Author: Pastorbrentmiller

Boo Radley and the Gospel of Christmas

‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt.  But the more I called to him, the farther he moved from me, offering sacrifices to the images of Baal and burning incense to idols.  I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand.  But he didn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him.  I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love.  I lifted the yoke from his neck, and I myself stooped to feed him’ – Hosea 11:1-4 (New Living Translation)

Back in the 1970s, The Animals had a hit song that included the line, ‘I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, O Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.’  I sometimes think it’s a line God could sing to himself.   There are some who adhere to the theology of Homer Simpson, who once prayed, ‘O smiteful One, tell me who to smite and they shall be smoten!’  God, to many, is violent, vengeful, and vindictive. 

It doesn’t help that professing Christian promote this idea.  Some time ago, a group of ‘Christian’ protestors gathered just a block from the church where I serve bearing signs that proclaimed God’s hatred for the LGBT community, feminists, liberals, and a host of others.  And while that’s an extreme example, there are others who, while seeming more respectable, nonetheless, say things that render God unapproachable.  It’s a long and inglorious tradition.  At the time of Jesus’ birth, some religious leaders peddled a God who could only be approached with extreme trepidation.  Indeed, if you were sick, poor, or beset with problems, they said, it was almost certainly your fault, and you needed to clean up your act before God would have anything to do with you.  Far from the image of God depicted by Hosea, who led his child by the hand despite his failures, these religious leaders made God out to be the bogeyman. 

You can understand how this view came to be.  Israel’s history was ripe for misinterpretation.  Prophets repeatedly called Israel to faithfulness, warning of the consequences of turning from Yahweh, and again and again, when Israel broke faith, trouble ensued.  When she did, it was easy to interpret events to mean that God had brought wrath and violence upon his people.  In fact, God did no such thing; the people, by rejecting God’s lifegiving ways, had brought wrath and violence upon themselves.  But even as Israel faced the consequences of her foolishness, God never turned from her.  Through the same prophets who issued words of warning, God also spoke words of consolation, of his longing for his people to return to him that he might, as Hosea said a bit later in his book of prophecy, ‘love them freely’ (Hosea 14:4).  Yes, even when Israel turned, God remained faithful.  His love remained unconditional.  Somehow though, the religious leaders in the days before (and after) Jesus’ birth missed that.  They felt you had to earn God’s love, and if you didn’t, it would probably be best for you to stay away.  And so, the image of a vindictive God got all the press, and the image of the God whose sole desire was to comfort his children as a mother comforts hers, was, by and large, lost. 

But God had a plan to fix that.  Michael W. Smith has a great Christmas Song, The Final Word, wherein he sings, ‘in the space of the beginning, was the living Word of light, when that word was clearly spoken all that came to be was right.  All creation had a language, words to say what must be said, all day long the heavens whispered, signing words in scarlet red.  Some had failed to understand it, so God spoke the Final Word, on a silent night in Judah’s hills, a baby’s cry was heard.’  Christmas, folks, is God’s answer to our misconceptions about him. 

At Christmas, God, who had, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, spoken previously through the prophets, now spoke through the Son, who is no one less than God with us.  God became one of us, descending from the infinite reaches of eternity into the womb of a virgin, born as a helpless infant and laid in a feeding trough.  He became first a craftsman who understood the labor of men and then the gentle, compassionate teacher who healed the sick, lifted the despondent, shared companionship with notorious sinners, and never, not once, turned anyone away, no matter who they were, where they had been, or what they had done.  In the Incarnation, in the person of Jesus, we behold the true image of God.  An image that defies the misconceptions that have survived from the first century to our own.  Dick Westley put it this way: ‘the old image of a vindictive, mean and jealous God gives way in Jesus to the God of faith who cherishes people, all people, and has made his abode with them.  Jesus presented a God who does not demand but gives; does not oppress but raises up; does not wound but heals.  A God who forgives instead of condemning and liberates instead of punishing.’ 

This was the purpose of the Incarnation.  To, as Brennan Manning put it, ‘convince us of the faithful love of God.’ 

Some years ago, I caught a glimpse of this wonderful truth while reading one of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Harper Lee’s story is cherished for many reasons.  It is a story of racial injustice, of a black man, Tom Robinson, on trial in the south for a crime he didn’t commit.  It’s the story of Atticus Finch, a man of integrity who fights for justice in an unjust world (forget the version from that other book!).  It’s the coming-of-age story of Atticus’ two children, Scout, his 6-year-old tomboy daughter, and her older brother Jem.  But it’s also the story of the enigmatic Arthur Radley, known to all as Boo. 

No one really knows Boo.  Scout describes his house down the street as a home ‘inhabited by an unknown entity the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end.’  In truth, this ‘malevolent phantom’ is a 33-year-old man with special needs, but no one knows that.  The stories about him are whoppers.  Jem insists he’s ‘six feet tall, judging from his tracks,’ and ‘dines on raw squirrels and any cats he can catch.’ The rumor is that he peeps through windows at night, has bloodstained hands, a jagged scar on his face, and yellow teeth.  Everyone knows to stay away from the Radley place.  No one ever climbs the steps to say ‘hey’ on a Sunday afternoon, no one dares to pick pecans from the tree in the Radley yard.  If a baseball was hit into it, ‘it was a lost ball, no questions asked.’ 

During the course of the story, Scout and Jem become curious about Boo and begin to play games designed to make ‘Boo Radley come out’ so they can get a look at him.  They don’t really get anywhere.  But along the way, strange things happen that are not in keeping with the stories they’ve heard.  Once, while playing in a tire that accidentally rolls all the way up the Radley sidewalk onto the steps, Scout hears someone laughing inside.  Another time, after running from a failed attempt to sneak up on Boo’s back porch at night, Jem got his pants caught on barbed wire and had to run home in his underwear.  The next morning, when he went back to get them, they were mended and neatly rolled up as if they expected him.  And then there were the presents.  Scout and Jem would find them in the knothole of a tree in Boo’s yard.  Two soap dolls, a boy and girl: images of themselves.  A watch and chain.  Good luck pennies.  A ball of twine.  Chewing gum.  An old spelling bee medal.  An aluminum knife.  It should have been obvious who they came from, but with all their misconceptions, Scout and Jem never suspected that Boo was their source.

