Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah

 Friends, 

 

Two quick announcements: 
1. The Christian Century is offering an opportunity to join people of faith from across the US on Wednesdays from September 2 through October 7 from 11:00-11:45am for film screenings of Caring for the Earth: Stories from Faith Communities. The stories will be educational, inspirational, and offer opportunities for responsive action. You can click here to register and find out more. 

2. Our Adult Education Commission invites you to attend a discussion of our presbytery’s Anti-Racism policy this Sunday at 11:00am in the Fellowship Hall. The PCUSA has instructed each church to adopt an Anti-Racism policy, and we are beginning the process by looking at the Presbytery of Los Ranchos’ policy to see what questions or concerns you may have about it. You can find the presbytery’s policy here.  

……..

 

I don’t know about you, but I have been loving our summer series, “Living the Great Stories.” For the next two weeks we will hear stories about two of the “oral prophets,” a term that speaks of prophets who are not featured in books that bear their names, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so forth. Most prominently among the oral prophets are Elijah and Elisha. Their names look quite similar, and they are succession stories, with Elisha very deliberately desiring and becoming Elijah’s protégé. Elijah has a wild set of stories that include escaping violence, living in exile, performing miracles, having severe doubts, and an ongoing feud with Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab was the king of Israel and was married to Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre and Sidon. Ahab is described unremittently as the worst king in Israel’s history, even worse than his father who was worse than his predecessors. I Kings 16 31-33 says, “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him. … Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.” Among the evils that Ahab did, was to marry Jezebel, as the description of his evil continues, “And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of [another horrible king], he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a sacred pole.” 

 

The storytellers fluctuate between blaming Ahab for his sinfulness and blaming Jezebel for exacerbating his sinfulness. Namely, she brought the worship of Ba’al (a common term for a god, perhaps in this case a god of rain or fire) and Asherah (the goddess often accompanying Ba’al, whose symbol was the aforementioned “sacred pole”) into Israel. By the time our story for this weekend takes place, the altar to the God of Israel was in shambles, but the House of Ba’al had 450 priests of Ba’al and 400 priests of Asherah. Jezebel also was responsible for the slaughter of many of God’s prophets and Elijah often complained about being the only prophet of the true God left in Israel. 

 

The real challenge of preaching in our series of “Living the Great Stories” has been knowing what to say and regretfully having to leave too much material on the cutting floor. I keep telling myself that we can always circle back and walk slowly through these stories at a much more leisurely pace, savoring them more deliberately. For now, I can only invite you to join me in listening to these great stories, not merely as curious or interesting in themselves, but as the stories by which “the Word of the Lord” continues to speak today. 

 

See you in worship,
Mark of St. Mark

The Work of Anti-Racism

Friends, 

 

Quick Announcement: If you are interested in understanding issues around Homelessness better, you can sign up for a one-hour online Homelessness 101 class next Thursday at noon here. And, if you want to improve your advocacy skills, you can sign up for a one-hour online class on Tuesday, August 25 at noon here. Both classes are free and very well done.

 

Last Sunday’s worship was especially electric as we received 11 new members into our church family. And the quartet’s anthem was stunning. Many thanks to Pastor SueJeanne for enriching the story of Ruth and challenging our perspective of how we demonstrate our own value system when we identify the “good immigrant.” It was a lovely weekend all around, with contributions to so many people working behind the scenes as our Membership Commission, Session, Ushers and Greeters, Childcare workers, and so forth. 

