pardon, faith, and help.

To recognize the dignity of others in spite of what the world has set as important is a step toward acknowledging a part of the reign of God; and acting on that reality.

…and that has political consequences. 

May your discernment of what bears God’s image in your life be fruitful.

Amen.

CPE: Running from God's luring

“Yes, but how do you know you are called?” He asked again, for the third time since we began to talk fifteen minutes earlier. 

He was a man in his late 60s, in the hospital for heart problems and a probable stroke three days prior.

The first time he asked, I was a bit taken aback.  I’m not often asked this question outside of divinity school or church circles.  I’ve written essays about this, but I still do not have an answer to this question that I can give in under 30 seconds.  I mean, what do I include? How much of my personal history? Feelings?  Mystical experiences?  The wisdom of a community gathered to discern?  Answering the “how are you called?” question is hard enough to answer once, but trying to answer it three times in a short period of time is difficult.  You start to wonder if there is any way you can speak of calling in a convincing manner. 

Personally, his question to me was also a taste of what I did on a day-to-day basis:  I asked probing questions into subjects that are felt very deeply.  It takes a soft touch to do this work with the gentleness needed to gain trust and keep people from fearing so much self-disclosure.  It is a skill I’m still working on, as one who is sometimes more comfortable with the style of a police interrogator.

I tried to answer, knowing that giving a little of myself tends to get something in return from the other person…and I wanted him to open up a bit.  We had passed the point of a visit in which a chaplain is easily dismissed.  He wanted me there.  But this was a man who informed me that he was willing to talk until it was a subject I shouldn’t touch.

The second time he asked, I thought it could have been that the possible stroke was interfering with his memory.  Then he asked a third time.

People sometimes try to deflect conversation from themselves…is he trying to keep the conversation on me to keep from talking about himself?  I thought, as I tried to answer his question again. Why would he want me here just to deflect the conversation to me?

Then it occurred to me.  He wasn’t deflecting the conversation away from himself.  We aren’t really talking about me.  Somehow we are talking about him.

I answered the question again for a third time, and rather shortly.  Before he could respond, I quickly followed up.

“You have felt called before, haven’t you?” I asked knowingly, with a confidence I did not necessarily feel.

He looked at me—hard—for a moment.

“Yes.”

“How long ago was that?”

“It was around the time I was twenty-five.”  The hardness and the walls he had put up quickly crumbled.  He considered becoming a minister, but he became a lawyer instead.  He had a successful practice.  But I got the sense that he was missing something.  He still felt the call lingering—if not so fresh, it was certainly not forgotten.  We spoke very candidly for about five minutes.

“Do you regret not acting on the call?”  I asked.

“I do,” he said, “and I’ve had a good life, but I do occasionally wonder what might have been.” 

At this point his wife and grown son came into the room, and his manner changed.  People for whom a different role was assumed.  And then his minister came in.  The patient was a devout parishioner in the minister’s eyes.  But could he be more?  Ordained or not, what were the contours of this patient’s priesthood?  What could the contours be.

I participated that day in the Sacrament of the Sick with the patient, his family, and the minister, but I didn’t get a chance to see him alone again.  If I could have, I would ask him if his calling could be re-pursued…how his current occupation could be re-enchanted with the presence of God…I would explore with him how to ask God for guidance.  Would the regret go away?  I doubt it.  Could this patient learn how to follow the lure of God even if not ordained?  I hoped so.  I still hope so.

Being around the seminary means I meet a wide range of people in different places in their life and journey with God.  Often the story of someone’s calling by God is partially a story of running away from a God who emanates a Divine Lure; a beckoning to join God in God’s work in the world.  The joke everyone seems to get is that “you can only run away for so long.” 

Are you running? 

From what are you running? 

To what are you running?

CPE: Taking affirmations seriously

One of the best pieces of advice I received from a mentor when I began my discernment process was to take affirmations of the calling seriously.  It sometimes becomes a balancing act between remaining humble when people are complementary, and being too self-deprecating to the point where you almost deny the call.  The bottom line that is important--and difficult-- to keep in mind is that while God participates with limited humans in the work of the Kingdom, the call is real, and it does not make one superhuman or elite.

I don't think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that I would not have been able to finish CPE without two things:  prayer and affirmation.  In CPE, the batteries run low, the problems do not get fixed, tragedy weighs heavy.  Affirmations serve as a form of recharging.  The path of one's life--and God's role in the life--becomes clearer when fellow pilgrims, even people you may have never met before, stop to tell you that you are on the right path.

