Parables Open the Space in Between

Throughout the Lenten season we have been exploring the space “in between” - in between friend and stranger, faith and works, lost and found, and so on. I have been uplifted by the way that many of you have taken the time to reflect on and respond to the work of seeing this space in between differences as where discipleship happens. By reading biblical stories as “tensions within polarities” instead of “a choice between opposites,” perhaps we will be able to see life more dynamically. What a gift that is when we are tempted to buy into either/or, us/them choices. 

 

One of the brilliant qualities of Jesus’ preaching and teaching is his use of parables. People often treat parables like sermon illustrations, a dumbing down of difficult concepts so everyone can understand them better. Others treat parables like allegories, where every detail “represents” something in particular, even if one has to perform mental gymnastics to make them fit. And, indeed, there are times when a parable seems to clarify or serves as an allegory. But many parables obfuscate instead of clarify, because they overturn our expectations we have of how life typically works. And every allegory tends to break down sooner or later. With most parables, sooner more than later. 

 

One biblical scholar who has shaped my approach to parables is the late William Herzog II.  In his book, Parables as Subversive Speech, Herzog take an old adage about parables and corrects it. Parables are often described as “earthly stories with heavenly meaning.” Herzog describes them as “earthy stories with heavy meaning.” The difference is enormous. As earthy stories parables are often set in difficult contexts – demanding landowners, abusive bosses, upper-level decisions that can be devastating to poor folk below, etc. In such a world, some parables wrap up nicely, some take dramatic and unexpected turns, and some just end with no apparent resolution. For example, did the Fig Tree we read about two weeks ago respond to the year-long treatment and begin producing fruit? We don’t know. Herzog’s subtitle is “Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed,” meaning Jesus’ whole teaching approach is oriented toward those who are living under the shadow of the Empire, so those who suffer the effects of imperial power today are in the best position to appreciate the parables. For example, perhaps the non-ending of the Fig Tree parable calls us to shift our focus – what if productivity is not the point? That would take the wind out of the sails of a whole section of books in Barnes and Noble, wouldn’t it? (I’m tempted to get clever and write an alliterative paragraph of how “parables puncture pretentious presumptions,” but, alas, I’m out of space.) 

 

This week’s Scripture will give us a story, not a parable, and it will enable us to explore that space between “righteousness and mercy.” I’m looking forward to it and hope to see you there. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Difference and Opposition, part 2

 Friends, 

I want to continue following the idea from last week, exploring the distinction between ‘difference’ and ‘opposition.’ To review, when we treat differences as opposition, we shut of the tension of the space in between them – negotiation, compromise, openness to learning from others, etc. – and place ourselves into an either/or posture against our “opponents.” Last week I wrote about the influences in my own journey that help me see the tension between differences is a rich and promising place for discipleship. However, I don’t want to leave you with a misunderstanding. So, this week I am thinking of the cautionary tale of Buridan’s Ass: Buridan tied his ass to a stake and set two bales of hay equidistant from it on opposite sides. The ass was hungry and wanted to eat the best hay, but neither bale offered a clear reason for it to choose one over the other or to forsake one or the other. As the ass vacillated in indecision, the poor thing eventually starved to death. 

I like this tale because sometimes we face two options, neither of which is altogether good or bad, so it is hard to accept one and reject the other. In fact, our Presbyterian heritage insists that until the Reign of God comes in its fullness, none of our choices will be altogether good. But I don’t mean to imply that our only option is to die of starvation. “Living in the tension between differences,” is not simply dithering and avoiding choices because none of our options are perfect. 

So, how can we be faithful in those moments when oppositional thinking presents us with either/or choices, yet we know that neither is absolutely good? I’m not sure that there is a single, final answer to this question, so, we live in a constant state of discernment. At times we “hold our nose and vote,” because not voting may allow a worse option to win the day. At times we refuse to cooperate with an unjust system, even to the point of suffering for that refusal. At times we prophetically offer an alternative to the unjust system, like the early church choosing to live simply in order to sustain one another. 

