1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41
Psalm 23
"...for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the
outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
"If you were blind, you would not have
sin. But now that you say, `We see,' your sin remains."
What kind of a person sees a man, blind from birth, have his sight restored, and claims it's the work of the devil, because of the day of the week it happened on? The kind of person who sends $35 a month to a charity in order to assure that a hungry child can eat, but then decides she can't support that charity because some of the people who work to feed the child are having gay sex? I'm thinking yes.
What kind of a person sees a man, blind from birth, and decides that the kid's parents must have done something so heinous that God decided to punish them with their child's blindness. The same kind of person who would claim that Hurricaine Katrina was a punishment from God, and protest at funerals to "prove" it? I'm thinking yes again.
At the beginning of the week, when I first started reading the lessons, I thought to myself, "Well, it's good that we've progressed beyond thinking that God would punish parents for their sinfulness by sacrificing a child's sight." But then I started thinking about how every time we have a storm or some other tragedy, some fame-hungry religious blowhard is happy to pin the misfortune on the perceived sins of some group of people that he thinks is completely unlike him.
About then is when I started thinking that when Jesus said, "The poor, you shall always have with you," he might as easily have said, "The blind self-righteous douchebags, you will always have with you." It would have been just as true. And I haven't really come down yet from feeling like religion attracts the opinioinated, self-righteous, condemning and insincere powertrippers who are more about being in an exclusive group of The Elect than about helping to grow the Kingdom of God.
But, of course, Jesus famously said, "Suffer all the assholes to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is kingdom of heaven." Or something close to that, anyway, right? Because when I look at people who decide, based on their own limited knowledge of God's Word, who gets to be in the group and who gets stuck outside, it brings me right back to fifth grade.
You know how a lot of the time in the later years of elementary school, there's one kid who gets singled out as the weirdo? Through some strange pre-preadolescent, group ESP, it's agreed that it's always okay treat this one kid like garbage, because that kid is so different she isn't even really a person, as we understand people at that age. Maybe she's got a little mild autism--not enough to really be different, because making fun of that would be cruel--but enough to be not quite the same as the rest of us. Maybe she's just a new kid, with skin that's slightly browner, or not brown enough, who pronounces her R's in a weird way. Who was that kid at your school?
Maybe you're thinking I'm going to tell you that I was that girl in fifth grade. If so, you've got another think coming. That role belonged to a girl, lets call her Jane, who usually came to school with her greasy bangs sticking to her forehead, looking kind of rumpled. I still remember the time she came to school on picture day, hair washed, in two pigtails with ribbons, in a lovely, clean, pressed dress. I had the nerve to say to my friend, "I thought Jane looked really nice today," and my friend said something like, "Well, I didn't. She looked like she was trying too hard. And now she's shown that she knows how to look good, so it just proves what a scrub she is for not trying the rest of the time." (Scrub was a big word back then.) That quote sums up the catch-22 that the Janes of the world are in: If she showed up being herself, greasy hair and all, she was a scrub. If she tried to conform, wearing dresses and doing her hair, she was a loser for trying too hard.
Back then, teachers still let you get away with taunts in the
schoolyard, so when we would line up to go in from recess we'd play a
"game" called "Blackout." It was basically an excuse to slap and insult each other.
If a kid touched another kid, the second kid would slap his neighbor
and say, "So-and-so's germs, blackout!" And that shout would travel up
the line as each child loudly emoted the horror of getting stuck with
so-and-so's germs. If you cared about a person, you could save her from mortal humiliation, keep her germs, and the
game would be over. Mostly, people called Jane's name. Jane's name was
one of the only ones that would travel all the way down the line.
It was one of the names that went the whole way down the line, but not the only one. There was a boy, who was basically the male counterpart to Jane. He was necessary for expressing something about the heinousness of boys, and also so that we could make fun of Jane without insulting a "real" boy, when we wanted to have her sitting in a tree with someone. And then there was me. I was the alternate Jane. I was very aware that I was, not the least popular girl in my school, but second-least. The other girls, especially the tight little knot of opinion-makers that, even in fifth grade, wielded enormous social power, would call out my name for a little variety.
I was new to the school, which had a very different culture from the school I had come from, and I was used to being in the knot. So when The Knot made fun of me for not shaving my legs, I told Mom I needed to start shaving my legs. She said no. When I told The Knot that Mom wouldn't let me shave, they made fun of me for not wearing pantyhose. I told Mom I needed pantyhose. Mom was flabbergasted: "In fifth grade?!! No. If you really want to, you can wear nylon kneehighs." So I tried the kneehighs. The Knot pointed and laughed. The Knot mostly wore Levis cords anyway. I told Mom I needed Levis cords from the expensive store downtown. Out of the question. "Well, I need something. Nobody wears dresses at this school." My mother, who didn't really get it, because she couldn't see that there was anything wrong with me in the first place, went to Zayers and bought me two pairs of polyester stretch pants. And of course, then the Knot left me alone after that, because they had nothing more to make fun of. Not.
But I kept wearing the stretch pants anyway, partly because if I didn't, I would have gotten in trouble for wasting money, but mostly because I gave up trying to get along with the Knot. I got used to hearing my name called with horror as it moved up and down the recess line. I got used to being picked second-to-last for kickball. And anyway, it wasn't so bad. At least I wasn't Jane.
