Due to numerous commitments this week, I have been unable to publish a freash article. Hopefully this reflection on Sunday’s lessons published three years ago remains timely.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Judaism, Christianity, Antisemitism and Saint Paul
TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: God of all peoples, your arms reach out to embrace all those who call upon you. Teach us as disciples of your Son to love the world with compassion and constancy, that your name may be known throughout the earth, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!” Romans 11:1.
This sentence is perhaps the most important for us followers of Jesus to elevate in this age of increasing antisemitism. Incidents of antisemitism, including assault, vandalism and harassment, increased by more than a third in just one year and reached nearly 3,700 cases in 2022. “Antisemitic incidents in the US are at the highest level recorded since the 1970s” By Krystina Shveda, CNN. Sadly, hostility toward Judaism and violence toward Jews have been prevalent throughout the history of the church. It continues to find expression in many sectors of Christianity today. Proponents of anti-Jewish sentiment often point to the New Testament and Saint Paul in particular in support of their hateful views. For this reason, I think it is essential that we understand Paul’s relationship to Judaism and the nature of his mission to the gentiles.
If you were to attempt striking up a conversation with Paul about Christianity, he would not have the foggiest notion what you are talking about. That is because Christianity did not exist during Paul’s lifetime and ministry. There was a “Jesus movement” within Judaism. Paul, though initially hostile toward the movement, ultimately became associated with it. Thus-and this is critically important-Paul was not a convert from Judaism to Christianity. He was a faithful Jew who found in Jesus’ faithful life, obedient death and glorious resurrection a deeper understanding of Israel’s covenant with its God. Paul never says “I was a Jew” or “I used to be Jewish before I saw the light.” To the contrary, he states clearly and proudly, “I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.” Asking Paul whether he was a Jew or a Christian would be like asking someone from New Jersey whether they are American or New Jersian.
Paul did not understand the church as an alternative to Israel. But he did believe that the God of Israel was also the God of all people, that is “the gentiles.” As he saw it, the salvation accomplished by Jesus opened up the covenant relationship God had with Israel to all nations. His vision was not for Jews to abandon their covenant relationship with God. Rather, his hope was for Jesus to be the open door through which the gentiles, formerly estranged from God, could enter into and become a part of the sacred covenant promises entrusted to Israel. As a corollary, Jesus was to be a porthole through which Israel would recognize God’s purpose of uniting people of all nations under a single covenant relationship. Paul never dreamed that he was starting a religion new and different from the one in which he grew up.
We learn much about Paul’s ministry from the Book of Acts, which was written decades after Paul’s death and at a time when relations between the Jesus movement and other strands within Judaism, particularly the Pharisees, was becoming increasingly adversarial. Nonetheless, it is clear that Paul saw his missionary journeys as an extension of his Judaism. Wherever his travels took him, Paul consistently went first to the synagogue or other Jewish worshiping communities in the area. Sometimes, he found a receptive audience. At times, he met opposition.
It is important to keep in mind that, outside of Palestine, the line of demarcation between Jew and gentile was more attenuated. Jews in Greece and Asia Minor typically spoke Greek and were heavily influenced by the surrounding Hellenistic culture where they lived among diverse peoples with whom they joined together in civic events and conducted business. Intermarriage between Jews and gentiles was common. Gentiles were frequently involved to various degrees in the life of the synagogue. Paul seems to have had a large degree of success with gentile audiences, probably those who had had some relationship with and knowledge of Judaism.
One might get the impression from reading Paul’s letters, particularly his epistles to the Romans and Galatians, that he had a deep antipathy to Torah (translated from our Greek New Testament as “law”). But that is not the case. Paul had no problem with Jews being observant of Torah and the traditional practices that grew out if it. Indeed, he appears to have been observant himself. But he had a big problem with the imposition of these many practices upon gentile converts to the Jesus movement. Paul insisted that God’s call, both to Israel and to the gentiles through the Jesus movement, must be answered by faith, not obedience to any code of behavior. In this, Paul was thoroughly consistent with the Hebrew Scriptures:
“It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 7:7-8.
“for not by their own sword did they win the land,
nor did their own arm give them victory;
but your right hand, and your arm,
and the light of your countenance,
for you delighted in them.” Psalm 44:3.
Paul also insisted that God’s mercy and forgiveness is not premised on perfect obedience. Again, this is entirely consistent with Israel’s faith. The understanding that Israel would fall short of what God commands was built into the fabric of the Torah which provided for sin offerings through which the community and individuals were given the opportunity to turn from their wrongdoing and find reconciliation with God and with one another. Torah was thus a redemptive and community building instrument of grace. However, when Torah ceases to be viewed as God’s gift to human beings and is understood instead as a requirement human beings must fulfill in order to qualify for God’s salvation, it becomes a curse. As Paul saw it, the insistence by some within the Jesus movement that gentiles received into the church by baptism needed to comply with all the religious and cultural norms governing Judaism, circumcision in particular, had precisely that effect. For some within the Jesus movement and other strands of Judaism as well, this was a bridge too far. Thus, the polemic we find in Paul’s letters does not reflect a dispute between Judaism and Christianity (which did not yet exist!), but a conflict within the Jesus movement between those who felt that gentile converts should observe all essential aspects of Torah, including circumcision, and Paul with his supporters who were convinced that baptism into Jesus Christ was sufficient.
Though the Jesus movement eventually parted company with the Jewish community, it is important to understand that this was a gradual process. We know that disciples of Jesus attended worship in synagogues well into the second century. It was not until the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire following the rise of Constantine the Great that the split became final. Armed with the might of empire, the church was now in a position to attack its opponents, Jews, heretics and pagans alike with more than theological arguments. Notwithstanding the specific affirmation in our creeds that Jesus was “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” the death of Jesus was increasingly placed squarely and solely on the shoulders of the Jews. In the centuries that followed, Jews experienced the full weight of Christian supremacy in the form of discrimination, pogroms, inquisitions culminating in the Holocaust.
Our problem is that us disciples of Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth, have forgotten how we were once outsiders who received a gracious invitation to Israel’s covenant home. We forgot that we are guests and began acting as though we own the whole house. We would do well to heed Saint Paul’s warning that we “wild olive branches,” who have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree that is Israel, can as easily be cut away if we start putting on airs. Romans 11:19-21. We, the invited guests, have even gone so far as to evict our hosts! For centuries, the doctrine of superssessionism, the notion that Judaism has been displaced by the superior religion of Christianity, has been elevated to the level of orthodoxy. As a result, Jews in America have been targeted for conversion, pressured to “assimilate” and subjected to discrimination, defamation and scapegoating.
