Boy Scouts and Bad Arguments

I was not going to say much about the decision to allow gay youth to participate in the Boy Scouts.  I was never a scout.  I have no connection with the organization other than knowing a few people who have participated.  My attention has been elsewhere, even as I was glad others were putting in the time to keep gay youth from being barred from the organization.

However, this past week I’ve seen two articles about some of the backlash the Boy Scouts have received.  For instance, churches are deciding not to host/sponsor the scouts, and parents are pulling their sons out of the organization for religious reasons.  While the scouts are outside of my experience, the Church, Christianity, and religion are not.  I will pull a few things from these articles that I find to be problematic: the winning-out of what I call “fear, caste, and cooties” and the matter of for what—and for whom—the Church exists. 

[I will not address homosexuality and Christianity directly here.  Time and space make such a detailed argument unwieldy for a blog post.  But through the study of scripture, theology, and history, as well as my experience of Christianity with LGBT brothers and sisters in Christ, I find the categorical condemnation of homosexuality as sin to be deeply flawed.  This is not to say that there is no such thing as sin in relationships or the use of sex.  I simply locate the moral locus in what people believe and do (or leave undone) instead of who they are as a person created in the image of God, and so possessing an essential dignity worthy to be recognized.]

First, some general observations from the first article.  One pastor defended his decision, saying "we don’t hate anybody...we’re not doing it out of hatred. The teachings of the scripture are very clear on this. We’re doing it because it violates the clear teaching of scripture."

There is a fascinating paragraph in which the pastor of one of the churches says 

"The Boy Scout Leadership has handed down a decision that none of the children in Helena or elsewhere associate with why they are Boy Scouts. This is a decision that was made by adults that may or may not reflect the opinions of any Boy Scout in the troop that we host. I hold the Helena Boy Scout troop with no fault whatsoever."

This is an odd sort of Christian love.  The first pastor is saying that they are not motivated by hate, but near-apathy and unequivocal separation are necessary and acceptable. The second pastor is guaranteeing that all scouts are all equally ostracized from his church for a decision he acknowledges they had no control over and may not agree with.  Personally, I find this to be closer to "fear, caste, and cooties" than Christianity.

The concern I want to explore in some depth is the matter of for what and for whom the Church exists.  Such questions about gate-keeping help to clarify when Christians step into the role of 'judge' that is supposed to be left to God.  A rather telling exchange occurs between a father and son in the second of the above articles:         

Mike A. Miller, a union electrician in Mount Holly, N.C., who said he was pulling his 9-year-old son, Cody, out of the Cub Scouts and would step down as assistant den leader of Pack 45. Monday will be his son's advancement ceremony to Webelos – as far as he will go with the organization

“It was hard to explain to a 9-year-old the complexities of why I was telling him that we had to quit,” Miller said. “He told me, 'Daddy, it should be like church. Everybody should be welcome.'”

Miller said he then told Cody that the point of going to church is to seek forgiveness — not for being all-inclusive.

“I said, 'These people aren’t asking for your forgiveness,'” Miller, 51, told NBC News in a telephone interview. “What they're doing is saying, 'this is what I am and you have to accept me like I am. I'm not coming to try to change.'

It should be mentioned that this story is told by the father, mediated by the reporter.  Let us however take it at face value--that we have an accurate account of the father's conversation with his son. The father and the son are talking about two different things.  The son makes the claim that everyone should be welcome at church.  That is a statement about who the Church is for.  The father countered with the claim that the point of going to church is to seek forgiveness.  That is a statement of what people do at church.

The father conflates these two issues--of what the Church is for and who is invited--and so creates a false dichotomy.  For ease, let's call the issue of who is invited to the Church "welcome" and the issue of what the Church is for--forgiveness, according to the father-- "sanctification."  Sanctification means "to sanctify" or "make holy."  It is a term that can cover a range of moral and religious concepts that include recognizing sin, asking forgiveness, repentance, and seeking greater holiness. These two issues that the father conflates, when separated, should read like this:

1. Either the Church welcomes everyone or the Church sets barriers on who may participate.
2. Either the Church accepts everything about a person and makes no moral claims on a person or the Church recommends the seeking of forgiveness for sin.

