Let the Stones Cry Out

Luke 19:29-40    When Jesus had come near…the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them.

As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.”

Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As heMAM-14-KH0222-01P was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying:

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Luke is the only one who tells us this odd little story about Jesus’ odd claim to the Pharisees in this raucous Palm Sunday crowd.

I tell you, if these shouters were silent, then the stones would shout out.

Jesus made quite a few odd claims, didn’t he? Luke’s entire Jesus story is filled with them.

Blessed are the poor…

Blessed are the hungry….

Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, revile you…

Love your enemies…

Do good to those who hate you…

Pray for those who abuse you…

The last shall be first…

The least shall be the greatest…

Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me…

It’s an odd, upside down way of looking at the world.

It’s an odd, inside out way of living in the world.

But that was Jesus’ way, wasn’t it?

For example, this story of this triumphal entry into Jerusalem is itself an odd, upside down, inside out event.

There is no other recording of Jesus ever riding on the back of an animal except here. Even though we love our Christmas card pictures of the Holy Family traveling with a gentle donkey, still that scene is not described in any of the gospel stories. As far was we know, Jesus walked everywhere; except when he boarded a boat on the Sea of Galilee.

jesus-mafa-palm-sundayBut here, in this story, Jesus is very intentional about choosing a donkey to ride through the impressive gates of Jerusalem; a colt to ride through the crowded streets of Jerusalem.

Triumphant entries happened fairly often in the cities of the Roman Empire. Conquering heroes astride prancing white horses would orchestrate their entrances so as to gain the most attention from the people. Enough adoration from the common folk would hopefully get the attention of the elite power brokers in the city.

And so pomp and circumstance, glittering swords and rich brocades, stern soldiers marching ahead and behind announced how important they were. And the people would cheer and praise, happy for the spontaneous celebration that brought a welcomed break from their regular routine.

But now, here, this was different.

A poor rabbi, not a conquering hero.

Simple disciples, not hardened soldiers.

The colt of a donkey, not an elegant steed.

Even so – the crowds cheered as if he were a king.

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” was their shout.

This is treason, you know.

Their bold clamor turns their allegiance to Rome on its head.

Their brazen confession says that:

Jesus is my King and Herod is not.

God is my Lord and Caesar is not.

The kingdom of heaven is coming and this iron-fisted Empire will  soon be passing away.

Treason.

And Jesus didn’t even stop them.

Didn’t silence their shouts.

Didn’t disagree with their claim.

Sometimes Luke’s Jesus would tell his enthusiastic followers to be quiet; sometimes he would say to the people he had healed: “Don’t tell.”

But not today.

Today is the day for bold confessions, for loud hosannas, for unmistakable counter-claims to the claims of every earthly empire.

Because this simple man on the colt of a donkey is King of kings.

This humble rabbi with the upside down view of the world is Lord of lords.

And if we people don’t see it, recognize it, name it and proclaim it, then Jesus tells us: the stones will shout it out.

In every age – not just in Jesus’ day and not just in ours – in every age there have been alternative worldviews. In every age, people have to decide: what is True? What is Right? Which way of seeing ourselves and the world is Real?

Is the haughty hero on the prancing white steed real?

Or is the humble rabbi on the colt of a donkey real?

I have to say: both.

Within our human family, there is a pervasive reality of self-centeredness, self-promotion, self-protection.

I’m afraid “selfish” is who we are at some core of being – within ourselves as individuals, within ourselves as groups. We look out for ourselves and for our tribes, for the people who are most like us. We protect ourselves and isolate ourselves from people who are most “other.” It’s as if this is part of our human DNA.

Of course people are good too; lots of people do good. Religious and non-religious people alike can be kind and honest and generous. But there is a deep way of being truly human that we yearn for but never can quite manage.

Let’s face it – not many of us really want to pray for our enemies, or love those who persecute us, or deny ourselves, or take up our cross.

But this is the humanity Jesus demonstrated to us.

This is the alternative reality Jesus brought to us.

And that’s the upside down, right side up character-nature-behavior of all people who become truly human by the grace and the gift of the Truly Human Truly Divine One.

 

I think about the raucous crowds shouting hosannas to Jesus on that long ago Sunday.

And I wonder how many of those people joined the crowds to shout for crucifixion on that fateful Friday.

And I ponder how many of us might have joined them too.

It’s easy for me to say I would never have betrayed Jesus back in the day. But how often do I resist taking up my own cross to follow him in some way or another every single day?