 

As I mentioned last week, we will have a gathering on Sunday, August 23^rd, at 11:00am to discuss adopting an Anti-Racism policy here at St. Mark. The impetus for doing so comes from the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order, part of our constitution, which says, “The unity of believers in Christ is reflected in the rich diversity of the Church’s membership. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, God unites persons through baptism regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, geography, or theological conviction. There is therefore no place in the life of the Church for discrimination against any person. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shall guarantee full participation and representation in its worship, governance, and emerging life to all persons or groups within its membership.” [Foundations of Presbyterian Polity -1.0403]

 

This bold statement has been the source of many conflicts in our denomination’s past and recent conversations. It is a faithful, but challenging vision. It urges us to move beyond simply being “nice” or saying, “All are welcome.” Being nice and welcoming are wonderful qualities, without a doubt. But anti-racism is deeper work than that. It calls us to look at the ways we have historically and systematically held practices that did not welcome the gifted contributions that the diversity of the church offers. Let me give a small example. 

 

Our Presbytery meetings aspire to have an equal number of “teaching elders” (pastors, chaplains, other involve in ‘validated ministries) and “ruling elders,” such as the elder representatives that we send to each meeting. Each year we count the teaching elders and try to adjust the number of ruling elders that we need to keep that balance. In previous years, if we needed more ruling elder representation, an invitation would be offered to larger churches, under the presumption that they represent more people, so they should be able to have a larger voice. It is a common practice in many presbyteries. A few years ago we changed that practice. The larger churches have typically had plenty of representation and a large voice over the years, but our “racial/ethnic churches” (the phrase our denomination uses) are often smaller and, as a group, underrepresented. So, we changed our process. Now, when more ruling elders are needed, racial/ethnic congregations are invited first to send more elders. I was a big advocate for that change, even though it meant that St. Mark lost a representative slot. It was a nice awakening for our presbytery that we had fallen into a “those who have lots get more” mentality, rather than looking for ways to ensure that racial/ethnic voices are heard. That’s a small sign of adopting an anti-racism mentality. Still, we have a long way to go. 

 

So, I invite you to go to the Presbytery of Los Ranchos’ website and read our recently adopted anti-racism policy. Please read it appreciatively and critically, noting the questions you may have or the suggestions you would recommend. We will begin our approach to St. Mark’s anti-racism policy with the presbytery’s policy and see where it takes us. It’s all about being faithful to the God whose expansive love was given to us in Jesus Christ. 

 

You can find the presbytery policy here.  

 

See you in worship, 

Mark of St. Mark 

"God Is Good"

 Friends, 

 

I want to continue the mode of thought that I began in last week’s Extra, but before that I want to offer an apology.

 

Apology: Two weeks ago, I left out a crucial adjective when describing St. Mark. I was picking up on the phrase “white, relatively well-to-do congregation” that I had been using to make a point and referred to St. Mark as such. I ought to have said, “historically” or “mostly” white, relatively well-to-do congregation instead. If my choice of words left any of you feeling unseen or left out, I apologize and promise to try to do better. 

 

Back to last week’s Extra. I wrote about how many of the biblical stories that we have been reading contain so much violence (e.g. Jael and her infamous tent peg) that I know of pastors who refuse to preach from the books of Joshua and Judges. It is my contention that the violence in these stories is not prescriptive but descriptive, and rather courageously so. It is one thing to say, “God is great” in a time of relative ease and comfort. It is quite another to say the same in times of war, famine, and loss. One form of this question entertained in the Psalms is, “Does the steadfast love of God endure, even in this moment?” Another form from Genesis through Ruth is, “Will God keep the promise that God made to Abraham?”  

 

Yet even if we were able to yield our fortunes and our travesties to the sovereignty of God by maintaining that “God is great,” another question comes up. If God is great and calamity happens, can we also say that God is good? So the question is not just “Is God sovereign?” but “Is the sovereign God also the loving God when calamity strikes?” That question has been raised anew among liberation theologies, post-holocaust theologies, and even in popular reflections, such as Rabbi Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People. 

