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.

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Ezekiel 2:1-5

Psalm 123

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Mark 6:1-13

Prayer of the Day: God of the covenant, in our baptism you call us to proclaim the coming of your kingdom. Give us the courage you gave the apostles, that we may faithfully witness to your love and peace in every circumstance of life, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” Mark 6:4.

For the last decade, people like me have been in a state of collective denial. When Donald Trump first descended the escalator announcing his candidacy, we laughed. Nobody in their right mind, we thought, will take this buffoon seriously. Then November 8, 2016 dawned and we learned that Donald J. Trump, the mulitbankruptcy business failure, flamboyant reality TV showman, unrepentant racist and sexual predator, would indeed occupy the oval office. “This is not us,” we gasped. We tried to rationalize the result. Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate. Her campaign failed to work hard enough in the crucial swing states. Voter turnout was low that year which always favors Republicans. Surely, this election was a fluke, an artifact, a blip on the radar. Surely the next four years, however bleak they might be, will shock the Republican party and the country back into sanity.

When Joe Biden won both the popular and electoral majority over Trump in 2020, we assured ourselves that sanity had, in fact returned. But that assurance was misplaced. While 80 million people turned out to vote for Biden, a whopping 70 million voted for Trump. Then came the January 6, 2021 Republican insurrection.[1] In the wake of that shocking day, the old refrain was played again. “This is not us. This is not who we are.” Again, we comforted ourselves with the belief that, finally, the Republican party will recognize the monster they have created. Surely, this will wake up the American people to the true nature of Trumpism and the malignancy of the MAGA mob. For a few brief days that seemed to be so. Both Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and House leader Kevin McCarthy blamed Donald Trump for instigating the insurrection that could well have gotten them both killed. But when it became clear that the MAGA mob was as loyal as ever to its head, both men crawled back to their master.

Still, we hoped that the era of Trump would pass. We expected him to continue making noise, holding racous rallies with a steadily diminishing base of supporters and disrupting the political process wherever possible. But he would, we were convinced, fade into the mist like Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, Strom Thurman and all the other American demagogues. After four years of his chaotic presidency ending in an attack on your democracy which, up to that point, would have been unthinkable, we could not imagine the country giving Donald Trump a second term. This is America after all.  

We should have known better. We ought to have realized that the demons of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and, above all, racism have never been cast out of our nation’s soul. They are and always have been essential elements of our cultural DNA. Like a recessive gene, they can skip a generation, lie dormant for a spell fulminating in the darkness of skeevy locker rooms, smoke filled bars and backyard barbeques. But eventually, they erupt like a cancerous sore into the public square and metastasize into systemic malignancy.

People like me, who can still recall the struggle for racial equality and civil rights, the battles hard fought by courageous women for equality, reproductive freedom and access to the professions, the days when merely being suspected of being gay could turn you into a social pariah, get you fired from your job and perhaps get you killed, we all assumed that the progress made in these areas was permanent. To be sure, there remained much to be done, but we were convinced that a solid foundation had been established upon which to build. In fact, however, there have always been forces at work undermining that foundation. It was never as secure as we though it was. We should not have been shocked or surprised to see it crumble.

The bottom line is that up to half of our country’s population is OK with voting for a man who has been found by a jury to have sexually assaulted a woman, convicted by a jury of a felony, found guilty of financial fraud in a court of law, and indicted for inciting an insurrection against the United States government, stealing sensitive classified government documents and fraudulently attempting to overturn an election. Further, these same Americans are OK with Donald Trump’s pardoning of rioters guilty of violently attacking our capital, obstructing our democratic processes and killing a police officer in the process. How can they possibly support the candidacy of such an individual?

Reams of paper, bandwidth busting blogs and countless hours of air time have been dedicated to explaining the attraction of Donald Trump. But the explanation is simpler than any of us want to believe. Donald Trump’s anger, narcissism and sense of victimhood appeal to a large sector of America that sees in his rage their own anger and frustration with a country that is changing too fast for them. Donald Trump is the middle finger of the fragile white man[2] who finds himself in a world where women are stepping into the jobs that were once his, where people of color are moving into neighborhoods, workplaces and schools he feels are his own, where stores are popping up in his town with foreign sounding names and people on the streets are speaking languages he cannot understand, where the faces on TV, in advertising and the movies are increasingly non-white. He sees his religion, his values and way of life mocked on late night comedy. It seems to him that the country is being taken away from him and he is mad as hell about it. These people are not” fringe” folk. They are America every bit as much as any of us.

I want to be clear that this not is about the upcoming election. No matter who occupies the Whitehouse in January of 2025, the demonic spirits inspiring hatred and violence will still be among us. They always have been.  The mob that attacked the capital in 2021 is essentially the same mob that burned down thirty-five acres of the Black commercial district of Tulsa known as Greenwood in 1921 killing as many as three-hundred. Current and proposed legislation limiting the reproductive rights of women is based on the same rationale employed by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage in 1911, namely, that women lack the capacity to make decisions for themselves. The Hitleresque rhetoric of “foreign vermin” and the “poisoning” American blood has its antecedent in rhetoric spewed by the German American Bund Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. Racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia are as American as apple pie. We cannot with integrity insist with moral indignation that “this is not who we are.” The foul spirit of MAGA has not only hijacked one of our two major parties. It infects our schools, our neighborhoods and it sits with us each Sunday in the pews of our churches.   

Preaching this stuff on a celebratory holiday like Independence Day might not seem like a good idea. Amidst the noise of fireworks, “God Bless America” and patriotic speeches, truthful speech about our nation and its culture strike a distinctly dissonant chord. Nobody wants to hear that America is sick on the Fourth of July. Still less popular is the sad truth that this sickness has infected the church as well and that within the church is precisely where we need to start treating it. Healing ourselves will be painful. Genuine repentance always is. But ecclesiastical healing is urgently needed. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church that knows no racial, tribal or national borders exists to give us a better vision of what it means to be human. The church exists to expose the empty promises made by the false gods of nation, race, blood and soil that would distort our image of God and turn us against one another. It is to be a living witness that the human family is one. God knows we need that witness in these days!

Jesus knew, as did the Hebrew prophets, that “prophets are not without honor, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”  In our lesson from the Hebrew scriptures Ezekiel is warned that his words might not be heeded. Nevertheless, “whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.” Ezekiel 2:5. Ezekiel did not live to see the effects of his preaching. For all we know, he may have died wondering whether he had wasted his life speaking words nobody was hearing. But his words, preserved in some way, shape or form, brought understanding and hope to an exiled community and inspired that community to rise up from the ashes of defeat to welcome a new day. It is God’s responsibility to fulfill God’s word. Our only job is to proclaim it.