Maybe one of the problems of our troubled society in these troubled times is that more of us need to be crying out for the upside down, inside out, right side up ethic that Jesus lived.

Maybe more of us need to cry out for justice and equity and peace and compassion.

Maybe more of us need to become truly human.

Maybe more of us need to become the truly good news of Jesus Christ.

Do we dare keep our silence hoping the stones will cry out in our stead?

 

Some years ago, a good friend of mine offered the stewardship invitation at his church one Palm Sunday. He told the story again of the disciples borrowing the donkey from the family in the village outside Jerusalem. Even if the owners were reluctant to send their young colt off with people they didn’t know, they took the risk and allowed their donkey to be taken anyway.

Watch them now in the crowd. See their faces fill with surprise when they see their donkey carrying Jesus. See their chests puff out just a little when they hear the crowds shouting: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Glory in the highest heaven!” Listen to them as they elbow their neighbor and say: “That’s my donkey! Jesus is riding my donkey!”

What if the owners had said “no”? I’m pretty sure Jesus would have found another donkey. But see how these people would have missed out on sharing in that upside down and inside out good news Jesus was bringing into the world.

We can be silent. We can be safe. We can even let our hearts turn stone cold.

But then God will find others to proclaim the hosannas and participate in the gospel.

The stones will cry out.

And it’s we who will miss the blessing.

This is Holy Week. We move from remembering the triumphal entry today to remembering the last supper on Thursday and then recalling the crucifixion on Friday. It truly is holy time, a sacred space in our over filled calendars. I hope you will take time this week to remember the passion before we get to the party on Easter morning.

So I will just leave you with this, with Luke’s words in chapter 23.

Now Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took the body down from the cross, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. And a stone was rolled over the opening of the tomb.

Mark my words: empty-tomb THAT stone will surely cry out.

Amen.

As You Read Week Eight Exodus

As you read this week, understand that the story of Exodus lies at the very heart of Jewish identity. Throughout the centuries, as this people has endured persecution, pogrom and holocaust, the remembrance of God’s deliverance has sustained this passionate community. This story of Exodus also shaped the telling of the Christian story from the very beginning. Matthew’s gospel sees Jesus as the new Moses. Mark’s gospel characterizes the work of Jesus as deliverance and redemption. The Exodus story also creates hope for any number of communities that have experienced oppression. liberationtheology Liberation Theology of our own time is a direct descendant of this Exodus tradition and continues to spark a hopeful fire within Black and Brown peoples across the globe.

Charlotte’s blog on the Exodus says this:

Whether the liberation from Egypt is a story that is set in time or one of those deeply true stories that transcends time, no one will ever know.

There is less archeological confidence in the historicity of the stories of Exodus and Conquest than there used to be, given our growing insights of historical criticism. Some scholars think of this as “paradigmatic history” whereby…

… the narrative is seen to make a claim for intense particularity, but a particularity that invites and permits rereading in a variety of circumstances (Brueggemann).

Consider again the context of the Exile and the very real possibility that this ancient story from Egypt was told from the experience of Exile in Babylon. The story doesn’t have to be what actually happened a long long time ago in Egypt in order for it to be true. The story is “true” because all kinds of people who suffer from the oppression by all sorts of tyrants are enabled to hold on to the hope that their cries will eventually be heard and the Creator-Sustainer-Redeemer of all-that-is will ultimately act for salvation and shalom.

As you read Exodus 1-15, pay special attention to chapter 3. Here is a pivotal introduction of God, YHWH, Yahweh, I Am. Recall the I Am sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of John and consider again how radical John’s Christology is.

As you read the story of the plagues upon Egypt, you may be troubled (as I have been) with the odd phrase repeated again and again: “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Think about this within the context of the storytellers’ theology. For the Hebrews of Egypt and the exiled Israelites in Babylon, God is the all-powerful Lord of all creation. Even the most powerful kings of the earth cannot resist the indomitable will of the Sovereign Lord of all Lords. The storytellers frame the contest between God and the Pharaoh as an opportunity for God’s glory to be seen, not just to Israel so as to build their faith, but also to the kings and kingdoms of the earth so as to demonstrate the supremacy of the one true God.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, there are two different traditions of the sacrificial lamb. One seems to be more dominant in the biblical story itself and in our traditional Christian theological reflections and that is the tradition of the scapegoat. An animal is sacrificed in substitution for the sins of the people as atonement. This remembrance of sin and forgiveness is celebrated even today in the symbolic rituals of Yom Kippur. (We will unpack this particular notion of the sacrificial lamb more fully in a few weeks when we get to Leviticus.)

