Blind Man’s Bluff July 8, 2012 Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B 2 Samuel 5.1-10

           

            Ancient Jerusalem had no handicapped parking.

            The differently-abled are “hated by David’s soul.” The king sends his own White House Plumbers, who owe allegiance only to him as their warlord, to root out anyone not up to standard.

            Nobody really knows what this passage means. The Revised Common Lectionary broad-jumps from coronation to architecture and leaves the whole messy story behind. Some scholars think David simply reacts to the Jebusite taunt that an army of cripples could hold their ancient Alamo against this Israelite pretender. Some see an anachronistic reference to the sacred precincts of the temple (Lev 21.18).

            My personal favorite is Gersonides, a medieval French rabbi who speculated that the Lame and the Blind were two statues posted on the walls to mock purblind Isaac and hip-hobbled Jacob. He theorized that these ancient Oz’s worked by hydraulics and scared the loincloths off of would-be besiegers. According to this narrative, David’s boys paid attention to the man behind the curtain, clogged up the pipes and pulled down the figures like Saddam Hussein’s statue in Firdos Square.

            “So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king’s table regularly. Now he was lame in both feet.” (2 Sam 9.13)

            That passage is less equivocal. David made space at the head table for the disabled scion of a disgraced dynasty and inaugurated the social safety net in the heart of the Holy City. Maybe Gersonides was onto something: Maybe we can welcome true weakness only by casting out its prejudiced parodies.

            “And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.” (Mt 21.14)

            Ten or so centuries later the Son of David stormed the City of David and showed himself the true heir of his famous ancestor. He also revived the old Jebusite tradition of the sacred scarecrow: Outside the city gates he hung high. Blinded by the sun and crippled by a spike through both feet, he felt the spear-thrust as Pilate’s plumbers disabled his water-works. He could welcome the truly weak to eternity’s feast by taking their place beyond the wall.

            This raises a question: Equal access laws in the Republic of Texas decree that a door measure thirty-two inches across. A handicapped-accessible bathroom stall must be sixty inches. Also, “letters and numbers on signs shall . . . be accompanied with Grade 2 Braille.” Churches are exempt. This kind of renovation would be expensive.

            Are the blind and the lame hated by the souls of our churches? Or do we make room for Mephibosheth at the cost of a small Calvary?

Marco! Polo!

Doug

Horseman, Pass By July 1, 2012 Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B 2 Samuel 1.1, 17-27

“The best thing you can do with death is to ride off from it.” – Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove

            David didn’t agree. Of course David was an ancient Israelite, not a modern American. In the face of death, David’s grief is both leisurely and thoughtful.

            Leisurely grief: David’s career teeters at the tipping point. His persecutor and rival for the throne, along with the direct heir, lies slain and even the most addled conspiracy theorist couldn’t implicate the son of Jesse in the act. The military threat on the southeast border bulks larger than ever.  Both martial tactics and political policy call for swift, decisive action.

            And David writes a ten-verse obituary and orders all his men to take time out to commit it to memory. No quick swearing-in on Air Force One. No cliches about moving forward into the future. No tough rhetoric from atop the heap of the slain. Only a lengthy wallow in the grief of this tragedy.

            “How the mighty have fallen!”

            Our death-denying society – indeed, our death-denying Christianity – needs to learn to sing the Song of the Bow.

            Thoughtful grief: David does not call for a karaoke eulogy. “Would anyone like to come forward and share a memory of Saul and Jonathan?” He carefully composes a three-stanza melody of mourning and punctuates it with an insistent refrain. He doesn’t ask the people to ramble on in whatever words suggest themselves. He orders everyone to learn the words that will teach them how to weep. It may be worth noting that David’s next action is not instinctive revenge but a prayerful seeking of the will of God.

“How the mighty have fallen!”

            Our death-denying society – indeed, our death-denying Christianity – needs to learn to sing the Song of the Bow.

We don’t have funerals anymore; we have “memorial services” to which we don’t invite the guest of honor. We show sentimental PowerPoint slides of the life of the deceased. We spout some half-assimilated theology about being in a better place and ride off from death. Preachers no longer take the pulpit to teach the people the Song of the Bow. We abdicate our calling and invite the people to bust out a freestyle.

            Garrison Keillor claims that funerals are where people go to get drunk on grief, and the preacher is the designated driver. These days, though, we offer only a temperance movement for sorrow and the preacher lacks the nerve to serve as a spiritual GPS.

            It is true that the Christian faith offers the world an answer to death but an answer is no good if we never allow anyone to ask the question. We have forgotten that the Christian faith also dares to offer the world death, unadorned and deeply grieved. Before Jesus said, “Lazarus come forth,” Jesus wept.

            “How the mighty have fallen!”

            Our death-denying society – indeed, our death-denying Christianity – needs to learn to sing the Song of the Bow.

            The best thing to do with death is not to ride off from it. The best thing to do with death is to ride straight into it, because only then can we ride on through it. In a world obsessed with physical immortality our faith must preach life eternal.

            “How the mighty have fallen!” Let’s return to our work of teaching Israel to sing the Song of the Bow.

how do you like your blue-eyed boy, mr. death?

