Monday, October 26, 2015
Vacationing
Due to a minor surgical procedure and the need for some additional rest, Carl will not be in the office for the next two weeks. He will return to the Shiloh office, and to the Shiloh Insider, on November 9. See you then!
Monday, October 19, 2015
Two Paths Have Diverged in the Wood
Jesus turned his face toward the salvation of all people in the seventh chapter of the Gospel According to Mark. The Syro-Phoenician woman called him to accountability beyond his own race, type, kind and clan. It is astounding that Jesus, immediately thereafter, altered the course of his earthly ministry. He resolutely sets his face toward the self-sacrifice of Jerusalem.
Since the seventh chapter, Jesus has walked and talked with his disciples, teaching them about the nature of this self-sacrifice. They do not understand the concept. It is possible that they are too caught up in the traditional organizational and institutional thinking in which they had been raised to comprehend a sacrificial formula. Instead of understanding and supporting Jesus, they argue about which of them is the greatest, lobby for position, tell the children who crowd around Jesus to go away, and, this week, tell poor old blind Bartimaeus to be silent. "Shut up, old man. He isn't going to pay any attention to you, a poor beggar...Get a job and lay off the booze!"
The Syro-Phoenician woman would not settle for Jesus' racial epithet. The children continued to jump and hop and crowd around Jesus, being children. Blind Bartimeaus sees the truth and follows Jesus on the path of sacrifice. While the disciples imagine the gilded hallways of power and authority, Jesus directs them along dirt paths of giving up what one is given for the sake of others...every other and all others.
The Church has, for a long time, walked with the disciples down those gilded hallways of power and authority, legislating morality and demanding that the culture honor the standards of its religious orthodoxies. The Church has coerced and manipulated. It has claimed its place as the one true faith through which we determine both domestic and foreign policy. It has claimed the throne of American empirical rule.
This all began to change in the mid- to late-sixties. Through the Vietnam war and its demonstrations, through the civil rights movement, and its assassinations, through the equal rights amendment struggle, through Watergate and coverups and hearings and impeachment, the culture gradually abandoned the gilded hallways of power and authority. The culture began to demand that we embrace a more egalitarian, fair and gracious model of societal organization. It called the Church back to the dirt tracks of sacrificial ministry.
The Church resisted. It preferred the golden halls of sanctimony and the empty liturgies and impractical rites of totem and taboo. It despised the children around Jesus, the Syro-Phoenician mudblood, the bum Bartimeaus and those who had been estranged from the right ways of Sunday morning morality. And it began to shrink. Its influence diminished. Much of it died. Many went away.
Now, however, we, the Church of Jesus Christ, hear Christ's sacrificial teachings.. We hear him as he calls us to stand with him, drinking from the cup from which he drank, suffering the baptism with which he is baptized. We return to the dirt tracks upon which the faith was originated. We return to service and ministry that is carried out for the sake of all people. We embrace again the Syro-Phoenician woman, the children who crowd around Jesus, poor, rejected Bartimeaus, the untouchables, the outcast, the disenheartened and the hopeless.
These are the days of hope and promise. These are the days of the faithful Church of Jesus Christ. These are the days of working together for the individual and systemic justice and equality that Christ had sacrificed himself to bring. Thanks be to God for bringing us back, not giving up on us and directing us down the paths of faithfulness,service and ministry.
Welcome back to the grimy, dirt paths of sacrificial ministry!
Since the seventh chapter, Jesus has walked and talked with his disciples, teaching them about the nature of this self-sacrifice. They do not understand the concept. It is possible that they are too caught up in the traditional organizational and institutional thinking in which they had been raised to comprehend a sacrificial formula. Instead of understanding and supporting Jesus, they argue about which of them is the greatest, lobby for position, tell the children who crowd around Jesus to go away, and, this week, tell poor old blind Bartimaeus to be silent. "Shut up, old man. He isn't going to pay any attention to you, a poor beggar...Get a job and lay off the booze!"
The Syro-Phoenician woman would not settle for Jesus' racial epithet. The children continued to jump and hop and crowd around Jesus, being children. Blind Bartimeaus sees the truth and follows Jesus on the path of sacrifice. While the disciples imagine the gilded hallways of power and authority, Jesus directs them along dirt paths of giving up what one is given for the sake of others...every other and all others.