Passover-lamb-e1362686515455But in our story today, there are no hints of a substitutionary death of the lamb on account of sin. Instead the Passover lamb is strength for the journey; it is the one around whom the community gathers, the sharing of whose life binds the community together. It is celebration and sustenance. This is the other thread of meaning for the sacrificial lamb that is especially appropriate theology for the Christian Communion/Eucharist. This tradition that weaves throughout the biblical texts is the tradition of community and covenant.

As you read the Psalms (24, 90, 105), you will notice that Ps 90 is attributed to Moses.

Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

Be sure to take time to appreciate Psalm 105 and its powerful poetic remembrance of these core stories of Israel. Compare this song with the “psalm” recorded in Exodus 15.

As you read Mark 11-16, you will notice that Mark’s description of the last supper on the night before his crucifixion was a Passover meal. The Christian celebration of Easter has always coincided with the Jewish celebration of Passover. The dates dance around each other based on the lunar calendar, but their relationship is fixed. slide_51

Some Christian churches recognize this relationship by celebrating a Jewish Seder with a Christian twist. My friend, Rabbi Jeffrey joined us at one of our Seder meals one year and led my congregation through the traditional ritual. It became very clear to us how the meaning of Passover connected across the ages to the meaning of the Christ. It was a moving experience.

As you read Ephesians, revel in the powerful poetic prayers; there are several. Words have power to stir the human soul; power that is wielded by some to provoke fear and hatred. Power that is used by others to inspire us to awe and goodness.

Notice as you read, the repetition of the persistent biblical theme of God’s deliverance from slavery, sin, and “death.” Also the theme of God’s triumph over pharaohs and tyrants, named here as “rulers and authorities” – not just on earth, but “the cosmic powers and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places…”

See again in the letter to the Ephesian churches the Pauline passion for breaking down barriers between Jew and Gentile.

 

Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003).

Ashes, Water, Bread and Wine

Now that I’m not preaching in local congregations anymore, I offer here my favorite Ash Wednesday homily to my lovely, eclectic cyberspace community. Lenten Blessings, my friends…

 

We are earthy people – created from the dust of the earth and bound to the elements of this world. That’s why the symbols of our faith come from the earth – ashes and water and bread and wine. But even as they remind us of our connection to this world, at the same time, the symbols of our faith point us beyond this world.

ASHES

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

“You turn us back to dust…”

…the Psalmist declared. Ashes are an ancient symbol of our mortality – a reminder of how fragile we humans are. We would be scattered by a breath if the breath of our Creator had not been breathed us into being; if the hand of the Creator had not formed us.

And we still are held together by the on-going, mysterious, creative power of the One who is ever creating and re-creating.

In the Christian tradition, ashes also mark penitence and sorrow. The ashes for Ash Wednesday often come from last year’s Palm Sunday branches. A year before, we were shouting God’s praises and joyously waving these banners of branches. But how many times during this year did we intend to tell others about the goodness of God and the love of Jesus Christ? And then how many times did those good intentions turn to dust?

OIL

“You anoint my head with oil…”

Oil is a symbol of the anointing of God’s own Spirit; the Spirit of life that brings life…

The Breath of life that gives life – even to lifeless ashes.

WATER

“…the earth was a formless void when the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters…”

Out of the waters of chaos, God created life.

Over the overwhelming flood, the ark drifted securely and God preserved life.

From the waters of baptism, God creates new life.

I love my water pitcher that was resurrected from the trash. Some years ago my daughter found it discarded behind a potter’s tent at an art fair. It looked perfect lying there, but then she noticed a small piece broken out of the top with a gaping wound marring what had been a perfect piece of art. She brought it home, and we mended it the best we could. I think this cracked pot is lovely. For me – its scar only makes it more special. IMG_1024

Susan Urbach survived the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City. She endured long months of therapy and she still bears the scars from that horrible trauma. She wrote in her journal:

I wish for my scars to… become a sacrament – an outward visible sign of an inward and invisible grace… A scar comes from both a wounding and a healing.

When we remember our baptism, we remember God’s promises of new life; God makes us new creatures. But we also remember that even in the newness, we may still bear the scars of our living. May we let our scars be outward signs of God’s inward grace.

