SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Isaiah 35:4-7a

Psalm 146

James 2:1-17

Mark 7:24-37

Prayer of the Day: Gracious God, throughout the ages you transform sickness into health and death into life. Open us to the power of your presence and make us a people ready to proclaim your promises to the whole world, through Jesus Christ, our healer and Lord.

“For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
   and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
   and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
   the grass shall become reeds and rushes.” Isaiah 35:7.

I now live on the edge of a right-of-way through the National Seashore held by our electric power company, Eversource. The way stretches for several miles across Cape Cod to accommodate the company’s power lines. In addition to this homocentric utilitarian purpose, the right-of-way incidentally hosts a unique ecosystem. Osprey nest on the many polls towering over the trees from which they can view the three nearby ponds. They can frequently be seen flying over the house with a fish in their talons. Reptiles, black racer snakes and eastern box turtles sun themselves on the face of this miles long gash in the forest. Wild flowers, mosses and bushes that would not otherwise grow in the constant shade of full grown trees thrive on this narrow strip of open space. Walking to the edge of my property in the spring and summer months, passing through the tangle of pitch pines and white oaks onto the right-of-way is like steping into an alpine meadow.

Of course, the forest is not so easily put to flight. The pitch pines and oaks re-seed themselves in the open areas where they take root and begin growing again. Within a short time their height reaches my head. That means, of course, that Eversource must make a return every three years or so to clear the land lest the trees grow to the point where they obstruct its workers’ access to the power lines. For the greater (human)good, the right-of-way community of living things must be ploughed under and reduced to a barren waste. The first time I witnessed this violent incursion, I was convinced this remarkable, biodiverse meadow was gone forever. But before the season had ended, the flowers, plants and shrubs were already beginning to make a comeback. The following spring saw an explosion of life where a year past there had been only broken sod. Today the pines and the oak are back-as soon will be Eversource, I have no doubt.

My son, the evolutionary biologist, sees in this remarkable tenacity evidence of life’s dogged determination to adapt to the most adverse circumstances. It is surely that. But I choose to see in it also, as does the prophet Isaiah, a sign of God’s faithfulness to creation.

“As long as the earth endures,
   seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
   shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22.  

However many scars we human creatures inflict upon the earth, God continues to work the miracle of healing. We may yet succeed in making this planet or many parts of it uninhabitable for our selves and future generations. God may not intervene to save us from the consequences or our own selfishness, stupidity and blindness. But those consequences will not come from God’s hand. God, for God’s part, will be as persistent, indeed, more persistent in reviving, healing and restoring God’s good earth as we are headstrong in our lust to exploit it. Will God’s tender, healing touch prevail over the violent and destructive work of our hands? The prophet Isaiah seems to think so.

The Christion tradition of my childhood had little interest in creation as such. The earth, its geographic features, animals and plants were little more than the stage for God’s redemption of humanity. Whenever God finishes with all God intends to do with the human race, the world ends. The redeemed will be welcomed into eternal life, the wicked cast into outer darkness. The earth? The sun? The other planets? The Stars? The galaxies? Presumably they will simply be discarded like a candy wrapper. That always seemed wrong to me. A universe thirteen billion years old and ninety-three billion light years in diameter built solely for a single species on a planet infinitesimal by comparison with the whole and whose existence is less than a nanosecond in this great expanse of time? It seems a terrible waste of time and material.

I have come to believe, however, that the biblical view of creation is much larger than the Sunday School version I learned. Human beings show up only at the end of creation. Their commission to rule over the earth in the first chapter of Genesis must be interpreted through the lens of  the second chapter where the human creature is charged with tilling and keeping the garden. As offensive as it may be to our homocentric pride, the earth was not made for human beings. Human beings were created to care for God’s good earth. The earth’s problems arise from humanity’s refusal to accept its created limits and its desire to exploit rather than care for God’s garden. The ensuing violence that filled God’s good earth was so powerful and pervasive that God was tempted to make an end of humanity altogether. The flood narrative makes clear God’s rejection of this solution to human violence. Instead, God calls Abram and his family to become the blessing humanity was intended to be.

What climate scientists tell us today about the precarious state of the earth’s oceans, lands and ecosystems echoes what the Hebrew prophets have been trying to tell us for centuries. Our sinful conduct has severe consequences for the environment. The evil we do to one another has a profound impact on the ecosystems of which we are all part. The Prophet Isaiah warns us that

“[t]he earth staggers like a drunkard,
   it sways like a hut;
its transgression lies heavy upon it,
   and it falls, and will not rise again. Isaiah 24:20.

God hates nothing that God has made and so will not destroy the human race. But God’s human creatures might very well succeed in doing exactly what God has vowed not to do. We may well succeed in making this planet, or substantial parts of it, uninhabitable for our children. But I do not need to be convinced that the end of the world is imminent to be deeply saddened by what we are doing to it. It is enough for me to know that my great grandchildren may never see an elephant or gorrilla except in picture books, that they might never know a wilderness area big enough for them to get lost in, that they might never witness the return of monarch butterflies to the Cape in midsummer. If such is the world we bequeath to our children’s children, there is good reason for mourning.

But while the prophet leads us to mourn for ourselves and our planet, that is not where we are left. As our lesson illustrates, Isaiah foresees the day when “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.” His hope and expectation is that the world will be healed. Clean water will cleanse the parched ground, rushes and reeds will grow where once only rocks and sand could be found. I have seen enough evidence of that on the Eversource right-of-way to be convinced that God never gives up hope for creation. If God refuses to give up on this planet, how can we?      

Though we humans are surely not the “be all and the end all” we imagine ourselves to be, Saint Paul nevertheless makes the case that creation’s redemption is tied up with that of humanity. “The creation,” Paul tells us, “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Romans 8:19-21. Once freed from its lust for dominance, its addiction to privilege, its captivity to the cycles of vengeance and violence, its allegiance to the false gods of nation, race, blood and soil, humanity will finally be in a position to recognize the earth as God’s sacred possession and accept with joy, gratitude and faithful obedience its role as the earth’s caretaker. Then creation, or the piece of it for which we are responsible, will be free from bondage to the savagery of our consumeristic greed, our exploitation of its land, waters and air and our destructive wars. When humanity is set free from the power of sin, creation will be set free from exploitation.

In the miracle of the Incarnation God went all in, not just for humanity, but for all creation. In Jesus’ Resurrection God made clear that God will not be deterred from God’s redemptive purpose by the worst evil of which we are capable. God refuses to give up hope for this world God has birthed. That is the basis of my hope-along with the tell tail signs of that redemption in places like the Eversource right-of-way.

Here is a poem by Marge Piercy celebrating spring time vegetation with an exuberance like Isaiah’s. Hope springs eternal because it springs from the One who is eternal.   

More Than Enough

Source: Colors Passing Through Us (c. Marge Piercy; pub. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). Marge Piercy (b. 1936) is an American progressive activist, feminist and writer. She was born in Detroit, Michigan. While her father was not religious, Piercy was raised Jewish by her mother and her Orthodox Jewish maternal grandmother. Piercy was a poor student in early childhood. But when she was bed ridden with German measles and rheumatic fever, she developed a love of reading-which was about all she was able to do. After graduation from high school, Piercy became the first in her family to attend college, receiving a B.A. from the University of Michigan. After graduating, Piercy and her first husband went to France, but soon after returned to the United States. Living in Chicago, Piercy supported herself by working various part-time jobs. During this time, Piercy realized she wanted to write fiction that focused on politics, feminism, and working-class people. She became involved in the organization Students for a Democratic Society. Piercy’s first book of poetry was published in 1968 and her first novel was accepted for publication that same year. You can read more about Marge Piercy and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.  

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

Psalm 15

James 1:17-27

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Prayer of the Day: O God our strength, without you we are weak and wayward creatures. Protect us from all dangers that attack us from the outside, and cleanse us from all evil that arises from within ourselves, that we may be preserved through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children—” Deuteronomy 4:9.

The Book of Deuteronomy, literally the “second giving of the law,” is Moses’ swan song. The people of Israel are encamped before the Jordan River, poised to enter and take possession of the land of Canaan. But Moses, who led them out of slavery under the Egyptian Empire and for nearly half a century through the wilderness where they lived hand to mouth, will not be with them. He knows the time has come to pass the torch of leadership to the next generation. Moses also knows there is a danger lying ahead for the people of Israel far greater than those they confronted during their years of slavery in Egypt, in the trials they faced in their wilderness wanderings or even the threat of death they will soon meet from the armies of Canaan. The greatest danger Israel will face in the land of Canaan is forgetfulness.

Later on in Deuteronomy, Moses spells out precisely the nature of his concern:

“Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 8:1-20.     

