Country Parson

God and Chance

2009-07-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

Chance is one of those words we use a lot without thinking much about its meaning. In general use it seems to mean unpredictability. A chance event is one that could not have been predicted. No doubt some statistician would be happy to predict a certain chance happening as a probability of once in so many thousands of events, which is an essentially useless prediction of any practical value.

English translations of the Bible use the word sparingly. The Philistines who had captured the ark of the Lord wondered if their tumors were simply a matter of chance, and not the Lord’s doing. The writer of Ecclesiastes suspected that a good deal of what happens to us in life is simply a matter of chance. The meeting between the Good Samaritan and the beaten man was by chance. During Paul’s final voyage, his ship set sail for Phoenix on the chance that they might make it before winter set in. There are certainly other references to unpredictability, particularly in moments of offering up prayer while wondering whether God might change his mind about this or that, but the English word chance is not used to describe them.

Still, it seems to me that one of the wonders of creation is the role of chance. High possibility with very low probability and no means of predictability leads in so many directions of creative potentiality, so many adventures in life, and so much opportunity for unlimited fecundity. It also reveals some small part of the enormous room for God to do what God wills to do in and amongst the ebb and flow of chance events.

But living in a world of chance is hard. It’s scary not knowing exactly what will happen to us and those we love. The news is quick to report public outrage when those in authority fail to predict the exact moment of high probability events. It always seems that someone must be to blame, and that if it wasn’t for them the whole mess could have been avoided. We are even quick to blame God for not being a good enough or caring enough God when things go wrong. We do our best to arrange things to our liking and try our best to surround ourselves with ordered predictability, and it can work for a while. In the blink of an eye it can all come tumbling down – and it does. Robert Burns famous poem about the accidental unearthing of a field mouse’s winter home ends with these familiar words (in standard English):

But Mouse, you are not alone,  In proving foresight may be vain: 

The best laid schemes of mice and men  Go often askew, 

And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,  For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me! 

The present only touches you: 

But oh! I backward cast my eye,  On prospects dreary!

 And forward, though I cannot see,  I guess and fear!

Paul seemed to come to that place where he could take the chances of life in stride without complaint, and without blaming God for everything. To the contrary, he rejoiced that in all things God was his constant companion and the ultimate ruler of what was to be. What was unshakably certain to Paul was the absolute possibility and probability of his eternal life, but to say that it made his earthly life irrelevant would be a big mistake. What he came to learn was that, in following Christ, some part of living in the eternal kingdom of God could be his now, and the sheer delight and wonder of that could be shared with others who could also begin living into that kingdom. Unlike the closing lines of Burns’ poem, we need not look backward only in regret, nor forward only to guess and fear. In following Christ we are able to look backward at a life redeemed and forward with delight into a world of exciting chance with new adventure lying ahead, and also with the sure and certain faith that, whatever happens, we are already safely in God’s hands for all of eternity. It is that which gives us both the strength and courage to do what we can to bring the kingdom of God into this life, leaving it with a little higher probability that God’s goodness will be more defining in the lives of others, and a lower probability that evil and injustice will prevail.

The Bedtime Nooze

2009-07-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

I started watching CNN news this evening. The first announcement was that the story of the week was the death and funeral of Michael Jackson. The G-8? Russia? Ghana? China? I switched to a program about underwater hockey at the University of BC (that's British Columbia for some of you). More relevant.

Kingdoms? What Kingdoms?

2009-07-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

I am going to be the guest celebrant and preacher this Sunday at a church about 70 miles from here, and I’m struggling with the text. The lectionary has given us Mark’s story of the beheading of John the Baptist. Just that and nothing more. But consider this, what precedes it is the calling and sending out of disciples two-by-two into the nearby villages to cast out demons and heal the sick. They don’t even get out the door when the narrative changes to the beheading story. It ungraciously interrupts a perfectly coherent flow that rejoices in the return of the disciples. So why do you suppose Mark, or some editor, dumped the beheading pericope right in the middle? Perhaps it just slipped out of his hands and plopped down there by accident? No? I don’t think so either.

Kingdom language is not as prevalent in Mark as it is in Matthew or Luke, but it’s not lacking and shortly before this episode Jesus had quite a bit to say about it. Sending his disciples out two-by-two was intended to manifest evidence of that kingdom in the lives of those on whom they would call. Before we can find out how it went we get the story of Herod beheading John. When that is concluded we learn about the wonderful things the disciples witnessed on their adventure. It’s really a tale of two kingdoms isn’t it?

Now here’s the real question. Which kingdom do we live in most of the time and often fiercely defend. Is it the one of power, riches, selfishly sensuous delights, rampant injustice, hubris, cowardice and death? Or is it the other one? If we are honest, I think we know which one, and it's the one that keeps interrupting the story of God's work. So here’s the follow up question. What would it mean to be more like the disciples sent out two-by-two to bring the power of God’s love into the lives of the people they met in the places they visited? I don’t think it’s anything like an LDS or Jehovah’s Witness door knock campaign. I've got some ideas, but what do you think it might be like?

Mundane Thought For The Day

2009-07-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

The Limits of Tolerating Intolerance

2009-07-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

I’m used to some pretty odd letters to the editor in our local paper. We’ve got a couple of regulars who would prefer a return to a pre-Roosevelt America (Teddy, that is). But the other day one of them wrote a letter that truly disturbed me. In it he counted up the number of Jews serving in congress and the White House, equated them with Zionism, alleged that they were all agents of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), and concluded that they are the puppeteers of Obama for the purpose of dismantling American democracy. Obviously there was more, but you get the idea. That kind of thinking, if it can generate any followers, is what results in violent bigotry of the worst kind.