The father is assuming that mere welcome implies that no claims are made upon those who are welcomed.   He instead begins his reasoning by arguing about what people do at Church and arrives at the conclusion that the Church cannot welcome all. 

The child's assertion comes closer to good theology than the father's.  This is partly because the son avoids the conflation.  And I should be clear that I am not arguing for a morally nihilistic community with no sense of critical engagement with the lives of members, nonmembers, and the larger world.  What I mean to say is that the child is more correct about for whom the Church exists, and the father displays a presumptuous right to judge others.

Let's look at the son's statement.  There is plenty of scriptural evidence that the Church exists to welcome all.  The arc of Luke-Acts (and the other Gospels) is the opening of God's redemption to all.  Paul argues throughout his letters that through the work of Christ, redemption is open to all across boundaries that formerly divided people (including race, gender, and economic status (see Galatians 3, Colossians 3, Romans 3 and 10)).  And contrary to the father's assertion, the mission of the Church is to be inclusive, so that all things are brought to God's loving rule (1Cor 15:28).  In this way, his son is correct.  For the father to deny this would set the father outside of the bounds of orthodox scriptural interpretation on questions as basic as "for whom did Christ die and rise, and who may be saved?"

Now, the father would probably agree with the assertion of universal redemption in the abstract. He seems like he might take the Bible seriously.  But the way the father sets up his false dichotomy seems to say that there are people who are not welcome in the Church.  He conflates unconditional "welcome" into the Body of Christ through which salvation is granted with rejecting the work of recognizing sin, asking forgiveness, and seeking greater moral perfection.  (Also, the father's assertion that "the point of going to church is to seek forgiveness" is too small of a vision for the Church.  There is much more to the Church than that.)

It is at this point where an inappropriate judgment comes into action.  The father is so convinced that LGBT folks are resistant to change that he sees it as better to bar them from participating in the church.  [I should note that the change I think the father would want is for LGBT people to conform to hetero-normative standards of behavior.  When I speak of change, I mean the processes of sanctification that help one seek the holy in all relationships, gay or straight, romantic and otherwise.]  This position the father takes, which assumes some are resisitant to--or beyond all--redemption, goes beyond the moral critique that Christians are (necessarily) called to do, and enters the territory of judgment.  'Judgment,' that action Christians are to forgo because it is the purview of God,  is "not an injunction to spineless acceptance but a caution against peremptory legalisms that leave no space for acts of compassion and witness (see Mt 7:1, Jn 7:53-8:11).”  The father's willingness to speak with finality about the moral status of anyone--and so preemptively bar them from the community of God--is then an inappropriate judgment, motivated by fear and stereotype. 

It is also a judgment God has the power to thwart.  I believe that we will be surprised to see how God continues to work at extending love into places where we lesser beings thought we would never find such grace.  My hope is that Christians continue to seek that love wherever it shows itself.

Mary and Martha

Sermon--Pentecost, Proper 11, Year C

Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

Mary and Martha, Mary and Martha.

The story seems so familiar.

Mary: the quiet dutiful disciple at the foot of Jesus soaking everything in.

Sometimes Mary comes to stand as the example of the contemplative life, where all one needs to do is lead a quiet life of prayer in order to have chosen the better part.

Then you have Martha: the distracted busybody who invites Jesus over only to become annoyed when she is the only one doing anything.

Sometimes Martha comes to stand as the example of what happens when Christians or churches try to do too much, try to be too active, and so miss out on what is really important. In some very extreme forms, the perceived danger of being a “Martha” leads to people finding hospitality and social outreach —which are concrete ways of showing concern for one’s neighbor— to be secondary, and concerns more-easily dismissed.

