Ashes Before Roses

      My religious background emphasizes the simplicity of the earliest church before it came to adopt traditions like today’s observance-- Ash Wednesday.  If my great grandparents were alive today, my Grandpa Archie would have bought candies for his valentine today.  But he would have been shocked if anyone tried to put ashes on his forehead.  Yet, we ought to think hard before we opt for flowers and candies over ashes today.

       Valentine’s Day, ironically, owes its character to another convergence of State and church holidays.  February 13-15 was the Roman Lupercalia, a kind of drunken fertility ritual.  The Emperor Claudius on two occasions put Christian martyrs named Valentine to death during the feast, so the church came to remember the dead martyrs on February 14, too.  Both the remembrance of the martyrs and the fertility celebration continued to coexist until the mating ritual basically took over the holiday.

      Today Valentine’s Day celebrates that mixture of fear, bio-chemical desire and psychic attraction, which people call “being in love.”  This intense but fleeting sense of attachment rules the way this culture thinks about relationships.   When my wife and I were in Mystic Bay, Connecticut celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary, an unmarried couple from New York City congratulated us on our big day.  They confessed that they had never been able to maintain feelings for anyone more than two or three years. 

     “What’s your secret?” they asked. 

      My wife and I looked at each other and giggled.  

     “We have no secret,” we told them.  Christian love doesn’t depend on feelings.  Sustainable feelings of romantic attachment are the result of partners training themselves to put the other first. 

      Ash Wednesday calls me back to that selfless love.  Often, that’s why I buy flowers.   I don’t receive ashes myself, but I do ritually remember that we mortals should be ruled by something more than momentary feelings.  The message of Ash Wednesday supports Valentine’s Day.  Without sacrificial love, amorous love usually ends up spreading heartache. In the end Christ’s love is more compelling than Cupid’s trance. That’s why we put crosses and not hearts atop church buildings.

The Calling of Simon the Zealot: A Sermon Addressing Bitterness in the Mid-American Imagination

       A cassette tape runs in my head.  He has called us, too.  “Simon Peter, Andrew, James, his brother John… Matthew 10:3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the publican; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas...

      All we know is that Simon was a zealot… but that’s no vestigial triviality.  Sure, Simon Zealot is not Simon Rock—something that would be important if Simon Zealot ever showed up again.  But I think the Spirit is also saying 1) zealots are called 2) yes, zealots may resist grace, 3) But Jesus’ loving call, drop by drop transforms their zealotry. 

       Interpreters from Human Resources, not wanting to hire terrorists, will want to interpret Simon’s zeal as “spiritual fervor.”  But isn’t that zeal after Jesus?  Matthew’s word zealot echoes violent texts like Numbers 25:13.  Luke’s name for Simon is zealotes—the epitome of piety for Maccabean guerrilla-fighters. The patron saint of all such Zealots was Phinehas.  During the wilderness wandering a plague came over the Israelite camp because of disobedience to the law and one Israelite paraded his idolatrous relationship with a Midianite concubine right past the tent of meeting and into his tent.  Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, was convinced of what another priest would one day say: it was “better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish."  So, Phinehas followed them into their tent took his spear and frog gigged both the Israelite and his Midianite concubine in their idolatrous act.  It was then the plague against all Israel stopped; ... The Lord says in Numbers 25:11 "Phinehas…has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am… so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them.”     

        There are lots of rabbits in this textual thicket, but let’s chase only this: This is the DVD playing in Simon’s mind.  The zealot’s militant zeal spares Israel from God’s militant zeal.  That’s the kind of zealot Simon was…and that I believe Jesus still calls.

      The Phinehas DVD resonates with Simon because he’s downloaded other videos into his Android.  Has his younger brother collaborated with Roman Swine to steal from the family budget like he was some EPA prosecutor who is his own judge and jury? Perhaps amidst land and income inequality he wonders why Jubilee year never gets obeyed.  Perhaps the Roman legionaries ravished Simon’s daughter--like a perverse Uncle, and the priestly powers in the family shielded the abuser. Perhaps all the jobs had gone down to Caesarea leaving the young people in Galilean hills with nothing but Roman drinking habits and sexual deviancy to occupy their time.   

       Some say Simon is mad as hell—zealous to restore his country to greatness.  But that doesn’t capture it.  He’s not mad as hell—he thinks he is as mad as heaven—He thinks that if Israel is going to be spared the wrath of God—if God is going to be kept from knocking down all our World Trade Centers, then this foreign temple corruption—this Roman behavior that defiles traditional marriage, and the land itself-- is going to have to be forcibly stamped out.  Now, do I have your attention?  This Zealot actually sits in the assembly of Jesus’ disciples.     

       The worship of Raw Power has lodged itself into American civil life. Churches can’t even talk about social hurts without things devolving into the bitter talking-points memorized from those bastions of catechesis--CNN and Fox.  There’s no agreement about who the real Ninevites are, but Simon on all sides is convinced they are ruining the land; the God of mercy has wilted his vine; and this Simon Bar Jonah is mad enough to die.

      Appeals to civility fall flat on Simon’s deaf ears.  Simon Zealot resists grace.   Have you listened to a mother (let’s call her Simone, rather than Simon) who has lost her child, Kirk, to murder?  Her head plays tapes of people who have told her to calm down about the murder of her boy, Kirk. Calm down? That would be tantamount to betraying her boy’s memory! So Jesus doesn’t counsel her to merely stay calm.  He counsels her along with grieving Martha, who’s quietly enraged the doctor was 4 days late and missed the Lazarus’ diagnosis.   “He who believes in me shall never die.  Do you believe this?  Martha, or today’s Simone or Simon or whoever you are—I’m not asking you to ignore your hurt—that’s real enough.  I’m asking you if you believe that you rage is “right.” Have you lost touch with the God of righteous anger and cleansing wrath who is more perfectly angry about injustice than you are?  Do you believe you have a right to be mad, and that a righteous God will set things to right? Do YOU…BELIEVE this?  I’m not asking you to accept Kirk’s murder as God’s will.  Perish the thought!  Simone, I’m asking you if you believe it is God’s business and our business to defy the whole damned death-dealing thing, and that you will hear the words out of the depths of God’s own raging grief, “Kirk, come out!”     

       But Simone still resists, because bitterness is in the bones. If she could be honest she’d say. “I’m bleeding--don’t ask this deep depression to do the impossible.” “But what if I do the impossible,” Jesus asks.  “You Reach up and touch the hem of my garment.”  I have all kinds of powerful medicine.  There’s no shame in taking medicine.  Let’s get your body clear so you can hear that in my bleeding yours can be healed.

       But Simone and Simon’s subconscious is streaming scary movies which don’t stop playing even when the threat’s over.  Simon’s like the guy who barely escaped maladministration charges.  The First and Last Eschatological bank floated him 20 trillion to cover the national debt. Yet, as he went out, he found one of his undersecretaries who owed him three months wages. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!'…   'Be patient with me…"But he refused. Instead, he started a convention chant: “Lock her up, lock her up!”  But Jesus says, Simon, I’m not saying what your fellow servant did was right or that you shouldn’t be mad, but I have already absorbed the cost of the debts.  Folks can’t take permanently take anything from you!  “All that I have is yours.”   “Whether the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours.”  Always will be.

        But, still Simon chooses prison.  He doesn’t want some pie in the sky speech.  Simon wants to insist I’ve been robbed of joy and meaning right now.  Jesus replies, “You mean like a homeless Son of Man not having a place to lay his head?” Sisters, without blindness Fanny Crosby would have been a mediocre song-writer. Brothers without being dogged by the Oxford establishment C.S. Lewis would never have been perpetually stuck with freshman, developing a rapport with the public. God comforts us--uses our trouble-- so that we can comfort others.  Simon, you can be surprised by joy right now. 

       Yet there are so many unfortunate tapes questioning the legitimacy of Simon’s anger raging in Simon’s bitter body… setting off alarms...demands for fairness… The I’m-cheated videos… The Phinehas drama of redemptive violence plays is a persistent pop-up add canonized in the heart.   In our pews Simon sits in various stages of denial or despair over this rage.  Competing warrior gods stoke bitterness over different outrages because their nuclear-button-measuring existence depends on a constant fight.  Simon may even know he’s being played, but he’s too mad at his enemies to care.

        BUT (Scandal of scandals) Jesus still called Simon—to convert his zeal.  Out of all the men in Israel—he called him with all his self-assured ways of righting wrongs… Jesus called him just as Christ called you—zealot that you are!  “He has called us too.”  Not because of –but in spite of my zeal—manipulative moral crusades to “save” the church-- Christ picked me.   

       Simon’s resistance to grace can be overcome because the protest Phinehas lodged has now been lodged within the Divine Life, itself!  Simon, Jesus says, I’m not telling you not to be mad—l’m saying, “offer your rage to me.”  Isn’t that the vision which changed Saul to Paul—the recognition that Saul’s zealous persecution was falling on Jesus himself?  “Who are you Lord?” “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.  I choose you!”   If it is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish then the God-Man in Jesus Christ takes the stoning himself—and religious zeal is changed.  "Rage will always find a scapegoat. Resentment ricochets through history until the Divine Life in dying a human death bears it… and rises again. God has stilled the plague by taking the Phinehas’ spear in his own side—and so zeal is…listen… vindicated. Our righteous wrath—God’s wrath must fall somewhere.  And as it falls upon the Divine it is transformed… into uncompromising, gritty, brave, awe inspiring love for the enemy.

       Mayor Richard Lugar warned Robert Kennedy not to speak in an Indianapolis African American neighborhood, April 4, 1968.  The police were unprepared to ensure the protection of the Kennedy campaign.  Ethel Kennedy stayed away in relative safety.  It was the day Martin Luther King was murdered. Hundreds of enraged Black citizens had joined the throng of Kennedy supporters downtown.  They had come, as in most other major cities in the United States, ready to incite a riot.   

      Yet Kennedy delivered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.   After gently sharing the terrible news—news that shook us down to questions about who we are most fundamentally, he said that he understood the rage people might feel.  For the first time he spoke about his own brother’s murder in public.  He admitted that he had harbored this rage—the pain the violent principalities and powers had afflicted on him.  And then he quoted Aeschylus to the would-be mob: And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

       Kennedy had come to Indianapolis to enlist the crowd in his political movement.  He called them.  He called them by affirming their anger, and by acknowledging that their rage was in some ways resistant to his message of grace.  But finally he bore witness to the possibility that the awe-inspiring grace of God bestows wisdom even on the most resistant and angry hearts—that drop by loving drop, though we despairing of ever being freed from our rage—even in some ways against our will, the presence of someone who suffers with, for and in us, edits our internal tape.  Someone who has born in his own soul our griefs--who has in his being born the injustices we feel—only this kind of someone is capable of editing the tape of our heart.  The lie of redemptive violence becomes a story of cruciform wisdom.  The one who bears the crown of our thorns, our stripes, our nails and our bullets makes it possible for wrath to be born and religious zeal to be channeled into an awe-inspiring love that shuts the mouths of lions, makes peace in Indianapolis, and redeems the world.     

        

        Even those of us who are more contented about wider social forces still suffer in ways that affect them just as profoundly and often more directly than the wider social stuff. In the 90’s Sit-com Everybody loves Raymond Deborah discovers husband Ray has saved the cassette answering machine message of his former girlfriend breaking up with him—on tape.  Yet, Deborah listens to this tape with him. Deborah, who daily takes the brunt of Rays silliness, assures him that she will never leave nor forsake him.  And a new tape is born in Ray’s heart—The voice of Deborah’s love is edited by God’s Audacity onto the old tape, and the “why’d u dump me” tape becomes a song of vindication.  Deborah picked Ray—Jesus called Simon and, despite our resistance, the rest of us now transformed zealots are called.  I am one and you.

       Oh Triune God, almost in spite of ourselves we have received so much grace in Jesus Christ to validate and vindicate our zeal.  In our broken body, chronic fear and lost dreams—we now surrender our zeal to the cause of grace, and receive more than anyone could ever take from us. Amen.

Training in the Flesh

           The Christmas story is about incarnation—Christ’s appearance in his body.  The gospel pivots around the human body.  Christ came in a body.  He reconciled us by the offering of his physical body, and it was this body God raised from the dead.  So to the Christian the body is never a carcass to be discarded but always as a temple to be redeemed.

       Many of us give a nod to this truth this time of year and think about training our bodies.  Yet, as health-club attendance seasonally swells, one can overhear gym-rats consoling themselves with jokes about how by April they will have their gym back.  

        The weakness of our will-power is often attributed to a lack of motivation.  Many decide to exercise because they are depressed and ashamed of what we see in the mirror. The fitness industry tries to capitalize on all this, mistakenly assuming that anything that people can use for motivation is positive.

      Yet our motivational problem is not one of quantity but of kind.  Self-loathing, loneliness and fear of sickness and aging are passions which seldom keep us in the gym.  Far more helpful is connecting our fitness goals to a holy sense of lasting purpose.

      Eavesdrop on Paul as he spoke of bodily training:  “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever…I beat my body and make it my servant so… I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” 

        Paul’s contrast is not between training the body and training the spirit! The contrast is between physical training for competitions that are soon over, and Christian physical training (gymnasia) which disciplines the body in order to love with an everlasting impact. Christian exercise is about making sure the body serves us in ways that will last.  Dads who are in shape can run with children at night, make coffee for the wife in the morning, shovel the neighbor’s driveway and have enough energy at age 80 to show up at the community meeting.

     None of this training, Paul insists, will lose its eternal crowning significance.    If we continue to train with this in mind, it will attract a different kind of notice…even from some of the younger gym-rats.

Singing Things Together

     A group of my friends caroled during the lighting of Main Street last Christmas, catching the attention of a little boy who was about four years old.  His Father crouched down behind him, holding his arms. Occasionally this Dad would point over his child’s shoulder, explaining some feature of our carols which the boy clearly had never experienced before. 

     I didn’t hear all of what the Dad said.  It was something about Jesus being born—something about why we were singing— and how this nearly extinct Holiday practice of singing in harmony was once more common. Judging by what little I could overhear, the Dad was sharing a family memory, too.    

      God was helping unite this dad to his son, and the son to previous generations of his father’s memory.  I know that this father reconnected me to my own childhood, too. My Dad would similarly crouch behind me. He had the habit of tightly inhaling a short breath as he turned a page of my story book, or saw something interesting, coaching a sense of wonder at life’s mysteries. 

      Though the child had no idea what was happening in me or in his Dad, through the singing of traditional songs God connected this young boy to a thousand years of history.  Harmonies joined families, generations, and the community together in ways that only Divine Mystery can fully comprehend.

     It would be great if all of us resolved to be in public spaces more.  Community gatherings and spaces where we all can come and unite with one another are important.   My bet is that our differences will not keep us from being mysteriously connected more deeply.  I believe that because Christ is mysteriously active joining all things in heaven and earth together in love.  (Ephesians 1: 10)

Christmas Infanticide

      I like to listen to Burl Ives, to play with the kids in front of the fire, and to sip coffee.  Yet, nothing ruins my "Christmas spirit" like reading the Bible.

      Upon hearing of the true King’s birth in Bethlehem, King Herod tries to kill Jesus by killing all the local boys Jesus’ age.   Matthew quotes Jeremiah: "A voice is heard--Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more…” Jeremiah continues, “This is what the LORD says: "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears…for your children will return to their own land."

     Follow Matthew’s extraordinary use of Jeremiah:   first, the mourning Mothers of Bethlehem  are said to be like their ancestor, Rachel.  She, too, wept for her kidnapped sons, Joseph and Benjamin. Yet, in Genesis these boys are restored to the ancestral family.  In Jeremiah’s day, as the mothers of Israel watched their children being kidnapped, Jeremiah tells them not to cry because God will see to it that they someday will come home.  

      Matthew’s Christmas is about God entering a world of mass infanticide.  Matthew depends on the Mothers of Bethlehem knowing that Rachel’s suffering came to an end. Mathew’s Christmas story is one of a vulnerable God entering a world of suffering as a sign that death will not finally prevail. As Joseph and Benjamin were spared, as the youngest generations from the exile returned, now even murdered children will return home for Christmas! 

       I write this while warmed by a fireplace, smiling at a healthy child.  But the gospels call me out of comfort into a grieving world.  Somewhere there is a grieving mother named Rachel, who needs the real Christmas Spirit.  For her, a Christmas that is only about family togetherness is cruel.  She needs to cling to the belief that in her eyes God, himself, cries oceans of tears.  She needs a grace that wipes her eyes with the steely assurance that her suffering will end in resurrection.   She needs people to act like Jesus and enter her world of suffering as a death-defying sign.  For her, a flimsy, "holly-jolly Christmas" won’t cut it.

When Costly Gifts are Required

          I’ve noticed that the people asking for money at prominent intersections have changed their strategy. Instead of holding up cardboard signs saying, “will work for food,” they are now faking illnesses.  Faced with an immediate choice about giving or not giving, many people give in to the naive impulse that wants to believe we can anonymously help with a quick gift.  Thus, panhandlers make more tax-free money than the people who work very hard at socially important but poorly paid jobs. 

         If you detect a bit of frustration, please know that I admire generosity, and I desire the best for the people seeking help. Last Sunday night my congregation collected thousands of dollars to help a local family and support a mission in the Ukraine.  But in both instances we have some relationship with the recipients.  We don’t want our efforts at hospitality to become a form of co-dependency which harms strangers.  Social workers have repeatedly told my church members that financially helping certain people just promotes their transiency by financing patterns of continuing dependency and isolation.

        Several years ago local churches began to take stock of their efforts to help alleviate poverty in Indy.  Conclusion?  Many food pantries and clothing drives are doing good work; but providing services is not fully addressing real systemic problems. 

       Steve Corbett and Biken Fikkert’s book, When Helping Hurts, demonstrates how some ministries actually disempower and shame the people they are trying to help.  As a result some missions these days are trying to help people discover and express their own talents.  That’s harder work because it requires time, commitment and loving presence. 

      The Christmas story insists that what people need is precisely the gift of loving presence.  God became a vulnerable guest among the poor.  Born out of wedlock to a poverty-stricken, near-eastern teenager, the King of Kings did his work by befriending common folks who would become his co-workers.  Jesus’ name is Immanuel--God with us.  Real gift-giving has to include the gift of such sustained presence and friendship.  No gift less costly will suffice.

Dickens' Christmas Carol is Humbug

     Each year Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol plays to sold-out crowds at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.  It’s a great show. I’m glad when people like Scrooge occasionally decide to be generous.  I’m touched by Victorian Christmas sentiment, and I can’t resist Tiny Tim’s pronouncement of blessing on the whole affair: “God bless us, everyone.”    

     Yet, A Christmas Carol asks me to imagine a man changed from a miser into a generous servant through a series of apocalyptic nightmares.  Humbug. 

      Scrooge’s dead business associate, Jacob Marley, returns from the grave to warn Scrooge to change his ways. Jesus’ parable in Luke 16 doesn’t work that way. Scripture refuses to give a rich, dead man permission to return to warn anybody about the misguided love of money. Jesus teaches that if people like Scrooge do not respond generously to God’s love, “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

     So, Dicken’s whole structure is troubling from the start. The Ghost of Christmas Past then asks Scrooge to consider all the opportunities for happiness he’s squandered.  The second ghost tells Scrooge he’s responsible for gut-wrenching images of suffering.  The third ghost shames Scrooge by showing him that his neighbors wouldn’t bother coming to his immanent funeral.    These are images of Scrooge’s regret, failure, shame and impending doom. Dickens seems to believe you can scare the hell out of people.

     I don’t.  As true as the judgments pronounced on Scrooge are, Jesus comes at Christmas redeeming our past, with all its regrets, creating new possibilities, forgiving all our failures, and freeing us from the condescending judgments of small people.  He soothes fears, leading a freedom march through death itself.  The Apostle Paul asks us not to show “contempt for the riches of [God’s] kindness…not realizing that it’s God's kindness which leads toward repentance?”

     Scrooge is selfish because he’s scared. Amplifying threats won’t help.  Love has to drive out fear.  Moral change happens when we’re gripped by visions of mercy triumphing over all judgment.