BREAD

Grain scattered on the hillsides is mysteriously transformed into sprouts pushing their way up through the earthy darkness. Tiny sprouts are transformed into amber waves of grain. The grain is gathered and ground into a fine flour and the flour is transformed into bread.

Bread: feeding us, sustaining us, giving us great pleasure as we gather together to enjoy fellowship and to break bread.

But when Jesus broke the bread on the night he was betrayed, he transformed the bread into a symbol of both life – and death.

“This is my body broken…” he told his disciples. “Remember…”

Holy-Communion-wine-bread

 

WINE

Grapes clinging to the branches, branches receiving their own life from the life of the vine. The grapes are gathered and crushed until they bleed into a heavy, purple juice – ready for yet another mysterious transformation. With time and patience and care, fermentation changes the crushed grapes into a rich wine. And we clink our glasses and toast each other in joy and celebration.

But when Jesus took the cup after dinner and blessed it, he said,

“This cup is my blood poured out… Remember…”

THE CROSS

Of course, for us Christians, the cross is the centerpiece of our symbols. The vertical beam reaching to heaven, reminding us to ever reach up to God, the source of our life. Reminding us to spend time with God in worship, prayer and study – expectant that God will reach down to us.

The horizontal beam reaching out to each another, reminding us that we humans are all connected to one another; that when one suffers we all suffer; that when one rejoices we all rejoice.

A PRAYER of Walter Brueggemann

all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes…

all our Wednesdays are marked with failed hopes and broken promises…

we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —

Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,

Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;

Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.

Come here and Easter our Wednesday with

mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

“Come here and Easter all our Wednesdays”

Amen !

 

To read more about Susan Urbach, see The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory by Edward T. Linenthal

The Word of the Lord…

Jerry and I read to second graders every Wednesday. We’ve done this for five years now and sometimes we argue about whose turn it is to read because we love doing it so much.

There is something magical about taking language written on a page and transforming it into spoken word. images There is something mysterious about the way those sounds find their way into ear and mind and heart and are transformed into meaning.

Our second graders transcribe words like “lion,” “witch” and “wardrobe” and – in their lively imaginations – craft something real, something wonderful.

This is a good reminder for those of us who don’t believe in magic wardrobes anymore. This whole enterprise of making meaning – of finding what is truly real – is mysterious process. Grown ups forget that sometimes.

When we consider the wonder of this every day common occurrence of words, then the layers and layers of wonder we find in the words of John’s Gospel surely must spark our imaginations.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh…

How does one transcribe that into meaning?!?!

 

John’s Jesus is unique in the Gospels.

Of course all the Gospel writers crafted the Jesus story in a new and unique way for their time. Mark first and then Matthew and Luke wanted to do something different than the Apostle Paul had done before them.

Paul had proclaimed the clear, bold, luminous gospel that God’s redeeming love had entered into the human experience in Jesus the Christ. Paul had preached that Something brand new had happened in the cosmos – something real, something wonderful.

And across the Roman Empire, Jews and Gentiles, monotheists and pagans came to believe in this remarkable truth Paul proclaimed: Jesus – the Crucified and Risen One IS the One in whom all Creation holds together. The One who calls disciples to peace and unity and hope and love.

But then the gospel writers wanted to do something Paul had not done. They wanted to gather the many varied stories of Jesus’ life into one large narrative; one story that pondered the meaning of his life, death and resurrection.

They communicated the good news – not with credal statements or propositional truths or church doctrine – but rather with the unique power of the story.

They weren’t writing history – even though Jesus is absolutely historical.

They weren’t reporting as for a newspaper – although Jesus is certainly newsworthy.

They weren’t telling “just” a story – but they were telling truth in the profound form of story because story is one crucial way that we humans make meaning.

What does it mean that Christians confess this one Jesus to be both Son of man and Son of God?

What does it mean to believe that Immortal Divinity is present within the simple common life of a mortal man?

Mark and Matthew and Luke – in their genius – told their stories in such a way that this one Jesus is always both/and. Both fully human and fully divine.

And then John comes along with his own unique spin on the gospel genre. John’s gospel is shot through with symbols and signs. John’s gospel ponders theology WITH poetry. John’s gospel allows us to see this truly human truly divine Jesus with new eyes.

John’s Jesus is Light, Life, Truth, Bread, Way.

John’s Jesus is Word.

And this Eternal Word – spoken in the very beginning of Creation, John proclaims – has been transcribed into flesh and blood.