One of those moments came at the best possible times.

It had been a long, long night and morning.  My own morale was running low.  Three patients passed. One at 10pm, another around 3am, the last at 5:30am.  I was frustrated because I wasn’t paged to come to the first two deaths.  I think it very important to be there, and was sad that with all the time I put into the family and the unit staff, the staff didn’t call.  I found out about the deaths about 20-30 minutes after the fact and because I went to check on the family who had left soon after the passing.  

Because of this, I stepped in those rooms to read the commendatory prayers long after the family was gone.  Once while the nursing staff was preparing the body to transport. I guess I needed the closure.  

At 5:30am, a nurse called to tell me that the patient's death was imminent.  Indeed it was, the patient passed in the five minutes it took me to walk to the unit.  The nurse met me and told me that it was unlikely that the family would come in.  No one should die alone.  I walked into the room and offered the commendatory prayers and prayers for the absent family.

Come to help, you saints of God;

Hurry, you angels of the Lord;

Take up this soul {your servant} 

and offer her before the face of the Most High.

No one should die alone.  I believe it’s the Christian community’s responsibility [actually, a human responsibility--not limited to the religious--to be present when a fellow human is at their most alone] to accompany our sisters and brothers as far as we can in this life, and prepare both them and us for their departure to whatever afterlife there may be.  The image of us letting go, and the past saints and angels taking hold for the rest of the pilgrimage bears heavily upon me.  I still feel a person’s death deeply, even if I’ve just walked into the room, yet I feel privileged to be part of their journey into Light Perpetual or the arms of God.  

I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically drained when I was called to the oncology ward.  A patient, a woman in her 50s, was on 'comfort care.'  Stage-four lung cancer had ravaged her lungs, and blood was filling them.  She was in and out of consciousness, but still lucid when she was awake.  With her lungs filling, she could not speak above a whisper.

"They're getting ready to say goodbye," the nurse told me before I walked in.

As I walked in, I drew the attention of a man standing at the foot of the bed.  It was the patient's brother; the patient was asleep at the moment. He and I spoke briefly after I introduced myself.  The family, led by the patient Grace*, had jointly made the decision to stop fighting.  To end the pain.  To die well.  

Three women walked in shortly afterward, Grace's sisters and one of the sisters' daughters.  We spoke briefly, little more than introductions and where they had traveled from to be bedside.  It was immediately clear that this family was close, and that there was no conflict in what was going on here.  The noise of five other people in the room and the conversation woke Grace.  I walked to the side of the bed and introduced myself to her, taking her outstretched hand.

"The nurse said that y'all would like a prayer."  She moved her mouth, but nodded 'yes.'  I asked that they bow their heads.

"Eternal One, in your Word, we are taught that those who know love, know you.  The love in this room is so apparent between this family, and we know you are present.  Keep us mindful of your presence in this difficult time.  Grant us peace with the decisions we have made.  Give us grace and forbearance with each other in the days ahead.  Meet us in our grieving.  Lord, bring Grace into your presence when the time comes, and until then, keep her in the sure knowledge of your love. Amen"

Was I done, my purpose served?  Everyone looked up, but Grace did not release my hand.  I knelt next to the bed.

"Grace, would you like some time alone with your family, or would you like me to stay?"

"Stay," she whispered.  She removed her oxygen mask, "Would you tell my family a few things?"

I spent the next fifteen minutes passing some last words from Grace to her family, with me bending down to put my ear near her lips to hear the whispers, and then relay the words to her family.

Be strong.

Remember their love for each other.

Keep the prayer shawl (which she received from another chaplain), and give it to other family members when they are ill or in trouble. 

For about 15 minutes I helped her talk to her family in words of wisdom, comfort, and memories, until she was too tired to continue and closed her eyes to rest.  It was a privilege for me to witness and participate in these acts of love.  When I was about to go, her sisters and brother thanked me profusely.  But what has stuck with me are the words of one of Grace's sisters.  

"Robert, I am a hospice nurse.  I wish I had you as a chaplain."

Moments like this, when in weakness I re-found the path which God put in front of me through others, when something was clearer to another person than to me, were what kept me going.

They still do.

Take affirmations seriously.  They are a way God talks to us.

_______

*Not her real name.  Grace passed away later that evening, while I was off duty.