One of my readers told me recently, “I hear what you are saying about prophetic preaching. But some of those people wearing MAGA hats call me ‘pastor.’” I get that. I cannot emphasize enough that we need to distinguish between the hateful ideologies that deserve no tolerance and the persons enslaved to them who need our love, our patience and our forgiveness. Nonetheless, they also need our truthful witness, admonition and correction. To attempt either without the other is pastoral malpractice. Preaching, teaching and leading are daunting tasks in these days. Of course, they always have been. Current events only serve to make us aware of just how crucial they are and how we may well have failed to give them the attention they deserve. Hopefully we will also be spurred on to give them all the thought, time, effort and imagination we can muster-and the courage we need to accept the consequences.

In closing, I have sometimes been accused of being an “America hater.” I do not hate America-anymore than Jesus and the Hebrew prophets hated Judah and Israel. To the contrary, there is much that I love about this country. I love its cultural richness and diversity. I love the many different communities in which I have lived and the way in which people of diverse views, conflicting interests and unique backgrounds so often come together to solve problems and work together for the common good. I love each of our great cities and their unique characters and histories. I love our wilderness areas. I also love the commitment so many Americans have displayed in seeking to make the values of freedom and equality real for all of us. But love brings with it some difficult responsibilities. When you see that one of your relatives or friends has a serious drinking problem that is destroying his life and harming those dear to her, you don’t turn a blind eye. You don’t ignore the obvious or make excuses that enable them to continue on with their self destructive behavior. You confront them with the truth. You make them face their dependence. You make them see the consequences of their behavior. Then you offer to walk with them on their journey to recovery. True patriots do the same for their country.

Here is a poem by Claude McCay reflecting love for a flawed, unjust and tyrannical nation that America has been for African Americans and too many others as well.

America

Source: Liberator (The Library of America, 1921).  Claude McKay (1889-1948) was born Festus Claudius McKay in Nairne Castle, Jamaica. He came to the United States in 1912 to attend the Tuskegee Institute. McKay was shocked by the racism he encountered in this country and that experience of culture shock shaped his career as a writer and poet. McKay became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a Black American intellectual, social, and artistic movement centered in Harlem, New York spanning the 1920s. His poetry celebrates peasant life in Jamaica, challenges white supremacy in America and lifts up the struggles of black men and women striving to live their lives with dignity in a racist culture. You can learn more about Claude McKay and read more of his poetry on the Poetry Foundation Website.

[1] Some might object to my so characterizing the January 6^th attempted coup. They might complain that I am being inflammatory and unfair. Too bad. In the aftermath of the riot, we heard Republican Senators insist that the whole event was nothing more than a sight seeing tour. Now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who called his mob to Washington and sent them to Capital Hill, is calling these insurrectionists, who smashed down the doors of our capital, carried the flag of treason through its halls and smeared dung in its offices “patriots” and those who have been identified and prosecuted as “hostages.”  The January 6^th insurrection has Republican fingerprints all over it. It was a Republican circus and Republicans must own the mess their monkeys made.   

[2] Yes, I know there are a lot of women who support Donald Trump. I know there are people of color who support him as well. Trump’s appeal goes beyond racism, however. His misogyny, homophobia and xenophobic hatred of migrants plays well among Americans and crosses over into other demographics which might find some of his racist rhetoric objectionable.  Witness how hatred of liberals and LGBTQ+ folk can induce evangelicals to excuse rape, adultery, racism and fraud in a president who is willing to advance their political agenda. Common hatred makes strange bedfellows.

SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Lamentations 3:22-33

Psalm 30

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Mark 5:21-43

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and merciful God, we implore you to hear the prayers of your people. Be our strong defense against all harm and danger, that we may live and grow in faith and hope, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

 “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” Mark 5:31.

There were good reasons for the woman who touched Jesus to remain invisible. She had a flow of blood that, according to religious law and tradition, rendered her perpetually unclean. That meant she should not have been out and about in public at all. Moreover, for a woman to lay hold on the clothing of a man who was neither spouse nor family was, in itself, highly improper. To make matters worse, Jesus was in the company of Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, a man whose responsibilities included making sure the requirements of faith and common decency were respected. The last thing this woman wanted was for someone to see her, witness what she had done and call her out in the presence of Jesus, the leader of the synagogue and the rest of the crowd.

The invisible woman in our gospel was just that. Her disease compelled her to live in the shadows, avoid human contact and remain isolated from community life. She was there and yet not there. She was one of the many people that come into one’s field of vision, but is never really seen. We have many of those folks out here on the Outer Cape. Wellfleet, the town in which I live, is generally an affluent community made up of retired folk (like me), summer time residents who maintain vacation homes here and owners of businesses catering to seasonal visitors. These are the people I meet and greet at the post office, the library and the transfer station (otherwise inelegantly known as the town dump). But they are by no means the only residents of the Outer Cape. We need doctors offices,pharmacies, banks, gas stations and grocery stores open all year. That means we need people to work the check out counters, clean the offices and do the other necessary tasks for which we do not expect to pay wages capable of sustaining a family or even an individual in our community. Housing is out of reach for low wage earners as is the cost of living generally.

When I do actually see these otherwise invisible folks, I cannot help wondering where they come from, where they live and how they manage to get by. I know that many of them live in uninsulated seasonal cottages, sometimes with and sometimes without the consent of the owners. Others drive out here from great distances burning overpriced gas, an expense that eats into their ability to pay the rent, put food on the table and set aside an emergency fund in case their car breaks down, putting them on a trajectory of unemployment, eviction and homelessness. I know that some live with relatives, hoping to find a place of their own before they wear out their welcome. I know just enough not to wonder too long and hard because I am not sure I want to know the whole story. It is easier to let these people and their struggles remain invisible.    

At first blush, it seems unnecessarily cruel of Jesus to focus everyone’s attention on this poor woman who sought only relief from a very personal and deeply humiliating health condition. Yet while she may have preferred to remain invisible, Jesus was determined to let her know that to him and to his Heavenly Father she was anything but. Unlike Jairus, the crowd and even Jesus’ own disciples, Jesus noticed the woman’s touch, noticed that she had been the recipient of God’s healing power, noticed that she had a name, a story and a face worthy of looking upon. She was important enough to be recognized, loved and commended for her faith-even though there was pressing business at the home of Jairus, ruler of the synagogue.