So what’s the right response, if any? Just let it go and trust that a reasonably informed reading public will recognize it for what it is? I wrote a draft response, but my editor-in-chief (wife) turned it down. It was a bit on the snarky side; really some of my best H.L. Mencken style work. Not priestly at all, but possibly Pauline, as in one of his 2^nd Corinthians temper tantrums. Made me feel better though.

I was reminded by my editor-in-chief that I have my own letters to the editor supporting a bond issue for a new police station, and occasional columns extolling the love of God in Christ Jesus, which means that a snarky Mencken style response was probably not in order. She was right of course, but what is the right response, and is any needed? I’m sort of waiting to see what, if anything, might show up in the paper over the next several days. What do you think?

Hot Summer Afternoons

2009-07-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

It’s hot, probably close to 100/f (38/c), but, as they say, it’s a dry heat (11% humidity). With abundant shade in the yard and large overhanging eaves on the south side, our house is tolerable. We might turn the air conditioner on a bit later, but not yet. It’s quiet inside. The dogs are asleep. Dianna is working on an art project, and the only noise is the tick-tock of the grandfather clock. It reminds me of afternoons at my grandmother’s house in rural Kansas.

Like most kids, I was only comfortable with lots of noise: radios loud on a good rock and roll station and friends all talking or yelling as narration to whatever we were doing, and whatever we were doing usually involved a lot of chaotic action. Adults who wanted quiet, maybe some soft music in the background, and “inside voice” conversations were the death of a good summer afternoon. And what was the purpose of going anywhere in a car if the radio wasn’t turned all the way up?

But the quiet of my grandmother’s house on a hot Kansas afternoon was different. The only sound was the tick tock of the mantle clock. An electric fan might be blowing. Sometimes the radio would be on low, if the station signal was strong enough. As brightly hot as it was outside, her house was well shaded and oddly cool. It was a gentle calming quiet, and I always felt comfortable in it. Her friends, knowing we were visiting, would come in for long quiet conversations about everything and nothing in a town where they already knew everything and nothing very much was new. I’m not sure why I found that comforting, but I always wondered how grandma could stand so much quiet with just the ticking of that clock.

Now I’m older than she was then and sitting in my own shaded, oddly cool house with only the sound of the ticking clock. Now I understand more. Children, for the most part, have little to recollect. Filling their hours with noise and action is important because otherwise there is not much there. Everything they do is a part of forming what will become their recollections.

Older adults have whole long lives to recollect, and in the quiet of a summer afternoon, with only a ticking clock for company, the room is filled with long ago friends and relatives, the excitement of new adventures remembered all over again, and ongoing conversations that never end. Music of remembered songs accompanied by mourning dove solos and sparrow choruses backed by breezes in the trees fills the air. It’s music that can’t be heard unless it’s quiet.

I suppose the hard parts are the in between years when we are too old to be kids, and our own kids get on our nerves when their noises and chaotic activity interferes with our noises and chaotic activity. In a few weeks we will have a visit by one of our daughters and two grandchildren. Our house will be filled with noise and chaotic activity. I wonder if they will hear the clock, the doves, the sparrows and the breeze? Times change, and this isn’t Kansas.

And Now For Something You'll Really LIke

2009-07-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

We like sparrows and our two bird houses have been churning them out by the dozens. Yeah I know, they're common and boring but we really like them. I've always wondered what happens when a fledgling takes that very first plunge out of the nest, and this afternoon I saw it. Three came tumbling out at almost the same time. For a split second tumbling is what they did. Then with a flurry of flaps it was flight time - smack into a wood fence. I guess, like toddlers of most species, they're made of rubber because they just bounced off and headed the other way in a chorus of chirps.

Yesterday we saw another fledgling standing on the roof of one of the bird feeders trying to figure out how to get down to the ledge where the seeds were. It tried going forward, then took a shot at backing up, turned around a few times and finally opted for whatever had fallen on the ground. Yet two others on a limb were still getting hand fed by a parent. I have a couple of relations like that.

I love sitting out on the patio watching these birds. There's nothing like it. A portion of our Daily Office gives thanks to God for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life. One of the great blessings of my life is to rejoice in the presence of God's many creations just by watching what is around wherever I am.

How Important is Biblical Consistency?

2009-06-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading The First Paul by Borg and Crossan, not because I’m fond of Borg and Crossan, but because a friend studying for ordination to the deaconate has it for a text, and I’m reading with her. It’s an easy read, in many ways quite well written, but I dislike its lack of footnotes and bibliography and its sweeping generalizations about historical details and their meanings. What amuses me is their tight focus on the discrepancies and conflicts between Luke and Paul, within the letters of Paul, and between authentic Paul and Pauline letters. That they are there is obvious, but how significant are they?

It seems a reasonable question when I reflect on the stories my wife and I tell about events in our lives. A disinterested observer might wonder if we experienced the same events. Our versions differ on when, where, among who and what – although the main thrust or themes are pretty much the same. The same is true for the events and their meanings that I write or talk about on my own. I tend to adjust them to fit the purpose of their telling and the audience to whom they are told. For that matter, I’m not altogether certain about the details of important events that happened years ago. On the other hand, we have a daughter who precisely remembers almost everything in her life from the age of two on (she’s 45 now) whether they happened or not.