The year progresses and Atticus tries in vain to defend Tom Robinson.  The racist jury convicts him, and the hearts of the children break.  Scout thoughts increasingly tend in Boo’s direction.  Then one night walking home from a school pageant, Scout and Jem are attacked by the racist Bob Ewell, who is out for revenge against Atticus for making him look like a fool at the trial.    He’s out for blood, but suddenly from out of the woods comes the unknown hero who has been listening and watching all along.  He saves the children and carries an injured Jem home.  As folks gather at the Finch’s to figure out what happened, the hero, who is of course the misunderstood Boo Radley, huddles in the corner out of sight, as if waiting for someone to invite him in.  Scout sees he’s nothing like what people have said.  She watches as a timid smile breaks across his face.  ‘Hey Boo,’ she says.  Her father makes the introduction: ‘Jean Louise [Scout’s true name], this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.’  Smiling, he whispers to Scout, ‘Will you take me home?’  Scout does, leading Boo by the hand to his front porch.  Scout turns and looks at her town, suddenly seeing what the past year must have looked like from Boo’s perspective.  And this is what she sees:

‘It was summertime, and two children scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance…still summertime, and the children came closer… Fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk…Fall, and the children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day’s woes and triumphs on their faces.  They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive.  Winter, and the children shivered on the front gate…Summer again, and he watched his children’s heart’s break.  Autumn again, and Boo’s children needed him.  One time, Atticus said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.  Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.’ 

This Christmas season, as I stand on Boo’s porch with Scout, I see what it must be like for God to be misunderstood, even feared.  Maybe you, reader, are someone who has misunderstood and feared him.  Maybe you have been taught to stay away from him just as Jem and Scout were taught to keep away from the Radley place.  Maybe you would never ordinarily dare to drop by his house on a Sunday to say ‘hey.’  If so, I want you to know something.  He isn’t who you’ve been led to believe. Get the old images out of your head.  Imagine instead, a manger.  A baby.  Can you see him?  Let me introduce you.  This is Jesus.  This is God.  I believe he already knows you.  He has watched and smiled and laughed while you have played.  He has lavished all sorts of gifts upon you.  He has hurt when you hurt.  And right now, the thing he wants more than anything, is for you to invite him in.  He isn’t angry with you.  He loves you and wants to be part of your life.  This Christmas, I pray you let him in. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Time to Share

‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor.  If you have food, share it with those who are hungry’ – John the Baptist, Luke 3:11

The news hit the day after Thanksgiving.  As tens of millions of Americans rushed to stores and online to take advantage of Black Friday sales, the World Health Organization released news about the dreaded Omicron Variant.  Stock markets plunged, travel restrictions were imposed, and supply lines came to a stand-still.  Suddenly, the prospect of a post-Thanksgiving/holiday Covid surge took on dire new dimensions as people contemplated the news that the new variant boasts a ‘constellation of mutations’ that may enable it to evade both vaccine and natural immunity. 

The jury is still out on just how bad this really is, so it is premature to panic.  It may well be the case, one can hope, that this will turn out to be much ado about nothing.  Nonetheless, the arrival of a new ‘variant of concern’ offers an opportunity to reflect on the world’s response to the pandemic, in particular the failure of the wealthier nations to share their vaccine blessedness with less affluent countries. 

Omicron has its origins in South Africa, a nation with a relatively low vaccination rate (35%).  Poorer African nations are more severely under-vaccinated.  Nigeria, for example, has a rate of 1.7%.  Ethiopia, 1.3%.  The Democratic Republic of Congo is at 2.1%.  The continent as a whole stands at around 4%, with poorer nations averaging, as the examples cited evidence, less than 2%. 

And that’s just Africa.  Poorer countries around the world are overwhelmingly unvaccinated. 

As a Christian, I find this appalling, as I hope you do too.  Two reasons, the first being basic fairness.  John the Baptist’s observation about sharing clothing and food seems to apply to vaccines just as well.  In wealthier nations, including the United States, we throw expired vaccines away every day.  We have far more than we need (even if the persistently stubborn were to break down and take a needle, we would have plenty).  Seven days ago, America reached the point where 36% of Americans had received a third dose of the vaccine.  I myself am so boosted, a decision I weighed carefully, considering the very topic I am currently addressing. I decided to get the shot because they were abundant here in the states and, given the current state of vaccine hesitancy, would go bad if not used.  It did pain me somewhat to know I was getting a third shot when hundreds of millions have yet to get one. 

This widespread availability of the vaccine at home, and the receipt of boosters, is not necessarily a cause for hand wringing.  Citizens of wealthier nations could, if we set our collective mind to it, provide more than enough vaccine for both ourselves and the world.  I am no expert, and I am sure there are deep complexities involved, but two steps in particular seem in order.  First, wealthier nations could simply create a Marshall-type plan on Covid and appropriate billions of dollars to the purchase and deployment of vaccines throughout the world.  Second, the Pharmaceutical companies that created the available vaccines could release their patents, enabling vaccines to be developed at a faster pace throughout the world.  Pope Francis called for such a step in October, calling on Pharmaceutical companies to ‘Make a gesture of humanity and allow every country, every people, every human being, to have access to the vaccines.’