Too often, when one hears this story from the Gospel, one hears more of “Mary or Martha” as though one must choose to follow the example of only one of these women, or as though these two women represent ideas that are always opposed. Some care needs to be taken before this brief exchange between Martha, Mary, and Jesus leads us into forcing ourselves and others into a false choice between what seems to be two opposed patterns of life.

To do this, we’ll need to look at what went right —and wrong —with Martha, what Mary understood from the beginning, and what we might learn from both about the nature of hospitality.

Let’s start with Martha. What was going right here? First of all, she was showing hospitality to Jesus. Hospitality is incredibly important in the whole of the Bible. If we were to just stay in the book of Luke, recall that Jesus sent first the twelve disciples, and then the seventy, to the surrounding towns to preach.[1] He sent his disciples with nothing —not even an extra shirt or sandals— making them totally dependent on those whom they would meet. In short, the disciples were given the responsibility to proclaim the news of the Kingdom of God, and they were expected to live on the hospitality others provided. Jesus says they were being sent out like lambs among wolves because they had nothing about themselves on which to rely. The hospitality they were shown—or not shown— was in effect a test of the town. To turn away a stranger in need —particularly one who was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God—reflected poorly on the town.

Jesus, being the wandering preacher that he was, also had to rely on the hospitality of strangers and friends. Martha did right by inviting Jesus in, and taking on all of the responsibilities that doing so entails. This includes food, comfort, protection.

And if you have invited someone to your home, for a night or for an extended stay, you know how busy you can be. You have to buy extra food, wash more towels, maybe give up the exclusive claim to your own bathroom...

This busy-ness was not the problem, since we see that Jesus relied on hospitality for himself and his disciples [further, in Acts 6, we see the disciples assign folks to serve in hospitality so that neither preaching or service  to others are neglected].

So what was the problem for Martha?  Well, the problem was not that she set herself to complete many tasks, the problem was that she was eventually consumed by them.  The problem was not that she was trying to be hospitable, and so wasn’t also sitting at Jesus’ feet; for Martha’s hospitality and Mary’s attention are both ways of showing devotion. Instead Jesus names the problems as worry and distractibility.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?
Prone to worry? Easy to distract? Anybody?

The problem was that in the midst of her tasks, Martha’s “practices of hospitality were eclipsing their purpose. Hospitality that is anxious and troubled loses its focus, which is Jesus, who is Lord and guest.”[2]

Understanding the focus of our hospitality as having something to do with the Christ we proclaim goes to the heart of what hospitality is, and why Christians are called to practice hospitality with such care. We learn in the Gospel of Matthew that what we do for even the least of those whom we meet is also done for Christ.[3] We learn in the Book of Genesis that all are made in the very image of God, and so are worthy of respect and dignity by virtue of sharing something so central to our own humanity. An act of hospitality on our part is an act of love for another who bears the image of God in Christ. It is an enactment of the ethic of the Kingdom of God in which all people have a worth intrinsic to themselves.  Our practices should call into serious question worldly ways of determining the worth of individuals, ways which all too often will not look past the surface layers of wealth, race, or gender...to name a few examples.

Martha, in her effort to call her sister and her guest to task for not cooperating in her own vision of what the visit should have looked like, lost sight of why she invited Jesus in the first place.

As for Mary, it was this single-minded focus on Jesus as the guest, and not simply her presence at his feet, which made Mary the clearer example of discipleship in that very moment. In this exchange between Mary, Martha, and Jesus, it is that matter of focus on God in Christ to which Christians need to attend, not a false choice between more prayerful or more active manners of devotion.

So. Okay. Mary and Martha were lucky enough to have Jesus in the flesh in their very home. How do we, today, find that focus? There are ways, both prayerful and active, which have been passed down through the generations. Reading and praying with scripture is a direct encounter with others’ experiences of God. Through the scriptures, encounters with God are still possible As we immerse ourselves in a story we continue to tell and take part in. Prayer in which we leave room for God to speak into our silences remind us that we are in conversation with God, not possessors of a one-way wish-granting hotline. Serving others with hospitality, here at church and elsewhere throughout the week, attune our eyes to finding God in unexpected places. Even starting a conversation with someone you do not know can become an avenue to give or receive God’s grace —and coffee hour is a good place to practice doing this.