One of our mottoes as Disciples of Christ, our stated mission is that we want “to be and to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, witnessing, loving and serving from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

It’s a really interesting statement of what we are about. Not only do we want to share the good news, to talk about it and write about it, but we say we also want to BE the good news.

Here is another Word made flesh. Here is another incarnation. Here is another way the gospel becomes embodied in the body of Christ.

This is truly remarkable. Remarkable opportunity. Remarkable responsibility.

 

One of the things I get to do these days is to write. An opportunity fell into my lap to write essays about intersections of faith and culture and politics and to post my blogs for a wide secular cyberspace audience.

I confess I have lived in a church bubble most of my life and I’ve not been exposed to the vast array of people who live outside that bubble.

So the comments that come back break my heart. There are so many people out there who completely distrust Christians because of their negative experiences with people of faith.

For them, Christians are people who say one thing and do another. For these folks, Christians are people who don’t live up to the words of their own Bible.

Does that break your heart?

Because people actually think that about us.

And because it’s actually too true too often about us.

When our word is not our bond and we carelessly break our word.

When our words are critical or complaining or condemning.

Remember when John’s Jesus confronted the religious insiders of his own day?

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

The words in our Bibles are powerful words, good words that can teach us many important things about God, Christ, Spirit; about what it means to be human and what it means to be Church.

But that’s only the beginning.

These words of Scripture are signs that point us to mystery.

That’s the way it is with words. Our words never are the thing itself. Words are symbols for the ideas or the things we want to describe or communicate.

And that’s the way it is with words of Scripture. These holy words spark our imaginations so that we encounter something real. Something real, something wonderful. We can see invisible realities and impossible possibilities. We can hear eternal truth underneath the layers of sign and symbol.

It’s when these words leave the page and find their way into ear and mind and heart… When these words are transformed into meaning and fleshed out in acts of love and grace and hope and peace… When these words create a space where we can meet the Living Word … that’s when they become wonderful words of Life.

a_thousand_pictures__one_word_by_chinopisces-d2zo373

This mystery is absolutely astounding: that in these words of Scripture we may well be encountered by the Word made flesh. That this Word doesn’t just point to reality; this true Word is Reality itself.

How does one transcribe that into meaning?!?!

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.

And the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh…

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

I have come so that you may have life, and have it abundantly.

These words are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Amen

 

Rev. Charlotte Vaughan Coyle

Sermon for Disciples Christian Church, Plano TX

January 24, 2016

 

Credits: a thousand pictures, one word by chinopisces

 

Submitting To Equality: One Woman’s Journey

A few weeks before my daughter left for university, we sprawled on my bed, giggling our way through some of my old diaries. I scarcely recognized the twelve-year-old girl who wrote those words; she now seems like a total stranger. Silly, superficial, and nauseatingly boy-crazy, this Southern-bred, naively arrogant, fundamentalist preacher’s daughter embarrasses me, astounds me, intrigues me.

imagesTucked away amid the oohs and aahs and the ups and downs of young love, I found this little aside:

October 3, 1962

Pretty late. Just finished h.work. There’s been a lot of hubbub about whether or not a certain Negro would get in Ole’ Miss College. Gov. went against Federal law twice. Negro got in. 2 people were killed & several wounded. Walter Shirrah went around the earth 6 times. Wow.

How did that girl feel about the two people who were killed on a cool autumn day on a Southern college campus? What did she think about a “Negro” stepping out of his “proper place” and insisting on admission to a white bastion like Ole Miss? I don’t remember. But I suspect she disapproved. I doubt that she heard the governor’s speech on television just a few weeks before her journal entry, but I know she also would have disapproved of his insistence that

…there is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide. … [Mississippians] will never submit to the moral degradation, to the shame, and to the ruin which have faced all others who lacked the courage to defend their beliefs. No school in Mississippi will be integrated while I am your governor.

(Governor Ross Barnett in a televised speech, September 13, 1962 in Jackson MS)

Such blatant, explicit racism shocked and disgusted that tenderhearted girl. We were Christians, after all, and Christians should be nice. My family always treated black people politely, kindly. We were never guilty of such unabashed hatred. But what about the biblical mandate to Love your neighbor as yourself? Looking back, I can see clearly that we loved our black neighbors as below ourselves, as less than ourselves, as worthy of our benevolence but not worthy of our friendship.

Our racism was benevolent.