‘Oh but we can’t spend our money distributing vaccines everywhere!’ I can hear some say.  ‘We need to make sure we have enough vaccine to protect ourselves!  Not everyone is vaccinated here.  America first!’  Putting aside that Americans here have had plenty of time to get vaccinated, this argument is hollow, self-serving, and certainly contrary to the teachings of Jesus.  I love the story of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman in the Gospels.  A foreigner came to Jesus asking for healing for her daughter.  Jesus, knowing his disciples’ prejudices, initially put her off by saying he had come for the children of Israel, not outsiders, thereby revealing the ugliness of the disciples’ nationalist, ‘Israel first’ mentality.  When she persisted in her pleas for help, Jesus delivered the woman’s daughter to wholeness.  There are many lessons in the story, but among them is the realization that Jesus didn’t just offer ‘healthcare’ to those close to home.  He made it available wherever it was needed.    

As for the release of patents, I am sure that I (and the Pope) will be accused of naivete.  Do you not understand the nature of the pharmaceutical industry?  Or the precedent it would set for the future?  Why should companies that invest millions, even billions, not be able to reap the rewards of their labor.  To tamper with the invisible hand of the Pharmaceutical marketplace would be to denigrate capitalism.  Well, in the first place, these vaccines were produced, at least in the United States (and I’m sure elsewhere) in part with public money, aka taxpayer dollars.  And in the second place, this is a crisis moment in which millions of lives are at stake.  If Big Pharma chooses profits over human lives at such a time as this, it will reveal the moral bankruptcy of its corporate soul and deserve whatever government encroachment on their turf ensues.  As far as I’m concerned, if they will not release their patents voluntarily, they should be made to do so.  Cries of socialism be damned. 

The second reason I find the current state of vaccine disparity so appalling is this: it is not only morally wrong; it is galactically stupid.  Failure to stop the spread of this mutating virus throughout the world means it will have more opportunities to metamorphose as it spreads, producing ever more variants of concern, each potentially more virulent than the last.  We are flipping out over the Omicron variant at present.  One wonders what happens by the time we get to the last letter of the Greek alphabet.  The Omega variant might be one that lives up to its name, to the horror of us all. 

The wealthier nations and the Pharmaceutical companies have a choice.  We can do the right thing, save millions of lives, and in the process save ourselves.   Or we can forsake the advice of John the Baptist to share, cling to what is ours, and watch the world descend into a chaos of our own making. 

It’s time to listen to the Baptizer.  It’s time to share.  If we don’t, we may all live to regret it. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Make Decency Normal Again

‘You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder.  If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’  But I say to you, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!  If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court.  And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell’ – Jesus, in Matthew 5:21-22 (NLT)

According to Jesus, words matter.  The things we say, the things we suggest, have meaning, both for those who hear them and for the state of own hearts.  Holding another person in contempt, such as we evidence when we call someone a disparaging name or curse them, is serious business.  Sticks and stones may break our bones, but when we say things that put another person’s physical, spiritual, emotional, or psychological well-being in danger, we imperil our very souls.  Treating people with decency and respect, valuing them as fellow pilgrims on the journey of life, holding them up instead of tearing them down, even when we are talking about those with whom we may have reason to disagree, matters to Jesus. 

Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives voted to censure one of its members.  You probably know the story.  Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona had posted on Twitter a doctored anime video depicting himself flying through the air with a sword and slashing at the neck of New York’s Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  In the video, blood sprays from the wound as AOC’s neck snaps back, lifeless, and dead.  Gosar then turns his attention to President Joe Biden, his next apparent victim. 

Decency in political discourse seems to be on its last legs in this country, but even so, this was beyond the pale.  In defense of the motion to censure Gosar, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi remarked, ‘We can’t have members [of the House] joking about killing one another.’  That such a defense had to be made at all is illustrative of how bad things have become in America. 

Not surprisingly (I wish I could say something like ‘shockingly’ here), Pelosi’s view of the matter was not supported by the members of Gosar’s party, all but three of whom voted against censure (two, Representatives Liz Cheny and Adam Kinzinger admirably voted in favor, a third Republican Congressman, David Joyce, who ironically serves on the House Ethics Committee, voted ‘present’ – hardly a profile in courage there).  To many opposed to the motion, the video was ‘just a joke.’  How on earth it can be considered acceptable to joke about murdering a woman (or anyone for that matter), I cannot begin to understand.  But when you consider further that AOC has been vilified by conservatives and right wing zealots for years (the former’s rhetoric fueling the hate of the latter; the two groups are becoming increasingly indistinguishable), that as a result she receives a daily briefing each morning about the latest threats against her life, that, on January 6th, she was among those most likely to be murdered (or worse) by the insurrectionists at the Capitol, one might think that, perhaps, Republicans would realize the dangers of such a ‘joke,’ and that, further considering Gosar’s affiliations with neo-Nazis and right wing thugs, it wasn’t a joke at all but a calculated attempt to raise the temperature of hate against a rival, liberal member of Congress, her safety be damned.  There certainly wasn’t anything funny about that video.  In fact, if you or I had posted it, we almost surely would have received a visit from the Secret Service. 

I can hear the conservative AOC haters now: but she’s a Socialist!  This was just meant to highlight how dangerous she is; that we are at war for the soul of our country (this has actually been said in defense of Gosar).  Come off it.  I don’t care if AOC is a strident Communist (which she isn’t).  You don’t treat anyone like this.  Not if your Mama raised you right.  And especially not if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, who, remember, demands that we not speak or act in ways that hold others in contempt or risk placing their lives in peril. 

In support of the motion, AOC took the floor and gave a speech that is exactly what our country needs to hear as it continues to slouch toward the annihilation of decency.  You can watch her speech here.  I urge you to do so.  I would go so far as to say that, whatever your politics are, if you can listen to her words and disagree with her on this matter, if you can listen to her words and continue to defend someone like Gosar, if you can listen to her words and continue to believe that it is acceptable to treat anyone the way she has been treated by Trumpian political operatives, then, to paraphrase a friend of mine, your moral compass, if you ever had one in the first place, is irretrievably broken, and you need to get yourself a new one. 