Wealth, power, comfort and security have a tendency to skew one’s memory. The danger here is that, once settled in the promised land, the people of Israel might begin to imagine that they are finally home, that their journey is over and that they have arrived. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the truest sense, Israel’s journey is only beginning. Israel is to be a light to the gentiles, a blessing to all the peoples of the world and an example of what it means to be human. This new people of God is not to be distinguished by the might of its armies, the magnificence of its architectural achievements or the wealth of its cities. Rather, its greatness is to be the “wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’” Deuteronomy 4:6. Israel is only beginning its journey into becoming all that God has declared it to be.

Moses would not have his people forget that their earliest spiritual ancestor was called to leave home and live the life of a nomad in a land not his own. Genesis 12:1-3. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca fled across international borders to escape starvation, prepared to trade sexual favors for sanctuary. Genesis 12:10-20; Genesis 26:6-11. Jacob and his family likewise sought refuge from famine in Egypt where they were “redlined” in Goshen and ultimately enslaved. “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you-for you were the fewest of all peoples,” says Moses. “It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 7:7-8. If Israel is to know where it is going, it must remember from whence it came.  

Similarly, disciples of Jesus have no ground for boasting. We ought to remember well from whence we have come. Each year on Palm/Passion Sunday many of our churches read the passion narrative from one of the gospels. There we are reminded that our own spiritual ancestors were traitors, cowards and deserters. There were no heroes standing with Jesus on the night of his arrest. That the risen Christ sought out these very disciples who had failed him so miserably and entrusted them with the task of bringing the good news of God’s reign to the ends of the earth is by far the most profound act of grace in the New Testament. Like Israel, the disciples are chosen, not by virtue of their character and nobility, but by grace. They are not saved by their faith, but by God’s faithfulness. They are elected, not to privilege in the world, but to service for the world.  

Disciples of Jesus are sojourners who “have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come.” Hebrews 13:14. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church knows no borders and recognizes no distinctions on the basis of nation, race, blood or soil. But just as Israel was prone to lapses of memory, so too Jesus’ disciples tend to forget that their Savior was a poor, dark skinned, non-citizen whose family fled to Egypt as refugees from political persecution. They tend to forget that the gentle reign of God Jesus proclaims advances through suffering love that embraces even the enemy as a neighbor. They forget Jesus emphasized that our loyalty to him and the kingdom he proclaims is measured by how we treat the “least” among us. Like the Pharisees in our gospel lesson, disciples of Jesus too often remember the bare bones of religious piety, but lose sight of the story giving meaning, direction and lifegiving power to their practices.

To forget our stories is to forget who we are and why we do the things we do. In Pierre Boulle’s book, Bridge over the River Kwai, a group of British soldiers under the command of Lt. Colonel Nicholson are taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II and ordered to work on building a bridge across the River Kwai. In order to keep up the morale of his men under cruel and inhumane conditions of captivity, Nicholson orders them to take special care with their work. He directs them to build the best bridge possible to show the Japanese just how skilled and competent the British are and what the Japanese are up against. The bridge was to be a symbol of British power-an act of defiant resistance giving the captive soldiers a sense of purpose and dignity. But before long, Colonel Nicholson becomes enamored with his bridge, proud of the project-so much so that it consumes him. In the end, when British commandos show up to destroy the bridge, Nicholson joins with his Japanese captors to protect his bridge.

Colonel Nicholson forgot who he was. He forgot who his enemy was. He forgot why he was building his bridge. So, too, Moses knew that his people would be tempted to forget who they were, how they were called from slavery into freedom and the reason for which they were brought into the land of promise. He knew how easily commercial interests, national ambitions and the lust for dominance could subvert the Torah and empty it of its power to ensure justice and equity. Moses therefore admonishes Israel (and us) “neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.”  Deuteronomy 4:9

As “Christian” as America is alleged to be, a lot of American Christianity has little to do with Christ and a lot to do with political ideologies of hatred and exclusion. Much of what passes for Christianity in these United States manifests as a jumbled and conflicting collection of beliefs cobbled together from myths about American history, fundamentalist religion, convictions that God has providentially given this land to our European ancestors and divinely ordained its boundaries. Many American Christians insist that America’s constitution and declaration of independence are “divinely inspired.” Added to this slough of misguided notions is a toxic mix of fear, resentment and irrational hatred of foreigners, particularly those of color threatening to “poison the blood” of our nation. While these convictions are admittedly “extreme,” they are extremely common these days and, sadly, they have received a warm welcome by large sectors of a church that has forgotten its story.

Let us take care lest we forget where we came from. Let us take care that we do not forget the parable of the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Last Judgment, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Let us take care lest we forget that we worship a savior who was executed by the state and spent his last hours with two criminals also with him on death row. Let us take care lest we forget that we follow the Lord who reached out to touch people nobody else would touch with a ten foot poll. Most important, let us not forget that it is not too late to remember. Let us not forget that as often as we do forget, our Lord continues to remind us who and whose we are, where we came from and where we are going.

Here is a poem by pastor, theologian, teacher and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflecting on the struggle of remembering who and whose one is.    

Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell’s confinement 
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I would talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I would bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
trembling with anger at despotism and petty humiliation,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, 
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from a victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison, (c. 1953, 1967 and 1971 by SCM Press, Ltd.). Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. He was a key founding member of the Confessing Church which rejected the Reich’s effort to impose Nazi ideology into its teaching. His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential. In addition to his many theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler’s euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. He was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp. Bonhoeffer was accused of being associated with the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, tried along with other accused plotters and hanged on April 9, 1945.

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18

Psalm 34:15-22

Ephesians 6:10-20

John 6:56-69

Prayer of the Day: Holy God, your word feeds your people with life that is eternal. Direct our choices and preserve us in your truth, that, renouncing what is false and evil, we may live in you, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15.

This declaration of Joshua comes at the close of the book by his name. Israel is entering upon a new stage in its history. The future holds both promise and danger. In its own land, Israel has the unprecedented opportunity to become a people formed by Torah. Unlike the Egyptian Empire and the petty kingdoms of Canaan and its rulers who claimed godhood and exercised exploitive power over their subjects, Israel was to be a people ruled by the God who liberates slaves, champions the poor, the widow and the orphan. Israel is to model the way of being human that God intended from the beginning. It was being given the opportunity to become an agent of blessing to the world as was promised to Abraham.[1]

It should be noted that Joshua’s was not the first conquest of Palestine. For centuries before, the fertile crescent had been fought over by competing tribes, petty kings and empires. Though Joshua’s struggle was with the Canaanite city states residing in the land, Palestine was at that time nominally under the jurisdiction of the Egyptian empire. According to the Books of Judges and I Samuel, Israel’s hold on the promised land was at best partial and always precarious. The Israelite tribes were frequently under the control of competing tribes and rulers. Occupation of the land clearly was not the same as exercising sovereignty over it. Indeed, neither God nor God’s prophet Samuel favored Israel’s exercise of sovereignty and only reluctantly gave in to Israel’s demand for a king to rule over it that it might be “like the other nations.” Israel was not intended to be “like other nations.” Over all, Israel’s experience with monarchy did not produce the just and compassionate society envisioned in Torah, but led rather to its conquest, loss of the land and exile. Living faithfully as God’s people in the land of promise does not require the exercise of sovereignty over that land.

Disciples of Jesus interpret Joshua’s final words through the lens of the great commandments, namely, that we are to love God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength and the neighbor as ourselves. Saint Paul reminds us that, unlike Joshua’s struggle, “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12. This is critically important for a world that is erupting into wars driven by the deities of nation, race, blood and soil. The devil would have us believe that our enemies are of blood and flesh. The devil would have us believe that our freedom and security depend on our willingness and ability to kill all who would take it away from us. The devil would have us believe that war is inevitable and necessary for the sake of the greater good. Understand that the devil is completely nonpartisan, taking no interest in the justice or injustice of any party’s cause in any military conflict. The devil takes no sides in war. He doesn’t have to. No matter who prevails on the battle field, the devil always wins.

According to the latest surveys, Christianity is still nominally the dominant religion in America. But I believe the surveys are wrong. I believe that the dominant religion in America is America. Think about this. If I were to boast that my children were volunteering to take up arms against people deemed hostile or resistant to my religion, one would think me backwards, primitive and uncivilized. But if I were to say that my children had enlisted in the armed forces, I would likely get a slap on the back and kudos for my family’s patriotism. I am, of course, not suggesting for one minute that killing for the sake of religion (or anything else for that matter) is justifiable. My point is that what people are willing to kill, die and send their children to die for says a great deal about what they hold most dear. For Americans, that is America.

It is important to understand that the Canaanites who sacrificed their children on altars and condemned women to a life of temple prostitution were not inherently cruel and perverse. They believed that the gods they worshiped demanded these things from them and that the wellbeing of the whole community depended upon satisfying those demands. Human sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. That is the mark of a false god. It always demands a blood sacrifice. America is no different. The blood of our soldiers must be given and that of our enemies shed to defend its interests. Child laborers in developing countries working on starvation wages must be sacrificed to ensure the flow of cheap goods we need to maintain “our American way of life.” Human sacrifice is not a relic of the dark and barbaric past. It is very much a part of American life, though we prefer to give it more palatable names.