The Church has, for a long time, walked with the disciples down those gilded hallways of power and authority, legislating morality and demanding that the culture honor the standards of its religious orthodoxies. The Church has coerced and manipulated. It has claimed its place as the one true faith through which we determine both domestic and foreign policy. It has claimed the throne of American empirical rule.
This all began to change in the mid- to late-sixties. Through the Vietnam war and its demonstrations, through the civil rights movement, and its assassinations, through the equal rights amendment struggle, through Watergate and coverups and hearings and impeachment, the culture gradually abandoned the gilded hallways of power and authority. The culture began to demand that we embrace a more egalitarian, fair and gracious model of societal organization. It called the Church back to the dirt tracks of sacrificial ministry.
The Church resisted. It preferred the golden halls of sanctimony and the empty liturgies and impractical rites of totem and taboo. It despised the children around Jesus, the Syro-Phoenician mudblood, the bum Bartimeaus and those who had been estranged from the right ways of Sunday morning morality. And it began to shrink. Its influence diminished. Much of it died. Many went away.
Now, however, we, the Church of Jesus Christ, hear Christ's sacrificial teachings.. We hear him as he calls us to stand with him, drinking from the cup from which he drank, suffering the baptism with which he is baptized. We return to the dirt tracks upon which the faith was originated. We return to service and ministry that is carried out for the sake of all people. We embrace again the Syro-Phoenician woman, the children who crowd around Jesus, poor, rejected Bartimeaus, the untouchables, the outcast, the disenheartened and the hopeless.
These are the days of hope and promise. These are the days of the faithful Church of Jesus Christ. These are the days of working together for the individual and systemic justice and equality that Christ had sacrificed himself to bring. Thanks be to God for bringing us back, not giving up on us and directing us down the paths of faithfulness,service and ministry.
Welcome back to the grimy, dirt paths of sacrificial ministry!
Monday, October 12, 2015
Sacrificial Ministry
So, Pastor, just tell me. How much money can I have and still be faithful?
This past Sunday, Jesus is heard in the Gospel lesson saying, "How hard it will be for those who are rich to enter the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:23) Interestingly, that is all that some hear from Jesus in this text. They fail to take into account the sadness that Jesus feels as he sees some struggle with their spiritual selves, knowing that the world of the flesh has, in them, won out. They will forever be defined by the ways of the flesh, and will define others by some vague profit/cost equation. They will do what benefits them instead of sacrificing their own needs for the sake of those around them who are in need.
Remember, please, that the New Testament is a Hellenistic witness. The Gospel of Mark is created in, to and for Hellenistic culture, with Hellenistic cultural assumptions and a dualistic understanding of all life. One is to practice the "heavenly virtues," those practices which we know a priori to be reflective of divine will. These heavenly virtues are perfect and eternal. They are spiritual and heavenly. They are qualitatively superior to the virtues that come from the realm of the flesh, where practicality and utility rule. The heavenly virtues go deeper, to the very core of essential human nature, where the spirit dwells.
O, c'mon. For Christ's sake, Pastor. Just tell me how much I can keep for myself!
No, you don't get it. You are asking a question similar to that asked by Nicodemus when, being told that he must be born again, wonders about the process of an old man entering a second time into his mother's womb. Or, it's like the disciples fighting with one another over which of them is the greatest, especially in light of Jesus' walk with them toward Jerusalem. They do not understand his sacrificial ministry. They do not get his service to all humankind. They do not understand the motivation of doing freely for others.
Look, to stand with Christ Jesus means sacrificing ourselves in service to others. It means subjecting our own needs to those of the needs of the rejected and despised ones among us. It means that we go out of our way to protect the rights of those who see no justice in our courts and feel no acceptance in our streets. It means that we allow what we have been given to be used in ways that elevate those of lowest degree.
Why would we do that, Pastor? There is nothing to be gained.