Notice that Jesus addresses this woman as “daughter,” a term that no doubt reflects his affection and concern for her. But I also wonder whether Jesus was not also sending a message to Jairus, whose daughter he was about to raise from death. It is as though Jesus were saying, “Jairus, I am about to exercise life giving compassion on your little daughter. See to it that you do the same for mine.” That admonition, I am afraid, is also directed to me and the members of my community-the members who are visible, the ones who are able to benefit from the good life we have here on the Outer Cape because of the work done by people who remain largely invisible, the ones we do not take the time to see, recognize and care for.

Jesus challenges us to see all of those persons globally whose intense suffering, while pitiable, does not seem materially to affect our own well being. God is the one who “sees” the used, abused and discarded slave turned out into the wilderness to die. Genesis 16:13; Genesis 21:15-21. God is the one who sees the affliction of slaves doing the dirty work of the Empire. Exodus 3:7-8. As our psalm reminds us, God hears the cries of those sinking into the depths where we fear to look. Psalm 30:3. One cannot worship, believe in or trust this God without seeing the people God sees, recognizes and holds dear. Our inability or unwillingness to see, really see the distress of our neighbors on the Outer Cape, the agony of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the persons dying daily of starvation in Sudan and the victims of violent conflicts the world over is as dangerous to us as it is deadly to them. This spiritual disability of ours is a symptom of hearts growing cold, minds closing and souls slowly dying. In losing sight of the neighbors we would rather not look upon, we are losing sight of the God who has claimed us. Indifference is not only akin to murder. It is spiritual suicide.

In the chilling parable of the Last Judgment in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, the refrain of the condemned is “when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison…?” As I have often said before, I believe this parable is less about judgment at the end of time than it is about judgment today upon our blindness and indifference rendering us unable to recognize the face of God in those we deem “least” among us. What will it take to make us see the invisible people around us, learn their names and hear their stories? What will it take to make us recognize that behind the wartime “collateral damage” reports, behind the gun violence statistics, behind growing numbers of our fellow citizens deemed “food insecure” are people God sees, people whose cries of despair God hears and people through whom God is appealing to us? Must we wait until the last day for our eyes to be opened?

Here is a poem by Mariana Llanos about the violence of invisibility.  

Invisible Children

Source: Poetry (March 2021). Mariana Llanos is a Peruvian-born writer based in Oklahoma. She was born and raised in Peru but moved to the United States, and after having  her first child. There she pursued her lifelong ambition of becoming an author. Llanos is a prolific poet and has also published several children’s books, including Run, Little Chaski (Barefoot Books, 2021) and Luca’s Bridge (Penny Candy Books, 2019). You can read more about Mariana Llanos at the website, Las MUSAS, and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.  

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Job 38:1-11

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

Prayer of the Day: O God of creation, eternal majesty, you preside over land and sea, sunshine and storm. By your strength pilot us, by your power preserve us, by your wisdom instruct us, and by your hand protect us, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
   for his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 107:1.

So say the persons in this Sunday’s psalm who experienced God’s rescue from a fierce storm on the sea. Living as I do on the Outer Cape, I am ever mindful of the ocean’s power. The ocean is a source of livelihood for commercial deep sea fishers and the shellfish industry, both economic staples in our area. Of course, the sea is also a boon for the recreational businesses such as hotels, campgrounds, seasonal restaurants, whale watching expeditions and fishing charters. But the ocean also wields frightening destructive power. It influences our weather, sometimes inflicting damaging storms. Though a sunny day at the beach with children playing in the sand, teenagers jumping the waves and surfers riding the swells might appear to be peaceful and benign, every year there are tragedies to remind us that the ocean is not a safe playground. A rogue wave can plunge an unobservant swimmer head first into the sand causing severe or fatal injury. Rip currents claim the lives of swimmers each year and, though the danger they pose is very much exaggerated in my view, there are the sharks. You may enjoy the sea. But you had better respect it as well.

I learned to respect the sea at the age of eleven on a fishing trip with my Dad. I was on the other side of the country at the time, Western Washington to be specific. We were going out for salmon on Puget Sound. My Dad owned a twelve foot aluminum boat with a five horsepower outboard motor. Dad was in most respects a cautious man. You would never find him scuba diving, hang gliding or scaling cliffs. He always admonished us kids not to take foolish risks with our lives. “A cheap thrill sometimes comes with a steep price,” he told us many times. But when it came to fishing, Dad threw caution to the wind. He would forge his way with an obsessive passion no less intense than Captain Ahab’s into whatever waters he had reason to believe the fish were lurking.

On this particular day, the weather was calm and mostly clear. We were already much further out on the Sound than anyone in a craft like ours had any business being, when Dad noticed seagulls circling over a patch of water lying further still from shore. He reasoned that the gulls were after herring that, in turn, had been driven to the surface by king salmon pursuing them. If we could get ourselves over to where the seagulls were, we stood a good chance of getting our limit. Dad was right about the fishing. It was great. In fact, we were so busy pulling fish out of the water that we failed to notice the wind picking up. Only when the sun suddenly disappeared did we look up and see the looming storm clouds overhead.

At that point, we knew we had to get ourselves in fast. At my insistence, Dad had allowed me to sit in the back and steer the boat as we headed out-quite a thrill for an eleven year old boy. Now his experience and expertise were desperately needed in the stern. But changing places in a boat our size is a dicey proposition under the best of circumstances. These obviously were not the best of circumstances. So Dad instructed me as best he could. “Start her up,” he commanded. I yanked the pull cord, but the engine refused to turn over. After a few more pulls, Dad shouted, “she’s out of gas. You’re going to have to fill her up.” I had never fueled up the motor before and was less than confident about doing so now, but there was no other choice. So, as the boat rocked back and forth, Dad did his best to keep the bow into the waves with the oars while I fumbled with the gas can, funnel and the engine fuel cap. A large wave hit the stern hard, soaking me to the skin and knocking the funnel we used for fueling into the water.  “Goddamit! I screamed. Can’t you hold still for a single minute!”

I don’t know to whom I thought I was talking or why I thought anyone would be listening. What I do know is that it struck my eleven year old mind in a starkly vivid way that we might die out there on the Sound. The wind and the waves did not care that our lives were on the verge of being snuffed out. Neither did they bear us any malice. They were simply doing what they do and we were in the middle of it all. If blame were to be attributed, it could only fall upon our own shoulders. Who could think it was a good idea to head out into the deep in a twelve foot boat with a five horsepower engine? Who could think it wise to put an eleven year old in the stern to steer? Who could be so oblivious to the clear signals of danger in the sky overhead?

