Exodus 33.2 - Hideous Ideas

I used to read a passage like this serenely:

I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (Exodus 33.2)

But, alas and alack, no more serenity.

In the light of what White Europeans did to the inhabitants of North and South America, and to the peoples of Africa, and with the continuing plague of racism in the United States, a plague rooted in the American South and American evangelicalism, to read of peoples displaced by none other than God, for the sake of the few, disturbs me deeply.

We're talking here of people, children, families, hopes and dreams, and all the rest ... and without batting an eye, the Text speaks of an angel driving all of them out, lock, stock and barrel ... and where did they go? What happened to them?

Sure, I know the story - much of this never happened, and the Promised Land remained populated by its original inhabitants. But at best, an uneasy relationship, punctuated by conflict and war, not unlike modern-day Israel and the Palestinians.

Whatever happened is one thing, but the thought is another. And the thought is this: here are a people whose lives do NOT matter, people of no account, people who have something we want, and we'll not buy it from them, we'll take it from them, and god is on our side.

In just a few words, all the horror and sadness of history is encapsulated.

Ultimately, as the story plays out, God abandoned the land business, closed out and locked up, with a sign: "No More!" It was too costly, and it compromised God and God's people as well.

And if God apologized, God did so through the Prophets and through the Christ, with a vision of love and hope and peace for all the world, all its peoples, all its creatures, great and small - every rock, river, and tree.

Perhaps, now, the Spirit of God speaks through the tragedy: "Is this what you think? Is this what you want? Is this how you conceive of me and yourself?"

Bravery

The past instructs.
The future entices.
The present bewilders.

What have I learned?
That history can go bad.
Really, seriously, bad.

What have I learned?
That history can move to the light.
That people wake up and make the better choice.

What have I learned?
That the moment can be horrible.
That people can shout Heil Hitler and never bat an eye.

What have I learned?
To be brave.
As brave as I can be.

What have I learned?
Some are a whole lot braver than I am.
Thanks be to God.

What have I learned?
That such bravery is never lost.
Never wasted.

What have I learned?
Keep on learning.
Keep on trying to be brave.

Reading Psalm 56 Upside Down

I've read Psalm 56 many a time, especially in hard moments of ministry, and have found it of great comfort and encouragement.

It's a Psalm regarding David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath (as the notes say).

Of course, the Philistines are the enemy, and David the victim of their cruelty and great evil. Poor David, we assume, and with him, we shed tears and give thanks that god is his side, and sooner or later these evil Philistines (is that not a redundancy?) will meet their just end - defeat at the hands of the righteous David.

But this morning, I read it upside down.

I found myself reflecting on two moments:

1) Recently, the Kim Davis Affair, and how easily we can isolate ourselves from all questions about our behavior and assume, with plenty of encouragement from friends, family and fellow-believers, that we're in the right, without question, god is on our side, and the enemy is the one who opposes us.

2) My reading of "Empire of the Summer Moon" - about the Comanche and Texas - the clash of two powerful, violent cultures, both given to war and conquest, both wanting land. In the case of the Comanche, land that belonged to them because of their conquest of other tribes, their successful use of Spanish horses, having defeated both the Spanish and the Mexicans, but unable to defeat the Americans, because of their overwhelming numbers of settlers moving westward, their diseases, weapons and the buffalo hunters. Violence on both sides, incredible violence. In the hands of the Americans, it was all turned against the Comanche, the only good one being a dead one. And, for the American, it was their Christianity that gave them the right to this land; it was their manifest destiny. The Indian, unbaptized and pagan, had no rights whatsoever. And if the Comanche are cruel and violent, just wait: Americans know how to be just as cruel and violent, and then some, and all in the name of god.

How different is this Psalm when read upside down.

David might have asked himself:

1) Why do the Philistines see me as enemy?

2) Is it because of my "faith in god," or because I want their land, I want them gone, I want them defeated and dead?

3) Is it because I believe in manifest destiny: god gave this land to us and told us to kill everyone in it, including women and children and even livestock?

Given what I know of David and history, it's no longer possible for me to read this Psalm sympathetically. It's way too easy to read it and simply see "the other" as "enemy" and myself as "the righteous one." Way too easy to exonerate myself and vilify the one "hurting" me.

If David were a counselee, a good counselor would likely explore with him how he's offended and hurt others. How his beliefs and attitudes put others off and alienate them. How his views of life are essentially narcissistic, and his self-serving view of god is the root of violence toward others. A wise counselor would explore this sensibility, "that god is on my side exclusively, and what the Philistines have is mine to take because god said so."

I have read this Psalm in times of turmoil, and been comforted by it, and may well read again in that light.

But it's a dangerous Psalm that can easily blind the reader to her or his own sin against others, and blind the reader to the humanity of the "enemy."

