Monday, February 23, 2009

While Protestants Catch Up - Ash Wednesday

I remember so well when I introduced a Lenten discipline into the lives of some of the folks in my first parish. They handled the Ash Wednesday service, with the imposition of ashes pretty well, especially considering that it was their first. There was only one women who did not participate in that part of the service, telling me afterward that she didn't know why she did not choose to receive ashes, and that she was not opposed to the practice. Later, my wife, who is sometimes a keen observer of such phenomena, privately offered her opinion that the woman in question may have chosen not to participate because the ashes might have landed on the white fur coat that she was wearing.
Even more than the Ash Wednesday service itself was the difficulty some of the folks had with the Lenten study that I offered. We met weekly for a study and to talk about how our individual observances of the Lenten discipline were going. I was not supposed to hear as one woman leaned over to another and whispered, "I can't wait until we're allowed to feel good again!" I realized that I might have overdone it with the emphasis upon ascetic practices during Lent. I was a recent seminary graduate and I may have been a bit too ambitious in my desire to introduce a Lenten discipline to my congregation. Truth be told, I had embarked on a rather rigorous Lenten regimen and I hoped to bring others along with me. Imagine my dismay when I realized that not everyone was as excited about this project as I was.
Here we are, decades later, and many of my students are still surprised when I invite them to our ecumenical Ash Wednesday service on campus. After all, they have heard their local newscasters announce Lent as a "Catholic" observance. Not surprisingly, quite a few Catholics are surprised when they learn that Protestants also observe Lent. But then, many of our Catholic students would be surprised to learn that Ash Wednesday is not a day of holy obligation. As one Catholic colleague once told me, "Why would I burst their bubble and tell them it's not a day of obligation? For some, it's one of the few days during the year that they attend church."
Whether one chooses to observe Lent with a discipline or chooses to observe from a distance, it is a journey that is worth taking, regardless of degree. Lent reminds us of the sojourner characteristic of Christian faith; we are fellow travelers on this odyssey, and God chooses to come along as well. Giving up chocolate (which for some devout people I know is simply out of the question)or observing some other votive act during Lent is optional. Remembering our Lord's desert wanderings is not. I think it is necessary to reflect and meditate on his willingness to spend time alone as he embarked on his ministry, his life's purpose.
After working with college students for the past twenty-two years, I have discovered that many of them want some kind of discipline that makes them go a step further than they feel that they have to when it comes to their faith's journey. They want some aspect of their faith to set them apart, to serve as evidence to them that they are on traversing a deeply spiritual path. There is nothing more gratifying than to watch a young adult willingly struggle with disciplines of faith that are optional or non-existent for many people of the same age. It is because of the energy and sincerity of these young people that I am optimistic that Protestants will catch up with our Catholic brothers and sisters in seeing Lent as a necessary discipline and spiritual experience.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Heeeeeeeerrre's Hollywood! II Kings 2:1-12; Mark 9:2-9

For those who ridicule the seeming hocus-pocus mentality of religious types, the Sunday of the Transfiguration offers a special challenge. But wait, there's more! Not only do we get the story of Jesus and the disciples on a mountain who experience the ultimate in Power Point presentations, but we also have the story of Elijah, Elisha and a cast of special effects guys who would make modern-day Hollywood types drool.
Comedian Bill Maher has gotten rich making fun of religion and religious types. Maher states that "either you believe in a talking snake, or you don't!" For him, there is no intellectual middle ground for people of faith. Either we are all idiots, or we are not. So, I would imagine that the pyrotechnics in the story of Elijah's translation to heaven and Jesus' transfiguration make people like Maher salivate at the good comedic gold to be mined.
Truthfully, I have a bit of trouble swallowing the Elijah story as well. A magic mantle that parts the waters, a fiery chariot and horses? Come on, it doesn't help our case to be taken seriously theologically when such events are recorded in scripture. But then, having read the story in II Kings, I have a frame of reference to assist me in contextualizing the story of the Transfiguration, a tale that Protestants don't know what to do with. Why should we care that Jesus' appearance changed and he was talking with Moses and Elijah? The Moses reference we get fairly easily since he was the original trailblazer, and was assisted by divinely initiated special effects all his own: cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, and then there was all of that manna. But what is Elijah doing on that mountain with him?
I thought about this and realized that, as much as the story of the translation of Elijah seems beyond belief, it grounds the story of the Transfiguration. For me, Elijah's appearance seems to mock me, as if to say, "so, you didn't think I really got here, did you?" Quite honestly, the Transfiguration strains my imagination as well. But, having read about Elijah's fiery chariot, I am able to detect a theme. The people of faith who composed the Bible as we know it had to find a way to communicate to us the indescribable majesty of the Almighty. Since we have to rely on the written word, we can only accept the description of events as they were passed down in a far-away culture long ago. Do I have to take it literally? No, I don't. But do I have to then write it off as fiction? No, I don't have to do that, either. If the story of our faith tells us anything, it is that we don't have all of the answers, and God's ways are not our ways. Perhaps that is the only response I can give to those who accuse me of believing in a talking snake; perhaps it is the only response necessary.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Miracle Snobs: Missing the Special Effects. II Kings 5:1-14; Mark 1:40-45