These practices: encounter with scripture, prayer, and practicing hospitality, can help us keep a focus on God as we seek to serve our neighbors.

In the Christian tradition, we also have examples of holy people trying to maintain a balance between contemplation and hospitality. In Benedictine monasteries from the 12th century to today, the arrival of guests was seen as an opportunity to serve Christ in the visitor, rich and poor alike. And monks [well, at least the priors] would suspend their own fasts—their own self-imposed spiritual disciplines— in order to eat with their guests.[4] This is an example worthy of the attention of all Christians.

Now focus is one thing. I want to end by talking briefly about distraction, and leave you with a few questions. It is easy to lose sight of God in the bustle of our lives. After all, Martha managed to get distracted while Jesus was sitting right there.

What are the things in our own lives that lead to distraction? What keeps us from being attuned to the murmurings and messages of God?

For Martha, it was the demands of the household that blinded her to the memory of why she was showing hospitality in the first place.

What about us, as individuals or as a community?
What holds our attention?
Where might God be calling us to make a change, so that we may hear more clearly that which God is calling us to do?

May your listening be fruitful.

Amen.



__________
[1] Lk 9:1-7, 10:1-16.
[2] Matthew L.Skinner, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, p. 267.
[3] Mt 25:31-46.
[4] The Rule of Benedict, Chapter 53.

Who gives us our identity?

Sermon for St. Augustine's, Tempe
Lent 5, Year C
Philippians 3:4b-14

May only truth be spoken, and only truth be heard. In the name of the holy and undivided trinity, amen.

We’ve all been there.

The party, the gathering, the athletic field, or the meeting where one person turns to you and asks “So, what’s your name?  What do you do?”

In essence, you are being asked “who are you?  What is your identity?"  

And the calculations start. You begin to ask yourself,  “How do they expect me to answer?” “After my name, do I lead with my job description? My department? My alma mater? My ordination status? My spouse’s name? My child’s name?”  

At least that’s how I see some of these conversations, but I’m an introvert and kind of shy. Extraverts may have less angst over these types of meetings.  

I often wonder about these ways of marking our identity. They are descriptive; they help the other person get to know you. But sometimes these identity markers can seem superficial, right? When you are talking about these markers, have you ever noticed that you can tell the difference between the merely descriptive markers of identity and the ones that—in saying them—bring you joy?  Even more slippery is telling the difference between the markers that bring joy to speak, borne of a deep connection with the best and truest expression of our own self—as opposed to the ones that show a pride in external achievements we think other people should recognize.    

Paul had these issues in mind when he was writing to the Philippians. What we didn’t hear in the reading is that there were folks in the congregation in Philippi who are trying to push for circumcision as a requirement for being in the community.   Paul is saying that it is not the case; that the surpassing value of being a child of God is the root of the faith of Christ.  Paul here is challenging the externals markers of religion that are a lesser substitute for the greater measure of the faith:  one’s relationship to God through Christ.  

This text is rooted in a conflict in a church 2,000 years ago, but the principle Paul is showing us is still relevant.  In essence, this passage from Paul is asking us what external markers we rely upon as a substitute for the harder work of being in relationship to God.    

I did not understand Paul’s goal until I decided to rewrite the passage to match my own circumstance.  When I rewrote it, it read something like this:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the religious Institution, I have more: moved through the Commission on Ministry with some expediency, the safe option for ordination with all placement options on the table by virtue of the societal privileges that come with being white, male, straight, married, and young; as to the canons, a transitional deacon; as to zeal, one who can out-Episcopal the cradle Episcopalians; as to manners and etiquette of the middle class, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as foul water and excrement*, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the markers of religion, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.  