That this vicious and irrational hatred of Jews continues to be a powerful and dangerous force in American culture is undeniable. This calls for, among other things, a strong theological reassessment of the church’s teachings concerning Judaism. We need to emphasize the church’s symbiotic relationship with the people of Israel, the community that gave birth to our faith. I must confess that I do not fully understand the arguments made by Saint Paul in the nineth through eleventh chapters of Romans. I do not understand what Paul means by “a hardening coming on a part of Israel” (Romans 11:25) or how Paul’s “magnifying” his ministry to the gentiles is supposed to make his fellow Jews “jealous” or what he expected that to accomplish. Romans 11:14. What I do know is that, in the midst of these arguments, Paul still refers to all Israel as his “fellow Jews.” Romans 11:14. I do know that he was convinced that the “full inclusion” of Israel in God’s design meant life for the world. Romans 11:15. I do know that Paul is convinced that “all Israel will be saved.” Romans 11:26. Thus, according to the New Testament witness generally and that of Saint Paul in particular, the reign of God proclaimed by Jesus is the one proclaimed by the ancestors and the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures for the people of Israel. By God’s sheer act of grace in Jesus Christ, the gentiles have been invited to participate in that glorious, mysterious and hopeful promise.
I believe Saint Paul would be horrified if he could see what has become of the church he worked so hard make a witness of reconciliation and unity for Jews, gentiles, slaves, free, men and women of every nation. I believe that if we take seriously what Saint Paul actually taught and what the New Testament proclaims concerning Jesus and his mission, we will share that outrage and recognize not only our complicity in the historic violence against Jews, but our obligation to struggle against the vestiges of that sad legacy as it continues to rear its ugly head in acts of violence today. We need to state with clarity that it is not the mission of the church to make Jews into Christians, assimilate them into our nominally Christian culture or denigrate their faith in order to legitimize our own. When we can finally look respectfully and gratefully to our Jewish neighbors with gratitude for the spiritual legacy from which our own faith was born, acknowledge that the covenant God made with them is as valid as it ever was and recognize that the hope of the Jewish people expressed in their faithful obedience to Torah and the hope expressed in our discipleship to Jesus are one in the same, perhaps we will one day see the realization of Paul’s vision.
Here is a poem by Eve Merriam that gives us a snapshot of what it is like for a Jewish child growing up in America.
Jew
Babies have no special history.
Born, you were rosy and round, gurgled like any other,
horizon was mother’s breast and father’s chucking finger;
peeped from your bunting, saw only the friendly sky.
Crawling, the world enlarged to father’s watch
fat as a golden moon in the fairy tale;
innocent blocks spelt out no tattling word,
and even raised to high-chair the scene was cheery:
nursery walls in pink or charming blue,
Jack and Jill the only handwriting there.
While you were yet young, however, the swag was stolen.
You were blamed.
At school the children stumbled over your name;
you were never the Prince in games. Always your nose
made you Rumpelstiltzkin or the Dwarf.
Your father’s cap was queer. (But freckles are queer,
too, and red hair, and your father drinks too much!)
No matter. The money was never found, let’s call him Ike the
Thief.
Ike, modern clubmember of the Lost Tribes of Israel:
lost, yes, but not your ancestry.
It was glittering swag: never found,
All those million years: and you’re to blame of course.
Oh I grant
they could have blamed the snake in Eden, the apple,
or even the dirty goat grazing on the garbage;
rain might have been the victim, earthquake, or suspect fire,
indigestion, dreams, roses, or constipation.
But they chose the Jew. Surely your rabbi
read you the Hebrews where God’s anointed race?
Now how would you like to take yours: mixed or straight?
We are sorry to inform you our enrollment is complete.
No Dogs or Jews Allowed.
Someday when the swag is found, you can cancel kike
and nigger, wop, hunky, chink, and okie.
But just now the chances look very slim;
the swag is either underground too deep
to drill, or too high for the heavenliest plane.
Maybe, quite sensibly, it was never even lost,
but they myth continues, a colossal Judge Crater,
Kidd’s map, the virgin birth, life on the moon.
Source: Poetry, (September 1941) Eve Merriam (1916-1992) was an American poet and writer. Born in Philadelphia, she was one of four children of Russian Jewish immigrants. She graduated with an A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937 and then moved to New York to pursue graduate studies at Columbia University. Merriam’s first book, Family Circle was published in 1946. For this work she won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Her book, The Inner City Mother Goose, written in the aftermath of the urban uprisings of 1968-69, was one of the most frequently banned books of all time. It was the inspiration for the Broadway musical, Inner City. The play was revived in 1982 under the title Street Dreams. Merriam published over thirty books over her career and taught at both City College and New York University. You can read more about Eve Merrian and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
The Sound of Sheer Silence
ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: O God our defender, storms rage around and within us and cause us to be afraid. Rescue your people from despair, deliver your sons and daughters from fear, and preserve us in the faith of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.” I Kings 19:11-12.
If the phrase, “sound of sheer silence” appears to be a contradiction, it is only because we assume that silence is nothing more than the absence of sound. Saints and mystics of many different faiths know, however, that nothing could be further from the truth. Monastic communities that make it central to their spiritual practices know that silence is often the womb in which more profound wisdom, clearer insight, deeper discernment and more penetrating vision is conceived. Thomas Merton once remarked that “in silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.” He goes on to point out that:
“For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.” The Power and Meaning of Love, Thomas Merton(c.Sheldon Press 1976).
We Americans live in a silence averse culture. Our malls, doctors’ offices, and transportation stations hum with display screens and pumped in music. Radios and televisions play non-stop in many of our homes. Our parties and gatherings are permeated by endless chatter. I believe that much of this exists to spare us from the awkwardness and discomfort of silence. After all, silence is discomforting. It is every host’s duty to ensure that lively chatter flows unceasingly among the guests. If talk at the dinner table should hesitate, the host must step in to fill the uneasy silence by “making conversation.” A host failing to do so would be considered rude and inept. Silence is the antithesis of sociability.
It is not noise alone that keeps silence at bay. Much of what we digest in our reading or viewing on various media drives silence from our minds and hearts. The white heat of our politics and cultural discourse often prevents the discerning consideration of deep moral concerns that can happen only in the depths of silence. Much of our civil discourse these days comes in the form of angry and snarky posts, tweets and messaging that only illicit the same in reply. We talk over each other because we are so cock sure we know what our conversation partner is saying, that it is entirely wrong and that we have the arguments to defeat him. Before one is finished talking the other is already concocting a counter-argument. It is all reminiscent of the lines of Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence:
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
If ever there was a man who needed the refuge of silence, it was the Prophet Elijah. There is a back story for our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures. Elijah had been in exile for months as Israel’s King Ahab and his Queen Jezebel were systematically eradicating the worship of Israel’s God, destroying God’s places of worship and replacing the worship of God with the near eastern religion of Ba’al worship. At God’s direction, Elijah came out of hiding and confronted King Ahab. He challenged the King to assemble the prophets of Ba’al to offer a sacrifice to their god. Elijah, for his part, would build an altar for sacrifice to the God of Israel. Neither would light a sacrificial fire. Both would wait for their respective deities to do the honors. The god that answered by fire, lighting its altar, that god would be known as God indeed. To make a very long and entertaining story short, Israel’s God sent fire to consume the offering on Elijah’s altar. Ba’a’l was a no-show.
