Chosen

Our Adult Christian Education class is viewing a series on the Old Testament from a professor at Vanderbilt University. Today's lesson covered the stories of Cain & Abel and Noah. The professor made the point that aspects of these stories (as well as the Creation story) are to be found in other Middle Eastern and Greek mythologies. The purveyors of the OT stories must have had many more details at their disposal for the stories to be part of their meaningful legend.

The class facilitator, herself a teacher of theology, emphasized the importance of understanding that the OT stories did not stand alone. They were a variation on a whole cloth narrative (cf Hmong story quilts) common to  the peoples of the Middle East. She quoted a favorite writer (whose name I did not get) that there is only one story in mankind - the story of our identity. The OT variations are entwined in and informed by their early Middle Eastern milieu, but still climaxed in the identity story of Israel.

That made me think of the OT pericope for the day from Exodus 33. In it, Moses dickered with God to define the terms of his chosen-ness and the Israelites' chosen-ness. "You have said we have found favor in your sight, but now show us Your way so we can find favor in your sight." That could be read as a pious request to learn just how to obey YHWH. Or it could be read as an attempt to put himself and the Israelites on even footing with God. "We'll both be each other's favorites - then it will be an equal partnership. We won't owe you any more than you owe us." That sounds cynical, but it is not unlike the bargains we often attempt with God ourselves. Moses' further arguments sound more along the lines of resolving an identity crisis than of swearing fealty and obeisance.

God says in Exodus "My presence will go with you" and Moses replies "If your presence will NOT go, then do not move us from this place... in this way, we will be distinct." Moses goes so far as to negotiate witnessing God's glory itself. God accommodates Him. "You can see my back, but not my face." God even described himself in bodily terms, as though He was in the image of man, and not the other way around.

Finally, Moses was confident that he was the chosen leader of a chosen people. But the operation looks more like a messy birthing than a ceremonial anointing. Tearing a chosen people for the One God out of the fabric of Middle Eastern polytheism and mythologies was an arduous process. That is the story of the OT.

The New Testament reverses that story, resulting in an almost equally messy patchwork called the Church. With the Church there is no more chosen leader or chosen race. The narrative tradition and cult practices of the longstanding chosen people must be liberalized to accommodate other stories. The peoples of the Middle East (Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria...) are linked together again, along with uttermost parts of the earth in a new story known as the Gospel. In the Gospel there is no Jew, Greek, male, female, slave nor freeman. The Gospel is the final story of the identity of a people of God comprised of those in the image of God learning to bear witness to the glory of God for all time.

The Question

Synchronicity is the apparent alignment of meaningful events in one's life: a serendipitous juxtaposition. I experience this most Sundays as I read the selection of biblical texts that comprise the service of worship. The Old Testament reading, the Psalms, the New Testament reading and the +Gospel+.

Last week's OT reading was the 10 commandments. The Psalm was a song of restoration. The NT reading was Paul's declaration that, though he could boast his credentials as the Ideal Jew, he boasted, instead, in righteousness through faith in Christ, wanting to know Him and the power of His resurrection.

The +Gospel+ from Matthew was the account of Jesus telling religious leaders the story of the landowner to who sent a series of servants, and finally his son to collect what was due him from his tenants. The tenants abused and killed the messengers and son. Jesus asked the leaders "Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?". The leaders' response was that he would put them to a wretched death and lease the vineyard to more cooperative, deserving tenants.

Jesus replies to them with an enigmatic reference to the stone the builders rejected becoming the chief cornerstone, revealing an amazing work of God. Then he tells them that the kingdom of God will be taken away from the leaders and given to others, followed by another strange statement that those who fall on the stone will be broken to pieces and those on whom the stone falls will be crushed.

Typical Jesus.

Always nailing people with a good pointed story. Always going in a different direction than you expect. Always throwing in an inexplicable reference to some obtuse passage.

The landowner story seems clear enough. God is the landlord who planted the vineyard and owns everything. He sends prophets and finally his son to collect what is due. The Jews, the original lessees, kill them all and are undeserving, so God turns them away and gives the kingdom to the Gentiles. Yea, our side wins. More evidence against "Christ-killers" and from Matthew, no less. The +Gospel+, like history, is always written by the "winners".

Jesus was the "stone the builders rejected", and if you stumble over that fact, he will come falling on you like an avalanche and bury your sorry self. So you better not pout, you better not cry.

Typical Jesus.

Or, typical way we read Jesus. Typical way we analyze the stories for allegories, assign roles to people or people groups we know or don't like, affirm ourselves as God's BFFs and embrace the good news for us. It always sucks not to be us.