It's a Psalm that needs to be read upside down.

All information is slanted ...

All "information" has a slant … nothing is neutral … it's all on where we begin.

If one begins with "abortion is murder and thus must be outlawed," we find information that conforms to that opinion. If, on the other hand, we believe that a "woman's choice is an important element in her health care, and that abortion is a legitimate choice," then we find information that conforms to that.

We have to always dig deeper, more than likely into our personality, family patterns, personal history, and a variety of other factors, social and psychological, as to why we make the decisions we do.

If and when we share out of the deeps of our being, it always has the aroma of authenticity, because it comes from our deeps, and not from some political or ideological source (both liberals and conservatives can suffer from this syndrome). When we share from the deeps, we're honest in our humility and can admit that truth is our opinion of it, and we can hope and pray that we've made a good effort at it. But we cannot claim a higher authority.

We can seek, however, to be well-read, and to hold our opinions lightly. It's okay to have an opinion; that's what life is all about. I'll stand firm on my opinions, and do the best I can to see that my opinions see the light of day.

Hence, I'm pro-choice, have been pro-choice for decades, and I've given it a lot of thought. And in my own take of things, that makes me pro-life. Those who believe abortion is evil and must be outlawed have worked at it, too. So, there we are.

Let's be honest - we have our opinions, and while we'd like to think that our opinion is better than other opinions, none can make that claim - all we can do is muster what science and history we can find, think it through, and offer it up to the world as coherently as we can. Time will help clarify … though not even centuries can clear up some questions.

Reading History

The gift of reading history - plenty of scoundrels, for sure, but plenty of people who rise to the occasion - they envision a just society where privation and suffering are limited;
they challenge the powers that be, especially those powers heavily funded by the super-wealthy;
they bristle when they see human beings degraded in the workplace;
they strive for good schools;
they are generally skeptical about military adventurism;
they are not swayed by slogans and throw-away phrases;
they read and they think;
they are generally of good humor, and enjoy a good laugh at themselves;
sometimes they're religious and sometimes not, but they all look at human beings with awe and hope.

The Enemy Within

Have ya' read the latest "Layman" (August, 2010) and its "Letters to the editor"?

The anger runs deep.

And I'm sympathetic ... there have been times in my life, more than I like to admit, when anger, self-righteous anger (which, of course, all anger is, right?), ruled the day, and the night as well, violating the advice of Scripture, to not allow the sun to go down on one's anger.

The problem with long-standing anger is that it's never accurate in its assessment of the situation. Anger, like a magnifying glass, focuses the heat of a legitimate concern into a white-hot beam that destroys.

The letters in this issue reveal a loss of control. Anger has simply taken over mind and heart.

The enemy, the PCUSA, is all wrong. Which, of course, in even the worst of all times, wouldn't be true - after all, even a broken watch is right twice a day.

I feel for the letter-writers. They've painted themselves into a corner, and there's no way out for them right now. So the corner becomes home, and though the corner is always an uncomfortable place in which to live, it's defended with growing intensity, until all the corner-dwellers have convinced themselves they're living in theological luxury.

There would be a way out, if they could rise above their anger and temper their opinion with the simple reality that the "enemy" is more within them than anywhere else.

And a good dose of humility. But corner-dwellers cannot afford humility, because humility requires some sense of appreciation for the very people being vilified, and a sense of personal incompleteness - that whatever the opinion, the judgment, the theological point of view, no one has a full and complete grasp of God's truth and God's Kingdom.

We are what we are. Fully human and deeply sinful. And all the creeds in the world, and all our protestations to the contrary, our frailty and our fault remain.

Self-righteousness, amplified by limited conversation with other corner-dwellers, exits on all sides of any given question.

The challenge for any of us is this: how to hold an opinion (and that's what it all is, after all) firmly and faithfully, without drifting into ideology (always the danger, and let's just call it idolatry).

My heart goes out to the letter-writers. They're profoundly unhappy, and if they're pastors, my heart goes out, as well, to their congregations. That kind of anger walks into the pulpit most Sundays, for sure, and spills out into the pews, tainting the gospel with the aroma of rot.

So be it.

Church history is the story of our fightings with one another. I guess such will be the case until the final trumpet is sounded.

But until then, does not the gospel call us to something other than merely being angry with one another?

Is there not the Holy Spirit upon whom we can call, and whose influence might temper our restless hearts?

After all, said Paul, our enemies are not flesh and blood, but spiritual powers and principalities.

I think there comes a time when God walks away from a persistently angry person or organization. As in Paul's letter to the Romans, God abandons us to "shameful lusts," and there is no greater lust than the lust to be right, and no greater shame than the willful condemnation of one another.