Holy Ground

Today I finally got around to leading worship again at our beloved little UCC community. This is the sermon. Lectionary readings came from Samuel, Psalm 23, the letter to the Ephesians, and the Gospel of John.

When I came to the States, my first impression was that this country is falling apart. It was really a shock. I came the year Obama was elected for the first time, and the frenzy was overwhelming. The left hailed him as a savior, the right braced for the coming of the Antichrist. And as we all know, that hasn't really changed.

And compared with Germany, the left and the right in this country are literally different cultures, different ways of life, completely different outlooks on how things should be done. Add to that the incredible religious and ethnic diversity, the differences between city and countryside, the wealth gap, and it is easy to think that our social fabric is coming apart.

And yes, there are worrisome trends. As progressive followers of Jesus, we are concerned about poverty, income disparity, and about the way conservative Christians read the Gospel. But today I want to talk about a trend that we tend to overlook. And that's the trend to split up society by drawing lines between ourselves and our neighbors. By rejecting those who are not like us.

We all do that. You don't think like me politically? I don't want to be around you. Your Christianity creeps me out? I'm not going to worship with you. And these natural human tendencies are now having consequences on all levels in society. The rich only socialize with the rich. Democrats and Republicans cluster in separate neighborhoods. You could almost say there's a new segregation. And in the depths of the internet, I have come across people who felt excluded from UCC congregations. For not being progressive enough.

There's nothing wrong with seeking out people who are like us. But when it gets to the point where community gets fragmented, that's when it gets problematic. And as Christians, I don't think our main task is to create groups of "true believers". As Pastor Kate repeatedly told us, being a Christian is about healing community. And sometimes, that doesn't only mean reaching out to those in need. It also means reaching out to those we disagree with.

The main reason I want to talk about this today is because I myself have the hardest time with doing that. We once had a discussion about acceptance that turned into a group rant about our local representative, Randy Neugebauer. And when someone asked me, so how do we accept Rep. Neugebauer, the best I could come up with was, “Well, tell him he's a #$%^—but in a nice way…”

That has been irking me ever since. For I don't think that's what Christ had in mind when he said to love our enemies.

So I've been thinking about it. What can we do to keep our circle of love open, even if someone comes dashing in and pushes our buttons?

And then I saw our Scripture readings for today. And I realized the remedy is right here. All the insights we need to soften up are in the Bible. We just need to put them to use, to take them as reminders when we're about to exclude someone from our hearts.

So the first reminder we're getting today is this: Only God knows it all. That's the message of our Old Testament passage. One by one, the supposed new kings were paraded past Samuel, and one by one, they got rejected by God. Nope—that's not him. You think this one is, but you're wrong. And so on. And it turned out to be the one that no one had thought of. They had to bring him from the fields because he was not on their list at all.

And the same is true for any area of life. Whatever we're talking about—the economy, inequality, justice, faith—the answer may not be what we think it is.

That point is driven home with force every time we vote. So many of us thought Obama was the answer. As it turned out, he's really a continuation of Bush in many ways, except for a somewhat crummy attempt at health care reform.

So we don't have all the answers. We have values, and I do believe we got those right, but we can't claim that we know the best ways to put them into practice. A look at the past can teach us that. You may know that there was a progressive era in American politics, about 100 years ago. It saw great achievements: Workers' rights, women's rights, child labor laws, workplace protection laws, and so on.

It also saw tremendous failures. Probably the biggest one was prohibition, pushed through, among others, by our own Congregationalist forebears. Not only did it fail, it actually gave rise to organized crime. It opened up huge markets for illegal activities. I'm sure those who worked for it couldn't imagine that might happen.

This brings us to our second reminder. The reminder is: We don't have all the answers. And that insight is a road to liberation. As Jesus puts it: if we admit that we're blind, we become seeing. If we claim that we see, we remain blind.

'Blindness' is a precise description of our human condition. We are limited in our knowledge. Our actions have unintended consequences. We can never be entirely sure that what we're doing is the right thing to do. And of course, that is true for everybody. And everybody clings to their answers the way we cling to our own.