I have always been bothered by the reference to the cornerstone in Jesus' reply. Not that I don't recognize Jesus himself as the cornerstone of my righteousness. Yes. Absolutely. But that reference after this particular story is a non sequitor. The story images are of vineyards, grapes and business. The cornerstone image is of architecture and environmental hazards. How does that relate to the story if the point of the story is about who wins and who loses in the race to be God's best friends.

Last Sunday, reading this story after the stark enumeration of the commandments, the psalmist's cry to God for preservation and restoration and Paul's repudiation of the law as the way to righteousness, my attention moved from the story to Jesus' question.

"What will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants?"

The leaders gave Jesus the same answer that we - a primarily Gentile church - give Him today.

"Why, of course, they will receive their just desserts!!"

It is always good to know the right answer. Except for when you don't.

Jesus distracted us with a story when his question was aimed at our hearts. Typical Jesus.

Soaking in the OT, NT and Psalms before coming to this +Gospel+ passage, I became aware that Jesus didn't have to ask those leaders what would happen next in his story unless he wanted to. Or, unless he wanted reveal what was in their hearts. What was in their hearts was allegiance to the Law - the notion that righteousness means obeying the Law and justice means well-deserved consequences when you don't. That is what is in our hearts when we finish Jesus' story with the landowner's retribution. That is the cornerstone of our ethics, morality and justice.

The cornerstone of the +Gospel+ is different. It is one we often stumble over. And reject. When we fall on it it breaks us. It crushes our self-righteousness.

The +Gospel+ is the story where the landowner sends his son, knowing full well what will happen to him. The +Gospel+ is the story where the landowner watches His Son die at the hands of cruel men. The +Gospel+ is the story where the son, in death's agony, appeals to his father for mercy for his unknowing tormentors. The +Gospel+ is the story that ends with the landowner raising his son from the dead to show the hateful, greedy, undeserving, self-righteous tenants how powerful his forgiveness can be.

The +Gospel+ is the story where a servant is forgiven a huge debt in its entirety. We stumble over the +Gospel+ every time when we, like that servant, are determined to exact payment for a paltry debt from another servant. The kingdom is taken away from us not because we, the world to whom it was offered, killed the son. The kingdom is taken away from us when we, like the ungrateful servant, insist on an accounting of debt to the Law instead of an accounting of God's mercy.

Jesus did not tell the leaders that the kingdom would be taken from them because they were Jews and that is how the story was supposed to end. The kingdom will be taken away from anyone who is ready to take it away from someone else. It will be given, as Jesus said, to those who produce the fruit of the kingdom: those who exhibit the merciful love, forgiveness, grace that flows into their lives by being engrafted into Christ.

That mercy, like the plot twist to Jesus' story where the landowner raises the son from the dead, is "the stone the builders rejected" that "has become the cornerstone". That grace truly is "the Lord's doing" and "amazing before our eyes".

Jesus tells a story and asks how it ends. He doesn't want to know how well we know the commandments and can judge by them. He wants to know how well we know God.

Typical Jesus.

We Are Gods

One of my brothers called last Sunday with a question.

He prefaced his question with the remark that, although I have no credibility with him on political and economic matters, I might occasionally have an insight into the Bible. Our mother would have called that a "back-handed compliment".

My brother had been golfing with an author (my preference would have been to be writing about a golfer - oh wait, I am). The author was talking about his recent book asserting that, being gods, we are empowered for complete self-actualization and mastery of our fate. Or something like that.

To my brother, it all sounded a bit too new-agey, and he challenged his golf cart mate on that claim. The author replied that Jesus once responded to his detractors with a quotation from their Law that "ye are gods" (John 10:34), thus Jesus affirmed his position. My brother wanted to know what Jesus would have meant, because he knew Jesus wasn't putting us on par with God.

I had generally treated the verse in John as a "fly-over" passage. The surface meaning didn't fit my general theology, so I passed over it on my way to someplace important. I had, like the author, assumed that to be a god was an invitation to divinity. An exaltation. Empowerment. I had overlooked what Jesus said because I never bothered to look what Jesus was quoting.

Jesus was quoting Psalm 82. Psalm 82 does say "you are gods". But the context of that declaration is that God, who is judge of all the earth, is exasperated with people because they judge unjustly. People ignore the injustice of poverty and sickness and broken families among them. The Psalmist, Asaph, laments that the people who God has made stewards over His creation and in their communities neglect that stewardship and do not exercise justice. They do not make things right where they live. He says "you are gods", and continues "but you shall die like men and fall like princes". The Psalm closes looking forward to the day when God will arise and make all things right Himself. We are "gods" in our delegated role as caretakers and caregivers.