I am glad the censure motion passed but disappointed that it did not pass unanimously.  It is a sad day indeed when Congress, a body that I, like AOC, was once taught to hold in the highest regard, cannot even agree to protect the safety of its own members, when political disagreements are resolved, not in a spirit of civility and common unity, but with vicious attacks and diatribes, if not full on violence, and when such attacks, diatribes, and violence are defended, almost to a person, by one of America’s two political parties. 

I take some consolation that, at least for now, a low bar has been set: it is not acceptable for members of Congress to even joke about murdering one another.  That the bar is so low is enough to make one weep.  I can only hope that this small step might be part of a longer journey to make decency, if not great, at least normal again. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

New Book Released!

I’m happy to announce that my book, The Challenger: Faith, Love, and Resistance in the Gospel of Mark is now available in both Kindle and Paperback versions on Amazon. Many of you have been reading a few advance posts from the book over the past year or so, now all of the Gospel entries are finished and complete in one volume. It can be read straight through, as a daily devotional, or simply used as a resource for bible study. I hope some of you will check out this ‘subversive commentary’ on Mark’s Gospel. And please, share the news! I believe this book will add to people’s understanding of Jesus’ message and call to challenge the status quo of our world. Just click the image below (or the link above) and you will be taken to my book’s page on amazon. Happy reading!

Conservatives Save Nation from Onslaught of Muppet Propaganda

Attention all Patriots and Lovers of Freedom!

Texas Senator Ted Cruz expressed outrage this week after Sesame Street’s Big Bird proudly tweeted (on twitter that is) about having received his Covid-19 inoculation, noting that his wing was sore, but it was worth it to keep himself and others healthy.  The Senator responded with a tweet of his own labeling the over-sized fowl’s public service announcement ‘government propaganda for five-year-olds.’ 

Immediately, the forces of American conservativism sprang into action, backing Cruz and launching an immediate raid on the Children’s Television Workshop, long suspected of harboring radicals hell bent on indoctrinating children with left-wing values (such as sharing, caring, treating people who are different from you with kindness, singing the alphabet, and discovering which of four things is not like the other).

Said raid revealed that Big Bird’s tweet was merely the tip of the iceberg.  The CTW had numerous shocking public service announcements in the works, several of which were stopped in the course of production.  In one, Oscar the Grouch was to have pontificated on the upside of recycling in a song entitled, ‘How I Love [to Separate] Trash.’  Cookie Monster, who recently returned from a health spa for treatment after being diagnosed with advanced type II diabetes, had been rehearsing a speech to children on the benefits of moderation and healthy eating habits. Grover, dressed in classic ‘Super-Grover’ garb, was caught purple handed working on a monologue concerning the importance of wearing a helmet and other safety equipment when flying or crashing into solid objects.  Snuffleupagus had a script for a piece against the ivory trade, and, most dastardly of all, Kermit the Frog was found filming a companion project on climate change and biodiversity, in which he planned to explain to children that it is in fact, despite his previous contention, quite easy being green. 

Rest assured, honest Americans, each of these projects has been stopped in their tracks, thereby saving the nation’s children from a future marked by community responsibility, healthy eating habits, safety, and the sound stewardship of planet earth. 

At a press conference today, Senator Cruz thanked his colleagues for their quick action.  ‘Had we not acted when we did, who knows what else the CTW might have attempted?  While they weren’t found at the studio, I shudder to think what Bert and Ernie might have been working on.’ 

Cruz and his colleagues plan to visit Nickelodeon Studios next, having received a tip that SpongeBob SquarePants might be up to no good. 

Note: the first paragraph of this post is true.  Click here for the story. 

The Daily News

‘It comes the very moment you wake up each morning.  All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.  And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And so on, all day.  Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind’ – C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity

I blame the dang cell phone. 

I wake up in the morning, shuffle downstairs to make breakfast, and there it is.  I don’t know why it should be so enticing.  But before I know it, as I wait for my eggbeaters to cook, I’m on it, fussing and fretting over the morning news feeds.  On the one hand, it’s important to stay informed, especially in the dire times we live in.  On the other, it’s probably not the best way to start the day.  Especially since the daily news doesn’t seem to be anything particularly new.  Basically, and as per the Book of Ecclesiastes, there isn’t much new under the sun these days.  I can summarize the daily news as it has appeared for months, even years, as follows: 

The Pandemic

Covid is still here. Many function as if it isn’t. People won’t get the vaccine or wear masks. The government response is very often incoherent. You are basically on your own. 

Politics

Republican politicians and power brokers are working to end democracy because it behooves them to do so. They are willing to lie, cheat, shrug, etc., to hold onto power. They have no shame. (Yeah, there exceptions, but even these aren’t exactly profiles in courage, and so few they are scarcely worth mentioning). Oh yeah, and Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump…

Democratic politicians and power brokers can’t seem to understand that they have one job: to save democracy. Instead, they are fighting amongst themselves, fiddling while the torches that will burn society are lit. From the naive progressives who dream of the unattainable to the self-serving ‘moderates’ who seem to enjoy standing in the way of even a little progress, we see a party incapable of tying its own shoes. If you thought this ship of fools would save us, you had best think again.

Basically, the news of the day in the arena of politics comes down to this: ‘Autocracy! Coming to a country near you!’

The Environment

The earth is toast. Literally.

The Rich and Powerful

They are going to space, not paying taxes and unaccountable to anyone. They don’t care and there is nothing you can do about it. 

Violence

The nations still rage.  People still think violence is the answer to the world’s problems.  An ‘eye for eye and tooth for tooth’ is making steady progress toward the creation of a blind and toothless world.  Sorry Jesus.  Sorry Gandhi.  The world likes war. 