Comparison is an insidious thing. I have seen it keep strong women in soul-crushingly damaging relationships, as they think, "He can be cruel, but at least he doesn't hit me, like the last guy did," or "Well, yeah, he gets drunk a lot, but at least he's holding down a job. He isn't a raging alcoholic like my dad." I have seen it rob women of their accomplishments: "Sure, I published my novel, but only with a small house. It's not like I'm at a good publishing house, like So Andso." And I have known it to trap people in a system that nobody deserves: "I may be a loser, but at least I'm not as much of a loser as Jane."
Because, I don't know whether you noticed, but when I was describing the way Blackout is played, I didn't use the word they. I used we. Because, make no mistake: I played. I didn't really like the game, but I certainly played. In a way, I loved it when people would play Blackout with Jane's name, because for those few second, when I could slap someone's hand and cry, "Jane's germs, blackout," I could pretend that I was just like everyone else. I could believe that maybe this time, finally, they were going to let me in.
So imagine what it must be like for a man, blind from birth, to hear a bunch of religious people talking about his condition as theological puzzle. Here's a guy who is known by everyone in the community as the blind guy. At first, it might seem like a regular day. Probably he's used to people talking about him as if his broken eyes had broken his ears as well. So they're just completing the job by breaking his heart: "Whose sin caused this man to be blind?" Whose fucking sin caused this man to be blind? Seriously? Because you need so badly to cling to your belief that God only creates things that you deem perfect and good, that you'd rather believe in a God who punishes people by disfiguring their children? What the kind of a hellish religion is that?
And what does our beloved Jesus do? He says this: "Neither this man nor
his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be
revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is
day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I
am the light of the world." At first, this seems like an equally dickish move. God makes a man live his whole life until Jesus stumbles across him (hopefully not literally) so that His glory can be revealed? A lot of sources go with this interpretation, but it has problems. For one thing, it's ignoring all the other people who are born blind, and yet not healed by Jesus' spit.
I think that interpretation might be limited by our tendency to apply causality to things that happen right before and after each other: Jesus says the guy was born blind so that God's works could be revealed in him. Then he heals him and that's miraculous, so that must be the work of God that he's talking about. Except that Jesus says "we all,"--so, everyone present, including the blind man--need to do the work of "him who sent me" for as long Jesus gives us light to see by.
What was that like for the blind man? First, Jesus says, "Nobody sinned to make this happen." Imagine that. It could very well be the first time the man ever heard from anyone that being blind wasn't his fault. Oh, the kinder ones might have come along and said something like, "It's not your fault that your parents sinned, but just try to remember that you are living out their pennance for them." But it's possible that nobody had ever said to him, "You were born this way, just because it is who you are. God will use who you are to reveal his glory in the world." Most important, Jesus makes him part of the "We."
Then he spits in the dirt and covers the guy's eyes with Jesus mud, and the guy doesn't go, "Jesus' germs, blackout!" Even though it's kind of gross to have someone else's spit in your eyes, people have been spitting in this guy's eyes for a long time. In fact, I don't think it's so completely outside the realm of possibility that the mud is there because the guy is so moved by finally being included in the Holy We that his own tears are already leaking out of those maybe-not-so-useless-after-all eyes of his. So Jesus covers up the tears and sends him off for a little alone time until he can get himself together.
The rest of the story is Jane on picture day. People are so resistant to letting this guy in that they do all sorts of mental gymnastics: It's not really him. He wasn't really blind from birth. They harass the guy with questions, then they harass his parents, and then they bring him back again, and this is where the blind man truly gains his sight. Because finally, after a lifetime of just wanting to be part of the group, of wanting, just once, to be called sinless and clean, he sees what Jesus states at the end of the story. These people who have spent their lives calling him a sinner and ignoring him as something less than fully human? They still can't let him in. They can't see how blind they've been. So he has the joyous luxury of rejecting them, and going back to the guy who never thought there was anything wrong with him in the first place.
Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelp died recently, having personally condemned numerous soldiers and gay people to his own personal hell. This week, international charity World Vision announced that they would let married gays and lesbians work there. That lasted twenty-four hours, until a ton of Evangelicals accused World Vision of siding with the devil. It's easy to think we know who the blind ones are. But we need to remember: all of us think that we're the ones who can see.
Sometimes when we think someone needs healing, it's our eyes that need opening. Sometimes, we think Jesus is making someone whole, when he's trying to tell us they've been whole all along. We have all been guilty of standing in the recess line of the Kingdom of God, calling, "Fred Phelps' germs, blackout!" "Blind guy's germs, blackout!" "Gay guy's germs, blackout!" We call people names like "fame-hungry religious blowhard," and we blind ourselves from seeing the whole of Christendom--no, not Christendom, the whole of humanity--and the whole humanity of Christendom, for that matter.
But one thing is certain. As we stand on line, calling out names with horror and revulsion, unable to face what it would say about ourselves if we included our own personal Janes in our own personal Knots, there is one place in the line where the shouting grows silent. Fred Phelp's germs? Bring them on. Gay guy's germs? He'll take them too. Fame-Hungry Religious Blowhard? Blind, Self-Righteous Douchebag? Got you covered. He's not saying that many of us can see more than a few inches in front of our faces, and, frankly, he'd like us to work on that, but make no mistake, we're in. We're all in.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Well, well, well! If it isn't Slutty McHalf-Breed!