I do not mean to say that America is inherently evil by identifying it as an idol. Idols, after all, are usually good things in themselves. They are good gifts of God that, due to our human propensity for disordered desires, have been elevated above the Giver. Government is a gift of God for maintaining order, ensuring justice and providing protection for the most vulnerable among us. Politics is a gift of God though which we are able corporately to love and care for our neighbors. But when the nation is elevated to godhood and politics become religion, the shedding of blood is sure to follow.

This week I have been watching the Democratic National Convention on and off. A political convention is about as religions as religion ever gets. It has liturgy, hymns, prayers and avid worshipers who chant responses on cue. It has speeches with all the hallmarks of revivalist sermons. These conventions were designed to stir up love of, admiration for and devotion to America. There is no disputing that they are good at what they do. I am watching this convention with mixed feelings. Clearly, I do not want to see another four years of Donald Trump. As thoroughly sickened as I am by our nation’s support of war in the middle east and eastern Europe, I am appreciative of the many positive contributions of the Biden administration and believe that Joe Biden is a good man who has given much that is good to this nation. So when I listened to his speech on Monday night, I was almost carried away by it. I was with him until closing remarks when he recited the words from the American Anthem, “Let me know in my heart when my days are through. America, America, I gave my best to you.”

With all due respect, Mr. President, no. I love my country. I love the American people. I will always try to do my part to make this land a kinder, more equitable and beautiful place. But my best belongs and always will belong to Another. America can never be first if I am to love it rightly and well. So as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Here is a poem/song by Phil Ochs that illustrates well the blood sacrifice required of that religion called America.

White Boots Marchin’ in a Yellow Land

The pilots playing poker in the cockpit of the plane
The casualties arriving like the dropping of the rain
And a mountain of machinery will fall before a man
When you’re white boots marching in a yellow land

It’s written in the ashes of the village towns we burn
It’s written in the empty bed of the fathers unreturned
And the chocolate in the childrens eyes will never understand
When you’re white boots marching in a yellow land

Red blow the bugles of the dawn
The morning has arrived you must be gone
And the lost patrol chase their chartered souls
Like old whores following tired armies

Train them well, the men who will be fighting by your side
And never turn your back if the battle turns the tide
For the colours of a civil war are louder than commands
When you’re white boots marching in a yellow land

Blow them from the forest and burn them from your sight
Tie their hands behind their back and question through the night
But when the firing squad is ready they’ll be spitting where they stand
At the white boots marching in a yellow land

Red blow the bugles of the dawn
The morning has arrived you must be gone
And the lost patrol chase their chartered souls
Like cold whores following tired armies

The comic and the beauty queen are dancing on the stage
Raw recruits are lining up like coffins in a cage
We’re fighting in a war we lost before the war began
We’re the white boots marching in a yellow land

And the lost patrol chase their chartered souls
Like cold whores following tired armies.

Source: The War Is Over: The Best of Phil Ochs (1988) (c. Barricade Music Inc.) Phil Ochs (1940-1976) was born in El Paso, Texas. He was a folk singer/songwriter and contemporary of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums. He performed at numerous anti-Vietnam War, civil rights and organized labor rallies. Ochs’s mental health deteriorated in the 1970s owing to what is now known as bipolar disorder and alcoholism. Tragically, he took his own life in 1976. You can find out more about Phil Ochs and his music at this website. If you would like to listen to the above song as performed by Phil Ochs, click here.

[1] The book of Joshua is a problematic one for people of faith. The wars conducted by the people of Israel against the inhabitants of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership could fairly be characterized as genocidal. That this account of Israel’s conquest of Canaan does not likely reflect the actual historical realities on the ground is beside the point. I do not feel the need to defend or rationalize these wars (as though God needed or wanted our defense). Neither will I call in the historical critical cavalry to put the blame for Joshua’s rough edges on some anonymous redactor. I will only say that we who identify as Christian are disciples of Jesus, not Joshua, Moses, St. Paul or any other biblical figure. The way of Jesus is to love one’s enemies and pray for one’s persecutors. It is through the lens of this “great commandment” that we read, interpret and re-interpret the Bible. The theological assertion made in our passage from Joshua is that God has delivered on the covenant promise made to Abraham and Sarah. The land is now in the possession of their descendants.  

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Proverbs 9:1-6

Psalm 34:9-14

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58

Prayer of the Day: Ever-loving God, your Son gives himself as living bread for the life of the world. Fill us with such a knowledge of his presence that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life to serve you continually, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Be careful then how you live…” Ephesians 5:15.

Something deeply American in my bones wants to cry out, “How I live my life is my own damned business!” No church can tell me how or whether to worship God, what I should or should not believe or what is right and wrong. No government has the right to tell me to wear a seatbelt when I drive, a life jacket when I Kayak or tell me where I can and cannot carry my gun. What I do with my life is my own concern.

Of course, a moment’s reflection dispels that notion. The way I live does have an impact on others, whether or not I recognize it. It matters a great deal to my fellow citizens what I believe about God and how I worship God, especcially if I believe God wants me to destroy God’s enemies and censor literature I believe offensive to my God. I may not care enough about my wellbeing to buckle up, but the family members who depend on me and my fellow Americans whose insurance premiums are driven up by the severity of injuries incurred by careless people like me have good reason to care. The Coast Guard, law enforcement and victims of gun violence all pay heavy prices for the “freedoms” I insist upon. Unless I am a hermit living off the grid-and perhaps even then-my life is inseparably bound up with those of everyone else on the planet. How I live is not my own damned business.

How then should disciples of Jesus live out the kingdom of heaven in service to their neighbors in a self centered world intent on plunging itself into hell? Paul does not answer that question directly. Instead, he gives some pretty down to earth, small scale directions. Don’t waste time. Don’t be stupid. Don’t drink to excess. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. How? By singing. The Spirit is infused into the church through the singing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Let singing shape your heart, soul, mind and actions.

Song is a potent antidote to despair, helplessness and apathy. Martin Luther has said of singing:

“Music is hateful and intolerable to the devil. I truly believe, and do not mind saying, that there is no art like music, next to theology. It is the only art, next to theology, that can calm the agitations of the soul, which plainly shows that the devil, the source of anxiety and sadness, flees from the sound of music as he does from religious worship. That is why the Scriptures are full of psalms and hymns, in which praise is given to God. That is why, when we gather round God’s throne in heaven, we shall sing His glory. Music is the perfect way to express our love and devotion to God. It is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.”

I wholeheartedly agree with Luther on this point, but with one caveat. I think that music trumps even theology. I know from experience that when I have been too tired, too dispirited, too overwhelmed with doubt to believe, I could still sing. I have often sung my way out of sorrows too deep for thinking through. In my view, talk therapy is overrated, but singing is highly underrated. Moreover, the value of singing is not merely therapeutic. The Civil Rights movement was animated by songs that sustained people of color throughout two centuries of slavery and decades of Jim Crow. The Power of Song, a book written by Guntis Šmidchens, documents the struggle for freedom by people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and how their “Singing Revolution” won their independence from Soviet domination. A song can evoke visions, bring people together and inspire movements for change and transformation. It reaches back to the lives of ancestors, inspires the hearts of those living in the present and turns their gaze toward a better tomorrow. Recall the still potent anthem, We Shall Overcome, derived from a song by the Reverend Charles Tindley in 1903 and sung to the tune of an African American melody.

Saint Peter declares to Jesus in Sunday’s gospel, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” These words, enshrined and sung in our liturgy, testify to the power of music. Song is indeed the vehicle of lifegiving words, the lifegiving Word. You could almost say that singing is how the Word becomes flesh. Song is the means by which many individual members are united in word, in voice and in expression. Whatever divisions there may be in the congregation, whatever ill feeling between members, whatever divisive issues may be brewing, a good hymn sweeps a singing church into unity of thought and feeling.

In an insightful essay on a passage in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae similar to our lesson from Ephesians, Amy Whisenand Krall points out that singing “both witnesses to the abundance of the new creation and enacts it. Taking part in singing together allows the congregation to inhabit that abundance and to grow up into the new creation; it gives body to what it means to grow into the maturity Paul desires for the congregation….As they take part in corporate singing, we find the congregation participating in thanksgiving to God in Christ, learning to give thanks together as diverse members who now constitute one community, the church, which is the Body of Christ.”  “A Singing Creation: Music Making and Christian Maturity in Colossians 3:16,” published in The Art of New Creation, (C. 2022 and edited by Jeremy Begbie, Daniel Train and W. David O. Taylor; pub. by Intervarsity Press), p. 142.