I did my best to pour the gas into the tank without  the funnel, but ended up losing more than half of it in the Sound. “That will have to do.” said Dad. “Hopefully it is enough to get us in.” I yanked at the pull cord once again. Thankfully, the engine started up on the second pull. With Dad’s coaching, I managed to maneuver the boat back to shore. We arrived home shaken and chastised, but alive and well.  

At the time, I did not have the maturity or the conceptual tools to articulate what I felt. But I know that it was akin to a deep sense of gratitude, something like what the sailors in the psalm and the disciples in our gospel lesson must have felt. Though I cannot point to anything in this experience that was remotely miraculous, I was convinced that our lives had been spared. We could have died that day. Perhaps we should have. Had this been a Greek tragedy, our hybris and our disregard for the powers of nature would have earned us a watery grave. But life, according to the Scriptures, is not tragic. There is no such thing as fate driving us inevitably forward into the devastating consequences of our flaws, ignorance and bad decisions. Life is instead governed by the God who saves people who do not necessarily deserve a break. Our psalm illustrates how God rescues those who “rebel against the words of God” and those who are “sick through their sinful ways.” Psalm 107:10-11; Psalm 107:17. Jesus rescues his disciples despite their lack of faith. Mark 4:40. It is a remarkable thing to be given your life back to you.    

One might be tempted to ask, why some and not others? Clearly, the world does not operate on the basis of moral cause and effect. Careful and responsible sailors (unlike Dad and me) wind up losing their lives at sea. Where was their rescue? Perhaps that is the wrong question. After all, being mortal, we are all subject to death at some point. Nobody is getting off this planet alive. Even the people Jesus raised from death finally died, albeit at a later point. Therefore, these divine rescues are no more than a brief reprieve. So, then, the proper question is, what am I to do with this undeserved extension of my life? Is it still my life? Was it ever my life to begin with?  

The psalmist, on behalf of all the recipients of God’s salvation mentioned in the psalm, responds with thanksgiving for God’s steadfast love. God, of course, does not need our thanksgiving or anything else we have to offer. Our neighbors, however, do need us. The way to thank God properly is to care for the neighbor made in God’s image. We have been blessed not to privilege, but to be a blessing for others. We have been rescued to offer rescue to those among us who need it-whether we think they deserve it or not. There are plenty of things from which God saves us, many of which are enumerated in the psalm. But the psalmist’s chief purpose is not merely to remind us of all God saves us from, but to get us thinking about what God has saved us for.

Here is a poem about the beauty, wonder and terror of the ocean.

The Pacific

Source: Anonymous    

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Ezekiel 17:22-24

Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Mark 4:26-34

Prayer of the Day: O God, you are the tree of life, offering shelter to all the world. Graft us into yourself and nurture our growth, that we may bear your truth and love to those in need, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“With many such parables [Jesus] spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.” Mark 4:33-34.

“Nothing you say is going to change my mind.” I have been met with these words numerous times throughout my life. There really is no response one can make. It is a little like being confronted with a “dead end” sign. The message is clear. You may as well turn around because there is no way you are getting through here. Most of us do just that when we are on the road. But when it comes to conversations, arguments and debates, we are reluctant to believe what the sign is telling us. We cannot rid ourselves of the belief that if we talk long enough, hard enough and persuasively enough, we can get through to that knucklehead and shake those wrongheaded notions out of his head. Witness the arguments over politics and religion that turn into shouting matches. Witness the endless threads on social media where verbal battles are waged with links to articles, clever (and not so clever) memes and the same tired arguments flung back and forth over solidly drawn ideological frontiers. Perhaps these shout fests are in some sense cathartic. But I have never seen them change any minds.

In reality, we tend to believe what we believe because we want to believe it. Our fundamental beliefs about God, about politics and about the world in general help us make sense of our experience. Many people I know need to believe in a god who controls everything and makes all things work out for those who believe in it. How else can they find hope in circumstances that seem otherwise hopeless? For MAGA folks, Donald Trump and his dark rhetoric explain their own anger, fear and feeling of victimhood. The more you point out the man’s stupidity, incompetence and malice, the more angry, defensive and hostile they become. Nothing you say is likely to change their minds. Knowledge that contradicts deeply held beliefs is discounted, explained away or simply ignored.    

I think Jesus understood the futility of arguing against unchangeable minds. That is why he seldom gives a direct answer to opponents who question him. As often as not, he responds with a parable or another question. Jesus is not interested in winning arguments on the terms of his opponents or responding to their arguments or questions. His objective is to get his opponents to ask better questions and discover perspectives they might not have considered before. Parables tend to do just that. They take us into a parallel reality where the consequences of our beliefs and loyalties play themselves out in ways that make us question them. As poet Emily Dickinson urges us to do, Jesus tells the truth, but tells it “slant.” That is often the only way it gets through.

Last week’s gospel is a perfect example of the Jesus approach. His opponents claim that the only reason Jesus can cast out demons is because he is empowered to do so by the prince of demons. Jesus could, of course, take this personally and point to all the good he is doing that is entirely inconsistent with their malignant attack on his character. But he doesn’t. “Alright,” says Jesus. “Let’s run with that. If, in fact I am casting out demons by the prince of demons, it follows that the powers of evil are divided against themselves and about to fall. If that is the case, the reign of God is at hand. On the other hand, if I am casting out demons by the finger of God, it means that the prince of demons is overcome and the reign of God is at hand. Have it your way or mine, but in either case, we are at least agreed that the reign of God is at hand, are we not?” Instead of defending himself and his own reputation, Jesus turns the discussion toward his proclamation of God’s immanent reign and leaves his opponents with a potent question to consider.

I do not believe Jesus made converts of his opponents that day. “Damascus Road” experiences are rare. At least that is the case in my own experience. My changes in perspective, opinion and assumptions happen over time as, little by little, experience, reading, study and conversation with others chips away at what I have always thought to be true and introduces new viewpoints I never considered. Most of the time, our minds change direction more like aircraft carriers than hydroplanes. A little nudge to a great ocean going vessel might not seem to change its course at first. Only twenty or thirty miles out does it become evident that a fraction degree’s change has altered the trajectory of the ship, placing it in a different location than the one toward which it was headed. That is how parables operate. Instead of trying to break down the front door, they sneak in through the back. They sow seeds of doubt that undermine long held beliefs and suggest alternatives that settle subliminally into the brain. Parables are sneaky, seductive and subversive.