Readings for the Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Psalm 95
I have always loved the story of the woman at the well, and not just because it's the only place in the Bible where Jesus passive-aggressively calls a woman a whore to her face. I love it because it's one of the big passages people use to point out that Jesus was a feminist. It's hard to see that from today's perspective, though. I mean, from a modern point of view, this whole exchange has a little too much of a "Yo, Bitch, make me a sandwich" vibe. And there's plenty of racist subtext as well--I mean, "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation comes from the Jews?" You can almost see him blowing on his nails and buffing them against his tunic.
Of course, we don't talk about this aspect of Jesus. We tend to focus on the ways that this exchange is counter-cultural for the time. The disciples are astonished that he's with a woman when they come back--so that gives an inkling of how radical it was for him even to talk to her. And I get that and appreciate it, but it certainly seems that he wasn't thinking of her as his equal.
So far, this Lent has me wondering a lot about whether and how God grows and changes over time, and I find myself wondering how differently the exchange would go if it were happening today. I hope Jesus still wouldn't be pulling this "we're superior to you half-breeds" thing, let alone the whole, "You've been with five men. Who do you think you are, Liz Taylor?"
But I wonder whether Jesus is fronting a little bit. Is it possible that he doesn't really care about whether she's a woman, or a slut, or a Samaratin? After all, she's the one who seems to have a chip on her shoulder about it all--"What are you asking me for a drink for? You, a Jew, and me a Samaratin?" And she's coming at high noon, a time of day when she can be pretty certain that the well will be empty. Like, maybe she's avoiding all the more respectable first-thing-in-the-morning women who fix her with those mean girl glares. The ones who abruptly end conversations as she walks by and then giggle to each other as soon as her back is turned.
Is it possible that she, like many people who are the victims of racist, sexist, bigoted thinking, has internalized the message enough that she's the one who doesn't believe he should be talking to her? Does she believe that Jews and men and most women really are superior to her?
I think she does--or at the very least, she's so used to hearing about her own inferiority that she can't imagine someone else not thinking of her that way. And I think most of us are like the Samaratin woman. We've internalized all the things that our culture has said to us about how we don't measure up.
I know that, for myself, I can never be beautiful enough, thin enough, fit enough, talented enough or successful enough to deserve the space I occupy on this earth. I sometimes feel like until I can fit into a size ten dress again, I don't have any right to expect to be treated as an equal. Everyone around me seems to have it more together than me, and I sometimes feel like if the people who love me really knew how weak and unworthy I am, they would all turn away from me and never look back. I am a priviledged white woman living what most of our parents would have called the American Dream: handsome, successful husband, three glorious children with brains, looks and talent, decent house in one of the richest counties in the country. If I can feel unworthy of the air I breathe, should I doubt that the Samaratin woman felt the same?
And Jesus would have known it. I bet he would have seen it while she was still half a mile away from the well, walking with her head down, back hunched over, willing people not to notice her. Maybe he thought, "How can I ever reach her? She doesn't think she's worth reaching." The Samaratin woman and I, and most of us, I think, are filled with reasons that we aren't worthy--I'm not a real Jew, I'm not a man, I'm weak--and I'm weak in the ways that everyone around me says are the worst ways to be weak. What, Jesus, could you possibly want with me?
So what does Jesus do? Well, he doesn't lead with the living water stuff--and I think I know why. I think if he said, "Hey, give me a drink from the well, and I'll give you such water that you'll never be thirsty again," she would have just blown him off. She would have thought, like so many people think so often, "If he really knew who he was talking to, he wouldn't ever make that kind of offer to the likes of me." Or worse, "I can't take that offer--what if I get it, and then he finds out who I really am, and he makes me give it back? I couldn't bear the pain of that loss--better not to ever have it in the first place. You can't miss what you never had."
So Jesus, wonderful sexist, racist Jesus, does what he is so good at. He goes beyond the superficial politics of what "you Jews" say about "us Samaritans," and he names what's really bothering her. He lays her deepest secrets bare, and he does it right away, so that when he offers the Samaritan woman his living water, she knows that he's making the offer--oh, miracle--to her true self. Not the chip-on-the-shoulder, tough-as-nails shell that she wears as facade and armour, but her warty, slutty, weak, and undeserving half-breed self, who he somehow--really? Really.--thinks is worthy of this gift.
After that, who wouldn't go running through town, saying to anyone who would listen, "He told me everything I've ever done! He knew the real me, and he still talked to me! He can't be the Messiah, right? Would the Messiah talk to me like that? But who other than the Messiah would ever talk to me like that?"
So many of us feel like a Samaritan woman. We struggle and toil, fighting uphill battles to whatever wells we have available, just to get a little refreshment. Our wells can be anything--accomplishment, exercise, alcohol, junk food, or the good opinion of people who don't know our truest selves. We visit our wells daily, and draw just enough to make it til tomorrow. We think we don't deserve to expect more. And every time we go back to the well for another draw, Jesus is sitting there, waiting. He already knows what we don't want him to know. He's fully aware of whatever it is that we think disqualifies us from a refreshment that will sustain us indefinitely--one that will allow us never to have to sneak to the well again--and he's waiting to give it to us, as soon as he can make us believe we deserve it.