This kind of faith sounds difficult—at least it does to me—and this passage uses some difficult words like 'faith' and 'righteousness.' In their current Christian usage, ‘faith’ and ‘righteousness’ sound like a matter of mere belief or mere intellectual assent. But these terms have a depth that goes beyond the mind.   They are words meant to penetrate to a more visceral level—words more felt than thought.   These terms are better understood as trust and relationship. And like the relationships we have with others in our lives—particularly those relationships through which we find our identity and tap into a deep joy— trust and love are to guide our relationship to God.        

But it is so easy to take our performance, our accomplishments, our positions in life as the signs of God’s favor or our deserving of God’s love.   Or to think somehow our actions let us earn God’s love. This is not the case.   Paul is pleading with to us realize that our identity as people of faith is not simply about what we do.  We are not simply fulfilling a checklist.   Our identity is ultimately about living into who God made us to be:  God’s beloved.   And Paul reminds us that there is nothing —nothing!—that can separate us from the extravagant, unearned Love of God (Rom. 8:38-39).

Personally, I sometimes see this as difficult to remember.   I am considered a religious professional, and the outward markings of my position—including the odd situation in which I am supposed to be a servant to all and yet I am treated with deference—can quietly displace God, and I can start to think that I’ve somehow done all of this work on my own.  

Paul is warning us against this supplanting of our relationship to God, and Paul suggesting to us that the most important marker of our identity—the one relationship of love through which we are enabled to love others—is our relationship to God. 

And we are to be wary of any lesser thing in our faith that tries to detract us from this relationship.  

Now, a note of caution here. This does not mean our relationships to other people are necessarily weighed less than our relationship to God.   Jesus noted that the first commandment is to love God, But the second is like unto it: That we love our neighbors as ourselves. The love we show to others is to be the same as the love and trust we show to God, and the love we show others is our participation in the love of God working through us.   

So what?  Why does this matter? 

Let me suggest two reasons.  

Number One:  

We are in the latter part of the season of Lent. Perhaps it is time for a check-in.   Lent is a time where one can choose a discipline to take up or something to abstain from in one’s life. That is not wrong, but the discipline one chooses can easily become a way of trying to please God through an action that does not necessarily bring us closer to God.  

The downside to this way of seeing Lent is that if our attempts in the discipline seem less than perfect, we may think that God is disappointed in us. At the very least we may be disappointed in ourselves. In doing this, we turn religion into a weapon against ourselves, and our own success or failure becomes our measure of our relationship to God.   This is not what God has in mind for us!  

So I’d like to suggest another way to think about how we may have decided to spend Lent:   Let go of any sense of failure —if we have any— and ask how our discipline aids us in developing our relationship to God. What spiritual streams in the desert do we see?   Where do we perceive God doing a new thing in our lives?  Let those thoughts guide us through the rest of Lent and into whatever God may be laying before us.    

Number Two:  

I would encourage us to think about how we or other people might mark our identity —as parent, sibling, spouse, friend, director, professor, manager, deacon, priest.   What markers of identity are sources of pride that replace or mask the relationship to God that God is calling us to?   What relationships are we in that bring to life a deepening of love, and so show us an aspect of the life of God?  

In thinking deeply about who we are in relationship to God and to others, we might find those markers which will let us speak with joy about who we are, about who God is to us, and about what really matters in our lives and in our relationships.   Imagine how speaking those truths that might change the conversations we find ourselves in at parties!  

Amen.

_________________________

*Note: The word Paul uses in Philippians is often translated as 'rubbish,' but in the Greek there is a connotation of human waste. In essence, Paul said a naughty word.

The ghosts of Macbeth and Herod

Morning Prayer

A homily

1/30/13

Mark 6:14-29:  The beheading of John the Baptist

When Herod heard John, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to John.

-Mk 6:21

This past fall, there was a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Edgerton Park.  It was my first time seeing the play live.  While I knew a broad outline of the plot I was surprised by the potency of the  psychological breakdown I witnessed in the character of Macbeth.  As I have thought about this passage from Mark over the past few days, I am reminded of the scene in which Macbeth’s friend, Banquo--who Macbeth sent men to murder--appears as a ghost and sits in Macbeth’s seat.