Far from affirming our divine spark and juicing our human potential, Jesus reminds us (and his detractors) of the stewardship and compassion that is our true calling. Caring for creation and for each other is still what differentiates us from the other animals and approximates god-likeness. Maybe being a god is less about power and glory and more about loving and mercy. Or maybe being a god encompasses all of power and glory and love and mercy, but the only part we can practice is love and mercy. We do tend to do badly in the power and glory department.

Not surprising then, when we go back to John 10, this is exactly the point Jesus was making about his own god-likeness. It sounded like blasphemy when Jesus called God his father because his listeners thought he was exalting himself. But Jesus did not argue his status, he argued his track record. He was doing the work of his father - making things right on earth. He argued that if the good work he was doing reflected the good work that God sent him to do, then, in view of the Psalm, he was a "god", or at the least, a "son of god". Specifically, the Son of God.

Unfortunately, it is the honor of it all that most appeals to us when we hear that we are "like God": we glory in the promotion to a more prominent and influential status. It feeds our pride. However it is not our designation as "gods" that affirms our capacity to perform. It is our capacity for compassion that nominates us as "gods" and actual caring that confirms us in that office. The true god serves. Jesus did. Humility enables god-likeness. Meekness puts it within putting distance. Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.

I was glad the conversation my brother had with that author on the links gave me another chance to understand what Jesus said. I was glad to be reminded that loving each other makes up most of what we have been sent to do. It is something I usually forget. It's always nice to have a mulligan.

And as for politics and the economy... well, remember the poor, the sick and the helpless.

Water Walking

Of the story of Jesus walking on water and Peter's attempt to do likewise, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes that Peter's failure to have faith enough for the miraculous is not the point. The point she emphasizes is that Jesus was coming to him already and to get into the boat with his fearful followers.

I would consider another aspect of the story as well: When Jesus chided Peter for being "of little faith" (and I will use the gentler "chide" rather than "rebuke"), was He referring to Peter's failed attempt, or to Peter's challenge in the first place "Lord, if it is you, command me..."?

Peter's imposition strikes me as more dubious than his presumption to walk on water on two counts.

First, it eerily echoes Satan's challenge to Jesus "if you are the Son of God...", challenging the apparition to prove its identity, even after hearing its voice across the waters "Take heart, it is I, do not fear". Peter did not take heart at the familiar voice, believing, perhaps, that he was left vulnerable by his lord in the middle of the sea to the deceptions of random ghosts and sea sprites.

But the second indictment of Peter's faith was that, as an experienced fisherman caught in a storm, he was ready to jettison all he knew of the sea, storms and sailing for some kind of immediate magic that would carry him above, not through, the storm. Sometimes faith is demonstrated, not in spectacular deliverance, but in pressing on every day, doing what you know.

Happily, as Bolz-Weber expounds, Jesus' response to Peter's shortcomings in the faith department - whatever its source - is His immediate and comforting presence in the boat with those He loved. It was when they knew He was already at their side that He quieted the wind.

Heart and Soul

Last Sunday I read Joel Hoffman's And God Said explaining the art and science of translating ancient Hebrew scriptures and shedding light on several mistranslations in the King James Version of the Old Testament.

The Epistle reading in church today was from Romans 7 - Paul's conflict between his mind, will and flesh. It brought to mind Hoffman's chapter on translating "heart" and "soul". Hoffman seemed to reflect the more holistic Jewish notion of those two words encompassing our whole being. We (Westerners) seem to have compartmentalized notions of our tangible and intangible selves. This is borne out in how the KJV expresses the Great Commandment in Deuteronomy to "love the Lord thy God with all our heart, soul and strength". Westerners treat the Hebrew word translated "heart" as a tangible metaphor for love and desire, but the Hebrew word elsewhere refers mind and will as well as love and desire, and shades of meaning surrounding these intangibilities. The Hebrew word translated "soul" goes beyond that intangible, ambiguous construct to refer in other places to the life forces thought to reside in the blood and other body parts. The Hebrew word translated as "strength" is also used as an adverb as we would use "very" - in other words, emphasizing "heart" and "soul", but not necessarily adding another component to our being.

Among these meanings our whole being is meant to be encompassed. We are to love God with all that we are. The Hebrew is not easily resolved into parts.