Exodus 17:1-7
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Psalm 95
I have always loved the story of the woman at the well, and not just because it's the only place in the Bible where Jesus passive-aggressively calls a woman a whore to her face. I love it because it's one of the big passages people use to point out that Jesus was a feminist. It's hard to see that from today's perspective, though. I mean, from a modern point of view, this whole exchange has a little too much of a "Yo, Bitch, make me a sandwich" vibe. And there's plenty of racist subtext as well--I mean, "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation comes from the Jews?" You can almost see him blowing on his nails and buffing them against his tunic.
Of course, we don't talk about this aspect of Jesus. We tend to focus on the ways that this exchange is counter-cultural for the time. The disciples are astonished that he's with a woman when they come back--so that gives an inkling of how radical it was for him even to talk to her. And I get that and appreciate it, but it certainly seems that he wasn't thinking of her as his equal.
So far, this Lent has me wondering a lot about whether and how God grows and changes over time, and I find myself wondering how differently the exchange would go if it were happening today. I hope Jesus still wouldn't be pulling this "we're superior to you half-breeds" thing, let alone the whole, "You've been with five men. Who do you think you are, Liz Taylor?"
But I wonder whether Jesus is fronting a little bit. Is it possible that he doesn't really care about whether she's a woman, or a slut, or a Samaratin? After all, she's the one who seems to have a chip on her shoulder about it all--"What are you asking me for a drink for? You, a Jew, and me a Samaratin?" And she's coming at high noon, a time of day when she can be pretty certain that the well will be empty. Like, maybe she's avoiding all the more respectable first-thing-in-the-morning women who fix her with those mean girl glares. The ones who abruptly end conversations as she walks by and then giggle to each other as soon as her back is turned.
Is it possible that she, like many people who are the victims of racist, sexist, bigoted thinking, has internalized the message enough that she's the one who doesn't believe he should be talking to her? Does she believe that Jews and men and most women really are superior to her?
I think she does--or at the very least, she's so used to hearing about her own inferiority that she can't imagine someone else not thinking of her that way. And I think most of us are like the Samaratin woman. We've internalized all the things that our culture has said to us about how we don't measure up.
I know that, for myself, I can never be beautiful enough, thin enough, fit enough, talented enough or successful enough to deserve the space I occupy on this earth. I sometimes feel like until I can fit into a size ten dress again, I don't have any right to expect to be treated as an equal. Everyone around me seems to have it more together than me, and I sometimes feel like if the people who love me really knew how weak and unworthy I am, they would all turn away from me and never look back. I am a priviledged white woman living what most of our parents would have called the American Dream: handsome, successful husband, three glorious children with brains, looks and talent, decent house in one of the richest counties in the country. If I can feel unworthy of the air I breathe, should I doubt that the Samaratin woman felt the same?
And Jesus would have known it. I bet he would have seen it while she was still half a mile away from the well, walking with her head down, back hunched over, willing people not to notice her. Maybe he thought, "How can I ever reach her? She doesn't think she's worth reaching." The Samaratin woman and I, and most of us, I think, are filled with reasons that we aren't worthy--I'm not a real Jew, I'm not a man, I'm weak--and I'm weak in the ways that everyone around me says are the worst ways to be weak. What, Jesus, could you possibly want with me?
So what does Jesus do? Well, he doesn't lead with the living water stuff--and I think I know why. I think if he said, "Hey, give me a drink from the well, and I'll give you such water that you'll never be thirsty again," she would have just blown him off. She would have thought, like so many people think so often, "If he really knew who he was talking to, he wouldn't ever make that kind of offer to the likes of me." Or worse, "I can't take that offer--what if I get it, and then he finds out who I really am, and he makes me give it back? I couldn't bear the pain of that loss--better not to ever have it in the first place. You can't miss what you never had."
So Jesus, wonderful sexist, racist Jesus, does what he is so good at. He goes beyond the superficial politics of what "you Jews" say about "us Samaritans," and he names what's really bothering her. He lays her deepest secrets bare, and he does it right away, so that when he offers the Samaritan woman his living water, she knows that he's making the offer--oh, miracle--to her true self. Not the chip-on-the-shoulder, tough-as-nails shell that she wears as facade and armour, but her warty, slutty, weak, and undeserving half-breed self, who he somehow--really? Really.--thinks is worthy of this gift.
After that, who wouldn't go running through town, saying to anyone who would listen, "He told me everything I've ever done! He knew the real me, and he still talked to me! He can't be the Messiah, right? Would the Messiah talk to me like that? But who other than the Messiah would ever talk to me like that?"
So many of us feel like a Samaritan woman. We struggle and toil, fighting uphill battles to whatever wells we have available, just to get a little refreshment. Our wells can be anything--accomplishment, exercise, alcohol, junk food, or the good opinion of people who don't know our truest selves. We visit our wells daily, and draw just enough to make it til tomorrow. We think we don't deserve to expect more. And every time we go back to the well for another draw, Jesus is sitting there, waiting. He already knows what we don't want him to know. He's fully aware of whatever it is that we think disqualifies us from a refreshment that will sustain us indefinitely--one that will allow us never to have to sneak to the well again--and he's waiting to give it to us, as soon as he can make us believe we deserve it.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Not Above Being Born
Readings for the second Sunday in Lent:
Genesis 12:1-4a
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
Psalm 121
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. --Romans 4: 16,17
Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." John 3:3
I wonder whether God has been born again.