The two parables in this Sunday’s lesson do not give us a theological definition of the reign of God-a mystery quite beyond definition. Rather, they give us a fleeting look at what that reign “is like.” It is like the growing cycle. The farmer plants, fertilizes, waters and weeds. But the seed pops when it is good and ready. The earth produces in ways too marvelous for the farmer’s understanding. In the end, the farmer reaps a crop that, while it is the fruit of his efforts, is nevertheless dependent upon powers and processes beyond understanding and control.

And there is more. The second parable lets us know that the crop we get is seldom the one expected or even wanted. Notable in this parable of the mustard seed is the absence of a human  planter. Mustard is not a plant one would deliberately plant or welcome on good, fertile soil. It is a fast growing plant that is highly disruptive. Hooker, Morna D., The Gospel According to Mark, Black’s New Testament Commentaries (c. 1991 by Morna D. Hooker, pub. by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.) p. 136. The mustard plant can readily take over a field cultivated for more profitable crops. Like the farmer in the previous parable, one must wait patiently on the operation of powers beyond human control. But the resulting “crop” does not spring up in neat, orderly, edible rows waiting to be harvested. Instead, it takes on a life of its own, becoming a haven for birds of the air. This is all very reminiscent of the church in Acts which grows, mutates and expands faster than the apostles can manage to order or control.

My Evangelical Lutheran Church in America employs the moto, “God’s work; our hands.” That is all well and good, as long as it is understood that “our hands,” are not required to get God’s work done. As our Catechism reminds us, God’s kingdom comes without our prayers, works or anything else we do or not do. It is solely because of God’s gracious invitation to include us in this good work that our hands have any involvement. The first parable in Sunday’s lesson should make that clear. Moreover, we ought to be aware that what we imagine to be God’s purpose and what God’s end game actually is are two different things. We might believe that working for a more equitable United States with food, shelter and health care for all comports with God’s design. It may be, however, that God means to make an end of the Untied States to further God’s better purpose for all creation. In that case, putting a mad man at its head followed by a howling lynch mob would be an efficient method of so doing. I hasten to add, however, that this does not in anyway lessen the call to do justice, love kindness an walk humbly with our God as that walk is revealed to us in the faithful life, obedient death and glorious resurrection of Jesus. It does mean, though, that the result of such good work might not comport with our hopes and expectations.

This is how parables work. They get under our skin, shake up everything we think we know about God’s reign and leave us wondering. Parables leave us with more questions-good questions-than answers. We still have no idea what we are doing when we preach, teach, serve, advocate and testify. All we have is God’s promise to put it to God’s own good uses. We have no idea to what ends God will use our good work, whether we will live to see the harvest or recognize it when it appears. All these parables tell us is that the reign of God we cannot see, control or even imagine is nonetheless mysteriously present with us now. That is surely not all we would like to know. But it is enough.

Here is the poem by Emily Dickinson to which I alluded ablove. It illustrates the need for parables where arguments fail.

Tell all the Truth, but tell it Slant

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, (c. 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; edited by Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.) Emily Dickinson (1830-1866) is indisputably one of America’s greatest and most original poets. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, she attended a one-room primary school in that town and went on to Amherst Academy, the school out of which Amherst College grew. In the fall of 1847 Dickinson entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary where students were divided into three categories: those who were “established Christians,” those who “expressed hope,” and those who were “without hope.” Emily, along with thirty other classmates, found herself in the latter category. Though often characterized a “recluse,” Dickinson kept up with numerous correspondents, family members and teachers throughout her lifetime. You can find out more about Emily Dickinson and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Genesis 3:8-15

Psalm 130

2 Corinthians 4:13—5:1

Mark 3:20-35

Prayer of the Day: All-powerful God, in Jesus Christ you turned death into life and defeat into victory. Increase our faith and trust in him, that we may triumph over all evil in the strength of the same Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—‘I believed, and so I spoke’—we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence.” II Corinthians 4:13-14.

“I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well in a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell.” Borning Cry, John C. Ylvisaker, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Hymn #732.  

Paul speaks of a mature faith in Jesus’ resurrection and our own. But people do not typically come by such faith apart from a torturous journey through doubt, questioning and growing pains. I came to faith through the community in which I was baptized as an infant. I was raised in a loving and secure home. My family was part of a community of believers who cared for one another and modeled, however imperfectly, the way of life Jesus taught. I had every reason to trust both them and the God they proclaimed. I learned stories from the Bible as they were read to me by my Mom from Elsie Eggemyers Bible Story Book and illustrated on the flannel board in Sunday School. I took everything I learned at face value, as most five to seven year old kids do. At this point in my life, I had a faith that “fit me well.”

But all of that changed in the fifth grade when I came upon a book in the school library about our solar system and how it was formed. There I learned about the formation of stars and galaxies as well as the immense periods of time in which these processes take place. I was fascinated. I began seeking out other books and articles about cosmic origins and even checked out a book on cosmology from the public library that was far above my reading and compensation level. Though the physics and chemistry were quite over my head, the basic concepts of the “big bang” and the “expansion” of the universe tantalized me. It did not even occur to me until I was well into this learned tome that there was no role for God in all of this. The God I learned from my home and church, so intimately involved in the creation of the world, seemed altogether absent from this scientific account of origins. Somehow, though, I was able to hold these conflicting understandings together in my young brain without much need to reconcile them.

Things came to a head, however, when in the eighth grade I was introduced to the theory of evolution, again, by way of a book I found in the school library. My first reaction was fascination. Fascination led to further reading, questioning and a growing interest in biology and living things, which I continue to hold to this day.[1] I might have gone on for some time living comfortably with the disconnect between my faith and my interest in science. But I was abruptly brought to the brink of existential crisis by my pastor’s confirmation lesson on creation, wherein we were told that evolution was a false and godless doctrine entirely irreconcilable with Christian faith. At that point, I could no longer deny the disconnect.

Pastor Schmidt (not his real name) made a point of meeting individually with each of his confirmands prior to the public confirmation ceremony, where we would each confess our faith and be accepted into full church membership. My meeting was initially uneventful. Pastor Schmidt asked me a series of basic catechetical questions, all of which I must have answered to his satisfaction. He told me what a pleasure it was having me in confirmation class, asked me whether I had any thoughts about what I wanted to do when grown and whether I might consider seminary (I think he asked these same questions of all of us-though I am sure the last was directed only to boys.) Then he asked me if I had any questions for him. Part of me wanted just to say no, thanks just the same and take my leave. But the stronger, more curious and impulsive side of me won out. I took a deep breath and asked, “Pastor, do you think it is possible for someone to believe in evolution and still be a Christian?”