That is what a perspective of hierarchy can do. Hierarchy says: “There is a natural up and down order to the world.” Hierarchy says: “A place for everyone and everyone in her place.” Hierarchy can even insist that those who are lower on the hierarchical tower deserve care and kindness and an appropriate chance. But hierarchy can never say that all people are equal. Even though it tries to.

Separate but equal.

That made sense to me. I accepted the explanation that people could be separate in function, yet equal in value. I accepted the argument that God loved all people equally while assigning various people to different spheres of participation within the home and church. But, years later, when I could no longer ignore the radical call of God in my life, when I realized that the identical rationale defined what I could or could not do as a woman, who I could or could not be in God’s church, I was forced to question the conventional wisdom and go back to the Bible in order to understand God’s perfect plan for all human beings.

So when this conservative preacher’s daughter broke away from the neat cultural expectations of her world and boldly stepped out of her “proper place” and into ordained ministry, I demonstrated my growing belief that equal value demands equal participation, I serendipitously discovered the relationship between my own God-ordained place as a woman and the equitable place God designed and desires for all human beings.

My own journey began when I confronted the conventional wisdom of the church of my childhood and wrestled with the biblical texts myself. Beginning in the Garden, I tried to discern what the Bible says about God’s original intention for humans, what God created humans to be before the “Fall.” The truth I discovered (the truth that changed my life) is that God created all humans to be equal both in value and in function.

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them … (Genesis 1:26-28).

The Genesis narrative describes two equal beings, fresh from the hand of the Creator, assigned to share equally in the task of caring for the earth. Even the second story, from Genesis chapter 2, relates poetically how God took the original human (not a male) and made two humans, male and female; how God “split the adam,” so to speak, so they truly were “bone of bone and flesh of flesh,” as the astonished male proclaimed when he met his new partner. The two were blessed with the gift of procreation and the gift of meaningful work. In the beginning, in a perfect world, God assigned equal work to the humans in equal measure. The text does not support any suggestion that the male had more responsibility than the female.

Whichever story one reads, the message is clear: God expected each person, male and female, to function equally as partners, to carry his and her equal share of the responsibility for the rest of God’s creation.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate (Genesis 3:6).

The story goes on and the humans sinned – sinned most basically against God – but they also sinned against each other. It was in that sin that God’s original design was perverted, that the humans became twisted and deceived. The woman and the man rejected partnership, rejected God’s design, and damaged forever the relationship with their Creator and with each other. Their sin begat natural consequences that issued like thorns from their decisions.

The “curse” then was not God’s pronouncement of “plan B”; rather, the curse was God’s prophecy of the inevitable consequences of their choices. God’s intended equality was twisted into hierarchy so that the male, who was given dominion in the earth along with the woman, would now take dominion over the woman. God’s created equality was perverted into hierarchy so that the female, who was equally responsible for leadership within the created world, would now be “desiring” the leadership of a husband.

God did not change the original design of creation; we did.

This theological perspective of the Genesis narratives changed my life. When I recognized how God had created equality in the Garden, when I realized that God re-created equality in the cross, I had no choice but to submit myself to God’s design of equality. When I realized that partnership was part of the blessing and hierarchy was part of the curse, I could do no less than reject hierarchy for what it truly is – our own cultural accommodation to our sinful humanity.

Throughout Scripture, stories of how God’s people have related to each other demonstrate the challenge and the tension of living in a fallen world, seeing life through damaged lenses, and struggling to make sense of their relationships with God and with each other. Sometimes the biblical authors break free from the gravitational pull of hierarchy and demonstrate amazing insights and radical egalitarian behaviors. The Ephesian writer speaks specifically about the hostility between Jews and Gentiles, but his description of God’s reconciliation provides brilliant support for a theology of equality that applies to men and women, to slaves and free, to “brown and yellow, black and white.”

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it (Ephesians 2:13-16).

The cross. The great equalizer. Its beam reaches to heaven, reminding us of God’s amazing reconciliation that brings us back into community with God. Its cross-timber reminds us that all humanity stands equally condemned and equally redeemed. We are one in our fallenness; we are one in our salvation. In the cross, hierarchy is abolished and we are re-created into one new humanity.