That’s the way we humans recollect. If God did indeed inspire the words of Luke, Paul and Paul’s successors, either in their writing or in the survival and transmission of them, and I believe God did, it is not for the purpose of demonstrating literal inerrancy. It is for the purpose of revealing truth, both Godly and human, within and through what is recollected. I suppose there is some merit to Borg and Crossan’s close examination of discrepancies and conflicts as an academic exercise, or as a thrust and parry in their duel with literalists. It does help explain the difficulties of incorporating gentile converts into this new religion and how the nascent church began to come to terms with Greco-Roman culture. But I also think you can make too much of it, and they do.

Crazy Throw-Away People: A Question with No Answer

2009-06-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago, at an hour when no one in their right mind should be up and about, a guy dowsed himself with a couple of cups of gasoline, lit himself on fire and died. From what I know, he wasn’t mad at the world, wasn’t trying to make a political statement, and, by all accounts, didn’t fully understand the consequences of his actions. He was just crazy, that’s all. What do we do with poor crazy people? Insurance covers almost nothing at all, if one has insurance. Combinations of mental illness and poverty leave many living at the dark edges of society, unemployed, unemployable, and generally ignored as long as they are not a danger to themselves or others. Street drugs and cheap booze often become the medications of choice partly because that's what's available.

This guy was not a danger to himself or others, not until a couple of nights ago.

The story was a short two-paragraph blurb in the local paper. By the end of next week no one will remember or care, except for the medics who could not save him and the police who are trying to piece together his story. They won’t forget because it was too gruesome to forget. I imagine that will be the same for the few onlookers who emerged from somewhere out of the night. For the rest of us, he is just another throw-away human being. We never knew he was there, and his passing will have no impact on our lives.

We have a half dozen very effective non-profit organizations in town who take seriously their work with the impoverished mentally ill, but there’s a limit to what they can do that begins and ends with those who are able to voluntarily seek and receive help.

That’s not right. It’s not right that good mental health care is a restricted commodity. It’s not right that a nation of our wealth and ideals can be so oblivious to throw-away people. It’s not right that the health care debate in congress is more about protecting the insurance industry than it is about health care. It’s not right that, in the name of civil liberty, we simply let the impoverished mentally ill self-destruct. It could be that other nations do no better or even worse, and that’s not right either.

Cheap Grace and Mature Discipleship

2009-06-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

A few days ago someone brought up the question of cheap grace as something he saw troubling the contemporary church of his community, just as Bonhoeffer saw it in his. That person wanted a more forceful emphasis on costly grace as an antidote. I sympathize, but at the same time am extremely cautious because the demand for costly grace can very easily be turned into a demand for God to separate the wheat from the chaff right here before our eyes on our personal naming of the unrepentant sinfulness, hypocrisy and unworthiness of those whom we accuse and have already judged.

Perhaps what he had in mind are some strands in American Christianity that appear to have an odd relationship with grace that can look a bit cheap. There are churches in which sin and the sinful nature of humanity that is always teetering on the edge of eternal damnation but for one’s acceptance of Jesus as one’s personal savior is coupled with the expectation of a constant cycle of backsliding and re-acceptance through public confession and appropriate tears, followed by more of the same behavior, often with the excuse that ‘the devil made me do it.’ It can look pretty cheap, even tawdry.

Grace is free and unearned, but it is not cheap. When the salvation of the world is accomplished through the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus there can be nothing cheap about it. But it still remains free and unearned. What it doesn’t accomplish is freedom from the natural consequences of our behavior. For instance, the natural consequence of my running up a poorly anchored ladder was a broken ankle. The natural consequence of the genes I inherited was a heart attack, in spite of a healthy life style. The natural consequence of my occasional arrogance, anger and judgments are strained relationships and genuine hurt to others. You see where this is going? The free gift of God’s grace, through which we have forgiveness of sin and all other benefits of Chris’s work, does not absolve us of the ordinary consequences of our behavior or the conditions in which we find ourselves.

Consider, for instance, the story of the woman caught in adultery. The hypocrisy of her accusers was blatant, but Jesus did not condemn or even shame them. He simply exposed their own sin to the shame they generated for themselves and sent them away to ponder it. He did not condemn the woman either, and in my imagination I hear him say something like, “Look, you almost got stoned, and if you keep on behaving like that you will be stoned, so go forth and don’t do that again.”

That is why we need to associate the grace of forgiveness with confession, repentance and the hard work of reconciliation through which healing and restoration can, but does not always, take pace. We have been called into the ministry of reconciliation, and, as the community of the Church, we are the body of Christ continuing the healing work of Christ. We enter into that ministry not to become saved, but because we are saved. It is a sacrificial offering of thanksgiving.

If that sounds like a call to mature discipleship, it is. And that is what Bonhoeffer was about when he wrote on cheap grace in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, which was a key element in the training of new clergy who would be able to continue the work of Christ in a Germany ruled by Nazis and a Protestant Church that had largely surrendered to them. Not all were ready for it.

Not all are ready for it in our own day either. We are surrounded by people who have never heard the good news; they are new to the Christian faith; they are long time Christians with only a superficial understanding of what that means; they are anyone and everyone in any condition of life. Whoever they are and however come into the presence of the Church, they are to be welcomed with the radical welcome of Jesus himself. Mature ordained and lay discipleship does not make demands on others for an adequate demonstration or proclamation of their faith. Mature discipleship exudes the radical welcome and love of Christ into lives that desperately need it. Mature discipleship calls others to begin their formation as followers of Jesus from the place where they are, in the place that they are, and as they are able. Mature discipleship offers through Christ the free gift of God’s grace. But it does not promise unnatural relief from the natural consequences of our behavior or the conditions of our lives.