Here’s some good news: That Presbyterian heritage I mentioned above can be very constructive. We start with the belief that, until the Reign of God has come in its fullness, we will not have perfect choices. That means no political party, nation-state, family, individual, institution, or even religion is untainted by some kind of shortcoming or sinfulness. Yet, within that awareness, early American Presbyterians insisted on democracy as the best form of government. They did not embrace democracy because they thought a 51% opinion is always right. The majority is also affected by sin. They supported democracy because it was less exploitable than aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, theocracy, and other systems that concentrated too much power into too few hands of sinful people. I still think that is a compelling reason for faithful Christians to support democracy, as well as balancing the three branches of government, honoring subsidiarity, and other practices that disperse power. Each of those ideas is a way of attaining what Reinhold Niebuhr called “proximate goods” in a fallen world.  

Each week we offer prayers of confession during worship, not because we are all creepy people deep inside, but because even when we strive to do what is right we often participate in sinfulness. That practice is prophetic in itself, demonstrating to the world that we can be honest, realistic, and genuine about our failings, and still come before God with bold humility. And then we “Hear the Good News” because our sinfulness may be a true word about our lives, but God’s grace is always the final word. 

Mark of St. Mark

Difference v. Opposition

 Friends, 

I won’t be the first or last to observe that we have deep divisions in our society. However, without descending into rose-colored glasses, I want to push back on this notion a little bit. We tend to name our differences in the most oppositional terms - red/blue, us/them, in/out, left/right. During our Lenten season, we are very deliberately trying to address those differences as polarities, and our discipleship journey as living in the tension between those polarities. Last week, for example, we looked at the story and the context around the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), to explore what it means to live between “neighbor” and “stranger.” This week we are looking at the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), to explore what it means to live between “faith” and “action.” We do this work liturgically and sermonically during Saturday and Sunday worship, and explore them more deeply through our Text Studies, which you can see here.

In my own faith journey, I have found two ideas to be particularly helpful when trying to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ in a world that often defines itself in terms of extreme either/or choices. The first was a simple passing statement that I once read – written by or about Jaques Derrida – that we have the tendency to treat “difference” as “opposition.” Once we adopt oppositional thinking, then for one idea to be “right” the other must necessarily be “wrong.” If one is “good” the other is “bad.” When differences are entrenched as oppositions, we lose the language of “better or worse” and the art of compromise becomes “selling out” or “caving in.”  When we structure challenges as “red/blue,” “us/them,” it becomes easy to identify ourselves by our differences and ignore our commonalities. A better approach is to recognize that the “opposition party” (see how we talk?) is not always wrong and we’re not always right. To act otherwise is both unwise and contrary to some good Presbyterian theology that sin is universal (affecting “us” as well as “them.”) 

The second idea that I have found helpful is more of an approach than a comment. The theologian Paul Tillich began his systematic theology by describing “ontological polarities” of human existence. By “ontological,” Tillich is attempting to name something that is true about human beings generally, deeper than our cultural or historical particularities. By “polarities,” Tillich is recognizing that human life is often lived within the pull of very different, but real parts of who we are. For example, we live within the tension of “freedom and destiny.” Of course we have freedom. We think, we deliberate, we choose, and we either reap the rewards or suffer the consequences. On the other hand, of course we are destined. We didn’t choose to be left-handed or right-handed; tall or short; straight, bi, or gay; or to be born in our country during our time. All of that was given to us and we cannot escape it. Still, we have freedom. One could say the destiny of our DNA, culture, disposition, etc. set the menu from which we exercise our freedom. It’s not freedom or destiny; we live within the polarities of freedom and destiny. 

To me, it seems altogether insightful and true to experience to approach theology – God before us and us before God – in terms of the polarities that structure our experience. That is why I appreciate the approach that our resource, “A Sanctified Art,” has provided for us during Lent. Last weekend, we looked at the tension between “neighbor and stranger” and this week “faith and works.” We do not approach those differences as incompatible oppositions. We can explore living in then tension between them, not simply living according to one or the other. 

And that brings us back to the starting point of this missive. One outcome of our Lenten journey may be that we develop an ability to resist the oppositional presumptions of red/blue, us/them, in/out, and left/right. Perhaps we will recognize within ourselves principled opinions that cross over oppositional thinking. Perhaps we can recognize that quality within our neighbor as well. Part of the reason Paul Tillich begins his theology with recognizing our “ontological polarities” is to remember that whenever we speak of God we are always doing so from a limited human framework. That is a humble starting point and one that we can exercise with regard to the big questions that vex us politically as well as the differences we see between ourselves and our neighbors. If our Lenten journey can get us a little farther down that road of walking humbly, it will be a faithful journey indeed. 