Can we sing our way out of the hateful ideologies, hurtful caricatures, insults and broken relationships that characterize so much of our common life these days? Consider this. On election day 2020 in Warren, Michigan a group of Donald Trump supporters and backers of Joe Biden started shouting slogans and insults at each other through bullhorns-a none too common occurrence. But then Matthew Woods, a 59-year-old Trump supporter and travelling musician, challenged the Biden supporters to a “sing off.” The opposing groups soon started singing together and even posed for photos. “We shook hands, hugged each other and apologized for saying bad words to one another,” Wood said. Harmony: Opposing “Trump and Biden groups make music together,” CityNews, November 3, 2020. To the cynical spirit of our times, this was but an anomalous island of civility in an ocean of uncivil and bitter acrimony. To people of faith, however, it is tiny flicker of hope, a fleeting glimpse into the better way of being human to which Jesus calls us, a new creation into which the Spirit carries us through song.

Here is a poem by Friedrich von Schiller extoling the power of song and its transformative potential.    

The Power of Song

The foaming stream from out the rock
      With thunder roar begins to rush,—
The oak falls prostrate at the shock,
      And mountain-wrecks attend the gush.
With rapturous awe, in wonder lost,
      The wanderer hearkens to the sound;
From cliff to cliff he hears it tossed,
      Yet knows not whither it is bound:
‘Tis thus that song’s bright waters pour
From sources never known before.

In union with those dreaded ones
      That spin life’s thread all-silently,
Who can resist the singer’s tones?
      Who from his magic set him free?
With wand like that the gods bestow,
      He guides the heaving bosom’s chords,
He steeps it in the realms below,
      He bears it, wondering, heavenward,
And rocks it, ‘twixt the grave and gay,
On feeling’s scales that trembling sway.

As when before the startled eyes
      Of some glad throng, mysteriously,
With giant-step, in spirit-guise,
      Appears a wondrous deity,
Then bows each greatness of the earth
      Before the stranger heaven-born,
Mute are the thoughtless sounds of mirth,
      While from each face the mask is torn,
And from the truth’s triumphant might
Each work of falsehood takes to flight.

So from each idle burden free,
      When summoned by the voice of song,
Man soars to spirit-dignity,
      Receiving force divinely strong:
Among the gods is now his home,
      Naught earthly ventures to approach—
All other powers must now be dumb,
      No fate can on his realms encroach;
Care’s gloomy wrinkles disappear,
Whilst music’s charms still linger here,

As after long and hopeless yearning,
      And separation’s bitter smart,
A child, with tears repentant burning,
      Clings fondly to his mother’s heart—
So to his youthful happy dwelling,
      To rapture pure and free from stain,
All strange and false conceits expelling,
      Song guides the wanderer back again,
In faithful Nature’s loving arm,
From chilling precepts to grow warm.

Source: This poem is in the public domain. Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) was a German poet, playwright, historian, philosopher, physician and lawyer. He was born in Marbach, Germany. His initial goal was the priesthood. But in 1773 he entered a military academy in Stuttgart and ended up studying medicine. After a brief stint as a regimental doctor, he left Stuttgart to accept a post as professor of History and Philosophy at Jena. Schiller developed a close friendship with the already famous Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Together they formed the Weimar Theater. You can read more about Johann von Schiller and sample more of his poetry at the All Poetry website.

TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

1 Kings 19:4-8

Psalm 34:1-8

Ephesians 4:25—5:2

John 6:35, 41-51

Prayer of the Day: Gracious God, your blessed Son came down from heaven to be the true bread that gives life to the world. Give us this bread always, that he may live in us and we in him, and that, strengthened by this food, we may live as his body in the world, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” Ephesians 4:25.

I have told this story previously, but it bears repeating in these days of “fake news,” “false narratives” and “gattcha journalism.” Not so many years ago, I was leading my confirmation class in a discussion of the Eight Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness). In so doing, I posed the following hypothetical. Imagine, I said, that you are on the school board. The board is planning to hire Mary Smith to be its treasurer. In that position, she will, of course, be responsible for managing school district funds. You learn that Mary was formerly convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to ninety days in prison. Should you inform the board about Mary’s conviction?

Under these circumstances, the class unanimously agreed that the board should be made aware of this event in Mary’s past. As treasurer, Mary would be responsible for managing a substantial amount of public money critical for the operation of the schools within the district. It would be a breach of duty for a member of the school board to turn a blind eye to the facts and allow the board to place a person with a history of financial dishonesty in this important position of public trust.

But then I added to the hypothetical. Mary was a foster child who aged out of the system when she turned eighteen years old. At that time, she was informed that she could no longer live in the group home where was staying. At just eighteen years of age and not yet out of high school, she had little in the way of savings, but desperately needed a place to stay. She finally found a room for rent, but the landlord insisted on a $300 dollar deposit. Mary was working part time at a convenience store during this period of her life. One evening, when her employer left early and asked her to close up the store for the night, Mary took three hundred dollars from the cash register to cover the deposit. She had intended to pay the money back again once she got established, but her theft was detected and Mary was arrested shortly thereafter.

Upon release from prison, Mary found a job at a restaurant. She put aside as much money from her meager salary as she could each week. As soon as she had saved enough, she went back to her former employer at the convenience store and repaid the three hundred dollars she had taken with interest. Her former employer was impressed with Mary’s offer of restitution and offered to re-hire her. Mary soon became her employer’s assistant and has been managing the store’s finances faithfully for over twenty years. In addition, Mary has been doing volunteer work with an agency helping first time offenders newly released from prison to find work and integrate back into society. She is currently serving as treasurer for her church.

The class agreed that having this additional information made the decision a great deal more difficult. Is something that happened so long ago in the life of a desperate and inexperienced young girl relevant to the woman she had become? There was some lively discussion over what obligation a school board member had under these circumstances. Some of the kids felt that there was no need to disclose Mary’s conviction and that doing so would be unfair. Others expressed the view that, although duty bound as a member of the board to disclose the conviction, they would also be obligated to provide the context and relate the exemplary nature of Mary’s subsequent life of integrity and service. All agreed that simply disclosing the conviction, without more, would be wrong.

Speaking the truth to our neighbors, as St. Paul would have his churches do, is not as simple and straight forward as it might seem. A single fact taken out of context can distort the truth, ruin reputations, reinforce prejudices, incite rage and generate unfounded fear. For example, many Americans believe that undocumented immigrants are a criminal threat to society. The Republican party, led by their presidential nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, has leveraged this false assumption to inflame the rhetoric around immigration from the U.S.-Mexico border. In so doing, Republicans[1] and their allies have highlighted cases such as that of the recently murdered twelve-year old Jocelyn Nungaray. Two undocumented Venezuelan men have been charged with capital murder in the killing. The case is, without a doubt, horrific and a great tragedy for the families involved. But the party and its leaders care less about those involved than the “rage value” this story has for feeding this nation’s racist hysteria and supporting their false narrative to the effect that America is being “invaded” by criminals, insane asylum discharges and other assorted “vermin.” As in the case of my hypothetical, so too in this instance, this one isolated fact is being exploited in support of a lie.[2]

Saint Paul knew well that the truth is more than the sum of the facts. For this reason, he goes on to tell his audience the manner in which the truth is to be spoken. “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths,” he says, “but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29. Thus, there are three considerations to be made in contemplating when and how to speak the truth. First, is it necessary to speak this truth? Just because a particular assertion of fact is genuinely accurate does not mean that it needs to be shared. It might arguably have been necessary for a member of my hypothetical school board to disclose Mary’s criminal conviction for the greater good of the public. But it would be quite unnecessary and wrong to share it with fellow members of the mall walking group, thereby needlessly damaging her reputation.

Second, will the information to be shared build up the church, the community and the people involved? As a pastor and as an attorney, I have sat through countless meetings of one kind or another. If I have one regret in life, it is over the hours of my life spent in council meetings, committees and litigation groups I will never get back. I would be hard put to say whether lawyers or pastors are more deeply in love with the sound of their own voices. What I do know is that a lot of what is shared does more to boost the ego of the speaker, vent personal frustrations and impress the rest of the group than further the purpose of the meeting. Speaking is reflexive for many of us. We would, I think, be better served to ask ourselves before we open our mouths, “Will what I am about to say build trust, enhance understanding and move the conversation forward in a helpful direction?”

Sometimes painful truths need to be spoken. Essential truths are not always welcome. The Hebrew prophets frequently exposed the painful truth about Israel’s injustice and betrayal of its covenant with God. But they did so always with the purpose of returning Israel to faithfulness and restoring its covenant relationship. As Professor Gerold O. West points out, sometimes the good news of the gospel needs to be experienced as bad news before it can be heard as good. Sometimes you must learn to hate what you most love before you can learn to love it properly. Luke 14:25-26.

Finally, one must ask whether the information to be shared will “give grace” to those who hear? In the final analysis, the truth is not facts, information or opinions. The truth is a person. “I am…the truth” says Jesus. John 14:6. Jesus came, John the Evangelist tells us, not to condemn the world but to save it. John 3:17. Everyone to whom one has opportunity to speak is a person for whom God sent the only Son. Thus, before speaking, one must ask: 1) whether the truth one would tell needs to be told; 2) whether the persons to whom one speaks need to be told this truth at this time; 3) what tone, tenor, words, images, parables or analogies can be used to tell this truth to these persons at this time faithfully, courageously and compassionately so as to move all involved toward the restoration of justice, reconciliation, peace and the strengthening of community. Speech that does not further these sacred objectives is not true, however factually accurate it might be.