Such a dramatic demonstration ought to have settled the matter. For a short time, it seemed to have done just that. Ahab was convinced. Jezebel, the true power behind the throne was not impressed. She vowed to avenge the humiliation of her god with Elijah’s blood. Once again, Elijah was on the run. We find him curled up in a cave wanting to die. When God asks him what he is doing in such a pitiful state, he replies, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” I Kings 19:10. You cannot fault Elijah for feeling that way. He has been living all alone in exile. He alone was willing to challenge the royal household’s adultery at the risk of his life. Now, everything he thought he accomplished has come crashing down all around him and, once again, his is all alone.
But in truth, Elijah was not alone. Once he managed to get beyond the noise of his enemies, the noise of his seeming failure, the noise of savage winds, earthquakes and fires, he learned that there were seven thousand people left in Israel that, like him, were “very zealous for the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel.” He also learned that God had more work for him to do. Most importantly, he learned that he will no longer be alone in his work. He is to anoint Elisha as his companion and successor. This is no rosy forecast. The redemption of Israel is going to be a long, difficult and violent road. It is obvious that Elijah will not see the end of that road in his life time. But in the shelter of holy silence, with all distractions without and within put aside, Elijah is finally able to see a way forward for himself and his people.
Saint John of the Cross reminds us that “it is best to learn to silence the faculties and cause them to be still, so that God may speak,” Once you get over your discomfort with silence, you find it liberating. There is comfort in knowing you cannot and need not control the powerful currents sweeping around you. There is peace in knowing that you need not have all the answers to all of your questions. There is freedom in knowing that you do not have to have an opinion on everything and that it is not always necessary that you speak your mind. There is huge potential for healing, reconciliation and peace when you finally learn that it is often enough just to listen and understand without passing judgment or giving advice. There is power greater than any earthquake, wind or fire in the sound of sheer silence.
Here is a poem by Billy Collins about silence, the many contexts in which it occurs, its power and its fragility.
Silence
There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.
The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.
And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night
like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.
Source: Poetry (April 2005). William James (Billy) Collins (b. 1941) is an American poet. He served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He was a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York from which he retired in 2016. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 to 2006. In 2016, Collins was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Since 2020, he has been teaching in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. You can read more about Billy Collins and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
Food, Water and Sanctuary for a Dying Humanity
TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day Glorious God, your generosity waters the world with goodness, and you cover creation with abundance. Awaken in us a hunger for the food that satisfies both body and spirit, and with this food fill all the starving world; through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.” Isaiah 55:1.
A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Timothy Beal’s book, “When time is short.” (c. 2022 by Timothy Beal, pub. by Beacon Press). Beal is a professor of Religion at Case Western University and the author of several books and essays on religion and culture. Calling to our attention the warnings of climate change scientists to the effect that our degradation of the earth’s oceans, forests, atmosphere and ecosystems has reached the point at which it is impossible to reverse the consequences of global warming, Beal invites us to reflect soberly on the very real possibility that we have engineered our own extinction as a species. Given that very real possibility (which Beal at some points seems to press as a certainty), we must face honestly the evils of racism, colonialism and nationalism that brought us to this point. More importantly, we need to accept the inevitability of our collective extinction (whether immanent or not) and consider how we will spend the rest of our collective existence “doing what matters” as a species on the brink of oblivion.
I have some reservations about this book. Beal speaks eloquently about humanity’s inescapable participation in the web of life characterized as “the wild.” Eating and being eaten, birth and death, evolving as a species and passing into extinction are all inextricably bound together in this mystery we know as life. As much horror as it inspires, this is all “perfectly natural” and presumably good. I wonder, however, whether Beal has thought through the implications of what he is saying. Does he understand what human extinction would look like? Can he really imagine the horrors that would engulf the globe as vast swaths of the earth become uninhabitable for human beings and millions of square miles of previously fruitful soil can no longer produce the food on which we rely? Does he realize that the first to die will be those whose lives are already so thoroughly focused on living from one day to the next that they can scarcely afford to ruminate on our collective demise? How do we focus on “what matters” when what matters is the wellbeing of our neighbors whom we cannot help any more than we can help ourselves? Can we in any sense see human extinction for what, in reality, it will mean and call it “natural” or “good”?
I also have to take issue with Beal’s characterization of western Christianity as “death denying.” Granted, there is plenty of anthroprocentric hubris and contempt for the natural world that has infected the church of the west. But I would place that more at the feet of the Enlightenment and its enthusiasm for colonialization. You can hardly call the church of the middle ages, much less the New Testament church, death denying. During our Ash Wednesday service we impose ashes on our foreheads with the words: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” That is about as frank a declaration of human mortality as can be made. You can argue that a lot of Christians do not take it to heart, but you cannot fault our liturgy, hymns and preaching, which are not lacking when it comes to the topic of human mortality. So, too, Christian dogma has always acknowledged the finitude of our species and our planet. We do that with a vengeance on the first Sunday of Advent where the “little apocalypse,” found in various forms in all three of the synoptic gospels, is front and center. Beal’s call to focus on what matters finds expression in the second epistle of Saint Peter:
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?” II Peter 3:10-12.
Finally, I am not convinced that climate change, however severe, will result in human extinction. I am convinced that somehow, in some fashion, our species will survive. The question is, who among us, in what form and at what cost? How will we respond to millions of climate refugees whose homelands are no longer habitable? As far as my own country is concerned, I know the answer. We will meet them with barbed wire. We will set traps across the rivers bordering our land to drown them and boot those who still manage to get through, men, women and children back into the waters to die in order to protect our turf and our way of life. How do I know this? Because that is precisely what we are doing now, when we can easily absorb the refugees coming to our shores, when we could actually use these people and the skills they bring to supplement our shrinking work force. Imagine, then, what we will do when accepting refugees will call for sacrifice, for a change in the level of comfort in which we now live.
The people of God are called to a different response, however. They are called, the prophet reminds us, to offer food, water and sanctuary without cost. That is a difficult word to speak in today’s antiimmigrant climate and will become increasingly so as the consequences of global warming become ever more severe. If you are among those who think that we cannot hope to meet the flood of climate refugees with the resources we have and that we will only end up overfilling the life boat to the point where it capsizes and we all drown, you are not alone. Jesus’ disciples felt the same way when they were confronted with a crowd of five thousand hungry people and had on hand only a few loaves and fishes. Quite understandably, they reasoned that parting with what little food they had would not satisfy the hunger of the crowd, but it would surely impoverish them. Yet remarkably, the disciples discovered that when they were able to let go of their meager resources and place them into the hands of Jesus, they accomplished more than they imagined possible. That is the answer we make to the Trumps, the DeSantises, the “America First” crowd espousing the survivalist mentality.