It sometimes seems like God changes between the Old and New Testaments, like there's been a kind of transformation, in which God gives up on a lot of the smiting and just settles in to being all about love. I wonder whether God could make a dead God alive again, or whether God could create Godself from nothing. I was really struck this week by the phrase in the Romans passage that says that God "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist."
Nice work if you can get it. But it's kind of a weird thing to think about. For one thing, I, personally, have never seen a dead thing come to life. I can imagine some ways to interpret this that would make it feel true, but I wonder whether Paul was speaking in metaphorical terms. Like maybe about how Abram was old enough to be on his way out (or maybe in his delicacy, Paul is referencing fertility), but God brought him back to life. I suppose, if you want to be very direct, you could say that the "things that do not exist" could be referring to Abram's offspring.
But what I like thinking about more, was whether God could call Godself into existence. I wonder whether, in Jesus, God was born again.
I've read the John passage many times, but the translation on The Lectionary Page is the New Revised Standard Version, in which Jesus says, "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." It makes me wonder whether God has had an eye-opening experience in becoming incarnate. I wonder whether Jesus is referring to himself, effectively saying, "I thought I understood my creation before, but until I became one of you, I just didn't get the kingdom of God."
For a long time I've been uncomfortable with the idea that it was Jesus' suffering that redeemed us. It's so often framed in punitive terms that seem designed to keep people in line and feeling guilty. Plenty of Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders have told kids that every time they lie, they're pounding the nails into Jesus' hands. I'm just not that sure that such gruesome imagery is the best way to raise Kingdom people who are shining their lights for the world to see by.
Also, I'm very uncomfortable with a theology that romanticizes suffering. Plenty of women have been told to endure abusive marriages, because they should embrace their suffering as Jesus embraced his. It's the kind of thing that has me conceding a lot of points to my atheist friends who call the God of Christianity a sadist.
But what if we've gotten it a little bit wrong? What if Jesus needed to suffer, not to even out some cosmic teeter-totter onto which Sin and Eternal Life had plopped themselves down? What if there is a different reason that suffering is redemptive?
I think God could not enter the Kingdom of God without being born again as Jesus. There are many stories in the Old Testament that make God seem like a very moral psychopath--someone who will be merciful and just, but more from a place of principal than from a place of empathy. God speaks to people, overpowers them with insight, but mostly comes off as remote and somewhat detached.
I wonder whether Jesus needed to come to earth in order to know what it's like to feel powerless and vulnerable. What if suffering is important, not for the sake of suffering, but for the empathy it brings along with it? What if Jesus needed to be born from above, not to teach us what it's like to be human, but to learn what it's like to be human?
We have all had the experience of seeing tragedy happen to a friend. A child dies, or someone gets cancer, and you try to put yourself in your friend's place, but, for the most part, you just can't. For a lot of what happens in life, you can't know what it's like until you've been through it yourself. This is why we have ritualized things that we do for people--take them meals or write cards--because we want to do something, but we can't always use empathy to figure out what's best.
It's times like this when we find ourselves saying, "I just can't imagine..." And it's true, we can't imagine it. When the unthinkable happens, it's hard to put yourself in the position of the person it happened to. So people seek out others like them. A mother who has lost a child to cancer meets with another mother who has lost her child to cancer. A wife whose husband never comes home from deployment seeks solace with other military widows. No matter how much I love someone, I can't put myself in her situation until I've been someplace similar myself.
Maybe that's why Jesus existed--to help God to understand why we have so much trouble behaving ourselves. Maybe Jesus' life and death was necessary and redemptive not because it was a freely given sacrifice that fulfilled some kind of cosmic debt. Maybe Jesus' suffering is redemptive because, to get all Buddhist for a second, human existence is suffering. There was no way for Jesus to understand being human without experiencing suffering. Maybe God needed to be born again as a human in order to enter the Kingdom of God.
I like keeping that perspective in my head--Jesus chose suffering because it was necessary for empathy--because it helps me to understand suffering as holy in a new way. I'm still going to try to avoid the bad stuff as much as possible. But I'm also going to try to look at suffering differently, as holy. Not because suffering is holy in and of itself, but because it's a natural consequence of being engaged in the world.
After all, those who care the most are also those who suffer the most. And when we lose what we care the most about, we suffer so much more than when we lose something we were never that attached to in the first place.
When you avoid loving people, you don't suffer when you lose them. If you don't engage in the world, don't develop affection for people, don't hope for a better future for everyone, it's easier to avoid suffering. But when we, like Jesus, throw ourselves into our lives, getting involved with the world, rather than staying aloof and above it all, we will suffer a thousand small deaths. But from each of those deaths, God brings forth a new life in us. A life that connects us to the rest of humanity and helps us to see the kingdom of God.
Genesis 12:1-4a
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
Psalm 121
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. --Romans 4: 16,17
Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." John 3:3
I wonder whether God has been born again.