Here is a poem by Robert Hayden about Fredrick Douglass, a man whose truthful speech still pierces the darkness of racial injustice with both judgment and promise.

Frederick Douglass

Source: The Collected Poems of Robert Hayden (c. 1966 by Robert Hayden; pub. by Liveright Publishing Corporation). Robert Hayden (1913 –1980) was an American poet, essayist and educator. He was born in Detroit, Michigan where he was raised by a foster family following his parents’ separation. The Haydens, his foster parents whose name he eventually took as his own, were contentious and abusive. Short of stature and visually impaired, Hayden was unable to participate in sports like most of his peers. He became a voracious reader, however, and developed a keen interest in writing. Hayden attended Detroit City College where he majored in English and Spanish. He left just one credit short of graduation in the midst of the Great Depression to serve in the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers’ Project. There he researched black history and folk culture. Hayden served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was the first African-American writer to hold this position. You can read more about Robert Hayden and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] Some have complained that my association of Republicans generally with the MAGA ideology of hate is unfair. In response, I can only point out that your party nominated as its presidential candidate the chief mouthpiece of racist MAGA ideology and sidelined everyone in the party who has had the courage to speak out against him. It is clear where your party is headed and if you are not down with where that train is going, the time to get off is now. Otherwise, you cannot complain about being known by your associations.

[2] Immigrants are actually 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than are U.S.-born individuals who are white. See The Mythical tie Between Immigration and Crime, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, July 21, 2023.

Kierkegaard’s Ghost

(News that’s fake, but credible)

Kierkegaard’s Ghost is privileged to have secured this exclusive interview with Republican Vice Presidential nominee, J.D. Vance by our chief journalistic investigator, Phucker Sharlitan. We thank Mr. Vance and the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign organization for giving him the day off and making this interview possible.

Sharlitan: Let me start, Mr. Vance, by congratulating you on your nomination for vice president at the recent Republican National Convention.

Vance: Thank you, Phucker. It is truly an honor to have been selected by president Trump. We look forward to campaigning together in order to make America great again again.

Sharlitan: Mr. Vance, the lame stream media has made a lot of hay out of a remark you made to the effect that “We’re effectively run in this country—via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs—by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Did you mean that?

Vance: Look Phucker. That was sarcasm and maybe a little unfair to cat owners. Truth is, I know many married, female cat owners who have plenty of kids and keep their place in the kitchen for traditional families. I know plenty of cats too and I’ve got nothing against them. It’s only the childless ones, the ones that think they don’t need a man to make them happy, the ones that have a notion they can wear pants to a man. They are the ones who are wrecking the American home, effeminating our men and castrating our boys by filling our schools with wok propaganda. It’s only the women who insist on running their own lives and controlling their own bodies that I criticized. I love the rest.   

Sharlitan: Well, thank you for clearing that up for us. So, what do you say to those who claim you are trying to turn back the clock for woman and the gains they have made over the last few decades?

Vance: Gains? Let’s face facts. Women were made to be helpmeets for men. They may not realize it, but they will never be happy until they take their place within the traditional family as homemakers. The next Trump administration will work hard to help them achieve the happiness for which they were made. That is what I call a gain.

Sharlitan: So, as I understand it, you and Mr. Trump are championing a bill called the Women’s Voting Protection Act. Can you tell us about that?

Vance: Surely. Currently, state laws provide that people are entitled to a secret ballot. They go into the voting booth, vote and nobody is entitled to influence their vote beforehand or compel them to disclose how they voted afterward. The WVPA would make an exception to that rule in the case of married women. The new law would allow men to accompany their wives into the voting booth to ensure that they vote properly.

Sharlitan: Wow! Don’t you think that is going a bit too far?

Vance: It doesn’t go far enough if you ask me. Truth is, women have no business voting at all. It is too confusing and stressful for them. They would be happier if they didn’t have to vote and, believe me, I would relieve them of that burden if I could. But the damned Nineteenth Amendment prevents us from banning women from voting. So if we cannot stop them from voting, we can ensure that they vote sensibly-at least the married ones.

Sharlitan: Of course, that would leave the childless cat women you are worried about.

Vance: Like I said, the law isn’t perfect. But we think we can reduce significantly the deficit we face in support by women if we make it possible for their men to straighten them out. This isn’t discriminatory. It doesn’t prevent women from voting. It only protects them from foolishly throwing their vote away on the wrong candidates and the wrong positions on important issues, all of which are beyond their understanding.  

Sharlitan: Some of your critics have equated your views with those of the Gilead government in Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaids Tale.

Vance: That is a bunch of hyperbolic radical leftist hysteria. But look, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose the next Trump administration were to establish a patriarchal, totalitarian theocratic state in which women are forcibly assigned to produce children for a ruling class of men. Would that really be so bad?

Sharlitan: I see your point. At least guys like us could finally get dates.

Vance: And we wouldn’t have to worry ourselves with all the politically correct crap about respecting their careers, accomplishments or their precious bodies. Under the new regime, every man will be a celebrity just like my boss. It’ll just be a matter of kissing them whenever we feel like it and grabbing ‘em by the p#$#y. And no worries about law suits or assault charges.

Sharlitan: Well Mr. Vance, you have given us some inspiring words today. Thanks so much for this interview.

Vance: Pleasure is all mine.    

**************************************************************

FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen.  “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

Augustine Refuting Heretic

ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

Psalm 78:23-29

Ephesians 4:1-16

John 6:24-35

Prayer of the Day: O God, eternal goodness, immeasurable love, you place your gifts before us; we eat and are satisfied. Fill us and this world in all its need with the life that comes only from you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4:4-6.

“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Ephesians 4:14.

More than a decade ago now an acquaintance of mine, a colleague ordained as a pastor in the United Methodist Church, informed me that she was converting to Roman Catholicism. I was flabbergasted. “Why are you doing this,” I asked incredulously. “Your ordination will not be recognized. You will not be able to preach or preside at worship. Your views on women’s rights and the gifts they have to offer will not be welcome.” “I know that,” she replied. “But as I see it, the greatest threat to human wellbeing and the health of our planet is nationalism that places the gods of country, blood and soil dividing humanity into armed camps. That is what drives the nations of the world into ever more bloody conflicts and prevents us collectively from addressing the ecological threat to our planet. If we do not disarm these demons, the rest of the issues won’t matter. As I see it, the Roman Catholic Church, for all its corruption, faults and shortcomings, bears the clearest witness to the oneness of God, the oneness of the human family and the catholicity of the church which transcends humanly concocted national boundaries and loyalties. For that, I am willing put some of my issues, important as they are, on the back burner.”

You may agree or disagree with my friend’s assessment of the Roman Catholic Church and her decision to join it, but I think the point she makes is valid. As Paul explains, unity of the human family is a direct and necessary corollary of the oneness of God who is “through all and in all-” even those who call upon God by different names or do not call upon God at all. Paul is merely repeating the truth expressed in the Hebrew creation narratives when in his sermon on the Areopagus in Athens he tells his audience that God made “from one ancestor all nations.” Acts 17:26. It is no overstatement, then, to say that the ideologies supporting American exceptionalism and white supremacy, whether political or religious, are heretical. They are, to use Paul’s terminology, doctrines concocted “by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Bishops, pastors, teachers of the church ought to be saying so in no uncertain terms.

Heresy is a word we so-called progressive protestants tend to avoid. It conjures up violent images of the crusades, the inquisition and the burning of witches. Accusations of heresy have been employed throughout the church’s history to silence voices of dissent, marginalize women and exclude sexual minorities. The result of all this has been to cement the church’s decision making power in the hands of a relatively few who think alike. Here the old adage holds true: where everyone thinks alike nobody thinks at all. That goes a long way toward explaining why the church, which was called to follow Jesus into God’s future, has often had to be dragged there kicking and screaming out of the past.

That said, I believe it matters what we say and what we believe about who God is and what God requires of us. After all, we have seen unspeakable acts of violence committed against LGBTQ+ folk, attacks on women’s health clinics and suicide bombers killing scores of people along with themselves, all in what they believe to have been in the service of God. Heresy kills. The church was right to reject the various Arian teachings that created a hierarchy within the Godhead mirroring the hierarchical machinery of empire. The church was right to reject Marcion’s effort to sever the gospel of Jesus Christ from its Jewish roots in the Hebrew scriptures. The church was right to reject gnostic teachings that denigrated the physical world and rejected the Incarnation. We could wish that the church had done so with more civility, more inclusiveness and without resort to violence. Yet however flawed the process, the outcome was, I believe, correct.