In the tradition of my Church, the collects for Friday are the collects for mature discipleship in the recognition of what costly grace really means. That’s a good place to close this post and seek your own contribution to the conversation:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name.

Servant Leadership and Monkeys

2009-06-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Every now and then the business community bandies about the idea of servant leadership as the only effective form of leadership. There is even the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership basing its programs on Robert Greenleaf’s 1970 booklet “The Servant as Leader.” The rise and fall of servant leadership coincides with its periodic popularity leading to overuse of the phrase and only a superficial understanding of what it means. Then it’s back to the old way of doing things until the next time the idea is discovered.

Sadly, the same thing happens in church leadership, and it started early. Jesus periodically called his followers into servant leadership, and demonstrated what that meant by his every word and act. On a quick review, I can count seven distinct moments when Jesus instructed his disciples on the meaning of servant leadership and called them to that way of life. Their most common reaction was to debate among themselves about who would be the greatest among them and closest to the right hand of Jesus in his kingdom.

The basic idea of servant leadership is for the leader to assure that those for whom he or she has responsibility are provided the information, tools, training and support needed for them to do the work to which they have been called.

Clergy who aspire to servant leadership often start off on the right foot, but quickly get seduced by the old “whose back is the monkey on” gambit most vividly reviewed in a 1974 Harvard Business Review article entitled, "Who's Got the Monkey?" by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass. Capable parishioners come to the clergy in charge with great ideas to seek approval and implementation. Being an enthusiastic servant leader wannabe, that clergy person approves, authorizes and sends them off with blessings and promises of all the support they need. So far so good.

Not many days later, the same persons return with a problem or two that is keeping them from getting their great idea off the ground. Being a good servant leader, our well intentioned clergy person assumes the role of servant and agrees to take on the problem, fix it, and get them on their way of new ministry. The parishioners came in with a monkey on their back, put it on the back of the clergy person, and left free and clear with no responsibility for anything except to complain at a later date about how the pastor let them down when they had such a great idea.

That’s when servant leadership gets turned upside down and falls apart. Paul waffled around trying to get it right when he encouraged the Galatians to each carry their own loads and bear one another’s burdens at the same time. Servant leadership is exemplified by the feeding of the five thousand. The disciples had a great idea; ‘Everybody’s hungry. Let’s send all these people into town for some fish and chips and maybe they’ll come back for more teaching.’ Jesus agreed it was a great idea but the disciples could themselves do the feeding right there. ‘How, they said? We’ve only got a couple of fish and a few chips.’ Jesus said, OK, let’s say a blessing and start with that – go to it. The disciples tried to get rid of the monkey on their back by putting it on Jesus but he wouldn’t fall for it.

Servant leadership is not about avoiding responsibility or hard work. It’s about taking on the responsibility and doing the hard work of assuring that members of the congregation are provided the information, tools, resources and support they need to do their work. It takes time. Some parishioners are content to be experts at monkey transfer. Others have no idea that being a Christian might actually entail their own calls to ministry and the work that goes with it. Others are willing to start but have trouble following through. Although it is a truism that 20% of the members do 80% of the work, it’s not always the same 20%. People come and people go. Some do great work and then need a rest. Some plod along year after year, the work horses of the essential but mundane. Some can only be interested in short term projects or events promising a bit of favorable PR for themselves. The servant leader stands in the middle seeing that each is provided equitable access to needed information, tools, resources and support, but steadfastly refusing to accumulate monkeys on his or her back.

A Few Thoughts on the Power of Fear

2009-06-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have touched on this issue before, but it has come back with force in these last few weeks, and that is the pervasiveness and power of irrational fear. Fear, however it’s defined, is not always a bad thing. There are things one should be afraid of, or should at least give cause to some serious anxiety. Irrational fear is different, and by it I do not intend the standard range of phobias, fear of flying for instance. What I have in mind are what might be called political or even spiritual fears that have no, or very little, foundation in observable facts. They are fears that take possibilities of extremely low probability and exaggerate them into near reality. In the same way, they are fears that turn blind eyes toward serious danger in pursuit of safety from imagined danger.

An interesting if fairly minor case is recent polling that shows a higher favorable rating for Cheney than Pelosi. A June 5 Gallup survey has Cheney at 37% favorable and Pelosi at 34%. Neither is high, but what is driving the shift is a PR effort to display Pelosi as an out of control ultra liberal intent on stripping away American freedom under the weight of oppressive government. The fact that Cheney has an eight-year track record of doing that very thing is easily ignored because he acted to keep us safe from some vaguely defined but very scary enemy. The particular issues generating fear of Pelosi are even more vaguely defined and seem to arise mainly from the reputation of her San Francisco district.

On another front, gun sales have exploded. The data are not easy to gather, but one source had background checks up 22% January over January, and background checks do not include gun show and private sales. On air interviews reveal gun purchasers driven by fear that Obama will soon outlaw guns and begin confiscating them. Others believe that if more of us were armed society would have a greater defense against gun toting murderers. Then there is the inane holdover idea from the Cold War that an armed population will be the last defense against the commie invaders who are sure to come. Commies are passé but have been easily replaced by imagined armies of terrorists of some sort.