I think Saint Peter hits the nail on the head. In view of all that is coming upon the earth, what sort of people ought we to be? On the other side of the climate crisis, will it be said of the church that we sat wringing our hands, issuing preachy-screechy social statements and sending relief packages to those dying on the other side of our border while trying to carry on with ecclesiastical business as usual? Generations hence, will the ELCA (assuming there still is such a thing) be issuing an apology for its complicity with “the destroyers of the earth”? (See Revelation 11:18). I continue to pray that the church in this country will finally recognize that it is more than a chaplaincy service to the United States; that it will give up on its misbegotten mission to christianize America; that it will finally discover that being the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church spanning every national border is enough. I hope that we will find the spiritual maturity, the moral courage and theological depth to be the Body of Christ in the midst of a culture bent on crucifying him anew. I hope that we will not be conformed to the ways of our politics, civil religion and culture but be transformed into a people willing to “offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice” in defense of those condemned to death by the frantic violence and neglect of a nation bent on preserving itself. Romans 12:1-2.
Here is a poem by Robert Frost raising in a simple way the question of how humanity might meet its final hour.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost, (c. 1969 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.) p. 33-34. Born in 1874, Robert Frost held various jobs throughout his college years. He was a worker at a Massachusetts mill, a cobbler, an editor of a small town newspaper, a schoolteacher and a farmer. By 1915, Frost’s literary acclaim was firmly established. On his seventy-fifth birthday, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution in his honor. The State of Vermont named a mountain after him and he was given the unprecedented honor of being asked to read a poem at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. Through the lens of rural life in New England, Frost’s poetry ponders the metaphysical depths. His poems paint lyrical portraits of natural beauty, though ever haunted by shadow and decay. You can learn more about Robert Frost and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
Artificial Intelligence and True Wisdom
NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: Beloved and sovereign God, through the death and resurrection of your Son you bring us into your kingdom of justice and mercy. By your Spirit, give us your wisdom, that we may treasure the life that comes from Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
It is not surprising that Solomon should seek wisdom in his prayer to the God who visits him in his dreams. He describes himself as “but a little child” who has inherited his father’s throne and must now reign over “a great people that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude.” The geopolitical landscape of the ancient near east was no less dangerous and complex than the global landscape of today. Peace and prosperity were maintained by strategic military alliances, trade agreements and treaties governing the use of land passages and waterways. Each nation had its own vital interests and ambitions. Israel’s wellbeing, indeed, its very existence as a nation state, required a leader capable of navigating these dangerous waters, avoiding its reefs and shoals.
The wisdom for which Solomon prays, however, is not the wisdom of politics and statecraft. Instead, he prays for wisdom to discern “between good and evil.” That is precisely the wisdom God promises Solomon. Significantly, however, God does not simply open up Solomon’s brain and pour wisdom into his head. Instead, God points Solomon to the place where wisdom can be found. You will obtain wisdom, God tells Solomon, if only you “walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments.” That way of wisdom is spelled out more specifically in our Psalm reading for this Sunday, wherein the psalmist declares that the “unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” The psalmist goes on to tell us that “with open mouth I pant, because I long for thy commandments” and pleads with God, “teach me thy statutes.” The psalmist prays, “keep steady my steps according to thy promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.”
Wisdom is not to be confused with mere knowledge. It is not obtained through the acquisition of information. Knowledge can unlock the secrets of the atom. Wisdom guides us in how we can use that information in life giving ways. Knowledge defines the parameters of what we are capable of doing. Wisdom guides us in determining what we ought to do. Knowledge consists of learning facts that exist independently. The earth orbits the sun whether we are aware of that fact or not. Wisdom, however, does not exist in a vacuum. It is relational. Wisdom is acquired by having one’s character shaped and molded by living faithfully within the community of God’s covenant people. Wisdom is not taught in the classroom, inscribed on the pages of a book or programed into any app. It is not imparted overnight. It is won little by little over a lifetime, one triumph, one tragedy, one love, one heartbreak, one friendship, one betrayal at a time. Wisdom is not commensurable with intellect. A genius can still be a fool, while many persons I have know with severe mental impairments radiate profound wisdom.
Lately, artificial intelligence (AI) has been very much in the news. It came to my attention recently through an e-mail from a very dear friend who asked me if I had any thoughts about the “meteoric rise of AI.” I had to confess that I had not given AI much thought. Perhaps I have been remiss in this regard. Many scientists, engineers and medical experts have been expressing concerns about AI, its potential effects on education, our health, particularly that of children, the job market and our society generally. How do people of faith evaluate and respond to these concerns? Perhaps our readings for this Sunday can give us a window into that meteoric rise and what it might mean for us.
First off, the issue of delegating human thought is not entirely new. Back in my third grade year, the Pee Chee was a standard requirement. It was a black and yellow folder with images of young people playing football, tennis or basketball. It had two wings, one for holding lined paper and the other for placement of completed homework assignments. Significantly, it also had a multiplication table printed on the inside flap with which you could find the answer to multiplication problems involving integers from one through twelve. My third grade teacher hated that table with a passion comparable to Cotton Mather’s hatred of the devil. She felt that these diabolical tables discouraged memorization that would, in turn, cripple our progress in learning higher mathematics. The first task we were given on the first day of school was to take our scissors, cut the multiplication table out of our Pee Chees and throw it away.
Instead of throwing my multiplication table away, I taped it to the inside of my desk where I could easily consult it. I never felt that I was cheating when using the table. I understood fully well the basic arithmetic functions required for higher level computations. Exercising those functions repeatedly seemed silly when the answer was available right in my desk. Why let memory games take time and energy away from solving complicated equations? The same goes, I suppose, for calculators and other computation devices. They can be said to free our minds from mundane mental tasks so that we can focus on higher levels of thinking and doing. Nothing wrong with that as far as I can see.
The internet took us to new levels. When I first began practicing law, electronic legal databases and the internet platforms making them available were in their infancy. Legal research for small firms like mine was slow and labor intensive. We did legal research by sending first year associates down to the county law library to pour over hundreds of volumes of case law and state statutes. Composing a legal memo on a single issue could take weeks. Within five years following my date of hire, internet libraries like Westlaw and Lexis became widely available at a reasonable subscription fee. They made it possible to research an issue under the law of all fifty states and the federal government with a few keystrokes. In twenty minutes you could have a list of links to all the court decisions published from the formation of the country to the last twenty-four hours. That was a significant development, doing much to level the playing field between small firms like mine and the big city firms with their own large, expansive and fully staffed law libraries.
Of course, the internet has been a mixed bag. Though it has put more information at our fingertips than any generation before us, it has also been a vector for dangerous misinformation, conspiracy theories and violent ideologies. The internet has built bridges of knowledge and understanding between diverse communities and people who would otherwise never have crossed paths. It has also allowed racist groups throughout the world to find one another and unite in their violent and hateful acts. The internet opened new frontiers of knowledge and exciting media for sharing it with school age children, thereby enriching their educations. At the same time, social media has proven toxic to our children, exposing them to cyber bullying, stalking by online predators and radicalization by extremist groups. As with all human knowledge and achievement, wisdom is required to ensure that the internet is experienced as blessing rather than curse.