I also believe the churches that have opened the way for ordination, ministry and full participation to women in the life of the church are correct. That brings me to another important point. Heresy does not always manifest as a novel teaching. Sometimes it comes in the form of traditional orthodox teachings time, experience and deeper reflection on the scriptures has shown to be incorrect, but to which the church or some within it continue to hang on. Orthodoxy, which means “right teaching,” is not a static set of dogmas written in stone and immune from growth, change and modification. It has less to do with consistency than with seeking to move ever closer to what is true, beautiful and good by building on, enhancing and reinterpreting what has been established and passed down throughout the church’s history. One does not avoid heresy by standing firmly on what has been established in the past, nor does one necessarily fall into heresy by introducing new perspectives and novel ideas.

Since the conversation I had with my colleague over a decade ago, the drum beat of nationalistic populism and the hateful ideologies it promotes has grown louder, angrier and increasingly menacing. Rev. Dr. Martin Junge’s[1] preface to the recent statement, Resisting Exclusion, produced byThe Lutheran World Federation (LWF) notes that:

“Public discourse has become significantly more aggressive and divisive, as ethno-nationalist populist movements have gained traction. Political agitation and hate speech have led to hate crimes, especially against vulnerable groups like refugees and migrants. There is a tangible negative impact on the cohesion of societies and the infringement on the rights and freedoms of diverse groups of people.”

In discussing this phenomenon in the United States, contributor to that work, Rev. Dr. Linda E. Thomas,[2] explains that “one of the reasons that the polarizing populism in the United States has developed is that for many years there has been a disregard for those in underserved communities, those left out because of elitism and alienation across socioeconomic classes. This alienation of the white poor and working class has often led to blaming and attacking black and brown people as the cause of their poverty.”  This inbred bigotry is currently being exploited by powerful political and commercial interests for their own purposes. Thomas goes on to point out that “[w]hat we call the right-wing populist narrative in the United States is led by the white elite, making it a populist movement. There is an underclass of white people in the United States who have been trained to believe that their ‘whiteness’ elevates them over black and brown people.” The late former president Lyndon B. Johnson understood this dynamic well. When asked how poor white people can be induced to vote against their own economic interests, he replied “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” That is why working class white people, blinded by racist hate, consistently vote for candidates who promise to gut the safety net on which they will likely need to depend at some point if they are not already dependent upon it.

Paul calls or, rather, pleads with the church in Ephesus to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” The church is to embody within itself and so witness to the oneness of humanity that Christ Jesus lived, died and was raised again to restore. To that end, the church is endowed with gifts enabling “some [to] be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” The church is a work in progress. Its members are called out from under the dominion of empire where the weak and vulnerable serve the mighty into the communion of saints were all alike employ their unique gifts to serve one another. The primary job of the church is be a community in which disciples of Jesus can be formed, where people learn the art of living under God’s reign within the midst of an empire that claims sole jurisdiction. “Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”

The stark contrast between the religion, values and power structures of the Roman Empire under which the New Testament church existed and the life to which Jesus calls his disciples was all too evident for Paul and his congregations. By contrast, I believe American Christians are, on the whole, nearly blind to any distinction between the civil piety of United States citizenship and the obedience called for in their baptismal vows. We lionize military veterans while praying to the Prince of Peace who chose death over taking up the sword in defense of his life. We recite creeds in which we affirm our belief in the one holy catholic church made up of people of every nation, tribe and tongue while pledging our allegiance to the American flag and uttering slogans like “America First.” We get into heated arguments over what America should look like rather than focusing on what the reign of God does look like and growing up into Jesus Christ so that we can better live under it. As much as we so-called progressive Christians abhor the Christian nationalism of the religious right, we are in many respects captives to the same false national mythologies and blind to the idolatries into which they have led us.    

The good news Paul proclaims in his letter to the Ephesians is that the walls dividing the human family cannot stand. Gated communities, segregated neighborhoods, heavily guarded national boundaries and the humanly designed class distinctions we make on the basis of race, wealth, citizenship, gender and religion are destined to fall. Those who are frantically trying to prop them up are on the losing side of history. The need for witnessing to that liberating good news has never been more urgent.

Here is a poem by Simon J. Ortiz reflecting the struggle of becoming genuinely human in overlapping cultures. I believe it also reflects the struggle to which disciples of Jesus are called.

Becoming Human

We are given permission
by the responsibility we accept
and carry out. Nothing more,
nothing less.
                        People are not born.
They are made when they become
human beings within ritual,
tradition, purpose, responsibility.


Therefore, as humans, this we do:
Sun Father begins red
in the east.
Stand and be humble.
Red through trees,
moments changing each instant
into the next change,
each change tied to the next.
To be human is to have
a sense of being within self.


Sun. Red. Trees.
Our hearts’ eyes seeing
inward and outward, accepting:
Stand and be humble.
  The more names you have the more of a person you become. That’s what I’ve heard. I was telling Tom yesterday afternoon. Values, education, social change, cultural corruption, what is and what isn’t. I have to dispute him at moments. I tell him, The knowledge we derive from the education we get is our own. Knowledge is determined by our cultural, spiritual, linguistic, political environment. The knowledge from the community and context here cannot be anything but the people’s own. This is not Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, or Rapid City. This is Rosebud, the Lakota homeland.

Our names are both Indian and American. We have so many names now we don’t know them all. In a sense, we have become more of a people than ever before.

Source: After and Before the Lightning  (c. Simon Ortiz; pub. by University of Arizona Press). Simon J. Ortiz (born 1941) is a Native American writer, poet, and member of the Pueblo of Acoma. He is one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renaissance, a period marking the significant increase in production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States in the late 1960s. Ortiz is commited to preserving and expanding the literary and oral histories of the Acoma Pueblo. That commitment is reflected in many of the themes and techniques that compose his work. You can read more about Simon Ortiz and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] Rev. Dr. Martin Junge served as General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation from 2010-2021.

[2] Rev. Dr. Linda E. Thomas is a professor of theology and anthropology at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, IL

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Prayer of the Day: Gracious God, you have placed within the hearts of all your children a longing for your word and a hunger for your truth. Grant that we may know your Son to be the true bread of heaven and share this bread with all the world, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:18-19.

“The Lord is just in all his ways,
   and kind in all his doings.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
   to all who call on him in truth.” Psalm 145:17-18.

I have spent the last week reading Reading Genesis” by author, Marilynne Robinson with my daughter, Rev. Emily Olsen-Brandt visiting us while on sabbatical. It is a refreshing read. Unlike so many commentaries that dissect isolated pericopes with the tools of historical critical research, treating them as independent units, Ms. Robinson treats the whole book of Genesis as the complete, coherent and compelling work of literature it is. Though mindful of the complex and diverse history of the many different sources, traditions and their transmission over time, she never loses sight of the overarching theme that is God’s faithfulness.

Genesis begins with God creating the cosmos, not from the body of a defeated foe as much near eastern mythology would have it, but by God’s own creative word. There is no back story to creation. As a Rabbi and teacher of mine once explained it, there is a reason the Holy Scriptures begin with the Hebrew letter “B” instead of the letter “A” as one might expect. The letter b appears in Hebrew as “ב.” As the Hebrew language is written from right to left, “everything proceeds out of the mouth of b,” or “beth” as it is pronounced in Hebrew. [———ב] Everything knowable originates from God’s speaking the creative word. There is nothing above the word, before the word or beneath the word. There is no asking about what came before creation. To make such inquiries of the text is rather like asking a physicist what was going on before the big bang or into what is the universe expanding. Such questions betray a fundamental misunderstanding of astrophysics just as surely as inquires into what preceded creation indicate a failure of comprehension in reading Genesis.

God created human beings “very good.” As the second creation account in Genesis 2 illustrates, they were not made to serve God’s own needs, as though God had any! Rather than commanding humans to build God a temple, or offer sacrifices to God or worship God, God commands the first human to till and keep the garden God made. Though God’s human creatures prove faithless in their charge, God does not do as they expect, namely, condemn them to death. God continues to care for them and to be present for them in their altered existence brought about by their unfaithfulness. Remarkably, this God who created the universe displays a keen interest in and concern for some particular individuals who are not kings or emperors, but mere nomads living a precarious existence in the shadow of powerful nations and city states.

Again and again, God deals graciously and generously with the world. Just as God did not kill or abandon Adam and Eve for eating from the forbidden tree, so God does not condemn the first murderer, Cain, to death or even life without parole. In fact, God puts a mark on Cain to ensure that no one will seek revenge against him. The matriarchs and patriarchs sometimes behave in ways that are unjust, cruel and immoral by whatever historical or cultural standard one may wish to apply. But God seems uninterested in punishing or correcting them. God is, however, merciful and just where human actors prove unjust. God seeks out the outcast concubine Hagar, not merely saving her and her child from starvation, but making with her a covenant similar to that made with Abraham and Sarah. God does not punish Jacob for deceiving his blind old father Isaac and stealing his brother Esau’s birth right and blessing. But God makes of Esau a nation and gives him a heritage. God is generous in terms of mercy and acts with extreme restraint when it comes to retributive justice.