This is why the world seems so dark to us. Just like the Pharisees, we all work very hard at being blind.

Now this is the point where you may ask, well, then how do we work for what is important? How do we bring about justice and peace if we don't have any answers?

This is where our third reminder comes in. It comes from the letter to the Ephesians, and it is this: Just let your light shine. No drawing of lines between "us" and "them". No self-righteous claim that we know it all. All we are asked to do is to let our light be seen. That's how we work for the Kingdom. 

The key sentence here is: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." At first, this looks like a call to judge others. But there’s more. We're not called to finger-pointing here. The text goes on: "For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light."

Savor this for a moment. It is shameful to mention others' transgressions. Of course, the passage talks about sexual morals, but there is a deeper wisdom there. If we are too quick to point our fingers, we're not bringing light into the world. We're just taking part in a ritual of shaming. Jesus has a remedy for that: he recommends finding the log in our own eye first. And the author of Ephesians seems to make a similar point.

Instead of finger-pointing, we are asked to shine the light of our love. This light by itself changes hearts.

Now that is probably the hardest thing to do. Usually, when we come across injustice, our emotions kick in, and we start perceiving the other side as a threat. We think that if we don't fight them, and win the fight, then everything is lost and so are we. In no time, the fight becomes a fight not for the cause, but for ourselves. But there is an alternative.

My wife told me this story about her Dad. He was a labor organizer all his life, and so he went to a lot of protests, and when she saw those as a kid, she was afraid: there was a lot of shouting of slogans, shaking of fists, there seemed to be a lot of anger. But then her Dad came home and he was not angry. And one day she asked him: how come you're not angry after all that? And he said, you know, all that shouting and fist-shaking, that's simply what we do.

He didn't get caught up in the emotional upheaval. He fought for the cause, not for himself. He knew that fights come with rituals, but he didn't take the rituals too seriously. He simply let his light shine.

The key is stillness. My wife's Dad was able to be still at heart even while shouting and shaking fists. Darkness is overcome when we let our light shine quietly. When we wield our light like a club to hit our enemies, all we get is flickering shadows that make us more afraid. But when we are still, fear does not arise. Our souls are restored, and we are led in the right path for God's sake.

This bring us to the fourth and last reminder. Be still and let God guide you. The green pastures, the still waters of the Psalm, the table prepared in the presence of the enemy—this talks about a state of mind in which we can work for a better world without getting caught up in our own emotions. A state of mind that arises when we stop wielding our ideas with fear and anger.

Jesus told us not to judge but to love our enemies. And I think that's not just because it's the right thing to do. It's actually a way to God. When we open up to the vulnerability of saying "yes, I may be wrong", we leave ordinary ground and start treading holy ground. That's when we taste communion. That's when we make baby steps into the Kingdom. And that's when God takes our hand and guides us to the still waters.

So these are the four reminders. Only God knows it all. We don't have all the answers. Let your light shine quietly and let God guide you.

That's what I would say now if you asked me how to deal with Rep. Neugebauer.

The house of the Lord is the house where all are welcome, and if we wish to enter it, we cannot try to keep others out. That includes fundamentalists. That includes Republicans. That includes anyone who disagrees with us. If we realize that none of us has ultimate answers, the ground we all stand on becomes holy: our rock and our redeemer. It is the same ground, after all.

Faithful confusion

So the US branch of World Vision, one of the planet's biggest charities, decides that they are going to hire gay people in a committed, legally recognized relationship, aka marriage. Two days later, they reverse that decision, caving in to the fury of those who rule airwaves and cash flow with their particular understanding of Scripture. Apparently, heterosexual marriage is now at the "core of the Christian faith" (Jesus might beg to differ on that one). In all the hubbub, I came across an argument that was new to me, namely, that the case rests on "Jesus' definition of marriage" as being between a man and a woman.

Except that Jesus never defined marriage.