Racial Injustice

White supremacy continues unabated in America. For all the talk of making things better, it’s getting worse. If democracy falters, look for the return of Jim Crow.

Truth

Just kidding.  There is no such thing anymore.  You are now free to believe anything you want, no matter how divorced from reality it is. 

Entertainment

Some actor/singer/musician/influencer/sports personality just did something stupid. Another had a baby with someone else. Another got divorced. Someone else was arrested. Or gave money to charity. Or won an award and thanked Jesus. Oh, and whatever it is, it’s the most important thing in the world, far more important than ending the pandemic, saving democracy, stopping global warming, making a more peaceful world, ending racism, etc. BTW, who advanced on Dancing with the Stars last night?

White American Evangelicalism

A famous church leader who you should have known all along was no good has: (a) been caught in a scandal; (b) promoted Christian Nationalism; (c) said something racist; or (d) all of the above.  Oh, and Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump…

Sports

The Philadelphia [insert Eagles, Phillies, Union, Flyers…] let down their fans again last night.

Such is the daily news.  Has been for months.  Has been for years.  And probably will be for months and years to come.  Again, it is important to keep abreast of things.  Many of the things I have summarized are as serious as a heart attack, and it does no good to stick one’s head in the sand and ignore the problems of the world.  But at the same time, given that it isn’t really new, should we allow it to consume us?  Should the daily news be the first thing we run to in the morning, or would we do better to run to something else?

I think C.S. Lewis was right.  The first job of each morning, for everyone, but perhaps especially for Christians like myself, is not to immerse oneself in the news of the day, but to push back the noise of the world and listen to that other voice, that still small voice that counsels us to see things from another perspective, and to allow that larger, stronger, and quieter life of the Kingdom to flow into us.  To stand back from all the world wants us fuss and fret about; to come out of the wind once more. 

I think if I started my days like that, rather than riling myself up and only thereafter trying to listen to that other voice, I would be in a better position to face each day.  I would be in a better position to take on the challenges of an increasingly daunting world. 

So I think that’s what I’ll do.  No more daily news first thing in the morning.  And even throughout the day, I will do my best to keep abreast of things without letting them overwhelm me.  Instead, I will begin by listening to that other voice, and let the Kingdom flow into me.  And then, instead of driving myself nuts with what’s happening in the big picture world, I will simply practice my faith by doing small things in the circles of my little picture world that witness to another way. I bet that I will be better for it.

Maybe the world will be too. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Give Peace a Chance

‘We prepare for war, and we get it’ – Stanley Hauerwas

Over a month has passed since the Kabul bombing that took place as American forces withdrew from Afghanistan.  169 Afghani’s died in the attack, as well as 13 American service members.  It was an emblematic, if horrific, exclamation point to a mostly neglected twenty-year war.  President Biden responded as national leaders often do in such circumstances, promising swift and decisive retaliation.[1]  While many cheered, my immediate thought was: ‘have we learned anything?’

Retaliation is what got us into the mess in Afghanistan in the first place. If you were alive at the time, you certainly remember 9/11.  It was a day that is impossible to forget.  I remember it well, as I do the rush to retaliation that took place in its wake.  In Congress, only one member of the House of Representatives counseled forbearance, and was viciously attacked for doing so.  Even in the Church, the desire to strike back, to get even, ran high.  ‘An eye for an eye’ was the typical response of Americans, including American Christians, in those days.  It seemed so right to so many. 

Twenty years later, some at least are reconsidering.  America has pulled out of Afghanistan.  The war is lost, the Taliban back in control, and the Afghani people once again face a bleak and oppressive future.  The futility of the ‘war on terror’ is more apparent than ever.  The world isn’t any safer now than it was on September 11, 2001.  Indeed, one could make a convincing argument that America, and the global community, is less safe.  One could even argue that the desire for retaliation and revenge has fueled movements of hate right here at home; movements that threaten the very existence of the American experiment.  Our lust for retaliation didn’t, after all, help us in the wake of 9/11; and folks, it isn’t going to help us now.  

It certainly didn’t help in the aftermath of the airport bombing.  America delivered on Biden’s promise with a drone strike aimed at what was believed to be a car bomb.  It was not.  It was the car of an aide worker, Zemarey Ahmadi, who was trying to get his family out of Afghanistan before the Taliban took control.  The strike killed 10 civilians, including Zemarey and seven children (four boys and three girls) aged 2-10 years old.  Their names, if anyone cares to know, were Faisel, Farzad, Binyamin, Armin, Haya, Sumaya, and Malika.  Retaliation, in both the case of 9/11 and in the case of the Kabul airport bombing, didn’t exactly deliver what it promised, did it? 

There simply has to be a better way. 

Two Sundays ago, I preached on Jesus words in Matthew 5:38-42.  It’s a passage about nonretaliation.  Instead of striking back at your enemies, Jesus teaches, his followers are to, ‘turn the other cheek,’ ‘hand over their cloaks,’ and ‘go the extra mile.’  I won’t spend time fully exegeting those examples here (you can listen to the sermon on the Facebook page of the First Baptist Church of Collingswood; it includes an exploration of how we might have responded nonviolently to 9/11), but essentially, Jesus was telling his disciples and would-be disciples that when wronged, even egregiously so, they should respond, not by retaliating in kind, but by employing nonviolent strategies that assert one’s dignity, surprise and disarm evil, witness to the way of the kingdom, and extend the possibility of friendship.  Rejecting the notion of an eye for an eye, Jesus called his followers to seek more creative solutions to the problem of evil.  Jesus understood what Gandhi would say many centuries later as he himself creatively employed Jesus’ strategy, that ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’

Alas, most of the world scoffs at such advice. 