In the last year it seems that AI has taken a quantum leap. Not only are computers able to accumulate, organize and analyze data faster and more efficiently than humans. They are now capable of using their data to compose music, teleplays, fairy tales, student essays and answers to test questions. Computers have, without human direction and on their own initiative, undertaken the learning of languages and assimilation of information deemed helpful to their tasks. To say that they have minds of their own probably overstates the case. Still, their emerging management capabilities are beginning to transform the work place by, among other things, eliminating jobs. These effects are being felt throughout our workforce and not only by administrative assistants, librarians, accountants and others who manage information or crunch numbers. One of the concerns raised in the current Hollywood writer’s strike is the potential use of AI to replace script writers for performers and actors. I hasten to add here that the same has been true for every technological advance. The printing press ended the scrivener’s guild. The industrial revolution displaced numerous crafts. Makers of buggy whips, fountain pens and typewriters can testify to the pain that comes with technological advances.
Still, there is something different about the most recent developments in AI. It is one thing for machines to take over menial tasks that free us up to be more productive in other ways. It is one thing to rely on computers for collecting and organizing data for our analysis. We can even live with computers conducting rudimentary analysis of data for us. But it is a little unnerving to have them writing our speeches, producing paintings in the style of Van Gogh and composing music on par with Mozart. One cannot help but wonder, will the day come when humans have nothing to do but oil the machines and watch them work? Or will the machines learn to service themselves and decide that we humans are an unnecessary nuisance? This is truly the stuff of science fiction along the lines of the Matrix and Terminator movies.
I am not convinced that computers are even close to achieving anything like human consciousness. Nor do I think they are malevolent in and of themselves. I don’t lose much sleep worrying that they will take over the world. However advanced they may be, computers do only what they have been programed to do. Even where they discover new and more efficient ways to do what they are programed to do, they still are doing what they are programed by us to do. That is what worries me. Our culture is rife with systemic inequality, racism and injustice. The last thing we need is technology to run our discriminatory justice system, our inequitable banking systems and our deeply racist law enforcement systems more efficiently.
Allow me to illustrate. An AI program designed to manage our nation’s healthcare system-such that it is-could prove to be a nightmare. That is not because the computer might get it wrong, but because it would probably get it right. Currently, our healthcare system consists of doctors for whom medicine is a marketable and profitable commodity. It is run by insurance companies which make money by charging as much premium as the law will allow and providing as little coverage as they can get away with. It is under the sway of pharmacology companies that make money by selling their wares for as much as they can. The people the system is supposed to serve are, in reality, serving the system-assuming they have health insurance or lots of money. An AI program managing such a system would naturally do what our system is already doing now, namely, providing as little healthcare as possible for the highest price while seeking to deny as many claims as possible in order to maximize profit. The only difference is that AI would do the job with greater ruthless efficiency.
Of course, a different kind of healthcare system with priorities different than the corporate bottom line could also benefit from AI. Computers could assist us in identifying communities underserved by doctors and hospitals and suggest ways to improve access to high quality care for these communities. AI can enable doctors, nurses and social workers to interface virtually with persons for whom traveling to appointments is difficult. Computers can respond initially to an individual’s health inquiries and point that person to nearby providers who might be of assistance in diagnosing and treating them. For a healthcare system in which the health and welfare of all people is paramount, AI has huge potential for improving medical care and treatment.
In the end, AI will only be as good for us as we are wise. From the day the first human picked up a stone and recognized that it could as easily grind his corn as smash his neighbor’s skull, we have been faced with the same urgent need for wisdom, which alone can protect us from ourselves and our inventions. The monsters we see in AI are only a reflection of the ones lurking in our souls. Like Solomon, we find ourselves in possession of something bigger than ourselves, something that offers tremendous promise and potential for good, but also something that could hurt us badly if we fail to manage it properly. Let us hope that we find the humility of Solomon to pray for the wisdom that AI might become for us a blessing.
Here is a poem/song by Denny Zager and Rick Evans. It paints a grim picture of human destiny, our dependence on our technology and our relationship with the planet. It might very well prove prophetic. Yet the way of wisdom offers us an alternative.
In the Year 2525
In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find
In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today
In the year 4545
Ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your eyes
You won’t find a thing to chew
Nobody’s gonna look at you
In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine’s doing that for you
In the year 6565
Ain’t gonna need no husband, won’t need no wife
You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube, whoa, whoa
In the year 7510
If God’s a-comin’ he ought to make it by then
Maybe he’ll look around himself and say
Guess it’s time for the Judgement day
In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head
He’ll either say I’m pleased where man has been
Or tear it down and start again, whoa, whoa
In the year 9595
I’m kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive
He’s taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain’t put back nothing, whoa, whoa
Now it’s been 10, 000 years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man’s reign is through
But through eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it’s only yesterday
In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may thrive
In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth…
Source: Musixmatch (for non-commercial use only). Denny Zager and Rick Evans were partners in an American rock-pop duo. They were active during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Zager was born in February of 1944 in Wymore, Nebraska. Evans was born in January of 1943 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Evans died in February of 2018. Zager now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska where he builds custom guitars. Zager and Evans are best known for the above hit song premiering in 1969. The song became a number one hit single, the only one the group ever had. You can hear a recording of the song at this link.
Life in the Weeds
Life in the Weeds
EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: Faithful God, most merciful judge, you care for your children with firmness and compassion. By your Spirit nurture us who live in your kingdom, that we may be rooted in the way of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“….in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” Matthew 12:29-30.
True, ripping out the weeds is likely to uproot the wheat. Yet there is a downside to letting them grow together until the harvest. The weeds use up moisture and nutrients in the soil that would otherwise nurture the wheat. They will grow up to block the lifegiving rays of the sun. Weeds can become havens for unwanted insect pests. There is no getting around the fact that the weeds are a problem and will continue to be such until the time of harvest. Even then, they are bound to make the harvest a good deal more labor intensive than it would otherwise be. I can understand why the slaves of the householder would prefer to deal with them sooner rather than later.
I think this might be the attraction pre-millennial (“Left Behind”) religion holds for so many. At first blush, the idea of God intervening to rapture the pure in heart out of this evil world, cleansing the earth by means of the “great tribulation,” and bringing back the faithful to rule over a purified planet sounds attractive. The problem, however, is that even the true believers, the pure in heart, those who have “accepted Jesus as personal Lord and Savior” are still sinners. The tendency toward selfishness, suspicion toward God and one another and all the other characteristics that always seem to get us into trouble in this age will be present among those who return in the next to reign over the new world-which will not stay new for long. The line between good and evil does not run neatly along international borders, cultural divides, religious communities or political party membership. It runs right through the middle of every human heart. The weeds are rooted, along with the wheat, in the depths of our souls. Uprooting them cannot help but damage the harvest.