This unhinges Macbeth, and Banquo is a silent witness who convicts Macbeth of his deeds.  I find that scene to be a powerful testimony to how the insatiable lust for power and self-protection can become all-encompassing and soul-destroying.

Herod is seeing ghosts, too.  In fact, Herod says ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.’(Mk 6:16).

I think Herod and Macbeth have something in common here:  men whom both Herod and Macbeth respected had to die to preserve their own illusions of power.  But they eventually come to regret the decision.

The comparison between Macbeth and Herod may seem strange, but bear with me a moment.   

The narrative of the beheading of John appears in Mark and Matthew.  (Luke treats the subject as an aside and little more).  In Matthew, the story is a bit cleaner.  Herod’s villainy is clearer. Herod hated John, but could not kill him because he feared the people (Mt 14:5).  There is a sense of Herod’s personal willingness to kill John in spite of the mere political considerations that had previously kept John alive.  Herod did not want to upset the people. But an oath was an oath.  John had to die.  This is how I thought of this story in broad outline.  Herod was enabled to do something evil he wanted to do anyway.

Mark tells a slightly different story:  

“Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and Herod protected him.

When he heard John, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to John (Mk 6:20).”

Something about John appealed to Herod.  Here is what I think was happening: somewhere deep within Herod--having withstood years and years of political calculation and power plays--John could touch the good within Herod.  John could bring to the surface the better urges of Herod in ways Herod could not fully comprehend.  In this we see that something in Herod could have chosen the good.  Both Macbeth and Herod chose otherwise.

And now, after seeing what happens to Macbeth in the banquet hall when the ghost of Banquo enters--how Macbeth rages in fear and confusion--I now can’t help but wonder what it would have been like in that banquet hall when Herod’s daughter asked for John’s head.

I wonder if Herod could show emotion.  Could you see that he was "deeply grieved"?  Did he have to keep cool to avoid appearing weak politically?  Would someone be able to tell he had been outwitted? I want to see Herod’s face when he decides not to risk his honor, not to save a life.

You see, I think when Herod ordered John killed, he knew that something of the good within himself was also being diminished.  Herod created the ghost of John, which would serve as a reminder of the shame that came from choosing to kill for something so small as saving face at a dinner party.

But before I make Herod a moral monster--a class apart from the so-called everyday folks, and so safe from comparison--I am reminded that sometimes I might be able to see the same conflict on my own face.

Even in something so service-oriented as ministry, we are entrusted with positions of power.  We may not deal with matters as dramatic as the decision over who lives or who dies, but we are entrusted in various ways with some authority over a community.

Theologian Karen-Marie Yust writes that:  “The challenge of the 21^st century is for the Body of Christ to read our own decisions in light of this story and ask ourselves whether the choices we are making are self-protective, or part of God’s transformation of the world.”

I invite you to wonder with me.

Who in our lives will be, or already is, John the Baptist to us?

Who will simultaneously perplex us and yet call us to something of the work of God we may not yet understand?

If a time comes when we may need to choose between the preservation of our ego or our status or the institution for the sake of power…or the transformation through God of those very same things...

What will we do?

May you live a life free from ghosts.

Amen.

Spirituality and Guns, part I

In the weeks following the shooting in Newtown, CT, I had intentionally chosen not to talk about guns.  I instead chose to wait, step back, and see how the conversation would unfold.  What I found more personally pressing was exposing and denouncing "Christians behaving badly", who were doing what amounted to victim-blaming in the service of cultural goals (example: the horrid "We took God out of schools" meme).

My social networks were a flurry of activity as the various sides on the issue of guns began sloganeering and editorializing (and continue to be now that Obama is rolling out gun control measures).  In the midst of the fury, the slogans, the bumper sticker mentality, the ultimatums, and lines drawn in the sand (more on these later), I retreated inward to start sifting through my own conflicting feelings about violence in general, guns in particular, and how we talk about these issues in the United States.  In essence I was following my own advice, taken from Diana Butler Bass in a blog post I wrote after the shooting in Tuscon in 2011 in which nineteen people were shot.  I began sorting through how I, and other Americans, allow our virtues to blind us to our vices; I started asking where fear was reigning in the national conversation and within myself.  I am looking for a true hope.