There followed an uncomfortable silence that I am sure seemed to last longer than it did. Obviously, Pastor Schmidt was deeply uncomfortable with my query. In retrospect, I can better understand that discomfort. He had already told us (and probably the whole congregation) that he felt evolution was incompatible with the Bible and faith in Jesus. That being the case, he was likely wondering how he could in good conscience confirm me if it turned out that my hypothetical “someone” turned out to be me. Yet, knowing that my father was an elder and my mother a teacher and musician in the church, he probably wondered as well how he could possibly refuse to confirm me. Finally, he sighed and said, “Well, Peter, I can’t answer that question without knowing more about this person. But it seems to me that when a teaching, whether in science, religion or any other area of life conflicts with the Bible, a true Christian has to side with the Bible.” There followed a lengthy lecture on the need to uphold the infallibility of the Bible. After all, Paster Schmidt argued, if you doubt any single biblical assertion, you cast doubt on the basis of our Christian faith. If the Bible lies to us about the age of the earth, the creation of humanity or any other particular, how can we be sure that it isn’t also deceiving us about Jesus’ resurrection from death, the forgiveness of our sins or the promise of eternal life? At the conclusion of our meeting, Pastor Schmidt gave me a booklet published by what was then called the Creation Science Foundation and urged me to read it. “Not all scientists reject the Bible,” he told me.

It did not take me long to breeze through the booklet given to me by Pastor Schmidt. The arguments made therein were too lame to persuade even my eighth grade mind. I was well on my way to rejecting the faith in which I was raised. I knew the parting would be painful. The biblical stories, hymns and teachings of my church played a formative role throughout my childhood. But I now felt that I had outgrown my faith. It no longer “fit me well.” If keeping the faith came at the cost of shutting out the wonders of the universe I was just beginning to understand and suppressing my curiosity about the diverse and wonderful varieties of life on this planet, the price was just too high.          

A good many people with whom I grew up parted company with the church and the faith it proclaims for the same reasons I almost did. But others followed the lead of Pastor Schmidt. If science tells us the universe is thirteen billion years old and that human beings evolved from other life forms, then the scientists are God denying atheists whose words must be rejected. If medical professionals tell us that same sex attraction falls well within the spectrum of normal human sexual behavior, then they must have been corrupted by politically powerful forces with a malicious, anti-Christian agenda. Sex is for married people only and marriage is between a man and a woman. “The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it.” These folks spun around themselves a cocoon of junk science, conspiracy theories and religious propaganda to protect a faith they had outgrown and must have known deep down could not withstand the scrutiny that inevitably comes with learning, growth and maturity. Their frantic efforts to protect their fragile beliefs have given us the book banning and educational censorship we are seeing throughout the country. As between faith’s deserters and those who sacrificed their intellects in order to remain faithful, I have the greater respect for the former.  

So what kept me in the fold? Fortunately, Pastor Schmidt was not the only spiritual mentor who guided me. When he took a call to another church, our congregation was served by an interim pastor, a Navy Chaplin whom I will call Chaplin Bob (not his real name). Chaplin Bob took the time to listen to my concerns and gave me a different perspective. “Science and the Bible are not enemies,” he told me. “They just have different purposes. Science tells us ‘how,’ and that is a wonderful thing. There is nothing wrong at all with asking questions about how the earth came to be or how life came to be on this planet. I think God made us curious for a reason. But the Bible tells us ‘why.’ That’s a different kind of question. The Bible guides us in figuring out how we ought to live in this marvelous world full of the wonders science shows us. You can ask both ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions without rejecting either science or the Bible.” You might object that this explanation is a little too simplistic and that the whole issue is more nuanced. Still, it gave my eighth grade mind new conceptual tools for addressing both my interest in science and my faith. Chaplin Bob helped my faith to grow to the point where it fit me once more.

Another mentor of mine, a rabbi from whom I took a class in Biblical Hebrew, once remarked that he had a hard time understanding Christian fundamentalism. “When we learn something new that conflicts with the Torah, we don’t deny what we have learned or reject the Torah. Instead, we take our new knowledge back to the Torah and ask, ‘what did we get wrong here? How do we understand the Torah now that we have this new information?’” That, I think, is the right approach, though not the easiest. It is far easier simply to dismiss one’s faith tradition than to re-evaluate it, let go of its comforting but misleading conceptions and enlarge it to encompass the wealth of knowledge and understanding one attains with growth and maturity. It is easier to ignore, reject or deny uncomfortable facts that challenge our most cherished beliefs than to let them change minds and help us to grow. But Jesus never promised to make anything easy.

So how do we prepare children with childlike faith to grow into faith that can support them “where demons dwell.” First off, as much as I love this hymn, I think that particular line is unfortunate. When our children graduate from high school, head off to college or move into the world of work, they are not entering into the haunt of demons. They are setting out into a world that belongs to the Lord (Psalm 24:1) and is “full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” Psalm 119:64. To be sure, this is a fallen world and there are demonic forces at work that would rip it apart. But as Saint Paul reminds us, creation is held together against those forces by God’s incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:17. What our children need is not “demon repellent,” but a maturing faith that is flexible, curious and courageous enough to make sense of a world that is wondrously complex, mysterious and full of surprises.

Though my church was for me a caring community that mirrored life in Christ, its pastor and his theology failed me miserably. Thankfully, Pastor Schmidt was not the only source of instruction and pastoral advice I received. If we are going to produce mature and faithful disciples, we need a theology capable of opening up the world for us rather than trying to shut it out. I do not believe, however, that faith capable of growth and maturation can be instilled merely by instruction. It is altogether pointless to attempt preparing young children to confront and deal with issues they are not yet capable of understanding and in which they have no interest. It is critical, though, to develop relationships of trust with young people from early childhood. It is important that children be taken seriously at all stages of their development and that their concerns be dealt with honestly, sensitively and compassionately. It is important that they know there are people in the church to whom they can talk freely and confidentially without fear of judgment, criticism or punishment. Only so can we help their faith to grow up with them.

Here is a poem by Charles Oluf Olsen about a faith that failed to grow up.

Stony Faith

Source: Poetry, December 1930. Charles Oluf Olsen (1872-1959) was born in Denmark and came to the United States at the age of 16. He worked as a cook, blacksmith, salesman, and lumberjack. Olsen was also an amateur photographer. His photos include gritty scenes of life among the homeless and workers in the logging industry throughout the northwest. He eventually began writing for newspapers and magazines, including the Oregonian and the Oregon journal. He published several poems and some articles of fiction. You can read more about Charles Oluf Olsen at the Archives West site.