This parable has often been interpreted to mean that we are powerless to deal with evil. Poverty, injustice, racism, war and all the menial day to day evils like road rage, unhelpful telephone menus and double parked vehicles are grim realities of life in this world, the resolution of which must await the final judgment. You can’t eradicate evil, so you just have to learn to live with it. But given this parable’s context within Matthew’s gospel, we know that cannot be the case. Jesus makes clear that his disciples are not called merely to endure evil passively. They are to be “light to the world” and “salt to the earth.” Matthew 5:13-14. Their good works are to “give glory” to God. Matthew 5:16. Jesus sends his disciples to make disciples of all nations so that they may teach the world all that he has taught them. Matthew 28:19-20. Evil is not to be tolerated. Evildoers are to be exposed, denounced and resisted by faithful witness to the truth in word and deed. Judgement of evildoers, however, belongs to God alone. It is not for disciples of Jesus to attempt the separation of wheat from weeds, sheep from goats, righteous from unrighteous. When the church oversteps its authority and usurps this dread responsibility, it never ends well.
Sometimes separation of wheat from weeds is undertaken with the best of intentions and supported by sound moral logic. By way of illustration, allow me a brief hypothetical. You are in command of an elite force of commandos trained in executing rescue missions. You learn that an angry mob of religious fanatics is about to stone a man for expressing his differing religious beliefs. The man is a community leader with a proven record of public service, including the provision of relief for widows and their children. With careful planning, you are convinced that you can rescue the soon to be victim with a minimal loss of human life. By employing the best strategy and state of the art military technology, you succeed in disbursing the mob and rescuing the man destined for death. A terrible act of mob violence against an innocent victim has been prevented. In the process, a few of the perpetrators are killed, including a young man who, though not actually involved in the violence, was actively encouraging it and holding the coats of those preparing to throw stones. All in all, from a military and humanitarian point of view, the mission is successful.
Those of you familiar with the Book of Acts will recognize immediately that this successful military exercise prevented the death of Saint Stephen by killing Saint Paul. The point I am trying to make is that one never knows what one is doing when, for whatever noble reason, a person takes one life in order to save another. What looks to my eye like a weed could well be the seed of God’s future harvest. Good and evil are so inextricably bound together among nations, between individuals and within each human heart that we cannot extricate the latter without mortally wounding the former. No human life can be judged until it has finally come to the end God determines and no one other than God is capable of judging it. There is nothing for it but to live faithfully and bear fruit in the weeds.
Living in the weeds calls for patience. I think there is no greater temptation afflicting good and well meaning people than impatience, a desire to root out evil and injustice by whatever means necessary. The temptation is particularly strong where evil actions threaten the lives and wellbeing of other people, as in my hypothetical. Faithful witness, peaceful resistance and love in the face of hatred are too slow and too ineffective. We prefer measures that get results and get them quickly. What is war, after all, but an attempted short cut to peace? Violence, coercion and intimidation always promise swift resolution to complex problems, but they never deliver. Jesus understands that there are no shortcuts to God’s gentle reign of justice and peace. There is no way to peace but peace itself. Who are the wheat stalks and who are the weeds? I strongly suspect we are all a mixture of both. There is no quick and easy way to cleanse the weeds from the field, from our world or from our hearts. Cleansing comes only through the slow burning fire of repentance that is God’s life giving judgement.
Here is a poem by William Carlos Williams that speaks of a burning that is both painful and redemptive.
Burning the Christmas Greens
Their time past, pulled down
cracked and flung to the fire
—go up in a roar
All recognition lost, burnt clean
clean in the flame, the green
dispersed, a living red,
flame red, red as blood wakes
on the ash—
and ebbs to a steady burning
the rekindled bed become
a landscape of flame
At the winter’s midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the balsam and
the hemlock for their green
At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold’s
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green trees
to fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons
we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the
mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they
were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We
stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log’s smouldering eye, opening
red and closing under them
and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we
did not say so) a challenge
above the snow’s
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where
small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down
the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow—Transformed!
Violence leaped and appeared.
Recreant! roared to life
as the flame rose through and
our eyes recoiled from it.
In the jagged flames green
to red, instant and alive. Green!
those sure abutments . . . Gone!
lost to mind
and quick in the contracting
tunnel of the grate
appeared a world! Black
mountains, black and red—as
yet uncolored—and ash white,
an infant landscape of shimmering
ash and flame and we, in
that instant, lost,
breathless to be witnesses,
as if we stood
ourselves refreshed among
the shining fauna of that fire.
Source: American Religious Poems, Edited by Harold Bloom & Jesse Ruba (c. 2006 by Library Classics of the United States, New York, NY) pp. 195-198. William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician. He was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. His father was born in England but raised from the age of 5 in the Dominican Republic and his mother came from Puerto Rico. The Caribbean culture of his family had an important influence on Williams. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician. He practiced pediatrics and general medicine at Passaic General Hospital. He served as chief of pediatrics from 1924 until his death. You can read more about William Carlos Williams and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
The Lost Art of Listening
SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, live according to it, and grow in faith and hope and love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“Listen!” Matthew 13:3.
I have heard and preached more sermons on Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed than I can remember. Most of them skate dangerously close to allegory, thereby missing the parable. Jesus himself must resort to allegory for the sake of his witless disciples. For you see, a parable is like a joke. You either get the punch line and respond with laughter, surprise or perhaps outrage, or you sit scratching your head and wondering what you missed. The disciples evidently need an explanation of the parable. Jesus could have been none too happy about that. It was kind of like someone in the audience asking a stand up comedian to explain his joke. It’s a clear sign that the act is bombing. The parable, it turns out, is not an allegory describing different kinds of hearers-though I suppose one could expound it that way. It is a good deal simpler than that. In fact, it can be summed up on one word: Listen.
Listening is a rare skill these days. Perhaps it always was. That is unfortunate because without it, communication is severely compromised. I have a feeling that much of the time most of us fail to hear what others are trying to tell us or see matters from their perspective. Nowhere is that more evident than in our dialogue over race. I notice a tendency among those of us who identify as white to fill up the conversation with demonstrations of our own lack of prejudice, as though that were the issue. We have no end of stories to share about our black college buddies, coworkers and neighbors with whom we have “always gotten along just fine.” The issue, of course, is not how we are getting along but how our conversation partners are getting along-which is frequently not “just fine.” I sense a deep seated fear on the part of us white folk of learning that the schools from which we graduated with fond memories, the police whose presence gives us a sense of comfort and security, the government institutions over which we feel entitled to have a say and the workplaces we experience as opportunities for professional advancement, financial security and comradery are the same places people of color often experience and have memories of loneliness, exclusion and hostility. Intentionally or not, we are sending a clear message: We don’t hear you and we don’t want to hear you.