I recently read an article about the National Peace Museum in Washington D.C.  Never heard of it?  Well, that’s because it doesn’t exist.  Originally chartered in 1984 as an extension of the U.S. Institute of Peace, it was to have borne witness to the possibility of creative peacemaking and peacebuilding.  It would have championed the efforts of those who had, whether they realized it or not, heeded the advice of Jesus; those who sought, and often found, creative and nonviolent solutions to seemingly intractable problems.  Sadly, to this day, the museum remains but a dream.  It has never received the needed funding or support from the United States government. 

Big surprise.    

Wendell Berry, in his essay, The Failure of War, offers words that help explain why such a museum has never come to be.  Berry writes:

‘Our century of war, militarism, and political terror has produced great – and successful – advocates of true peace, among whom Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., are the paramount examples.  The considerable success that they achieved testifies to the presence, in the midst of violence, of an authentic and powerful desire for peace and, more important, of the proven will to make the necessary sacrifices.  But so far as our government is concerned, these men and their great and authenticating accomplishments might as well never have existed.  To achieve peace by peaceable means is not yet our goal.  We cling to the hopeless paradox of making peace by making war.’

Tragically, Berry is right.  Our government clings to such a hopeless paradox.  I suppose we can’t expect them to change overnight, but certainly among the followers of Jesus, it should be different.  Jesus’ disciples should respond to evil with creativity and generosity, and in so doing, provide witness to another way.  We should advocate for creative, nonviolent responses that encourage even the government in the direction of peace.  Perhaps we will never fully persuade those whose default response is to wield the sword, but we might get them to at take a few positive steps in the direction of peacemaking, and exchange at least some of their swords for plowshares. 

I hope America eventually builds that peace museum.  I hope that more people come to understand the power of creative nonviolence.  I hope that more people discover the creative way of Jesus. 

And I hope that the next time a terrible attack happens, at home or abroad, Christians might, whatever else the government may do, consider spreading love instead of bombs.  That instead of rushing to support a policy of retaliation in kind, as many did in the wake of 9/11, we might, as the old song goes, give peace a chance. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] In the aftermath of the attack, the President further invoked the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Here am I, send me,’ and applied them to the soldiers of the United States military.  While one can admire the bravery of those who put their lives on the line for others, the comparison is extremely dangerous, as it advances an insidious Christian Nationalist theology that equates military action with the work of the Kingdom of God.  But that’s for another post.

The God Who Stays

‘If I were you, I would have labeled me a lost cause.’ – Matthew West, from his song, ‘The God Who Stays’

I’ve been thinking about Abraham lately.  Reading through his story in Genesis, I am struck, not only by his great faith, but by his more than occasional lack thereof.[1]  I am struck by how the great father of nations, the one through whom God began salvation history in earnest, was at times capable of behaving like a first-class jerk. 

That may sound shocking to Christian ears trained to handle Abraham with almost God-like reverence.  But if so, it’s because we tend to forget the downsides in his story, or, if we remember them at all, come up with excuses for his despicable behavior.  There’s the time when Abraham (then Abram) told his wife Sarah (then Sarai) to pose as his sister while sojourning in Egypt.  Well, we say, Abram was afraid that Pharaoh would find her beautiful and kill him to take Sarah as his wife, so what choice did he have?  Besides, she was in fact his half-sister (I know, yuck; things were different back then), so he wasn’t really lying.  Never mind that Abraham should have trusted God to take care of both himself and wife, or that the plan he undertook resulted in her captivity for a time in the household of Pharoah, during which all sorts of terrible things might have happened.  Sugar coat it as you will, the bottom line is that Abraham failed to trust God and threw his wife under the bus to save his own skin.  And he didn’t just do it once; a bit later in his story he threw Sarah under the bus a second time in an encounter with King Abimelech of Gerar. 

And that’s not even the worst of Abraham’s offenses.  Although God promised that he would have children as numerous as the grains of dust on the earth, his doubt grew to the point of unfaithfulness.  As the years ticked by, and his patience wore thin, he jumped at the chance offered by his wife to take matters into his own hands.  ‘Honey,’ Sarah suggested, ‘why don’t you sleep with my servant Hagar and have a child with her?’  We can rationalize that this sort of surrogacy was common in Abraham’s day, but it was still wrong.  For starters, it was wrong because he failed to wait on God.  Then there’s his eagerness to sleep with a younger woman not his wife (Sarah didn’t have to ask twice).  And finally, and this is downright horrific, there is the fact that Hagar may not have had much choice in the matter.  She was a slave for crying out loud; she had no choice but to obey her master.  Some today might consider what happened between them nothing less than rape.  I don’t personally believe it was that bad; the relationship between Hagar and Abraham seems to have been at least somewhat consensual, but the power inequities in the situation should nonetheless trouble us deeply.

And then there is the fact that when trouble arose between Hagar and Sarah (and who didn’t see that coming?) Abraham sent Hagar and his son Ishmael away into the wilderness, where, but for the grace of God, they both would have died.  And yeah, I know the Bible says God told him to do it.  Still.  If a man behaved in this fashion today, throwing his wife under the bus, impregnating his servant, then sending her along with his child into the wilderness, he would be labeled a monster, not an exalted father.  In today’s culture, there is little doubt that Abraham would be ‘canceled.’ 

And yet, God didn’t cancel Abraham.  He continued to work with him.  He proceeded, in spite of it all, to weave the beginnings of the story of salvation through the broken pieces of his life. 

Just what kind of story is this?  What kind of God sticks by a guy as bad as Abraham?

In considering such questions, my mind wandered to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  I know, just bear with me.  If I asked you what that story is about, you might tell me it’s a horror tale, or a fable about scientific hubris.  You would be right, of course, but the primary theme of that classic novel is parental irresponsibility.  Dr. Frankenstein creates life, but when it doesn’t match his expectations for it, he abandons his creation utterly.  Shelley was first and foremost writing a morality tale about parents who failed to stick by and love their children when they failed to meet parental expectations and dreams.