Exactly! To live according to our spiritual essential nature is to give of ourselves even when there is nothing to be gained. That is practice of the heavenly virtues. That is living life according to the archetype of Jesus' Crucifixion/Resurrection. Church is the place where we learn again to devote our lives to the process of bringing kingdom to the lives of others by sacrificing ourselves. It is about devoting everything we have to the cause of Christ.
No wonder churches are shrinking! The Pastor won't even tell me how much I can keep for myself!
*Sigh.
This past Sunday, Jesus is heard in the Gospel lesson saying, "How hard it will be for those who are rich to enter the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:23) Interestingly, that is all that some hear from Jesus in this text. They fail to take into account the sadness that Jesus feels as he sees some struggle with their spiritual selves, knowing that the world of the flesh has, in them, won out. They will forever be defined by the ways of the flesh, and will define others by some vague profit/cost equation. They will do what benefits them instead of sacrificing their own needs for the sake of those around them who are in need.
Remember, please, that the New Testament is a Hellenistic witness. The Gospel of Mark is created in, to and for Hellenistic culture, with Hellenistic cultural assumptions and a dualistic understanding of all life. One is to practice the "heavenly virtues," those practices which we know a priori to be reflective of divine will. These heavenly virtues are perfect and eternal. They are spiritual and heavenly. They are qualitatively superior to the virtues that come from the realm of the flesh, where practicality and utility rule. The heavenly virtues go deeper, to the very core of essential human nature, where the spirit dwells.
O, c'mon. For Christ's sake, Pastor. Just tell me how much I can keep for myself!
No, you don't get it. You are asking a question similar to that asked by Nicodemus when, being told that he must be born again, wonders about the process of an old man entering a second time into his mother's womb. Or, it's like the disciples fighting with one another over which of them is the greatest, especially in light of Jesus' walk with them toward Jerusalem. They do not understand his sacrificial ministry. They do not get his service to all humankind. They do not understand the motivation of doing freely for others.
Look, to stand with Christ Jesus means sacrificing ourselves in service to others. It means subjecting our own needs to those of the needs of the rejected and despised ones among us. It means that we go out of our way to protect the rights of those who see no justice in our courts and feel no acceptance in our streets. It means that we allow what we have been given to be used in ways that elevate those of lowest degree.
Why would we do that, Pastor? There is nothing to be gained.
Exactly! To live according to our spiritual essential nature is to give of ourselves even when there is nothing to be gained. That is practice of the heavenly virtues. That is living life according to the archetype of Jesus' Crucifixion/Resurrection. Church is the place where we learn again to devote our lives to the process of bringing kingdom to the lives of others by sacrificing ourselves. It is about devoting everything we have to the cause of Christ.
No wonder churches are shrinking! The Pastor won't even tell me how much I can keep for myself!
*Sigh.
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Guns as Symptom, Not the Illness
Again last week, a person engaged in an act of mass murder. Depending on the statistics that you read and believe, this is mass attack 200-something since Columbine. What in the world is going on in the United States and how can it be fixed?
Citizens are aware that the United States is the mass-murder leader among developed countries, with a rate that is exponentially higher than that of any other developed nation. Some blame the NRA, with its concentration on gun rights. Some blame mental health institutions, or the States that would otherwise run them, for eliminating programs and expelling dangerous persons into the general public. Some blame Muslims.
Most blame is placed without credence. Just because human beings have the right to own and use firearms does not mean that we will use them to kill one another. While it may be true that no one would die of a gun shot wound if we took away all the guns, it is also true that to outlaw guns would ensure that only outlaws would have guns. The rhetoric, from either side of the gun debate, is not helpful. It is just empty rhetoric, devoid of significant meaning.
While I certainly believe that our systems should and could do more for persons who struggle with mental diagnosis, I do not believe that persons who so struggle are more prone than any other segment of the population to engage in mass-murder. Perhaps such persons are simply more susceptible to the pressures and directions of the culture in which they live. I do not even know if that research would be found to be true.
To blame it on Muslims, or blacks, or to attribute the shocking rate of mass-murder in the United States on any particular segment of the population is pure racism. Such claims must be rejected as ignorance, as bias and prejudice.