Sometimes listening requires one to look past the words in order to find the message. It was in the first or second year of my ministry, just about a week after Christmas, that Gene came bursting into my office in a fit of rage. “I told you I wanted to have ‘Hark the Harald Angels Sing’ in the candle light service,” he practically shouted. I pointed out that I had included more than a few of the Christmas favorites he requested and that, even on Christmas, there are only so many carols one can sing. That did not placate Gene. “Pastor, we have sung that hymn every Christmas for as long as I have been in this church. There was no reason for leaving it out this year.” I apologized and assured Gene that I would definitely work it in next Christmas. “Fine,” said Gene. “But I might not be here next Christmas.”
As it turned out, Gene had been diagnosed with an inoperable, untreatable heart ailment that was worsening with each month. This confrontation was not about Christmas, planning the candle light service, the selection of hymns or any other churchly matter. It wasn’t about me and my pastoral leadership. This was a man trying to tell me that he was dying, that his time was limited and that he was struggling to hang onto and savor every scrap of everything that brought back precious memories, that was solid and predictable, that made his life meaningful. But before I could hear Gene, I had to get past my defensiveness and insecurity, factors that almost caused me to miss an opportunity to speak a word of grace. “Seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” Matthew 13:13.
For centuries we have lacked eyes to see and ears to hear the cries of our planet, increasingly stressed by our ruthless exploitation. This summer, clouds of smoke from wildfires in Canada blocked the sun and fouled the air of our northern cities. Rising ocean temperatures generated storms ravaging the south with tornadoes, floods and lethal heat. As these disasters wreak havoc on our lives and foreshadow global upheavals for millions word wide, still, right wing leaders scoff at the very idea of humanly induced climate change and clamor for access to the few remaining wild sections of our earth for more deforestation, strip mining and “development.” “Drill baby, drill!” as the Republican conventioneers chanted a decade ago. Or, as conservative pundit, Ann Coulter is known to have said, “Take the earth and rape her.” Meanwhile, God’s good earth cries out for deliverance and warns of the consequences of our heedless consumerism. “Seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” Matthew 13:13.
As Jesus points out, there are plenty of things that get in the way of listening. The internet is bristling with posts seemingly designed more to elicit outrage than spread useful information. Nothing dims the capacity to listen more than righteous (or unrighteous anger). Like the very devil, it sweeps away one’s capacity to focus, empathize and keep an open mind. Given that much of the news we get these days comes in the form of soundbites, Facebook posts, five minutes of mainstream media discussion and tweets, it should not surprise us that much public knowledge, including knowledge of the Bible and religion, is wading pool shallow. As such, it forms a poor foundation for developing mature and enduring understanding. God knows that, in this information age, there is no shortage of distractions keeping our minds running in a thousand different directions, many of which lead nowhere. Among all of the hysteria, misinformation, distractions and hostility, Jesus invites us to be attentive to the Word that, as the prophet Isaiah reminds us, “shall not return to [God] empty, but [] shall accomplish that which [God] purpose[s], and succeed in the thing for which [God] sent it.” Isaiah 55:11.
A better way is waiting to be seen. A hopeful word is waiting to be heard. But in order to receive it, we must be schooled in the art of listening. Here is a poem by Robert King about listening. The subject here is insects, but the call to listen could as well be directed to the voices of those among us whose cries for justice and compassion fail to rise above the noise of pop culture, consumer advertising and political rhetoric. The injunction to listen could as well be aimed at the shrieking winds, roaring wild fires and crumbling ice fields of a planet being murdered by the bottomless pit of human greed. The need for listening extends to the growing cries of angry individuals who lack the language and conceptual tools needed to articulate their pain. Above all, the call to listen invites us to be attentive to the signs of God’s inbreaking reign in the midst of all this. Listen!
Listening
Now glory be to good
things singing around us
in the darkness, listen.
Listen: inside the crickets’
scalloped chirping, scrapers
trilling against dry files,
the grasshoppers rasping
from their stalks, the sticks
and thin strings of katydids,
cicadas drumming thickly
in the thick trees vanishing
into the throbbing dark,
we listen until we’re not
listening. Our ears fizz
with their electric persistence.
We do not care insects see-saw
In the hazardous guessings of sex,
Or that cicadas have churned
for years under the earth, or
that in the dark, large world
they are leagues apart, singing
to find each other, themselves.
The world is all alive
is all we know, something
thrilling the air, a murmer
reminding us of every
summer we remember,
something awake all night
which numbs, soothing us under.
Sleeping, or bodies cool.
Only the crickets insist.
Is it? Is it? they ask all night
and answer, It is. It is.
Source: Poetry, July 1988. Robert King (d. 2017), founder of the Colorado Poets Center, was born in Denver, Colorado. He received his bachelors degree in English from the State University of Iowa and returned to Colorado, where he earned a masters degree in American Literature from Colorado State University. He earned his Ph. D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. He taught for three years at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and then took a position at the University of North Dakota where he spent the bulk of his career teaching English and creative writing. In 1971 he was named Outstanding Professor at that institution and received the UND Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996. He also lectured frequently at the University of Nebraska and the University of Northern Colorado. You can read more about Robert King and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.
The God who Is God.
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: You are great, O God, and greatly to be praised. You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Grant that we may believe in you, call upon you, know you, and serve you, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made. Psalm 145:8-9.
This refrain echoes throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and finds expression throughout the New Testament as well. The God portrayed in the Bible hates nothing that God has made. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Ezekiel 33:11. God would have God’s salvation reach the end of the earth. Isaiah 49:6. It is God’s will that all should reach repentance and be saved from the destructive power of sin. II Peter 3:9.
Sadly, I have spent a good deal of my ministry disabusing people of contrary perceptions of God. I have encountered several young people who left the church because they were convinced, for one reason or another, that the God preached from the pulpit had nothing for them but condemnation and threats of punishment. I have met more than a few people who have grown up in a church that compelled them to hide or deny their sexual identities because they were deemed sinful. In short, the church has often proclaimed a god who is vindictive and merciless, quick to anger, abounding in wrath, a god whose default posture toward creation is anger, disappointment and contempt. This is a god who cares more about obedience to its rules than the people it created; a god who throws a fit over a same sex relationship but cares not a flying fruitcake about government policies that impoverish thousands of people. I have said before and will say again, there is no such God. Nor should there be.
Nevertheless, I hasten to add that God’s love for creation cannot simply be equated with our human notions of love. God is God and we are not. God’s ways are not our ways and those ways do not always comport with liberal, protestant, ever white, ever polite notions of progressive ethics. God is entitled to do things forbidden to us mortals. Most importantly, God is entitled to take human life-and does just that. “Turn back, you mortals,” says the Lord in the 90th Psalm. Psalm 90:3. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return,” pastors intone as they impose ashes on our forehead. God means to make an end of us all. Nobody gets off this planet alive. For our part, we human beings are forbidden from taking human lives. Moreover, as Martin Luther points out, the commandment forbiding murder does not merely preclude violence. It imposes a positive duty to go out of our way and do everything possible to assist our neighbors to live and to thrive.