From Ronald Reagan on, the public has been sold on the idea that government is part of the problem not the solution, that any and all government programs are wasteful bureaucracies (except the ones that provide subsidies to my industry), that private industry can always do everything better and more efficiently, and that market forces work better than any form of governmental regulation. The result is two fold. On the one hand is self-imposed ignorance about some blatant failures in the market place. The second, related to the current health care debate, is an equally self imposed ignorance about the current private health insurance system ruled by bureaucratic providers of plans with strict limitations and controls having more to do with corporate profits than individual and public health.

The irrational fear associated with it has an operating assumption that any government provided health insurance would be wasteful, take away individual choice, and ration out health care to people other than me. Related irrational assumptions ignore the easily researched fact that American health care consumes a far greater share of GDP than any other developed nation, and does so with great inefficiency. American health care is like an old, decrepit municipal water system: one that takes in millions of gallons of fresh water and loses half of it through leaks and breaks before it can get to a tap.

A self-imposed ignorance about national debt avoids any recognition of the cost of our current wars, and an irrational fear of national debt is fired by a dreadful lack of understanding about the hows and whats of programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Irrational fear drives middle and lower class Americans to favor tax policies giving breaks to the wealthy on vague promises that somehow they also will benefit. Intentionally engendered fear drives a good deal of advertising and too much news reporting. We are told to fear that our breath smells bad, that we may not find the right mate, that our latest gadget is technologically obsolete, that we are eating the wrong foods, that e-coli, salmonella and germs of all sorts are threatening our lives, that obscure incidents in one place are evidence of an epidemic of something of which we should be very afraid. We are inundated by twenty-four hour news broadcasting reveling in sensationalism and unreflective fear mongering, and talk radio that is even worse.

All of this infects our spiritual lives in harmful ways. The perfect love of God that drives out fear becomes nothing but a nice and very impractical sentiment. The commandments to love one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to become agents of reconciliation, become minor footnotes to sermons heard on increasingly infrequent days given to worship. Pulpit words warning of the power of the devil who rules this world, of sin that surrounds us and hell that awaits us, take the words of Jesus and twist them into fearful threats intended to frighten a fearful people into a shallow faith. Whatever faith they might inspire, they also feed fear driven beliefs, attitudes and behaviors in ordinary daily life. They deprive the love of God, the reconciling life, teaching, death and resurrection of Christ, of their most essential meanings, and they make it harder for the Gospel to be heard by those who need to hear it most.

Health Care as a Percent of GDP

2009-06-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Kaiser Family Foundation published a study, including this chart of 2003 data, comparing American health care costs to other developed nations and the only thing that has changed is the percentage of our GDP allocated to health care today, around 17%. This in the face of those who are screaming bloody murder that we could end up with some expensive health care albatross such as England or Canada. We already have a health care albatross hanging around our necks. Nevertheless, the conservative opposition would rather continue the current inefficient, wasteful, expensive non-system. Go figure.

I posted this yesterday with a graph leading it off. It was displayed for a while but has now become nothing but a little blue box with a question mark inside. Don't know how to fix it.

On Mesa Verde

2009-06-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

The people incorrectly called Anasazi, but the name is in the text books so we're stuck with it, were relatively modern people living on the Mesa for several hundred years on either side of the first millennia C.E. On the other hand, their technology was about where the Mesopotamians were four or five thousand years ago. Given that, it's amazing what beautifully designed and well constructed three and four story structures they built, complete with painted plastered walls inside and out. Their skills at dry land farming were without equal, and their pottery and basketry beyond description. So when the guides tell you that they got up and down from the cliff dwellings via crude toe and handholds, it's got to be a lot of BS. I have no doubt that they had some very sophisticated and reasonably safe way of going up and down.

On the Road

2009-06-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

This blog is not a travelogue. I generally do write travel journals for our own record, but there is a possibility that I might offer post some reflections about this trip a bit later on. Two days on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is barely enough time to begin thinking about it. We did not go to the more popular and tourist oriented South Rim, and, being the person that I am, it was probably a good thing. Tomorrow we visit Mesa Verde National Park, which has long held a fascination for me. Perhaps more later. However, Sunrise Sister is a much more poetic thinker and is probably posting something profound this very minute. You might check her out.

Kanabian Scenery

2009-06-10T16:09:00.001-07:00

Country Parson posts are generally about theology, politics or economics. This is something of a break. Except for our move from the NYC area to Walla Walla some years ago, cross country car trips have not been our thing, but how else can one see some of the spectacular scenery of the American West? So here we are in Kanab, Utah on the second day of a trip that will take us to the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde and back home through parts of Colorado. What surprised me today was how many lush green valleys we drove through on the way from Salt Lake to here. We've driven the Salt Lake route before, and flown in many times (you gotta change planes somewhere), so I expected what we had experienced: high very arid desert. There is certainly enough of that around, but the beautiful green mountain valleys were a surprise. Now here we are in Kanab, which all the Kanabians know is the take off point for all those John Wayne westerns and a dozen or so other movies and television series. Tomorrow we are going to drift down to the Grand Canyon and spend a couple of days there before moving on. In the meantime, I'm letting things theological, political and economic fade into the background, or maybe not, you never know.

The Fall and Rise of the Episcopal Church

2009-06-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

Recent polls have revealed a continued pattern of decline in the so-called mainline churches. Their aging congregations are being replaced by younger, more energetic Evangelicals and Pentecostals, and they are doomed to become mere remnants in the Protestant fold. Fortunately, trend is not destiny.