[1] Though I ultimately pursued other career paths, I never lost my interest in biological science. To some degree, I re-visit this “path not taken” vicariously through my son who earned a masters degree in evolutionary biology. Together we tramp through the woods turning over logs, staring into kettle ponds and tide pools admiring the diversity of the biosphere and the wonderful creatures with whom we share it.

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Psalm 81:1-10

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Mark 2:23—3:6

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and ever-living God, throughout time you free the oppressed, heal the sick, and make whole all that you have made. Look with compassion on the world wounded by sin, and by your power restore us to wholeness of life, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath…” Mark 2:27.

The same is true for the other nine commandments. They were made for the benefit of humankind. The Commandments are our servants, not our masters. In our gospel lesson, Jesus’ opponents stand the law on its head by making it the master of humankind rather than its servant. There is plenty of religion around taking that approach. There is plenty of religion, much of it purporting to be Christian, that preaches a god obsessed with his rules. This is the god who allows school shootings to punish the Supreme Court for its decisions on the legality of school sponsored prayer in our public education. This is the god who sent AIDS to punish gay men simply for being who that same god supposedly created them. This is a god incapable of forgiveness, who must have a blood sacrifice to punish every infraction of his rules. This is the god who is obsessed with each particular of a teenager’s sexual conduct but doesn’t give a flying fruitcake when legislators attempt to deprive millions of people of health care insurance in the name of balancing the budget. This spiteful, narcissistic, egotistical and mean-spirited little god does not exist. He is only the imaginary product of spiteful, narcissistic, egotistical mean-spirited little people. This pathetic little deity is not the God who gave us the sabbath.  

Note well that the sabbath is not about going to church. It is all about rest, rejuvenation and re-creation. It is more a labor law than a religious ordinance. Jesus does not abrogate the sabbath or suggest that it is not important. To the contrary, the sabbath is the oldest commandment in the Bible, being grounded in the Genesis account of creation. There we read that after six days of creative work, God rested and sanctified the seventh day as one of rest. Being the generous God that God is, God makes provision to share the divine joy of rest with creation. Hence, the sabbath. God is serious about ensuring that we-and all creation-get our rest. Jesus knew that it is hard to rest when your stomach is empty or your hand is crippled and painful. He was therefore affirming the importance of the sabbath by ensuring that his hungry disciples and the fellow with the crippled hand could share fully in the rest it affords.

“Remember,” says Moses to the people of Israel, “that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” Deuteronomy 5:15.

Israel had had firsthand experience of life without rest. They were slaves, after all. The Egyptian empire regarded the Hebrews as units of labor. They could be worked to death without consequence. Their numbers could be regulated by genocidal laws mandating infanticide. For four hundred long years they knew nothing but unrewarded toil under ruthless exploitation with no hope for anything better. The God who liberated the people of Israel from that bleak condition was determined not to allow them to sink back into the same kind of existence in the land of promise. To that end, sabbath law mandated rest not merely for the people, but also for their oxen, donkeys and livestock. Deuteronomy 5:14. As observed by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, the sabbath has an eschatological dimension. “So then,” says the anonymous writer, “a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.” Hebrews 4:9-10. It is God’s desire that all creation enter into God’s rest, a state of justice, reconciliation and peace.

The Israelites are commanded to include also their male and female slaves in their sabbath observance. Clearly, slavery existed in Israel with no indication of divine disapproval. While I do not wish to be understood as justifying or rationalizing slavery in any way, shape or form, it is worth noting that the wellbeing God desires for Israel extends to slaves as well as non-Israelite resident aliens. Before being too critical of Israelite culture in the bronze age, we progressive white and ever polite American Christians should reflect on how the working poor in our own land are often holding down multiple jobs without adequate health insurance or any vacation, maternity or sick leave, yet still find it difficult to shelter and feed themselves and their families. There is little if any sabbath rest for them or for our resident aliens living daily with the threat of deportation. American capitalism is in most ways as ruthless a slave driver as any Egyptian overseer. So, let us be mindful of the proverbial glass house before casting stones in the direction of ancient Israel.

We are a people who make a god of work. The highest compliment you can pay a person in our culture is to say “she’s a hard worker,” “he’s a real go-getter,” “that family has a strong work ethic.” Conversely, the worst thing you can say of people is that they are “lazy,” “unproductive,” “slackers.” As I look back on my years of pastoral ministry, I often muse on the habits and practices I developed unconsciously. For example, when a colleague asked how I was doing, my reflexive response was, “busy.” I generally received the same response form such quarries directed to them. Truth be told, I was often not particularly busy. To be sure, there were always things I could be doing. There were always calls to be made, worship planning to be done, meetings for which I needed to prepare. But these matters were seldom urgent, requiring my immediate attention. I had the time, or with a modicum of planning, could have made the time for leisure, rest and recreation. But something deep inside made me ashamed to admit that and I always felt twinges of guilt when, for example, I slipped away from the office to enjoy an ice cream sundae at the nearby Dairy Queen on a sunny afternoon. At times like these, as I sat in the shade with my ice cream, I could never quite silence the voice in my head reminding me of all that I could (and therefore should) be getting done. As the full weight of cultural guilt for wasting a valuable work hour overshadowed me, it never occurred to me that, in all my frantic devotion to getting more work done, I was actually wasting precious sabbath time.

My advanced Hebrew language professor in college, who was a reformed Rabbi, used to say that God commanded us to rest on the seventh day because God knew, if we were not so commanded, we would never rest. God knew we needed a day to stop all the work we imagine to be so important. Only so will we ever learn that, lo and behold, the sun still rises and sets and the earth keeps rotating even though we have not completed the last item on our to do list. We need the sabbath to remind us that there is more to our existence than work, that we are more than the dollar value of our labor, that just sitting in the shade with an ice cream sundae, being alive and breathing the good clean air and drinking in the beauty of God’s good world is time well spent without need for justification or apology. This sabbath joy is God’s gift to the human race and to all of creation. What a shame it would be for us to miss out on it because we were just too damned busy!

Here is a poem by Nikita Gill describing beautifully what a sabbath day might look like.

The Present

Source: Where Hope Comes From, Nikita Gill (c. 2021 by Nikita Gill; pub. by Hachette Books) p. 48. Nikita Gill is a British/Indian poet and playwright who lives in southern England. She is editor of SLAM!, a poetry anthology, and has produced several collections of her own poetry. You can learn more about Nikita Gill and sample more of her poetry at her Instagram site.