The student work team and I had been laboring together for nearly a week, helping out in a rural and impoverished county which happens to be the same county in which I grew up. It was sad to see how much the area had suffered over the years, or had it? Was it just as destitute when I was growing up? It's hard to say. But working there was a troubling, yet holy experience for me. So, since we had just completed our final work day, the group had decided that they wanted to celebrate communion together that evening. So, I pulled off the highway at a small grocery store, and told them I would return as soon as I purchased "the body and blood of our Lord." They were aghast! "I thought that you ordered it from a special place, like a place that sells only to churches," exclaimed one worker. "No," I replied. "This is the kind of place that sells it. Of course, it remains ordinary until the words of institution," I offered in a feeble attempt to mollify them.
Why were they so surprised to learn that bread and grape juice come from the grocery store? Perhaps because communion is an extraordinary event, we expect that the place where we purchase the ingredients would be out-of-the-ordinary as well. Had I been able to bake the bread, at least, it probably would have seemed to be more special, more sacred. But where would I have purchased the flour? Same place, at the little grocery store along the highway.
So, is it really so difficult to understand why Naaman was insulted when Elisha told him to wash seven times in the plain and simple Jordan River? If he was to be cured of his skin condition, should not Elisha have come out of the house and waved his arms over Naaman and uttered some holy syllables? After all, he had already been dissed by the king, so Elisha was his last hope. Why was Naaman such a miracle snob? Perhaps he saw himself as a special servant of God and felt that he merited a special prophet of God to carry out the healing. We tend to be no less miracle snobs than Naaman was. We are special people, so we should have only the best, right?
Maybe Jesus sensed that snobbery in his own followers. His love mandated that he heal the leper, but he commanded the man who had been healed to keep quiet about who it was who actually performed the miracle. People would not see the act as something that could possibly eminate from a simple preacher, so they would ascribe the title of prophet to him, or worse, messiah. Miracle snobbery makes it impossible for folks to see the everyday miracles that God sends our way, and so we miss most of them. We look instead to the multimedia prophets and worship in the "smart" churches with all of the technological bells and whistles.
Even my wonderful students were taken a back at buying communion supplies at the corner store. What they did not realize was that the real miracle, the honest-to-gosh light show, was accomplished by their selfless labor all week long in a very dirty house filled with children and adults. The real Eucharist had already been celebrated, and the Body of Christ had already been offered and accepted. I feel certain that, in time, they saw it too. They were miracle snobs no more.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Life in the Human Order - Isaiah 40:21-31

Paul Tillich, writing in The Shaking of the Foundations, discussed the two orders in which humanity lives: the human order and the divine order. The human order, according to Tillich, is primarily the order of living and dying. Humankind's experience of melancholy, fed by the awareness of one's fading and perishing nature, reminds one of the transitory nature of life. What a downer! It can be compared to living life in exile, away from all that is familiar. But can it be compared to the Babylonian exile in which many of the Children of Israel lived for more than a generation and to whom Isaiah spoke?
Contemporary biblical scholarship is beginning to transform our ideas about what life was like during the exile. It turns out that not all, or even most of Israel was taken to Babylon. It was mainly the landowners and educated who were forced to leave their homeland. And for those who lived in Babylon, they had relative freedom as far as how they lived their lives. They were even free to worship in their own familiar way. So, imagine how difficult it must have been when someone would suggest that they seek to return to their homeland. Jerusalem lay in ruins and was a desolate place. Who in his/her right mind would want to go back? This makes us think a bit differently about Walter Brueggemann's concept of "numbness" that kept people from responding to the prophetic message. While some may have been immune from prophetic calls for hope and restoration due to a sense of personal loss and a longing for home, others were numb to the call because they could think of no earthly reason to want to return home. After all, Babylon was not home, but it wasn't faded and ugly Judah, either.
Still, the prophet who is recorded in II Isaiah bids the people to form a vision of a restored homeland and a renewed sense of being God's people. He bids them to think of Tillich's other construct, the divine order. The divine order can cause us to be dissatisfied with what has always been and can bid us to imagine a very different world. That is what Isaiah was getting at; "there is a new way of thinking and living. And if thinking of such a place seems beyond your grasp, there is One who can help you imagine it."
When each day's news brings bad tidings of thousands more layoffs and gloom and doom, some may find it insulting to be challenged to imagine a new world order. Isaiah dealt with the same unreceptive type of audience as a prophet will find today, but the word continued to go out, until, with the cooperation of a disinterested King Cyrus, the Israelites were permitted to go back home. Surely, what they found waiting for them must have been demoralizing. But rebuilding has to start somewhere. It begins with a vision of what can be.
Life in the human order does not have to be without hope, because there is a vision of life in the divine order that we have not really attempted to get our minds around. Who would dare proclaim such a message in such difficult times as these? Who indeed!