The argument is based on a misunderstanding. The passage in question isn't about the definition of marriage at all. It's about divorce. It's about commitment. It's about severing human relations for frivolous reasons. Jesus gave an answer to a question, and neither question nor answer touched on a gender-based definition of marriage.

Let's look at the question first. The Pharisees come up to Jesus and ask him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" Note that this is not about who can marry whom. In fact, that bit is presupposed, i.e. understood: marriage, in the ancient world, was necessarily between a man and a woman, for it was a socioeconomic arrangement, not a romantic encounter of hearts. It was meant to provide economic security and offspring. Love may have been a welcome additive but wasn't a prerequisite. 

The question wasn't about gender issues in commitments born out of love. It was about breaching a contract. The idea of committed homosexual relationship didn't exist, just as the idea of love marriage didn't exist.

And just as the question isn't about who can marry whom, the answer isn't either. "At the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female'", Jesus says, quoting Genesis. "And [He] said, 'For this reason, a man will (...) be united to his wife (...)'. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate". In other words, the Pharisees ask a question about a contract, but Jesus makes a deeper point. He talks about taking marriage seriously. About living up to one’s promises. About the sanctity of commitment. And to drive that point home, he puts it into a faith perspective, using Scripture as he often does: to provide spiritual substance to his message. Marriage is sanctified by the Lord, and has been from the beginning of times, he says. Human relations are part of the holy, the natural order of things. Don’t break them up for frivolous reasons.

Today we know that homosexuality is also in the natural order of things, but I guess that was overlooked by those who wrote down Scripture. And the Lord in His mercy didn't press the point.

No argument regarding gay marriage can be crafted from this dialog, for Jesus is not talking about gender. He’s talking about the sacredness of human relations. In the process, he is expanding his culture's conventional notion of marriage so that the custodians of convention may see a profound, brilliant reality behind their fixed ideas. 

Sounds familiar?

And that's it. A question was asked, a point was made. A point that pushed cultural preconceptions aside. A point that had nothing to do with gender in marriage. Those who wish to use this passage to justify their dislike of gay marriage are missing that point. They react like someone who reads a passage about, say, the health benefits of dark chocolate, and concludes that a healthy diet consists of dark chocolate. But the passage wasn't about what constitutes a healthy diet. It was about dark chocolate. Sorry, your conclusion is off, because you missed the point.

We all use the Bible to find ourselves in it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But we need to let each other know how we get to our conclusions. Otherwise, we come across as confused. For example, if you take Jesus' sayings about hell literally, but those about 'leaving your family' and 'giving away your riches' metaphorically, then it would be interesting to know why, for I would argue it's actually the other way round. If you believe that the Bible talks about gay love relationships at all, give me a reason why I should believe that.

If you think that Jesus was surreptitiously defining marriage as he was answering a question on divorce, that he was taking an implicit position on an issue that didn't exist in his time, then give me some pointers as to how that belief is justified. Otherwise, I have to conclude that your argument is based on a confusion of cultural with biblical values. At some point, both become unrecognizable.

A sigh, and a whiff

When did we turn our faith into the stifling idea that we know all there is to know, that all there is to do is to believe verbal statements and follow rules? The early Christians called their faith "The Way", expressing that they were onto something dynamic, something evolving. Jesus' disappearance after the resurrection points to the same idea.

But as it rose to power, Christianity succumbed to the temptation of doctrine, and doctrine became an idol. The fathers did not know that as we finalize our language and freeze our ideas in time, the boundaries of our world close in on us.

We are just beginning to shake off these burdens and breathe freely again by the Spirit.

Stumbling on Discipleship

In my previous post I outlined spiritual growth on the Christian path. Here is an example of falling and renewal that happened to me today.

One of the points I try making on this blog is that good and evil do not exist outside of our own deeds. The world is created in complete and utter wholeness, a seamless symphony of life. Good and evil arise from our actions alone, and can only be judged by the effects of our actions.

In this sense, “evil” is an appropriate word to describe some of what we say and do, such as these words of Evangelical leader Franklin Graham. They are evil because they condone the infliction of senseless pain.