HOLY TRINITY

Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 8:12-17

John 3:1-17

Prayer of the Day: Almighty Creator and ever-living God: we worship your glory, eternal Three-in-One, and we praise your power, majestic One-in-Three. Keep us steadfast in this faith, defend us in all adversity, and bring us at last into your presence, where you live in endless joy and love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
   ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
   worship the Lord in holy splendor.” Psalm 29:1-2.

I was raised in the traditions of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, one of the most conservative branches of American Lutheranism. On Holy Trinity Sunday we affirmed together the Athanasian Creed. For those of you who might not be familiar with this lengthy statement of Trinitarian doctrine, allow me a brief introduction. The official title of this statement of faith is “Quicunque Vult.” That is Latin for “What must be believed.” It was almost certainly not written by the great bishop, pastor and theologian Athanasius. Though frequently identified as one of the three ecumenical creeds, along with the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, the Eastern Church had no part in formulating it and never accepted it as authoritative. Thus, I question whether it ought to be considered “ecumenical.”

Furthermore, while the Athanasian Creed does lay out what I believe to be a sound, orthodox understanding of our Trinitarian faith, some of its language is more than a little problematic. Most notable is the withering admonition at the end of the creed to the effect that “One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.” There are a couple of problems here. In the first place, our faith has never been about believing a doctrine, however sound it might be. Our faith is about trusting a person, namely, Jesus Christ. When all is said and done, can anyone really say they understand the Triune God? Can anyone claim to understand the miracle of the Incarnation? Can we really explain the glorious promise of resurrection and eternal life? As important as our creeds and confessions are, they can take us only to the precipice of human understanding from which we view “as through a glass darkly” mysteries that surpass human understanding. Thus, it seems more than a little presumptuous to imply that salvation is contingent on possessing a body of knowledge.  

The second problem is the presumption that all who do not affirm the propositions set forth in the creed “will doubtless perish eternally.” That is not what Jesus and the New Testament witness say. Though the New Testament does say those who reject Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims face judgment and potential rejection, it also proclaims that salvation is bigger than the church. As our gospel lesson points out, God loves the world enough to send the Son to save it, not condemn it. John 3:16-17.  It is not God’s will that any perish. II Peter 3:9. Jesus has told us that he has other sheep that are not of his fold that he intends to gather in. John 10:16. There are many outside the church who, though not among Jesus’ disciples, are with him in furthering the gentle reign of God. Mark 9:38-41.

Trinitarian faith is an outgrowth of Trinitarian worship. Before there was a “doctrine of the Trinity” the lyrical account of creation in Genesis spoke of God’s lifegiving breath blowing over the waters and creating the universe by God’s Word of Power. The poetic prologue to John’s gospel speaks of the unity of God’s word with God’s self. I do not mean to say that any of the aforementioned texts articulate, much less “prove” the doctrine of the Trinity. They are addressed not chiefly to metaphysical assertions about God, but to the worship of God whose marvelous and passionate love for us is revealed in acts of salvation, yet who remains beyond the reach of our partial and limited capacity for understanding. The Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds grew out of and are a part of the church’s liturgical language of worship and praise. They “ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name” and serve the church in “worship[ing] the Lord in holy splendor.”

That being said, the Athanasian Creed makes a valid point. What we believe, teach and confess about God matters. While failure to subscribe to what the church understands to be correct teaching may not lead one to “perish eternally,” there are understandings of who God is and what God requires that are toxic and potentially lethal. People driven by their twisted ideas of God and what God demands have launched bloody wars, shot up Planned Parenthood clinics, conducted suicide bombings, carried out mass shootings and led lynch mobs to commit murder. Belief in God has led to the ruthless persecution of LGBTQ+ folk in the name morality, the banning of literature in our schools and racism thinly disguised as border security. I wish I could tell you how many people I have encountered who left the church because they were introduced to a god that bore no likeness to the Triune God we claim to worship. Bad religion produces warped faith and perverse actions.

Trinitarian faith has some important things to say about God that need to be heard. Perhaps the most important is the affirmation that God is love. Let us be clear about what this means. It does not mean that what we experience and understand as love is God or that love leads us to a knowledge of God. It is quite the other way around. As John the Evangelist reminds us, we know love only because God has revealed it to us. I John 4:7-12. Love preexists creation. Saint Augustine teaches us that perfect love is the glue binding the Trinity, the love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God, as lover, beloved and the love between them, is complete in God’s self. There was no necessity for creation in the sense that God needed it. The universe is not the product of God’s loneliness and boredom. Yet one could say that creation was necessary in this sense, namely, that love is always seeking to expand, to embrace and to become more. So, as the hymn says, “the universe of space and time did not arise by chance; but the Trinity in love and hope made room within their dance.”[1] God said, “Let there be…” God makes space for something other than God to exist, to become, to have agency and freedom. The world God made is a theater into which Trinitarian love expands, gets entangled, becomes flesh, embraces suffering, brings healing, hope and newness. This expansion of God’s self into the world God made will cost God dearly. But nothing, not even the cross, can deter God from sending the Son to become flesh in the midst of it.

It follows, then, that God does not need anything from us. God does not need our worship, service, prayers, love and, certainly, God does not need our defense. But our neighbors do need our love, care and defense. Disciples of Jesus need the sustenance of prayer and worship to persevere in such love, which can be as costly as the love God first showed them. It ought to be clear from all this that there is no room for violence on God’s behalf, as though the reign of God needed strength of human arms to establish it; no necessity to make America a Christian nation, as though God were so feeble and impotent that God needed a nation, society or culture to prop God up; no need to protect Christian faith from “godless” literature and dangerous ideas, as though God’s truth were so unsound and indefensible that it cannot withstand critical inquiry. Trinitarian truth, the truth as it is revealed to us in Jesus seeks only faithful witness, not defense.

Here is a rendering of the well known Prayer of St. Patrick that I believe reflects a worshipful expression of Trinitarian Faith

The Prayer of St. Patrick

Source: Though attributed to the legendary Irish Saint Patrick, no one knows the precise origin of this beautiful expression of faith which appears in many abbreviated forms and has inspired numerous hymns, including “I Bind unto Myself Today,” by Cecil Frances Alexander in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, (c. 2006 by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; pub. by Augsburg Fortress Press) Hymn # 450.  

[1] “Come Join the Dance of Trinity,” by Richard Leach, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, # 412.