It sometimes seems like God changes between the Old and New Testaments, like there's been a kind of transformation, in which God gives up on a lot of the smiting and just settles in to being all about love. I wonder whether God could make a dead God alive again, or whether God could create Godself from nothing. I was really struck this week by the phrase in the Romans passage that says that God "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist."
Nice work if you can get it. But it's kind of a weird thing to think about. For one thing, I, personally, have never seen a dead thing come to life. I can imagine some ways to interpret this that would make it feel true, but I wonder whether Paul was speaking in metaphorical terms. Like maybe about how Abram was old enough to be on his way out (or maybe in his delicacy, Paul is referencing fertility), but God brought him back to life. I suppose, if you want to be very direct, you could say that the "things that do not exist" could be referring to Abram's offspring.
But what I like thinking about more, was whether God could call Godself into existence. I wonder whether, in Jesus, God was born again.
I've read the John passage many times, but the translation on The Lectionary Page is the New Revised Standard Version, in which Jesus says, "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." It makes me wonder whether God has had an eye-opening experience in becoming incarnate. I wonder whether Jesus is referring to himself, effectively saying, "I thought I understood my creation before, but until I became one of you, I just didn't get the kingdom of God."
For a long time I've been uncomfortable with the idea that it was Jesus' suffering that redeemed us. It's so often framed in punitive terms that seem designed to keep people in line and feeling guilty. Plenty of Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders have told kids that every time they lie, they're pounding the nails into Jesus' hands. I'm just not that sure that such gruesome imagery is the best way to raise Kingdom people who are shining their lights for the world to see by.
Also, I'm very uncomfortable with a theology that romanticizes suffering. Plenty of women have been told to endure abusive marriages, because they should embrace their suffering as Jesus embraced his. It's the kind of thing that has me conceding a lot of points to my atheist friends who call the God of Christianity a sadist.
But what if we've gotten it a little bit wrong? What if Jesus needed to suffer, not to even out some cosmic teeter-totter onto which Sin and Eternal Life had plopped themselves down? What if there is a different reason that suffering is redemptive?
I think God could not enter the Kingdom of God without being born again as Jesus. There are many stories in the Old Testament that make God seem like a very moral psychopath--someone who will be merciful and just, but more from a place of principal than from a place of empathy. God speaks to people, overpowers them with insight, but mostly comes off as remote and somewhat detached.
I wonder whether Jesus needed to come to earth in order to know what it's like to feel powerless and vulnerable. What if suffering is important, not for the sake of suffering, but for the empathy it brings along with it? What if Jesus needed to be born from above, not to teach us what it's like to be human, but to learn what it's like to be human?
We have all had the experience of seeing tragedy happen to a friend. A child dies, or someone gets cancer, and you try to put yourself in your friend's place, but, for the most part, you just can't. For a lot of what happens in life, you can't know what it's like until you've been through it yourself. This is why we have ritualized things that we do for people--take them meals or write cards--because we want to do something, but we can't always use empathy to figure out what's best.
It's times like this when we find ourselves saying, "I just can't imagine..." And it's true, we can't imagine it. When the unthinkable happens, it's hard to put yourself in the position of the person it happened to. So people seek out others like them. A mother who has lost a child to cancer meets with another mother who has lost her child to cancer. A wife whose husband never comes home from deployment seeks solace with other military widows. No matter how much I love someone, I can't put myself in her situation until I've been someplace similar myself.
Maybe that's why Jesus existed--to help God to understand why we have so much trouble behaving ourselves. Maybe Jesus' life and death was necessary and redemptive not because it was a freely given sacrifice that fulfilled some kind of cosmic debt. Maybe Jesus' suffering is redemptive because, to get all Buddhist for a second, human existence is suffering. There was no way for Jesus to understand being human without experiencing suffering. Maybe God needed to be born again as a human in order to enter the Kingdom of God.
I like keeping that perspective in my head--Jesus chose suffering because it was necessary for empathy--because it helps me to understand suffering as holy in a new way. I'm still going to try to avoid the bad stuff as much as possible. But I'm also going to try to look at suffering differently, as holy. Not because suffering is holy in and of itself, but because it's a natural consequence of being engaged in the world.
After all, those who care the most are also those who suffer the most. And when we lose what we care the most about, we suffer so much more than when we lose something we were never that attached to in the first place.
When you avoid loving people, you don't suffer when you lose them. If you don't engage in the world, don't develop affection for people, don't hope for a better future for everyone, it's easier to avoid suffering. But when we, like Jesus, throw ourselves into our lives, getting involved with the world, rather than staying aloof and above it all, we will suffer a thousand small deaths. But from each of those deaths, God brings forth a new life in us. A life that connects us to the rest of humanity and helps us to see the kingdom of God.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
"Eve, You're the Reason We Can't Have Nice Things."
Readings for the First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 Psalm 32
I'm going to copy the Genesis passage below, because I'll be referring to it. It's the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, which we're all familiar with. But, as with most things we think we're familiar with, we often "remember" parts of the story that aren't actually there.
Here's the passage:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Before I mention what struck me most about this passage when I read it this week, I have a confession to make. I broke Lent on Friday. When I got up Saturday morning, I realized two things: first, I totally didn't need to break my commitment--it wouldn't even have been hard to maintain. I just wanted the comfort of doing things the way I always did them. Second, I realized that it's a lot harder to do the thing you think God is calling you to do when you aren't all that sure that God is real.