God alone is entitled to execute retributive justice, whereas we are not. As Saint Paul reminds us, “‘Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord.” Romans 12:19. While the psalmists often cry out to God, begging for vengeance to be carried out against their enemies and frequently let God know in graphic terms how they would like to see it done, they wisely leave that task in God’s capable hands. Once again, God’s ways are not our ways. As the Prophet Jonah had to learn, God’s view of who deserves punishment for what, when and on which terms does not comport with our myopic views on the subject. The justice we human beings are called to practice is distributive rather than retributive. It is a justice that calls for protection of the most vulnerable in our midst, the equitable sharing of earth’s bounty and reverant respect and care for creation.
Judgment, like retribution, also belongs to God. Is it possible that a person becomes so thoroughly depraved that the Creator no longer recognizes the divine image in the creation and says, “I never knew you; go away from me”? Because Jesus raises that prospect, we would be foolish to dismiss it. But that question must remain introspective: To what extent am I being formed by Jesus and his community of faithful disciples? What are the demonic influences that threaten to shape my character in ways inconsistent with God’s gentle reign? Is the image of Christ recognizable in the way I live? As far as others are concerned, it is presumed that all people, even those who appear completely depraved to our eyes, are the object of God’s love and capable of redemption. Thus, Jesus warns his disciples, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” Matthew 7:1.
One might well wonder why a God who is good and almighty does not intervene to prevent the catastrophic suffering witnessed by us on a daily basis. Indeed, if God is good and all that God made is good, why do these catastrophes occur in the first place? I do not pretend to have answers to these questions, but there are some counterquestions that I believe can help us think about this conundrum. Once God speaks the words “let there be,” is God still all powerful? Can God still be omnipotent once something other than God is called into existence? Is creating the universe a little like bringing a child into the world? Once a child is born and begins to grow, its parents might have hopes, dreams and expectations about its future, but every parent knows that a child has a will of its own. Its life often follows a trajectory its parents find distressing, disappointing and perhaps devastating. In many circumstances, intervention is difficult and can sometimes do more harm than good. Parents sometimes find themselves feeling as helpless as they are concerned. Is it the same with God and God’s creation? Are there limits to how much a loving God can do for a wayword world?
It seems that a degree of randomness is woven into the fabric of creation. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was planted among all the other good trees in the Garden of Eden. So, too, the serpent was a creation of God no less than any other living thing. We are told that it was “subtle,” but not that it was evil. The potential for things to go very wrong has been present from the beginning. Our world is not a safe playground. Lightning strikes the good as well as the wicked. Tornadoes demolish churches along with porn shops. A drunk driver hits a school bus, kills and injures numerous children and walks away without a scratch. Genetic irregularities cause birth defects, crippling diseases and premature death. Could God have made a universe without such devastating randomness? I don’t know. But I wonder what a universe without randomness would be like? I wonder what life would be like if everything went according to plan? What would it be like to live without surprises? Discoveries? Unanticipated endings? Is it possible to have love without heartbreak? Joy without sorrow? Anticipation without disappointment?
Of course, there is human evil and horrors that we bring upon ourselves. Could God not intervene to prevent the worst of these horrors? If God is God, could not God have stopped Hitler in his tracks? Diverted the airplanes away from the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9/11? Prevented war from breaking out in eastern Europe? Again, it is not clear to me what God could or could not have done in response to these horrors. Again, did God surrender God’s omnipotence by the act of creation? I don’t know about that. What I do know is that God does intervene to save us from our self destructive instincts and acts-though not in the way we might wish. We might prefer a God who steps in and “fixes” things for us; a God who has the power to make us behave ourselves. We have had leaders like that throughout history. They are called dictators and the price they extract for the order, safety and stability we crave is steep and bloody. Is that what we desire from God? Stalin on steroids?
Whatever we might want from God, it is clear that God has no interest in ruling the world through coercive power. God does not want a world that behaves because it is terrified to do otherwise. God desires a world that obeys because it knows that its Creator loves it and wills for it abundant life. That appears to be the point of the Flood Story in Genesis. At the end of the story, as Noah, his family and the animals he preserved emerge from the ark and the scent of Noah’s sacrifice rises to God’s nostrils, God declares:
“I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease.” Genesis 8:21-22.
In sum, God is saying “No. I will not be that kind of God. This is not the way in which I will reign over my good creation.” Does God become angry? Is God wrathful? To be sure. But, once again, God’s anger is not to be equated with human wrath that is fequently petty and vindictive. Human anger is all too often the engine of vengeance and retribution. God’s wrath is directed at human injustice and the consequent suffering it inflicts upon humans. It is not directed against humans themselves. God is angry for us, not at us.
To be sure, God will overcome the world, but not by a show of shock and awe. God will overcome the world by gaining its trust, winning its heart, persuading it to believe God’s promise to bring to fulfillment its deepest yearnings for wholeness. To do that, God put’s God’s skin in the game. “The Word became flesh,” John the Evangelist tells us, to “dwell among us.” John 1:14. The Word dwells among us, not as a king, president or dictator, but as a child born to a homeless couple, a refugee from political violence and a victim of a corrupt criminal justice system. Jesus experienced human life at its worst, human beings at their most depraved and the world at the height of its cruelty-and gave his life to it just the same. Jesus was the best God had to give the world. When the world rejected and killed him, God raised him up and offered him back again. God continues to offer us Jesus and will do so until we recognize in him the face of a God who “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” God’s power is God’s pateince. God’s might is God’s refusal to be drawn into the vortex of retribution that has characterized so much of human history. God defeats evil by outlasting it.
Here is a poem by the mystic, Mechthild of Magdeburg, that testifies to the heart of the God professed in the Scriptures.
God’s Absence
God speaks to the soul
And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.
Source: Beguine Spirituality (The Crossroad Publishing Company, Inc., 1989) Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1282) was monastic and mystic born to a noble Saxon family. At age 12 she had the first of several visions. In 1230 she left her home renouncing all claim to wealth and privilege to join a Beguine order at Magdeburg. There she seems to have risen to a position of authority in the community. She became acquainted with the Dominicans and became a Dominican tertiary, studying many of the Dominican writers. It was her Dominican confessor, Henry of Halle, who encouraged and helped Mechthild to compose The Flowing Light. Mechthird’s criticism of church dignitaries and their religious laxity along with her claims to theological insight by reason of her visions aroused ecclesiastical opposition. Some clerics called for the burning of her writings. In old age Mechthird lost her sight and found herself alone and the object of much criticism. Around 1272, she joined the Cistercian nunnery at Helfta, where she was given protection and support in the last years of her life. You can read more about Mechthild of Magdeburg and sample more of her writings at the Poetry Foundation website.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 