In Romans 7, Paul seems to reflect the more Hellenistic dichotomy of body and soul in how he articulates his conflict. (I confess that while I admire the grandeur of Paul's general theology, sometimes I find his specific arguments more culture-bound and less convincing.) The reading today brought Hoffman's "one being" back to mind (my phrase, not his) and reminded me that God does not see us in parts (or "in part"), but in the whole and His dealings with us are thus intended.

Deaf Things

I neither wrote nor translated this piece, and wish I could have done either. It is from the anthology of Serbian poetry translated by Charles Simic, The Horse Has Six Legs. If you don't read any other book of poems this year, read this one. The following is an excerpt (Stanza 10) of the poem Deaf Things by Momcilo Nastasijevic.

(10)
Pain
so it turned black

I want, since it happens,
for this wound
to be living to its depths.

Out of this hell
for a breath of some paradise -
out of this sin
for someone to become a saint.

For this suffering
and muddle
to have no end.

For the sake of that grace,
forever, this curse.

A Sweet Truth

A sweet truth brushes my soul, caresses my breast.

While I reach toward my heart, it dances over my hand,
trembling through my fingers, slipping past, but not dropped;
apprehended, but not grasped.

My elbow bends, extending my arm in a sweep of space,
but the truth eludes the circle drawn;
it instead imposes its own presence:
my wrists yield to its press. It buoys my arms,
giving lift to my shoulders and lightness to my head.

My torso stretches up against its force, this truth.
Its weight teeters upon my wrists and I balance the arch of my back
with a forward shift of my loins, forward
until my knees fold and my
head snaps front to keep from falling;
balanced but dropped
to my knees with a jolt,
head bowed.

The truth that shored my shoulders closes in like a shadow
of immense light: I collapse in a ball,
encompassed,
overwhelmed. Truth enters my sides,
my belly, my vessels, my glands,
my lungs until I respire its essence,
sweat its virtue,
bleed its words.


Dedicated to John Nimmiti

Translating Rilke, I.55

From The Book of Hours, I.55
Much of this translation was taken from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. I also translated several additional lines they left out.
----------------------------------

The poets have scattered you
   (a storm tore through their stammering)
   but I want to gather you up again into a vessel
   that could make you glad.

I wander through the winds that churn you:
   that churn you a thousand times over.
I retrieve all the pieces of you that I find:
   from the blind man who used you for his drinking cup,
   from the butler who hid you in the back of the closet,
   from the beggar who held you out to passers-by.
Sometimes the largest parts of your soul I found in a child.

You see, I am a Collector.

One who, like a shepherd, hides behind the back of his hand
   so that you don't see him watching you
   (you would like to evade his notice, turning instead
    into the stranger's sites)

One who dreams of making you complete, and, in so doing
   completes himself.

Translating Rilke, I.3

From The Book of Hours, I.3
----------------------------------

I have many cossacked brothers living in the South:
   their spectres rise through cloistered laurel.
Through humanity ablaze in their Madonnas I recognize
   the ember of God - and often dream of young Titians.

But when I peer over the edge of myself,
   God - my God - is dark.
A knot of a hundred buried roots drinking in silence.

All I know is that I arise out of this ferment whose
   silence stills my branches
   except for the rustle of the Wind.

Acknowledgment to Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy in Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God for the image of "ferment" from Rilke's word choice "Waerme".

Translating Rilke, III.6

From The Book of Hours, III.6
-----------------------------------

O Lord, grant to each his own death.
The dying discharged from each life:
   by the love one gained,
   the meaning made and
   anguish that remained.

Translating Rilke, I.40

From The Book of Hours, I.40
-----------------------------------

I have hymns I keep to myself.

Though the celestory of my being looms high above you,
my soul bows with you at the rail. You perceive me to be
too grand for you but I am not. You barely discern me
from among all the others kneeling with you.

You graze like a flock of sheep while I watch among you
until evening draws you home. Then I return with you
in the sound of muffled hooves on the bridge,
hiding my own return in the steam rising from your backs.

Translating Rilke, I.1

This is a first attempt at translating from Rilke's Book of Hours, I.1
-----------------------------------

The weight of Time imposed itself:
the clear-sounded ironstroke stirred the hour within me,
a tremor resounding upon my senses.
I am feeling - no -
I am emboldened -
I lay hold of the day to mold Time into its own forms.

No matter comes into its own until I have held it under my full gaze;
meaning awaits my attention
ready, as a bride, to come to the one she desires.

Three poems published

Three poems newly published in the winter issue of miller's pond poetry.