Back when I was in high school, I knew what God expected of me, and I knew I was going to Heavan (at least I knew that most days), and I knew that God was my friend whom I could be with whenever I wanted, just by talking to Him in my head. There was a lot that I "knew." In some ways life was harder--I had high expectations to live up to, and I was always letting God down. But in some ways, life was easier, too, because when things are black and white, there's a lot of time to be saved by not mucking around in uncertainty and having to decide for oneself what's right and wrong. In some ways, I miss that.
On the other hand, there's something to be said for a God, no matter how abstracted and nebulous, that is big enough to encompass uncertainty and paradox, a God about whom any question can be asked without fearing that the whole construct of God will collapse around your feet. There's something to be said for a God that doesn't force you to deny reality as you are experiencing it.
I wonder which of those Gods is in the garden of Eden, though. Because when I was reading the passage this week, I noticed something: God never tells Eve not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. God tells Adam, and Adam tells Eve. So, if we understand living faithfully to be doing what we think God wants from us, Eve is living her faith based on heresay. (Small aside here: you can't spell heresay without heresy.)
In the passage anyway, God never takes Eve for a walk in the garden. Actually, he wouldn't have been able to--she wasn't even Eve yet. She was just a nameless form of Adam. I wonder whether either God or Adam considered her to have personhood.
So God didn't bother to give Future-Eve a little welcome to Eden tour, pointing out all the danger spots. He delegated. And in doing so, God is demanding a much more difficult thing of Eve than he is of Adam. God is asking for obedience without experience. And God is asking for obedience from a creature he doesn't seem to have a relationship with.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get, frankly. Eve is expected to keep a promise that Adam made to God. She wasn't there for the decision, and she doesn't even know for sure that Adam has his facts straight. The serpent is the only one who deals with her as an equal worthy of relationship. Everything the serpent tells her is true. The fruit won't kill her. It will show her the difference between good and evil. And you know what? For all the bromance that Adam and God have going, they haven't really been so great at showing Eve what's good (You exist for Adam's pleasure?!) or what's evil (Don't do the thing I'm afraid to do). What woman wouldn't want to buck that system?
And it's not like this only happens in the Bible. It's a common trope in stories throughout time. Whether it's Pandora's box, Blackbeard's locked door, or a tree in the garden, they're all the same. They're all symbols of things we're supposed to be afraid of, that men/gods drop in front of us and tell us to ignore. Always, the tension is the same: ignore what's right there or accept and ingest the truth. So, big surprise, at some point in each story, the woman picks truth. The women expose the hidden to the light. Then the authorities, that is, those invested in the status quo, get all shirty with the women and blame all of the world's evils on the skirts. Christ, Eve, everything was great until you came along.
Except everything wasn't great. Adam was lonely. And I suspect he was probably getting lonely again, because he still didn't have a true companion. I think it wasn't until Eve acted on her own and ate the fruit that she became a fully human person in her own right. And I think she surprised everyone--maybe even God--when she did. But just because she went off-script, that doesn't mean that what she did was wrong.
I mean, is Eden really where we want to be? Everything is taken care of for us in Eden. It's beautiful and peaceful. It's the place of the eternal now. No regret, no conflict. Any mother can understand why God would want to try to keep us in the garden, innocent and lovely, for as long as possible.
But there's a saying among writers that you have to be cruel to your characters. I recently heard one writer (quoting another) put it this way: "You have to stick you character up in a tree and then start throwing rocks at him." That's really hard to do with someone you've created and grown to love.
You have to, though, because if nothing bad ever happens to your characters, you're writing a really boring novel.
Without mistakes and conflict and loss, there are no stories, just names. Nobody dies in Eden, but does anybody grow? If the people aren't growing or changing, is it really that much of a paradise?
Eve needs a faith based on her experience, not on some law that she's heard about second hand. And I, for one, prefer Eve's way. I don't want to sit around eating the horticultural equivalent of bonbons all day, petting animals and being sexually available. I much prefer the life we've got, in which we have the opportunity to contribute to the good in the world, and fight the evil. Because the apple didn't just show evil to the innocents in Eden, it made them able to know what was good. Zeus gives Pandora the box because Prometheus already gave humans fire. You can't have one without the other.
Maybe Eden was always meant to be an estuary-- a protected place where Adam could practice being alive, until he was ready to go out and really do it. If God really didn't want Adam to eat from the tree, he could have stationed a guard there from the beginning. The tree is there, just like Pandora's box, and the key to Bluebeard's room. It's there, waiting until some woman has the courage to man up and confront the whole truth of life, the good and the bad. But when she does, she engages in it as an actor, not just as a child running naked through a garden, peeing on snakes and pulling the tails off of geckos because she doesn't know any better.
Eventually, we all need to set off into the wilderness. The wilderness is where the growth happens. Jesus knew that--he didn't run off to a garden of delights in order to prepare for his ministry. He went out to the wilderness, where God's providence is harder to find, but the lessons are there to be learned.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 Psalm 32
I'm going to copy the Genesis passage below, because I'll be referring to it. It's the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, which we're all familiar with. But, as with most things we think we're familiar with, we often "remember" parts of the story that aren't actually there.