Doug

           

            

The Clothes Make the Man - Not June 24, 2012 Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B 1 Samuel 17.1-49

            Give a guy a white coat and tell him it belongs to a doctor, and he gets smarter. Give the same guy a white coat and tell him it belongs to a painter, and he gets dumber. This according to Adam D. Galinsky, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Clothes invade the brain, Dr. Galinsky explains.

            Saul didn’t have time to turn his personal Justin Bieber into a Green Beret, so he went the Lady Gaga route and called for a costume change. He tricked the shepherd out in a full suit of armor, perhaps hoping it would at least make him feel like a warrior. This was the only strategy he recognized: After all, Saul’s job description was basically to be like the Philistines (1 Sam 8.5,19-20), so he went to war like the Philistines and suited up for battle like the Philistines.

            The problem is that Philistines are always better than Israelites at being Philistines.

            But David’s identity ran deeper than playing dress-up. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. In the end, sticks and stones broke Goliath’s bones, but it was blaspheming the Name of God that really hurt him.

            Saul’s armor is the star attraction in “church growth” circles these days. Like characters at a costume party we drape worship in marketing strategies and glitzy technology. We adopt the vocabulary of Broadway and Wall Street so that “bands” do “sets” on “stages” while “executive pastors” craft “vision statements” to build the church’s “brand.”

And we look like pubescent farm boys in full battle-rattle, an easy target for the Goliath budgets of worldly entertainers and wealthy entrepreneurs.

            Maybe we, like David, need to rediscover our identity. A standing stick at Calvary and a rolled-away stone at Olivet are all we really need to route the foe. For though we walk in the flesh, Paul reminds the Corinthians, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. (2 Cor 10.3-4)

            The world will always be better than the church at being the world. Maybe our best bet is to be like the church. Maybe we should counter the heavy artillery of media with the light infantry of spiritual armor. Maybe we should stop hoping fashionable clothes will make us feel hipper, and instead realize that the white robes of Christ’s righteousness will in fact make us holier.

Wardrobe!

Doug

            

Low-Profile Potentate June 10, 2012 Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B 1 Samuel 15.34-16.13

          When Samuel shows up off his beat in Bethlehem he scares the daylights out of the town council. It’s the old line: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you. Bethlehem has basically flown below the radar to this point: south of Saul’s confirmed turf and off the prophet’s preaching circuit. Word has it that church and state are on the outs and Breadville now finds itself in the cross-hairs of the conflict.

            Then Samuel holds a revival meeting but suspends the potluck until he can interview the sons of Jesse. He goes 0-for-7 and finally upends his oilcan on a kid who is last in the batting order and one outside the number of perfection. We don’t even learn his name until after we learn he’s the future monarch.

            And nothing changes: Samuel goes back to Ramah, David goes back to the sheep, and Bethlehem goes back to avoiding unwanted attention. And everything changes: Israel has a new king.

            A millennium or so later another unknown boy arrives in Bethlehem, a relative of that original David. This story is also mixed up with shepherds and sheep and announcements of a new ruler under the nose of an uneasy king.

And nothing changes: The wise men go home by another way, Joseph and his family take it on the lamb to Egypt, and Herod keeps up the habitual slaughter of his subjects. And everything changes: Israel has a new king.

It is in such uncomfortable moments that God’s prophetic word invades our lives, shines the Shekinah on our sheltered selfishness and calls all Heaven to watch as we choose. In the sliver of a missed moment we smile or sneer, embrace or shun, forgive or resent. In short, we hail the unlikely authority of an outcast or stick with the guys who have all the swords.

And nothing changes: We move on to the next phone call, the next meeting, the next nap. And everything changes: Because if we submit, we have a new king, and if we rebel we side with the doomed sovereignty of self.

Here comes God’s Holy Spirit down the road. There goes all hope of neutrality or anonymity. By the end of the moment, you will choose a side, and all of Heaven will watch.

Choose Ye This Day,

Doug

The Irrational Dance of Grace June 10, 2012 Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B 1 Samuel 8.4-11

When Caroline Bingley, one of the wicked stepsister characters in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, sniffs, “I should like balls infinitely better if they were carried on in a different manner. . . .It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day,’” her unpretentious older brother replies, “Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.”

That exchange sums up the essence of the conflict between Samuel and the elders of Israel. A vulnerable citizenry want a standing army to cope with military threats. A wealthy bourgeoisie want a central government to stabilize their lucrative surplus. God’s prophet envisions a free people skilled in the intricate tapestry of Torah where the shuttle of divine intervention threads the warp of worship and justice with the weft of the Lord’s living word.

Secular organization of the sacred is much more rational, but not near so much like a relationship.

Too often our churches seek predictability instead of power. Spiritual technicians sell sure-fire formulas for answered prayer. Prosperity preachers promise to bypass chance and guarantee wealth by rigging the lottery of life. Shepherds of sheep study CEO’s instead of the Scripture and seek the church’s salvation in secular organization; a people who once agonized for revival now organizes for results. Comparing the modern church to Pentecost the craggy old evangelist Leonard Ravenhill scoffed that “We have paid, and the place is taken; when they had prayed, the place was shaken.”

As we enter the Ordinary Time of summer, dependence on the divine dance prevents predictability. Midnight cries and eleventh-hour interventions may make a hash of our flow-charts, but they help us keep our concentration on the living Lord who calls us into love. A wedding feast made up of conversation instead of dancing would be more rational. . .but not near so much like a romance.

May I Have This Dance?

Doug