Feeling righteous and justified in my anger, I wrote what I thought to be a witty, acrid, damning rebuttal. I was still working on it when I learned that Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist is dying. And I came across a piece of writing so beautiful and warm, so… Christian… that it brought a tear to my eye. It suggests "picketing" Phelps' funeral with lines of signs that proclaim forgiveness. This is the very heart of Christ’s teachings: To embrace evil with the spacious, quiet love that springs from a Deeper Source.

I realized that I was about to do evil myself: the evil of lashing out at my brother in anger. And I decided not to spit venom at Graham.

Instead, I made a wish. I wished that Graham would stop by our church one day. He could talk to our pastor and our other gay members, and after church, I could take him to lunch with some Muslim friends and introduce him to my Hindu wife.

I wished for him to learn that whenever we open our mouths to judge in retribution or justify harm, we inflict suffering on people no different from ourselves.

Falling towards the Kingdom

Christianity, as I have come to see it, is not so much a system of beliefs as it is a path of spiritual growth: A journey of effort, defeat, and redemption.

Having succumbed to original temptation, our hearts are entrapped by the snares of good and evil. And our pilgrimage is nourished by the faith that there is something beyond this trap: a deeper Truth which guides us. A Truth which redeems us every time we fail.

We cannot will ourselves into redemption, as it is our will that got us stuck in the first place. Our lives are driven by constant battles of will: against life, against ourselves, against ourselves in others. We have to lose those battles in order to receive New Life.

Such defeats will always feel a bit like dying. But each of these deaths is, in fact, a victory.

On the other side of defeat, we discover the surprising meaning of "forgiveness of sins". Far from stopping their beats, our hearts soften and bloom in the warmth of insight: All have sinned, and all are redeemed. No one is perfect, and everyone is safe.

When this happens, our struggle itself has been turned into manure for the fertile fields of the Kingdom. Freed from our jailed selves, we can finally allow ourselves to relax. To hand all guidance to the Spirit and simply sink into the Living Waters.

Life as it is

"During the last year or so I've come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. The Christian is not a homo religiosus, but simply a man, as Jesus was a man (...) 

[It is] only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (...), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Leaving legalism

With original sin, we left the paradise of all-inclusive love. And in our quest to end the pain of separation, we kept trying to separate ourselves from pain: always judging life and others, always tempted by the illusion of knowledge. This does not work, of course: in a world full of judgment, everyone gets judged. Guilt and shame are perpetuated.

The law was meant to provide guidance out of this mire: a constant reminder that no one is perfect. A hint that life is a glorious mess of light edged with tears and darkness suffused with grace.

But we turned the law into an idol, as we always do. When this happens, it leaves us all at fault, dividing us into two types of sinners: those who break the law, and those who put it above love for others.

Jesus came to abolish both types of sin. Many of us have missed that point, even though Jesus was quite clear about what really matters.

To be a disciple means, among other things, to constantly leave behind assumptions and preconceptions about how life should be and people should act, and to recognize that we ourselves inevitably fall short of any standard. This will always feel a little bit like dying. The promise of Jesus is that such death is not the end, but a new beginning.

The nature of sin II

Sin is not a matter of good vs. evil, let alone of disobedience. It is a matter of distorting and warping things. Greed is a warped expression of the longing for a life fully lived. Violence is a distorted search for freedom from that which burdens us: we project it onto others, and try to destroy it in them. Idolatry is the quest for security and comfort gone awry.

It would be more accurate, therefore, to speak not of a fallen world but of a warped world. Our sins are but doomed attempts at obtaining love, peace, and security from things that can't provide. So much harm done, not because we're evil but out of simple stupidity. We're too dense to see.

Original sin: a clarification

"Original sin" doesn't mean we are born corrupt: All was made very good. It means that we will never fully be able to resist the temptation of estrangement. We all are imperfect and fallible, and yet we judge one another as if we were above this common lot. No wonder we are burdened with shame and guilt.