My Episcopal Church is indeed aging and our average Sunday attendance is falling. But that isn’t all bad. At a recent clergy conference, one of our young priests acknowledged that we were being pushed toward the edge, and the sooner the better he thought. What do you suppose he meant by that? I think of two things.

One is that recent national church conventions have been so consumed by big global issues that local worshipers felt left out and ignored. Successive resolutions proclaiming decades of evangelism, commitment to youth or the abolition of world poverty were great ideas but had no impact at the local level and did nothing to help local congregations with local issues of their own. I know that the homosexual question has raised the most headlines, but for most congregations in most dioceses it quickly became a fringe issue of limited local import. The main thing it did was illuminate how out of touch the national church was in the eyes of ordinary pew sitting church goers.

The second is that too many of our aging congregants and clergy have became complacent and defensive. Complacency has sapped the vitality of a faith that claims to follow in the way of a Jewish carpenter who was unafraid to proclaim God’s grace and love anywhere, at any time, to anyone. Defensiveness has become the response to an ethos of scarcity. We may talk a lot about a theology of abundance, but far too many congregations set that aside in favor of an ethos of scarcity, and they are very defensive about it.

Being pushed out to the edge means opportunity for rebirth and reenergization with new clergy and new leadership who will work from the bottom up, and not the top down. It does not mean that Episcopalians will become ersatz Evangelicals. I does mean that we will become more bold about proclaiming who we are as followers of Jesus Christ according to our traditions.

We are a part of the greater Body of Christ that treasures an expression of liturgical tradition anchored deep in the earliest practices of the Church. We treasure our tradition of a continuing conversation with centuries of theologians and spiritual guides in a fearless engagement with scripture that is not hemmed in by a literalist fence. We treasure the apostolic succession of ministry, but above all, we treasure the sacraments and none more than the Eucharist, the very presence of God in Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Without that we cease to be Episcopalians. We may always be a relatively small American denomination. That’s not the point. By casting off old habits, complacency and defensiveness we can more richly feed the spiritually hungry in our own unique way.

Trustworthy Integrity

2009-06-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

Have you ever considered words such as trustworthy and integrity? What exactly do they mean? It occurred to me that I’ve encountered a few people in life who could be trusted to be dishonest, duplicitous, and unethical in almost any setting. In an odd sense that’s a form of trustworthiness. In fact, in a twisted way, they were people who had a lot of integrity, if integrity means being true to who you are. I have not encountered many such persons, but they were persons one could always rely on. It may seem bizarre, but aren’t those the tests, the tests of reliability and authenticity? As was once said about a certain former mayor of Chicago, “He may be a crook but he’s an honest crook.”

Of course we normally take words like trustworthy and integrity to mean honesty, loyalty, transparency, authenticity and the like. In fact, we take it for granted that that is what we mean when we use them. The problem comes when we encounter persons on whom we cannot rely because we don’t know from moment to moment whether they can be trusted to do what they say they will do, or mean what they say they mean. Their integrity is in doubt because so much is hidden from view, or what is displayed for public consumption is nothing more than a parade of changing masks deliberately imitating authentic personalities.

None of us is completely trustworthy, but most of us try to be predictably steadfast in our words and behavior. Each of us sometimes lack integrity as we work a little too hard to be liked, do what we think others expect, or take on personality traits that we think more attractive than the person we believe ourselves to be. “To thine own self be true” (from Hamlet) is often very hard work but it is rewarding work, and I believe that most of us try. But let’s face it, that’s what Paul meant when he observed that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.

What strikes me is that the gospel records of Jesus' life and teaching display a man of complete integrity and total trustworthiness in every virtuous way. For me, that’s what it means to say that he is without sin. It’s popular to think of Jesus as being in absolute and unwavering harmony with God’s nature and will as if that is our criteria for judging the divinity of Jesus or whether he really is the Christ. That is nothing but arrogant hubris. We can’t start with God and then test Jesus against it. We don’t know what God’s nature and will are. We have to start with Jesus in his human trustworthiness and integrity. That is what leads us to have faith in him as an illumination of God’s character and will on which we can utterly rely. God does not make Christ known to us. Christ makes God known to us, and we can have faith in that because of his integrity and trustworthiness. That is what scripture means by the fullness of God being revealed in Jesus Christ. For us, the imitation of Christ is the work of becoming, and it is always a work of becoming, persons of virtuous trustworthy integrity.

Moses on the Ethics of Civil Authority

2009-06-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

Progressive revelation (see previous post) is not always sequential, at least as recorded in scripture. The organization of the books within the canon, as well as the various presumptive dates for editing, make the process of studying scripture an adventure in wallowing about in a sea of words, sifting them for the fullness of understanding revealed in Jesus Christ.

If a few chapters ago the deuteronomic Moses called for the killing of apostates, in the 16^th and 17^th chapters he took a dramatic turn toward an ethic of power and authority that we have not yet achieved. Those called to governmental authority, said Moses, were to judge with righteousness, neither perverting justice nor showing partiality. Kings were not to lead the people back into slavery, nor multiply their own wealth too much, nor exalt themselves above other members of the community, and they were to be guided by God’s most generous law in the writing of civil laws.

If the killing of apostates cannot be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus, these words of guidance not only resonate with the Sermon on the Mount and Christ’s commandment to love one another, but they set a moral standard for governance not yet met in most communities, and egregiously violated in some. Moreover, the communities in question cannot be understood only as units of civil government, but also as any community governed by hierarchical authority, and that most certainly includes the modern corporation.