To be sure, there are instances when God inflicts judgment that takes the form of violence. God behaves in ways that cause us progressive, white and ever polite American protestant types to cringe. Robinson does not, as too many preachers are prone to do, apologize for the text or dismiss its discomforting portrayals of God and God’s acts as primitive and barbaric notions that we enlightened modernists are free to ignore. God is God and requires no defense, explanation or justification.

The great flood comes to mind as an example of God’s judgment, as does the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet even in these instances, God is more inclined toward mercy. The violence of the flood is intended to check human violence spiraling out of control. The flood saga ends with God taking the nuclear option forever off the table, promising never again to undo the good work of creation however wicked its human inhabitants may become. God is prepared to forbear destroying the two wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if but ten righteous people can be found there. God’s default posture is always that of mercy and compassion.

God is all but absent from the story of Joseph. Unlike the matriarchs and patriarchs of prior generations, Joseph never experiences a theophany. His is a story of sibling rivalry born of his father Jacob’s favoritism. Aside from his dreams, which prove to have been prescient only in retrospect, Joseph’s adventures are all too human. Sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, Joseph must negotiate life first as a slave and then as a prisoner. His rise to prominence comes about through his having made a valuable connection with the royal household of Pharoh while in prison. Once elevated to a place of power and prestige in Egypt, Joseph does what every good immigrant does. He took an Egyptian name and forgot the affliction of his father’s house. He married a prominent Egyptian and gave his children Egyptian names.

As Pharoh’s number two, Joseph prepares Egypt for a devastating famine by storing up grain in the fruitful years before it occurs. He then leverages these stores to obtain for Pharoh first the lands and property of his Egyptian subjects and finally the Egyptians themselves. Ironically, Joseph transforms Egypt into a slave state, a circumstance that will have a devastating impact on his descendants. For all intents and purposes, Joseph has integrated himself into Egyptian society and culture.

But when Joseph’s brothers appear seeking relief from the famine, Joseph’s past and his family identity comes crashing back. Joseph finds himself in a position to save his family from starvation-or wreak vengeance upon his brothers for their treachery. Joseph’s toying with his brothers for what most have been several months suggests that he must have been conflicted. On the one hand, ten of his brothers were clearly deserving of whatever misery he might inflict upon them. On the other hand, there was his aged father and his full brother Benjamin for whom his heart yearned. In the end, neither his love for the two nor his just anger at the ten guide his decision. Joseph’s decision to show mercy and forgiveness hinge on his recognition that there was a greater meaning and purpose for his life than even his dreams could have revealed. Though Joseph’s brothers acted against him with evil intent, God put the consequences of their evil actions to a redemptive purpose, namely, “that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Genesis 50:20.

Joseph’s theophany, such that it is, occurs entirely in the rear view mirror. Only at the end of his story does he recognize the guiding hand of the God who appeared so graphically to his father, grandparents and great grandparents. Yet it is through Joseph’s insight that we are to view all the past chapters of Genesis. We are to understand that however evil, misguided, dense and unfaithful human beings might be, God remains faithful working God’s gracious intent and purpose in, with and under, through and sometimes in spite of the actions of God’s people. The message of Genesis is that it is finally God’s providential purpose that prevails. This is not to say that everything is preordained. Human agency is real. People act of their own volition and human actions have consequences. Abraham might not have left Ur. Easau might have killed Jacob for his treachery instead of welcoming him home and embracing him. Joseph might have imprisoned or killed his brothers, leaving his father Jacob to starve in Canaan. Still, God’s intent and purpose would continue to work itself out because God is faithful to the world God made. The truly remarkable thing is that God graciously invites ordinary humans leading ordinary bread and butter lives to participate in God’s struggle to bring humanity and all creation into blessing.

Just as the Jospeh story is the lens through which the rest of Genesis is to be viewed, so the book of Genesis sets the trajectory for the scriptural narrative to follow culminating, as Christians confess, in the obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection of Jesus. There, too, human agency at its worst crucified the best gift God had to give. But God raised and continues to raise that gift up and offer it to us again and again for as many times as it takes until God’s providential purpose for creation is fulfilled. This, to use Paul’s words, “is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…”

To recap, I owe many of the insights expressed herein to Marilynne Robinson and her remarkable book, Reading Genesis (c. 2024 by Marilynne Robinson; pub. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and daughter Rev. Emily Olsen-Brandt

Here is a poem by William Cowper reflecting confidence in God’s mercy and providential purposes so well illustrated in the book of Genesis.

Source: This poem is in the public domain. William Cowper (1731 –1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnist. He was one of the most popular poets of his time, writing poetry about everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. A fervent evangelical, he struggled with doubt about his salvation and at one point became convinced that he was eternally damned. Cowper was tormented with mental illness and placed for a time in what was then called an insane asylum. He gradually recovered from his illness and gained some stability in his faith life. Cowper gave expression to his newfound confidence in God’s grace and forgiveness in the many hymns and poems he wrote thereafter. He also wrote a number of anti-slavery poems. His friendship with John Newton, an avid anti-slavery campaigner, resulted in Cowper’s being asked to write in support of the Abolitionist campaign. He wrote a poem called “The Negro’s Complaint” in1788 which rapidly became very famous. It was often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. You can read more about William Cowper and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.  

NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Psalm 23

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Prayer of the Day: O God, powerful and compassionate, you shepherd your people, faithfully feeding and protecting us. Heal each of us, and make us a whole people, that we may embody the justice and peace of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Jeremiah 23:5.

Kings are a dying breed. The few that are left do little in the way of actual governing. Their duties are primarily ceremonial. The real work of government is now done by presidents, prime ministers, congressional bodies and judicial officers. Kings and queens christen ships, cut ribbons for new highways and host dinners for visiting dignitaries. They do not declare wars, legislate or enforce the law. Nations like our own have rejected even the ceremonial brand of monarchy. Our struggle with King George III left a bad taste for monarchy in our mouths. The very idea is repugnant to us. Berger King is about the only king you will find in these parts.

Yet the idea of kingship is a powerful one that pervades scripture and classical literature.[1] Kings are frequently the central characters in the works of William Shakespear. I believe it is important to pay attention to this literary context when reading texts like the one from or reading in Jeremiah this coming Sunday. Understand first and foremost that a king is not a dictator. Kings are subject to the same laws and the same moral standards governing the rest of humanity. Given their exalted position, however, they are expected to excel in them. The biblical adage applies: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” Luke 12:48.

Kings are not elected. They do not serve at the pleasure of the people. They are, according to the literary tradition, divinely instituted through the sacred line of succession. As the recipient of a sacred divine trust, a king is charged with administering justice without regard to what the polls say or what wealthy doners request or what lobbyists are demanding. A king may have counselors, confessors and advisors, but the ultimate authority to decide matters of state rests solely upon the king. For this reason, the highest degree of honesty, integrity and fairness must govern the conscience of a king if he is to fulfill his office faithfully.

The responsibilities of kingship demand much from frail human nature, vulnerable as it is to the temptations of power. Perhaps that is why so many of the kings from the Hebrew Scriptures, the literature of antiquity and the plays William Shakespear come to grief. Few mortals can bear well the weight of the crown. Even the “good” kings, such as David, abused their power and used it for self serving ends. Perhaps that is why the psalmist warns us, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.” Psalm 146:3. After two disastrous conflicts with Rome that resulted in the Jews being exiled from their own land, Judaism moved away from its focus on hope for a human messianic deliverer. The church also tempered its expectations for the return of Jesus, cautioning its members to ignore representations of any who might claim to be the returning Christ, heeding his admonition, “if they say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms’, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” Matthew 24:26-27. The only king to be trusted is the King of Kings, the God who is sovereign over all nations.

Human leadership, according to the scriptural witness, cannot rise above the flaws of human nature. Thus, good leadership requires, above all else, humility. By that I mean a sober recognition that the best of us is subject to pride, arrogance, the need for recognition and affirmation, greed and selfishness. All these traits can taint our judgment and cloud our vision of the good. A good leader recognizes the danger of these very human tendencies in him/herself and so surrounds her/himself with trusted advisors who can be relied upon to tell the truth-however inconvenient, unpopular or embarrassing it may be. More important still, a good leader finds the courage to act upon that truth. It takes profound strength of character to admit that a decision affecting the lives of hundreds of million might have been wrong and to turn away from it. It requires a boatload of courage to admit that you are uncertain about the way forward, that there is no quick fix to the problems your people are facing and that it will take enormous sacrifices to arrive at the common good. Any political strategist will tell you that there is no path to electoral victory for such a candidate. We elect strong, confident leaders who assure us that they have a plan to fix what is wrong and that it will not cost us a penny.