Mark of St. Mark 

Interrogating the Prejudice Within

During our Ash Wednesday service, we read an episode from Luke’s gospel regarding Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem. The most direct route from Galilee to Jerusalem would go through the region called “Samaria.” Samaritans were part of the broad Jewish faith, but with some significant uniqueness, and there was a long history of mutual suspicion between Jews and Samaritans. Still, it was not unusual for Jews to travel through Samaria and to stay overnight along the way. When Jesus sent messengers ahead of him to find accommodations in Samaria, the Samaritans refused to let him stay, because he was making his way to Jerusalem. I don’t understand all the particulars of the Samaritans’ refusal, but we all know quite well the dynamics at play. 

 We know borders. We know the tensions that arise between “us” and “them.” We know the power that “landowners” have over “trespassers.” We know historic mistrust. We know how to perpetuate stereotypes. We know tribalism and xenophobia. We know what it means to view someone else as “other.” While we don’t know the particular history and culture at work between Jews and Samaritans in this story, we know the dynamics of the story all too well. 

 

During our Ash Wednesday service, we each received a small slip of paper with the word “Prejudice” printed on it. Prejudice: literally to pre-judge. It is a way of holding a framework that shapes our expectations, blinds us to exceptions, and offers confirmation bias to our presumptions. In other words, 

 

Prejudice is something that we all hold. We like to imagine that we’re not prejudice, and I’m sure that we make anti-prejudicial choices often. But prejudice goes far beyond the likes of Bull Connor, the Police Commissioner in Alabama who used firehoses and dogs to attack civil rights marchers. It is a part of the human condition of sin. It is part of our biology and psychology, as we are born into a particular family with particular features that speak a particular language, follow particular habits and worship (or don’t worship) a particular god. We are wired to observe and be shaped by that environment, part of which is to “learn” how to conduct ourselves, how to relate to others, how to protect ourselves, and so on. When we do, we also develop a sense of what is “normal,” and, behold, it is us. Once we establish that we – our ways, our faith, our leanings, our sexuality, our gender identification, and so on – are “normal,” we have the basis on which prejudice is fixed. 

 

When we began planning Ash Wednesday, Sue-Ann Wichman and I came up with the idea of putting the word “prejudice” on a slip of dissolvable paper, and as an act of confession, to put our paper into the baptismal font and watch it disappear. However, after ordering the dissolvable paper, we ran a test and discovered that the paper will indeed dissolve (some), but the ink and therefore the word “prejudice” sticks around. And then, quite by accident, I discovered a new parable in the font. Prejudice will not magically disappear when we confess our sins and turn to God for forgiveness. Prejudice has staying power; it sticks around. But the assumptions, the certainties, the opinions on which we carry our prejudice can be dissolved by the waters of baptism. That allows us to reframe our prejudice and to “pre-judge” everyone we see as a beloved child of a gracious God. 

 

What a beautiful possibility for our Lenten journey. Will you take a moment and watch this video. It’s only 90 seconds long and is best if you view it in silence. You can find it here. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Prophetic Spirituality and Lent

 Friends,  

The season of Lent begins next week, starting with our Ash Wednesday service at 6:30pm. It will be a very tactile service, and I do not think you will want to miss it. This weekend during worship you will receive a brochure with lots of information about the season. This year we are using materials from an excellent resource called A Sanctified Art. Here are some highlights: Our theme is “Everything in Between: Meeting God in the Midst of Extremes.”  Each week, we will reinterpret binary oppositions as polarities and explore the tension of living between them, instead of choosing one or the other. Each Monday I will upload a Text Study video on the forthcoming weekend’s biblical text from Luke. Then, each Wednesday at 10:00am we will have and record a discussion of the text. Each week our Faith in Action and my Friday Extra will link to a something called “Visio Divina,” a contemplative practice of a guided meditation on the week’s Scripture beginning with an artistic presentation of it. And, a devotional from A Sanctified Art is available in hard copy (in the church office) or digitally, which you can obtain by contacting the church office here. 