In one form or another, these are truths that have been understood and taught by scholars of management and leadership for at least sixty years. Sadly, there is little evidence to show that much learning has taken place or success achieved. The myth of rugged individualism, along with the motivating power of greed and fear, rebel against such new fangled namby-pamby ideas that first saw the light of day over three thousand years ago through the hand of the prophets who penned the words in Deuteronomy and were ratified by Jesus Christ over two thousand years ago. The “let’s stone them” approach seems so much more direct and practical than anything God might have in mind.

Let's Stone Them!

2009-06-03T10:42:00.001-07:00

Consider the 13^th chapter of Deuteronomy. Kill them, says Moses, kill any preacher or prophet, regardless of how powerful or awesome the signs and wonders they can perform, if they try to lead you to worship a god other than our God. Even if that person is your offspring or soul mate, take no pity, have no regrets, just stone them to death. How does that resonate with you? Sounds more than a little like the Taliban to me, but there it is right in the bible. How do you reconcile that with the teachings of Jesus Christ? Is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures a different God that the one revealed by Jesus? The Gnostics thought so; were they right?

Those were questions that haunted more than a few participants in my adult Christian education classes. My response was to emphasize the idea of progressive revelation. It’s the idea that the story of God’s engagement with humanity, as recorded in the bible, reveals a God who addressed each succeeding generation in the cultural and ethical vocabulary of their time and place, and, at the same time, pushed them in new and unfamiliar ways to explore a God whose dimensions were always in the direction of greater inclusivity and love. God also continued to press the improbable revelation that He and He alone is God, there is no other. Those new and unfamiliar ways were uncomfortable, and there were many false starts and much backsliding along the way. Progressive revelation means that previous understandings of God and godly ethics can be and are corrected or replaced by succeeding revelation. Scripture records all of it.

In our own time we have experienced something of that progressive revelation. Consider that until two hundred years ago the world, as a whole, gave no serious thought to the idea that slavery might be immoral and inconsistent with God’s will. More recent than that has been the recognition that expansion of territory by conquest and genocide was immoral and inconsistent with God’s will. Neither of those ideas caught on right away, and respected Christian leaders hotly defended the contrary position. Both still happen, but at least we have come to the general recognition that God does not approve, even if earlier generations claimed he did.

I wrote a column for the local paper on this theme a couple of years ago, and was hammered in a letter to the editor by a fundamentalist preacher on the grounds that since the bible is God’s Holy Word, every part of it is of equal ethical value and there is nothing progressive about it. It is precisely that kind of Christian fundamentalism that can lead to our own brand of terrorism, by any of a dozen different names, and which, in my opinion, lead us away from God as revealed in Jesus Christ and toward an idolatrous god of our own making. What can be done? Should we stone them?

Country Blessings

2009-05-31T14:27:00.000-07:00

Each Wednesday evening a small group from rural Grace Church in Dayton, Washington assembles for Compline, usually at a ranch house about five miles out of town. It sits in a fairly narrow valley along the Touchet River where it comes down out of the Blue Mountains. I don’t think there can be anything as pleasant as praising God and giving thanks at the end of the day while gathered at a ranch on the banks of a mountain stream surrounded by evidence of God’s blessings. Just down the road toward town are fields of orchards. Their fruit will be on tables before the year is out. Out in front the pastures are dotted with cattle. A three day old calf explores her new world, bounding from place to place with tail held high. She will be butchered one day. Her life will nourish our lives. Wheat fields roll up the hills across the road, the grain they produce will most likely be exported to feed the hungry in lands that cannot raise enough for themselves.

A friend raises wheat on a couple thousand acres of rolling foothill land. He’s got a spot up on top of one of the hills that he calls his church. Looking out in one direction are mountains and in the other are the treeless, rolling hills of the Palouse. In one direction it’s national forest, and in the other it’s dry land wheat, cattle and horses. He says that prayer is mostly a matter of worrying with God: worry about whether the seed will germinate, whether the rains will come when they are needed and stop when they are not, whether the grain will ripen, whether the harvest will go smoothly, whether the price will be good, and then start the prayerful worrying over again.

None of it happens all by its self. It takes more than hard work, it takes intelligent, well educated hard work, but it’s hard work that engages at a very basic level with God’s creation. It’s hard not to recognize the holiness of it that affects the blessing we say at meals. It’s not just the food on the table for which we give thanks. There is a certain Eucharistic quality to it. Not only is God’s spirit of creation present in all that lies before us, but so also is the creative work of human beings who have labored to make it possible.

I wonder if those who have never spent time in the country can truly appreciate that? What do you think of when you say grace? Do you say grace?

Perception is Reality is Truth so be Afraid, be VERY Afraid

2009-05-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday’s mail brought a solicitation from some left of center group screaming bloody murder that, if we didn’t act now, the ultra religious right bigots would take over government and shove their brand of Christianity down everyone’s throats. Our liberty would be lost forever. This morning I got a fear mongering call from the NRA warning that the “gun hating Congress” would soon pass HR 45 (a bill that would require a license to own a gun) and our liberty would be lost forever. Those are only two examples of a very common propaganda tactic that uses extreme political hyperbole to do nothing more than incite fear, suspicion and hate. I’m really fed up with it.

For the first thirty years of my career I was employed in local and state government and by a large association representing business interests. The lobbying I witnessed and engaged in was, on the whole, a vigorous representation of what each participant saw as important to the overall well being of the community and the nation within the context of what was also important to the well being of particular communities, industries and companies. The intent was always to reach a workable compromise that everyone could live with. That started to change somewhere in the 80s.