In the end, we get the kind of leaders we deserve, namely, leaders that lie to us, make promises on which they cannot deliver and offer solutions that make great soundbites, but poor policy. The way to electoral victory does not lie in laying out effective solutions to complex problems. The way to electoral victory is studying the polls, figuring out what people desire and what they fear, and crafting a message that appeals. Then, when our elected leaders disappoint our unrealistic expectations, we angrily kick them off the pedestal where we placed them and elect someone new peddling the same old lies. As long as we want to go on believing that the right person can solve our problems, assuage our fears and give us the good life to which we feel entitled, we will get leaders who lie to us, exploit our gullibility and disappoint us.

The prophet Jeremiah understood all of this. That is why he declares that God alone is the shepherd worthy of the crown. God alone reunites the scattered and abandoned sheep. God will raise up a leader from the line of David to rule justly because human leaders invariably fall short. Followers of Jesus identify that leader as their Lord, a man who exercised a starkly different sort of leadership. The reign of God Jesus proclaims is not imposed by force or implemented by will of the people. Democratic rule is no more immune from the corrupting influence of power than any other type of human leadership. Professor Stanly Hauerwas once pointed out that there is only one instance of democracy in the Bible, namely, the race between Jesus and Barabas. Jesus lost. And Jesus is prepared to lose again to the power of empire, the power of popular opinion, the power of ideologically driven movements and the power of religious institutions, as many times as it takes to open our eyes to the better way of being human God would give us.

When will we enjoy honest, faithful and courageous leadership? When we finally let politics be politics and stop making a religion of it. When we finally understand that the challenges we face, local and global, are complex and admit of no simple, cost free solutions. When we stop seeking the false security afforded by comforting lies, simplistic rhetoric and the political campaigns that package them for us in easy to open cartons. When we finally learn that the danger of fearing one another is greater than the risk of trusting one another. When we finally figure out that the wellbeing of each one of us individually is bound up with the well being of all of us, regardless of which side of the border we reside. When we understand that the line between good and evil does not run along party lines, international boundaries, religious communities or the contours of legality, but right through the middle of every human heart where the battle for righteousness is finally won or lost. When all of this becomes evident to us at last, we may finally be in a position to elect honest, humble and wise leaders able to guide us in healing our wounded planet, reconciling our divided people and erasing the inequality of wealth, health and opportunity that has plagued us from the dawn of time.

Here is a poem by Dorothy E. Reid about kings for whom the weight of the crown proved too heavy, the love of their subjects too fickle and their downfall too hard for their inflated egos to comprehend.    

Kings

Source: Poetry (March 1927). Dorothy E. Reid (1896-1977)earned a degree from Ohio State University in 1925. She wrote as both a poet and journalist. Coach into Pumpkin, her book of poetry, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was published by Yale University Press in 1925. She subsequently published in Poetry.

[1] Regrettably, female monarchs are sorely underrepresented in the classical literary tradition.

EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Amos 7:7-15

Psalm 85:8-13

Ephesians 1:3-14

Mark 6:14-29

Prayer of the Day: O God, from you come all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works. Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments; and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.” Amos 7:10.

The most valuable gift bestowed upon me by my public education was a love for and appreciation of books. In the eighth grade I read Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Melville’s Moby Dick and Dickens’ Great Expectations. In high school I was introduced to John Steinbeck in The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. His books have continued to entertain, nurture and challenge me throughout my lifetime. For reasons I still do not fully understand, I got placed in high school honors humanities where I read 1984 and Animal Farm, by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. The Hobbit was on the reading list and it got me hooked on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy. At every stage of my educational sojourn, I had teachers who encouraged me read beyond the established curriculum and I did. One particularly formative book for me was Jan de Hartog’s Peaceable Kingdom, a lengthy historical novel I found in the high school library that followed the lives of actual and fictional leaders and followers of the Society of Friends, otherwise known as the Quakers, in both England and in the United States. I found this saga so compelling that I considered converting for a time.

These books literally made me. They introduced me to the mysteries of human nature. They taught me the virtues of courage, integrity and faithfulness. Through the exercise of imagination, these authors and their stories helped me explore the potential for both good and evil that come of human ambition. They taught me about the corrupting influence of wealth and power, the opportunities for good and the temptation to abuse that comes with leadership. Books introduced me to the mysteries of science and the promise/threat of technology. I do not know where or even who I would be without these and so many other books that shaped my understanding and character.

It is not lost on me that many of these books are being removed from school curricula and libraries these days for various reasons. The Tolkien books have been attacked by some religious groups for promoting witchcraft. Many of the other books mentioned above have been removed because they contain “explicit sexual material.” Also under fire are more recent books in the young adult genre dealing with the struggles and triumphs of LGBTQ+ youth. Perhaps most distressing is the removal of books that delve into historical and contemporary systemic racism in America and its continuing effects. Recently, the American Library Association‘s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom released preliminary data that reports 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and challenges to 1,915 unique books. That represents a 20% increase over 2022, which reached the highest number of book challenges since ALA began compiling the data more than 20 years ago. PEN America also tracked school book bans specifically and found 3,362 book bans affecting 1,557 unique titles during the 2022-23 school year, an increase of 33% from the 2021-22 school year. The removal of these books from schools and libraries is supposedly being done “to protect our children.”[1]    

There is no getting around the fact that books are dangerous to the status quo. They always have been. Books awaken our imagination and challenge us to think differently about ourselves and our world. They force us to question what we have been taught and whether the way things are is the way they must be. Nothing is quite so terrifying to a tyrant as a child with a book. That is why every tyrannical regime has attempted to control books and their publication. Books were routinely burned in Hitler’s Germany and in Stalin’s Russia. They are scrutinized and banned when deemed contrary to the reigning dogma of theocratic regimes like Iran. That we are seeing the same thing beginning to take place here in the United States should be a cause of concern, if not outright alarm.

Before books were put into writing, Amaziah, the priest of Bethel in Israel, understood their power. He reported to the king of Israel that the “land was not able to bear” all the words of the prophet Amos. The prophet’s witness to a God who demanded justice for the poor and despised religion glorifying the king and “his” sanctuary was a threat too dangerous to ignore. And so Amaziah did what book banners are doing today. He banished Amos, exiled him, took away his green card and sent him packing. Out of sight, out of mind. But words of truth and justice are not so easily dispatched. The mere presence of the Book of Amos the prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures illustrates the futility of seeking to ban literature. Amaziah’s attempt to silence Amos did not work. Censorship never does. Amos’ words live on. But have you ever heard of the Book of Amaziah the priest of Bethel?

Behind all the energy expended on removing books from our schools and libraries lies a deep seated fear of change on the part of those who see a very comfortable status quo and the privileges it affords them slipping away. I guess the theory is that if we can keep children from finding out about racial inequities, the complexities of gender identity, the toxic effects of sexism on our girls and boys, the hard realities of social class distinctions and the growing disparity in wealth between the rich and the working class, then all these uncomfortable realities will simply go away and everything will stay the same. In fact, however, censorship does not erase uncomfortable truths. It only robs our children of the information, ideas and conceptual tools they need to think deeply and creatively about addressing them.    

Disciples of Jesus must be on the side of authors, teachers and librarians. We believe, as St. Augustine taught us, that truth has an independent existence grounded in God our Creator. It cannot be erased. Consequently, we have nothing to fear from books-even those we deem wrong, misguided and inaccurate. As one colleague of mine puts it, “I read all the books that are being banned today and all I ever got from it was smarter.” The best defense against books we deem wrong or dangerous is not censorship, but good books or, rather, minds formed and grounded in truth through the reading of good books. The truth needs our witness, not our defense.

Here is a poem by Margurite Engle about books, censorship and its ultimate futility.

Tula [“Books are door-shaped”]

Source: The Lightning Dreamer, Margarita Engle (C. 2013 by Margarita Engle: pub. by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Margarita Engle (b.1951) is a Cuban American poet. She is also the author of many books for children and young adults. Engle was born and raised in California, but she spent many summers with her extended family in Cuba. She earned a B.S. from California State Polytechnic University in 1974 and an M.S. from Iowa State University in 1977. Engle became the first Latino awarded a Newbery Honor in 2009. She was selected by the Poetry Foundation to serve as the sixth Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2017-2019. On October 9, 2018, Margarita Engle was announced the winner of the 2019 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature. Most of Engle’s stories are written in verse and are a reflect her Cuban heritage and her love of nature. You can read more about Margarita Engle and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

[1] I am not suggesting that care should not be taken to ensure books recommended to children are age appropriate. There are some books containing language, images and topics inappropriate for very young children. In this regard, I find it amusing that many of the same folks who want to remove books they view as offensive from our schools are also advocating teaching the Bible in the class room. That leads me to wonder whether these folks have ever read the Bible. Do they know that the Bible contains stories of gang rape, mutilation, incest and sexual imagery bordering on the pornographic? (See Judges 19:1-30; Genesis 19:30-38; Ezekiel 23:1-21). For this reason, I have often questioned the protestant custom of handing out Bibles to children as though they were benign peppermints. For more on that, see The Bible: Handle With Care & Keep Out of the Reach of Children.