God is the opposite of Dr. Frankenstein.  When God created the universe, making human beings, male and female, his crowning achievement, he had great plans for us.  We were to serve as the stewards of creation, co-regents under his rule, serving, protecting, and reigning over the earth.  We didn’t exactly live up to our calling.  This was not, on the one hand, surprising; God, who exists in what C.S. Lewis termed ‘an eternal now,’ knew we would disappoint.  But on the other, it seems to have shaken him, nonetheless.  It grieved God’s heart to see his children fall short of the glory he intended for them.  It grieved his heart even more as he witnessed the wickedness of humankind spiraling out of control, spreading over the face of the earth, contaminating every aspect of creation.  Had God been like Dr. Frankenstein, dare I say, if he had been like any one of us, he would have abandoned his creation there and then.  He would have thrown us on the rubbish heap and started over. 

But so committed is God to his creation, to us, that he did not.  He stuck by us.  Even as we did terrible things.  He was willing to get his hands dirty, to carry the shame of his creation’s sin, as he worked alongside of us, meeting us where we were, down in the muck and mire of our wickedness and selfishness.  We would have run from ourselves.  God, being God, stuck by us, even as we failed to meet his parental expectations and dreams. 

So God worked with a man like Abraham, a man who would throw his wife under the bus, sleep with his slave, and send her away with his own son.  God worked with him until he was transformed into something more akin to the image he was meant to bear.  Then, when Abraham’s time passed, God continued to work with his descendants, who frankly did worse than Abraham, sinning in ways that would have caused Dr. Frankenstein to walk away a thousand times.  God stuck by them too, shaping them into an instrument he could use, biding his time until, in the fullness thereof, he himself entered the world in the person of his Son, to bear our sin and show us how to live, hoping to transform us, each and every one of us, into something more akin to the image we are meant to bear.

And so it has remained even to this very day.  When we fail to get things right, when we fall and fail and struggle like Abraham, God continues to stand by us.  For he is Emmanuel.  God with us.  That is who he is, was, and always will be.  He is, as Matthew West sings in the song noted in this post’s title and epigraph, ‘The God who stays.  The God who runs in our direction when the whole world walks away.’[2] 

Talk about a committed God. 

There is a line in the Gospels that used to confuse me.  Jesus, who obviously loves us unconditionally, cries out, ‘Oh unbelieving and perverse generation!  How long must I stay with you!  How long must I put up with you!’ (Matthew 17:17).  It sounds so un-Jesus like.  But it’s actually a cry from the very heart of God.  God grieves our sin.  It rends his heart.  Today, no less than when God wept over Abraham’s conduct.  But God, in the course of his work with Abraham, in the course of his work throughout salvation history, in the course of the Incarnation, and in the course of our lives, repeatedly answers his own question, ‘How long must I stay with you?  How long must I put up with you?’

His answer is: forever.  He really doesn’t have a choice.  Because, you see, he is by his very nature the God who stays. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] Abraham’s full story can be found in Genesis 12-25.

[2] If you get a chance, listen to West’s song.  It captures wonderfully what I am trying to say here about the constancy and commitment of God.  Click here for a link to the official video. 

Bee Sense

‘Don’t just look to your own interests.  Consider the interests of others’ – Philippians 2:4

I recently spent some time in a community garden watching bees and butterflies.  Pollinators are amazing to observe, and I filmed several video clips and took even more pictures as they drank nectar from flowers.  One thing the pandemic era has taught me is to appreciate the simple things.  Enjoying God, the company of family and friends, and the beauty of the earth are pretty much all I need these days to be content, so spending an hour or so with my daughter and mother-in-law in the garden watching bees and butterflies was a kind of bliss. 

It wasn’t long after this experience that I serendipitously read an entry concerning bees in Peter Wohlleben’s, The Inner Life of Animals.  Bees are fascinating creatures, necessary for the health of our planet, but also capable of teaching lessons.  One such lessons struck me as I read Wohlleben’s discussion of how bees stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  In the summer months, the intense activity among bees can raise hive temperatures considerably, which could prove fatal to the colony, but bees have found ways to stay cool.  Worker bees bring water into the hive to cool things down, and the fluttering of wings produces breezes.  In such ways, the hive is climate controlled, and the bees don’t overcook. 

In the winter, warming measures are undertaken.  If it gets cold enough, the bees of a colony will huddle together in ball.  The queen, who must be protected at all costs, is of course placed in the center of the ball where it is warmest.  Moving out from the center, the temperature of course drops, placing the bees at the outer rim in peril of freezing to death, except for one thing: the bees take turns.  They take shifts on the ball’s surface, allowing each crew to take a turn closer to the center and warm up before returning to duty on the outer edge.  In this way, the colony, and each bee within it, has a chance to survive the winter. 

One wonders what motivates bees to look out for one another in this fashion.  Perhaps it is too much to suggest they care for one another (then again, perhaps they do).  It seems more likely that they simply understand that the success of the hive depends on the success of each bee.  If they lose even a single member of the colony, the ability to stay warm collectively is diminished.  Essentially, bees know that they need each other.  Each individual bee therefore considers the interests of the others along with their own.  Each bee knows that unless they look out for the other members of the colony, no one will make it. It is of course natural for bees to feel this way; they are inherently collectivists, not individualists.  They don’t live their lives in terms of ‘me’ and ‘I’ but ‘we’ and ‘us.’  They value one another’s contributions to the collective, and are willing to sacrifice, in this case, a little bit of warmth, for the sake of saving the whole. 