What follows is more of a theological reflection--a journal entry--than a closely argued case for one side or another. Often I find that I come to understand my own positions by exploring closely that with which I disagree. I'm trying to parse the reasonable from the rhetoric and explore how the conversation functions.

This will also take a few posts over a period of time instead of being one large post. Gun ownership in America is a complex topic--- and even though I am approaching it from a theological perspective, 'secular' ethics, civil rights, sociological studies, personal behavior of myself and others, and rhetoric intertwine and complicate the matter. 

My own history with gun ownership

From about 2005 until August 2010 I possessed a handgun.  As I struggled with my sense of vocation and becoming a priest, I was also re-evaluating why I had a gun...what it said about me as a person and my worldview.  I eventually came to the conclusion that, for some reason, I didn't need the gun anymore.  While Laura and I were in Mobile, on our way to Connecticut and seminary, I left the handgun boxed and with the extra magazines on dad's dresser without comment.  In my mind, I was pulling away from my militaristic past (now I realize it was always more of a front than a reality) to my pacifistic future.  While I am still quite comfortable around guns, and I find target shooting as enjoyable as I always have, the desire to own a gun or an identification with the martial meanings of guns hold no sway with me anymore.

The more difficult thing to admit is that I do not have a gun because I saw one night how I could have taken a sixteen year old boy's life  if I had been armed.  I didn't know him, he didn't know me, but he pointed an air-soft pistol at me in the dark.  If I had my handgun that night (it was a rare night that it wasn't with me), he might have died for his own stupidity before I noted it was an air-soft pistol, and I would be living with the guilt of killing him.  When he was arrested, he was told by the officer who arrested him that he was lucky to be alive.  Indeed, the officer drove an unmarked SUV as part of the drug unit; pointing a gun at that vehicle would have been a terrible idea.

Years later, and after leaving my gun in Mobile, I walked out of my apartment in New Haven to walk my dog, and discovered a teenage boy trying to steal my bicycle. Not having a gun forced me to react in a different way and to treat it as a small matter as we looked at each other and spoke, instead of me running to find the means to 'defend' myself or my bicycle, or reacting out of anger. 

But there are times when fear makes me wish I had a gun.  The noise in the apartment at 3am.  The shady gas station we stop at on our cross-country trips.  The walk home in the dark after reading about how a graduate student was robbed earlier in the day. But, within seconds, I recognize the fear for what it is and choose a different way to view the world, even as I maintain the now-instinctive methods of situational awareness I've learned. 

But the other thing I have learned is that, as fearful as I sometimes feel, it is nothing compared to the psychological pressure women or people of color feel on the same walks home.  Women are objectified as sexual objects and draw much more unwanted attention; and so have to worry if the man whose come-on they just ignored will turn violent.  People of color, particularly black men, find others paying attention to them and wondering if they "belong" in the same neighborhood or sidewalk.  And by our socio-economic status, Laura and I live in a relatively safe area, which makes walking our streets less risky than other areas of New Haven where violence is more common [New Haven received some press two years ago for being the fourth most dangerous city according to the FBI].  In a sense, I live with much less day-to-day danger than others because of the privilege I receive by being male and white.

My renunciation of guns as a means of protection has put me in strikingly uneasy place.  I get the arguments for gun ownership, but I'm also able to see how advertising and media are able to make weapons downright seductive, and the desire for guns leads to an over-consumption and demand for them.  And now, I see where such advertising works because it does not have the same influence over me.  I also see where the seduction and mystique of guns still has influence over people I know.

The mystique and seduction continues even as people claim that guns are simply a tool. But it is difficult to imagine that hammers and screwdrivers would be made to look as seductive or as "cool" as guns.  Imagine common tools in the hands of the actors in these pictures.