There is something deeper, and more sinister, going on here. The honest issue will not be addressed with gun legislation, not that better gun control might not contribute to a lower murder rate in the U.S. It will not help to remove persons who bear mental and emotional diagnosis to be removed from the general public, though such persons need better support and more direct services. It certainly will not help the situation to kick out all the_____________ (Place racial, ethnic, economic or political bias here.) "They" are not the problem.
We are the problem. Each and every one of us is the problem. We have grown numb to basic disregard for human dignity and become deaf to cries for justice, mercy and compassion. Do not misunderstand, we do okay when it comes to our own. We care for our families, for our type, our kind, our clan. But we do damned little to ensure that justice, acceptance, empathy, generosity or grace are available to those who are unlike us. "They" deserve what "they" have gotten, we say. "They" should do x, y, or z, then we would help "them." The Lord helps those who help themselves.
I am no fan of Dr, Phil. He asks one question that I find to be meaningful in the conditions that have led to the highest mass-murder rate among developed countries: "How is that working for you?"
In the United States, it isn't working at all. We kill one another at an alarming rate.
The fix is not an easy one. It rests in standing with Christ for the innate dignity of every person, regardless of her or his station in life, economic or political realities, race, color, creed, national origin, religion, life-style choices, height, weight, hair color or degree of attractiveness. It is tireless and demanding work, counter-cultural in so many ways. Yet, it is built on the simple ethic of Christ Jesus, sacrificing self in service to those who are in need around us.
Will that work? Is it practical? We do not know. We have never tried it.
Citizens are aware that the United States is the mass-murder leader among developed countries, with a rate that is exponentially higher than that of any other developed nation. Some blame the NRA, with its concentration on gun rights. Some blame mental health institutions, or the States that would otherwise run them, for eliminating programs and expelling dangerous persons into the general public. Some blame Muslims.
Most blame is placed without credence. Just because human beings have the right to own and use firearms does not mean that we will use them to kill one another. While it may be true that no one would die of a gun shot wound if we took away all the guns, it is also true that to outlaw guns would ensure that only outlaws would have guns. The rhetoric, from either side of the gun debate, is not helpful. It is just empty rhetoric, devoid of significant meaning.
While I certainly believe that our systems should and could do more for persons who struggle with mental diagnosis, I do not believe that persons who so struggle are more prone than any other segment of the population to engage in mass-murder. Perhaps such persons are simply more susceptible to the pressures and directions of the culture in which they live. I do not even know if that research would be found to be true.
To blame it on Muslims, or blacks, or to attribute the shocking rate of mass-murder in the United States on any particular segment of the population is pure racism. Such claims must be rejected as ignorance, as bias and prejudice.
There is something deeper, and more sinister, going on here. The honest issue will not be addressed with gun legislation, not that better gun control might not contribute to a lower murder rate in the U.S. It will not help to remove persons who bear mental and emotional diagnosis to be removed from the general public, though such persons need better support and more direct services. It certainly will not help the situation to kick out all the_____________ (Place racial, ethnic, economic or political bias here.) "They" are not the problem.
We are the problem. Each and every one of us is the problem. We have grown numb to basic disregard for human dignity and become deaf to cries for justice, mercy and compassion. Do not misunderstand, we do okay when it comes to our own. We care for our families, for our type, our kind, our clan. But we do damned little to ensure that justice, acceptance, empathy, generosity or grace are available to those who are unlike us. "They" deserve what "they" have gotten, we say. "They" should do x, y, or z, then we would help "them." The Lord helps those who help themselves.
I am no fan of Dr, Phil. He asks one question that I find to be meaningful in the conditions that have led to the highest mass-murder rate among developed countries: "How is that working for you?"
In the United States, it isn't working at all. We kill one another at an alarming rate.
The fix is not an easy one. It rests in standing with Christ for the innate dignity of every person, regardless of her or his station in life, economic or political realities, race, color, creed, national origin, religion, life-style choices, height, weight, hair color or degree of attractiveness. It is tireless and demanding work, counter-cultural in so many ways. Yet, it is built on the simple ethic of Christ Jesus, sacrificing self in service to those who are in need around us.
Will that work? Is it practical? We do not know. We have never tried it.
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