I could run in a thousand directions on this, most of which would produce controversy.  This would only prove the point of this post, but honestly, I’m just too tired to deal with it at the moment (I’m on vacation).  Suffice it to say that we humans could learn from bees.  It breaks my heart, and makes me more than a little frustrated, that some people (I won’t say most, although I confess, I’m tempted these days) can’t seem to understand that we need to look out for each other.  They can’t seem to understand that each one of us has value, and that we need to look, not just to our own interests but to the interests of others.  They can’t seem to understand that if we don’t look out for one another, say, by taking a shot in the arm or wearing a mask (okay, I just went in one of those potentially controversial directions), we will all be impacted detrimentally.  They can’t seem to understand that we should be willing to make sacrifices, for the sake of saving both the vulnerable among us and our society as a whole. 

Perhaps bees are just programmed to act the way they do.  Perhaps they don’t think nearly as much about their behavior as I have suggested.  But to my way of thinking, that only makes things worse.  We human beings have been gifted with the ultimate grace: we have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  We have the ability to reason, to think things through, to feel compassion for others, to experience community, to love.  Those of us who claim to be Christian claim not only these extraordinary graces, but the power of God to activate them fully.  How sad then, when we neglect our birthright and ignore the gifts we have been given, when we, instead of considering the needs of others, choose to only, and shortsightedly, consider our own. 

I leave it to you, reader, to consider the myriad of circumstances to which this lesson may apply.  Like I said, I could take this in a thousand directions.  All I choose to say in closing is this: its time we started acting a little more like the bees.

It’s time we all got a little bee sense. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Communion

‘Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere’ – Psalm 84:10

Today my family and I traveled to the shops at Rancocas Woods.  It’s a lovely spot we had recently discovered.  A friend had told us about his son’s secondhand book shop, Second Time Books, and we went to check it out a couple of weeks ago.  It’s a great store, you should go sometime.  And while you are there you should check out the other shops.  There’s a store for antiques, crafts, a snack shop, and a café with an amazing courtyard.  I hope to spend many days in the months ahead writing in that courtyard with a cup of coffee at my side.  It’s perfect. 

It was in that courtyard today that I had an encounter.  As we approached the café and neighboring antique store, we were surprisingly greeted by two dogs laying in the middle of the courtyard path.  Their owner was nearby pruning trees, and they were just the picture of contentment and happiness, lounging on the cool pavement and, seemingly, eagerly waiting someone to come by.  We did, and apparently suited their fancy just fine.  They were as loveable a couple of dogs as you could ever hope to meet (I think they were German Shepherd-Lab mixes, although their owner claimed they were part Collie).  They came right up to us, to me particularly for some reason, begging to be petted.  They didn’t have to beg much.  Having lost my best canine friend Corky in recent months (a story I have not been able to write about yet; it’s been a year of losses on too many fronts), I have been seriously dog deprived.  Perhaps that was what they sensed in their desire to be near me. 

The owner stopped his pruning and chatted with us a bit.  He explained how his dogs were friendly to everyone, which is why he didn’t have them on leashes.  He was a nice fellow; almost as warm and inviting as his dogs. 

The key moment that prompts me to write came when my family and I attempted to say goodbye to our new four-legged friends.  The male dog (there was one of each gender) allowed us to pass, but the female would hear nothing of it.  She nuzzled my leg, stared at me with her lovely eyes, wagged her tail, and otherwise enticed me to stay.  I gave her what I thought was a final pat on the head and began to move away, but it was then I learned she was dead serious about keeping me.  She literally sat on my foot as if to say, ‘Oh no mister.  You’re not going anywhere!’  The little darling enjoyed my company and intended to keep me as her hostage. 

The owner tried to call her, but she would not budge.  So he told me with a smile, ‘Well, there’s only one thing to do.  Stop petting her.’  It was then I realized that I hadn’t.  I had succumbed to her wiles and had given her what she wanted.  As long as I continued to do that, she was not going to move, even when called by her master.  So I stopped rubbing her head, he called, and the little dickens finally allowed me to move on. 

I considered the encounter just a cute episode in the course of an ordinary day.  But as I thought more deeply later, it dawned on me that my encounter with those dogs, especially the female, was nothing less than a parable of life with God. 

God always waits for us, doesn’t he?  Not just on courtyard paths, but on every path we travel.  God is also happy and content.  In fact, God didn’t have to create us humans to be so.  I believe it was Dallas Willard who answered, when asked what God did before he created the universe, ‘He was enjoying themselves.’  Father, Son, and Spirit, the three persons of the Trinity are fully capable of happiness without us.  And yet.  God seems to long for our company.  He eagerly waits for one of us (or all of us) to come by, and whichever one takes a moment to sit a spell will suit His fancy just fine.  If the Bible’s story of salvation history teaches us anything, it teaches that God, in each of His persons, practically begs for our company.  You could even say he’s dying to spend time with us, maybe especially those of us who need him the most. 

In my own life, I find myself so distracted at times, so eager to move on to whatever it is I have to do or wherever it is I have to go, that even when I run into him in the middle of my paths, I don’t always linger as I should.  I’ll spend a few minutes, but then try to move on, ignoring God’s efforts, his enticements, to get me to stay.  Such is my mania that I don’t even pay attention when he sits on my foot.  Maybe I feel as if I have received what I needed from God in the first moments of the encounter, and so move on to fill other needs.  What a shame.  I should be long to stay as long as possible, not only for my sake, but for His.

In his book, Love Big, Be Well, Winn Collier writes that prayer isn’t first and foremost about having our requests met.  It is simply communion with God.  When we spend time with God, the thing that matters is that ‘we have been with God, and God has been with us.’  What a remarkable thing it is that the God of Creation longs for this: to love and receive love.  Isn’t that what we were made for?  Isn’t that what we should long for too?

The next time God sits on my foot, I think I’ll stick around his courts for a while.  There isn’t anything I have to do that’s more important than that. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent