Doubly Marked

And so, they gather. 

With hastily washed foreheads, 

their disfigurement would not 

be a public spectacle. 

Yet, traces of ash remained. 

They were a people doubly marked. 

The first mark was a watermark, 

generously bestowed on many of them 

at an age when they don't remember. 

Time and again they hear the words, 

"Remember your baptism," 

assuring them that memory is more than 

what the mind retains. 

The second mark was the ash, 

one year oily; one year dry, 

each year a reminder 

in a solemn moment. 

"Remember you are dust, 

and to dust you shall return." 

And so, they gathered. 

A community of the doubly marked. 

Declared on one occasion 

"A beloved child of God." 

Declared on the other occasion,

"Mortal, finite, destined to die." 

Both are true and one is 

as inescapable as the other. 

And so, they gather. 

With varying degrees of 

doubt and certainty, 

pain and joy, 

confidence and fear, 

hope and despair, 

they gather. 

They gather under the spell 

of a biblical wisdom:  

It is only by embracing our 

sure and certain death 

that we begin to live.

And so, they gather.

A body, as it were, 

where each member is 

a microcosm of the cosmic truth:

In life and in death, we belong to God. 

The Human Condition, Pt. 2

Last week I began reflecting on a question that someone asked at the Los Ranchos Presbytery Pastors Retreat: What does our current political situation tell you about the human condition? The answer I offered last week (which you can read here) was that our current political situation discloses how given we are to what I call “practical atheism,” the practice of living as if there are no real values, truths, or justice other than those that we simply negotiate with one another. I ended by noting that this predilection is not a ‘red’ or ‘blue’ phenomenon. It is a human phenomenon and is rooted in our finitude. 

The Christian tradition has long reckoned with the practical atheism to which we are inclined. We reckon with it best when we remember that we always reflect and speak from within this finite condition, not as if we can somehow float above it. At the same time, we are heralds of “The Word of the Lord,“ a phrase which points to something more profoundly and eternally true than the truths that we negotiate with one another. In other words, “The Word of the Lord” is that which does originate outside of the human condition, but it always spoken into the human condition by those who are within the human condition. What emerges from a fully finite and limited human community called “the church” proclaiming a “Word of the Lord” are two things. 

First, we are a humble community, because we know that this “Word of the Lord” is not simply an expression of our own brilliant ideas or an exertion of our own will to power. It is a word that convicts us insofar at it convicts anyone, saves us insofar as it saves anyone, and sustains us insofar as it sustains anyone. While we might be proclaimers of that word, we are not exempt from its effects. Ironically, our greatest strength lies in how open we are to letting the “Word of the Lord” humble us, even as we proclaim it. This humility is also what keeps us from being “Fundamentalist” whenever we proclaim “The Word of the Lord.” We remember that God’s Word is always spoken to a particular situation and cannot be simply parroted to a different situation without being distorted.

Second, on many occasions our proclamation of the “Word of the Lord” compels us to embrace perspectives that may seem utterly ridiculous to others, perhaps even to our own limited way of thinking. The cross is the primary example. The Apostle Paul said plainly that the message of the cross is considered foolish to the wisdom of our age. Of course it did in Paul’s day, writing to people living under the shadow of the boastful Roman Empire. And it still seems ridiculous today, to those of us living under the shadow of the boastful American Empire. The cross? Redemptive suffering over redemptive violence? Every action movie and most tales of political history argue otherwise. 

Too often “atheism” today is alleged to be whether one believes in a six-day creation, a young earth, or some kind of “man upstairs” who is pulling all of the levers of life. In the Christian Church, I think the challenge of “practical atheism” for our day is the same challenge that faced the Apostle’s community: Do we believe in the message of the cross? Or, to put it in other ways: Do we ascribe to nonviolence, do we believe that it is more noble to die than to kill, do we believe that it is better to give than to receive, do we believe in loving our enemies, do we believe in doing good to those who persecute us? Do we practice such things, or at least aspire to be discipled into this way of life? 

Lent begins next Wednesday and we will mark the season with an Ash Wednesday service at 7:00 pm. Throughout this season, the question will reverberate in my mind: What does our current political situation tell us about the human condition? We will be looking at how our experiences of grace and our practices of remembrance shape our identity as God’s people. 

Mark of St. Mark   

The Human Condition

At our Los Ranchos Presbytery Pastors Retreat, someone posed this question to a small group that I was in: What does our current political situation tell you about the human condition? 

It’s a hard question to answer for a number of reasons. The first is that none of us is above the current political situation. What we want to do is to focus squarely on what we find off-putting about those with whom we differ. But, since “the human condition” includes us, we cannot just answer about “them.” Whenever we take up this question, we can only answer from within the human condition. That’s the reason why the biblical phrase, “The Word of the Lord” is so important. However we understand the human element in the writings of the Scriptures, that phrase signifies a perspective that comes from without, not within the human condition. 

Another reason it is hard to answer the question is that it is hard to distinguish ongoing qualities of the human condition from our temporal phases – what philosophers call ‘essential v. accidental’ qualities of human life. Even Scriptural messages that begin with the phrase “the Word of the Lord” might be speaking to a particular moment, not addressing something that is eternally meaningful. 

So, back to the question. My own answer tries to dig beneath the superficial differences to which we give so much attention and to try to understand what the Word of the Lord – as it was given in a particular moment of Scripture – might say to our particular moment. And here is what I’ve come up with so far. 

Our current political climate discloses how given we are to atheism. (Don’t hang up, let me explain what I mean by that!) The Psalms say, on more than one occasion, “Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’” What I believe the psalmists have in mind is not theoretical atheism – the disbelief in a theistic God “out there” that created the world in six days and intervenes occasionally and seem somewhat fickle about weather, who gets what disease, and so forth. In fact, in the Ancient Near East I don’t think theoretical atheism was seen as an option. There was such a sense of mystery that the question was more “Which god?” than “Is there a god?” So, if you’re someone who questions the metaphysical existence of a god out there pulling the universal strings, I seriously do not believe the psalmists have you in mind. And, incidentally, many people of faith question whether that kind of god exists. 

I believe the psalmist is addressing what I call “practical atheism.” By that, I mean the belief that nothing is inherently sacred, no truth is foundational to the truths we embrace, justice is merely a set of terms that we negotiate with each other, and so forth. It can be quite subtle, such as sliding easily from saying “As finite beings, our truth is necessarily perspectival” to saying, “All truth is relative.” It can also take the form of living as if one’s actions do not have meaningful, or especially eternal, consequences. It is the hubris of every tyrant and rascal who imagines that if we can get by with it, it’s okay. In the end, practical atheism places us – either individually or collectively – as the ultimate arbiters of the true, the good, and the beautiful, even though we may give lip service to higher ideals. 

I think our current political context makes clear the practical atheistic substructure of the human condition, particularly in the U.S. It is not a ‘red’ or ‘blue’ problem or a ‘left’ or ‘right’ problem. It is a manifestation of an ongoing challenge for humanity, because it is rooted in the limitations of our finitude. Next week I want to look at some of the ways that the Christian tradition has reckoned with this challenge. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Mark of St. Mark