Ruthless Spirituality: November 3, 2012, All Saints Day, Year B - Ruth 1.1-18

 

            Maybe a saint is just someone who refuses to go away. Maybe saintliness has more to do with stubbornness than with sanctity. Perhaps a saint is not someone who marches to the beat of a different drummer, but who stands fast when the drum beats retreat.

            What seems nobility on the part of Naomi may be no more than enlightened self-interest. When your husband bails on his clan to live with the enemy, you don’t score points back home. When you come back a widow with two dead sons, you don’t help your case. Toss a couple of gentile daughters-in-law into the mix and you can forget about joining the Junior League.

            Ruth is a saint because she resolves to be a blessing even where she is an embarrassment. “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee.” I’ll stay where I’m not wanted because I know it is where I’m needed. Naomi sends her off-brand relation to work among the bottom of the ninety-nine percent in a job with no sexual harassment policy, then pimps her out to the boss. As a result, we get Jesus.

            St. Mary of Egypt was one of the desert mothers. A twelve-year-old runaway, she became prostitute in Alexandria. She grew curious about Jerusalem and worked her passage to the Holy City by offering her favors to the sailors. While there she had a vision that sent her to the desert, where she lived for almost a half-century and guided many to faith. A pilgrimage paid for by prostitution resulted in sainthood: Sometimes I think Our Lord Jesus has no scruples at all.

Saints Alive!

Doug

           

           

Daring to be Happy October 28, 2012 Twenty Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B Job 42:1-6, 10-17

            The real miracle may not be that God gave Job more children, but that Job chose to have them.

            The pockmarked patriarch has just come through a rough stretch in which he learned, among other things, that good behavior is no guarantee of a good life. God, much like T. S. Eliot’s willful feline the Rum-Tum Tugger, “will do/As he do do/And there's no doing anything about it!” Job had come to the place of honesty that C. S. Lewis found in his grief over the death of his wife: “Sometimes it is hard not to say, ‘God forgive God.’”

            Oh, the Almighty coughs up at the end. Like a thief caught with his hand in the potsherd (Ex 22.4), the Lord doubles-down on Job’s undeserved losses. But first God forces the old sheik to sign a pre-nup that indemnifies the Sovereign against any future mishaps: “Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” Job is no longer an energetic and idealistic young man who dreams of watching his offspring score winning touchdowns and graduate summa cum laude. Bouncing infants on your knee irritates the infantigo scars, and past failures can poison future fantasies.

            Still, Job embraces God’s offer of another go-round on the barebacked bucking bronc of an uncertain life in the redemption rodeo. Perhaps the most significant feature of the story is the handles he gives his daughters. Roughly translated, he calls them Dove, Cinnamon, and Dark Eyes, Hebrew stripper-names that celebrate sensuality, beauty, and the joy of life.

            Sometimes the real question of faith is not whether we can praise God in the face of a grief that seems endless, but whether we can do so in the teeth of a happiness that seems only too likely to end. At such times we do well to remember that the heavenly Father who sent angels to celebrate His Son’s birth also sent angels to celebrate that Son’s resurrection. That Lord pitched parties on either side of the grave should challenge us that having the nerve to be happy may be a more daredevilish act of faith than having the resolve to grieve.

            C. S. Lewis took a trip to Whipsnade in late September. When he wrote about the experience later, he recalled blooming bluebells, though they could not actually have been there that late in the season. His contemporary T. S. Eliot took a trip to Little Gidding in May. When he wrote about the experience later, he remembered it as a snowscape. Sometimes faith means daring to see the bluebells that don’t yet exist, rather than the snow that eventually might.

Faith is the Victory,

Doug

Crossing A Line October 21, 2012 Twenty Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B Mark 10.35-45

            I don’t like the title “senior pastor.” Rather, I do, but only if we give it to the right person. The New Testament only uses the term once, in 1 Peter 5.4 where “chief Shepherd” translates a Greek word that is almost literally “senior pastor.” It refers to Jesus. The rest of us are just helpers, a sort of sheep-shepherd hybrid on our best days.

            We do our best leading from amongst of our followers – even from beneath them.

            Every good Texan knows the story of how William Barrett Travis assembled the outgunned garrison of the Alamo and warned them that General Sam Houston could send no help. He told the men they had fought bravely and were free to depart with honor or stay and buy every hour they could for the young Texian army. Then, with his saber, Colonel Travis scratched a line in the dust of the courtyard and invited those willing to remain – and die – to step across.

            In the crowd that day was the legendary Jim Bowie. Unlike the arriviste Travis, he was a tested leader whom the men knew and respected. Pneumonia had left him bedridden and the story goes that, as the soldiers hesitated, Bowie, coughing blood, gasped, “Boys, I’m too weak to walk across, but if some of you would carry me, I’d be obliged.” The four who bore him stayed with him. The stampede was on: all the complement but one man crossed to Travis’ side.

            Sometimes leadership simply means being the first follower.

            Paul gave pastors a different title in 1 Corinthians 4.1: servants. The word literally means “under-rowers” and described the poor schleps on the bottom tier of a three-banked Roman battleship. Nearest to the water and farthest from the deck, they pulled harder and drowned sooner than anyone on board.

            The cross of Christ etches a line across the Via Dolorosa and invites believers to come and die. Most of us don’t know Jesus well enough to be sure we dare take that deal. At that moment we don’t need a “senior pastor” to give us orders; we need an under-rower to give us an example. We need a follower who can show us how to follow.

            James and John thought leadership determined where you sat. Jesus said it determined where you knelt, and even how you died. In the Kingdom of Heaven the best leader is not always the strongest or the smartest or the one with the fanciest title; instead, the best leader is the one who puts her weakness at the disposal of God’s call.

Remember the Alamo!

Doug