For the most part, however, God’s people redeemed though we are, still struggle with twisted lenses that keep us from seeing the unity that God has created. God’s people still grapple with the powerful deceptions of culture that subtly but consistently re-create hostility instead of peace. As I write these words in 1998, hundreds of thousands of Promise Keepers are fresh from their emotional experiences in Washington, D.C. One of their most basic promises is to foster racial reconciliation; ironically, a movement that hopes to make peace between the races has cultivated division between the sexes. Noble efforts to call men back to responsibility within the home are, unfortunately, perpetuating our ancient cultural accommodation to hierarchy by suggesting that the man is more responsible to care for the family than the woman is. Even though Promise Keepers’ theology of headship preaches a servant leadership, their good intentions continue to create discomfort and caution among many thoughtful Christians because of the historical abuse of hierarchy. As these kinds of movements continue to stress the importance of keeping promises, I pray that they will continue to uncover the functional truths of God’s promise in Jesus to “create in himself one new humanity … thus making peace.”

I was a middle-aged adult before I corrected my vision to see the world through the lens of equality. Hierarchy had taken such a hold on my perspective I could not see its bankrupt deceptions. I truly believed I was an equal member of my church community, even though I could not function equally. I fully believed I was in my proper place (“separate but equal”), because God had designed it that way. Now I see how hierarchy deceived me. Hierarchy was comfortable. Hierarchy seemed normal, and the consequent sexism within the church seemed appropriate and approved by God.

The sexism I have encountered in my own personal experience has been mostly benevolent, patronizing, almost imperceptible.

But benevolent sexism is still sexism.

And benevolent racism is still racism.

Now that I have chosen the lens of equality, I can see the subtle ways that the world and the church have kept people of different genders in their separate places. Now that I wear the lenses of equality, I can begin to identify the countless ways that the world and the church continue to keep people of different races and orientations in their separate places.

We can continue to make the tired argument that all people enjoy equal value in God’s church, but until the church allows, encourages, even insists upon equal participation in the functional life of the body for everyone, we will continue to perpetuate a cultural accommodation to hierarchy. In order to be faithful to God’s original design, the church must continue to fight for complete equality – an equality that is functional and practical and visible.

The challenge for God’s church has always been to avoid being “conformed to this world, but [to] be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Breaking away from the conforming molds of hierarchy in order to be transformed with new minds so that we may embrace God’s will for equality for all people may seem awkward at first. We are humans, after all, with a deep bias for hierarchy. But we are also “new creations,” the body of Christ, so discerning and following God’s will for equality will always be the good and acceptable and perfect path for those of us who belong to Christ.BreakFreeOutOfYourMold

 

Charlotte Vaughan Coyle 1998.

This article was originally published in 1998 in Leaven, a journal of Pepperdine University.

“Submitting to Equality: One Women’s Journey.” Leaven: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 11 (1998). Available at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol6/iss2/11

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons.

All Scripture citations come from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Sin: the Lost Language of Salvation

I borrowed this title from Barbara Brown Taylor. It’s her way of talking about sin in her fine little book, Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation.

In these helpful essays, Brown Taylor explores the scriptural models and traditional Christian theology that frequently use medical or legal language to describe sin. If we think of sin as sickness then its solution is a healing. If we think of sin as crime then its solution is a punishment. But in her effort to recover “the lost language of salvation,” Taylor prefers a third way that acknowledges the core problem is broken relationship.

“In theological language, the choice to remain in wrecked relationship
with God and other human beings
is called sin.
The choice to enter into the process of repair
is called repentance,
an often bitter medicine with the undisputed power to save lives.”

The powerful story of Les Misérables demonstrates this “bitter medicine with power to save lives” just about as well as any story I’ve ever read.

In the past 25 years since the musical has been on the stage, 60 million people have experienced the Gospel according to Victor Hugo. It is gospel. While the story breaks your heart with its dark picture of human brokenness, the gospel breaks our hearts wide open with its promise of unlikely redemption and amazing grace.

The 2012 movie shows Jean Valjean wrestling with his choices in a small chapel under a crucifix: an image of the body of Christ also broken by the brokenness of the world.

valjeans-soliloquyIt’s a powerful scene as Valjean comes to repentance and gives himself over to redemption. But this grace, he discovered, must be lived day by day, moment by moment and his choice for redemption needed to be made again and again.

Valjean found that he must repeatedly reorient himself to forgiveness in order to remember who he is: a broken man made new, a lost man redeemed. In his life after the priest’s redemption and after his own repentance, he continued to commit himself to stand in that grace in order to find the wisdom and power to  truly live in redemption; in order to live as an agent of reconciliation for others.