Here's the passage:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Before I mention what struck me most about this passage when I read it this week, I have a confession to make. I broke Lent on Friday. When I got up Saturday morning, I realized two things: first, I totally didn't need to break my commitment--it wouldn't even have been hard to maintain. I just wanted the comfort of doing things the way I always did them. Second, I realized that it's a lot harder to do the thing you think God is calling you to do when you aren't all that sure that God is real.
Back when I was in high school, I knew what God expected of me, and I knew I was going to Heavan (at least I knew that most days), and I knew that God was my friend whom I could be with whenever I wanted, just by talking to Him in my head. There was a lot that I "knew." In some ways life was harder--I had high expectations to live up to, and I was always letting God down. But in some ways, life was easier, too, because when things are black and white, there's a lot of time to be saved by not mucking around in uncertainty and having to decide for oneself what's right and wrong. In some ways, I miss that.
On the other hand, there's something to be said for a God, no matter how abstracted and nebulous, that is big enough to encompass uncertainty and paradox, a God about whom any question can be asked without fearing that the whole construct of God will collapse around your feet. There's something to be said for a God that doesn't force you to deny reality as you are experiencing it.
I wonder which of those Gods is in the garden of Eden, though. Because when I was reading the passage this week, I noticed something: God never tells Eve not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. God tells Adam, and Adam tells Eve. So, if we understand living faithfully to be doing what we think God wants from us, Eve is living her faith based on heresay. (Small aside here: you can't spell heresay without heresy.)
In the passage anyway, God never takes Eve for a walk in the garden. Actually, he wouldn't have been able to--she wasn't even Eve yet. She was just a nameless form of Adam. I wonder whether either God or Adam considered her to have personhood.
So God didn't bother to give Future-Eve a little welcome to Eden tour, pointing out all the danger spots. He delegated. And in doing so, God is demanding a much more difficult thing of Eve than he is of Adam. God is asking for obedience without experience. And God is asking for obedience from a creature he doesn't seem to have a relationship with.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get, frankly. Eve is expected to keep a promise that Adam made to God. She wasn't there for the decision, and she doesn't even know for sure that Adam has his facts straight. The serpent is the only one who deals with her as an equal worthy of relationship. Everything the serpent tells her is true. The fruit won't kill her. It will show her the difference between good and evil. And you know what? For all the bromance that Adam and God have going, they haven't really been so great at showing Eve what's good (You exist for Adam's pleasure?!) or what's evil (Don't do the thing I'm afraid to do). What woman wouldn't want to buck that system?
And it's not like this only happens in the Bible. It's a common trope in stories throughout time. Whether it's Pandora's box, Blackbeard's locked door, or a tree in the garden, they're all the same. They're all symbols of things we're supposed to be afraid of, that men/gods drop in front of us and tell us to ignore. Always, the tension is the same: ignore what's right there or accept and ingest the truth. So, big surprise, at some point in each story, the woman picks truth. The women expose the hidden to the light. Then the authorities, that is, those invested in the status quo, get all shirty with the women and blame all of the world's evils on the skirts. Christ, Eve, everything was great until you came along.
Except everything wasn't great. Adam was lonely. And I suspect he was probably getting lonely again, because he still didn't have a true companion. I think it wasn't until Eve acted on her own and ate the fruit that she became a fully human person in her own right. And I think she surprised everyone--maybe even God--when she did. But just because she went off-script, that doesn't mean that what she did was wrong.
I mean, is Eden really where we want to be? Everything is taken care of for us in Eden. It's beautiful and peaceful. It's the place of the eternal now. No regret, no conflict. Any mother can understand why God would want to try to keep us in the garden, innocent and lovely, for as long as possible.
But there's a saying among writers that you have to be cruel to your characters. I recently heard one writer (quoting another) put it this way: "You have to stick you character up in a tree and then start throwing rocks at him." That's really hard to do with someone you've created and grown to love.
You have to, though, because if nothing bad ever happens to your characters, you're writing a really boring novel.
Without mistakes and conflict and loss, there are no stories, just names. Nobody dies in Eden, but does anybody grow? If the people aren't growing or changing, is it really that much of a paradise?
Eve needs a faith based on her experience, not on some law that she's heard about second hand. And I, for one, prefer Eve's way. I don't want to sit around eating the horticultural equivalent of bonbons all day, petting animals and being sexually available. I much prefer the life we've got, in which we have the opportunity to contribute to the good in the world, and fight the evil. Because the apple didn't just show evil to the innocents in Eden, it made them able to know what was good. Zeus gives Pandora the box because Prometheus already gave humans fire. You can't have one without the other.
Maybe Eden was always meant to be an estuary-- a protected place where Adam could practice being alive, until he was ready to go out and really do it. If God really didn't want Adam to eat from the tree, he could have stationed a guard there from the beginning. The tree is there, just like Pandora's box, and the key to Bluebeard's room. It's there, waiting until some woman has the courage to man up and confront the whole truth of life, the good and the bad. But when she does, she engages in it as an actor, not just as a child running naked through a garden, peeing on snakes and pulling the tails off of geckos because she doesn't know any better.
Eventually, we all need to set off into the wilderness. The wilderness is where the growth happens. Jesus knew that--he didn't run off to a garden of delights in order to prepare for his ministry. He went out to the wilderness, where God's providence is harder to find, but the lessons are there to be learned.
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