See also:  every film made by John Woo.

 

Also, on Facebook you will notice that people pose with their new guns much more frequently than they do hammers and baseball bats.  Guns are of a different order.  We treat them differently than other tools.  We take pride in them and in our improving use of them in a way we do not with other tools.  Further, other tools are not designed for lethality, even if they could be used to kill.  A friend was recently bragging to me about how a particular shotgun round he had purchase increased lethality because of the design of the shell.  We do not talk about levels, levers, and pulleys this way. I can no longer look at guns as objects of desire, but I can see how they are advertized as such.

Anyway...
What has been occupying my thoughts lately is how our purposes for gun ownership or gun renunciation reflect a theological position for Christians (and an ethical worldview for everyone, religious or not).  The decision to own a gun speaks to an understanding of the Christian's role in Creation, fallenness of the world, relationship to God, relationship to neighbor, and the nature of sin.   The decision whether or not one owns a guns can also demarcate an area in which we do not allow our faith tradition to inform our actions, either intentionally or unintentionally.  But even this represents a theological position, as one may decide that gun ownership is properly the realm of civil law and rights without recourse to theology.  My next post will take up matters of worldview, and more about why I abandoned gun ownership.

Who taught you the Faith?

All Soul's Day homily
Berkeley Morning Prayer
Hymn: "Be Thou My Vision"
Gospel Reading: Luke 12:13-31

Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? –Luke 12:25-26

I could stand here, and tell you about how as graduate students in divinity school, you should take this message to heart.

That you should take and make of this message a shield with which to guard and protect your burgeoning and precarious practices of self-care, such as they are.

(sarcasm)
I could tell you that we third-years have been to the mountaintop!
And that as third-years we've seen the wisdom of Jesus’ teaching,
that we are experts in self-care,
that things no longer matter to us,
that we’ve shed all vestiges of worry,
and that we can impart this knowledge in pithy statements at Morning Prayer!
(/sarcasm)

I’m not going to tell you that.

I instead want to tell you about someone I knew, who taught me what this passage of scripture looked like in its living.

My great, great aunt Mable was born in 1916, within months of the end of World War 1. She was a poor farm girl from Mississippi who moved to Alabama.  She did not have any children of her own, but she was like a grandmother to me, having raised my mother and my mother's siblings.

She seemed ancient by the time I could start comprehending age.

Around 2006, she turned 90, and her health deteriorated fairly rapidly. She passed away in 2009, and I had the honor of officiating the graveside portion of her funeral.  This became the single most important event in discerning my call to ministry.

Over the 20+ years I spent with her, she showed me a living example of these words from Luke. She had seen much, experienced much, and displayed in her life a calm that comes from knowing what to worry about, and what to let go of.

Almost everything could be let go of.

She trusted in God in ways that I could not understand, and yet she was able to trust in ways that I came to recognize and appreciate, even when I had left the institutional church. In my more rebellious thoughts, I saw her faith as simple.  I’m slowly coming to see how profound simplicity in faith can be, even when one's theology is complex.

By the end, in her last two years, she was flipping this worrying business on its head.  She was ready to die before the rest of us were ready to let her go.  I am struck by how she faced each day in those final years. She did not worry. She faced each day not simply from the viewpoint of one waiting to expire, but as one waiting for a final appointment.

She wanted, more than anything, to finally see God face to face, and to greet God.

By the end, God was her vision. 
Her thoughts in day or night, 
Her wisdom, 
her inheritance, 
her treasure, 
her heart.

As I watched her in her living, I learned what it would mean to settle not for earthly things. From her I learned lessons about leaning on God in a faith that brings one not to worry, but to a longing for our better nature, which Christ exemplified.

I could talk to you about the passage from Luke, but instead I’d like to ask you a few questions.

Who in your life has already taught you this lesson?
Who taught you about longing for God instead of lesser things?
Who taught you to trust God?
On days like All Saints and All Souls, how could you best thank them for the gifts they have given you?

Amen.