This is not easy. We humans are naturals at self-righteousness and we have such excellent skills at self-deception. Martin Luther (and Augustine before him) talked about sin as the self curving in on itself. (‘Homo in se incurvatus’).

images-4This “curving” I think is part of what it means to be human. Each of us individually. All of us together. The nations we build, the societies we form, even the churches that are supposed to offer a radical alternative to this human tendency for self-sufficiency – even the Church all too often is a self curving in on itself.

When Paul wrote his letter to the church at Rome, his description of human sinfulness is stark. Something like the Genesis description of the downward spiral of humanity in the days of Noah. Something like the heart breaking, gut wrenching cry of the Psalmist. Something like the systemic brokenness of the world of Jean Valjean. Something like the news coming out of Somalia or Syria or Newtown.

The human condition is shot through with a sense of separation from God, with a reality of estrangement from one another, and with a deep awareness of fragmentation within our own souls. Our bending in upon ourselves is an embedded pattern that perpetuates itself from generation to generation.

Awareness of these realities can spiral us down into despair. Or it can be the soil within which grace finds life and redemption bears fruit. Like our friend Valjean, we all need the shocking injection of grace into our vicious cycles of self-seeking.

The Gospel according to Paul stands against our human tendency to try to fix ourselves, remodel ourselves, save ourselves. Salvation is not our work; it is God’s.

Here is what Paul says:

There is no distinction,
since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
they are now justified by his grace as a gift,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood,
effective through faith.

Romans 3

Grace and redemption, justice and right-making are God’s work in the world, and it is all for the purpose of realigning, recreating humanity so that we might truly reflect the image of God in whose image we are created.

Surely Paul writes Romans in conversation with the Adam and Eve story. “Where are you,” the Creator calls, walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. “Where are you? I miss you.” But this sad story tells us they were hiding, their eyes opened to the estrangement that had now come into existence. Their eyes opened to their new independence that felt a lot like isolation. The humans were now untethered and set adrift from the Source of their life.

That’s what broken relationship looks like, feels like. These broken relationships are everywhere we turn, and they break our hearts. Or at least, I hope this breaks our heart; I daresay it breaks God’s heart.

Even so, I think the Creator created this world knowing full well what pain was in store. I think God created this world knowing full well the cross was in view. The stories from Genesis tell us God calls out “where are you?” and God’s own people hide themselves. The prologue from John tells us the Eternal Word became flesh and came to his own and his own people did not know him.

The opening chapters from Romans tells us:

But even though people knew God,
they would not honor God as God or give thanks…

Romans 3

The story of judgment in Genesis 3 used to trouble me but I still remember the grace of epiphany when I recognized how the story is telling us truth about how actions do have consequences. The Creator didn’t need to impose punishment on these hapless creatures; they themselves had opened the Pandora’s Box so that now the natural consequences of their brokenness and stubbornness began to have their way. That is not God’s doing; we humans do this to ourselves.

Barbara Taylor says it this way:

God’s judgment is not so much some kind of extra punishment God dumps on [us] as it is God’s announcement that we have abandoned the way of life. Like some divine jiu-jitsu master, God simply spins the rejection of life around so that we can feel the full force of it for ourselves.

When God is our “judge,” God tells us the truth about ourselves; God the Judge sees and names what is real. God is the One who opens our eyes to our own nakedness and hopelessness and alienation so that we can enter into repentance, enter into grace. God is the One upon Whom we are called to bend ourselves so that our lives will be in alignment with that which is true and good and right and just.

We are the body of Christ working God’s work in the world. Like the priest who offered radical grace to Jean Valjean, we are called to be God’s partners, offering new possibilities in life’s impossible circumstances. light-in-darkness  If God’s light is going to shine in our darkness, then WE must join God to be that light. If the gospel of Jesus Christ is going to be proclaimed to those who have lost their way, then WE must BE that good news.

We are called to do God’s work in our broken communities. We are created to shine God’s light into this stubborn darkness. We are motivated to move for wholeness in this fragmented world. We are challenged to inject grace into the vicious cycles of whatever Jean Valjeans may show up on our doorstep.

And we don’t stop. We don’t stop entrusting ourselves and our families and our communities to the Creator who is still creating and re-creating goodness out of our every chaos.

Like Jean Valjean, we have a choice: we can keep on curving in upon ourselves and die. Or we can die to ourselves, bending ourselves toward God for the sake of the world – and truly live.

 

Living in The Story reflections for Week 3: Sin

Genesis 3-11

Psalm 5, 10, 14, 51,

Romans 3-11

John 9-12