 

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For the last month, I’ve been writing about “scapegoating,” as well as a subset of scapegoating that I have coined, “monsterizing.” Scapegoating has a long history as both a religious ritual (such as in the 16^th chapter of Leviticus), and a strategic practice by those in power (such as with Caiaphas in John 11:50). Any time we hear political, religious, or community leaders begin to identify and vilify a particular group of people, we ought to be wary of this tendency. And it is a practice that crosses over political and religious identities. For every politician that Scapegoats George Soros and his left-wing money, there is a politician singing the same song but substituting “the Koch brothers” as the right-wing villain. Scapegoating has been and will be with us for a long time, because it is an effective way of raising money, garnering votes, galvanizing support, or rallying troops. I have been writing about Scapegoating and Monsterizing as we lead up to the season of Lent, because I believe this season offers us an opportunity to explore how Scapegoating and Monsterizing affect us, both prophetically and spiritually. 

 

For many years, prophetic speech was the province of a few persons called specifically to that work. Since the Day of Pentecost, when God’s Spirit was poured out onto all believers - across genders, ages, ethnicities, and languages - the Christian church has been called to be a prophetic community, where we have the role of proclaiming the Word of the Lord in our moment. And, as the prophetic Christian community, our prophetic voice reflects the liberative good news to the poor, such as Jesus proclaimed in Luke 4:16-20. In other words, every believer is endowed with God’s Spirit for the purpose of proclaiming God’s good new to the poor, the stranger, the imprisoned, the sick, and those oppressed by evil. That good news comes in the forms of economic justice, immigration justice, carceral justice, as well as the provision of physical and mental healthcare. Actions can range from volunteering, to advocating, to letter-writing, to protesting. During the season of Lent, by focusing on the polarities in which we live, rather than oppositional binaries, we want to find ways to speak prophetically to the injustices of our world, without resorting to scapegoating or monsterizing those with whom we disagree. It is hard work, but it is our work.

 

Spiritually, we can only be this prophetic community if we are open to our own tendencies to buy into scapegoating and monsterizing. With confidence in God’s love for us, with the power of God’s call on us, we have the courage to explore, discover, and confess our participation in dehumanizing others, downplaying ideas that do not match our own, considering those who disagree with us as either “stupid” or “evil.” The Lenten journey for a prophetic community is the spiritual discipline of remembering that we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against powers at work in our world, such as scapegoating and monsterizing, which we can only overcome through the power of love. This kind of spirituality does not come easily. It is a “discipline” in the deepest sense of the word – a deliberate, God-driven journey of unlearning old habits and taking on new ones. 

 

Lenten disciplines – whether giving up alcohol, walking the labyrinth weekly, fasting, learning to practice the visio divina, or setting up a family “cussing jar” – are means by which we dedicate this season to being aware of God’s presence in our world and being responsive to it. I hope and pray that this season will be a time where you find your spiritual discipline and your prophetic voice. 

 

Mark of St. Mark 

 

p.s. Many of you asked about the “Golden Rule” poster that we displayed during worship last week. It is a product of Scarboro Mission, a Canadian Catholic organization. You can order one in the US from the Interfaith Marketplace by clicking here.  

Monsterizing

For the last few weeks, I’ve been writing about scapegoating, the practice of imputing our sins, angers, discontent, frustrations, brokenness, on another who then bears it away either by going into exile or by being sacrificed. This week I want to address a way that we often participate in scapegoating, by “monsterizing” others. 

My spellcheck doesn’t recognize the word “monsterize,” so I guess I ought to stipulate a definition for it. Think of how “monsters” play in our imagination, in books, movies, and as a reference for people who we deem to be awful. Monsters represent a type of chaos that threatens our peace personally or our order collectively. In the Scriptures, the creation story in Genesis 1 shows how God brings order out of the primordial chaos, making the world a “good” place for human thriving. Various figures in the Old Testament would represent “monsters” that threaten to undo the order of creation – the serpent in the garden in Genesis 3; the “Nephilim” in Genesis 6; Behemoth and Leviathan; and so on. In the New Testament, we might think of the host of powers named variously as evil spirits, demons, unclean spirits, or devils. And, of course, throughout the Scriptures as well as subsequent Jewish and Christian tradition there are references to Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, etc., who embodies the ultimate form of an enemy intent on destruction. These “monster stories” try to account for evil that seems inhuman, but ever-present in the human story. 