 

This question is further complicated when we say that one expression of God’s love is that God gives us the gift of freedom. We are free to return God’s love by being faithful. Or not. We are free to embody God’s love by loving our neighbor. Or not. We are free to reflect God’s love by loving ourselves as God’s creation. Or not. Even Presbyterians, with our historic understanding of predestination, honor human freedom. It’s a messy situation, because, if God is loving and God’s love is expressed in offering us the freedom to return that love (or not), then that make God vulnerable in a way that we don’t associate with “sovereignty.” The prophets even depict God as an aggrieved spouse, whose lover cheats openly and repeatedly. It is a profound thought that God’s sovereignty is expressed, not by forcing us to mechanically love and serve, but by allowing us to err, even as God calls us back in the vulnerability of unrequited love. 

 

I attended a panel discussion on Psalm 82 once that had biblical scholars from both Presbyterian and Lutheran seminaries. The first speaker said, “When I saw the composition of this panel, I knew exactly the trajectory of our conversation. The Presbyterians would speak from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, while the Lutheran’s would speak from the perspective of God’s love.” (There’s a lot of history behind that astute observation). One of our driving aims this summer is to find ways to read violent biblical stories and disarmingly honest psalms, not to mention manifest brutality of the cross, through the lens of God’s sovereign love, or God’s loving sovereignty. That’s why those of us who preach rely on your prayers. 

 

See you in worship,

Mark of St. Mark

 

"God Is Great"

 Friends,  

This week during worship we will hear the story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael from the book of Judges. I had a pastor friend who refused to preach from Joshua or Judges, dismissing them as not being the gospel that Jesus Christ preached and too much trouble to try to redeem. Having grown up in a strict Baptist tradition, it was a very courageous approach for him to take and one that did not come easily. I share his concerns, but I still listen for the Word of God in these stories. To be sure, we have interpretive choices to make regarding how to read them and yet more interpretive choices to make when trying to understand and live into them. It helps me to approach the Scriptures as a series of ongoing conversations about life before God, rather than as a series of “chapter and verse” final answers. 

 

Violence is a real part of the biblical stories, not just in the Old Testament, but also in the gospels – the crucifixion story being chief among them. We struggle with how such a violent world fits within God’s good creation. The story that we will hear this week, begins – as many stories in the book of Judges do – with the note that “The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD,” so God gave them over to an oppressor. That simple beginning points to a common but contested presumption in the Scriptures – the nation that is faithful will be blessed; the nation that is unfaithful will suffer. While that formula doesn’t always hold in the stories, the question behind it is an enduring one, namely the question of God’s sovereignty. 

 

Some friends recently reminded me how the Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” When we say, “God is great,” declaring that God is the almighty sovereign over all the earth, then the ebb and flow of life bring hard questions. When a nation is defeated, when people are oppressed, when the able-bodied are taken away in exile and the feeble are left to suffer – Is it God’s doing? Is that what it means to say, “God is great”? 

 

One person in US history courageous enough to address God’s sovereignty was Abraham Lincoln. In his First Inaugural Address, facing the prospect of a civil war, Lincoln urged patience and to trust that “If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.” Four bloody years later, in his Second Inaugural Address, he quoted the 119th Psalm saying, “Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” Lincoln was wresting with what it means to say God is great in the context of violence, just like the bloody stories in Joshua and Judges. 

 

While some of the actions, presumptions, and even conclusions in Joshua and Judges are hard to accept at face value – Jesus will contend with some of them – I think we are missing the point if we just bypass the books altogether. I do not see them prescribing violence as God’s way of exercising sovereignty in the world but insisting that God is great even in a world filled with violence. Even in the US, where we are usually shielded from the violence of bombings and invasions pertinent to war, we are daily exposed to violent stories of school shootings, racialized and sexualized violence, as well as a plethora of violent imagery through gaming, streaming, and movie-going. We carry anxieties about the grids on which we depend and the controllability of the artificial intelligences that we create. Within our own context of violence we ask, along with the communities of the books of Joshua and Judges, “What does it mean to say, ‘God is great’ in such a world?” 

 

Next week we will explore the accompanying statement, “God is good.” 

 

See you in worship,

Mark of St. Mark