First came new colleagues who quickly revealed themselves to be primarily interested in their conservative evangelical Christian agenda, and considered the job to be a conduit for working on it. Then came political strategists claiming that the ‘other side’ was staking out such an extreme position that any compromise would only end with ‘our side’ losing. Therefore, we needed to stake out an equally extreme position in order for fair negotiations to take place. It made a certain amount of sense as long as it wasn’t examined because that would reveal that the ‘other side’ was not very extreme at all, and ‘our side’s’ defensive tactic simply tilted all the weight in our direction with no intention of fair negotiation.

To be sure, it was a tactic employed both on the right and the left, but the right had it down pat and did it better. Truth became a matter of perception, or, as the popular phrase goes, perception is reality. Who cared what the facts revealed as long as there was at least some evidence or argument that could be twisted to form a perception that could be sold as truth, the scarier the better. The selling of the Iraq war was, perhaps, the epitome of that art, but not the end of it. We are seeing some of that tactic being used in the Sotomayor nomination, and certainly in the two knucklehead communications that have come to our house in the last few days. I believe it’s a dangerous game to play. It’s a game that is potentially destructive of liberal (in the traditional sense) democracy. I’m not sure how to put a stop to it except to encourage as many as possible to stand up and say “knock it off” every time a call or solicitation comes their way, even for causes with which they might otherwise agree.

Turning, Turning We Come Round Right

2009-05-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Shaker hymn “Tis the gift to be simple” ends with the phrase, “Till by turning, turning we come round right.” I don’t know what inspired those words, but I think of them every time I come across the 18^th chapter of Ezekiel where God puts to rest the idea that it is God who visits the sins of the father on generations of sons yet to come. In that same chapter God twice declares that God takes no delight in the death of anyone, not even evil persons, and only desires that each turn away from death and toward God who is the only source of life. The chapter is filled with turning: the turning of good persons who end up doing bad things, the turning of bad persons who end up doing good things, and the turning of each again. It is that turning and turning again that is my life, and undoubtedly yours also.

Ezekiel can be read to imply that one’s turning away from evil and toward God must coincide with one’s death if there is to be hope for salvation. It almost sounds like a roll of the dice, and I don’t think that is what God meant. It seems to me that the entire passage opens the door for us to begin apprehending God’s desire for a universal salvation that will be realized centuries later in Christ Jesus. In our turning, turning, it is God in Christ who will see that we come round right. The author of Hebrews envisioned that as happening through the constant intercessions of the resurrected Christ whose saving act was accomplished once for all. At the same time, I am convinced that God never takes away our free will, so that it is possible, and perhaps probable for some, having been turned round right, to choose one last turn and go head long into the darkness of that which is not life. It is the last turning that C.S. Lewis imagined so well in The Great Divorce.

Questions yet remain. For instance, is it in this life only that we make that last fateful turn, or, as Lewis imagined, is that last opportunity in another time and space when one confronts the reality of God in Christ? As followers of Jesus, how can we best share that good news with those who have not heard it? How essential is baptism and/or a confession of Jesus as one’s personal savior to that final turning? How essential is church membership and attendance? Is the word ‘essential’ appropriate at all? Maybe we would be better served talking about the role of Christian discipleship, the sacraments and membership in dedicated assemblies, and leave the question of essentiality behind.

I Favor an Empathetic, Activist, Strict Constructionist

2009-05-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

I didn’t have much time for TV news today, but it took less than half of the twenty seconds I devoted to Wolf Blitzer to hear a commentator bring up the boogeyman of the virtues of Supreme Court justices who are strict constructionists as against the loose cannons who are (empathetic) judicial activists. I wonder if someone can explain to me what a strict constructionist is? I know some conservatives claim that activist judges are those who legislate from the bench. Help me understand how any Supreme Court decision is not a form of legislation insofar as the very act of interpreting various laws and lower court decisions in the context of the Constitution must always turn the law, at least in some small way, to a meaning it did not have before.

Now and then I hear someone bring up the issue of original intent, which is patently ridiculous on the face of it. However brilliant our founding fathers were, their intent had to be limited, and was limited, by their own time and culture. As I recall from my undergraduate courses, that matter was decided in Marbury vs. Madison way back in 1803. So why is that old hoax still be floated around?

I’m really looking forward to seeing if the current GOP leadership can come up with something new and creative this time, but my guess is that they are in mortal fear that we may get a justice who is actually committed to upholding the highest values of our nation as expressed in our Constitution.

Why do I write? Darned if I know.

2009-05-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about why I write this blog at all. I'm not sure I remember why I started except that I think it had something to do with my wife suggesting it. It began mostly as a writing exercise without much interest in who my readers might be or what they might think about it. It's not really a personal journal. I'm not much interested on line group therapy, and I'm not very good at telling pithy stories with a great moral at the end. For me it has become a platform for sharing ideas on things theological, economic and political with an eye toward developing something like a conversation with anyone who might be interested. My only disappointment has been the discovery that none of the other clergy in my diocese read, or are even slightly interested in reading, what I have to say. But then, why should they? I'm sure that what I have to think and say is of no more value than what they have to think and say, and invitations to log on and wade into online conversation around the subjects I choose can appear, if nothing else, presumptuous in the extreme. On the other hand, I've been blessed by several regular readers who have had important, insightful things to say, and if I ever get to Southern California or up into Manitoba I'd like to meet a couple of them face-to-face.