Monsters have a curious effect on people. Imagine the crowd of angry villagers bearing torches and pitchforks, setting aside whatever differences they might otherwise have to attack the monster with their strength in numbers. And once the monster has been eradicated there is a modicum of peace in the village. Think about that storyline when you read the story at the beginning of Mark 5, where Jesus in confronted by “a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit.” The villagers often tried to restrain him with shackles and chains, but he shattered them and spent his time in the wild howling and hurting himself. 

We know that, in the end, Jesus will not shackle or shame this person but will find a way to separate him from the unclean spirits, sending them into a herd of swine and leaving the man, “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.” Before we jump to the end of the story, however, I want to imagine the untold beginning. Think of the stories parents told their children about him, the attempts the villagers make to subdue him or get rid of him. Think of the role he played in giving those villagers a common fear, common enemy, common quest to protect themselves. Once upon a time he was someone’s son suffering an inexplicable malady. Over time, he lost his personhood and simply became the “Mad Howler of the Tombs.” That is, he was monsterized. 

W e should monsterize things that are monstrous – a Nazi regime that systematically destroyed millions of lives; a Stalinist regime that murdered enemies and starved peasants; an institution of slavery and Jim Crow laws that systematically dehumanized persons for centuries. There are times that the symbol of a “monster” is precisely what we need to name the depth of evil. But the power to monsterize is often a mechanism by which ordinary people do awful things. When I was young, I was taught that a homosexual was a pervert. Period. The people who taught me that weren’t intending to be evil. It’s what they were taught. And the people who taught them were taught the same thing. So, our society ghettoized gay people into gay bars because they weren’t accepted in polite company, then we vilified them for always hanging around dens of iniquity like gay bars. This past Wednesday was the anniversary of when the US monsterized Japanese-Americans by putting them in internment camps. More recently we have monsterized homeless persons, immigrants, persons with mental illness or addictions, Arabs, and so on. When that happens, persons who otherwise try to exercise good will join in something awful because we imagine it is necessary to keep us safe. When we monsterize, we reduce our humanity by denying the humanity of others. Next week, I’ll try to tie all these essays on scapegoating and monsterizing into a way for us to enter the Lenten season that begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5. 

Mark of St. Mark

Scapegoating, pt.3

 Friends, 

Two weeks ago, I wrote the second of two essays on scapegoating, the practice of identifying someone on whom we place blame for the things that vex us, since there is nothing that draws people together more effectively than a common enemy – real or perceived. I interrupted that sequence last week to tell you about the “red cards” that we have produce, but will circle back now to pick up the thread. I will try not to retread old ground, but to finish my thought and I will try to set it up for those who did not read the earlier essays. 

René Girard is the thinker who has influenced my own understanding of “the Scapegoat Mechanism” the most. Girard argues that scapegoating is effective, which is why persons in power employ it again and again. Girard points to the words of the High Priest Caiaphas as the epitome of the scapegoating rationale when he said, “it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50).  

Notice how close Caiaphas’ words are to a common Christian refrain that Jesus died as the substitution for us – “better for Jesus to die than for all of humankind to pay for our sins,” so to speak. Girard invites us to see Jesus’ crucifixion differently. Instead of seeing Jesus’ death as a sacrifice to appease God’s righteous anger toward us, Girard invites us to see Jesus as a scapegoat. Delivered into Roman hands by the religious leadership to secure their own power; tortured and executed by Roman hands to secure the power of the Empire. To keep the peace, either for the leaders of occupied Israel to follow the Pax Romana, or for the Empire itself to keep its subjects subjugated, someone must be identified as the sacrifice, whose death will bring peace. In that sense, for Girard, Jesus is no different from scapegoats throughout history who have been forced to bear pain on behalf of others. 

What makes the scapegoating of Jesus different is that we know that Jesus is innocent. He is sent from God to proclaim God’s reign and call us to a new way of seeing the world. He teaches God’s way and embodies God’s presence. He heals the sick, forgives sins, and takes away the stigma of those who have been called “sinners” – even before his death. Jesus’ innocent death exposes that the scapegoating mechanism itself is built on a lie. And the resurrection is God’s way of overturning the scapegoating mechanism. 

There are numerous ways that people have tried to identify the process of scapegoating others. Next week, I want to offer my own version of that story, stipulating a verb that I call “monsterizing.” 

Tune in next week,

Mark of St. Mark